Avenger

TWENTY-SIX

15 Ches, the Year of Deep Water Drifting (1480 DR)

Geran and his small band met no more gravehounds or other undead as they made their way through the gloom of shadow-Hulburg. From time to time they heard strange rustlings in the dark alleys or the creaking of floorboards behind dark doors, and Geran felt unfriendly eyes upon them once or twice, but nothing emerged to trouble them. Near the square of the Harmach’s Foot they encountered a number of intact buildings-houses and workshops and storehouses-in more or less the same place that they would have been in the living Hulburg. The windows were dark, and no lights glimmered behind their shutters, but Geran sensed that the place was not as empty as it appeared.

Mirya must have sensed it too, since she drew closer to his side. “Who raised these buildings?” she whispered. “Does someone live here?”

“I think that no one built them. Each one’s here because someone put up a house or a workshop or a storehouse in Hulburg.”

“Do they just appear out of nothing here when someone builds them in our Hulburg? And why is each one wrong in some way?” Mirya pointed at a cooper’s workyard as they passed by. “That’s old Narath’s place, but his front door faces across the street, and there should be a fine old laspar tree in his yard.”

“That’s the nature of the Shadowfell. It’s a reflection in a broken mirror. What it shows isn’t the truth of things.”

“What of the people? I can feel them nearby. There isn’t a copy of me here, is there?”

“Souls wander here,” Sarth answered her. “Dreamers drift through briefly, and the dead linger here, sometimes for centuries, before they fade away to the godly dominions. Some know that they are bodiless phantasms, and have no true life in this place. Others do not perceive their incorporeity, and settle into the habits and places they have-or had-in the firmament we come from. And there are also those few who, like us, are here in body and soul at once. Most are travelers who don’t stay long, but a few make homes here for reasons of their own. I have never seen them, but I have heard of strange inns and gloomy towns where those who live in the shadows gather.”

Mirya shivered. “So the shades of the dead are what we feel around us?”

Geran drew close and took her hand in his. “We don’t perceive them because most are already fading from the world. Only the most determined-or most confused-would take a shape we might see.”

“What a terrible place,” she breathed. “The sooner we’re done with it, the better.”

They rounded the base of the causeway, and threaded their way into the woods that lay south of the great stone massif on which the castle stood. The small stretch of woodland in the heart of Hulburg was wild and dark even in the normal world, but here in the Shadowfell the gloom beneath the branches seemed physically impenetrable. It took a conscious act of will for Geran to force himself to take the narrow path leading into the trees.

The silence and the gloom settled in around them, even thicker than before. He felt Mirya pressing up close behind him, and even Sarth and Hamil hesitated before following after him. A walk of a hundred yards or so brought them around to the south side of the crag, a towering shadow that now loomed menacingly over them. To Geran’s left a wrought-iron fence leaned crookedly, marking off a small space where a flight of stone steps led up to a thick door of iron plate in the side of the crag. He let himself in through the rusting gate and approached the doorway.

“Allow me to examine the door,” Sarth said. He murmured his detection spell, peering closely at the postern gate. After a moment, he nodded to himself. “It is warded, but I believe I can suppress it.”

“Go ahead,” Geran told him. He drew the shadow sword again and waited as Sarth began to incant his spell, weaving his hands in the complicated gestures of his craft. The swordmage sensed his magic gathering, exerting invisible pressure against the magical wardings sealing the portal. With care, Sarth checked his power, keeping his effort as stealthy as possible. Geran waited for the sudden clatter of runehelms closing in from the forest, or the lash of some deadly spell trap … but the moment of tension passed, and the postern gate swung open under the sorcerer’s power. Impermeable darkness waited beyond.

“I cannot guarantee that Rhovann is ignorant of my work here,” Sarth said. “He may have sensed the breaching of his defenses.”

“In that case, we’d better not give him much time to react,” Geran replied. With the shadow sword in hand, he plunged into the darkness of the gate. Inside, a short passage led to a low, barren mustering hall where the castle’s defenders could gather for a sortie or mass to defend against any enemy effort to force the postern gate. Geran half expected to find Rhovann’s servants waiting for them just inside, but the hall was empty-evidently the wizard counted on his magic to protect the door. On the far side of the hall a stairway spiraled up through the living rock of the crag, climbing toward the halls and buildings of the castle proper. He murmured the words of a light spell to dispel the brooding gloom, crossed the hall, and began to climb the steps.

The stairway seemed narrower and longer than Geran remembered, another subtle lie of the Shadowfell. His head grew light and his missing hand throbbed as he hurried up the steps. By the time he reached the top, his heart pounded in his chest, and his legs felt weak and rubbery under him. He paused, leaning against the wall to catch his breath. Mirya peered at him, a taut frown across her face. “Are you in pain?” she asked quietly.

“It’s nothing I have time for,” he answered, and winced. She snorted, seeing through his bravado.

Hamil and Sarth reached the top of the stairs. “Which way?” the halfling asked.

Geran set a hand on the shadow sword’s hilt, and reached out for the touch of magic, dark and strong. They stood in a passage that ran beneath the upper courtyard. To the left it led toward the kitchens and storerooms near the great hall. To the right, it met another short stair that climbed up to the chambers built in the cliffside beneath the Harmach’s Tower and the rest of the castle’s highest ring. The air seemed to shiver with the potency of Rhovann’s wards in that direction. “To the right,” he decided. He hadn’t really expected Rhovann to hide the runehelms’ master stone in the kitchens, after all.

He led the way up to the next level of the castle. Now they were just beneath the library and the tower. Here, on the southern face of Griffonwatch, the crag’s top had been leveled and excavated so that the foundations of the buildings above had rows of windows facing the Moonsea, and served as an intact and inhabited floor in its own right. Geran reached the long hall with its windows peering out on the dark, endless night outside. Ahead of him stairs climbed up to the Harmach’s Tower, but the unseen currents of magic did not draw him any higher. Instead they washed over him from his left, where a large council room and trophy hall stood at the end of the corridor. A pair of runehelms stood guard outside the door; he drew back quickly, hoping they hadn’t seen him.

“The trophy room,” he whispered to his companions. “Rhovann’s device is in the trophy room.”

“I sense it too,” Sarth said. “Is there any other way in?”

“No doors, I’m afraid. There are a number of large windows, but most look out over a sheer drop. You might manage them with your flying spell, but the rest of us would need a rope.”

“It sounds like we’re going through the guards, then,” Hamil breathed. He crouched by the corner, drawing his knives as he prepared himself for his rush-and there came a loud clatter and rustling from the corridor behind them. Half a dozen of Rhovann’s constructs appeared by the postern stair, and charged wordlessly up at Geran and his companions.

“Behind us!” Mirya cried.

Sarth spat an oath in his own tongue and whirled. “Narva saizhal!” he shouted, raising his scepter at the towering monsters. A barrage of deadly icicles took shape in the air before him before sleeting through the corridor. Dozens of the icy missiles skewered the leading runehelms, to little effect-there were no vital organs to pierce, no blood vessels to sever. White patches of frostbite spread from each icicle, stiffening the constructs’ flesh and hindering their movements, but still they came on. The thin glaze of ice coating the floor and walls after Sarth’s spell proved more effective than the hail of deadly icicles; while the runehelms were hard to hurt, they could slip and fall as easily as any human might. Several of the gray guardians briefly tangled up in the hallway, but the two in the lead kept coming.

Geran drew his shadow sword and summoned up the magic for his dragon scales warding. “Theillalagh na drendir,” he breathed, conjuring a shimmering field of lambent force that rippled and flowed around his body like a loose-fitting coat of mail. Then he advanced to meet one of the charging runehelms, as Hamil scurried down the steps to engage the other.

“Geran Hulmaster, have you lost your mind?” Mirya snapped at him. “You’re in no shape for sword play!”

“I’m afraid Rhovann’s monsters think otherwise,” he replied. The creature in front of him launched a powerful thrust with the point of its halberd, trying to run him through. Rather than try to parry with his left hand against the heavy halberd and the runehelm’s terrible physical strength, he concentrated on dodging and tried to stay away from the halberd point until he saw an opening. “Ilyeith sannoghan!” he shouted, invoking a spell of lightning on the sword as he leaped forward past the halberd point. The crackling ribbons of light took on a new hue when Umbrach Nyth wore them; on his Myth Drannan blade they’d always been a bright blue-white, but on the shadow sword’s black steel they were a deep violet color. With a wild backhand slash he sliced the runehelm deeply through its thick neck. Purple lightning flashed around its iron visor and crackled under its breastplate; the construct jerked and twisted nervelessly as the lightning danced in its flesh, and then it toppled to the floor.

Geran smiled grimly. I’m not so helpless after all, he decided. Of course, the runehelms were hardly skillful opponents. They gave all their attention to destroying whatever was in front of them. He turned on the runehelm battling Hamil, and took it to the ground with a forehand cut to its leg. The creature toppled, but it lashed out with the butt of its halberd at Geran as it fell. The wooden haft caught him on his right hip and knocked him spinning to the ground a few feet away. Before the runehelm could draw back for a strike with the greataxe blade or wicked hook at the other end of the weapon, Hamil and Mirya quickly dragged Geran out of its reach.

Careful, there! Hamil told him. Mirya will never forgive me if you get yourself killed trying to guard my back.

Sarth turned another spell against the crippled runehelm, burning it down, but now the others that had momentarily tangled themselves on the slippery ice were working their way free. Worse yet, more heavy footfalls and ominous clanking of armor echoed through the castle halls. “This is madness,” the tiefling growled. “There is no point in fighting each one of these guardians. Geran, go and destroy the master stone before we are overwhelmed! I will hold off Rhovann’s creatures here.”

Geran hesitated, unwilling to leave Sarth, but Mirya caught him by the arm and pulled him up toward the hallway leading to the trophy room. “Sarth is right,” she said. “This battle can be won with a single stroke.”

“Very well,” he conceded. Sarth gave him a quick nod, and Geran turned his back on the fight by the postern stair and hurried around the corner toward the trophy hall and the runehelms guarding its door. Hamil and Mirya followed a step behind him. The door guards perceived the three of them at once; one moment they were standing as still as statues, and the next they lowered their halberds to advance a couple of steps, barring the way.

“Shoot the left one through the visor if you can,” Hamil told Mirya. “It seems to throw them off their game. Geran, you finish it off while I keep the other one busy.”

“Aye, I’ll do it,” Mirya replied. She started to draw back her crossbow-and the doors at the end of the hall flew open.

Mantled in the ghostly shapes of powerful spells, Rhovann Disarnnyl stood in the doorway, pure fury blazing in his face. Behind him the old trophy room was filled with arcane apparatuses and more runehelms beginning to stir in the great vats where they were grown. “You have the stubbornness of a troll,” the mage snarled at Geran. “You ignorant fool! What more must I do before you comprehend the fact of your defeat?”

“You would’ve been wiser to kill me when you had me in your power,” Geran answered. In the room behind the wizard he could sense the invisible currents and eddies of the wizard’s devices and spell artifices, each a subtle vibration of Rhovann’s careful weavings. The shadow sword in his hand seemed to quiver slightly, resonating with the power concentrated in the wizard’s laboratory. There was a focal point in the center of the room, an irregular crystal of dark purple in which a lambent flame flickered … the master stone for the runehelms? he wondered. His eyes narrowed as he studied it, and he resolved that whatever else happened, he’d deprive Rhovann of his toy before the wizard destroyed him. “You sent the Cyricists and their devils to slay my family in Lasparhall-assassins and monsters set loose to murder a frail old man and dozens of men and women whose only offense was their loyalty to the Hulmasters! Did you think that anything short of death would stop me after that?”

Rhovann snorted. “I should have expected no less. You simpleton, the Vaasans ordered the harmach’s death. I had nothing to do with it. You’ve sought out your demise for a mistake.”

The Vaasans? Geran wondered. Could it be true that Rhovann hadn’t ordered Grigor’s death? The elf was his enemy, and no stranger to cruelty, but Rhovann wouldn’t lie out of sheer pettiness. It certainly made little difference to Geran now; even if Rhovann hadn’t sent the assassins to Lasparhall, he’d set events in motion that were certain to result in mortal peril to Geran’s family, and he’d conspired with Sergen Hulmaster before that. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “My uncle’s death is still your doing, and I mean to see you dead for it.”

“Believe what you will. I will now correct my earlier oversight, and you can go down into death with your bitter, misconceived notions of vengeance unattained as you like.” The rumble of Sarth’s battle magic echoed through the shadowed hall, and the elf wizard sneered. “Did you truly think that I would not take steps to guard my sanctum? Your devil-born sorcerer cannot hope to overcome my defenses in the Shadowfell. You and your companions, even your beloved Mirya there, will never see the sun again.”

“I defeated you once before,” Geran said. “I wonder if you’re hesitant to begin this because you fear that I’m still your better, even crippled as I am.” He glanced at Hamil and thought at the halfling, Cover my back if you can, but above all keep Mirya safe.

I won’t fail you, Hamil replied. Do what you must.

“My better?” Rhovann hissed. “We shall see!” He raised his wand.

“Sieroch!” said Geran, invoking his spell of teleportation. Once before he’d used the spell to close on Rhovann and take him off guard; the wizard snarled an oath and leaped aside, expecting Geran to appear behind him. But instead of materializing within sword’s reach of the wizard, Geran emerged from the icy black instant of nothingness a good ten paces beyond the doorway where Rhovann stood. The purple master stone hung in its iron frame only an arm’s length away; Geran hewed at it with all the strength he could muster in his left arm. The black blade bit into the crystal; a white spiderweb crack starred its surface, and small flakes of purple crystal flew. The eddies of unseen magic in the chamber jolted as if a titan had struck a temple bell, roiling in protest. But the iron frame caught the long blade in a jarring blow, keeping Geran from finishing his stroke cleanly.

“You fool!” Rhovann shrieked. He leveled a blast of golden lightning at Geran that lashed through the workshop, shattering glassware and splintering wood. The swordmage’s wardings held just long enough for him to dive aside, flinging himself to the ground in search of cover. One stabbing bolt caught him in the calf and burned a smoking hole in his leg as he crashed into a clutter of casks and molds beside the vats in which the half-formed runehelms struggled to rise.

Hamil sighted quickly and hurled his dagger at a point between Rhovann’s shoulder blades, but one of the intact runehelms next to the wizard simply stepped into the weapon’s path to protect its master. The knife bit deeply into its pale torso; the runehelm ignored it. Rhovann glanced once over his shoulder and snapped, “Slay them all!” before returning to his assault on Geran. The damaged runehelm started toward the halfling, leveling its great halberd point first. Mirya took careful aim and shot it through the visor with her crossbow, staggering it, but before Hamil could move in to finish the thing more runehelms surged into the hall behind them.

Geran rolled to his feet and started toward the master stone again. Rhovann rounded the heavy table, lining up his wand on the swordmage. Snarling another spell, he blasted at Geran with a hissing jet of emerald acid, but Geran answered with a lightning-quick spell of parrying. “Haethellyn!” he shouted, raising the dark blade in an awkward block. A strange blue sheen flickered over the steel before the acid jet struck the blade and rebounded. With better control Geran might have been able to send it straight back at Rhovann, but instead he only managed to splatter the ground at Rhovann’s feet as a shower of droplets sizzled around him. Wisps of smoke from the potent acid started from half a dozen places on Geran’s clothing, but also from Rhovann’s. With a muttered oath the elf stumbled back from the seething pool in front of him, waving his hand to clear the air of the acrid fumes.

Geran used the moment of Rhovann’s distraction to turn back on the master stone, raising his blade for another stroke-but a damp gray hand closed on his ankle and yanked him to the floor. One of the incomplete runehelms had seized him and was trying to drag him away. “Damn it, leave me be!” he snarled, and split its skull with Umbrach Nyth. Dark ichor bubbled from the awful wound when he jerked the sword free, but the fingers remained clamped around his ankle, and it took him several precious moments to wrench himself free.

“Geran, smash the thrice-damned stone already!” Hamil shouted from the hallway outside. The halfling darted recklessly from one runehelm to another, dodging halberd blows that splintered the floor and smashed great gouges out of the walls. One of the monsters turned toward Mirya, drawing back its weapon to run her through as she fumbled with her crossbow; with a desperate lunge the halfling bounded over and dug out the back of its knee, sending its thrust aside as its leg buckled. The creature smashed at Hamil with a backhand blow of its great fist; the halfling flew a good ten feet through the air before hitting the opposite wall with bone-jarring force and crumpling. Another runehelm prepared to hew him as he lay stunned, but at that moment a brilliant green ray shot down the hall and struck it in the head. In a bright green flash the iron visor and gray clay disintegrated under Sarth’s magic, and the headless construct sank to the floor.

Battered and bleeding, the sorcerer smiled grimly at the top of the stairway they’d climbed. “I think I have finally determined how best to destroy these creatures,” he remarked. Then he was beset by the remaining runehelms in the hall, replying with a furious barrage of force darts and flame lances.

Fiery pinpricks burned here and there on Geran’s torso and arms where the droplets of acid clung, but he clenched his jaw and made himself ignore the pain. Instead of attacking the master stone directly, he darted clockwise around the great apparatus surrounding it, searching for his foe. Twice now he’d attacked the stone instead of the wizard; it was time to change tactics for a moment. He plunged through a cloud of smoke-Rhovann’s lightning spell had started a fire, it seemed-and found Rhovann only a double-arm’s length away, coming to meet him. Without a moment’s hesitation Geran stepped and lunged, driving his sword point clumsily at the elf’s midsection. Rhovann twisted aside with a sudden oath, deflecting the thrust by slapping at Umbrach Nyth with his silver hand. Sparks flew briefly as the shadow sword and the rune-marked hand met; the elf survived with a long, shallow cut under his ribs.

“Damn you!” Rhovann hissed. He jumped back as Geran recovered from his lunge, and leveled his wand at the swordmage. This time there was no dodging the mage’s fury; Rhovann shouted a spell of thundering power that picked up Geran like a child’s toy and threw him halfway across the chamber. Worktables exploded in clouds of broken glass and wooden splinters; incomplete runehelms were smashed into shapeless putty by the blast. Geran found himself stretched out on the stone floor, covered in debris and the contents of Rhovann’s vats. He groaned and shook his head, unable to stop the ringing in his ears. The room darkened and spun drunkenly as he fought for consciousness.

Slowly, he rolled to his belly and tried to push himself upright. He’d only managed to rise to his hand and knees when Rhovann kicked his sword away from him and leveled his wand in Geran’s face. “Now, at last, we see who is the better,” the mage spat. “Farewell, Geran. We shall not meet again.” He started to form a word of magic-and abruptly broke off into a choked cry, wheeling half around.

A crossbow bolt was lodged high in the back of Rhovann’s right shoulder. Geran glanced toward the workshop’s doorway and saw Mirya standing there, already working her crossbow mechanism for the next shot. “That’s for enchanting me!” she shouted. Behind her, several runehelms whirled away from Sarth and Hamil to charge at her back. She glanced over her shoulder, shrinking from the massive blades aiming for her heart. “Finish it quickly, Geran!”

“Cuilledyr!” Geran rasped, pushing himself to his feet. The shadow sword quivered once and leaped to meet his outstretched hand as he staggered forward-not at Rhovann, but instead at the master stone. With a strength born of pure desperation he rammed the chisel-like point of black steel into the center of the gouge he’d already carved from the great purple crystal. The shock of it jarred his arm so hard he bit his tongue as his jaw snapped shut, but a great white crack shot through the stone from side to side, and began to spread. The runehelms behind Mirya crumpled in silence, gray hands fumbling at their visors, halberds dropping uselessly to the floor.

“No!” Rhovann screamed. “I will not be defeated by you!” The elf seized Geran by the shirt as the swordmage drew back to finish his blow, dragging him away. Geran struggled to escape his grasp and strike again; in the space of a heartbeat they were grappling fiercely with each other. Geran fought to bring the point or edge of the shadow sword into position for a killing blow, but Rhovann managed to get his left hand on Geran’s sword hand and locked his hand of silver in a viselike grip around Geran’s throat. The metal hand was horribly strong, and the cold fingers ground into his neck, seeking to crush his windpipe. Swaying and stumbling in their desperate grapple, they blundered into a rune circle marked out on the floor.

A few feet away, the master stone’s mortal fracture split, and split again. Now the whole thing was shot through with white cracks, and the lambent flame flickering in its depths guttered and went out. In the instant the stone went dark, it shattered in a tremendous explosion of dark energy, rocking the shadow-Griffonwatch and devastating the wizard’s sanctum. The magical diagram under Geran’s straining feet pulsed to life, activated by the sudden release of shadow magic from the broken stone; even as he gasped for breath and his sight narrowed into a tunnel stretching longer and darker by the moment, he felt the jolt of magic at work.

Then all went dark as he and Rhovann were catapulted out of the Shadowfell.