Spellscribed: Conviction (26 page)

“Oops!” Selene said. “Missed one!” she started reeling the orc in, her eyes glowing red with excitement.

“Were there perhaps an increase… in disappearances during that time before?” he asked.

“I would think this is a question you should ask one of the ladies.” Joven grunted, lopping the head off another attacker.

“You’re the one who fought in the military, haven’t you seen any reports of kidnapping before big orc attacks?”

“What are you trying to get at?”

“I think…” Endrance said solemnly. “That the orcs might be humans.”

Joven’s hesitation caused his next axe swing to only injure the orc he swung it at, and he had to follow up before it could recover. “Are you saying that these are the villagers?”

Endrance walked up to the one Joven had just struck, and placed a hand on its chest. The creature’s aura released as it died, and his bracer drew in the energy. The wizard spent several seconds analyzing the memories from the impression.

“No.” Endrance said. “The human memories are from a long time ago, and of the Scarlet Satrap. It seems to take a while to turn them.”

Joven looked around, “It seems we got all that were left.” He said. “But there weren’t enough to sack a whole town.”

“They probably took the village captive.” Endrance said. “They’re known for taking captives, but I thought it was to eat, not to convert.”

“Well, they don’t have the right parts to reproduce.” Selene observed, nudging the body of a naked orc.

Endrance rubbed at his face. “That’s something I wish wasn’t important, but it apparently is.” He groaned. “I’ll have Gullin search around the area for the villagers.”

Gullin soared the sky, looking for any further trouble. While they waited, Joven dismounted and looked among the dead orcs, finishing off any that were not yet dead.

“So… there was a giant?” Joven asked.

Endrance nodded. “Yeah, but it was a small one.” He answered.

“That was the lightning?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.”

“You know it still counts as one, right?” Endrance asked, noting the somewhat sad look on Joven’s face.

Joven shrugged, nudging a corpse with his axe. “Yeah, but it’s the first giant we’ve ever fought.”

Endrance rolled his eyes, sighing loudly. “We can find you a bigger giant to fight later, okay? I won’t even help unless you ask me to.”

Joven shot him a smile. “Sounds like a plan.” He said.

Gullin reached out and contacted Endrance from high up in the sky.
I have located the source of the attack.
He said.
You are not going to enjoy it.

Kaelob’s fort?
Endrance asked.

If it was a fort, it is no longer.
Gullin replied.
I have spotted a powerful spellcaster within the area. Do you want me to eliminate him?

No.
Endrance replied.
It could be Kaelob. I’m on my way.

Endrance turned to his companions. “Follow me.” He said. “I know the way to where its coming from.”

The wizard led the way up the path from Wayrest to Kaelob’s fortress home. The old, run down fort was not ablaze, but it was still smoking. It looked like something very powerful had exploded in the center, the damage to the walls of the fort visible long before they arrived at the moat. Bright colors of red and purple lights radiated from beyond the crumbling walls, pulsing and flickering just out of sight.

Endrance felt a powerful aura of magic radiating from the inside of the destroyed fort. It tingled and crawled across his skin, like he had been coated in a swarm of ants. With a grimace, Endrance dampened his senses, surprised to discover how hard it was to ignore the sensation.

“This place is strange.” Joven observed, staring up at the lights. “And itchy.”

Endrance glanced at his companions, and found them nodding their heads.

“It’s really bad here, if you guys can feel it.” Endrance observed. “Normally, only someone trained can sense magical energy in the air.”

“Yeah… as if the strange colors and such radiating from the ruins here weren’t obvious enough.” Joven declared.

“Isn’t magic in the air a phrase used in romance?” Selene asked.

Endrance shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.” He said, walking towards the drawbridge. “I’ve lived a sheltered life.”

“See the world, see interesting things, kick their asses.” Bridget said, following. “Sounds like we should travel more often.”

The drawbridge had been made of wood and was in poor maintenance before the disaster, so it was utterly destroyed as Endrance had expected. As he walked up, he formed the proper gestures and said the long form words. In a few seconds, he cast his wall spell, aiming for the now-empty moat. It promptly filled with ice, spanning the gap between the fortress and the far side, as well as filling that half of the moat on either side of the drawbridge.

“Getting faster at that.” Joven said. “Hey, where’s Giselle?”

“She’s stuck to the back of my coat.” Endrance said, pointing. The little wolf-girl still clung to his clothes, her eyes clamped shut, ears close to her skull.

“Are you sure that’s safe?” Joven asked skeptically.

Endrance hesitated, and Joven took the opportunity to slip past him while the wizard communicated with the little girl in her native language. He caught up to Joven quickly after a few seconds of exchanged growls and yips.

“I’m the least likely one to get hit in a fight, so yeah, she thinks I’m the safest person of the four of us to be with.” He said. “She also says I smell better than you.”

Joven shrugged. “You should. It’s not like you break out in a sweat shooting lightning and doing all that crazy magic… stuff you do.”

“Crazy magic?” Endrance said, glancing around as he picked his way over chunks of shattered stone. “No, doing magic crazily was a specialty of my master, Kaelob.”

The inside of the fortress had sunken underground, and the broken stones quickly sloped down into an underground drop, leading into the source of lights too brilliant to look directly at. Large pieces of Kaelob’s furniture hung suspended in the air around the site, as if something had exploded in the center of the fortress, but was suddenly frozen in time. Endrance spotted Kaelob’s favorite chair in mid-spin, its splintered parts clustered around it on an eternal journey to nowhere.

“Well, this is crazy magic.” Joven said. “You’re right. He is better at it than you.”

Giselle popped her head up, looked startled as she stared at the bits of wood, stone, and books suspended through the air, and forgot to hide again as they advanced forward. Selene and Bridget cautiously followed them, their weapons at the ready. They hesitated when they saw the destruction and suspended debris, looking at each other.

“Endrance?” Selene asked. “Is… is it safe to be walking around in there?”

The wizard glanced at the yawning pit before him, at the suspended objects about him, and at the strange pattern of lights swirling up from below. “Probably not.” He said, continuing on. “But if I’m going to try to fix this, I’m going to need to get to the source.”

“So… jump on in?” Joven offered.

Endrance edged closer, leaning forward. “Nah.” He said. I’ll see if there’s another way down there.”

“Like what?” Bridget asked. “There a set of stairs down that you found?”

Endrance backed away, moving further into the ruined fort. Further back, shattered sections of wall gave the impression that there had once been many rooms. He pointed to a far back room. “Actually, yes.” He said.

“You two should stay up here.” Endrance said, looking at Selene and Bridget. He held his hand behind him and growled. Giselle clambered down his back, and used his hand to drop to the ground. She ran up to Bridget and stood next to her, holding onto her leg. “I need you to keep an eye on Giselle.”

“Like hell we are going to just sit here!” Bridget protested.

Endrance held up a hand, cutting her off. “I know the chambers beneath here better than you ever will. I need you to keep Giselle safe, and the area below is so close in quarters, neither of your weapons will really be effective.”

Joven looked at them and shrugged. “I know I’m not on duty at the moment, but I’m not about to let a friend wander off into a dangerous place without protection.”

Joven slung his axe onto his back, drawing instead a mace and Anna’s shield. “Don’t worry about it.” He said with a smirk. “Knowing Endrance, if something goes horribly wrong, you’ll probably know the same time we do.”

The bottom of the stairs led to a section of the fort buried underground. Usually, fortresses had chambers beneath them reinforced and built in a honeycomb design, so they would be more likely to survive a direct hit from a mage’s spell. And Kaelob’s little keep had been made that way, too. It made for very tight quarters, but it was the only reason why Endrance felt that it would be safe to go underground with part of the fortress collapsed.

Every room from the stairway on, was a six foot diameter pentagon of heavy stone bricks with metal shod support beams. Though the exterior of the fort had been in disrepair, the stone and woodwork here showed exceptional care and maintenance. Endrance touched a wall, as he stepped aside to let Joven into the first chamber, and felt a thin, buzzing layer of magic across the surface. He suspected Kaelob had woven some form of time magic into the substructure, making it more stable and resistant to the wearing of time.

Joven looked about the chamber, blinking. “So… where’s the light coming from?” he asked.

Endrance glanced around, but again found no obvious light source. This room, and from what he could see of the connecting rooms, were all equally, if dimly, lit from all directions at once. Though the room was just a shade brighter than murky, no shadows were cast.

“I don’t think the light is coming from anywhere in particular.” Endrance said. “I’ve been down here dozens of times, but I never did figure out how he did it.”

“Let’s go then.” He grumbled. “This place is giving me a headache.”

Endrance led the way through the chambers, past the stacks of materials and odds and ends that Kaelob had kept in the downstairs. The sunken area of the courtyard was pretty much the dead center of the fort, so he circled around the collapsed area, looking through each doorway to try to find a way into the collapse.

Every face of the chamber had a door or passage to the room beyond it, each being only about six feet across at its widest. Towards the center, debris and rock filled in some of the door frames, evidence of the collapsing courtyard. Some doors had held against the stones, but were splintered and buckling.

They found no enemies, though the collapsing courtyard had wreaked havoc on the state of the objects stored in the basement. Most of the chambers either had open doorways or had simple doors without any kind of lock. That was, until they came nearly around to where they had started their circle. There, they found an iron door with not one, but three heavy locks.

“Huh.” Endrance muttered.

“What?” Joven asked. “This door not here before?”

Endrance shook his head. “No, that’s not it. I just figured it would have been broken from what happened.”

Joven tried the door. “Yep. Still locked.” He stated. “Want me to go around to the other side and see if that door’s locked?”

Endrance shook his head. “It’s going to be sealed too. They seem to be enchanted. It looks like the walls and ceiling have also been magically reinforced in this area, too.”

“Why would he want this locked up so tightly?” Joven asked.

Endrance touched the door. It snapped and buzzed beneath his fingertips, but Joven would never even notice if he’d touched it. Without the proper training, a normal human’s senses could do little to pick up the weave of magic throughout the world. As it was here, the overall level of power fluctuating so wildly was noticeable, but the depth of it was unknown to them.

Endrance had not only the training, but the natural senses of a latently magical creature. He suspected that, even if he had not pursued a career in magic, he would still have been able to sense the power being bandied about by mages. To him, the chaos of power in the area was something akin to standing in the center of a typhoon without being moved. He had managed to tune out most of the ‘noise’ but the random spikes were starting to get to him.

“I’m not entirely sure, but it is going to be to our advantage.” Endrance declared, looking to the door leading to the center. “It looks like the reinforcement enchantments have kept most of the rock from falling through.”

Joven gestured at the door. “You want to try getting through? Might be something important in there.”

“No, it’s not important.” He said. “We can look into it after we find out what’s going on in the center there.”

Joven turned away from the door. “All right.” He said. “How are we going to get in there?”

Endrance looked through the doorway leading into the center. “This passage isn’t as heavily blocked. I’ll look around ahead, and try to stabilize the passage for you to fit through.”

Joven narrowed his eyes, but could see that he wouldn’t fit through the larger chunks of rock. “Try not to die.” He advised. Endrance set his staff on the ground, which stood vigilantly on its own power. “That’s still weird.” He muttered as the wizard examined the chunks of rock.