100. What Lurks Beneath
Chapter 100
What Lurks Beneath
26 th Day of the Blood Moon
Berona – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Rist darted about the room he and Neera had taken in the barracks, stuffing everything he could into his satchel and strapping his sword to his hip.
“Rist, slow down.” Neera grabbed Rist’s shoulders. “Talk to me. What is going on?”
“I need to leave,” Rist answered. “And I’d like you to come with me. You don’t have to, but I want you to.”
“Stop, Rist. Breathe.” Neera drew a slow breath in through her nostrils, exhaling at the same rate, gesturing for Rist to do the same. “The first thing we need to discuss is why you’re only packing books and shoes.”
“It’s all I need.”
“Food?”
“I can find some. Neera, we don’t have time.”
“Rist—”
“They took my parents, Neera.”
“Who did?”
“Fane… or Garramon, or someone… Someone took them and tortured them and pretended that they were all right to keep me here. You… you saw what happened in that mountain. You saw the Draleid, saw Calen. I don’t have all the pieces, but I can see it now… I’ve always seen it a little bit, but…”
“Rist, pieces of what? You need to slow down. I don’t understand.”
Rist remained quiet for a moment. His dad had always said that silence was the quickest way to get someone’s attention. He laid the satchel on the ground and cupped Neera’s cheeks in his hands. “Neera, I need you to trust me. Do you trust me?”
She nodded, pressing her cheek into Rist’s hand. “Always.”
“I can’t stay here any longer. I need to go home. But I need to find Garramon first. There are things I must hear in his voice. Will you come with me?”
“I go where you go.”
“I’m sorry,” Rist said, kissing Neera on the forehead.
“For what?”
“For asking you to leave this place.”
“This place is nothing to me. Not without you in it. I was brought here because I had nothing else, and I stayed for the same reason.”
As Rist stared into Neera’s eyes, an enormous explosion sounded and the room shook violently. The candle on the desk hit the floor, the flame catching on the cotton blanket Rist had left folded by the bedside.
He reached out with the Spark to snuff the flames when the room shook again, the walls cracking, dust falling from the ceiling.
“Rebels?” Neera stared up at the falling dust. “Again?”
Shouts and screams sounded from the yard, followed by a strange clicking sound, like thousands of steel spear tips bouncing off stone. Click-clack. Click-clack .
Rist grabbed Neera’s hand. “We need to leave.”
He allowed Neera to take a moment to pack whatever she needed before the pair of them headed for the door.
Rist had never quite seen anything like what awaited them when he stepped into the yard. Hundreds of stone-like spiders as large as hounds swarmed over the ground, leaping onto anything that moved, black-tipped claws slicing through leather and flesh. Threads of all elements whipped through the air as the mages of the First Army gathered themselves and tried desperately to save the soldiers, who were like sheep to wolves.
Where the stable had been, now an enormous hole gaped up to the sky, as though the world had caved inwards. More of the spiders flooded over the lip of the hole.
“What… what are they?” Neera stared in horror, the Spark pulsing from her.
“Kerathlin.” Rist had read of them in Devastating Creatures: Claw, Tooth, And Fang, by Vace Entura. There had been no illustrations, but Vace had described them as spiders carved from stone, each leg tipped with claws sharp as steel and black as coal. They were native to the deep tunnels below the mountains in the dwarven realms. But what in all the gods were they doing here?
“Rist?” Neera tugged at Rist’s shirt. “We need to move!”
Arcs of lightning left Neera’s hand and smashed into three of the kerathlin who charged them. Both Neera and Rist broke into a run, pushing past soldiers as they made for the barracks gates.
“Dragon’s Maw!” came a shout, and a column of fire ten feet across consumed scores of the stone spiders with hissing shrieks. A score of mages stood near the yard’s centre, soldiers gathered behind them wearing nothing but smallclothes or linen shirts and trousers.
The kerathlin were swarming around them, threads of Air, Spirit, and Fire keeping them at bay. Rist could see clutches of the creatures scuttling up the buildings and across the rooves.
“Brother Havel!” Exarch Gurney called out, waving for Rist and Neera to run to them. “Sister Halar!”
For a fraction of a second, Rist’s heart was torn. It was not these souls who had lied to him, not these men and women who had hurt his mam and dad. These were good people, people who had treated him with respect, who had fought beside him and broken bread with him. Even in that moment, they called to him to stand together.
Rist’s choice was snatched from him when a creature unlike anything Rist had ever laid eyes on smashed through the barracks wall, sending chunks of stone hurtling through the air, crushing men, women, and kerathlin alike. This creature was not in Vace’s book.
The monstrosity tore through the gathered mages and soldiers as though they were nothing. With one swipe of a spike-covered tail as long as four wagons, half the souls in the group were extinguished, blood, bone, and shattered limbs decorating the yard.
It stood on four legs with large interlinked, stone-like scales covering the entirety of its gargantuan body, as though it had been carved from a mountain. The crest of its back rose almost as tall as the buildings around it. Its head was flat and angular – like that of an arrow – with sharp slits for eyes that pulsated with a streaming yellow mist. Two ridges ran either side of its neck, sweeping across its back and then down into its long muscular tail covered in vicious-looking spikes.
“Rist?” Neera’s voice was a mixture of panic and awe.
“I have absolutely no idea. Run!”
As the kerathlin and the enormous monster tore the surviving mages and soldiers apart, Rist and Neera sprinted through the open gates, only to be greeted by the same carnage in the streets.
Kerathlin were ripping apart everyone and everything. The stone spiders skittered from holes just like the one in the barracks yard that had appeared throughout the city, collapsing buildings and causing the earth to depress inwards.
“Garramon said he went to the tower!” Rist shouted over the screams of the dying and the clicking of the kerathlin claws. He looked through the gaps in the building to where the High Tower rose above everything.
“Rist, that’s further into the city.” Neera looked from the tower to the northern gates. “We’ll never make it there and back.”
“He wouldn’t leave me, and I can’t leave him.”
A shriek sounded from above, and a swarm of kerathlin leapt from the windows of the buildings on the far side of the street. The creatures hit the ground with a crash, then bounded forwards with impossible speed, scuttling across the debris and bodies in the street.
Rist pulled on threads of Earth and Air and pushed them into the kerathlin. Shrieks pierced his ears, blue blood squirting as he crushed the creatures inside their own stone shells.
Neera raked lightning across more of the creatures that flooded from a side street, but they swarmed over their dead, unrelenting.
“Lightning Storm!” Four Battlemages charged from the building beside Rist and Neera, threads of Air, Spirit, and Fire whirling about them. Rist joined his threads to theirs, howling wind smashing the kerathlin against the walls and the ground, lightning tearing them to pieces.
“Justicar Irudan,” one of the men said when the threads faded, grasping Rist’s arm, then Neera’s. “Where are you headed?”
“To the tower,” Rist answered.
“Well, you’re either fucking stupid or fucking crazy. Either way?—”
The man’s words were cut short by a roar that tore across the sky. Rist looked up to see a dark shape illuminated amidst the clouds by flashes of lightning. Slowly, the clouds began to glow with an incandescent light. They swirled apart as a pillar of dragonfire erupted from the dense canopy and poured down in the distance.
The dark clouds swirled again, the rain physically parting as the inconceivable shape of Helios descended, obscured by the buildings. Within a few heartbeats, the great dragon rose into Rist’s field of vision once more. The dragon had one of those monstrous scaled creatures thrashing in its talons, luminous yellow eyes misting in the night.
With a crack of his wings, Helios rose higher and at the same time bit down into the creature’s back, then unleashed dragonfire over it, rising higher and higher until Helios was once more swallowed by the stormclouds. A roar thundered, and the flaming body of the giant monster dropped like a meteor into the city.
“Depth Stalkers,” Justicar Irudan muttered to himself. “What in the gods is happening?”
“You know those monsters?” Rist asked.
“We lost hundreds to one of those bastards in the scouring of Kolmir. They should not be here.”
In the back of Rist’s mind, he heard a high-pitched ringing noise, barely audible, as subtle as a whisper. “Can you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That noise… It’s…” The ground shook beneath Rist’s feet, gently at first, then stronger and stronger until cracks spread through the stone. “Go!”
Rist grabbed Neera and pushed her back towards the tower, shouting at the others. “Run!”
He glanced over his shoulder to see the ground falling away, cracks spreading, a hole forming. Two of the mages fell, the screams swallowed by that high pitched ring. Justicar Irudan and the other mage turned to look for their companions when kerathlin flooded from the newly formed hole in the ground, washing over them in a wave of stone carapace and black claw.
“They’re making tunnels,” Rist said to himself as he ran, lungs heaving.
Rist and Neera moved from street to street, making their way towards the High Tower near the city’s centre.
“Please!” a voice called. “Help us! My wife is?—”
Rist never even saw the man who had shouted. The only noise that followed was screams. Everywhere they went, citizens flooded the streets, screaming and shouting, trampling each other as they fled in the dark and the hammering rain, the clouds blocking out the moonlight from above. The streets ran red with blood, and bodies lay everywhere.
At first, Rist tried to help those he saw. He was a Battlemage, and they looked to him for protection. But no matter what he did, every soul he came across died. It was all he could do to keep himself and Neera safe as they moved.
They turned a corner into a wide street where Lorian soldiers stood in a tight circle around a group of screaming men and women. The soldiers hacked and slashed as the kerathlin scuttled around them and ripped at them with obsidian claws.
Rist was moving towards them before he even realised it, opening himself to the Spark, drawing in threads of Air, Earth, Fire, and Spirit.
Being a Battlemage had to mean something. Whether he’d been lied to or not, it meant something. He would never become an Arcarian. That would not be his mark on the world, his permanence. Nor did he want it to be.
He would not be remembered in the books and stories. He would be the only Rist Havel, and he would be remembered in the hearts and the minds of the people who knew him, the people he saved, and the people he loved.
That would be his permanence, and he would take pride in knowing he stood when he could have run.
Neera sprinted at his side. She didn’t question him or tell him to turn back. All she said was, “Tell me what you need.”
Rist lashed out with threads of Air, sending a wave of concussive force through the writhing swarm of kerathlin and carving a path to the soldiers and citizens. The creatures shrieked and hissed as they were launched into the air.
The soldiers stared open-mouthed at Rist and Neera as they charged through the channel created by the Spark.
“Pack in tight!” Rist roared, pointing to the soldiers and the men and women they shielded, a slew of bodies about them. The soldiers did as commanded, compacting in around the citizens, swords and shields held high.
Rist needed them closer, needed less ground to protect.
“Lightning Storm!” Rist shouted.
Rist pushed outwards with the Spark, Neera’s threads weaving around his own. The wind howled about them, ripping back and forth, tearing the kerathlin from the ground as lightning burned through them. The creatures died in their scores, smoke pluming from where lightning cracked their shells.
But it wasn’t enough. Even as the kerathlin fell, burning and shrieking, more swarmed over the dead. One of the creatures leapt through the wind and lightning, hurtling towards Neera.
The drain sapped at him, pulling the strength from his bones, and Rist did the only thing he could: he tapped into the vessel that hung around his neck. Ice flooded his veins, the world growing still and silent before exploding with light and raucous sound.
He pushed the Essence into his fist and punched through the leaping kerathlin’s carapace. The creature thrashed and writhed, blue blood pouring around Rist’s arm, warm innards tangled about his fingers. Rist flicked his arm down, the kerathlin sliding free, limbs curling inwards.
Rist pushed harder, funnelling the Essence through him, drawing deeper from the Spark, his veins burning, muscles screaming. He glanced over his shoulder to see Neera staggering, then collapsing, one of the soldiers catching her.
“Neera!”
He wanted to run to her, to make sure she was all right, but if he moved, if he stopped at all, the kerathlin would crash through the Lightning Storm and rip them all to shreds.
Rist pulled deeper from the Spark than he ever had before, feeling each elemental strand wind around him. The power poured into him like molten fire in his veins, and the Lightning Storm raged with a fury, the air itself seeming to shimmer and ripple as kerathlin careened off stone and were ripped apart by arcs of blue lightning.
He pulled deeper, the drain burning his soul, pain blending with euphoria. In their hundreds, the kerathlin died, shrieking and wailing, swirling about Rist and the others like leaves in a storm. And still they kept coming. Relentless. Savage.
Rist dropped to his knees and screamed, pushing the threads outwards with every drop of strength he could muster.
But there were simply too many.
Two kerathlin broke through his barrier of wind and lightning, one leaping from a window ledge above, the other scuttling along the ground.
The one above shrieked and crashed into his shoulder, a black claw plunging into the flesh of his left arm, mandibles carving through his shoulder and scraping bone.
Rist howled in pain, tapping deeper into the well of Essence in his gemstone. He reached over with his hand, grabbed the kerathlin, and ripped it free, smashing it against the ground. The creature’s shell cracked and blue blood spilled, but still it twisted and lunged.
A flash of steel and a sword impaled the kerathlin, pinning it to the stone. The second creature launched itself upwards, and one of the Lorian soldiers leapt forwards, wrapped his arms around it, and hauled it to the ground. As the thing tore at him with black claws, Rist pushed the Essence into the ground beneath the kerathlin’s abdomen, turned it to molten stone, then punched upwards. The creature went still, a solid spike piercing its carapace, barely a hair’s breadth from the Lorian soldier’s face.
“We’ve got you,” a woman said to his left, pulling her sword from the first kerathlin’s body.
The words had barely left her mouth when the ground shook once again and one of those monstrous Depth Stalkers burst through the building on the opposite side of the street.
The men and women who were huddled together screamed and wailed as they fled into the Lightning Storm. Above, chunks of stone fell, and the creature reared onto its hind legs.
Rist looked to Neera, who knelt in the street, two soldiers refusing to leave her. He let all other thoughts flood from his mind, releasing his hold on the Spark, the world dulling. But before he could take a step, a chunk of debris from above crashed down and plumed dust into the air, knocking Rist onto his back.
His entire body shook as he dragged himself to his feet, dust occluding the air and filling his lungs. “Neera!” He staggered forwards, hearing the click-clack of kerathlin around him, men and women screaming. “Neera!”
Through the dust a red light ignited, casting a man in shadow. Rist could feel the pulse of the Spark thrumming in the air. The red light flashed, and a kerathlin shrieked.
Rist staggered forwards, finally seeing the shape of Magnus down on one knee, a red níthral in his hand. The stump of his severed arm was pointed upwards, and in the haze, Rist thought he could see Magnus’s arm, hand, and fingers wrought from the Spark, seeming to glow with threads of Spirit and Air. That Spark-wrought hand held up an enormous chunk of stone three times the size of a bear.
And there, pulling herself upright between Magnus and Rist, was Neera.
Rist’s throat tightened, relief flooding him.
“Don’t just fucking stand there, lad,” Magnus shouted. With a pulse of Air, he sent the chunk of debris crashing to the ground behind him, then spun in the same motion and carved through a kerathlin with his níthral.
Rist sprinted forwards and wrapped his arms around Neera, who fell into him.
“Rist…”
“It’s all right. I’ve got you.”
More Battlemages charged down the street behind Magnus, soldiers moving with them, whips of Air and Fire slicing through kerathlin.
Magnus clasped Rist’s shoulder. “I’ve been fucking looking for you everywhere. We need to go. Now. The city is falling. The retreat’s been sounded.”
“Garramon,” Rist said, coughing the last of the dust from his lungs. “He went to the tower. We need to?—”
“No. We’re not going to the tower. We’re leaving. Do you understand me?”
“What?”
“We’re leaving. We’re taking the northern gates and following the river west. We’ll catch a boat towards Antiquar.”
“I… But Garramon… We need to get Garramon.”
“Garramon’s not coming, lad. He sent me.”
“But…”
Magnus grabbed the sides of Rist’s head, tight. “He’s not coming. He’s buying us time. Let’s not waste it. We don’t have time for those long chats you love. There are dwarves in the city as well. Ugly bastards with big axes.”
Rist lifted his gaze and stared up at the High Tower, arcs of lightning streaking from its many windows and balconies, crashing down into the city. The shape of Helios soared in the clouds behind it, pouring fire down over whole sections of the city. He looked back down at Neera, who was slumped against his chest.
“Give her to me,” Magnus said, wrapping an arm around Neera and slinging her over his shoulder. “She helped carry me from that mountain. I can return the favour.” He looked Rist dead in the eye. “I need you to trust me, Rist. I’m all for dying a heroic death, but crushed by a fucking rock or eaten by some bastard of a spider is not how I want to go out. There are tunnels that can get us most of the way.”
“No tunnels.” Rist thought back to the holes in the yard, the kerathlin swarming upwards. “They’re coming from underground.”
“Right, fuck that. We can make it to the gates, but we need to go now.”
Rist took one last look up at the High Tower, then nodded to Magnus, and they set off towards the northern gates.
Garramon pushed open the doors of the chamber to find Fane standing over his desk. Water dripped from Garramon’s robes, trailing on the stone.
Fane turned to him, a look of relief in his eyes. “Garramon. You’re here, good. I sent Chosen to find you before the attack. Kerathlin and Depth Stalkers? The elves are predictable but those dwarves, always full of surprises. I didn’t think they had it in them.” He gestured towards a chest that sat on the desk, cracking open the lid to release a warm red glow. “None of it matters. None of it. We have the Heart, Garramon. We have it. Everything we have worked towards, everything we have sacrificed for is here. Where is Rist? We leave for the Sea of Stone immediately.”
Fane took a step towards Garramon, a broad smile forming on his face. That smile slowly faded as he looked at Garramon. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“When were you going to tell me?” Garramon held Fane’s gaze.
“Tell you what, brother?”
“I should have seen it,” Garramon answered, shaking his head. “I did see it. But as you always have, you blinded me. Or I blinded myself to you. I do not know. I trusted you.”
“Garramon. What did you do?” Fane took another step closer, eyes wide. “Where is Rist?”
“Dead,” Garramon lied. Fane had always been able to tell when Garramon was lying, from the moment they had met. But Garramon had to try. “He was killed when the kerathlin broke through. He and Magnus both.”
“I kept it from you because I know your heart,” Fane said, ignoring Garramon’s words. “You do not always see clearly when your heart is involved, and I know you care for the boy. But I also know that you understand the need for sacrifice. You always have. This is our path, Garramon, and we will walk it together as we always have. We are so close.”
“Was there ever a word that left your lips that wasn’t a lie?” Garramon stopped in the chamber’s centre, cold water trickling down his face.
“A lie?” Fane answered. “You lie to yourself. You knew, Garramon. You always knew. Who trained him, knowing full well what he was? Who handed him those letters, knowing where they came from? You have known every step of the way. Why did you think I wanted him trained like an Arcarian? It wasn’t for the title, and you know that. Deep down you had to know why I took such an interest in Rist.”
“But this isn’t about me, Fane. I’m asking you, has anything that wasn’t a lie ever left your lips? Have we ever truly been friends, or am I just another tool for you to use and throw away? Am I just another necessity in this grand plan of yours?” Garramon looked to the window. “You preached the sacrifice of a few to save the many. You swore that you wanted to protect the people of Epheria, and now you are ready to leave while this city is torn apart? How many have died in this war, Fane? How many millions already? It will take thousands of years to recover. And all the while, you haven’t fought in a single battle. Not in a hundred years. You stayed hidden, searching for this damn Heart, sending others to die in your name. You preach that all great things require sacrifice, but what have you sacrificed?”
For a moment Garramon thought he saw genuine sadness in Fane’s eyes.
“I sacrificed Malyn… My son. My world. And you stood there with your hand on my back and your words in my ear, and you told me how noble I was, how honourable, how my sacrifice would be the difference. How it took the strongest of souls to make the hardest of choices. I lost Fulya… I gave everything to you, to this cause. And now you want Rist as well?” The rage that had been bubbling below the surface finally cracked through. “You cannot have him!”
Fane took a step closer, that glimpse of sadness vanishing from his eyes. “Where is he, Garramon?”
“Gone.” Garramon didn’t even try to stop the smile from spreading across his face. “He is gone, and you will never find him. Not in time. Not before the Blood Moon sets. I found Pirnil, found his notes.” Garramon savoured the flash of fear on Fane’s face. “You will never have Rist.”
“What have you done, Garramon?” The rage came with terrible swiftness, the likes of which Garramon had not seen in centuries, the entire tower trembling as the Spark pulsed outwards from Fane. “What have you done, you damn fool?”
“What I should have done a long time ago.” Garramon opened himself to the Spark, pulling as hard he could, drawing threads of each element into himself. “I could not go with him. Not after what I’ve done. Not after what I’ve taken from him, the pain I’ve caused, the darkness I spread while pretending to myself I was still a good man. I could not go with him, but neither will I let you have him. Not again, not like you took Malyn. You knew Solman Tuk was behind it all. I know you knew, I always did, deep down. From the day I met you, all I’ve ever done is lie to myself.”
Garramon pulled so much of the Spark into himself that his veins felt as though they had caught fire and his soul burned. This was the only way. “I will not let you have him.”
“You damn fool,” Fane repeated, the anger in his voice fading to a low melancholy lament. The last thing Garramon had expected to see was tears in Fane’s eyes.
A pulse of Essence burst outwards from Fane, wrapping around Garramon and completely severing him from the Spark.
“Why did you come here?” Fane asked, shaking his head. “You had to know as well as I do that you cannot leave this chamber alive.”
“I had to look you in the eyes.” Garramon didn’t strain against the bonds of Essence that held him. He had known his fate before he had entered. “I am ready to die, Fane. No soul should see the number of summers we have seen. I am done. I want to go to my son now.”
The bonds of Essence dragged Garramon to his knees, and he stared up at Fane.
“You were the only soul in this world I have ever truly called a brother. You were never just a tool to be used. Never. You were all I’ve ever had, all I’ve ever loved.” Fane lowered himself to one knee before Garramon. “You ask me what I’ve sacrificed?” The smile that flitted over Fane’s lips was broken and sorrowful. “Everything. I burned a good world to the ground. Every single soul weighs upon me. I have no peace in my heart, not a moment of solace in the waking world or the world of dreams. The screams of the dying are my lullaby, the cries of the damned my morning song. I see the flames of Ilnaen every time the sun sets. When I walked into that mountain all those years ago, do you want to know what I saw? A world on fire. A world that was nothing but pain and agony and endless suffering. Ten thousand futures, a hundred thousand, a thousand thousand. And in each of them, this world was ash. Only on this path could it be saved. What have I sacrificed, Garramon? Trust. Love. Solace. Hope. I will not know peace from now until the day I die, and I have not known it for four hundred years. I am haunted by the cost of my failure. I will sacrifice my soul and all the joy the living world brings… and now I must sacrifice the only man who truly knows me. The last tether to who I am. The last shred of what makes me human.”
Fane shook his head, letting out a long sigh. “You will not see Malyn, my brother. You will not see anything. I sought Rist because he was the only other soul I had found that was capable of becoming Efialtír’s vessel. I cannot take his place. If I do, this world burns. And so you take everything from me. And I make one more sacrifice.”
“What do you mean?”
“You still can’t see it, can you? I have searched for centuries to find another, to find a soul powerful enough to harbour Efialtír. By the time I understood what was needed, it was too late. The Arcarians were too few, and most had died in the fighting. The souls of the Draleid are not fit. Whatever magic Varyn has burned into them sees to that.” Fane leaned forwards, placed his hands on Garramon’s shoulders, then pressed their foreheads together. “The only one left, Garramon, the only one strong enough, has always been you. Rist was the last strand of hope I’d been clinging to. I am so sorry, old friend. I tried everything. You were a sacrifice I did not want to make. That is why I kept so much from you.”
Garramon simply smiled. No joy or happiness lingered in that smile. It was not a smile born of any belief that he was a good man or that he deserved any form of absolution. It was a smile that existed only because he had been given a second chance to make the right choice, and he had done so. “You can have me, Fane. But you will not have him. I will not let you.”
Fane stared into Garramon’s eyes, searching for something, something Garramon thought the man found as he gave the softest of sighs. “You are the man I wish I had the chance to be.”
A white light flickered in the air behind Fane, spreading until a window to another place appeared, and a woman stepped through.
“I wish you were standing at my side in what is to come,” Fane whispered, resting his hand on Garramon’s cheek. “It is time, my friend.”
The bonds of Essence that held Garramon in place slithered over his body, pried open his mouth, and pushed into his eyes, ears, and nose until all he saw was black and all he heard was the sound of his own heart beating.