Obsidian Ridge (29 page)

Their claws scraped at a frantic pace. The waiting had whipped them into a rabid frenzy, and they came for him with

a renewed desperation. Shoving and clawing at each other, each seemingly bent on being the first to devour the interloper, each one driven to finish what the others could not.

Upside down, his face covered in splinters of obsidian, Quinn rolled backward until his feet hit the back of Xeries’s statue—the beasts grabbing at his heels. With all of his might, he leaped for the opening at the opposite end. His fingers just touched the edge of the torn, jagged stone, but it was enough. Scrambling up, he squeezed through the hole in the wall and tumbled down into the unknown—Xeries’s angry minions reaching through the gap, but too big to follow.

In the space behind, Quinn tolled down a short incline, tumbling nearly out of control. Flopping over onto his back, his feet hit the ground with a thud, and he came to a stop in the bottom of a wide, rough-hewn passage, not unlike the ones he’d traversed in the Cellar. He forced himself through the tiny hole so quickly that the broken obsidian gouged large cuts in both of his arms and down the side of his fibs.

Getting to his feet, he examined the passageway.

“Shortcut,” he said quietly.

Wiping the blood from his exposed skin as best as he could, he turned and headed deeper into the citadel.

“I A o

Xeries materialized out of the obsidian wall, a woman in each hand.

“Who does your king think he’s dealing with this voice echoing as he dragged Mariko and Evelyne across the floor. “I was perfectly clear about the consequences. Yet he disobeyed me.

“You got what you wanted,” said Mariko, struggling against his grip. She was going to enjoy killing him.

Xeries stood as straight as he could, taking a deep breath. “Yes, I suppose I did.” He released the two women, and put his hands to the side of his head, rubbing his temples. “Though I had not counted on you having such a piercing voice.”

With a wave of his hand, a shower of black sparks appeared in midair. They drifted down onto the princess and Evelyne. “That’ll keep you from shouting.”

Mariko tried to dodge them, but there were too many, and they seemed to follow her wherever she moved. As soon as the first spark touched her skin, she could feel her throat constrict.

She opened her mouth, a scathing retort ready for the arch magus, but nothing came out. She tried again. Still nothing. Mariko tried to scream, rattling her vocal cords and raising her voice. She spat insults and tried to invoke her spells, but it was no use. She had been silenced.

Xeries pointed at Evelyne, looking at her as if he had just realized she was there. “I did not ask for you.” He waved his hand. “Take her from here.”

A dozen of the arch magus’s servants descended on Evelyne, lifting her from her feet and carrying her away. She struggled, her mouth open and moving, likely trying to spit obscenities at her captors. But like Matiko, she too had been silenced, and she disappeared from the room without a sound.

“That’s much better,” said the arch magus. Ambling over to his throne, Xeries retrieved a large pouch with something heavy inside. “I hope that as we get better acquainted this sort of thing won’t be necessary.”

Returning to the princess, he reached inside the sack and pulled out a small, furry animal. It looked like a cross between a hedgehog and a feline—small, round, chubby, covered in fur, and curious. The little creature didn’t move much, but it sniffed the air, pointing its beady little eyes first at Xeries then at Maliko.

“This is one of my own personal creations—the mimmio,” said Xeries. “It’ll allow you to converse with me until I remove your magical gag. You need do nothing more than hold it in your hands. The mimmio can hear your thoughts, and it will repeat them for me to hear.” He stroked its fur with his deformed fingers. “Watch.”

There was a short pause while the creature listened, then it opened its mouth and began to translate. The words it spoke were oddly deep for such a small creature, a contrast to Xeries high-pitched echoing.

“The mimmio will be your voice until I am suet you will behave yourself,” said Xeries through the creature. He handed the rodent to Matiko. “You try.”

The princess accepted it, cradling the squirming ball of fur in her open palms.

“I want to kill you,” the mimmio said. Mafiko shrunk

back, not prepared for the creature to be so blunt.

Xeries laughed, sounding like a young couple giggling together. “You must be careful what you think. There is no filter. The creature will say whatever it reads from your mind.”

“I hate you. What do you want from me?”

Xeries smiled, steepling his fingers under his chin. “I want you to be my bride.”

“Your bride?” The mimmio repeated her thoughts as soon as she had them.

The arch magus nodded.

“Why me? You know nothing about me.” Mariko tried to calm her mind, control her thoughts, but it was difficult.

“Ah, but I do.” Xeries poured himself a goblet full of wine. “I know that you are from a very good bloodline. I know that you were born in Eleint, what you now call Erlkazar, and that you are a descendant of my first wife’s charming sister.”

“You want me because I’m a relative of your wife? That’s sick.”

“Not exactly.” Xeries took a sip of his wine, rolling it back and forth in his mouth before swallowing, then he continued. “You see, I have lived for more than twenty of your lifetimes—”

“Twenty?” interrupted the princess through the mimmio. “Ate you some kind of immortal?”

Xeries nodded, seemingly unfazed by the abruptness of the unfiltered conversation. “In a sense, yes. My first wife and I created a spell—one that would prolong our lives and allow us to live together forever.”

“Then why do you want me? Get bored with your wife?” Mariko smirked. There was a certain amount of freedom in not having to choose her words carefully—or indeed, be able to choose them at all.

The topic did not please Xeries, and he scowled at the princess. “She died during the spell.”

“Died?”

Xeries’s scowl deepened. “Yes. And now I need to have a new bride every hundred years, or else I will lose the benefits of the spell.”

“You killed her?”

Xeries grit his teeth. “My wife died during the spell,” he repeated, “but I have found a way to get the immortality that we both so desired. In her memory, I live on, the way she would have wanted. But the spell requires that I always have a bride. One from the same bloodline. That is all you need to know.”

The doors to the small chamber leading off of Xeries throne room ground open, and a woman in long flowing robes, a veil over her face, came into the chamber. She hobbled toward them, clearly having a hard time moving.

“Is this her?” said a cracked and raspy voice.

“Yes, my dear,” replied Xeries, putting down his goblet and going to the woman’s side.

“Do you think she is as pretty as I was, all those years ago?

Xeries looked at Matiko, then back to the woman. “She is very pretty,” he said. “But so were you.”

The woman grabbed hold of the arch magus with both hands, holding herself up by clinging to his robes. “You have killed me, Xeries. I blame you.”

Her grip went limp, and she slowly slipped to the floor. Xeries held her weight in his grotesque hands, gently lowering her to the ground. He carefully arranged her dress around her body and lifted her veil. The face beneath was nothing but wrinkled gray-brown flesh, clinging tightly to her narrow skull.

Xeries bent down and kissed her lips. “Rest well, my dear. I will put you in your place in short order.”

“Is this what happens to your brides?” asked Mariko. “You use them up?”

“It is a fair trade,” replied Xeries, his echoed voice sounding

somehow saddened. “I give them wealth and power, and they give me their life-force.” “You take their souls.”

The arch magus shook his head slowly, still fussing with the fringes of his wife’s dress. “I don’t like to look at it that way. I prefer to think they die for my love.”

“That’s sick.”

“Love always is.” Xeries returned the veil over his wife’s face. “Always is.”

+++++

The long, dark hallway wound deep into the Obsidian Ridge. Along the floor, four sentries patrolled. Long, lithe, dangerous killing machines, like all of Xeries’s other creations, they were on a mission. In their heads, they could hear their orders repeated, then repeated again, Find-find the-the intruder-intruder.

From above, a figure watched their movements. It paced them, waiting for the right moment.

The sentries reached the end of a hallway. They sniffed the air. They pawed at the walls. They examined everything.

The figure dropped to the passage floor behind them, silent—a cat, smaller than its prey, yet no less dangerous.

The sentries turned to head back down the hallway just as the figure pounced. It had claws on one hand, just as they did. Its body was covered in black, just as was theirs.

But the figure was not one of them.

It was smarter. It was faster. It was more ferocious. And it came for them now, tearing into their flesh like a ravenous dragon.

Xeries had bred his minions personally, experimenting with them for hundreds of years. He had tortured and mangled their bodies and souls until he had developed the perfect killing machine—strong, obedient, and afraid of nothing.

That is, afraid of nothing until now. The figure climbed back into the ceiling, the sentries dead on the floor.

++++ ?

Xeries raised his hands, and his wife’s body lifted from the floor. Gently, carefully, he levitated her onto the stone table, just below her final resting spot. She was not quite ready to pass from this world to the next. She would never fully die. Not at least until Xeries did, and if all went as he had planned, that would never happen.

Eventually, though, she would reach a state of limited consciousness, just like all the rest of his wives. For now though, she would hang on. They all had clung to that last ray of hope, that last bit of life. There was not enough of her life-force left for Xeries to claim. His immortality required more than she could give. But he remained bound to her, as his wife, until she gave up on her survival instinct, until she no longer wished to live.

It was then that he could put her to rest in her place up high on The wall. When that happened, he could wed Princess Mariko and continue his immortal life. But until then, while his wife was between life and unlife, he would age, just like all the rest of humanity. He would bleed, just like the rest of humanity.

Xeries hated this time, this waiting while he was mortal again. He disliked the vulnerability.

A vision came to him as he finished lifting his wife from the floor. Connected to his creatures through telepathy, Xeries watched his sentries torn to shreds by the man who had accompanied the princess into the citadel.

“This was not part of the arrangement.” He glared at Mariko. “Who is this disease you have introduced to my home? Who is this man that stalks my halls?”

Mafiko sat on the floor, the mimmio cradled in her lap.

“He’s just one of the king’s soldiers.” She smiled. “They’re all just like him.”

Xeries growled. “I told your king there would be consequences, yet he has defied me.” Reaching into a pocket on his robes, he pulled out a small pile of dried, brittle bones. Dropping them on the floor, he spoke the words to a spell, one he had not used often, but he had committed it to memory all the same.

“What are you doing?” asked Mariko through her furry translator.

“I am delivering on my threat,” said Xeries, his echoing voice giving away his glee. “I’m drying the land. Turning your home into a desert.”

He smiled big, a mouth full of crooked teeth showing. “Let’s see your father defy me now.”

Xeries left the room, waving the doors closed behind him. He crossed to the dais and sat down in his throne. It felt empty here without a wife. It had been a long time since he had replaced one.

This last one had been very strong, had lasted a long time. He would remember her fondly. Lifting a goblet from the table, he brought the wine to his lips and took a drink. Yes, he would remember her fondly.

+++++

In another part of the Obsidian Ridge, Quinn looked down from the ceiling on a third patrol of sentries. They were traveling in groups of six now, but that didn’t matter. They were all about to die.

Gathering his feet under him, he readied himself to pounce—teach them what it meant to feel helpless and terrified in their own home. He wanted Xeries to know that he was coming for him, wanted the man who had taken his love and terrorized his home to suffer for what he had done.

Silently dropping to the ground, he went to work on the sentries. The first one squealed in fright as Quinn’s blades cut into it. The others had very little time to react.

When he had finished, he climbed back up into the cracked passage and moved on, leaving the remains on the floor as a warning to Xeries.

This was no longer about justice or even saving Erlkazar. It had become something more—this was revenge.

+

Kleegor handed another crate full of Elixir to Talish and walked down to the end of the dock.

“Good to see you back up and around,” said Talish. Kleegor nodded.

“I take it you don’t want to talk about it.” The half-orc grunted.

“Well, I told you not to throw it in her face. I told you I agreed with you, but you should’ve just—” Suddenly, the sky began to roil.

“Whoa, will you look at that.” Talish pointed over Kleegor’s shoulder.

The half-ore nearly dropped his crate of Elixir.

Huge gray clouds swept in from the east over Shalane Lake and the west over the Snowflake Mountains. The wind picked up, and the clouds coalesced over Llorbauth and the Obsidian Ridge. They swirled together, forming one massive, turning storm that blocked out the mid-morning sun.

The storm moved faster and faster, and its center stretched but like a long finger—a funnel of twisting air reaching for the ground. Where it touched, high up on the wall of the valley, the ground simply dried up. The grass, flowers, and trees instantly turned brown, shriveled, and died.