Cursed Bones

chapter 39



Alexander vanished from sight and found Hazel. As predicted, she was trying to flee the keep rather than face Isabel and Hector again. When she reached the cave-in and started cursing, Alexander projected just his voice, just his laughter into the room, moving it past her as if he were walking behind her.

She spun, looking around frantically. “Show yourself!”

“There’s no way out,” he whispered tauntingly, almost imperceptibly.

She turned toward the voice and found nothing. Clearly agitated, she hastily returned to the staircase and started down, moving cautiously as if she expected the walls themselves to reach out and grab her.

Satisfied with the fear in her colors, Alexander returned to Isabel, reappearing when she woke. She was groggy at first, taking a few minutes to fully recover from the sleeping powder.

“Hazel’s coming back down the spiral staircase.”

“We should set a trap in the black-and-white room,” Isabel said.

“I can distract her when she enters, so you and Hector can subdue her,” Alexander said, “but you don’t have much time to get into position.”

They moved quickly, carefully taking positions on either side of the door to the staircase in the black-and-white room. Isabel prepared a pinch of sleeping powder and they waited … and waited.

“It’s been too long,” Isabel said.

Alexander appeared, nodding. “I’ll go find her,” he said, vanishing again.

Several moments later, he returned. “She went into the level above. Maybe she knows another way out.”

“All right, let’s go find her,” Isabel said, heading up the staircase.

She stopped at the threshold. They had bypassed this level on their way down into the heart of Siavrax Karth’s laboratory, but now there was a single set of footprints moving off into the dark hallway. Isabel motioned for Hector to take the lead. Alexander provided light, revealing a long straight passage almost twenty feet wide with ten foot ceilings. Thirty feet into the hallway, they came to two doorways, one on each side, both open with the remains of their doors long since rotted away.

Isabel motioned to the one on the right and they slipped inside, Hector in the lead.

“Looks like living quarters,” he said.

“Alexander, can you tell us where Hazel went?”

The ball of light bobbled and vanished, returning several moments later.

“The corridor leads to a big room that was probably a dining hall,” Alexander’s disembodied voice said. “Past that is another corridor just like this one. She’s about halfway down that hall, heading for the stairs on the other end.”

They raced toward the dining hall, stopping briefly at the entrance to let Ayela catch up. When they reached the far side of the large room, Isabel heard voices coming from the hallway ahead. She motioned for silence and Alexander vanished, plunging them into darkness.

Each peering around a side of the doorframe, Isabel and Hector saw Hazel stopped near the end of the hallway, frozen in place, the sound of footsteps coming down the staircase on the far end. She acted just a moment too late, running for one of the rooms lining the hall but not before one of Trajan’s men reached the landing and saw her.

“Stop!”

She was trapped. Almost a dozen soldiers poured into the hallway, followed by Trajan and the two Sin’Rath witches.

“Princess Ayela fled into that room,” the soldier reported.

“Take her alive,” one of the witches said.

“Thank you, Mistress,” Trajan said, motioning for his men to approach the door. Four men entered. Sounds of a struggle filtered down the hallway and then two men dragged Hazel back into the hallway, unconscious and limp as a rag doll.

“Change of plans,” Isabel whispered, slipping away from the door and motioning for them to follow.

Once through the dining hall, Hector and Ayela stopped.

In the darkness, Isabel couldn’t see their expressions but she could almost feel the intensity of their emotions.

“I will have my vengeance,” Hector whispered intently.

“And I need my body back,” Ayela said.

“I agree on both counts, but we can’t take them. If we try, they’ll kill us.”

“So … what then?” Hector said.

“We go after the bones. Once we have them, the witches will be powerless and the soldiers will see them for what they really are. Trajan’s men will probably kill them for us.”

“Very well,” Hector said, emotion draining from his voice.

They retraced their steps through the dark, feeling their way along the wall and trying to remain silent. Dim light flickered in the distance and the sounds of soldiers’ boots reverberated softly off the walls of the corridor. Reaching the staircase, Isabel looked back to see an orb of unnatural green light streaking toward her. She didn’t hesitate, racing into the staircase, urging Ayela to move faster into the darkness. Echoes of boots running on stone chased them back down into the heart of the mountain.

Alexander returned as an orb of light, providing illumination. Reaching the black-and-white room, Isabel stopped, looking around at the ten remaining doorways leading from the room.

“Which way?”

Alexander appeared and pointed to the wall just to the left of the staircase entrance. “There’s a corridor behind that wall. I think it’s down there, but I can’t be sure. When I get close to the door at the other end of that corridor, I suddenly find myself back in my body on Tyr.”

“That complicates things,” Isabel said. “What’s down the rest of these passages?”

“Mostly old workrooms.”

“Any of them have tools?”

“That one,” Alexander said, pointing to a passage across from the staircase entrance. “It looks like it used to be a smithy.”

“Good enough,” Isabel said, heading for the passage and sprinkling a pinch of concealment dust after they’d passed the threshold. They moved cautiously by the soft, eerie glow cast by the jar of luminescent lichen Isabel had taken from Hazel’s workroom. The corridor ran for a hundred feet before reaching several flights of stairs leading deeper under the mountain. It opened into a large room, cold and dark. Alexander appeared again as a ball of light, revealing dozens of workstations lining the walls of the room. Each included a forge, anvil, and an assortment of tools, many of which were rusted to the point of uselessness.

Isabel was beginning to think they wouldn’t find anything they could use until she came to the workstation at the far end of the room. It was larger and more elaborate than the rest, flanked by two heavy stone tables, each cluttered with an assortment of old tools. Resting on the large anvil were two hammers, both rust-free and sturdy. One was a single-handed tool while the other was a heavy sledge hammer.

“Those are enchanted,” Alexander’s disembodied voice said.

“Good, maybe they’ll be enough to break through the wall,” Isabel said. “Any idea what they do?”

“No clue.”

Isabel picked up the smaller of the two. It was lighter than she expected, far lighter than it should have been. Frowning, she brought it down on the corner of one of the stone tables. As the blow fell, the weight of the hammer increased markedly, striking the table with tremendous force, breaking a chunk off the corner and sending it bouncing across the floor.

“These will do nicely,” she said, handing the larger of the two to Hector.

“Now we just have to break through the wall without the Sin’Rath hearing us,” Hector said.

“Not much chance of that,” Isabel said. “I’m hoping they followed our tracks into the menagerie, but I suspect they left a man or two behind in the black-and-white room so we’ll have to be careful.”

Ayela was sitting on the floor, leaning against the forge nearest the door. “This body is so weak,” she said, struggling to stand. “I’ve never felt so tired in my whole life.”

“Ayela, I need you to be strong right now,” Isabel said. “It won’t be much longer but we have to move. Can you move?”

She nodded wearily. Isabel smiled, putting a hand on her shoulder before heading back up the stairs. They stopped at the top for a moment so Ayela could catch her breath, then headed back toward the black-and-white room in the dark, feeling along the walls for guidance. Near the entrance, the flickering light of torches warned them of the soldiers standing guard.

“Two men, one in the staircase landing, the other just inside the corridor leading to the menagerie,” Alexander said.

“Please don’t kill them if you don’t have to,” Ayela said.

“We won’t,” Isabel said. “We’ll target the one in the corridor first. I’ll hit him with a force-push, then finish him with sleeping powder. Hector, you keep the other one off me, then we’ll do the same to him. Ayela, you wait in the corridor until they’re both down.”

Isabel cast her shield spell, then they crept up to the threshold silently, remaining in the shadows to assess the situation. One of the first soldiers to enter the room had stepped on a black square and now lay dead on the floor with dozens of darts stuck in him from all different directions. The other two were exactly where Alexander said they would be.

Isabel prepared a pinch of sleeping powder and started muttering the words of her spell, then sprang into a dead run across the room being careful to stay on the white squares. She caught the man in the corridor by surprise with her force-push, sending him sprawling. She was on him a moment later, holding her breath as she flicked the dust into his nose and mouth. His struggling subsided a few moments later and she rolled to her feet.

Hector had the other man down, one arm wrapped around his neck from behind; the man struggled against the choke hold but succumbed moments later. Isabel sprinkled sleeping dust over his face just to make sure he remained unconscious.

“Good work,” she said to Hector. “Once we take this wall down, we won’t have much time. They’ll probably hear us and come running.”

“They’re in the chamber with the ghidora,” Alexander said, appearing beside Isabel. “If you’re going to do this, now’s the time.”

She nodded to Hector. His first blow against the wall cracked it from floor to ceiling. He looked at his hammer with renewed respect before landing his second blow. Each strike weakened the integrity of the stone wall until a large chunk fell through into the darkness beyond. Each strike also reverberated through the stone of the keep, no doubt alerting the Sin’Rath to their presence.

A few blows later and there was a hole large enough for them to climb through. Isabel went first, Alexander lighting her way. Ayela was next, followed by Hector. The passage was easily twenty feet wide and almost as tall. They moved quickly but cautiously for several hundred feet down the gently sloping passage before Alexander stopped a few dozen feet in front of a huge circular stone door. It looked almost like a giant gear with teeth along the edge fitting into a recessed track that ran off into the wall to the left. In the recesses of several of the teeth were heavy steel locking pins that fit into slots in the wall surrounding the door, holding it in place.

“I can’t go any farther,” Alexander said, appearing next to Isabel with a ball of light hovering over his head, “but I’ll stay here to provide light. Once you get the bones, I won’t be able to get near you.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Isabel said.

“I’ll still keep an eye on you,” he said as his body vanished, leaving only the orb of light.

Isabel approached the door, then stopped, staggered by the effects of the Goiri bones as their power enveloped her. Azugorath’s tendril that had been gripping her soul for so long released and withdrew like smoke blowing away on a breeze. Feelings of relief washed over her. The constant effort of resisting the Wraith Queen’s influence coupled with the vigilance necessary to prevent her occasional pushes to gain control had been taking its toll.

Then she realized that she could no longer touch the firmament, she could no longer feel her link to the light or the dark … or link her mind with Slyder. Sudden fear gripped her. She could deal with losing her magic, but Slyder was her oldest friend. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing him. Then she thought about what she’d said … that killing Phane was worth any cost. With a lump in her throat and renewed resolve, she stepped farther into the null magic field and examined the door.

The locking pins were all that was keeping it from rolling aside into the wall. She tried to pry one free but it was wedged, so she went to work on it with her hammer, which had become heavier when she entered the area and lost its ability to change weight in midswing.

Hector started working on another pin. It was difficult and slow-going but before long they had all of the locking pins removed. At first the door wouldn’t budge when they pushed against it, trying to roll it sideways along its track. Only after Hector used his hammer like a crowbar against the teeth at the base of the door did it break free and start to slowly roll aside.

Beyond was a large circular room with a domed ceiling covered in gently glowing green lichen. In a heap before the door was a pile of bones. The creature had been large, maybe nine feet tall during its brief lifespan. It had died trying to escape the place of its unnatural birth.

Isabel knelt before the remains of the Goiri, looking into the empty eye sockets of the unnatural skull half-buried in debris, wondering about its brief existence. The sound of boots came reverberating down the hallway, followed by the flickering of torchlight that played across the fine dust swirling over the Goiri’s bones.

“Here they come,” Hector said. “My magic is gone.”

“Mine too,” Isabel said. “Hold your ground and don’t leave the area. If our magic doesn’t work, then neither does theirs.”

Hector drew his twin short swords and took his position to the right of Isabel. She drew a sword and a dagger coated with blackwort. Ayela stiffly moved off to the side and sat down against the wall, crying softly. “I was really hoping that these bones would reverse what Hazel did to me,” she said.

The soldiers approached, fanning out with the two Sin’Rath witches behind them. Isabel backed up like she was afraid, trying to draw the witches into the room. They stopped before the edge of the field, smiling fiendishly. The one on the right looked almost human, except her skin was an unnatural grey, her canines were long and sharp, protruding past her lips and her eyes were completely black without any pupils or irises. One sharp horn jutted from her forehead, curving over her jet black hair, her spiked tail flicking about behind her.

The other wasn’t nearly so attractive. She was hunchbacked, her right shoulder large and powerful, her right arm longer and stronger than the left, which looked like a child’s arm except that it ended in black claws as did the right. Her eyes were red, the color of glowing embers, and her teeth were all black and needle-sharp. Grey, tangled hair grew in patches on her mottled scalp and her face was misshapen, almost like it was made of wax that had melted slightly out of form and then hardened.

“Well, well … will you look at this, Agneza,” said the first witch to her sister in a very reasonable voice. “The Reishi witch has finally run out of places to hide.”

“Yes, Peti,” Agneza said in a mewling voice. “We should eats her.”

“Seize them,” Peti said.

The soldiers started moving forward, entering the null magic field and moving to surround Isabel and Hector, not seeming to notice Ayela sitting off to the side. Isabel made no move to resist.

Trajan approached her and stopped ten feet in front of her.

“Throw down your weapons and surrender. You have nowhere left to run.”

“Trajan,” Ayela said weakly.

He looked at her sharply, noticing her for the first time.

“Who are you?”

“I’m your sister, but that isn’t important right now.”

When he turned to look at the unconscious body that one of his soldiers had placed in the hallway, the true form of the witches caught his attention. He spun to face them, frozen in place and staring in disbelief as the effects of the magic broke.

“That’s what they really look like, Trajan,” Isabel said.

His men were all turning to look at the two hideous witches, muttering and gasping in dismay, conferring with each other to see if their companions were seeing what they were seeing.

“You’ve been under their spell, Trajan,” Ayela said. “Just like our father is, just like his father before him. Our house has been at the mercy of the Sin’Rath for centuries.”

He looked at Ayela again, frowning in confusion.

“You’re not my sister.”

“Stop this!” Peti commanded. “Kill them! Kill them now!”

Trajan turned to face the witches, anger starting to build on his face.

“How is it that you look so hideous when only moments ago you were the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen? More importantly, how is it that I no longer feel compelled to obey you?”

Agneza snarled, raising her hands and unleashing a spell toward him. Blackness, the color of the netherworld itself, erupted from her fingertips and streaked toward Trajan. He raised his hands to ward against the attack … but it simply vanished when it passed into the null magic field created by the Goiri’s bones.

“It’s the bones, Trajan,” Ayela said. “They cancel out magic.”

“They don’t cancel out steel,” Peti said, turning to the unconscious form of Hazel in the hall. “Kill them or I’ll kill your sister.”

Isabel quickly scooped up a handful of rib bones and tossed them into the hallway all around Hazel. Peti tried to cast her spell but nothing happened.

“You’ve lost, Witch,” Isabel said. “These men can finally see you for what you really are.”

Trajan looked back at Isabel, their eyes met and she smiled.

“On behalf of Lord Reishi, I offer the House of Karth an alliance against the Sin’Rath and Phane,” she said, sheathing her sword and offering her hand.

Trajan looked at the witches for a moment, then turned back to Isabel and took her hand. Both of the witches shrieked in fear and rage before they fled.

Trajan picked up a femur lying near his feet and struck it against the floor, testing its strength, before smiling fiercely and sprinting up the hallway after the witches, followed by most of his men.

Before they could close the distance, both witches escaped the null magic field and turned their magic on the corridor ceiling, dark arcs of unnatural energy leaping from their hands, unmaking the very stone itself.

Trajan stopped and scrambled back toward the room, dragging Hazel’s unconscious form with him, as the ceiling in the corridor collapsed under several tons of stone and dirt, burying them alive in the Goiri’s tomb.