NexLord: Dark Prophecies (6 page)

Even though the man was dead the massive
wound in his throat still poured a trail of red blood into the
stream of fetid water running through the sewer.

A feeling of terror rose in their hearts and
as
one,
the boys turned and ran
from the
grisly
sight.  They ran in blind terror for a few minutes
through the dank sewers, but
finally,
Aerin slowed and Darel turned to look back over
his shoulder.

"What are you doing?” he demanded, slowing as
well.

Aerin stopped and the other three boys came
to a halt as well.  All of them were shaking from the
cold, the exertion and the terror.

"We have to go back," Aerin concluded.

Darel shook even more than the rest of them,
but he said, "He's right; we have to go back and see if there is
anything we can do."

Lor scowled at him, "Why?  We had
nothing to do with this murder.  He's dead, and going
back isn't going to bring him back to life, and it could get us
killed."

Darel took a deep breath, "No, Aerin is
right; we have a duty to see if there is anything we can do. This
is murder."

"Exactly, and I don't want to be next," Lor
stated.

"Suit yourself, but I'm going back," Aerin
answered and headed back down the sewer.

Dono and Darel followed, and then a reluctant
and mumbling Lor came along as well.

As they neared the location of the body their
feelings of terror returned.  The boys stopped thirty
yards away; the corpse was around the next bend.

"Gedin, do you feel that?" Darel said in a
quivering voice as all four boys came to a halt.

Aerin nodded, swallowing dryly.

"It's the evil one's power," Darel whispered.
Then he spoke repeating teachings he had learned, but ignored until
now, "When a
murder
happens the
Dreadmaster comes to stain the world for all to know and fear
Gedin's wrath," he quoted from the Book of The Hand.

Aerin spoke in a quivering voice as he tried
to master his fear, "My father taught me that the feelings of fear
and terror are the power of the Dreadmaster, but that we must not
give in to them or we feed his power."

He took a step forward and felt the terror
increase.  The other three boys followed him and he
managed to take another step.  With each step forward the
next became a little easier, but as Aerin neared the corner he
imagined the dead bleeding body of the man standing and waiting for
the boys to appear.  His terror increased and Aerin
couldn't make himself step around the last bend.

It was then that Aerin heard the low
whispered voice speaking from just around the corner, it gurgled as
if bubbles of blood were forming on the lips of the speaker, "Come
to me and we will join and be together forever, for I am
legion."

Aerin's heart lurched in his chest in such
fear that he nearly threw up.

His body shook, and he would have run, but he
was too afraid to turn his back.

The low whispering voice spoke again, "You
called me from my slumber, but we have not met.  Come...
Aerin..." the voice called, pausing as if just finding out his
name.

Aerin wished he had the strength to run; he
knew he was about to die.  He knew the creature was just
around the corner, just two feet away.

Behind him Lor spoke, "Well if we're going
back then let's hurry up and get it over with!"

His mundane impatience gave Aerin the
strength he needed, so he
leaped
to the side of the sewer so he could see the horrible creature that
knew his name.  A bloody hand did not come down on his
shoulder, as he had expected,
instead,
he saw the fallen form of the dead Guardsman
still lying in the sewer. The dead body had not
moved.  With his imagination finally under control, Aerin
found it easier to move forward, though the terror still huddled
just under the surface of his control. 

Following his
example,
the other three managed to come around the
corner after him.

"Did you guys hear that voice?” he asked his
friends. 

Lor puzzled voice answered from close behind,
"Voice?"

Aerin was afraid his friends would think he
was a coward and imagining things, so he said, "I guess it was just
an echo."

As they approached the fallen body they
recognized the color of the man's clothes.

"Gedin
take
me, it's a Guardsman," Dono exclaimed, his eyes taking in the dead
man's uniform.

Lor backed away from the ghastly corpse lying
in the sewer.  "Who would dare kill a
Guardsman?  They'll turn over ever stone in the city,
hunt down the killer and feed his liver to the fish," Lor
whispered.

Darel swallowed his fear and crouched down
near the Guardsman to study his face.  "I know this
man."

Dono gave Darel a puzzled
frown.  "Know him, how?  In Gedin's
name, I thought you were new here!"

Darel glanced at Dono who stood above
him.  "You said that, not me.  I've lived in
Strakhelm all my life.  We should go to the Guardsmen and
tell them what we know."

Lor looked horrified.  "I will
NOT!  Do you have any idea what kind of questioning
they'll put us through?  Or maybe some dank cell full of
rats and... and... and who knows what?  No, we forget we
ever saw this, let the Guardsmen find out for themselves."

Darel stood up and faced Lor.  "No,
that wouldn't be right, we have a duty."

"Duty… to what?  I have a duty to
myself not to get locked up," Lor complained.

Aerin stepped between the two
boys.  "You're both right, but this man has put an onus
on us.  He entrusted us with his final seconds of life
when he tried to identify his murderer; we cannot fail him."

That caught Lor and Darel's
attention.  "What do you mean?" Lor exclaimed.

Aerin pointed to the blood on the stones of
the sewer.  "He felt it important enough to write this
message in his own blood, and he wrote it to
US
.  I say we try to find out what it
means, and if we do find something worthwhile that might help solve
this crime, we leave a note for a Guardsman.  That way we
turn in the information without telling them who we are."

Lor was frowning at the strange marks on the
stone.  "I don't know... maybe."

Darel looked determined and one of his brown
eyes narrowed slightly as he spoke.  "I'll agree if it's
understood that we must tell them what we know, regardless of what
else we uncover, they might figure this out from the message better
than four kids."

Aerin nodded.

Lor pointed at the short word the Guardsman
had scrawled.  "What does that say?"

Darel studied it for a
moment.  "I'm not sure..."

"You don't read either?" Lor asked.

"
Of course,
I read, it's just not a word," Darel replied.

Aerin crouched down next to
Darel.  "Maybe it is two words, with the second
unfinished.  To gr...," he sounded out the second
syllable, sounding like a growl.

"What about this?  Is it a word?"
Dono pointed at the triangle with the dot in the center. 

Aerin shook his head.  "No, that's
not a letter or word; it's a symbol of some kind."

"You can READ?" Dono
exclaimed.  They hadn't been too surprised that the
well-dressed Darel knew his letters, but this country boy?

Aerin looked at them defiantly. "Yes, it's
not magic or something you know.  Anyway, have any of you
seen something like this symbol before?"

None of them remembered it.

Aerin stood up. His feeling of terror still
remained, but now it felt more like the fear he felt when standing
near the edge of a high place, present, but
manageable.  "Well, it’s getting time for me to get back;
I didn't say I'd be gone this long.  Why don't we get
together soon and see what any of us has come up with."

Dono nodded.

Darel said, "If I can."

After a glance at Darel, Lor said, "We must
all swear not to speak of this to anyone else until we leave the
note for the Guardsmen, and then never again unless we all
agree."

Aerin put out his hand, palm
up.  "We'll form a pact, we only speak of this when we’re
together, and we come if the others need us, no matter what… and we
never betray one another."

The other three put their hands together on
top of Aerin's.  "Now think of the most important thing
in your life and hope to lose it if you break this pact," he
explained, remembering a story he had once read.

Each boy thought for a moment and then
nodded. 

"Our pact is sealed. Now when do we next
meet?" Aerin asked.

Lor answered.  "I say tomorrow;
we’ll meet at one hour past noon outside the Inn where we all first
met."

Darel looked
troubled
but nodded.

Dono and Aerin agreed.

Aerin looked around the sewer, occasional
openings above cast beams of light across the round walls every so
many
yards
.  "Lor, can
you lead us away from here?  I don't want to run into
whoever killed the Guardsman by climbing up here and right into
their knife."

"I can get us somewhere near
Ragol
Square, then we can climb out and take a
look," Lor decided.

Lor led the way down the tunnel with Dono and
Darel right behind him, Aerin brought up the rear.

Aerin once again thought about the evil
whisper he had heard earlier and wanted to look back to make sure
the corpse wasn't moving behind him.  He shivered and
suddenly felt a cold presence.  He stopped as if frozen,
standing in the
mucky
water.  His friends continued on ahead.  Aerin
felt someone's breath on the back of his neck and smelled blood in
the air.  He was just about to spin around when the voice
whispered from right behind his ear, "I'll be seeing you soon,
Aerin."

Aerin ran, not caring about the fetid water
he splashed and not daring to look behind him until he caught up
with
his friends.  When
he finally gained enough courage to look down their back trail
there was nothing but the disturbed water behind them.

Once out on the street Darel bid them goodbye
and headed away quickly.  Lor and Dono took Aerin to
within sight of his Inn and then waved at their new friend before
fading into the city streets.

Chapter Four

“
And by promise broken, the teacher will
find her student."

- From the Prophecies of Gold

Gandarel's return to the Seat of Stone was as
bad as he had anticipated.  Once they recognized him
through the caked mud and filth on his clothes, the guards admitted
him through the gate and escorted him to the main
hall.  Standing on the landing at the top of the entry
stairs was Niler Corbin,
first
seat of the council, and Gandarel's personal
nightmare.  The young boy could almost swear there was a
small thundercloud actually hovering above the scowling
councilman.

"Where have you been, Gandarel Trelic?"

Twenty lies came to mind instantly in the
face of the anger on
Niler's
face,
but what came out was the bald truth. "I... wanted to see the
city," he sputtered.

Niler shook his head sadly at
Gandarel.  "
After all,
I've tried to teach you since your father died; he would be so
disappointed in what you have become."

More than anything else that Niler could have
said, that blow hurt Gandarel.  He looked down at his
muddy feet in shame.

Niler continued, "Perhaps I have been too
lenient, and it's my fault.  Shall I order my own head
struck from my body?  Indeed, perhaps it IS my
failure?  Have you any idea what you have
done?  Half this day has been spent in search of you.
Rescue parties have gone out and an emergency meeting of the
council has pondered what enemy might have abducted or killed
you.  Was it some horrid Drakwolf
assassin?  Perhaps a Togroth killing party had you
roasting on a spit?  Had some unnamed rival of your
family removed the final link to the
Trelic
line?  No, you were on holiday, without
a word to anyone, without a single guard, without a single brain in
your head.  
Well,
I'll
tell you this, Gandarel Trelic, you will rue this day! I will not
fail my responsibility to your father!"

Gandarel tried to keep the tears in, but two
escaped, cutting canyons through the caked filth on his
cheeks.  His head was hung so low his chin rested against
his chest.

He wanted to say, "If you had given me
time
to be a boy, perhaps I
wouldn't have had to sneak out and cause all this trouble," but his
tongue felt thick with shame. 

"Go to your room and wash that filth
off.  Have those clothes disposed of and then meditate
upon your sins.  There will be no supper for you tonight
and by
tomorrow,
you had better be
able to quote, word for word, the first three pages of the
merchant's law, chapter four."

The merchant's law book was one of the driest
books Gandarel had ever studied, Niler knew he hated to even read
it, let alone memorize pages of the legal language.

Gandarel nodded slightly and started
toward
his room.

Niler spoke before he could
leave.  "I had better send someone to watch over your
trip to your rooms, who knows if you might decide to sneak off
again and cause more anguish."  He beckoned someone
forward with a wave of his hand.

With a
glance,
Gandarel recognized Enolive, the bone skinny
councilman. 

"Enolive," Niler ordered, "escort the child
to his chambers."

The other council member moved up from behind
Gandarel and took the small boy by the upper arm to guide him in
the direction of his chambers.  Gandarel hardly noticed
the cold grip of his fingers.