Chapter Sixty-Two
Allies and Enemies
The chieftain’s chamber was thick with darkness, illuminated only by the uneven glow of a single red flame on desk in the corner, and the slice of light peeking into the room from the open door. The second was snuffed out when it closed with a soft boom.
Michael breathed slowly, feeling shadows shroud his body and weigh heavily on his shoulders. He opened his mouth to introduce himself, then quickly remembering he wasn’t supposed to speak first. Instead, he merely hovered nervously a few feet from the door, peering into the dark.
The room was smaller than he would’ve thought. It was little more than a desk on the far side of the chamber and walls filled with weapon-racks, all heavy with spears, hooks and other wicked devices, each looking older than the building around them. In the far-right corner of the room, there laid shadows too dark for light of the red flame to pierce.
Michael felt a disturbance in the water and fought to keep his hands at his side. He stopped treading and let himself sink to the floor of the room, finding it soft and squishy with algae.
A voice spoke in the dark, asking a question quietly in the language of Hoiise. The accent was thick and deep, like a roaring snowstorm.
“Sorry, I don’t speak Hoiise-”
“Speak not,” the voice barked, unseen. Unlike his daughter, the Holorhi’s voice rolled every letter together, heavy with his native melody. And unlike her jovial, smile-ridden words, his voice was distant and chilling.
Michael obeyed, clenching his teeth. His eyes darted to the many weapons on the wall.
“Why have you come, Legacy?” he said at last, uttering every word with distain. “Speak.”
Michael folded his hands in front of him and tried not to sound small. “My companions and I were forced over the cliff above your city during a conflict. I’ve been told your guard took them into custody.”
Out of the darkness drifted a nine-foot Sea Dweller with a mane of deeply grey hair flowing down his back. His eyes were bright silver and his scales were pale like bone. His hands, webbed and clawed, were carefully curled around a long, rust-coloured trident with three jagged points, standing as tall as himself.
The very sight of it made Michael’s hair curl. Getting struck by a weapon like that would take an Arcane Cherry and several other miracles to survive.
In every tale of Sea Dwellers, their Kings wielded great, powerful tridents, capable of taming the tides as well as laying low offending armies. They were symbols of catastrophic power. If you saw one in a play then it usually meant war was coming. War involving royalty and tragedy.
This one didn’t radiate any kind of magic, rather it exuded dread. It looked like the kind of weapon that perhaps used to be white, but use and age had darkened its colour to a grotesque corroded red.
“And?” the Chieftain asked, floating within five feet of the young man, idly holding the trident at his side.
Michael did his best not to focus on the weapon, but found his spine crawling under the cold, silver gaze of the Holorhi. “I was hoping to find out why. Your Nahni seemed hesitant to tell me-”
The Holorhi growled, “Your language is artless and barbaric but at least you can speak it without shredding it of its culture. Do not butcher mine trying to appease me. ”
Michael raised his hands and felt his heart raging in his chest. “I’m sorry! I’m just trying to be...” He didn’t know what, and his words fell quiet.
The silver-eyed man sneered and swam back over to his desk. “Pacifying? Persuasive? False?”
The last word kindled Michael’s anger slightly and he bit back a response, carefully saying, “Polite, Holorhi.”
“Save your courtesy, Legacy. I intend on offering you none.”
Michael watched the Holorhi begin inspecting the weapons on the wall.
“I know you are from Fort Guardian, Legacy. I know it because I was foretold your people may attempt to flee through the cavern. And if they succeeded, then they’d have no choice but to brave my waters.”
Michael felt his anger bloom but he held it back. “Foretold? By whom?”
For the first time since entering, the Holorhi lowered himself in the water and looked thoughtfully over his trident. “I think you know of them. They are the reason your friends are detained.”
Michael felt a sickly dread fill him to his throat. “Nikereus. You’re with them.”
The Holorhi said nothing, casting him a silent, affirming glance, ridden with quiet shame.
“Why do you have to keep my friends? Nikereus would never have to know! Just let me take them!”
The Chieftain’s dark gaze returned as he sneered at the Legacy. “They are prisoners of war. They will be held for questioning, and any answers of interest will be delivered to my ally.”
Michael saw his face and felt his fire blaze hot in his stomach, unable to stop himself as he seethed, “Ally? You mean your overseer?”
The Holorhi rose to his full height, shaking with fury as he rounded his trident on Michael. “You dare insult me in my own chambers! I am Holorhi of Kavoe Farnea, not Nikereus, I am-”
“-a gutless puppet!”
The Holorhi rocketed forward, picked Michael up by the throat and slammed him against the door like he was weightless. His claws burrowed into the skin on Michael’s neck as droplets of blood coloured the water red. “Your folly will be your end, Legacy.”
Michael’s eyes changed before the Holorhi’s eyes. The gentle grey shifted and intensified and painted the chieftain’s face red. The veins in Michael’s face bloomed crimson, and he said politely, “Its Paladin, to you.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Arcancy exploded from Michael’s fingertips, ripping through every black shadow in the room and sending the Holorhi screaming in pain to the other side of the chamber, wrapping his arms around his head.
A hue of red Blood Magic shrouded Michael like an eclipse as he kicked through the water toward the cowering Chieftain. “Where are my friends, Holorhi?”
The Holorhi hissed at him from behind his arms, trying to shield back to the starfire. “You can make no demands of me!” He roared with Hoiise curses and suddenly a series of hard knockings echoed throughout of the room. Voices shouted on the other side.
As glanced to the door, he saw the Holorhi smile darkly as he muttered in Common, “Your friends will rot. You won’t even be granted the formality of getting dragged to the executioner’s block. Not after this.”
Michael kept his Arcancy burning as he swam back over to the door and spotted a heavy drop-lock hanging above. He unlatched the stone bar and it sank sharply to the floor, catching on two hooks, locking the door in place. The stone slab was ancient, and clearly in need of replacement. It wouldn’t buy him long.
“Guess that means we’re on a clock then, boss.” Michael swam back toward the Chieftain and faced his palms towards him. “Don’t make me hurt you. Tell me where my friends are.”
“I will give nothing to you.” The Holorhi roared and attempted to rise.
“Where are they?” Michael shouted as more of his power exploded from his palms, now blaring out bright white like he’d pulled starlight from the void, forcing the Holorhi down in screams.
The Sea King swept out his tail at Michael’s feet and he narrowly avoided it. Michael flourished his anger and the chieftain shrieked, clinging to floor. Michael’s stomach turned and he let his power die and the room descended back into darkness again, edged only in the red candle light.
The Holorhi shrivelled in relief of the pain and lay on the algae-floor, breathing shuddery breaths. He looked up at Michael and chuckled darkly. “I knew you didn’t have it in you. You’re not a killer. You’re just a boy.”
Michael looked at his palm where the light faded and felt sickness bloom in his stomach.
Fists pounded on the door behind them, sending jitters through the stone as the Holorhi’s guards attempted to break it down.
Michael looked at the weak Chieftain and found himself raising his hands again. This was what Carter had meant by ‘Impure Arcancy’. He could feel it, deep within him. The dark, corruption of his soul as his veins blared to life again and the dark remained for one final second.
Michael looked shakily back to the Holorhi as weapons began clanging on the door of the chamber and the drop-bar lock began to quiver in its place.
Michael said stiffly, “Please,” as he raised an Arcancy-raging palm, white-knuckled and trembling.
The Holorhi’s white hair no longer made him look ancient and wise, but old and frail. He watched Michael’s hand and sincerely looked into the Paladin’s eyes. “Could you, really?”
“I really don’t know. But my friends are here somewhere. In chains. And you’re in my way.” The water hid his tears but it couldn’t suppress his shaking breaths.
The Holorhi looked back down at the floor and muttered quietly, “Nikereus came with ten thousand soldiers. Gargan Flamed soldiers. Unkillable. What else could I do?” he asked, though not really of Michael, more of the world as he ran his clawed fingers through the seaweed on the floor.
Michael’s tight hand loosened in shock. “Gargan Flamed? You mean... the Immortal Flame? Nikereus has it?”
More weapons cracked and smashed against the stone door but Michael barely heard it as the Holorhi mumbled, “I could not tell my people. We have been allies with the Legacies of your tribe since the Fall of Lighila. They’d never forgive me and they would never understand the danger.”
Michael lowered his hands completely and let his Arcancy fade. “They would’ve wanted to fight?”
The Holorhi looked at him with disgust but didn’t rise. “You sincerely believe I had a choice? The Flame is not their only Gargan Magic. They hold something else. Something darker and more feral than anything that has been used in all four ages of your world. I almost didn’t believe Nikereus when they told me...”
Michael couldn’t breathe. Nikereus commanded ten thousand immortal soldiers, legions of Shade Hounds and entire packs of Mountain Wolves. There couldn’t be anything more. There just couldn’t be. “What was it? What else does Nikereus have? Tell me!”
The drop-lock was ripped away and the five outer-palace guards came bursting through the door, shouting in Hoiise with their weapons drawn.
The Holorhi’s face changed into one of flat anger. “Finally!” he barked in Hoiise.
They saw the scene out before them, taking only a beat before the head guard grabbed Michael and slammed him to the wall, binding his wrists in thick, braided seaweed as the other four aided the Holorhi.
Michael struggled and winced as he realised the Holorhi had merely been stalling. He fought their hold but they were stronger than he could ever hope to be as a thick length of rope was pulled into his mouth, gagging him like the bridle bit on a horse’s reins.
The Holorhi-Nahni came hurtling into the commotion and saw Michael under arrest and her weakened father still rising from the floor. She began shouting in Hoiise, casting poisonous looks at Michael after her father muttered a handful of dark sentences in her native tongue.
The Chieftain waved dismissively at the boy and muttered what Michael assumed was “Take him.”
Before the guards had the chance to round on him, the Chieftain’s Daughter bolted up to Michael and tore the rag from Michael mouth, shouting, “What did you do to my father?”
Michael saw the guards closing in from either side, and the Chieftain paying almost no attention as he drifted tiredly to his desk.
Michael looked her sharply in her bright emerald eyes and realised he was certain that she wouldn’t have lied to him. He’d believed it so dearly that when he spoke, his voice was soft and wounded, “Did you know?”
The Holorhi-Nahni hadn’t expected it. She blinked and tried to maintain her rage, but it came out with too little conviction. “Know what?”
The guards drifted to a curious stop and the chieftain turned in panic.
“That your father made a deal with Nikereus. That he’d abandoned my people and chained my friends? Did you know?” Michael added, trembling as more tears vanished among the ocean.
The Holorhi-Nahni turned to her father, as did the guards. “You swore to me. You swore that you hadn’t forsaken them! You vowed to everyone that you’d told Nikereus to leave!”
The Holorhi roared in his native tongue, “I will not be spoken to like this in my own palace, in a tongue that I despise!”
The guards glanced between the chieftainess and her father, seeming uncertain where to position themselves.
She held her face in despair before shouting, “The Legacies have been our friends since the Carving of Lighila! How could you?”
The Holorhi bit back his response, but there was no holding back. “Nikereus wields artefacts of Creation Magic! I made a decision for the good of Kavoe Farnea!”
She looked at him with fury. “You made it for yourself.”
The head of the guard, clad only in her stone bracers, muttered in Hoiise, “Should we taken the Legacy to the Cages, Holorhi?”
The white-scaled merman nodded firmly, casting one last spiteful look to his daughter and the Legacy. “Away with him.”
The four other guards turned uncertainly to the young Paladin as their commander passed on the order.
The Holorhi-Nahni was staring at the back of her father’s head. As the soldiers went to move passed her, she raised her hand, stopping them. Before they had a chance to question her, the Chieftain’s Daughter turned and looked Michael hard in the eyes for a long second when suddenly she whispered, “Do you have a plan?”
Michael had to stop himself going wide-eyed. The guards couldn’t see her face but they could see his. He half-nodded, idly trying to remember where the nearest spear on the weapon rack behind him was.
The head of the guard muttered in Hoiise, “Holorhi-Nahni, we have to take him, now.”
The Holorhi-Nahni nodded, whispering quickly to Michael, “You have five seconds to do the thing I told you not to do.”
Michael pursued his lips. “You told me a bunch of stuff.”
The Holorhi-Nahni glanced at him as the guards started to move. She mouthed, Light it up.