The Swordmage Trilogy: Volume 02 - The Darkest Hour (7 page)

“Well,” Harold began, running a hand over his wrinkled scalp. “There are eleven libraries in Ethergate.”

             
“How much further?” Xenir growled. “I’m about to roast alive.”

             
Zarfensis could appreciate the Warleader’s sentiment. The heat was stifling and as they descended deep into the tunnels under the Warrens, it had grown exponentially more cumbersome. His metal leg was now too hot to comfortably touch and their thick fur was suffocating them slowly.

             
“Not much further,” Zarfensis grunted. “Relish the heat, brother. Soon enough you’ll long for it.”

             
The Warleader grunted something non-committal and followed the High Priest deeper into the twisting tunnel. Zarfensis kept quiet. It was better if the Warleader stayed ignorant of the true nature of their destination until he had to experience it for himself.

             
Zarfensis was well aware of what awaited them below. He remembered, in vivid detail, the long hours that he had spent descending through the twists and turns at the heel of his grand-sire. The elder High Priest had ensured that his kin knew where to find the Deep Oracle. It was the duty of the High Priest to maintain the rituals that kept the thing bound to its ancient prison.

             
It had also been his grand-sire who had taught him of the thing’s craving for runedust and the information that could be gleaned from the Oracle by making the merest offering of the magically-imbued powder. He had watched on in tandem awe and horror as his elder made an offering to the creature and then asked it about Zarfensis’s deepest, most hidden secret.

             
Just a whelp then, Zarfensis hadn’t had more of a secret than some playful experimentation with a bitch several years his elder, of which he was more prideful than ashamed. It was the ease with which the Deep Oracle laid out his transgressions, in all their torrid detail, as if it had been present during the acts themselves. That was what had sent a shiver of terror up his spine and forced his tail between his legs. His grand-sire had scolded him then, berating him for showing weakness to an inferior. Zarfensis often thought, even now, that the scolding he received was more bravado than anything else. The Deep Oracle was anything but inferior. It was a power not to be trifled with and Zarfensis had vowed then and there not to repeat the mistakes of those who had come before him.

             
“Mind your head,” Zarfensis said, ducking into a low fissure in the rock. This tunnel was shorter than any they had encountered so far and the High Priest knew they were nearing the end of their travel. It took them quite a long time to reach the end, where another crack in the rock let them out into a small circular cavern.

             
Zarfensis dropped lightly to the floor of the subterranean chamber, taking most of the impact on his new leg. The novelty hadn’t yet worn off and he was wondering if it ever would. He turned to see the Warleader drop to the floor behind him and heard the sudden intake of breath.

             
“It’s cold!” Xenir’s exclamation was accompanied by a puff of condensation from his breath. The High Priest nodded. The difference in temperature between the room and the tunnel beyond was staggering. It was easily as cold here as in the northern reaches of the Frozen Frontier.

             
“I told you that you’d soon relish the heat.” Zarfensis motioned to a simple shaft of rock in the center of the chamber where a pale green light bobbed to and fro. Its light flickered dimly, throwing shadows upon the wall that weren’t, Zarfensis realized with a shudder, the shadows of anything that existed in the room.

             
Xenir growled, his claws slipping from their sheaths. Zarfensis turned toward the pillar and saw that the light had vanished. It was replaced by the translucent form of a human female whose shape and endowments would be the envy of many vermin. The High Priest felt a wave of rutting passion wash over him and he struggled to fight against the powerful magic being used against him. The Warleader’s aspect had entirely changed. Gone was any pretense of threat, he bounded toward the image as he would toward a bitch in heat.

             
As Xenir reached the illusion, there was a blinding flash of light and a howl of pain. His vision was a mass of purple, but Zarfensis heard the heavy thud of Xenir’s body hitting the wall beside him. Closing his eyes, Zarfensis slipped into the Quintessential Sphere. In that magical realm, just beyond the physical world, he could see clearly. He saw the pillar and the writhing mass of blackness there, the Deep Oracle’s true form exposed. Black tendrils shot forward, a thousand snakes intent on devouring his very essence.

             
With an extended claw, Zarfensis traced runes in the air, speaking the ancient words of power. Words so old that their true meanings had been forgotten. Words that, nonetheless, shackled the Oracle to its pillar as surely as the heaviest chain. The tendrils receded with a roar of frustration that the High Priest felt in his bones. He heard a groan, as if across a great distance, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Xenir was still alive then. Zarfensis was as concerned for his friend, but more worried about what the Oracle could, or would, do with the power of a life forcefully taken.

             
Withdrawing from the sphere, he knelt and felt for the pulse at Xenir’s throat. It was there, strong and steady. The Warleader seemed no worse for his ill-advised adventure.

             
“
Speak
,” the voice came not in sound, but within his head. It was thick and sultry and oozed a sensuality not to be denied. “
Speak your desires so that we may bargain and my need be fulfilled.
”

             
Zarfensis struggled against the physical urges that were surging through him. He opened his belt pouch and withdrew a vial of faintly glowing runedust.

             
“This is what will sate your needs, Oracle.” Zarfensis waved the vial. “You will not sate yourself on the urges of the flesh.”

             
“
You may not be willing...but the other...
”

             
Zarfensis waved at the still unconscious form of the Warleader. “The other is outside your control. You will bargain with me, or bargain not at all.”

             
There was another rumbling roar and Zarfensis focused all his thoughts on the idea of slipping the vial back into his pouch and returning to the Warrens. The rutting urges vanished as quickly as they had appeared and were replaced with the intense feeling of a whelp’s sulking.

             
“
I will bargain with you,
” the Oracle agreed sullenly. “
Or not at all.
”

             
Zarfensis unstopped the vial of runedust and poured some of the fine crystals into his palm. Stepping toward the pillar, but being careful to keep a safe distance, he puffed and blew a cloud of the crystals toward the Oracle. The powder was consumed in a shower of sparks and the Oracle’s orb glowed a bit brighter.

             
The sound of claws on rock from behind him alerted Zarfensis that Xenir had regained consciousness. The High Priest turned and watched as the Warleader slowly got to his feet, shaking his head. His eyes met Zarfensis’s and then slid away. The embarrassment would serve him well, Zarfensis thought. He’d be more on his guard next time. If there was a next time.

             
“
More!
” the Oracle demanded imperiously.

             
“Tell me what I wish to know,” Zarfensis countered, twisting the vial between his fingers. “Then you shall have the rest.”

             
“
We need it
,” the Oracle whined. “
Please!
”

             
“Tell me what I wish to know,” the High Priest demanded, reinforcing his words with the mental image of the vial of runedust shattered on the floor beyond the Oracle’s reach.

             
In the pause that followed, Zarfensis idly considered abandoning this foolhardy meeting and returning to the Warrens. Surely he and Xenir were resourceful enough to find the relic on their own.

             
“
The relic you seek sleeps far to the north, buried in the ice of ages past,
” the Oracle’s voice was strong and clear. “
It lies within your grasp if you can find it and wake it, but beware, the Chosen are not the only suitors the relic seeks. There are others, climbing, sneaking, and burrowing through forgotten tunnels to find that which you seek.
”

             
“The vermin?” Zarfensis asked, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a feral snarl.

             
“
Among others,
” the Oracle laughed. “
More, now!
”

             
Zarfensis poured the remainder of the runedust into his palm and blew it toward the pillar. In a fluid motion, he had jumped to the lip of the tunnel, beckoning for Xenir to follow. They navigated the tunnel as quickly as the low ceiling would allow, finally emerging at the junction that had seemed unbearably hot not long before.

             
“My vision--” Xenir began.

             
“The relic exists, but we must hurry. There are others who seek its power as well.”

             
“How do we proceed?”

             
“We take back control of the council. We lead the Chosen to victory and exterminate the vermin, once and for all.”

             
Taking strength from the confirmation of Xenir’s vision, they started the long trip back toward the Warrens to put their plans in motion.

* * *

              Tiadaria sat at a worn table in the common room of the Elvish Harlot. On the table in front of her a tankard of cider sat, barely touched. The search for Faxon’s apprentice had not gone well.

She had spent the morning searching library after library. It wasn’t until she had been turned out of the fourth library that she realized how many
quints there were in Ethergate. She was realizing with no small sense of chagrin that there was probably a good reason that Faxon had wanted to accompany her. Most of the people she had talked to here were far too involved in their own affairs to give much concern to the apprentice of another Master, especially one from Blackbeach. That was the other thing she found odd, the seemingly high amount of animosity that existed between the quintessentialists here and those outside the capital.

She had thought they were all the part of a sing
le order. She had been disabused of that belief after listening to an extended tirade on the Orders and the finer (and less fine) points of each one. Afterward, Tiadaria had realized that looking for Faxon’s apprentice in Ethergate was similar to looking for a needle in a stack of other needles. After her most recent failure, she had returned to the inn for a friendly face and a few minutes to nurse her wounds.

Harold was behind the bar, polishing the wood with a tattered rag. His hands were so gnarled with age that by the time he had finished rubbing down the counter, he’d need to start over at the other end. Tia wondered how many years he had spent trudging up and down the floor between the bar and the drink cabinet and how long he had used the rag that he now brandished like a badge of honor.

Tia took a sip of the cider and tried to coax a useable idea out of the tumble of her thoughts. She had spent so much time in various libraries this morning that she thought she’d scream if she saw another book. Still, there were seven more libraries she had to explore and probably get thrown out of. Faxon’s apprentice had to be here somewhere and she’d find him even if she ended up being an old lady before she did it.

That thought hit her so forcefully that she dropped the tankard back to the table with a thunk. She stood and quickly walked to the bar, surprising Harold as he worked on his eternal polishing.

“How can I help you, Lady Tia? More cider?”

“No thank you,” she said quickly. “If you don’t mind my asking, how long have you lived in Ethergate, Harold?”

The old man smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Why, my whole life, Lady Tia. Born and raised. Why?”

“Can you tell me which library is the oldest?”

“Oh certainly,” he leaned out over the bar, stabbing a finger southward beyond the inn. “Take the south road to the center of the city. The oldest library is under the Reliquary.”

“Thank you!” Tiadaria took a garnet from her pocket and pushed it across the counter at the startled gentleman, leaving him to stare after her as she all but ran from the common room.

Though it was just after midday outside, it might as well have been midnight in the reliquary. The squat stone building had no windows and was illuminated by magic lanterns hung from pegs around the long, wide room full of shelves. After being stopped by the guards outside the door, she had assured them that she was vouched for by the King of the Imperium and showed them her writ as proof. Once inside, they had directed her to a quintessentialist so old that he made Jotun look young and sprightly.