He opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. Gareth could barely see the wooden beams in the gloom. The only light came from a candle on the table next to his bed. It was either night, or he was somewhere without a window. The hunger was entirely gone, his mind clearer than it had been in days. He sat up slowly, feeling a little sore, but otherwise fine. The bristly black hair was gone. At a creak, Gareth looked up sharply.
A man sat in a chair beside the bed. The chair creaked as he shifted in his seat. He appeared to be in his late forties. His long black hair was tied back. His eyes were dark green, like those of the man and woman Gareth had seen on the plains. The same green as the light of the rune he’d seen before everything went black.
“We’ve suppressed your curse,” the man said, staring at Gareth without expression. “I am Fiachra, of the Ethaeus.”
“Where am I?” Gareth asked.
“At our house in Rosethorn village,” Fiachra said.
“There’s a fragment of Nightstone—” Gareth started.
“We cannot destroy it,” Fiachra said, “but we will keep it here to protect it from Lencius.” His eyes narrowed. “The so called god.”
“Lencius is strong,” Gareth said.
Fiachra sighed. “You and the girl are from Hari, raised on the lies of those profane beings. Lencius is no match for the Ethaeus and our runes.”
Gareth thought the man was far too confident, was underestimating Lencius. “Where’s Thea?”
Fiachra looked at him coldly. “Is that her name? She’s in the dungeon.”
“She isn’t your enemy—” Gareth said, only to be interrupted again.
“She is a blasphemy against the world!” Fiachra snarled. “She was corrupted by the so called gods, drawn in by their dark magic and changed by it. She will tell us more about their magic, so that we can end it.”
They shouldn’t have come to Consilium, but how else could they have suppressed the curse? Gareth didn’t know what the Ethaeus were capable of, but he doubted he and his sword were a match for runes that could knock him unconscious so easily.
Fiachra’s expression softened. “Rest. Your curse has been suppressed, and the fragment is safe. Once you are ready, you are free to leave.” He got up and left the room. Before the door closed, Gareth glimpsed a gloomy hallway lit by a torch.
Gareth waited only a moment before getting up. His boots and sword were next to the bed with his bag, so he put them on quickly before stepping out into the hall. The ceiling was low and made of stone, just like the walls and floor. Was he underground? Maybe this was the dungeon Fiachra had mentioned. That meant Thea was down there somewhere.
“Tell me and I will free you from the magic…” The voice carried from further down the hall. It was Fiachra’s voice.
Gareth headed toward it, the words getting clearer the closer he got to the doorway up ahead.
“I have nothing to tell you,” Thea said. “You’re underestimating Lencius. You can’t keep the fragment from him, and it’s not only the fragment he wants. He needs Gareth for a reason, for a part of his plan. I think Lencius can’t use the fragment himself.”
Gareth hadn’t even thought about that. Lencius wouldn’t just come for the fragment. He had stopped the Forveth from killing Gareth and had wanted the curse suppressed for a reason. Gareth passed through the doorway, hoping he wouldn’t have to fight Fiachra, but prepared to do just that. Iron bars separated half of the room, making a cell. Thea sat against the back wall of the cell. She was no longer wearing her outer layer of clothes, just a tan shirt, black pants, and her black boots.
She appeared to be his age, or close to it. Her long black hair was tied in a braid. Her luminous eyes were blue, with strands of black in the iris and no visible white. Her skin was covered in a matte black substance that almost looked like armor, or maybe it was her skin. There were gaps and cracks in the armor, through which a blue light shone. He wasn’t sure what he’d thought a Knight of Corruption would look like, but this wasn’t it. For a moment he was surprised, but she was no different than she had been all this time. He was going to get her out of that cell.
Fiachra scowled at Gareth. “I thought you might try to find her. Look at her and tell me what you see.”
Gareth didn’t look away from Fiachra. “I see my friend. I see the one I traveled all the way here from Hari with. The one I’m going to travel back to Hari with.”
Fiachra’s eyes narrowed. “Then there truly is no hope for you.” He drew her sword.
Muffled screams came from somewhere above them. Fiachra gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, but before he could move or Gareth could draw his own sword, Lencius came into the room. His cloak and his face were spattered with blood, his blade slick with it. Fiachra’s eyes widened. Lencius struck fast, his blade cutting Fiachra deeply in the side. The man stumbled back, sliding to the base of the cell bars. Lencius grabbed Gareth’s right hand and pressed a familiar piece of stone into it, closing Gareth’s fingers over it.
He felt the smooth stone, felt the shape of the swirl on the end. The fragment of Nightstone glowed brightly through the gaps between his fingers. The curse couldn’t protect him anymore. Gareth felt the stone calling to him. He wanted to open his hand and stare into the dark starry night within the stone, but Lencius kept his hand closed around the fragment. He saw Thea trying and failing to force the cell door open, saw Fiachra slumped against the bars, but then there was only the stone. The will of the Nightstone.
He saw only glimpses of what came next. Gareth left the house, crossing the plains of Consilium. He heard Thea calling out to him, but her voice only made it through the power of the fragment briefly. The presence of the thing that watched him in the dream coursed through him. The binding the Ethaeus had made was cracking, a thing inside of him he could feel, but it wasn’t breaking fast enough for the curse to free him again yet. If it brought him back, he would only be lost to the curse instead of the fragment.
He didn’t stop on the way across the plains to the village of Skyleaf, passing the village at night. He couldn’t stop, no matter how weary his body and mind were. The passage of time blended together until a morning he collapsed in the forest and closed his eyes. Gareth dreamed of a starry sky, could feel something watching him, always behind him. This time, a voice whispered in his ear.
“Free me!”
The being’s name was in his mind when woke up at night, but it was something unpronounceable. Gareth walked through the forest, the key leading him onward. It wasn’t the key the book of Felethian stories spoke of, but it was still a key to something within Obsertus. A door he must open. When he was next aware of anything, he was crossing open plains at night, heading toward a mountain. These were the plains of Obsertus. The presence within the key told him so.
He still held the key in his hand, the light bright enough to guide him even on this moonless night. A terrible feeling hung over the plains. If he’d had control of his body, he would have run, but he could only continue toward the mountain. A fragment of Nightstone, a rough rock, appeared to his left just as another disappeared on his right. He saw others in the grass, but only out of the corners of his eyes. He couldn’t look away from the mountain.
Something was whispering, possibly more than one something. He felt things in the darkness of the plains, watching him, but the key would protect him. Gareth was almost halfway there now. The binding the Ethaeus had made was breaking, crumbling away, but the presence reaching through the key was strong enough to hold back the curse and Gareth’s will. They were too close to the rest of the being, too close to the door.
Gareth stopped at the doors built into the mountain. The doors into the fallen city. One of them was open a crack, a dim, pallid light spilling out. Gareth entered Obsertus, thinking as he did that he heard a familiar voice across the plains. A voice calling his name. Was it Thea? He knew it was unlikely, that it was just wishful thinking. The presence in the key led him deeper into the mountain. He could think just clearly enough to know no one was coming to save him, to know he was about to doom his entire world.
The halls of Obsertus were wide, barely lit by the pale light of the luminescent mushrooms that grew along the walls. The mushrooms were too few between to truly light the space, as some of them had withered and died. The next hall ended in a vast room, most of which was hidden in shadows. He could only stare straight ahead as he walked toward the dark doorway at the other end of the room.
He saw movement in the shadows, but could still only keep walking. The glow of the key was getting brighter the deeper into the city he went. Gareth was halfway across the vast room, the sound of his boots echoing on the stones, when a dark blur passed through him. Cold spread through him, along with a terrible wrenching deep inside of him. The being reaching through the key screamed, but it sounded like rage, not pain. It didn’t feel his pain. The stone floor closed in, the key falling from his hand.
The moment the key left his hand, the will of the being reaching through it vanished from him. No part of him would move. The light of the key had dimmed to the point he could barely see it in the darkness. Each breath was shallow, and he couldn’t make them any deeper. Something stirred in the darkness he was staring into. Was that blur coming back to finish him off? A cloud of darkness, without a definite shape, crept closer to him.
The sound of boots on the stone floor echoed through the hall. The cloud of darkness paused, then rushed back into the shadows just before a sword cut through the air where it had been. Lencius scowled at the shadows of the room. The stirring in the shadows had stopped entirely. Whatever had been there had fled from Lencius, which Gareth wished he could do. He still couldn’t move, could only lie there, barely breathing.
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Lencius turned his glare on Gareth. “I was going to make sure nothing stopped the plan this time, including the inhabitants of the city.” He knelt beside Gareth. “The Knight of Corruption put up a valiant effort against me, along with the Ethaeus. I know there is more to the Knights of Corruption than Varus has let on.”
“Thea…” It took everything he had to get that one word out.
Lencius laughed. “You have far more pressing things to concern yourself with.” His sneer vanished. “Your soul was torn when that being passed through you, but at least it wasn’t taken like your father’s.”
So that was what had happened to his father. The will of the being that reached through the key had led him deeper into Obsertus, where one of the city’s inhabitants had taken his soul. Gareth had hoped to find the truth, but not like this. He didn’t feel fulfilled or satisfied. He didn’t want to die, but neither did he want Lencius to succeed.
Lencius sighed. “It would seem that curse protected you again.” He took the key from where it had fallen and put it back in Gareth’s hand. “You will open the door, and you will become the host of what lies beyond.”
The being’s will coursed through him again, but even it couldn’t make him move. Lencius lifted Gareth into his arms like it was nothing, moving deeper into the city. The key glowed brightly, its light spilling out between Gareth’s fingers. The God of Chaos changed his grip on Gareth, holding onto him with one arm, as though Gareth were merely a small child rather than a fully grown man. Lencius drew his sword with his free hand.
They passed through the doorway and into another stone corridor, but things stirred in the darkness. A few of them rushed at Lencius, only to be cut down with his sword. They reformed further away, not coming closer again. At last, the corridor ended in a room with no shadows. It was small enough the mushrooms on the wall kept it entirely lit. Gareth’s relief lasted only a moment. The door was straight ahead, a stone door with no handle, only a keyhole in the center. This was it. Gareth couldn’t move, couldn’t let go of the key, not that it would have made much difference with Lencius there.
Lencius sheathed his sword and set Gareth on his feet, keeping him standing with a tight grip on his shoulders. The being reaching through the key still couldn’t move him, and his thoughts were clearer than the last time he’d held the key. The Ethaeus’s seal had entirely broken, freeing the curse. There was black bristly hair on Gareth’s arms and hands, but he didn’t feel the hunger that had accompanied the curse before.
“He should be weak enough,” Lencius said. “You have more power this close to the door.”
The presence in the key pressed in on Gareth’s mind further. He saw flashes of images, things that definitely weren’t his memories. Were they the being’s memories? Lencius had made a deal with it, had given the being a connection to the key. Lencius had put the key in that shop in Votum. Gareth’s father had entered Obsertus, led by the being’s will, but one of the city’s former inhabitants had swept his soul from his body. Lencius had arrived too late, but had taken the fragment and the journal.
The being beyond the door reached even further through the key, as far as it could to destroy the curse within him and fully take his will. He slid the key into the hole, but before he could turn it, something slammed into Lencius. Without Lencius’s support, Gareth collapsed to the floor, taking the key with him. Lencius was fighting someone, but the being’s will made it hard to focus on anything but the door. The being tried and failed to move Gareth’s body.
It was Thea! She moved to the side, Lencius’s sword barely missing her. Thea blocked his blade, stumbling back far, the upper half of her sword crumbling into fragments that fell to the floor. She was no match for a god, even as a Knight of Corruption. Something blue and faintly glowing oozed from a wound on her shoulder. Thea cried out, lunging. Her blade caught Lencius in the side before he could dodge. He shoved her back, then pressed a hand to his side, red dripping out between his fingers.
A terrible wailing came from the corridor that led to the rest of Obsertus. Thea moved away from the doorway just as several clouds of darkness rushed in, their wails earsplitting. They went straight for Lencius, likely seeing him as the bigger threat. He cut through them, but they just reformed and came at him again. Thea pulled Gareth to his feet, one of his arms over her shoulders. She stumbled out through the doorway and down the corridor.
“They can’t take his soul, but maybe they’ll hold him off long enough for us to escape,” Thea said, breathing hard as she dragged Gareth along. Was the wound on her shoulder the only one?
Thea reached over and gently pried the key out of his hand, sliding it into her own pocket. The being’s will vanished from his mind.
“Won’t it take over you?” Gareth asked, barely getting the words out.
“It can’t take me,” Thea said. “Just like the occupants of the city can’t take my soul.” She kept the remains of her sword drawn, but so far no more of the clouds of darkness had come after them.
Were they going to escape? Gareth didn’t dare hope yet. Things were slipping away, the time between each shallow breath getting longer. An enraged cry came from somewhere behind them. Lencius would be after them soon if he wasn’t already. He wasn’t going to give up this close to freeing the being behind the door.
“You just have to make it a little further,” Thea said. “Varus is close now. I told him what happened in Rosethorn and he was heading straight to Obsertus.”
They were in the vast room now, almost halfway across when a cloud of darkness rose out of the floor right in front of them. This one had more form than the others, almost in the shape of a person. It reached for Gareth with long fingers of wispy darkness. Thea breathed in sharply, but it was already too close for her to raise her jagged blade in time.
A sword cut through the being from behind, scattering the darkness and revealing a man with white hair that went down to just past his shoulders. His eyes were entirely black, just like his clothes, armor, and even his sword.
“Varus!” Thea quickly moved closer to him. “Lencius could be right behind us.”
“Get behind me,” Varus said, his expression unreadable.
Thea moved behind the God of Corruption, taking Gareth with her. Lencius was running toward them. He stopped, his eyes wide as he stared at Varus. Lencius took a step back, then turned and ran back the way he had come. Gareth hadn’t expected that. Was Lencius afraid of Varus?
“He will prepare himself to face me,” Varus said. “Come.”
Varus led the way out of the city, fighting off anything that came for Gareth. Back out on the plains, the sun was rising. The bad feeling that had hung over the plains when Gareth had come through was gone, and he saw only one fragment of Nightstone lying in the grass.
“Lencius won’t risk the key’s destruction,” Varus said.
Thea lay Gareth in the grass. Darkness was closing in all around him.
Varus knelt, his severe expression softening as he stared at Gareth. “He is dying. He will not survive for long with a torn soul.” He looked at Thea, who stood beside him. “The key?”
Thea took it from her pocket and handed it to him. Varus’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the fragment of Nightstone in his hand. “It is not the key that would unleash what slumbers deep in Obsertus, but dangerous nonetheless.” He closed his hand over the key, but then he looked up sharply. “Lencius.”
Gareth couldn’t turn his head, but saw Lencius when he came closer. Most of his hair had come loose from the tie, his clothes were torn in places, and there was dirt and grime all over him. Gareth doubted he looked much better himself. Lencius still held his sword loosely in one hand, watching Varus without expression, not even glancing at Gareth or Thea.
“I will not lose my memories and start over,” Lencius said, his voice shaking.
“This is how it has always been,” Varus said calmly.
Lencius shook his head. “Maybe the gods are meant to be consumed by their purpose. Otherwise, why would it happen?”
“So that we must start anew,” Varus said. “We made a promise to the people of Kelareth long ago to protect this world. You have seen where it is written, just as I have. The destruction you seek would break that vow.”
Lencius readied his sword. “I do not care!”
Varus stood, sliding the key into his pocket and stepping over Gareth, drawing his sword. Lencius struck fast and hard, but Varus didn’t even stumble when he blocked. Varus’s expression remained entirely calm, but Lencius was breathing hard, striking faster and harder. He was getting reckless with his desperation. Varus swept Lencius’s sword aside, the blade landing far from either of them among the grass. Lencius stumbled back, but Varus struck again, catching the God of Chaos in the same place Thea had already wounded him.
Lencius cried out. He turned and ran, but he wasn’t moving fast. He was running back across the plains of Obsertus. Varus didn’t go after him. He watched Lencius go for a moment before kneeling beside Gareth again, setting his sword in the grass beside him. Varus took the key from his pocket and closed his hand over it, closing his eyes. A pressure built in the air, an overwhelming presence that was coming from Varus. Gareth doubted this was even the God of Corruption’s full power. He heard a crack, then Varus opened his hand to let the dust that had been the key fall into the grass.
“It’s really gone?” Thea asked.
“Entirely,” Varus said. “The door would have to be destroyed for the being to be freed, and I know of nothing that could do that. Not even a god.” He frowned. “I cannot end Lencius alone. As soon as I report to the other gods of him being consumed by his purpose, we will gather to end him.”
Thea sank into the grass on Gareth’s other side.
“How badly are you wounded?” Varus asked, looking worried. It was the most expression Gareth had seen from him yet.
“Not badly,” Thea said. “I’m just exhausted.” She took Gareth’s hand in hers, her brows furrowing. “Is there anything you can do for him?” she asked Varus.
Gareth tried as hard as he could to speak. The words came out quiet, each taking more effort than the last. “Burn the journal… So that no one…will follow it again…”
Thea shook her head, squeezing his hand harder. “You’ll do it yourself.”
“He will soon die from his soul being torn,” Varus said, “but there is something that might save him.”
Gareth didn’t dare hope yet, but the hope in Thea’s eyes was almost painful to see.
“There is no guarantee his soul will recover unless he manages to hold on to his will to live,” Varus said, “but if he becomes a hollow knight, his soul might one day recover. My power would protect his body.” He frowned briefly. “I should not have doubted my instincts that something was up with Lencius.” He looked at Thea. “I should not have doubted the fragment of Nightstone could be more than merely a fragment. It may not come to anything, but perhaps I can make amends.”
Gareth could see Varus’s uncertainty, could see the god had far more feeling than he let on. “Thank you…” Gareth said.
“I’ll be waiting for you to come back,” Thea said as the darkness closed in further. “I’ll keep the journal safe until then, to give you something you have to do, something to bring you back.”
He couldn’t tell her, but knowing she was waiting for him was enough.