Troy Denning - The Verdant Passage

Agis suddenly felt the familiar tingle of life-force being pulled from his body. He looked to Sadira.

“I feel it, too,” she said. “Something’s drawing power from us.”

A cacophony of panic erupted in the stadium. Agis stepped to the back of the gallery and pulled aside one of the heavy curtains shielding the porch from the grandstands.

In scattered places, aged men and women clutched at their chests and dropped gasping to the ground. Stronger spectators screamed in anger, attacking half-giants and templars with stones or seats they had pulled from the terraces. They pushed and shoved into the exit tunnels, trying in vain to force the gates open. The mob succeeded only in crushing those who had entered the passage ways first. In many places, Larkyn’s guards organized counterattacks against the crowd, the templars firing lightning bolts and the half-giants clubbing anyone within reach.

Amidst all the confusion, more than a few hands were pointing toward the summit of the great ziggurat. A small geyser of burgundy flame was shooting from the top of the structure. A moment later, a billowing cloud of yellow smoke replaced the pillar of fire.

Rikus and Neeva asked, “What’s happening?”

“Kalak has started his incubation,” Sadira answered, pointing toward the obsidian pyramid. “He’s drawing the life out of the spectators.”

Agis looked in the direction the sorceress pointed. The air around the pyramid shimmered with raw energy, and waves of flaxen light scintillated over the structure’s glassy surface. Deep within the thing’s black heart glowed a steady golden light that grew brighter even as the senator watched.

“Well,” Tithian asked. “The longer we delay, the weaker we become and the stronger Kalak grows.”

“You will have to make Tyr a better place,” Agis said. “The first thing will be to free the slaves.”

“Of course,” Tithian replied. “You have my word on it.”

The Golden Tower was every bit as large as it appeared from the outside. It had a floorplan as twisted as the tangled branches of a faro tree, with dimly lit halls arranged in spiral patterns, gloomy rooms built in warped shapes, and dark nooks that served no apparent purpose except to make a passerby wonder what lurked in them.

Nevertheless, the group had little trouble following Kalak. A trail of black, steaming fluid that Agis took to be blood led the way deeper and deeper into the palace. Every time they rounded a corner, the noble cringed, expecting to meet some hideous beast Kalak kept to guard his home. Tithian, however, moved with the speed and confidence of someone who knew what surprises the palace did and did not contain.

At last, after they had descended to the foundations of the ancient tower, they reached a cavernous, circular vault. It was lit by an alabaster ceiling panel set into a grid of copper-plated beams. In the shadowy squares between the beams hung carved reliefs of beasts and races that Agis had never before seen. At the edges of the ceiling, fluted columns of granite, capped with sculpted leaves and flowers of strange shapes, rose from the floor to support the rafters. Between these columns stood dozens of rows of shelving, empty save for a few ancient steel weapons.

Tithian held a finger to his lips, then led the four companions to the other side of the room. In the shadows near the wall, the huge bodies of Kalak’s two-half giant guards rested on the floor. The shattered remains of an obsidian ball were scattered over the areas, and two more globes, still intact, sat nearby. Between the two corpses lay the dark circle of an open trap door.

As they stopped to inspect the bodies, a voice said, “Sacha, isn’t that your worthy descendant, Tithian of Mericles?”

Agis and the others brought their weapons to ready defense postions.

“So it is, Wyan,” answered another voice. “It is. Such a handsome fellow, too. Perhaps he could find it in his heart to open a vein in those half-giants and feed us.”

To his astonishment, Agis saw that the voices came from a pair of heads sitting on a shadowy shelf. He grabbed a steel sword and started to approach the abominations, but Tithian laid a hand on the noble’s shoulder and restrained him.

“What are they?” Agis asked.

“Kalak’s friends,” the high templar answered. “The last time I was here, they called me a snake-faced runt.”

“That was Sacha!” objected Wyan. “I wouldn’t blame you if you left him to starve.”

“Ignore them. They’re harmless, as long as you don’t get too close.” Tithian used his toe to nudge the desiccated body of a half-giant. It fell apart like a wasp’s nest. “What caused this?”

Sadira motioned to one of the obsidian globes. “Kalak drained their life away,” she said.

Tithian’s eyes lit up, and he retrieved one of the ebony balls. “Show me how to use it, and I’ll-”

“Not in a hundred years-even if that were the way dragon magic worked,” Sadira said.

The templar frowned. “Dragon magic?”

“Obsidian isn’t magical, it’s just a tool. Like any tool, it’s only as powerful as the person using it,” the sorceress explained, echoing the words Nok had used to explain the properties of the glassy rock. “To a hunter, it’s just a knife or an arrowhead. To a dragon, it’s a lens that converts life-force into magic-but you’ll never use it for that.”

“Why not?” Tithian demanded, motioning at Sadira’s cane. “You are.”

The half-elf shook her head. “The spells are in the cane. It draws the energy through the pommel, not me,” she said, her tone somewhat regretful. “Dragon magic relies on psionics and sorcery together. To use it you must be a master of pulling energy from your body and a genius at shaping it into spells. It’s the most difficult kind of sorcery, but it’s also the most powerful.”

“And the more time we spend here, the more powerful Kalak becomes,” Agis said, unsheathing the ancient sword he had taken from the shelf. “I suggest we get on with it.”

Neeva selected a great steel-bladed axe from the vault’s shelves. “I’m ready.”

Pointing at the hole in the floor, Tithian noted, “That leads to an obsidian-lined tunnel. The tunnel opens into the lower chamber of the ziggurat. I suspect that’s where you’ll find Kalak.”

“You mean we,” Rikus said flatly. He took a curved sword from the shelf and handed it to Tithian. “If you’re going to be a king, start acting the part.”

“Kings don’t risk their lives-”

“You’ll be a new kind of king,” Agis said, prodding the high templar forward.

Rikus gripped the Heartwood Spear; they had found the weapon lying on the King’s Balcony, where the-half giants had left it in their hurry to move Kalak into his palace. “I’ll take the lead. Nok said the spear would protect me against magic and the Way. Hide behind me, and I’ll be your shield.”

Neeva went next, followed by Tithian, then Agis, with Sadira behind him. As he dropped into the hole, the senator gasped at the eerily beautiful sight ahead of the group. They stood in a gloomy tunnel lined by bricks of obsidian. A half-dozen paces ahead, a sparkling stream of golden energy poured from an overhead shaft and flowed down the passage with a hiss. At the far end, the light passed upward through another trap door. From that opening shone a vermilion glow threaded with thin wisps of scarlet mist. A horrid, deep-throated growl came from the room above and throbbed down the tunnel.

Holding the Heartwood Spear in both hands, Rikus led the way toward the other end of the passage. He did not even pause before stepping into the golden stream of radiance, an act Agis thought to be a little foolhardy.

As Agis and the others followed Rikus into the light, their skin crawled with a ticklish, pleasant feeling. Tithian’s long braid of auburn hair rose into the air and began to writhe in a sort of macabre dance. The noble sensed his own unbound locks doing the same. Otherwise, the companions suffered no ill effects. Agis even felt somewhat invigorated.