by K L Reinhart
“In that regard at least, Chief External,” the Magister Inedi said heavily, “I have to only concur with the Chief Arcanum. Time is not on our side anymore. We have already faced the Third Baleful Sign, and who knows when the Fourth, the Plague of Darkness, will fall upon us all.
“You will hand all work pertaining to the Loranthian Scroll over to the Chief Arcanum, immediately and with haste. Do you understand, External?”
The Magister was the only Chief with the right to make commands, and Father Jacques bowed his head slightly, although inside he was raging.
He didn’t trust the Chief Arcanum. He had never trusted Arcanum, and it wasn’t because of his skills with magic, for Jacques himself had no meager talent in that regard. It was purely a question of character.
Arcanum wheedles. He manipulates. He seeks to win over his fellow Brothers and Sisters when we should be fighting together. Jacques’s eyes flashed with anger at the Arcanum’s victorious grin.
The man is prideful and thinks his Chiefship better than any other here at this table. Jacques found himself adding to the long list of grievances that he had nurtured for many years against the man.
But what do I know? Jacques forced himself to settle backwards into the chair and fixed a pleasant smile on his face. Maybe the Chief Arcanum is, after all, the best person to decipher the Loranthian Scrolls? Surely, if there were any here who might have a chance of understanding the world-breaking magic that had created the Blood Gate in the first place, it had to be him, didn’t it?
And Jacques was still in the middle of this thought when suddenly, and without warning, there struck up a terrible clamor from somewhere far above them.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
“It’s the warning bell!” Chief Martial, although the stockiest, was the first to leap to his feet. “We must be under attack!” he exclaimed. He muttered a word to summon a tiny dancing ball of flame to hover in front of him, a simple but effective cantrip that Father Jacques knew could be used to light the way or empowered to become a coruscating fireball in moments.
“This way! Follow me!” Inedi was already standing up and gliding away from the table.
The rest of the Chiefs stumbled, leapt, and jumbled after the Magister, who waved a hand for a small wooden door that no one else had previously noticed. It opened in the dark walls, and the oil lanterns in the concealed stairwell behind flared into life at her arrival.
Inedi appeared to glide up the steps without sound or effort, not growing tired or out of breath as the others did.
I do not know this network, the Chief of the Enclave-External thought. He had thought that only he had access to all of the secret ways around the Black Keep. How foolish of him.
The stairwell wound on itself, turned, rose, and crossed small landings to rise once more, before Inedi flung open another small wooden door with but a wave of her hand to walk out onto the battlements.
Near East Gate Tower, Father Jacques noted unconsciously, as his old habits of curiosity and penchant for secrets died hard. But even Father Jacques, Chief of the Enclave External’s habits fell away under what Inedi flinched to look at.
It should have been late afternoon above the Cliffs of Mourn, at the base of the snow-clad and lightning-crowned Tartaruk Mountains. The skies should have been the dirty grays of storm winds and snow clouds from the high peaks, and the ice meadows and rockfaces should have become brighter and clearer as they swung toward the stones of the Black Keep itself. There should have been the constant howls and hisses of the Tartaruk winds, laced with mournful cries and calls of the fiercest of birds that made their home here.
All of these things should have been the case, but in fact, none were.
The mountains ahead, and the snow meadows, rocky outcrops, and foothills were deadly silent. The only thing that was the same was the deep purple bruise to the north that came from the accursed vale of the Blood Gate itself, the Ungol-light.
But, pooling down the peaks and spilling over the mountain’s arms came rolling tides of a heavy, deep, and dark fog. Only it was no natural fog, was it? The Chief External and every other being who looked at it saw immediately.
“Dear Stars . . .” Hospitality shuddered beside them.
It was as if the heaviest of black storm clouds had lowered themselves to the ground and were even now rolling down the sides of the mountains as a simple river mist would. Impenetrable and thick, and it looked odd to Jacques’s eyes. Like there was a wall of night approaching, the tops of the Tartaruks at the same time still pale and clearly visible standing over it.
“The Fourth Baleful Sign,” the Chief Arcanum murmured in a hushed whisper. “The Plague of Darkness. It has come.”
And no one watching that wall of boiling shadows sweeping down toward them could argue against him.
14
The Ungol Blade
The blood-stained tunnel started large, but funneled quickly as it wormed, turned, and wound its way into the roots of the mountain, Terak, Vorg, and the others saw. This tunnel also felt far more natural than any of the preceding ones. It appeared to meander first this way before turning back another, before plunging down once more.
I should be pleased about that fact, Terak though glumly. He very cautiously picked his way over the next rocky outcropping, pausing on the other side to sniff at the air, and gingerly reach down to tap at the ground below, as well.
Tap-tap! It sounded solid enough, but after the carnivorous cavern earlier, Terak wondered what–if anything–in this strange place he could trust any more.
“Root magic,” the elf heard a grunt behind him, and was surprised. Vorg had managed to slowly sneak up beside him, although the orc was many, many times his size.
I must be losing my focus, Terak told himself. Remember the path. Let the hardship sharpen you, not dull you, he advised himself, taking a deep breath before addressing Vorg’s statement.
“What do you mean, root magic?” he whispered. He had offered himself to go first of the others, mostly because it made sense for the smallest, fastest, and most agile of their party to scout ahead in case they ran smack into the middle of the Hexan and his party.
The Hexan who is also supposed to be the most powerful sorcerer in all of Midhara right now, a rather unhelpful part of Terak reminded himself
But at least one small part of Terak’s desire to be out front of the others was because it should have allowed him to be alone, as well. He had seen the way that the other humans had looked at him as soon as they had realized that he was a null. Magic was supposed to run like water, Terak threw the thought at himself.
And I am a stone in that current . . .
The elf didn’t need to ask the humans for their opinions or understanding of his condition–as if Terak could have done anything about something that he had been born with, anyway!
No, Terak had seen how his human peers, his brothers and sisters of the Enclave, had looked at him when both he and they had realized just what he was. Terak had remembered the Chief Arcanum baying for his blood, and saying that he was a monster, an anathema, and that one such as he shouldn’t even be capable of breathing.
Life depends on magic, that was the axiom that Terak and presumably every other child lucky to have any formal education learned.
So, what was this elf doing alive, then?
Terak had overheard, too, the desperate and fraught arguments of the other Chiefs of the Enclave as they had debated whether to kill him or not. All save Father Jacques, who had taken him on.
They knew that my existence was a danger to their magic, Terak knew. His mere presence would disrupt another’s spells and cantrips. And in a world where magic was used routinely, every day, what would happen if Terak was there when someone was trying to heal another, as had almost happened with Lieutenant Bella? Or if magic were being used to ease childbirth as Terak was nearby? Or–and this was the far more likely scenario–that magic was being used to protect his friends and to fight their enemies, and just the fa
ct that Terak was alive in that fight meant that others would die?
So, no, Terak didn’t need to be near the others right now. He didn’t want to see the look of dismay, shock, and disgust on the young Lord Falan’s face again. He was one of the first non-Enclave humans I met, Terak remembered. Lord Falan had been inexperienced, but had believed in honor, trust, and friendship being the core values that made a person–not pain.
“Get over yer’self,” Vorg shoved him, not very playfully, on the shoulder. A “light” shove from any orc, and especially one of Vorg’s size, meant that Terak collapsed against the nearest boulder, scraping his shoulder painfully.
“Heh,” the Unwanted let out a low chuckle. “See? Now you got something to worry about,” he muttered, before turning to take a deep sniff once more of the air around them.
“Yep. Root magic all right. Heavy. Old. Stinks of it round here,” Vorg said. Their way ahead was still just barely lit by the last glow of the daylight that had managed to snake its way through the mountainside by small fissures and apertures.
Like breathing holes in the ice, Terak thought, remembering how one of his training missions on Mourn Lake had been to navigate from one pre-drilled hole to another, and smash through the already-forming thin layer of ice there, take a breath, and move on.
“I guess it’s coming from down there.” Terak nodded toward the darks ahead of them, where the tunnel seemed to fall into pitch black.
“You bet,” Vorg said, leaning forward toward the murky gloom for another sniff—
“Just as I thought—” the orc champion was saying. Then Terak saw the orc’s entire frame shudder. He squeezed his eyes shut suddenly.
“Vorg? Vorg, what is it?” Terak asked, as a low moan escaped the orc’s lips. It was a moan of dismay and deep, deep sadness–and rage.
“Vorg! What’s wrong?” The elf had never seen the large orc so moved by deep emotions.
Vorg’s eyes snapped open, and his pupils appeared to flare red, as spittle drooled from his lower fangs. “The Hexan!” he hissed, his voice cold and menacing. “I smell the one who stole my people!”
“Vorg! Vorg, wait!” Terak hissed. He ran after the pounding orc who raced ahead of him like a charging bull, with his black-iron garbed limbs pulled in tight and head hunched down in the shrinking tunnel.
Ixcht! Terak swore, putting on an extra burst of speed. He could hear the garbled shouts of alarm coming from the rest of the party as they gave chase, but no human was as fast as a running elf or an enraged orc.
It was lucky, too, that both of these non-humans had better eyesight in the dark than the others. Vorg seemed particularly suited to these subterranean places, as his metal boots did not trip or miss a step in the dark.
A dark that was lightening ahead of them, Terak saw. Their tunnel was small and complicated, but it was growing grayer up ahead, grayer and somehow bluer.
Terak felt the familiar shiver of nausea through his gut at the presence of magic. Not root magic, he realized. That older form that Vorg could apparently sniff out did not create these feelings of illness or teeth-grinding insecurity.
“Vorg, hold up!” Terak tried again, keeping his voice as tight and as small as he could, lest he alert whoever was ahead of them of their approach.
But how could anyone not notice the sound of a charging Vorg? Terak was thinking, just as the light ahead deepened from the lighter blue to a faded, light purple—
Oh, Ixcht-Ixcht-Ixcht! Terak growled to himself, as suddenly the tunnel opened out ahead of Vorg, and the giant orc warrior leapt downwards—
Only the right or the wrong path . . . ! was the last thought that flashed through the elf’s mind, just before his feet followed Vorg’s into the magic-washed, purple-and-blue-lit cavern.
As Terak jumped down from the last lip of the tunnel’s rock, he was certain that this was going to prove to be the wrong path.
“Hexan!!” Vorg the Unwanted roared as he flew through the eldritch airs of the gigantic cavern, landing with a downward sweep of his blade, straight through an astonished human.
It wasn’t the Hexan who had been the first to fall under Vorg’s single-bladed battle-ax, the elf saw as he followed. They had charged headlong into a cavern that was so large that it made it seem as though the entire mountain must surely be hollowed out on the inside.
It was shaped like a natural amphitheater, with the far side encompassing a massive rockslide and naturally-formed plates of rock forming terraces of rock.
And on the top-most terrace stood the Hexan, in front of a broad hump of gray rock, over which hung a slowly revolving broadsword made of the blackest metal that Terak had ever seen.
The Sword of Damiel . . . The Ungol Blade, Terak knew instantly. That was what had brought the Hexan here–his reward for serving the Ungol Spirit known as Ung’olut–the Queen of a Thousand Tears, who was marshalling her forces even now to flood through the distant Blood Gate.
The purple and blue light was spreading from three glowing were-balls, each bigger than a human’s head. They floated over the floor of the cavern and under them clustered groups of the Hexan’s followers.
Five, ten–twelve . . . Terak counted quickly as he ran downwards after Vorg. The orc had engaged with the nearest group of humans—each one garbed in sturdy leathers and trews, with the assorted arm greaves and equipment belts that spoke of those long-used to traveling hard. Their packs were mounded to one side, and although these humans appeared to be soldiers or expeditioners, each one seemed to be proficient spell-casters too, as they clustered in fours under each glowing ball of magic, murmuring and mumbling.
Terak knew next to nothing about magic, never having been allowed to study it past his Testing at the Enclave, but he could spot a ritual when he saw one. Each of the glowing purple-blue balls of magic had threads of eldritch power arcing through the air to the Hexan himself, as if empowering him to seize the Ungol Blade.
“Grargh!” Vorg carried the momentum of his charge through. He spun on one boot, ripping his single-bladed battle axe from the body of the astonished, and very much dead, chanter, and separated the head of his adjacent fellow from his body.
The purple-blue orb that was over their group of four waivered and flickered, and Terak saw what he needed to do.
Blades! One of his hands held onto a shortsword, whilst the other flew to his side. He only had one of his two daggers left, the fattened, nasty little wedge of heavy metal that Vorg himself had given him.
With a snarl, Terak flicked it in an underhand throw that even his old Chief Martial would be proud of. It counter-spun as it flew upwards, swimming through the arcane light to lodge into the back of the neck of one of the cultist-chanters beside Vorg.
“Urk-!” with a strangled gasp, the human fell to one side. The orb above Vorg now started to fade and wisp apart, dissipating.
“Terak! Vorg!” The elf heard the shouts of Lord Falan and the others as they reached the exit of the cavern and beheld the scene ahead of them.
Terak pounced between the ridges and boulders just ten feet behind the frenzied orc as he swung around in a wide arc.
The last chanter of the four had the most time to prepare for this attack, Terak saw. Even as he chanted, he threw one gauntleted hand in front of him, for the flash of a blue disk to expand and grow in the space between his body and orcish war blade—
Just as Vorg struck. And even with the protective shield, the orc’s fury was so intense that it flung both shield and chanting cultist backwards, catapulting him through the air to land with a scrape on the floor.
But the human, between gasps, continued to chant.
“RARGH!” Vorg was a monster. He pounced, battle-ax turning in his hand to bring the blade down again over the prone form of the chanting cultist. He smashed it against the now-stronger blue shield, scattering flashes and shards of light, but holding.
Vorg’s frenzied, Terak saw as the orc pulled back the blade to hammer down once more on the shield, with every blow re
bounding on the magical defense covering the battered body of the cultist. The elf knew that the orc would probably continue until he had smashed the cultist apart with his own magic, but Vorg was also now heedless of the others around him.
Damn orcs! Terak hissed in fury, turning to gesture at the other chanting cultists. “Falan! Stop the ritual!” he shouted, as the other two groups of four started to engage with their attackers.
FZZZT! A bolt of terrible, sickly-green curse light shot across the cavern. It was only Terak’s training and his quick wits that allowed him to somersault backwards, with the smell of burning air and toxins just in front of him.
“Oof!” He landed back on his feet, widening his stance to stop himself from falling over.
FZZ-TWHAP! Another bolt of curse-green shot upwards, and there was a scream from one of the human Brechans. Terak didn’t have time to see which one.
The chanting cultists were good, Terak thought. Even in the face of a battle, they were managing to keep up their murmuring rites as they fanned out before their floating orbs to engage with the Brechan forces.
But, with a mighty roar and a final smash of his battle-ax, Vorg finished the prone chanter he had been so concerned with. Terak saw the purple-blue orb that the chanter had been maintaining wink out suddenly with a hiss of steam. Its threads of magic suddenly blinked out of existence, causing the Hexan above to stumbles slightly where he stood.
And Vorg was now turning to bellow up at the Hexan.
“Face me, human!” he shouted, already moving toward the terraces of rock.
FZZ-THWAP! Another bolt of curse-green energy picked Vorg off his feet and spun him to one side with a pained grunt.
“Ixcht!” Terak’s feet were already moving toward the orc, the air burning with curses. But even with one great shoulder pad glowing a dull crimson red from the heat of the curse, Vorg was pushing himself back to his feet with his axe, growling and snarling.
