Authors: Jess Lebow
Lifting her dagger over her head, she struck a fencer’s poseone she had been taught by her fighting instructor back at the palace. The blade of her weapon began to glow a deep purple, and the runes on its edge sparkled with white light.
“Let me pass, and I let you live,” she said. The man merely looked at her. “My name is Jallal Tasca,” he said. “Perhaps you recognize it.”
“Pello Tasca’s brother,” she whispered. That was why
he had seemed so familiar. His face did hold a resemblance to the man she had spied coming and going from the docks on many a night. But something dreadful had transformed him.
Jallal looked down on her with what the princess could only imagine was pity. “So you do recognize me. Very good.”
The princess felt something heavy hit the back of her head, and the room went blurry. She slumped to one side. A pair of hands appeared in her view, then the sleeves of a white robe.
One hand slipped behind her head, and the other held a piece of cloth to her face. There was something caustic on the cloth. The smell of it burned Mariko’s eyes and made her gag. She struggled, but the robed figure was just too strong, and the smell of the fabric made her woozy. The bricks on the far wall began to shimmer and move. They grew and shrank, coming up close to her face then slipping away. Her body grew weak. She was tired, and her eyes rolled back into her head.
Finally, she surrendered. Unable to struggle further, she felt her body go limp, then the light went out.
+++++
Jallal Tasca led his men out of the slaughterhouse. They moved swiftly through the quiet streets. The sun would be rising soon, and the docks would grow thick with workers and traders. Many would turn a blind eye to armed men carrying the tied-up, limp body of Princess Mariko. But most people followed a simple unspoken rule here on the wharfif they didn’t see it, then it wasn’t wrong. Jallal preferred to keep to that rule, especially given his new appearance.
“Hurry,” he urged, picking up the pace.
The man marching in the front of the column stopped suddenly, and Jallal nearly ran right into his back.
“What is it?” barked Tasca the elder. The guard was squinting at something in the distance, and he shook his head.
“Well?” said Jallal. “Speak up.”
The guard lifted his arm, and pointed to the horizon. “What… what in the Nine Hells is that?”
Jallal followed the man’s outstretched finger, looking up into the sky.
Overhead, a gargantuan black mountain had appeared. Rising from a base of jagged black stone, it came to a sharp ridge at the top. If it weren’t for the battlements that decorated its sides, it would have looked like a volcano, ripped from the ground to hover over Llorbauth like an executioner’s axe.
The men gasped as each of them followed Jallal’s gaze into the sky.
“Holy gods…” said one. He dropped his weapon and let it clatter to the ground. “We’re doomed.” Without another word, he turned and bolted into the darkness, running as if he were being chased by a lion.
Seeing him take off in fright, two other men lost their nerve and went running off as well.
“Stop, you cowards!” shouted Jallal. “No one leaves unless I say so, or I will kill you myself!”
The two men froze in their tracks. The third was already too far away to hear the threat.
Jallal growled, then looked up at the structure looming in the sky. “Let’s get her royal highness to the Matron and out from under that thing. Whatever it’s going to do, I don’t want to be out here when it happens.”
+++++
High above, Arch Magus Xeries looked down from his floating citadel onto the sleeping kingdom of Erlkazar. He’d been waiting to return here for almost two hundred years.
Last time, he wanted something very different. Sadly, it had eluded him.
Taking a sip from his goblet of blood-red wine, he waved his hand. His conjured image of this soon-to-be-conquered kingdom winked out of existence.
This time, he would get what he wanted.
Call Captain Kaden!” shouted King Korox. “And Senator Divian too!”
Whitman and Quinn, the only two others in the room, bowed and took off to find the king’s advisors. Korox stood at the edge of his balcony, looking down onto the valley, the water, and the sprawling city of Llorbauth.
“For all that is holy,” he whispered. “What is that thing?”
Right in the middle of his view hung a mountain. The morning sun had risen, but the shadow of the floating fortress left most of the city still in the dark.
“You called, my lord?” Captain Kaden arrived out of breath, having run all the way in his heavy plate mail.
“Have you seen this?” asked the king.
“Yes, my lord. I think everyone in the barony has seen
it.”
The king nodded. “Yes, I suppose it is hard to miss.” “I’ve already put the Magistrates on notice.” The king paced back to the other side of the room. “Does anyone know what it is? Where it came from?” “No one I’ve spoken to, my lord.”
Quinn arrived, running up the stairs and into the chamber.
“I found the senator,” he announced between large gulps of air, his blond hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. “She
just arrived at the palace and will be here momentarily.”
The king continued to pace. Nothing like this ever happened during his father’s reign. If only his wife were still alive. She always seemed to know what to do in impossible situations. Thinking of her gave him an idea.
“Quinn, see if you can find Plathus,” said the king.
“The queen’s old tailor?”
“He’s probably the oldest person in Klarsamryn. Maybe he knows something about this… this thing floating outside my window.”
Quinn bowed and left. As the king’s bodyguard stepped out, Senator Divian stepped in.
One of the king’s chief advisors and one of the most influential voices on the matter of law and order in the kingdom, Senator Divian was also a very powerful cleric. Tall and slender, her hair had gone completely white years before, with only the occasional strand of grayish blond still showing. Despite her slowly advancing years, she was still quite attractive, and more than a few of Erlkazar’s powerful dukes and noblemen had pursued her.
Winded like everyone else from the rapid climb up the stairway, the senator approached King Korox. Under her left arm she carried what appeared to be a very old and very heavy tome. And in her right hand, she gripped an ornately wrapped alabaster staff.
“I have been trying all morning,” she blurted, trying also to catch her breath. “But I’ve learned nothing.” “Trying what?” asked the king.
The cleric came to stop at his side. She placed her staff on a small table and opened her dilapidated book. The worn pages bore an ancient script on them. And the king recognized immediately that this was a holy textperhaps the oldest of its kind in the kingdom.
“Trying to see inside,” she said, having now regained much of her composure.
Waving her hand over the words as she recited them aloud,
Senator Divian raised her voice in a melodic prayer. Above the book, a small cloud of white, gaseous vapor appeared. It swirled in long wisps, folding over itself until it formed into a small globe. The globe spun in a tight circle, spinning faster and faster as the senator continued her prayer. In the middle of the globe, a shape took formthe torn, jagged ridge of the mountain floating over the city.
The vision grew, the crags and sharp edges coming into focus. As it closed in, openings appeared along the base and higher up along the ridge. They looked to be hand-hewn archways with heavy stone doors hung in between.
The magical image closed in on one of these archways. Along its edges were several rows of inlaid golden filigree.
“What is that?” asked the king, pointing at the ornate markings.
The wisps of vapor shot away from the globe. The floating mountain began to shake and grow blurry. The image exploded into a million tiny mores of black, buzzing around each other like a hive of angry bees. Then just as quickly, they coalesced into the shape of a monstrous handhuge, hairy fingers with scabs on the knuckles and sharp, discolored claws at the ends.
The hand reached out, grabbing the edge of the tome and slamming it shut. The book tumbled from the senator’s grasp, landing on the floor with a loud slam and splitting slightly at the seam.
The senator let out a perturbed sigh and bent down to pick up her tome, seeming unaffected by what they had just witnessed. “As I was saying, I’ve been praying all morning for a vision into what that hunk of black rock out there wants from us.”
“How do you know it wants anything?” asked the king.
Senator Divian looked up at King Korox. “Make no mistake, my lord. Whatever is inside that thing is made of pure evil, and evil always desires something.”
The king nodded. Turning away from the senator, he
looked out again at the black mountain. “You say you tried to cast that spell before, and each time you see nothing more than we did this time?”
“That is right,” replied the senator. “The entire ridge is warded against scrying. I have seen nothing more than you have.”
“Any guesses?”
The senator laughed. “Perhaps a demon has decided to take a holiday in Llorbauth.”
The king scowled and turned to Captain Kaden. “And you? Any ideas?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” The leader of the Magistrates shook his head. “But whatever it is, we need to be ready to fight it.”
“Are you suggesting that we send our army up against that… that abomination?” asked Senator Divian. “Do you think that is wise? We still don’t know anything about it.”
“What I am suggesting, Senator,” said Kaden, “is that we must be ready to defend our home. And yes, one option is force.”
“I hardly think provoking an attack from a magical foe is the correct course of action, Captain,” said the Senator.
“Silence,” said the king. “We have enough trouble without the two of you getting into one of your philosophical squabbles.”
“Yes, my lord,” replied Kaden, shooting the old cleric a nasty glare.
Senator Divian picked up her tome and crossed her arms, holding the book to her chest. She returned the captain’s look. “As you wish, my king.”
“Good. I will need the both of you on the same side if we are going to guide Erlkazar out of this in one piece.”
Both nodded, but they continued to stare at one another, refusing to look away.
The sound of footsteps on the marble floor broke the awkward silence.
The king waited for the senator and the captain to break their gaze with one another before looking up himself to see that Quinn had returned.
The king’s bodyguard escorted the late queen’s tailor. The impeccably dressed old half-elf walked with the aid of a cane, and Quinn held his arm, helping him finish climbing the stairs.
“Plathus,” said the king, relieved by the tension breaker and genuinely glad to see an old familiar face. “It’s been a long time.”
The half-elf, his back hunched from a century of bending over a needle and thread, ambled to the king and took his hand in greeting.
“Too long, I’m afraid,” replied Plathus. “Your clothes are looking quite shabby.”
The king smiled. “I see you haven’t lost your charm.”
“No, no,” said the half-elf. “I’ve lost much of my eyesight, and many of my teeth, but not my charm.” Reaching into a pocket on his vest, Plathus pulled out a tiny pair of spectacles and placed them on the bridge of his nose. “Now,” he said, looking the king up and down. “What sort of garment did you have in mind?”
“Actually, Plathus, I have asked you here for another reason.”
The half-elf lifted his nose. “Oh?”
“Yes,” replied Korox. “I want to know if you’ve ever heard of or seen that.” He pointed to the floating black mass hovering over Llorbauth.
Plathus followed the king’s outstretched arm and gazed out over the balcony.
“Oh my.” The old half-elf lost his balance and tottered sideways. His spectacles fell from his face, shattering as they hit the marble.
Kaden, Quinn, and the king all dashed to catch him, but they weren’t fast enough, and Plathus spilled to the floor. His cane slipped from his hand, bouncing several times,
and the harmonious knock of the solid silverwood filled the chamber.
“Are you hurt?” asked the king.
The old half-elf seemed confused and a little dazed. He checked himself over, looking in each of his pockets before nodding.
“No, no. I don’t think so.”
The king and Quinn helped him back to his feet.
Plathus grimaced sheepishly. “Thank you,” he said, dusting himself off and trying to regain some of his dignity.
“So I take it you’ve seen this before,” said Korox, handing him back his cane.
The old tailor pursed his lips, seriousness written on his face. “Not with my own eyes. But I have heard of it, have met others who have seen it hang in the sky.”
“Do you know what it is?” asked the senator. “What it wants?”
“It is called the Obsidian Ridge,” said Plathus. “At least, that is what we called it at the time. What it wants, I do not know.”
“Do you know where it came from?” asked the king.
The tailor shook his head. “No. All I know is that no one will speak of the terrors that follow the arrival of the dark citadel. To speak of them gives them life. Makes them realflesh and blood from shadow and hate.”
“How long ago did it last appear?”
“It’s hard to say.” Plathus thought for a moment. “I was only a boy, and the elves who spoke of it were old themselves. Perhaps a hundred, two hundred years ago?” He shook his head.
“Did it appear here?” asked the senator. “In Erlkazar?”
“Erlkazar had not yet been conceived. It was still part of Tethyr, and the Crusaders who liberated her were not yet born.” He shook his head, a grave look on his face. “No, this very thing appeared over Calimshan.”
“What else can you tell us?” The king was growing more
and more nervous with every word the old half-elf spoke.
“Just that you are right to be afraidterribly afraid of the Obsidian Ridge.”
“That’s all you have to say?” said Senator Divian. “That we should be afraid? You know nothing else to say?”