Ridmark.
She realized that he had been the only man she had ever kissed. She had been in love with poor doomed Julian, but that had partly been a childish infatuation. It could have become more, but he had been uninterested and had died in battle. Then duty had consumed her life ever since. There had been no time for a husband, no time for children.
Calliande closed her eyes, the deep regret going over her.
But she owed Ridmark everything, owed him and Kharlacht and Caius and Gavin and Morigna and Jager and Mara and Arandar so much. Without them, Shadowbearer would have killed her on the first day she awakened, and it would all have been for nothing. Shadowbearer would have triumphed, the Frostborn would have returned, and the sacrifice of the Order of the Vigilant would have been for nothing.
She opened her eyes and looked at Marius.
“Oh, my friend,” she said. “My oldest and best friend. I am sorry. I am so sorry for all you have endured.”
“I have sacrificed no less than you,” said Marius. His tired face eased into a smile. “It is every teacher’s wish to be surpassed by his students, and you, Calliande, you were the best of my students.”
“I know what I must do,” said Calliande as the mists swallowed them once more. “I will take the empty soulstone and wait for Shadowbearer to come to me. Then I will stop him from opening the gate. Perhaps I can even destroy him and put an end to his evil.”
“It is a grave task you have set yourself,” said Marius. “A grave and dangerous task.”
Calliande blinked, and then burst out laughing.
“What?” said Marius, puzzled.
“A grave and dangerous task?” said Calliande, thinking of what Ridmark might say. “When have I ever done any other kind of tasks?”
Marius blinked, and then smiled. “True.”
The mists spun away from her, and Calliande found herself in another chamber, a vast hall similar to the first, dragon skulls lining the walls. At the far end stood a dais, and atop the dais rested a large block of white stone about the size and shape of an altar in a church.
Her staff, the staff of the Keeper, lay across the altar.
It was ancient, older than Andomhaim, older than Britannia, perhaps older than all the human civilizations upon Old Earth. Despite that, it looked modest, almost humble, a length of wood about six feet long, its top twisted like the roots of a tree. To Calliande’s Sight, it all but shone with the magic of the Keeper, a power different than the magic of the Well or the elemental magic Morigna and Antenora wielded, but stronger than both.
A small wooden chest rested next to the altar, out of place in this tomb of white stone and black bone. Calliande remembered that she had put it there herself, storing clothing and a few other things she might need when she awakened. She laughed a little at herself.
“What is it?” said Marius.
“I had a plan, and it barely worked,” said Calliande. “I didn’t foresee that Shadowbearer might destroy the Order of the Vigilant. I didn’t foresee Ridmark coming to save me. I didn’t guess that something like the Devourer might be waiting in Dragonfall. I failed to foresee any of that…and I still thought to leave myself a change of clothing.”
Again Marius smiled. “You did always attend to the details with great diligence.”
“It seems I could have attended to more important details,” said Calliande, thinking of all the things that had gone wrong.
The spirit of her oldest teacher shrugged. “No one can foresee the entirety of the future. Not even the Keeper of Andomhaim.”
“I suppose not,” said Calliande, and then she pushed aside her regrets and guilt and focused upon the problem at hand.
Namely, how to get to her staff without the Devourer killing her.
The malophage had to be in the chamber with her somewhere. It knew that if she took up her staff again, it couldn’t overcome her. So it had to strike now, right now, before it was too late.
Calliande took a careful step forward, and nothing happened.
Where was the malophage?
She called power, white fire snarling around her fingers. With her recovered memories, she worked a spell of elemental magic as well, fusing the magic of the Well with elemental flames. If the Devourer appeared, the spell would strike it with damaging force, hopefully stunning the creature long enough for Calliande to reach the staff.
Calliande kept walking towards the altar and the dais, her eyes roving back and forth.
There was still no sign of the Devourer.
She paused at the foot of dais, her Sight sweeping the chamber around her, her magical senses straining to detect any disturbances.
“Where is it?” she whispered. The Devourer was deadly, but it was a predator. It preferred to attack from ambush and stealth, killing its victims before they had a chance to defend themselves. Usually, malophages retreated from anything close to an equal fight. Had the Devourer not been so old and strong, had it not desired to consume the power of the Keeper, the malophage would likely have withdrawn. So it would try to ambush her, to overpower her in one blow. But how? The malophage seemed unable to keep itself concealed while attacking her, and there was no place to hide in this long, stark hall. It would have to…
The answer came to her in a burst of fear.
It would have to attack from above.
She looked towards the arched ceiling just as the air rippled and the Devourer flung itself downward.
It had taken the form of a giant, twisted spider, using its legs to cling to the ceiling. Calliande unleashed a blast of white fire at the malophage, striking the creature in the thorax, but its momentum carried the malophage downward. It slammed into Calliande, and its weight overbalanced her and sent her to the floor. She landed hard, the back of her head bouncing off the stone, the malophage’s weight pinning her in place, its armored exoskeleton cold and hard against her bare skin.
The creature’s head jutted forward, pincers yawning wide, and panic surged through Calliande. She summoned power, white fire blasting into the Devourer, and the creature reared back with a scream. For a moment Calliande was free, and she scrambled backwards as the malophage’s jagged legs stabbed down, barely avoiding the blows that would have impaled her. Again she struck, but she could not focus through the pain in her back of her head. Her spell hit the Devourer, but the creature shrugged off the blow, skittering after her. The Devourer’s form rippled, changing back to the form of the twisted lion.
Calliande tried to work another spell, but the Devourer shot towards her in a blur.
Marius sprang upon the spirit, white fire dancing around his ghostly hands. The Watcher’s spell did little harm to the malophage. Yet the Devourer was simultaneously a creature of the material world and the threshold, which meant that a spirit could grapple with it. Marius’s unexpected weight knocked the Devourer to the side, and the creature’s charge went awry, missing Calliande by a few feet. The malophage shrieked and lashed out with a clawed hand, sending Marius tumbling away.
It was Calliande’s last chance.
She raced up the stairs and threw herself upon the altar. A flash of memory went through her, and she remembered lying bound upon the altar of Black Mountain, waiting for the knife to find her heart. Perhaps it was fitting that it would begin and end upon an altar.
But this time, Calliande was no longer helpless.
She rolled, seized her staff, and spun to face the Devourer as it bounded up the stairs after her. Power roared through her like the resonant blast of a horn. Calliande thrust the staff, calling upon that power, and a brilliant arc of dazzling lightning shot from the end of the staff and struck the Devourer, drilling into its corrupted flesh. The spell threw the Devourer down the steps, and the damage reverted the creature to its natural form, to the hideous translucent shape ringed by dozens of razor-edged tentacles. The malophage shuddered, all of its mouths shouting threats, and charged Calliande again.
She got to her feet, casting one final spell, her Sight directing her power. The malophage was a creature of both the material world and the threshold, and the linkage between its two halves was its weak point. White fire lanced from the staff of the Keeper, slicing into the malophage like a knife into a pad of soft butter. Orange slime sprayed from its central mass, and the Devourer shrieked as Calliande severed its link to the threshold. Its body went into a wild, spastic dance, the tentacles lashing in all directions, and then it collapsed, its material form crumbling into smoking, stinking black ash.
Silence fell over Dragonfall.
Calliande lowered her staff with a long breath. The malophage could not truly be destroyed. It would reconstitute its physical form in time. But the damage she had inflicted would take the Devourer centuries to repair, and by then she would be long dead and the fate of Andomhaim would be decided one way or another.
“Marius?” said Calliande. She jumped from the altar. “Marius?”
She spotted the spirit standing near the dais, and her stomach clenched. His pale form was unraveling, dissolving into wisps of light. He smiled as she approached, his face full of relief.
“It is over,” he said. “At long last, my task is over.”
“I need your help,” said Calliande, but even as she spoke the worlds, she realized she could not ask anything more of him. Marius had guided the Order of the Vigilant after she had gone into the long sleep. His spirit had been bound to her, keeping watch after she had awakened with no memory and no magic. He had given everything she could ask of him. He had given ten times what she could ask of him.
Calliande closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the smooth wood of the Keeper’s staff.
“Do not mourn for me,” said Marius. “My time was long ago, Calliande. Only duty has kept me here this long, and now that duty is complete. You are the Keeper of Andomhaim once again, and in your hands rests the fate of the realm.” The spirit smiled, even as his face grew fainter. “I have done all I can, and I wish only that I could have done more.”
“No,” said Calliande. “I owe you everything, Marius. Farewell, my friend. Until we meet again before the throne of the Dominus Christus.”
“I depart in relief, and in gratitude,” said Marius, his voice growing fainter, “knowing that you are here to carry on the work and watch over Andomhaim. Farewell, Calliande, for we shall not meet again until the day when the book of life is opened.”
Calliande nodded, blinking back tears.
“Remember the Gray Knight,” whispered Marius.
“Ridmark?” said Calliande. “What about him?”
“The fate of all depends on him,” said Marius. “He alone may be worthy of the burden. Calliande, my favorite student, the daughter I never had. Farewell.”
He faded away, and Calliande stood alone in the cold stone hall of Dragonfall.
She bowed her head and wept, her fingers tightening against the smooth, ancient wood of the Keeper’s staff. God and the saints, she had not thought there were any tears left in her, but they came anyway. Her shoulders shuddered with them, and she took a ragged breath, and then another, and another.
The tears stopped.
She could not mourn for the dead, not now. Not when there were so many still alive who might die if she did not act. Ridmark might die, along with all her friends. Andomhaim might die if Shadowbearer succeeded.
Now, though…now she was the Keeper again, and she had the means to fight.
Calliande crossed to the dais, opened the chest at the foot of the altar, and got dressed.
She had left a minor spell upon the chest, and the clothes had survived the passage of the centuries with no more damage than a slight musty smell. She pulled on undergarments, trousers, leather boots, a green tunic and cloak, and a black leather belt. A golden ring with the sigil of the Magistri went upon the third finger of her right hand. At the bottom of the chest rested an ancient bronze diadem marked with symbols. It was a symbol of her office as Keeper, and Keepers since the days of Ur and Akkad and Babylon had worn it.
She pulled her hair back into a tail and placed the diadem over her head. It did not weigh very much, but it felt heavier than it should have. Nonetheless, it felt…right. Proper.
For the first time in over two centuries, Calliande of Tarlion was the Keeper of Andomhaim once more.
She strode from the altar, the mist rolling away to reveal the golden doors to the mortal world and Khald Azalar. Ridmark and the others awaited her there. Hopefully the Mhorites and the Anathgrimm had not arrived yet.
If they had…
Calliande’s fingers tightened against the staff, its end clicking against the floor with every stride.
If they had, Calliande would remind Mournacht and the Traveler just why so many dark elven wizards and orcish warlocks had feared the Keeper of Andomhaim.
Chapter 19: An Assassin of the Red Family
“This is a mad plan,” said Jager.
Ridmark had to agree.
The battle raged through the central Vault, fresh waves of Mhorite warriors assaulting the lines of Anathgrimm. Both the Traveler and Mournacht were battered and bloody, their warding spells flickering around them in wild sputters of light, but both the dark elven lord and the orcish shaman still fought with furious rage. They had not yet unleashed another explosion like the one that had killed the Traveler’s ursaar steed and the hundreds of battling orcs, but Ridmark suspected their duel would eventually kill everyone in the Vault. Or bring the entire Vault crashing down in ruin around them.
It would also bury Calliande alive in Dragonfall, assuming the Devourer had not yet killed her.
“Your wife thought up the plan,” said Morigna, gripping her staff. She looked tired and afraid, her mouth pressed into a thin line, but she did not waver. “One thinks you would approve.”
“I’m usually the one who thinks up the mad plans,” said Jager. “I’m not used to the reversal.”
“It will work,” said Mara, her dark elven short sword in her right hand, Calliande’s dwarven dagger in her left. She looked calm, eerily calm, like a pale statue with green eyes and blond hair. “It will work. Or we shall all be killed.”