Aldwyn's Academy (19 page)

Helene screamed as she looked up and saw the huge hand of the rotting beast come down and cover her face.

She gagged at the smell of the thing as it gripped her head. She brought Dorian’s wand up, trying to think of a spell, any spell, of anything that would work.

She saw her homunculus dart in, fearless, and sink its teeth into the minotaur’s ripped and burnt hide.

But the minotaur did not fall prey to the homunculus’s magical sleep bite. Instead it dropped its axe to the ground and flung aside the homunculus.

Helene tried to cry out but the horrid beast shook her once in its massive grip, and the world spun.

T
he journey was a nightmare.

To Dorian their march seemed to happen in slow motion. The blow from the battle-axe left him dazed, and he kept slipping in and out of consciousness. To make matters far worse, the zombies were even more disgusting than he could have imagined.

They wore their flesh like too big clothes and it hung off their skeletons in loose folds. Maggots and insects of every kind scuttled and scurried across them.

The boy’s head throbbed, and he felt sick to his stomach as he watched the casual indifference with which the rotting minotaur carried Helene. The girl’s face showed livid red prints where the beast’s hand left marks when it had grabbed her. A trickle of blood dripped from a small wound at the corner of her mouth.

She looked furious.

Slowly, Dorian blinked out of his stupor and forced his way back to sensibility. The party of evil creatures
carried their victims down a hallway similar to the one the boy had discovered earlier and into a brick and mortar chamber.

“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered. “I’m pretty sure Caleb managed to escape.” He paused and eyed the bugbears. “At least I think so,” he added.

“Don’t tell me things are going to be all right,” Helene answered. “You fell on my head just as I was about to get away!”

“I was only trying to rescue you!”

“Rescue me? You call this a rescue?”

“I’m sorry, your Highness, but maybe if you hadn’t run off like a thief in the middle of the night, you wouldn’t have needed rescuing in the first place!”

Helene’s head snapped to the side. “Who told you I was royalty?”

“Only a great bloody banshee who later tried to kill me!”

“Well who asked you to follow me down here anyway?”

“I … I thought you had something to do with the ghosts. But then I met the banshee and—”

“You thought
I
was responsible for the ghosts?” Helene choked out.

“I wasn’t the only one,” Dorian answered, his voice sullen. “Doesn’t matter now I suppose but … I’m sorry I thought that. I only wanted to help you, really.”

“It’s all right.” Helene sighed. She sounded exhausted. “You’ve had quite a first day at school.” She paused. “Thank you for trying to help.”

“Caleb too,” Dorian added. “He got away, though. At least I think he did.” Dorian hung his head.

Helene sighed and her anger seemed to flow out of her. She caught a whiff of the creature carrying her and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Who is doing this?” Dorian demanded in a low whisper. “Why do they want you so bad? Other than the fact that they’re all a pack of evil creatures, I mean.”

“Athadora has returned,” Helene answered. “She has returned to Aldwyns, and if someone doesn’t do something we’re all going to die.”

“The teacher?” Dorian sounded as if he had been hit. “The one with the sealed chambers and—”

Suddenly they were interrupted.

“Such fire!” a sultry feminine voice purred. “What a daring escape. Your blood, my Helene, is perfect for my task!”

Dorian turned toward the sound and his mouth dropped open in amazement. Standing before him in a clinging gown of black silk was the woman from the wanted poster in the village.

“Athadora,” he gasped.

The woman turned her hands inward and displayed her curvaceous stature as if receiving accolades on the
stage. Her laugh was wickedly musical. “In the
flesh,”
she replied.

Off to one side Helene struggled free from the grip of her captor and stepped forward, hands closed into fists at her side. Her cheeks shone with bright points of anger and she raised a hand to wipe away the blood that ran down her chin.

“Let me say goodbye,” the girl demanded.

Surprised, Athadora regarded her coolly, eyes appraising, but whatever she saw in the girl’s determined exterior left her nonplussed.

“Goodbye? To whom? You’ll forgive me if I must refuse any sentimental trips to the academy.”

“No,” Helene said, her voice even. “To Dorian.”

Dorian felt as if he had been hit with an axe all over again. Even the inscrutable Athadora seemed momentarily taken aback. Then the mocking grin returned in force.

“Oh my,” she snickered. “Young love? An elf and a human? It does explain his foolhardy rescue attempt, doesn’t it?” The necromancer placed her hands on her narrow hips. “I suppose it is the least I can do. I am not a cruel woman, of course.”

“Of course,” Dorian sneered, but well under his breath.

From across the room Helene locked eyes with him and he could feel a sudden charge as some hidden message passed to him, but he didn’t know what it was.

For the second time that day he realized how beautiful and poised the princess was. In a sense she reminded him of his mother. In other ways he couldn’t think of her in that light at all.

Her hand came up and wiped her mouth again, ostensibly to stanch the slow leak of blood there. She pressed her lips together and walked deliberately to him. Her head was high, her expression assured, her gait composed.

As she grew closer it became obvious what she intended and Dorian’s eyes grew wide as his heart began pounding brutally in his chest.

She stepped in, ignoring the snickers of the bugbears as she leaned in close, her eyes locked on the boy’s.

She’s really, really going to do it, he thought.

Her hands found his face, securing his head. She leaned in and closed her eyes at the last moment. It was hardly romantic but Dorian couldn’t stop watching, his shock was so great. Her lips pressed into his and he felt his knees buckle. He finally let his eyes fall shut.

She loves me, he thought.

Then something hard and metallic was shoved into his mouth. His eyes flew open in surprise and he saw Helene staring at him intently. He used his tongue to shift the key to the inside of his cheek and she broke off the kiss.

He began blushing furiously. This had been quite a day so far.

Helene turned on her heel, expertly taking scrutiny off Dorian, and strode back to Athadora. The older woman looked down on the girl, smirk firmly in place.

“Lowadar will defeat you,” Helene said calmly.

Instantly Athadora’s smile fled her face and rage turned her black eyes stormy. She slapped Helene. The
crack
of the slap was shockingly loud.

Pressing the little key firmly down along the gum line inside his cheek, Dorian surged forward but the zombies held him back.

“Now, now. Easy does it, my little pie-filling.” Slake purred.

The bugbear stepped forward and delivered a backhanded blow that struck Dorian in the temple.

The boy crumpled forward, dazed.

A
s Dorian regained his senses he found himself secured to the wall by heavy chains and thick manacles.

He blinked back the fuzziness from his vision and pursed his lips, checking to see if the key Helene had given him was still in place. To his vast relief it was.

Reassured, he took stock of the situation.

He was hanging from chains secured to a fire-scarred section of the chamber wall near the spell blasted door. He seemed to have been forgotten.

The stinking zombies stood arranged in a circle around the ceremonial space in the natural cavern beyond the broken wall of the ruined chamber.

Dorian felt uncertainty grasp his stomach when he saw the massive skeleton of Insidian. Instantly he remembered Lowadar’s words from earlier that evening and was amazed.

The bones formed a pile larger than a barn and the skull alone dwarfed the burly frame of the nearby
minotaur. Silver dagger in hand, Athadora stood above an altar to which Helene had been chained, obviously beginning her ritual.

The undead minotaur stood posted at her back, battle-axe in hand, while the bugbear twins—one with an arm in a dirty rag of a sling—guarded the vaulted entrance to the rock vestibule.

Athadora chanted, her face glowing red in the reflected light of several braziers, her skin slick with sweat.

Dorian saw only the white of her eyes and he was struck with a certainty that she wasn’t wholly there, that part of her walked on other planes of existence or trafficked with beings not fully of this material, mortal coil.

Helene lay very still under the weight of the chains binding her. She turned her head once during Athadora’s chanting, trying to find Dorian. He gave her a brave nod when their eyes met across the distance, but as soon as the princess looked away he sagged, overwhelmed by a feeling of despair.

No one would save them. No one could. It was up to him.

He turned his head to the side and pulled his right wrist to his face. He looked around, tracking the position of each one of Athadora’s henchmen, all eyes were on the necromancer as she preformed her vile ritual.

Carefully Dorian used his tongue to manipulate the key until he had the oval head between his teeth. Holding
on tightly, he stretched his neck out and just managed to get the forked teeth at the end of the key into the lock on his manacle.

Once he had it aligned he used the tip of his tongue to push it firmly into place. The veins on his neck stood out in stark relief against the strain of holding his head in such an awkward position, but he was rewarded with a muted
clink
as key fitted lock.

He paused, nostrils flaring as he breathed. Then carefully, he leaned forward and bit firmly down on the key, securing it with his teeth. Once he was sure he had it he leaned his head to the right.

For a moment, he thought the key was going to jump from the lock but then the manacle around his wrist popped open and his hand was free.

He froze. Had anyone noticed?

Across the chamber, the eyes of the minotaur glowed an unnatural red but the monster made no move to cry out any alarm. Working quickly, Dorian began unlocking his other hand and then his feet from the heavy chains.

Athadora flung her arms wide, her voice a shrieking siren of alien syllables. In one hand the knife raised triumphantly, the blade curved down to its wicked point like the fang of a spider.

Dorian stepped away from the wall. Now what? he thought frantically. He had no wand. He had none of
his supplies. He had no way to fight these beasts, much less a powerful sorceress.

The minotaur’s roar echoed through the chamber.

Startled, Athadora jerked from her trance and her dagger hovered above Helene’s chest, the blade glowing in the scarlet light.

“What are you doing!” she screeched. “The boy is escaping!”

The minotaur bore down on Dorian, head low, horns prepared to impale. Dorian danced in place, unsure of what to do.

“Run, Dorian!” Helene shouted. Athadora slapped her.

“Kill the boy!” the sorceress snarled.

The minotaur roared again. Dorian’s eyes went to one of the tables and he saw his Heward’s Handy Haversack.

The minotaur crossed the line of rubble separating the natural cavern from the ruined wall of the ancient chamber.

Dorian’s mind went blank and he entered the realm of action and reaction, a realm where forethought and planning gave way to pure animal reflex.

He scooped up the haversack and jerked it open. There wasn’t time to search for some prank item given to him by Maverick. He darted to one side, putting the heavy table between him and the minotaur as the great beast charged.

The monster snarled in frustration and swung the axe. Dorian ducked the wild swing and leaped up onto the table. The undead creature twisted at the waist and reversed the swing of its huge double-bladed weapon.