Secrets of Arkana Fortress (33 page)

             
‘Where are you?’
it hissed into the night.

              Looking down to the ground it observed people staggering about, moving from one pub to the next with friends. A couple were arguing heavily about some sort of infidelity, a smash of a window following the crescendo of voices. The Faceless took no notice as it continued on.

              Then it got a trail – a couple of rooftops over in an alleyway.

              It moved with haste, nothing sounding except the soft whip of its dark black shroud.

***

‘Shit.’ Byde stopped in mid-stride as he felt a tingling sensation surging through his palms. He inspected his gloves as they ebbed with a weird green tinge.

              Mikos skidded to a halt beside him. ‘What the heck’s happening?’

              ‘It’s close,’ said Byde, pure fear in his shaky voice.

              ‘What’s that glow? Some sort of warning?’

              ‘Yes… they’re here already.’

              ‘Now what do we do?’

              ‘No point in running… it
will
catch us no matter where we go.’

              ‘So what then? Stand and fight it?’

              Byde held his head with both of his gloved hands and let out a high-pitched groan. ‘Oh I don’t damn well know.’

              The air chilled suddenly and they both shot their attentions behind.

              ‘No, no, no,’ Byde cried as he backed away from the Faceless assassin that stood solidly before them. His body began to glow, veins and arteries lighting up with a blue essence. A whooshing sound flew around the alley, bringing about a sudden onset of heavily thick fog.

             
‘You cannot hide,’
the Faceless called in a deathly voice.

              Mikos grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled him back, standing in front of him.

              There was a rumble in the fog.

              Both of them flew back into the wall as an invisible shockwave pounded into them like the blow from a god’s hammer. They landed among piles of rubbish; Mikos’s back cracking against something large and metallic. He let out a yelp of pain, sounding like a wounded dog.

              ‘It can’t end like this…’ he whispered to himself, closing his eyes. His head ached from a strange lightness.

              The Faceless strode through the thick veil and drew a curved sword out of nothingness. Its gait stunted a little. It watched with cat-like intent as Mikos and Byde stood up shakily before walking forward to meet it.

              ‘It ends here,’ Byde uttered.

             
‘It does.’
The Faceless lifted its free hand and grabbed Mikos around the throat with an invisible force. It thrust the blade into Byde’s gut and sliced it out of his side. It watched as the body fell to the floor, the glowing veins dissipating almost instantly. There was a faint cackle of satisfaction that seemed to come from all around. The sword arched around and wedged into Mikos’s neck, blood shooting out like a fountain. His body crumpled to the floor.

              ‘
Rest in Turmoil
,’ the Faceless uttered before exiting the world in a puff of purple smoke. There was no messing or hanging about with any task – it was swiftly carried out.

              The fog clung to the dead bodies like lichen on a seaside rock, seemingly feeding off the stench of death.

***

‘What the fuck was that?’

              The fog began to subside and Mikos lifted his head up from the rubbish, eyes wide open, and looked at the two bodies. He turned to see Byde’s face aghast with shock, staring straight at him. ‘What did you do, Byde?’

              Byde shook his head. ‘That… wasn’t me’ He sat up and cracked his spine back into place, wincing from the pain. ‘That was you,’ he said matter-of-factly.

              ‘What?’ Mikos jerked his head back in disbelief. ‘You must’ve hit your head on something.’

              With a snort, Byde gently got to his feet. ‘My head’s fine, my friend.’ He squinted his eyes conspiratorially. ‘Somehow you just managed to create an illusion that fooled a Faceless assassin… not that I’m complaining – I’m just curious about how you did it.’

              Mikos rubbed his chin with his palm and hummed deeply, his tongue rolling around in his mouth like a creature trapped in a cage. He was not about to believe that he had just done something that would, to some individuals; constitute the use of magic. He had no clue about what had occurred with the assassin, but the sincerity and natural shock in Byde’s words threw him into a veil of doubt about himself. Could he possibly have been a magic wielder all along and not known about it until now? No. No way in all the realms of hell. He couldn’t be magical. He didn’t want to be associated with Praanoc and be sealed away for months of training in the arts.

              ‘No way, Byde. There’s no way I could’ve done that. Surely I would’ve known about any magical abilities by now,’ he eventually replied; a certain tenacity in his voice.

              ‘Not necessarily. Magic can lie dormant for years; sometimes go undiscovered for a lifetime unless you’re properly tested.’

              Mikos suddenly shot up to his feet and stamped them down. ‘I am not going to the fucking Praanoc mages.’

              ‘Who said you had to? Their methods are far too modernised for my tastes anyway.’

              Mikos fell silent, suddenly curious. ‘What are you suggesting? There’s that look on your face, y’know?’

              Byde laughed, slightly flinching from the pain in his back. ‘Well for starters I suggest we find some place indoors and sort ourselves out.’

Chapter 23

A rhythmic clapping of thunder sounded in the distance of the fortress complex, the ripples of energy bouncing about like a child’s ball off the stone walls. There was something that could be heard in the distance in between the noise, but it was unidentifiable to anyone who didn’t actually know what was making it.

              She could predict the disturbances to the millisecond. There was an element of serenity to the constant and predictable nature of it all, and that relaxation was what Vicana needed right about now.

              Blaigen was becoming too much for her to handle. He was considerably more powerful than she was, her powers having only been given to her by the Providence. Magical abilities present from birth tended to be a lot more powerful than the ones installed into a non-magical being. Vicana was born without magic, but the uniqueness of her mind and body meant that she could have abilities imbued into her. Her thoughts wandered back to that point seven years ago when she had had nothing to lose.

***

A radiant beauty looked into a glass orb inquisitively, her dark blue eyes reflecting back at her like an apparition in the mists of a dark night.

              Looking up to the store owner she let out a heart melting smile, something that glowed warmer than the oil lamps around the ceiling. The store was a pokey antique place in one of the back streets of Donnol and was littered with treasures from all over Salarias, from Yingtzo to Yokitos to Traseken as well as places unknown.

              The owner, an elderly gentleman with a receding brown hairline, stood behind a sturdy little desk, hands resting his weight on top of it. He smiled back at his customer with a toothy grin. ‘Take your time, m’dear,’ he chuckled. ‘I rarely ‘as any customers, so I values every one of ‘em that comes in ‘ere, y’know?’

              Vicana winked at him softly and held the orb up against the light of the nearest oil lamp, letting it refract its way through. She hummed a little contemplative tune as she stood gazing into it. Her eyes flickered as she saw what she had been looking for.

              ‘I’ll take it, definitely,’ she told the owner with an enthusiastic tone. ‘Just what I’m looking for, it is.’

              The owner clapped his hands together and walked round in front of his desk. ‘Would you like it boxed or wrapped, or anythin’ like that?’ he asked with glee. He was certainly glad of some custom for a change by the looks of it.

              ‘Do you have a cloth or something? I can wrap it in that and put it in my shoulder bag.’ She was handed one quite quickly. ‘Thank you… how much in total?’

              The old man mulled over the total in his head, his lips twisting from side to side. ‘Normally ‘bout 350 rubos, but as you’re such a lovely gal I’ll do it for 300.’

              Vicana shook her hand in the air. ‘No no; I’ll give you 350 for it, don’t worry.’ She pulled out a few of the higher denomination rubos and pressed them into the palm of the man’s hand. ‘Thank you so much.’

              She left the shop with a small skip in her step, happy that she had finally found something to aid her experiments. She skipped all the way home through the dusky streets without a care in the world.

              Her little apartment was on the other side of the city near the harbour and overlooked a small rose garden on top of someone’s home. The hardwood door was bolted with heavy metal locks to keep any would-be intruders out. She had set up a series of traps at every point of entry as an extra measure of security – a variety of small explosives designed to stun and incapacitate without causing damage to the room, as well as a few poisoned projectile instruments. The last thing she wanted was a bloody mess over her floor.

              As for the place itself, it was an array of workbenches, test tube frames, boiling flasks, flames flickering from tiny magical devices, colourful drapes, and a single metal sphere that seemed to glow while levitating in mid-air. This was her place.

              Vicana placed her shoulder bag onto the main bench and carefully removed the glass ball. She walked over toward the metal orb, casting off the cloth, and held it up next to it. She felt her hands tighten as a surge of tensioned energy bounced between the two.

              ‘Perfect,’ she mumbled, pleased.

              It was later on that day that her experiment had started. She sat, poised above a collection of flasks filled with liquids of all colours and aromas. A half-eaten plate of pork and bread was sitting next to her on the desk, her appetite having not been much – she was too excited. She flicked a small glass lever at the top of a maze of clear tubing. A thin pink liquid followed a horizontal path; a thick green substance slowly cascaded vertically upwards on an abstract path while deep orange foam guided its way up a separate tube. Her eyes focused on the glass crossroad where the three substances would meet at different intervals. Her hand quivered as she picked up a small, cross shaped metal device that fitted in the palm of her hand and tapped it a few times. A low whine began to sound from it. The centre of the cross started to glow a deep orangey yellow before suddenly bursting into a small lick of flame. She quickly held it at the three convergence points and waited patiently. She had not come this far only to mess it all up by being impatient.

              A strange pale purple liquid rested in the freshly filled flask, seething quietly like a volcano. Vicana’s eyes gleamed as she stared at it for a moment before she picked up a pair of thin leather gloves and slipped them onto her hands, proceeding to pick up the simmering vessel. It was placed onto a desk to her right where the glass and metal orbs stood lined up on wooden stands, the glass orb in the forefront.

              The next and final part of the experiment was the toughest.

              A thin glass pipe with a bend in the middle and a sliver of metal inside it was inserted into the flask. Vicana attached a glass funnel to the end and lined it up with the orbs. She shuffled over to the side of the desk and picked up another couple of devices, one shaped like a star and the other a triangle. She angled the devices at certain heights above each orb and said something guttural. The star shone brightly while the triangle fizzled with rhythmic sparks. Electric spikes shot into the metal sphere as light energy entered the glass orb. Both hummed softly. A mixture of light and electricity travelled through the pipe into the flask, the liquid quickly boiling violently and glowing with an eerie blue light, as if a spirit was trapped inside, tormented.

              It lasted for all but a few seconds.

              Vicana picked up the flask and examined the results expertly. Something fizzled in the midst of the thick gloop, but it was just as she had predicted, as well as hoped for. She felt her chest quicken and her mouth grow drier than it already was. She always got a thrill from one of her alchemic experiments going right.

              There was, however, always room for mistakes in her endeavours, which she had become used to, much to her annoyance. A peculiar mist had started to fill the room, bringing with it a sort of burning wood smell mixed with dried blood. It immediately made Vicana’s stomach wrench.

              ‘Oh, what is it this time?’ she growled to herself under her stinted breath.