Redemption Of The Sacred Land (Book 3) (19 page)

As they entered the throne room, they were partially hidden by the rubble of one of the old pillars that had fallen by some unknown force. From this vantage point, Dorenn could make out two Drasmyd Duil standing on either side of Naneden. There was no sign of anyone else in the room.

Naneden set down the scepter and gem. He walked over to pick up a knarled staff before he sat back down on the old throne. “You may as well come out now. I know you’re there.” He peered into the general direction of Dorenn’s party. “You are quite correct, this is a trap, you know.”

Veric stepped out from the pillar, and Morgoran followed.

“Oh, there you are,” he said. “The portal is destroyed now. You may send someone down to check.”

Ianthill tapped Rennon on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go see. I need you in case it’s an illusion.” Rennon followed Ianthill back down the corridor.

“What is this, Naneden?” Morgoran’s voice echoed in the empty throne room.

“Presumably, our deaths. You see, we are all locked in here. Toborne has already read the spell and taken Jot and Aela to meet with the clerics. It’s over and we all lost, including me. The great Oracle will rise again and finish what he started so many seasons ago.”

“Do you think a few Drasmyd Duil and the likes of you will be able to defeat us?” Veric said.

“These fools? No, certainly not, but there are about fifty dragons from Kragodor about to arrive any moment now to incinerate this palace to ashes with dragon’s fire. I am just supposed to occupy you long enough for them to get here.” He motioned toward the back of the throne room, and several Dramyds appeared out of the shadows. “If you have any prayers to offer,” he said, “offer them now.”

Chapter 12: Haunted Heart

Dorenn watched in horror as Lady Shey boldly walked across the throne room to Naneden. To his surprise, the madman did nothing but smile. The two Drasmyd Duil at either side of him leered, but Naneden held up his right hand and they ceased aggression.

“It’s time this ended, Naneden. You loved me once and I you. Can you not remember?”

“Of course I remember.” His words were acid. “However, I also remember you being in love with that scoundrel who once called himself my best friend.”

“I married you, not him. That should have been a clue to you about my choice in the matter. You have a noble heart somewhere in that chest of yours. You can still be redeemed.”

“Redemption! I am the one in need of redemption? I saw you together in the tower. I saw you!”

“Naneden, you saw nothing. I refused him. I married you. The path you took was of your own doing. You let Toborne corrupt you, and you let him destroy you. It’s Toborne you must hold responsible. Don’t give in to him and sacrifice all our lives for the sake of him!”

“You don’t understand, Sheyna. It isn’t Toborne who masterminded this new war. It isn’t he who wants revenge. The truth is much more terrible.”

“What are you talking about? Are these just mad ramblings?” Lady Shey asked. Dorenn knew she didn’t want him to know she already knew about the Oracle.

“No, Sheyna, it’s the Oracle and the god of death and chaos, Aedreagnon. They have been manipulating all of us since the Sacred Land first started regenerating.”

Lady Shey appeared to be making some progress with him.

“It was they who . . .
NO
. . . argh!” He collapsed onto the floor, clutching his head.

Lady Shey tried to go to him, but he stopped her. “No, my lady, stay back. There will be no redemption for me.” He strengthened his resolve and called his knarled staff to his side. His face twisted in an evil grin. “And there will be no reconciliation.” He turned the staff on the Drasmyd Duil and obliterated them each in turn. Essence flowed through him like Dorenn had never seen. Something had changed in him; something was not letting him soften up to Shey’s charms. Dorenn took a step forward as Naneden spun his staff and pointed it directly at Lady Shey.

“We can’t have such creatures as those interfering. I have waited a long time to get my revenge . . .
WIFE
!” He let loose a chain of essence that changed into a blue mass and struck Lady Shey down. Gondrial pushed Dorenn aside and raced across the pitted marble floor of the throne room before Dorenn could react. The marble walls rumbled as Gondrial drew in essence and sent a swirling trail of sparks and heat distortion at Naneden.

“You will not harm her!” Gondrial said as his essence struck the madman, knocking him into the wall behind. Naneden picked himself up, and Gondrial sent another round into him, knocking him down again. Naneden tumbled to a stop, groaning while wisps of white smoke snaked into the air above him.

The madman slowly convulsed into a cackling mass. “So, the boyfriend is here as well. Good, I get to kill the destroyer of my marriage along with the liar.”

Dorenn finally reacted and ran behind a marble pillar and, at the right time, slid across the floor to where Lady Shey was just beginning to push herself up from the floor. As far as he could tell, Naneden did not see him. “Are you all right, my lady?”

“Aye, just give me a moment. I had just enough time to shield myself from the brunt of it. I didn’t think he would do something like that to
me
.”

Dorenn helped Lady Shey behind the pillar as he felt Gondrial call essence to himself once more.

“Destroyer of your marriage? You are beyond unoriginal! You always were a giant prat!”

Naneden puffed up, wounded by Gondrial’s words. “You are going to die!”

“You first!” Gondrial drew essence at the same time he expelled it, a feat Dorenn had never witnessed, and exuded gusts of black smoke accompanied by the purple wisps of blackfire. Dorenn knew, Gondrial was now actively trying to kill.

Naneden blocked the blackfire with a shield of essence, but his robes still caught on fire. He patted them out while twirling around. He, too, unleashed blackfire back at Gondrial. Dorenn watched helplessly as Gondrial took the full force of the hit. He started to draw in essence to help him, but Lady Shey grabbed his arm.

“It’s not your fight. Neither man would ever forgive your interference. This fight has been coming for a long, long time. Gondrial can shield himself the same as I did.”

Dorenn backed down. “What if Gondrial loses?”

Shey smiled wickedly. “Then we both have a reason to join the fight.”

Gondrial and Naneden stalked each other around in a circle, neither taking his eyes off the other.

“You evil bastard. You are so self-destructively committed to just being mad and evil that you are blind. How pathetic is that? How do you sustain your mental function for more than a few weeks?” Gondrial taunted.

“You are a simpleton, my old friend. Your assessment of me shows both a lack of maturity and a lack of imagination. Any child could say I am melodramatic, stupid, and committed to being evil for the sake of being evil. You must be capable of delving deeper to truly understand. Clearly, you are not.”

“Who would want to delve deeper?” Gondrial said as he unleashed another round of blackfire. The walls of the throne room creaked as the attack struck Naneden despite his desperate attempt to avoid the blast.

“I was never the architect of this war, Gondrial. I simply played my role.”

“What do you want, Naneden? Forgiveness?”

Naneden had backtracked behind a pillar after the last blast and rounded behind Gondrial. “Not from you!” He hit Gondrial at point blank with another blast, and Gondrial went down. Naneden went in for the kill.

Dorenn kissed Lady Shey’s forehead so he could whisper to her. “He will just have to never forgive me, then.” He pushed Lady Shey’s arms back before she could grab him, and he drew in so much essence that it made the building quake and Naneden spin from his attack. Dorenn unleased torrents of white hot flame, one after the other, at the stunned Naneden.

Naneden tried to use blackfire to offset the attack and failed as Dorenn’s white fire extinguished Naneden’s blackfire on impact. Gondrial pulled himself up and rebounded from Naneden’s attack in time to throw a bolt of fire at the unprepared Naneden. The madman burned in white-hot heat too quickly to scream. The backlash of being so close to the attack sent Gondrial cascading backward on fire. Dorenn yanked down one of the tapestries and tossed it over Gondrial to put out the flame.

Lady Shey went to him and removed the tapestry. She began to use dragon magic to heal him.

Gondrial weakly gestured for Dorenn to come closer so he could hear him. When he leaned down close enough, Gondrial grabbed his tunic. “You bloody showoff,” he said.

“I wasn’t trying to show off, my friend. I was trying to save your life.”

Gondrial let go of his tunic and leaned back. “I had him.”

Dorenn looked at Lady Shey, and he saw a tear roll down her cheek. “My lady?”

She wiped the tear from her face. “I’ll be all right. Something evil had ahold of him. He is free now.”

Gondrial, obviously feeling better now, reached up and kissed Lady Shey hard on the lips. She pushed him back down. “Now you want to make a move! Now!” She pushed him away and went running to Morgoran.

“It seemed like the right time,” he said to Dorenn.

“Not so much, Gondrial. You did just help kill her husband.”

“What? Come on! They have not been husband and wife for a thousand seasons!”

Ianthill and Rennon came running from the corridor into the throne room. “He wasn’t lying. The portal is destroyed.” Ianthill saw the dead Drasmyd Duil and no Naneden. “Where did he go?”

Morgoran was still in an embrace with Lady Shey. He pushed her back and looked in her eyes. “Will you be all right?” She nodded. “Good. Ianthill, get the scepter, and Dorenn, you get that parchment and quill from your bag. We need to write down that spell.”

“What about the dragons coming?” Shey asked.

“There is a secret tunnel from the palace to the White Tower. Only Enowene and I know about it. It’s how she used to smuggle spies through the palace. We can use it to escape. The dragons can destroy whatever they want.”

Dorenn rummaged through his pack. “I have the parchment and quill.”

“Quickly, we have to get that spell,” Morgoran said as they moved to where Ianthill and Rennon were finishing putting the scepter and gem together. Morgoran took the scepter and held it up to the wall. A whispered spell and the gem glowed blue, illuminating the spell on the throne room wall. Dorenn copied it down exactly. When he was finished, he handed it to Morgoran, who checked it against the original. “All right, I will lead us through the tunnel now.”

A crash behind them and fire billowing in through the broken plate glass window told them the dragons had arrived. Dorenn stopped to look at the fire coming through the window.

“Come on, Dorenn,” Gondrial said. “What are you doing?”

“Looking at this throne room one last time. In a few moments, it will be gone forever.” He followed Gondrial into a dark corridor illuminated dimly by the gem in the scepter Morgoran carried. “This way, hurry!” Dorenn heard Gondrial say.

Fayne snuggled close to Vesperin, trying to ward off the cold. “I’m not so sure we are doing the right thing anymore,” she said.

“How can you say that? Loracia came to us last night and proved to us we were being deceived without a doubt. Morgoran had also gone after Dorenn, trying to stop him from fulfilling the will of his god, Fawlsbane Vex. There is no reason to believe the same thing isn’t happening to me now.”

“Me?”

“Well, us. You know what I meant.”

Jot and Aela followed the tunnel to the tomb of the Oracle where Vesperin and Fayne were huddled in a corner just before the entrance to the tomb. The tunnel entrance was hidden from the world above, but Loracia had shown Vesperin the way. The ground above, where the entrance was located, appeared as flat and desolate as the rest of the Sacred Land. Jot examined the door to the tomb and then saw Vesperin and Fayne.

“There you are. Are you ready to cleanse the Sacred Land in the name of Loracia?”

“It will be to her glory,” Vesperin said. “Loracia will triumph where all others have failed.”

Jot took out a piece of parchment, and so did Vesperin.

“We need to all recite the spell for it to open the tomb,” Jot said.