Severed Empire: Wizard's War (29 page)

Mykal walked up the cave walls, alternating his left hand and right foot, to his right hand and left foot. He had to actually think before taking each step. The gap between the two walls thankfully became narrower. At one point he was almost standing straight up. He moved his right leg to the same wall as his right hand. Like a man-sized X he scaled more of the cave wall. The gap between the walls was getting smaller and smaller. After a while, he needed to keep his arms raised above his head. He felt the walls press in on him. There was no danger of falling at this point. He was wedged in good. The air felt terribly thin.

He didn’t stop moving though.

A few times there was a tug on the rope, and he slowed, giving the others a chance to catch up. He was so focused on his ascension; he nearly forgot that people like his mother, and Blodwyn were below him struggling just as much, he was sure.

When he was going too slow, his mind messed with him. Despite the darkness, he constantly saw movement all around. Basin warned of poisonous spiders, and venomous snakes. Naturally they had him surrounded at every point of the climb, and were just waiting for the right moment to strike and sink dripping, lethal fangs into his flesh. And when he wasn’t imagining death from creepy crawly attacks, he remembered how high up he was, and how confined the space had become.

Breathing in through his nose, and out through the mouth wasn’t always effective.

It helped. Often he could calm himself down with the technique (something Blodwyn had taught during time training), but during times like
right now
—when he was certain he was going to get bitten, repeatedly, and that the walls of the cave were closing in on him too fast making it difficult to breathe—it didn’t help at all!

The space in between the rocks was tight. There was no denying that. But the cave wasn’t closing in on him. The rocks weren’t moving. The darkness was not pressing in on him. Mykal reminded himself over and over. It was all in his mind.

He coupled this line of thinking with the breathing, and together it became a little more effective overall. A little.

“How much higher?” It sounded like Blodwyn. The voice echoed from below. It filled the silence inside the cave.

He was too short of breath for answering.

His left hand was above him. He threw his right arm up. He gripped rock. The surface felt flat, smooth. His arms felt rubbery. The backs of his arms ached. He pulled himself up past his chin, and then pushed down lifting his body the rest of the way. There was some light coming into the cave from somewhere.

He
had
reached a plateau, and used his legs and knees to complete the climb. Standing, he took a moment to look around. Although the others carried the unlit torches, there were small shafts of light coming in from all around. It wasn’t much, but it helped. Behind him was a makeshift ladder. Mykal took that as a good sign.

He held the rope in both hands, and peered over the side. “We’ve reached a ledge,” he said. The sound of his voice bounced around below and above.

Time passed slowly. Getting everyone up as they finished the climb was difficult. He pulled on the rope, and when hands clapped onto the ledge, he helped pull them up the rest of the way. They all took a moment and sat with backs to the rocks breathing heavily.

Mykal knelt in front of his mother. “Are you okay?”

A thin sheen of sweat coated her skin. When she smiled, her left eye closed. She finally said, “Just fine. I might not be used to climbing like that, but I like to think I’m still strong. The islands look like a paradise, but I’ve worked hard there all of these years.”

“Wyn?”

“I’m good, Mykal. Winded, some, but good.”

Mykal said, “Anything I can do?”

“I just need a moment more, and I’ll be fine,” he said.

Mykal wasn’t sure he believed his old friend. There was a pink look to Blodwyn’s skin, and the beads of sweat rolling down his face only accented the tone. The odd lightning might somehow be related. Either way, he wasn’t going to push. “We’ve got some time. Rest up.”

“Mykal? Come here,” Eadric said. He and Quill talked by the ladder. Quill had a hand on a rung. He pressed down on the rung, as if testing the strength of the wood.

“What have you got?” Mykal said, joining them.

“Basin never mentioned a ladder,” Eadric said. “It’s possible this wasn’t here the last time he was. I think he’d have said something otherwise. My guess is it will lead to the castle, though. This has got to be the way.”

Mykal thought the same thing. He supposed the wood would be rotted if it had been there decades. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign, or not. A ladder suggested more than providing ease, it meant the hidden passage was more frequently used, that it wasn’t as secret as Basin once knew it to be.

“The three of us should go up. This climb, the thinning air, it’s taken a toll on Blodwyn. You’ll never get him to admit it. He seems more stubborn now than when I first met him. I know the man is strong as a farm animal, but time hits us all.” Eadric stood with hands on hips looking up the rungs.

“He’s one of the strongest men I’ve ever seen,” Mykal said. He responded too fast to his father’s words. Eadric was not going to put down Blodwyn, though. Not in front of him.

“I didn’t mean anything against him, son. I don’t want him over doing it. I’m worried about him. Look at him,” he said.

Mykal cast a glance toward where Blodwyn sat next to his mother. Anna kept a hand on his back. Loose hair dangled from a bowed head, over parted legs. His shoulders rose and fell. “Is he having trouble breathing?”

“He’ll be okay,” Quill said. “Your mother can care for him.”

Mykal wasn’t worried about them having to get down the walls. Once King Hermon realized what was going on, he’d no longer have to hide his power. Both he and his mother would be able to use their magic. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll let them rest. Let’s take a minute for ourselves, and then we’ll climb to the top.”

***

The fire in the bowls on the stairs, and the torches on the dungeon walls were blown out as if nothing more than candles, and despite there being no wind in the room. The temperature in the dungeon dropped. King Hermon shivered, patting his arms with his hands. The hairs inside his nostrils hardened. He felt the tiny icicles against the inside of his nose when he breathed.

Matteo must be close.

He saw his breath in plumes when he spoke his magic. Fire flickered on the torch ends, and winked out. Cordillera punched a hand forward. Flames erupted from his fingertips. The fire snaked around the top of the torch, and caught.

Cordillera zapped fire into the iron bowls on the stairs.

The temperature continued dropping. Cordillera felt his eyebrows, his eyelashes, and the hair inside his ears icing over. With teeth chattering, and eyes closed, Cordillera cast a spell over himself. It changed the temperature immediately around him. His skin heated up. The ice forming on his body melted. He rolled and unrolled his fingers as his circulation increased.

And then something slammed into his back. The king was flung forward. He fell face first. His nose scraped on the ground, and bled. The dagger he’d held clattered on the stone, and skittered several feet away.

“Who are you?”

Cordillera turned onto his side.
This must be Matteo
, he thought.

“You have blood on your teeth,” the wizard pointed out, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

As Matteo took in the surroundings, Cordillera slowly stood up. He wiped the back of his sleeve over his mouth, and then spit the rest of the blood onto the floor.

The carnage was perhaps more than Matteo could handle.

Cordillera saw the advantage.

As the Matteo backed away with a hand behind him for balance, he said: “What have you done?”

The element of surprise had been compromised, but perhaps not lost. “Me? What have
I
done? I was called here, plucked out of my life and summoned,” Cordillera said. He just needed that extra minute or two, and playing a victim was the best way for obtaining it.

“You felt it? The disturbances?” Matteo said, his guard dropped. “This was it. This suffering was what I felt. You felt it as well? When I was called, I knew something horrible was happening. I just didn’t realize it was… this. What do you think is going on? Who do you think is behind it?”

Galatia stirred.

Matteo pointed. “She’s still alive!”

“We should help her; get her out of this place!” Cordillera waited until Matteo’s back was turned. “We all need to escape before whoever called us here returns!”

Cordillera’s eyes found the dagger. He spoke fast, but waved his hands and the blade flung itself through the air.

Matteo spun around just as Cordillera had enchanted the dagger.

He was a moment too slow, though.

The dagger spun end over end with the speed of an arrow from a bow. It plunged hilt deep into Matteo’s chest.

That was not the plan. Cordillera didn’t think he could steal magic from a dead sorcerer. He strode forward and placed hands on Matteo’s shoulders. He recited the chant he’d heard Ida speak, and hoped he wasn’t too late.

Matteo’s mouth filled with blood. The blade punctured things inside the wizard’s chest doing irreparable damage.

Cordillera increased the tempo. He spoke faster, enunciating each syllable of every word. The chant intensified. He worked against the sands slipping through the glass. Matteo’s life, like his blood, slipped away. There wasn’t much time left. It would be over soon. Cordillera had this one chance to siphon the magic.

Just as Matteo’s eyes closed, and as he went limp under Cordillera’s hands, Matteo parted his lips. A swarm of insects—small, black, buzzing gnats—flew out of his mouth. They gathered like a cloud above Cordillera’s head, and circled him like vultures about to dine on carrion.

The slumping body fell backwards. Matteo’s head banged hard on the rock. The skull cracked. Blood pooled around his matted hair.

Cordillera thought he’d failed, and looked up at the swarm and cursed.

They funneled toward him in an almost insane rage and filled his mouth. He gagged his hands around his throat. He stumbled around, banging into torture devices, and knocking others off their mounts on the walls.

When there was no more room for the flying insects inside his mouth, they filled his nose, and entered him through his ears. His senses were flooded. He swatted uselessly at the bugs. That did not deter them. They couldn’t be stopped.

Out of breath, he fell onto his knees.

The bugs on his face crawled into his head through the corners of his eyes, and covered his eyeballs sending him into a terrifying darkness.

Chapter 26

Mykal was on the last rung of the ladder. He stopped with his head pressed against stone. He closed his eyes. Someone was using magic. Lots of magic. It filled his head. A twisted black and gold stream wrapped around his mind. It moved like a snake, climbing up, and out, and going down, down, down. The stream never ended. It overlapped, and tangled.

When he opened his eyes, he could still see the color.

“Mykal?” Quill said.

“I’m okay. I’m going.” Mykal pushed up on the loose stone at the top of the ladder. Rock scraped against rock and Mykal cringed. He counted off several seconds in silence, and listened for signs their appearance might have been detected. When he was certain no one was alerted, he lifted the square slab up all the way and set it aside, hoisted himself up out of the ground, and then helped his father, and uncle.

“Where are we?” Quill said. Lights flashed from the window, where a strong wind about thin curtains. He stood between the billowing curtains, hands pressed on the sill. “Storm’s here. Sky is filled with black clouds. Lightning above them. No thunder though. We’re so high, it’s almost like I can reach out and touch the clouds.”

Mykal replaced the square of floor. “Basin mentioned servants’ quarters.”

“Let’s not waste time,” Eadric said.

Quill removed his bow from his shoulders, and nocked an arrow on the bowstring. “I’m ready.”

Mykal and his father drew a sword with their right hand, and a dagger with the left. The movements appeared choreographed.

Quill said, “That wasn’t strange.”

Eadric took point. They stayed tight to the wall. A lit torch in another room provided more stable light than the flashes of lightning. Either way, they could see where they were going.
Mostly
.

Just ahead, someone snored. Wind tunnels weren’t as boisterous. When the person exhaled, it reminded Mykal what a pig might sound like if it were drowning. They slipped past the makeshift bed, and out of the room.

Thankfully in the hall, every fourth torch mounted on the wall was lit, and opposite the torches were tall thin windows. There was both enough light to guide them, and enough shadows to hide in if necessary.

“The castle is huge,” Eadric said, whispering. “Galatia could be anywhere. Finding her will not be simple.”

“I can reach out to her,” Mykal said.

“With magic?” Quill said. “We’ve come this far without it. I don’t want to do anything to let the Mountain King know we’re here, inside his castle. Not now. Not when we’re this close.”

“Agreed,” Eadric said. “There are other ways to find out where King Hermon’s keeping Galatia.”

With that declaration, Eadric made his way down the hall. He moved cautiously, his sword in front of him. They all stayed against the wall, bent forward, passing under the torches. Outside, the lightning increased. The flashes made their shadows rush forward, move backwards and vibrate silently on the wall.

At the first corner, Eadric stopped. He pressed a finger to his lips, as if the others didn’t know to keep quiet. They waited for nearly a minute, and then Mykal heard it. Footsteps. Two sets. His heart beat a little faster. He stood still between his father and uncle, waiting, just concentrating on his breathing. With quick, shallow breaths, he didn’t want his huffing giving them away.