The D'Karon Apprentice (17 page)

Mott stood on his spidery legs and spread his
new wings. They were a bit scraggly after the brief struggle with
their previous owner and didn’t seem to be nearly in proportion
with the rest of the familiar’s body, but he nonetheless seemed
delighted with the new addition. He skittered along, flapping
desperately and springing into the air. The best he could manage
was a few prodigious jumps and a handful of short glides before he
scrambled back to her, tongue lolling out and breath heaving.

“I
did
tell you, didn’t I?” she said,
scratching the creature under the chin. “You’ll get used to them,
my little concoction. At least until we get some proper ones.
Something from a baby dragon will be just right. Green scales to go
with your own scales and your eyes, I think.” She clutched her
hands in excitement. “Oh, you will be
perfect
. Come, Mott, I
believe I can cobble together a horse out of scraps. Let us be on
our way.”

#

“You know the rest,” Turiel said simply. “I’d
overestimated my own capacity to craft a suitable steed from the
parts available, and therefore I’d made little progress along the
shore before your men encountered me. Rather than draw any undue
attention to myself, I surrendered to you, and I’ve thus been
treated to your less than admirable hospitality since then.”

“Our intention is to keep our land safe from
your treachery, not to make you comfortable. I would like to
clarify a few matters of your account. You speak of your intention
to open something you call a ‘keyhole.’”

“A second one, yes.”

“What precisely is this, and to what end do
you seek to do so?”

“A keyhole is a portal. It is a gateway to
another world, but a very special sort of gateway. It isn’t so
grand and remarkable as the full gateway the D’Karon have been
seeking to open since their arrival. In a thousand lifetimes I
couldn’t hope to craft such a portal on my own. It takes more
strength than I could ever hope to gather. A keyhole, on the other
hand, is very limited. A physical creature cannot pass through it,
but spirits can. Beings of pure magic as well. That’s how the
D’Karon reached this world. And upon completing the first keyhole
and allowing the first of the D’Karon through, I was swiftly
assigned the opening of a second. It was to be a contingency, a
means for drawing in additional support in the event of difficulty.
The first took me
ages
to open. This one is coming along
even more slowly. Nonetheless, I believe I have gathered and
sequestered perhaps four-fifths of the strength I need to cast the
spell. A few more decades and it shall be ready.”

“Your claims seem to support those of your
countrymen, that these D’Karon creatures are beasts of another
world. You are the first to admit what I have surmised since the
first such claim. These D’Karon were summoned by your own hand. You
recruited them to aid in the war effort, in hopes that through
their might you would turn the tides of the war.”

“What? No. That is madness. If the D’Karon
were inclined to wage war with us, they would wipe out any army
they encountered in weeks at most. You cannot comprehend the depths
of their mastery. And though I freely and proudly admit to
summoning them, there was no war at the time, and I’ve
yet
to see any evidence of this so-called endless conflict against this
so-called Northern Alliance.”

“You’ve spoken of Teht and Demont. We know
these to be the names of Alliance generals, in addition to Bagu,
Epidime, and Trigorah.”

“Trigorah? I’m afraid I don’t know the name.
The others are D’Karon, though. And I’ll thank you to speak their
names with reverence. I must say it is a tremendous relief that you
know of them all already. I’m quite sure if I had been the one to
make their presence known, they would have been cross with me. But
if you know of them, then they must have revealed themselves.”

“Following their defeat, there has been
considerable information of dubious reliability spread about
their—”

“Defeat?” Turiel said, eyebrows rising as she
suddenly realized what had been said. “Surely you are mistaken. The
D’Karon cannot possibly have been defeated.”

“If your own people are to be believed, some
six months ago they were banished or destroyed by a group who claim
to be the prophesied Chosen.”

“No… No, no, no, that is absurd,” Turiel
said, her voice rising. “I refuse to believe that the D’Karon have
been defeated.”

“I’m growing weary of your feigned ignorance
on the matter,” Brustuum growled.

“And I’m growing weary of your attempts at
deception. I don’t know what your game is, sir, but you’ll get
nowhere by attempting to convince me that the godlike entities that
I have devoted
centuries
to calling forth and
serving—entities that have promised to bring our world to order
under their wisdom and guidance—could have been so much as
hindered
by creatures of this world. No, sir. They live.
They must. You could sooner destroy the night itself than destroy
the D’Karon, to say nothing of the things that would follow.”

“You claim to have ventured out of this cave
of yours—which, I assure you, I’ll be sending troops to investigate
once we determine its location—specifically because your masters
had not answered your calls. Did it not occur to you that they have
been silent because they were defeated?”

Turiel shook with fury, tilting her head down
slightly but keeping her eyes locked on Brustuum’s. “These words
are blasphemy and sacrilege.” She twitched and beside her several
of the desiccated rat carcasses shuddered.

“Caster, are your protective spells in
place?” Brustuum asked.

The caster’s voice was steady, but his
posture stiffened. The rats were beginning to stir.

“She’s… she’s overpowering me, sir.”

Turiel spoke again, her voice seeming deeper
not in tone but in intensity, as though it was booming from the
bottom of a yawning cavern. “I have focused my mind, gathered my
spirit almost to the point of death, since a time before your
grandfather was born. Do you believe your fledgling hedge wizard
could hope to hinder me in any meaningful way? This is
precisely
why it shows nothing less than contempt to suggest
that the D’Karon would make war with us for more than a month, let
alone this multidecade
fiction
of a war.”

Brustuum backed to the door and threw it
open.

“I don’t care what you must do, short of
incinerating her. I want her toothless. I want her helpless.”

“It will take everything I have,” the caster
said, placing his hands together. His rings took on a brilliant
glow.

Brustuum slammed the door shut, though Turiel
had barely moved let alone made any attempt to escape. Her gaze
remained locked on Brustuum, but she seemed to be unconcerned, or
perhaps unaware that the cell was meant to hold her.

Scuttling and scratching began to filter
through the door. A dozen rats, or what remained of them, scurried
out from the slot beneath it.

“I told you to
contain
her!” Brustuum
barked, stomping on three of them. The rest were able to evade him
and pour down the hall.

“There is no active spell. They are
alive
now,” the caster said.

He shut his eyes and began to chant ancient,
potent incantations until the air seemed almost
thick
with
magic, shield upon wall upon barrier conjured from his mind to
counter the thrumming energy that radiated from the cell.

“She’s… beginning to… push through…” the
caster said. “I… may be able to hold her… but her focus is
terrifying. If she were to get her staff…”

“Just keep her here!” Brustuum said. “I need
her mind and her voice. The staff can be destroyed.”

Having sent the other guard away, and with
precious few to spare after deploying the others for their
fruitless search, he dashed through the halls personally. The staff
was kept in an equipment room several floors above. He climbed the
stairs shouting for aid.

“Anyone near weapon storage, destroy the
staff! Grind it to dust!” he bellowed.

In reply, he heard the cries of the nearest
men. One stumbled out into the hall, reanimated rats tearing at
him. Brustuum charged by, shouldering his way through the slightly
ajar door to the equipment rooms. To one side a fortified door was
open, the guard he’d sent to see to the crated beast motionless on
the ground as more rats emerged from chewed-through holes in his
armor and returned to the task the man had tried and failed to
stop. Their chisel-like teeth had carved deep gouges into the gray
planks of a once-sturdy chest. The contents of the case were
rattling and scratching viciously, all the while releasing a
familiar chitter.

Brustuum dashed past the doorway and
continued to another one, an ominous violet glow already lighting
the interior. Heaving the brace aside, he tore open the door.
Inside was the staff, with Turiel’s black robes tied about it. He
pulled a dagger from his belt and raised its thick pommel to
shatter the gem. The rattling and chattering in the room behind him
was replaced by the sound of splintered wood and scrabbling feet.
In a heartbeat the piecemeal creature that had accompanied the
witch bounded over Brustuum, snapping up the staff and robes in its
jaws. He slashed at the monster, hacking into two of its legs, but
it ignored the dire wound and worked its remaining legs and its
wings to scramble along the hallway back toward the stairs to the
cells below.

The air within the hallway was beginning to
darken, as though the light was being drawn away. The depth and
reverberation of Turiel’s voice intensified further. No longer was
she speaking Tresson. Now she spoke Varden, a Northern dialect, and
one that seemed archaic to Brustuum’s ears. Though there were walls
and floors separating them, the Tresson could hear the voice as
though she stood beside him.

“Answer my call. I need guidance. I need
knowledge,” she chanted. Now the air seemed to grow warmer. “Why
will you not
answer
? Why can I not feel your presence?”

Though the mismatched beast seemed like it
should be ungainly, it moved with astonishing speed. By the time
he’d reached the hall, it was already disappearing down the steps.
When he stumbled back into the hallway with the witch’s cell, the
monster had reached her door and was scratching madly at it. The
Tresson caster was standing aside, sweat pouring from his brow as
he muttered his incantations in tighter and tighter sequence.

Brustuum hurled himself at the witch’s
familiar, slashing and stabbing. He was trying to kill the monster,
to shatter the gem, splinter the handle. He wanted to do
anything
to disarm the sorceress, but the monster eagerly
and expertly clambered out of harm’s way. It lashed at his feet
with its tail, buffeted him with its wings, and did everything else
necessary to keep its grip and force him to keep his distance.

“Damn it, man, help me!” Brustuum ordered the
caster.

“I am trying, sir. The spells she’s throwing
off… if I do not concentrate… she… she isn’t
trying
to
escape. She’s breaking through the best I have… and she’s merely
attempting to
communicate. …
I will not be strong enough to
hold her.”

“
Answer me!
” Turiel cried, the very
walls trembling with her voice. “Something is wrong… They cannot
have been defeated. They
cannot
have been banished. … I must
know… I must
see
.”

She looked to Brustuum again, gazing through
the barred grill at eye level on the door. She had stared him down
before, all through the interrogation. It was not until that
moment, when her gray eyes locked on to his again, that he realized
the degree to which she had been restraining herself. Her gaze cut
through him. The eyes seized his mind, seemed to sear at it like
embers kicked up from a long-burning fire on a dry, windy night. He
couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. His whole being was skewered by
her stare like a pig on a spit.

A dozen spells had been cast upon the door,
the whole of the will and wisdom of his caster rendered down into
supernatural bonds keeping the brace in place and the locks secure.
With a sequence of crimson flashes she shattered them all, and the
door hurled open, narrowly missing the caster.

The familiar had sprung back, perhaps on
instinct or perhaps heeding an unspoken command, and when the door
was open, it leaped inside, delivering her staff to her. When her
flesh met the bony grip of her casting-rod, Brustuum felt something
inside him and all around him recoil. It was as if the very fabric
of his being was sickened by what had been allowed to occur.

“Listen to me, Tresson. If the D’Karon live,
and you have forced me to squander some of my precious gathered
strength to expose your lies, I will be displeased. And if what you
say is true, and the D’Karon have fallen or been chased from this
world after all I did to summon them… I will be
very
displeased. And there will be consequences. To say nothing of the
consequences of what you’ve done to Mott. My sweet little beast. I
am sorry to say I do not have the time and materials to repair you
properly. It shall have to be a patch.”

Turiel curled her fingers, scooping at the
air and gathering up from nothing a handful of pure night. She then
flicked it at her pet. Where it struck the beast, its flesh
blackened, then the stain crawled along and found the wounds and
bits that were hacked away, filling them in with tarry scar
tissue.

With her pet repaired, she turned to the far
wall. This exposed her back to the soldiers without fear or regard,
something that burned Brustuum all the more as his body refused to
allow him to capitalize on the opportunity. Slowly she stirred the
air and muttered words that seemed ill-suited to a human tongue.
From a single circle, she shifted to a figure eight. At the center
of each loop, a black point formed. They widened until they filled
the loops traced by the staff’s head. When twin black circles hung
in the air, at their centers a point of light appeared. More than
that, from each point of light came a piercing cold breeze, brisk
and bracing in the baked air of the Tresson facility.