The Swordmage Trilogy: Volume 02 - The Darkest Hour (8 page)

His appearance was ancient, but the
quint's mind was sharp, unmuddled by the years he had seen. As soon as Tiadaria had explained who she was and where she had come from, the elder quint nodded.

“You’ll be wanting Wynn, then.” He took a lantern down off a peg and motioned for her to follow him. “Come along then, the youngster rarely leaves the stacks.”

Tiadaria followed the old man, who moved surprisingly rapidly for someone of his apparent age. They descended a long flight of marble steps and emerged in a room lined with shelves. As they walked, Tia sneaked peeks at the books on the shelves. Many weren’t even proper books at all, but sheaves of parchment bound together by ribbon or string. Most of them were so weathered and yellow that she thought they would crumble to dust as the merest touch. She resolved not to handle anything in this library unless she absolutely had to.

Finally, they arrived at a table in a dimly lit corner of the library. The youngster the older
quint had referred to was probably a couple years older than Tia, and he was so thoroughly engrossed in the book he was studying that the elder had to shake him to get his attention.

“Hmmm?” he asked absently, finally tearing his eyes away from the tome long enough to register that there were people standing next to him. “Oh, sorry.”

“Wynn,” the quint said tolerantly. “This is Lady Tiadaria, from Blackbeach, Master Indra sent her to find you.”

“Oh.” Wynn looked unsettled. “Uh, okay then. Thank you.”

Her escort shot her an apologetic glance and shook his head before retreating, leaving Tiadaria and Wynn standing there in silence. Tiadaria had expected Faxon’s apprentice to be as garrulous has Faxon himself was. As seemed to be the case a lot lately, she was wrong. They stood there awkwardly before she finally decided to take matters into her own hands.

“So you’re Faxon’s apprentice?”

The young man peered at her for a moment before nodding. “Yes, I help Master Indra with his research.” He pointed to the book on the table. “I really must get back to it. Fascinating stuff, really.”

“Oh?” Tia asked, cocking her head to read the text scrawled in the tome. “Three thousand types of fungus,” she read and raised an eyebrow. “Riveting reading, then?”

“Oh yes!” Wynn said at the most animated she had yet seen him. “Each of the specimens was categorized and defined by its unique characteristics, both magical and mundane.”

He turned back to the book and seemed to completely forget about her. Wynn sat with his chin in his palms, his head bowed over the weighty tome of mold. The only indication that he was even awake was the occasional turn of a page. Tiadaria stood by his elbow, completely at a loss. She cleared her throat, loudly, trying to recall his attention. He seemed to be lost in his own world. A world full of fungus, no doubt.

“Wynn?” she said tentatively. Slowly, Tia realized that tentative wasn’t going to get the job done. She reached over and flipped the book closed, the binding barely missing the tip of the young man’s nose.

“Careful!” he hissed, jumping to his feet. He caressed the book with a tender touch. “You could have damaged the binding, or torn a page!”

Tia had reached her breaking point. She poked him in the chest with her index finger. “I’m going to damage YOUR binding if you don’t pay attention to me,” she said savagely.

Wynn blinked, obviously unaccustomed to such forcefulness. He nodded, his hand still lingering on the book protectively.

“Faxon said that you’d be the person to ask about a relic we’re looking for,” Tiadaria said without a hint of flattery. “We need to know what the relic might be and where it is.”

“If Master Indra,” Wynn began, drawing out both the title and the surname. “Wanted to know about a relic, why didn’t he come here and ask about it himself?”

“Because, Apprentice Wynn, he sent me to start the research before he got here.” Tiadaria stabbed her thumb at her own chest and glared at Wynn. He was probably four inches taller than she was, and she felt sort of ridiculous trying to intimidate him. If only she had her scimitars...

The use of his title appeared to partially deflate Wynn and he slumped back in the chair at the study table. He gently moved the mold book to one side and peered at her expectantly. They stared at each other for a few moments before he heaved a long, drawn out sigh.

“I can’t help you find anything if you don’t tell me what you’re looking for!”

“Then ask,” Tiadaria snapped. “I can’t read minds!”

Wynn shook his head, as if he was dealing with some eminently unreasonable creature incapable of intelligent thought. “What relic are you looking for?”

“I don’t know,” Tiadaria stammered. “We know the Xarundi are looking for it, and that there are rumors of it being buried in snow and ice.”

“That’s all? If you don’t know what you’re looking for, how do you expect me to find it?”

Tiadaria lost the last of her patience. “Faxon said you were the person to ask!” Her shout echoed across the labyrinthine library. “If I knew what I was looking for, I wouldn’t need you, would I?”

She turned on her heel and stomped off.

“You really shouldn’t yell in the library,” he called after her.

* * *

             
Zarfensis and Xenir were exhausted when they finally reentered the Warrens. The urgency they felt to return to the familiar caverns was only partly spurred by their enthusiasm for their mission. Though they’d never put the feeling into words, they both wanted to be away from the Deep Oracle and its grasping mind. Xenir had been very quiet on their return to the Warrens.

             
They had nearly reached Zarfensis’s warren when one of the adolescents came bounding up to the weary travelers.

             
“Your Holiness! Warleader! The pack council is demanding your presence, they’ve found out about the raiding parties you dispatched!” The youngster’s fur stood out in agitation, his lips pulled back to bare his still under-developed fangs. “There are rumors of execution, Your Holiness.”

             
Xenir grasped the youth by the shoulders and turned him to look directly into his eyes. “Do you believe in us? Do you believe in the omens that have been foretold?”

             
“Of course, Warleader! There are many who stand behind you, but the pack council--”

             
“I will deal with the pack council,” Zarfensis growled with unconcealed savagery. “Cowering in our caves like vermin is beneath us. We are the Chosen! Go and tell the loyal that we have spoken to the Deep Oracle and returned. Gather them in the cathedral.”

             
“As you command, Your Holiness.” With a half-bow, the young Xarundi bounded back down the corridor the way he had come.

             
“The pack council?” Xenir asked.

             
“You know what must be done, brother. Do
you
doubt the omens? Or what information the Deep Oracle provided?”

             
“No, Your Holiness.”

“Then have faith. Our domi
nion is preordained. The Chosen will possess the relic and we will usher in a new age of domination over the vermin.”

A knot of loyalists appeared in the tunnel, passing the High Priest and the Warleader on their way to the cathedral. Zarfensis returned their respectful bows as they passed. They were almost uniformly youngsters, those too young to have fought at Dragonfell but now coming into adulthood. The elders were more stubborn.

“We must attend the council, Warleader.” Zarfensis noted with approval that Xenir’s claws were unsheathed. They set off down the corridor, the metal leg beating out a war drum’s staccato rhythm on the smooth stone.

The council chamber was packed with bodies. The pack council sat on their high stone thrones looking down on the chaos on the floor. As Zarfensis and Xenir entered, the throng moved back against the walls, opening an aisle for them to approach the council. They stopped
behind the advocate’s table, though there was no advocate present. Zarfensis knew better than to think this was a real tribunal. It was punitive justice.

The Voice stood, and bowed toward the two members of the council on his right, then the two on the left.

“The council speaks with one voice,” he said, in accordance to the laws the Xarundi had followed for centuries. “You are called before the council to answer for your crimes against the Chosen.”

Zarfensis had to wonder at the hypocrisy of the foolishness playing out before them. The Voice used the traditional words, handed down over hundreds of years, and yet there was no Advocate present, no customary way for them to defend themselves. Not that he expected anything about this meeting to be customary, but he wondered who the council thought they were fooling.

“If our crimes are those of not sitting idly by while the council destroys the last vestiges of our pride, then I’ll gladly plead guilty and end this farce right now.” Zarfensis motioned to those assembled in the chamber. “Do you honestly expect them to believe this nonsense?”

A murmur ran through the crowd and the Voice lifted the gavel, a stone cylinder about six inches tall and three in diameter, slamming it into the platform in front of his seat. The loud crack it produced effectively silenced the assembly.

              “Do you,” the Voice stabbed a long finger at Zarfensis, “deny that you sent raiding parties out without the approval, or even knowledge of the pack council?”

             
“I deny nothing,” the High Priest said with a snarl. “I refuse to recognize the authority of any council that would have the Chosen cower like vermin in their dens.”

             
This time it was less of a murmur and more of a roar that went through the chamber. Zarfensis looked sidelong at Xenir and saw him scanning the crowd. They were thinking the same thing. Perhaps there were more elder loyalists than they had given credit for. Once again the gavel silenced the uproar.

             
“You will be summarily executed for treason,” the Voice announced, dropping any pretense of a fair ruling. He pointed to Xenir. “Your accomplice, the Warleader--”

             
The Voice never had a chance to finish his sentence. Zarfensis had hunkered down into a crouch, exploding forward as the magically imbued leg drove him across the advocate’s table and into the Voice. They crashed into the throne, toppling it and plunging the room into panic. The High Priest wrenched the gavel from the Voice’s hand and slammed it into the elder’s head. There was a sickening, satisfying crunch and the Voice twitched once and was silenced.

             
Tossing the gavel aside, Zarfensis saw that Xenir had followed his lead and descended on the other council members. He tore at them with a ferocity that bordered on zealotry. Zarfensis reached into the deepest depths of the Quintessential Sphere and called forth a disease-ridden mist that descended over the panicked Chosen scurrying about below the council platform.

             
The older and infirm Xarundi succumbed almost immediately. Gasping for breath, their tongues lolled from open mouths, their clouded eyes protruding from the sockets as they fell. Those not immediately afflicted broke for the doorway, only to find a flood of young Xarundi descending upon them. Young fangs and claws could still do damage, and their sheer numbers guaranteed their swift victory. Zarfensis dispersed the mist as the striplings entered the chamber.

             
The entire coup was over within minutes of its start. No one on the council had survived the assault, and most of those who had attended the faux trial lay dead or dying on the floor of the chamber.

             
The Warleader scooped up the gore-matted gavel, brandishing it above his head as he leapt to the top of the Advocate’s table, somehow, miraculously, still standing among the detritus of battle.

             
“The council is dead! I swear my loyalty to a new Lord Regent, the High Priest!” Xenir dropped the gavel and went to a knee. The genuflection spread rapidly through the crowd, until all the Chosen had taken a knee before Zarfensis.

             
“My brothers and sisters!” Zarfensis spoke loudly, so his voice would carry into the tunnel beyond. “Let today usher in a time of dominance and superiority for the Chosen. Let us seek out and destroy our enemies where they live and never again cower in the Warrens as if they were a prison.”

             
The thunderous shout that rose from the assembly shook the walls of the chamber and echoed down the wide corridor. Zarfensis dropped from the platform and offered a hand to Xenir.

             
“Come, Lord Protector, there is much to put into motion.”

Tiadaria was laying on her bed, staring at the ceiling when someone knocked on her door.
“Lady Tiadaria,” Harold called. “You have a gentleman caller.”

             
“Faxon,” she said to herself. “It’s about bloody time.”

             
Shifting off the bed, she strode to the door and threw it open. Wynn stood on the threshold. He had a large book tucked under one arm, almost hidden from view by the sleeve of his robe. He took a step backward at the sudden moment of the door and ran into Harold, who steadied the lad and disappeared down the hallway.