Rise of the Dragon

by Wayne O'Brien

  The hungry blade slowly moved closer to its destination. Like a hunter, tracking its prey, moving to intercept its game. The warm flesh came ever closer to the blade.

  Turpin gently picked the Seeing Stone up and held it in his fist, studying the leather cord around the sleeper's neck.

  The knife moved to slice the target, to free it from its tether. Swift and sure, the blade moved through the night air towards the warm neck of its prey. Turning gently the blade severed the intended mark.

  Turpin's eyes opened wide as a tiny breath left his lips. The crystal was free in his hand. Unbelievably there was no spell on the leather strap. One quick slice of his knife and he was able to leave as quickly and quietly as his entrance had been.

  Turpin carefully climbed out through the window he had used to enter the house. A short jump and he was back on the ground. The crystal, held tight in his hand, read him, and strained to see past his fist - to no avail.

  He walked quickly down the street toward the castle walls. The Seeing Stone, after deducing where Turpin was headed, acted as his guide, providing him with the fastest route to the Obelus gem. Many of those paths went through guard rooms and gates, paths that were obviously out of the question. He turned left down a narrow alley, a building's length from the wall. His pace quickened as did his mind.

  "Turn right," his mind told him, and he did. Moving without a thought of where he was headed, as if it was pure muscle memory. Except the memory was not his, it was older than the walls themselves. Emanating from the never blinking, ever seeing crystal held in Turpin's hand.

  Then he saw it, low above the ground, at the base of the wall, a small arch indicating the opening to a runoff drain. The castle drains predated the sewers of Bristork by hundreds of years. It was, in fact, the inspiration of the Bristork underground.

  Turpin squeezed through the narrow arch and into the tunnel below. He was forced to crawl on his stomach to traverse the small runoff tunnel. After crawling in the pitch black darkness what seemed a long time, Turpin saw a faint light off to his left and realized he needed to turn that way.

  The water that trickled down behind him was cold and his hands slowly became numb. The flickering light off in the distance gave him his only sense of direction in the tight confines of the moldy tunnel. All he wanted to do was to stand up. The dark, tight air of the tunnel was getting to him, but he took heart from seeing the light coming closer.

  The source of the light was a torch, burning above another narrow arch, even smaller than the first. It was almost too narrow for Turpin to get through and he had to remove his tool pouch and slide it through the opening before being able to squeeze through himself.

  He finally found himself out of the tunnel, and was relieved to be able to stand and see clearly. The dark corridor he was now in was not much brighter than the tunnel, but brighter just the same. Turpin studied his surroundings quickly, trying to judge his location in the castle but was unable to do so accurately enough. He felt the gaze trying to see through his fingers and looked down at the Seeing Stone.

  Deep within the crystal, Turpin could dimly make out distant people doing a variety of jobs. He held it up to examine it closer. The light from the torch danced along the wall and floor until it was captured by the crystal, still bearing the leather straps that made it a necklace.

  Turpin raised the crystal until it was close to his eyes. The visions within the crystal started to become clearer and clearer. He saw faraway places he had never seen before, and would probably never visit, through the clear as air stone he held before his face.

  Entranced by the knowledge that suffused his mind from the visions within the crystal, Turpin slowly placed the Seeing Stone on his forehead, between his defined brows. The visions were now as clear as if he was there, within the stone and himself. He was no longer conscious of his body. Turpin had crossed the threshold and now stood among the Spirit Walkers.

  He saw an old man, huddled in a thick wool blanket as waves splashed over the bow of his ship. Another in an earthen prison, jaws bound shut, his hands in iron cups fastened to his chest. There was a great wizard sitting high on a throne to the left of a queen. He saw many more people, most of whom were older. They all looked intently in his direction, as if he could not only be seen, but read like a book.

  Turpin felt the same learning feeling that gripped the others. Then another vision came to him. Hallways lit by torches, guard locations and patrol routes, all the way backwards, from a locked door to where Turpin stood. It was followed by a blast of fire coming towards him from a dark and ominous beast.

  Turpin fell back to try and escape the nonexistent flames, dropping the crystal in the process. He shook himself free of the visions, got to his feet and headed off down the corridor, the way the vision had shown him.

  Turpin made his way swiftly across the basement of the castle, absent mindedly pausing until a guard passed, and making turns where he needed to. His mind no longer controlled his movements, instead he was driven by an alien force bestowed upon him by the crystal, as if his mind had been ripped open and other thoughts and impulses sown in its place. The alien thoughts slowly melted the closer he got to the locked door.

  At last he stood before it, his mind whole again. He was left pondering what had happened. He pulled his satchel out from under his cloak and opened it on the floor. Turpin removed two small tools from the pouch and worked on the lock on the door. A dull click signified his success. He stepped through into a room.

  Old shelves covered the walls. They supported a variety of jars and bottles all with different liquids in them. There were also specimen jars containing small creatures he couldn’t name. Scattered among the bottles was a number of tattered books.

  In the middle of the room a blood red gem sat on a small pedestal. Turpin puffed his pipe and blew smoke around the gem. No wires. He mixed some of the oils in his bag and placed a drop on the pedestal and the gem. No reaction.

  "This is too easy," Turpin thought as he slowly lifted the gem from the pedestal. Placing the Obelus gem in his bag, he turned and headed back the way he came.

  Down the corridors, and a flight of stairs, he back tracked his steps until the small arch came into view. He passed it by, knowing which way was north, yet he could not explain how he was able to navigate so quickly in his mind. He had not been able to before he saw the way through the crystal.

  The crystal! His stride broke and Turpin came to a sudden stop. He searched for the Seeing Stone but could not find it. He then remembered dropping it by the arch to the tunnel. His new escape route.

  "I need to get the gem to the drop-off," he thought as he continued down the long, empty hallway. At the end of it was a barred window that looked out onto Castle Road at street level. To the left was an old wooden door, where he was to escape.

  Turpin held the bag that contained the Obelus gem up to the grating. A pair of long, bony arms reached down and grabbed it from him.

  "Time to leave," a voice hissed.

  "Not yet, I've lost something and need to retrieve it," Turpin said in a hoarse whisper as he turned to head back down the corridor. The voice from the grate protested but the rasping words fell dead in the black midnight air.

  Turpin ran to the arch in the long hallway. Reaching it he dropped to the ground and started searching frantically. A door shut loudly in the distance and he heard voices coming from down the hall, yet Turpin continued searching for the crystal. More voices approached, only now from the other end of the corridor.

  Finally, his grasping fingers touched something small and hard on the tunnel floor. He looked down at it and the winds of a great blizzard were imprisoned in a sold slice of air.

  "Oy! You there!" Cried a voice from down the hall. Turpin dived head first into the drain and wriggled frantically, trying to crawl through the arch. He was almost through when two sets of large hands grabbed his legs and violently pulled him back from the drain. His hand hit the wall, forcing it open. He felt the Seeing Stone sl
ip from his hand and fall into the water that lay in the tunnel. He slid backwards on his stomach as the crystal disappeared into the darkness.

  "What do we have here?" Asked a large guard. He picked Turpin up from the floor, holding his arms firmly. A vivid scar disfigured the guard’s face. It ran from his left temple to the right side of his jaw. The short stub of where his nose used to be gaped awkwardly.

  "They came from where I was to escape," Turpin thought, as he stared at the big man that held him off the ground at eye level. The scarred faced man threw Turpin to the floor viciously. Turpin’s head bounced off the stone. He felt the warm trickle of blood and knew his head had been cut.

  "The commander 'ill want to speak to this one." Pig nose raised his hand and struck Turpin hard, causing his vision to blur and his ears to ring. The guard picked him up again and hit him in the face. He felt another cut open over his cheek bone. Another hand struck Turpin forcefully, sending sharp pain slicing through his head. He felt dizzy and his eyes were watering.

  Again and again, the blows rained down on him. His vision blurred and blackness edged in. The pain across his face and head merged into one huge agony. Finally, the beating paused and Turpin painfully drew in a breath. As soon as his lungs filled with air, the sole of a heavy boot was planted into his ribs, forcing all the air out.

  Turpin gasped painfully. He looked up at the pig face through a warm red blur tinged with black. It took all of Turpin's strength and defiance, as he forced himself upright. He spat a mouthful of blood at pig nose. A large boot rose into Turpin’s vision. It seemed to take an age for it to reach him. Then he could see nothing except the sole of the boot. Then he could see … nothing.

  The echoing sound of a solitary water drip helped re-enforce the smell of decay. The cold, damp stones released their ancient musk mingling with the rust of chains fastened to the walls. Turpin didn't even need to open his eyes to know he was not in the sewers. He knew instinctively he was in one of the castle dungeons. Very few who had seen the interior of the dungeons had survived, fewer still spoke of it. It wasn’t that they didn’t speak of the horrors because they had been so gruesome; those who had survived did not speak of the dungeons because of their lack of a tongue.

  Turpin lifted his head up, his cheek sticky with blood. He peered around the cell. Everything was blurred and indistinct. He tried to blink the giddiness away, but it did not help. His face throbbed with pain, and the coppery taste of blood hung on his tongue. Turpin spat a mix of saliva and blood onto the stone floor.

  He pushed the scarred hand that was missing a fingernail against the stone floor, attempting to sit upright. A sharp pain lanced through Turpin's side, under his right arm, and he grimaced as he sat up. He guessed his ribs were fractured. Every breath sent tendrils of pain arcing through his chest. He slowly pushed himself up and leaned against the wall. Breathing slowly.

  "There's no other door down that hallway," Turpin thought. "There’s only one way they could have come." A chill crept over him. "How could they have known?"

  Turpin heard the sound of wood scraping against metal and turned painfully to see light shining through a small barred opening in the center of the door. His ribs ached as much as his swollen face. A moment later the window closed.

  Turpin hauled himself up to lean against the cold stone wall and spat again. There was more saliva than blood this time, yet the coppery taste still hugged his tongue tightly. After several minutes a small hatch at the bottom of the door opened and a wooden platter slid into the room.

  The plate contained a small piece of bread that rolled around an even smaller slice of meat. Although the meat was burned black, it still bled as he ripped at it. It was chewy and left an even stronger taste of blood in his mouth. The bread, old and stale, did nothing to dilute the lingering taste.

  Turpin finished the meager meal as if he was starving and then leaned back against the wall again. Less than a minute later his stomach heaved and everything he had just eaten was spattered on the floor, his legs, and dripping off his chin onto his tunic. His fractured ribs hurt even more from the ferocity of throwing up the contents of his stomach.

  Time dragged on slowly as Turpin sat, trying not to move. By the time the window on the door opened again, the puke on the floor and his clothing had dried into a sticky stain. The usual stench of the dungeon was punctuated by the much sweeter smell of the half digested meat and bread he had attempted to consume. The door opened and light shone through, silhouetting a robed figure.

  "You have great skill, youngling," the silhouette said. "I see you are unable to consume solid food yet. Still sucking on your mother's tit?"

  "Come closer and you will see how long I have been eating solid food," Turpin hollowly threatened, a grimace of pain and anger contorting his face.

  The silhouette let out a guttural laugh. "You can’t even make a threat without insulting yourself more than I have." The robed figure stepped into the room and Turpin was able to see that the robe this stranger wore was blood red and shimmered like fire. Ornate yellow and orange braid trimmed its edges.

  "Who are you?" Turpin asked.

  "I am aware of what it is that you stole. I am aware of the vision you received. I am also aware of why it was used and what you attained in the process. I am not, however, aware of where you hid the two items, and who hired you."

  Turpin sat silently, clutching his side.

  "The drain we pulled you from," the fire robed man said after a long pause, "was searched. We failed to find the stolen items. It is possible that the crystal could have been washed away, and if it was, then we may never find it." He knelt before Turpin so they were eye to eye. "However, the Obelus gem is far too heavy to be washed away by a gentle current."

  Turpin stared into the blackness beneath the hood. He could see only the faint reflection of inhuman eyes. The cold, dead, almost lizard-like gaze sliced through Turpin like a freshly sharpened blade skins a deer. Layer after layer peeled away to reveal the meat the hunter was after. Turpin shivered under the heavy gaze.

  "Where are they?" the man with animal eyes asked.

  Turpin forced himself to try and stifle his fear. He felt rather than saw the eyes squint and harden. The unseen knife slicing through Turpin cut deeper, separating more flesh from him.

  "Who sent you?" The voice was more of a hiss now, not human at all, and a hot wind blew over Turpin, as if he was iron in a blacksmith's forge.

  "You are no thief!" The man hissed again. "You are not even a man, just a pretender, a boy not even off his mother's tit."

  The anger was too much to keep at bay now and Turpin lashed out at the man. He had both hands around the neck of the hooded creature. He squeezed hard. Turpin slammed the back of his captor's head on the stone floor. Blood spattered. Again and again the creature's head hit the stone adding more and more blood to the sticky puke already there. The man dressed in the fiery robe laughed as Turpin cracked his skull open on the stones. Black blood poured from the creature’s mangled head. When the creature moved no more Turpin stopped, breathing hard. He listened. All was still and quiet.

  Turpin struggled to stand; grimacing at the pain of his ribs, and went to the door which still stood open. He carefully looked up and down the corridor which was lined with many doors to other cells. There were torches between each door with him in the last one in the corridor. A fact that made it easy for him to decide which way to go.

  He crept out of his cell and started down the long, well-lit corridor. Before he gone far, he heard the faint rustle of clothing behind him. He stopped abruptly and looked back. There was no one there. He turned and hastened his stride.

  Laughter billowed up and saturated the air around him as if it was summoned up from the abyss. It was not human laughter, nor was it laughter from a Dwarf or an elf. It was darker, deeper, draconic even, and filled the air like an evil, miasmic spell.

  Turpin did not dare to turn to see what manner of beast was laughing so evilly. He quickened his pace as much
as he could, his ribs protesting agonizingly against every step. He climbed the stairs at the end of the cell block. At the top was another door. To his surprise, it was unlocked. Turpin opened the door and quietly slipped through it.

  He had entered into the intersection of two other well-lit corridors. Awkwardly placed bricks marked where windows once looked out into the courtyard.

  “And why would there be windows?” He thought. He knew they had all been sealed long ago, no matter how high up on a wall they were. The windows provided easy entry points for would be assassins, or during a siege. The latter being the precise reason they were bricked up. Not having them was also a strategic way to keep people in. He smiled grimly. “As in my case,” he thought wryly.

  Blindly guessing which way to go, Turpin chose the hall to his left and headed in that direction as fast as he could. He tried to ignore the pain. He was unable keep his left eye from twitching because of the throbbing pain of his ribs and face.

  He soon reached another large wooden door at the end of the hall. It squeaked loudly as Turpin eased it open. Behind the door another set of stairs led downward to who knew what.

  "I pray this is the way I need to go," Turpin thought, his heart throbbing loudly in his chest. The vile laughter still resounded in his mind. The longer he stayed in the castle the more an un-named fear pervaded his whole being, and with that, haste.

  At the bottom of the stairs he found a short hall with a single door in the center of one wall. Turpin paused and briefly studied the familiar looking door and recognized it as the door to the room where the gem was held. Finally, he knew which way he had to go.

  "She was fresh," a voice said from down the next flight of stairs.

  "Ne'er 'ad a man before?" Another voice asked.