Unleashed Fury (BloodRunes: Book 1) (41 page)

She was still insatiably curious why the King
was so hell-bent on coming all the way here. He was offering up no
insight for her, and his actions were just as baffling.

They had arrived in Dunlop earlier that day,
and the King had had a secret meeting with two men in black hooded
cloaks. He had not required her attendance at this meeting, so
Jezebel had taken the chance to have a look around.

The Dark King's castle had, of course, been
easy to locate being the vast structure that it was, and Jezebel
was awed by the sheer power that had gone into the making of it.
She would have loved to have spent the day exploring. However, she
had put aside her desire to search the fortress, and had spent the
day looking for her two little problems instead. She was determined
to find them while she was here so they could be properly dealt
with.

She had gotten information that the two had
indeed stayed at the Phoenix Inn last night, but no one would tell
her where they were headed today. Before she could look further
into it, the King had returned and asked that she accompany him.
Then the same two men with whom he’d had the meeting led them to
the sacred entrance, as they called it.

Jezebel called it a cave.
A dank, slimy,
smelly cave
.

Jezebel had no doubt that these two men were
members of the Order, and she was once again impressed despite
herself at the reach of the organization. She didn't know exactly
what the King hoped to find in whatever place it was that this
secret entrance led to, or what the Order would have to do with the
person he was after. He had not even asked around in town for this
girl he was supposedly looking for. Jezebel half wondered if the
story about finding the girl had just been his excuse to come here
and look through the old ruins himself.
But the King didn't need
an excuse to do anything, so why bother?

She had at first been furious when the King
interrupted her own search by insisting that she come along on this
mission of his, tramping around in the forest to find a cave. But
she was becoming more and more curious to see if it really was some
secret entrance as the cloaked men had claimed. Perhaps it was an
entrance into one of the old ruins where there might be some relic
left behind. If so, she supposed perhaps it was worth putting off
her search for the two miscreants for a few hours longer.

The trek through the woods had been tedious,
but the cavern itself was mystifying: There were runes along the
walls, some of which Jezebel recognized from her book, and many new
ones which she tried to commit to memory for later research. It was
intriguing, leading her to the small hope that maybe it would be
worth the discomfort after all.
P
erhaps I'll find a book
about a new torture that I can inflict upon the two renegades.
Wouldn't that be wonderful
.

The hounds formed a single-file line behind
her, and she smiled at their obedience. Soon she would have the
whole country in the palm of her hand, just like the hounds.

Jezebel tripped over a loose rock, and she
brought her attention back to watching her step. There had
better
be something worth her time in here after all
this.

The King wound around the corridors with an
ease that made Jezebel suspicious. He stopped before a door and
moved his hands over the runes in a specific pattern.

The door rumbled and opened before him and
Jezebel raised a brow.
It certainly looks as though he's been
here before
. Her regard for him was raised another notch
despite herself, and she couldn't help but be impressed by his
advances in gaining access to such a long-held secret place; if, in
fact, it was that place. Her respect was slightly tarnished by the
fact that it still was a disgusting cave, however.

“What is this place?” she asked, half
expecting him not to answer.

“The entrance to the tomb of the Dark King,”
he replied to her surprise, and she shivered excitedly. Perhaps
there was truth to the hooded men’s claim after all.
The power
that must be held in there!

It was said that when the Bloodguard stole
his body and reburied the King in the secret tomb, that they buried
with him the books that had been saved from the fires. When they
had prepared his body for his eventual reincarnation, they included
with his remains everything he would need upon his return. And
unlike the looted ruins on the outside, the tomb had never before
been breached, or in fact even found. If it really was the
tomb…Jezebel stopped worrying about her shoes, and walked
faster.

They rounded a corner, and Jezebel almost ran
into the King, who had stopped dead in front of her. Jezebel rolled
her eyes and stepped carefully around him so that she could get
into the room and see why he had stopped. The passageway
disappeared behind her as the hounds slipped through, shimmering
into a very real illusion of solid rock, and Jezebel peered around
the room.

It was a large cavern with two doors on
opposite sides of the room – or rather one door and one now-solid
rock pathway – and one large doorway to their left. Large
stalactites hung down from the huge ceiling, though the rest of the
cave was polished smooth.

The one main door was magnificent, and
Jezebel's breath caught in her throat.
Surely that is the
entrance to the tomb of a King! I am so close to knowledge that
would help to let me take my rightful place in the world: On the
top!

She started towards the door eagerly, but was
struck speechless as the door opposite them opened and the King
spoke.

“Ah, there you are, my dear.”

*

Layna was lying in the middle of a flowery
meadow, the wind gently blowing over her as it blew puffs of
dandelion seeds across the clearing. She had not a care in the
world, and she marveled at how peaceful it was here. She couldn't
remember how she had gotten here, or where here was. But it was
like Gamoland, the utopia where one would spend the afterlife and
that which was home to the Gods.

It really was too much effort to think too
hard anyway, better just to watch the clouds passing. As she
blinked sleepily, observing the clouds take on new shapes as they
floated lazily across the sky, one of them formed a rather
dragon-like figure.

As she watched, Layna swore it seemed to
coalesce into a dense form and actually swoop down towards her.
Dragons were the physical manifestations of the Three, though this
one seemed to be a smaller version of the dragon gods.

All that thinking hurt Layna's head, and she
closed her eyes a moment to clear her mind. When she opened them
she saw that the dragon had separated from the rest of the clouds,
and was practically on top of her. She had plenty of time to get
out of the way, but she just didn't feel like moving. She simply
watched it descend towards her with a lazy curiosity.

It landed next to her, and Layna had the urge
to reach out and touch it, but her hand felt so heavy. It was a
beautiful creature, scales like opals with rainbows caught inside.
It was primarily black in color but seemed to be every other color
at the same time as it shifted and the sunlight hit it in different
directions. Layna smiled inwardly, though it was too much effort to
actually move the muscles in her face to show it outwardly, and
thought how wonderful this new addition to her heaven was.

“WAKE!” shouted a piercing voice in her mind,
echoing through her skull.

A sharp pain stabbed through her euphoric
state, and Layna realized that the dragon had bitten her in the arm
as well. Her other arm flew to cover the bite, and she backed up
hastily from the creature.

She jerked awake and fell out of the chair in
her flailing. She looked around her, and blinked to take in the
reality of the room. She was horrified to see that many of the
chairs held skeletons in various stages of decay, and with one eye
closed in apprehension of what she might find, she looked behind
her at the chair she had just occupied.

She let out a little scream at the sight of
the pile of bones she had just been sitting in and frantically
brushed off her clothing.

Gryffon snorted awake and looked around with
the same sense of horror that Layna felt. He quickly removed
himself from the chair, and came to stand next to her while they
surveyed the room.

“I hope that there aren't any more of these
rooms,” Layna whispered.

“Me too,” answered Gryffon sincerely. He
glanced back at her and furrowed his brow. “You're bleeding.” Layna
followed his pointing finger and raised her arm to see four tiny
droplets of blood welling up from her forearm.

She probed at the offending wound, and
decided it wasn't anything to worry about, though something about
it nagged at her. “It's nothing, just a little scratch. Are we
ready to move on?”

They made their way to the end of the hallway
and came up against a door rather than the curtains of veils they
had been passing through. Gryffon cautiously reached for the handle
and jiggled it, but it was locked.

“Well, at least this probably means we're
done with the hallway. What now?” Layna asked.

“Maybe I can pick the lock.” Gryffon dug in
his pockets for a kit full of long thin pieces of metal in
different sizes. Layna gave him a suspicious look as he pulled it
out, but he simply grinned at her and she couldn't help but smile
back, shaking her head.

While he worked, sputtering to himself
through the pick he held in his teeth, Layna examined the door. It
was a large wooden slab, stained a deep maroon in an arch shape.
Around the edge were more of the runes, carved into the wooden
frame and painted black. Layna recognized the one from her neck on
the very top of the arch and she once more stroked her own
mark.

As she stared at it, she suddenly felt as
though she knew what to do. She stepped forward, and placed her
hands over several of the different runes in a pattern her hand
seemed to know. A soft 'click' sounded as the lock snapped into
place.

Gryffon made a satisfied grunt. “Nothing to
it,” he said and he stepped back to admire the unlocked door,
unaware of her movements. He glanced back at her, expecting her
congratulations, and asked, “What's wrong, you look white as a
ghost.”

“Nothing, I-” Layna shook her head
negatively. “Nothing. Nice job.” A chill had found its way into her
spine and was slowly working its way through her entire body.
Somehow she had known how to open the door, a door in a place that
tried to kill you every step of the way. A door in the middle of
the Dark King's secret lair.
What is going on with me?

“Are you ready?” Gryffon asked her and she
nodded, not feeling ready at all. He once more laid his hand over
the handle and pushed. This time it squeaked its resistance, but
yielded under his touch and it turned. Gryffon pushed the door open
and stepped through-

-and vanished.

Layna rushed forward to grasp at the air
where he had been, but her hands encountered nothing, and the door
slammed shut behind her.

An eerie other-worldly voice echoed
throughout the room, “Ah, there you are, my dear.”

*

Jezebel's fury was like a tiger clawing its
way out of her as recognition hit her like a rock. Blood welled up
in her mouth as she bit her lip in rage, and she felt a terrible,
murderous maelstrom of emotion roil up within her.

The servant girl she was after was standing
there dumbly after having just rushed through the opposite door.
That little hussy, that slut, that horrible, awful
good-for-nothing...
Jezebel glared as the girl's eyes met hers
and widened in fear.

She had dyed her hair brown, but it was
unmistakably the same girl that was ingrained in Jezebel's memory.
It made her shake with anger that even with the auburn hair she was
still gorgeous.

One of the hounds behind her growled
menacingly and nipped at the back of her dress.

She clamped down on her emotions. She didn't
want her feelings to overflow into the hounds and have them go
berserk. While she wouldn't mind seeing the girl torn to pieces,
she wasn’t quite ready to unleash them just yet. She would never
admit it even to herself, but she was still frightened of the
hounds, and unsure of her ability to really control them in this
state. She very carefully took a deep breath and resolved to hold
out until such time as she could properly show the slut her
place.

Her resolve was tested at the King's next
words. “I have been searching for you, my dear.” The girl looked
around stupidly as if he must be talking to someone else, and
Jezebel sneered. “It was fate that you and I were to meet, you
know.”

“What are you talking about? Where is
Gryffon?” the girl blurted, finally finding her voice.

“The man is of no consequence; he is not one
of us and so was not permitted to enter. But you, you are one of
us. You bear the mark, do you not?” he asked in a knowing tone.

The girl didn't answer, but her hand flew to
her neck in an unconscious motion, and the King smiled at her
silent acknowledgment. Jezebel's ears perked up at the mention, and
she leaned forward eagerly to hear the explanation, her anger
dulled slightly with curiosity.

“I knew you did. I can feel it. You've been
strangely vague to me, but I now see the interference is the charm
you're wearing around your neck.”

He raised a hand and the offending charm
floated up off her chest and into the air. It jerked forward as if
pulled, snapping the clasp off. It moved forward a couple feet and
then the King flung his fingers out in a quick motion. The charm
exploded.

Jezebel's eyes widened as it shattered into a
million pieces and suddenly she could feel the power emanating off
the girl. Jealousy mixed with hatred as she realized just how
strong this little hussy was.