The figure barely noted her, turning to survey the room. All fell quiet before her gaze. The bone army froze in place; the writhing roof slowed its tangle; the screams of the skal’tum went quiet.
In the silence that followed, a single word chimed. “Chi.”
The section of the bone army that stood between Cho and the center of the room crumbled and clattered to the floor. The dark figure of ebon’stone waited, staring back at the moonstone entity.
“You!” Cho cried, drifting forward a step. “You hold Chi!”
Elena waved for Er’ril to grab the Diary. She followed in the wake of the spirit.
The Dark Lord answered her, mocking and dark. “Chi is mine, for all time.”
Elena glanced to Er’ril with concern. Chi was still trapped; they had been too late in breaking the Wyvern Gate. With horror, she realized the Dark Lord was not just a blackguard, but also a Weirgate himself. How could they hope to defeat such an enemy?
Under the monster’s ebon’stone feet, the silver lake had gone black. The corruption of the confluence was already under way. While they fought to survive, the Black Beast had begun his assault upon the world’s heart.
“I will not allow it!” Cho cried with anguish. “Free Chi!”
“You hold no sway here,” he said darkly. “Fight me and see what I can do!” His eyes flared.
Cho suddenly screamed. “No!” She flew back to Elena and Er’ril, hands covering her face. “Stop it!” She sank to her knees on the silver floor.
“What’s wrong?” Elena asked.
“Chi screams . . . The darkness tears at him . . .”
“Torture,” Er’ril whispered. “He’s torturing Chi.”
The flare of brightness in the ebon’stone figure dimmed again. “You’re too late anyway.” His eyes dismissed the weeping figure. “You’re all too late.” He stalked forward. Where he stepped on the silver lake, the floor went black. Trails of darkness snaked out from each footprint. “I will have my justice on the Land!”
Er’ril stepped forward. “By corrupting it?”
The Black Beast focused on Er’ril. “No, by destroying it. I will tear the living heart from the world and crush it in my stone fist.”
Elena had caught the signal from Er’ril as he had stepped out. He had motioned to Cho, indicating Elena should renew her magick. She crouched down beside the spirit.
“I need your power,” she whispered, thrusting her hands toward Cho.
The spirit studied her pale fingers and shook her head. “No.”
Elena’s brow furrowed. She pushed her hands into the wispy figure, willing the magick to flow into her—but nothing happened. Her fingers remained pale.
The next words from the spirit were warmer. “Only Cho can grant you her power.”
Elena glanced up. The eyes that stared at her now were plain, empty of the Void. “Aunt Fila.”
A small nod. “Cho refuses. She sees the flows of power here better than you. Ebon’stone and the swirl of energy here hold her brother trapped. There is no hope of freeing him, and any attempt to fight means torturing Chi. I’ve heard his cries, echoing through Cho to me.” Her face grew grim. “It is unfathomable the pain he feels. Cho cannot add to it. And I don’t blame her.”
Elena clenched two fists inside the misty shape. “But unless we stop him, the demon means to destroy the world. I must have her power.”
“Would you rip it from her, like the Dark Lord has done to Chi?”
Elena dropped her arms. “So we are defeated?”
Aunt Fila glanced past her, to the side. “The future is never set. Sometimes paths open that none could foretell. “
Elena craned around. She saw Tol’chuk push forward past Er’ril. The og’re stared across the silver lake to his dark twin. “Why?” he said simply.
“Watch,” Aunt Fila whispered at Elena’s side. “Sometimes fate can be changed with a single word.”
Tol’chuk faced his og’re ancestor. “Why?” he repeated. “Why do you do this?” He studied the dark sculpture of himself, even raising a hand to his own face. The likeness was remarkable, but upon closer inspection, he could see small differences. The ebon’stone figure stood slightly shorter, but broader of shoulder. Legs and arms were thicker, more like a true og’re’s. But like Tol’chuk, his ebon’stone counterpart stood straight-backed instead of knuckling on an arm.
The fiery eyes focused on him. “My last seed,” he said with a rumble of anger.
Tol’chuk furrowed his brow. His mixed blood—og’re and si’luran—made it impossible for him to father offspring. The direct line to Ly’chuk would end upon Tol’chuk’s death.
The two faced each other from a span of twenty steps and a spread of centuries, an og’re of flesh, an og’re of ebon’stone. Despite the risk, Tol’chuk had to know more. Here stood the source of his cursed lineage. He could not help but wonder how much of this monster was in himself. Were their similarities deeper than just features? He had to know, so he started at the beginning. “Why did you break your oath to the Land?”
Ly’chuk spat, eyes flaring. “The Land deserves no oath.” In those fiery eyes, Tol’chuk saw only disdain. “I see what you’re searching for. We two are more alike than you know, He-who-walks-like-a-man.” This last was spoken mockingly.
“How so?”
“Can you not guess?”
Tol’chuk frowned, but the answer came from behind him. Magnam, ever his shadow, spoke. “Each of you is only half an og’re.”
Startled, Tol’chuk suddenly recognized the truth of Magnam’s words: the straight spine and other subtle differences. “You be half si’luran, like myself?”
“No,” Magnam said, stepping closer. “He’s half d’warf.”
Tol’chuk’s eyes widened.
“On my father’s side,” the stone figure answered coldly. “A d’warf trader. He abused an og’re female of the Toktala clan and left her with her belly swelling. Like you, I was born a half-breed among clans where bloodlines were everything. It was only my elemental skills that won me honor and respect: my ability to read, bolster, and refine another’s talents.”
“That gift came from the Land,” Magnam reminded. “A Land you seek to destroy.”
Ly’chuk’s eyes flared crimson. “The Land gives no gifts,” he said fiercely. “Everything comes with a price that must be paid.”
Tol’chuk heard the ancient pain in the other’s voice. “Why do you say that?”
Ly’chuk glanced back to the others. During this short truce, no one moved, each fixed on this tale. Ly’chuk faced Tol’chuk again. “Like you, I was barren of seed—another curse of my father’s lechery.”
Tol’chuk frowned. Ly’chuk could not have been barren, or Tol’chuk couldn’t have been born from his lineage. His confused expression was read by his dark ancestor.
“Yes, I found a way to thwart this curse. I found a healer with elemental skills and used my talents to enhance hers. She was able to heal my loins, to enliven my seed. But even this came at a high cost. The healer’s abilities were too crude. She burned up with the effort, destroying the Land’s gift in her, enfeebling her mind.”
“So you raped her talent,” Tol’chuk said. “In order that you might sire children.”
“Like father, like son,” Magnam said under his breath.
The Dark Lord swung toward the d’warf, clenching a fist. Magnam was lifted from the floor by invisible bonds, strangling by the throat. “I was nothing like my father,” Ly’chuk roared. “Mine was an accident.”
“Let him go!” Tol’chuk boomed, matching his ancestor’s tone.
Ly’chuk glared, then flung Magnam away. The d’warf skidded back to the edge of the bone army. Fardale and Thorn went to his aid.
Once it was clear his d’warf friend lived, Tol’chuk focused back to Ly’chuk. “What happened after this accident?”
“Nothing. I lived happily and well among the Toktala clan for a full winter. I fathered a child. But the morning of his
birth, I went to the Spirit Gate, to pray for my child, to prepare myself for the oaths to the Land. But . . .” He fell silent, fist tightening. The stained floor under his feet grew darker, fissures spreading out from his heels and toes. His next words were as black as the stone that made up his figure. “But the Land knew.”
He went silent for a breath. “The Land is a cruel master—far more cruel than I have ever been.” A black arm pointed at Nee’lahn and Meric. “You know. You have both felt its wrath. The Blight upon your trees and people was the Land’s doing, was it not?”
Meric answered. “The nyphai had been trying to change the natural order, to spread their trees over all the lands. The Land acted in its own defense.”
“By destroying all, and mercilessly twisting the nyphai. Is that a reasonable response? How many others have suffered at the hands of the Grim wraiths since then?” His voice rose heatedly. “It is a curse that continued to punish the innocent, to torment the afflicted.”
Ly’chuk stared hard at Nee’lahn. Small flames lipped from his dark sockets. She lowered her face.
“She knows I speak the truth.” He waved an arm dismissively. “The Land doles its magick, but it is not a gift. It is tyranny. Dare step from the boundaries the Land has set, and you will be beaten down, punished not once, but for all time. As long as the Land exists, we are not allowed to rule our own lives.” His breath heaved in and out. “I mean to end this tyranny, to free the world by crushing the Spirit Stone and destroying its elemental heart.”
Gasps arose, but Tol’chuk remained silent.
Ly’chuk continued, deaf to their responses, lost in his anger. “You may judge my acts evil, but they are a small price for a larger victory. Many have died, so all could have a future. After this night, the rest of history will be unfettered. The peoples of the world will be free of the magickal yoke of the Land.”
Tol’chuk finally spoke. “But what did the Land do to you?”
Ly’chuk panted at his edge of madness. “What did the Land do to me? Like the Grim, the Land took my talent and twisted it foully. It took my skill at honing an elemental’s gift and maligned it. I knew from that moment on that all I touched would twist to darkness. What the Land did to me, I was doomed to do unto others. I would corrupt all the elementals I touched.”
“Forging ill’guard of them,” Tol’chuk said.
A scowl formed. Ly’chuk must have heard the accusation in his voice. “And why not? I was the first of the ill’guard, forged by the Land itself. All the evil that flowed from me started there first.”
Tol’chuk began to fathom the depths of derangement here. Centuries of rage, humiliation, torment, and perhaps underneath it, even guilt. But mostly his ancestor dismissed his own culpability. Ly’chuk couched his revenge and outrage in an armor of noble cause.
“I fought the Land that day. I tried to attack the elemental heart, to turn its black magick back on itself. But I was too weak. I was battered and torn, but I made it through the Spirit Gate. And there the Land faced its own mistake.” A bitter laugh followed. “I bled into the Gate. Ill’guard blood! My blood tainted all it touched.”
Tol’chuk understood. He had seen the same happen to the Heart of his people when Vira’ni’s blood had bathed the stone.
“Around my broken body, the blood of the Land twisted and hardened into ebon’stone, encasing me, entombing me. I became a black tumor inside the body of the Land. Before my corruption could spread further, the Land was forced to expel me, somewhere far from the Spirit Gate.”
“Gul’gotha.”
A nod. “Back to my father’s roots, the d’warf homeland. Once there, I reached from my tomb and found d’warf miners with elemental abilities. I drew them to me, bound them to me, and had them dig me free. Then I set about to build my army, to enslave my father’s people. I forged a legion of ill’guard, to turn the Land’s gift against itself. I constructed vessels of intense power, four statues built from the very stone of my tomb. Manticore, Wyvern, Basilisk, and Griffin. And then as I was about to return to Alasea, a boon came from afar, a spirit of immense energy.”
“Chi,” Tol’chuk muttered.
“The spirit became curious of Gul’gotha. It drew too near and was captured within the Gates, enslaved as surely as any ill’guard. This Weir of power opened all manner of dread magicks. There were no bounds. My first act upon receiving this boon was to reach into the Land and rip a hole in its crust, sculpting Blackhall from the molten rock of its bowels. It was my foothold back to these lands. From there, I searched for a means to again reach the Land’s heart, to crush the Spirit Stone. But the Land had grown wary in its age. It knew how to use its elemental puppets to thwart me. So over the centuries I learned my enemies’ weaknesses, those spots where the elemental flows from the Spirit Stone rose close to the surface. I sought to twist the Land as it had twisted me.”
“And now this last assault,” Tol’chuk said.
“You did me a favor destroying the other Weirgates. It concentrated Chi into one statue, an unstable situation, and with instability, there is possibility. I saw the potential to use this full moon to bring me here from Blackhall. To use the energy of the Void to link one to the other, to overlap them.” He pointed to Elena. “The wit’ch used this same trick to portal to Moon Lake in the Western Reaches.”
Tol’chuk nodded with sudden understanding. No wonder . . . “And once you reached here . . . ?” he asked aloud.
“I joined with Chi in the last Weirgate, fusing our two forms.”
“And now you mean to use both your powers to attack the Spirit Stone through the elemental lake here.”
“At long last, I will have my victory.”
Tol’chuk faced the tormented creature before him. He knew in that moment that though they shared the same face, their hearts were as different as night and day. He spoke calmly. “I won’t allow it.”
Icy laughter flowed. “You have no choice. None can harm me.” A dark menace entered his voice. “And more importantly, none dare harm me. There are worse fates than a world ruled by a Dark Lord.”
Tol’chuk stepped back and lifted an arm, signaling the pair of figures who had crept into the room behind the Dark Lord’s shoulder. Tol’chuk’s distraction had allowed the pair to prepare unobserved.
“I will be victorious,” Ly’chuk sneered.
A twang of bowstring punctuated his declaration. Then from the center of his chest an arrow bloomed, skewering from behind, piercing fully through the stone figure.
Both Tol’chuk and Ly’chuk stared down at the arrowhead. It was encrusted with heartstone.
Ly’chuk lifted his fiery gaze to Tol’chuk. “No!”
From around the edges of the hole, ebon’stone changed to heartstone. Like the Heart of the og’res before, a touch of heartstone purified ebon’stone.
“Now!” Kast yelled from the other side of the room. A line of d’warves raced into the chamber.
The Dark Lord yanked forth the arrow. Heartstone changed back to ebon’stone. “I won’t be defeated that easily. I am living ebon’stone, not a mere chunk of rock.”
Tol’chuk scuttled backward.
“I will herald the new age of Alasea,” Ly’chuk boomed, “with all your blood!”
Suddenly the war that had paused began anew. Bone armies re-formed, black tendrils writhed, and skal’tum screamed riotously.
A towering creature of bone swiped at Tol’chuk, slicing a ribbon of pain across his chest. He swung his hammer, shattering through the midsection of the creature, toppling it over. From the ruins, a new creature arose, smaller but quicker, with claws made of sharpened shards. He beat again and again, while other monsters closed in.
He glanced around at the chaos. The d’warf army joined the fray, attacking the room with weapons that glinted with heartstone.
Ly’chuk raged behind him. “You have no hope!”
Kast waved the last of the d’warves from the passage. In the chamber, the army had split into two forces. Wennar
already led one group along the south wall, aiming to aid Elena’s party. Kast now followed the tail of the other group with Sy-wen, Tyrus, Fletch, and Hurl.
His column looped around the other side of the room. Archers from both sides peppered arrows at the stone figure in the room’s center. Kast knew this must be the Black Beast of Gul’gotha. The monster knocked many bolts aside with slaps of his hand and blasts of searing balefire, but many others struck home, like the first arrow from Fletch. Even now, despite the additional weight of the heartstone-encrusted tips, the pirate’s aim remained flawless.
And while their strikes had failed to bring down the demon, they kept him off balance for the moment, kept him from turning his magick and attention against them. Kast was glad he had taken the time to have their forces anoint their blades, arrowheads, and axes in the dripping heartstone found in the cubbies, layering a sheen of crystal upon their weapons.
Sy-wen noted the same. “How did you know?”
Kast shook his head. “I simply knew.” The Dark Lord had protected that passage with the dragon; he must have had reason to fear the treasure it hid. But Kast knew he wasn’t being entirely truthful. As he had stared at the dripping cubbies, he had sensed a familiar tingle . . . of Ragnar’k. Whether it was some knowledge shared while merged with his demonic twin, or some last prophetic sending from the dreaming dragon, Kast had felt a need to coat the weapons.
As he ran, he wished the dragon’s gifts were strong enough to tell him what to do now. Kast studied his adversary. He could only imagine the power at hand. Perhaps the Dark Lord wasn’t accustomed yet to his new status as both blackguard and Weirgate. If so, they dared not give him a chance to gain his footing.
Kast’s mind still quailed at the amount of magick it must have taken to fuse Blackhall with this cavern here in Winter’s Eyrie. Was this one of the reasons they weren’t all burned to bone by now?
Or was there another reason?
Under the monster, the silver floor was stained black, and the darkness was spreading. Kast gaped at the corruption. Were their efforts even a concern to this monster? Or merely a nuisance, like flies on a horse?
But then again, even flies could sting.