[Womb of the Dark Mage]

Chapter 31 / 11

Quickening of Hate

Lamet took a single step towards the shadowed tube of a tunnel before them and stopped. Her ear twitched back to pick up the words being spoken behind them.

“… sure? Since what hour?” It was Carayul’s voice.

The other voice, the one that had caught her attention in the first place, was distressed. “I do not know! The other babes bore no witness to any furtive flight or matinal foolery!”

“Trouble, elder?” Lamet called up.

Carayul glared down from the top of the quarry at them. “No business of yours, outsider.”

Lamet scoffed. “It will become our business if you seal us in this tunnel with missing children and we are forced to tend to them.”

The brown elder shook her head. “If they were so acutely foolish to trespass beyond the boundaries of Mother’s Mourning, they deserve the death they will earn. Begone.”

Lamet was made nauseous by the heartless words.

Geoff turned a shocked look between Lamet and the elder. “What the f—”

“Geoff,” she grabbed his arm. “Pray the child remains in town and carry on. If they are in the tunnel, I will Bound them back, but there is nothing to do about the village’s attitude.”

“They don’t deserve that child,” Geoff spat as he turned.

Richard put his arm around Geoff’s shoulder and led him down the tunnel. “It’s horrible, but that’s why we fight, isn’t it? To do what we can. It pisses me off too, but that’s why I want to get going. I don’t think that kid is still in town.”

Geoff showed no signs of calming. He was shaking with rage.

“Dorshemet?” Sparlyset suggested.

“I cannot imagine what Dorshemet would want with a child, though it could be that they followed him out.”

“He sought Richard for his mantira,” Sparlyset said. “But he is not possessed of a means to expose such power in another. Surely the missing child is a victim of curiosity.”

Geoff and Richard both still sagged with a depression that Lamet felt deeply reflected in herself. Sparlyset was more of a challenge to read. She may simply be thinking about Richard.

Whatever they would find ahead, Lamet knew only that it would likely be worse. The rounded tunnel was smooth as though polished. The curved walls were featureless grey in Sparlyset’s light. She sighed.

The wail of the newborn echoed through the tunnel, and Lamet stopped as the chill of its tortured voice brought a new layer of scales to her skin.

“No longer human, eh?” Geoff said. “I guess this is what she meant.”

Lamet felt comforted by his voice, as it replaced the cry in her ears, but she was not sure what to add. She continued walking. It was too late to do anything else.

When the edge of the light opened into a chamber, announcing the end of the tunnel, a pressure weighed upon her. Geoff folded his arms, and Richard reached up to take hold of Sparlyset’s. A dark presence waited in the pitch chamber ahead, and they could feel it before taking a single step into the room.

That first step into the chamber’s oppressive darkness chilled Lamet through her scales and skin. She handed the orb of light back to Sparlyset while keeping her eyes, wide with terror, locked on the dark ahead. Sparlyset accepted the orb, and cast it through the room. It illuminated cracked stones in the floor, tendrils carved across their broken surfaces. Eyes of stone bulged in the walls.

The light froze when true eyes came into view. Larger than a person in height, they glowed with a sinister sheen. They blinked above a pool of blood not yet dry, and not yet seeped between the cracks. A tiny pale hand lay forsaken in the blood, its fingers broken.

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“Water and rose,” a ghastly voice drawled like venom to the ears. “With apes as pets, as warned.” It stepped into the light enough to reveal a long snout brimming with jagged teeth, and a clawed limb blanketed in sharp spines that wavered and rippled like smoke when the limb was still. The Dragon snorted. The force of his breath battered them. “Pathetic creatures, incapable even of speech?”

Lamet trembled. She felt the dark form of the Dragon banishing all thoughts but those of fear and flight.

“W-who are you?” Richard asked through teeth that clacked with terror.

“Words from the courageous ape, pet of purens.” He growled, shaking the ground beneath their feet. “Lowly mammalian things who masquerade as dragons. My name has more value than yours.”

“I’m Richard,” he squeaked.

“Geoff.” He gripped his weapon tightly in both hands, but they trembled too much for it to be of any use.

“Lamet,” she choked. “And Sparlyset.” She hoped to save the Lightweaver from the need to muster any courage. She barely could herself.

“Insects among dragons, and their pathetic pets, come to prevent the Rite of Dark.” He said. Every word solidified the spines across his head, only for them to turn into wisps of dark when he was silent. As though he were only material when he desired to be. “My name is Quaranteel. I guard the maarte. Only souls who can bear the death of a child may pass, and only souls who seek the Rite of Dark are so callous.” He snarled, and the air withered. Lamet’s next breath pained her throat. “Return with a sacrifice, or do not return.”

Her fear fought with her desire to know. She mouthed the question, and was surprised any words were formed. “You were warned of our coming? What did Dorshemet sacrifice?” She knew the answer, though she would have given anything to forget it.

“He bore the Heart of Shadow, the tablet that by toll of blood depicts the darkest path that renkind have ever tread. The path that birthed mine own form, and monsters still worse. The Rite of Dark.” Quaranteel’s laughter seized Lamet’s heart, and she fell to her knees. When it beat again, it beat to the pace of the Dragon’s words.

“Planar intercourse conceives pain. Pain divides into agony and hate, and hate is implanted in darkness to develop. Through veins of venomous vitriol the pulse of shadow’s heart becomes a foetus of untellable evil. Evil that corrupts to the bare extremities of sentient life.

“With the heart of a child to Dragon fed, and the spirit of a child of body dead, his fermented hate quickens. His arduous labour will bear the fruit of power that he seeks; he will be reborn in the womb, a new Dark Mage.”

Lamet could not stand, so she shouted. “You must allow us to pass!”

“No.”

“You must!” She shrieked. “You must! He cannot… he cannot succeed…”

Quaranteel stepped deeper into the light. His body was colossal, smoky. It was death. He was a dragon of despair. “Success was his the moment you arrived here with empty hands.”

“I object!” Sparlyset suddenly cried, waving her finger. “There is a single way! The power of light and fire will burn a path to this perverse womb of which you speak. Naught but glass remains in the wake of my divine flame!”

“What?” Quaranteel’s laughter brought them all in pain to their hands and knees. Except Sparlyset.

She unclipped herself from Richard’s back as he gripped his chest, no doubt wracked with the same palpitations that Lamet was. The Dragon cocked his enormous head as she dragged herself forward and struggled to sit. She held her hands cupped before her and white flame flashed in the air like lightning. She screamed. Whips of scorching light crackled in the air as a raging conflagration formed between her fingers. “We will not be denied, by you, or anything!”

Sparlyset growled with a fervour that Lamet felt echo in her own heart. She reached out and gripped the Lightweaver by the shoulder. Richard placed a hand on her hip.

“This is your final warning! Unbar our path! Or if you are so convinced of your power, remain right where you are!”

“Try your best, you incomplete puren refuse!” The Dragon lurched forward.

Sparlyset’s blinding flame rippled and darkness ceased to exist. The Dragon reeled, flinching back against the light. A pillar of luminous flame pierced him, binding him as he was. A column rose along the pillar until they crossed at the Dragon’s heart. The cross surged with white flame, and Lamet was forced to shut her eyes.

Even closed, she could see nothing but white. Feel nothing but heat. Hear nothing but raging flame. No air remained unburned for her to breathe. Would it be like Central Hometoll, and burn them away until only glass remained? A rush of cool air passed over her as it gusted to refill the room.

She heard a knock against the stone and opened her eyes. It was dark again, but Sparlyset’s Illuminate still caught them at the edge of its light. The Lightweaver was bent forward with her head on the ground, her arms lay limply at her sides. Richard pressed his fingers on her wrist, and then her chest.

“I think she’s okay,” he sighed.

Lamet felt light. There was no trace of the Dragon or his heavy presence. Sparlyset… when had she… how had she turned that bomb into her own spell? And Lamet had denied her full credit for defeating Warbinger… but she had seized that power and made it her own,

She helped Richard get Sparlyset on his back. Once she was securely fastened he stumbled to his feet.

“Good job, Sparlyset,” Lamet said quietly.

“No kidding.” Geoff rolled the stiffness from his shoulders. “That was… wow. I can’t…”

Only scorched stone remained where the Dragon had been. The marks covered half the room. The heat should have incinerated them. Was it Sparlyset’s Warmth that shielded them from it?

Her friends had followed her to these depths to help her save her brother from doing something foolish. Now, he had sacrificed a child. They had not asked to be involved in this. It had been easy to stab him the first time, as she knew he could Heal. Now he could not, but now…

Now he deserved death.

“I am going to kill my brother,” Lamet declared. “I hope you both will accept the opportunity to aid me.”

Geoff squeezed Richard and Lamet’s hands. “Yeah, you know that’s right.”