The Lord Of Lightning (Book 3) (11 page)

Josr patrolled nearby. Then, the Archer realized she was swimming in a protective spiral around Grisn and him, as they swam straight down.

A small shoal of fish darted away, a hundred identical shadows moving in perfect unison. Larger shadows moved at a slower pace farther away. Fish, the Archer thought, not sea serpents.

The blue was becoming a dark green. Josr was no more than a black silhouette. The Archer could feel his breath failing.

The light of the setting sun, radiating from above, was nothing more than a dull glow at the surface so far overhead. Looking down, the Archer could make out undersea mountains crusted with corals and a riot of other underwater life.

The Archer could feel a pressure closing in on his skull. He was now sure he was going to die in this attempt, but the beasts would get the crystal and deliver it.

Then, over a ridge, a huge black hole gaped on the New Sea's bottom. The ebony darkness yawned like the maw of a monumental, evil beast. Grisn furiously swam straight for the intimidating, circular, black depth.

The Archer shook the sword in his hand. It was supposed to light up, guide them. It did nothing. He racked his brain. What had he done when he was prying at the boulder? He swept the sword back and forth in the water. He was feeling faint and sure he couldn't hold his breath another moment longer. The pressure was pressing in on his chest.

Grisn plunged into the lightless pit. 

The Archer futilely shook the elvish sword, but nothing happened. The light was dimming altogether as Grisn swam deeper and deeper into the pit. The Archer's lungs felt as thought they would burst, they burned and ached. 

The Archer saw a black shadow moving past, and assumed it was Josr moving quickly to the bottom of the pit.

Derragen was sure he was near his last moments of life. He thought about what the Old Man had said. The Archer thought about the elf. He wanted to see her face one more time. And in that instant, he knew he loved her, and if he ever saw her again he would waste no time in telling her, directly and without hesitation, how he felt. The Archer blinked. 

A glow had begun from the bottom of the pit. The Archer could see Josr circling the growing point of light at the lowest point of the black, underwater pit.

It was the Lhalíi. And it had activated with the nearness of Derragen.

The Archer remembered how, twice, it had come to life when he was near the crystal. Grisn furiously swam towards the intensifying beacon.

The Archer was sure he was about to drown, but at least he could grab the Lhalíi, put it in his cloak, and then the Kaprk-Uusshu could bring his corpse with the crystal up to the shore.

Grisn came in hard to the bottom of the pit, whipping up a cloud of silt. The Archer reached through the haze for the center of the light. His hand touched the glass-like exterior of the Lhalíi.

He brought it close to look at it, and then he let the air in his lungs out in an explosive, involuntary rush of bubbles.

But, he did not drown.

The Lhalíi shone with a brilliant fervor. The Archer took a deep breath. The light was air. A cocoon of air and relief from the pressure emanated from the crystal. The Archer stared at the brilliance of the Lhalíi cradled in his hands, breathing normally. The light from the ancient thing bathed the Archer's face. The pressure was gone. The crystal radiated warmth, but was cool to the touch. His clothes and body were strangely dry. It was as if the Lhalíi had created a pocket of 'somewhere else'.

The Lhalíi was a crystal from Lanis Rhyl Landemiriam, and very old, possibly older than the first elf. It was the size of a newborn human infant. Hundreds of irregular facets crisscrossed the oblong shape of the crystal. There was a circular hole down the length of the crystal, as if it could be put on a pole. But all knew, because of Stavolebe's folly at the Battle of Byland that the Lhalíi fit onto the strange metal tube that jutted out the end of the hilt of the Mattear Gram the Sun Sword.

The light of the Lhalíi began to fade. The Archer took one deep breath from the life saving aura of the crystal, and patted Grisn. The water crashed in on the Archer as the cocoon of air dissipated. In a swirl of rising bubbles, the Kaprk-Uusshu vaulted for the surface with Derragen clinging onto the creature's back.

As they left the darkness of the pit, the Lhalíi was once again cold and dark. The Archer tucked the crystal into the folds of his cloak, and held onto Grisn as tightly as he could.

Rising, thrashing upwards, Derragen saw black shadows, set against the blue, swimming towards them from the distance. They were too large to be any kind of fish.

Vyreeoten, the Archer thought.

The glow of the setting sun overhead, above the surface was fading. The Archer ached for another breath. The gentle waves overhead were reflective facets softly moving on the ceiling up above. 

The vyreeoten were close enough that the Archer could make out their horse-like heads, their huge worm-like bodies, and their madly working paddle-like fins. They were coming fast, and there were about a dozen.

The Kaprk-Uusshu were bigger, but they were only two.

Josr whipped past the Archer with such force that he lost his grip on the scales running down Grisn back, which was for the best, as the beast turned and also rushed at the closing vyreeoten with a thrust that sent the Archer tumbling with the pulse of water. Derragen began desperately swimming for the surface.

He still had the sword, Bravilc in one hand, and the Lhalíi nestled in his cloak, as he tried to swim upwards with one hand. He turned to see the Kaprk-Uusshu engage with the vyreeoten.

Josr met them first. She lowered her head and let her horns tear through one, then two of the disgusting sea serpents. Vile, purple vyreeoten blood billowed like an opening flower in the water. She turned an impossible angle to catch a vyreeoten that had turned its head to bite her. That unfortunate vyreeoten got a mouthful of spiked horns.

Grisn hit the vyreeoten like an avalanche. Using his size, he barreled into two vyreeoten and ripped them to pieces as his massive, spiked horns shredded their slimy, long bodies.

The remaining seven vyreeoten spread out to attack individually from different angles. The horse headed beasts, with their insect-like mandibles, and long, sinewy arms, were quicker in the water. But, attempting to bite down on Grisn's scaly back only meant a bloody death for a miscalculating vyreeoten. Grisn turned and clamped down on the sea beast and shook it to death, like a vicious dog with a rabbit.

Josr twisted in the water and grabbed an attacking vyreeoten with her mouth. Derragen saw her bear down, as the vyreeoten's head exploded with a cloud of dark blood that murked the water.

A vyreeoten peeled off and headed for Derragen. The Archer, fainting for breath, clawed at the water, swimming for the surface, with all his might. He knew his sword would have no effect on the vyreeoten, as their unnatural bodies repelled metal with no harm inflicted. 

Grisn wrestled with two other vyreeoten, their long, thin arms slashing at the huge Kaprk-Uusshu. Josr cut from the fight to chase the sea monsters bearing down on Derragen.

The Archer could see the huge, completely black eyes of the vyreeoten that jetted towards him. It's snaking body corkscrewed in the water at a phenomenal speed. It opened wide its repulsive mouth, and the Archer could see rows of insect-like fangs. Two long, killing mandibles folded out of its yawning mouth.

The Archer desperately thrashed for the surface, his lungs about to burst.

Josr was right behind the vyreeoten as it reached Derragen. She bit down on the vyreeoten's neck, severing its head, as both massive bodies crashed into the Archer with a blinding billow of blood.

Josr continued her momentum and looped down to swim up under the Archer. She hit him with an astounding force. The Archer held onto Bravilc and the Lhalíi, crouching into a ball, as water rushed over him at a terrific speed. Josr was careful to use just her muzzle, avoiding her spiked horns. The Archer could feel the souls of his boots pressing down on her huge nose.

The Archer gasped for breath as he exploded up out of the water, with Josr right behind him. The Archer nearly lost Bravilc as he floundered at the surface, but juggled the Lhalíi to hold onto both his sword and the crystal. Josr slowly swam to Derragen. The Archer made sure the Lhalíi was safely tucked into his hooded cloak, and then weakly clung to Josr's back as she swam for the shore. Grisn surfaced nearby.

"The vyreeoten?" The Archer asked.

"All dead," Grisn snorted.

The Archer grasped Josr's pungent, wet fur until they approached the surf, and then he and the Kaprk-Uusshu waded out of the New Sea, to find, patiently waiting for them, imperiously standing on the sand of the shore, Deifol Hroth.

Chapter Five

The Depths

Yulenth had to keep pulling Lord Desprege up from his perpetual stumbling as he led him along. The wretched, unnatural mists that always enclosed the citadel of the Evil One were particularly thick today. Even at midday, with the spring sun weakly shining, the white mists covered the black complex and obscured it from view.

The Dark Lord had built his citadel of plundered bricks arrogantly right in the middle of the Plain of Syrenf, not too far south of the Westernway Road, the main thoroughfare through Wealdland. It was as if the Evil One had put his foot down, and said to all of Wealdland, 'try to stop me'.

Yulenth had memorized the safest paths into the citadel, avoiding the misshapen garonds that had been twisted into grotesqueries by the dark power of the Lord of All Evil Magic.

The worst and most violent of the abominations were chained to posts set into the ground, not having the sense, or sanity to stay at an appointed station. Occasionally, one of the mindless, garond atrocities would pull their stakes out of the ground or break their chains, and wander away, trying to eat or kill whatever they could get their twisted claws or malformed jaws on. It was best to keep a keen eye out for any wandering monstrosity.

Desprege continually wept. It was Lord Desprege's fourth visit to the citadel, and yet he was still terrified beyond belief, and reduced to horrified gibbering as they passed through the sentinels secreted in the blinding miasma of the mists.

"Oh no, oh Eann," Lord Desprege whimpered as they passed a garond with an enormous triple set of jaws, bent down like a wolf, gnawing at a bloody mass that was probably an unfortunate human caught to feed the creature.

"Oh no, the evil, the evil," Desprege blubbered.

Yulenth smiled to himself. He looked over at Lord Desprege of the Weald. He was a short, fat, bald man in his late forties. He was born into a privileged house, and had never worked a day in his life. Desprege's hands were soft and plump, like an infant's hands. He had never faced an enemy in armed combat. All the combat needed to preserve his life had been fought by someone else. Desprege's whole life was political intrigue among the nobles of the wealdkin.

"This way," Yulenth said as he pulled Desprege along by his cloak embroidered with gold thread. Desprege's clothing was obscenely rich; imported scarlet silks; effeminate, bright blue satin; intricate patterns woven at the loom by some unfortunate who profited nothing from her toil.

"Are you sure?" Desprege whimpered. "This seems a different path than the last time."

The fool has been paying attention, Yulenth thought to himself.

"Of course this is the correct path," Yulenth assured the fat Lord as he pulled him along through the white mists. "See here are the black bricks of the wall. Remember, do not touch them."

Only visible until you nearly walked into them, the black surface stretched in either direction in a high wall that enclosed the citadel. The bricks were stolen from Lanis Rhyl Landemiriam, the despoiled elvish capital. Once, the bricks were infused with brilliant, beautiful hues, changing and responding to the emotions and festivities of the elves, as they enclosed and protected the People of the Light. Now, under Deifol Hroth's thrall, the bricks were black and dangerous. They burned at the slightest touch.

Yulenth drew his sword and rapped on the black bricks.

"Open up," Yulenth growled with an annoyance at the wall. "There should have been a passage through here," Yulenth apologized to Desprege. "Accursed thing constantly changes to amuse it's evil self."

The bricks of the wall shuddered and slightly shifted.

"You know it's me," Yulenth said to the wall. "Open up."

The wall was silent and unmoving. Somewhere near in the mists, the sound of a garond shuffling on patrol could be heard. Desprege's eyes were the size of dinner plates.

"Then you shall have to answer to your Lord why you have detained a messenger that has been sent for," Yulenth said with a sniff.

Sullenly, slowly, the black bricks shifted and grated as they moved across each other, to form an arched passageway.

Yulenth was tall and thin, yet athletic, for a human of fifty-six winters. His clothes were simple and functional; a green tunic with long sleeves; breeches of tanned leather; a dark cloak. His hair was a mop of gray, and his beard a stubbly white. His eyes were gray, and shone with an intelligence that was far above the average wealder. His race, the race of Glafemen, was the cleverest of all the humans in Wealdland. Now there was only he and Ronenth that remained of Glafemen.

He kindly smiled at Desprege and motioned for him to follow.

"Don't touch the bricks," Yulenth reminded. Desprege simply nodded and quickly trotted behind Yulenth to escape any lurkers in the mists.

Inside the citadel, Yulenth produced a flint from one of the pouches on his belt and struck it against his sword onto a piece of tinder to light a small hand torch. Yulenth found a larger, unlit torch set in a holder on the stonewall, and set it aflame.

The light illuminated the bluestone corridors within the citadel. The stones here were large and dark, brought from the disassembled citadel in which Deifol Hroth had once lived, once stationed in the Far Grasslands. These stones were safe to touch, but usually were covered with soot or a disgusting, grimy film that appeared to be congealed salvia.

"You know where we are?" Desprege stammered.

"Listen, Desprege," Yulenth said in a conspiratorial whisper. "I have led you to a part of the citadel we have never entered before."

"But why-"

"Don't you think, Desprege," Yulenth whispered, "that the Dark One hasn't any gold?"

"G- gold?" Desprege suddenly forgot his fear.

"I think his treasure room is down this corridor and then down to the lowest level," Yulenth whispered.

"You- you mean The Depths?" Desprege whispered in horror, his fat face shuddering.

"Yes, The Depths," Yulenth hissed, "the lowest level of the citadel. Where else would he protect his great heaps of gold and jewels?"

"Yes..." Desprege mused, his terror resolutely replaced by a greedy imagination that pictured mountains of gold and jeweled treasures.

"Are you with me, Desprege?" Yulenth dangerously whispered, tempting.

"We'll never get out with any-"

"We just want to find the room," Yulenth said with a smile. "We dare not take a coin from the Dark Lord." Yulenth turned and looked at Desprege with a deadpan expression that spoke volumes. "Not now, at least."

Yulenth and Desprege quietly smiled together as their conspiracy was forged.

"Lead on," Desprege said with lust, his rising greed raising the hairs on his fat arms.

Desprege followed Yulenth along a corridor to a doorless passage that led down. The stone stairs descended to a blinding, inky dark. Yulenth intrepidly stepped down the stone stairs with Desprege, cowardly, close behind.

The stone stairs led down two more levels, then down to a foreboding, lightless, third level. Without a sound, the two climbed down, down into the blackness. In the third lower level, on their right, was a corridor carved partially from living rock.

Yulenth led Desprege down the passage that terminated with corridors to the left or right. Yulenth indicated, high, near the ceiling of the intersection, a part of the brick wall on their left that bulged out.

"See here, Desprege," Yulenth said. "These are the tubes that lead to the surface. The mists that protect the citadel come up from these tubes." Desprege just dumbly shook his head, too frightened to speak, or bother comprehending.

Yulenth stopped before the terminus, and indicated the left passage.

"Around this corner there will be three garonds guarding a door," Yulenth said. "I will try to reason with them first, but I may have to kill them. Just stay behind me. Understand?" Desprege silently shook his head in fearful acknowledgement. Yulenth drew his sword.

As they turned the corner, Desprege could see, from over Yulenth's shoulder, two garonds fearfully huddled on the stone floor at the end of a short corridor. As Yulenth approached, they pointed to the door, but were too frightened to speak.

Yulenth, with his sword up, walked to the large, oak door carved with curious sigils and runes. The garonds whimpered in fear as Yulenth turned the bronze door latch.

"What has happened to the third garond guard?" Yulenth asked himself before he opened the door.

"Who cares," Desprege said, his greed replacing his fear yet again. "The gold. The gold."

Yulenth opened the door and entered the chamber.

The room was an expansive vault, completely dark and apparently empty. Yulenth raised his torch to get a better look at the deserted chamber.

The sound of the garond guards fleeing up to the upper levels echoed behind them.

"Where's the gold?" Desprege greedily whispered.

Something moved in the shadows at the far end of the vault.

"Who's there?" Yulenth challenged raising his sword.

A muffled mumbling whispered from the shadows. The sound of struggling and shuffling emanated from the dark.

Yulenth quickly scanned the room. Where did the tubes originate, he thought, the tubes that belched the mist up to the surface above? Yulenth followed a wall to where the tubes should have run from the ceiling. He discovered two massive holes plugged by some gelatinous mass. Yulenth was puzzled. He lifted his torch and followed the bulky, transparent slime. 

Then Yulenth noticed Desprege standing in the center of the vault and looking up, his mouth open in astonished, speechless fear.

Yulenth approached, holding his torch up to see a huge, moving mass covering the entire ceiling. In one part a garond struggled, submerged in the coagulating ooze.

"What is it?" Desprege whispered in horror, frozen to the spot on which he stood.

"Perhaps we should leave," Yulenth said, eyes wide, inching towards Desprege to pull him out of the room.

"How pleasant to have visitors," a dribbling voice gurgled from the ceiling. Yulenth turned to follow the sound of the voice. He discovered a disembodied mouth, with attached larynx floating in the transparent, undulating mass clinging to the ceiling. Yulenth then noticed eyes, hands, hearts, feet, moving, drifting in the gelatinous mass.

"Desprege, get out," Yulenth urgently whispered.

"No, please stay," the detached mouth politely gurgled from the ceiling. "What is your name? He is Desprege. Who are you?"

"Yulenth the glaf," Desprege said, hypnotized with fascinated fear. Yulenth snarled at the fool for giving his name away.

"Yulenth, the glaf, welcome," a different detached mouth dribbled. "I am Lah'ugh'gloth. I welcome you. I do apologize for the relative discomfort of my home. But, that is not my doing. My host keeps my surroundings rather sparse. I think he thinks I might eat the furniture." And then the hideous mass quivered with giggles.

Yulenth could see that the poor, ensnared garond guard was being digested, and slowly pulled apart as it struggled in the gelatinous body of Lah'ugh'gloth.

"What are you?" Desprege whispered with horror.

"I am a demon from hell," a detached mouth calmly smiled. "I was the Dark One's first friend."

"You make the mists that protect the castle," Yulenth ventured.

"Yessss," Lah'ugh'gloth drooled. "Do you wish to join me? It is glorious."

"Not at present," Yulenth quickly said. "I have many things I still have to do outside the citadel," Yulenth said as he backed towards Desprege.

"Oh," Lah'ugh'gloth happily gurgled, "tell me of the outside. I haven't had any reputable news of late. These guards are so tedious and reticent. Have we defeated the humans?"

"Not just yet," Yulenth said as he reached out to grab Desprege by his cloak and pull him towards the door. Yulenth noticed that the creature, as much as it squished around, never let go its grasp on the two large holes in the ceiling that chimneyed to the surface.

"I have been promised a great feast," the monster chortled. "I think that will be very nice. What do you think of my mists?"

"Very impressive," Yulenth said, as he and Desprege inched for the exit. "How do you do it?"

"Magic."

"I don't believe in magic," Yulenth bravely said. "There is an explanation for everything. Although I would be hard pressed to explain you in any way," Yulenth said as he felt for the door latch.

"Please don't go yet," Lah'ugh'gloth said, and then the gelatinous mass shuddered and moved with frightening quickness to hang over Yulenth and Desprege.

"Deifol Hroth expects us," Yulenth said as he creaked the door open, watching the creature carefully. Yulenth then noticed amongst all the dissolving and detached body parts, one single brain floating in the center of the huge, mucus-like aggregation that was Lah'ugh'gloth's transparent body.

Yulenth pushed Desprege out the door.

"It certainly was a pleasure to discover you," Yulenth said with an edge to his voice, trying to mimic the abomination's polite demeanor.