Shadowblade (36 page)

The two princes remained aloft as the demon Cjii disappeared from the air before them, each with a great clap of thunder and an explosion of
darkfire
and shadows. When they were alone, Prince Mycal looked to his lieutenant with sorrowful eyes.

“It is as He has foretold,” said the commander with grief in his voice. “The time of the Children of Zuhr has come to an end. They will not repent.”

Crystoph could say nothing, it was a terrible revelation. He looked down at the carnage below his feet, stricken with grief, and shed a tear for the loss of so many of his angel troops.

“We must report to the Great Father,” growled Mycal as he flew off into the direction of the Pathway Arch.

“How did they bring so many of their army into the world? Surely not through a Pathway Arch!” said Crystoph, following after.

“No,” answered the commander. “More likely they’ve developed some way to manipulate and pass through the Fabric that surrounds Llars.”

In minutes the two powerful angels were back at the Pathway Arch where the remnants of their battalion had reorganized and were trying to treat their wounded. Mycal strode directly to the Arch and activated the magic that commanded it. Within seconds the Tides swirled within it and the portal opened to the Pathways that would lead him and his men back to the Heavens where Zuhr resided.

Crystoph stayed back, waiting until every last soldier passed through to the other side and then waited longer. He watched the landscape of the barren land of Erestonin for long moments, and was saddened by the changes that were coming to Llars. He had been working behind the scenes on Llars for thousands of years. Doing the work of his god, Zuhr, had been the honor of his existence. And now, he wondered what would become of the people of Llars, and of his own people.

With a sigh of resignation, he turned and entered the portal.

Devoricus slipped out from behind a rock formation near the Pathway Arch as the last of the Angel Legion soldiers slipped through. His master, Qra’z the Mighty, ordered him to abandon that fool bishop in Hybrand and conduct a secret surveillance mission.

The devious Cjii who worked for Qra’z witnessed the entire debacle between the forces of Zuhr and Umber and wished that each had wiped the other out of existence. That was not meant to be, however, and so the Cjii made the best of the situation.

When the second angel prince, Crystoph, had lingered by the Pathway Arch, lost in his daydreams, Devoricus had been able to watch the elder Cjii and learn how to manipulate the magic that powered it. The power to use these magical devices had been lost to mortals, and even some of the Cjii, for longer than he could remember, and he could remember a long way.

It was a simple matter to watch Crystoph use the Cjii-magic to open the portal and to eavesdrop on the words and Sigils of the spell that commanded it. The Cjii command power far greater than that of the Sigils but even so, they had not been able to freely use the Pathway Arches throughout Llars for eons. Yet, somehow, Prince Mycal managed to do it.

Devoricus stood beside the Arch and stared at it, moving his immortal hand over the carvings. The Cjii found that it had not been difficult to enter the mortal world once his fellow immortals had broken the Code. With the constraints of the Code no longer in place, the Fabric of Creation that surrounded the planet no longer kept the Cjii from entering at will. He doubted that very many of the immortal race, aside from the Angel Legion and Umber’s own minions, knew this to be the case. Still, entering the world through a purely magical portal in the Fabric just wasn’t as reliable as traveling through the Pathway Arches.

Why did you bring them, Mycal?
the Cjii wondered silently as he inspected the beauty of the arch’s construction.
You had to have known that this skirmish would end in failure.

Devoricus thought about this for a while, pondering the possible reasons for such a foolish raid on the part of Prince Mycal. Had the leader of the raid been anyone other than Mycal, or even Crystoph, Devoricus might have written off the attack as a foolish waste of time. But he knew Prince Mycal well enough to know the famous Cjii never wasted his own time.

My Master will be pleased to learn that the skirmishing between Umber and Zuhr has already begun. But he will want to know what the demon Cjii are doing on Llars and why that pompous ass, Mycal, sent his men to die for no apparent reason.

Devoricus decided to leave the Arch and travel to the great palace in Erestonin where he hoped to learn more of the conflict between the rival gods. For the moment, it seemed that the coming war was in its opening stages. The two sides were testing and probing and searching for weaknesses; the Cjii wondered what weaknesses there were to exploit.

It was a simple matter of will for the immortal to simply change his physical appearance to that of one of the legendary Frost Elves. When the transformation was complete, and he looked at his hands and body, he shuddered involuntarily at the appearance. Even the immortal races respected the might of the fearsome -yet still mortal- Frost Elves; he was not looking forward to surrounding himself with them.

Being a Cjii who was thousands of years old, he had little difficulty in choosing a believable appearance. All of the Frost Elves did not reside within the palace at Erestonin, or even its subsurface city; these were reserved for the wealthy and the nobility. Devoricus had seen some of the many settlements that lay beyond the reaches of Erestonin and trudged his way through the treacherous tundra and frozen fens to the road that connected them. The country that the blue-skinned elves claimed covered much of the land that lay beyond the borders of Iceplain where the Vaardic tribes had established their nations, and north of the Wildlands where Umber’s Nashians had established a budding empire.

Devoricus had in fact turned himself into a flesh and blood Frost Elf. He did not inhabit the body of a host avatar in the usual way that Bishop Darius had enjoyed tormenting him with. Instead, the Cjii used his powerful magic to change his physical being and
became
a Frost Elf. Even though the Cjii had been able to simply use his will to negate the effects of the weather on his being, he still noticed the stinging wind and frigid temperatures. The ground was covered in fine snow and hills and rocks, he cursed the mortal Frost Elf’s ankles each time he stepped into a treacherous snow covered hole and nearly broke his mortal limbs.

Finally he reached the main road that led from a settlement beyond the bleak horizon to his left and the palace at Erestonin in the distance to his right. Night fell very quickly so close to the northernmost point of Llars, and the Cjii saw that the sun was starting its descent; he would not reach the palace by nightfall. That fact alone did not concern the powerful Cjii, but it did warrant caution as the beasts that roamed the tundra were stealthy and fearsome indeed.

Fortunately, Devoricus had not been accosted by any of the ice bears or polar cats that stalked these lands; he thought with a laugh that even those beasts were afraid of Frost Elves. In a few hours the Cjii had covered much of the distance on the desolate ground that had taken the Angel Legion mere minutes to traverse in the air. It was now after nightfall and the borealis danced with swirling clouds of green and blue and purple, all accented by the beaming stars of the night sky.

By the time he reached the palace gates, the gate appeared to be deserted. He knew enough of the Frost Elves to know that his eyes must be deceiving him, for these mighty warriors
never
deserted their posts. But the drawbridge that would span the mote, fed by a natural hot spring of scalding water, was up. The steam created had a pleasant warming effect but cast the palace in a mysterious shroud.

As he stepped up to the edge of the road where it dropped off to the roiling water below, spear tips of shining
silveryl
darted out seemingly from nowhere and pushed against his sides. He did not move, and he said nothing as the mists blew away of their own volition and the forms of half a dozen fearsome blue-skinned elves surrounded him.

“Who are you?” asked one that appeared to be the leader in the musical tongue of his people. He was tall, perhaps seven feet in height. His hair was short in military fashion and black as the night sky. His eyes seemed to shift from lavender to blue to green as he scrutinized the newcomer. His armor seemed improbably thin, and it was a mix of varying hues of blue and white. Devoricus could see how hard it would be to spot this elf on his own terrain. Only
silveryl
, or perhaps
firesteel
, could be made into armor so thin and strong. All of the Frost Elf soldiers wore bear-hide or walrus-skin capes or cloaks.

“I am Captain Nicolasryn, from Dansg,” he replied simply, in flawless Erestonish. The Cjii kept his demeanor calm and his hands away from his many weapons.

“What do you want, Captain Nicolasryn from Dansg?” said the guard, the point of his spear straying towards the Cjii’s exposed neck. “And what exactly are you a captain of?”

“The First Scouts,” he replied, hoping that his source inside the palace had provided him the proper information. Devoricus was thankful, then, that his contact must have done his job because all of the guards seemed to relax some and their demeanor became slightly more respectful.

“It is late, and the palace is closed,” said the guard. “Even the First Scouts should know that.”

“And so it is,” he replied. “But not for me. I have an urgent report to deliver to General Medov.”

When that name was mentioned, all of the fearsome elves lowered their weapons and disappeared into the foggy mist. General Medov was the commander of the First Scouts, the unit that answered only to the Raven Queen who ruled the Frost Elves. His unit was legendary, even among the Frost Elves. Slowly and silently the crystalline drawbridge lowered and the mist swirled in its wake. Devoricus walked across the drawbridge and entered the palace.

Devoricus could see little of the outer defenses due to the shroud of mist surrounding the palace, but he had no doubt they would be formidable. But Devoricus was not concerned with the physical defenses of the palace or the number of troops that the Raven Queen or her husband, King Putyn, employed. While that information was certainly of value to the Cjii and his side in the coming war, Erestonin was an ally and there were others who had been tasked with that low priority. Instead, the Cjii had one thing on his mind: to find out who was truly leading Umber’s Cjii -he doubted it was Tartarus- and what their plans were.

His mind was so occupied by these thoughts and of finding his way through the maze of corridors and staircases in the palace, that he failed to notice the amazing wealth and beauty that adorned it. The opulence and wealth in this palace might have made the immortal believe he was in one of his Master’s own palaces. But Devoricus did not pay any mind to tapestries, or chandeliers made from diamonds and precious gems, or any of the innumerable suits of armor and weapons of
silveryl
silently watching the passersby.

The immortal was pleased to see that the directions given him by General Medov had taken him through servant corridors and so he had been able to avoid scrutiny by anyone important. And, it seemed that the servants who frequented the corridors were used to the comings and goings of scouts or messengers and paid little attention to him. Most of the servants he saw were clearly slaves. Some were human, some were Keneerie, and once he thought he even saw a dwarf! But when he looked again, the dwarf slave was gone and he wasn’t sure that it hadn’t been one of the warves. All of the slaves he saw were being supervised by troks, the small but vicious cousins of the surface elves that dwelt in the Underllars.