To wake within the shadowed cold
A place of death, and truths untold.
Metal clinked in the darkness, accompanied by a tortured squeaking sound overlaid by a strange, hollow wail, like a lost spirit bemoaning its restless fate.
Ferrian became aware of these noises, but his slowly waking mind could not distinguish between dream and reality, and for a few moments he floated in painful confusion. His head hurt, filled with an awful kind of throbbing pressure, and he wasn’t even sure if his eyes were open, as it seemed to make no difference, and he felt all… wrong.
Gripped with sudden, bewildered panic, he tried to sit up, but his arms flailed about into empty space.
There was no ground!
Fear and confusion increasing, he thrashed about, and realised that his legs were bound, tied to something that creaked when he moved. He appeared to be… upside down? He felt his clothes. Yes, they were all draped the wrong way, with his cloak hanging above his head.
He tried to think what had happened. The last thing he remembered was sitting in front of Luca’s grave, in the snow. Then… he woke up here. For a couple more minutes he hung limply, waiting to see if he was, in fact, still dreaming.
But the pain and the darkness and the eerie howl persisted.
Where am I? he thought. Am I still in the valley?
He twisted around, trying to catch some glimpse of his surroundings, but the blackness was complete. He listened, but heard nothing but the rhythmic clink of metal and the unnerving sound – which he realised now with relief was the wind – punctuated by his own blood hammering the inside of his skull. He felt nothing but aching pain and icy air on his face.
It was cold. But he wasn’t outside. By the sound of it, he was inside some large cavern or chamber. The wind filled it with a dull roar, like a waterfall, occasionally whistling hideously somewhere far above.
Rather than evoking desolation, the sound reassured Ferrian, gave him energy. That storm was his. It was the Winter. It had returned in full, unstoppable force, raging around him, protecting him. No matter what uncertain predicament he found himself in, at least he had his magi--
He paused, cursing himself for a fool.
Bringing his hand up to his chest, he summoned an icelight.
A small, crackling lump of silvery-white energy formed in his palm, coating his fingers with frost and sending a cool light blooming gently around him.
There was not much to see. A few snowflakes flickered around him like tiny white moths. His ankles were manacled to a rusty chain. Other chains swayed nearby, growing upwards out of the darkness like grim metal tentacles. A couple of them still clasped ancient bones, dripping with slimy moss…
I recognise these, Ferrian thought abruptly, at the same time his stomach dropped a few inches into his chest.
He was in the Muron’s Eyrie.
Nervously, he looked around again. His light seemed to make the shadows beyond appear all the more sinister.
He couldn’t see the walls, or anything above or below him. He was floating in an ominous black sea with only skeletons for company.
His breath puffed in front of his face. Nothing else moved, beside the chains.
They’re dead, he reminded himself fiercely, his heart hammering now as hard as his head. I banished the last of them in Grath Ardan!
Murons had not been seen anywhere in Arvanor since that fateful day. It was absurd to think that any survivors could be hiding out in this valley; surely either he or Arzath would have noticed! Both he and his master had scoured these ruins many times, salvaging books and artefacts and anything else of value that remained. Indeed, half of Castle Whiteshadow was constructed of obsidian bricks repurposed from the old castle…
But the Griks refused to go near the Eyrie.
“Don’t be stupid!” he said aloud, though his voice came out as a hoarse whisper. There were NO Murons in this valley!
But someone had strung him up in here like a freshly-caught dead fish.
Was it a prank? Someone disgruntled or jealous or otherwise had a grudge with him? The Sorcerer’s Valley was hardly a secret any longer; there were visitors on a fairly regular basis seeking admittance to the School, or just sightseeing. Some had not taken well to Lord Arzath’s scathing dismissal. It was no secret either that the royal family – what was left of it – was on uneasy terms with the new School.
But no one had ever tried anything, or made any outright threats. Who would dare?
Ferrian’s thoughts turned to the mysterious intruder he had sensed in the castle earlier. Of poor Luca lying dead in the hallway.
His insides turned as frigid as the Winter raging outside. What if the murderer was still here?!
What if whoever – or whatever – had killed Luca had not chased after the others as he had assumed, but hid here in ambush instead, waiting for Ferrian to return, waiting to catch him off-guard?
The wind above him shrieked.
There were far worse things in the world than Murons…
Suddenly fearing an attack at any moment, Ferrian grabbed instinctively for his Sword, but his grasping hand encountered only empty air.
His Sword was gone.
Of course it was.
“Gods damn it!!” Fighting a paralysing wave of panic, Ferrian flooded magic into his icelight, hardening it into a burning, gleaming shard. Hastily, he flung the shard at the chain binding his feet. It missed, soaring into the darkness like a silver arrow and dissolving into sparkling mist.
Ferrian closed his eyes, trying to control his breathing. Concentrate!
His next throw was more focussed. The shard sliced through the air with a crackling hiss, straight through the corroded chain like a blade.
Ferrian hadn’t thought through the consequences of that.
Mercifully, the fall was over before it began, but the shattering sound of a hundred bones flying in every possible direction could have woken the Rockfather himself.
Shocked more by the sudden cacophony than the impact of the fall, Ferrian struggled to extricate himself from the manacles. In his panic he got them free – they weren’t locked – and tried to get to his feet. His light had gone out. Blind, panicked and on unstable footing, he found himself tumbling helplessly amid a tide of desiccated corpses that seemed determined to either bury him or wake up every predatory creature within several miles of the valley: he wasn’t sure which.
Finally sliding to a halt, the echoes of his abominable passage dying away, he stumbled to his feet, brushing away something that felt horribly like a clutching arm, and rekindled his light.
He immediately tumbled backwards onto the pile again.
Three Murons stood in front of him, lurking in the darkness, silently watching him, like something out of a horrendous nightmare.
But these creatures were unlike any Murons that Ferrian had seen before.
They were… grotesque. Deformed, mutated, made up of bits and pieces of Human or Angel or Dragon or Gods-knew-what, as though whatever foul magic had brought them into being had gone horribly wrong. Fleshy, pallid skin merged with hard black scales; feathers grew from leather; humanoid features protruded here and there as though drowning in the wrong body.
The one on his left was the worst, with half a pale Human or Angel face stretched out horribly as it melded with an elongated black lizard-like snout, its lips torn too wide, so that all its teeth were showing in a dreadful hole. Its wing on that side was a stunted mess of matted grey feathers.
The other two had fully Muron-like heads, but the one on his right had long lanky hair that fell all the way to its ankles and no wings at all. It appeared to have a female body, its breasts almost indistinguishable from the sagging rags. Its legs ended in feet rather than claws, though its fingers were equipped with vicious talons.
The creature directly in front of Ferrian was almost completely Muron, except that one wing was batlike and the other was feathery white and brown like a soft, speckled bird. Its eyes were not triangular yellow but round and vivid blue. The rest of it was black and clawed, scaled and lethal.
All of them were draped in filthy, stinking remnants of clothes.
Flashbacks of a small, ancient diary came back to Ferrian with unpleasant suddenness; full of obscene diagrams and forbidden spells, leering eyes and a frightened little Angel girl. Whether these creatures had been hiding out in Grath Ardan all this time or not, it was likely they would have evaded his spell.
These weren’t Murons: they were abominations. They were failed Murons!
His gut wrenched now, as it had then.
The creatures made no move to approach or grab Ferrian; they just watched him silently, as though waiting to see what he would do.
Ferrian did likewise, remaining on the grim pile of bones, staring back at them until impatience and discomfort finally outweighed his fear and disgust. I’m not a helpless kid anymore, he thought, expression hardening. They can’t intimidate me! Pushing himself up, he advanced on the creatures, thrusting an arm out before him. It contained only a harmless icelight, but the creatures shuffled backwards at once, to the verge of shadow.
Satisfaction warmed Ferrian. He was threatening someone and it was working! He stood up a little straighter. “What do you want with me?” he demanded, adding a flash to his eyes for effect. “What have you done with my Sword?”
The creatures did not respond. They showed no signs of aggression, merely eyed him enigmatically from the shadows.
Ferrian took another step towards them, waving his magic around, trying not to look at the one with the ripped face. Again, they cringed away, almost out of sight, but not quite, and then waited.
Now Ferrian was becoming more than irritated. His head hurt, he was cold and exhausted from the day’s tragic discoveries, and Mekka was probably wondering where he was by now. “What the hell do you want?” he repeated. “Why did you drag me into this disgusting place? Give me my damned Sword back NOW, or I’ll summon the Winter in here and freeze every stupid thing in this godforsaken eyrie!”
He wasn’t bluffing, either. He was in no mood for games.
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The creatures did nothing, merely looked at him.
Ferrian glared at them. Were they too stupid to realise he was dangerous? No, they had been smart enough to confiscate his Sword. That meant they knew what it was. They knew who he was. There was intelligence in their eyes, but he couldn’t read their expressions. Curiosity, maybe? Something else?
What were they playing at? Had they strung him up for their own amusement, to see him infuriated?
Ferrian’s eyes narrowed. Fine. They had achieved what they wanted, and now they were going to regret it. Slowly, his fist closed around his icelight, the white light becoming brighter, spearing through his fingers. Frost sparkled over his hand like a glittering glove.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn--”
And just like that: they were gone.
Blinking, Ferrian whirled, shining his light in all directions. The half-Murons had vanished, silently, like cats into the night.
Cautiously, he moved around the chamber, holding his magic ready, alert for any tricks or traps or sudden attacks. But none came. He circled the entire bone pile and the creatures were nowhere to be seen.
Black alcoves dotted the curved walls high above his head. They were probably up there, watching him.
Briefly, Ferrian considered conducting a Mind Sweep, but if they had retreated to the heights of the eyrie, he couldn’t reach them anyway. And he was tired.
Sighing, he rubbed at his head, his arm falling limply to his side, his magic dwindling to a simple, dim light.
What the hell is going on?
In the great dining hall of Castle Whiteshadow, a waning fire flickered dolefully, its light and heat becoming more feeble as time stretched on. In front of it, a dark figure paced restlessly, another shadow amongst the multitudes crowding the troubled hall.
Mekka was becoming increasingly worried. Ferrian had been gone for hours, and it was long past sundown. Surely, he couldn’t still be sitting out there by Luca’s grave? He understood that the kid was bereaved and felt responsible for the Centaur’s horrific death, but Ferrian was no longer immune to cold, hunger or tiredness. He should have had the sense to return by now! The weather had worsened considerably, the Winter gathering its fury all evening until now it lashed against the castle windows like a beast trying to get in.
Ironically, that was a good sign, as it meant that Ferrian hadn’t left the valley, which was Mekka’s greatest fear; that he had decided in a fit of vengeance to run off after Luca’s killer on his own. Ferrian wasn’t as impetuous and prone to hot-tempered decisions as he used to be, but still, Mekka had to consider it. The presence of the Winter also meant that the young sorcerer wasn’t dead, which was a great relief.
But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t in some kind of trouble.
Disaster followed Ferrian around as closely as the Winter did.
Mekka tried to think through the possibilities. He wasn’t especially worried about the intruder he’d chased off earlier that morning. He could tell it was someone who had spent a lifetime fleeing and hiding, who knew how to trick pursuers. Mekka recognised an opportunist when he encountered one; he used to be like that himself, back in the day. Probably, they had discovered the castle abandoned and were skulking around looking for something to loot. That was an oddity, though, as Mekka had wandered the castle while waiting for Ferrian and found plenty of desirable things a thief couldn’t have resisted. Indeed, Arzath’s personal chambers were standing wide open, full of rare and valuable items, and none of it had been disturbed.
But of one thing he was certain – whoever was sneaking around the castle was not the person who had killed Luca.
No. That person had been straightforward and brutal. Mekka had found evidence of a scuffle in the dining room, but otherwise no fight or resistance. Luca had likely died because he’d gotten in the way. He was stabbed in the back, which suggested he’d been trying to flee, unfortunately the last person attempting to enter the hidden tunnel. The others had sealed the opening behind them, but the attacker had smashed through it.
That meant that whoever it was had both a trigonic weapon and immense strength. That ruled out a wraith. Demon-wraiths were insubstantial: they had no physical power. They killed with a touch. Whoever the murderer was seemed to be possessed by trigon but had not yet perished by it.
That was the most dangerous stage.
Mekka paused and shuddered as uncomfortable memories attempted to intrude on his thoughts.
Trigon was single-minded. It put a terrible thought into your head and that thought became your entire reason for existence. The attacker was after someone, was so intent on getting to them that a solid stone castle wall couldn’t stand in their way.
There was little chance that the murderer had doubled back to the valley. They would be relentless. Everine and Ben and the others were probably still running for their lives, unless… unless the worst had happened…
The thought gnawed painfully at Mekka. He had hoped to get a few good hour’s sleep for an early start tomorrow on the killer’s trail. There wasn’t much chance of that, now.
He tried to sit down a few times, drumming his fingers on the dining table, but the wind reflected his anxiety back at him.
Finally, he got up again, checked his weapons and strode from the hall.
The storm buffeted Mekka back into the foyer as soon as he opened the main doors, sending a flurry of snow across the polished tiles. Raising his arm and curling his wings over his head, he pushed out into the blizzard.
He could see nothing in the darkness but swirling snow, illuminated by the wan light of the candles in the foyer. The wind caught his wings, throwing him to and fro, and he struggled to make headway. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself forward, hoping not to walk right off the edge of the bluff…
He came up against a cold, hard wall instead. Grasping it, he found to his relief that it wasn’t the wall of the castle, but a smooth, scaly mound. He wasn’t sure what part of the Dragon this was, but it was definitely the Dragon.
He thumped the scales with his fist. “Dragon!” he yelled. “Wake up!”
There was no response. Mekka shivered, hunching closer to her body, though it was freezing as polished stone. The Dragon emanated no heat. She was a creature of ice and wind; her blood had never run warm. She could sleep out here in the storm quite contentedly.
“Dragon!” he yelled again, kicking her this time. “You overgrown ice lizard! Listen to me!”
Finally, great muscles flexed beside him, and a moment later the gale lessened abruptly, as though something huge loomed over Mekka, sheltering him. “What do you wish of me, Angel child?”
The voice was booming and slow and eerily musical, like an ice cavern speaking. Mekka felt uncomfortably small and frail. This creature could crush him just by twitching her toe, but at least he had her attention. He squinted up into the darkness, but the light from the castle didn’t reach far enough to reveal the Dragon further. “Ferrian is missing! He should have returned by now!”
The Dragon didn’t answer. Mekka had no idea if she was looking at him, or had even heard him. He hugged himself, blinking snow from his eyes, wrapped in his wings. He couldn’t stay out here much longer.
He was on the verge of giving up, retreating back inside, when the Dragon gave a deep rumble that seemed to ripple through the entire bluff. It could have been a noise of disgruntlement, anger, or bowel problems for all Mekka knew. Then her voice filled the darkness again: “He is there.”
Mekka looked around in surprise. “What? Where?”
“The castle.”
Mekka peered back at Castle Whiteshadow. “The castle? Are you telling me he returned without--”
“No. The place of old.”
The place of old? Mekka frowned. “You mean… Arzath’s ruined keep?” He shook his head in confusion. “What the hell is he doing--”
“He is there.” The Dragon shifted beside him, mounds of snow tumbling from her hide, her scales glinting faintly. “Come. We shall see.”
Ferrian paused to rest at the top of the narrow stairs, leaning on the doorframe. Cobwebs wafted in the glow from his icelight.
Thinking of a Mind Sweep had given him an idea. Not to find those damned deformed Murons, but to find his Sword. He had a feeling they’d hidden it somewhere nearby.
His Sword didn’t have a consciousness… well, not exactly. Silvertine and trigon were formed from the souls and emotions of once-living beings, turned to liquid and then forged into hardened metal. Something of the essence of those beings remained, and could influence living minds – especially trigon. There was a vague sort of intelligence there.
Apart from that, his Sword was linked to him, infused with part of his own spirit, and should at least emanate something of his own aura. In other words: his Sword ought to be traceable.
His theory was confirmed when, a moment later, he stepped through the doorway and a glint of bright silver shone back at him.
Ferrian sagged in relief.
But why had the creatures stolen it from him and returned it here, of all places??
It was Lord Arzath’s secret workroom, the one at the top of the tower adjacent to the eyrie, accessible only by a well-concealed passageway. It was where the Sword had been created, and Ferrian had retrieved it from this very room only a few weeks earlier.
He listened to the noise of the Winter outside, closer now in the confines of the small, draughty room. The snow had turned to sleet, which hammered on the roof and leaked as a steady dripping somewhere. One of the metal shutters was rusted permanently open; Ferrian could feel the spray as the storm spattered into the room.
His hand closed around the hilt warily. This could still be a trap, of course. The creatures were surely smart enough to know that he would find his Sword. But he heard no suspicious sounds from the stairwell or distant eyrie.
And if they did try to seal him up in here, he would simply use his Sword and magic to smash through whatever obstruction was in place.
It made no sense.
Sighing in exasperation, he took up his Sword and the sheath from the floor, and turned to leave. This was stupid. Those creatures were playing games with him! He was fed up with this nonsense…
He hesitated on the threshold.
Something was out of place.
Turning, he shone his light around. The chamber looked even more gloomy and decrepit than the last time he was here, full of mouldering books, dusty candles and rusted apparatus. He had already searched this room and taken anything of use; what was left was just the detritus of a failed life that even Arzath wasn’t interested in…
The tripod had been moved.
It was turned around from its original position. It had stood in that exact place for so long that there were rust marks on the floor, but the legs no longer aligned with them.
Ferrian told himself that the creatures had simply knocked into it while bumbling around placing the Sword here… except that the tripod stood precisely where it always had, just turned to a different orientation.
Curiously, Ferrian walked back into the room, unsheathed his Sword and balanced it carefully back onto the tripod.
It no longer pointed at the open shutter where Castle Whiteshadow would have been framed, if there was light to see it. Instead, the long blade faced a shadowy corner beside the door, full of cobwebs and a rickety bookshelf.
Ferrian stared at the books. He had looked through all of them. They were boring, useless tomes about geology and history, some unused journals, some other miscellaneous texts that were now unreadable. They were all stained and falling apart; there was nothing whatsoever of interest there.
He shook his head. I’m overthinking things. There’s no significance to this…
But his mind kept working. What if the Sword wasn’t pointing to something in the room, but outside of it? He envisioned the valley beyond. That way faced northward, towards the high cliffs and waterfall. And… Lord Requar’s Sword, marking the sorcerer’s final resting place.
Ferrian chewed his lip. That was an awfully big coincidence. Were those creatures trying to tell him something?
He felt a sudden, unpleasant pang of pity. Were they suggesting he take up the Sword of Healing? Did they not understand that he couldn’t, even if he wanted to? He could only be bonded to one Sword, and besides, Requar’s Sword no longer possessed any magic; it was as dead as its master, just a pretty blade now.
The Winter howled mournfully, making him feel wretched. The real Murons had tried to capture Ferrian because they wanted to save their race from extinction. They needed a sorcerer to make more Murons.
But what if these dismal creatures didn’t want to be Murons? What if they only longed to be turned back into whatever they had been before: Human or Angel?
Ferrian scowled down at his Sword. But why tell him this in such an abstruse, roundabout way? Why knock him out and drag him into the eyrie, instead of just confronting him? Except if they couldn’t speak or write, and were ashamed of their appearance…
All Ferrian’s anger flooded away into a depressed puddle. Dammit. That had to be it.
Sighing, he wandered to the opposite side of the chamber and sat down on a wooden chest, which creaked under his unexpected weight. He set his face in his free hand, his icelight still burning in the other.
Is there anyone left on Arvanor that I DON’T have to help somehow? he thought miserably.
Well, the fact of the matter was, he couldn’t do anything for these creatures, at least not right now. Not with wraiths and mysterious black pyramids and trigon-wielding murderers on the loose. Not with his friends in peril. Those half-Muron mutants could join the bloody queue!
He felt abysmally tired. He wanted nothing more than to return to the castle and fall into the nearest bed, preferably while eating something.
Wearily, he lifted his head. His eyes caught a glint of icelight reflecting off his Sword.
And that was when he noticed something that he hadn’t before.
Rising into a half-crouch, he peered along the blade. The Sword was pointing directly at a triangular gap between two of the books, overlooked while he was standing.
And there was something in the gap.
Straightening, Ferrian walked over to the books and pushed them aside.
A piece of paper lay there, small and folded up. It was somewhat stained and discoloured, clearly an old piece of parchment, but it looked as though it had been placed there recently: it was dry and free of mould. Ferrian had definitely not seen it when he’d checked these books before.
Slowly, he took up the piece of paper and opened it.
Mekka drifted down through the darkness, snowflakes swirling before him. Deftly he avoided the hanging chains, coming to land lightly on the floor of the eyrie.
It was very dark down here. He lifted a lantern he’d taken from the castle foyer, looking around.
A multitude of skulls grinned back at him. A nervous rat poked its head out of one, sniffed and scurried deeper into the pile.
“Ferrian!” he yelled. His voice echoed back at him from the curved black walls. When the echoes had died away, he called out again.
“What’s all the yelling about?” Ferrian yelled from the other side of the chamber.
Half-relieved, half-furious, Mekka spread his wings and flew over the bone middens, landing in front of his friend, who had just emerged out of a solid stone wall.
Mekka swiped his hand through the air. “Dammit! What the hell are you doing out here?! I thought something had happened to you!”
Ferrian rubbed the back of his head, wincing. “Er. Ah. It… did.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind. I’ll tell you later. Look at this!” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, shoving it at Mekka.
Mekka snatched it, glaring at him. Setting his lantern down on the floor, he snapped the paper open, and glared at that as well. Then his expression slowly changed to interest. “It appears to be directions of some kind,” he murmured, rubbing his chin. “Or… a map, perhaps… “
Ferrian held his icelight closer, so that Mekka could see more clearly. He looked at his friend eagerly. “And?”
Mekka turned the paper over, then back again, and shrugged. “Some text written in Ithillic. I cannot read it.” He made to hand it back, then hesitated.
One edge of the paper was roughly torn, as though it had been ripped out of…
He looked up at Ferrian in realisation. “That little book Reeves was so precious about. It had a page missing.”
Ferrian grinned at him, his silver eyes gleaming. “And I think I’ve just found it!”