by K L Reinhart
Creeaarrk! There was a sound of shifting moving rock, and Terak’s headache spiked suddenly, as a blast of now-boiling air rolled toward them from the left-hand passageway.
And there was a dull, ruddy glint of light, approaching rapidly toward them from the left.
“Move!” Terak hissed, grabbing Haines’ shoulder in front of him and pushing him ahead, up the righthand passageway. Haines gave a low murmur of dismay as his contact with his innate divination magic broke, and suddenly the fleeing forms of the Brechans and the orc were charging behind, as the entire corridor flared crimson and red—
“Fire!” the elf heard Falan shout, a little late in the proceedings—
“Down!” Vorg roared, throwing himself forward as he attempted to flatten himself to the rocky floor. Vorg was big, and so his bulk still lay a third of the height of the entire passageway, as everyone else tumbled, rolled, and flattened themselves as best as they were able.
“Aii!” All save one, that is.
A wave of fierce heat and terrible light rolled over them. Terak smelled his own hair singing and burning, as well as the cries of pain as other guards failed to protect exposed flesh.
CREEAARRCK! Another series of resounding crashes and booms, and Terak felt the stone walls and floor shake and reverberate, as—
The noise stopped, and the fireball was gone, leaving the air smelling like soot and ash. The party was plunged into darkness, with no sound save for the scraping of armor as bodies moved and the hacking coughs from super-heated lungs.
“Boris?” one of the guards called out, as another murmur of dismay swept up from the assembled guards and soldiers around them. One of them uttered a simple cantrip, making two small bluish were-light balls appear from his gloved hands. He flung the were-lights up into the air to illuminate the dark.
The passageway behind them was completely blocked by a rockfall, its edges were blackened and scarred with streaks and marks of soot.
And one of their number–the soldier Boris, whom Terak didn’t know–was completely gone.
“He could be trapped on the other side—” Haines murmured slowly, but even the soft-spoken diviner’s voice was deeply skeptical. The soldiers groaned and muttered in shock as they sat up, eyeing each other with a new vulnerability to see the blackened edges and singed hair of all of their number. No one else was seriously injured save for a few reddened burn marks. Even Vorg, larger and bigger than all of the rest, was unharmed, although Terak saw that his black iron armor was steaming with heat. The orc didn’t seem to notice, however.
“Trap,” the orc grumbled, pushing himself up to his feet and shaking his head.
“You don’t say,” Terak growled, scowling at the wall. “But who by? The Hexan?” The elf wondered if the human sorcerer was powerful enough to lay a curse behind him against any who might follow.
“But the Hexan doesn’t know that we’re coming for him, does he?” Lord Falan murmured as he, too, got to his feet. “He thought that you two died at Araxia?”
“No one knows what the Hexan is capable of . . .” Vorg muttered as he started to tread forwards down the passageway.
The rest of the guards groaned, coughed, and shook themselves before starting their weary tread after the orc, as Falan nodded for them to continue onwards. The human lord held himself back a little, as did Terak. They looked at each other and kept their voices low.
“I find it difficult to think that it was any sort of natural occurrence,” Falan said slowly, keeping his voice low. “The way behind us was blocked. We were directed to go this way.” Terak nodded that it was the conclusion that he had come to, as well. “If it wasn’t the Hexan . . .” Falan whispered.
“Then it could have been this Grom,” Terak finished his sentence. Both man and elf looked at each other for a steady moment, before Falan drew his blade and Terak his knife.
From here on into the mountain–and despite what respect Sister Denaal had for this mysterious creature, Grom–both the ruler of the kingdom of Brecha and the null assassin of the Enclave were going to assume that Grom didn’t want them here in his realm.
8
The Hall of Statues
“Hey! You two!” The growl of Vorg carried back over the double-line of trudging humans. Terak and Falan knew instinctively that it was them that Vorg was calling for.
“Better see what the big guy has found,” Falan said with a grumble. Terak wondered what it must be like for the human lord give over his protection and the safety of his men to a creature that had traditionally been the enemy of all humanity.
Right now, however, that enemy of all humanity looked deeply puzzled by what he saw ahead of him.
The passageway opened out to reveal a large circular room, different from all the rest of the rocky corridors that the party had been trudging through.
It’s been worked, the elf thought, seeing the exact smoothness of the floor and walls. But that wasn’t the most unnerving thing about this place at all–it was the statues. The circular room, with a domed ceiling high above them, was filled with gray-white statues, each one standing taller than even Vorg was! At least nine feet!
And each statue was an elf. Terak frowned. “The First Family?” he heard himself whisper, knowing it to be true.
These statues were not organized in any way that made sense, but instead appeared to have been left in odd positions around the room, like a living, stony forest. Each of the solid giants was unique, standing or gesturing in different positions, away or at each other, trapped in their respective poses for eternity.
They don’t look like the Fifth Family, Terak opined. They didn’t wear any of the leather and hide strappings, and the mason had not included any braids or markings of tattoos on their faces. Instead, Terak found that they appeared to look a little more like his own Second Family–although somehow more so, he thought.
They wore long, flowing gowns, robes, cloaks, and tunics. The folds and ripples had been carved with such exquisite detail that Terak could have sworn that he saw them move out of the corner of his eye. Of course, they hadn’t, the elf had to reassure himself.
Each statue was unmistakably an elf, with their elongated ears and sharp features. Terak gasped as he stepped forward into the room to the nearest statue, seeing that even their long hair had been somehow carved to reveal the individual tangles and strands.
“Incredible,” Lord Falan remarked.
“Useless!” the orc muttered instead, stepping forwards into the room, looking around the statues until he saw what he was looking for on the opposite wall. “I got doors!” The orc said, and Terak peered around the standing statues to see that there was, indeed, a set of arched double doors carved from the stone.
“Wait up—” Falan was murmuring as he approached one of the statues–an elvish woman, wearing a fine stone circlet, with one long-fingered hand held up in the air in front of her, as if demonstrating a particular point of philosophy or rhetoric to the rest of her assembled, unhearing, crowd. Terak could see the way that exact hoops of stone had been carefully carved out–probably by magic, right?–on her wrist, and from her belt hung pouches, even their buckles and eyelets picked out in precise detail.
“We may be able to discover something from this place,” Falan was saying, looking into the elvish statue’s face.
“Discover what? That elves are just as foolish as humans sometimes?” Vorg said, arriving at the stone wall and starting to tap it with one great blackened talon. The door gave a slightly hollow sound, indicating that yes, there was indeed an opening on the other side, and it wasn’t just another carving.
“It is best to learn as much as we can, when in an unknown place,” Falan murmured in response, obviously quoting something, but Terak wasn’t sure what.
I don’t like this . . . Terak was thinking to himself. It was something about being surrounded by such life-like giants. Something about their perfectly depicted eyes, always seeming to follow him around the room, even though he knew that they c
ould not.
“Ah!” Falan said, moving off from the Queen or Mother or some such noblewoman that he had been previously inspecting, as the rest of the guards started to hesitantly filter through the statuary. Terak moved to a hunched elf statue, older seemingly than the others, with head bowed over something, one hand holding a glass to his eyes and the other holding an object. An amulet? Terak strained to see past the crook of the elf’s huddled head.
“A book!” Falan announced, finding another elvish lord of some kind, holding an open book before them. When Terak jerked back to look his way, he could even make out the inscribed carvings of circles and flowing, elvish runes.
“I know a little elvish . . .” Falan said, reaching up with his bloodied hand to balance against the elf’s arm.
Hang on . . . A memory swelled up in Terak’s mind, as he saw Falan’s blood-smeared bandage rest on the statue as the young lord squinted.
Terak remembered a time when he had rested against another statue, which had also been underground in an ancient place. In the Everdell Forest, he thought, at the Loranthian Shrine. That place, too, had traps and monsters. And it had also been built by the First Family, some millennia before the Second Family had moved into the forest.
Terak wondered if that Loranthian Shrine–the place where he had first killed someone–was also a site of root magic, if the First Family seemed to have a liking for such places?
But the statue that Terak was thinking about had not been any elf. Instead, it had been a monstrous, dog-reptile creature called the Mordhuk. It had come to life during Terak’s desperate battle, and it had later seemed to even befriend the young assassin–although Terak had no idea why . . .
The blood! Terak’s eyes widened, just as he saw the ruddy mark that Lord Falan had left disappear into the stone, as if it had consumed it.
“Falan!” the elf cried out in alarm. A ripple surged through the statue, the stone becoming oddly organic once more, life-like, and yet still made of stone.
“What the—?” Falan stumbled backwards, as harsh, grating words started to spill from the book-reader’s granite mouth.
“Ab, Aolach, Azdar, Bel, Buramar, Borgist, Chek, Ctziel—”
“What’s happening!?” Falan staggered out of the way of the reading statue, his back hitting the next and making him jump.
“It’s the blood!” Terak shouted. “No one who is injured touch any of the statues!”
But it was already too late, clearly, as there was another grating noise from another statue, this time a strong-shouldered elf lord with flaring hair, one stony hand on a sword hilt that was even now scraping from its rock sheath.
And now Terak was feeling that rising itch in his jaw and the cramp of nausea in his stomach. Clearly, even something as solid and lifeless as stone could cast magic. The wave of uncomfortable ache was coming from the grimoire-reading elf, and Terak just knew that it wouldn’t be good, whatever it was attempting to cast.
“Argh!” There was a scream as the other living statue, the warrior, swept his free, stone-gauntleted fist out at the nearest shocked soldier, cuffing him in a savage blow that sent the man reeling, spraying blood, dead before he even hit the floor.
And the dead soldier’s blood splattered over the circlet-elf, who had been gesturing so imperiously into the air. Another grating sound as one of her stone feet, wearing what looked to be delicate slippers of rock, slid forward.
Clang! There was a scatter of sparks, as an enraged Brechan soldier hit the warrior-statue over the back with her sword. The rock chipped with the force of the woman’s blow–but the blade itself shattered.
“Hsss!” With an enraged hiss of stone teeth against stone teeth, the warrior swiveled on his booted heels, moving flickeringly quick. He drew the stone blade, its edges shining as the accompanying were-lights danced in the air between them
“Ach!” The poor guard was torn down by the sharpened stone blade, and her own blood sprayed onto the next nearest statue, this time a smaller elf lord, but one who was similarly armed with a scabbarded stone blade.
“—Dzt, Ezkua, Ek, Ebanda—” the chanting elf reader said, and Terak saw Falan lance forward with his blade at the thing’s face, clearly attempting to silence it.
Clang! Another fracture of sparks as the statue’s nose and cheek broke apart and the tip of lord’s blade broke–but the reading elf did not try to dodge or even retaliate, just kept on chanting in that steady, monotone way.
“—Fituul, Gol, Getz, Ghoraggi—”
9
Under the Gate
The chanting of the stone statue traveled, underneath the screams and the shouts of the desperate, fighting Brechans, orc, and elf. The muttered words of the chanting sank down into the stones of the Vandra Mountains, which were almost as old as the mountains far, far to the north of the world.
The Tartaruk Mountains. Peaks that were as old as the entire world of Midhara itself, with their black rock faces scraped bare of white ice and frost by the scouring winds.
But the eldritch and holy spell of the First Family did not tarry long in the stone, traveling quickly, faster than any beast, along the Ridge of Mourn. It went deeper and further still into the peaks, through the hidden root-ways and bone-ways of the earth to a small vale in the heart of the Tartaruks.
The vale was surrounded and banked by snow, but the floor itself was miraculously bare of it. No heather or gorse or moss would ever grow on this black and riven strip of land, just as no deer or goat or snow hare would ever dare set foot on its accursed stone. The hawks and eagles of the Tartaruks–themselves a savage and cruel breed–knew how to avoid the hurtful airs that hung over this small place. But occasionally, there were less-seasoned aerial visitors, swans and geese and others who were thrown this way on the unpredictable storm winds, poor creatures.
Right now, the accursed words of a distant stone statue raced up the granite arteries of rock to this place. At the same time, a small flock of starlings, weary and bruised and battered by the ever-present gales, were scattered into the vale.
And as each tiny bird heart entered the hurtful airs, each one stopped, and they plummeted to the bare stone with its one occupant and one edifice.
The Blood Gate. A cruel crimson color and made of strangely organic twisted whorls and tendons of rock, it seemed to be constructed from the fused hip bones of some ancient god. The Blood Gate looked simple enough from afar–two uprights merging into one overhead lintel–but it was far from simple if you considered the fact that it hovered over the ground by a foot.
The clouds above burned with an ugly purple bruise, and the entire vale of evil was lit by the dreadful Ungol-light.
And the only half-alive occupant, a hunched man in a frayed and torn black robe–just like the ones that the Brothers and Sisters of the Enclave wore–staggered.
The half-alive man was nearing his death, he knew. He had long ago lost his name and his beginnings, but he had been fashioned anew by the Hexan and sent on his long and slow journey north.
Unseen, the man had crossed over deserts and through deep forests, always shunning people and company. Any time that a creature or traveler had haphazardly crossed his path, they had shuddered with a sudden chill and a feeling of foreboding. It had taken him almost an entire year to travel the length of the world on each slow and pained step.
“Hyurgh!” Something throbbed in the half-alive man’s chest, like a snake trying to get out. He staggered again, fell to his knees.
But he had only one job, one purpose left. Everything else had been taken from him by the Hexan. He had been chosen for his training–for he was, once, a Brother of the Enclave in a previous life. His mental and physical skills had allowed him to endure the Hexan’s tests and gifts, before he had been set on his journey.
Because the man felt pain. Pain with every breath and pain with every step. And only a member of the Order which walked the Path of Pain could have ever withstood it.
But he was so near death that his constant
chanting words faltered. He was going to fail. He had succeeded in almost bringing the Blood Gate to earth, but even the Book of Corrections and the Hexan’s foul preservation weren’t enough.
“Ouroloxia, Ctul-mar, Hydragk—” the man finally coughed and spluttered, knowing that there were more words still to chant, but that he did not have the strength to speak them . . .
I have failed, he thought, as the hidden creature he bore inside his chest started to thrash, eating what was left of his soul.
“—Fituul, Gol, Getz, Ghoraggi—”
Until, that was, a vibration started to set itself up through the bones of the mountain under his hands and feet. The vibration of a distant chant, the exact sister to his own because both his and the other had been used to do the same thing.
The stone words of the chanting statue, many, many leagues away, spilled up through the man, up through his chest, up through his throat–and out of his lips.
It fed the half-alive man. It gave him strength, and it gave him life.
And the Blood Gate above descended once more, inch by inch toward the floor.
But that was not all that the chanted words of a distant statue did. As they moved through the body-cavity of the half-alive man, they quieted and fed the terrible beast that the man carried inside of him. And it did feed. Instead of feeding on the half-alive man’s soul (as it had already consumed almost every other emotion and thought and memory that it could) it fed on the sound of the unholy Ungol words.
And it grew. It grew ever closer to being born, when the Blood Gate would finally make its landing.
10
A Game of Dominos
“Hyx . . . Hggkarak . . . Lz . . . Loranthian . . . Leegar . . .”
The chanting of the stone statue continued, filling all the spaces left in the already-cramped statuary room that weren’t already filled with screams and shouts of the dying Brecha soldiers.
