The D'Karon Apprentice (54 page)

“No. How could this happen?” she gasped,
genuine horror in her voice. “I remember Kenvard. Mother was a
servant to the king here. I… I learned my first incantations in
these very halls.”

She stood and paced unsteadily to where her
staff had landed, or at least to where the head of it had landed.
The long fall and sudden stop had a similar effect on her staff as
it had on her. Its white body was broken and splintered, revealing
its hollow, red-stained interior that suggested her staff did not
merely
appear
to be bone, it truly was. The gem was
feathered with fractures, held together only by the staff’s clawed
tip. With it in hand, she began to conjure tendrils, but they
withered and faded. She sighed lightly and focused instead on
conjuring just one thread. It wove down and pierced a fragment of
the broken staff, drawing it near and stitching it back in place
before a new thread replaced it and sought out the next piece.

Her eyes still sweeping over the castle and
the city around it, she set the staff beside her to continue its
task on its own, then turned to the twitching heap that had been
Mott. He had been in poor shape even before diving off the side,
and now he was hardly recognizable. It was a grotesque sight, and
but for his lack of blood, it would have been gory and hideous.
Instead it looked like a demented taxidermist had grown weary of
his latest project and thrown the scraps in the trash.

Turiel reached out for him with her right
hand, but instead held forth only the cloth-draped remnant of
Ether’s attack. Again she sighed, more disappointed than in pain,
and instead reached with her left. Mott’s form shook and twitched,
then began to crackle back into shape. As soon as enough legs were
whole enough to carry him, he dragged himself over to Turiel and
heaved his head into her lap.

“This place was glorious. Its walls were
impenetrable, Mott. Look at them. Even now they stand. The one part
of the city that doesn’t seem to have been patched at all. … I know
there was a war, and they say it was because of the D’Karon. It
certainly seems they were at least involved. But even if there was
a war, this could not have happened. Not Kenvard. Not this glorious
capital. I need an answer, Mott.”

Her familiar looked up to her and
chittered.

“I know they will be coming for me, but this…
this
requires
an explanation. Let us see what we were able
to pluck from that dear misguided child’s mind. Perhaps she knows
more of what happened.”

Turiel shut her eyes, her remaining hand idly
stroking Mott’s head while she sifted through recollections that
were not her own. Like the staff, and for that matter like the city
of Kenvard, she could feel that Ivy’s memories were badly broken.
Winding backward through them, she could see the battles the
creature had fought, her many clashes with the D’Karon, and the way
the other adversaries had treated her. Turiel’s face became pained.
She saw only kindness and dedication in the actions of these
monsters she’d been told were the hated adversaries… True, the
shapeshifter was brash, foolish, and arrogant, but there was no
doubting that at every opportunity, the D’Karon had done harm while
the adversaries had healed or prevented it to the best of their
power.

These could not be lies… They were memories,
pulled directly from Ivy’s mind. These were the things she
remembered,
as
she remembered them. It could only be false
if the memories had been inserted or twisted by another. She dug
deeper into the memories. Some of her training had come from the
skills mastered by the one called Epidime. He was a master of such
manipulation, and having learned the beginnings of his tactics, she
at least knew how to recognize when such things were at work.

“Ha! Here! Her mind
has
been
manipulated,” she said, triumphant in the belief that she’d found
evidence of the adversaries’ treachery.

Quickly she realized she was mistaken. The
hallmarks of manipulation did not come in the form of pleasant
memories inserted, but in other things. Raw, blunt training and
understanding, forced unwillingly into her mind. And this was done
not
by the adversaries, but by the D’Karon themselves.

“She… she
was
an adversary first… It
was
the D’Karon who changed her…” She gritted her teeth.
“This was
not
what I was after. That is a concern for
another time. This is Kenvard, once great and now ruined.
That
is the riddle at hand.”

Turiel brushed these discoveries aside and
delved deeper. She saw flashes of a terrible battle Ivy had been a
part of, and a brief imprisonment within the very castle that now
stood in ruins. It was whole then… but not as she remembered.
Perhaps the greatest damage to the place had happened after, but
there was something before it. The sorceress plunged deeper,
pushing beyond the manipulations and erasures at the hands of the
D’Karon. She found her way into the haziest, most distant memories
Ivy had. And there she saw it. The city she remembered. In fact, if
anything, it was larger, more glorious, more thriving and vibrant…
and then she saw the gates fall, and the people scream. She saw the
red uniforms, Tresson soldiers… but no. This memory was vibrant in
the way that only great tragedies can ever be. Every detail was
burned deep and true into her mind. Turiel knew the living, and she
knew the dead. She knew how a proper thing moved, how a proper
thing looked, and she knew such things in a way far more intimate
and detailed than most ever would. These soldiers moved wrong. They
were flooding the city, razing homes and slaughtering locals, but
they were not Tresson soldiers. They were not even humans. Not
proper humans anyway, or elves or dwarves. These things were
created. Concocted. They were made expertly and efficiently,
controlled by unseen hands. And there was only one group who could
have made so many, and so well.

“The D’Karon… the D’Karon
did
do this.
No… no, I refuse to believe it. This must be the manipulation of
the adversaries. If they were strong enough to banish the D’Karon,
then it stands to reason they may have ways to twist minds just as
Epidime could, but in ways that I cannot detect. I need someone
beyond their influence. … I need the
true
eyes that
witnessed this massacre. And in that, at least, I’m spoiled for
choice…”

The sorceress stood, her bones finally mended
and both her staff and her pet whole again. The strength was
flowing quickly into her. She blinked her eyes a few times and let
the forms felt on the edge of her mind flicker into being. There
were spirits, hundreds of them. They wandered what had been the
halls of this fallen castle. They traced the lines of the streets
and drifted like dry leaves through the air. As one so deeply
connected with the dead, Turiel could have called upon each of them
to tell the story of his or her final moments… but there was no use
in doing so. She knew how to read the souls of the departed, and it
took the merest glance to know that most of these lingering spirits
were those taken quickly. Their lives ended in sudden sparks of
fear and confusion. They would have little to add. She needed
someone else. Someone with a steadier mind, a sharper recollection.
And so she continued on her way.

Turiel could feel the influence of the
D’Karon deep in this place. It had been their stronghold for some
time, but like Castle Verril and unlike Demont’s coastal fortress,
attempts were being made to reclaim it. She could feel that the
gems and enchantments that her D’Karon masters always set down were
being gathered up and scrubbed away, but such things could not be
disposed of without care, and it took time to do so properly. As
such those most dangerous things, the most mystical and mysterious,
had been gathered up and locked away. So much power concentrated in
so small a space made it easy to find, despite attempts to the
contrary by whoever had placed them. She paced along the narrow,
excavated pathways through the ruin until she came upon what
appeared to be the largest mound of intact stone in the whole of
the wreckage of the castle. It was clearly placed there
purposefully, and yet it seemed to have been piled atop a portion
of the floor that was quite intact.

She angled her damaged staff toward the mound
and, with great effort, began to shuffle the stones. Blocks from
the center of the mound slid forward. Blocks to the side slid
farther out. Piece by piece she constructed a crude arch to hold up
the rest of the stone such that the core of the stack could be
cleared away. When the final few bricks dragged themselves free,
they revealed a well-secured trapdoor. Not only was there a stout
lock of complex design, but there were at least three warding
spells, each quite potent. Though lifting one of the stones with
her will and dropping it upon the lock a few times rendered it
useless, the spells were another matter. She would not be opening
the door while they were in place.

Her knees and hips crackled uncomfortably as
she lowered herself to the ground and set her staff down to spread
her hand against the cold wood of the trapdoor.

“… Yes… I can feel you inside, both of you…
This magic may keep me from opening the door from the outside, but
the fool who cast it must have been fearful that a poor innocent
might be trapped, because from within it is undone quite simply…
Rise for me… Open the door so that I might ask you a few questions
and set my mind at ease.”

She focused all of her will into conjuring a
single thread and wormed it down through the cracks of the wood.
Piercing the protective spells, even in this tiny and precise way,
took every ounce of mystic focus she could muster, but finally it
was done. She probed about with her tendril in search of flesh. It
took time and required that she slip her influence past what felt
like a closed crypt, but finally the seed of her spell found
purchase, and from within, there was motion.

Turiel stepped back. Below the trapdoor
heavy, plodding steps approached, followed by the long, slow ring
of steel. The door shuddered once, then slowly opened. Whatever
figure opened the door chose not to reveal itself, so Turiel
instead marched down the steps. Mott trudged after her, still not
fully recovered or, at least, not fully empowered by the
necromancer’s magic. He fetched her staff and descended into the
darkness.

As she stepped into the blackness, familiar
violet light began to flicker and flare. At the same time she found
herself weakening. Rather than fear or horror, this sensation
brought a grin to her face.

“Ah… thir gems… Remarkable that whoever
locked them here managed to keep them from drinking their
fill.”

She closed off her strength to them to spare
herself further drain, then looked upon what their light revealed.
The trapdoor led to a sort of storeroom. Crates were packed with
assorted broken artifacts from the time of the D’Karon reign in
this place. Quite a few shattered gems shone from within their
crates, but one or two whole ones flickered there as well. She
selected one and fitted it in place of the fractured one in her
staff. Then she turned to some of the other artifacts. Carefully
sealed, ornate metal boxes were stacked against one wall. Mounds of
partially shredded spell books joined them, as well as bundles of
scrolls and bolts of cloth. Most chilling, however, was the pair of
caskets set upright against the far wall. One was still firmly
shut. The other lay open.

“Ah, of course. My apologies. Where are my
manners?” Turiel said, turning back to the staircase. “I thank you
for your aid.”

Standing beside the door was a figure who
seemed to be more armor than man. The equipment might once have
been gleaming and pristine, but no longer. Now it had deep, shining
scars from where stone had scraped across it, and many plates were
dented or bent almost beyond recognition. A helmet with a mangled
faceplate hid the face, but two eyes shone from within with an
unnatural light. At his hip hung a sword, its grip dripping with
jewels and its blade and pommel bearing a familiar insignia formed
from a curve and a point.

“My name is Turiel. I do not mean to
interrupt your slumber, but there have been some matters of great
importance. If you will stand ready, I believe your crypt-mate may
be of equal or greater aid.”

She turned to the remaining casket and
pointed the head of her staff. The lid slid aside, revealing a
frail young woman with pale skin. Every inch of her was
crisscrossed with faint scars, and here and there her skin
glittered with embedded crystal. There was something unnatural,
eerie about the wounds though. The scars were pure white, save the
gem-bearing ones, which were pure black. None were faded, each
fresh and new, as though they’d all only
just
healed. Her
clothes were relatively fresh. She wore dark funereal garb. Under
the influence of Turiel’s will, she stepped out, far more steady
and whole than the armored man, and took her place by his side.

Mott, now lively once more since Turiel had
replaced the staff’s gem, skittered over to a crate and shoved it
forward with his head so that Turiel could take a seat.

“Now, time is potentially limited, but I see
no reason not to treat this situation with the proper decorum. My
name is Turiel. Who are you?”

“Rasa, the swordsman,” murmured a hoarse
voice from within the armor.

“Aneriana,” said the woman. Her voice was
clear, pristine.

Both of them spoke lifelessly, mechanically.
The information they gave lingered in their minds and flowed from
the spirits and those drifting in the ether around them. They were
puppets, soulless and unthinking.

“Ah,” Turiel said, nodding slowly to the
woman. “You, my dear, are the one I seek. I understand that you
were at the center of this castle when it crumbled to the
ground.”