Lorelle of the Dark, page 31
It was coming from the Dark!
“Vohn?”
Something scratched at the door, so lightly that if she hadn’t been right in front of the door she might have missed it. Something soft and light had definitely brushed against the steel.
Again, that whispering touch, and she saw the shadow of something move along the gap at the bottom.
A thin corner of black cloth slipped underneath. It rippled, as though touched by some wind. Except there was no wind.
“Take the cloak…” Vohn said in her head.
“Vohn?” she exclaimed. “Where are you?”
“No time…” Vohn said. “Take the cloak… Tovos is coming. We have to move fast.”
She yanked the cloak under the doorway and it flowed through the tiny slit like water. She unfurled it and wrapped it around her shoulders. She felt the Dark now like she was standing in the deepest shadow, like the cloak was an extension of the noktum itself. It embraced Lorelle, flowed through her.
Except now that she knew Tovos controlled the Dark, she didn’t want more connection to it. That connection had turned her into a slave and a murderer. What had comforted her before now made her skin crawl. The shadows oozed into her like oil and she flinched, waiting for Tovos to take control of her body again.
“Tell me you know how to use this,” Vohn said through the Dark. His voice sounded much louder now.
But this time, there was no malice in the Dark. Tovos’s insidious sentience didn’t drive it. There was just warmth, comfort, power.
And the cloak amplified everything. Before, when she’d given herself over to the Dark, she could feel the nearest shadows, could slide from one to the other like liquid. She could feel others approaching through any shadows that were nearby. But with the cloak, it was as if an ocean of shadow lapped at the shore of her body, as though she could feel the entire noktum itself.
“By Lotura…” she murmured.
She could feel the entirety of the castle, could feel all the creatures within it whenever they touched any of the multitude of shadows within the keep as they moved about their business. She could feel Tovos high above in his tower, working magic. She could feel the stairs below her, the Wergoi moving about. She could feel the stairs going down and down into the dungeons below.
The five frayed, golden threads of her soul began to burn.
She could feel Khyven.
“Hold on,” Lorelle murmured, and she wrapped the cloak around herself.
And fell into that ocean of darkness.
Chapter Fifty
Khyven
Khyven stared through the bars. They were made of rough rock. In the noktum, of course, it was only a shade of dull gray to him, but he envisioned that the bars would be a dusky red if he could see them by daylight.
Outside the bars, an enormous creature with a Kyolar’s body, skeletal wings, and the face of an owl paced back and forth. Smoky darkness wafted off its bony wings, and it never seemed to take its eyes off Khyven, as though he was the one it wanted. The thing never once looked at Slayter, who rested against the wall in the same cell.
Khyven stared back at the thing.
They’d killed Vohn. Khyven kept thinking over and over about that split second where he could have grabbed the Mavric iron blade with his free hand, but he’d hesitated because of the damned Nox. And then it had been too late. The shadows had slithered over his left arm and the opportunity was gone.
Now he wondered about Zaith’s sudden realization about Khyven being the “Greatblood” the Giant was “looking for.” Had it been a genuine warning that Khyven simply didn’t understand? Or had the wily Nox betrayed him, distracting him with cryptic warnings long enough for Khyven and Slayter to be captured?
Well, he wouldn’t hesitate next time. If he could just get to that Mavric iron sword again, he’d see just how well it could cut through Giant magic.
Khyven leaned against the bars, glaring at the monster that glared back at him. He heard the song of violence in his mind, in his heart, and he was tempted to get up and pace just to mock the thing.
A battle with that owl-headed lion was surely coming, but the final gatekeeper in this place was the Giant Tovos. And there would be no mercy from that thing, Khyven could tell at a glance. He hadn’t looked at Khyven and Slayer like they were people. He’d looked at them like they were turds on the bottom of his boots.
Khyven had known men like that. Powerful Ringers who’d looked down on Khyven when he was just a newbie in the Night Ring. Cruel masters who had tried to undermine Khyven before his bouts. Whenever Khyven had seen that same derisive expression on an enemy’s face, he’d known the lay of the land. Fight your way out or die.
If Khyven remained useful—and Slayter, for that matter—to Tovos, then they would be allowed to live. But the moment they weren’t, like that poor bastard Zaith, they’d suffer the same fate.
Slayter limped over to the bars. “Why are you staring at that creature?”
“’Cause he’s staring at me.”
Slayter raised an eyebrow. “If your goal is to intimidate it, I don’t think it’s working.”
“How do you know?”
Slayter glanced at the monster, then back at Khyven, then back at the monster.
“That’s actually a good point. I wonder if he’s intelligent.”
“Because that’s important.”
“I agree.”
“That was sarcasm.”
“Ah.”
Khyven ignored Slayter and looked at his weapons hanging on pegs just outside the cell. The dwarves had taken away everything but Khyven’s and Slayter’s clothes before the shadow tentacles threw them into the cell. But they were within easy reach once they got past these bars. That was an advantage.
All Khyven had to do was get past the lion-owl.
“It would be nice if there was a door to the cell,” Slayter said.
That was a disadvantage. There was no door to the cell. The shadows had somehow teleported them inside, and there was no way out except, Khyven supposed, the shadows taking them back again.
When they’d first arrived, even after they’d taken Slayter’s clay disks away, the mage had tried to create a spell by tracing lines in the rough rock. He hadn’t been successful yet.
“The floor isn’t going to work for magic, eh?” Khyven asked.
“They took my scratcher. This rock is porous and uneven and hard. Even with my scratcher, I doubt I could have made a precise enough line. It would take me a very long time to hack something out of this stone with bare hands, and as much time to destroy it after.”
“Can’t you just make the design on the air?”
“Yes. But I’ve always been bad at that form of Line Magic. It’s… sloppy.”
“Maybe now’s the time to get better.”
“I’m saving my one spell for the right moment.”
“You make a hole in the bars; I’ll get that sword. Once I do, we’ll have a fighting chance.”
“I doubt it. I know it’s your nature to dismiss physical challenges, but that’s a naguil. I feel like a better moment is coming. I’m waiting for that moment.”
“A better moment?”
“A better moment,” Slayter repeated as though Khyven hadn’t heard him.
“You think the moments are going to get better from here on?” Khyven asked.
“Well, we get one shot. It costs the same amount of energy for me to do a properly crafted spell as it does for a sloppy one. The only difference is that the properly crafted spell will be strong and the improperly crafted spell will be weak. And if it’s sloppy enough, it might fail altogether. Writing on air requires a certain kind of imagination that… Well, my spell would be sloppy. And I’m pretty sure I’ll be unconscious on the floor afterward. So, I’m waiting for a better moment.”
“Fine.”
“Don’t be angry at yourself.”
“Angry at myself?”
“I saw you hesitate. You could have drawn the Mavric iron blade back at the Nox city, but you stopped because the Nox warned you not to. You’re angry at yourself for that. Don’t be. He was right.”
“How do you know?”
“Obviously he was trying to tell us something. Something only he knew. Something Tovos did not.”
“Well, neither do we.”
“Just because we don’t understand the message doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. Tovos doesn’t know it either, I’d wager. That fact alone makes it valuable. Whatever Zaith’s secret is, it’s powerful. Barbarically hacking at Tovos with a magic sword would have been an effort in futility. But whatever Zaith was talking about?” Slayter shook his head speculatively. “It might be an arrow pointed at Tovos’s heart. It might be. When fighting a Giant, knowledge is power, Khyven.”
“But you don’t have any idea what he was talking about.”
“Not the slightest. But I could smell the potency of it. It’s making my nose twitch. Greatbloods…”
“Have you ever heard that term before?”
He shook his head. “But I’ve never looked, either. I wish I had my library.”
“Well, I hope you’re right. And I hope we can figure it out, because if we don’t, then—”
A knot of darkness coalesced next to the owl-faced lion. It was about three feet in diameter with thick, dark, muscly threads. The knot expanded, then vanished and suddenly Lorelle stood in the chamber, ten feet from the monster.
Her eyes widened as she saw it. “Well, that didn’t work,” she said.
The monster shrieked and charged her.
Lorelle slid sideways with the mastery of a seasoned Ringer, her dark cloak flaring, and the great claws slashed through the shadows where she’d been. Khyven tried to follow her with his gaze, but he couldn’t. She stepped back into the shadows near the bars and vanished.
The creature shrieked again, spinning, searching.
Khyven watched, his gaze flicking left and right. Slayter stood at the bars right next to him, doing the same.
Something touched Khyven on the shoulder and he whirled around. Lorelle now stood in the cell with them.
“That’s better,” she said.
The owl-faced lion shrieked and slammed into the bars.
Lorelle motioned them closer. Both Khyven and Slayter scrambled toward her, then Khyven spun around.
“Wait, the sword!” Khyven pointed at the Mavric iron blade. “We need that sword!”
She looked in the direction of the weapons hanging on the wall.
“We have to leave it,” she said tersely. “Hold onto me. I think this is going to hurt.” Reluctantly, Khyven grabbed one of Lorelle’s arms and Slayter grabbed the other. She flung an edge of the voluminous cloak over each of them just as the owl-faced lion slammed into the bars again and shrieked.
Complete darkness enveloped Khyven. Slayter vanished. Lorelle vanished. The cell went away. He felt like he was swirling in a whirlpool of black water, spiraling down, down, head-first into a tube that was far smaller than his body.
Senji’s Teeth, not this again, he thought as it squeezed him, squeezed his head into a space where a quill pen would barely fit. He screamed, but no sound came out. His body was being pulped to death, and funneled into a meaty twist of skin and blood.
Just when he thought he would go mad with the pain, he came out the other side. The darkness slid away and he stood in the place where they’d fought Tovos. The burned city of Nox Arvak smoldered behind the slumped corpse of Zaith.
Khyven held his arms out for balance. His bones felt like noodles. He staggered, teetering on the edge of falling, then his body became solid again.
He glanced over at Slayter, who wobbled, fell to his knees, and threw up on the grass.
Lorelle stood there, wincing as though she, too, was feeling the same effects. She motioned them closer.
Slayter looked up, vomit dripping from his chin. He shook his head. “A moment.” He threw up again.
“Come here now, or we’re dead,” Lorelle said.
“We can’t just leave Vohn’s body…” Khyven said, then trailed off as he cast about the glade. Zaith was still where he’d fallen, but Vohn was missing.
“Where is he?”
“Khyven, come here now.”
“Where’s Vohn?”
She ran to him, on the verge of tears. “I know I don’t deserve it,” she said, “but you have to trust me. Vohn is… taken care of.”
“What does that mean?”
“Khyven! I’m almost certain Tovos can track us if we use the cloak inside his castle. We just did. Which means the moment he notices what happened, he’ll follow us here. But I don’t think he can track us if we go from this place to another place. At the very least, it will be harder. So, we need to get away from this place.”
Khyven opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. He picked up the still-vomiting Slayter around the waist with one arm. Lorelle flared the cloak around them both.
The darkness swallowed them again, and the excruciating whirlpool began all over, turning Khyven into a boneless piece of meat shoved through a straw. He screamed soundlessly.
They appeared on another field, charred woods before them. Slayter continued to throw up, dangling from Khyven’s arm. Bile rose in his own throat and he shoved it down.
“One more,” Lorelle gasped.
“One more?” Khyven said.
“So he can’t follow us.”
“Senji’s Piss,” Khyven cursed. Slayter moaned. The cloak wrapped around them again. It took longer this time, the swirling and the squeezing and the squishing down to paste.
Then knives sliced him. Or that’s what it felt like. The tube was suddenly laced with razors.
The razors slashed. Khyven screamed and screamed without a sound. It went on and on.
The darkness vanished. The stinging, excruciating pain of the razor blades raced down his back, down his front, down his arms, and he twitched on the ground.
Slowly, the pain receded, and when he had mastered himself enough to look around, he saw Lorelle on one side of him, also on all fours, vomiting. On the other side, Slayter dry-heaved.
“I’m sorry,” Lorelle breathed. “That wasn’t supposed to… I didn’t know that would happen. That was… I think that was the Lux.”
Khyven staggered to his feet and turned, wiping his mouth with his sleeve—
His hand froze halfway across his mouth, then fell to his side. A mountain of gold and jewels the size of a three-story house rose to the high, stalactite-studded ceiling. They were in some massive treasure cavern! Wide-eyed, he looked at Lorelle, then back at the unbelievable treasure.
“Is that real?” Khyven asked.
“It’s a dragon hoard.”
“The dragon that just burned the Nox city?”
“Khyven, I’ll tell you everything. I promise, but this isn’t the place.”
Khyven had never seen such wealth. He’d never even imagined such wealth. “We have a lot to talk about,” he said to her.
“But first, we have to escape.”
“We’re teleporting again?” Khyven shook his head. “No.”
Slayter held up a hand, nodded agreement, then dry-heaved again.
“I’m not going into that cloak again,” Khyven said.
“Not the cloak.” She pointed up and to her right. A stairway cut into the side of the rough walls went nearly to the ceiling, and at the top stood a Thuros, colors swirling inside, just like one in Usara.
She flipped open her pouch and withdrew the Plunnos.
“Senji’s Boots, you found it…” Khyven murmured. “And it works?”
“Enough to get us back home.”
Khyven let out a relieved breath. “All right. That is the best news I’ve ever heard. Please tell me it feels better than the cloak.”
“Much better. Weird, but better.”
“Weird how?”
“Like you’re being dipped in oil.”
Khyven contemplated that for a half-second, then nodded. “I’ll take that over the slashing tube of death.”
Slayter finally stopped retching and Khyven held him until he was steady on his prosthetic.
Slayter limped to the base of the treasure pile.
“Come on. We’ve got to get up those stairs,” Khyven said.
Slayter ignored him and picked up a thick, glowing red chain with a manacle on one end. The links were big as his wrists, and the manacle was large enough to close around Khyven’s thigh.
“Do you know what this is?” Slayter whispered. “I told you about this! The day Lorelle vanished. This is a Dragon’s Chain!”
“Not the time, Slayter.”
“I don’t think we should stay here,” Lorelle said, looking and sounding exhausted. Her shoulders were stooped, her head bent, and her black hair drooped on either side of her face. The noktum cloak hung around her body as though mimicking her hair. “I won’t feel safe until we’re far away from the Great Noktum. Tovos rules here. He is master of everything in this darkness. I don’t think he can track us here, and I think the dragon is gone, but don’t know any of that for certain.”
“But there’s so much to explore,” Slayter said. He had picked up a jewel-encrusted chalice, turning it back and forth as though he was trying to look through it. “The magical artifacts that might be found here…” he murmured.
“Maybe we can return,” Lorelle said.
Slayter eyed the treasure, his face alight with a desire to know. Khyven swore the mage would jump off a cliff just to see what was at the bottom. Slayter had said Zaith’s secret made his nose twitch. This room had to be making Slayter’s entire body twitch.
But, reluctantly, Slayter limped over to them, clutching the coils of glowing red chain against this chest. “I’m taking this.”
“We’ll come back,” Khyven said. He looked at Lorelle, at her new face, her new hair. She was acting like the Lorelle he’d known, someone who cared about her friends, someone who would spring her friends from a prison, but…
“And what about Vohn?” Khyven asked.
“It’s… complicated. But I think we might be able to save him.”
