Severed Empire: Wizard's War Page 18

  Mykal didn’t realize his mother had been listening. With just Blodwyn and him talking, he should have assumed everyone could hear, and even hushed voices were carried through the cave as if shouting.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Mykal said.

  “Oh, dear,” Blodwyn said.

  “Is that a bad thing?” Mykal said. “The whole reason for us finding those talismans was so that Galatia could summons the three wizards in hiding. They are going to help us defeat the Mountain King when he attacks.”

  “That was our plan. That was when Galatia was with us.”

  “I don’t get it,” Mykal said.

  “Cordillera has Galatia. He may have found a way for her to call the wizards out of hiding. Don’t forget,” Blodwyn said. “She came to us to prevent the king from finding those wizards first. He has Galatia, he has the talismans, and if you and your mother are correct, he may now have one of the three other wizards all under his control.”

  “There really is going to be a war, isn’t there?” Basin said. His question came out so sincere, that Mykal could not respond. He thought he sensed something more than fear in the words spoken. There was an overlay of sadness that reverberated inside Mykal’s ears.

  “I’m afraid so,” Blodwyn said. “I’m afraid so.”

  Chapter 20

  King Hermon Cordillera drank warm ale, polishing a pint in a few big gulps. He smacked his lips together after, and let out a satisfied ahhh. He urinated inside the garderobe, and left the facilities closing the door behind him.

  Cordillera was anxious to return to the dungeon. The castle was mostly silent. It was the middle of the night, and his people were sleeping. Two guards stood by strategic doorways, and others patrolled outside and along the ramparts. Anyone else awake and moving about would be stopped as suspicious, questioned as to why they were wandering, but he hadn’t seen or heard another soul. He didn’t like the idea of Ida alone with the wizards.

  In fact, the more he thought about it, the less he liked it. He hurried back toward the locked door. His footfalls boomed on the rock floor. He gritted his teeth together; his jaw tingled from the grind. He knew he was huffing and puffing. He let his imagination overtake his thoughts. All he could see was Ida conspiring against him with the sorcerers. The three of them unified against him would prove detrimental. He had no defense against that kind of power. Whether Ida knew it or not, his control over her was severely limited. He kept the upper hand by crushing her spirit; crippling her self-worth; and severing her morale. Only recently had he even begun to allow her any freedoms. It was like training a pet. He worried he’d given too much leash, and all of his efforts would have been for naught.

  First, he made his way toward the barracks. While platoons not on duty grabbed much needed sleep, Cordillera could care less about disrupting the night. With the amount of snoring and farting, he was surprised any of his men slept at all. He walked the rows of beds with a torch in hand.

  “Majordomo? Majordomo!”

  Men fell out of beds and scrambled to the foot of straw-filled mattresses. They stood at attention dressed in skivvies, or in nothing at all. “Sire!”

  “I want my armada readied.”

  “Sire?”

  The idea of war was nothing new. The majordomo has been included on all of the strategy sessions. “Every ship. The time for war is at hand. I suspect by first light we will attack,” he said.

  “First light, sire?”

  “Can you have the ships ready? My castle protected?”

  “Aye, of course we can, sire.”

  “Then get it done. I have last minute things to attend to. When I am ready, I want to move with haste. The Grey Ashland won’t know we’re coming until it is far too late, and even if they believe they are ready, they will fall. King Nabal has no idea what is about to hit him. None at all,” the Mountain King said.

  The majordomo nodded, as if unsure of how to reply. “We’ll be ready for battle by first light, sire.”

  “Good man, Majordomo. Good man. Then, I want every ship captain, and commander of the knights assembled. You will wait for me in the long room. Understood?”

  “Completely, sire.”

  “Fine. As you were. Back to bed,” Cordillera said, and clapped a hand on the majordomo’s bare chest before he turned and strode out of the barracks. He missed completely the befuddled look on his majordomo’s face after suggesting they return to sleep. No matter, he’d alerted his military and was now ready to return for another dose of magic.

  When he reached the dungeon, the guard stepped aside. Cordillera threw open the heavy door, and made his way down the stairs. The pots of fire lit the way made his footing somewhat safer, but the coal inside needed replenishing soon. He knew every inch of his castle, and could maneuver his way blindfolded if necessary. However, accidents happened and he did not want to wind up entangled in his own limbs at the bottom of the stairs. The long descent reeked of mildew and mold, urine and feces, and the pungent and sharp odors only grew worse the deeper he progressed toward the pit of the mountain.

  None were smells a person ever got used to.

  When he reached the last few stairs, his mind was in a whirlwind, a panic. He thought for sure he would round the last corner and face a trio of wizards hell-bent on zapping him full of disease, and setting his flesh on fire, cooking his heart and intestines and spleen from the inside out.

  What he saw instead caused him pause. Galatia, still shackled to the table, arms and legs spread wide, was unconscious. He didn’t know if she was alive or dead. He couldn’t see if her chest rose and fell with breaths. Inside the cage, Pendora stood gripping iron bars. She stared at him. The wild still possessed her stare. The blood on her face looked caked on, and dried. Ida sat in a corner, her head down. She might be sleeping.

  “I want to drain her energy,” Cordillera said. Ida remained still. He rolled his eyes, and yelled, “I want to drain Pendora’s magic now!”

  Ida sprang up. Her hood fell off her head. The patches of white hair stood from static. Her eyes looked black as the sea during the night. “As you wish,” she said.

  Shuffling toward the cell, Ida’s hands fidgeted one over the other. Large knuckles and bent fingers caused Cordillera to wonder if her hands caused the witch pain. They looked horrid, and made him cringe. “Join us over here.”

  Cordillera took in a deep breath, and exhaled. Could it possibly be time? After such a long, long wait, were his dreams about to be realized?

  “Are you ready?” Ida said.

  Pendora looked from one to the other. She backed away from the cell.

  Ida raised a hand, and said something. Pendora’s feet stopped moving. She stood still. Ida curled her fingers into a fist. Pendora ambled forward, her body pressed tight against the bars. Her face was being crushed by iron.

  “Ready,” King Hermon Cordillera said.

  “I want to be clear, Your Highness,” she said.

  He pursed his lips tightly together.

  “Once we complete these rituals, I have your word that we will rule together,” the witch said, pointing a gnarled finger toward him. Spit that gathered in the corners of her mouth sprayed from her overly wet lips. She shuffled forward, closer to Cordillera. He refrained from taking a step back. Admitting how uncomfortable she made him showed weakness.

  “Yes.”

  “I will not be a Chamberlain,” she said.

  “Agreed.”

  “Or your new Majordomo,” she said.

  “I understand,” he said. “Now let’s get on with it.”

  She shook her head. “I want your promise, your royal word that we’ll be equal as we rule the new empire.”

  “What do you want me to do, write you a decree? I’ve told you, yes.”

  She was silent, as if considering his offer.

  “You’re not getting a decree. A document won’t matter, anyway. We will unite the kingdoms, who would you show a decree to?”

  She bit into her upper lip
.

  “Fine,” he said. “You have my royal word.”

  “We will shake on it, then. A binding of your word; your royal word.”

  The thought of clasping his hand together with hers made his palms itch. He ran fingernails down the center of his right hand before holding it out.

  She grabbed his arm, pulling him closer to her, and then locked her hand together with his.

  Ida never broke eye contact. “And now say that you give me your royal word that the two of us will be equal in our ruling as emperors.”

  “This is foolishness, and a waste of time,” Cordillera said. He saw that Pendora was watching the exchange. That made him angry. “Let’s get on with it!”

  “Say it!” Ida snarled. Her empty eyes were clearly focused on him.

  Cordillera concentrated on breathing evenly. His heart beat faster. “I give you my royal word that the two of us will be equal in our ruling as emperors.”

  A shock flashed up his arm and vibrated his shoulder. It burned under his flesh, so bad that he pulled his hand away as if bitten by a sea serpent.

  “What was that? What have you done?”

  “You were right; a worthless decree would not have provided me any peace of mind. Your promise, your royal word, is now unbreakable. We are bound by magic. That seems only fitting, does it not, Your Highness?” A wart spotted tongue protruded from her mouth and licked smiling lips.

  Ida gave a slight nod. She lifted her other arm, palm facing the king. She closed her eyes. It was a welcome sight for the king. Her eyes always bore into him, as if searching his being hoping to uncover secrets, and insight, and the upper hand.

  Mortally intrigued, Cordillera watched every action, every nuance closely. Ida possessed something he’s desired all of his life. In moments he would become filled with new energy. There would be no going back in time and saving his brother, and that would always trouble his soul, but from this point forward his regrets and failures and inadequacies would be limited, if not absent altogether.

  Just as Cordillera was about to open his mouth and ask when it would begin, he felt the change in the air around him. It was charged. His eyes opened wider as he watched the hairs on his arms rise. There was a prickle on the back of his neck. The room became suddenly cold. It felt like winter inside the dungeon. He shivered as if ice cold water raced down his spine. He thought when he breathed he could see puffs of breath in front of his nose. Magical wind whipped about the room, rattling the tools of the trade on the wall-mounted pegs. Iron clanked against rock and iron. Crushed rock dust on the floor rose into the air, it spun like a tornado starting in one corner of the room and danced across the floor, skirting left and right. It knocked items off the wall, and off tables. The cyclone was headed directly for the three of them.

  If not seemingly stuck in place, Cordillera might consider running. He understood and accepted, and respected the unnatural. Never before had he seen extreme weather inside the castle, or any form of weather for that matter. It frightened him.

  His fears returned. He didn’t know for sure what Ida was doing. That troubled him. Had he given the witch far too much freedom? Would she stab him in the back, and turn the tables?

  She could.

  There would be nothing he could do to stop her.

  His toes ached as if being stabbed with hundreds of needles, and went numb. It reminded him of times when he sat on his leg for hours and then stood up, only amplified, a hundred times worse. The sensation spread over the bones on the top of his foot. It became painful, almost unbearable when it radiated inside his ankles. He closed his eyes tight. His mouth clamped shut. It was the only things he could do to bite back the torment.

  His legs trembled; if he wasn’t standing with his feet a shoulder width apart, his knees would knock together. His calf muscles throbbed the way they did when he climbed stairs from the dungeon to the top castle spires. By the time the vibration reached his belly it was as if his insides were on fire and flames were turning meat and muscle to charcoal.

  There was no fighting it, and he opened his eyes to see, and mouth to scream.

  Pendora was doubled over, down on a knee. Her hands still clutched at the iron bars, but her arms were up over her head. She was bleeding again. The blood spilled from her mouth and pooled on the rock beneath her.

  The burning ran up his chest, and coursed up his throat before erupting into his skull.

  Ida’s body shook, but the motion was so fast it seemed surreal. It was almost like she was riding horseback, only the horse ran faster than if it had the strength of ten beasts inside its muscular legs. He was tempted to clap his hands onto the sides of her head to hold her still, but instead covered his ears hoping it would eliminate the pressure building up inside his own skull.

  That was when he saw shadows rise up around him. They crawled across the floor, and up the walls. The shadows peeled away from the walls, stood independently, and walked toward him.

  They resembled the silhouettes of people, but were far too indistinct to recognize as anything more than mere shadows. And then the images rushed together, and the dark form shifted into one mammoth-sized dragon. Giant wings spread impossibly wide, and flapped up and down. The creature grew so large it bowed its head to keep from passing through the rock ceiling.

  The dragon had nowhere to go, could not lift off the ground, and there was little room for movement in the cramped confines of the dungeon.

  Cordillera closed his eyes, because he knew enough not to believe what he saw. It was his mind playing tricks on him, an elaborate illusion. Nothing more.

  Angered, the beast roared.

  Cordillera opened his eyes. He could not bury his head in the proverbial sand. If the dragon was more real than a mere shadow, he could defeat it! He would not hide.

  The shadow dragon opened its jaws and revealed impressively sharp shadow teeth. As it swiveled its neck around and dropped its snout close to Cordillera’s face flames filled sockets where its eyes should have been.

  The Mountain King screamed. The fear inside him was manifested into a monster standing in front of him. The pressure inside his head forced him to believe his skull was about to explode, that shards of bone and brain matter would spray the dungeon worse than the blood from any of those tortured here before.

  The dragon, again, opened its mouth and shadow smoke blew out of flared nostrils.

  Cordillera coughed, and waved a dismissive hand at the plumes of smoke, to no avail. He saw orange and red fire leap from the throat of the dragon. It sprayed at him in slow motion. He was unable to move any faster, though. It was as if he was paralyzed, or a stone statue trapped in harm’s way. The flames engulfed his entire body.

  He roasted as fire consumed him.

  His screams grew louder as he fell to his knees. His fingers curled into his palms, and his arms up to his chest. His hair burned away from his scalp. He smelled his burning body, overcooked meat, boiling urine, and fear.

  His clothing and flesh became a single layer, and crisped brittle and black before crumbling off from the rest of his body in cinder chips and floating away. Cordillera fell forward, charred complete from head to toe. In a puff of air from the dragon’s breath the king was obliterated, gone, disemboweled into nothing more than wafting orange embers and black ashes.

  ***

  Anna fell first. Mykal saw her going down. She hadn’t made a sound. There had not been a warning. He reached out a hand, certain he could latch on and prevent the fall, but his legs gave out, knees buckled and he collapsed onto the rocky ground beside his mother.

  His eyes were open. He could see, but not clearly; a blur smeared the edges around his vision. Everything looked hazy and blended.

  “Mykal?” Blodwyn said. His face was too close. All Mykal noticed were the hairs in desperate need of trimming inside his nostrils. “Mykal?”

  Eadric was checking on Anna. Mykal heard his father say her name over, and over.

  Coil, Quill, and Basin held the lit torches
and encircled the others.

  “He’s shaking,” Blodwyn said. “His eyes aren’t reacting properly to the light. Take the flame away. Move it.”

  Everything went dark. Mykal thought he had gone blind. He tried yelling. His muscles didn’t respond, his mouth stayed shut, the words locked away inside his throat.

  “Bring it back,” Blodwyn said. “Closer to his face. Not that close! Yeah. Nothing. His eyes aren’t responding.”

  He could see. The torch returned the light. He thought he’d sighed. He wasn’t sure. Nothing made sense. And all the while, in his mind he felt something pulling at his head, or filling in his skull.

  It had to do with magic. He couldn’t understand what was going on. Some realization was right there, though, right in front of him. All he needed to do was grab onto it, only his arms wouldn’t leave his side, and his fingers didn’t seem to work.

  “What about Anna’s?” Eadric said.

  Mykal was surrounded by darkness again.

  “Move the torch back. Bring it close. No, she’s not responding right, either.”

  “What does that mean?” Quill said.

  “It could mean any number of things,” Blodwyn said.

  “That wasn’t at all helpful then,” Quill said.

  “The black part of the eyes should get smaller when light is introduced. It isn’t happening for these two. It tells there is an anomaly within them, possibly something wrong inside their heads,” Blodwyn said. “And for whatever reason it struck just the two of them.”

  “They’re wizards,” Coil said. “Could that be why?”

  “Why it only impacted them? Possibly,” Blodwyn said. “Maybe there is a spell? Like a wall they can’t walk past?”

  “An enchantment?” Coil said.

  Blodwyn shrugged. “I just don’t know.”

  Mykal felt his lungs fill with air. He coughed and rolled onto his side.

  “Mykal?” Blodwyn said.

  On all fours, Mykal gasped. “My head is throbbing.”