Stones Unbound (The Magestone Chronicles Book 1) (5 page)

“Where’s my money Brows?” he demanded.

“And the quafa'shilaar - the magestones,” Celia added with a
squeak, as she stepped behind Hoyle.

“And the magestones?” he continued smoothly.

“What will you need with any of that, since you’ll be dead
in a minute anyway?” taunted Brows with a sneer.  He swung his broadsword in
lazy loops in front of him as he closed the distance. 

“You got this Salrissa?” Hoyle asked, glancing at her out of
the corner of his eye.

“Yes.”

“Hey Brows, I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine.  Please
meet Salrissa, a member of the Sisters Kass,” Hoyle swept his arm toward
Salrissa with a bow and a flourish as she stepped between him and the larger
man with a questioning eyebrow for Hoyle.  She hadn’t known that he knew she
was a former Sister.

Hoyle saw a brief flicker of doubt, or possibly fear, on Brows’
face, as Salrissa pulled out a double-edged knife in each hand and took a relaxed
fighter’s stance in the narrow hallway.  He moved towards the door at the end
of the hallway, pushing Celia in front of him, as the sounds of steel hitting
steel began behind him.  The screaming from below dropped to a lull, and they
could hear the sounds of soldiers moving through the lower floor, and coming up
the first flight of stairs to the second floor below.

Hoyle tried the door, even though he knew it would be locked. 
It was worth a try.
  He dropped to one knee and retrieved his lock picks
from his boot and made short work of the lock.  He could tell without looking
back that Salrissa was easily holding her own, hearing the clangs of weaponry
ebb and flow up and down the narrow hallway behind him.  By Celia’s flinches
and gasps, he could sense when one of the combatants got close to wounding the
other.  Turning the handle, and cracking the door open slightly, he peered into
the scintillating light of the darker room.

Stepping into the room with Celia following close behind,
Hoyle saw a disturbing sight.  At the far end of the dark room, was the pulsing
light, coming from a small altar to Voral.  He could tell there was some sort
of runes drawn in blood around the skull-headed figurine of the god.  A tall,
thin, robed figure rose from his knees and turned.  It was Whisper.  He was
wearing some sort of thin, metal circlet on his brow that held a glowing
magestone.  Runes of glowing blood covered his cheeks and forehead, with the
blood running down over the magestone.

Celia pushed past him, “Where are the rest of the quafa'shilaar?!”
she demanded.

“You are in no position to make demands, silly girl.”
Whisper responded quietly, but fiercely, his gaze on Hoyle.

“Oh, but I am. 
Cravash!
” Celia intoned, pointing her
rigid fingers at the robed man.  Small marbles of light coalesced quickly at
the ends of her fingers and shot towards her target.

Hoyle watched as Whisper countered with a spell of his own,
mouthing the words to the spell quietly.  He waved his hand in an arc in front
of him, which trailed a wide swath of shadow that hung in the air.  The glowing
orbs hit the shadow and vanished – like candles being snuffed out.  Celia stood
with a stunned look on her face, but recovered quickly, beginning to chant the
words to another spell.

Whisper was quicker however, and with a sharp “
Vortu!
”
he fired shadowy spikes from his hands towards Celia.  Noises from the hallway
were getting louder.  Noting that Celia had not completed her own spell yet,
Hoyle stepped in front of Celia, trusting that his luck would hold.  The shadow
spikes hit him, and instantly his firebird earring flared white hot, and pain
shot through his body, wracking his muscles with tightening spasms.  He dropped
to his knees as Celia finished her spell.

A bright light burst in front of the robed warlock, causing
him to flinch back and shout with pain and surprise.  Hoyle dropped to his side
on the floor, his body wracked with pain.  He could not make his muscles respond. 
Apparently, he had found the limits of his earring's magical resistance. 
How
bad would this have been if I wasn’t partially resistant to magic?

“
Cravash!
” Celia intoned again, this time the marbles
hit her target, and Whisper screamed with pain.  Intoning under his breath,
Whisper completed another spell, and stepped backwards into the shadows,
vanishing in the swirling darkness.

Celia dropped to her knees beside Hoyle, who still could not
unlock his muscles, even to speak.  “Let me help you.” 

Hoyle watched from the corner of his eye as Celia stood
suddenly and looked out into the hallway.  Loud noises began coming from the
hallway, and suddenly Salrissa appeared at the door.  “Time to go!” she stated,
looking quickly at Hoyle.  Turning to look over her shoulder she cursed
quietly, understanding dawning on her face.  Looking at him once more, she
declared “I will come for you.”

Salrissa grabbed Celia, pushed her towards the shadowy
corner opposite the one Whisper disappeared into, flipped up her black cloak over
the two of them and vanished into the swirling shadows.

More noises came from the hallway, which included swearing
and cursing that Hoyle recognized as coming from Brows, which suddenly cut
off.  He could hear the sound of something scraping on the floor, and suddenly
a scaazi
Scenter
was coming through the door, the two robed Rak’soraa
closely behind.  The deformed humanoid circled the room, sampling the air with
its six gills, including sniffing along his leg and arm.  If his muscles weren’t
still frozen, Hoyle would have found it hard not to scream.

Two City Guardsmen entered the room.  One came over to
Hoyle, kneeled down and with a sneer said “Good night,” and then hit him across
the jaw with his mailed fist.  That was the last he remembered for a long time.

 “You just left him to that creature!” Celia tried to
scream, but it barely came out as a croak.

“Quiet!” Salrissa whispered at her, looking down the alley
towards the tower they had just been in.  Celia could barely move.  Her muscles
felt like she had been turned inside out and back again.  She was trying to
piece the last few events together in her mind while her body recovered from
whatever Salrissa had done to her.

She remembered the shadowy arrows striking Hoyle as he
stepped in front of her just before her flare spell blinded and disoriented her
opponent.  When Hoyle dropped, her anger flared, and she had cast her magical
orb spell to wound the robed man.  The warlock vanished through the use of some
spell she was unaware of, and with the immediate danger gone, she dropped to
her knees to help Hoyle.

Immediately however, she felt the stirrings of fear, deep
irrational fear.  She stood up and looked into the hall, watching the final
blows between Salrissa and the beefy guard before they backed away from each
other and turned to face the stairs.  Celia could now hear what sounded like
claws scraping on wood coming up the stairs.  Soon a scaazi reached the hallway
landing, followed immediately by the two black-robed and cloaked Rak’soraa with
glowing eyes.

The man Hoyle had named Brows cursed profusely and charged
the scaazi, but one of the Rak’soraa raised one hand and pointed a metal rod at
him.  A flash of light leapt from the end of the rod into Brows' chest dropping
him to the ground unconscious in mid stride.  Celia could hear the clanking of more
guards coming up the stairs behind the trio as Salrissa turned and dashed her
way.

Celia couldn’t move from the fear that was overcoming her.  It
seemed to be coming in waves off the grey-skinned aberration moving towards
them down the hall, its knuckles dragging on the carpeted floor.  The only
other thing Celia could remember was Salrissa grabbing her in a rough embrace, darkness...
then excruciating pain.

She managed to push herself up to her knees, and then to her
feet by grabbing a drainpipe on the side of the building.  Slowly moving up
beside Salrissa at the end of an alley, ironically the same alley that she
confronted Hoyle in earlier this evening, she watched as a huge number of City
Guardsmen swarmed around the Goralonian Merchants’ Guild.  They were bringing
out prisoners, most of them stunned, and throwing them into two caged wagons
like so much cordwood.  Those that weren’t stunned were protesting loudly or
thrashing, but they were beaten until they quieted.

They watched as the Fear Squad left the building, the scaazi
ahead of the two Rak’soraa.  Four soldiers followed them out, two each carrying
an unconscious Brows and Hoyle.  They threw each of them into the separate
wagons, on top of the pile.  One of the soldiers locked the wagons, and the
soldiers began to move out, leaving several behind to secure the building.

“What do we do now?” wondered Celia.

“We retreat,” answered Salrissa without emotion.  Celia
noticed that the other woman was holding her hand to a bleeding slash along her
ribs.  Only because Salrissa hadn’t said anything did Celia hold her tongue.

---o---

The bell at the Temple of Saveesha, the Mother, rang twice
as the two women worked their way back to the Red Rooster Inn through the dark
city.  They seemed to be following the same path that Celia and Hoyle had
followed earlier that evening, though Celia was having significantly more
trouble keeping up with Salrissa, even with the other woman wounded.  She
strode quickly down the streets that Celia was having trouble seeing, and
though her own legs were at least as long as Salrissa's, she kept stumbling
over the cobbles.

“Is it true?” Celia asked.

Salrissa didn’t answer for a time, but just as Celia was
about to ask her question again, Salrissa responded, “Is what true?”

“Are you a Sister?”

A longer pause.  “Was.”

“I thought they were a myth to keep the Empire’s enemies in
line and to scare small children?” Celia stumbled again, and went down to one knee
with a grunt of pain.  She realized how physically drained she was as she stood
and ran to catch up with Salrissa, who had not slowed.

“No.  If only that were true...” Salrissa replied bitterly.

Celia was quiet as she absorbed Salrissa’s tone and her obvious
reluctance to continue with any details, so she changed topics.  “What are we
going to do about Hoyle?”

“
I
am going to rescue him;
you
are going back
to wherever it is you came from,” came the emotionless reply.

“But you will need my help.  There were more than thirty
Guardsmen back there...”

“No, I will not,” Salrissa interrupted.

“...and you’re wounded,” Celia finished anyway.

Celia was frustrated beyond measure.  They had lost her quafa'shilaar,
whatever gold was owed to Hoyle, and now Hoyle himself.  Hoyle’s supposed
friend, or possibly his lover, who was a former Sister of Kass, the Empire’s
mythical secret sect of assassins, was going to rescue him mysteriously without
her help.  She was going to lose the only trail to the quafa'shilaar that she
had.  She grabbed Salrissa’s arm, quietly casting a spell.  “You
will
need my help!” she insisted.

Salrissa grabbed her wrist with her unoccupied hand and
broke her hold easily.  She twisted Celia’s arm violently as she stopped and
spun her against the side of a building.  “No.  I won’t.”  She let Celia go. 
“Go home.”  And with that, Salrissa turned and started down the street,
vanishing into the shadows.

Rubbing her sore shoulder, Celia let her go.  She did not
have to follow her now.  With the tracking spell she cast on the arm piece of
Salrissa’s armor, she would be able to locate her wherever she went.  At least
for a numbers of days until it wore off.  However, with everything that had
happened since this morning, she realized how weary she was.  Looking up and
realizing that she was alone in the dark streets of this unfamiliar city, she
started moving.  Based on the location of the Emperor’s Sky Citadel floating
above the city, and since she knew that it was always centered over Palace
Square, she turned down the next street, beginning the process of finding her
way back to the embassy.

Tripping over another slick cobble in the road, she drew on
the power of her quafa'shilaar, her magestone, once again, and created a
floating ball of light just behind her right shoulder.  Now she could see, but
fortunately or unfortunately, it would announce to any that saw her that she
was Dar'Shilaar.  Hopefully, that would protect her enough to get her safely
home.  Assuming she could find home.

Hoyle awoke slowly, being jostled awake by the motion of the
wagon on the cobblestones.  His jaw ached badly where the soldier had struck
him.  He opened his eyes to a squint, determined not to give away the fact that
he was awake.  He was lying amid several other unconscious bodies in a caged
wagon, hands tied together with coarse rope.  His muscles were stiff due to the
after-effects of the dark magic, bad positioning, and the cold breeze that
still continued unabated.  He checked quickly, moving as little as possible,
but he was not surprised that he was unarmed.  It appeared several others were
awake, sitting up against the bars near the front of the wagon.

It was still dark, and they were just pulling up to a tall,
fortified wall, lit with just a few torches.  Apparently there was another
wagon in front, because he could hear it creak to a stop just ahead.  He heard
a call from down near the front of the first wagon, and a reply from above on
the wall that were both carried away by the breeze.  Hoyle then heard loud
clanging noises, and his wagon lurched forward.  They passed through a gate
tunnel maybe six spans thick, the portcullis still being lifted above them.  Hoyle
could see murder holes, for shooting invaders from above, lining the ceiling. 
As the wagon he was prisoner in passed out from under the gate, he heard the
portcullis drop back into the ground with a thundering boom.  Based on the black
stone of the walls, this must be Parr’ador, the large fortress at the east end
of Tala’ahar. 

The Imperial City was laid out about equally on either side
of the River Aerilynn as it flowed into the bay.  The wall around the city was
anchored on the west side of the bay with the small citadel, Dar’agen; its
large catapults and ballistae capable of hitting ships hundreds of spans into
the bay.  The citadel rested on a high cliff that projected out into the bay,
giving it a strategic advantage that was yet to be tested in war.

The protective wall wrapped around the city proper, running
all the way around to the fortress Parr’ador on the east.  Parr’ador housed the
Imperial Army, the Imperial Shipyards, and the dungeon known as The Depths. 
Parr’ador was a massive collection of high walls, towers, barracks, smithies,
and the main fortress; almost a city unto itself.

The main courtyard of Parr’ador was ablaze with light from
torches spaced at regular intervals set in portable metal stands.  There were
dozens of Imperial Soldiers surrounding the wagons as they stopped.  The soldiers
wore banded mail, and wore swords at their hips on one side.  Some carried crossbows. 
The wagons came to a full stop and the guardsmen unlocked the cage on the first
wagon and began to start sorting prisoners.

“Take him up, he seemed to be one of the leaders,” ordered
what Hoyle assumed must be an officer; referring to someone he couldn’t see
from his position.  “The rest go to The Depths.”  You could hear the capital
letters in his voice.  At this pronouncement there were several shouts, and he
could hear the thrum of several crossbows firing, followed by two screams. 
“Does anyone else want to argue for mercy?” the officer demanded.  It seemed like
a mercy, for rumors implied that no one got free from The Depths.

Finally, the soldiers arrived at Hoyle’s wagon.  By this
time he had determined that there was no benefit to pretending to be asleep.  He
would just get roughed up by the soldiers more than if he moved on his own two
feet.  So, when commanded, he climbed awkwardly out of the wagon as calmly and
quietly as he could manage and moved toward the area directed.  He noticed
several things in the steady torchlight.  The first was that Brows was
separated from the group, guarded by four Imperial soldiers with four guardsmen
to one side looking at them and him furiously.  The Fear Squad stood near the
front of the first wagon, near the oxen.  Apparently draft animals weren’t smart
enough to be afraid of the scaazi.  A large squad of soldiers, possibly as many
as thirty Hoyle estimated, were surrounding the area, guarding the prisoners.  He
noticed two bodies of Goralon soldiers lying a short distance away with
quarrels in their backs, lifeblood slowly spreading along the flag-stoned
courtyard.  Several veklian slaves moved towards the bodies of the dead
soldiers under the watch of a task master holding a whip.

The veklians were waist high, dark skinned humanoids with no
body hair and thick, tough, scaly hide.  Their eyes were all black and they had
a small vestigial tail a handspan long, and recesses for ears.  The Empire had
enslaved the race to do the dirty jobs no one else wanted to do.  The
taskmaster’s whip cracked several times near them as they began to drag the
bodies away.

 Hoyle noticed several dark doorways leading further into
the fortress, and the one large gate tower they entered the courtyard through
blocked by the thick portcullis.

One of the black robed Rak’soraa leaned in to talk to the
officer Hoyle had singled out by his voice, the Rak’soraa’s glowing yellow eyes
focused on him from the depths of his hood.  The officer paled slightly as he
listened, looked at Hoyle and ordered, “Put him with the other one.  He’s going
topside.”

Hoyle rubbed his jaw with his tied hands as he was prodded
towards the group guarding Brows.  “We meet again,” Hoyle quipped to Brows, who
was also unarmed with his hands tied.  A hard smack across the back of his head
nearly knocked him to the ground.

“No talking unless asked a direct question!” brayed one of
the younger City Guards, his voice just out of puberty.  Hoyle looked back at
him with a look of warning, and the young guard stepped back involuntarily
before checking himself.  The guard captain smirked at his subordinate but
stepped forward with a hand on the pommel of his sword.

“Are we going to have any trouble out of you?” the captain
inquired of Hoyle with a glint in his eye, his breath frosting in the air.

“Not tonight,” Hoyle replied.  He noticed several cuts on
Brows face, and a more recent bruise around his left eye as the man glared at
him.  The former were most likely from Salrissa, the latter from these soldiers. 
He bent slightly and rubbed his hands on his legs to try and get circulation
and warmth back into his fingers.  The ropes were very tight.

He watched as the remainder of the prisoners were led to a
sturdy oak door at the side of the courtyard.  They were forced through the
door into darkness, a group of eight city guards escorting them.  Two veklians
followed behind.  The Imperial soldiers watched warily as the remaining guardsmen
surrounded Brows and Hoyle, two carrying full sets of chains.  The ropes were
removed roughly by the guards and replaced by chains linking each hand to each
other, in addition to the chain that was clasped to each ankle.  Hoyle gasped
as the cold steel was clamped around his wrists.  The two of them were able to
move their feet enough to climb stairs awkwardly, but running was completely
out of the question.

Hoyle caught Brows eye, and raised one eyebrow.  Brows just
glared death back at him.  He wondered exactly why Brows was mad at him.  After
all, it wasn't like he had set Brows up to steal something valuable and then
try to kill him. That was why he was mad at Brows after all.  Was he mad about
me setting Salrissa on him.  Or was it because the City Guard descended on the
tower.  But then, Hoyle realized, Brows couldn't know whether he had called the
City Guard or not.  But why would Hoyle have called the guard, he just wanted
his gold, and the city guard would just confiscate it as "evidence". 
Probably already have.  For that matter how had they found them? wondered
Hoyle.  He looked over at the Fear Squad, and saw two sets of glowing eyes
watching him back from the depths of their hoods.  Looking at the scaazi now,
he didn’t feel the same crippling fear that had claimed him in the tower.  Was
that a power they were able to control?

Once their chains were in place, the Imperial soldiers herded
the two of them up the stairs towards a door that led into the back of the fortress
proper, leaving the guardsmen in the courtyard.  The fortress interior was
unadorned stone, with torches lining the hallway, giving off acrid smoke. 
Hoyle saw soldiers and veklian slaves at various tasks as they passed through
the corridors. 

They were ushered through a door at the end of the corridor
into the main hall.  There was a raised platform the officers’ table rested upon,
set above the remaining tables for the men.  They were herded towards a door at
the back.  One of the officers used two different keys on a chain to unlock the
two locks on the door.

Hoyle gasped as they were pushed into the next room.  Even
Brows took in a deep breath of surprise.  The only furnishing in this bare
stone room was a large, golden arch, a span and a half tall, holding five mage
stones the size of Hoyle’s fist, glowing azure, amber, vermillion, garnet and
indigo in the otherwise unlit room. 
A Magegate.
  A magegate that could only
lead one place Hoyle realized – The Emperor’s Sky Citadel.

---o---

Hoyle and Brows were ushered to one side of the room as the Fear
Squad entered behind the contingent of Imperial soldiers.  One of the Rak’soraa
approached the magegate while the other watched the two of them intently with
his unnatural eyes while holding the scaazi’s leash.  The white eyes of the scaazi
seemed to look through him.  Hoyle shuddered involuntarily.

The Rak’soraa facing the magegate uttered a complex web of
syllables in the language of magic and the magestones flared to life.  The Rak’soraa
raised a gloved hand and touched the stones in a series, each magestone flaring
brightly as it was touched.  Hoyle felt something pulling at him, draining his
energy, and tried to brace against it.  Brows grunted next to him, and even some
of the Imperial soldiers seemed to be feeling what he was feeling, several gritting
their teeth.  As the center of the magegate wavered, like a swirling pond
instantly stilling, showing a view of a dark courtyard like through clear
glass, Hoyle felt himself physically drained.

The Fear Squad gathered together and stepped through the
magegate, looking like water rippling around their forms.  Hoyle and Brows were
ushered into the gate roughly, giving no time to comprehend that they were
going to travel hundreds of spans in distance with one step.  Hoyle tried to
brace himself, but felt only as if a quick chill breeze passed over his body as
he stepped down onto the flagstone courtyard of the Imperial Sky Citadel.

---o---

Hoyle looked around him as they found themselves in a small
courtyard, the magegate mounted in a covered alcove behind them, near the wall
of a tall spire-like tower.  They appeared to be near the center of the sky
citadel.  Hoyle could see the lights of towers high above, surrounding the
citadel on all sides, with high walls running between.

They were marched through a small gate in a wall to their
right, finding themselves in a large courtyard facing the main fortress. 
Behind them the curved wall revealed itself to be the base of the central
spire, the tallest tower at the center of the sky citadel.  There appeared to
be no entrance from this courtyard either.  Lights glowed from sconces around
the courtyard with evenness that no torch or candle could match, their light a
cool white, casting shadows without flicker.  It gave the scene an unearthly
quality that ran a chill up Hoyle’s spine.

As they were prodded across the courtyard, he noticed palace
guards on the high walls, some moving, some motionless.  Turning his head
toward the front of the fortress, he could see why the Emperor did not fear to
show them the way to him.  That was assuming they were being taken to the
Emperor in the first place.  There were so many guards, gates and secrets you
would need to know and bypass just to get this far.  And they hadn’t made it
through the doors ahead. 

These doors appeared made of iron, banded in some other shimmering
metal Hoyle could not identify.  Each door had mounted to it a sculpture of a different
monstrous face made of the shimmering metal.  Each face had two eyes that
appeared to be ruby-coloured magestones glowing eerily.  The faces were each
set with a fanged grin.  He would not want to meet the creatures they
represented, if in fact they were real.

Each Rak’soraa moved to one of the faces and placed one
gloved hand inside their mouths.  Hoyle had a suspicion as to what might
happen, but he noticed Brows flinch as the mouths clamped shut on each of the Rak’soraa’
wrists.  He wasn’t close enough to tell, but he was pretty sure the fangs bit
into their wrists.  The ruby eyes flared brightly, and then the doors creaked
and then groaned as they swung open on their hinges.

Inside, the doors opened to a short hall that ended at
another, less ornate set of doors.  Guarding the room was eight palace guards
in their shiny plate and chain mail, blood red cloaks hanging down their backs,
each wearing a sword and hand crossbow.  They all stood at attention, polearms
raised and eyes wary.  They were huge.  Hoyle was not short, but these guards
dwarfed even Brows by a handspan or two.  The closest one had muscular arms as
thick as Hoyle’s legs.  As the group moved forward, the guards stepped aside,
opening the interior doors.

Prodded from behind, they were ushered forward, immediately
behind the Rak’soraa.  Hoyle glanced at Brows from the corner of his eye, and
saw the fury there, barely restrained.  He wasn’t sure if the larger man would
try anything stupid, but he could tell that he wanted to.  They were led into a
vast chamber that dwarfed anything Hoyle had ever been in.  Arched stone
columns and ribs soared overhead to meet at the roof at least ten spans high. 
A balcony ran down both sides of the room about a third of the way up.  Large
fireplaces along the walls battled with the sconces throwing light around the
room, but won the battle in removing the chill from the air.  There was no
furniture in the room aside from the throne on the dais at the far end of the
room.  Many doors and doorways entered the room, each guarded by two palace
guards.  Hoyle made a mental note,
ten entrances – twenty guards
. 
Tapestries of many varied scenes covered the stone walls between the
fireplaces.