The Eight Walls of Rogar: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Series! (The Lost Kingdoms of Laotswend Trilogy--Book One) (36 page)

The Keyhole

When they rounded the next corner, Gaven’s hand shot up.

“Not another skeleton I hope?” Andaris asked.

Rather than answering, Gaven turned to the side to let him see for himself.

Andaris held up his scale.  Thick, dust covered drapes covered the walls of this hall, interrupted every few feet or so by low wooden benches.  Above every other bench hung an oval mirror in a golden frame.  The benches without mirrors had oil paintings above them, what they could only assume were portraits of deceased members of the royal family—proud eyes gazing across the centuries, so bold and fearless, as if they believed they would live forever. 

Andaris found the visual effect created by there being a mirror opposite every portrait somewhat disconcerting. 
What vanity,
he thought,
to spend eternity staring at yourself.

“There’s no dust on the mirrors…or paintings,” Gaven pointed out, “but the drapes are covered.”

“I noticed,” Andaris replied.  “And there still aren’t any doors.  The other halls I can understand.  They weren’t finished, but this….  He shook his head.  “Why’s it all here?  Is it a memorial to the men and women in the paintings, and if so, in recognition of what?”

“Who knows,” Gaven said.  “At least we seem to be heading in the right direction.  There’s probably some rooms farther down.  Come on.  Let’s go find out.”

The light of their scales cast shadows before and behind as they walked, lending motion to that which was still.  The painted eyes followed them from both sides.  Gaven quickened his step.  Andaris matched his pace—until, that is, the light touched upon the seventh portrait in line, causing him to gasp and come to a stop.

Gaven turned around.  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

Andaris pointed to the painting, too startled to speak.  It was a portrait of a young man wearing a flowing burgundy robe, standing atop a hill, overlooking a vast expanse of desert.  His features were slender, even elegant, but it was his expression that had made Andaris stop.  It was arrogant to the extreme, and his eyes….  They were cruel, pitiless, and most of all, insane, taking in all that he saw with a kind of feverish hunger that was disturbing, especially on the smooth, unlined face of one so young.

Andaris resisted the urge to look into the painting’s mirror, fearing, for some reason, that the expression would be different.  He could feel the man in the mirror staring at his back.  In his mind’s eye, he was smiling.

“Just keep moving,” Gaven said in a whisper.  “I don’t think he…
likes
us looking at him.”

Andaris nodded and forced himself to face forward.  Breaking eye contact with the painting was surprisingly difficult, and now the urge to glance at the mirror was almost overwhelming.  Andaris felt sweat pop out on his forehead.  He could see the man in the mirror, there in his periphery, smiling at him without mirth, those insane eyes peering straight into his soul.  If he made eye contact with him, somehow he knew it would be impossible to break away.

Gaven crept forward, trying not to vibrate the strands of the web, a burglar moving furtively in the night to avoid waking the master of the house.  Andaris followed, legs lead cylinders, leaving the painting to be reclaimed by the darkness from which it had sprung.

Was it possible the man had really seen them?  Had, in fact, committed their faces to memory with some sinister purpose in mind? 
It’s just a painting,
Andaris told himself. 
Don’t be foolish.
And yet…he’d sensed…
something.
  Hadn’t he?  There’d been a presence behind those eyes.  Hadn’t there?  Something evil and full of hate?

Soon the frames began to appear without mirror or canvas, with nothing more than a name marked in the center of where they hung.  It was a great relief to have a break from all those staring eyes.  A relief, however, that was tempered by the apparent endless length of the hall—which just went on and on without interruption.

Within the hour, Gaven halted and turned around.  “Seems like we should have come to an intersection by now,” he told Andaris.

“Yeah.  It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Deciding to take a break, they sat cross-legged on the floor, and each had a strip of jerky and a sip of water, conserving the bulk of their rations for
just in case.
  Andaris hoped he didn’t come to regret letting Del gobble up so many of his apricots.  They kept the conversation light, talking about their sore muscles, their rumbling stomachs, about anything but the elephant in the room—the man in the painting.

A few minutes after they started walking again, Gaven pointed and said, “Look there!” giving Andaris a start.  “To the right.  Do you see it?  It’s covered in dust…and has no handle, but it’s there.”

“A door!” Andaris exclaimed, as though beholding something miraculous.

When they were close enough, the big man reached out with his right hand and wiped some of the dust off the door.  “It’s stone,” he said with a cough.  “And there are symbols carved into it.”

“Can you read them?” Andaris asked.

Gaven grimaced at the markings.  “I’m not certain,” he answered, “but those might be magical letters, runes of power.  They’re different from the ones I saw Ashel studying, but the same, too.  I can’t explain it.”  A moment later, his fingers brushed over a small, hourglass-shaped symbol on the right side of the door.  “What’s this I wonder?  Could it be…why yes, it is.  It’s a keyhole.”  Gaven leaned down, put his eye to the hole, and peered through.  “It’s an old bedroom,” he announced.  “There’s a four-posted bed with tattered curtains around it, a double wardrobe, a chest, and a door on the far wall.  Looks like it used to be a little girl’s room.  There’s a mirror and a table with a hairbrush on it, and a doll wearing a…yellow dress.  At least I think it’s yellow.  It’s hard to tell with all the dust.”

Andaris tapped Gaven’s shoulder.  “Let me see,” he said.

Gaven moved out the way.

Andaris kneeled and pressed his eye to the hole.

Gaven chuckled, for the expression of wonder on Andaris’ face reminded him of an eager child about to have his first look into a kaleidoscope.

But then Andaris’ brow furrowed, his mouth turned down, and he pulled back.

“What’s wrong?” Gaven asked.

Instead of answering, Andaris squinted back into the hole, confirmed what he had seen, or rather had not seen, and turned to face his friend.  “Why would you lie?” he demanded, glaring up at him.

“What are you talking about?” Gaven asked.

“You know very well what I’m talking about!” snapped Andaris.  “There’s nothing there...only darkness.”

Gaven just stared at him, dumbfounded.

Andaris stood and said, “Come on, Gaven, it’s a mean joke.  Why tell me there’s a bedroom, get my hopes up, when there’s not.”

Gaven shook his head.  “But there is a bedroom,” he insisted, leaning back down and looking through.  “I don’t under….” He jerked away as though burned.  “Andaris,” he said, voice thick with shock, “look through the hole, quickly.”

Andaris opened his mouth to argue, saw that Gaven’s face had gone pale, then kneeled down and peered through.

“Do you see a field with an oak tree?” Gaven asked.

Andaris turned his head and stared at his friend, seeing his own astonishment mirrored back to him.

“Yes,” he murmured.  “What’s happening?”

The Lost One

Elkar remembered enough about what had happened to him to know that he should have never woken again.  It went against all things natural.  The phenomenal strain of using the staff twice in one day should have been more than enough to end his life.  And yet here he lay, wrist and ankles bound to a table, left hand strapped to Minorian.

I brought you back,
said a crackly voice in his mind,
so that you could help me finish what I began.

Elkar could not see who was speaking to him.  The lighting in the room was too dim, but he did not need to see—he
knew.
  The voice belonged to the Lost One, a foul beast that had once been a man, a beast that had sustained itself with its dark arts for hundreds of years, committing unspeakable atrocities against any who opposed it.  Elkar could feel the malevolent power permeating the air, its ancient evil like a boil against his soul, festering and black, making him gag.

I will not serve you,
he thought, swallowing the bile in his throat. 
I will not betray them! 
The room filled with cackling laughter, surrounding him, mocking him from all sides.

Funny, that’s the very thing Fenton Albigard told me.  But in the end, he broke quite easily.  The simple-minded fool didn’t even know he was under my control until it was too late.

Elkar strained against his bonds.  “Fenton is an old man,” he said.  “I am not!”

Was an old man,
the Lost One corrected.
  I’m afraid the strain of captivity was too much on poor Mr. Albigard
.

“You will be held accountable,” Elkar growled.  “I will—”

You will what?
he interrupted, sounding amused. 
You cannot even move or speak unless I allow it.  I alone animate your lifeless body.  I alone move your strings.  And your soul, Elkar, your soul I hold in my hand.  All I need do is close my fingers and….

Elkar went limp.  His head dropped to his chest and, his soul, like a tapestry torn asunder, was drawn from his body. 
What sweet ecstasy,
he thought as he drifted towards the ceiling, towards freedom. 
What release.
  But just before he was away, some invisible force caught him and held him in place.

I can return you just as easily,
the Lost One cooed.

Elkar felt the invisible bonds tighten and, with a violent jerk, was back in his body.  He raised his head, trying desperately to summon his magic.  He could feel that it was still there.  It was merely blocked, held just beyond his reach.  As he struggled, a figure emerged from the shadows and walked slowly towards him.

The Lost One wore a fine burgundy robe draped loosely over his ravaged frame.  “The only magic you will be doing,” he said aloud, voice as brittle as crumbling parchment, “will be for me.”  The skin of his face, which had both the tint and texture of cured meat, stretched tight as his jaw worked, looking ready to split open at any moment.

His teeth, in stark contrast, were strikingly white, polished to a high luster.  The effect was unsettling, to say the least.  But Elkar knew, regardless of how brightly they gleamed, that they were only a facade masking the corruption within, for the Lost One’s breath reeked of decay, wafting from the back of his throat as though he’d been dead for a week.

Elkar had once found the bloated remains of a man who’d had the misfortune of getting lost in the desert.  His bladder and bowels had released the moment he’d died, saturating, along with the other fluids that had seeped from his skin, every inch of his expensive cloak.  Vultures had plucked out his eyes and dug large chunks of meat from his corpse.  By the time Elkar had found him, those holes had turned into maggot-filled lesions, each a pus-ridden pocket of disease.  The smell that had come from those lesions had been, until now, the rankest stench he had ever encountered, the sort of stench that can only be purified with fire.

Elkar cringed as a black-shelled beetle with a red design on its back crawled from the Lost One’s mouth, scurried across the top of his lip, and disappeared into his right nostril.  The Lost One raised his arm and gestured with a skeletal finger to the wall.  “Behold,” he hissed.  The spot at which he pointed began to swirl together.  A moment later, from the center of the vortex, Rogar castle appeared.

At first, Elkar was shown a bird’s eye view of things—charred, dismembered bodies strewn amidst the destruction atop and between the walls, the shapeling’s unfaltering advance against the still formidable backdrop of the castle.  Ironshield, the king, and a few thousand others were fighting desperately to hold the line. 
Has it come to this?
he thought.  The Lost One zoomed in on Laris’ face.  Elkar could see the stoic resolve in the king’s eyes, his unwillingness to yield no matter what the outcome.

“You see how close my beloved servants are to victory?” the Lost One asked.  “You might as well give yourself over to me.  The battle is already won.  I admit that King Laris and his legendary
Alderi Shune
have held on longer than I expected…but really, after waiting and planning for more than two centuries, what difference does a few days make?”

Staring at the hopeless exchange, Elkar felt a deep despair welling up within him. 
I should be there,
he thought,
to die with them
.

“You will pledge allegiance to me, my pet.  Body, mind, and soul.”

“I will not!” Elkar yelled.  “You cannot force me!”

“At one time that might have been true, but not now.  You are not what you were two hundred years ago, and while you have diminished, I have grown strong!”

Elkar shuddered as the Lost One, slimy and black, pushed deeper into his mind.  He fought him with everything he had, but soon the throbbing between his temples became more than he could stand and, slowly, haltingly, his lips began to move without his leave.

“I swear…my allegiance…to you,” he said, “body, mi…mind, and…and soul.”

“Now you understand?” the Lost One croaked.  “Exertion is wasted.  Why not surrender and end your misery.”

Elkar was horrified how quickly he had succumbed.  He was helpless to do anything but lay there, breath rattling from his chest, body shivering with fever, as if all the warmth had been sucked from his bones, leaving him hollow inside.

Again, the Lost One laughed, a harsh cackling full of contempt, making him feel weak and small, filling his mind with images of defeat—an old woman drawing her last breath beneath the cruel gaze of a great horned beast, a stillborn child being delivered to a girl who had no legs and only one deformed arm, plague victims covered with boils glibly walking into a sea of lava.  Famine, pestilence, war, it was all there, thrust into his mind like a barbed sword.  Elkar knew the spell being cast was designed to emotionally disarm its victim.  This knowledge, however, did not aid him.  He felt powerless to resist.  He was so tired.  More tired than he’d ever been.  A worn out fool who couldn’t even guard his own thoughts.  Rogar needed their wizard now more than ever, and he could do nothing.  How could he help them, if he could not even help himself?

No,
he thought with sudden rage.
I will not submit!  I will not allow this to happen!
  “I am Elkar Linderen!” he announced in a booming voice.  “Guardian of the Seven Laws of Criciless!  Keeper of the Holy Amulet of Kolera!  Protector of the light!  In the name of our lord and savior, Rodan, I cast you from my mind into the yawning abyss!  Out demon!  I command thee!  Out!”  Tears streamed down his cheeks as a searing agony, like hot needles, stabbed his eyes.  “Out!” he cried.  “Oouut!”  His face became livid as he struggled against his restraints.  His throat swelled shut.  And then suddenly, like breaking through an invisible wall, the pain vanished and he could once again breathe.

“My, my,” his captor praised with a sneer, “that
was
impressive.  You have more strength left than I gave you credit for.  Your focus is rare, indeed, but it will avail you not.”  He frowned.  “Hmm.  What a shame.  If only you had accepted my offer all those years ago, just think what we could have accomplished.  Oh well, it’s too late now, isn’t it?  You had your chance.  You made your decision.  Though don’t be surprised if you come to regret it; that is, if you don’t already.”

Elkar was too spent to do anything more than glare at him.  He had done all that he could, and it hadn’t been nearly enough.  He had forced the Lost One momentarily out of his mind.  That was all.  He was just as much a prisoner now as before. 
What will become of us?
he wondered, glancing back to the image on the wall.  The king and the Alderi Shune fought on even though they knew it was hopeless.  If the Lost One was showing him this to break his spirit, he had miscalculated.  Elkar’s chest swelled with pride.  If his countrymen could stand tall in the face of certain annihilation—then so could he.

“Sorry to disappoint,” the Lost One said, “but you will not be allowed a noble death like your brethren there.  No indeed, your fate will be quite different from theirs…yet irrevocably linked, as is my own.”  He smiled, looking very pleased with himself, as though he’d said something clever.  A beetle broke through the skin on his left cheek and crawled around to the back of his neck.  His smile broadened as he casually, almost unconsciously, caught the beetle between his thumb and forefinger and popped it into his mouth.  “I plan to keep you alive for a very long time,” he said as he chewed it up.  “Every few hundred years or so, I will put your parasitic soul into a new shapeling host.”

Elkar averted his eyes, trying to hide his alarm.  Death was one thing, but this…. 

“Oh, don’t look so glum,” the Lost One said.  “Here, I have something for you, a present to cheer you.”  With trembling glee, he opened his mouth, hocked up a glob of black snot, and spat it onto Elkar’s face.

Elkar could feel something crawling through the muck, but was powerless to wipe it off, powerless to do anything.  He tried not to think about what it might be.  What if one of those beetles crawled inside of him and laid its eggs?  What then?

“It’s quite an honor, really,” the Lost One continued.  “You see, Elkar, you are to be my greatest general, leading my shapelings against your own kind until there is not one of them left.  The irony is delicious, don’t you think?  For even if by some miracle the world survives my beloved shapelings, it will never survive you.”

Elkar felt his body de-animate as the horror of the Lost One’s words began to sink in.  The last thing he heard before slipping under was the sound of cackling laughter.