15. Fifteen
fifteen
"Well then," Erqis drawled. "After you, brother."
"Like fuck am I traipsing down there first, brother ."
"You found it, you deserve the honour of being first!" He snickered when Qavor just gave him a look. "Fine, fine. Have it your way. I wonder what all the eligible ladies at court will think of you when they hear of this new cowardice…"
Erqis could feel the other man's eyes rolling in annoyance as he stepped up to the door-shaped hole in the wall and thrust his hand into the darkness. The flame flickered with the breeze that met him, illuminating rough walls that looked part hewn stone and part packed dirt, streaked with the distinct hue of clay. The steps, equally hacked into the soil, were uneven, a tripping hazard for the careless.
Thin lines of fire ran down the length of the stairway when Erqis touched both sides of the narrow corridor, giving them just enough light to see by. It didn’t wind as deep as he had first assumed, a mere dozen steps or so before the ground evened out again, but as they followed the path – Qavor having to duck for most of it to avoid scraping the low ceiling with the upper arches of his horns, and then both having to walk almost sideways to fit through the narrow tunnel – it became apparent that wherever this tunnel was taking them, it was leading clear across the castle grounds. Every now and then the walls would open up with long, thin slats that showed them exactly where they were: below the castle, and just inches above the lake.
They stopped at one rough window, squinting out. Massive pillars jutted up from the lake to hold the castle up above the water's surface. From here, Erqis could see just the edge of a bridge that seemed to connect one pillar to the next, so close above the water it had to be permanently wet.
"Without a doubt, this is the oddest place we have been."
"Agreed." Qavor shuddered beside him. "And we are closer to the lake than I would like. I don't even want to know what lives in these waters."
"Scary monsters with big, big teeth," Erqis crooned, grinning brightly as he turned away from the opening and sent the trails of fire further ahead. "And tiny little worms that burrow into your cock to nest there, if you are unlucky enough to not attract the monsters' attention straight away. Also with big teeth."
"I really don't know why I travel with you, Erqis. For fuck's sake."
"Quite obviously you come along for the impeccable adventures I take you on to fuel your reputation, Qav. Also so I don't die doing something stupid." Erqis stepped into a wider room and avoided being skewered only because Qavor snagged the back of his collar and yanked him back. When his foot lifted off the pressure plate, the sharpened bones, curved like the ribs of a massive, long-dead beast, sank back into the ground. "See? My point exactly."
The Farn grumbled behind him. "I wish you'd use your eyes first for once, instead of your damn mouth."
"That's what I bring you for." Three broad steps lay just beyond that initial trap and, from his vantage point, Erqis could see that the uneven soil gave way to smooth alabaster. "This has to be it."
"Maybe. Think that's the only trap?"
"I doubt it." Sinking to one knee, Erqis placed his hand on the pressure plate, light enough to not set it off. Under his hand it began to heat, then glow from within, then cracked with a loud sound that the clay walls swallowed. The fire branched out, turning the earthen ground cracked and hard – then the walls, and the low ceiling. Something else gave a loud crack, then thumped down on the alabaster beyond. "That should do it."
Carefully, they picked their way across the scorched ground and soon stood on the more solid stone. Erqis stomped on it a few times, delighting in the way his boots mucked up the pristine white.
The space opened out into what could only be the Dread King’s elusive study. The decor itself was as bleak as the rest of the fortress; the same white stone as the castle encased the entire room, giving it the same tomb-like feel. The ceiling soared high and there were no windows, but upon entry, sconces flickered to life on the walls, cased in pale green flame. There was a broad writing desk, swept clean and dustless, as if it had been in use just the day before, the only adornment an empty book stand. Another table ran the length of the opposite wall, stacked with delicate glass equipment.
"I don't like this."
"You keep saying that." Erqis took a few careful steps further into the study. Along the back wall, ceiling-high bookcases were built around a narrow stone door with glyphs etched into it. "I'm not sure what you want me to do about it."
"Why are we really here?"
"You know why, Qav. I just need to know. I need to make sure there is not some nebulous source of magic that could be picked up by any random adventurer and give him the powers to animate the dead. We don't need another necromancer. I need to know that the magic died with him."
"And are you still trying to find proof that he was dabbling with alchemy?"
Erqis shrugged. "Being Farn is the only natural source of magic that anyone knows of. Not even the elves have inherent magic, aside from their near-immortality. The Dread King was neither Farn, nor practised alchemy if Neira is to be believed, and still he wielded considerable magical power."
"The simplest explanation is that there is Farn in his lineage."
"Perhaps there is. And perhaps we'll find a big, helpful tome with his family tree in here somewhere to prove that, but until we do, we'll have to consider the only other possible ways – either he made a deal with an ancient, powerful being, something that hasn't existed for ages, or he found a way to actually use alchemy. And if he did, if that’s what he’s been researching down here…" Erqis kicked at a large, wooden chest, making the iron lock rattle. "I want to be certain that no one will ever be able to replicate it."
Qavor scowled. He didn't agree with Erqis' methods, he rarely ever did, but the king was not wrong. "Fine. Although I'm not sure which of your theories is the more dangerous one."
The Farn turned to the nearest bookcase and began flipping through the tomes. One by one they landed on the ground with a dull thud when he found nothing of interest.
"You haven’t spotted a key, have you?"
"If he went through the trouble of locking that chest, I doubt he left the key lying around openly." Qavor replied. "I’m afraid we may have sunk them into the bog with him."
"True."
Suddenly, immense heat flared filled the room. With a shout, Qavor whirled around to flames licking at the chest, so hot they melted the iron lock – and burned through the more vulnerable wood within seconds, laying bare the chest's contents.
More paper. Paper that caught before Erqis could rein in the storm he had unleashed, hands uselessly patting at the smouldering remains. "Shit."
"What the fuck, Erqis."
"Don't even start." He pulled what he could save from the smoking chest and tossed the bound stacks of paper onto the desk. Part of a journal, he realised too late – the Dread King's notes, incinerated.
Shit, indeed. He really should start listening to his brother one of these days.
Aside from the journals, six in total that he could tell from the bindings, the chest contained long, thin braids of hair in all kinds of colours and textures, as well as some precious stones that had gone dull. Qavor was carefully spreading out what they had been able to save, which wasn't a lot: the journals became less and less legible the older they were, the ink faded from pages curling with age. The newest one, with the ink still crisp and dark, had large holes burned through it.
"Well, fuck." Erqis sighed. He slid one of the older ones towards Qavor and spread out the newest one. "Interesting. This seems to be about Neira." Not that the text, lacerated with burn marks, gave him much beyond a father's worry for his daughter.
I have presented suitor upon suitor … Her mother's blood, unfortunately, is stronger in her than mine. I will have to raise …
… child will be raised as her sibling, and …
… quiet in the castle without the princess. She remains asleep, cared for by that abomination she refuses to give up, as the life inside her grows. I make it a point to visit her bedside regularly, as my fondness of the girl has not diminished, but I am nervous. If this new … falling apart around me.
It is a boy! Blessed … women from the village, who will act as wet nurses for the babe. The princess will remain … transference, but … lacking his sire's horns.
"Fascinating."
"Find anything?" Qavor glanced over, squinting at the pages. "Seems like the princess is more of a handful than we've yet seen, huh?"
"She certainly has a somewhat sordid past… for a princess. I wonder what happened to her lover. Must have not been one of the suitors, if they were eager to present the boy as her sibling, instead of getting her wed."
Qavor snorted. "This means that the prince is the king's grand son. Makes sense to skip the princess in the line of succession, then."
"It also makes sense that she's incensed about it." Erqis shifted through the remaining pages, but found nothing more of note – neither on the subject of Neira and her rebellion against a princess's duties, nor on any kind of magic. He did spot a few lines about how Prince Ramin was progressing, about the king's age bearing down on him, but nothing out of the ordinary.
" Lacking his sire's horns ,” Erqis repeated the line. “What was a Farn doing out here?"
"Some of us do enjoy impeccable adventures," Qavor said, one corner of his mouth pulling into a half-grin. "And Norpav is just to the north. Maybe he stumbled in here, found the castle, he and the princess fell in love. Everyone here is probably everyone she grew up with. Add someone new and exciting…"
"Aren't you a romantic," Erqis teased, flipping through the other, older journals. Some lines were legible but most were not, no matter how hard he squinted at the faded ink. "I wonder who those many suitors were."
"Hopefully not some of his regiars. Although that would make sense, if the princess rejected all of them."
Erqis shuddered, disgust rippling through him at the mere thought. "I can see that happening. Terrifying. I'd cling to the first remotely young man I saw if I were in her position, too."
"Do not ask her about this," Qavor warned, picking up the last journal. He held a page up to the nearest sconce, but even that didn’t make the writing any easier to see. "We didn’t need to know, and she doesn’t need to know that we do."
"For once, brother, both my curiosity and I agree with you."
The journals gave them nothing more. Erqis was tossing them back into the chest when something caught his eye. At the very bottom of the smouldering chest lay a slab of stone, barely wider than the palm of his hand and half as long as his arm, etched with the same glyphs that were on the narrow door between the bookcases.
"It couldn't be this easy, could it?" He picked it up with both hands, hefted it for its weight. "Go check if there is an indent in that door that's big enough for this thing."
Qavor stepped over to the farthest wall and ran his hand along the stone door. In the passing of the Farn’s fingers, the glyphs glowed for a brief beat only to fall dark when he had crossed them. "It responds to magic."
"That's a good start." Erqis brought the slab over and held it against the stone; the glyphs glowed gently, but nothing happened. "What language is this, anyway?"
"Looks like alchemic runes,” Qavor said slowly."
"I know I said alchemy was one of my theories, but surely you don’t think it can actually be used?" Erqis frowned. “It’s been a thousand years since anyone last used alchemic runes successfully. At least.”
"Longer, if the power of them was ever able to be harnessed at all," Qavor corrected, uncomfortably shifting on his feet. “Not a single soul has used it effectively since the Blight tore the realm apart and blasted Huldra and Hertha across the sea.”
"We don't know how old the Dread King was."
"He wasn't elven ," Qavor insisted. "Normal, human ears. I checked." He crossed his arms. "But those journals did go back quite a few decades. A lot longer than you would expect from a human..."
"You know," Erqis drawled, following the glow of the glyphs with a fingertip – and found it catching in an indent. "If he's not an alchemist, and not elven or Farn, but still ancient and filled with evil magic… this is probably where he stored the source."
"We should get-" Qavor groaned when Erqis shoved the slab into the indent, and the door began to glow brightly. "More men. Before you do that."
"Bit late, brother."
The loud scrape of the door sliding open echoed through the study. The door slid away behind the bookcase but, for once, they weren’t staring into darkness.
It was a small, narrow chamber, sized more like the corridor they had come through than the cavernous room they stood in now, and pale, eerie green light pulsed gently from a glass sconce set in the middle of the wall across from them. It curled like smoke trapped in a crystalline prison, rippling across the inside of the glass like forks of lightning whenever it touched the clear surface. Erqis stared, fascinated.
Qavor had to hold on to the bookcase, wavering on his feet. "That," he gasped, growing pale. "That must be it."
"Do I destroy it? Do we take it?" Suddenly faced with the answer to one of his many questions, Erqis found he wasn’t entirely sure what to do. Breaking the glass would free the magic trapped in it, and who knew what it would do once it wasn't contained – would it reanimate the Dread King? Or would it try to possess them, using them for its own ends? But they couldn’t leave it here, either.
It had to be destroyed, that would be safest.
"We're not taking that anywhere. Whatever it is… gods, it's rotted through. Vile. I can barely move." Qavor squinted at his king. "You're not affected?"
"Not that badly." Erqis did feel queasy, but he couldn't determine whether it was because of the uncertainty of this situation, or if the magic was reaching for him, as well. All he had were his flames. "Stand back." The seat of his magic heated again, quick and deep, smoke curling from his mouth and nose within seconds before he unleashed his fire into the tiny room.
He had gone too far, too deep, with no real rest in between. The flames that fanned him were greedy, demanding more each time he used them if he didn't give them long enough to cool again.
The fire ran so hot the flames were almost white. The glass shattered almost immediately and the green, smokey light stood no chance. It darted along the walls as if looking for a crack to disappear into, but there was no escape.
There was a thin, high wail that skittered down Erqis’ spine when the hungry flames finally caught their prey and devoured it whole.
It was the same sound that had risen from so many decayed throats when Qavor's arrow had punched through the Dread King's.
It was so much louder in here.