Rise of the Dead Prince (39 page)

49
Moment of Truth

L
ooking forward, Meier saw the image of Suvira in the flesh. It was exactly as the source had shown him save one detail. Unlike the image he had seen, the Lady Suvira appeared swathed in black flames, causing the shadows to writhe and dance around her body. She had decided to present herself in such a fashion as a display of terrifying ostentation. It worked perfectly. The men, despite their obvious bravery, could not help but feel c
owed.

“Enter, you foolish boy,” she said coldly. Meier stepped bravely forward followed closely by the hunter and the farmer. With an icy glare, she regarded the two men then scoffed in disgust. She did not, however, protest their entry. Rather, she turned and seemed to glide across the shiny obsidian floor. They followed her into what could have only been the main chamber. It was octagonal in shape, owing to the shape of the tower’s base. Adding to this symmetry was the fact that there seemed to be an identical door on every facet of the tower. Why this was exactly was something of a mystery, but it was not the time to ponder such things. The three men felt the power of the source coursing through them. They were caught in the path of an inescapable tide, but the only immediate effect this had was to make them hyperaware of their surroundings. Coupled with the crushing tension they felt, the result was that they were flooded with a sudden awareness of minutiae in all directions. Every detail of the chamber was embedded in their minds. It was perfect. There were no flaws or aberrations whatso
ever.

And there it was. Perfectly centered in the room was a circle, like a well, albeit larger. In it flowed an almost blindingly bright violet light, flecked with golden bursts of an even brighter light. Meier knew at once what he was seeing. The gold was beneath, and the violet was merely a covering. The light cast a shaft upward through the room and through a hole of the same proportion in the high ceiling. Here the golden color was more dominant to the eye. Around the opening in the roof were sharp arrows, not unlike those on a compass, and it was in the points of these that the perfect symmetry was broken into quarters. At the center of each arrow was a glowing violet sigil. There were four distinct signs in all, each one opposite its matching emblem. In a set pattern of time, the light of each coupled set surged and throbbed in sequence: north and south, northwest and southeast, northeast and southwest, and west and east. The sensitivity of the three’s awareness made it hard to ignore the pattern as it played out in an endless loop. More than this, to gaze upon the wellspring and the shaft of light it created was both painful and somehow irresistible all at once. The result was such that they would be drawn to gaze upon it, only to be repelled after a moment’s time. It was maddening. The only cure was to force one’s gaze away. Meier managed this after a few seconds, but Trent and Dor were trapped in the cycle to the point that they were rendered incapable of concentrating on anything else. Still, their minds were flooded with every detail of the room, over and over and over again. Suvira must have noticed this, for the room was suddenly filled with dark and honest laug
hter.

“Even the blackest souls that have ever been born into the world have wept at the beauty you see before you,” she said, almost in admiration. “Rather,” she corrected, “they wept and worshiped, yes
worshiped,
the thing that makes even the grandest, most demonic dreams a possibility.” Suvira glided across the room to its center, black flames licking her body still. “None have ever dared to touch it,” she said, holding her black gauntleted hand into the stream, “except for
me.”
Meier watched with wide eyes as the power ignited her in a swirling aura of violet tinted with gold. She threw her head back and moaned in what could only have been pure ecstasy. But no, Meier quickly realized that there was more to it. The knowledge of her sensation reached him through a manner beyond his understanding, but it was perfectly clear. She was in excruciating agony, yet exhilarated by it. He felt a cold shudder. It was his first time to witness masochism, let alone such an appalling display. He struggled to hide his disgust. This close to the source, however, he could not seem to hide it from her. Again she laughed and finally withdrew her
hand.

“Such is the cost of true power, my naive young prince,” she said with a dismissive gesture. With a deep sigh, she regained her composure. “Now
…
I have some unfinished business regarding your bad manners before,” she said, eyes suddenly flashing brightly. Dor and Trent suddenly cried out with their minds. They were in anguish. Turning quickly, Meier watched on in horror as they were slowly wrapped in what looked like a bolt of shadow cloth, blacker than the spaces in the sky between the s
tars.

Meier turned to face her again, unable to hide his fury, but still thinking clearly enough to act. “Would the Lady Suvira accept a humble apology?” he asked desperately. Suvira responded with a l
augh.

“Hmmm, so the delicious orphan is capable of humility. Apologize if you wish, dark magus. I will accept it
…
right after you have been properly punished,” she said wickedly. Meier was beginning to break his character, and in that moment, he did not
care.

“Is there nothing I can do?” he asked, unable to think of anything else to say. Suvira’s eyes narrowed as the hunter and the farmer were fully enveloped in the hideous spell. Meier felt their pain stab his h
eart.

“So they were your companions after all
…
how
pathetic,”
she said vituperatively. Meier couldn’t stand it. He dug deep. Facing the black cocoons that held his friends, his eyes began to glow brig
htly.

“Please,”
he said plainly. There was an immediate answer followed by a wave of regret and sympathy. Meier’s heart sank. So it was too late, after all. Filled suddenly with righteous indignation, he cast the spell anyway. Eyes still glowing, he grunted and then let out a low-pitched yell. The shadows melted away, and the bodies of Dor and Trent fell to the floor. He looked on in horror, taking in the hideous image. Their skin and muscles had been half eaten away, leaving gaps and patches all over. Their sparks were
gone.

His friends were dead, and this time, there was no coming back. The only consolation was in the fact that they were no longer in
pain.

Meanwhile, Suvira looked at Meier with eyes
wide.

“You
broke
an unbreakable spell,” she muttered in awe, “Prince Meier
…
of Valahia.” Meier felt a cold fury rise in him. Then something happened that calmed him. He felt a strange sensation. It was like a hand on each shoulder and a voice in each
ear.

“Nothin’ ever lasts,”
came the distant voice of
Dor.

“But nothin’ is lost,”
finished Trent. Then the feeling was gone. Meier’s sorrow slowly melted away. The hunter and the farmer were gone.
. .
but not lost. He would not betray their final wish. His show wen
t on.

He turned and smiled at Suvira, holding his grief deep inside. “I needed the bodies. They seem to be in good-enough condition. I trust there is no objection,” he said casually. Suvira was still in a state of barely suppressed bewilderment. She shook her head sl
owly.

“No,” she said softly. Finding herself, she rose her pointed finger at Meier. “You will tell me how you did that,” she said forcefully. Meier sco
ffed.

“What does it matter? Your spell ran its course almost completely. I suspect it weakens once the spark is extinguished. I’ll add it to the list of worthless spells I’ve learned,” he said with the same dismissive gesture she had given him a minute prior. Suvira growled at him but then calmed down by deg
rees.

“You are a
difficult
one, Prince Meier,” she admitted with a slight head shake. Meier laughed lo
udly.

“I have no reason not to be, now that you’ve gone and
destroyed
your collateral,” he said, gesturing to where his friends lay. Suvira held out her hand to him. Her eyes began to f
lash.

“Surely you can imagine how much pain I can inflict on you,” she said coldly. He raised his hand to her as well, but in a submissive ges
ture.

“That will not be necessary. After all, I was just about to explain my business.” She quieted her wrath once again. It frustrated her to be so enthralled with him. Still, the promise of wondrous forgotten knowledge was more than she could resist. She wanted to break him so badly that it ached. Despite this, she knew she would have to tread carefully. She mustn’t crush the wings of the butterfly, at least not
yet.

“Well?” she asked impatiently. “State your business with me, dark magus.” Meier’s mind raced. He knew what he should say, but something felt terribly wrong. Some part of him, the lesser part, began to drag on him fiercely. The greater part warned and reminded of how many lives could be saved with a series of well-placed lies. But no, declared his other self, his
true
self. He suddenly knew without knowing that lies would not avail him, not with her, not this close to the source. Still, he had lied once without consequence, regarding the bodies of his friends. Or had he? It was suddenly all so confusing. Meier stopped fighting it. No more
lies.

“Lady Beol Suvira of the Beol Clan, I have come to stop your armies from marching on Valahia and Karavunia,” he stated steadily. He readied himself for an assault. He felt the power of the source rising in both his hands. Suvira began to laugh uncontrollably. It was an insane, bloodthirsty sound. Even as Meier began to summon the spell that Raven had taught him, she stood immobile, shaking her
head.

“So you were a fool all along,” she said plainly. With a lightning-fast flick of her hand, Meier flew up and off his feet, landing with a thud on the hard glass floor. Despite the jarring of his body and concentration, Meier remained focused. He dug deep into the red fire that fed the dark magus spells. Suvira continued to laugh, her eyes growing bright. Suddenly, the black fire around her body began to expand and wrap her in a sphere of shadowy streaks. Meier had no time to notice this. He grabbed as much of the source as he could, and suddenly, the red fire in him became a blazing white. He felt the heat take him. Nothing was hotter. Nothing was brighter. He did not bother to stand. Rather, he sat up; and with both hands, he unleashed a blinding flash. There was a single sigil in the air between each
hand.

“Hakuen!”
he screamed in a voice that echoed throughout the chamber. Meier freed the
white fire!
Suvira did not have time to be surprised. She was forced to close her eyes as the torrid beams of the sun collided with her shield and slowly evaporated it. She was knocked backward violently, skidding across the floor as her robes and mask smoldered and burned away. Meier continued to push with all his might! The defeat of the necromancer was at hand! But Meier made one crucial error. He failed to see where he was pushing
her.

Lady Suvira, the most powerful necromancer in the world, was pushed directly into the wellspring of the source. The result was immediate and demoniac. She screamed with unworldly intensity, suddenly bathed in purest form of pain. It was then that the white flames split and failed to touch her further. With another piercing cry, she righted herself by degrees, as if suddenly acclimated to the indescribable pain. Slowly, she emerged from the pool and began to walk deliberately to where Meier sat. She was covered only by tatters of her underclothing. Her naked feet made no sound, and her body was still smoking in places. Suvira’s blood red hair fell limp and heavy across her once exquisitely beautiful face. Her clawed black gauntlet seethed and hissed with heat. This she cast away, revealing the severe burns that lay ben
eath.

Meier could no longer hold the spell, and indeed it would not have mattered if he had. With another flick of her wrist and flash of her eyes, Meier was yanked to his feet and pushed violently back against the wall. The impact was enough to make him believe that his back had been broken. There he stood, pinned, as shadow began to creep from the walls and snare his limbs. These straps of shadow began to pull in opposing directions, as though preparing to quarter him. Suvira approached her captive. Once she stood before him, she craned her head to one side until there was a deep trilogy of cracking sounds in her neck. Without saying a word, she thrust her unburned arm forward into Meier’s chest. Her clawlike fingers dug deep. It became clear to Meier that his heart was about to be ripped out. He suddenly felt a pain unlike anything he had ever felt. Uncontrollably, he began to wail. Suvira’s face twisted into a wicked sneer. Her mouth slowly opened, and what came after was the most hateful sound that Meier had ever heard, somewhere between a hiss and a snarl. It was not her voice that he heard, but rather that of some unbridled, demonic
thing.
Meier’s pain intensified beyond his ability to imagine. Mercifully, his mind finally shut down, leaving him limp on the wall, wholly unconsc
ious.

Suvira tilted her head, regarding him as perhaps a beast would. Violently, she yanked her hand away from his chest. Her body, completely tightened, began to relax. It was a slow transformation. Finally, Suvira looked at herself with disgust. Looking down at the floor, something slowly rose. It was an empty frame, and dangling loosely from it were five fettered ch
ains.

“One way or another,”
she rasped. Meier’s limp body fell to its knees, his arms spread
wide.

50
Those Who Drink the Deep

T
he first day was nothing but pain. Meier slipped in and out of consciousness, only to wake to the mind-bending nightmare again. Each hour, if he could count time, was like a week, a month, a year. He often counted the seconds, but only until his mind could no longer bear it. All that followed was a red haze. He resisted the urge to scream and writhe until he could take it no more, and then he became like an animal, completely devoid of sense and reason. There was one thing he had not done, however. No matter how hideous the torment, he did not beg, not for death, not for mercy. He knew it would be a worthless gesture, and this he managed to hang on to. It was not a matter of pride, for among the many failings that Meier may have been drawn to, pride was not one of them. It was something else. For lack of a better word, it was his unwavering will to never give up. Even as all light faded from his future, he knew, or at least
believed,
that
something
, somewhere, some
how
would happen. It was all he could do, during the lucid moments in between her merciless torture sessions, to wait for this beam of light to finally shine
down.

Suvira had taken him to a small chamber, somewhere between the bottom and the top of the spire. In either of the octagonal corners in front of him, she had propped the bodies of Dor and Trent on display to torture him further. Their sad and gruesome appearance pained his heart, even as his body writhed in agony. She was no stranger to the black art of cruelty. It flowed through her as naturally as a shark seeking blood in the water. Meier tried to use magic many times, but to no avail. Something about his bindings made it impossible. His voice could not reach the source either. All he saw when he closed his eyes was the back of his eyelids. The first day was only torture. It was on the second day that the first questions
came.

“What are you?” she asked from behind her mask. Meier had no answer. He felt another stab of pain, immediately potent enough to send him into another fit. She tried again.
“What are you?”
she hissed. Meier shook his head but managed to res
pond.

“I
…
,”
he rasped but then grew clearer, “I am not
…
so very different
…
from
you.”
Another stab of pain, although shorter than the
last.

“Explain,” she commanded. Meier wheezed and managed to lift his face to meet
hers.

“We are both
…
products of our world
…
as we see it,” he said weakly. Suvira growled and raised her hand again. Meier was delirious but spoke again before the stab came. “Have you ever seen the
sun
, Suvira?” he asked, without even a hint of spite in his voice. He looked at her then, and his were not eyes filled with hatred. It was a look of honest sympathy. The pain came again, worse than before, and it lasted longer as
well.

“Do you
enjoy
this?” she yelled in his face, her brow twisted with ire. Meier thought for a brief second. Before he could stop himself, he found that he was laug
hing.

“Not nearly so much as
you
are
…
I think,” he said clearly. As the pain came again, his laugh turned to a mad cackle. Somehow the outburst lessened the pain, if only a little. In that moment, Meier felt his first real taste of madness. It was both a comfort and a terror wrapped into one solitary sensation. He felt himself slipping. She assaulted him with another question, adding pain even as she
did.

“Why
is your heart beating?” she asked pointedly. Meier smiled up at
her.

“I was hoping
…
that you could tell
me,”
he managed to say without venom. “After all, it was
your
curse that made me what I am
…
whatever I am.” He waited for the pain and even began to instinctively react to it before he realized it hadn’t come yet. Suvira scoffed. She was getting now
here.

“He is not lying, Suvira,” came the voice of Lovo. He appeared beside her unbidden, and this was enough to send her into a fury. She held her hand out and reached into his body as easily as one stabs through a canvas painting with a knife and with much the same sound. Lovo began to writhe and grunt, but this did not stop him from speaking. “Will you waste more of your time or will you listen?” he asked plaintively. Suvira stabbed her gauntlet cleanly through to the other side of him and held it t
here.

“You come unbidden, you give unwanted advice, you ask foolish questions, and you are now
very
close to having outlasted your usefulness,” she said hatefully.
“So
…
say what you need to say
…
very
carefully.” She withdrew her hand from the ghost with a ripping sound. Lovo doubled over and recovered slowly over the next few sec
onds.

“Have you forgotten everything I taught you?” he asked reproachfully but immediately regretted it. Her hand flew again, but he managed to yell, “Wait!” before she could continue. He spoke quickly. “The
source,
Suvira! Remember the spell. Normally, it is never powerful enough for what you seek, but
…
using the source you can pluck the very thoughts and memories from his head!” Suvira withdrew her
hand.

“Explain,” she said calmly. Lovo cleared his ethereal throat. Suvira growled and poised her hand for another strike. The last thing she intended to suffer was another long lecture.
“Keep
…
it
…
brief!”
she hissed with a tick of her outstretched finger at each word. Lovo nodded in defer
ence.

“All you need is to release his head. It is dangerous, but he should still be unable to form a spell with the other spirit shackles on him. Once done, his mind will flood with the source. He won’t be able to hide a thing from you, not when you
press
him.” Suvira seemed suddenly introspec
tive.

“How is it done?” she asked, still mistrustful. Lovo did not tarry in giving his resp
onse.

“You simply place your hand, your
naked
hand, on his forehead and push the source into him, mingling your mind with his. You then ask your questions, but
…
try to keep them simple. Complexity will muddle the effect. He cannot lie. He cannot hide.” Suvira seemed pleased enough with the informa
tion.

“Sounds too simple,” she admitted. Lovo no
dded.

“It is. To reduce the risk and also to eradicate any resistance, you must dull him further. More torture will only break his mind
…
like I broke your mother’s. But first I must ask you, daughter. Rather, I must warn you. Will you hear it?” he asked mi
ldly.

Suvira scoffed but then said, “Mind your words,” with her finger ra
ised.

“He knows
nothing,”
said the old ghost, “You could no more expect a bird to tell you how it flies than ask him what he is. Such was the mystery of Beol. Attempts to reproduce his ability were fruitless. Take his spells if you will
…
but forget about learning how he knows them. That is all.” Suvira growled in disgust, looking at the inquisitive face of Meier as she did. It was not what she wanted to hear. With one final stab, the second day e
nded.

“So be it,” Suvira said coldly. Meier sank into the darkness, feeling the cold stone and glass form around his body like a cast model of him
self.

He floated down and through the main chamber to a cavern underneath as he had the day before. The difference was that he was now conscious. All was dark save for a green glow far below. It shimmered and danced, and Meier soon knew why. He felt the touch of frigid water on his legs, then his body, and then he was completely immersed. Having been brought out of the world of gray through torture, he writhed in the struggle for breath. It was excruciating. Finally, with one desperate gasp, his lungs filled water. His heart slowed, pounding in his ears like a drum, and finally came to a stop. He slipped into the world of gray once a
gain.

Meier felt a familiar sensation as he drifted ever lower into the water. It was like a peculiar dream of his, of the type where he swam into the deep and suddenly realized he could still breathe. The dream always ended soon after, as the dawning of reality struck the him, causing him to wake. One cannot breathe underwater. Or so it would seem. Finally, Meier rocked to a stop as his rack hit the stone of the cave floor. Beneath him and around him was the flow of green, made bright in comparison with the surrounding gloom. It gave him a sickly sensation to be near it. He felt a rising lethargy creep through his whole being. He looked forward blearily. His eyesight was fading. It became hard to concentrate or even form coherent thoughts. All was awash in the sea of the subconsc
ious.

“
Wo bist du gewesen, meine jungen Prinzen?”
came a voice through the water and into his foggy mind. It seemed to be one of the northern languages. Slowly, he forgot the words and felt the meaning the
rein.

“Where have you been, my young prince?”
she had asked. The meter was rhythmic and, in a way, poetic. Meier was suddenly touched by a flurry of images. Almost all were terrible and dark, filled with pain and indescribable horrors. Then he heard wild laughter, but it was not a joyous or merry thing, as laughter should be. It was frantic crying. It was uncontrollable wailing and lamentation. It was the breaking of a heart. These were the cries of a mother torn from her c
hild.

Meier felt the sadness as deeply and truly as he had felt the torture. He felt tears that he could not shed fill his eyes. When the images from beneath faded, the beast on the surface emerged. Meier saw murder after murder at the hands of a woman driven insane by pain and grief. Deeper down, right at the very core, he saw the one thing she had saved for herself. It was something they had never taken away; and although she was almost never present in her own mind, it was something that always brought her home, if only for an instant. He saw her clearly. It was a young girl of perhaps five years, smiling widely. She had beautiful dark red hair. The image went black. There was nothing
else.

“Who are you?”
Meier thought. Then he saw her. It was the lady in white. The memory was vague, but he knew this was the woman the source had shown him. She suddenly broke out into a bout of frantic, deranged laughter. She began to thrash around so violently in her chains that Meier was sure that she would snap her own neck. After a long and painful minute, she finally went limp again. The outburst had shaken Meier to the core. He could feel what she was feeling, and it was insufferable. It was like the aftershocks of an earth-shattering quake, except these never stopped coming, nor did they diminish in ferocity. Meier’s heart sank in his still chest when the realization hit him. Her torment would be eternal. The aftershocks would never
stop.

“I’ve waited so long, I’ve forgotten your song, I wrote just for you, if only you knew,”
she said with her mind, her voice coming through in mild, highly accented t
ones.

“I don’t understand,”
Meier thought honestly, all the while wondering why she seemed only to speak only in verse. The answer came at once. She had once written songs. Songs were beautiful and good. In a world of eternal night, she could not bear to speak any other way. It hurt her even to conside
r it.

“Eine so lange Zeit, in endlosen Dunkelheit,”
she said mournfully. Meier realized at once that she had understood him, even as he thought to himself, for she had just said,
“Such a long time, in endless darkness.”
Meier smiled to himself as he realized, spoken in her language, how beautiful the words were. It was a beauty found in sadness, which crushed the heart even as it freed it through catharsis. He found himself wishing that he had heard just one of her songs. The thought was more than she could bear. She began to writhe and scream a
gain.

What followed was another fit, even more frantic and heart-wrenching than the last. Meier began to feel himself slipping into the same frenzy. When at last she settled again, he waited a polite amount of time before trying to speak with her a
gain.

“The source told me we would meet. I believe it is our destiny
…
yours and mine.”
She began to laugh again. It was not a crazed, hysterical sound this time. It was tired, worn, and utterly w
eary.

“I once thought the same
…
but you never came
…
not when it mattered
…
now all hope is scattered,”
she said in slow, somber tones. Meier felt her slipping again, but this time, he reached out with his mind to catch
her.

“I’m here now,”
he said softly. There was a simple kindness in his voice. The lady in white looked up, completely lucid, and regarded Meier clearly through the
murk.

“So you are,”
said Kuvali with a smile, forsaking rhyme for the first time in a cen
tury.

She then descended into a violent and ferociously severe fit of madness. Meier’s heart sank. It made the other fits he had witnessed seem mild by comparison. It must have gone on for an hour if it was a minute. Her maniacal screams and mournful lamentations were only interrupted by lapses of what could only be described as catatonia. Meier knew why. It was such a high price for three little w
ords.