Jess Lebow: Obsidian Ridge

It did not bother Quinn that he was being led to an ambush. He was ready to finish this and get to the real business at hand. Let them come after him. Let them try to corner him. Let them throw a hundred of their best at him.

He would take them all.

Up ahead, pulses of bright orange light came into the passage. The closer they got to it, the more the walls hummed and vibrated. He could feel the bones inside his skin rattle. Ever since arriving, Quinn had noticed the slight vibration in the floors and walls. Where he stood now, the shaking was not slight.

Whatever it was that moved this place, made it vibrate so, was waiting right up ahead.

The creatures stopped at the edge of the passage and looked back, as if they were waiting for Quinn to catch up, then they stepped through, toward the orange light, and disappeared from view.

Making his way cautiously to the end of the tube, Quinn peered out into the chamber beyond. It was a huge, open area, at least as large as Xeries's throne room. In the center, three man-sized rubies hovered in midair. Jagged bolts of magical energy pulsed through them, bouncing back and forth between pedestals on the ground and what looked like a series of magical staves attached to the ceiling.

Each time a pulse of magic passed through a ruby, it sent out a glare of orange light that shone from the reflective, chipped surfaces all around the room. The gemstones moved quickly back and forth, seeming to hum a deep tune. All three had hit the same note, and it was this sound that was making the entire citadel vibrate.

On the floor at the base of one of the rubies, Quinn caught sight of the assassins he had been stalking. They had stopped, all four of them, to look in his direction, once again as if they were waiting for him to follow.

Quinn obliged, slipping out of the tube and into the open chamber.

The room was quite warm, and he could feel the vibrations chatter through his ribcage and shake his chest. It was a strange sensation, the beats of his heart moving at odds with the vibrations of the gemstones.

Once he was out of the tube, Xeries's assassins continued on, passing around the floating rubies and steering clear of the magical bolts of energy emanating from them. At the other side of the room, the creatures began to climb the wall, slipping into another passage near the ceiling.

Quinn followed, not sure where all of this was taking him. Scaling the wall with ease, he continued on, deep into another passage-this one headed straight up toward the top of the Obsidian Ridge.

Korox sat in the saddle of his night-black war steed in the easternmost courtyard, looking at the dead, wilted cherry blossoms. It was the beginning of spring, and the warmth had just returned to Llorbauth. The flowers and trees had just staffing to bloom-but they were never given a chance.

The shrubs, grass, and trees had all curled up and died. The water had dried up. The dirt had turned to sand, and the sun beat down on the city as if it were a desert, desolate and wasted.

All of this had gone terribly, terribly wrong. The land as far as the eye could see was wilted and withered, and a new army of Xeries's beasts had mustered under the Obsidian Ridge. More poured out of the sides of the floating mountain every moment, and that could mean only one thing-Quinn and Mariko had failed, and Llorbauth was about to be attacked by the arch magus's forces.

Korox tried to tell himself that Xeries would have dried up the water, withered the crops, and taken his kingdom even if Mariko had been turned over without incident. But even if that were true, it didn't make him feel any better.

"Can you ever really trust a man who makes his home inside a burnt-out volcano?" he said to Captain Kaden.

"No, my lord, you cannot," replied the head of the Magistrates.

The king had ordered all of his remaining troops to muster in front of Klarsamryn. If Xeries's beasts were going to attack, then by Helm, Llotbauth was going to defend itself. While the regular army, Watchers, and Magistrates were preparing for battle, Korox had decided to ride through the courtyard one last time. Captain Kaden had insisted on coming along, and the king had agreed, if only for the company.

King Korox stepped down from his horse and crouched near the ground at the base of the queen's statue, touching the dried, brown grass. Brittle and stiff, it crumbled in his hand. He remembered taking walks here with his wife, when she was still alive. It had been the perfect place for a bit of privacy. The smell of the cherry blossoms made even the largest problems seem insignificant.

All of that was gone now.

Erlkazar was less than two decades old. He'd been its king for less than a year, and already it was on the brink of destruction.

"My lord," said Captain Kaden, "we should return."

King Korox nodded. "I know, Kaden. I just wanted to see this place again. Over the past year I have spent too much time inside my audience chamber and not enough out here." He looked up at the carving of his deceased wife. "I fear I have missed out on what may have been the last days of spring in Erlkazar."

With one final look he turned and led his steed back toward the front of Klarsamryn. His Magistrate escorts marched along side as they moved slowly from the courtyard, past the empty diplomatic buildings and into the field beyond. It too was brown and dry, like all the other places in the kingdom.

It was not far to the drawbridge, but from here, even the dead leaves on the trees obscured their view of the mustering troops. To the north, they could see the huge squirming mass of Xeries's army gathered under the floating mountain.

The flow of beasts out of the citadel had stopped. Their shimmering blackness seemed a giant bottomless pit in the middle of the world. There was no end to what could be consumed by the collected evil under the Obsidian Ridge.

"They will be coming this way soon," said the king. "Our final test is upon us."

"You will not be tested," said a deep voice.

The Magistrates accompanying the king pulled their swords.

"You will not be tested," repeated the voice, "because you have already failed."

Suddenly the field outside the courtyard, still except for the occasional dead leaf falling to the ground, erupted in movement. The landscape transformed, turning from brown to black as more than a hundred assassins materialized around the king and his men. Humans stepped out of the dead hedges ahead. Ores dropped from the rooftops behind them. Half-elves appeared as if from thin air. They filled the field and the courtyard, more appearing with each blink of the eye.

Captain Kaden, King Korox, and their Magistrate escort found themselves trapped and surrounded. It seemed every hired killer in Erlkazar was here, all wearing black robes and masks-the golden-haired symbol of the Church of Waukeen emblazoned on their chests.

"You have betrayed your kingdom, Korox," said a man who-had appeared from the dead brush. "You have traded in our lives for the life of your daughter.

We are here to take your throne and end your rule." The assassin pulled a pair of long, thin blades from the sheaths at his waist. "The Matron sends her regards."

The assassins attacked.

"Magistrates!" shouted Captain Kaden. "Surround the king!"

A tight circle formed around King Korox as the men prepared to fight for their lives.

Quinn came out of the narrow passage into a high-ceilinged room. His skin tingled in anticipation as he realized where he was. The creatures he followed had led him directly back into Xeries's throne room.

The black beasts were nowhere to be seen. The floor hummed from the magical contraption far below his feet, and the open room was completely empty-except for the arch magus himself.