Shadow Mage (Blacklight Chronicles) (17 page)

Aurellia’s words echoed in his mind:
“You know so little. But one day you might figure out a thing or two. If you dare, you’ll search for me in your dreams. If you’re afraid and cower in that city of yours, I’ll return and consume everything you hold dear.”

So that was it, Aurellia had sent Rikar to search for Talis in his dreams, and when that wasn’t enough, he sent the Jiserians to destroy his city. And all the while Nikulo had been learning the Tandria Scroll. Did Aurellia send Palarian to them as well? What did Aurellia want from them?

“Are you okay?” Mara sat next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. It felt wonderful to have her close again.

Talis smiled warmly at her. She blushed and nudged him in the ribs.

“At least we’re all together again,” Mara said. “Why don’t we have a look at the map?”

“Everything that’s happened seems to have been planned by Aurellia.” Talis unfurled the Surineda Map, and felt the warmth slither up his hands from the map’s power.
 

He closed his eyes and pictured Aurellia, and instantly the sorcerer’s wrinkled, gaunt face appeared, gazing at him with a why-have-you-waited-so-long look. Talis tried to resist the vision, hated seeing Aurellia’s hideous face, but somehow he couldn’t break the connection.

“It’s been a span of time since I’ve seen you, young wizard,” Aurellia said. “You’ve ignored my words and failed to reach out to me until now, and you ignored Rikar’s summon.”

An icy river flowed down Talis’s spine at the sorcerer’s words. Aurellia was vile and revolting and intriguing at the same time. His nostrils flared and his eyes fired up with flecks of gold burning inside his irises.
 

“Now you are here, on this middling planet, the place of no cause, a step on the path towards home.” Aurellia spread his arms like the unfolding of dragon’s wings. “The world of shadows.

“You have come to save her, and now she is yours, and yet you are trapped here on this forsaken world. What will you do? Hmm… Your city has fallen to the Jiserians, Viceroy Lei is a traitor. There is nothing left for you back there. Look to the future!”

Talis clenched up his fists and fought the urge to strike out against him.

“Your family may well already be slain, the eradication of House Storm. There is deep enmity between your father and Viceroy Lei, did you not know this? Old rivals in the war for the heart. If you did ever manage to return home, what would you find? Tears and wailing and the gnashing of teeth?”

“I would find my city and my home.” Talis glared at Aurellia. “Where is your home, old sorcerer?”

“Aye, I am old, as old as the sands of time. You are but a wink in that ebb and flow of light and shadows.” Aurellia aimed a finger at the sky. “My home is far from here, far away amidst the stars of the night sky, where the glint of diamonds take their rest in the dark. A land of beauty and contrast, the soft light of the twin suns, the pale glow of the twin moons, a world of perfect balance, unlike your hideous world.”

“Then why are you still here on this planet?” Talis chuckled. “Are you trapped like before? Bound to serve your time for thousands of years until a boy discovers the secret you so desperately need?”

“Ah, yes, your discovery was most fortunate, I thank you for that.” The sorcerer leaned in close until Talis could see the hairs springing out from the mole on his face. “And from what I’ve heard, you have the Goddess Nacrea’s ear, she listened to you. Why is that?”

“My prayer was sincere, my need was great. And I obeyed her and built a new Temple of the Sun, and planted the black crystal she gave me.” Talis pictured the roaring flames of the temple beams and felt the anger bubbling up inside. “But they destroyed that beautiful temple, why did they destroy it?”

“They don’t understand you, they don’t understand the gods, your pitiful Order of the Dawn.” Aurellia clapped his hands and curled his lips into a withered smile. “Enough talk of the past, let’s talk of the future, shall we? I have a proposal for you, if you are interested in leaving this dreary land.”

“What’s that?” Talis said, recognizing the greed in Aurellia’s eyes.

“Look to your map, you’ll see Rikar. Prove your worth by making it here alive, then we will talk. If you ever try to summon my image again on the map, you will wish you were never born.”

With that Aurellia vanished and the vision faded. Talis stared at the map and saw a point where Rikar was, far to the east, amidst mountains, and Aurellia waiting there for them… Was this all just another test? Talis glanced around at the smoldering flames issuing puffs of smoke into the sky, a certainty sinking into his bones. They really didn’t have any other choice but to go out there and find them…

Charna pressed herself under Talis’s arm and nuzzled his hand. He scratched her chin and under her ears, and she purred and murmured in response.
 

“Did you have a vision?” Mara said, her eyes blinking rapidly.

Talis still pictured Aurellia’s hideous face. “It was him all along…the grand puppet-master. We’re just pawns in his game.”

Nikulo wrinkled up his face and coughed from the smoke. Talis told them his vision, and Mara frowned and her eyes sank as if absorbed in thought.

“He’s tempting us and testing us at the same time,” Talis said. “I imagine we have no choice but to play along.”

“There’s something I didn’t tell you.” Mara’s face was pale and trembled slightly. “The sorcerer told me he obeys Aurellia and yet despises him at the same time. He said it was Aurellia that brought the downfall of Urgar, the City of Light, and with it the ancient Temple of the Sun. A group of ancients moved the Temple to the secret location where we found it, in order to hide it from Aurellia.”

“So we betrayed them?” Talis said.

“No, Rikar betrayed us. It was he who was secretly communicating to Aurellia all along.” Mara sighed. “Palarian said Aurellia needs only one more leap, one more jump through a World’s Portal in order to reach their home world, the place where most of the ancients escaped after the war between Urgar and Darkov many thousands of years ago.

“But if that happens, the sorcerer said it would mean war and disaster on their home planet, not just a war of the immortals, but a war amongst the gods.”

As they trekked east the next morning towards the spiny grey mountains, images of the gods devastating Master Viridian flashed in Talis’s mind. The shadow gods wrath striking so severely at such a minor offense… A war of the gods, the dark gods against the gods of light? If a student of Light Magic had to study Shadow Magic in order to avoid going insane, that meant worshipping different sets of gods, some light and some dark. What was he going to do?

Talis remembered Zagros and his host of nether-beasts and his army of risen dead. Would the God of the Underworld prevail against the Goddess Nacrea, Mistress of the Light? Charna came prancing up alongside and gave out a quick cry for attention. He scratched her between the ears and she purred in response, her golden eyes beaming in affection.

Nikulo pointed at a great wall off in the distance. “Doesn’t look like we can go around it, and the main gates are well fortified.”

“Aurellia won’t make it easy for us to enter through the front gates, I’d say that’s a losing proposition.” Talis knew there had to be another way inside.
 

A distant storm flashed high amidst the jagged mountain peaks, and while they hiked through scattered scrub-brush, a cold wind whipped up and blasted dust into their eyes. They veered to the left and away from the main gates, down a dry gully littered with boulders and brush. Talis climbed along the gully towards the wall, all the while keeping an eye out for lookout towers and archers at the top.
 

Then Mara spotted an iron grating where the gully went under the wall. They stalked through the gully, hiding behind boulders strewn along the way, glancing up to see if they’d attracted any attention. The wall was at least a hundred feet tall and formed of seamless hewn stones. Talis carried Charna and whispered in her ear to be still.

Nikulo opened his mouth to talk, but Talis raised a finger to keep him quiet. He motioned towards the iron grating and kept an eye on the rim of the upper wall. The stone wall felt cool on his back as he set Charna down, and withdrew a flask of water and took a drink.
 

“Stay close,” he said to Charna.

“There’s nobody up there,” whispered Nikulo. “Imagine how many men you’d need along such a vast wall?”

Talis bobbed his head in agreement and handed the flask to Mara. “What do you suppose is inside?”

Mara took a drink and shielded her eyes from the sun as she stared through the iron bars. “It looks like it tunnels down into the earth for awhile…it’s pitch dark.”

“Nominal security.” Nikulo squeezed himself under the grating and grinned at them from the other side.
 

“Wait!” Talis hissed, and withdrew the Surineda Map. “Always be suspicious when they make it too easy.”

Nikulo shrugged. “Simple laws of physics. When they built this the iron bars reached down into the ground. They’ve had quite a few floods here since then and the water has eaten away at the ground.”

“Still, I trust Aurellia would have fortified any weaknesses into his domain.” Talis closed his eyes and focused his mind on revealing any dangers nearby. The map burned in his hands, and when he opened his eyes, it was filled with symbols of death and poison and fire.
 

“The way is littered with magical wards,” Talis said. He called Charna and bent down to whisper in her ears. “You have to stay close to me, the way is very dangerous ahead.”

Nikulo backed up against the bars, fear blossoming in his eyes. “I’ll let you lead.”

“In fact, if you’d squeezed through a few feet to the left, you probably would have ignited in flames.”

Mara peered at the map and wrinkled up her forehead. “I hope we can avoid all those traps.”

“We’ll need to keep together. Follow my lead.” Talis bent down and slid under the sharp bars and raised the map close to his face. He stepped forward twenty paces, then went sideways until his head grazed the curving stone ceiling.
Clear for a stretch
, he thought, studying the map. He tiptoed forward, tripping over rocks and debris from the last flood.

“I can’t see a thing,” Mara said, and bumped into Talis.

“Would any of the magical wards be sensitive to light?” Nikulo said.

“I don’t think we should risk casting any spells.” The map emitted enough golden light for Talis to see where they were going. They crept along for what seemed like an hour, descending deeper into the earth, zigzagging around danger.

Nikulo groaned.

“What is it now?” Talis said.

“I…I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Are you kidding me? Why didn’t you go outside?” Mara said.

“I didn’t want to be shot in the arse by an archer.” Nikulo coughed and fidgeted back and forth.

Talis chuckled and pulled Mara’s hand. “Go ahead, we’ll wait farther up for you. Just follow the wall straight ahead, it’s pretty safe around here.”

“Can you guys plug your ears?”

“No…no you’re not going to do it here? That’s disgusting.” Talis shuddered, unable to stop himself from imagining the hideous smell.

“I can’t help it! When the urge comes, I can’t stop it, can I?”

Talis grimaced and walked with Mara down as far as he could away from Nikulo. “We better cover our ears and noses.”

“Is it that bad?” Mara whispered.

Even though Talis had plugged up his ears, he still heard groans and explosions and exclamations echo down the tunnel. The enemy surely heard all that noise, unless they were deaf. Then the smell came. Despite having squeezed his nostrils shut, the vile smell of rotten eggs and festering wounds leeched into Talis’s mouth. He sneezed so hard snot flew out and splattered the map, causing it to dim slightly.
 

“That’s so gross!” Mara yelled. “Gods…what a wretched smell!”

“All finished down here,” Nikulo shouted, and Talis could hear the scraping sound of boots kicking stones and debris. Nikulo stumbled towards them.

Talis wiped the map with his shirt sleeve and froze when he noticed hundreds of tiny red dots moving towards them from behind Nikulo.

“Your shat was so loud it woke something nasty,” Talis said, “and it’s coming towards us.”

Nikulo rammed into Talis and sent them tumbling across the ground. Charna hissed in response, her golden eyes glowing in the dark. Talis scooped up the map and listened to the chittering and squeaking and the scampering of thousands of little feet echoing down the tunnel. When the hundreds of glowing yellow eyes descended in the darkness, Talis sent a wave of flame down the tunnel, igniting the carpet of rats.

As the rats burned, the flames sent flickering shadows down the way, revealing the bones of those who had failed to travel through here before. But more rats came, leaping over their burning brothers and sisters, intent on assailing the intruders. Talis sent a massive burst of wind, knocking the second wave of rats back and into the whipped up rat fire.