Dirge of the Dormant, page 11
part #5 of The Mindstream Chronicles Series
Judging from the way the ally stood there like a statue, his mimicked brown eyes dull and unblinking, Retar had parked him there like a carriage he was finished using. In a way, this was much better than using the mouse. In a quiet voice, she instructed Sonnis to leave the room.
He stepped into a well-lit passage lined with iron doors, each one with a small window set at eye level. On the door behind him was a sign that read Brencis Hanak. Men passed from both direction and saluted him as they went by. Sonnis saluted back. Without knowing which direction to send him, Jora chose left.
As he walked, she used her mystical eye to glimpse into the rooms. Most were offices, some with men seated at desks or having a conversation with a fellow soldier. Some were furnished with stacked beds to sleep as many as nine in a room. At the end of the corridor were the stairs that Jora assumed led to the exit. To the right and left were other corridors. She sent Sonnis down the one on the right.
Room after room, she looked inside. At the end of the corridor, Sonnis went left, then right. He reached a dead-end and had to double back.
“Sir?” someone asked, a man with big eyes and a single, bushy eyebrow. “Are you looking for something in particular?”
“Yes,” Sonnis said, “the prisoner. I was told he was down this way.”
“Prisoner?” the man asked with a frown. “Do you mean—”
“The Serocian.”
The other man smiled dimly. “Yes, sir. The Serocian. This way.” He led Sonnis back the way he’d come and then past the first corridor to the next one. About halfway down, he stopped. “Here he is, sir.”
To Jora’s surprise, the door was not under constant guard. What kind of idiots don’t guard a valued prisoner? she thought with a derisive snort. This is child’s play.
“Yes, thank you.” Sonnis tugged on the door, but it didn’t budge. When the man didn’t make to leave, he added, “You can go,” and saluted.
The man hesitated a moment. “Sir? We’re waiting for you. The meeting is overdue to begin.”
Jora cursed to herself.
“Very well. I’ll come back another time. Lead on,” Sonnis said.
The man now looked surprised. “You want me to—yes, sir. Of course.” He cast an uncertain glance at Sonnis before turning and walking off down the corridor.
Jora took a breath and let it out slowly. Sonnis followed the man until he stopped. Inside the room on the right was a gathering of uniformed men around a table. The low hum of conversation was muffled through the door.
“Anything else, sir?” the soldier asked.
“No, thank you, soldier,” Jora whispered. She instructed Sonnis to salute once more. “Dismissed.”
And Sonnis vanished.
“Challenger’s bloody fists!” Jora muttered.
“What happened?” Adriel said, her mouth full. In front of her was half a muffin on a plate, crumbs everywhere, and a cup of tea. An uneaten muffin and full cup of tea sat before Jora.
“I accidentally dismissed Sonnis in front of someone. Come on.” Jora picked up the muffin on her plate and took a big bite as she stood. “We have to hurry.” She took a quick survey of the street, the buildings, and the people walking every direction, and headed around the cafe to the right.
Adriel hurried to catch up. “Do you know where he is?”
“Yes.” Out of sight of the street, she stopped and faced Adriel. “There are two ways we can do this—through the ‘twixt or by fighting our way in. I would offer to go in alone, but his cell is locked. I’ll need you to unlock it, but you probably can’t do that from the ‘twixt.”
“Why can’t I?”
“Because you won’t be able to sense anything?” Jora phrased it like a question, uncertain she had it right.
Adriel screwed her mouth to one side in thought. “I think I can, actually. I’ll be Observing myself anyway. I’m not as good as it as you are, but it should work, and it’ll be much safer than fighting our way in.”
“All right. Once you unlock the door, it’ll open for no apparent reason, drawing attention.”
“I can manage that too,” Adriel said. “Trust me. Zivenna’s an excellent instructor.”
Jora smiled, glad once again for having brought Adriel along. “Let’s go.” She opened the Mindstream and the ‘twixt. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Adriel said, taking Jora’s hand.
And together, they stepped into nothingness.
Gripping Adriel’s hand as tightly as she dared, Jora made her way to the bunker’s door. In the ‘twixt, she had to walk more slowly for Adriel’s benefit, but it was just as well. It gave her time to study the door, to judge its weight and the time it took the guards to close it again after someone entered or exited the log building.
They stood against the wall and waited.
On the road nearby, a fellow unloaded a crate of goods from the back of a wagon and lumbered toward the door. “Do you mind?” he asked.
One of the guards opened it for him, and he went inside, though the door closed too quickly for Jora and Adriel to follow him.
“Let me try something,” Adriel said. Her voice was lost to those in the human realm of perception, but Observing herself, Jora sensed every word.
The door opened, and a man stepped out.
“Do you mind?”
The man paused, holding the door open for someone who wasn’t there. The two women ducked under his arm and slipped into the log structure. The man muttered a quiet, “Huh,” and continued on, letting the door close behind him.
As she suspected, the building contained little more than a staircase leading down and a hatch covering the opening that locked from inside, though it stood open now. Four more soldiers guarded the stairs.
Jora led the way down, pausing to flatten against one wall when a pair of men came up.
What she’d initially thought was the bottom of the stairs was a middle landing where the staircase turned and continued deeper underground. It finally ended in a well-lit, square room with three open doorways that led to three passages extending from the room. The corridors, each lined with iron doors, were narrow enough that people had to walk in single file and squeeze to one side to get by each other. The ceilings were low enough that most of the Colossus warriors would have to walk stooped over.
Jora led Adriel by the hand through the narrow hallways toward Gerad’s cell. Every time they encountered a Mangendan soldier, Jora pulled open the nearest door on her right so the approaching man would slow and shift left to avoid being struck by it. Thin though she was, she couldn’t flatten herself enough for a man to walk past without otherwise brushing her. The last thing she wanted to do was alert the enemies that someone or something invisible was stalking through the hold.
At last, they reached the room where the prisoner was being held. Jora put her hand on it to signal that it was the right door.
Adriel used her free hand to trace a sigil on the door then exhaled.
The mechanism within the lock clunked, and the door relaxed in its frame. Jora looked up and down the corridor, making sure no one was near enough to be alarmed by the opening of this particular door, and slipped in, pulling Adriel in behind her.
Gerad had been lying on his back on the hard, bed-like surface, staring at the ceiling. When the door opened, he sat up, his gaze flitting around.
Jora closed the Mindstream, making the two women visible once more. Adriel shut the door.
“Gerad, thank God’s Challenger you’re unhurt,” Jora said.
His eyes widened, and he drew back, an expression of not startlement but terror on his face. Not the reaction Jora was expecting. Then again, they were wearing disguises.
“Gerad, it’s us, Jora and Adriel. We’re here to take you home. We brought you the whistle to summon the Colossi.”
“Maybe they did something to him,” Adriel said.
King Gerad pulled something from inside his shirt and put it to his mouth. Before Jora could stop him, the room filled with a shrill whistle that shredded her ears. Adriel scribbled in the air, and the sound collapsed in on itself, but it was too late. Booted feet pounded the floor outside the room, converging on the cell.
“Bloody fists!” Jora said. “That’s not him.”
Soldiers outside the room were gathering. With only moments to spare, she withdrew her flute and opened the Mindstream.
Before she finished playing the command to open the ‘twixt, Gerad’s imposter grabbed Adriel, twisting her right arm behind her back and threatening to choke off her air with his forearm across her throat. The door opened, and a half dozen soldiers surged into the small room. Jora had no time to summon her allies. All she could do was turn her body so that the opening of the ‘twixt encompassed the imposter and Adriel and step in with them. The opening to the ‘twixt snapped shut with a quiet pop of air.
Within the ‘twixt, Jora grabbed Adriel’s arm and pulled her close. The imposter, unable to see or hear or feel anything, released Adriel. He groped around blindly, whimpering in fear, his eyes wide and unseeing.
Observing herself, Jora pressed her back to the wall beside the door, and Adriel did the same on her left. How are we going to get out of here? Six soldiers entered the room and spun, hunkered into fighting stances, as if expecting to find Jora behind them. One sword came dangerously close to slicing her thigh.
Adriel wiggled her fingers in the air and made a flicking motion as she exhaled hard. From down the corridor came the patter of someone fleeing.
“They’re getting away,” someone shouted.
The soldiers ran off after the footfalls. Most of them did, anyway. The three who remained in the room watched warily, turning their bodies slowly and quietly, backs to each other. Jora waited for an opening and drew Adriel out the door with her. They went in the opposite direction the running soldiers had gone. The corridors were surprisingly empty. Jora supposed everyone was off chasing the illusory footfalls, but when she expanded her mystical view of the hold, she realized the stairs to the only exit were blocked by at least two dozen soldiers, swords ready. Challenger’s bloody fists.
Jora tried some of the doors as they walked down the corridor and found one unlocked. She pulled Adriel inside and closed the Mindstream.
The room was an office not unlike Hanak’s, though tidier and with fewer books. It was dark, but Jora didn’t mind. They were safe in the darkness.
“What do we do now?” Adriel asked in a whisper.
Jora shook her head. They had few options. If they stayed there too long, the Mangendans would lock the hold, if they hadn’t already. “We’re going to have to fight our way out. The sooner, the better. We can’t give them an opportunity to develop a strategy, now that they know we’re here.”
“They know you’re here, but they don’t know about me,” Adriel said.
“When I closed the Mindstream, the Gerad imposter returned to the realm of perception too. We have to assume he told them they’re dealing with the Gatekeeper and a scribe.” She smiled in the darkness. “Great idea, by the way, with the fleeing footsteps. How’d you do that?”
“Remember the sound snare Zivenna taught me?” Adriel said. “As we were walking to the cell, I planted a few, hoping I’d snag something useful. When the soldiers came running, the sounds of their footsteps were caught in the snares. I then released the captured sounds.”
“Brilliant. I’m so glad I brought you instead of Arc.”
“What’s our plan?”
“I don’t know how many soldiers they have to throw at us, but I’ve got fifty-two allies who can fight them.”
“Plus me. I have some offensive skills, though not many. My magic isn’t specifically intended for battle, but I can cloak us and mute the sound in the area so they can’t hear each other’s commands.”
“Or cries for help,” Jora added with a grin. “That’s good. Give me a minute to summon my allies.”
“Um, can they all fit in this room?”
“It’ll be cramped for a minute.” Jora put her hand on Adriel’s arm and felt her friend trembling. “Don’t be alarmed. Some of them are quite ugly, but they won’t hurt you.”
“I know. I trust you, Jora. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
Whistling as quietly as she could, Jora opened the ‘twixt once again and started calling her allies in turn. “Po Teng, Kaw, Foul, Zivenna, Gruoarq, Sting, Squel, Gordawn, Spirans, Anomus, Hurrican, Ignid,” The list went on. After the first two dozen, she paused to instruct them to huddle as close to one another as they could. She drew a paper from her knapsack and unfolded her list of allies, reading aloud the remaining names. One by one, they faded into view, bowing to her as they arrived. The room filled with them, and some took to standing on the writing table, the chairs, and even other allies. At last, with all save Sonnis and Zhokaw summoned, she told them to follow her out of the room and kill anyone they saw wearing a black uniform. “On second thought, kill them all.”
Adriel swallowed audibly.
Jora cast a glance at the scribe, her hand on the doorknob. “Ready?”
Adriel took a deep breath and let it out with a nod. “Scared out of my wits, but yes.”
Jora opened the door and stepped into the corridor. Adriel exited after her and held the door while the allies spilled out of the room and into the narrow passageway. Jora led the way toward the staircase, glancing over her shoulder now and then to be sure Adriel didn’t get left behind. Once the room was empty of allies, Adriel made her way to Jora.
“Once we turn this corner,” Jora said in a low voice, “they’ll see us and shout for help. Can you muffle the sound from here?”
“I’ll try.” Adriel shuffled up to the corner of the left wall and began drawing in the air. She exhaled and made a shoving motion with her hands at the same time, pushing the invisible inscription toward the staircase landing and the armed men guarding it. “Get ready,” she said. “Now.”
Jora broke into a run directly at the men, borrowing Gruoarq’s armor as she did. The front row of men saw her first and pointed, their mouths working, but no sound came out. They spread out and dropped into battle stances, swords raised.
About a dozen yards from the front row of men, Jora stopped and waved her allies past. “Kill them all,” she shouted silently. They didn’t need to hear her to know what to do.
The allies, each one different from the rest, each one as grotesque as it was lethal, rushed the black-clad soldiers. Jora wasn’t close enough to see much of the fighting, but she saw clawed hands and whipping tendrils and flapping wings erupt in a tumble of swords and spurting blood and plumes of fire. Muffled by Adriel’s magic, Jora heard not a single scream from the dying men, not a clash of steel nor a grunt of effort.
The scent of blood filled Jora’s senses, igniting something within her. A veil of sorts fell across her vision, turning the scene from bloody and horrific to beautiful, dreamlike shades of red.
Kill. Kill. Kill. The word echoed through her mind, wet and crisp like the sound of a hand slapping the surface of a still pool. She longed to bathe in her enemies’ spilled blood. Raising the flute to her mouth, she began to play. Kill. Kill. Kill.
Lightning shot from the flute’s holes as she fingered the instrument. Men’s skin and clothing blackened where the lightning struck them. Die you wretched bastard! And you. And you! She laughed into the flute as she played. Die. Die. Die.
More men clambered over the bodies of their fallen friends, slashing at the allies as they tried to make their way to the Gatekeeper. One man broke through and came at a dead run toward her.
A deathly gray smoke wafted from the flute every time she lifted a finger. It drifted into the nostrils and open mouth of the rushing soldier. Like the ones behind it, the man dropped its sword and grabbed its throat before it fell, flailing and twitching, its mouth agape as if it wanted more. You like that, do you? Here! Its red face swelled up, its body hunched and twisted, its belly exploded, spilling pale pink entrails that withered and stiffened and blackened on the floor.
The men fell one by one with silent pleas for mercy or cries of pain or fear. The golden ally with the eye stalks ripped the last one to shreds while the big bearlike one hammered it with mighty fists.
She turned, hoping to find more enemies to kill but found only the scribe girl huddled on the floor, hands covering its head like a frightened little rabbit. Kill it and end its misery. She borrowed Po Teng’s wicking magic and knelt beside the scribe. As she reached for it, something gave her pause.
No.
Jora looked up. A Mangendan soldier bore down on her from the direction they’d come. His sword was raised, his gaze fixed on her, his mouth open in a silent battle cry. When he was near enough to start his swing, she ducked and spun the way Tylia had taught her. As she stepped around him, she brushed his face with her fingers, releasing Po Teng’s borrowed magic into him. He fell to the floor, skidded to a stop, and lay still. His skin shriveled and darkened, falling in on the bones beneath. His face caved in, wrinkled and gray, and clung to the skull. In the eye sockets sat a pair of shrunken prunes with a single brown stain on each where the iris had been.
“Adriel,” she said, turning back to her friend. “Are you hurt?” She squatted and put a gentle hand on the girl’s back.
Adriel lifted her head and affixed her gaze on Jora’s face. “Is it over?”
Jora looked about. The floor was a mess of spilled blood and body parts. But the fighting had stopped, and the allies were gathering, their attention focused again on their master, awaiting a new command. She nodded and swallowed. I came so close... She pushed the thought from her mind. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. I’ll never hurt you. I won’t. I won’t. She ran a hand over Adriel’s hair. “It’s over. We’re all right now.”
