Izurich
Archetype Zero
Lord Zee
CycloneNanperga’s Tower, Southern Lampertei
”This place smells.”
Idelchis grunted at his companion’s truthful, but less than acute observation. ”Of course it does. Do you forget who lives here?”
“It’s not that.” Gambar lifted a fistful of dry soil from among the tall yellow grass at their feet and held it out to the other Farigai’s nose. ”Feel this? Stinks of old ash. Now, I don’t know how wide the last fire was, but it can’t have reached here.” He pointed to a small, but clearly old and gnarled tree aways from where they were crouching. It was as strange as any of the vegetation here by the coast, with its twisted trunk and fir-like needles instead of leaves, but clearly untouched by flame. ”And it’s been a good spell since. It shouldn’t smell suchlike.”
“It’s what I told you.” Idelchis shrugged as Gambar let the earth run through his fingers and fall back to the ground. ”This is the domain of witch. Nothing is astonishing. Be glad the smell is all there is to it, rather than some swamp of filth and leeches. I have had my fill of abominations in that valley.”
Indeed, the land around them was, in spite of its bleakness and unnaturally lingering stench, far more welcoming than the gloom they had been creeping through as they followed their quarry. Forested vales and mountains had given way to tall, though mildly sloping hills sparsely dotted with patches of short bushy trees among old withered stumps, which had themselves thinned out when they approached the sea. Between the harsh sun-bleached grass that covered the soil in stretches and the light that streamed down from the jarringly clear sky, the southern landscapes were so bright that the Farigai, accustomed to the perpetual darkness of the Rudines and their dungeons, had been squinting and flinching for days on end as they moved from crag to gulch, often taking more care than needed not to be spotted in this glare. If not else, the shrubs and arid thistle brush around the tower made it much simpler to observe and remain unseen.
The edifice itself, overlooking the sea from the edge of a deceptively sloping cliff, looked as though it had been taken by a divine hand and dipped in a lake of pitch. Its lower side had been charred by numberless fires, so deeply that not even the sea-spray could wash it away. Cracks and dents in the stone marked where the sturdy walls had been struck by stones and rams, not great enough to threaten their integrity, but visible from afar in their grim reminder that many had fallen at the foot of the hold.
Still, had they even been larger, they would have been dwarfed by the yet more obvious traces of battle the travellers had been encountering over the last few days. It was small wonder that the only trees they saw were small and stunted, for axe and flame had left their mark on what had once been wooded hillsides. Nothing was left there but scorched ground dotted with a few stumps and younger growths creeping back over lost earth, like ghouls and graverobbers across a battlefield in the night after the slaughter. Not even flies buzzed over the ashen
desolation, nor rats scurried in the sickly undergrowth.
Nor were the blackened walls as eerie as those forsaken places where villages or small towns had been razed to the foundations by marauding armies. Many of them had been abandoned ever since, lying upon the ground as hollow, broken corpses of giants. The Farigai had not seen much of them; they had made wide detours even when Antonia’s party passed near the accursed spots, because they brought bad luck. Only those with a charm from the Soothsayer could approach them safely. Of course, they cared little what would happen to the Queen’s daughter and her retinue beyond ensuring that they reached the tower.
And that they had done to perfection.
From their hiding-place, Gambar and Idelchis could ill make out the features of the people that now moved towards the scarred bastion across the nigh-barren approach, but it could have been none else. The group stopped before the imposing doors that had withstood many a charge, evidently calling for the watchers within to open them, and soon vanished from sight behind the tower’s corner.
Gambar let himself fall backwards from his crouch, landing in a sitting posture upon the hem of his cloak. ”Now we wait?” he asked with a half-heartedly stifled yawn.
Idelchis nodded. ”The Old Man must know what’s to be done. I doubt they will be coming out again soon.”
“Good time to rest, then.” His fellow settled on the cinder-smelling ground in the fashion of a soldier lying down after a march. ”You take the first shift.”
***
Dungeons of Skadan Castle
Dungeons of Skadan Castle
No sound stirred the heavy dark air of the subterraneum, neither filtering down from the surface nor drifting through the chambers themselves. Not even the single brazier at the far end of the room crackled or whistled with its unliving breath, for the unnatural flames of the Lampert King’s domain are voiceless. The silence that smothered the sunken hall could have almost been called sacred, were it not that it lay in the heart that burned brightest with the hatred of what was holy, and that among all the figures that stood assembled there not a single shred of piety could be scraped together.
They were a dozen, perhaps more, dim and indistinct as shadows passing in the night. The scented vapours rising from the flames, though thin, cast a blur over them, hiding their numbers and faces, as did the effluviations of the basin of steaming water they stood around. The one that stood in the centre lifted a bowl over the pristine surface, and the unholy trophies on his person rang out softly as he raised his arms. Thick, dark fluid dripped, then streamed down in a thin sluggish pillar. In the green light of the brazier, it looked like the blood of something not human. And perhaps it was not only the light that made it seem so, but also the concoction that was mingled with it. The same that had been in the skull the king’s youngest Gastald had quaffed from.
The bowl was emptied, and the leader passed it to the man to his right, who caught it in his only hand. Then, the elder’s fingers descended into the basin. They did not dip into the marred liquid, but gently lit upon the surface, touching down upon their tips and sinking no further. With slow, precise motions, he began to trace bloody patterns, never lifting his hands from their work. Round they went, again and again, and as their motions grew more regular, settling into an unbroken cycle, his eyes rose up and stared into the darkness ahead. Though none could glimpse them, they were blank and empty, as those of one who is dreaming.
”I see them,” he spoke. His voice sounded hoary and ancient, yet there was a power in it that held those present in its spell. ”I see the tower and the sea, in her eyes. She walks over ashes. The others are shades around her.
The doors. They open, and she is inside.”
The circle of wraithlike forms stood immobile, barely daring to breathe as they drank in each of his words.
”A courtyard. Stairs. I see decay under their surfaces. She rises. I see it by the windows. A corridor, a door.”
The voice suddenly grew harsh with seething scorn, and sparse teeth grit together.
”I see a woman - it must be her. The witch. She speaks. I do not hear.”
Minutes passed without a word being uttered. The fingers continued to run over the water uninterrupted, their pace hastening and slowing in steady alternations.
”I cannot see her mouth, but I can imagine her words. They will speak of Udos. What will be done there.”
His motions hastened for a few moments, without losing their deftness, then subsided again.
”Now. Now I see better. Much of what they say is useless-”
The fingers slowed perceptibly.
”-but this. As I thought, she urges- Advises. To surrender to the Enemy. Join them in earnest.
Pigskull fool!”
Giselart abruptly tore his hands from the basin, sending blood and water up in small sprays from each finger.
”As if that would change anything.” His voice, no longer suffused with that strange antiquity, had resumed its usual tone. ”But now we know we can count on that. Well, the Enemy Above won’t find us unprepared. Is Dauraulf back yet?”
Ratechi shook his head. ”Not now. He must have a good catch up there to keep us waiting this long.”
”All the better. Although I’d rather not have him take needless risks this one time.” The Soothsayer wiped his hands against his clothing. Behind him, one of the Farigai took a step towards the flame and tossed a handful of something over it. The strange-smelling vapours began to thin and fade, shaking the assembled men from the dreamlike atmosphere that had pervaded the room until then. The gazes of most were still fixed and glassy, though Giselart seemed to have fully awoken from his trance and was as inflamed as ever.
”It wouldn’t do ill to have the witch herself immolated with all that rot she has inside. Not right away, but once the war begins, no one will notice. Make sure we keep her under good watch.” He gestured to one of the figures at his left, who nodded and hurriedly walked out of the chamber. ”Ratechi, I’ll trust that to you. Would I rather be both there and in Udos at once, but we aren’t gods, our fathers be thanked.”
Between a jest and a curse, the final scheme to end all days in flame was afoot.
