The thunderous crash of collapsing marble columns, and the spray of dust that filtered from the ceiling of the small room, caught Sikode’s attention. He glared at Drast, who held magickal shielding across the doorway and against the patter of debris. His entire body trembled with the effort.
Iavan should have conscripted a more powerful wielder to enter the Javone palace with them. Surely one of the Monarch’s Claws had been near enough to summon? Yes, Drast had used quite a bit of energy as they raced through the palace and to this doorway, but not enough to warrant his current state of exhaustion.
“Sikode,” Iavan said, his voice deepening in warning as he flipped his blond bangs from his eyes with a jerk of his head.
Sikode ignored the lieutenant-general. If Drast’s lack of ability made him nervous, he should have waited for a stronger shadowartist to accompany them. He, as the king’s cousin, easily could have convinced a younger wielder, eager to prove themselves, to join their little expedition into the heart of the corrupted grounds. Someone would have taken the opportunity for excitement, adventure, the chance to garner tales to regale grandchildren with. Why stand about pouring power into the containment shielding the Illenans had erected over the area when they could be in the center of the action?
So many Illenan shadowartists held that shield, the Merren despot and his gaggle of bloodmages would never escape. They did not have the punch or ability to eradicate the stronger, better-trained force, and since the Illenans had woven prohibitions against unauthorized kick-portals into the confinements, they were trapped ducks in a wolves’ den.
Iavan could have waited a bit longer for one of those excess wielders.
He returned to his study of the metal-barred wooden door. The shielding about it wobbled, the magick wiggling about like mold on water, but it stayed together under the strain of the physical structure breaking apart. What, exactly, did the despot hide in the depths of the palace dungeons to warrant this protection? A bloodstone, like the Monarch’s Claws assumed? The strength of the wards, and the nastiness he sensed within the spells forming them, indicated that whoever wielded them wanted anyone unlucky enough to touch the portal to die.
Sikode felt the explosion of shattered magick in another wing of the palace complex before the backlash impacted Drast’s shields. The shadowartist whimpered as the protections nearly disintegrated under the assault. Only his knowledge of his art and his ability to work around his weaknesses kept them in place. A small boon, but one he would take.
Three dozen enemy soldiers roared through the sifting dust, intent on the fifteen people in the entry, weapons raised. They rammed into the shielding and flailed backwards, while Drast sweated and held. Iavan hissed and readied himself for a physical confrontation, anticipating Drast’s failure.
No more time for study. Sikode drew his power into his hands and settled them on the door.
The magick blew apart, inwards and down the stairs, turning the door into a pile of jagged edges and broken metal. He kept the explosion local, which effectively widened the doorway, and tore huge, jagged chunks from the stone wall to either side of the stairwell.
The heavy, sweet scent of citrus fruit could not overpower the odor of dark decay and rot wafting from the opening.
More than one soldier put their hands over their mouths, choking. The enemy became agitated, pushed by something more powerful than shock and fear. Sikode eyed them, which effectively caused them to pause; few ever ignored his icy turquoise stare. He could not help his small, pleased smile before his shadowfire burst through Drast’s shielding and whirled about the despot’s men, engulfing them in a sudden and intense magickal flame.
Let them rot in the Dark Abyss, for enabling monsters.
Their dying shrieks echoed in his ears as he turned back to the door. “Lieutenant-general, stay here,” he said. Iavan glared and nearly protested, then glanced at the people who had accompanied them.
“You’re going to take someone with you.”
Sikode snarled. The scent, the feel, of whatever lay beneath, was not for the casual observer.
“Captain Verigh, Scout Nojara, go with Lord Sikode. The rest of us will hold this room.”
Verigh and Nojara grimly regarded the collapsed doorway, then stiffened their resolve. They had read the scout reports and the information given by captured palace staff. They knew the bloodmages got rid of political foes in the dungeons. He knew it would be terrible down there and did not necessarily wish to expose others to what he sensed, but Iavan did not sound as if he would appreciate the dissent.
“I will enhance your shielding,” he said coolly, before coating them in stronger protections than they had previously sported. The magick-infused leather armor, while sufficient against the desperate rabble attacks, was not solid enough to match what lay below. “Touch nothing unless I tell you to. Avoid drawing blood, if you are able. The enhancements on your gloves and pommels are still viable. Let us hope they remain so.” They both nodded and gripped their sword hilts tighter.
Sikode adjusted his mask, a bit of nice magick Artiste Loreval and Healer Elavre had crafted as protection against the magickal taint that blanketed the capital of Merren, before handing Istikal to Iavan. He refused to use the sword below. Since cuts and slices that bled had the nasty habit of feeding bloodmagick, and since his mother would shred him and toss him to the five winds if he corrupted her weapon, he would entrust it to his friend. Anticipating her stern blue gaze boring a hole into his forehead while she, over-polite, asked in a too-calm voice what, exactly, he had been thinking, convinced him he chose correctly. Besides, the wieldings on the sheath would protect the king’s cousin if Drast’s shielding failed, something as important as the trip into the dungeon.
He made certain his sleek black hair remained tightly braided and bound. Even shielded, he wanted no part of him brushing against anything they encountered. Briskly waving his hand at the other two, he stepped past the rubble and onto the muggy stairwell.
“What is that cleaning smell?” Nojara choked as she followed him.
“They use it to cover the stench of contaminated areas,” Verigh replied. “But this is far stronger than what I’ve smelled before.” He would know; he had accompanied Sikode into several mansions the bloodmages had used as receptacles of blood power, and the odor of decomposing bodies and blood underlying the attempted fresh spritz of scent nauseated all who smelled it. All those fighting under the Illenan banner, anyway. The bloodmages and their Merren enablers never appeared bothered by the vomit-inducing rot and decay.
“It is pointless, to hide the corruption here,” Sikode told them. “No amount of cleaning solution, or cleansing magick, will cover what they have wrought.”
The stairwell darkened quickly, and Sikode created a soft bauble of silverish light to illuminate their passage. He noted the cleanliness of the treads and found it odd; the mansions they had cleansed had dirty ritual rooms, with grimy stairs and bloody walls, but here, the only things marring the way were the bits of stone his magick had displaced. He attempted a healing probe, but he could not quite sense individual living things through the buzz of darkened wieldings that coated everything beyond the door. It was as if he peered through a thick fog, noting shadows but unable to distinguish exactly what they represented. He knew several someones were alive, but whether still-breathing victims or bloodmages, he could not tell.
A pulse, of deep, dark magick coincided with a muted explosion and the physical rocking of the palace. The feel of it reminded him of the still, heavy air inside family crypts, places the living only transgressed when they needed to bury one of their own. That it reacted to the fighting in other parts of the palace complex interested him, but discovering why the bloodmages had linked the magick to the physical structure needed to wait. He was there to destroy what he found, and hoped the documents the infiltration force had snatched from offices and record rooms on their way to the door answered their many questions.
Previously explored bloodmage residences had lighting everywhere near their innermost, darkest-most places, as if the illumination would drive away the bone-deep sense of death’s corruption. The small landing was devoid of everything, even a sconce. The sensation of entering a crypt would terrorize most; this seemed overkill. What did they hide, that they wanted visitors terrified first?
He had expected a room beyond, but only a long hallway stretched from the stairwell. The buzz of magick intensified when he crossed the threshold, interfering more dramatically with his magickal senses and his shielding. A decently placed protection against shadowartists’ probing, but anyone with a strong grounding in the mystery arts could navigate around it—or through it. Choosing not to obliterate the spell, and perhaps cause physical destruction in the process, he wormed about the wielding, using the in-between realm of twilight mists to bypass the physical layers surrounding him. With his power cloaked in the mists, his ability to sense wieldings strengthened, though not to the point he could pinpoint power signatures, the depth of magick in spells, or how many people they faced. Unfortunately, it also inhibited his ability to use more powerful but more delicate wieldings.
The response of the protection to his magickal movement was sluggish and weak, as if the contamination weighed the magick down to the point it functioned poorly. It could not penetrate the mists and reach him.
Good.
Two larger areas sat behind the walls, accessed by doors hidden in illusion. The right felt darker and deadlier, and the protections about the entrance stronger.
He glanced behind him; Nojara looked as if she had just seen a dead relation’s ghost, one that chastised her vigorously for some misdeed, while Verigh visibly struggled against his fear at what lay beyond. “There are two doorways. The one to the right is hiding the stronger taint, so we must proceed that way.”
“Stronger taint?” Nojara asked weakly.
“This is far, far darker than what I sensed in the mansions,” Verigh said, his voice near a whisper.
“There is more corruption. Or the bloodstone is still present.”
“Bloodstone?” Nojara wavered.
“We never discovered an active one,” Sikode replied. “We found the rooms in which they were held, we found sparse records about their creation and upkeep, but the bloodmages, at the first signs of danger, fled with them, leaving the bodies of their sacrifices and all else behind.”
“The bloodstones are important, and we never found out why,” Verigh said. “They store magick, that’s true, but there’s more to it than that. Since this one is in the palace, you would think that they would have more of an interest in secreting it away before we arrived.”
“Or they believed their protections adequate against an Illenan invasion.” Sikode shook his head, disgusted. “Their hubris has risen time and again and failed them. The ease in which we conquered the heartlands should have warned them of our strength, but it has not.”
The stone walls and floor shook, sending dust and bits of rock to the floor. A few larger pieces bounced off the shielding and burst into bright sparks before their ashy remains floated through the air. Another responding pulse burst about them, and the interference intensified to the point Nojara and Verigh staggered under the effect of it.
Sikode touched their shielding, quickly counteracting the defense.
“What is that?” Verigh asked, clasping his fist to his breast as he leaned over, gasping.
“It is a protection, and it reacts to the damage our wielders are causing to the physical structure.”
“I’ve fought enemies under shield, and I’ve helped bring down wieldings protecting buildings. This is different.”
“Yes. The pulses are meant to incapacitate attackers and destroy shielding, but it may be unintentionally causing the destabilization we are experiencing. I believe they linked their protections to the palace itself, rather than simply layering shielding about it.”
“Why would they do that?” Nojara asked. “It could bring the entire building down.”
“They have no care for life, even their own. Surely you have noticed? They will bury themselves with their enemy beneath a palace’s worth of stone, if they must. I suppose we should be grateful, they believe themselves the ultimate victors, or they may well have already triggered the destruction.”
Both Shiel and Iavan had chosen to join the attack on the palace, so if it fell, it endangered the Illenan king and his successor. Sikode still had no idea how he might warn the Illenan forces to evacuate before he destroyed what must be destroyed. A select few had mirrors, but the interference the infiltration force had encountered made their use moot, and interpersonal communication between wielders erratic and weak.
The three of them walked half-way down the hallway before he stopped in front of a flickering illusion that his two non-wielding companions could see through. Nojara frowned and peered closer, while he probed the wielding, searching for a destruction spell.
“There’s writing on the door.”
Sikode paused in his probe and studied the physical object that blinked into view and back out again. “It is Daione. We discovered the same in some of the mansions.”
“Can you read it?” Nojara asked.
“No.”
He did wonder why bloodmages in Merren would employ the language of a people who lived north of the Sea of Condioh. Did so many Condi fill their ranks? Why? Considering the near-worship most lightartists had of their power, it seemed absurd that so many would deny that cultural link and bow to far darker and deadlier arts—especially since Condi lightartists took great joy in hunting down and slaughtering shadowartists and conjurers. If they realized a few of their own dabbled in the darkest of bloodarts, and if they followed historic precedent, they would furiously exterminate them. The bloodmages had to realize that.
The building shook, and the door flashed a warning red. Interesting.
“Lord Sikode,” Nojara said, her voice trembling.
“Stand back,” he ordered.
The door blew inward; he used a relatively light spell to decimate it, considering what it hid. Whoever had wielded it had not anticipated anyone making it past the outer door, let alone detecting the illusion, a ludicrous assessment considering a superior army had surrounded the city and invaded.
He wondered at the strength of the previous king’s wielders, that the bloodmages expected those who opposed them to be so incompetent.
The room was large and brightly lit, with gaping holes in the ceiling where cells bars once stood. The floor was swathed in pale pink carpeting, thick and shaggy, and an array of pink-padded, squat furniture sat on it. The light bounced off the shimmery gold sconces in soft gleams. Floor-length curtains of a light, breezy material fluttered about, not quite hiding the dingy grey stone walls from view. Glasses tinged rose and white ceramic cups sat, full, on various, chestnut-stained tables. The silver descanters even had beads of water racing down their exteriors, hinting at fresh, cold drink. Flowers of many types, all white or pink, were displayed in thin, ornamented vases in the center of the tables, though they wilted, their petals bending to the ground. A soft coolness filled the place, reminiscent of a pleasant Greening evening.
In the center stood a tall column draped in heavy, darker pink curtains. Small, perfectly round white crystals with flecks of gold surrounded it, embedded in gold holders that curved up to a point on the side that faced the room.
The air in the room felt like the deep, dark recesses of an old, well-used crypt, overlayed with pungent citrus scent.
“Is this much like what you found in the mansions?’ Nojara asked, falling to his right and looking for attack.
“Somewhat,” he replied. “The rooms, though illuminated, still had the feel of ritual about them. Their furniture was sparse and functional, and altars took precedence. This . . . is a parlor.”
Verigh took his left. “I don’t see anyone.”
“I sense no one near. They do not consider this room important enough to defend.”
“But so much care went into decorating it,” Nojara said. “And the column looks important.”
It did. Sikode cautiously moved to it, waiting for magickal attack, but nothing happened. He studied the draping cloth, physically and magickally, but discovered nothing unusual about it. It did hide something, and since that something might prove a danger, he raised his hand and shadowfire erupted, quickly burning the material. He refused to touch it in any other way.
The material fell away in ashy clumps, exposing drums made of transparent glass infused with glittering gold. Held within was a grey-skinned, emaciated woman, arms folded across her breast, her straggly black hair limp, lifeless. A bright Greening-green dress, resplendent with glittering gold threads and intricate flower designs dyed bright red and purple, sagged about her frail frame. She slowly opened her eyes; her whites were bloodshot, with filmy, spotted grey irises. Sikode felt a chill race up his back; he could not sense life within her, but she moved.
She laughed, a ragged, wretchedly grinding sound. Her teeth gleamed white against her black lips. The gold flecks in the glass and crystal brightened in response.
“Jhodi’s vines,” Nojara whimpered.
“I thought you sensed no one,” Verigh said, glancing at him before paying more attention to the room.
“I do not.”
“You can’t sense her?”
“No.” The enclosure must have a wielding that interfered with his probes, but he could not sense magick within or upon it. That failure meant he could not rely on his magickal examinations even when cloaked in twilight mists, a severe weakness.
“There’s a doorway on the other side,” Nojara said carefully.
He moved past as the woman wailed, loud and shrill enough the hair on his neck prickled. She said something, and it sounded like Daione, but he might have mistaken the garbled sounds. She did not move within her confinement, did not turn to watch him. He doubted she could leave the cell, or she would have already fled. Who was she? A noble captive? The dress reflected wealth and standing.
“There was never anything like this in the mansions,” Verigh said, straining against fear and revulsion.
“No,” he agreed.
“Is she a bloodmage? A priest?” Nojara asked, refusing to take her gaze away from her.
“I am uncertain, though her dress does not resemble any bloodmage robes or priestly outfits that I have seen. It is quality material, something sumptuous enough for a noble to wear. Perhaps she is an aristocrat the despot punished?”
Both Nojara and Verigh shuddered. “If this is what the servants meant by punishment . . . I’m glad he’s going to die,” Verigh said through gritted teeth.
“How are we going to get her out?” the scout asked.
“I do not know. Let me study this room.”
The door, while not hidden, swam in shielding. Layer upon layer, so many he would not be able to delve through them all before obliterating them. Nojara and Verigh turned to stand guard while he probed the wieldings, both closely observing the stiff back of the woman. They did not trust the situation or the person behind the glass, and he hardly blamed them. Why had she been left behind, hidden poorly behind an easily destroyed curtain? Had the bloodmages expected her appearance to frighten those who made it this far into the dungeons? Did they expect her to die on invader blade? Or had she another, deadlier purpose?
Something about the door shielding concerned him, but he could not quite grasp what. It felt like the room smelled, decay and rot coated in a lighter, airier aura. Had some wielder attempted to hide the corruption inherent in the darker wieldings? Why? A futile attempt, that did not hide so much as draw attention to the taint. That distraction hid something, of that he was certain, but he did not have time to consider it.
He caught a flash near the ceiling as the structure again shook. He noticed a thin, barely discernable line of magick that made its way from the door, up the wall, and across the ceiling, down the column’s marble capital to end at the glass. Did the shielding feed her cage? Or did her condition mean her power fed the shielding? He did not notice directional flow, one way or the other, an oddness he disliked. He assumed that breaking the shielding would affect the glass containment, but he had to guess how. Would it free her? Harm her? Harm them?
A slow, insidious strengthening of the magickal weight began to interfere with his study. He had run out of time.
“Be prepared,” he warned, and shoved his shadowfire into the shielding.
The door physically split before blowing apart, sending debris in all directions. The magickal line disintegrated with a loud pop and sparks spun through the air. He staggered as the blast impacted his shields and pushed him back, and Verigh and Nojara fought to keep their feet.
He heard the sharp crack of damaged glass. The containment, at the place where the line had ended, broke, sending thin fractures shooting across the surface, followed by small bits bursting and flying about the room. The woman collapsed as the air paused. He shoved a hasty shield in front of the three of them as the magickal explosion blew sharp shards throughout the room, shredding and shattering everything they touched.
Verigh moved, intercepting an enemy who staggered through the doorway. The man wore dark red robes with wide black hems, and his crazed expression held no fear. Typical of the resistance they faced in the mansions, his wieldings broke apart on expert shielding and his own disintegrated under physical attack. Verigh rammed his pommel against the man’s skull; he fell without a sound. During the initial forays into private lands, the Illenans had discovered, too late, what cutting and slashing an enemy meant in relation to residual bloodmage magick, and soldiers died, sucked into bone-thin corpses before the mystery artists realized the intent. Those deaths had happened without an active bloodstone to soak up the power left behind, and who knew what unintended bleeding might trigger.
The woman slowly rose, wobbling about, leaning heavily to her left. Her skin and dress were shredded, though no blood poured from the wounds. She turned even more slowly, smiling, a crazed and relieved expression. She said something again in Daione, before her body began to disintegrate into clumps of hot ash. Something shimmery and Greening-green rose from it, burst into blindingly bright rays, and disappeared.
“Lord Sikode?” Nojara asked, though she did not sound as if she truly wanted an answer.
“I do not know.” He had never read or experienced anything like it, and he had no idea what to make of the woman and her disappearance. Had they helped her? Hurt her? Why had she burned herself to ash?
Greenroot magick remained at the point of the burst, and slowly dissipated, swallowed by the dark taint. That a Greenroot power, normally associated with nature and healers, fell so readily to the corruption concerned him. He possessed a strong healing touch, and if the bloodmage magick targeted that part of him, it could hinder his other wieldings.
“There’re more enemies,” Verigh shouted.
The bloodmage resistance amounted to very little; they fell under his hands and feet as easily as Nojara and Verigh downed them with their sword hilts. “They’re even worse at attacking than those in the mansions,” Verigh said in disgust. “And they’re having particular trouble combating your Flame attacks. How did they manage to defeat the previous king if they can’t manage to repel a kick or a punch, let alone swords?”
“The despot assassinated those who would prove troublesome to his ambitions,” Sikode reminded him. “When you have already dispatched the powerful, you only need the mediocre to eliminate the rest.”
“I’ve wondered about that,” Nojara said. “It’s like the bloodmages knew their people weren’t up to defeating a robust king and his army, so took steps far in advance to eliminate threats before the civil war—then threw planning into an Abyss and proceeded on with a jumble of monstrous and idiotic decisions. What happened to the people who initially set up all the assassinations? Were they gotten rid of? Why?”
“If the despot thought them a threat, then it is clear what happened to them. It may be, though, that once they succeeded in their goal of putting a compliant man on the throne, they withdrew to their bloodstones and their hoarding of stolen power and left him to his own devices.”
“We haven’t gotten any word that there’s discontent in the bloodmage ranks, so something along those lines might explain it,” Nojara said. “You’d think, if he killed the higher-ranked members, those of less ability and position might get a little scared and resentful about still serving him.”
Sikode nodded absently as he quickly glanced about the hallway. It had obviously been repurposed, for even in royal palaces, walkways rarely had the breadth this one did. It reminded him of promenades leading to important religious buildings, where the elite cultists conducted worship for aristocrats. Columns of the same white marble as the one holding the woman rose to the ceiling, each carved with numerous bodies. On the right, only one theme seemed relevant; each ‘story’ a column told ended with many people’s deaths. Between them, hanging from the plain stone walls in a meticulous row, sat large paintings of macabre scenes. Most dealt with either various cultures’ death sylfaone, people sitting among white skulls, or terrified maidens trying to outrace savage attackers, all in some form of undress and bleeding.
It turned his stomach. Sadistic, much?
On the left, the columns had carvings of flowers and trees and vines, and the paintings displayed bright and cheerful depictions of wildflowers in lush landscapes, no human in sight.
The juxtaposition was jarring.
“Let’s go,” he said icily, in no mood to study the art and understand the underlying message. He wanted to destroy whatever the bloodmages hid and leave the corrupted place, and its Green-sucking magicks, behind.
They padded as quietly as possible, helped by the thickness of the lush rugs beneath their feet. Warmth filtered from them, an obvious way to combat the cold wafting from the stone. How often did the bloodmages use the hallway, that softness and heat were deemed necessary? Or did the despot visit, and they designed the nicety to specifically target a royal’s pleasure?
The corridor ran for far longer than he anticipated, and he wondered why the palace had such an extensive underground. He doubted the entirety of it had been dedicated to cells. He assumed some sort of magickal well used by palace wielders had once existed there, but that did not account for all the space. Perhaps previous rulers had constructed escape routes and tunnels that the bloodmages and the despot repurposed for their evilness. That might explain why some remained below; they could wait through the Illenan attack and flee through a labyrinth at a more favorable time.
They forgot one important thing. Shiel was not a mediocre king leading a mediocre invasion into a neighboring country. His concern for bloodmage spilling into Illena and harming his people was keen and motivating, adding strength and righteousness to his conquest.
“I hear something,” Nojara whispered. “It sounds like water.”
Sikode held his breath and concentrated; he heard it too, though it echoed oddly. He had experienced a similar sound in caves near Hekara’s Abyss, where water flowed from the interior of the mountains and into the canyon far below. Those caves normally extended far, prompting officials in his hometown to caution children about getting lost in them. “It sounds like water running through a cave.”
“Did they build the palace on a water source?” Verigh asked. “That seems like a Condi way of doing things.”
“It is true, ancient Condi nature wielders tended to manipulate water to hold power in a magickal well, and the Jonna Empire mystery artists did the same in the conquered lands. That may be why the bloodmages decided to conscript the floors below the main level. A magickal well, one with two millennia’s worth of power, would explain their interest.”
“In some of the mansions, the magickal wells were replaced with bloodstones,” Verigh reminded him. “Artiste Loreval thought that the bloodstones might have soaked up the wells as a way to make them potent faster.”
“Bloodstones hold that much power?” Nojara asked. “I thought the objects used were not well suited for that.”
“Some were not,” Sikode agreed. “It seems they experimented with all manner of items, trying to find something better than faceted stones to hold the power they wished, and which they could easily transport. From reading their documentation, they failed, and ended up relying on the typical large gems and crystals for power containment, though they still used average objects for minute gain in battle. No matter how much they desire it, a plain gold ring or a cap’s feather will never hold a well’s amount of magick energy.”
No physical door sat at the end of the hallway. Instead, a heavily-illusioned, darkness-shrouded, open hole with heavy cold wafting from it met his eyes. It looked as if the stones of the wall were broken by a hammer to make a doorway and left that way, sharp bits jutting into the space. Drawing blood after scraping against them likely ended poorly for the unlucky bi a ki who touched them.
The illusion was a simple wielding, easily shattered, and the blackness fell away.
The room housed a Jonna Empire magickal well structure, a typical humongous white fountain resplendent with glowing tiles representing nature’s bounty. The center did not contain a statue spewing power-infused water, but a human-sized blackish-burgundy crystal, suspended from four gold chains linked into the ceiling. Water entered the bottom of the fountain from a rock spout Sikode assumed a Condi nature worker had created, and it sat, still, heavy, like a bog’s pool. It drained in some way, but he noticed no obvious spigot or hole. Large dark blobs that had the feel of congealed blood rested on the surface, unmoving.
The stone suddenly rocked gently back and forth, and a burst of power, like those they experienced before, collided with their shielding. Several layers perished and Sikode quickly reformed them, hoping his hasty protections for Nojara and Verigh would hold long enough to see this through. He did not want to spend the time crafting better ones when he stood in the presence of a very large problem.
The chains shimmered, and Sikode traced the fast zing of power. It followed barely discernable black lines that spread out across the ceiling and down the walls, to dozens of niches roughly hewn from the stone. Inside each laid an emaciated human, knees to their chest, limp arms about their lower legs, shaven heads bowed. Multiple gashes on their skin flared in response and another zing of power raced from the victims, up to and across the ceiling, and down the chains to the crystal, which throbbed as it accepted a minute amount from each individual, pooling into a greater whole.
The sound of rushing metal boots echoed into the room. Soldiers wearing black uniforms with the Merren royal badge on their shoulders rushed through slowly sliding stone doors positioned around the room. Each held a jagged sword meant for show rather than use, and had a small round wooden shield strapped to their arms—wood that looked light enough to easily break. That would make a certain amount of sense, if they had magickal shielding that protected against physical and wielded attack, but they did not. Why send such ill-equipped men to face the enemy? Did the better-trained soldiers defend the despot, leaving the bloodmages to wallow about with second-rate guards and the bloodstone?
Or were they purposeful lambs to slaughter, ready to sacrifice themselves to fill the bloodstone?
“Try not to cut or kill them,” he cautioned. “They have no wielded shielding, so it should be simple enough to knock them out. We cannot feed the stone.”
“There’s a wheel,” Nojara said, pointing to a short, steep stairway that ended at a large wheel that looked as if it belonged on a ship. “It spun when the doors opened. I might be able to close them back up using it.”
“Do it,” Sikode commanded. She jumped to follow the order as the first men reached them. Despite the numbers, they did not overpower him or Verigh. As anticipated, they fell quickly, and he wondered why. It almost seemed as if they had no mind of their own, that someone told them to “attack” and that is what they did. All swung their weapons about, intent on slashing their enemy, but despite having physical shields, not one used them. Not one dodged a kick or a fist to the helmet, and they landed in a heap with a thump and a clatter of weapon on stone.
A squeal of chains protesting stopped the soldiers and they turned to stare at Nojara as she pushed the wheel, straining. The doors began to close, but the men still moving through them did not notice.
Sikode concentrated on downing as many as possible while they remained distracted. Verigh joined the assault, and they managed to knock out all within the room before the doorways became too small for the soldiers to fit through. One trapped a man, and all the doors stopped moving. Gritting, Sikode sent shadowfire into the space, enough to make a quick end of him. The doors jerked into motion and closed.
“Something’s wrong with them,” Verigh said as Nojara used her belt to tie the wheel in place.
“They looked like toy soldiers from up here,” she called. “It was like a kid had picked them up and trotted them into battle. No thought, no emotion.”
“They were very intent on trying to cut us, but not defend against us. Whoever controls them did a terrible job.” Sikode turned to the stone, fighting his growing sense of unease. It tickled up his back, stuck in his throat, and spread through his chest, a thick, dark weight. He shook himself. He could not let phantom fears distract him; if the men miraculously rose in conjunction and continue the fight, they would fall as quickly as they had previously. Perhaps he should turn them to ash, but something internal and insistent cautioned against it.
“We can try and cut the chains,” Nojara offered as she trotted up, pointing at the ceiling. He shook his head.
“They are conduits for the power the stone is sucking from its victims,” Sikode told her. “The stone’s reaction to the destruction will be far worse than what happened to the glass case. It might destabilize the palace enough for it to collapse.”
“Then how are we going to destroy it?”
He did not answer. He spun through scenario after scenario as a loud and insistent pounding began on the stone doors. Had the soldiers retrieved hammers and pickaxes to break through the rock? He sucked in a large breath and slowly released it, clearing his mind of outside distractions.
The stone, heavy physically and with power, would destroy everything within reach once it shattered. While his magickal ability to sense energy had diminished, the object before him radiated enough he readily guessed the depth of its well. It sickened him, to realize how many lives had fed it. It had survived generations and thousands of victims—and he would end it.
Nojara had a point about the chains. They did not seem protected, but they had to be. Spells had to guide the power into the stone, if nothing else. The set-up gave him an intimate view of how they attached their victims to bloodstones, but he had no idea how they managed to extract magickal energy from non-magickal people. Blood seeping from multiple gashes played a role, but how did they turn that into power? He noticed no mechanism to accomplish it.
How could he interrupt what he could not see?
One door cracked.
He withdrew his communications mirror and swiped down the surface; no response. As anticipated, the device worked as well as it had throughout the palace grounds—it did not. He closed his eyes and concentrated, but he could not breach the magickal interference and create a kick-portal without a prolonged effort. They did not have the time.
Another door cracked, accompanied by the stench of open graves coated in citrus terror.
“Nojara. Verigh.”
They snapped about and stared at him.
“Return to the Lieutenant-general. Have him initiate a retreat from the palace.”
“But—” Nojara began.
He held up his hand. “I am going to blow this place into the Dark Abyss, and you do not want to be here when I do.” He thrust the mirror at her.
“No,” she said, dark and somber.
“I will destroy the stone and the enemy. But I cannot contact Iavan from here. You must.”
“Lord Sikode—” Verigh began.
“NOW,” he said, sharp with ice.
Small bits of stone fell out of the first door.
Nojara grabbed the mirror and raced back the way they had come. Verigh hesitated, then followed, strong disapproval left in his wake.
Sikode laughed quietly. Did the captain truly expect him to fall with the stone? He had far greater ambitions for his life than dying at the hands of weak wielders and their corrupted magicks.
The stench intensified, accompanied by a hand-numbing cold.
The wobbly opening of a kick-portal on the dais of the well interested him, considering his earlier difficulty. Did the prohibition not reach the room? Perhaps he could figure out how the wielder navigated the interference.
The kick-portal throbbed, nearly collapsing, and he winced. He had hints when battling previous bloodmages, but he now realized how little grasp they had of the nature or underpinnings of the wielding. How they even managed to form one puzzled him, considering. It normally took a strong wielder and an exacting knowledge of the spell to even initiate it, let alone use it.
Would the wielder manage to walk through the magickal doorway before it disintegrated, or would they lose themselves in the void?
A woman barely glided through before it broke apart. She tried to smile in seductive disdain but managed a strained grimace. She wore a pristine, warm rose slip dress that shimmered and gleamed like sunrise-reflecting water, enough pale gold jewelry to drown a horse, and thin slippers that sagged about her thin ankles. While not as emaciated as the grey-skinned woman, her thinness was pronounced. The bright hearth-magick makeup could not hide the sick lean to her features, and neither could the blonde, curled ponytail dancing merrily about her head.
“So. You are the tribal beholden to the invader.” She had a heavy accent, but he could not place it.
“I am aki n’di ori,” he agreed. “And you are a bloodmage mule.”
Her amusement evaporated so rapidly Sikode had the urge to laugh. “I am priestess here,” she snarled, her bright pink lips thinning to the point most of the color retreated into her mouth.
“Priestess? Which sylfaone thought you holy enough to carry their mantle?” he asked, hoping he sounded as bored as he wanted. The fury that lit her muddy brown eyes indicated his behavior hit a nerve. His assessment of her power indicated a weak wielder, but if she were a priestess, he realized she could draw upon the stone when she wished. That made her far too deadly an enemy.
“Your friends flee?” she asked. “They are far smarter than you.”
He smiled lazily and folded his arms across his chest. “Are they, now.” He would play the game. It would not only keep the bloodmages busy while the Illenans retreated, it would give him time to work around the interference so he could employ his kick-portal. Despite the terrible implementation, her kick-portal had worked, and he had a glimmering on how to proceed around the interference and ready his own. He initially had planned to shield well and kick-portal after the interference disappeared—and just before the palace crashed about his head—but evacuating before the stone exploded held more appeal.
“Your power will be a welcome addition to the stone.”
He laughed. “Will it, now?” As if he would ever allow any part of him to be so contaminated.
He heard the whirl of a wheel and the doors slowly creaked open. A small, fuzzy grey ball with spindly arms and three long, nailed fingers had untied the belt, and it turned to the woman, still holding the material. He noticed no eyes or mouth, though it had large, flinching ears. He had not thought her a conjurer, but the obvious bloodmage taint likely hid that aspect of her magick. He had neglected most conjuration topics as a student because summoning unwitting creatures from twilight held no interest for him, and it irritated him that he now needed knowledge he had forsaken.
She pointed a white-painted nail at him. “Bind him,” she ordered.
The creature popped out of sight, and immediately reappeared in front of him, holding out the belt. The ease in which it navigated the interference through the twilight mists nearly made him smile; he could use the same techniques to slip away before the planned destruction. He would not have thought, centering a single matrix within the mists rather than having two on each portal exit in the sunlit realm would work, and if he applied a similar concept to his sight shields . . .
It looked up at him and waited, as if it did not truly understand how to use the belt, and he wondered at its intelligence.
“Bind him!” she screeched, annoyed and impatient.
He held out his hand on impulse, and the creature gave him the belt.
The woman sucked in her breath in disbelief as it bounded to the side of the room and sat down, like a good dog awaiting a treat. He wished he had something to give it. She raised a hand, and he instinctively shielded it before a weak splatter of wobbling wielding impacted it. It squeaked in abject fear and ran out the still-open way that Nojara and Verigh had taken. She glared daggers at him, the expression as impotent as her magick.
“You,” she growled in angry disgust.
“Destroying hapless victims seems much in line with your cult,” Sikode told her. “It appears that is all that you can manage, even with the backing of a sylfaone.”
“The Illenans will pay in pain for their transgressions. I will make yours worse.”
“Hmm.”
She stood, hands clenched tightly enough her nails dug into her palms, and tried to figure out how to proceed. The doorways had opened far enough for more soldiers to pour into the room. Inexplicably, they turned on each other and hacked away, blocking more from entering until they fell. The bloodstone pulsed, sending an emotional shower of pain and desperate helplessness about the room, accompanied by the rotting stench of corpses.
“Not getting enough power from the other bodies?” he asked, looking pointedly at the niches. She snarled silently at him. The stone felt heavy with magick, so why the display? Did she think it would make him fear her? He would never become a puppet to a weak wielder’s whims.
“I control all who enter here,” she finally said.
“Do you. You managed the little fluffy quite well.”
That elicited a magickal attack which did not even take out a layer of his shielding. She did not react to the failed attempt, so she had another purpose in mind. He paid more attention to the room about him; what did she distract him from?
“They answer my call,” she said abruptly, over the sounds of bodies falling without dying screams of pain. “They can do nothing else.” She raised both hands into the air and closed her eyes. “Betharimen.”
Sikode was faintly familiar with words of power; religious orders and fantasizers used them, not wielders. Cults claimed specific sounds and phrases came directly from their sylfaone, and were, therefore, magickally powerful. He never prescribed to such nonsense—words of power came from clergy who enjoyed tricking the laypeople into devotional tithes—but many a fantasizer utilized them to trigger a magickal image placed on paper. Illusions, all of it, and he wondered what the woman expected in response.
A thick, muggy heat drowned the cold. The chains brightened noticeably, and the power being sucked from the people in the niches increased. Those nearest him reacted, moving feebly, faces up, twists of pain in their lips, around their eyes. Some obviously cried out, but no sound emerged from swollen mouths.
He could not make it painless, but he could make it quick.
Shadowfire erupted from his hands and he flung it at the wall; where it touched, it burned. The woman screamed, the soldiers kept slicing one another into death, and he burned the bodies of the victims to ash in a hot rush of power. The bloodstone vibrated and shuddered as its energy sources died, though he detected no lessening of its well.
The woman threw a stronger wielding at him, which managed to break a shield. She clenched her teeth and concentrated on forming another attack as he continued to send the victims to an Abyss. Supposedly the dead found peace and joy within them, and while he doubted the authenticity of the belief, he wished them a better existence than the one they just left.
Small sparks flared within the bloodstone, and the woman looked distractedly at it, then did a double-take. Something spooked her, though he had no idea what. Panicked, she flung the half-constructed spell at him and turned her attention to the burgundy crystal.
Something arose in its depths, initially an insignificant shadow of power, but it grew quickly. She screamed at it, likely another word of power, and drew enough energy from the stone to pause whatever it was. It receded, and she staggered, dropping her arms and breathing heavily.
So, she had cause to fear the bloodstone. If he destroyed it, would whatever rested within die, or would he release it? He did not want something a bloodmage feared preying on the Illenans as they retreated from the palace.
Several wobbly kick-portals erupted around the room, and bloodmages poured out, all dressed in red robes with black hems, all hooded.
The barrage of magick did take a few layers of shielding, but not the numbers they anticipated. The attackers’ growing agitation, a combination of their failure and his aplomb, amused him. A few shouted at the pink-dressed woman, but her only response was to vaguely look in their direction and glare. He thought they used Daione, but it sounded different. Perhaps they spoke Eahione, the sister language. Did that mean both Condi and Rikondi had joined in the bloodmage ranks?
He needed to seriously consider learning more languages. Daione would be a good start. Understanding the terrified screams of bloodmages would prove beneficial in his battles against them.
Sikode studied the stone as the ineffective assaults continued. One brave soul decided to rush him with a knife, a weapon he held awkwardly, and the moment he touched the shielding, he erupted into shadowfire. He screamed and turned, running towards his fellows. He did not quite make it to them before his body collapsed and he burned to ash; they reared back in horror.
Perhaps he should rethink the automatic response to bloodmage magick that he wove into his shields. He did not want to trigger something unexpected with a man’s demise, though in most situations, he preferred them dead than not.
A smear of shadow suddenly rammed against the side of the crystal; a long, ominous crack appeared, and a heavy, smoky cloud of burgundy and blackness wafted from it. The woman swore vehemently and backed away, trembling, and heavy, sluggish, damp magick filled the room, interfering with his ability to wield.
Her support turned and fled, stumbling over the soldiers’ bodies in their haste to race out the doors.
She cast him a defiant look before whirling and following them, hopping awkwardly over the fallen and staggering through a doorway.
More cracks ran from the initial one as the crystal vibrated. The room shook and pieces of the ceiling fell. A couple collided with the crystal, and while it shuddered from the impacts, the rock did not appear to have damaged the surface. Blackness slammed against the crystal from the inside, creating another fracture.
He hastily rethought his assumptions on bloodstones. This one may have provided a well with power, but not for the bloodmages. It fed whatever was inside it. Did that explain the size?
He needed to destroy it. He needed to wait until he felt certain the Illenan soldiers had evacuated.
He tried to employ his unique sight shield, but the intricate wielding broke apart on the interference and would not coalesce. He refused to near the crystal without being hidden from the shadow’s view. Gritting his teeth and cursing the unknown bloodmage who had crafted the wielded constraints to the Dark Abyss, he erected layer after layer of standard shielding while listening to whatever resided inside the bloodstone pound its way out.
He staggered as the entire room shook violently. Ashen bodies rolled from their niches, breaking apart before landing in heaps on the floor. Toxic grey clouds puffed into the air from them, and he touched his mask, thankful to have it. He did not want to breathe in the residue of whatever magicks the bloodmages had employed.
One of the chains snapped, and the crystal sagged away from him. The top shattered, a myriad of bright gleaming bits zinging through the air, to coat everything in a fine layer of dust. The side split, wide enough to dump the black shadow onto the ground. It remained there, lumpy, and he tried to make sense of the jutting bits. Black as midnight with no discernable features like a nose or mouth, but he noticed the outline of a foot, an elbow. What was this creature?
The crystal began to leak bloodmagick, a foul and deadly concoction. Eating grave dirt would prove healthier. A fine mist of contamination floated out of the cracks, then filtered down to blanket the creature. It stretched, extending limbs far longer than any human’s, and rolled over to face him. He saw no eyes, but he knew it studied him. It slammed its hands onto the ground and attempted to rise, but its lower regions did not respond. It slowly looked down at the offending parts, as if it did not understand why they did not react.
Half-formed. Whatever it was, it had not reached viability before it broke free. It must have reached a similar conclusion, for after regarding its extremities, it began to soak up the bloodmagick coating it. Sikode felt the glimmerings of a wielding begin to take shape in front of it. He did not recognize any component to it and had no idea what it might do once brought to fruition. Take his shields? Damage the room? He formed his own wielding, a defensive mixture of several spells that, when used in conjunction, shattered enemy shields. Would it interrupt the creature?
He threw the wielding and watched as it broke apart on the growing contamination of magick from the crystal. He looked up at the object, still dangling at an odd angle from only three chains, and withheld a shudder. The burgundy color had seeped away, replaced by darkness. The surface no longer reflected light, an unearthly effect. The creature raised an arm, one long enough to touch the bottom of the crystal, and the bloodmagick rushed to it, to surround the hand and seep into the body.
He needed to shatter the crystal and interrupt the magick flow.
The room rocked again, but the vibration was weak, and only jiggled the ashy bodies still in their niches and the chains. Hopefully that indicated a retreat. He saw no other option than to bury the crystal and the creature stuffing itself on its magick under the rubble of the palace, and he did not want the Illenans caught in the destruction.
He planted his feet and magickally touched the structure surrounding him. It sang an ugly song, one of death, darkness, deep contempt for life. How had the people of Javone lived in a city with this seeping into the stones and dirt beneath their feet? Could they not sense it? He supposed some had, explaining why so many noble families vacated the place, though their flight could easily be explained away by fear of the despot. For the commoner, the poor, who had no choice but to remain . . . their nightmares had taken physical form without their realizing it.
Another limb erupted from the creature, though it fell limply to the ground and did not move.
The corruption of the land ranged far from the palace, extracting what it could from the living things above and sending it, in a creeping stream, back to the well room. It turned his stomach, to realize the breadth of contamination and how many thousands had perished to feed it. Why? To create this creature? Had he, and the other Illenan mystery artists, misunderstood bloodmage intent all along? Had they not sought blood to fuel their own weak wieldings, but to create monsters?
The earth tried to swallow him, sluggishly reaching for the one unpolluted brightness surrounded by tainted darkness. It attempted to suck at his shielding, as if ingesting his cleanness would drive back the nastiness that encased it. He had never had land react to him in such a manner and had not expected it this time, especially since he did not use the Earth magicks associated with it. He swung into the twilight mists; the magicks searched for him, unable to sense the in-between. The corruption was firmly tied to the sunlit realm and did not appear able to transition away from it. Interesting. It added evidence to his growing belief that, though seeped in darkness, the bloodmages could not utilize the twilight mists like other wielders, despite the fact the mists were considered a darker-feeling realm, magick-wise.
The power coating the creature looked strange through the lens of the mists. It had large clumps of heavier magick sluggishly moving across the surface before sinking into the skin, magick that did not originate with the crystal. It felt different, darker, stronger, lazier. Lazier? Why had that word popped into his mind? He studied the crystal and noted the same sluggish clumps, which only moved when that upon which they rested flowed over the shattered side and fell to the monster below.
More fractures appeared across the crystal’s surface, breaking apart as the magick holding it together drained away. The fragile surface began to give way, dumping even more of its tainted contents onto the creature. It began to glow with power, and its legs slowly moved, though it could not sit up. Physical shards landed on it and disappeared into it, while those that landed on the stones sat there, not breaking, not soaking up power, not emitting it. They had energy within them, which intensified with every shard that landed next to them, and he wondered if they might explode once a critical mass was reached.
The creature slammed into his outer shielding, shattering it into tiny fragments that the contamination lapped up.
He hissed and threw up another protection as it clawed at him, its arm solidifying into long, sharp nails. Its lower extremities still did not move, and it pushed itself up with the use of the third appendage while its hands scratched at him. It broke shield layer upon shield layer, so quickly Sikode could not keep up. It opened its mouth, non-existent up to that point, showing an Abyss filled with sharp white teeth, the tips dripping burgundy. It shrieked, shattering more of the crystal with the sound, dumping so much of the well onto the floor, the stone sparked and exploded, sending sharp shards in every direction.
The creature howled and arched as it suffered the slashing pain of zinging rock. Sikode lost several layers of his personal shields, though not enough to cause worry. He raised his hands and shoved as much power as possible into the whirling mass of destruction spell he formed before slinging it at the remaining well wall, hoping the wielding demolished the rest of it.
Sure enough; the well exploded into small fragments, and where they sliced through the shadow, magick leaked from it like blood. What spell had the Condi used on the physical structure, that now affected it? If he could coat knives and swords with a similar wielding, encountering another crystal creation would prove less of a threat to Illenan troops and mystery artists.
Unfortunately, most of the room’s illumination went with it. A muted dimness erupted, lit by the few remaining shards of tile.
The creature reached back for a hard punch and slammed its fist into his protections. It took out enough shielding layers he briefly panicked. He immediately firmed his resolve; no, he would not die in this place, killed by a monster. He had already planned his life, to traverse two dragon lairs and master their controlling artifacts, a legendary ambition he refused to relinquish to bloodmage depravity and a barely functioning lump of whatever-magick.
He rarely tapped the depths of his personal well; he tended to overkill when he did. But he needed that power now because he did not want to leave anything in the room alive. He reached and began to draw it to him. The creature, as if realizing his intent, jerked up into a sitting position, and its neck stretched, its mouth aiming for his throat.
He shoved his magick into its teeth. It reared back, shrieking as loud as a stone grinding against stone, while power played across its lips. The teeth had shattered, and the multiple holes blown into the back of its head dripped black before closing.
He created a bauble between his hands and formed a retaining wall for the rest of the power in the twilight mists, a place he did not think the tainted magick or the creature could touch. When the bauble triggered, it would draw that magick to the sunlit realm and destroy everything it touched.
Hopefully.
The monster smacked his shielding with its palm, shattering far more layers than he anticipated with such a weak effort. He slapped a trigger on the bauble, shielded it, and threw it at the crystal. It awkwardly rolled to a halt under the wash of darkness, which immediately began to eat the shielding. The broken object, and then the creature, flashed a deep, warning burgundy in response.
The creature’s fist curled into a tight ball and slammed into his protections, which flared as they evaporated, one after another. His final layer shattered, and he arched back, away from the attack. He stepped backwards, sending the remainder of his power into a kick-portal linked to the hook on Iavan’s hand. The creature lunged and struck. The swing knocked him through the portal and onto his back, and he blinked up at a bright, pale blue sky as a deep, ominous rumbling tore through the air.
The kick-portal collapsed as magick exploded upward like a geyser, taking the palace with it. It fell back to earth and shattered, creating a cloud of energy and debris that rushed away from the crater. Nothing touched him; several wielders had created shielding about Iavan and his people, protecting them from the blast. Stone, dirt, pieces of whatnot rained down, landing heavily on the wielding’s surface before sliding down to flump on the ground.
He attempted to rise but could not move. Drained. He could barely turn his head, let alone raise his hand. He watched as things bounced and slid off the shielding, watched the magick pour over it like rushing water after a dam broke, not dark, not light, purified by the collision with his power. Nojara fell to his side, her face pinched in worry, the little fuzzy creature smashed into her chest.
“What was that thing?” He recognized Shiel’s voice, distant, aghast.
“It came from the bloodstone,” he said, uncertain how loud he spoke, fighting to remain conscious. It had not followed him through. Good. Had the palace crushed it? He would discover so . . . later.
