The Vitalis Chronicles: Tomb of the Relequim (44 page)

There was a bastion up there, well hidden from the other side. He hoped the darkness was enough to enshroud him. He would have to make the jump to get out of here. He was certain of that now.

Shod hooves clipped and clanked on stone as the incoming patrol came within earshot. The Shadow King decided it was better to be early than late, and made the jump. He floated off towards the gates, hoping that they hadn't come up with some form of primitive shelter to protect them. Thankfully, they hadn't. He made it to the portcullis, floating in the uncomfortable formless space between the physical and the spiritual. He hated it here.

It wasn't difficult for him to make out the gates. They loomed large even in the mists of this world. The torches gave off small amounts of energy that helped to guide him to them. He could feel the portcullis rise as it disturbed the Atmosphere like ripples on a pond. The gates swung back, and he floated through. He decided to continue on for a while. He didn't know what was on the other side, but he couldn't jump back too close to the walls.

The horses rode past, churning the gray fog of the Atmosphere with their passage. How the Magi managed to control the stuff, let alone turn it into energy, was beyond the Shade. He was just glad that he wasn't dependent on it. But then again, he reasoned, he was more so now than he had ever been. The thought made him turn in place, focusing his awareness on the mists themselves. They seemed to be loosely attached to him, trailing him as he went. That was new.

He made the jump back after a few hundred yards. The second curve was just ahead, another fortified position sticking out at its head. The merlons on the low walls looked like the lower half of some jagged jaw. He wondered if it was manned. But thankfully he was silent and lithe enough not to find out.

Upon reaching the Spring Vale, he found he had more problems. A village had apparently sprouted at the foot of the pass. It too had gates, its fortress-like barbican even larger than the one he had already passed. He decided he didn't have time for it and made his way up the northern slope that branched out above them. It was left unguarded as the sheer drop was enough to dissuade anyone from using it as an entrance point into the vale. But to the Shadow King, it was a suitable way in. He walked up near the top where the footing turned treacherous, approached the edge, and launched himself out into space.

He loved this, even more now that he had gotten to actually fly. He let the wind rush past him, ripping at his cape as he plummeted to the grassy plain below. At the last second he dissolved, his momentum immediately lost to the fog. It only took him a second to right himself as he alighted where the ground should be. He reappeared as from a mist, walking north so as to circumvent the vale.

He didn't want to run into any more patrols, and he figured that sticking to the ring of the mountains would keep him clear enough. It amazed him how the whole place was laid out. It was as if a deep valley had been filled with soil to make a nice even plain that ran right up to cliffs and mountains that should have soared above them.

The mountains farther out in the ring did soar. White granite. Pristine. As dawn rose, they shifted colors with the rising light. The snow on the highest of them made the rest appear slightly gray, but they were immaculate. The Dragon's Teeth. From here they looked every bit the part. He wondered if they were still enough to keep real dragons at bay.

In the distance he could make out Islenda. Bright and beautiful, very much resembling the mountains around her. Her walls were tall and slanted, much like Elandir's, but white and ornately decorated. The towers that jutted out from them and up from within were far more beautiful than the pragmatic square bastions of Elandir. The whole city had been built of the granite that surrounded her. The strong contrast she held to the broad green fields that engulfed her was breathtaking. The Spring Vale was a mystery of creation, in spite of the high elevation it maintained an almost eternal spring. Never too hot, and never too cold. Some called it a paradise.

The Shade entered the tall black forest they called the King's. The Renaults were good, honest rulers, but they still kept a few things to themselves. He hoped the warden wouldn't mind his transgression, but here he felt covered, and as the sun rose, he ran. The Kingswood was just as level as the rest of the vale. On the other side he knew there was a footpath that wound into the mountains. If it was still there, it would intersect with the road that led to Ilthuln, and to his goal.

The path was easy enough to find, and the cleft through which it ran was blessedly deep in the rock. Like a winding staircase, it ran a serpentine pattern that climbed upwards more than it advanced forwards. It actually made him sweat to climb it, and it felt strange to him at the same time. It was as if he were miles up the side of a mountain, and yet the broad clear vale stood only a hundred yards below.

The path took another broad sweep across the face of the mountain before it dove up and into the ravine that would take him to the road. He paused a moment, looking back on the Spring Vale and the White Citadel it housed. He smiled, though the feeling was tinged with remorse. In the end he would save her, he knew as much to be true. He only wished the path he took wasn't so shrouded in fog. He hoped they would understand, but in his heart he knew they never would. His determination was winning out easily over the conflicting emotions now. It was time to set things to rights.

The Shadow King turned and made an end to his climb. The mountains grew close around him before he found the road. It was ill maintained, though still level and clear of obstructions. No trees grew up this high. It would seem the treeline was left in the vale. It was another three miles of incline before he finally reached the Last Valley. Fittingly named after they had begun to call the mountain it guarded the End of the World. The bridge they had built over it was short, as the Last Valley was more of a rift in the rock. The bridge was broad, however, as they had intended it to be readily accessible by an army in an emergency.

The Shadow King had no army, and no more need of secrecy. If word were to escape Ilthuln, it would never reach help in time. A horn blew from the tower as he crossed the bridge. The note was long and deep, as it dropped an octave. It rattled the pebbles on the road from their resting places and gave the Shade pause.

The whole fortress was built into the side of one huge mountain. It looked much like a crude mimicry of the Cathedral it protected. Off to the right of the bridge and road the world spun away into a sheer drop of nearly a mile. The foundation of the tower on the Shade's right ran just to the edge of it. Its counterpart on the left was as tall and embedded into the steep slope of the peak. And between them stood the Mouth of Ilthuln. The gates were covered in blackened spikes and barbs. Long, pointed, iron strips shot from top and bottom to secure the thick wood, giving the appearance of teeth and lending the Mouth its name.

Blue and white canvas flapped in the wind as massive oil basins burned hot against the mountain chill. Over the barbican that housed the Mouth rose a gatehouse that served as home to the garrison that watched it. Huge windows filled with warped and swirling glass stood to either side, while at the center, an ornate granite balcony jutted out ten feet. It was on that balcony that two oak doors swung slowly open.

Onto the balcony stepped a heavyset man with a wiry gray beard that ran over his rotund belly and under his belt. He wore a thick leather skullcap that was weighed down on his brow by an iron circlet. Under a cloak of thick gray furs, he wore a bulging leather breastplate. Bronze disks were attached all over the armor, leaving him glittering dully in the warm light of the fires that burned to either side of the balcony.

In his hand he held a spear. At its end snapped a blue banner emblazoned with a solitary gray mountain. He sauntered to the end of the balcony, resting a fur-lined glove on the banister as he watched his visitor. Suspicion lined his face so deeply it might have sunk into the skin.

“
Do my old eyes betray me?” His deep voice echoed in the close space between the stone. “Or do I see one of the famed Shadow Warriors of my childhood?”

The Shadow King smiled as he took a step forward. “Your eyes have maintained their youth, my lord. Much unlike your beard.”

“
What could a Shade seek in the bowels of the earth, pray tell? This is no hospitable village, and
these are no lands for commerce.”

“
You speak truly my lord.” The Shade wasn't sure talking would work, and it wasn't his strength in any case. But easier to walk in than to have to cut his way. “I have been sent by my masters, the Magi in the East, to inspect your walls. I am sent in hopes of finding you well, and to ensure that Ilthuln still stands.”

“
You can see our walls from there, Shade.” The old man's voice turned to a growl. Perhaps
'inspect' had been the wrong choice of words. “And we obviously still stand. I can tell you we are well,
and bid you take your leave. We have no need of meddling magicians in these parts.”

“
You mistake me, my lord. I wish not to interfere, only to–”

“
Eat my food and exercise an illusion of control over my command? I think not, dear Shade. Your kind are unwelcome here, it is forbidden that any should pass my gates. I find your sudden appearance troubling, to say the least. I have had no word of the return of the Magi, nor their bloodthirsty servants.”

“
We are shortly retur–”

“
Enough lies, Shade. I will have none of them. Even if you did tell the truth, and were in the company of your fine masters, I would not open these gates. What we live to guard, we will die to protect, rest assured of that. Return to your masters, tell them all is well. Tell them the End of the World remains undisturbed in its mission to remain a faint and distant memory.”

And with that the old man turned to walk back inside the gatehouse.

The Shade pulled the long slender sword out of its scabbard and off his back. The sound of grating steel, though subtle, was enough to cause the old man to turn.

“
You dare to draw steel in my own home?” His voice was quiet, though all the more menacing
for it. “On my own bridge?”

The windswept stone echoed with the thrumming of a dozen hidden bows releasing a dozen dark arrows. Each was aimed with skill, and each found its target. But each arrow clattered on the stone of the bridge unhindered and bloodless.

The Shade smiled and launched himself from the bridge.

T
WENTY-
N
INE

T
HE SIGHT OF GREEN HILLS AND TREES MADE
A
RDIN'S HEART ACHE WITH A HUNGER THAT, ONLY MOMENTS BEFORE, HE HAD SCARCELY KNOWN HE HAD
.
The closer they got, the more anxious he became. He hadn't seen living plants in what felt like a lifetime. He even dared to laugh as he kicked Gella into a gallop and raced the last mile across the ashen plain with his second horse in tow.

He doubted the tired courser minded too much. She hadn't eaten grass in as long, and where there was green there was clean water. He reined in on the first living hill and threw himself off his mount. The horses grazed happily as he lay on the ground, drinking in the smell.

Rain followed more slowly, but dismounted to sit with him as she arrived. She laughed to see him spread out like he had been dropped from the sky. He didn't look like he wanted to move, and she couldn't blame him, so she flopped down in the grass next to him. They lay there in silence for a while, staring at the clouds as they passed overhead.

“
You never told me how you came to be a Mage... of sorts.”

He laughed at the broken silence as much as her uncertainty. “I might as well be a Mage,” he said finally. “But I'm more than that I think, as weird as it is to say. To say that you're more than something else, especially something so magnificent.”

“
It's not so strange if it's honest.”

“
I suppose,” he sighed as the freedom of the moment before passed. “My family was murdered, to put context around it. Slaughtered by the Elandrian army, which is kind of unexpected because I lived in a village that was under their protection.”

“
I'm sorry...”

“
No, it's just... well it's what started everything for me. I was stupid. I thought I could avenge them somehow, so I tried to chase down the general that had been responsible. It was dumb, but I
wasn't thinking. I beat him to where he was headed, and thought I could ambush him. But the place was a prison made for one.”

“
An entire prison for one person?”

“
Well, it wasn't so big. But yeah, one of the Elders. Charsi.”

“
I've heard stories of her,” Rain interjected. “We all have. She's famous here. She gave my father a chain that he wore until his dying day. Many said she was the most beautiful creature on earth.”

“
Second,” he smiled. “But she's the one who gave me my power. Rather, her power. She poured it into me along with all of her wrath and malice. She meant to use me to take her own revenge on mankind. She was trapped, though somehow she could reach out of the prison they built for her, and she meant for me to accomplish what she no longer could.”