Harbinger: The Downfall - Book One (24 page)

Duke Malvornick watched the scene with detachment. The room around him was a garish cesspool of human debauchery. It was well hidden deep in the earth from anyone except whom he brought here, and the ones that came rarely left again. It was a large open room, with a wide set of stairs leading up to the dais on which he sat. The walls were plaster and gilded with brass and copper relief sculptures of scenes of physical torture and sexual violations. Flickering torches and braziers cast yellow and orange light on the walls, and the images seemed to twitch and writhe in their eternal torments. Smoke from the herbs and incense that burned in the braziers filled the air with a sickly sweet haze that burned the nostrils and made heads light.

Columns, thick as ancient oaks, created two rows down the length of the room, beginning at Malvornick’s throne and ending at the large ornate metal and gem studded doors. The sconces that held the torches were on the side of the columns facing the door or closer to the wall, leaving the Duke and the pool at the center in shadows.

A sea of mostly naked bodies carpeted the marble floor, and that sea rolled like a storm was coming. So many bodies in various activities, the torches, the braziers and the heated metal all made the room almost unbearably hot. The sounds in the room were a rhythmic rising and falling of moans and grunts. An occasional scream of someone being hurt or the sound of some animal being sacrificed, or otherwise used, would rise above the hypnotic waves of noise.

A wide, dark pool dominated the center of the room, and occasional movement would break the surface. The scene on the floor below surrounded it, but at a respectful distance. Too many times had someone slipped, or been pushed, into those inky depths to never emerge again. On rare occasions, something had reached out to choose a victim to drag under the shimmering surface. No torches or braziers were near enough to the pool to reflect light into it.

The Duke ignored the young child that was manacled down on the floor in front of him. Preparations were being done to the youth, and it looked around wildly, crying for its mother. A circle of spectators stood around the area, drooling and waiting. Malvornick looked over all this, staring into the dark waters of the pool. It showed the scene on the Lady Luck. His Mages had just recently found the woman, Dawn Redblood, who had eluded him for so long. He smiled as he remembered the time her child had been the one manacled on the floor below him. He licked his lips and his hands roamed across his lap as he remembered the screams of mother and child as they looked at each other during the succulent event.

Now he once again had a leash on the elusive redhead that he had to have. She had power. She knew some, but he had drawn out so much more when he had her here. The drugs relaxed her and the things he had done to her drew her conscious mind away and only left the most basic part of her aware. More than thirty people died that day when she drew the flames from around this very room and sent a firestorm throughout it. He laughed aloud as he remembered her fury. Then her horror as she realized she had just killed a good portion of her own family. He remembered the huge guard with one wandering eye that took her away, which was the last time he had seen her until two days ago.

His mages had found a new source of magical energy giving off random bursts. They tracked it and when they located it, it was on the very ship he could not find. Static from the lines of magic, his mages had told him. Duke Malvornick did not allow for failure, even delays. He would punish those that made him wait for his hunger to be satiated. A man, one of the mages who had failed him, manacled to one of the large pillars watching the child being prepared for the ritual, something that was usually presided over by the chained man. Malvornick would once again prove that you could break a broken man all over again.

He gazed at the magical vision in pool for a few more minutes, watching the large sleeping man and the Rokairn sitting near him. His view switched to see the redheaded captain dressing in the morning sun. It changed again to show the mage with the awakened powers walk by the agent Malvornick had planted on the ship at the last port. The water rippled as something broke the surface then dove back into the murky depths, and the Duke tossed a mixture of incense and herbs into the pool. The intensity of the activity in room around him increased as he chanted arcane words that caused the pool to begin to bubble.

Duke Malvornick drew the nubile form next to him closer and settled it onto his lap, inserting himself with a sigh. He did not bother to check if it was male or female; it was all the same to him. He watched the ritual below begin to unfold and the restrained man stared at the child below him. The surrounding crowd had been released and descended on the young form, devouring it in many ways. The smell of blood rose from below, mixing with sweat, urine, and other body fluids.

The chained man watched without emotion as his own family took his child again. He did not scream until his child rose up from the pile of people, dripping liquids that were both thick and thin, and reached for her father’s naked form, a short surgical blade in her small hand. If you could not break someone by hurting someone they should love, then you could do it by having someone they did not think could hurt them, mutilate them.

The Duke smiled and gripped the throat of whoever was on his lap, choking them. The slim form leaned into his hand, intoxicated enough to find his actions sensual and erotic. Within a couple minutes, Malvornick stood and dumped the lifeless into the boiling waters of the pool as the first sacrifice. He chanted and raised his hands towards the chained advisor, signaling that the next sacrifice was due. The screams from the man joined the arcane verses in a cacophony of hellish music, causing the pool to burst upward in a column. The murky water showed the form a sea monster under a ship, and as Duke Malvornick pointed, the creature sped towards the vessel. The final sacrifice was on the craft.

Cite walked away from Treat and climbed down the stairs to the main deck as the forenoon watch began. He saw Jumper giving his report to Vonka as they changed watch. He had just passed under Conald when he realized that the man was in the rigging above him. It was then he heard the familiar voice in his head, ‘All will die.’ Someone was playing with him. Someone knew about his abilities.

Time was growing short. In six hours, the crew would want to see the murderer put to death and right now, they thought that was Rogen. Cite saw the captain coming out of her quarters. She looked at him and shook her head. He wondered if she was upset with him. He sent the question to her mind and got back the feeling that she was not angry, but couldn’t be seen too close to him right now.

He turned his attention to the last one he had to speak to, Conald. He watched the carpenter checking the mast for cracks. He reached out his mind to envelope the carpenter’s. Then doing something similar to what he did to Cutter, but much gentler, he shuffled through the man’s thoughts. Everyone was thinking about the upcoming afternoon and the activities it would hold. Conald’s thoughts felt very different from the one that had mentioned killing everyone just a few minutes ago. Each person’s thoughts and mind had a different feel. Cite felt flavor would be the best word to describe it. He knew the murderer was not Conald.

He sent his mind around the ship, looking at the people as he touched their thoughts and feelings. Cutter was awake. Tildan was still sleeping. Rogen was worried. Dawn was anxious but had hope. Vonka was wondering if they would hang Rogen or drop him in the ocean. Warton was worried about lunch. Puffer and Tart were getting stoned again. Bezel’s thoughts slipped away when Cite reached to touch them. Jumper wanted to speak with the captain.

He watched as Jumper looked up at the captain and shrugged. Instead of going to talk to her on the quarterdeck, he went through the door under the forecastle. Cite was no closer to knowing who did this than he was when he started, regardless of what he had seen in Cutter’s mind. He stared out at the waves, letting his mind drift. It came to him. He looked around the deck taking count of who was where. He ran to the forecastle and through the door. Warton looked at him from his place in the kitchen. The door to Bezel’s cabin was on the right side of the kitchen and Tildan’s on the left.

“Did someone just come through here?” Cite asked Warton. The big man shook his head and shrugged. Cite moved to the back corner where Tildan’s cabin was and looked across at the door to Bezel’s cabin. He reached for the handle of the door next to him, pausing long enough to draw a dagger from a sheath before opening the door. Rogen looked up from his stool and an odd looked crossed his face.

Warton had seen Cite draw the dagger, take a deep breath, open the door to Tildan’s cabin and take one step inside. Without warning Cite flew backwards into the kitchen as if he had been hit with a battering ram, sliding all the way across the floor to slam into Bezel’s door. Warton heard Rogen yell a mighty cry and then a solid thud shook the wall inside the room. He grabbed a cleaver from his butcher block and started towards the door. The wall erupted outward as Rogen followed Cite’s path across the kitchen and continued through Bezel’s door.

Warton looked at where the two men had just landed and saw Bezel standing over them in his nightshirt. He turned back to the hole in the wall to see his father dangling from the ceiling, his thick legs kicking. He dropped the cleaver and ran toward Tildan. Grabbing his father’s legs, Warton lifted him higher into the air and reached up to pull at whatever it was that was wrapped around Tildan’s neck. His father choked and gasped above him, trying to catch his breath. Warton’s hand found his father’s neck and felt another hand under his, wrapped around Tildan’s throat.

He looked above his father, trying to see what could possibly be strangling the man. A vaguely humanoid outline shimmered on the ceiling. The only thing Warton saw in the next few seconds was a large open mouth that overflowed with sharp angular teeth. The mouth shot forward with the speed of a viper and Warton dropped to the floor with a scream. The creature blurred and became more substantial for a moment, showing that it was clinging to the ceiling with its feet and one hand and held Tildan’s struggling form off the floor with the other, before it disappeared again.

“This thing should not be.” Bezel said from outside the hole in the wall. “Go fetch some help, boy,” he said to Warton, who was scrambling backwards out of the small room. Bezel lifted a crossbow, aimed it at the ceiling, and fired. The quarrel hit something soft and an alien screech followed as Tildan dropped to the floor. The creature phased in and out of vision, showing a reptilianesque form, and scurried across the ceiling, down the wall and through the hole, dropped onto the kitchen floor and stood upright.

“Troöd!” muttered Rogen from his place on the floor.

Warton ran from the kitchen out to the ship’s deck calling for help. Tildan rubbed his throat with one hand and pulling a large sword from under his slim mattress with the other. Cite pulled himself up and his hands gleamed with his magical daggers. Rogen was standing and dusting himself off and he looked pissed. Bezel loaded another crossbow bolt and cranked the string back into firing position.

Everything happened at once.  Bezel raised his crossbow as Cite launched his daggers through the air. Rogen shouted out a battle cry and rushed at the creature’s knees as Tildan dropped his sword parallel to the floor and charged using it like a spear in front of him. The creature moved with unnatural speed. It spun and snatched the crossbow’s bolt from the air and threw it at Rogen, hitting the Rokairn in the shoulder and spinning him sideways. It ducked under one of Cite’s mystical daggers and caught the other in its teeth, and with a grin swallowed it. Its other hand reached out and grabbed the cauldron that Warton had been filling and tipped it, spilling its boiling contents across the floor and Tildan’s bare feet. The big man lurched sideways and slammed into the remainder of the wall between the kitchen and his quarters.

Rogen was the first to recover; he pulled the bolt from his arm and flung it aside, never breaking stride. He leapt the remaining space between him and the monster to tackle it, but it dodged without effort and scurried up a wall, clinging to it with a combination of suction and claws.

Cite reached out with his mind and tried to do to the beast what he had done to Cutter; send it into a catatonic state. Its mind slipped out of his mental grasp as he tried to trap it, and its thoughts disappeared as easily its body did. It looked at him and screeched. The sound was like a dozen knives scraping along a piece of metal, and sent shivers up the spines of every person on the ship. The water around the ship rippled outward with its scream.

Bezel had loaded another bolt and called out to Rogen, “Be careful, the bolt it stuck in you was coated with a poison, you may feel its effects soon.”

“Do not bother worrying about me,” Rogen said as he scooped up kitchen knives and began tossing them with expert precision at the beast. “My people are known for our durability to such things.”

Bezel nodded as he leveled his crossbow at the monster, which was weaving in and out of the growing number of blades appearing in the ceiling, and fired. The bolt flew true and buried itself deep in the chest of the fiend. It screeched again. Tildan bounced from one burned foot to the other and yelled, “Will someone shut that damned thing up?”

The reptilian horror pulled a knife from the ceiling, grabbed a rafter with its feet and swung its body down, grabbing a pot from the counter with its free hand. Twisting its body, it continued its motion and flicked the knife under the heavy metal grill covering the cooking coals, flipping it to the floor. The other hand that held the pot scooped up the hot coals and scattered them across the floor towards Tildan and Bezel, both who were barefoot.