Crown of Steel (Chaos Awakens) (20 page)

"You still look like you're about to die." She told him honestly.

"It's alright. I need to find someone to borrow some magic from and then I can heal myself a little. It's early enough that I might be able to save my eye if I can get a hold of some magic to do the work. Of course, I'm not very good at healing. It's an art. I know the spells, but making the most of them takes skills I just don't have. Still, I could at least improve my situation." Xan did seem to be in a slightly better mood without the crown. His remaining eye seemed a bit more alive.

"You can take some from me." Haley offered. "I'm young enough that I have years to spare."

Xan shook his head immediately. "No. I won't be doing that, but I do have someone in mind who could spare a few years, and as an added bonus he's someone that I already promised myself I'd kill, so I think that would work out for the best. Assuming the trolls haven't already gotten to him, I'd really like to end his miserable excuse for a life. In addition, it's on our way out! Now, let's get these rings out of my arms!" He sounded almost chipper.

The process of removing the rings from Xandrith's arms was a difficult one. The tool that broke the rings made it so that the metal hoops could unrolled through the original wound, but Xan's flesh had already begun to heal against the steel. The wounds were reopened and bleeding freely by the time they'd managed to remove the last of the metallic circles. Xandrith, for his part, seemed almost indifferent about the pain and damage. While it was obvious he was in pain, the removal of the crown had greatly changed his disposition. They bound the wounds with scraps of cloth and within a few moments Xan was ready to go.

"Let's get out of here." With that, he turned and started down the stone walkway with his bare feet smacking on the ground as he went.

Haley and Kassa exchanged glances before shrugging and setting off in pursuit. Xandrith led them to the end of the corridor to another sealed room. He tried the handle as he approached it, but it wouldn't move. It was obviously locked from the opposite side. He looked from Haley to Kassa. "Kassa, would you mind picking this lock?"

She nodded her consent and moved into position in front of the lock. She produced a set of picks from one of her inner pockets that she'd long ago acquired from Xan's left behind belongings. It only took her a few minutes of tinkering with the lock before she managed to align the tumblers and trip them. The lock was old which made the process a little more difficult, but the quality was poor as well, which was perhaps the saving grace. She stood up and turned the handle to open the door into a large room that looked something like an audience chamber, but instead of having an open theatre at one end there was a small open area featuring a wooden bed with shackles and straps running its length. It wasn't hard to imagine what it was for.

Xandrith stepped inside, loathing hiding just behind his false smile. Haley could see it. She'd known him long enough to see through his attempts at hiding his discomfort. He looked frail in that room, as though a strong gust of wind might sweep him away into oblivion.

"I spent a lot of time in here. Elder Shit-Stain really liked to interrogate in front of an audience. Wait, I might have pronounced that wrong. Shiplane? Shit-head? Shoe-stain? Shidsane. Yes, that was it. Elder Shidsane. He became most perturbed when I mispronounced that." Xan was wandering through the room running his three fingered hands over various pieces of furniture as he passed. "He's the same man who tortured me back before we started traveling together, Kassa. I don't think you'd like him very much. He's a festering sack of cock-meat." Xan stopped in his slow perusal of the room. He turned on his heels and pointed to a door towards the left most side of the audience area. "That is where he always entered from. I'd say that's probably our best hope of getting out of here alive, and of finding Elder Shit-Stain so I can make sure he dies screaming." He looked again from Kassa to Haley. "You don't have to watch that part if you don't want to."

Some dark part of Haley wanted to see what Xandrith would do to his tormentor. She wanted to relish in watching the man that had caused Xan to suffer so much twisting in agony as he paid for what he'd done. Another part of her told her that she shouldn't wish suffering on anyone, but one look at the wreckage that remained of Xandrith chased that part of her back into the quiet corners of her thoughts. Xandrith deserved his revenge, and Haley wanted him to have it.

"Killing him isn't going to repair all of the damage that he's done to you. What if one of us is captured because you're trying to pursue vengeance?" Kassa chimed in, ever a voice of reason. Haley could hardly believe that she would expect Xandrith to just give up on his revenge. "You'd never forgive yourself if something happened to Haley or me."

Xandrith groaned and leaned his head back as though looking at the ceiling, though his eyes were closed. "He deserves to die." Xan said quietly.

"Agreed." Kassa nodded as she spoke. "But do we deserve to die as well? This place is dangerous, Xan. We need to be out of here as quickly as we can."

For a moment Xan didn't answer. Haley watched as he drew large breaths, inhaling until his chest was so full it looked like it might explode. Then he let it out in a slow, deep exhale. She wasn't sure what he intended to do, but she knew that she would support him either way. He'd saved her, and she still owed him for that. If that meant going against Kassa, despite the debt Haley still owed the woman, she would do that.  Her debt to Xandrith was one she held above all others.

"You're right. We need to get free. If we're forced to face him we will, but we need to be rid of this place. I'm not ready to lose anyone for my vengeance. Let's go." When he spoke, it was with a somber finality. Haley could tell that a part of him would forever regret not going after Shidsane, and he knew it as well, but he was doing what he felt was best for his friends. Haley wasn't sure she would have made the same decision. Vengeance was a powerful thing. She just hoped that Xandrith wouldn't come to resent her and Kassa for stopping him from doing what he so dearly wanted to do.

They exited through the door in the back of the audience room. It wasn't locked, which was fortunate since it had a drop bar on the opposite side of the door that would have been very difficult to deal with. The mages had obviously assumed that it was highly unlikely any prisoner would ever make it so far without setting off a general alarm. Again Haley found herself grudgingly thanking the trolls for choosing such a perfect time for their attack on the mage stronghold. Haley and Kassa might never have even gotten to Xan without the chaos they'd stirred up.

Having exited the prison area they couldn't be certain that the Trolls would have gotten so far through the fortress. The exit they'd taken through the torture chamber had led them to an entirely different part of the building and there was a chance that the trolls would no longer be a factor. Whether that was a positive or not was yet to be seen. Either way they were one man stronger than they had been coming in. It was difficult to be certain how effective Xan was in his current state, but any help he could provide was more than they'd had in finding him.

"We'll want to keep heading up." Xan said as they passed through the halls in search of stairs. "We're deep inside the cliff and we have to climb if we want to get free."

"Have you been through any of this area before?" Kassa asked. Haley could see the glimmer of hope on her face and she felt it drain away when Xandrith answered.

"No, but I've got a pretty good head for layouts. If we just keep climbing we'll be fine." He infused his voice with a confidence that Haley was fairly certain was almost entirely bluster. Still, something about having Xan making sweeping declarations of obvious mistruth again was comforting. He might not have been the most honest of men, but his cocky attitude was infectious. Kassa seemed to be just as susceptible.

"Well, with that glowing level of assurance I sure am glad that you're leading the way." Kassa’s dripping sarcasm probably wasn't lost on the assassin, but he ignored it with an expertise likely born of practice.

"I know, I know." He replied, waving one of his three fingered hands dismissively. He turned down a seemingly random hall and strode confidently forward as though fully aware of his position within the cavernous fortress. It was good to see that not all his mannerisms had been born of his now relinquished abilities.

"How big do you think this place is?" Haley asked, suddenly concerned that their bull-headed leader might be walking them deeper and deeper into a veritable labyrinth

"It's smaller than a proper mage tower, but large enough to house close to three thousand mages." Xan answered promptly.

Haley was a little taken aback. "Three thousand?! How many are actually here?"

"According to Shit-Stain, about 2200, but it's difficult to be certain whether or not he was just lying to intimidate me. Also, I'm sure by now that the trolls have trimmed that number significantly. They're good at killing things." Xan replied.

"I hope we don't have to fight the trolls." Haley voiced her fear without really meaning to. She didn't want to appear weak, but fighting the nearly indestructible trolls was a terrifying thought. Killing one had been hard enough, but these ones seemed even more intimidating. They were larger and even more fearsome than the one in the cabin.

"Have you learned much magic?" Xandrith asked, looking back over his shoulder as he rounded a corner and found a flight of stairs that he immediately began to ascend.

Haley shook her head and looked a little embarrassed. "I'm having a hard time with the seals. I can see them, but I can't seem to use them very well." She went on quickly, trying to keep Xan from being disappointed. "I have learned how to tamper with other people's spells though. I learned that on my own."

Xan stopped suddenly and Kassa walked into him almost knocking them both over. Haley managed to pull up short and not get caught in the mess.

"What do you mean by 'tamper with'?" Xan asked as he resumed their trek, but more slowly. He was looking back at Haley now, obviously quite interested in what she had to say.

"You know," Haley began, perplexed that Xandrith seemed confused by what she'd done. "You trace the magic back to its source, and then you can flood power along one of the seals and it all blows up in the face of whoever cast the spell. Or you can twist up the magic and make it fall apart. It causes a back surge of magic that you have to dissipate though. I learned that the hard way." She looked down at her feet in embarrassment.

Xan nodded slightly to himself. "That's very interesting."

Haley looked back up to her mentor. "You don't know how to do that?" She asked, feeling a little bit of pride in herself.

"No, I don't." Xan said. "I'm not sure anyone other than you knows how to do that, Not-Daisy. I've never heard of one mage being able to directly alter the magic of another. Sure you can apply your own power to counter a spell with one of your own, but simply tipping another mage’s spells out of balance? You'd have to break the caster's seals, interact with the work he'd done himself. I didn't think that was possible. When we get out of here, we'll need to investigate this a little more."

Haley couldn't help but blush as her earlier surge of pride expanded. She'd possibly done something no one else could do, and she'd learned to do it on her own. Maybe she wasn't as horrible with magic as she thought she was.

"If we get out of here." Kassa chimed in blackly.

"No need to worry about that. I found these stairs, didn't I?" Xan added confidently. "We'll just keep following them up as far as they go and we'll be out of here in no time. If we do encounter trolls we'll just pop their heads off, or restrain them until I can get a fire burning. Those are the only two ways to kill a troll. Their outer layer of skin is difficult to set ablaze, but Troll blood actually burns quite well. Get fire into them and they die quickly enough."

Haley wasn't as certain about the situation as Xan was, but his stairway was taking them a long distance up. They passed multiple different landings for floors, but as long as the stairway continued to spiral upwards, Xan kept leading them in that direction. They walked for so long that Haley felt certain they must be at the very top of the cliff already. How high up did this structure go? She was just picturing them opening a door at the end of the stairway that opened up into the clouds when Xan drew to a stop once more. A foul smell wafted down the stairway towards them. Haley knew that scent well enough. It was the odor of death, and the air was ripe with it. Haley didn't need anyone to tell her that they'd found the trolls again.

They moved upwards quietly, taking the steps one at a time and keeping a watch both up and down the stairs as they proceeded. They passed their first corpse a single flight later. He was dressed in blue robes, though that was difficult to tell since he'd been eviscerated and the cloth had soaked up his blood to make them look black. His body was ravaged, barely held together by some sinew and bone. The sight of it turned Haley's stomach, but she bit back the urge to vomit. She'd already lived through horrors in her life, and at least this mutilated corpse was no one she knew. Perhaps it was sad that she could distance herself from the death so easily, but after all she'd seen in her relatively short life this was one horror that wouldn't keep her up at night. She already had enough of those in the dark corners of her mind.

Over the course of the next two floors the number of corpses began to increase and sounds of activity from above sifted down the stairwell. It soon became only too apparent that they were climbing the stairs directly into the middle of trouble. Haley could tell that Kassa was also quietly distressed by this knowledge, but Xan had an almost manic grin plastered across his face as he ascended. The chaos above seemed to beckon him as though the screams and clash of metal were calling his name, urging him closer and closer. The assassin would occasionally stop their ascent to pick over a dead body and remove items of clothing that weren't too badly stained or tattered. He'd managed to find himself a decent set of boots and a shirt mostly free of blood. He chatted quietly in whispered tones to the corpses as he removed their equipment.