Cursed Bones: Sovereign of the Seven Isles: Book Five (54 page)

After they’d freed themselves from the Goiri’s crypt, they went straight to the crystal chamber. Hazel resisted, of course, so two of Trajan’s men had to bodily carry her. The same two tied a rope under her knees and looped it behind her neck. With her hands tied behind her back, she was unable to move out of the magic circle.

Hector pushed the large emerald in the center of the panel. Nothing happened.

Several seconds passed before the crystal began to glow, increasing in intensity very quickly, until it was so bright that even Isabel and Trajan down the hall were blinded.

The light subsided as quickly as it had come, plunging the chamber into relative darkness with only two torches for light.

Isabel approached Ayela and untied her legs, then removed her gag. “Convince me,” she said.

Ayela proceeded to answer questions from both Isabel and Trajan for several minutes until both were satisfied that she was herself again. Hector stood back and watched until the verdict was determined, then roughly picked Hazel up and tossed her frail old body over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“It’s time,” he said, handing Ayela Hazel’s bag of potions and powders.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Isabel asked.

For some reason she was torn. She knew at a very fundamental level that working with the darkness, even in the smallest way, always had a downside, but … for reasons she couldn’t quite explain, she wanted to see the ghidora summoned, she wanted Hector to send it to kill Phane. Even if he survived the attack, it was an attack that he just about had to meet in person. The satisfaction of bringing the war to his doorstep was very alluring. For far too long, he’d sent his minions after them. The chance to retaliate in kind was compelling. Yet … where darkness was involved … darkness was involved.

“Yes.”

“It could have consequences,” Isabel said.

“I know,” Hector said, stepping around her as he carried Hazel toward the black-and-white room.

Isabel followed him, trying to come up with an argument that might reach him, some string of words that would change the loss he felt or undo his implacable need for vengeance. Nothing came to her. Hazel deserved to die, but Isabel was far more worried about the consequences of involving a demon in the process.

Hector didn’t waver. He carried Hazel over his shoulder like so much produce until he was before the altar, looking at the remains of his brother. He set Hazel aside and very carefully picked up Horace’s corpse, carrying him to the far side of the room and gently laying him on the floor next to the wall.

“I wish I could do more for you, Brother,” Hector whispered.

He strode up to a wide-eyed Hazel and stopped, looking down on her, his expression a condemnation. Then he picked her up and put her on the altar. When she struggled, he sat her up and slapped her across the face so hard that her head lolled to the side. Hector laid her down and started chanting the words engraved on the altar without any hesitation.

“You don’t have to do this,” Isabel said.

Hector ignored her, chanting more forcefully, his voice filling the large chamber. Hazel came to her senses and started to get up when she was seized by wisps of black smoke suddenly appearing all around her. She froze in place, paralyzed by her life essence draining away from her and into the ghidora.

Streamers of energy, most dark and muddy, flowed from Hazel to the stalker-demon until she shriveled up and died, the beast coming alive, its eyes and tail blades glowing with power and murder. It leapt from its circle and ran down the large corridor to the opening in the side of the mountain … and then it was gone.

Hector slumped to his knees, crying with his head in his hands. Isabel left him to his grief, but Trajan and his men were alarmed by the turn of events. The prince started to approach Hector, when Isabel intercepted him, pulling him aside.

“What just happened?”

“Hector just avenged his brother by sacrificing Hazel in exactly the same way she sacrificed Horace.”

Trajan looked at the platform, then at Horace’s corpse and nodded. “I accept Hector’s motives, but what of the demon? Such a thing cannot be allowed to roam free.”

“It won’t. Hector sent it to kill Phane,” Isabel said. “Then it will come back here.”

“Do you think it will succeed?”

“No,” Isabel said. “But at least Phane will know we’re thinking about him, and that’s worth something.”

“I have never seen such a monstrous thing,” Trajan said. “How could anyone stand against it, even Phane?”

“Magic,” Isabel said.

Trajan hefted his club and looked at it intently. “If magic can defeat such a thing, and if this bone can resist magic, then this club makes me the equal of any wizard or witch.”

“Perhaps, but all it takes is one well-placed blade and you’ll fall just the same as anyone else,” Isabel said. “Don’t let the power of that club go to your head.”

“How can I not?” Trajan said. “With this, I can finally rid my house of the Sin’Rath and kill Phane as well.”

“One thing at a time,” Isabel said. “Just remember, you can still die from an arrow, or a sword, or a dagger, or a jaguar, or from those horrible leeches in the swamp or …”

“I get your point,” Trajan said, forestalling her with a hand held up in surrender. “Where would you go from here?”

“After the Sin’Rath,” Isabel said. “I don’t know how many there were in the first place, but Phane killed one, and I watched a wraithkin kill one, and Hazel sent the ghidora after another.”

“That would mean there are ten left at the most,” Trajan said. “We won’t be able to track the two that traveled with us through the swamp, so I recommend we return to our fortress and see if we can figure out where they went from there.”

“I agree,” Isabel said. “Do you know another way out of here?”

“I was hoping you did,” Trajan said. “We came in through the top of the mountain and were set upon by gargoyles, dozens of them. I arrived here with twenty-four men, I have seven left.”

Isabel looked down the tunnel leading to the opening used by the ghidora and weighed her options.

“It’s worth a look,” Trajan said, motioning for two of his men to go investigate. They returned half an hour later, describing a thousand-foot cliff marred by claw marks. It was sheer, smooth, and nearly perfectly vertical.

They returned to the black-and-white room, then went up the spiral stairs to the barracks level, through the dining hall to the staircase on the opposite end, and up. After several flights, they came to another barracks level identical to the one below. Two more levels followed as they corkscrewed up through the heart rock of the mountain. The stair came to an end in a nondescript stone room.

Beyond that room, they found themselves in a partially collapsed basement. Trajan led them on a path through the debris, following markers he’d laid down as he entered, climbing a partially caved in ceiling to the level above and eventually to an exit.

“Gargoyles line the walls,” he said, pointing up at the inanimate guardian statues. There were dozens of them. Isabel was acutely aware of her limitations without magic. She would have to fight creatures made of stone with nothing but swords.

“I don’t like those odds,” Isabel said.

“Nor do I,” Trajan said, “but I know of no other way out.”

“Do we know if the bones do anything to them?”

Trajan looked at the femur he’d transformed into a club. The hilt was wrapped with a leather thong that ended in a lanyard, and he’d begun to carve symbols into the bone.

“I will go alone,” he said, “draw them out and flee if they’re able to overcome the bones. Remain hidden.”

Trajan stepped out into the daylight, took three strides and stopped, waiting for the gargoyles to react. He didn’t have long to wait. Seconds later, three woke and leapt off the wall, spreading their wings and diving toward him. The Prince of Karth held his ground, his club ready to strike, preparing to hit the first that got close to him. They lined up, one behind the next. Each evened out into a graceful dive that would bring it down on top of Trajan, one after another.

He waited.

When the first reached a range of about thirty feet, it very suddenly transformed into fine sand and scattered to the ground. The next in line disintegrated as well when it got too close, but the final of the three pulled up and returned to the wall, eyeing Trajan with menace.

Isabel and her party escaped the walls of the ruins under the watchful eyes of two dozen gargoyles, all awake but all remaining on the wall, thwarted by the Goiri’s bones. When they entered the jungle, momentary relief at avoiding a fight with the gargoyles was quickly replaced with fear of jungle predators. Keenly aware of the dangers surrounding them, they moved slowly through the brush to avoid making too much noise. Trajan assigned one of his men to teach Isabel stealth in the jungle. Using nothing but hand signals, he guided Isabel until she’d learned to move quietly.

Nearly halfway down the mountain, Trajan stopped and went to a knee, signaling to the man behind him—there were three raptors ahead. Isabel was impressed with how disciplined his men were. She watched and obeyed as well as she could, going to a knee and relaying the hand signal to the man behind her. Within seconds, the entire group was low and quiet while Trajan formulated a plan.

He waved three of his men to him as he produced a small box and opened it carefully. Each of the three men carefully dipped a blowgun dart into the goop inside the box. Once armed, they melted into the jungle, circling the raptors while remaining downwind, flanking the predators until they could get the shot. Time stretched out. The jungle was silent. Isabel started to wonder. She would be watching through Slyder were it not for the cursed bone hanging around her neck.

Her anxiety started to build, worry transforming into fear and nearly spiking into panic when the three men finally returned and Trajan motioned for everyone to proceed quietly.

Isabel’s sudden panic faded away as quickly as it had assailed her. She pondered it while she walked. She’d never experienced anything like it in her life, debilitating fear in the face of … nothing. It was unnerving.

All three raptors were down and unconscious, felled by poisoned darts delivering venom powerful enough to overcome even them. They moved past them and reached the edge of the swamp by late afternoon. Trajan cursed when they arrived at the spot where they’d left their rafts. All of them were gone, simply vanished.

“I have a boat farther south,” Isabel offered.

“How many will it hold?”

“Probably seven, plus I have a raft that can hold the other four.”

It didn’t take long to reach Isabel’s hiding place, load everybody into the boats and cast off. Isabel was more than happy to be leaving the mountain. She had what she’d come for … and the place had been less than welcoming.

Trajan set a grueling pace for his men, rowing the boat and poling the raft as fast as they could go, without interruption, one team of rowers taking over for the previous team, ensuring that forward motion never stopped. They reached the inner band of high ground late the following day with just enough time before dark to build a fire.

Trajan sat in front of the fire, the Goiri bone heavy end down between his feet, his hands resting on the pommel. “With this, I could rid Karth of magic once and for all.”

His men nodded, murmuring their agreement.

“I could eliminate it from all the
Seven Isles
.”

His men stopped nodding and started looking at each other.

“Magic is not evil, Trajan,” Ayela said. She’d been very quiet since Hazel had been sacrificed. “It can be used for good as well.”

“It’s too much power to be entrusted to any one person,” Trajan said. “Magic can do terrible things. Look what it did to our family—even to the Regency command staff.”

“Bad people did those things,” Ayela said. “They just used magic to make them happen.”

“My point exactly,” Trajan said. “If they didn’t have magic in the first place, they wouldn’t be able to do such things. Eliminate magic and preserve the world.”

“And how do you plan to eliminate magic?” Ayela asked. “Are you going to start murdering people just because they have magic?”

Trajan frowned, his state of mind suddenly shifted by the slap-in-the-face tone of his sister’s rebuke. He shook his head slightly as if facing his own statements for the first time and finding them abhorrent. “I’m not sure why I said that,” he muttered, still shaking his head.

Isabel absentmindedly played with the Goiri bone hanging around her neck while she watched the exchange. She needed Trajan, both in the short term to get where she was going and in the long term as an ally, but his behavior was starting to worry her.

He quietly excused himself and slipped off into the mist. Not a minute later, he cried out for help.

Everyone came to their feet, drawing weapons and moving toward his voice. He wasn’t forty steps outside the camp, just beyond the range of sight, and he was completely wrapped up by a giant snake, lying on his side, one arm free, struggling to breathe. The black-scaled monster was easily forty feet long and it had a good eight feet of itself wavering threateningly over Trajan’s head, six coils wrapped around his body and the rest trailing out behind him into the mist.