The Keystaff Chronicles - Chapter 14

Theredoniel strode through a hallway lit by faintly flickering mage lights that bobbed up and down in the air. His boots whispered against ancient marble floors that had somehow remained smooth through the many centuries since a Gwenevar last set foot here. To walk the halls of the Everstar Spire again was the dream of every Gwenevar since his grandfather’s time, and here he was, living that dream.

A scream, piercing, terrified, and hopeless, crawled through the empty hallway like a vengeful spirit and resounded loudly in his ears. Another victim of his bloodthirsty companions, and yet another addition to Lucien’s small army of lumbering dead. Theredoniel felt his stomach contract as bile rose to the back of his throat. His conscience screamed at him to turn around and save his kinsfolk, the descendants of those miraculous survivors of the Mage Wars.

The images along the walls shifted, showing him the massacre that was transpiring just outside the spire. He caught a glimpse of a young elven woman throwing herself atop a boy just as blast of power shattered her thin body. The shimmering image of her body shattered into a million sparkling lights before reforming into Lucien’s pleasantly smiling face.
That detestable visage was almost enough to turn the young elf around. But then, the scene shifted again, showing his beloved Eowyna standing there expressionlessly, watching with unseeing eyes all the murdering mayhem transpiring around her. In his heart, Theredoniel knew that Eowyna was no longer a natural being; that she could not follow him into the Everstar Spire was ample proof.

It was Lucien who had detected the barrier around the spire, which did not fallen as the barrier around the grove had. The pale-haired prince had ordered one of his walking-dead minions to approach the spire, and unlike the barrier around the forest, this one had incinerated the dead elf in one bright flash of red.

The only thing that kept Eowyna with him now was the Dark Arts, and for them to remain together, they would both have to embrace the darkness. He took a step forward.

…And narrowly missed being set ablaze.

Theredoniel raised a shield between himself and the flames, at the last possible moment. A sudden, intense heat that scorched his skin was the only warning he had before the fireball and engulfed him. Biting back a yelp of pain, the young elf extended his fingers and spoke the words of his own attack, sending forks of blue-white lightning pulsing towards the direction where he had sensed the attack.

There was a shriek of surprise, but he knew he had at least launched his attack in the right direction when the flames that scorched away at his shield weakened. Taking that moment, Theredoniel spoke the words that quelled the fire and launched another barrage of light bolts at his as-of-yet unseen assailant.

A muffled gasp told him that this time, he had hit his mark. In the car corner of the hallway, he was a shadowy, hunched figure.

“I do not wish to spill blood needlessly,” Theredoniel said. “Get out of my way.”

“Not spill blood needlessly? I hear the sound of the people dying. I feel the power that desecrates their bodies by making the dead flesh move!” an old woman voice replied. “For more than a thousand years we have survived in this cursed place, only to have death brought amongst us by one of our own!”

An ancient elf woman, her face lined with the passage of countless ears, her hair almost entirely gray with only hints of the brilliant gold it must have been once, stood bowed over a wooden cane, glaring at Theredoniel ferociously with her gray-green eyes blazing. She was clothed in a ragged brown dress of some rough material the young elf could not identify, and her hands that peeked out from the torn sleeves were more gnarled than any elves’ he had ever seen. The old woman favored her right arm, smoke rising from a wound that stank of burnt flesh.

“I have no choice!” Theredoniel replied. “I must save my wife!”

“Foolish! There is no bargaining with the Abyssal Ones!” the old woman shook her head almost pitifully at him. “If it is that human woman whose life you endeavor to save, than you waste your time. There is no soul in that defiled body – it is but a walking corpse, a marionette of that damned pale-haired human!”

“She isn’t dead!”

Blue white lightning arced through Theredoniel’s body and the smell of ozone filled the air. His vision had become a redlined tunnel through which no reason could penetrate. The cruel word, ‘corpse’, echoed through the core of his being, mocking his efforts.

“She is not dead!” he screamed again.

He held out his finger and pointed it at the old woman, but instead of lightning, a blast of power, fuelled by rage and despair, shot towards her. The old elf woman’s eyes widened in shock, and he saw her raise her hands futilely to ward off the inevitable. She would be reduced to ashes. Anything, anyone who tried to stop him from making Eowyna better would be reduced to ashes!

And then, from out of nowhere, a glittering red cocoon, like a dazzling, many-faceted ruby, wrapped around the old woman. His power struck the cocoon with a sad little plop, like a drop of water falling into a deep lake, before it was summarily absorbed.

“Do you realize how difficult it is to get help cleaning these halls?” a voice admonished. “What with the plague that idiot Kethevar boy created and all, and here you are trying to splatter one of its care takers all over the wall.”

Theredoniel spun around, drawing his sword and mouthing the first words of a defensive barrier. Standing only a few feet away, and apparently having materialized from the thin air, was a young human man with bright red hair and pair of mismatching colored eyes. The man was smiling with a kind of vacant cheerfulness that reminded him a little of Azarielle, but everything about him made the young elf lord’s blood run cold.

The man was obviously a mage, but Theredoniel could not sense even an inkling of arcane power in him. And despite his pleasant expression, there was something about him, in the way that he held himself, or the way that he looked upon him, that bespoke malevolent intent. But what truly alarmed the young elf were his eyes. One green and one gray, those eyes were like this land – bleak, hopeless, and dead.

“Who are you?” the young elf demanded, so unsettled that he spoke in his native High Elven.

“You would not know my name if I told you, son of House Gwenevar” the man replied in perfect High Elven, his lips curving into a sardonic smile. “And your name will be blighted from the records if you continue what you are doing.”
“It is none of your concern,” Theredoniel shot back. “Stay out of my way or…”

“Or what… little boy?”

In response, the elf charged forward, swinging his now glowing sword. The redhead made no attempt to dodge, and the blade passed through his body as if it was air.

“A projection,” Theredoniel said, looking all about himself.

“Not so,” was the response from behind him. “And I thought it was just that Azariel boy who doesn’t know how to train his apprentice. The problem is much larger, I see – it would seem like mage training is sorely lacking in general.”

Theredoniel spun around, and found, to his shock, the hallway was curving upwards and folding on itself like a piece of parchment. The young elf opened his mouth and screamed a command just as marbled crashed over him.

Pain like he had never experienced wracked his body, and he opened his mouth to scream. No sound escaped his throat except for a strange, gurgling wheeze. He tasted blood at the back of his throat, and when he opened his mouth, a glob of something sickly black oozed out of his mouth. He tried to move but found that neither his arms nor legs would obey him.

Struggling through the almost blinding pain, he looked down to see if he had been trapped by debris. The sight that greeted him was such that his mind refused to comprehend it for a moment. There was no crumbled marble lying atop his legs; there was simply nothing…where his legs should have been. He did catch sight of something white and glistening protruding out from beneath him.

And then, the empty black space in front of him twisted in on itself and spat out a large mirror. In it, he saw the image of a disfigured corpse of an elf. The elf’s golden hair tumbled haphazardly over bleeding stumps where the arms had been, and ended just an inch or so below where the torso ended. His poor kinsfolk must have been torn asunder by some horrendous beast, for he was missing everything below his waist. The eerie paleness of his spinal chord almost seemed to glow against the tattered flesh of his body.

Was this a vision of Luthien’s heinous act? Another one of his kinsmen he was complicit in because he had done nothing?

“Not so,” the strange man appeared, perching atop the mirror. “Take a good look at the face. I should hope it’s familiar to you.”

The face that had been partially concealed by the golden hair was his! Finally, the horrible realization that he was looking at an image of himself struck him like a stroke of thunder. Theredoniel opened his mouth to scream again, this time in terror of what had become him, but again, the only sound that fell from his mouth was a raspy gurgle. He should be dead! How could he have been injured so and still live…blessed Abihayil!

“So you would still call on the name of the Eternal Father?” the redhead shook his head and waved a finger admonishingly at Theredoniel. “Is this not what you wanted, Theredoniel Gwenevar, the power of the Abyssal Ones? Behold the power of Acedia in all it glory!”

The young man gestured grandly with his arm at the horrified young elf and laughed, a sound that cut like shattered glass.

“Oh, do not look at me with such an expression little boy, you will put premature wrinkles on your forehead,” the man shook his head again. “One should seek to make educated decisions, and I am merely showing you the nature of the power you so desire. Making dead flesh move, putting a abyssal creature into the dead body and making it behave as if it were like that living being, keeping a body alive that should, by all accounts, be dead – such things are within the domain of the servants of the Abyssal ones. Breathing life into the body, giving it a soul and making it truly alive - that has never been within their power.”

The words echoed in Theredoniel’s ears like a dooming death knell. An image of Eowyna came to mind then. She stood in her flower garden, tending to her roses – her graceful form more beautiful than any flower. There were streaks of mud on her cheek and in her golden hair, but she was, for once, oblivious to them. She had so joyously turned to him, her hands cupping a rare Azturothian blue rose that had finally bloomed.

Would he truly not see her alluring form stroll gracefully through their garden, or see her beautiful smile? Surely that was not the case! The arcane power that enabled mages to fly, that allowed mages to lift mountains out of the seas, how could that power not restore to him his love? It was a lie!

“And so you blind yourself to the truth. To keep her by your side, you would give up everything, your body, and even your soul,” the man’s lips twisted into a sad smile.

He was suddenly standing right in front of Theredoniel, and laid pale fingered hands tipped with black nails on the young elf’s face. Those black nails dug into Theredoniel’s flesh, sending excruciating agony lancing through his head. The young elf opened his mouth silently as blood poured down his face. As his vision slowly turned black, he thought he heard the man say to him, “You should get used to pain – that is what servitude to Acedia entails.”

Theredoniel’s eyes snapped open, and he leaped to his feet. He was relieved to find that he still had his feet, and arms. In fact, there appeared to be no physical wound anywhere on him. And, he was still in the hallway he had been when the redheaded man…

The young elf spun around but there was no trace of the strange man. The elderly elven woman was there though, and she was slumped in a corner, unmoving. Although she was still alive, he knew that she was in no condition to cause her any trouble, so he simply walked past her.

* * * * *

Lucien watched calmly as the Rising Sun mages methodically went about the business of murder. The survivors of the Bleed Rot Plague had established a small village around the Everstar Spire – really quite miraculous given the state of the rest of the Forsaken Lands, but aside from the group they first encountered when entering the grove, it would seem like the village had not militarized itself. Considering where it was they lived, it was a rather foolish decision.

Dao and his cohorts had captured a few elves to bring back to their prince, no doubt, and Lucien fully intended to probe their minds so that he might discover how it was they survived –there was simply not enough resources in this grove to support this village, even as small as it was. For now, though, his attention was elsewhere.

Something other than Elucielle Gwenevar’s power was protecting the Everstar Spire. The shield that protected the spire was as powerful as the one around the grove but of a much more malevolent nature, and it had not fallen despite Theredoniel holding up a staff against it. It still allowed the young elf to pass through, but Lucien was certain that if he or any of his companions tried, they would be struck down in a most terrible way.

To further complicate the situation, he had lost all track of the young elf lord once Theredoniel passed through the shield. And the angst-ridden fellow was certainly taking his time seeking out the scroll that would allow them to use the Keystaff. Lucien could only hope that Theredoniel hadn’t gone off and gotten himself killed by whatever it was that guarded the Tower.

A sudden flicker of familiar power in the periphery of his senses alerted Lucien to company. Cocking his head to side for a slight moment as if he were listening to a sound, his lips curved into an amused smile.