Star Mage (Book 5) (8 page)

“Did the man say where he was going?” Nikulo grimaced as an explosion near the docks shot a plume of fire and smoke into the air.

“North, to Ostreva. Though he doubted he could make it that far with a pregnant wife.”

Another child born into a life of misery,
Nikulo thought, and wondered what was the cause of the unrest. “Why are they fighting?”

The bald slave looked at Nikulo as if he were an idiot. “Freedom from the Jiserian Empire. The man said it was the same in Onair and all the other smaller towns and villages south along the coast. Their sorcerers and necromancers are brutal. They kill the people and raise them from the dead to fight against their own family and friends. The man said only a few Jiserians remain here in the city, but they are powerful and cruel and stubbornly resist leaving the city.”

“We’ll see about that
,”
Nikulo told the slave, and grinned at him. “Ready the caravans, I’ll deal with the Jiserians.” He pictured pustules bubbling over on the faces of Jiserian sorcerers and necromancers, and smiled at the idea of spewing poison across their ranks.
 

Soon the caravan lumbered down the hillside and they passed motley groups of fleeing citizens, their clothes dirty and burned, and their faces stained with ash and soot. Several of the refugees tried to warn Nikulo about the dangers ahead, but he just waved them aside and said he was going to kill them all. This earned him more than a few mocking looks and contemptuous chortles. Callith, however, was proud of his bravery and seemed highly inclined to believe that he was capable of dealing with the danger.

“How will you kill them, my lord?” She raised fawning eyes to him in admiration and expectation.

“Not with a sword or dagger, though I’ve been trained in many weapons. I’ll fight magic with magic, and from what I can see, those Jiserians are primarily using fire magic and their necromantic arts. They’ll be unable to deal with my poisons.”

The look of curious confusion came over her face. “Poison? Though you said you won’t be using a dagger.”

Nikulo grinned and flourished his fingers, and the girl nodded in understanding. “Dark arts for dark times. We can’t have the city in turmoil, my little lark. Wouldn’t want you in danger.”

Callith blossomed and blushed under the pet name he’d given her after their first night together when her voice had reached a melodic fury that stirred the slaves awake. “My lord is most thoughtful for my plight. Will you be wearing armor or wielding a shield?”

She raised a good point. Depending on the number of enemy sorcerers to deal with, he might have to shield himself in some way against their fire attacks. Normally he had Rikar or Talis at his side, with flame bursting or wind gusting aside the enemy attacks. He was alone here and for a long moment he wondered where Talis and Rikar were and wished they were here to help him.
Even the traitor Rikar?
he asked himself, and nodded in response, believing his old friend and sparring companion tainted by the ring from the Underworld.
More than that, the twisting of hatred and bitterness and denial warps the mind of Rikar.
Nikulo missed him all the same.

A surge of familiar pain struck along his temples and his body seized up in response. “Leave me alone!” he screamed, surprised at his own outburst. Callith wilted away at his rage, hurt and uncertainty on her lovely face.

“What’s wrong?” she said, and he silenced her with a raised palm. He squeezed his eyes shut and the pain burgeoned to terrific heights as the words flowed into his mind.
 

“Leave the city tonight for Carvina… There is a ship named the Fair Winds. Her captain will accept your bribe to board tonight after twilight falls. If you fail in this task, the pain will doubly return and madness will certainly follow.”
Nikulo seethed in fury at the words, spoken in a new, clear voice this time, stronger and closer than the voices he’d heard in Naru.

He exhaled in relief as the pain subsided and once again his mind was free of intrusive voices. The caravan wagon shook and swayed as it crossed a cobblestone bridge into Ursula. Scanning the fleeing citizens, he knew he had to do something to help them. Did it really matter if he died? Perhaps the pain of death was far less than the agony dealt to his mind by the Naemarians. And wouldn’t Talis make a prayer for him, and perform the Rites of Zagros to ensure his safe passage to the Fair Seas?
If such a place even existed in the land of the Underworld.
Perhaps it was all just a lie.
 

“Was it the pain again?” Callith said, her soft hands landing on his shoulders.

“I will kill them all, the enemies of the Ursulan people and the ones that might harm you.” He was amazed at the certainty and violence in his voice. “I will make you the savior of the city, and they will worship you as a goddess and protector of their citizens.”
 

He paused and studied her bright eyes, wishing he didn’t have to hurt her by leaving for Carvina.

“But tonight I must leave before twilight, and perhaps never again return.”
 

Rikar loathed the empty darkness and the dread of waiting for the being Lord Aurellia called the Nameless Lord of All. The space between visitations with the enigmatic priests of this tomb had been long and tiresome, and Rikar found his sanity slowly slipping away. Not that he had much to begin with, ever since he’d first bowed down and prayed to Zagros in that dark temple in Naru. Had it been a year? Or perhaps more than a year since his rage at Garen Storm, and his cruel unwillingness to grant Rikar’s father passage to the Fair Seas. It had all driven him mad and caused him to make his vows to the Lord of the Underworld.
Little good that did for father,
Rikar thought, remembering the devious dog-like face of Zagros.

Why had Aurellia commanded him here of all places? To the ruin of an ancient city that legend said once ruled the entire world? Aurellia confirmed this legend and claimed the great city older than Darkov and Urgar, even ten thousand years older than his visitation to the world four thousand years ago. The Dark Lord had explored the planet back then for powerful crystals and relics and magical weapons that might prove useful to his cause. He claimed a dark and hideous fate lured him into the lair of the Nameless, and cursed his life forever. And now Rikar’s life was cursed.

The waiting and the endless chanting of mantras the priests had commanded Rikar to commit to memory chipped away at his saneness. The complex cacophony of chaotic sounds caused his consciousness to plummet into a black void so pure it flooded Rikar’s mind with sadness. The span of each visitation to the void lasted only moments in his awareness, but he returned to wakefulness with an urgent need to relieve himself, knowing that hours must have passed.
 

He had fasted now for countless days and was far beyond the point of hunger pangs. Though the mental clarity that resulted from the fasting helped to keep his mind from crumbling apart. When Rikar had found himself in the middling world of Chandrix, he had fasted for several days at a time, but it was nothing compared to the intensity of this exhausting period of abstinence. He was weak and drained of physical strength. How long would the Nameless make him fast before granting him an audience? A cold, certain dread fell over Rikar and caused his hands to tremble in his lap. Why was he so insane as to desire ever interacting with such a cursed and hideous entity?

But the promise of power and dominion over this world had been clear from Lord Aurellia. His master would rule Vellia and Rikar could claim rulership over Yorek. And with his acceptance by the Nameless, Lord Aurellia had assured Rikar that his master could influence Zagros and assure a place along the Fair Seas for his father. At this point Rikar had given up hope of ever alleviating his father’s torment, especially after witnessing the horrors of the Underworld. But he craved the idea of ruling this world and exacting revenge against Garen Storm…
 

An orb of sickly yellow light appeared far off in the distance and bobbed and danced in its journey over towards Rikar. The implacable eyes of a priest neared, and studied him with a cautious conviction.

“We believe you are ready to meet the master.” The dancing yellow light reflected off the priest’s shaved head and he turned and motioned for him to follow.

Rikar found his heart racing at the priest’s words, and he practiced the prescribed breathing technique to calm himself. But as they snaked through the narrow tunnels and down stone stairs deeper than Rikar had ever been, his pulse pounded erratically and he was unable to eliminate from his mind rash thoughts of escape. He had come here willingly, and the priest claimed that he was free to leave whenever he wanted. Rikar doubted that was true. Leaving would likely mean a painful death.

One thing that had worried his mind over the long days of meditation: the wrathful eyes of the Starwalkers after he had brutally killed one of their quad. He realized he had only been able to succeed against them as their leader was without the fragment that gave him vast quantities of power. In the hands of Nikulo, that power had been fearsome against all in Illumina that day. Would the Starwalkers come and seek revenge against Rikar? He knew they would.

They had gone down eleven flights of stairs, and from his counting on prior days, he had descended a total of twenty-two levels. The priest cast several spells on an iron door with four indecipherable symbols etched in the metal. The magic seemed to remove many warding spells from the locks. From within his robe the priest withdrew a ring of ancient, iron keys and unlocked the four locks that secured the door.

“Enter the prison of the Nameless,” said the priest. “And visit his sanctuary and refuge against the world.” The priest touched the four symbols in a counter-clockwise order, and the door swung open of its own volition.

Rikar didn’t want to go inside the shadowy room. His heart wrenched and his mind screamed for him to flee this place and fight his way to the desert surface. The ring on his finger seemed to pull him away from the room, like a magnet yanking the metal back to the stairs. His feet refused to move. There was something inside so absolutely hideous and malevolent and Rikar was certain that it craved the control over his mind and soul. If the Nameless were imprisoned inside and protected from the world, then his reach to the world was through his followers, spreading the stain of sin throughout the worlds.

No, I won’t do it,
Rikar thought, but he found himself being shoved by massive hands into the room and the iron door slammed shut behind him.

After the tenth and twentieth citizen had scuttled screaming past Nikulo and the caravan, many with burned faces and bleeding wounds, he swore to mete a higher standard of brutality back onto the Jiserians. He encountered a squad of shambling, slobbering undead and wished that he’d asked Talis to teach him the spell of purifying the plague. Most of these undead were days or weeks old, displaying distended bellies and mottled, purple necks, and their shredded skin flapped behind them as they jogged after the shrieking people. A hand raised to his temple caused the squad of undead to stop silent in their tracks.

“I always wanted a flock of rabid pets,” Nikulo said, and chuckled at the frothing, foamy mouths of the undead. Callith didn’t share in his sentiment, and the girl cringed back in the wagon as if it actually offered her any protection. The slaves were less brave, and only Nikulo’s shouts for them to stay and avoid being eaten alive caused them to cower close to the caravan.

Nikulo gained more pets along the way until he’d massed a company of undead soldiers to fight on his behalf. The whitewashed walls of the houses they passed were blackened by fire and signs of combat. The streets themselves were filled with the broken debris of flipped-over carts and slain oxen buzzing with flies and gaping wounds that oozed maggots. They rode past a once thriving food market, a wreckage of wasted fruit, flanks of meat, and ripped and ravaged human bodies; a grim stew festering under the hot sun.