The Shadowmage Trilogy (Twilight of Kerberos: The Shadowmage Books) (67 page)

The stairs wound on, diving much further than those that had brought them to the dungeons. Lucius strained to see into the darkness, and was eventually forced to conjure a small ball of blue fire in his hand just to light the way. The feeling of being in the presence of powerful magics grew as he followed the smooth walls ever downwards.

A light, growing steadily brighter, began to illuminate the stairs beneath him, and Lucius snuffed out his fire. As one, all three slowed, moving stealthily as they cleared the last of the stairs and cautiously examined the corridor at the bottom.

It stretched off into the distance for hundreds of yards. Like the staircase, its walls were utterly smooth, as were the ceiling and floor. There were no flagstones laid here, just the smoothed surface of plain rock; Lucius suspected the whole level had been constructed by magic rather than human labour.

Lucius soon realised that the light, which now allowed him to see for hundreds of yards down the corridor, was emanating from the walls themselves. He recalled seeing something similar in Adrianna’s lair and took a breath, marshalling his own magic.

“We should turn back,” he whispered.

“Are you mad?” Elaine asked. “There are no guards here, we have the freedom to roam where we wish – and if Vos is planning something down here, we need to know about it.”

“I don’t wholly disagree, but you said it yourself. If this place is so important, why are there no guards?”

Behind them both, Heinrich sighed. “He may have a point, Elaine. If there are no guards, then whatever is here is either worthless, which I think none of us believes, or else does not require protection.”

“Which makes it all the more important for us to discover it,” Elaine said stubbornly.

“The magic here is very powerful,” Lucius said. “The three of us alone may not be enough.”

“You know my feelings for the man, Elaine, but when it comes to magic, I think we should trust him,” Heinrich said.

She would not be swayed. “We’ve handled worse in the past, and what Lucius cannot handle with his own magic, you and I can finish off with our blades. If this is important to Vos, then it is important to us as well.”

So saying, Elaine brushed past Lucius and started padding down the corridor, though the bright light from the walls deprived her of any shadows within which to hide. Lucius looked over to Heinrich, and saw him staring after Elaine, a troubled look on his face.

“Come on,” Lucius said. “We have to follow her.”

Heinrich nodded. “Aye, she’ll go by herself just to spite us.”

The corridor stretched for an age, and Lucius started to wonder if there was not some deeper enchantment preying upon them, for the passage extended into the distance with no end in sight. They stopped every few seconds, listening for any tell-tale of an ambush: the scrape of a sword drawn from its scabbard, the gentle clink of mail, a stifled breath, anything that would betray an imminent attack.

There was nothing. They were completely alone.

Still Lucius was not at ease. If anything, his nervousness grew, as he saw the threads of magic were still disturbed.

A grinding noise of metal on stone seemed thunderous in the silent confines of the corridor, and they turned to see a heavy portcullis of dark blackened metal slam down from the ceiling behind them. Lucius felt a rising panic, as none of them had spotted any change or mark in the corridor when they crept past. Another portcullis dropped in front, leaving them trapped in an area just a few yards long.

The corridor before them shimmered, as if in a deep haze of heat, and through the distortion, Lucius saw a chamber appear, just beyond the portcullis barrier. Where there had been an endless corridor, there was now a widened area of the same smooth stone, with perhaps half a dozen soldiers led by a tall, fair-headed woman wreathed in green silks.

She pointed a long, aristocratic finger without speaking, and two soldiers ran forward with spears, jabbing at the assassins through the bars of the portcullis. Another two readied heavy crossbows while the rest hefted wicked looking halberds.

Parrying the first spear thrust at her, Elaine side-stepped the blow, then jumped back. Heinrich took the simpler course of shearing the head off the spear nearest him with a powerful overhead hack, then he too paced backwards, eyeing the crossbowmen.

Seeing that they stood trapped, waiting to be spitted with bolts by soldiers who had all the time in the world to aim, Lucius sheathed his sword and dagger, then clenched his fists in front of his chest as he tugged on the invisible threads, drawing power for a new spell. He punched forward with both fists, releasing the energy and roaring in anger, letting his emotion drive the spell as much as his skill.

The pulse of energy slammed into the portcullis with a terrifying crash that caused the soldiers closest to it to yelp and spring back. The metal had yielded a few inches, with the centre of the portcullis buckled and twisted, bars broken and snapped apart. Seeing the barrier resist his spell, Lucius gathered more energy, building it up into a powerful attack that would flatten everything before him.

Sensing the danger, the tall woman reached forward with a casual gesture, and the portcullis erupted into crackling lightning, bright sparks playing up and down its surface. The portcullis surged with energy briefly, then the lightning leapt across to Lucius.

His body jerked in pain as the lightning swept through him and the spell he was forming slipped from his mind to dissipate harmlessly back into the threads. Draining its own power, the lightning relaxed its grip on his body, and Lucius sank to his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

“Cover me,” he managed to say to Heinrich and Elaine. They exchanged looks, then leapt forward, using their bodies to shield Lucius.

Elaine had already drawn a throwing knife, and she heaved it at the nearest soldier, but the blade was hastily aimed and clattered off the portcullis. Trying the same thing, Heinrich was more accurate, and sent his spinning knife through the gap in the portcullis that Lucius created. It buried itself in the forearm of one of the crossbowmen, causing him to cry out as he dropped his weapon. His comrade raised his crossbow and aimed straight at Heinrich.

“Lucius, whatever you are doing, do it fast!” Heinrich said, as he jumped onto the balls of his feet, readying for a desperate leap to one side when the bolt was loosed. A strained voice came from behind him.

“Move... now.”

Heinrich and Elaine leapt behind the Shadowmage. Lucius had pulled himself to his feet and was holding his palms out as if carrying a great ball. In his mind, he saw the immense energy he had been preparing as a tumultuous, writhing sphere of multi-coloured winds that whipped around at terrible speeds.

With another cry, he threw the energy ball forward, seeing it speed from his hand to the portcullis, though it was invisible to Elaine, Heinrich and the soldiers.

It blasted into the portcullis and detonated. The portcullis collapsed, unable to withstand the assault. Great masses of stone were torn free as it was ripped from its mechanism, and shards of metal and rock were catapulted towards the soldiers with lethal force.

Men shrieked in pain as they were impaled on metal bars or struck by stone. Amidst all the carnage, the tall woman casually, almost contemptuously, raised her hand, palm outwards. The force of the blast, along with its killing shrapnel, seemed to flow around her and the two soldiers standing impassively behind her. They showed no fear as the spell abated and the woman gestured them to move forward over the bodies of their dead and dying allies, halberds raised as they approached Lucius.

Another gesture from the woman froze the air about her into long, thin, needle-sharp ice. The foot-long darts hung in the air for a moment, then arrowed towards Lucius. Lucius raised an invisible shield, deflecting the bolts into the wall where they shattered into fragments of crystal.

Though panting from the exertion, he was now smiling. The tall woman was accomplished enough and, unusually for a Vos-trained wizard, very fast at building spells. Her magic was similar in its discipline to Adrianna’s, but he had faced the Shadowmage before, and this woman did not have anything like Adrianna’s power or raw talent. His elation at this discovery nearly cost him his life, and Lucius only ducked at the last instant as a halberd hissed through the air above him.

“We’ll take this scum,” Elaine said. Both she and Heinrich had seen the danger to Lucius, and moved up alongside to protect him. “You take down that witch.”

Metal smashed against metal as Elaine raised her sword to parry another halberd swing, and was pushed back by the blow. While the halberd was relatively unwieldy in close combat and easily caught on a blade, the sheer weight behind its attack was enough to send a swordsman flying. Elaine cursed and recovered her balance, ready to face the soldier as he marched upon her.

The Vos wizard smiled at Lucius and beckoned him on. Resolved to tear her arrogance apart, he formed a bolt of black energy that hissed as it fed on the life of everyone present in the corridor. Launching the bolt at the woman, he saw her smile slip as it knifed into her chest. The woman’s skin turned ashen, and she looked visibly shaken as she started chanting, preparing another spell.

Heinrich had already dealt with the soldier he faced, moving inside the halberd’s reach and driving a sword up through the man’s jaw, and the soldier now lay twitching on the floor.

Heinrich advanced on the remaining soldier, who sensed his approach and turned side on to see both assassins. That was all the advantage Elaine needed. Kicking the halberd’s shaft to one side, she slashed with one blade, sliding it off his helmet and drawing a deep cut down his cheek. With the other, she stabbed, the blade piercing the mail on the soldier’s thigh.

He fell to one knee, bleeding from leg and face, supporting his weight with his halberd. The assassins gave him no time to recover, and savagely hacked and stabbed until he lay still.

Her spell complete, the woman stretched forth her hand and channelled more lightning into Lucius. Lucius had already constructed another invisible barrier and the lightning smashed into it, ripping the strands of energy that bound his defence together, sparks flying to either side as the magics fought one another.

Lucius directed more energy into the shield, repairing it as quickly as she flayed more layers from its surface. He stared grimly at the tall woman, matching and countering her spell as she stepped up its magnitude.

Slowly, tiny flaws started to appear in his shield, and Lucius frowned in concentration as he poured more energy from the threads into the barrier, but still the strength of the wizard’s spell increased. When she cried out in pain, Lucius began to wonder if the wizard had not unleashed some terrible spell she could no longer control.

Standing rigid now, the woman was immobile, hand still directed toward him, still funnelling lightning into the shield, though now it was blinding in its intensity. She looked like a puppet, directed by the will of another, and this impression was reinforced as Lucius watched his shield begin to dissolve. He desperately shored up his defences.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the heat haze appear again, this time in the far corners of the chamber on either side of the wizard. An arch appeared in each, with corridors receding away into the distance. Lucius did not know if this was the true layout of this part of the keep, or just another illusion.

He stumbled as a wave of power swept over him, and it took a moment to realise that it had been in his mind alone. It had felt as if someone very powerful and very learned in magics was flexing his muscles before entering the fight.

Screaming now, the endless shriek ripped from her throat, the woman began to shake, though her hand was still rigidly pointing toward him, the lightning pouring out with ever greater intensity. The wizard looked insensible, her eyes rolling in their sockets, glazed over as if she were somewhere else.

The energies channelled by her body had risen tenfold again, and the power was beginning to leak from her tall frame, sparks jumping out through her silk garments, setting them alight. Lucius moaned with the effort of keeping his shield intact, now reduced to the thinnest sliver of a defence.

In the corners of his eyes, he saw a figure appear in each of the corridors now stretching from the chamber. Each was cowled in a pale robe, face hidden within its shadowy recess. They stood, immobile, staring at Lucius and his pathetic efforts to resist the magic of their vassal.

Another pulse of energy swept over Lucius and he staggered under its impact, unaware of Elaine’s steadying hand on his shoulder, unable to hear her words. He could feel other centres of power, other crafters of magic, hidden from his view, working together. Perhaps their power was being magnified by the strange construction of this part of the keep, or perhaps they could do it naturally, but he had not felt a force so powerful since confronting Adrianna. Even then, he could not say who was the greater – the Shadowmage, or what must be the Vos cabal.

The tall woman’s head now lolled to one side, and Lucius doubted that she was still alive. Still, she was serving as the link to the cabal, their instrument against him. Seeing his shield begin to wither and die, he yelled out loud as he pushed it forward, flooding it with a final burst of energy.

The wave smashed into the tall woman. Unable to offer any resistance, her body folded under the blow, bones breaking as she was thrown off her feet into the wall behind. She fell limply to the ground, unmoving.