Trials (42 page)

“So there you are! Now you won’t get away!” Morksen cried exultantly.

“I should’ve let you drown when I had the opportunity. I knew I’d regret it.”

“But you didn’t do it, boss, you lost your chance.” He shook his head and gave a sneering smile. “And now you’ll pay dearly. That’s what happens with men of ideals, lots of honor, lots of courage… but unfortunately they don’t usually live long, as it’s going to turn out in your case. Kill him, I said!” he cried, turning to the waiting Assassin.

Iruki struggled.

“Don’t kill him, Yakumo! Please, I beg you. You know I’d celebrate the death of any Norghanian pig. They’re no more than a race of rapists and murderers without a conscience. But not like this, not serving another Norghanian. If you kill him serving this rabid dog you’ll just be killing all over again following the orders of vile, heartless men. That’s not the way to redemption. If you do what this scum wants you to do, your soul will blacken once again, you’ll lose that tiny seed of hope we planted. Don’t allow it, stay strong, don’t do what he says. I beg you… for me…”

“Shut up, you bitch of the steppes!” threatened Morksen.

“I have no choice…” Yakumo said dully, preparing his black daggers of death.

Lasgol dropped his bow and unsheathed his two short swords with a swift movement.

“Why do you have no choice?” he asked Yakumo in puzzlement. “Why haven’t you attacked him?”

“Because I’m the one with the ace up his sleeve, and it’s me who controls the game,” Morksen said triumphantly, showing him a small wooden jar. “Do you know what’s in it? You don’t, do you? I’ll tell you, boss: a potent poison of my own creation. Surprised? I’m afraid you are.” He smiled, his mouth twisting into an expression of enjoyment. “It’s a secret hobby of mine, nobody knows about it —nobody who might still be alive, that is— and it’s something that’s been very useful to me, extremely useful, for years.”

“He’s poisoned her,” Yakumo said, his face showing great worry.

Finally Lasgol understood the situation, the difficult extortion Yakumo was suffering.

“And I’m the only one who can provide the antidote, since there’s only one and I’ve made it myself very carefully…” Morksen said, with a dirty grin disfiguring his ugly face.

“He hasn’t got the antidote, Yakumo. Don’t believe him! It’s one more ruse of this stinking hyena!” Iruki cried in fury.

“Hah! But I do have it, little wildling,” Morksen said, showing them another jar. He shook it in front of Iruki’s eyes and put it to his mouth. “Do what you were created for, Assassin, kill Lasgol, or else I’ll uncork the antidote and pour it all out. Your Masig princess has only a few more moments to live, so you decide, Assassin.”

Yakumo looked at Iruki, then at Lasgol. He tightened his grip on his black daggers.

“Wait, Yakumo,” Lasgol said in an attempt to stop him, “There has to be another way out. Killing each other while this swine enjoys the spectacle can’t be the only one. He’s right in part of what he said. I’m guided by an honor and loyalty which with every passing day I find more difficult to keep to. I can’t be blind to the cruelty of my fellow-countrymen and what they’re doing in Rogdon. They kill children and old people equally, rape helpless women, plunder whatever comes to their greedy eyes, destroy what they please… it’s a dishonor and a heavy load to bear which are undermining my soul. I’m forced to work with treacherous snakes like Morksen. And what’s all this for? The King’s orders? The Great Thoran, carrying out an unjustifiable act of revenge from his castle in the frozen mountains of Norghana? For the good of the Kingdom? Oh, I don’t think so… Every day I believe in that less and less. I don’t want to kill you, Assassin, I don’t want to cause any harm to Iruki. I don’t care whether that contradicts my orders, if it goes against what’s expected of me. Come on, Yakumo. Let’s not fight, let’s find a solution together. I know we can.”

“Kill him right now or I’ll slit her throat!” Morksen cried, touching the knife to Iruki’s neck once again.

Yakumo looked at Lasgol for a single tense moment.

And leapt on him.

Lasgol knew he could not beat the Assassin in a face-to-face fight. This man’s dark arts and ability to deliver death to his opponents were incomparable. He was too lethal. Lasgol dodged the attack and felt one of the daggers touch his shoulder. The daggers flew towards his neck in deadly arcs, at incredible speed. Lasgol defended himself, blocking with his short swords. The Assassin cut him again, this time on the cheek. Blood ran down Lasgol’s face. He would not be able to keep this up much longer. His defensive moves were a little slower each time, and Yakumo’s attacks faster and faster.

Suddenly the Assassin disappeared before his eyes, evaporating into thin air, leaving Lasgol stunned, then reappeared behind him.

Damn…

The Ranger turned to protect himself, but as he had feared, it was too late. The two black daggers danced and disarmed him; both his swords fell to the ground.

He was helpless.

Yakumo looked at him for a single moment.

“Finish him off!” yelled Morksen.

Lasgol looked at the Assassin. His black eyes were inscrutable.

A dagger slashed the air and caught him in the chest.

Lasgol fell backwards with his chest slashed open.

“Yes! Kill him! Kill him!” Morksen was euphoric.

The Assassin lunged at Lasgol and cut his chest again.

Morksen was ecstatic.

Yakumo rose slowly from Lasgol’s body and turned towards Morksen. He started to walk in his direction.

“What are you doing? Stop!”

The Assassin leapt, somersaulted in mid-air and landed behind Morksen.

The veteran did not flinch. He turned completely round and placed Iruki between himself and Yakumo.

Lasgol looked down at his chest and saw with great surprise that the deadly cuts were actually painful but superficial. Yakumo had not killed him. He looked up and saw his bow. With the speed of an expert archer he nocked it and aimed at Morksen’s head.

“If you take one more step… I’ll kill her!” Morksen said.

The Assassin stopped, looked at Lasgol and nodded.

Morksen, feeling that something was not right, turned his head back.

Lasgol’s arrow reached him squarely in his good eye and went through his skull.

“Die, you scum,” said Lasgol, passing judgment.

Komir crossed the portal and felt a strange sensation, followed by a sharp pain running along his entire body, a generalized cramp which left him breathless, as if all his muscles had atrophied after some exhausting effort. There was no trace of strength left in his body. He was absolutely helpless, trying not to drop his sword or the hunting knife in his hands, which could barely hold them. He looked around the rectangular hall he was in. Ilenian hieroglyphs were carved on to the smooth surfaces of the walls. A lugubrious silence pervaded everything. The place looked abandoned, as if no one had set foot there in hundreds of years…

A dull buzz to his right made him turn his head, and he saw Hartz appear out of the portal. With a grimace of pain, the giant was trying to hold on to his sword, but it looked as if he was going to drop it at any moment.

“What… what the hell…” he muttered.

“It’s the effect… of crossing the portal…” said Komir, who was beginning to get some of his strength back, even though he still could not move. And the pain, unfortunately, did not ease.

Another buzz told Komir of the arrival of Kendas to his left. He was also affected by the strange physical effects of crossing the portal.

It took the three friends some time to recover completely.

“Any idea where we are?” Komir asked, with a gasp of relief now that he was over the painful experience.

Kendas shrugged.

Hartz shrugged too. “Don’t ask me!”

“I think we ought to explore…” Komir said, and the three men crossed the chamber carefully, alert to any sudden danger.

“There are some stairs here,” Kendas said, pointing at the wall opposite the portal.

“Where do they lead?” Hartz asked.

“To the ceiling, but it’s sealed…” Kendas replied.

“There doesn’t seem to be any other way out of here…” said Komir once they had checked the chamber. “Let’s wait for the others and see if we can manage to get up there.”

When they had all crossed over and recovered from the adverse effects of the experience, they went to the stairs. Hartz and Kendas tried to lift the sealed trapdoor by pushing with their backs, but to no avail.

“Phew… impossible…” said Hartz as he gave up.

“Komir, you should try with the medallions, those stairs seem to be sealed by some arcane means,” said Kayti as she checked the ceiling.

Aliana went up to Komir and offered him her hand with a smile. He took it and smiled back. They reached out to Asti and she joined them. The three bearers formed a circle with their hands linked.

“Focus on finding your inner energy,” said Aliana, “and once you do, ask the medallion to open the sealed trapdoor.”

Komir had no trouble doing so; each time he found it easier to find his power. From his medallion came a crystalline flash, followed by a brown one from Aliana’s and then a ruby one from Asti’s. The Ilenian magic was becoming active. The medallions shone once more, simultaneously, filling the empty room with light.

There came a stony crack above their heads, followed by the sound of rock being dragged against rock. An opening appeared at the head of the stairs.

With a huge smile of satisfaction Hartz went up to the next level, sword in hand.

Kayti tried to stop him but she was too late. “Wait… you halfw…”

Hartz ran up the stairs and came into a room lit by oil lamps. This puzzled him. If they were in an Ilenian temple, or some other place of Ilenian origin, there could not be oil lamps burning; even he could see that. Although he had to admit that lately his ideas had been getting pretty good, brilliant even. Perhaps he was not such a moron after all…

Something moved to his right, and Hartz turned to face the danger.

“Don’t move a hair, you damned Mage!” he shouted, using his Ilenian sword to threaten a figure in a dark tunic with a volume in its hand.

The figure took a step back and collapsed onto the floor.

Hartz was taken aback. Had he caused the Guardian to die of fright? No, it could hardly be that — or could it? He glanced around the room, and it seemed vaguely familiar… Another figure appeared in a doorway with a staff in his hand and a volume in the other. He wore a grey hooded tunic. Hartz could not see his face but had no doubt it was another Mage. Something in his guts told him. Without second thoughts, and shouting at the top of his voice, he charged at it with the intention of skewering him before he could work his magic.

But he was not quick enough.

The Mage raised his staff. Pointing it at Hartz, he cast a rapid spell.

Hartz felt a cone of freezing cold reach his body. The cold was so intense, so icy, that it seemed to be freezing his soul. He looked at the Mage for the briefest of moments before he was frozen alive and lost consciousness.

“Noooooooo!” shouted Kayti, who had just arrived in the room. “I’ll kill you!” she yelled and ran toward the Mage, with Kendas following close behind.

The Mage muttered under his breath. Pointing at Kayti with his staff, he conjured a whirlwind which threw the redhead flying to the end of the room. She lay there stunned by the blow.

Kendas saw what was happening and hesitated. He would not have time; this Mage was too fast. He looked around and saw an altar with a sarcophagus like the one they had just left behind in the Temple of Fire. The Mage pointed his staff at Kendas, who leapt behind the altar. Suddenly he found himself surrounded by a ring of fire which stopped him moving from his hiding place.

Komir came up the stairs, and Aliana and Asti moved to stand beside him. He watched what was happening with his heart beating fast. He looked at the Mage and instinctively knew he had to protect himself from the enemy’s power.

“It’s a Mage!” he cried to his two companions in alarm. “Protect yourselves!”

The Mage raised his staff.

Three flashes from the three medallions, each with its distinctive elemental tone, lit up the hall.

The Mage cast his spell.

Three protective spheres rose around the bearers.

The enemy spell had no effect on them. Komir breathed out in relief.

In response the enemy Mage raised a protective sphere around his own body.

A tense silence filled the room.

Komir decided to act. He unsheathed sword and knife and began to walk towards the Mage, trusting that his sphere would protect him.

“Komir, wait!” Aliana said behind him.

Komir stopped and looked at her uneasily.

“We’ll do it together, the three of us,” she said. The two girls walked up to him.

“Earth!” cried Aliana, holding her medallion in her right hand. A brown beam flashed from it and began to attack the Mage’s sphere.

“Fire!” cried Asti, following the Healer’s example, and a red beam flashed from her medallion.

“Ether!” cried Komir, and a crystalline, almost translucent beam attacked the Mage’s sphere.

The three bearers kept attacking, while the beams tried to penetrate the protection. Komir was amazed to see what they were capable of with the medallions.
More power! More!
he begged of his own medallion, and the beam seemed to get even stronger. The enemy mage was not conjuring, which Komir guessed was either because he had problems or else because he was saving energy in order to keep up his shield. He struck the floor with his staff, murmuring words of power as he did so. A ripple beneath the ground began at the point where the staff had hit the rock and moved towards the group like an underground wave, lifting the floor as it passed.

Kendas pointed to it. “Careful!” he said.

Komir saw the floor rise in front of him in a great undulation and realized that the sphere would not protect them against this.

He was not wrong.

The floor under the bearers’ feet rose and destabilized them completely, so that they lost their balance and fell. Komir rolled to one side and got back to his feet. The sphere which protected him from magic attacks vanished, and suddenly he felt naked before the Mage. He was now at the mercy of that being’s magic. He thought of using the medallion again, but rejected the idea. He grabbed his sword with both hands, took a step forward and said to himself:
We’ll do it the Norriel way.

A voice, kind but firm, came from under the Mage’s cowl.

“In order to keep the sphere active you must keep up your concentration. It’s a spell that requires a great deal of study time to perfect, and there’s a real art in managing to hold it steady. It takes years of practice…”

Surprise at hearing a man speak stopped Komir in his tracks.

“But of course you wouldn’t know what I’m talking about, would you, young warrior? Given that you’re not a Mage, nor were you the one who cast the spell. It was created by that Ilenian medallion hanging round your neck.”

Komir thought at once of his past confrontation with the Dominator Guzmik. This Mage was not an Ilenian Guardian, as he had thought at first, but he was certainly a Sorcerer wanting to kill him. Convinced of this, he prepared to attack.

“Komir, wait!” Aliana begged.

He looked at her in confusion.

“That voice… it sounds familiar… I think I know it…”

The Mage raised his staff and showed it to her.

“And this… do you recognize it?”

Aliana looked at the object with half-closed eyes.

“It’s the… it’s… the staff of power of...”

The Mage pulled back the cowl, and Komir saw a blond man with grey eyes and kind features, with a light golden goatee. He was still in his thirties, attractive, and he was smiling.

“Haradin!” cried Aliana full of joy. “I can’t believe my eyes! Haradin!”

“It’s been quite a while, my dear Aliana,” the Mage said, with a small bow to the Healer. “It gladdens my heart to see you safe and sound.”

The man with grey eyes twirled the staff, and the ring of fire which imprisoned Kendas vanished.

“Whether you’re a friend of Aliana’s or not, I’ll cut your throat if anything happens to Hartz,” said Kayti in a threatening voice, limping perceptibly to the side of the big Norriel, who was still frozen in the middle of the room.

“You needn’t worry,” Haradin assured her. “The effects of the freezing will disappear by themselves in a matter of hours. Nothing will happen to him. I could accelerate the thawing process, but there’s some risk in doing so.”

“In that case don’t. But if you lie to me and any harm comes to Hartz, consider yourself dead, Mage,” Kayti said, looking at him with the eyes of a tigress.

“Same here, Mage,” Komir said, joining Kayti.

“I assure you that nothing bad will happen to him,” Haradin said with complete confidence.

Aliana went up to Hartz and placed her hands on the Norriel’s head, then concentrated. A moment later she looked at Kayti and nodded with a smile. The redhead seemed to relax a little. Aliana turned to Haradin.

“Where are we? What’s this place? We thought we were in an Ilenian temple. What are you doing here, my dear friend?”

Haradin smiled.

“And you wouldn’t be wrong, Healer of the order of Tirsar. Allow me…” He murmured a word, and a white light appeared at the end of his staff, lighting up the whole room.

And then Komir recognized where he was.

“We’re in the Temple of Ether, under the Egia Lighthouse!” he cried in amazement. “We’ve been here before, in this chamber… but we didn’t find the secret passage under the altar.”

Haradin nodded.

“Your appearance out of the shadows was truly impressive. The poor priest of the Order of Light who was making an inventory of the hall almost had a heart attack when he saw this big fellow enter.” He indicated the unconscious man on the floor. “For one moment I thought myself that the Ilenians had returned from the depths of the Earth to claim possession of this temple.”

Haradin woke the priest of the Order of Light. He got up with his face as white as if he had seen a ghost rising from a sarcophagus.

“Easy, Brother Leonius, easy, there’s no danger, they’re friends,” Haradin said soothingly. “Go tell Abbot Dian that we have guests.”

“Yes… yes… of course… right away,” he said, and ran out of the chamber.

Aliana hugged the Rogdonian Mage with enthusiasm.

“I’m so happy to see you recovered, my dear friend!” she said.

“Oh yes… the last time you saw me I must have looked pretty terrible,” he replied, with a laugh of genuine amusement.

“It was in the Usik forests, during our escape. You were still half-petrified…”

“I’m still suffering the consequences: a truly horrendous experience. I wouldn’t wish it upon any mortal… From what Gerart told me I owe you my life, young Healer.”

“Gerart? How’s the Prince, is he safe?” Aliana stumbled over her own words, with a sudden anxiety she could not hide.

Komir noticed her concern and felt a twinge of jealousy burning inside him. He wondered whether it was well-founded.

“Yes, Prince Gerart is well, and has been leading the fight against the Norghanian and Nocean troops. He’s proving to be a very good leader, with admirable courage and charisma. We’re all very proud of him; his behavior has been exemplary. A worthy son of his father.”