Promise of Wrath (The Hellequin Chronicles Book 6) (23 page)

CHAPTER
24

Now. Dwarven city of Thorem.

I
woke up in a white room, looking up at the ceiling. There was no machine or temple anywhere to be found, and for the briefest of moments I wondered where the hell I’d been taken.

I forced myself upright and swung my legs off the bed. Two runes were inscribed in the room’s door, which was certainly dwarven in design, so I couldn’t have been taken too far. The runes said
silence
and
monitor,
and both were glowing a faint blue color.

“I can read runes,” I said to myself, although it came out as a whisper. The room seemed somehow to muffle sound. “Gotta say, that’s a bit weird.”

“It’s a dampener,” Jinayca said as she opened the door. “The monitor rune is so we can hear you speak and check on your vitals without having to come in and out. Also, you’re not speaking English.”

“Yeah, I figured that bit out,” I admitted, and lifted my T-shirt to see that another of my blood-curse marks had vanished. “How long was I out?”

“Long enough for several of your friends to argue with our doctors about not wanting to leave you, and then argue with them some more about Chloe.”

“How is she?”

“Aren’t you going to ask how you are first?”

“Don’t much care how I am, Jinayca. I’m alive, and can apparently read and understand dwarven runes, along with being able to speak your language without trouble. We’ll figure me out later. Chloe first.”

“We got you some fresh clothes, if you’d like to change?”

I shook my head. “Chloe.”

Jinayca led me through a hallway and into a large room with several chairs and two doors.

“Where are we?”

“Away from the temple, back up on the main level of Sanctuary. We weren’t really sure what to do with you.”

“Where are my friends?”

“I’ll contact them and let them know you’re awake. I advise you to change your clothes once you’re done here, and come meet me at the elders’ building. We have things we need to discuss.”

You have no idea,
I thought to myself. I wanted to ask about the temple, about my memory, my mother, and anything else that came to mind, the second I’d seen Jinayca. But Chloe was more important. She was the only one of us who was hurt, and there was no way I was leaving anyone behind when we left. If she was getting worse, or if the dwarves needed something to help her, I wanted to know. I needed to know how to make her better before I worried about myself.

I sat alone in the room, my anxiety rising with every second no one came to speak to me, and just as I was about to go find someone who might hurry things along, two dwarves walked in. The first was male, his beard trimmed short and his head shaved; the second was a female with long, red, plaited hair. Both carried no visible weapons and wore simple tunics and trousers.

“Nate Garrett?” the female dwarf asked.

I nodded.

“My name is Grundelwy,” she told me. “And this is Jurg. We’re the physicians who have been attending to your friend Chloe.”

“How is she doing?” I asked, feeling the lump in my chest move toward my throat.

“Not good, Mr. Garrett,” Jurg told me.

“As you know Chloe has been poisoned,” Grundelwy began. “The venom itself would be quite mild in someone who had a healing ability above and beyond that of a normal human. But Chloe, for all her witch magic, is human. This venom is attacking her body, and she’s getting worse. The venom will keep attacking her until she dies.”

“Is there a cure?”

The two dwarves glanced at one another. “There is, yes,” Jurg said, “but not in the way you think. Her only chance is to use magic to increase her healing ability.”

“What about runes on her skin?” I asked.

“That might work if she were conscious long enough for them to take effect, and she was able to activate them herself, but with her being in and out of consciousness, placing them on her skin would make things a lot worse. The activation would have to be done by an external person, and that, too, could have dire consequences. Basically, drawing powerful enough runes on Chloe in her current state could kill her. On top of that, her witch magic means she can’t be healed by normal magical means. They’re not compatible.”

“What’s your plan?” I really hoped the plan had something concrete. I’d be okay if it was something I could hit repeatedly until it gave up what Chloe needed.

“Spirit scrolls,” Jurg said.

“What?” The words suddenly jolted something loose. “Wait, Zamek said something about those. What are they?”

“Jinayca can explain better. She was with the detachment of people who were tasked to recover them from the blood elves. Until we lost them, very few dwarves were allowed to know of their creation. But essentially, they’re rune-scribed scrolls that have been infused with the power of spirits.”

“When someone bleeds on it, it creates a contract between the person and the spirits inside the scroll,” Grundelwy said. “From that moment on the spirits and the user are bonded until the user dies, for however long that might be. But in the short term those spirits would give enough power to Chloe so that she could heal herself.”

“This all sounds very vague,” I pointed out.

“It is,” Jurg admitted. “Jinayca will want to talk to you about them.”

“Can I see Chloe?”

They nodded in unison and led me into a smaller room like the one I’d woken up in. Chloe lay in bed with runes inscribed all around the base. One of them pulsated in red, in time with her heartbeat.

“I thought you said runes would kill her,” I whispered.

“Runes on her body. They’re healing runes, but only in the sense that they are slowing the progression of the venom and keeping Chloe stable. They’re stopping the pain, too.”

“Thank you both,” I said and they left the room.

“Hey,” I said to Chloe as I sat beside her.

She opened her eyes and smiled. “Kasey came in earlier,” she said, her voice weak. “Said I looked like shit.”

“That depends on how you view
zombie
as a skin color.”

Chloe chuckled. “I’m not feeling so great, Nate.”

I took her hand in mine, and she squeezed. “We’re going to get you some help, and then we’re going to get you home. All you have to do is stay here and let these people wait on you hand and foot. We’ll be back before you know it.”

Chloe smiled and closed her eyes. I panicked for a second, before realizing she was falling asleep. I laid her hand down and ignited my fire magic, turning my finger hotter and hotter, until the fire that surrounded it burned white. I held it against the end of the bed, pressing it into the stone until it burned a pattern there.

It was only when I’d finished that the physicians ran into the room asking me what I was doing.

“Your stone doesn’t stop magic here,” I said, “so I helped out.”

Jurg walked over to the end of the bed and stared at the burned rune I’d carved there, his mouth dropped open in shock.

“What is it?” Grundelwy asked as I walked toward her.

“It’s—”

“It’s one of the twenty-one original runes,” I told her. “It says
power
. It’ll increase what the runes on the bed can do. I hope it’s enough.”

“How do you know our runes?” Jurg demanded. He sounded both irritated that I knew them, and more than a little shocked.

“Apparently the dwarves put them in my head,” I told him. “It was a long time ago, and I’ve just learned that I know your entire language. Unfortunately, that’s the only rune that might actually help. Do you have any more serious patients?”

They both shook their heads and, after one last glance at Chloe, I left. I went back to my own room and changed into the black and dark-blue leather armor they’d left for me. There were small overlocking scales on the inside, and while it looked heavy, it appeared to weigh no more than a T-shirt and trousers would. Dwarven armor was regarded as the finest ever created. I’d heard tell of it stopping an arrow and spear, and of it taking a blow from a mace. I was happy to be wearing the leather breastplate, jacket, and the boots. I got the feeling this was more than just a gift of a clean set of clothes. No doubt I’d need these protective qualities soon enough.

I left the hospital and walked through the city, receiving stares from those I passed by, with the occasional nod from others. So many dwarves just going about their business, living day by day, even with the very real fear of a blood-elf attack. If nothing else, dwarven resilience was impressive to behold.

The guards allowed me admittance to the elders’ building, and I soon remembered the way to the chamber where we’d first met Jinayca. One of three guards opened the door for me with a curt nod, and I found myself smiling at a room full of friends.

“We were worried about you,” Kasey said, embracing me as I entered the room.

“I’m fine. Just worried about Chloe,” I told everyone, stopping questions about my condition before they started.

The silence lasted for only a few seconds before Mordred said, “Lost another curse mark?”

“Yes,” I told him. “Apparently I can read runes now. It’s very exciting.”

“Where did you get that knowledge?” a familiar voice asked from the side of the room.

I turned in the direction of the voice and saw Irkalla. She looked identical to the last time I saw her, and wore a dark-blue sleeveless tunic, showing several scars on her upper arm: a lasting testament to what had happened in Acre.

She hugged me. “Good to see you after so many centuries. It’s a shame our paths have not crossed in such a long time.”

“You too. But why are you here?”

“Apparently your friends were not the only ones to receive a tainted tablet.”

“Anyone else we might know?” Remy asked.

“A few,” Irkalla said. She pointed behind me as Nabu entered the room carrying a multitude of scrolls, which he placed on the table.

“We were in London,” Nabu told us all. “We were to have talks with Brutus about security for the exhibits at the London Museum. There were rare artifacts that we were allowing to be shown: weapons and the like. It was just a formality, but we received one of those tablets.”

“I’ve never seen them before,” Irkalla said, “although I imagine I’d recognize them anywhere now.”

Nabu offered me his hand, which I took. “Nathaniel, I’d say it was good to see you, but, um, I’m not entirely sure it is.” He turned to Zamek, who was seated at the end of the table. “Anyone else coming?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Zamek said. He put his feet up on the table, visibly relaxing.

“Thank you all for coming,” Jinayca said as she entered the room and motioned for the three women with her to take a seat around the table.

“Nate,” the oldest of the three, Cassandra, said, while her daughter, Grace, and granddaughter, Ivy, sat at the table, both nodding a greeting in my direction.

My mouth dropped open in shock. The Fates were here, in Sanctuary. The last I’d seen of them, they were Kay’s prisoners.

“Let me guess: bad tablet?” Remy asked, narrowly avoiding a playful cuff on the ear from Diane.

“Of a sort,” Cassandra said, as her gaze settled on Mordred.

“I had nothing to do with it,” Mordred said, standing. His hands were shaking as he placed them on the table. “If you’d prefer I wasn’t here, I understand.”

“Sit down, Mordred,” Ivy told him, her voice held no hint of the hatred she’d once felt for him. “We’re aware you weren’t involved, and you are just as important here as anyone else.”

Mordred thanked her and returned to his seat.

“How are you here? I saw you on the TV screen. I saw you as captives.”

“We were prisoners for several days,” Ivy explained. “Until we told Kay what he wanted to know. I assume you’re aware of Kay’s involvement?”

“Yeah, it came up,” I told her. “Kay and I are going to have words when we next meet.”

“Then you know that Kay was the one behind our kidnapping,” Grace said. “He wanted to know where you’d be at certain times. Once he realized you’d managed to escape the trap in London, he sent us to this realm, to be kept quiet by the blood elves, but Zamek and his dwarven warriors ambushed the patrol and brought us here.”

“Okay, I now have more questions about everything that has happened in the last few days than I’m comfortable with.”

“All will be explained in time,” Cassandra told me. “First, I believe Jinayca needs to explain things.”

CHAPTER
25

T
he trouble started four thousand years ago,” Jinayca began, “and it began with the elves. The elves were originally very much against cooperating with other species. They were insular, distrustful. They were powerful sorcerers, and despite many pantheons coming to their door to try and forge an alliance, they refused.

“That changed over time. A contingent of elves thought that keeping to themselves was only going to hurt the species as a whole—at least in the long run. Those who wished to integrate with other species petitioned their elders to grant an alliance with the Norse gods and ourselves. The elven elders refused to allow any kind of integration with other species, and those who had requested it were imprisoned for their beliefs. The elven civil war started then. Two sides: the sun elves, who wanted to be left alone, to have no outside contact, versus the shadow elves, who wanted to engage with other nations, with other species. They wanted to share what they’d learned.”

“I assume it didn’t work out well,” Remy said.

“No. The war lasted for a thousand years, with countless dead, and countless more leaving the elven realms and vowing never to return. But in the end, the sun elves were the victors. Most shadow elves fled into various realms, splitting up to avoid capture, but those the sun elves managed to take were brought to us.”

“A mistake that cost us dearly,” Zamek said.

Jinayca placed her hand on the dwarven warrior’s forearm. “Yes. You see, we were in the process of creating a new weapon: spirit scrolls. Scrolls imbued with the spirits from another realm. You are aware of Pandora, yes? The girl who had a demon from a spirit realm forced into her? This was a similar idea, but the demon would be placed into the scroll, granting the user incredible, but hopefully controllable, powers.”

A horrible thought dawned on me. “Bet that worked well.”

“No, not exactly,” Jinayca admitted. “There was a catch—several. Firstly, as a security precaution, only humans could activate a scroll. Humans were rare in the realms at the time, and it was thought that they would be a good method to ensure that there were no problems with any extra powers or abilities the nonhumans might have.”

“Humans were the control part of the experiment,” I said, managing not to call anyone bad names for their stupidity.

Jinayca nodded. “In hindsight, it wasn’t the best idea, but we didn’t want to allow these spirits to bond with sorcerers or anything more powerful, so humans were a good test subject. Although, I’d like to stress that the only humans involved were ones who
volunteered.
We didn’t force anyone to do anything.”

“You sure that everyone was as nice about it as you?” Mordred asked, a doubt in his tone.

“No. That I can’t say. I can only attest for what I was aware of.” Jinayca appeared to be troubled by the idea that not all of the humans were as willing as she’d suggested. It was probably something she’d thought about a lot over the centuries. “Secondly, the price for a person bonding with the scroll is that the spirit of its user will remain with the scroll after their death. It was done so that new users could gain the knowledge and power of those who had activated the same scroll. It meant that if someone was the fifth to activate the scroll, they would have four spirits to guide them through the process, share their strength, speed, and the like. It made those who bonded with the scroll, after several others had already used it, considerably more powerful.

“Apart from increasing various attributes of the user, each scroll also imbued the user with one unique power. William’s was to become that abomination. But others can control the weather, or turn to water, or manipulate metal itself. Each one is different. Each power is personalized for the user.”

“All sounds nice so far,” Diane said. “But I fought Pandora. I know there has to be a bigger catch to all of this.”

“The biggest catch was the demon inside the scroll. When the user first bonds, the demon isn’t in control; that aspect is completely successful. Unfortunately, over time, the user had to accept
all
of the spirits within the scroll to have access to the full power the scroll could bestow. That means they had to accept the demon.”

“What do you mean ‘accept?’” I asked.

“The user of the scroll has to accept their transformation completely, the power they would have access to, and the spirits within the scroll. They can’t pick and choose; it’s all or nothing. The demon begins locked in a mental cage inside the user’s mind, but the user has to unlock it and accept the demon within. If they don’t, if they resist taking any of the spirits or the demon into themselves, the demon will gain more and more power and influence over the scroll-user, eventually turning them insane.

“Even water dropping onto stone eventually wears it down. And the demon is relentless. It might take days or months, and it’s completely dependent on the user’s current mental state, but the more emotional or mentally fragile they are, the quicker the demon takes control.”

“What happens once the demon takes control?” Kasey asked.

“In a normal situation, where the user has accepted the demon, the demon is still there, but it’s no longer capable of taking control using normal means.”

“It can huff and puff, but never blow the house down?” Remy asked.

“If you mean that when its power isn’t in use, it can say what it likes and can be ignored, then yes, you’re correct. Once the spirits and demon have been accepted as part of the user, they can tap into that extra power the demon offers, allowing the demon to essentially become a vast dam of energy inside of them. But when the demon and human minds merge, when the demon takes control, the user loses whatever conscience they once had. They’ll kill for fun, for sport, or just because. We didn’t discover this until it was too late, and people died because of our mistake.”

“What does ‘normal’ mean?” I asked.

“Those who accept the demon can use its power, as I said. But use too much, or allow your emotions to control your use, and the person will become a demon-human hybrid. In this guise, the demon is much closer to the surface of the human’s personality. Essentially, it’s the only time an accepted demon is a real threat.”

“So, the human always has to be on their toes, just in case?” I said. As far as news went, it wasn’t brilliant, but it wasn’t a death sentence either.

“So why don’t the users just accept the demon?” Diane asked.

“I wish it were so simple. The demons are darkness personified. You can tell someone over and over to just accept the darkness, but how many do you think really want to? How many people really believe that they won’t be changed by that acceptance? It takes a strong mind to blindly accept something as fact. And when we tell someone to accept it, and then a demon, a creature of power and malevolence tells them the same, they doubt themselves.”

“The demon wants out? Why?” I asked. “Surely it’s better for it if the demon stays locked away, driving the person insane so it can be freed to kill.”

“Whether the demon merges or not, it can never be truly free. It will forever be part of the human: two souls locked together until the human dies. It’s not much of a life. But a demon that manages to crack the user’s psyche and drive them insane has a big chance of taking control of that person. If the demon is accepted, it’s no longer caged, but its power is limited. A demon not accepted just begins to take over the user’s mind in total. Either way, the user is in danger of the demon controlling their mind and body.”

“You merged a human and a demon, and it all went terribly wrong,” Nabu snapped. “Not exactly a shock to anyone else here.”

“What do these scrolls have to do with the blood elves?” I asked. “I assume the blood elves and shadow elves are the same thing?”

Jinayca nodded sadly. “After the war, the prisoners were brought here. Their captors decided to banish them from the other elf realms instead of executing them en masse. We agreed to allow the shadow elves to live here, providing they would mine the crystals in the lower parts of the mountain. They’d be allowed to live in peace, to do as they wished, but in exchange they’d have to work for it.”

“Why the crystals?” Diane asked.

“The elves are immune to the crystallized magic,” Zamek said. “Dwarves get tired and sick after a few weeks being around them. It’s why we use them only in forging; it’s safer.”

“I assume that immunity didn’t work out too well,” Morgan snapped.

“No. It did the exact opposite,” Jinayca admitted. “It took hundreds of years for the crystals to corrupt the shadow elves into those beings you see out there. Hundreds of years where many of them lived beside us, forming friendships, forming bonds. All the while they were reaching out to our enemies and forming an alliance with them. It only took one week for them to rise up and attack us when we were at our lowest point.”

“What does that mean?” Nabu asked.

“Our king was assassinated, and Mordred was framed for it. He was a newcomer in the realm and a natural target for suspicious activities. We discovered Mordred’s innocence too late, and by then, the dwarves who had betrayed us to the blood elves had already put their plan into motion. Thousands were slaughtered in that first hour as the outer parts of the city of Thorem were taken. Tens of thousands died within the first week. It took two weeks for us to mobilize and arrange a counter-attack.

“Our people fled through the few realm gates we have here. A few stayed behind to destroy them so that the blood elves couldn’t follow. Unfortunately, we don’t believe the gates were completely destroyed. At least one, inside the citadel, still remains. Hundreds of thousands fled from this mountain over the course of a few days. The citadel was under siege within days, and many tried to keep it from falling into elven hands. But as the last of our kind escaped, the citadel was overrun, and those inside were forced to flee.

“Fortunately, the guardians managed to flee through the realm gates, taking their links to the world our dwarven kin had fled to. Dwarven guardians are not like those in other realms, where a guardian away from a gate becomes mortal, but otherwise there are no changes. Dwarven guardians have their lifeblood linked to the gates, and time away from them leads them all to die within a few years.

“Those of us who escaped that slaughter were supposed to destroy the library. We decided to build Sanctuary instead, and bring with us what we could so we could find a way to stop the blood elves.”

“Why not just burn the library and leave?” Irkalla asked.

“If that realm gate is still operational, then destroying the library means destroying the possibility of ever finding information on how to get it working again, on ever getting free, or having our people return home.”

“I fought those blood elves,” Zamek said. “I stayed behind in that citadel because it was my duty to do so, and I fled rather than die there. I feel no shame for fleeing. I helped many to escape, but I swore that one day I would get back there and finish the job—that I would help our people come home. Destroying the library: that would feel like we were destroying a part of ourselves, of who we were. I’m not sure we can do that.”

“Okay, so what can you tell us about the spirit scrolls?” Remy asked.

“They can’t be burned, or torn, or broken,” Zamek began. “They’re immune to magic, too. Which means that even if we’d burned the whole place down, those scrolls would still be there, still available for the blood elves to find. It’s another reason for keeping the library intact, and it’s also why we need to bring them here.”

“How do you tell which scrolls are spirit ones, and which one’s aren’t?” I asked.

Jinayca answered this one. “The spirit scrolls have markings on the outside of them. It’s the dwarven word for spirit, which is a bit of a giveaway, but we had no idea we were ever going to be in this situation.”

“How many spirit scrolls have you found since the elves attacked?” Remy asked.

“None,” Zamek admitted. “The blood elves managed to ransack the place shortly after arriving and took any spirit scrolls that were outside of a secure location.”

“I thought you’d stopped working on them?” Irkalla asked. She’d been quiet ever since she’d arrived. “Why not put them all in a secure location?”

“The dwarves who were working on them were trying to find a way to dismantle the scrolls. Most of them only had the demon attached as they’d never been used.”

“Wait, didn’t you say that only humans can use these? Why would the blood elves give the spirit scrolls to humans? Wouldn’t they be somewhat concerned about a really powerful human running around?” Kasey asked, making a good point.

“From what we understand, most of the humans they use are like William: willing participants for their masters. Any humans sent here are usually hunted, or tested in rune-marked rooms—similar to what we did when we first started creating them.”

“How many scrolls do the blood elves have?” I asked.

“Not all of them,” Jinayca said. “Several hundred at last guess. We used to go to the library every few months, but the last trip was several years ago, when a contingent of dwarves went there to look in the rooms we hadn’t charted. The library is massive. Several floors, millions of scrolls, hundreds of rooms. You couldn’t search it all in a human lifetime.”

“These people are still there, yes?” Nabu asked.

“Yes,” Jinayca said. “We know some are alive. They were all rune-scribed before they went; we do this for all of our warriors. The runes work as tracking beacons. We can monitor vitals and locations from here. Of the dwarves who went only a few survived.” Jinayca unfurled a scroll on the table, which contained some sort of map. There were several dark dots on it, moving slowly around. “This is one of a hundred maps for the library. This shows that they’re in the southern, highest tip. It’s assumed they banded there because of what happened below.”

Zamek lifted his tunic to reveal a mark on his stomach. “Their marks are still working. We just can’t get to them.”