Soulblade: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Romance (A Dance of Fire and Shadow Book 4)
Soulblade: Chapter 21

IT TAKES A FEW MOMENTS for my eyes to adjust to the gloom inside the dank lichen-encrusted walls but the hiss of crysteel is reassuring as I draw both blades. Something cold brushes my face and I hastily swat it aside with my arm. It feels almost sticky, like a spiderweb––and yet it isn’t. It tries to cling to my body, almost like a wispy, pale-fingered hand stretching out of the shadows.

I try to repress a shudder. This is no time to let childhood terrors of ghouls and the waking dead to freeze my limbs. I twist to the side and slash at the clinging wraith. The sudden weight of the blade almost wrenches my shoulder out of its socket and a stab of red-hot pain flashes down my arm.

What is happening here? Is the Soulblade telling me that was the wrong thing to do?

Grim determination is the only thing that pushes me to step past the strange web-like haze, but I don’t get far. A vicious scream of victory echoes around the towering walls and something streaks past me, throwing me to the ground in its passage.

I look up. Everything has changed. The foggy darkness is overlaid with a kind of clarity, a precision of detail that I couldn’t see before. The ghostly shapes have features. They look almost familiar. I start wondering if the air is poisoned and maybe I’m hallucinating like I did once as a child after eating the wrong kind of mushrooms. Then I look down at my hands, still gripping the two crysteel swords. The feeling of being weightless, almost transparent, has returned, stronger than before and it suddenly dawns on me that it is me that has changed, not this place.

I am turning into one of these creatures!

I look behind me and the creeping spiderweb reveals itself fully, a great shimmering barrier spun across this vast hall with the massive arch of the doorway beyond. A dim light passes through to illuminate the pillars and walls. The tear in the misty fabric is clear now, the ripped edges of the gash I came through gleaming dully against the daylight. The tear is barely my own height, with the slash I inflicted adding a mere few inches to the top, the fresh-cut edges dripping, as if leaking white blood.

Another ghastly shriek assaults my ears as a second creature hurls itself at the tear, pushing and struggling to get past, the scream rising through the octaves as its frustration peaks. It turns its misshapen head and snarls at me.

Then it attacks. All I can feel is cold. The crysteel blade no longer weighs heavy in my hand but it achieves little, passing through the monster again and again. In the end the creature loses interest in either me or its mission to escape, and disappears back into the shadows.

But it has left its mark. I feel drained, exhausted, cold, as if contact with this thing had taken the very life-force out of me. Like the time when Shadow… but no. This is not quite the same. I can sense that these are not Elementals––and Marin was wrong to hope that I might have some understanding of what is going on here…

And then the answer starts to reveal itself.

After the death and desolation the Rapathian Emperor inflicted on my family and my village, I never thought I would have cause to be grateful to him for waking me up to something that should have been obvious when I first stepped through that stone archway into this place.

His pale dead face leers down at me. I can’t be sure whether he is really speaking or whether his very presence is kindling my imagination as I acknowledge the horrible truth.

“Now you know how it feels. Now you understand. But for you it is too late. Now you are imprisoned in this place of death forever.”

I glance behind at the rent in the veil and try to crawl back through it. But I’m already too weak to move. Lying on the cold, slimy stone floor, all I can do is look up at the sea of faces above me. Ashur Purmut himself, a great lesion across the backs of his knees where I slashed him in that deadly duel, Akadian with dark blood still oozing from one eye, the traitor Murtal clutching the wide cut across his throat. And behind them stands a great horde of ghostly figures who may or may not be all the Rapathian soldiers I have killed.

I should have stopped to think about Zandar’s warning instead of reacting to the attack outside and rushing in here.

Elementals cannot enter the world of spirits. The Power Mages took too much, until they tore the veil…

It brings back a memory of my mother’s stories. The one that always gave me the shivers was the one she would tell us, huddled around the fire on the dark night of Samhain. The one night of the year when we shuttered the windows and circled the room with candles to banish the shadows and wraiths.

The night of Samhain is no-time. Now, as we stand outside of time, the veil between the worlds grows thin…

There is no way I can kill the spirits of the dead, even with crysteel. All I have done is tear the veil further and allow another of these ghouls to escape into the land of the living.

I have to warn the others, but I can’t move and the darkness is folding in around me.

HANDS GRIP MY SHOULDERS, dragging my helpless body across the floor. I try to struggle, to cry out, but the numbness has crept through me and nothing happens. All I can feel is the grip on my shoulders and the pressure of my hands around my Soulblades, cramped around the hilts as if rigor mortis has already set in and frozen my fingers.

Have they come to drag me down into the core depths of hell?

Then I see foggy open sky above me, and Marin’s anxious face as he bends over me. He is gasping for breath, almost as drained and exhausted as I am from those toxic minutes in the land of ghosts.

“Ariel? Are you all right? I thought you were dead!”

All I can manage is a faint whisper. “I think I sort of almost died…” I manage to turn my head. The fight on the temple steps is still happening, but it has changed. The ghoulish monsters have backed away and are watching hungrily as Brac and Deris stand over Dragar’s body, fighting off a savage creature that looks far more like…

“Marin? Is that one of our horses?”

His face is grim. “It was. Until something came screaming out of the temple and attacked it. Then… it seemed to take it over, turned it into something with uncanny strength and malevolence. Even these ghouls are afraid of it. That’s why I feared you were in trouble and went in after you.”

The last piece of the puzzle falls into place.

Jaren’s prophesy.

At the end, one will come. And set them all free.

“Marin, I set it free by mistake. I have only just understood what is happening here and why I misunderstood the prophesy! Can you carry me back inside so that I can mend the tear in the veil?”

“How will you do that?”

I can tell he hasn’t yet caught up with my guesswork about what needs to happen now.

“I’ll have to experiment.” But the hesitation has given me a moment to think beyond simply rushing inside again.

“Zandar! I need your help.”

He unwinds his scaly body from the pillar, leaving a charred column of burned stone that slowly crumbles to dust.

I felt the moment you both died.

“Not quite. We’re back. Can you burn those creatures that are attacking us?”

To what purpose? The spirits that are driving them in their mischief will simply inhabit other bodies. The rest of your horses, maybe. Or else your friends and the silver wolf.

“Zandar, I could feel it, some kind of connection between them and the wraiths that remain trapped inside, beyond the veil. I think if I can repair the damage, these outliers will weaken. If you can just keep my friends alive meanwhile?”

As you wish.

He slides glowing coils between the Eldrin and the creatures of the dead, pushing his head forward to spew deadly fire across the ranks of pallid monsters. Screams and shrieks fill the air as the hideous bodies start to burn.

I can feel Marin’s exhaustion as he gathers me in his arms and carries me back inside. He sinks to his knees in front of the oozing rip in the fabric between the worlds, his voice husky with the effort.

“Ariel, what do you need me to do now?”

“Start at the top. Try pressing the sides together on the oozing part I already cut open.” I don’t wait to see if it works, running my blade along the remaining edges of the tear until they bleed white. Then I pull and press the sides together, hoping fervently that they will stick.

They do, but there is still a heavy price to pay. I can feel my fingers going cold and numb as the process leaches even more life-force from my depleted body. The shrieks and screams outside rise into a shrill keening as they draw closer, icy wings and claws battering against my head, knocking me to the floor. I look up to discover that the ghouls have been freed from their burned bodies and are panicking to get back into their own realm before the way is closed and the deadly force that has sustained them is cut off.

I have no desire to stop them. In fact, I have no energy left to do anything except watch them fighting each other to crawl and thrust back through the gap.

At last the cacophony subsides. Marin pulls me to my feet.

“Can you finish this? I don’t think I can do it alone.”

“I can try.”

We resume the task of pulling and twisting until the sides are meshed back together and the breach is clean again. My vision is failing now and everything is going black and hazy in front of my eyes. My legs can no longer support me. Marin grabs my waist and lowers me to the ground, cradling my head in his arms.

“Ariel, I will never leave you alone again. I should have come with you the first time.”

I try to smile, but the energy simply won’t come.

“You did the right thing. I think the only reason you lasted long enough to pull me back was because you hadn’t been in there quite as long as I had. I was too slow figuring out what was happening, what I might be able to do about it…”

“And how to stay alive?” He is trying to be lighthearted about it but I can sense his despair. He believes he has already lost me. Maybe he’s right. I can tell he no longer has the strength to move either.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter. We fulfilled our pledge. Found the source of the evil emanating from this place. And we stopped it.

At least, I try to convince myself that we have stopped it, until Brac and Dragar appear in the doorway and drag us both back outside. Brac is bleeding heavily from a cut across his scalp, dark red staining his russet hair and grey Eldrin livery.

“Marin! There’s more trouble coming from t’ cursed city. We need you.”

I see the hope fade from his face. Anyone can tell that Marin isn’t able to stand, let alone fight.

Marin props himself on one elbow to scan the street beyond. “I thought Zandar had burned the ghouls? We saw the demons fighting to get back inside before we closed the tear.”

“There’s more evil lurking in this ruin than ghouls. Look.” Brac points to the dark shapes moving in and out of the shadows. “Bandits, I’d guess. Using the fear around this place as a safe haven to retreat to after committing their crimes. Maybe they found a way to ward off the wraiths that had already claimed bodies––and don’t mind losing one of their own every now and then when a new spirit escapes the temple.”

“He’s right.” Dragar is watching the cautious approach of the heavily-armed figures. “I never did discover where the gangs would disappear to after their raids on the cities to the north of here. I took several military patrols to try to track them down, but we always lost them.”

I notice the dark blood staining his right side but he frowns and turns away before I can ask him how he has recovered so quickly. A few minutes ago he had looked extremely damaged and dead.

Then I look beyond him to where Deris and Nem appear to be having a heated argument at the foot of the steps.

“Brac? What is going on with those two?”

“Something I hope you can talk her out of trying.”

Brac carries me down to sit next to Nem and then goes to stand with Dragar, facing the approaching bandits.

“Nem? What are you planning that Brac isn’t happy about?”

Deris cuts in. “She thought you were both dead. Wants me to give her Shadowblade power to help her survive Zandar’s initiation––”

Nem makes an interruption of her own. “How else are we going to survive an attack by hordes of raiders?” She sounds to be getting impatient, glancing over to where the dragon is once more lying coiled and quiescent beneath the towering sculptures.

“Ariel, see if you can guide Zandar instead of Nem.”

Deris is pleading, although I can tell he doesn’t hold out much hope. I must look completely wiped out and useless.

“Zandar?” The resonance I usually feel when I call him is fainter now. I don’t think it’s just because I feel so weak and dizzy, but I don’t understand why this is happening.

He slithers across the uneven street, sparks flying from his scales as they brush against the rubble.

You died again. I can hardly hear you.

“Can you kill those bandits before they kill us?”

No.

“Explain.”

They are human and they are everywhere. Moving fast. Going beside and behind us. Without you to guide, I cannot discern which ones to kill and which are your friends to be protected.

Nem interrupts. “I already guessed that much! And he fears breaking his pledge never to harm Annubians if he roasts me by mistake. That is why I have to do this. And soon.”

The boldest four of the raiders have moved closer now and Brac and Dragar are fighting for their lives, trying to keep them away from us. This is going to be over in the next few minutes if we don’t replace a solution.

“Deris, help me onto his back.”

He and Nem take one side each and lift me high onto the fire-drake’s scaly neck––but it’s no use. I topple over like a rag doll and slide straight off again.

Nem breaks my fall just before I hit the ground.

“See? I told you. And Marin is in no better shape.”

Reluctantly I look up at Deris from my place in the dust.

“Deris, I’m sorry, but think she’s right. We will all die here without Zandar’s help.”

There is real sorrow in the Fae warrior’s green eyes as he reaches out and grips her hand. Nem gasps with the cold stab of power before making an effort to straighten her shoulders and walking over to face Zandar.

“Guardian of Rahimar. Please, go ahead. I am asking you. Commanding. Begging. Whatever it takes to free you from your pledge on my behalf.”

He withdraws, hissing and uncertain. I wonder how many Annubians have asked for the same thing and died as a result.

Nem turns back for a brief moment. “If this works out, I’ll clear a path for you to get yourselves and the horses out of here. If it doesn’t… Let’s just hope we meet again in the next paradise instead of the horrible place you found in that temple.”

She moves a few steps to the side, placing herself between us and the raiders and giving Brac and Dragar the signal to get themselves out of the way. She steps neatly over the four bandit corpses they have left on the ground and faces Zandar once more.

Then she disappears in a great ball of flame.