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XXVIII
I stared down at the dead gnome, jaw slack.
Madoran nudged me, and I shook my head clear. I nudged Rhy. “We have
work to do,” I said. She nodded.
The four of us ran back, to our right, past a
wooden dock jutting out into the ichor canal, through another short
archway and onto the now-empty promenade beyond. Across the canal stood
the stone balcony, capped with the dark tunnel through which we had
entered the city. A negative light flickered within it, and a moment
later a dull, magic-sounding thrum exploded outward, followed
quickly by the flailing body of a Forsaken guard. He hurtled through
the air, across the canal and landed, twisted like a rag doll, at our
feet. Rhy cursed loudly.
Out of the tunnel came a human and an orc, draped
in black robes and forming whirling balls of black light in their
hands. A pair of guards yelled something in Gutterspeak, and charged up
the stairs towards them, but the two wizards casually tossed the bolts
of black lightning at them. The guards tumbled backwards down the
stairs, unconscious or dead. “I don’t speak click-groan,” growled the
orc thickly, summoning another shadow bolt into his fist. Another pair
of black-clad humans emerged from the tunnel, preparing the same magic.
I glanced at Rhy. Her face had lit up with fury,
and fire flickered in the palms of her hands. The flames grew rapidly,
lancing upwards and then collapsing back on themselves. Rhy wound one
flaming hand back, and hurtled the fireball across the cavern, catching
the orc wizard in the chest. He whirled around at her, furious, his
robes aflame. “You speak that language?” she yelled, in Common. “It
says, get the HELL OUT OF MY CITY!” She hurtled the other fireball, and
caught the orc in the face. He staggered back against the wall behind
him, and collapsed.
Seizing on the distraction, the few Forsaken guards
that had massed charged up the stairs. The wizards hurled their magic,
then fell back into the tunnel at the onslaught. But another deep,
magical thrum built, and exploded outward as the Forsaken reached
the balcony – they tumbled backwards, some unconscious, some merely
dazed.
Out of the tunnel came a wisp of chill, which
trickled out and across the balcony, flowing down over the stairs. Out
of the tunnel came something like fear: and behind it, on a cushion of
frozen fog, floated a thing, vaguely male, with spindly arms and long,
spindly fingers. He was draped in billowing black robes, above which
rose his pallid, angular face: it was gaunt, stretched against his
skull, into which his black, lidless eyes were sunk. His head was
flanked by short, withered, pointed ears. His face was handsome, but if
he had ever been a living creature, he had slept with the darkness for
so long that all life had been twisted out of him.
Luke and Madoran ran, and fell back into the
dubious cover of the archway across from the stone balcony. I made to
follow, but Rhy stood her ground, glaring at the unliving thing across
from us, and summoning fire. The dark wizard saw her, and laughed,
lifting his hands, palms up. Above us, the great cloth drapes which
flanked the archway exploded into flames. A great sheet of burning
cloth broke loose, and as it fell towards Rhy, I leaped forward,
knocking her out of the way. The cloth fell where she had been, singing
my hooves. I hissed in pain, but pulled myself up, seized Rhy bodily,
and dashed back towards the archway. I set her down, and she pulled
away from me, pointing back towards the cavern: “We have to go that
way,” she gasped, out of breath, “the Dark Lady is that way!”
“It’s too dangerous!” said Madoran, pointing to the
balcony, where more black-clad wizards were swarming out of the tunnel.
“Is there another to her?”
I looked up. The laughing skulls were directly
above us, and their fangs pointed down like daggers ready to fall. I
felt a vague tickle at the back of my mind, and then suddenly a thin,
warping, hissing voice broke into it: “Hide and go ssssseek,” it
hissed. I whirled around towards the cavern. The evil thing, the
floating unliving wizard, was staring at me from above the balcony,
black eyes narrowed. Then, “Boo!” the voice said in my mind, and I
screamed.
Mindlessly, I turned and ran. “Horse!” yelled
Madoran and Rhy simultaneously. They charged after me, Luke bringing up
the rear. I came to the end of the hallway, where a pair of skulls
pierced with arrows served as untranslatable signposts pointing towards
the rounded passageways curving off in either direction. In a panic, I
turned right.
Ahead, in the twilight passageway, a thick,
four-legged creature turned and disappeared around the bend. Winded, I
stopped running, and stared after it.
The other three caught up to me. “Horse, are you
alright?” said Rhy.
I nodded. “I don’t know what just happened,” I
said, “but it was terrifying. That floaty guy was inside my head.” The
ceiling here, ornately carved with abstract patterns (many of which
looked suspiciously skullish), was still more than twice my height, but
compared to the lofty cavern beyond, it felt almost claustrophobic.
“The shade-banshee-lookin’ thing?” grunted
Madoran. “Never seen one like him before. Wonder what ‘ee is.”
“We don’t have time for this,” said Rhy urgently.
“What’s down that way?” I said, pointing ahead of
us, to where I’d seen the mysterious creature disappear.
“The Royal Quarters, among other things,” said
Rhy. “Come on.” She started off, and we followed. We passed a passage
going left, which opened out quickly into a deep, round room. The short
glance I got included streams of green ichor in sticky freefall from the
ceiling.
We hurried on, led by Rhy, until we reached and
turned down another spoke of the wheel, identical to the one I’d
panicked in before. As the ceiling opened up into the cavern, another
pair of evilly laughing skulls stared down at us.
Rhy hurried us on to the right, along the ichor
canal again, and through another pointed archway. Ahead of us was a
pair of bridges, arching up over the canal. Beyond them, the single
great wall with its three arches, the farthest one blocked with
carefully laid stone blocks, stood between us and the city’s entrance.
The sounds of combat echoed from far beyond the far bridge and another
high arch – the battle must have reached the bridge by now.
“The Royal Quarters,” Rhy said over her shoulder,
pointing across the ichor to a spot beyond the nearest bridge. “Almost
there,” she added, breathing hard. We ran up the nearest bridge’s
flanking stairs and turned onto it.
As we crested its peak, Rhy halted, and I nearly
bowled into her. She had fallen to her knees, bowing. I looked up.
Ahead of us, on the far promenade and between the
two bridges, was a high, ornate archway, tipped with a carved skull
frieze, painted a bright, blood red. Wide steps led up to it, and
across them, out of the arch burst a tall, once-beautiful, deathly pale
elf woman dressed in magnificent steel-gray armor and carrying an
enormous, ornate black bow. A wide, curved sword was strapped to her
back. Behind her streamed a dozen or more red-clad Forsaken, each
bearing a red shield and wielding a curved knife as big as my forearm.
It could only be the Sylvannas, leading her troops into battle.
“Tha’s all she’s got?” muttered Madoran. “The
enemy has more’n twice that.”
Without so much as a glance at us, the Dark Lady
and her small army turned towards the battle. Beyond her, beyond great
archway, I could see the tunnel we’d entered the city by. The balcony
had been secured, and black-robed wizards were streaming out of the
tunnel, running down the far stairway.
“Oh,” Rhy moaned, as her queen peaked the opposite
bridge and ran into the battle on the far side, “I think they’re leaving
the book unguarded…”
“They’re what?” said Madoran incredulously.
“Go, tell her!” I said, pointing to Sylvannas as
the pale she-elf cried for blood and disappeared into the battle beyond.
Rhy looked askance at me. “You don’t simply run up
to the Dark Lady and tell her things!” she said, scandalized.
“Then what the hell are we supposed to do?” growled
the dwarf. Rhy paused for a beat, looking miserable.
I looked from her to the other two, to the
crescendoing battle beyond.
“Listen,” I said. “The battle’s going to come this
way, and we have to either stand and fight, or go in there,” and I
pointed to the Royal Quarters, “and get the book, and get the hell out
of here.”
“You’re crazy,” said Rhy. “We’re here to help
protect the book, not steal it. It’s safest with the Forsaken.”
“A real bang-up job you’ve been doing so far,”
snapped Madoran.
Rhy whirled on him, but I intervened: “Peace, Rhy,”
I said. “Madoran, that’s not gonna get us anywhere.”
Rhy grimaced, but nodded. “Yer right, ah’m sorry,”
said the dwarf.
Having a king apologize to me gave me a surge of
confidence, and I began issuing orders. “Luke,” I said, “if you drop
your travel cloak, you’re wearing white. You’d better, so that no one
mistakes you for a warlock.” Luke smiled and unclasped his cloak,
letting it fall. Madoran did the same, and the two of them stood
straight in their bright armor. “Rhy,” I said, and pointed to the small
archway beyond the far bridge. “Since the other little arch is blocked
off and they can’t get through the ichor, they have to come through
there to get here, right? Unless they want to go the long way around
like we did.”
“Right,” she said.
“That archway is a chokepoint. Let’s go,” I said,
and took off back down the bridge towards it. I thought quickly as we
ran. Ordinn’s words came back to me, for the third time: my role would
unfold clearly, he’d said. It seemed clear as day to me, now: saving
the book was the whole point of this journey. If things went badly, I
had to go for it.
I felt a sudden, familiar tickle at the back of my
mind. I looked about, terrified for a moment, but neither the hissing
voice nor the mindless fear returned.
We reached the archway. On its far side, the
promenade was littered with a few Forsaken bodies, but otherwise it was
empty. I poked my head through, and looked up towards the stone
balcony. The last of the black-clad men and elves and orcs had streamed
out of the tunnel, and were disappearing into the War Quarter with its
bridge. The sounds of an intense battle raged in the distance.
Five shadow wizards had remained on the balcony,
prepared shadow magic for anyone that showed their face. I pulled back
behind the wall.
“Rhy,” I said, “there are five wizards by where we
came in. If they’re still there when the battle gets pushed to here,
they’ll wreak havoc on our flank.”
Rhy nodded, grinning wickedly. She crept into the
archway, back against the stone, and fire began to flicker in her
palms. A moment later, she leaned out into the wide open space, aimed
in a moment of intense concentration, and tossed her fireballs across
the gap. She ducked back, and another pair of flames leapt to life in
her hands.
A matched pair of yells of pain were followed
immediately by the whirring of five shadow bolts. They splashed
harmlessly against the stone archway. Luke, Madoran and I watched in
wonder as Rhy leapt out again immediately, tossing more flames across
the cavern. She pulled back, and grinned as another pair of yells
echoed from the warlocks. She looked back at us. “Fools were standing
there thinking they could weave their spells faster than me,” she said.
The rest of us stared at her, agape. “You’re
good!” I exclaimed.
“I’ve had eight decades to practice,” she said,
winking. “Two left,” she continued. “One of them took two hits to
catch fire. He’s out of commission now, though.”
I stared at her in wonder. “I had no idea,” I
said.
“Yeh, wow,” said Madoran.
Rhy’s smile glowed. Then she turned back and began
casting again.
Across the promenade, on our side of the ichor, a
Forsaken guard stumbled backwards out of the War Quarter and fell to his
back, dead. A moment later, the tall she-elf queen stepped backwards
through the same archway, brushing the guard’s body aside with her foot
and firing arrows back the way she’d come. A pair of shadow bolts leapt
towards her from the balcony, but she brushed them aside like gnats.
Rhy leapt out again, firing two last firebolts at the warlocks. They
landed home, and she pointed towards the balcony with a rude gesture.
We cheered. Lady Sylvannas glanced over her shoulder at Rhy, and
smiled.
A swarm of red-clad guards retreated through the
far archway, following their queen, and shadow magic and a few glowing
purple beams leapt towards them from the other side. Several of the
guards were hurtling fire and ice at the advancing wizards, and the rest
had their evil-looking swords out. Sylvannas fired arrows as fast as
she could: in a moment, she’d run out. She heaved her spiked bow like a
spear as the last few warlocks appeared through the archway. It hit
home, piercing one of them through the chest. He collapsed to a sitting
position, his body propped up by the massive bow. The others fell back,
quaking. The Dark Lady drew her sword.
Then, across the promenade from us, beyond
Sylvannas and her remaining guards, a dense, chilled wisp of fog snaked
through the canal’s high archway. On it, hatred in his gaunt face and
sunken eyes, floated the dark banshee wizard. His voice hissed above
the fray, to Sylvannas, clicking and moaning in Gutterspeak. Rhy
gasped, and it took me a moment to catch the implication. “How does
that thing know your language?” I said.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
Sylvannas spoke, commandingly, replying. “What are
they saying?” whispered Madoran.
Whatever it was, it hit Rhy like a battlehammer.
She slumped. “It’s Hannathras,” she moaned.
“Who—” said Madoran, but his question was cut
short: Sylvannas cried out in rage, and hurled her great sword at her
enemy. It pierced him through the chest, pinning his billowing robes to
whatever lay beneath.
Hannathras snarled, and pulled the sword slowly
from his body. Calling out in a strange tongue and looking up, he held
it high, and it burst into demon-flames.
He hurtled the sword back at Sylvannas. She cried
out and held her arm up like a shield. The sword struck her forearm and
shattered, and the Dark Queen stumbled back and fell against the cavern
wall, eyes closed.
“Horse,” said Rhy, staring at her unconscious
queen. “Run.”
“The book!” I cried.
Rhy turned to me and spoke quickly and quietly.
“It’s in the Library,” she said, “through the tunnel to the Royal
Quarters. There’s a fork in the tunnel – go left. Once you have the
book, there’s a passage to your right that you can use to escape. Go!”
she cried. “We’ll slow him down, if we can.”
I nodded, and turned. We charged up and over the
bridge. Hannathras, floating over the now-abandoned cavern, saw us and
laughed. He began moving gracefully towards us. The Forsaken guards
had fled when their queen fell: we were alone.
We leapt off the far side of the bridge. Luke, Rhy
and Madoran turned to face the oncoming demon wizard, and I sprinted for
the archway. As I reached its shallow stairs, there was a crash behind
me, and I turned, and froze. My three friends had been scattered like
straw. Luke lay prone, against the wall of the cavern. Rhy lay, too,
at the edge of the ichor river. Madoran, having been thrown closer to
me, struggled to his feet and hefted his battle hammer. Hannathras
moved forward and pointed a finger at the dwarf, and negative lightning
leapt from it to Madoran’s chest. He cried out, and fell to his knees.
Hannathras hissed at him.
Madoran cried out again, and then yelled, “No he
won’t, not if I can help it!” at the top of his lungs. With a
tremendous feat of willpower, he lifted his hammer, and hurtled it at
the demon warlock. Hannathras brushed it away, but the spell broke.
Madoran struggled back to his feet, and turned
towards me. “Horse!” he cried, staggering towards me. “You’re
leading—” he yelled, and Hannathras lifted his arms behind him.
I unfroze. “Madoran!” I shouted, starting
forward. “Behind you—”
A searing pain lanced through my head, and a
terrible ringing pierced my ears. I fell to my knees, screaming and
clutching my head with my hands. After a mere moment, the ringing
stopped, and I opened my eyes, and Hannathras brought his arms down and
swept Madoran aside like a rag doll. A bright glowing symbol leaped out
at me from the impact, and I read it: “Remember,” it said. No trying to
save anyone, I remembered. More important things at stake. Madoran
landed on the stone floor, unconscious.
I stood up, purposeful, and turned. The passageway
was high, made of gray stone. It receded, curving to the left, and I
fell to all fours and galloped into it, building speed. The passage
continued curving, and after a moment another passage, another ornate
archway, broke off to the right. I kept going straight.
Finally, breathing hard, I stepped into an
enormous, round, dark room. Its smell was calming, like old paper. Ten
wide, high bookshelves, each capped with a skull and small, dim lantern,
stood evenly spaced around its wall. Another passageway stood open, to
the right. At the room’s center rose a wide stone dais, flanked by two
stairways. And at the center of the dais, on a bone pedestal,
illuminated in a column of white, sourceless light, stood the black
book.
I felt the chill behind me, the cold of the dark
demon wizard floating closer, and I sprinted around the dais through the
darkened room to the right and up its stairs, and towards the book,
leather-bound and ancient, and I reached out for it –
And suddenly, something barreled into me from the
darkness, knocking me across the dais, and back down the stairs. I
scrambled to my feet, winded, coming face to face with an enormous,
slathering, tattooed black bear. And astride it was –
“Fang!” I gasped. “What are you doing here?”
“You passed,” he said. “Thought you’d like to
know.”
“What?” I said, my breath returning, “not yet!
Hannathras, the shade-banshee-wizard thing,” I babbled, “the book’s in
danger, the book, it’s right there!” I could feel the evil presence
drawing closer – he had almost reached the room. “Help me!” I cried.
“I’m sorry, Horse,” Fang said tensely. “I’m afraid
I can’t do that.” I shook my head, tried to shoulder past, but he
gestured, and I flew backwards, smote to the ground. I boggled at him
as he dismounted from the bear and walked towards me.
And behind him, the bear began shrinking, pulling
its paws into hands and hooves, standing upright, fur receding and skin
paling, and I watched in stunned disbelieve as it became, at long last –
“M?” I said, eyes wide. “Katy M! You’re alive!”
She stared at me, tense and waiting.
The evil cold, the demon wizard, floated into the
room, across the darkness, up the stairs in front of me, and entered the
black book’s circle of light. I started forward, and it seemed that he
threw me the most casual, the most condescending of glances. His thin
voice hissed into my head: “Thanksssssss,” it said, as he reached
forward with thin fingers and grasped the book, lifting it from its
pedestal. “Couldn’t have found it without you.”
Oh god, no, I thought. “NO!” I yelled, filled
with blind rage at the voice, at the bull and the murloc and at myself,
and I charged forward.
“Sleep,” whispered Katy M, waving a gently-glowing
hand at me. I struggled forward, my legs turning to molasses, falling
to my knees as the wizard turned with the book, and glided back out the
way he’d come, and all of it – Rayn, and Sacara’s brother, and Uther’s Tomb
and Under City – it had all been for nothing. I had failed.
And the cold stone floor rose gently to accept me,
and the world faded, and I slept.
END OF BOOK ONE.
Book Two: The Darkened Tree
(Discuss chapter)
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