William King - Shadowblood

All around them was silence, as if the Palace slept, though Rik was sure it was not so. When he looked through the shadows he sensed furious activity all around, and the flows of ancient energies.

Was this a trap or was it simply something else going on? What he felt made him uneasy, and he could understand why Asea seemed so nervous. Tamara pushed on, decisively, as if she were out for a stroll in the park. Now that she was committed, she was really committed. Rik admired her coolness and determination even though he knew she was just as on edge as he was.

They kept to the less intensely used parts of the Palace, heading always downwards, towards the heart of the darkness. He was reminded of the cellars of the Inquisition back in Halim although this was a thousand times worse.

The voices gibbered within his head, afraid and angry. They did not want him to be there, although there was nothing they could do about it save scream their panic. The Quan sensed something wrong with the ebb and flow of magical energies around them, and Rik was inclined to trust those alien instincts in matters like these.

There was power in this place, so great that he doubted even the most insensitive could fail to notice it, and so tainted that it made his stomach turn. He sensed flows of corrupt energy all around, a power related to that which fuelled the armies of the dead in their war of conquest.

“Now we’re approaching the heart of this,” said Asea. Tamara merely licked her lips and nodded.

“Do you want your pistols, Rik, or your blade?” Asea asked.

“No,” he whispered. “Leave the pack upon on your back though so I can get to them quickly.”

He had feared that she would object to his words as a high noble might object to taking a command from a peasant, but she merely nodded and obeyed his instructions.

“The blade on my belt is the truesilver one Azaar gave you,” she said to the nearest shadow, and he realised that she could not, for all her power, perceive him. At any other time he would have felt triumphant, now he only felt worried as he realised that her power had limits and he had passed beyond the edges of them. He made a note of where the blade was in case he had to reach for it quickly.

“Perhaps you should scout ahead, Rik,” said Tamara, “since you seem to have manifested a talent for this beyond mine.”

“I will do that,” he whispered as he passed her and moved silent as a shadow, and invisible as the wind, down the haunted corridors of the Palace.

He drifted ahead of them, moving up to junctions and checking for guards, then returning. He stood guard as Tamara opened locks that let them down into the deep dungeons. He walked in shadows beside them as they moved through endless cells and chambers towards the strange magical heart that pulsed in the core of the place, feeding on the sorcerous energies of uncountable deaths. There was some sort of feedback between the plague and the spell that bound the undead. He felt certain of it, even if he was not sure why.

They were getting close now and Asea gestured for them to halt. “We’re very near now and I want you all to be ready. You will have to protect me while I close the Gate. You’ll know when it’s done.”

“What if something goes wrong?” Tamara asked nervously.

“Then flee,” said Asea.

“I don’t like the look of this at all,” said Handsome Jan. A huge mob of walking dead surrounded the cottage. It was quite clear they sensed the presence of the living and were hungry.

“This is it,” said Toadface. “We’re all going to die. If we are lucky.”

“Don’t be stupid,” said the Barbarian. He had drawn his blade and laid it on the remains of the table. He was pouring powder into the barrel of his rifle. “We’ve been in worse situations. We’ll get into others.”

“What are they waiting for?” asked Handsome Jan.

“For us to die of boredom,” said the Barbarian.

Sardec shook his head. The big man’s stupidity had rarely seemed so impenetrable. Sardec realised then that he was merely scared and nervous, and rightly so. They were all going to die in the next few minutes. There were far too few of them and far too many of the walking dead.

Hopeless as it seemed, they needed to do something. He was not just going to stand here waiting to be slaughtered. They were going to take a few of those monsters out there with them. He almost laughed at that. How did you kill the dead? He told himself it did not matter.

“You lot, prop more of that furniture against the door. Watch the windows. I want a man at every one and some of you upstairs, shooting down into the mob. If they break in, we’ll retreat upstairs and make a stand there.”

He did not need to say last stand. Everybody understood that. He could see all the men exchanging looks at once pitiful and bold. Marcie and Rena shepherded the children upstairs so that they could not hear the rest of this discussion. He was glad of that.

Toadface looked at him, licked his lips with his long tongue and said in a choked voice, “If things don’t work out well, sir, I think I speak for all the lads when I say it’s been an honour to serve under you.”

Sardec found himself surprisingly touched by the chorus of ayes that echoed round the ruined cottage. He hid the emotion behind a stern facade and said, “No need to be emotional, Toadface. We’re not dead yet.”

“Never say die, eh, sir?”

“That’s right. Now load up and get ready to show those stinking bastards what for. We’re still among the living so let’s try to remain here.”

A shout from upstairs got Sardec’s attention. It was Weasel from his sniper’s position on the roof. “Something’s happening, sir. They are starting to move.”

Rik did not like this at all. The corridors were silent. It was as if this part of the great labyrinth beneath the Palace had been abandoned.

It was too easy. Things had gone too well. They had penetrated the most heavily defended part of the Dark Empire and so far no one had been able to stop them.

He told himself not to worry too much, to save his fears for when things really went wrong. Both he and Tamara were skilled in the arts of breaking and entering, and had powerful sorceries to aid them beside. Tamara knew her way round this Palace, as did Asea from the days before the Schism. They had advantages that he had never enjoyed during his career as a sneak thief. It was not so surprising that they had managed to come as far as they had undetected.

He took a deep breath and concentrated on his surroundings, reaching out through the shadows. His perceptions flowed in the direction of the Gate and as he did so he felt them altering, being changed by the powerful sorcery of the place. The shadows seemed thicker, curdled like old milk, denser and sourer, charged with an evil energy.

He looked into a great chamber and saw the Black Mirror. He understood at once why it was so called although it was not a mirror at all. It was an arch of stone in the middle of which was a field of force so dark and brilliant it reflected its surroundings. At the centre of it he sensed an absence, a hole in the fabric of space-time that was growing larger in infinitesimal increments and which might, if not closed, eventually grow large enough to swallow the world. It was like a wound in the surface of the universe which was, with glacial slowness, being torn ever wider.

A group of black-robed sorcerers knelt at the five cardinal points of sorcery around the Black Mirror. Their eyes were closed and their lips writhed as they chanted. They seemed oblivious to all that happened around them, locked in a world of their own by chains of sorcerous energy binding them to the Mirror. Around them at a distance from the gateway stood others, who looked powerful and alert. These would be the guardians and he sensed a subtle wrongness about them that made his heart sink.