Iltherian's Sword - 09 - Chapter 08

"Well, he really seems to like you," Perytas said quietly to Dal as they watched the men cautiously unbolting the door and peering outside. Apparently the coast was clear because the motioned the others to follow.

"Who? Noa?" Dal seemed genuinely surprised. "Bah, he is just a friend. I am certain he acts like that with all women."

"No," Sharina's voice was wry. "He only acts like that with you. I have been here any number of times with other women and he never acted so...unrestrained or openly affectionate."

Dal was shaking her head, disbelief written clear on her face, "No, no. Tis just his sense of humor. One just has to get to know him well for him to loosen up enough to tease like that."

Shar's face was wry again. It was clear she though Dal was in some sort of denial. She didn't say it, but Pery privately agreed with Shar's assessment. Especially when she noticed how often Noa would look back at her with stars in his eyes. It wasn't an expression Pery associated with friendship.

Not that she had much experience with romance herself. She was rather skittish when it came to the interest of anyone. She allowed so few people close to her––both physically and emotionally.

Her eyes wandered to Dedrick, who was walking at the head of the little group with Noa. She was uncertain about what she was feeling; it was something akin to fear, but it was also not. It pressed against her ribs, made it hard to breathe. She put a hand to her chest, the thrill making her heart pound.

What was this she was feeling? Why was it this man who provoked it in her? Every time she looked at him, she was torn between the desire to bask in the warmth of his regard and running as fast and as far as she could

As if sensing her regard, and perhaps the turmoil in her mind, Ded turned his head to look at her. When he caught her eye, his intense blue eyes warmed and his dimple made a reappearance. She could feel her cheeks heating under that gaze and she looked away, uncomfortable. She shook the feeling off with some difficulty, trying to focus on the task at hand rather than this tumultuous riot in her mind.

A focus that suddenly became painfully sharp as a scream ripped through the air. They all looked at each other then bolted down the stairs as another scream rent the air. They emerged on the upper landing of the third floor and on the lower landing, they could see beast flyers mobbing something.

Dal was squinting, then she gasped, "Two girls. They do not look so good..."

She and Ded were already moving, running along the upper landing. Shar bolted down the stairs, followed closely by Gaevin. Pery followed Dal and Ded more slowly. Her crossbow was out and she was shooting down the beasts they were ignoring.
She gasped when the cousins flung themselves from the landing. She felt a stab of pure envy of that reckless yet exquisitely graceful act. They reached out, catching at a link in the chains hanging from the ceiling, swinging out over the main floor. Releasing at the same time, they landed on the backs of two of the beast flyers, Ded driving both his swords deep into his monster's back and Dal clinging tenaciously to hers, one arm round the thick corded neck, and firing her crossbow at random targets over its shoulders.

Pery ran up one of the chains anchored to the landing, then cast herself at the end dangling from the ceiling. She scrambled down the links as it swung, lodging the tip of her foot into the last link and began firing her own crossbow at the beast archers. They were, fortunately, terrible shots, because although she was able to draw all the archers' fire to her, not a single one of them landed a shot. She was, alternately, able to pick every single one of the archers off as she swung from the ceiling in increasingly lazy arcs.

She dropped to the floor as Gaevin stopped and raised his fallarm. The blade flashed and his wind elemental soared out of that flash, arrowing straight for the flyer that had a pale-skinned young woman pinned to the floor. It hit the flyer so hard that it actually knocked the flyer from its prey.

The girl scrambled to her feet, her face grim with determination, swung around shouting something incomprehensible, jabbing her wand at another flyer hunched over another woman huddled on the floor. It was an exercise in futility since the attack burst harmlessly on its arm and didn't even draw its attention. She jabbed again, shouting another incantation, a stronger one this time, apparently because the flyer left off its mauling, turning a baleful eye on the other girl. She jabbed again and the flyer reared back roaring in pain, blood streaming from its eye. It flung itself at the girl as she attacked again.

Gaevin rushed past Pery and she heard him mutter, "What is that girl up to?"

There was a deep creaking next to her ear as Shar drew her bow and an instant later an arrow sprouted from the flyer's cheek. Gaevin reached the girl just in time to catch her as she fell. He swung his fallarm, calling out his own incantations, slicing through the flyers neck. Gaevin whisked the girl out of the way as the flyer's momentum carried forward several more feet before crashing into the floor and it lay still.

Dal, Pery and Ded cleared the rest of the mob from the room while Shar, Noa and Gaevin attended to the two women. When Ded came over to the little group, he poked a little fun at Noa for not helping with the mob, Noa grinned unrepentantly, "When there are others more eminently qualified to handle them around to do it for me?"

"Admit it, you were too chicken to jump into the fight," Ded prodded some more, a gleam in his eye.

"Not too chicken," Noa sniffed, delicately. "But why should I endanger myself when there are those who are stupid enough to fling themselves into the fray with nary a hesitation?"
"Oh so?" Dal said, standing behind him, her hands draped casually over the pommels of her daggers, "So you are calling me stupid?"

Noa went pale, as he turned to face her, smiling weakly as he found himself pinned on three sides by cool female eyes, "No! No of course not! It was just a jest. A joke," he laughed feebly and Ded and Gaevin snorted quietly in the background.

Shar leaned back, "She should do now. She must have hit her head when the flyer attacked her. She will awaken in a few minutes."

"And this one?" Gaevin still had the other girl cradled against his chest.

"She was casting spells she should not have been capable of using yet, I deem," a small smile curled Shar's lips. "The strain exhausted her mentally."

"Ah, so speaks the voice of experience," Dal teased, even as she kept an eye out for more flyers and archers.

Shar laughed, a sound that seemed to dispel some of the gloom in the room, "She did not have much in the way of injuries, so she should also awaken soon."

Which she did, reviving mere moments later. She blinked awake, staring up at Gaevin for a moment before she went a pretty crimson and jerked away from him. She spotted the other woman––who looked enough like the other for them to guess that they were sisters––and scrambled over to her. "Star! Star, are you all right?"

"She will be fine," Shar said, touching the girl's shoulder reassuringly. "I healed her wounds, so she should come round soon."

"Oh thank goodness," the girl heaved a sigh of relief. "I don't know what I would've done if she were hurt any worse."

"But, can you tell us how you are here in the first place?" Gaevin asked, "you were casting spells you were obviously unable to handle. Master-class spells if I judge right. You should never have come to this place at your level."

"You're right, neither of us are Master-class yet. Star is two years my senior but we both are still only mid-level Journeyman mages. We only got this far because we weren't alone," the girl smoothed an errant strand of hair from her sister's face. "We were in town, looking for work. We were approached by a knight, Sir Karan, he said his name was, who asked us for help with his current job. It seemed a good opportunity, so we accepted.

"But...He brought us here, and when we came to this room he killed one of the flyers and when they mobbed us, he disappeared, ran away," she gasped. "Oh! I haven't yet thanked you for saving Star!"

"Well, perhaps you might start by introducing yourself and go from there?" Dal smiled, hefting her crossbow to her right shoulder, amusement at the girl's horror over her gaff gleaming in her violet eyes.

"Oh! Oh dear, of course! I'm called CrystalFire and this is my elder sister, StarShade. We're of the Karia Clan."

Pery knew that their names weren't their real names. Mages were a highly suspicious and superstitious lot. They believed names held power to give names was to give power over them somehow. No mage ever gave their real names, ever.

Not that it was an unusual practice. Most rogues never used the real names easier. But there was a much more practical reason for that, of course. Because rogues made more enemies than friends, especially if you chose to be an assassin. If an enemy knows who you are, then they can find you. He can discover your secrets, your weaknesses and use them against you.

Not that Pery had cause to worry over that. She'd made few enemies over the years she was a rogue mainly because, unlike a majority of rangers, she didn't do wet work. She'd killed people, but never without cause.

And Pery couldn't give out her real name even if she wanted to, because she didn't know it herself.

Pery ran an assessing eye over both girls. They were both quite young for journeyman mages, the older seeming to be only two years younger than her own four-and-twenty years. Both had the pale skin and slight build common for mages. They both had black hair, long and bound into braids, although CrystalFire's was longer than her sister's and StarShade had a stark-white lock of hair on the left side. They both had the same silvery eyes with StarShade having tattoos under them and CrystalFire's being free of marks.

"Well, CrystalFire of the Karia," Dal smiled. "Sounds like you ran afoul of a mischief maker, Be sure we shall take care of him if we run across him."

StarShade lifted a hand to her face, moaning a little, "Crystal?"

"Oh, Star," Crystal leaned over her sister, "how do you feel?"

"Woozy," Crystal helped her sister sit up. "I remember the mob––" she gasped, quickly twisting this way and that obviously looking for the mob that had been attacking them, she relaxed as she saw those surrounding her, although she winced at the sight of dead beast flyers all around them, "What––? Who––?"
So Star was duly informed of what happened when she was off in dreamland. She shook her head over what happened, a hand to her face, "I should've known...That blackguard. If I ever get my hands on him..."

"I think, my girl," Dal reached a hand down to help Star to her feet, "that you have a ways to go before you can do anything about that."

"'Twould best serve you to stick with us for the nonce," Ded said, extending his hand to Crystal. "We cannot really spare anyone to take you back to the entrance."

"Won't take very long anyway," Noa said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "That's the cell over there."

*****

Gaevin examined the cell, making mysterious sounds in his throat as he did so. A thing that frustrated Pery since she had no idea if what he was making noises over was good or bad. After a few minutes, Gaevin squatted down and using a charcoal stick from his belt pouch, drew a complex seal on the floor. When he stood up, he raised his fallarm and brought the iron-shod butt end down directly in the center of it. The iron rang out as it struck stone and the charcoal figures of the seal flashed with an intense violet light. There sprang up a pale bubble of light over the door and Gaevin raised a hand, index and middle fingers straight and the other three folded together. Resting his index finger lightly on his lips, he began murmuring under his breath and the bubble writhed as he fit the barrier to the aperture. When it filled the doorframe, he lifted the fallarm again and brought it down in the seal again.

"Get ready to go," Gaevin said, his voice completely serious for once. "I will only be able to hold the barrier for a limited time after I release the seal."

Ded and Dal nodded to each other and they moved to the doorway just as Gaevin thrust his hand into the seal, still glowing strongly even after six hundred years. He spoke a single sharp word and the seal disintegrated in his grip.

The barrier fell with a loud hiss and a rush of fetid air smelling of the decay of centuries. All of them lifted hands to their faces, as if the gesture would shut out the smell. It was dark beyond the doorway, the interior of the cell deeply shadowed mere inches beyond iron bars nearly rotted away by something more corrosive than mere rust. The initial rush of air didn't change the rancid scent pervading the cell; it was still nauseatingly strong.

Dal lifted the lantern that Pery handed her and walked forward. She paused a moment as Gaevin's barrier resisted her a moment before allowing her to slip through. Ded followed the same way.

Dal swallowed the gag rising in her throat at the smell, looking around the small cell. Everything was dark with rot. The walls were blackened with mold and crumbling. Rusted out metal chains danged from both walls and ceiling. A rotted bedframe was shoved in the corner. Anything else that had been in the room had fallen to dust long before.

'The most obvious place to start,' Dal thought, 'would be the bed.'

Even as she touched what was left of the frame, it literally crumbled beneath her fingertips. She sifted through the remains, wincing at the slimy mold she dug through to reach the floor. She didn't find anything in the rot that was the bed. She dusted of her hands as she began examining the bricks of the wall near the bed.

Ded had been shifting through the remaining debris and was finding nothing. He'd begun examining the bricks as well. He'd found several that he could pull out, but a search of the revealed spaces proved fruitless.

As Dal turned her attention to a promising set of bricks, she was knocked to the ground. She groaned, curling into a ball of misery, feeling as if she'd been kicked in the gut. She cried out in pain, as it felt as if a booted foot smashed into her back. Then again to her ear, and again to her chest.

"Coz!" Ded took a step in her direction, then he cried out himself as he was lifted off his feet and lobbed across the room as if he'd been a ragdoll tossed away in a fit of rage. He crashed into the wall, bounced off but somehow managed to roll unsteadily to his feet. Dull thumps echoed through the room, his body jerking as an unseen force struck at him, driving him to his knees.

"What is happening in there?" Shar called into the cell. "Do you need help?"

"No!" Dal called in a ragged voice, rolling over and pushing to her knees, fighting against the blows still being rained down on her. "We are attacked, but..." she cried out as there came a rushing sound, as the wind whipping through cloth and then it seemed as if she were being smothered in blackness.

"But nothing," another voice chimed in––StarShade. "I'm coming in," she suited words with action, sliding through the barrier then stood blinking in the inky darkness which was only relieved by the lantern, which was by this time guttering dangerously. She tsked as she saw what was happening and raised her wand, "Asai!"

Light bloomed from the tip of her wand, as a rose blooms in the spring. The magelight blazed in the dim room banishing the shadows even from the deepest parts of the room.

Both Dal and Ded slumped to the floor, slack in surprise as the blows ceased and the black cloud shrouding Dal shredded like smoke in a strong wind. Dal blinked as she sat up, wincing at new aches and pains, "How––?"

"Lady Shar explained it to me," Star raised her wand higher. "There is a form of magic called shadow magic in necromancy. And shadow magic has no power in the light. Introduce a strong enough light and whatever power there is, is dispersed." She looked around, a look of distaste on her face, "Still and all, I'd prefer not stay in here any longer than we must."

"Dal, what were you looking at?" Ded came over to where his cousin was sitting, and sat down on his haunches. "I think it focused its attack on you because you were on to something."

"Focused on me? You were the one tossed into the wall, not me," Nonetheless Dal scowled at the wall and began feeling in the chinks of the bricks she'd been looking at before. "I think there is something here––ah!" She cried out gleefully as she took something wrapped in rotting black cloth from the space. She let the decaying stuff drop, nodding in satisfaction at what was revealed, "Right, this is it. Time to go."

None of them disguised their relief as they left the room. As Star, the last to leave, passed through the barrier, there came an ear-splitting shriek from inside the cell. Star sprang away from the barrier as something crashed against it. The crash was so powerful that the barrier actually shook.

Gaevin swore, paling under the sheen of sweat coating his skin as he braced himself against the assault. He closed his eyes, reached out with his free hand and began tracing more complex patterns in the air that left shimmering blue trails behind. They could hear him murmuring between the shrieks and crashes against the barrier. His voice rose to a shout even louder than that of the creature within the cell. He thrust his hand into the center of the glimmering seal he'd drawn in the air. There was a flash of brilliant blue light and the shrieking subsided as the seal filled the doorway, shutting even the sound in the cell away. He sagged to the ground, dropping his fallarm with a loud clang, panting as if he'd run a particularly arduous race.

After a minute or so, he breathing had calmed and he looked up grinning his usual rakish grin through a face still shiny with sweat, "Time for us to get out of here."

Pery paused at the top of the stairs, as the others moved up ahead of her, looking back at the glowing door. They had succeeded at their job, but she couldn't shake a tiny sense of unease at it. She paused a moment more, frowning, before turning away and running up the dark stairway after the others.