The Worlds of J D L Rosell Read online

  “You painted this,” he said as he turned and observed the imperfect lines, the unevenness of the coat. “You have refreshed this symbol, year after year, so that it would not be lost.”

  Her silence was his only answer.

  “How long? How long have you guarded this place, Keeper?”

  She approached the edge of the circle, but did not step foot on it. “Since it was desecrated.”

  “Two hundred years?” He glanced around the room and saw little else remarkable. “For what?”

  “For you. I hope.”

  As the old woman painfully knelt down, the sorcery nearly swept his mind away. He told himself to flee, told himself he had blundered his way into an occult trap. But as his blood burned inside him, he could not make himself move an inch.

  Then she touched the silver paint with her gnarled fingers, and he saw them: the white glyphs, now burning crimson, that had been subtly painted within the silver. Even as a curse formed on his lips, all thought was torn away.

  “How can you do it? How do you work your magic?”

  Another voice, another time, long ago and far away. Yet Tal found himself answering as he had then, a puppet fit to do nothing but dance along as each string was pulled.

  “I suppose I must be blessed.”

  “Blessed?” The man facing him from across the chamber barked a laugh. “Look around you, man! No spirit could bless you!”

  Then he’d looked around, and he’d seen what he hadn’t just a moment before. Blood — the chamber was filled with it. Blood spattered in lines down the walls. Blood puddling beneath prone bodies. Blood covering his hands, dotting his face, filming his sword.

  He wanted to fall to his knees and never rise. But instead, another presence forced his head upward and the words onto his tongue. “Someone clearly has.”

  The man, shaking with fury, clenched his fists, but it didn’t hide the sorcery building within them. “You’re his. Yuldor’s servant. He granted you his fell powers.”

  “Would it comfort you to believe he did?”

  As the warlock raised his hands, Tal had thrown everything he had against the other presence inside him, that controlled his limbs and thoughts, that had made him slaughter everyone in that chamber. It fought against him, crushing him back down, but he didn’t have to hold it for long.

  The domed ceiling crumbled above him and fell in great boulders. As the other presence stared up in fury, Tal whispered inside his mind: May this kill it. May it kill me.

  “The Blood. It is in you. It is truly in you.”

  Tal blinked open his eyes, and was dimly surprised to find tears in them. As he reoriented to the world around him, he discovered he was on his knees, and had fallen on one of the points in the silver circle, the symbol of the droplet. The burning inside him had faded to a gentle warmth that suffused his body, though it did little to soothe the pain of his now-aching knees.

  He stiffly rose to his feet and stared at Keeper. “What did you do?”

  For the first time, fear flickered across her gaze. Everyone is afraid of something, he thought bitterly. It is not death she fears now, but me.

  “It was her test,” the old Nightelf said softly. “A test she never had a chance to try. Before her death, Hellexa Yoreseer had divined a way to determine if her theory was accurate. A ritual to determine if a man or woman was a Fount, and to see if it was the Blood or the Song in them.”

  Tal slowly rested his hand on his sword’s hilt, a smile playing on his lips. “You’ll have to speak clearer than that.”

  Her pink eyes darted to where his hand rested, then back up to meet his gaze. “A Fount. One chosen by the World to have magic in their veins, though they are not one of the Heart Races with it born to them.”

  “The World cannot choose anything. The World just is.”

  Keeper shook her head. “There is a better way to explain. Her book — you must read it for yourself.”

  He found his patience quickly fraying. “Every book in this tower was burned — isn’t that what you said?”

  “Every one that they found. But the Pyramidion planned for that as well. She hid the original tome in a place no one could retrieve it, not even I.”

  “Then it doesn’t do us much good, does it?”

  Keeper edged around the silver circle, seeming reluctant to enter it, and made for the opposite side of the room. Tal wanted to leave the circle himself, but stayed where he was, fear clenching his chest so tightly he could barely breathe. He couldn’t risk being dredged in the memories once more.

  The aged Nightelf had reached the other side of the chamber and placed a hand on the wall. “Here. The Fount symbol again appears. This is where it would be hidden.”

  Tal’s smile widened, bitter amusement flooding him. “So you don’t actually know there is a book hidden there. You only suspect.”

  Keeper narrowed her eyes, some of her insolence regained. “Knowledge was what Hellexa prized above all else.”

  “You speak as if you knew her.” Bracing himself, he took a step forward onto the silver paint, then flinched as he waited for the memories to rise once again. But as nothing happened, he let out his breath and quickly walked off the circle to stand at its edge.

  Keeper watched him, her eyes losing the flinty look and gaining again the deep sorrow. “I did,” she said softly. “I knew her very well indeed.”

  “Who was she to you? A friend?”

  The Nightelf turned her gaze aside, looking every bit as ancient as she’d claimed. “Her sister.”

  In a moment, everything he had seen in the Blue Moon Obelisk reoriented for him. Not a neglected ruin, nor a haunted tower. A monument. A memorial maintained just as it was from the time she lost the person she must have loved most.

  Neither of them spoke for a long moment. When Keeper looked back at him, the softness had faded from her eyes, replaced with the familiar, feverish zeal. “You are the one I’ve been waiting for, Tal Harrenfel. You are the one who will confirm everything my sister died for. Come; do not fear the symbol. If it harmed you before, it will not now.”

  Tal approached and found that, to his surprise, he didn’t fear it anymore. Reaching out for the small, silver symbol on the dark stone, he pressed a finger to it. His blood burned in his veins for a moment, then the stone softened under his touch, pouring away into smoke and dust, and revealing a small cavity in its stead. Breath held in anticipation, he reached a hand inside, and his fingers brushed against leather. Gripping the object, he pulled it out, and was hardly surprised to find a leather-bound book with the Fount symbol etched precisely into its cover.

  Keeper’s expression held the reverence of a priest before a god’s likeness as she stretched a hand toward the book. But before her fingers could brush it, she pulled away.

  “No,” she breathed. “It is not meant for me.”

  As if to keep herself from further temptation, she turned her back on him. He thought her shoulders trembled.

  Averting his gaze, Tal studied the tome. Letters were scrawled on the cover above the symbol, almost familiar, but defying his comprehension. Carefully opening it, he was surprised to find the book lacked the aged fragility he’d expected, but was still pliable as if it had been bound only a year ago, and the pages of vellum within were similarly fresh. Yet there, too, the words were unfamiliar, and though they were set in ink on the page, they seemed to twist unpleasantly before his eyes. He looked up to see Keeper had turned back to watch him.

  “This is in no language I know, yet it seems familiar,” he observed. “Is it a dialect of the Worldtongue?”

  She nodded. “The Empire’s dialect. What you might call the Darktongue.”

  Tal grimaced. “No chance you have a translation lying around?”

  Keeper scowled, but visibly tried to master herself. “I will translate for you. It may take a week for us to read through it, but I trust it has not been a short journey here, and a week will not be a much greater burden.”

  He imagi
ned all the things a week here kept him from. Roasted chicken. A soft bed. A chamberpot. Tal sighed. “A bearable burden at least.”

  As if she had heard his thoughts, Keeper scowled again.

  He hesitated, then asked the question he most needed to know. “This book, and the Founts it describes — myself included… We are somehow threats to Yuldor? To your Empire?”

  The Nightelf’s expression went carefully flat. “I entrusted you with my sister’s knowledge because you are a Fount of Blood. But is this how you will use it? To destroy the Peace our Lord has worked so hard to forge?”

  Tal kept her gaze. “It is not peace Yuldor has brought to my lands, but demons and death. I don’t wish harm upon your people, but I will do what I must to rid the World of the devil you name your god.”

  Fear came into those eyes, and for a moment, Tal was ashamed to think he’d caused it. Then anger laced her expression.

  “Intruders,” she hissed. “At the Obelisk’s door. Someone seeks to enter.”

  His stomach sank. So close, and yet so very far. “No chance you get friends visiting? Distant relations?”

  Keeper gave him a flat look. “Were you pursued coming here?”

  “You wouldn’t exactly call them an entourage. Ever heard of the Venators?”

  The Venators, he'd learned his pursuers called themselves, from a strange, hog-headed priest whom he’d held hostage during one of his harrowing experiences. The Venators, the priest had said, were hunters of any man or woman who dared to cross into the boundaries of the Empire of the Rising Sun. Tal had heard of them before, but by a different name: the Ravagers. They’d gathered a bloody reputation as the best headhunters the East had to offer, and now he'd witnessed the proof of it.

  For four months, they'd tracked him across the mountains, nearly catching him on several close encounters. Once, they'd cornered him in a temple, and Tal had only slipped free by hiding in a sanctified tabernacle. Another time, they'd been driving him through the mountains toward an impassable valley, not knowing Tal had acquired a secret map from the tinker he’d encountered before, enabling him to give them the slip on a path they knew nothing of. The last encounter he'd only managed to escape by the happy coincidence of a flock of a dozen griffins alighting between him and the Ravagers, cutting them off in the narrow pass and forestalling a fatal battle.

  Despite his victories, Tal knew it was as much luck as his wits that had kept him alive for so long. And so he'd sought to bolster his chances of survival through an abundance of caution.

  She cursed in her own language vehemently for a long moment. “Fool!” she finally said in Reachtongue. “This is a forbidden place, and we are trapped in here! If they know you have entered, they can keep us in here until we starve!”

  “I don’t suppose there is a secret exit then?”

  Despite his light tone, he was having trouble finding a way out himself. Trapped in a tower until I starve to death — my worst nightmares come to life. He glanced down at the tome held in his hands, though, and knew he wouldn’t surrender that easily.

  “You said you expunged all the curses?”

  Keeper glared at him for a moment, then grudgingly said, “Most. I neglected the ones in the cellar.”

  “That could help. And I know you can draw glyphs.”

  The old Nightelf narrowed her eyes. “You are plotting something.”

  Tal studied her for a long moment. How much could he trust her, now that he had revealed how he meant to use her sister’s legacy? Yet with what faced him, he knew he had no choice.

  “Yes, my ancient friend. I’m plotting us a way out.”

  Tal faced the dark, stone door at the end of the hallway. His sword, Velori, he held bared at his side, the runes glowing a gentle blue across the honed, silver steel. He’d set aside his cloak and now shuddered in the chill air of the tower. Better a minute of shivering than to trip over the hem and fall on an enemy’s sword, he mused.

  The plans were set, the players in place; all that remained was for the choreography to begin.

  Yet, just when he was supposed to open the door, his doubts finally found him. It wasn't the first time he'd contended with the Ravagers. He knew they would be no easy prey. And as for himself… he was underfed, poorly rested, and still shaking from his brush with the past. And though he indulged himself in fantasy, how much of his legend was aggrandized?

  "More than its fair share," he answered himself aloud.

  He gripped Velori's hilt tighter, but the well-worn grip wasn't the comfort he'd hoped for. Where had his bluster, his rakish confidence gone to?

  He knew.

  That day, when the bodies of warlocks lay all around him. The day he'd been broken, never to truly repair. He'd faced it again, faced it and once more found himself wanting. It didn't matter that he'd been under the enemy's control — he knew it had been his hand.

  And, for one moment, as he woke from the trance and saw the death and carnage surrounding him, he'd been delighted.

  Tal shook his head, and a few wisps of his shaggy hair stole free of its leather binding. He pushed them back with annoyance, then had to laugh. "If I so revile myself," he asked aloud, "what do I have to fear?"

  Someone shouted from the other side of the door, jolting him back to the moment. He gripped his blade tightly again.

  If not to stay alive, then for the answers I've been searching for, he told himself. For the old crone who's dedicated her life to preserving her sister's legacy. For the whole of the Westreach, perhaps, if that book contains the secrets that Keeper claims.

  More voices joined the shouting, perhaps hearing his voice through the stone. Tal planted a smile on his face and strode forward.

  "It would be boorish of me," he said softly, "to keep our guests waiting any longer."

  Reaching the door, he withdrew the seal Keeper had entrusted to him. Then, taking a deep breath and releasing it, he pressed the seal to the stone.

  The door came free and swung silently toward him, and the noise outside crescendoed to a din. Tal didn't wait for it to fully open before he bolted back down the hall. A glance behind showed a burly humanoid with the features of a hog pushing himself through the gap, his black, beady eyes meeting Tal's. Shouting something in a gutteral tongue, he squeezed inside and began sprinting after him.

  "Shit. Kald!"

  Tal pointed at a spot on the wall behind him as he shouted, and a glyph, nearly invisible before, flared into glowing red life, then burst into flames. Tal heard the Ravager skid to a halt on the other side of the wall of flames and smiled to himself. The first trap, at least, had done its piece by delaying them.

  Now to actually kill them.

  Taking the stairs three at a time, he reached the top of the landing and spun back, panting, waiting. The roar of flames had died down below, replaced by the pounding of heavy boots on stone and the shouts of the Ravagers. If he'd been able to understand them, he could have anticipated their movements. As it was, he knew there was only one way for them to go in this tower: up.

  Then he saw them, shadows large against the walls as they charged up the steps. The one in front might have been the same swinish man who'd first entered; he at least glared with the same hatred as he found Tal waiting above. With a harsh yell, he pointed at him, and his fellows behind raised their own weapons — crossbows, short bows, javelins — and took aim.

  Blood pounding in his temples so that he could barely hear, Tal pointed his free hand at the wall and shouted "Broldid!” then threw himself to the ground.

  First the whistling of missiles — then a resounding crack and a heart-rending boom, and pebbles and debris filled the air.

  Tal coughed as he covered his face, waiting for the dust to settle so he could see and breathe again. Below, he heard the screams of wounded men and furious hunters thwarted in the chase by the demolished wall.

  He smiled to himself as he stumbled to his feet and examined the damage for himself. The stairway had collapsed, cutting off the second le
vel. But from what he'd seen of the Ravagers, he knew that wouldn't hold them for long.

  Face still covered with his shirt, he sprinted for the next landing.

  As smoke and the acrid stench of the gas filled his nostrils, Tal staggered up the stairs and onto the final floor. Struggling to breathe, he saw Keeper watching him and tried on a smile, but it didn't stick.

  "My sister's Obelisk has been desecrated,” the aged Nightelf said stiffly. "Are the invaders at least taken care of?"

  He shook his head, and not just in answer. Only this old hag would be more worried about a ruined tower than our lives.

  Keeper's scowl deepened. "How many more?"

  "More than I care to fight. But if the last trap didn't deter them, nothing will."

  At each level, a fresh trap had awaited the hunters. Ice on the stairs. A series of fire glyphs that ignited as the highest one was stepped on. A gale set into the wall. Every trick Tal knew, he'd employed in the Obelisk — and from the screams that had echoed up the tower, to devastating effect.

  Yet still, the Ravagers had come on. Tal had been forced to flee faster and faster, stitches stabbing at his sides as he tried to outpace the predators and avoid his and Keeper's many traps.

  Now, dozens of floors later, his vision danced with sparking lights, and his head felt dizzy and disconnected. Still, Tal turned and braced himself for the enemies that must inevitably come. For even if it was only for pride now, he knew they would. Hunters did not give up the chase once they had the scent.

  "Tal Harrenfel," Keeper said, her tone altered. "Listen to me. You must protect Hellexa's tome at any cost. Do you understand?"

  Tal glanced over at the old Nightelf to see a fear he hadn't expected. "I do. I don't exactly want to die either."

  "Then you will do whatever it takes?"

  "I've already shown I will, haven't I?"

  He stared at the stairway, still empty of enemies. The Ravagers were taking their time in coming. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps they’ve given up the chase.