They fled through the tunnel, quickly putting space between them and the horde marching behind, but even inhuman endurance has its limits. As they neared the end of the tunnel, Jasper could already feel his strength beginning to flag. It was all he could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. His feet were battered and bloodied, blisters grew and burst, and his heels ached from their relentless abuse. He staggered against the wall, struggling to breathe. His vision swam in front of him, but he shook his head. Got to make it to the city.
With a strangled cry, he fell backward as the wall opened up behind him.
He hit the ground hard and gasped when something loomed over him. He immediately rolled to his feet, already channeling essence into his hands to bombard his attacker with spells.
“Wait!”
The thing stepped into the light and he finally saw its face. Aphora?
She held her hands out, trying to placate him. “I’m here to help.”
A torrent of anger pulsed through his veins, and Jasper raised his hands, Sacred Star on his lips. But a hand grabbed hold of his elbow, yanking it back.
“Stop! Think about this, Jasper.” Ihra cocked her head back towards the dimly light tunnels. The vibrations still rumbling through the tunnel floor reminded him of the approaching army. “Even if we could defeat her - which we can’t - do you really think we need more enemies right now?”
He growled, the frustration leaking into his voice. “You weren’t the one she tied up and bled.”
“No, but I am the one that’s going to die if we get into a hopeless battle, and So. Are. You.” She thumped him on the chest as she spoke the last words, driving her point home.
He blinked as her words sunk in, getting past the anger. Damn it, she's right. He turned back towards Aphora, his words still thick with anger. “So, what the hell do you want?”
“We need to warn the city. Chances are good that the guild will have already warned them to be on the lookout, thanks to the portal which you opened to the Sanctum, but that-“ she choked on her words, finally spitting them out, “that horde could destroy the entire city if they don’t have time to activate the defenses."
“Portal? How did you know about the portal?”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Is that really important right now? I screwed up, okay? I just wanted to save my people, to save my mother, and instead, I unleashed an undead horde into the world. I’m sorry - but right now, which do you think is more important: taking your anger out on me, or trying to save Gis̆-Izum?”
His mind flashed to the children at the orphanage, to little Kefir and Aryah. Taking a deep breath, he forced the rage down. “Fine. How do we save the city.”
“Follow me.” She turned and walked into the darkness, her left leg trailing slightly behind her. Jasper followed reluctantly, his muscles screaming at the effort. As he stepped away from the tunnel, he realized that they were back in the guard post, or at least, in a guard post.
“My mother spent many years fighting in the Desolyton before she founded Als̆arratu. So, when she built these guard posts, she didn’t want the guards to get trapped in here if the worst were to happen.” Aphora led them over to the small pond at the back of the cavern. Without stopping, she waded into the water. “There’s an escape tunnel in the pond that will take us to a portal. From there, we can get back to Gis̆-Izum well before the wraiths arrive.”
Jasper watched as she disappeared beneath the surface, then cautiously approached the pond. The pond was deep, and he could easily see the bottom through the crystal clear water. There was no sign, though, of Aphora or of a tunnel. Crap. Where did she go?
With a sigh, he waded into the water. It was shockingly cold, and he winced as pins and needles danced along his body, but he pressed on. When he reached chest-heigh, the gentle slope of the pond suddenly dropped off, plunging into the depths. Taking a deep breath, he dove down.
He soon realized that the pond was even deeper than it looked. The pressure built up in his ears to a painful level, and he paused to equalize them. Ihra shot past him, slicing through the water with enough speed to outrace a shark. He watched her rocket to the bottom where, after a moment's searching, she simply disappeared.
His ears relieved, Jasper dove deeper, leveling out at the bottom. From above the floor looked completely solid, but now he could see that a small portion of the floor rose above the rest. And, set into that ledge, was a narrow tunnel.
He pulled himself through the small opening, fending off the rising wave of claustrophobia as best as he could. The narrow tunnel quickly expanded into a spacious tube. A fast current of water ran through it, propelling him quickly through the dark, and he swam with it with as much speed as he could muster. Already, he could feel his lungs start to burn, as his need for air slowly overwhelmed all other impulses.
An iron cage of pain wrapped around his chest when he finally spied an opening in the water. Shooting upward, he broke through the surface, gasping for air. A hand grabbed hold of him as Ihra hauled him out of the underground stream. He flopped onto the cold, stone floor, panting like a dog in summer.
When he finally caught his breath, he stood up, shaking the water off him, as he surveyed the small cavern they were in. The freezing water clung to his skin, but the fires within quickly rose to banish the cold. He glared at the submerged tunnel, but his lips quirked up in a smirk as he turned to Ihra. “I always said water levels were the worst.”
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A look of confusion crossed her eyes, but she politely smiled. Another one of his oddities. Ihra watched with a touch of envy as his clothes quickly dried. Within minutes, he was completely warm and dry, while her wet clothes still clung to her, the freezing water of the tunnel made even colder by the occasional drafts of air in the dark cavern.
Aphora stood in the corner, her back slumped against the wall by a passageway that led up. Ihra didn’t know what to make of her presence. She had been mostly out of it when the incident occurred in the Tower of Ysagila, and Jasper hadn't really wanted to talk about what happened. She knew the elf had forcibly taken some of his blood to perform a ritual to try to save the city's inhabitants. The undead horde currently marching toward Gis̆-Izum was a pretty clear indication of how poorly that had gone. But, although she had never fully trusted the mysterious elf, Ihra felt a touch of sympathy for her actions.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Her eyes swam with unshed tears as her memory rushed back, unbidden, to the shabby orphanage where she had grown up. She could barely remember her parents. The only real memory she had of them was of her fourth birthday. They took her outside the city walls to a sunny meadow and had a picnic. She remembered the warm pie, her mom’s laughter, and her dad holding her in the air as he twirled in a circle until she got dizzy. And the butterflies, so many butterflies.
Two weeks later they left on an expedition. They never returned.
That wasn’t when she went to the orphanage. Her older brother took her in and welcomed her into his little family. She could still picture his big gruff beard, and hear his loud, booming voice. Whatever elf heritage they had, had clearly missed him. But then he was drafted by the Barracks. It was right after the empire lost the capital, and they mounted a hopeless attack to bring it back. Her brother died before the iron walls, a Zalancthian pike through his heart.
Unable to afford the care for her husband’s sister and her three young children, her aunt had left her at the orphanage. At first, they come to visit her regularly, bringing little toys and treats to spruce up her grey little room. Then her aunt remarried and the visits stopped.
Ihra felt the tears brimming in her eyes and blinked them away, mad at her weakness. That’s all in the past now.
But still, Ihra couldn't bring herself to judge Aphora too much. How could she really hate her, when she knew what lengths she'd be willing to go to, if it would bring back her family?
Her reveries were interrupted by Aphora’s soft voice. “Come, we must keep going.”
She followed the elf up a narrow corridor, Jasper following closely at her heels. Her muscles, worn out from the hours of running, groaned at the effort of dragging herself up the hill, and she breathed a sigh of relief when they emerged into a small chamber.
“Selene’s Grace.” The words tumbled out of her mouth, as she gazed in wonder at the portal before them.
Aphora shot her an amused look. “Yes, my mother spared no expense when arranging the security for the city.”
The entire wall was plated in hammered gold. A great empty doorway stood in the middle, flanked on two sides by statues of Ayyalu and Selene. In front of the door, a small pillar rose up from the ground, with a bowl on the top.
She stumbled forward, her eyes glued to the statues. Do these move too?
As if Aphora had read her mind, she spoke up. “Don’t worry about the statues. While they are a fitting vessel for the gods, I sense no presence within them.” Aphora walked over to the bowl, her steps faltering a bit, and placed a hand on it. “We’ll need one of you to supply some blood and essence.”
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Jasper flushed with renewed anger. “You’re more powerful than both of us put together. Why don’t you do it?”
A sad smile crossed Aphora’s face. “Unfortunately, my escape from the city came at a cost. Until these wounds are healed, I am unable to provide the energy needed to power the portal.”
She leaned against the wall, bathed in the golden light of the statues’ torches. For the first time, Jasper could see her clearly. Her body was crisscrossed with dozens of cut marks and wounds, and her left leg was mutilated particularly heavily. Two fingers were missing from her right hand, and her antlers had lost several tines.
“What happened to you?”
She smiled bitterly. “Needless to say, the reunion did not go as planned. When the city was sucked into the void, the people were not changed back to the elves they had been. But they also weren’t the same mindless monsters, either. Their minds slowly returned - and with it, I think, their mortality. But they woke to find themselves trapped in new, monstrous, forms. Still, when I found my mother it was the happiest day of my life. She embraced me, hugging me tight to her chest, as the light of sanity returned to her eyes.”
Tears ran down her cheeks. “But I was a fool. I’m sure you heard the horn, yes? Their minds may have returned, but they are warped and twisted. My mother, or what’s left of her, summoned the people to the temple. I went along - a festival of celebration, I thought. Instead, she stood before her people and proclaimed that Als̆arratu was marching to war: ‘Blood demands blood. We shall scourge them from the lands for their treachery, and punish them for the ruin wrought upon us.’”
“I tried to object. "What treachery, except for the Fey, who have long since been cast from these lands?'"
"That is when she revealed her true nature. ‘Little girls should not talk in the presence of their elders,’ she said as she scourged me in front of the horde.”
“When I had been thoroughly punished for my 'transgressions,' they locked me in my childhood room. Fortunately, ‘little girls’ don’t need real security, so I was able to escape once their attention was elsewhere. I headed for the tunnels, hoping to run into either you or the guild.”
Jasper winced, his anger with her abating slightly, but not assuaged. Still, she needed healing so, gritting his teeth, he offered her a healing potion.
Aphora turned him down. “It wouldn't do anything to heal these wounds. They were inflicted by Avoni weapons, weapons forged specifically to torment prisoners; they will not be easily healed. If I can just get back to my compound, I can gather the necessary resources to perform a ritual that will remove them. But until then, I cannot provide the essence to open the portal. Most of my magic is sealed within me right now. I’m sorry, but one of you must do it.”
Jasper sighed and stepped towards the bowl, but Ihra grabbed his arm. “Wait, let me do it. You’ve already been bled twice in the last two days - you can’t keep losing blood.”
He was more than happy to let her pass, watching with relief, as she walked over to the basin. Aphora joined her at the pillar and crouched down beside it. “Before you open the portal, let’s make sure the coordinates are right.”
Aphora examined the pillar for a moment and then twisted it to the right. It clicked three times before she let go. “Alright, it should take us near the central marketplace in Gis̆-Izum now. Go ahead, Ihra.”
Ihra stood by the basin, and with a calm hand, slid a knife across her wrist. A stream of blood poured out in the basin, splashing against the bowl as if it was a fountain. When it reached the marker, she drew her hand back and tightly bound her wrist with gauze. Plunging her other hand into the basin, she expelled what little essence she had. The blood boiled for a moment and then, with a blinding flash of light, the portal activated.
He shrank back, as a swarm of stars danced across his eyes. When his vision finally cleared, Jasper saw the small room was glowing with an eery green light. A dark emerald liquid hung suspended in the middle of the portal, slowly rotating around the center in a spiral pattern. There was something mesmerizing about the movement, and Jasper found his thoughts drifting away. He contemplated the lights, watching their intricate patterns. He felt as if the secrets of the universe were revealed before him, that he could spend an eternity studying them without unlocking the depths of their meaning.
Pain flared in his forehead as the emerald light was transformed into a forest consumed with flames. With a start, he came back to his senses, clutching at his head, where the diadem burned like molten lava. It cooled almost immediately, leaving him confused. He suddenly realized he was sitting on the ground. When did that happen?
Looking up, he saw Ihra and Aphora surrounding him, worried expressions on their face. “What happened to the lights - the emerald lights? The secrets of the universe-” he trailed off.
Ihra sighed in relief when he spoke. "Selene's Grace, I was worried. When the portal activated, you just stood there like a statue." She turned to Aphora, "What the hell was that?"
The elf swayed slightly on her feet, and placed a hand against the wall, steadying herself. “Apparently my mother installed another line of defense on the portal. It was trapped to ensnare the minds of those who are not elves.” She bowed her head. “I’m sorry. I did not know the portal was unsafe.”
“Is it safe for Jasper to go through?”
She frowned. “Hopefully? Truthfully, I was not aware of the first trap, so I cannot promise you that there aren’t any others. But,” she gestured helplessly, “what other options do we have?”
Jasper sighed. Go back and face the horde, or go through a possibly dangerous portal. The decision wasn't hard. He pushed himself off the ground and, not giving himself any time to second-guess his decision, he threw himself through the portal.
He passed through it painlessly - thank Selene - and emerged in a small chamber. He froze as the cold steel of a spear brushed against his neck.
"Don't move."