The Halfblood King: Book 1 of the Chronicles of Aertu (29 page)

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Stubbs and Stretch wandered out from the market square of Kolixtla and into a back alley leading to their boarding house.  Both wore the royal seal around their necks, allowing the foreigners to roam freely in a land normally closed to outsiders.  Having spent two days resting in the capital, the hired kidnappers planned to take their leave of the city at next sunrise.  Both carried a jug of the local cactus wine, which they swigged from periodically.  “We gotta get some shuteye ‘fore morning,” Stubbs commented, “so let’s find us some girls.”

“Kinda early for them to be out,” Stretch replied, “but we should be able to find an open brothel somewhere.”

“We got a long road ahead, so we best take advantage of this city livin’ while we can.”

Three of the mangy local curs trooped out of a side alley, to mill about their feet.  The smallest bounced and lunged, as if inviting them to play, so Stretch aimed a kick, which it deftly avoided.  While the men were distracted, the largest of the three, a shaggy black mongrel, lunged for Stretch’s throat.  Stubbs moved for his sword, but the other two curs clamped onto his wrists, taking him to the ground kicking and screaming.  Finished with Stretch, the large black dog lunged in to crush the shorter man’s larynx in his bloodied muzzle and then backed off to replace one of the ones holding a wrist.  Thus relieved, the rangy yellow dog moved to a place behind his head.  Stubbs could only gurgle, struggling to breathe through his ruined throat, as the dog stared down into his eyes.  He felt the layers of his mind peel away, as the thing he knew now could not be a dog, methodically picked through his memories, until it found that for which it searched.  All at once, the curs released him and backed away, observing him curl into a ball, gurgling in a pitiful attempt to whimper, as he sank into madness.

“His name is Cyrus and his friend is Jerod, or was, that is,”
Aleron informed them as they trotted off, “
before Barry ripped out his throat.  They came from Elmenia, which explains how they passed for Sudeans.  They dropped Ellie off to the priests at the royal palace two days ago.”

“What will happen to the one we left alive?”
asked Geldun.

“I’m not sure.  Maybe his mind will recover, eventually, if he lives through what Barry did to his throat.”

“I’ll be right back,”
Barathol announced, before doubling back around the corner of the building from whence they came.  The others waited for him to return a few moments later. 
“Broke his neck…couldn’t leave him like that,”
he explained on his return.

“You’re a better man than I,”
Aleron complimented. 
“I was going to let him suffer.”

“We may be hard, Al, but I don’t think we need to be cruel,”
Barathol replied.

“You’re right, of course.  It’s just that I saw what he imagined doing to Ellie when I picked through his mind.  I wanted him to suffer for that.”

“Everyone has dark thoughts Al,”
Geldun interceded,
“but he didn’t actually do anything to her, did he?

“No,”
Aleron admitted,
“he was a perfect gentleman toward her, aside from butchering her bodyguards and train.”

“Sounds like it was just business then, for them at least,”
Barathol offered.

“Yeah, but it gets kind of personal, when it happens to people you know.”

Moments later, they were back in their corvid guise, flapping upwards for a better view of the city. 
“I remember you saying that you use the magic around you,”
Geldun started,
“but what happens if there’s no magic to be had?”

“The only place I ever had trouble finding magic was deep in a cave,”
Aleron answered,
“and even then, it was only certain kinds and I still managed to scrape enough together to do what I needed to do.  Why do you ask…worried about changing back?”

“In a word, yes, I’d hate to be stuck as a raven if a fight’s at hand.”

“I don’t think we have anything to worry about.” 
Aleron led them high above the rooftops, winging toward the tall spires of the royal palace. 
“I can feel Ellie’s amulet in that tower to the back right.  I doubt she still has it, but whoever does may know where she is.”

They alighted upon the uppermost battlement of the tower Aleron singled out earlier.  Similar to the situation in Arundell, this battlement was no longer manned, since the city’s fortifications were pushed to a wider perimeter than in ancient times.   The three friends veered back to their proper forms, screened by the crenulated wall surrounding the uppermost level.  “Where does our gear go when we shift?” Geldun inquired.  “How come we don’t end up naked?”  Apparently, it did not occur to him to ask in all the weeks prior.

“I’m not sure,” Aleron replied, in a whisper.  “I just picture what I want and the magic does the rest.”

“Thanks for sharing that with us Al; now I feel much more secure about it,” Barathol commented, facetiously. 

They made for the bulkhead leading to the lower levels.  “I can feel the amulet is just below this floor,” Aleron announced.  Aleron tried the door and discovered it to be locked from the inside.  “Locked!  Probably just a precaution, or else they’re genuinely worried about someone scaling the walls to get inside.  If that’s the case, it doesn’t say much for their confidence in the people.”

“Remember the prisoners we’ve taken, Al?” Geldun reminded him.  “Every one a conscript, but the officers.”

“Yeah, not a volunteer among them, if you can believe what they told the terps,” Barathol added. 

Aleron cast his senses to the hatch and soon the others heard a soft metallic clunk emanate from behind the door.  He reached for the handle, as Barathol covered the opening with his pike.  Geldun set himself to enter first, sword and buckler at the ready, as the hatchway opened, revealing a dimly lit stairwell.  Aleron peered in, motioned him forward and then drew his twin cutlasses, in preparation to follow.  Andhanimwhid remained strapped to his back, bulky and inconvenient in its full six feet.  Barathol took up the rear and the three crept slowly down the stair.  Upon reaching the bottom, the stopped to listen and then Geldun carefully checked both directions down the corridor.  “Which way, Al,” he asked.

“Left seems closer.”  Geldun stepped to the center of the corridor and faced left.  Aleron and Barathol took their places to his left and right, respectively.  They could see the hallway curve to their right, obscuring what lay ahead.  Doorways punctuated the wall to the outside, while the smooth granite wall to their right appeared unbroken.  Aleron sensed a large chamber to that side and that the amulet lay within. 
“Let’s talk like this from here on out.  I think we just have to find the doorway to this room on the right,”
he told them. 
“Ellie’s charm is in there somewhere.”
  Clouds of dust rose about their boots, as they quickly and silently made their way.  Though the corridor showed little sign of traffic, theirs were not the only footprints.  Tracks from soft boots, sporting oddly pointed toes, preceded them.  Older tracks of the same sort, going in both directions and leading to many of the doors, could be seen as well. 

The tower was large, but not overly so and they soon came to an ornate copper-clad door, etched with numerous glyphs and sigils.  The signs seemed to vibrate and flow before their eyes, the unfamiliar symbols appearing to shift one to another. 
“This is some strong stuff,”
Aleron commented, as he stepped forward to examine the door. 
“Grandfather showed me living script once and it exhausted him to make even a short spell.  This must have taken the maker months to complete.”

“What’s living script,” Barathol asked, “and what does it do?”

“
Living script makes the strongest wards.  Instead of relying on a single symbol, the ward can recite an entire spell, over and over again.”
  He continued scrutinizing the symbols for a time, commenting,
“I can read a fair share of this and I can tell that there’s no way I can break this without the owner knowing about it.”

“Can you break it fast and dirty then?”
  Geldun offered.  “That
may give us a fighting chance.”

“That I can do.”
Aleron held out his right hand, intending to draw off the chaotic red power, neutralizing the wards and then use it to break the hinges and lock.  Instead, the door opened for them.

“You really must learn to shield your thoughts when you converse in that manner, my young sorcerer,” High Priest Mahuizohm informed them, from the center of the large circular chamber.  “You may as well have been shouting out in the corridor.”  The chamber was easily twenty yards across, with a domed ceiling supporting itself without any internal supports.  The central part of the floor stood nearly a man’s height lower than the doorway, forming a sunken circle, about ten yards across, with a black stone altar at the very center.  Its obvious intent was an auditorium of some sort, as five rings of raised stone benches circled the presentation area.  Additional furniture and benches, these littered with various works in progress, specimens and artifacts, filled the central floor, indicating that someone had repurposed the chamber as a work area.  The High Priest stood in front of the altar, facing the ramp leading up to the entrance.  “Please enter my friend and your companions as well.  There is no need for those weapons; let us converse as civilized men.”

“We can converse priest, but we’ll keep our weapons just the same.”  The men entered the chamber cautiously, looking up and around for possible traps, as they advanced.

“Very well, but this display is highly unnecessary.  You come for the girl, I presume.”

“Yes,” Aleron answered.  He could see the faint glow of Eilowyn’s amulet on the altar, to the priest’s side.

“Ah, what have we here?  Is that what I think it is, strapped to your back?  Andhanimwhid?  So, a king has returned to the throne of Sudea.  My apologies, Your Grace, I had no idea who I was addressing.”

“I have no time for pleasantries, priest.  Where is Lady Eilowyn?”

“Your Grace, we have all the time in the world for pleasantries.  Neither your weapons nor your magic will avail you in this place.”  On that signal, numerous hidden alcoves opened in the wall surrounding the chamber, emitting soldiers armed with crossbows and various close quarters weapons.  A quick glance behind them, revealed ranks armed men in position outside the door.  Aleron and his companions found themselves surrounded and outnumbered, at least ten to one.  Mahuizohm softly uttered something in Kolixtlani that Aleron did not catch and he felt the power drain from his body. 
“Tell your soldiers to hold fast, do not advance,”
he told whoever was in charge of the contingent and Aleron heard someone behind him relay the command. 

“Stand down, but keep hold of your weapons,” Aleron told the others.  “He just told them to hold fast.”

“I see that you understand much of our language, Your Grace, most unusual for a soldier, but then you’re not just a soldier.  You must sense the total draining of magical energy that just ensued.  Wonderful stuff this Thallasian bloodstone is; we only discovered it because of the war.  Prior to that, the Thallasian sorcerers kept it a closely guarded secret.”

“I’m familiar with it, priest.”

“Please, call me Mahuizohm.  Unshielded, bloodstone draws all red magic to itself, but built into a device, it serves as a repository of power, like your sorcerers use the blue quartz.  We have long known that we can be build blue quartz into a power trap as well, though it naturally works as a repository with no special treatment.  For safety’s sake, I have installed both types of trap in my study, as one can never tell who might attack.”

Aleron glanced back at the pommel of the great sword on his back and was relieved to see it still glow with inner blue light, though he knew that if he attempted to draw on the power within, the traps would rob it from him.  “Do you really think this will stop me Mahuizohm?  I came for Eilowyn and I intend to leave with her.”

“Oh, that will not be possible, Your Grace; she is now officially betrothed to Prince
Ehacatl, heir to Achcauhtli, King of Kolixtlan.  It seems she did not believe you would come for her, so she chose instead to work toward a peace between our realms.  If you like, the King has many beautiful daughters and I am sure he would gladly marry one to the heir to the throne of Sudea.  Thus joined, our alliance will be the most powerful the world has seen since the Great War.”

“Still not interested.”  Aleron thought through his options.  They could attempt to fight their way out, at ten to one odds, with the enemy holding the choke point.  That would likely see them all dead.  On the other hand, they could surrender and try to find a way out later.  He did not doubt that Mahuizohm had some way to shield himself from the effects of a power trap, so rushing the priest was out.  He glanced up to the ceiling, seeing the polished light tunnels from the rooftop providing diffuse natural lighting, when the idea came to him.  He focused his concentration for a moment and his companions noticed the gasp of recognition from the suddenly wide-eyed High Priest.  The chamber erupted with bright green luminescence, lasting a score of heartbeats.  Small plants on one of the benches capriciously overflowed their pots, twining out onto the floor.  Crocks on another bench bubbled and overflowed.  The soldiers surrounding them grew withered and frail, several toppling as the armor became too much for their aged bodies to support.  Mahuizohm, aged beyond comprehension, knelt by the altar, clutching his chest.  Aleron strode down the ramp, toward the priest, swatting away two bolts launched by archers still in possession of the faculties to shoot.  Other bolts flew wild and soldiers attempting to advance stumbled and fell, as old age took them.  Geldun and Barathol mowed down those within reach and still on their feet and then turned their attention to the doorway.  Fresh troops, not caught in the blaze, began their advance into Mahuizohm’s study.  Aleron reached the priest and placed one hand on his head.  Mahuizohm’s eyes glazed over as Aleron peeled back his mind like the layers of an onion.  The High Priest collapsed when Aleron released his head and turned his attention back to the rest of the chamber.  Snatching up the amulet from the altar, he placed it around his neck and advanced to assist his friends at the door.  “Let me through!” he shouted, as he came up behind his friends.  They held the entrance well, but being on the downhill side and outnumbered, it was doomed to not last.  His friends stepped to the side, as he waded in, twin blades singing.  A blast of blue flashed and crackled, as soon as he cleared the door.  Turning back to the others, he said, “All clear.”  Barathol and Geldun stepped over bodies into the corridor to see clouds of fine gray ash lazily settle to the floor, joining the older dust.