Ian Esslemont - Blood and Bone

‘Will you aid me in another errand?’ L’oric asked, eyeing the dust as it swirled into nothingness.

‘Which is?’

The tall wiry mage indicated his unconscious father. ‘To put him where he belongs.’

The daughter of Draconus arched one shapely brow. ‘Indeed … that I should like very much.’

‘Very well.’ The mage knelt, and, grunting his effort, arose with his father in his arms. Spite backed away, her face betraying surprise and amazement. The mage commanded through clenched teeth: ‘Open us a way to the border regions of Kurald Thyrllan.’

Spite’s brows rose even higher. ‘But it is closed.’ She pointed to Osserc. ‘By his very hand.’

‘We shall see then,’ L’oric grunted. ‘As close as possible — if you would.’

Spite gave a quick nod and turned, extending her arms. The air tore before her. Blinding golden light burst forth through a jagged rent. The two figures, mere dark silhouettes in the roaring conflagration of brilliance, stepped through and disappeared.

The rent snapped shut.

L’oric and Spite faced a blasted landscape of twisting narrow canyons all shimmering in heat waves. Overhead, energies streamed as rippling auroras of power in banners, curtains and multicoloured scarves. They both hunched beneath the punishing heat and glare. L’oric adjusted his burden, hugging his father tighter to his chest.

‘Now what?’ Spite growled, shielding her eyes with an arm.

L’oric cast about, searching. He lifted his chin to the left. ‘There! You see the tall landmark?’

Spite squinted. Some sort of spire or tower rose atop a butte. ‘Yes.’

‘Get us over there.’

She swept her arms again and they disappeared.

L’oric stumbled as he walked to emerge upon a heap of loose baked shards of talus that shifted beneath his feet. He ended up at the bottom of the slope deep within a narrow canyon of crumbling layers of shale, sandstone and silts. Spite awaited him. She pointed up.

L’oric nodded and hefted his burden once again, wincing. ‘Get us up there,’ he shouted over the roar of energies streaming overhead.

Spite grumbled something under her breath and wiped the sweat now dripping down her face and naked limbs. She cast about, scanning the surroundings. She gestured, pushing and kneading with her hands. The wall of a nearby canyon shuddered. Rocks clattered. Then, with a crack of stone, the entire wall came crashing down in an avalanche of broken rock, raising a cloud of dust that Spite waved from her face. L’oric turned his head away, hunching a shoulder.

The dust dispersed quickly, driven off by the blasting power coursing across the landscape. A slope of shattered dry rock was revealed. Spite started up; she used all fours, pulling and dragging herself along. L’oric followed. ‘Not exactly how I would have handled that,’ he muttered to himself.

At the top, he winced again, turning his face away from the blasting wild energies punishing the landscape. Spite had run ahead to the shadow side of a tower that somehow remained standing against the streaming power. L’oric followed.

He lurched against the brick wall only to flinch away: the stones nearly glowed with heat.

‘Now what?’ Spite shouted into his ear.

He raised his chin to the tower. ‘Go on up.’

She grumbled once more: something about ‘this better be worth it’, and pushed on, dodging ahead. L’oric followed. Within, stairs encircled the outer walls, leading up. The interior was empty but for the rippling heat of a kiln. L’oric staggered up the stairs. He was nearing the end of his strength.

The stairs ended at an open trapdoor into a chamber at the tower’s top. It was enclosed but for a single narrow slit window facing the source of the glaring energies. Spite stood aside, her arms crossed.

‘And now?’ she demanded.

He set his father down and straightened his sweat-soaked shirt. ‘Now we shall see.’ He approached the slit window. A beam of light came in through the slit and crossed the chamber, cutting it in half. L’oric knew that it seemed that this was a world facing a cruel sun that hung at a fraction of the distance of the one most humans knew. But in truth, it was not like that at all. The source of the unleashed brilliance was in fact much smaller, and much closer, than imagined.

He extended a hand into the wall of light then yanked it back as the beam seared his flesh. To Spite’s questioning look he explained: ‘Now we wait.’

‘Who built this?’

‘Jaghut, I believe.’

‘To study Thyrllan?’

‘I believe it may extend back much further than that.’

Spite grunted something non-committal. L’oric eyed her; her limbs seemed to glow as well, gleaming with sweat. He cleared his throat and quickly looked away.

Spite smiled almost cruelly. ‘What are we waiting for?’

‘We’ll know it when we see it,’ he replied, still looking away.

The beam of light rippled and they both flinched backwards. Something appeared to be blocking the slit from the outside, hovering there.

‘ Who comes? ’ a voice whispered. It somehow penetrated the crackling and snarling energies though it came gently, soft and melodious.

‘Liosan!’ L’oric called.

‘ Entreat us no more ,’ the thing answered. ‘ The way is closed .’

‘He who closed it is come,’ L’oric shouted.

‘ For him we have been waiting all this time. Where is he? We sense him not .’

‘He is injured.’

‘ We will discern the truth of this .’

The light streaming across the room rippled again, writhing as if something were moving within it. Then a pillar of flame burst to life within the chamber. L’oric and Spite flinched all the way back to press themselves against the walls. The sizzling presence scoured the brick floor leaving a black scar behind as it wavered about. It passed over Osserc’s unconscious body and halted, flickering. L’oric tensed, his Warren raised.

‘ It is him! ’ came the melodious call, somehow conveying disbelief and joy. ‘ Returned as he promised us. Open the way! ’

The grating of stone pulled L’oric’s attention from his father. The narrow slit window in the far wall appeared to be changing. Dust and ground stone fell in a fine powder that flared incandescent as it drifted into the beam of blazing light. That beam cutting through the slit took on a deeper hue of gold until L’oric could no longer see through it. It might have been that light, but when he studied the slit window, his hand before his eyes, it appeared to be widening. As if it were opening.

He grabbed Spite’s arm and brought his head next to hers. ‘We must go!’ he shouted through the burgeoning roar.

‘Why?’ she yelled, and brushed his hand away.

He pointed. ‘The window! I believe it is the gate! A gate opening directly into Kurald Thyrllan.’

‘So what?’ She waved at him. ‘Aren’t you resistant, or whatever, to its manifestation?’

‘No more than Mother Dark could encompass Darkness itself!’ he shouted back. ‘Come!’

‘Your father?’

‘They will take him! Come!’ He attempted again to grab her arm but she easily brushed his hand away. He started backing away towards the stairs regardless.

The slit was definitely wider now, and lengthening, extending down to the floor. The solid bar of light was filling the chamber and it was this that pushed Spite back as it ate up the floor space finger by finger like shimmering poured gold. She joined L’oric on the stairs, which they descended backwards. So bright was the presence above, L’oric had to turn his face away. Spots danced before his punished eyes. On the ground floor Spite bumped into him, cursing and wiping at her eyes. ‘Damn it to Night!’ she snarled. ‘I can’t see a damned thing.’