Jess Lebow - Obsidian Ridge

Then, just as quickly as they had arrived, the creatures stopped. They held their ground, pawing at the floor, growling at the soldiers, their advance halted.

"What are they doing?" asked Captain Kaden, his eyes wide, his back to the king.

"I do not know," replied Korox, breathing hard from the exertion. "But something tells me we're about to find out."

The mob of horrific beasts parted, lining up in an organized row and leaving a narrow passage that stretched out under the portcullis and across the drawbridge. What had been a chaotic, bloodthirsty horde had become a disciplined, organized army standing at attention.

Down the center of their ranks walked a hunched, disfigured man.

He wore the trappings of a mage-robes instead of armor, a wand in his belt instead of a sword, and wrinkles upon his face instead of scars. He walked upright on two legs, had two eyes, arms, and hands, but that was where the similarity between this figure and the rest of humanity ended.

His spine curved over itself as if it were trying to turn his whole body into a giant question mark. His back rose higher than his head, one shoulder more elevated than the other, and was marked mostly by a large, misshapen hump. His face, covered in blackened boils, was caved in, making his eyes bulge as he scanned the waiting beasts along the drawbridge.

Despite his disfigurement, the man was actually quite tall, due mostly to the length of his long, spindly limbs, which he used to great effect, moving through Klarsamryn at a rapid clip.

Arriving before the circle of Erlkazarian warriors, the man peered into the crowd.

"I am Arch Magus Xeries," he announced, his voice echoing as if two people were speaking his words at the same time. "I demand to see your king."

King Korox pushed his way through the Magistrates, Watchers, and soldiers. Each one he passed, he reassured with a knowing glance or a quick word.

"Don't go, my lord," pleaded a blood-covered man. "He would have to kill us all to get to you."

"Let us hope it does not come to that," replied the king.

He moved on, his warriors reluctantly stepping aside. When he reached the edge of the compact circle, he stepped through, into the opening the beasts had made, and looked up at the disfigured man.

"I am King Korox Morkann, ruler of Erlkazar."

Xeries examined Korox, as if using some invisible test to prove the validity of his claim. After a moment, he nodded, seemingly satisfied that this was indeed the man he was looking for.

"I will make this brief," said Xeries. "I am losing patience with you. I have come personally to collect your daughter. Where is she? I want her now."

King Korox took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "I wish I knew," he said. "My daughter has been missing for four days now."

"Yio-do not-not toy-toy With-with me-me, morta.-mortal!" shouted Xeries, his voice rising, exaggerating the echo and making it sound as if he were repeating himself.

King Korox looked back at the soldiers then again up at Xeries. Even if he did know where his daughter was, he still hadn't decided if he would turn her over to this monster. Weighing his personal feelings against the needs of the kingdom, there was no one clear choice.

"I am not one to waste the lives of my people so carelessly," said Korox. "I simply cannot give you what you ask for. It is not within my power."

"Then make it within your power," demanded the arch magus. "For every day that you make me wait, a new terror will be visited upon these lands. The first day the crops will wither and die. On the second day, the water will dry up, turning everything for as far as the eye can see into a desert. And on the third day"-he waved his spindly arms, encompassing the beasts beside and behind him-"I will unleash the rest of my army and lay waste to all of Erlkazar."

Xeries pulled his arms back into his body, making himself much smaller. "I shall take your daughter from your own hands or from the ruins of your kingdom. Either way, she will be mine."

There she is," whispered Quinn. "She's still alive."

He had followed Mariko's trail of personal runes all the way to this… place. It wasn't a cave, or a room, or anything like any of the other spaces he had seen inside the Cellar. If he had to describe it, he would have said it was more like a mansion, carved from stone, right in the middle of the hallway. The passage they had traversed had simply grown wider, and there it was-a huge replica of an opulent home, chiseled "Out of the natural cave.

Someone had taken great care to recreate every detail. It had open windows and balconies. It had doors and a porch. It even had a tiled roof-which was where Quinn and Evelyne now perched.

They looked down into a courtyard in the middle of the mansion. Almost a dozen of Erlkazar's lesser-known underworld figures were present. They busily moved back and forth between three fully functional Elixir distilleries. They had managed to turn the confines and horrors of the Cellar into a hub for their illegal business. How they got here, and more importantly, how they returned, were questions to which Quinn did not have the answers.

Then he saw something even more puzzling.

He pointed down at the man standing beside the tied princess. "The fat one. That's Pello Tasca. He's the only one who's supposed to be here."

Evelyne squinted. "That one there?" She pointed to the same man. "I know him."

"How?"

"He's the one I crossed."

"You're saying Pello Tasca sent you here, to the Cellar?"

Evelyne nodded. "A did a job for him and his brother, and when it came time to be paid, they only gave me half of what they promised."

"And they sent you here because you were unhappy with their payment?"

"No," replied Evelyne. "I got even by burning down their storehouse."

"I see," said Quinn, but he didn't really. "How did they manage to send you to the Cellar? When you said you crossed someone, I figured it was someone official, not an underworld boss."

"When the brother and his men caught up to me, they dragged me to this woman. They called her the Matron. She sent me here. Had some sort of a device."

"Right. So the Matron has unfettered access to the Cellar." It was all starting to make sense now. "That's how Mariko was sent here. And now the Matron thinks she can run her Elixir operations safely from inside."

Quinn watched the activity down below. They all seemed preoccupied with their individual tasks, no one walking patrols or even guarding the entrances.

That's when he caught sight of the horned man, and another realization struck-Jallal Tasca.

It was him. No doubt. Though his beard was gone, his face and body transformed, Quinn could clearly see the resemblance to his brother and to the man he used to be. Jallal was supposed to be dead. Quinn had punctured his neck and had watched him bleed out on the floor of the slaughterhouse. But something or someone had brought him back, and whatever or whoever that was had drastically disfigured the eldest Tasca.

"Let's sneak down the side, over in the corner. That'll get us close to the princess and-" He turned to Evelyne as he spoke. But she was gone, replaced by a pair of Tasca's burly guards.

A heavy club hit Quinn in the face, and his vision wavered. He tried to block the second swing with his right gauntlet, but he was not yet use to the lack of blades. The club hit him again, and the world went black.

+++++

A bucket of cold water hit Quinn in the face, and he started awake.

"Welcome to the Cellar."

He had been stripped to his smallclothes and was being held by the arms between two men-the same two he'd seen before being knocked cold. His head throbbed, and one eye was swollen, partially closed.