Chapter 19 The Blackwood Tomb #2
“By the Maddening Moon, that’s a sight to behold!” Kiran cheered. “I’m keeping this new pet, Elias. You’ll have to order another one for yourself.”
“How was the kick?” Elias called.
“My shoulder isn’t broken, and the gun didn’t explode—so that’s something,” Kiran yelled back, still laughing like a mad hatter.
“I expect a full report on my desk in the morning,” Elias said. “I’ll hand it off to Meister Barbaros before he leaves back to his atelier in Gigas.”
“It’s always about work for you, isn’t it?” Kiran shouted, though his complaint wasn’t serious. “Fine, fine, I’ll have the report on your desk before noon.”
“At dawn would be preferable.”
Another daemonic howl captured Elias’s attention. Across the clearing, Cherry and Riordan were tackling the crimson crawler. Elias didn’t feel the need to interfere—his soldiers had faced a lot worse during the war.
Using a pair of shined bracers on her wrists, Cherry projected her mana into a broad field of indigo light.
The powerful mana barrier shielded Riordan as he stabbed repeatedly into the monster’s flesh with a pair of shined daggers.
The monster tried to whip its powerful tail about, but the barrier held it at bay.
As Elias watched, the daemon collapsed to the ground, bleeding from a dozen wounds.
Meanwhile, engaged in a separate battle, Ravenna and Fenrick charged at the big green worm.
Fenrick stabbed into the daemon with a double-handed blow.
With a burst of mana power, he ignited his ghost sword—Dust #361 Firefly—searing through the daemon’s thick hide with yellow light.
Flesh sizzled. The blade cut deep, yet the massive slug barely seemed to feel the wound.
When Fenrick withdrew the blade, it was dripping with slime.
Infuriated, the wounded beast curled up into a ball and rolled across the mossy ground.
“Watch out!” Fenrick yelled as Ravenna ducked out of the way. The slug smashed through another manawood tree on its way into the forest. It barreled through the underbrush, plowing through bush and briar patch to escape the soldiers.
“Stay on him!” Ravenna roared, leaping back to her feet.
The married couple chased the giant slug into the woods, eager to put an end to the threat.
Elias could have sworn he saw them holding hands, as though they were on a date.
He glanced skyward. He supposed he should let the soldiers enjoy themselves.
They were used to going up against hordes of daemons—not just three or four at a time.
Kiran’s squad could probably take on a few dozen before breaking a sweat.
As the daemonic threat passed and the night grew calm again, Elias's mind turned to other matters. His brow furrowed. Something kept nagging at him. Something Kiran had said: “Whoever wrote the letter . . . must have a strong personal vendetta against you.”
A strong personal vendetta.
Someone had chosen the Blackwood tomb to stage this attack. The tomb itself was a message. Someone hated the Blackwood bloodline enough to orchestrate this elaborate scheme. But who? It must be someone close to his family—someone with access to the grounds.
He didn’t think the villain would be content to remain at a distance. This plan was too complicated to leave in the hands of a few hired hoodlums. No—the mastermind would want a front-row seat. He or she wouldn’t leave anything to chance.
Was his enemy watching now?
Elias’s eyes swept over the tomb again, probing every shadow, every strange shape he could discern in the darkness under the trees. He felt a slight pressure on his neck, like he was being watched, but he couldn’t say by whom.
Then, abruptly, his eyes found what he was looking for. A human shape stood—bold, confident, visible—atop the crumbling tower of the castle ruins. The figure was fully illuminated in the orange light of the Maddening Moon.
Ah.
With certainty, he knew this must be the author of the riddle.
Elias started to run.
Without a word to Kiran or the rest of his men, he took off at a sprint down the dirt path that led into the ruins of the old fortress.
Elias traversed the chaotic landscape, his jaw clenched with determination.
His leather boots crunched on the gravel-strewn ground.
He navigated around hills of rubble and climbed over fallen pillars.
Cold sweat beaded his brow, and urgency coiled in his stomach.
He couldn’t let the mysterious figure get away!
But how did he reach the top of the tower?
He climbed up a pile of crumbled stone to a collapsed archway, which he crossed like a bridge to the top of the eastern wall.
There, atop the wall, he ran along the length of the ruins, his feet dislodging loose bricks and mortar as he went.
A sheer drop into a gully on his left side forced him to remain cautious.
He stumbled but did not fall. The Hallowsin wind howled through the skeletal remains of the old castle, carrying the woodsy scent of pine and a metallic hint of skydust.
His eyes raised up to the tower, outlined by the light of the moon, where the mysterious figure was still present, waiting for him at the highest point of the ruins.
The hollow tower leaned slightly to the side like a dead tree, its outer stones covered in a garment of ferns and vines.
He reached the tower’s entrance, but at a glance, he could see the spiral staircase had collapsed long ago.
He would have to scale the exterior wall.
His hands scrabbled for purchase, his muscles straining with the effort as he pushed on relentlessly.
The burn of obsession consumed his mind.
He had to know—had to see. Who was the enemy atop the tower?
Who had penned the riddle? Who had sent the daemons?
He would arrest the villain happily and lay this nonsense to rest.
Sweat dripping from his brow, muscles straining in his arms, Elias pulled himself up the final few bricks to the top of the tower.
There, he found himself teetering on a mere lip of stone with hardly room to stand up.
The tower’s roof had collapsed. The figure had vanished from the top of the turret into a circular chamber beneath the concave roof.
Elias dropped down into the room, landing gingerly on the ancient wooden beams that crisscrossed the tower’s interior.
The thick beams might have once supported a proper floor, but most of the boards had long ago rotted out.
Only about half remained, with plenty of generous gaps in between them.
He kept to the edge of the room, remaining close to the stone wall where the beams were firmly bolted into the tower’s structure.
Across from him, a figure stood in the darkness, his hunched back turned to Elias. He could hear the fellow breathing—a heavy, unnatural sound, as though he suffered from some sort of asthma or lung damage.
“You,” Elias panted, seething, mana glowing around his clenched fists. “Who are you?”
The figure shifted, proving it was real, not a ghost. A person stood across from him dressed in a shabby greatcoat of frayed, stained leather and scuffed boots. Elias couldn’t tell if a stout man or a tall woman was hidden under the heavy coat. The figure’s back remained turned.
“Face me! Show yourself!” Elias repeated in a commanding voice, his words echoing off the stone walls of the tower. “Who are you?”
"Commander Blackwood," the person spoke in a raspy voice that was somehow familiar. “Did you enjoy your birthday gift?”
A chill passed down Elias’s spine. “As duke of Gravenmere, I have authority to arrest you and prosecute you to the full extent of the king’s law. Surrender at once!”
The stranger laughed. Then he or she turned around to face him. Moonlight reflected off a mask of polished obsidian. Elias's breath caught in his throat. He recognized the mask instantly. Beneath it, the criminal's features were identical to his own, as if he were staring into a mirror.
Himself—the enemy.
The poetry of the moment struck him but did not last. Elias dismissed his discomfort with a flick of his hand. The criminal was wearing the shined mask he had loaned to Kiran for the duration of the ball.
“Give that back,” Elias said, his mouth suddenly dry with unexpected fear.
The shined object was not registered with the Department of Deviant Artifacts.
No one in the kingdom knew of its existence except for him, Kiran and Meister Barbaros.
Possessing such an item was illegal without registering it, but currently, that was the least of his concerns.
If the mask were to fall into the wrong hands . . . the hands of a violent terrorist, for instance . . . it could lead to catastrophic results.
“Give what back?” his reflection grinned. “I am you, Elias: both a warrior and a defender of the realm.”
“You’re an imposter.”
“How so? I, too, sacrificed my life in the Abyss. Like you, I was resurrected and returned to this meaningless existence against my will. No one awarded me medals or named me a hero, but I suppose some sweet justice shall come of it nonetheless. Now I shall use your face to fight for my cause.”
“Which is?”
“Utter annihilation of the Daemonguard and all that it stands for.”
Elias was shocked. “That’s absurd,” he said.
“Is it?” his own voice mocked him. “The Daemonguard is a farce, a means of sending young men and women to their deaths. Tell me, the royal family is Luminous, yes? But do they ever send their own blood into the pit?”
“They are royals.”