This story is protected under international and Pan-American copyright conventions. Please remember to donate to Nifty if you're financially able to do so.
MY WEBSITE: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html
My email: kavrik@hotmail.com
Pictures of the characters in this story: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/my-artwork.html
Forum discussion thread: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html
Please check out my books on my website. If you want one, shoot me an email, and I'll send you a free electronic copy for a written review on Amazon.
Chapter Thirty-One
The voices grow louder; but I still can't understand them. I plot out positions of the men on the other side of the door. Some are probably sitting on a bench or a stool of some kind. The remainder are sharpening weapons against a wall just a few steps into the room and on the left.
I muse quietly that there's a bit of irony to this.
For example, if Constantine could see me now I think he'd be proud. That is, IF he could manage to overlook the whole bit about me killing him. But everyone knows he had it coming. I hope there's a window in Hell where he can peek out and see me. That way when we meet someday we'll at least have something to talk about. Tethyr's Teeth, I revere him like my own father at times. I don't know if that's a good thing, or if it's just the first time I'm made aware that I just might be the psychopath I always feared I'd become.
Rolling my tongue ring against the roof of my mouth, I slide my free hand down the length of my leg to withdraw two throwing daggers from an ankle sheath.
"I accept that I'm a monster, but I'll try my very best to only hurt bad people. This one's for you, Constantine," I whisper; then I shove the door open.
The room's more or less exactly as I'd laid out in my imagination: a ten-foot by twenty-foot hall lit by two torches and containing a bench and a stool. The plastered walls hold several pegs and hooks; they look like recent additions to the gallery.
But the four men in the room aren't EXACTLY what I had in mind. Chimeras all, they resemble a cross between a man and an orc and each with a nasty under bite. The orc part manifests in a thick bony ridge above the eyes, a pair of tusks, and massive arms large enough to crack boulders in the crook formed by forearm and bicep. Their absurd mannish noses look too small and narrow for a face so wide.
Disgusting. Why are evil things always so ugly?
Without hesitation, my first dagger finds a home in one of the men honing his axe against a whetstone. It sinks into his neck with an audible "thud" followed by a gurgle. His own blood chokes him to death. I launch my other knife at his brother on the bench. This second mongrel dies when my missile goes through his mouth and nails the back of his skull against the wall. The remaining two "men" stumble to their feet, drawing swords to hold defensively before them.
I step into the room, eyeing them like a shark views a seal.
"What's this?" one says in the common tongue. "A baby-faced assassin come to kill us?"
The other remains silent and he's much larger than the first. He wears a suit of banded mail that looks like it's been patched together from several incomplete and damaged suits. He hisses and dives, sword pointed straight at my belly.
A vertical jump places me temporarily beyond the reach of his thrust. I put the sole of my right foot against the wall at about the height of his shoulder, launch myself into a whirling death, and follow through by smashing my boot square into his jaw. His neck snaps about, bones cracking. His fellow steps in swinging even as I land, showering plaster about the ground. I turn his sword with an off-hand fist aimed straight at the fuller. Then I collapse his windpipe with a single punch and watch him die.
Was that under five seconds? Time to give the room a good search.
The first thing that grabs my attention is another door. It's similar in size to the first but made of stone. Stone doors outside of castles and tombs are very rare. This place is neither of these. Furthermore, there's a faint outline on the flat granite: it's of a wolf standing before a pyramid at the edge of some sea.
Above this pyramid is what can only be a night sky filled with four rnoons.
Are these the moons of my world? They have to be.
I trace my fingers over the image and note that there's a ridge of stone that bears the symbol of the God of Thieves: a dagger pointed down and lying in a pool of blood. There's something curious about this carving. I place my bare hand on the cold surface and twist it to the right. Nothing, so I twist to the left. That's when it happens! There's a little give...it's an operating mechanism of some kind! Probably designed to open the portal, but is it stuck? Try as I might, I can't seem to get it to tum more than a quarter of an inch.
What am I doing wrong?
Perhaps there's a key.
I drop to my haunches to search the corpses, rummaging through their pockets and belt pouches. I find things you might expect to find, and a few things that you wouldn't. Inside a satchel is a bound journal of twenty or so pages. Each is curiously blank. Paper's always precious, so I tuck it away knowing that I'd find a use for it sooner or later.
After half an hour of rummaging, I still don't turn up any kind of key.
Balling my fist in frustration I stare into the light of the flickering torches, mindful of the shadows about the room that change from moment to moment. That's when the idea comes. I place one of my hands in the blood pooling on the floor, getting my palm and fingers wet with it, and then place my hand directly atop the symbol on the door.
The stone soaks it up like a sponge, and as I start to twist the holy symbol of Tethyr once again to the left there's an audible click. Tumblers inside the door are moving in unison. I keep rotating this weird lock until the tip aims skyward, at which point the door opens of its own accord. Once it swings out of the way, a short hallway paved in black marble stands revealed.
Fetching one of the torches from the wall, I step into the chill air. Beneath my boots, the polished stone reflects the flame perfectly. I hold it aloft and muse that it's probably been years since anyone has strode the length of this corridor.
After a few seconds, the path broadens into a room of considerable size. A towering statue of a man dominates the center. He's gorgeous and bears a careworn expression. He's slender, tall, and perfectly proportioned. He's also dressed in a killsuit that hugs his lean body. At his side is a giant black wolf, its fur shimmering like jewel would in firelight. It's made of obsidian; its eyes are gemstones of bright topaz.
I hold my breath, looking around me in wonder. Tapestries cover the walls, some of them anointed with so much detail that it's overwhelming. Crossing the room, I pause before an altar where a gold dish lies upon a gray linen tablecloth. Fishing in my pockets, I pull out a few gold coins and place them respectfully within the offering bowl. "Please accept me, oh lord, as your humble servant," I whisper. "All that I have is yours." I say the word, feeling in my heart that it's right to make this pledge in this place.
That's when I notice that the statue of the wolf is positioned so that it's looking at something. Following its gaze to the wall behind the altar, I discover a design painted there that's been described to me before. Angelaria saw it too when she held the ruby that Talen and I stole in our midnight raid on the museum of Ladika.
That seems so long ago.
Running my fingers along the paint, I know this is no coincidence. I trace my fingers over the bumps made to imitate stars and constellations. The background behind the stars is a deep midnight blue; directly beneath them is the now familiar pyramid. It rises from desert sands at the edge of an endless ocean.
But there's also a great procession of jackal-headed warriors. They march toward the pyramid's entrance, bearing the corpse of a dead noble on a palanquin. Next to that are details of the interior of the structure. One's an island with white lines drawing together at an indentation above it. Could this be a stand-in for one of the three suns? If it is, what's with the odd shape? Could this be made for the Ruby of Destinies?
Whirling about on my heels, my torch throws out a few sparks. I nod to the wolf. "We'll meet soon enough, old boy," I say. Before leaving, I momentarily glance to the offering bowl on the altar. As I expect, all the gold's gone.
Without hesitation, I leave, quickly backing out through the stone door and pushing it closed with a little effort. The gears grind together beneath its surface, the holy symbol returns to its resting position, and I step over the now cold corpses strewn about the room.
Once outside, I move back through the dark corridors to the stairs that lead to the main level of Wraith Watch. Smoke is thick in the air, but with it comes the acrid stench of burning flesh. The unmistakable clang of weapons points the way to the main corridor. As the noise increases, I slip into the shadows to ascend the stairs now littered with ash and debris from the fight above.
At the top, I risk a peek. Past the stairs the battle rages. Dark elves and warriors from Rendla Fee kill each other without hesitation. Spells sizzle overhead and reddish flames highlight the screams of the dying, summoning their souls to Hell.
"Where the fuck are my friends?" I ask no one.
Bolting over to one of the walls, I slip along in the shadows, ignoring pleas for help that come from a man being disemboweled by an orc. I just don't have time to be a hero right now.
Flashes of light directly ahead pull me along to a place in the main room. From the edge, that huge skeletal thing wearing a golden crown directs besieged forces. That's when a familiar hand appears, and Talen grips my collar to swing me over the dead body of a large man dressed in an iron breastplate.
"Where've you been?" he asks.
"I saw wonders, buddy," I tell him. I'm so excited my hands shake. "I know where we need to go."
"What do you mean?'' He asks. "The desert? Angelaria already knows that we need to get to the desert. Cory's going to show us the way, you know?"
I shake my head. "We would've missed it. We would've missed everything. There's a pyramid at the edge of the sea. We need to get inside it and place the ruby in an indentation that's been carved above a picture of an island."
"Then what?"
"What do you mean 'then what?!' I dunno, but something important has to happen. Maybe it opens a gateway to the island of Tethyr. Just think about that! A gateway to Bloodbane."
"That's rubbish. Pictures coming alive and swallowing up people."
"It's not rubbish! Talen, maybe it's that way for a reason: to limit people that might be trying to visit Him. If you were a god, it could get awfully busy with worshipers knocking on your door all the time. 'Please heal this' and 'please help me with that,' etcetera."
"You've gone mad," he says. "You think our god has a 'no solicitation' policy? That's ridiculous."
"I'm not mad. That ruby is the key for all three of us to destinies greater than any one of us could dream. Don't you see? It all fits."
"How so?''
"Inside the jewel Angelaria said she saw stars, entire constellations even. She said that the pattern could be seen from only one place on Wynwrayth--"
"Balsora..."
"Exactly. But a desert is a big place. I'm telling you the place we really need to look is inside that pyramid. Listen, I've dreamt about this for years now. I've had dozens of dreams haunted by this image: a white pyramid rising above yellow sand. I've seen amber eyes staring at me from among black shadows that cling to the bases of palm trees; dark-skinned people walk there, carrying huge jugs of water into colorful tents dyed red, black, yellow, and blue. It's got to be some kind of precognition: a second sight that's letting me know what to do and where to go."
Talen turns his head and shelters his eyes with one hand. A particularly bright light and an accompanying explosion occur in the aft end of the church. "Let's get out of here before we're both killed. Angelaria should still be outside using her spells against the kuanni clerics. If not, well I need some fresh air anyway."
Crouching, the two of us flit through the bodies on the inside of the main level, refusing every opportunity to be drawn into conflict. Above us, dust from the rafters sifts down in drifts, concealing our footprints but making it difficult to pick out a definite foothold.
Talen breaches the main gate first, which (to my surprise) is now hanging by only a couple hinges. Each door smolders. Something knocked them from their very foundation, but I've no time to surmise what.
The night's alight with torches, fires, and lightning. Smoke drifts so thick, it's like a choking black shawl that refuses to shake loose.
"Where is she?" I ask.
Talen grips me by the wrist, able to see through the helmet of his killsuit. We start off down a road. Just when I think I might pass out the air improves, and I'm able to clear my watery eyes only to see a night filled with a hundred darting shadows. The ring of steel against steel and the occasional scream as someone takes a sword, point-first in the gut, makes me realize just how bad the men of Rendla Fee are faring.
Talen taps me on the shoulder and points. There near the roots of a colossal weeping willow stand Angelaria and Correldon. They're defending themselves, backs to one another. Attacking them is a cleric in a black robe. He has a cowl pulled up over his head, but he isn't a dark elf. His hands and the bottom of his chin are pale-skinned, and about his neck hangs a holy symbol unknown to me.
How many gods of evil are there?
This thing looks like it's made of platinum. It's also patterned in swirls that spiral inward to a central point.
Talen and I bolt straight for them, drawing our weapons as we go.
Angelaria casts a spell, creating a shimmering globe of translucent magic around them. The cleric raises his hands and without uttering a word, causes white hot plasma to spray from his outstretched fingers to scorch across the surface of the globe. Sparks from the attack shower the dry underbrush; the weeds at her feet instantly ignite. But my lovely princess is not to be outdone. She speaks a few words followed by a casual flick of her left hand. Three multi-colored motes appear in front of her and streak directly into the chest of the cleric. To my surprise, there's a brief flicker, and then the motes vanish without even scarring his robes.
I leap onto the path, sword leveled at the evil priest.
The cleric faces me and laughs. "Jewel Bearer, at last I've found you."
That causes Talen and me to skid in our tracks.
"I'm afraid I don't know you," I say.
"That's a shame," the cleric says, "for we know all about you, Jewel Bearer, if not for the ruby you bear, then for the family jewels that hang between your legs."
What the hell? Why is everyone obsessed over my balls?
There's a brief flicker to one side of the cleric, and a broad muscular man appears where none stood before. This new opponent stands seven feet tall and is clothed by only a red sash around the waist barely sufficient to hide his privates. The man's as muscular as me, only his bumps pile one on top of another in size so immense that it seems physically impossible to bear so much meat upon mere bone. Like me, the guy has no body fat. However, each pectoral is crisscrossed with veins as thick as my fingers, and his shoulders are probably four feet wide. He has shiny black flesh, an afro, and a black mustache right above a pair of thick lips.
"Tethyr's teeth," Talen swears. "He's the strongest man I've ever laid eyes upon."
"Let me introduce Agromat," the cleric says. "He's a Nightbringer of Gedd. You'd best give the ruby to me, young Kian, and surrender. Fail and I'll have him shackle you and then kill your companions with his bare hands! And just to be clear, the garment your lover wears underneath that wonderful suit won't save him from the fist of Agromat. My black soldier's powerful enough to lift that entire keep upon his shoulders."
How does he know my name? "There's no way I'm going to surrender either myself or the ruby."
A scowl crosses the cleric's face. "Take him; kill the others. Bring me the stone."
Slowly, the Nightbringer advances on Talen, completely ignoring me.
I intercept, lunging in with the magical sword that belonged to Karandras. The Nightbringer of Gedd swats the tip out of the way and lightning quick, forces me to roll out of the way of a punch aimed at my head. I come to my feet a few paces away; he ignores me and continues to advance on Talen.
Talen ducks, and Correldon lets loose with a flurry of four arrows. Agromat snatches all of them out of the air and tosses them to the ground in pieces.
What the fuck?
I attack him again. He avoids my blade as if I'm a snail wielding a toothpick. In less than a split-second, the Nightbringer whirls, knocks my sword arm aside, and smashes down with his fist into my arm. Bones crack and a compound fracture starts spurting blood.
I scream, pain lancing through my body.
I lift my leg up and just barely manage to parry his other blow. But then, contemptuously, he seizes me by the throat and hurls me like a rag doll into the burning weeds. Fire catches in my hair, and I roll around trying to put it out. Talen leaps up and tries to strike the Nightbringer in the chest with a flying kick. Once again, Agromat swats the blow aside, grabs Talen in mid leap, and hurls him by the ankle into the ground with such force that my boyfriend bounces up almost to Agromat's knee caps.
Cradling my arm, and limping from a bruise on my shin, I attempt a sweep to the Nightbringer' s ankles. My boots slam into his feet as if they'd just struck iron. He kicks my foot so hard it spins me around and throws me at Angelaria's feet; meanwhile he continues to advance on Talen again.
"This foe is greater than all of us," Correldon says, standing next to her. "The Nightbringers of Gedd are a special monk order devoted to the study of martial arts and to severe physical training. Only one in a thousand survives to adulthood to receive the dark blessings of Hell."
"There has to be a way to kill him!" I say.
Talen dodges the Nightbringer whose fist smashes into the willow and knocks the tree over.
Taking advantage of the fact that he's overextended, I leap to one side and will the knives to lance outward from the tips of my boots. Then I kick upward into the Nightbringer' s exposed armpit with as much strength as I can summon. The black, muscular monk shrugs off my attack with inhuman speed, following through with a bitch slap into my stomach that hurls me sixteen feet away into a hedge of thorns. My vision blurs, and I can't move. Every part of my body screams with the strength of the blow he just landed on me.
The cleric claps his hands together in glee. "Oh the entertainment!"
Angelaria completes a spell; it's one of which I'm familiar.
My vision blurs, and then clears. The four of us are alone. I'm lying on a grassy hilltop that I don't recognize. Disoriented, I look around, and spot a fire in the distance. My lady's translocated us again with that spell she used back in the Mirimar. Thank the gods.
"That's three times now," she says, dropping to her knees.
"Three times? Three times for what?" I ask.
"Three times that I've saved your life. That cleric would have killed us all. I think he underestimated my magical powers, or he might have put a teleport trigger on me before I cast that spell."
"A teleport trigger?" Talen asks, running to my side. He rummages in a pack and pulls out a shirt that he tears into strips to bandage my arm.
"A teleport trigger's a spell, Talen, that clerics can use to keep someone from fleeing the site of a battle before things have had time to work themselves out," Angelaria says. Once she catches her breath, she walks over to me. "This looks awfully bad," she states. "Cory can I have an arrow to use as a splint?"
The elf obliges.
When Talen sets my arm, it hurts like a mother fucker. It's an hour before I can even focus on anything else. Nevertheless, I grit my teeth and bare it. Talen helps me take off my shirt where a large purple bruise has now formed over my eight-pack.
"That looks awfully painful," Correldon remarks. "Perhaps the great 'Hunter' has finally met his match."
I shoot him a hateful glance.
"There's little I can do for the pain, Kian. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to tough it out. We don't have much time before that cleric realizes where we fled to. We need to get moving. Can you stand?"
I put my hand on Talen's knee and force myself to my feet. I feel a compression in my chest and cough. I'm unduly surprised to see blood well between my lips. It flows bright red on my fingertips.
"What's this mean?'' I ask. "Am I dying?"
Angelaria sighs. "Your injuries are severe, but we can't do anything about them right this instant. Lean on Talen," she commands. "Cory, we're going to have to rely upon your eyes tonight. Take us out of here."
"And abandon our forces? What of Karandras?" Cory asks.
"He's dead," I say. "They're all going to die. But, I've got his sword here to prove it."
"Dead and you stole his sword. How remarkable," he says, sarcasm thick on his tongue. "Did you at least wait for him to close his eyes before you pried it loose from his hands."
"I didn't kill him," I say, blood filling my mouth. "But I did avenge him, which is more than I can say for you at this point."
"I'm not afraid of you. Need I remind you that your life depends on me to get you away from this place?" he states. "You'd be wise to keep your tongue, arrogant boy."
"You SHOULD be afraid of me," I say through clenched teeth. "I am the one who knocks; not you! I am the one that goes bump in the night."
"Is that a threat?" Cory asks. "You seem the worse for wear, but if it's a fight you want then I'll oblige."
"Stop it," Talen says. "Both of you. Please Cory, we need to get out of here. It's gonna do you no good at this point to argue with Kian about the sword. And if Kian says he didn't kill Karandras then you can believe it. He wouldn't lie about that."
"Honor among thieves?" Correldon scoffs. "There'll be people that know Karandras that'll come looking for that weapon; men that'll expect to find it. It's got powerful magic, you know? Not some 'run-of-the-mill' junior blacksmith's project."
"They'll be looking for it back there," Angelaria says, "NOT in the desert."
The elf grimaces and slings his bow across his back. "The cleric...he was not one of the dark elves. What religion does he follow?"
"He's a cleric of Modru," Angelaria says softly. "Modru, known throughout the world as the godslayer, carne to this dimension as a conqueror. His worshipers live to the south of Cassiterides where it's rumored he builds an army large enough to destroy the world."
"Between Kahket, the Kuanni, and Modru, there's a strange confluence of evil interested in you," the elf says.
"Modru? What would Modru want with me?" I stammer.
"I'm not sure," she says. "He called you 'The Jewel Bearer, which is technically correct since you have on your person the Ruby of Destinies: the thing that we need to retrieve the magical sword Bloodbane. Like the others, he's probably fearful of what'll happen if the jewel's allowed to fulfill its destiny."
"I suppose that'll have to do," I say, feeling the pain ease up a bit.
Correldon slips his cap over his wet hair and starts moving through the bushes that ring the bottom of the hill. The four of us follow him over a brook and into the thick trees of the forest that mark the outer boundaries of Wraith Watch. We keep the pace slower than I would have liked, mostly because I'm having such difficulty keeping up.
When morning breaks at last, I'm exhausted and spitting up blood. The bruise caused by the Nightbringer's hand is black now and claws its way angrily over my ribs and down along my muscular abdomen and into my treasure path.
If this is the kind of pain I can expect in Hell, then I've to make sure I live forever.
I shall post Chapter 32 next week.