Mantle: The Return of the Sha (33 page)

When he looked down, he realized that it
was
coming from all around him. He was surprised to see that, in the light of the fairy staff, the Dark Weed was
burning
. There were no flames, but the thread-like blades of the weed began to turn to ash as the light from the staff came upon it. As the light became brighter, the weed beyond began to burn as well, until it was turning to ash all around him.

He walked toward Bella, holding the staff above his head as he would a torch. As he walked, the grass continued to burn away from his path in a wide swath. The ashes, being so light, drifted upward, dancing gracefully through the sky like a swarm of insects.

When he finally reached Bella, they embraced in a flurry of kisses.

Zander now brought the staff down, and for the first time, he placed the darker end of it on Skite soil. That was the moment the world shook.

The ground broke where the staff had rested on it. Cracks began forming in the ground, and began spreading outward in all directions. Loud booming sounds could be heard, and
felt
, as the cracks widened.

Zander, who was momentarily stunned, had continued holding the staff in place, but now pulled it up quickly from the ground. The shaking immediately stopped, as did the booming noises. The screaming of the Dark Weed, however, did not. The weed continued to burn for as far as the light would carry, although the screaming sound was at a distance now, and not nearly as loud as it had been.

“My love, are you all right?” Zander asked, embracing her, yet careful not to allow the staff to touch the ground.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

She looked into King Zander’s eyes and smiled as she rested her hands on her belly. He looked down and added his hand over hers, smiling himself.

Our child.

They stood this way for several minutes before Zander helped her onto his horse. As they began their journey back to the Outland Post, the Dark Weed no longer guided him, but instead burned to ash as the light of the fairy staff fell upon it.

****

General Brask was nothing short of relieved when King Cergio arrived, with his armies at his back. Cergio had come with one hundred thousand men. This represented less than half of his forces, but he would not bring all of his men to one battle and risk losing the kingdom to a single fight. They still did not know what they were up against—if anything. After all, assuming the worst had happened, and the Skites had regained the final skull piece, it might take time for Menagraff to become whole once again. And the Skite methods for rebuilding and reestablishing armies were unknown to the civilized kingdoms. It may take days, weeks, or even years for them to attack, and
time
was not an enemy to the Skites.

When Cergio rode up to the Outland Post, he came with only four other men, who Brask promptly took to be his own advisers rather than guards. The gold of Cergio’s armor was blinding as he approached. In the distance, he could see the beginnings of the vast army that had followed him. They were setting camp along the border running to the south, just as the Forie armies had done along the border to the north.

Now that the Outland Post was surrounded by Forie armies, its gate remained open. There were soldiers coming and going, and securing the post buildings would be pointless. Cergio rode directly into the post and came to a stop in the center of the courtyard where General Brask and Captain Baines were waiting.

“King Cergio, welcome,” Brask said, with an approving nod.

“General,” Cergio said with a nod of his own.

He quickly surveyed the post.

“Where is Zander?”

General Brask glanced quickly to Captain Baines, and then lowered his head.

“Majesty, we should speak in private. Please come with me to the war room and I will explain,” Brask finally answered.

Cergio climbed down from his horse. “Very well,” he said, signaling to his four advisers to follow.

As they were walking toward the main building, Lizabet burst out of the door and ran toward them. When she reached General Brask, she was gasping for air.

“The crystal! The crystal…it has changed!” she said through deep breaths. She reached for Brask’s hand, meaning to lead him.

“What do you mean? Changed how?” Brask asked.

He knew what she was referring to, but could not decide if she was rejoicing at the change or panicking because of it.

“It has changed to the color of
gold—
it is no longer clear!” She said. “Come—see for yourself.”

Brask turned to Cergio, and when he did, Lizabet noticed him for the first time.

“Majesty, this is Lizabet Abbot—the queen’s sister,” Brask told him.

“Aye, of course,” Cergio said, “we met at the wedding. Hello, young princess. I wish we were here on better terms.”

Lizabet was not a
princess
, but in the Kingdom of Bore, the sister of the queen
would
be granted the title. She would not correct Cergio this time, though, as her excitement at the change in the crystal’s color would not be distracted.

“Greetings, Majesty, would you follow me as well?” she said, leading Brask by the hand. If she was being rude to King Cergio, she would apologize later.

They finally realized her determination and followed her into the war room. When they walked up to the map table, they got their first glimpse of the current situation.

The crystals that represented Cergio’s armies had now turned clear and stood lined up along the border to the south. King Ekkill’s ships were divided, with the crystals near the Red Islands now clear and others in the Domin Sea remaining gold.

The Forie armies in the north remained clear, but King Zander’s crystal had changed to a golden color that swirled with amber streaks throughout its center. Lizabet wasn’t sure, but she thought that it looked closer to the post than it had, when he had been stopped.

“General, is he closer, do you think?” Lizabet asked.

General Brask’s eyes were focused on the map, and Lizabet could see that he was grappling with some deep thought.

“General?” she asked again, when he did not respond.

“Yes, Miss, what did you say?”

“I asked if the king’s crystal seemed to be closer. Are you all right?”

“Yes, I believe that the king is closer,” Brask said, “but I regretfully remind you that the crystal is for the king only. It will not change for the queen.”

Lizabet understood at once. Just because Zander was returning that did not mean that Bella was returning with him. Her heart sank.

She could see that General Brask’s attention had once again gone to the map. He was in deep thought, and she noticed that no one else in the room was making a sound either. Silence.

“What is it?” she asked. “There is something else in the map, isn’t there?”

“Yes,” Brask said, “there is something else.”

He pointed to the black crystal that lay deep within Skite. It was half the distance that it had been when Lizabet had first arrived.

Has it only just moved, or have I not noticed it?
she thought. She had been watching the map nearly nonstop since she had arrived, but she had been fixed on Zander’s crystal, ignoring the others.

“It’s moved,” Lizabet said under her breath.

“Yes, but it cannot be trusted,” Captain Baines said. “The Skite armies could not have traveled that distance in mere minutes. It is a trick.”

“Never trust the map when watching the Skites. The dark magic that follows Skite armies is not well-read by the map’s charms,” General Brask added.

“But it means
something
, does it not?” Cergio asked.

“Yes,” Brask said. “It means they are coming.”

****

They rode back mostly in silence. Zander mulled over his decision to turn over the skull piece to the Skites. He examined it from every angle, and in his mind, he was defending his decision. It was a decision that he felt, now at a least, had come all too easily to him, but he kept arriving at the same conclusion—the Skites would certainly have other methods for breaking the charm on the box, and the skull would still be lost. Nothing at all would have been gained by Bella’s death. Nothing.

Bella rode atop his horse, while he walked ahead of them, killing the Dark Weed with the fairy staff. She kept her silence about the box that had contained the silver object. She still didn’t know what it was or why Balki Touro (and whatever possessed him) had wanted it, but she did know that whatever it was, it troubled Zander a great deal. She would wait for him to tell her on his own terms.

“What have you named it?” Bella asked, breaking the long silence.

It took a moment for her words to pull Zander from his thoughts. He turned back to her and asked,

“What are you referring to?”

“Your staff. What have you named your staff?” she asked. “Surely, a staff that was crafted by the fairies would have a name.”

“I have not named it,” Zander replied.

It had never occurred to him to name the staff, and now he wondered why that was. After all, swords were often given names, as were other tools of war such as catapults and horses. Why not this staff?

After considering it for a moment, he stopped walking and turned around to face Bella.

“It may strike you as odd, but I suppose I’ve never thought of it as
mine
to name,” he said.

“But it
is
yours—the fairies gifted it to
you
.”

“Yes, that is true. But when I hold it, I feel as though I am only a
custodian
—a protector, maybe.”

“If that were true, who are you protecting it for?” Bella asked.

Zander looked down toward his feet, thinking about this.

“I don’t know, but I am certain that the staff has not
chosen
me as its keeper,” he said.

Bella began to smile, and the look of it seemed misplaced, given their surroundings. The wastelands of Skite had certainly not had many smiles reflected over them.

“Why do you smile?” Zander asked, breaking into a smile himself.

“Because, you were correct on one point, for sure—I do think it odd.”

The Children of Menagraff

THEY ARE MENAGRAFF’S
children
, after all. In Skite, all are descended from the king—and Menagraff has born
millions
of children, this newly created litter being only the latest in a long line.

As the inflock brought the skull piece closer to the relatively new resting place of the other pieces, the newly created children of Skite began to stir. They had been growing since the recovery of the first two skull pieces, but were now coming into their own—as much as would be allowed, anyway. And when the body of Balki Touro began the steep trek up and along the Orgate road, leading to the entrance of Narciss, the mountain began to tremble. The shaking wasn’t enough to knock him off the road into the steep drop that hung just to the right of him, but it was enough to tell the inflock that Menagraff was anxious to become physically whole once again and resume his reign.

The mountain itself was devoid of any hint of life, with only sharp rocks growing from its slopes. However, lava could be seen flowing from crevasses, only to be redirected back into the mountain a bit farther down so that none of the molten rock seemed to fully escape the mountain itself.

The temperature of the place would have been unbearable to Balki Touro. But since the inflock had left its home in the medallion and was fully possessing
him
, he was no longer living within his own body—not in the traditional sense, anyway. He was still alive, but the inflock had pushed him far out of the way once he was no longer needed. It had imprisoned Balki in the farthest reaches of his own mind—shut away forever.

****

When the inflock reached the gate of the mountain, one side of its double doors lay open as if to greet him. At more than a hundred feet in height, the door towered over the inflock and the horse he was riding, making them appear small by comparison.

He dismounted and stood before the gate. He was smiling, although it would not appear so on the now-decrepit face of the former Balki Touro. The face now appeared as old as that of a centenarian and was covered in boils and dirty blisters. His lips were cracked from the dry heat, and the long black hair that had once belonged to Balki was now a murky gray that had thinned to near baldness. It hung in scattered clumps from the skin that seemed to lay thinly over his skull.

He walked through the gate. This would be where he would abandon his horse, for this was a one-way venture and he would not be returning to the open air—not in Balki Touro’s body, at least.

The air was cooler inside, but the heat of the place would still be unbearable to the normal inhabitants of Mantle. When he entered, he was standing in a great hall. He could hear the mountain moaning as if it were contracting, or maybe
breathing
, and he could
feel
Menagraff’s presence—could feel his power becoming stronger.

The great hall was empty of any trace of the Skites. The inflock had been here before, of course—it was
home
. It knew what this place would look like when the Skites had fully returned to power. He had seen it.

The king taking his place atop the large stone block that stood in the center of the room. Skite armies clustered around, cheering when the king bid them to cheer.
It wasn’t so much a cheer, he supposed, as it was gnarling and grunting, but the effect was the same.

The gatherings that had taken place in this room had not been for the benefit of Menagraff’s minions, though. Menagraff’s children (the Skites) were connected to him mentally like tentacles, receiving instruction from their king seamlessly, and obeying without thought. They would fight to the death without regard for their own safety, for they were only parts of a larger evil.

The assemblies were for the benefit of Menagraff and his overbearing ego. He relished at the sight of them, praising him and his purpose. He drew energy from the collective evil that gathered in the hall, and he would return that energy back to his soldiers, as well, creating a circle of hate.

There were two wide stone corridors on both sides of the hall that spanned fifty feet in width. The right corridor, the inflock knew, led to areas of the city that included the dungeons where Balki Touro’s own ancestor, Barth, had been kept centuries ago. Of course it had been Barth that had unknowingly set the current events into motion.
Thank you very much.

The inflock moved farther into the room and then turned down the left corridor. Torches that hung on the walls lit as he walked down the corridor, seeming to welcome him. The inflock would not need such illumination had he continued to possess the medallion that he had called home for centuries. In the medallion, he did not have a need for sight. In the medallion, he
knew
what appeared around him. Now, though, he possessed the body of a man, and was reliant on the vision that it granted him.

When he reached the end of the corridor he came upon a wide stairway that led down into the bowels of the mountain. His journey down the steps would take hours, and the temperature rose the farther down he went, causing new blisters to form on Balki’s skin and older blisters to break.

Once he was clear of the stairway, he found himself in a vast round room with a large door on the curved wall opposite the stairway. Other smaller doors were placed around the room, separated by only a few yards. There were fifteen smaller doors in total, and he knew that these led to the birthing areas, where Skite soldiers were bred and now lay restlessly waiting to be
born
.

It was the larger door that he was concerned with, however. That door led directly into what might be considered Menagraff’s throne room, although it would not be a traditional throne that he would find when he entered.

He approached the large door, clearly marked with the sigil of Menagraff. The door was made of iron and had no latch or handles—none were needed. The door swung open on its own as he approached.

****

As they came to the final hill of their trek back to the Outland Post, Bella’s horse struggled to keep its balance on the shale rock that covered the side of the hill. The rock was set in light gray dust, and Zander was sure that he had not traveled this way when he had gone to meet Balki. But the Dark Weed had been guiding him then, changing directions so that he did not know his way.

Once they crested the hill, the dim firelight of the post removed his worries. The light was dim, but he could see it nevertheless. They would be back soon.

He noticed something else, as well. He saw firelight lined along the border in both directions for as far as his eyes would carry. King Cergio had arrived, and he had brought a vast army—
thank all of the Fathers.

****

The inflock could see the room illuminate as the door opened. The torches were lighting in order to welcome
him
, just as they had welcomed his two brothers who had come years earlier. He was the last to fulfill his duty, and would soon join his siblings in darkness until he would be called up again by the king. When that time came, the inflock would gladly carry out the king’s bidding once more. After all, that was its
purpose
.

He walked through the entrance of Menagraff’s throne room. A familiar place.

A solid iron block stood in the center of the room to serve as Menagraff’s throne. The rest of the room was empty, as there would be nothing else necessary to benefit the king of Skite. He had no interest in material objects—only the infliction of evil. That was enough.

Resting atop the iron block were the other two skull pieces. They had been recovered some years earlier, and now lay covered in white powdery dust.

The inflock approached the throne and took up the two skull pieces that had been resting there. He could see beneath the dust that one had been dipped in gold,
the Bores, no doubt,
he thought.
Them and their precious gold! Ha!

The other was the natural color of the skull itself, but seemed covered in glass. He presumed that the Tongars had charmed it with the oils of their great whales.
What will they say of their magic whales now?

He gently laid them back on the iron block and removed the silver-dipped skull piece from inside his coat. The shine of the silver immediately looked out of place in the dingy gray of the room.

He lowered the final piece down to the throne and as he did it pulled free of his hand. The three pieces came together as magnets would, forming the perfect shape of the former king’s skull. When they had snapped together, the dust fell from the first two pieces, revealing the three coverings of the pieces that had been placed by the three kingdoms—silver, gold, and glass.

The skull, at first, only rested on the iron block, but for only a moment. The inflock backed away from the throne, as the mountain began to rumble and the making of the king began.

****

Had Balki Touro been granted the ability to feel his own body, he would have felt like he were being sucked into the center of the room. The skull began to vibrate viciously and, as it did, it created a vacuum, pulling the air to it. The trembling of the mountain caused the dust from the walls and ceiling to descend into the room, and it was immediately pulled toward the throne and the skull.

All of the dust in the room was pulled from its crevasses—every grain of it. The inflock backed away once again, when dust began to fly into the room through the open door. It came into the room in sheets, flying quickly to its destination. Had anyone else been inside the city of Narciss, they would have witnessed dust being pulled from the cracks of every door leading to every room—from every hole and from every nook.

The dust continued to make its way to the iron block, until finally there was a large pile of powdery white dust that covered the skull and most of the throne itself. When there was enough material to begin, the dust began swirling around the skull. It scrubbed against the skull violently, first removing the outer
protection
provided by the three kingdoms centuries early. Then it began to dissolve the skull itself. As it did this, the skull was turned to dust that simply joined the rest.

It continued swirling around as a whirlwind might, reaching ever greater heights as it did. The inflock stood fascinated as the body began to emerge, first with the king’s feet, then legs. The dust worked its swirling dark magic until the king’s entire body was put into shape.

The dust cloud was much lighter now, but it continued to swirl around the king, adding the finishing touches, until the inflock clearly saw the ruler of Skite—Menagraff.

He stood tall upon the iron throne, nearly nine feet in height. Although he was naked, his skin was coarse like hide and was colored a shade of red so dark that, in the light of the room, it appeared nearly black. The skin was also lightly covered in places with small deposits of iron that had bubbled from the skin before hardening.

The king’s arms were large with muscle, and while he had five fingers on each hand, they appeared slightly webbed together.

The head of the newly formed king was large and smooth compared to the rest of his body. There was neither hair nor ears—only a smooth scalp that curved back into the single large horn that protruded from the back of his head.

The horn began at the top of his head and curled down toward the center of his back. Just before it reached his lower back, though, it split into two separate horns that spiraled outward.

It was the eyes, though, that the inflock was drawn to. There was only dark red in the eye sockets of the king. It was the blood of the king, the inflock had no doubt, and the swirling red eyes now turned down to look on him.

“Greetings, Prince Mornned—you have done well, my son,” Menagraff said.

He had a very deep and scratchy voice that seemed to contain absolutely no echo. The voice fell down to Mornned, and to him it felt
heavy
.  The prince fell to his knees at once.

“Thank you, my king,” Mornned said. “What service will you have of me now?”

“You will return now to your possession of the mountain. Join your brethren princes and I will reward you with bodies of your own, with kingdoms to govern once they are won—and they
will
be won,” Menagraff replied. “You and your brothers will be named Lords of Bore, Tongar, and Forris under my rule. At long last, all four of the kingdoms of Mantle will suffer under my hand. ”

“Thank you, Father, I am forever in your service and will return to the mountain.”

With that, Prince Mornned took one final look through Balki Touro’s eyes. The room, now free of all dust, appeared completely clean.

After a moment, he laid Balki’s body against the stone floor. A moment later, he was free of Balki and had taken joint possession of the mountain, alongside his brothers. Balki Touro’s body, which had been kept by evil without food or water, now took its appropriate form. It shriveled to brittle bones that lay on the floor of Menagraff’s throne room. He would not move the remains, for they mattered not.