“Ah, wonderful,” Turiel said.
She stepped through and plummeted after
Kintalla, landing not long after in the branches of what looked to
have at one time been a tropical tree. The branches, now dead, were
dense and thin, making for a relatively soft landing after the
short fall. After a few moments to gather her wits and right
herself, Turiel dropped down and felt the crunch of dry grass
beneath her feet. Kintalla had fallen from the tree and was just
now climbing to her feet, shivering violently in the howling
breeze. Turiel, on the other hand, seemed completely unaware of the
cold.
She brushed the twigs from her robe and shook
free the crook of a branch that had become entwined with her staff.
Above her, the portal snapped shut. Gradually her eyes adjusted to
the light available, and what she saw was enough to give her
pause.
They were atop a small clump of drifting soil
that looked as though it had been swept up from another part of
this world or some other. All around them additional fragments of
earth, some as small as pebbles and some nearly the size of cities,
drifted and circled in a bizarre galaxy of displaced land. No two
of them were the same. A distant one glittered as if made of glass.
Somewhat closer was a long, low stretch of prairie or meadow that
seemed unbothered by the cold and looked to be home to some manner
of beast that looked almost like a deer, but far smaller and with
antlers infinitely more intricate.
Far, far in the distance, almost at the limit
of their vision, the moonlight illuminated the snowy covering of
the surrounding mountains. A nearly circular pit had been carved
out, leaving perfectly sheer cliffs leading down into darkness
below. The clump of earth they now rode atop was near the middle of
this chasm.
“I am quite certain this is not how the
portal was to look,” Turiel said, her tone irritated. In the face
of this impossible place the most emotion she could muster was that
of a person who suspected a prank was being played.
“This…” Kintalla said shakily, “is where the
portal
was.
Before the Chosen closed it. We call this place
Lain’s End now.”
“Explain it. How did they close the portal?
How did these blasted adversaries even manage to arise!?”
“I don’t know. P-Please, we’ll
freeze
out here.”
“Do the adversaries still live?”
“F-Four of th-them do. L-Lain was the
f-f-fifth.”
“And
he
died here, I suppose. Hence
the name? Very well, who are these creatures? I shall personally
bring them to task for this travesty.”
“If I t-tell you, w-will you help me leave
this place?”
“I can’t very well leave you here. That would
be inexcusable. This place was meant for the D’Karon.”
“V-Very well. Myranda Celeste, th-the wizard.
She is Duchess of Kenvard now. Her pet dragon, Myn. An elemental
named Ether, and a malthrope named Ivy. All but Ether can be found
in New Kenvard.”
“
New
Kenvard. Why would there be a new
one?”
“K-Kenvard’s capital was d-destroyed in the
war! P-Please. We’ll f-freeze! Y-you must get us out of here!”
Kintalla begged.
Turiel muttered. “Oh, very well. But you must
do me a simple favor in return.”
“Anything!”
“I’m rather curious what is at the bottom. Do
let me know if you find out.”
“What? No! NO!”
The necromancer grasped Kintalla by the tunic
one last time and heaved her toward the edge. Numbing legs and
frazzled wits proved inadequate to let the poor wizard recover
before pitching off the side. Turiel paced to the edge and peered
over, watching the screaming form plummet swiftly into the
darkness.
Kintalla’s cries continued for quite a while,
echoing up from the darkness long after she was out of sight.
Indeed, there was no sudden stop to them, they just gradually faded
into the howling wind as she fell into the chasm.
“I suppose it is entirely possible there
isn’t
a bottom,” Turiel commented.
She rubbed her chin and thought for a moment.
As she did, she paced forward, black threads twisting out from the
land and lacing together into a bridge to the next piece of land.
It all seemed to happen effortlessly, or even without her notice.
She paced along a meandering path, moving across temporary bridges
to stationary clusters of stone. Her thoughtful pacing continued
for some time before she spoke again, each twist and turn taking
her closer to the nearest piece of solid ground, a narrow point due
south.
“Let us see… there is no doubt that this is
the site of the keyhole, and no doubt that the portal
must
have been finished.” She casually crouched down a bit, avoiding the
lower edge of a mountain-sized piece of stone as it rushed by. “If
this place truly is the doing of somehow shutting the portal, then
these adversaries are not to be taken lightly… If they can be
killed for what they’ve done, they shall be. And regardless, the
second keyhole
must
be opened. I will not deprive this world
of the teachings and power of the D’Karon…”
She paused, eyes settling on the tiny clump
of stone that remained between her and solid ground. It was barely
three strides across and mostly circular. At its center stood a
sword, but that didn’t concern her. What seized her mind was the
black stain across the surface of the stone, out of which the sword
stood.
Turiel rushed across the bridge of threads
and let it vanish behind her, kneeling at the edge of the
silhouette burned into the stone. The shape was vaguely human in
form, but just barely. It was twisted and unnatural, but Turiel
held shaking hands out to it as though it was the still-warm corpse
of a departed loved one.
“This is… this
was
Lord Bagu…” she
said, her voice hushed with disbelief. “They…
killed
a
D’Karon…”
Her hands tightened into fists, the right
hand squeezing tight around her staff. With a vicious cry of anger,
she thrust the staff forward, conjuring a blast of energy that
struck the sword and dislodged it. The weapon went twirling into
the shifting clusters of stone. Its blade sank deep into the
underside of a passing boulder, embedding itself there.
“How dare they… How
dare
they!”
She crouched again and reverently touched the
final resting place of one of her wisest and most powerful masters,
then slowly climbed to her feet and conjured a bridge to the
mainland.
“I’ll… I’ll…” she fumed, but after a moment
she stopped, forcing herself to calm. “This is serious. There will
be time for blind fury later. This is a time for cool heads and
careful consideration.”
She paced southward.
“I will find other D’Karon. The others
must
be here still, or at least other followers or
creations. Yes… Yes. That is what I shall do. But first, I
must
see to my dear little Mott.” She started to stir the
air with her staff. “He must be beside himself with
loneliness…”
#
Ivy’s eyes were shut, her ears perked up and
angled toward the door of the carriage. The tone of the journey had
changed sharply once the group turned toward the D’Karon fort.
Spirited, though admittedly adversarial, conversation had lapsed
into complete silence. Their westward and northward journey had
brought them toward the sea and its endless, damp, freezing winds.
This had encouraged them to secure the windows and doors as tightly
as possible, granting no hint of a view of the outside. Now the
white-furred diplomat breathed in slow, controlled breaths. Her
hands were folded and her toes were rocking on the ground in tense
readiness. For all outward appearances, she seemed to be fully
prepared to spring into a sprint at a moment’s notice but using all
of her willpower to avoid doing so.
“You seem to be… distracted, Ambassador,”
said Ambassador Krettis.
“I’m worried,” Ivy said.
“Worried? About what?”
“I’m worried about what we’ll find at the
fort. It’s one of Demont’s forts.”
“And what might we find in such a place that
would worry you?”
Ivy shut her eyes a bit tighter. “Awful
things… nasty things. Wrong things. Things no sane mind would
imagine.”
“Surely you can offer
something
by way
of example. So that we might prepare ourselves.”
The malthrope opened her eyes and looked at
her Tresson counterpart. “Things like me.”
Krettis arched an eyebrow.
“What you see here, what you were at first
unwilling to talk to and what you still are unwilling to trust, was
crafted in a place like the one we are about to visit. He takes
things, innocent things, and he changes them. He twists them into
weapons and monsters.”
“He. General Demont? Fortunate for us all
that you and your other chosen have killed him and his kind.”
“Not him. We…
I
threw him away and
slammed the door behind him, but I didn’t kill him.” She cast her
eyes downward. “At the time it was a triumph that I’d managed to
keep from killing him. He’d designed me to be a weapon. Sparing him
showed that I wasn’t willing to be one. But now I genuinely wish
I’d pushed the blade through his throat when I had the chance. The
thought that he or one of his kind might be back…” She visibly
shuddered.
“Perhaps we shall be lucky then? Perhaps it
is he who has returned. I shall have a chance to see for myself
both that these D’Karon exist and that you are as dedicated to
their destruction as you claim to be.”
“You don’t want that. You haven’t seen what
they can do, and you should be thankful for it. No one who has had
to suffer through their reign would ever call their return
lucky
.”
“You do not merely sound worried, Ambassador
Ivy. You sound frightened.”
“I’m terrified.”
Krettis clucked her tongue.
Ivy shot her a hard glance, her lip twitching
and her ear flicking. “What?” she said firmly.
“It is nothing. I was simply given to believe
you were a warrior.”
“You were wrong. I’m not a warrior. I never
was. I’m an artist. It is what I am, it is what I always was, and
it is all I ever really wanted to be. But I’m also Chosen, and that
means it is my duty to face things like this. And though I’d much
rather I was back in Kenvard practicing a new tune and visiting
with the handful of people I can truly call friends, I would still
rather clash with the D’Karon than leave the task to
anyone
else. I wouldn’t wish that sort of thing on my worst enemy.” She
peeled her lips back in a brief snarl. “And what about being
terrified suggests I am not a warrior?”
“A warrior would not be afraid.”
Ivy shook her head slowly, a look of
understanding slowly coloring her expression. “You’ve always been
an ambassador, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Never once seen a battlefield?”
“In Tressor we were never rendered so weak
that our women were forced to take up arms. Our military is
composed entirely of our strongest men.”
Ivy cast a knowing glance at Celeste.
“I used to think of warriors the same way you
do,” she said. “I used to think I couldn’t possibly be a proper
warrior, because I felt the fear down to my core every time I
looked out across the battlefield. But some of my friends, some of
the fiercest creatures you could ever hope to meet, set me
straight. There are plenty of people who could step out on a
battlefield and not be afraid. A
child
could step into an
arena against a tiger and not be afraid, because a child doesn’t
know better. A lunatic could face an army alone, because a lunatic
wouldn’t care. But a
warrior
?
A hero?
The thing that
makes them what they are isn’t that they don’t feel the fear. It’s
that they don’t let it stop them.”
The rattling of the carriage began to slow.
Ivy pushed the door open a crack, letting a stiff breeze in, and
peered out.
“Stop in the middle of the next stretch
there, please,” she called to the driver. “That is as close as I
want the rest of you to get. That’s certainly the fort we are
after. I’d recognize the sort of forts the D’Karon build
anywhere.”
As she pulled on her overcloak, she began to
issue orders. Unaccustomed as she was to a position of authority,
they came out as requests. “Mr. Celeste, please stay with the
ambassador. I would prefer if
all
of the guards remained
behind to keep you all safe. Is that acceptable?”
“You are a Guardian of the Realm and an
ambassador. You have the highest authority here. If it is your
wish, then it is acceptable,” he said.
“Okay. Okay, good,” she said, taking a slow
breath. “I need a weapon.”
Celeste began to unbuckle his sword.
“No!” she said, waving it off. “Not a sword.
I don’t… I don’t like the way I act when I’ve got a sword in my
hand. Come on. I’ll find something.”
She pushed open the door and stepped out. The
others followed.
Their journey had taken them out along one of
the unique features of the western shore of Kenvard. Many stretches
of coast, this one included, were composed of uniform gray stone
slabs that were so polished by the ice and wind that they seemed
almost to have been cut by chisels and fitted together. The land
fell sharply off into steep, sheer cliffs. Water splashed against
the base of the cliffs just a few dozen feet below. It was not a
dizzying drop by any means, but the thrashing water combined with
the biting cold made death all but certain to anyone unfortunate
enough to lose their footing. And losing one’s footing was all too
simple, as the constant sea-spray had formed itself into a thick
crust of ice that crunched beneath their boots as the group stepped
cautiously forward.
Ambassador Krettis squinted against the spray
and gazed around. Their carriage had pulled to a stop near the
center of a long, low slab that, to her evident dismay, was
not
a part of the mainland. The flat-topped island was the
second of a string of three such plateaus that jutted out of the
water. They were all at precisely the same height and perfectly
level with the mainland. It almost looked as though some sort of
calamity in the past had sliced away the ground itself, separating
these remaining pieces from the shore. They formed something akin
to stepping-stones leading toward the final island that was home to
the fort itself.