Blood Gate Boxed Set

by K L Reinhart

  That left the High Chancellor and Lord Yuliel to flee to the side of the battlements, disappearing through a wooden door.

  10

  Into the Dark

  Where are they going? Terak hissed in agitation. All of his earlier suspicions from before surged up into his mind. Where they just fleeing the battle, or . . .?

  Terak’s mind was in turmoil as he rolled from his position, snaking around the fighting sword-elves of the Fourth to head toward the door on their terrace. he figured it had to head to the floor below the top one.

  Yuliel had seemed alarmed by the news of the Blood Gate, Terak thought as he slammed through the door to the narrow steps behind. He took them as fast as he dared, his heart hammering in his chest.

  Does he know about the possible involvement of the High Chancellor in all this?

  Could Terak trust the words of the renegade Vorg, of all people?

  A terrible and chilling possibility entered Terak’s mind at that moment, as he replayed the conversation he’d had with Lord Yuliel in his memory. The stairs ended in a landing, with one side becoming a balcony-gallery looking over one of the grand halls of the Palace. Terak could hear racing boots and shouts everywhere as the Palace Guards raced back and forth to fortify their positions.

  Lord Yuliel had argued that his forces had to remain here to defend Araxia. Terak forced himself to halt and take a step into the shadow of one of the large marble vases containing an ornamental tree. He took deep lungfuls of air, forcing his hammering heart to slow as he waited for the excitement and agitation of the battle to fade.

  He was one of the Enclave-External, but he wouldn’t be able to call on all of his skills if he didn’t have control over his body.

  Saving Araxia first and heading north afterwards makes sense, Terak considered as his mind and senses cleared. His elvish hearing was finer than that of most humans. He started to be able to differentiate between the cadences and tones of guard’s feet, and the softer panicked tread of Palace servants below.

  But why didn’t Lord Yuliel send at least a bird or a messenger to the Second Family to inform them? Terak wondered. Did Yuliel think that his fifty or so fighters would really be able to turn the tide for Araxia?

  And Terak’s most chilling realization: what if Lord Yuliel was as good at lying as Terak himself was? Terak had been schooled by Father Jacques to give away insignificant pieces of information—and to make the target believe that you agreed with them, even if you were planning on something entirely different.

  Did he just tell me what I wanted to hear?

  Terak half closed his eyes, allowing himself to concentrate on the sounds all around him, just as he had been taught. Now, adding to the rush of the Palace Guards and servants, the elf could differentiate another set of approaching sounds. The heavier pad of boots. Not ones capped with metal as the Palace Guards wore, and heavier than the servants’ softer shoes.

  And besides that, Terak could barely hear the softer pad of very light feet. An elf’s step, Terak realized. It was the High Chancellor and Lord Yuliel; it had to be.

  “This way,” The elf was rewarded by the murmur of the High Chancellor’s cold voice as he moved quickly, emerging from a stairwell at the far end of this landing.

  “I hope that you know what you are doing, Chancellor,” Terak heard Yuliel mutter with annoyance.

  “High Chancellor, if you please,” the man said, and Terak heard the smirk in his voice as their voices hurried away from him. The elf breathed once, twice, and three times, and then stepped out from his concealment to pad as softly as Lord Yuliel could—softer, given his training.

  “There is nothing for you to fear, Lord Yuliel. Everything has been timed perfectly.” the High Chancellor even dared to give a short cough of a laugh as the pair took another set of stairs and moved quickly down into the Palace. Terak waited until they had passed the turn and almost made it to the next landing before following, knowing that his step would echo.

  But what has been timed perfectly? What are they conspiring about? Terak was becoming more and more convinced that something was afoot between these two.

  Terak paused at the turn of the stairs, cocking his head to listen to where his prey was going. They hadn’t continued down the stairs but had instead left to hurry down the opening corridor.

  “It is not you having to sacrifice your kinsfolk!” Terak heard Yuliel snap, and Terak flinched at the admission. So, it was true. Terak felt cold certainty well up from deep inside of him. This High Chancellor was the Hexan, was the sorcerer responsible for opening the Blood Gate. He was responsible for the fact that Terak’s friend Reticula might even be dead by now. And Lord Yuliel was a traitor to all of elf kind.

  “You have no comprehension what I have sacrificed to get where I am,” the High Chancellor said in a cold murmur—before his voice cut off by a sudden schnickt like a grate of stone on stone.

  Terak broke into a faster pad, keeping as much to the shadows between guttering wall lanterns as he ran. He turned to see the corridor where the High Chancellor and Yuliel should be. It appeared to be a long gallery leading to a central T-junction and another set of opposing stairs at the far side.

  There are no doors, Terak frowned as he brought himself up short. Or windows. Where could the two he was chasing have gone?

  The elf bared his teeth but was too well-trained to hiss his annoyance, lest he give away his position. They were here one second, and now they are gone. Terak frowned. He had heard the grate of stone, which would mean . . .

  “Somewhere here, there’s a secret passage.” The elf turned on his heel, but of the gray stone-block walls, he could see no convenient ledge or door left ajar.

  “Hsss . . .” This time, Terak did hiss his annoyance as he examined the edges where wall met floor. Nothing appeared out of place, and no matter how hard he strained his ears, he couldn’t hear any muffled voices or dampened steps.

  The Black Keep had been filled with such secret and hidden passageways, however, and Terak had spent the last year and a half learning how to use them. He moved quickly to take the nearest guttering lantern. Each lantern was held inside its own miniature house of glass and metal, with a thick stub of tallow candle inside. There were vents near the top that allowed air in, and at the base for air to flow out. This was the mechanism that Terak knew that he would need to use.

  Taking a deep breath, he started a few paces out from the stair well, remembering that the two men had been talking at least for a brief exchange before they had disappeared.

  Breathe deep. Let the emotions fall, he reminded himself, again half-closing his eyes as he fell into one of the Path of Pain’s meditative concentrations. When he felt his senses sharpen, cleared of all the noise of his recent battle, the elf began to move very, very slowly. He held the lantern as close as he could to the wall without actually touching it.

  It took far longer than Terak would have liked, mostly because he had to stop, re-focus, and concentrate once again on watching the movement of the flame inside the lantern every time he took a step.

  But then, at one point, the flame suddenly pulled toward the wall. There was the slightest airflow, which had become amplified in the miniaturized chamber of the lantern.

  Terak checked it again, to make sure he was right, and slowly drew the lantern up and down to see that there was indeed a narrow air flow that followed a jigsaw line of stone. The elf ran his finger along the edge to feel that the gap between the bricks was deeper there and with apparently no mortar. Now that the shape of the door was set in his mind, Terak could set the lantern down on the floor beside him and step back to consider the next hurdle: how to open the Ixchting thing!

  There were no unusual features about this patch of wall. It was frustratingly featureless. But Terak knew that did not mean that there wasn’t some kind of catch or mechanism hidden in plain sight. Father Jacques, the Chief of the Enclave-External, was particularly fond of such devices and trickeries.

  The nearest wal
l ornament was another lantern. So, Terak stepped up to tap, pull, twist, push, and tinker with the iron hook as much as he could—but nothing happened. He was just hurting his long-fingered hands trying to wrench an iron bracket stapled to the wall.

  “Ixcht!” Next, Terak started smoothing his hands against the wall, pressing his ears as he softly tapped and patted at the surface of the blocks, hoping for the hollow sound that would indicate some hidden mechanism.

  Still nothing.

  With a curl or his lips, Terak resorted to pushing at the blocks of the door and the blocks around it in case it was a simple lever system.

  Nothing.

  What if it is a magic door!? Terak thought in sudden dismay. As a null, he would never be able to open it if he had to cast a cantrip or know a certain spell word in order to open it.

  And that would mean that he had failed in his mission, Terak felt a wave of despair wash over him. It meant that he was now possibly a thousand leagues away from the only home that he had ever known, which was under attack by the Baleful Signs, and with his human friend Reticula already dead or still dying of Estreek poison.

  And that the Hexan has gotten away!

  The frustration and dismay marred horribly in the elf’s gut. He considered how accursed his life truly was. All of this would be different if I had magic, he thought. If I wasn’t a null!

  Terak stamped at the wall in his frustration, but with a dull thwack all he managed to do was to hurt his heel on the solid bone-work of the Palace. He stumbled backwards—

  Schnickt.

  He heard the grating sound of stone and felt his feet move as two exact flagstones underneath his feet depressed themselves. The flagstones in this corridor were much smaller than the ones on the roof, barely bigger even than one of his feet, and spaced apart almost as wide as his stumbled stance had taken him.

  And then Terak felt a slight breeze hit his face, as he saw that the hidden door had slid inward, revealing a sliver of dark on the other side. The opening was barely wide enough for a human to walk abreast, but the slighter frame of Terak would easily be able to make it.

  “Clever.” Terak admired the device. Whoever had designed it had known that using just one switch in the floor would mean that the door would get triggered open by the mere passing of servants, but with two—perhaps even two that had to be stepped on in a certain order—the architect had ensured that only someone who knew where to precisely place their feet against this featureless bit of corridor wall would be able to gain entrance. Or, of course, someone who managed it on complete accident, as he had.

  “I’ll have to tell Father Jacques about this,” Terak murmured, before his heart lurched up to his throat. If I ever get out of here alive, and stop the Hexan, and the Blood Gate doesn’t open, and if he’s still alive up there . . .

  Staring at this black portal into the Hexan’s inner domain, Terak was reminded that not only was he supposed to be the most powerful human sorcerer of the current times, but that Lord Yuliel was sure to have impressive magical skills, as well.

  And here I am without any way to even defend myself.

  Terak closed his eyes and once again wished that life or fate or destiny had decided to give him magic, and not make him what he was.

  But, at the end of the day, there was only really two paths ahead, weren’t there? He had to console himself, just as the Book of Corrections taught.

  The right one and the wrong one, the Book taught. And how does an adherent know which path to choose?

  “You always walk toward the pain,” Terak whispered under his breath and took a step forward into the dark.

  11

  The Bargain

  Terak felt a lurch as the opening on the other side of the door led to a sudden and steep set of stairs. His boot slapped on the lower step far louder than he would have liked. He froze.

  The elf held himself still for a count of ten breaths, but there were no sudden shouts of alarm or questioning noises from below him.

  Phew. He allowed his eyes to adjust to the gloom, seeing the shapes of the stairs falling downwards as he moved off. As he had expected, once he had gone two or three more steps, there was an answering schnickt from behind as the stone door slid back into position.

  Terak was plunged into darkness, but he kept moving, relying on his memory of the general angle and incline of the stairs. As much as he wanted to charge ahead after the Hexan and the traitor Yuliel, he forced himself to move like Jacques had taught him. He felt out the next step carefully, as close to soundless as possible, before he easing his weight forward. Then he repeated the process.

  Terak kept the fingertips of one hand lightly on the wall at his side as he descended, the other crossing his body to lightly grip his sword pommel. He would have felt safer with the naked blade drawn. But not only could that make noise, it was another particularly favored maxim of the Chief External:

  “Remember to always keep your hands free if you can,” the Chief had said. He held his own black-gloved ones, one of which only had four digits, three fingers, and a thumb. “A hand can make a fist, pick a lock, heal, give aid, climb, steal, distract, point . . .” With every word, the Father had impersonated different gestures with his four-fingered hand, before closing it into a stubbed fist. “But once a hand holds a weapon—all it can do is attack.”

  And right now, Terak had no idea how he was going to overpower and overcome two possibly powerful sorcerers. He might need to make use of anything at his disposal and not just rely on cold steel . . .

  But still, the elf knew that he felt safer when he was indeed holding the blade instead of thin air.

  Ahead of him, he noticed that the pitch dark lifted in a faint blue-white radiance. Were-lights, Terak recognized instantly. They were considered perhaps one of the simplest forms of cantrip-magic. They created small balls of glowing light that people used as they needed.

  And with the lights came voices.

  “I see that you have been busy,” intoned Lord Yuliel in a not-entirely-welcoming tone.

  “Ah, this is just a little home-away-from-home, I suppose,” the High Chancellor—the Hexan—replied. His voice had lost the slightly more sedate and regal tones. Terak could detect a whisper of an accent, but he wasn’t sure where from. There was a faint burr and twang to the ends of his sentences that Terak realized the Hexan hid during his “official” hours.

  “And you are sure that—” Lord Yuliel began.

  “Of course I am sure!” The Hexan laughed, and his accent only grew deeper. The laugh was short and brash and made Terak think of the bark of wild dogs. “This is the sacrifice: one city for the Sword of Damiel. This is what Ung’olut wants . . .”

  Ung’olut. The word resounded in Terak’s mind, like a bruise on otherwise-healthy skin. The Hexan’s voice had sounded as though it had to mangle and twist to get the word out right. That’s an Ungol word. Terak frowned. A word belonging to an alien dialect, originating from another world entirely.

  Even Lord Yuliel seemed to find the word distasteful. Terak heard a disgusted snort of noise from further around the bend of the stairs.

  “I wonder how I will ever get used to hearing that . . .” the elf muttered under his breath.

  “You’ll have to, if you want your people to survive what is coming,” the Hexan responded seriously. The smell of incense started to seep through the air. It wasn’t the sweet smell of innocence, though, but the scent of something cloying and far too fragrant. Sickly, like rotten apples or mildewed roses.

  Terak took another step down toward the edge of the stairwell, craning his head as he listened. He tried to ascertain how far away the speakers were and whether their voices indicated either of them stood facing the stairs.

  No, he thought. From the way that the voices were dulled and only slightly echoed, he gathered that there had to be a fairly small room on the other side of the stairs. The Hexan and the elf lord must be standing at the back of it.

  “And when we have given the city
to her . . .” Lord Yuliel said severely. “She will not only reward us with the Sword of Damiel, but she will leave the Fourth Family alone? She will honor the promises that she has made on the far side of the portal when she eventually comes through?”

  Terak listened hard, trying to piece together what they were saying. Despite the fact that he had no idea who this person was, it was obvious that Lord Yuliel had made some sort of pact with her.

  The safety of the Fourth Family. Terak glowered, feeling his lips curl back. What made this act of treachery worse was that it was so believable. Terak could well understand why any king or noble might want to do anything to protect his people—and even more so with the elves, whose numbers had always been so small.

  But he is betraying the fate of the other Families by doing so! Terak thought in hot agitation. Not only that, he was betraying every other inhabitant of Midhara.

  “My good Lord Yuliel, have faith. Once Ung’olut has been bound by her blood-oath, then truly there is nothing in all of the three worlds which could break it,” the Hexan purred.

  “You seem to know much of the workings of the Ungol realm, High Chancellor,” Lord Yuliel said, somewhat mistrustfully.

  A pause, before the Hexan’s words came back even colder and softer than ever before. “I have studied a long time, my lord,” he said heavily. “Now, if you please . . .?”

  He’s asking Yuliel to do something. The Hexan needs him for whatever is happening. Terak’s mind raced as he took a step toward the edge of the stairwell. He pressed up against the corner and edged forward to peek into the chamber beyond, his hand closing on his sword . . .

  The room beyond reminded Terak even more of the Black Keep, with its narrow width and its complicated roof beams and odd wall corners. Just like the Black Keep, the Palace of Araxia had been built with these secret rooms wormed through its heart. He wondered if all castles had these secrets. Maybe it’s a human thing . . .