Lord Of Dragons (Book 2) (17 page)

Jolrath's face darkened at the reading of the book. "The ancients of your people were always cryptic and impossible to deal with. I don't doubt their writings would be any different."

Master Vhelan gave the dark elf an incredulous look. "You knew of them, you were actually there?"

"But of course I was there, though I was young and was merely an apprentice to my master. And I was among the few to survive our disastrous invasion of the Saarian Empire. You know they never fought us? They never even had a concept of weapons. They merely allowed us to enter their cities and greeted us as if we were distant family, and gave us songs and food and wine. Our gods were worshipped by those Saarians and in our foolishness we believed we had easily conquered their empire because of their embrace. But it was we who were conquered by their wisdom and power."

"If the dark elves didn't destroy the empire, then who did?" Master Vhelan found himself puzzled by his words.

"That's the thing, the Saarian Empire was never destroyed. The Saarians simply vanished over time. Some left through their portals, some went south to establish the Malathian Kingdom, and a few went east as nomads and eventually became the Hakkadian people, and their seed was mixed with dwarves and gnomes. But the Saarians were very much human...but a kind of human of a much higher level.

"So of the original force of almost a hundred thousand dark elves that went to conquer the Saarian Empire, only a few hundred remained. The rest vanished in those portals. It was a huge loss for our race, a loss that we never fully recovered from. We went to gain power and wisdom and wealth from the Saarians, and ended up with nothing but indecipherable relics like the book you hold in your hand, and other charms and jewelry that seemed to possess little in the way of magical power."

"That was it? You lost most of your people and gained nothing usable? It sounds insane..."

Jolrath nodded and sat at the chair opposite Master Vhelan. "Indeed it was madness, but then again the Saarians were utterly insane. Madness seemed like the core tenet of their religion. No concept of natural laws were obeyed, in fact, their magic seemed devoted to nullify the concept of natural law. Nothing about them made sense, at least not to me, as I and a few of the others were somehow unaffected by their vast powers of charisma.

"The Saarians took the entire occurrence of our invasion as a religious reason to leave their civilization. I had managed to talk to a few of them and they mentioned that the worlds on the other side of the portals were very dangerous and welcomed the dark elves as soldiers to help protect them in their adventure into the unknown. One Saarian admitted to me they were afraid of venturing out alone. With our army, they had found a forward vanguard for their explorations across time and the universe."

"And you just stood there watching them disappear into the portals?"
 

"I tried to stop my people from leaving. I shouted at them, tried pulling them away, but it was useless." Jolrath's eyes tightened at the memory. "The worst was when my mother and father left with one of the groups through a portal. My father looked at me and told me that I wasn't his son. Why did he say that? His words still haunt me to this day. I'll never forgive myself for not being able to break them out of their spell."

"Those ruins have a foul reputation of causing people to never return once they enter." Master Vhelan flipped another metallic page and scowled at what he saw. "Do you think it likely that the portals inside the ruins are still functioning? Or that somehow their ancient magic still haunts the place and keeps people trapped there until they die?"

Jolrath shrugged and released a spiral of flame from his palm into the dying fire. "You are likely to know more than I, considering you can read the Saarian script. I will leave you now to your studies, and when you finish the book I will have another one waiting. If there is something within those texts than can help us fight King Braxion and his army, then I will be in your debt, sorcerer."

Master Vhelan only nodded to the dark elf as he left, and returned to study the metallic book. Each page he read was more disturbing and enlightening than the one before. After he finished, he closed the book and pictured the sands surrounding the City of Shaar'el, and knew he had to return and help Sebine and Tael. But first he had to study every book that Jolrath possessed, and inspect the relics and charms. They needed to find a way to survive those ruins, and discover something to aid them in their fight against the Princes of Naverstrom...

Chapter Nineteen

TAEL AND SEBINE stumbled through the fallen trees and broken statues around the temple complex. He felt a chill creep up his spine as they stared in amazement at the still-standing temple of the earth. Whereas the buildings of the city were formed of stone and brick, all the temples were made of twisted wood and vine and mud, and other than broken patches of earth, were unaffected by the quake. After managing to find clothing to wear, Tael and Sebine had slept a few hours until the morning light woke them.

"It's a miracle the temple survived," Sebine said, and glanced back at the central part of the city. The buildings were still most intact, but a few had collapsed.

"I hope my sword isn't stuck underneath one of those ruined buildings." Tael didn't want to even think about how he was going to find Balensaar. But he had to try...

Sebine climbed the wooden steps leading into the main temple, and Tael followed after her until they entered the vast, candlelit chamber of the temple. It was filled with people kneeling and prostrated, praying to the earth god in low mumbling chants. At the far end of the chamber stood a woman wearing white robes administering blessings to the congregation.
 

"She must be the high priestess," Tael whispered to Sebine. "The priest said I was supposed to talk with her."

"For such a terrible loss of life, she doesn't look sad." Sebine squinted at the woman. "In fact, she looks gleeful."

It was true, the high priestess held a kind of maniacal expression of pure joy on her face, and the other priests around her bore a similar countenance. Tael's mind screamed a warning of danger, a warning that didn't exist the night before. Some of the priests had a look of bloodlust in their eyes.

"The god of the earth has spoken!" the high priestess shouted, and raised her hands high into the air. "He is displeased at your complacency and refusal to embody the seven tenets of the faith. I witnessed the tameness of the believers last night at the festival, and realized the truth in what I saw. You lack the god of the earth inside of you. Who will be our first true believer to allow full possession and sacrifice to our god? He demands sweet incense to sate his wrath."

The high priestess scanned the crowd until she discovered the trembling form of a young man around Tael's age. The boy started chanting and babbling words, his body twisting up and clenching as if overtaken by some immense fury. He started hitting himself, fists smashing his head and chest in a rabid frenzy, until the high priestess pointed at the boy and caused him to writhe and rage in renewed vigor. Streams of dark tendrils poured from the high priestess's fingers and filled the young man with a dark power.

He roared and howled like a night predator, and started attacking the others around him with fists and kicks and wild screams that raised the worshippers around him to action. The women acted first, grabbing his head and ripping out his hair, shrieking and wailing in a mad delight. They pummeled and scratched his face with their nails, and one demonic-faced girl gouged out his eyeballs and screamed in pleasure as the blood sprayed over her face. The same girl seemed to crave the boy's lifeblood, and sunk her teeth into his neck and bit down so hard that more blood gushed from the wound.

The boy's arms and legs flailed and tried to beat off his attackers, but there were too many mobbing him and grabbing and ripping anything their hands could find. Sebine turned her head away from the horrific scene and sobbed in big, frightened gasps of terror. But Tael fixed his eyes on the religious fervor firing the eyes of the high priestess, and felt goose-pimples form over his body. Had the high priestess wanted to invoke such madness and violence? She seemed thrilled that her followers were now ripping the young man apart and eating his flesh and lapping up his blood.

"Let's get out of here," Tael whispered, and turned Sebine to sneak out of the temple. But as they were about to leave the temple, the shrill, commanding voice of the high priestess stopped them.

"We have guests amongst us?" The high priestess stepped to the front of the dais and craned her neck forward to peer at Tael and Sebine. "Come closer, young ones, come up here to the light so we can see you."

The noise of the crowd diminished at the woman's words. All eyes turned to stare at Tael and Sebine as they strode towards the front, and Tael tried his best not to catch eyes with the crazed worshippers. On the stage he recognized Yaran, the priest who had guided him to the temple. His eyes were now black, like the dull eyes of a bull.

"Ah, you are the young supplicants Yaran spoke of, from the Kingdom of Valance? Come here, come closer, do not be afraid." The high priestess put on a mask of a bearded man with wild, curly hair, and stretched out her long arms to place her hands on Tael and Sebine's forehead.

Instantly, the world went black. Far off in the darkness, Tael could see a brilliant, burnt-yellow light coming from a hole in the ground. He felt a surge of curiosity and excitement and only the slightest bit of trepidation, and jogged over to inspect where the light was coming from. He shielded his eyes from the powerful light, and soon he could withstand the brightness, and peered down into the hole. There, with the power of many suns, shone the face of the most beautiful god he had ever seen. His eyes burned like lava, and out of his mouth poured millions of miles-long, living tendrils that provide water and nutrients to all life on earth.

"The god of the earth," Tael said, and marveled at the vision. When he spoke the words the god's eyes fixed on him and hundreds of the tendrils wrapped around his body and yanked him down into the enormous belly of the underworld.

"You will worship and obey me," the god roared, and squeezed so hard that Tael couldn't breathe. "Bow down and consume the soil that sustains you. Eat and drink of my body, until you become me and I become you. Be filled with the madness of life. For I will tell you the story of how life on earth was created by me, and how my power caused humans and elves and dwarves to cluster together and form cities and cultivate the soil. Worship me with all your heart and all your soul and I will give you all the answers your mind craves. The past and the present are interconnected and form a bridge of power to invigorate the arm's of heroes to dominate the earth. You will one day realize this power and rule the world..."

Tael found himself entranced by the god's words, and bowing his head, he groveled and ground his teeth into the loamy soil, feeling the essence of the earth seep into his body. He would worship this power and obey the god. As a feeling of oneness with the god pervaded his entire being, he heard the god whisper his name.

"I am Gaa'el, I am your god, you will obey me always, from one life to the next, even until the end of all time."
 

The light disappeared and all Tael could feel was the coldness of a cave and the pressure of the god's tendrils tearing the life out of him. In a burst of pain he screamed, and all his concerns and all his memories vanished into a crushing sea of nothingness.

Chapter Twenty

AS TAEL'S BODY trembled and writhed under the power of the high priestess's touch, Sebine knew the woman was trying to take possession of his mind. For some reason, Sebine found herself unaffected by the woman's spell, and when a surge of heat pulsed from the Ring of Galdora, she realized that likely the ring was protecting her. But without help from Tael, and being surrounded by a room filled with maniacally believers, Sebine had closed her eyes and pretended to shake and quiver under the earth god's touch.