Brian Kittrell - The Immortals of Myrdwyer

Insanity Laedron thought. “What good is that? We’ve come to kill the man. Why give up the advantage?”

“If I fall, you’ll have plenty of work ahead of you. Stay out of it.” Tavin turned back at Kareth. “I’ve long waited for this day.”

“Then, I shall make it interesting.” Kareth bowed, then shouted a spell and waved the staff at Tavin.

Tavin ducked, narrowly avoiding a beam of light as it passed overhead. With a flick of his wrist, Tavin returned a blast of deafening thunder. Although Kareth was clearly the focal point of the spell, several of the Trappers standing nearby exploded or collapsed in the shockwave.

Cracks formed in the walls of the cave. Kareth peered down and examined his body, and even from that distance, Laedron noticed fractures in some of the crystals imbedded in the man. The unnatural glow was fading from them. Seemingly undeterred, Kareth thrust his staff forward again and unleashed a hail of ice shards at Tavin.

Tavin apparently recognized the spell because, as soon as Kareth had cast, he summoned a shield of fire. The ice shards passed through, turned to water, and landed harmlessly. Both of the Uxidin released their spells, then walked the perimeter of the platform like scrappers sizing up one another.

“It would seem that I underestimated you, Tavingras.” Kareth gestured at one of the broken crystals in his chest. “How many of my creations did you fight before you learned how to defeat them?”

“Not many,” Tavin said with a full dose of vitriol.

“Ah, then perhaps I asked the wrong question. Maybe it would be more fitting if I asked how many of your poor, pathetic people had to die before you stopped the first one?”

With a shriek, Tavin shot a bolt of lightning from his wand. The bolt struck Kareth in the shoulder. Tavin fired another, and Kareth took cover behind his throne. Enveloped in rage, Tavin hurled bolt after bolt into the crystal chair, knocking chunks off of it with each casting. “Come out, damn you! Quit hiding and-”

Kareth poked the end of his staff between the legs of the throne. Flames erupted from the tip and engulfed Tavin’s legs. Tavin screamed in anguish, then fell to the ground when Kareth ended the spell.

Laedron’s heart sank. He took a step forward, then stopped when Tavin held up a hand.

“No. You mustn’t interfere. It’s not over yet.”

“Not over?” Kareth walked out from behind the chair. “You’re finished, Tavingras. You’re no more a threat to me than these children.”

“Finished? Not yet. So long as there’s life in my body, I will oppose you for all that you’ve done.”

“Then, I shall deprive you of that life, that wasted, pitiful, subservient life. I should let you suffer as I have suffered, but I will be merciful to you. More merciful than you and your kind ever were to me.” Kareth approached, his staff outstretched. “In the end, the Zyvdredi were right. The essence of the weak is best used to serve the strong. Now, your essence will serve me .”

“So, you have joined them? Thrown everything you were away?” Tavin asked through clenched teeth.

“Joined? I swear fealty to no Nyrethine house.” Kareth crouched next to Tavin. “I merely understand their philosophy, Tavingras. Quiet, now. The pain you’re in must be excruciating.”

After hearing the first words of the incantation, Laedron knew what spell Kareth was conjuring.

Marac must have recognized it, too, because he whispered, “Lae, do something.”

Not until one of us is dead , Laedron repeated in his mind, watching the still-breathing Tavin. The swirls of dark violet appeared, and Laedron was torn between Marac’s words and the instructions Tavin had given. Did he mean for me to obey even if he lost?

“Lae, we must stop him,” Marac said. “Lae!”

Raising the scepter, Laedron stared at Tavin and realized that he drew breath no longer. The sorcerer’s staff’s purple glow faded. “Bastard.”

“I had almost forgotten you were here, young one,” Kareth said. “Would you prefer a quick death?”

Laedron gestured at the lifeless corpse at Kareth’s feet. “Unlike Tavingras, you know nothing of me. Does that not worry you?”

Brow furrowed, Kareth stood. “Worry me? Tell me, child, what did he offer you to come here? Grand adventure? A share of the spoils? Or did he touch upon your mortal sentiments of right and wrong? If that was the case, then know that I was the one wronged. It is I who suffered by their hands like some plaything.”

“Does any of this matter? Whether I know the truth or not, you’ll try to kill us anyway. Why wait?”

“A quick one, then. Have it your way.”

His hand trembling, Laedron held out the rod, recalling the words to his dispelling ward. Kareth raised the staff high and chanted. When Kareth thrust the staff forward, it exploded in his hands in a flurry of flashing light.

Thrown to the ground, Laedron shook his head and blinked rapidly. A haze of smoke hung in the air. The sting of warm blood filled his eyes, and a pain like broken slivers of glass sliced into his skin with every movement. Where has he gone? Get it together, Sorcerer! Every moment that passes without action gives him another chance to attack. He tried to focus and find Kareth through the smoke, but he couldn’t. What in the hells happened? Searching his memory, he tried to think of something that might make sense of it all, and he finally realized what had caused the explosion. Harridan. He couldn’t, could he? Wouldn’t? Laedron recalled his words to Tavin: I thought you came here to help us , to which Tavin had replied, When the time comes, you’ll know why I couldn’t.

Working backward from that moment, Laedron imagined the meeting-the private talk that Tavin and Harridan had before they left-and he pieced together what had really gone on behind that closed door. A spell placed upon Tavin’s essence, then delivered to Kareth’s staff when that essence was absorbed. That must be the answer. A clever monster led into a trap and defeated by his own nature.

Laedron considered what Tavin must have felt coming there, the quick pace by which he’d led them to that place. All the way down, he had purposefully ran to meet his own death at Kareth’s hands, to be the last sacrifice intended, at last, to free his people of the madman’s tyranny. When the smoke cleared, Laedron rose to his feet and checked his friends. “Everyone all right?”

“Are you?” Valyrie approached. “You were the closest.”

“Yes, fine.” Laedron pulled the strip of linen from his hand and wiped his face. “The shards didn’t go deep.”

“We’re fine,” Marac said, then turned to a rock. “You can come out now.”

Brice peeked over the boulder, then moved to stand beside Marac.

Laedron turned toward the throne and took a few steps, but he stopped when he noticed Kareth’s leg twitch.

Kareth let out a bloodcurdling scream. His arm had been torn away at the shoulder from the blast. “How could you-”

“I had nothing to do it with it. Don’t blame me for your own mistakes, monster.”

“Mistakes? How-”

Laedron, despite his own pain, displayed a smile. “They’ve beaten you, Kareth. Harridan knew what you would do if you won, and you’ve done it. By your own greed have you been undone. They’ve won, and you’re finished.”

Chuckling, Kareth righted himself on the throne. “I can forge another staff. Another arm, too. They’ve done little more than delay my work for a few days.”

This madness ends now. Grabbing at his belt, Laedron searched for the scepter, but then realized he had dropped it somewhere when he was thrown. He scanned the ground nearby, but he couldn’t spot it amidst the rubble and broken crystal.