Sci Fi & Fantasy / Shadow of Chea'Laern: Chapter 10 - Shadow Thief (Analysis)
Chapter 10
Shadow Thief
They’d ridden hard the whole day since leaving the valley that morning, and the sun now loomed just below the horizon as they reached the gates of Tuntiload. Captain Sash Laurdien, flanked by two guards on each side, rode out to meet the entourage. “Greetings, General!”
“Well met, Captain,” Rahmina replied, pulling ahead of Kainis and Randal.
“That was a short stay in the north. You visit the valley?”
Rahmina noted the poorly masked hint of worry in his expression. “Aye,” she replied with a disarming smile. “A very hospitable bunch of families up there, and good people.” She meant to inquire about her wayward soldiers, but the captain spoke first. Rahmina didn’t miss the relief in his eyes.
“Yes they are. Yet I find it curious a mage from Nimbdell and two children of the valley passed through here about the time you should’ve arrived in Nairsnia.”
“How do you know the children were from the valley?” she asked.
“They looked like woods children, and they came from that direction,” shrugged Sash.
Rahmina remembered the conversation she had with Creole about his traveling son, and the slight agitation in his body language during the conversation. She would definitely have to visit the valley again in the near future and inquire about it.
“Did a score of my soldiers pass through, good Captain?”
Sash’s face twisted up in a sarcastic grin. “You lose some of your men, General?”
“More like they lost themselves,” she said dryly.
The Captain looked to each of his guards for an answer. All four shook their heads. “Haven’t seen any of you since your stay a few nights ago, and I think the tavern is alone out of all Tuntiload in not rejoicing your return,” Sash added, hinting in jest at the brawl instigated by her soldiers.
“That mess would be the fault of those I’m inquiring about now, though I admit I should’ve kept a tighter reign on them,” she smiled sadly.
“We have had a bit of trouble from a pair of rogues since you left, but neither were soldiers.”
Rahmina nodded her thanks, uncertain whether she should be concerned or relieved her mutineers never passed through Tuntiload, and asked permission to stock up on supplies before continuing south. They would have to wait a few hours, and though she regretted losing the time, Rahmina needed the time to think.
The barkeep did remember them, and though Rahmina gave her word that they would not incite a brawl when business picked up, he still kept a wary eye on them. He was able to relax an hour later, however, when the general’s generous pockets dished out enough coins to pay for the last mess. And he still awaited his reimbursement from the king, which would more than cover the drinks they bought this day.
The first dozen patrons poured in nearly as one, but the barkeep was relieved to see that two of the six brawl-breakers arrived early. He relaxed completely when two of the captain’s guards entered only minutes later, and it became the beginnings of an apparently good day. Just as the general and her soldiers meant to leave, the tides turned.
The next customer to enter, wrapped in a thin black cloak, drew the attention of both brawl-breakers and both guards, obviously not a native of Tuntiload. They watched him all the way to the bar, watched him take a stool between two of Rahmina’s standing soldiers.
A flash of the past stunned Burkae for a moment; he saw himself and a blond haired man sitting at a similar bar, then he and the man were in a wooden watchtower holding a knife to a guard’s throat in this very town. Suddenly he was running—nay, riding a horse to the north. To the valley he was now compelled to visit.
A sharp call from one of the guards shattered his contemplative trance.
“That’s him!” cried Baurdi, jumping up from the table so fast his chair shot out behind him and crashed hard into the back of another patron’s chair.
“Hey!” the startled man protested, getting up and in the face of the oblivious guard, who started toward the cloaked man at the bar until the angry patron blocked his path.
The larger man laid Baurdi low with a single punch.
The other guard went to his unconscious companion to make sure he wasn’t too badly injured, then stood to face the attacker. “You will come with me, now.”
“This isn’t our fault,” Rahmina assured the barkeep as the guard and patron argued with each other. She stood and went to play mediator, but the argument escalated to blows before she made it halfway. And soon the others joined in the fray—the brawl breakers already tossing their first brawler out the door.
The fallen guard came to and, as soon as his head cleared enough to remember what happened, looked for the cloaked figure at the bar.
But Burkae was long gone.
*
Secile waited until the young ones were far enough away to begin her search through the bag of reimbursements Daxe brought from Nimbdell.
“Thought we were leaving,” Daxe remarked dryly, wiping the sweat from his brow with his forearm. “Those shady trees’re calling me name.”
“We’re not going that way,” was all the reply she would give. The mage had found her quarry. She held a single strand of hair from a horse’s tail; a small clear pouch—fashioned from spider webs—containing a dark brown powder; and a white marble bowl the size of her palm. Headmistress Simyna intended for the three components to be used separately, as part of other spells with other components, but Secile felt inspired by Kaia-mei’s return to Nimbdell; inspired by Lucimina’s talents. This was the most basic of Lucimina’s discovery; the bottom rung of her ladder of power. Banned by the laws of Nimbdell simply because of the door one must open to use it—despite that not many could if they tried—Secile was taking a risk even attempting to succeed. Lucimina endured great frustration and demonstrated cosmic patience to show Secile the hidden link between human energy and the planet’s energy, the requirement to achieve the level of power necessary for such a spell, and even then the competent mage could not advance beyond this spell. Lucimina was surprised Secile even succeeded with this one!
And Secile hoped those lessons were still with her, for she’d only succeeded that one time and hadn’t tried since.
Daxe furrowed his brow. “I don’t like the looks of this.”
“If you’d rather take your chances in the woldwoods, be my guest,” she replied absently. “But I’d be a horrible frie—uh, person, if I didn’t warn you that those who enter without permission from the forest don’t usually come back out.”
Of course he already knew that.
“You were in there,” protested the mercenary in the sarcastically whiney voice of a child.
“And I don’t want to wear out my welcome by asking too much. Besides, this way is much faster and I’ve lost two days by crossing the woods already.”
“I suppose, since Simyna said you need my help, I’ll have to go your way,” sighed Daxe, adrenaline already coursing his veins at the thought of having to use magic, despite that he wasn’t the one casting.
Secile replayed Lucimina’s lessons in her mind several times before beginning her mantra, which would prepare her for the intense level of concentration needed for the spell. She drained a good amount of her energy in coercing all the colors and tones and melodies of her soul to bind together, to fuse into one. Holding them all together was just as exhausting, and so she worked fast in finding her center—what was known in Nimbdell as the “lifestream”—which she would use to drop her energy into the planet as a fisherman would his line into the water. Lucimina called this exercise “grounding the lifestream.”
Daxe watched in half amazement and half disgust as the horsehair in Secile’s hand suddenly caught fire and practically incinerated when she dropped it above the marble bowl. She then poured the powder in her hand and blew it toward the air above the now smoking bowl. The tiny specks stopped in midair and hovered, glowing blue-white, in the shape of a large crack cutting through a rock wall. Sweat dripped off her chin from the physical and mental strain in both holding her lifestream grounded and focusing on the direction she wished to travel.
“You gonna make it?” asked the mercenary when Secile opened her eyes, thinking she looked about to collapse. She breathed heavily and bags seemed to appear under her eyes from thin air!
Secile nodded and took his hand. “This should take us one hundred or so miles south of the woldwoods,” she explained, indicating the glowing specks of light with her head.
Daxe remained silent, but was glad for her offered hand. He didn’t want to get lost in the spaces betwixt the air itself, but he would never have asked for her help if she didn’t offer.
Secile grabbed the reign of her horse, motioned for Daxe to grab his, and they disappeared into the floating curtain of sparks. The portal closed behind them, the only remnant of their presence being the small marble bowl holding ashes that would soon take to the winds.
They appeared on the field just south of the woldwood’s southern edge as Secile promised. Daxe shook the disorientation from his head and barely caught his balance as they exited the portal. Secile would’ve collapsed had Daxe not been quick to his feet and caught her.
“I doubt we’ll make it much further today,” commented the mercenary.
“I just need an hour’s rest,” she was barely able to reply. Daxe thought by the sound of her voice she was already asleep.
“Quite a spell,” he mused to himself. He’d never seen the woman so exhausted.
He circled the area in search of materials with which to build a fire. He was lucky to find the two-foot long, half-inch thick stick, but there was plenty of dry grass. With such fast burning supplies, however, he would have to wait until the mage woke up to start the fire, so he just dug out the pit.
Secile awoke from a disheartening dream. She couldn’t remember much—no accurate details—only a general bad feeling for Chea’Laern’s well being. She was surprised to see the sun directly above her.
“You…” she started to say, the beginning of an accusation, as she shot up to a sitting position.
Daxe was not in sight. The sound of boots crunching grass and dirt behind her revealed his location and she turned to scold him, but Daxe’s disarming smile and the small fire licking at two roasted wold-birds rendered her speechless.
“You let me sleep too long,” she said anyway, though the bluster was lost in her words.
“By the way you looked, I think you should sleep more,” joked the mercenary. “But who could sleep with the smell of my special roasted bird in their nostrils?”
Secile looked from the grime-bathed man to the skewered birds and inwardly cringed. “A biscuit or two and some water will be sufficient for me. I know you can eat both of those.”
“If I expected you’d accept my cooking, I’d have caught three,” he winked with a short-lived chuckle—short lived because his expression went suddenly grave. “About our supplies…” he trailed off with a tone of guilt.
“You didn’t!” cried Secile, jumping to her feet.
She heard Daxe’s roaring laughter the second she laid her eyes on their horses, and all the supplies, waiting patiently nearby. “Do you ever take anything seriously?” sighed the mage, though she couldn’t help but giggle to herself at her own expense. It definitely won’t be a boring journey, she mused—just a foul-smelling one.
“Oh but that’s not fair,” he protested. “You left me with myself for most of the morning, and joking with myself would send a certain message to others about the way my head works.”
Secile fished two buiscits and her water pouch from her horse as she replied, “I think they get that message anyway, hun.”
He laughed even harder. “True enough,” he admitted when his bellowing finally died down.
They ate and laughed and verbally attacked each other’s reputation for many minutes. But Secile couldn’t afford to lose another hour.
“My gratitude for the extra sleep you allowed me will be shown in the form of making up lost time,” she said, holding the enchanted hoof-slip designed to make horses run like the wind.
“Simyna best be generous!” he grunted in reply.
And he wasn’t joking.
With no need for food, water, materialistic accommodations or even rest, Burkae was able to travel three times faster than one riding a horse equipped with shoes enchanted for speed. He traveled to Tuntiload from Chea’Laern in one day, a journey that takes one week for riders without magic speed; three or four days for those with the enchantment. And after the incident in Tuntiload’s tavern, Burkae sped to Nairsnia valley in almost no time at all. Why, he couldn’t even guess. Something compelled him. He sensed the compulsion came from the sentient dagger he’d retrieved from the king, but wasn’t told as to why it wanted him to go to the valley. He knew only that he must find a cave near the village. A vague flash of a memory blinded him momentarily again: he and the blond-haired human he traveled with in the previous life was in the valley, and a little girl was afraid of them. He shook his head vigorously and focused on the sensation being imparted by the artifact: fear. Vaulinquelitaya was afraid of the little girl in his flashback, as surely as she was afraid of it—rather than him and his companion he suddenly realized.
By pain of death, he was ordered by the artifact to stay far away from that girl. He would heed the warning from his creator, of course, but couldn’t quickly dismiss the curiosity for the young human. Perhaps after he completed his business in the caves, once the artifact was hidden safely away, he could investigate the phenomenal child.
Vaulinquelitaya read his every thought and did not approve. Perhaps it was too soon for the caves. One wrong move could destroy all their plans. And Vaulinquelitaya could not wait another century for the glory and conquest it desired for so long. But neither would it rush things, for that’s when mistakes are made. The sentient artifact cut off all form of communication to Burkae, basically shutting itself down, leaving him to guess blindly where in the caves he was supposed to go and what he was supposed to do.
Even his sense of invulnerability depleted considerably.
But Burkae went into the caves anyway, sneaking around to the northern entrance to avoid being sighted by any villagers. He mistakenly believed his god figure would reveal his purpose in the caves sooner or later, and days passed by like minutes to the powerful creature. He had all the time in the world.
Neeka watched him enter the northern cave, curious, from her high perch on a nearby tree limb. She couldn’t place it, but seeing the stranger going into the mountain alone triggered an instinctual warning within her. Something about the man just wasn’t right. She considered returning home and warning the villagers about the odd sight, but decided not to risk their involvement. She didn’t need more deaths on her conscience. Though she couldn’t risk not taking action either, for if the man was dangerous—when one would have to be to survive the caves—and something happened to the village because she didn’t act, her conscience would not be any better off.
So she would shadow him, but only until she discovered the man’s intentions so she could better assess the village’s welfare. She may have abandoned them physically, but Neeka could never rid her mind of her homeland even if she wanted to.
She quickly lit her torch and rushed as quietly as she could down the jagged tunnel. This side of the mountain was obviously more natural, for the pressure on her feet from the juts in the ground accumulated as the seconds passed and she doubted she could keep the pace. The stranger was dozens of yards ahead of her, though she couldn’t see much more than ten feet front or back. So far the tunnel was straight, but she knew that wouldn’t last. How could she track the man without his knowledge? Her only other option would be to go blindly, no torchlight, and hope he made enough noise for her to follow.
All she could hear was her own echoing footsteps and her faint breathing. Eventually she came to a junction; one tunnel branching off to the right and the one she walked continuing straight ahead. Though she didn’t see the man carrying a torch into the cave, he might’ve waited to light it until deep enough in so as not to be seen by any possible witnesses, as she had done. Knowing this was essential to choosing the correct tunnel, for—logically—if he carried no torch for some reason of insanity he would likely continue straight ahead. But how could she know on which side of the tunnel he approached the intersection? Perhaps he felt blindly along the right and went with the curve unaware. And if he carried a source of light he could’ve chosen either of the two tunnels.
Any guess could not possibly be accurate, and so her only choices were to either return to the village to warn them or continue, and hope this stranger was not part of a cruel scheme against her home. She rarely allowed herself to risk hope.
She turned back for the open sky, and nearly burned her quarry in the face with her torch as she pivoted. Surprised, she gasped and jumped back.
“What do you want?” rasped the brown-haired man with a blank expression, save for his strange eyes. He hadn’t even flinched at the brush with fire.
Neeka blinked and rubbed an eye with her free hand, but the soft light—the only way she could think to describe it—remained in his eyes. Not in, she realized, but behind.
“Who are you?” she asked with as much courage as she could muster. She felt naked before this man, as if his very presence sucked the bravery right out of her and left her only with fear.
“No one you know of,” he sneered, stepping forward fully into her torchlight.
She dropped her hand to her sword hilt. Just as she got a good grip, she felt a strong force close about that wrist. The man—if he could be called a man—was suddenly in her face.
“I’ve business in these caves, and I’ll not leave until it’s completed.” He spun her a half circle, though she felt nothing other than his hand about her wrist. By the time she realized what was happening, her feet were carrying her back the way she came.
“I’ll know if you, or any others, come back.” The raspy voice drifted to her ears, then he continued, “and I advise against that notion.”
Neeka looked upon the trees and sky minutes later, heading home with a blurry image of glowing eyes burned into her mind. When she later tried to remember the missing beginning of her day, all she could summon was the glowing eyes and a general feeling of repulsion for the mountains.
*
They’d ridden through the day and long into the night with hardly a single break. Secile hadn’t ridden this much in years—for her studies in Nimbdell kept her walled up most of the time—and her legs and back ached for the forced endurance. But she would not relent, not while Vaulinquelitaya was loose in the region.
Daxe rode a lot more often than the mage, though not with magical speed. Ever since leaving Nimbdell, riding was much more comfortable than he was used to. He missed the bouncing pain.
Secile pulled back on the reigns to slow her horse and motioned for Daxe to do the same. She spotted a single traveler on the horizon, moving slow and awkward. Something seemed just too odd about the sight. Though people travel alone quite often, Secile sensed that this particular traveler was no common occurrence. She couldn’t yet make out many details; just the slouched posture inducing an awkward gait, and that the traveler was human. When she first spotted the traveler, an image of the two riders carrying Vaulinquelitaya entered her mind and raised her guard.
“What?” asked Daxe, confused. He, too, saw the person, but couldn’t see Secile’s interest in them.
“Let’s go,” was the only response she would give.
Then they were off again, their course aligned to intercept the stumbling stranger.
Apparently they caught the traveler’s interest, for he—they were now close enough to determine gender—picked up speed when he spotted the mounted pair. They stopped again fifty yards away, and let the dirty, haggard-looking man come to them.
“By the gods!” gasped Daxe.
Secile was speechless.
The crooked man wore the uniform of a Chea’Laern guard, though it was falling apart at the seams, and they realized that the brownish-red stains covering him from head to toe were not dirt.
“Kill it!” breathed Secile in disgust. Suddenly the weight of her quest bowed her shoulders.
“It?” echoed Daxe, turning a concerned glance her way. “That’s a man!”
Secile shook her head. “The man it once was is already dead. Kill it, I beg you. Put his soul to rest.”
As if it understood their intentions, the creature snarled and charged at them, baring bloodied teeth and nails that looked more like claws. Daxe hopped off his horse and drew his sword.
“Don’t let it bite you!” warned the mage as he waded in.
The creature was unbelievably fast. It knocked Daxe’s readied sword aside with a stiff arm and rushed in close. But the mercenary recovered from the surprise rather quickly and backpedaled before the foul smelling beast could gain a hold. He swung hard and fast at an angle, but the creature’s forearm halted his sword’s momentum as surely as if he were whacking at a thick, redwood tree. He cut into the beast nearly two inches, but couldn’t immediately retract his blade.
The creature took advantage of the gained second Daxe’s hindrance allowed it, not flinching in the least nor bothered at all by the fact a sword was stuck in its forearm! It rushed forward, barreling him to the ground.
Secile would not have that.
A ball of fire soared from her wand to engulf the beast. It was up in an instant and stumbling away, screeching horribly. Daxe’s sword was knocked loose and dropped to the ground.
‘Get it!” cried Secile.
Daxe glared at her before grabbing his sword and leaping up after the flaming abomination. He wasn’t going to give the thing another chance at fair play. This time his sword swung a deceptive underhand arch aimed for the neck with the force of his running momentum combined with all his might.
The creature’s head was a ball of flaming pitch rolling across the woldlands, starting a few pockets of fires along the way. Its body tumbled to the ground.
“Shouldn’t we put them out?” asked Daxe anxiously.
“Not yet. We need to be sure it’s dead.” She thought of an ancient tome containing all gathered information on Vaulinquelitaya that managed to survive the centuries. It described vaguely the creation of the sentient dagger; a sacrifice of three different beings, each of a different race and the most powerful of their kind, by an almost godlike sorcerer. It made sense, because Secile recognized the fusion of races in the creature’s composition; the durability of a troll—hence waiting to extinguish the fires; the strength of a giant. She could not place the third, but this creature wasn’t the pinnacle of Vaulinquelitaya’s power. It was a side effect, a taste rather than an injection. She shuddered at the thought of the artifact’s direct “offspring” as they called the creatures at Nimbdell, the leaders of these mindless undead.
“We are too late,” she lamented, the connotations this creature’s existence suddenly sinking in. “It has spread its seed.”
Daxe watched the thing burn, pinching his nose in disgust. Luckily there was no wind to help spread the fire, and there were enough dirt areas to contain the small pockets as well.
“We’re not sleeping tonight,” stated the mage, determined to reach Chea’Laern in just over half a day.
“I wasn’t planning on it with those things about,” replied the nasal-voiced mercenary.
*
She breathes easier at least, Creole sighed, somewhat relieved. One day had passed since they fed Sholee the potion. She had not improved much, but wasn’t getting any worse either.
“You have to hold on, love,” he whispered sadly, pushing aside the hair matted to her pale face. “At least until your son returns.”
Brinney appeared through the doorway and ran to her father’s side. “Neeky here,” she informed quietly.
Not three seconds later there was a knock at the front door, rapid and urgent sounding.
“What’s she want, girl?” asked Creole.
Brinney shrugged and looked down.
“It’s fine, Brin. You can’t know everything.” He ruffled her hair playfully and waited for her to look up and smile before answering the door.
A very haggard-looking Neeka was on the other side.
“What, by the demons, happened to you?” queried Creole.
“I don’t know,” she answered as she pushed by him and walked inside. As if being inside the cabin triggered a memory, her face suddenly drooped. “How is she?”
Creole sighed and closed the door behind him. “She’s no better and no worse. She’s a fighter, that one,” he said with a chuckle that he had to force past the anger and grief.
Neeka nodded solemnly and paused, trying to sort through her own problem. She still could only conjure the one memory: a pair of backlit eyes. “I meant to leave the valley to sort some things out for myself. I stopped to rest in a tree, and the next thing I remember is walking down the northern slope heading back here. And I can’t get the image of these strange eyes out of my mind.”
Brinney’s eyebrows perked up as part of Neeka’s aura suddenly flashed for a brief second, then died away as a shadow consumed it.
“Took it,” she insisted, tugging on the woman’s tunic. Neeka was a good friend of Sholee’s and so, since she would visit all the time, Brinney was used to having her around. Brinney really enjoyed her company as well.
“What, hun?” asked Creole curiously.
“Her remembering,” the girl explained. “Somein took it.”
Neeka knelt before her in an instant. “What do you know, hun? Did you see what happened to me? Do you know who?” She realized she sounded nearly desperate. The eerie eyes stuck in her mind bothered her greatly, but not as greatly as not being able to remember what happened to her.
Brinney shied a bit, unnerved by Neeka’s aggressive agitation, and shook her head emphatically.
“Then how do you know?” asked Creole as Neeka slouched back in disappointment.
“The darks ate her membering lights,” replied Brinney nonchalantly, pointing at Neeka’s shoulder as though it were obvious.
Neither of the elders were well acquainted with anything involving magic, but Creole remembered another time Brinney mentioned someone’s “lights” and tried to recall her exact words. It was the time Rahmina meant to search the caves without him, when Brinney warned of the big kitty.
“These ‘lights’, Brin. Do they tell you things?”
Brinney’s face crunched up in confusion. “Lights don’t tell, Daddy.”
Creole sighed in frustration. Whatever gift his daughter had, she didn’t seem to know how to express it with words.
Creole told Neeka of all Brinney’s strange prophecies, and so she shared his line of thought. “Her insight is like a tome,” Neeka decided at length. “She can read into things, like these ‘lights’, but can only see what they show her. She is not in control, and can only guess what they mean.”
“She’d done a damn good job of guessing so far,” stated Creole, somewhat defensively. He’d hoped they could use Brinney’s gift to their advantage.
“Do you always see the lights?” Neeka asked her.
She shook her head.
“Can you do anything with them?”
Brinney shrugged.
“Will you try?” asked Neeka. “Will you show me where you see it?”
Brinney reached up, index finger extended, and, though she appeared to point behind the woman, stopped just before the tip of her finger poked the darkness-engulfed light hovering above Neeka’s shoulder. She didn’t intend at first to actually touch the lights, she’d never been compelled before, but the closer her finger got the more curious she became. Her finger plunged in to the cuticle.
The lights disappeared.
Brinney’s arm shot back and she frowned, afraid she’d done something wrong or hurt Neeka in some way.
Neeka felt nothing at all. “What happened, hun?”
“Lights go,” she replied sadly.
“I don’t think she holds the key,” Neeka whispered to Creole.
“The wings will know!” blurted Brinney suddenly.
“How do we find the wings, Brin?” asked Creole softly, all too familiar with that term.
“They all ‘round. Call to ‘em.”
Neeka sighed. “She said someone took my ‘rememberings’, which I assume means my memory, right?”
Creole nodded.
“Then that someone must be around here!”
Creole looked from Sholee to Brinney, then back to Neeka and frowned. “I wish I could help…”
“No, no. Wasn’t going to ask anyway. I’ll find who’s behind this.”
Neeka headed for the door in haste.
“Be careful!” Creole called after her. When the door closed and the Duunlare’s were alone, Creole turned to his daughter with a pleading look. “She won’t find harm, will she?”
Brinney shrugged and went to be with her mother.
*
They gazed upon the northern gates of Chea’Laern three hours after sundown that day. Daxe kissed the ground several times when they dismounted on a hill one hundred yards away, and even rolled around a bit. He wisely stopped when the horses began to whinny. From their vantage point they could make out the inner castle walls and the tiny guards patrolling there. Everything seemed normal.
“The evil must be contained in the castle. The settlements out here look well; the marketplace is bustling; guards line all the walls.”
Daxe raised an eyebrow as he replied. “Unless it was only that one soldier?”
Secile shook her head. “That was an underling. There is at least one leader, possibly more, who are ten times worse than the thing you killed. We need to get in the castle, and fast!”
The gate guards recognized Secile’s robes and opened the gates without even speaking, and two stall boys were ready to take their horses to the stables on the other side. They allowed themselves to admire the scenery as they plowed through the marketplace, walking in haste but amazed by the development so different from Nimbdell. The northern school of magic seemed more like a large village, with huts and cabins resting protectively under the larger building’s stone and clay structure. But Chea’Laern’s marketplace sported stonework buildings and wooden roofs at every turn. Mostly the merchants owned the luxurious houses, but some citizens had managed to make enough of a living to surround themselves with a comfortable lifestyle as well. The kingdom wasn’t thoroughly fancy, however. The areas nearest the wall were called the slums, full of huts or even tents. Some even had to sleep on the ground without shelter, though they didn’t usually last long; either beaten to death for fun or for pity, or dying of illness from malnutrition. But there were always more to take their place.
The captain of the wall guards greeted the mage and her cohort from the parapets of the inner wall with a false display of general well being.
Secile could tell he was agitated despite the happy mask he wore.
“Greetings, Lady of Nimbdell and escort,” he called to them. “The castle is off limits for now. If you have business with the king…”
The mage cut him short with an upraised hand. “Not with the king, but his castle.”
Daxe shot her a curious, surprised look. They didn’t know for certain the castle was infested. He figured Secile was either in a desperate hurry or was so confident in her guess she was unconcerned with the consequences.
“Same conditions,” replied the captain. “You will have to come back later.”
Exhausted from lack of sleep and anxious to get into the castle, Secile quickly grew impatient. “Have you spoken to the king?” she sighed.
“No, but my men are…”
“Trying to find him,” interjected the mage dryly.
For a brief second the captain’s expression betrayed the truth in Secile’s words. But he recovered quickly and narrowed his eyes, his brow wrinkled suspiciously.
“How many men have you sent in, captain? And how long ago?”
His silence spoke volumes.
“I promise, good sir, that if you let us in we will find your men and the king, and no one else will be sacrificed.”
“What do you know?” snapped the captain.
“No more than you, good captain. But I’ve a guess and I hope, for all our sakes, that I am wrong.”
She spent several minutes arguing with the captain before she finally convinced him to let her and Daxe go in alone. The castle’s courtyard, and even the foyer, was exactly as Secile remembered them from her last visit a couple years ago. Beyond the castle walls, a path of red stone slabs carved from loose boulders acquired from Garden of the Gods to the north and west guided visitors through the hedges, bushes and trees planted around the courtyard for decoration. The center was a field of flowers and roses, a gift from Kahreesa.
Secile noted one of the flowers curiously as they passed, standing tall in the center of the flowerbed and the only of its kind. She thought she recognized its uniquely formed petals as signature of an exotic flower from a far off land, but the colors were all wrong and that particular flower wasn’t supposed to be able to grow in this soil. The mage would have investigated the soil just to satisfy curiosity if nothing else, but there were more important matters to attend.
Small marble fountains with a statue of the king in the center of each rest on either side of the castle’s enormous double doors. Daxe snorted as they passed the miniature stone kings and opened the castle doors. “I wonder how much of the people’s gold he used to make those.”
Secile silently agreed, but the stilled, cold feeling that washed over her upon walking through the double doors stole her reply.
The foyer was empty. They could see both second and third floor balconies above them and deep into both right and left-hand hallways on the first floor. The grand double doors that lead to the great hall, used both for meetings and celebratory dining’s, were straight ahead. All were empty and quiet.
“This place abandoned?” asked Daxe rhetorically. His voice echoed and bounced back to them several times.
“Better that than death,” replied the mage dryly.
“Where to start?”
She had an idea: a simple proximity spell to detect alignment. She could create a detection sphere approximately the size of the castle, and so she did. Anything with more intelligence than the smartest animal that moved within the sphere unknowingly sent Secile a biological energy reading that would tell her their general intentions.
“There are a lot of those things in here,” she informed her companion, her eyes closed. “Mostly in the levels below ground. But the leader is not here.” Her shoulders slumped. The difficulty level of her quest just increased tenfold. Not only would they have to clean up the mess here, but also the leader moved further away by the second.
Something struck Secile as profoundly curious. The Hosttowers didn’t know much about the underlings created in the leaders’ image, but Secile knew enough to question their current behavior. Why did they mill about in the dungeons? They weren’t afraid of sunlight, or even public exposure for that matter, and they certainly held no affinity with dark, damp buildings of cold stone. They are unthinking beasts, scavengers. They should be fanning out and searching for food—which would create more of them—rather than congregating in one spot, underground where there is no food. The most plausible explanation she could find was that they were waiting. Either by command from the leader—or even Vaulinquelitaya itself—or by instinct, they must be waiting.
“So what’s the plan?” asked Daxe impatiently. The smell from the dungeons began to seep up to the main level, and it was nauseating.
Secile thought quickly. “For now, we lock the beasts wandering the dungeons down there until we figure out how to deal with them. We might even need them. And then we destroy the few wandering around upstairs so they don’t stumble their way out of the castle.”
“Lead on,” grinned Daxe, eager to breathe fresh air again.
They locked the dungeon doors easily enough, by way of Secile’s magic so none other than the mage herself could possibly unlock it, but they’d walked for what seemed like hours through the upper hallways in search of the stragglers without success.
“You sure they’re up here?” doubted the mercenary.
Secile nodded, though she didn’t need to, for one of the creatures then rounded the corner at the end of their hallway and, upon spotting them, charged. Its charge was more of a drunk man’s stumbling, but Daxe fought one before and would not underestimate the thing again.
The mercenary bid his time, sword swaying out before him like an enchanted snake, waiting for the clumsily stumbling hunk of rotted flesh to make the first move. At the last moment it burst forward, the closest its kind would ever get to strategic battle maneuvers, baring its elongated, sharp nails and bloodied teeth.
But Daxe was ready. A quick sidestep and full spin had the mercenary’s sword cleaving the creature’s head from its shoulders as it lunged by. “Fire?” he asked with a grin. His grin melted away, though, when he noticed the nick in his razor edged sword.
“I need an axe if we’re to fight more of these things,” he lamented. “This blade was expensive!”
“You mean you didn’t steal it?” gasped the mage sarcastically as she grabbed the nearest torch and lit the thing ablaze.
Daxe rolled his eyes. “Mercenary, not thief.”
“I think I can help you,” she added seriously and with a smile.
She motioned for Daxe to give her his sword as she fished a small, stoppered galss container from her robes. She quickly spread the clear goo-like substance along the entire length of the blade’s edge, muttering a quick chant as she did. The chant was not part of the process, but just a small step she threw in to add some strength from her personal stash of energy. She waited a moment for the salve to dry, then ran her torch’s flame over the curated blade until the salve was no longer visible. The fire was key to finishing the process, the heat being the salve’s activator, bonding it to the blade.
“Now the blade has enhanced durability, but only until it gets wet.” Then, as if she suddenly remembered whom she spoke to, she added, “So unless you miraculously decide to bathe and wash your gear at the same time, all you need worry about is the rain.”
“You just want me to use magic,” he smirked.
Most of the doors on the first floor were open, the rooms beyond emptied, but those few abandoned and store rooms that had remained closed for an unknown amount of time were open immediately after Secile and Daxe found them. They didn’t encounter the next straggler until after they completed the first floor’s search and moved up to the second.
The hideous, torn face of a woman who sold her body to many of the castle guards and “noblemen” was waiting for them around a sharp corner. It screeched and reached for them both, a hunk of torn flesh dropping with a splat to the floor from the sharp opening of its mouth.
Luckily Daxe’s reflexes were honed to near perfection from years of harsh surprises. His strengthened blade severed both of the thing’s arms off at the elbows, the clawed forearms still trying to scratch at the humans even after hitting the floor.
The creature wailed and fell back, though one of its claws managed to squirm close enough to Secile’s boot to grab hold. The smell from the first creature, decapitated and burning, finally reached them and gave Secile an idea. She touched the flame of her torch to the arm on her boot, setting it ablaze, and then the other.
The rest of the former human turned and fled once it caught sight of the fire, but Daxe was quick to barrel it down. And he held it there until Secile came with the torch.
“We’ll need some help with the group in the dungeons,” Daxe sighed, watching the thing burn. “They’re tough enough singled out. I don’t want to imagine fighting a group of those things with anything short of an army with hundreds of torches or a dragon friend.”
“One of my fireballs would wipe them out,” boasted the mage. Finally she could demonstrate to Daxe the usefulness of magic.
He made a face at her.
“But you’re right,” she added. “We would be foolish to risk getting bitten, for we know of no cure save for death.”
“But we risk getting bitten either way. You gonna send the soldiers in while we linger out here?” chuckled Daxe playfully.
“I’m not like their captain,” she mumbled in reply, to which Daxe laughed harder. “No, we will use the men to seal every possible opening in the dungeons while I throw a fireball down the stairwell and close the door.
“And then,” she continued after a pause, “we send the men in to investigate.”
The mercenary laughed again. “Though you wouldn’t do that.”
Secile grinned. “You’re right again. So we’ll just send in the captain.”
Another laugh, though this time he threw in a friendly swat of approval to her back.
To be certain they completed the search, Secile cast another detection spell.
“Strange.”
Daxe gave her an inquisitive look. Instead of answering it, Secile grabbed his arm—though she had to let go almost immediately for fear of the grime clinging to her forever—and led him back down to the second floor.
“By the gods!” cried the mercenary in disgust.
A headless corpse, blackened and scorched beyond recognition, wandered aimlessly, bumping into walls and tripping over its own feet.
“They’re immortal!” gasped the still confused mercenary.
Secile shook her head, “I doubt that. But at least this one can’t make more of them; it has no teeth.”
“So beheading the beasts is like rendering them impotent.” Normally a comment like that would be accompanied with a laugh or some humorous expression, but Daxe was not joking this time. The statement was intended to make a mental reminder, for the information would surely be useful later.
“Unless the head grows another body,” Secile said dryly. “But the fire should prevent that.”
“You thought fire would kill them, too.”
Secile glared at him. She was aware of her mistaken assumption.
“But why fire?” he continued seriously. “These aren’t trolls.”
Secile sighed. Before now she didn’t think sharing Nimbdell’s information on Vaulinquelitaya with Daxe would be useful or necessary. But now, whether it would help or not, it certainly wouldn’t hurt.
“We don’t know much about the sentient dagger I seek, and even less about the spawns it creates, and none of our knowledge is absolute. We rely on ancient sources, because this thing has been sleeping for centuries. Someone went to great lengths to hide the information from the world, and several lives were sacrificed to get that information. The problem is, all our knowledge came from a single tome written in the language of the ancients.”
Daxe caught on quick. “So even if the tome is correct, it might not be accurate today because of how much time has passed.”
Secile nodded.
“So what do these things have to do with trolls? Why do they share the same weakness?”
“Not quite the same, apparently,” sighed the mage as they watched the headless creature unintentionally enter a room. “According to the tome, the dagger was created with the sacrifice of the souls of three of the most powerful in three separate races; troll, giant, and the third is unknown. We couldn’t translate the name, for its nothing we’d ever heard of before, and the description doesn’t fit any life form we’ve ever crossed.”
“So you’d assumed the weaknesses of each race transferred over with their powers?”
“That’s all we could do,” retorted the mage defensively. “For all we know the tome could’ve been created as a deterrent from the truth by whomever created this artifact.”
“Calm, lass,” Daxe cooed, his hands up before him. “I might have your answers, or at least something to lead us to answers.”
“With all due respect, you know nothing of magic or our ancient past.”
“True enough,” he admitted. “But I know the world really well.”
Secile rolled her eyes and waited for the inevitable story telling.
“Where I grew up, we hunted a certain type of critter for food every time, partially because they always huddled together to keep warm and partially because they were an easy kill. Tasted horrible, I must admit.”
Her eyes rolled again, though she did smile slightly.
“One day the pack was not in its usual spot. Dozens of the pesky things were lying in wait for us not far from where they knew we would come. They ambushed us, girl! Sent us running home empty handed. We made the mistake of underestimating them, thought they were incapable of strategic thought. They were just food,” he shrugged and winked. “Food is not supposed to be clever.”
Secile chuckled and shook her head in disbelief.
“My point is, maybe these things have adapted for survival over the years.”
“But how? They haven’t been around. Vaulinquelitaya has been dormant for decades!”
“How did those critters suddenly grow brains after two years? Perhaps you’re simply overlooking something. If we’d have garnered more information on the critters before taking them for meals, we might’ve spared ourselves the humiliation of being chased away by a bunch of furry little ankle-biters.”
Secile agreed to the logical hindsight with a nod.
“Wanna know how we caught them?”
She didn’t bother with an answer, for she knew he’d tell her anyway.
“We watched them from the top of a hill for two full days. At the same time, both days, they all migrated to a nearby waterhole. So we organized a little ambush of our own,” he winked.
“That’s it! Daxe, you’re a genius,” Secile exclaimed so suddenly the mercenary jumped a bit.
“I don’t think an ambush will change our results with these creatures,” he replied skeptically.
“No, you walking pile of dirt! Watch this.”
Secile walked into the room with the blackened and withered creature, Daxe on her heels. She performed the simple steps in summoning a rain cloud and positioned it over the beast. Sure enough, for every drop that hit the corpse came a blast of steam and a sizzling sound.
From around the corner came an ear-piercing shriek.
“What was that?” Daxe ran out into the hall and, since it was clear, peeked around the nearest corner in the direction of the noise.
There rest the beast’s head on the floor, its face twisted and contorted with pain.
Secile came out pinching her nose. “That smells worse than the fire,” she complained. Then she saw the head, and reenacted her rain cloud over it. Soon it was but a puddle of toxic slime.
“So after my philosophy speech, something that will likely never happen again, all you needed was the word ‘waterhole’, eh?”
Secile grinned, her spirits lifted now that they were getting somewhere. “I remembered a passage in the tome: the bringer of life will destroy death. We figured a troll’s weakness is fire, and fire brings life in the rebirth of its destruction. I wonder if they even considered water as a possibility,” she laughed.
“At least you weren’t outsmarted by a pack of rodents,” chuckled Daxe.
“We should lure or drag the rest of them to the dungeons, else I might not have enough rain.”
“If we drag, it’s by the ankles,” Daxe said seriously, to which Secile wholeheartedly agreed.
An hour later they’d thrown the not-yet-reanimated creatures in the dungeons and re-locked the door.
“I’m curious,” Daxe began as they headed outside for the captain. “If the outer wall guards of the morning watch and the captain have been outside all day, how did that one escape to the north?”
“Good point,” conceded the mage. She had to give him credit. For all his annoyances he had been quite useful. “Either there’s a dungeon exit we’ve not found, or his once-fellow soldiers thought he was a drunk and let him wander off unhindered and without a single close look.”
“The captain might know,” grinned Daxe.
From a well-concealed hole behind a large boulder in a good-sized copse of trees half a mile north of the castle walls crawled a line of creatures that once owned the gift of freewill; that once lived as humans. Now they followed the call of their creator, to a valley in the northeast. Now, the owner of that call owned their lives as well.
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Well, this certainly is heating up. I’m at the edge of my seat! And a little worried about the village. I must admit I missed Caize and Kaia-mei this chapter;) I’ve always liked Secile and Daxe is growing on me. Great chapter! I look forward to eleven.
“They looked like woods children”, I’d kind of like to know what woods children look like.
I am anxious to find out what happens when Rahmina gets back and finds out the king is dead and to see what state the city will be in.
“A flash of the past stunned Burkae for a moment” pov shift.
“The fallen guard came to and, as soon as his head cleared enough to remember what happened, looked for the cloaked figure at the bar.
But Burkae was long gone.” Pov shift.
“Lucimina was surprised Secile” had been surprise. This calls for past perfect tense. Sometimes it has to be used;) even succeeded with this one!
“You were in there,” protested the mercenary in the sarcastically whiney voice of a child.” Suggestion, ‘protested the mercenary in a sarcastic whine that reminded her of a child.’
“I suppose, since Simyna said you need my help, I’ll have to go your way,” sighed Daxe, adrenaline already coursing his veins at the thought of having to use magic, despite that he wasn’t the one casting.” Suggestion, ‘…go your way.” Daxe sighed. Adrenaline coursed through his veins at the thought of using magic, despite ….’
“Daxe watched in half amazement” pov shift. This is an example of one that’s easy to fix. Just point in a line space. The rest of the scene appears to stay in Daxe’s pov.
“practically incinerated when” a horse hair is pretty thin. If it caught on fire it’s hard to believe it wouldn’t be incinerated by the time it fell into the bowl. Perhaps it could burst into fire when it lands in the bowl?
“commented the mercenary.” This isn’t needed. It’s clear Daxe is saying this.
“With such fast burning supplies, however, he would have to wait until the mage woke up to start the fire” why?
What was Burkae doing in Tuntiload? If he had no need to stop, why’d he stop there? I have no idea what he is, other than dead or what has the king become? I had assumed that whatever had possessed Burkae had taken over the king, but clearly that was not the case. Oh, that’s right Burkae is controlled by the dagger, but what brought him back to life? Or didn’t he die? O.k. now that I’ve finished the chapter, but I was confused until then. So can the dagger on control infected beings? Now I am wondering how this ties in with Brinney’s crystal.
“Neeka watched him enter the northern cave,” Pov shift. Another easy fix. A simple line space.
“man just wasn’t right.” Delete ‘just.’ It’s an extra word and doesn’t clarify meaning.
“you know of,” he sneered,” of.” He sneered. A sneer is an expression, not a way of speaking.
“way she came.” The way she had come. Passive language has to be used once in a while. As long as it’s 5% or under in your novel or chapter it’s acceptable. What software do you use? Both Word and Word Perfect have feature called readability that you can run on your novel.
“He missed the bouncing pain.” Pov shift. You could fix this by just saying, ‘She was sure he missed the….”
“seemed just too odd about” delete ‘just too’
“was the only response she would give.” Not needed.
“as he waded in.” what’s he wading through?
“surprise rather quickly” delete ‘rather.’
“but the creature’s forearm halted his sword’s” Where did he grab the sword? No matter how strong he was would the blade cut through his hand?
“He cut into the beast nearly two inches,” Where? I’m having trouble picturing this.
“sword was stuck in its forearm!” I think we need to know this earlier.
“She thought of an ancient tome” This is a great and natural place for this information.
“She realized she sounded nearly desperate.” POV shift.
“He’d hoped they could” pov shift.
“She didn’t intend at first to actually” pov shift.
“They allowed themselves to admire the scenery” Even if you use omniscient pov I think you should stick with one person’s pov at a time.
“wasn’t thoroughly fancy,” This pretty vague. What would be fancy to one person, isn’t to the next.
“its uniquely formed petals as signature of an exotic flower” Interesting, my guess is we’ll be coming back to this flower.
“one of the creatures” I think we need so sort of description or explanation of Secile recognizes these creatures.
“stoppered galss” glass
“but only until it gets wet.” Wouldn’t blood make it wet?
Castles are usually filled with hundreds of people. Where are they all? If they left the guards would have known. If they were all dead, there’d be more creatures about. Seems like Secile and Daxe would run into someone that wasn’t a creature yet, either running about or holed up somewhere hiding.
“boasted the mage.” Would she boast? OR would she say as a matter of fact?
“Though you” thought
“fear of the grime clinging to her forever” the harassment about bathing is humorous, but this just sounds childish.
“An hour later they’d thrown the not-yet-reanimated creatures” How many? A dozen, dozens? Hundreds?
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