The Last Null Page 4

  “Traitor,” Inedi continued to stalk forward. “You forget yourself, Arcanum. You are no longer welcome here in the Black Keep. You are no longer a member of the Enclave. And I strip you of the title of Chief!”

  It’s Arcanum! Reticula gasped. The ancient scholarly master who taught every Brother, Sister, Journeyer, acolyte, and novitiate in the ways of magic and lore of the world. He had defected to the side of the Hexan—but it seemed he had found a way to return through the mind of one of their own.

  “As if I care what you call me, Inedi!” Arcanum scoffed through the throat of Sister Joana. “And if you hadn’t realized it yet—nothing belongs to you anymore, or any of the races of Midhara. This whole world belongs to the one who is to come.”

  “Arcanum, I thought better of you than to become a lapdog,” Inedi growled, raising her hands.

  “Better a lapdog in a new kingdom, than filling a grave in the old!” The voice of Arcanum, double-layered and spectral, hissed, just as there was a flash of ugly, green energy.

  “Severius Sancti!” Reticula saw Inedi cross her arms in front of her. At the last moment, a wave of green fire rushed out from Sister Joana’s form . . .

  Inedi’s blue Severius shield met the advancing wave of green fire and pulsed as the Ungol flames burst over it. Reticula couldn’t feel any heat, safe as she was inside the Magister’s protective shield—but she could hear the roaring and crash of Father Jacques’s workshop outside of it.

  The Magister growled, forcing her crossed arms apart with apparent effort. Another pulse of blue to swept across the decimated, steaming room, extinguishing the flames in an instant.

  “Sister Joana!” Inedi was already striding forward, but even as Reticula got up from her crouch, blinking away the pain that she felt, she could see that there would be no answering from the Sister. What was left of Joana was nothing but a blackened pile of ruin, completely incinerated in an instant.

  “Ixcht,” Reticula heard the Magister swear—the first time that Reticula had ever heard their leader do so.

  “She was a good Sister—” Reticula started to murmur, but it appeared that Inedi didn’t entirely share her empathies.

  “Joana must have been weak in her training, to allow her mind to be possessed so,” Inedi snapped instead, turning to survey the damage. “But the loss of the Chief External’s laboratory will be felt for a generation.”

  She was right, of course, Reticula felt. She saw the piles of ash where Jacques’s carefully collected grimoires once sat—or the smashed beakers, with their powders or unctions mingling in a horrid mess.

  Who knows what treasures and inventions were lost? the Journeywoman had to think, although she did feel that Jacques would probably mourn the loss of a life more than his tools.

  And now I will never find the Prophecy of Lorenz, Reticula added in her dismay.

  “What was he—it after?” Inedi cursed, turning on her heel to confront Reticula. The waves of magical presence still pulsed from the woman. Reticula had to take a step back from the battering as she assembled her thoughts.

  “Uh—an amulet?” the Journeywoman said, looking up fearfully, expecting worse news.

  But the effect on the Magister was only one of a slow, spreading smile. “Ah. I should have realized that Jacques would have been dependable.”

  Reticula made a noise of confusion.

  “The Loranthian Amulet. Won from one of the Hexan’s agents in the Kingdom of Brecha,” Inedi stated.

  Won by Terak, Reticula remembered the elf telling her.

  “It was used by the elvish priest-architect called the Loranthian, the one who designed the Blood Gate,” Inedi said, half to herself as she surveyed the room. “Jacques was supposed to hand both it and the Loranthian Scroll to Arcanum before he betrayed us, but I see that Father Jacques was more perceptive than most of us.” Inedi frowned, and started to weave one of her hands in the air before them. In its wave, there rippled a spectral white light.

  “Perhaps the Hexan and Arcanum are having greater troubles opening the Blood Gate than we had thought, if they need the amulet to do so,” Inedi said in a tight voice. She briefly touched her illuminated hand to her brow, for the wafting lines of radiance to suddenly coalesce into a beam of light. It stretched from Inedi’s brow to a patch of wall just by the battered door, at head height.

  “He always liked to have his hiding places,” Inedi whispered.

  Has! Reticula silently corrected her superior. Father Jacques has always liked them. He’s not dead yet. Although that irate thought was matched with the sudden realization that not only was the Prophecy gone, but also the last tincture of Demiene Flowers that could have saved Jacques’s life.

  “Acto Avensi, Inedi-Mar!” the Magister made a chopping motion with her hand, and the beam of light convulsed to a loud crack! One of the bricks of the wall shattered and fell out, revealing a small hiding place. Inside was what appeared to be a singular object.

  With a flick of her wrist, Inedi brought the item floating through the air toward her. A square wooden box made of a deep red wood and engraved with swirling patterns.

  “Ah . . .” Inedi sighed pleasingly.

  The box slowly turned in the air before them. Inedi made another gesture with her hands. for the tiny bronze clasp to undo and swing open. This revealed a wrap of cloth nestled against a crystal-glass vial, glowing with its own radiance.

  “Demiene tincture!” Reticula said excitedly. She would recognize that substance anywhere. After Terak had won it from the upper world of Aesther, Reticula had helped Jacques grind, prepare, and dilute the precious substance.

  “Shush!” Inedi scowled briefly. She used her magic to raise the wrap of cloth in the air, for it to unfurl as careful as any lover’s present, revealing a heavy chain of black metal, and a matching heavy rondel of something bronzish. The bronze item was encrusted with smaller red gems around a giant oval of the rare ochullax, the white crystal-metal that could concentrate, store, and enhance any natural magic.

  “Thank the stars that the null wasn’t at the height of his powers when he retrieved this!” Inedi muttered under her breath, making Reticula’s temper flare.

  She was talking about Terak, wasn’t she? How could the Magister be so callous about those who had served—and died—doing her bidding?

  “Good. Not all has been lost,” Inedi said as she plucked the Loranthian Amulet from the air. The wooden box snapped shut behind her.

  “Wait—Magister!” Reticula dared to say, earning one raised eyebrow for her insolence.

  Reticula gulped. “It’s—uh—the Demiene tincture, ma’am. I might be able to use it to save Father Jacques’s life . . .”

  Inedi blinked, before frowning. “The Chief External is but one Brother of the Enclave. We can use that precious tincture on those defending our walls!” the Magister breathed caustically. “I know you have feelings of loyalty to the man, Journeywoman, but we must guard against feelings of unnecessary affection. They distract us from the Path of Pain.” Inedi slipped the amulet into a fold of her black robes and started to turn.

  No! Reticula’s heart hammered in her chest. “But, Magister—if I may say so . . . The Chief External is only one Brother, but you yourself said what a loss his inventions will be to the Black Keep. Especially now, when we need his mind the most!” Reticula said desperately, her eyes on the wooden box as it floated back to the alcove in the wall.

  “Hmm.” The box paused in mid-flight, just as Inedi paused before the door. “I do not like these emotional outbursts, Journeywoman. You might do well to examine your feelings.”

  Reticula’s heart sank.

  “However, your reasoning is sound. Take the box. If it will return the Chief to the service of the Enclave, that is,” the Magister said, before stalking out of the ruined room. The wooden box suddenly dropped in mid-air as her magic left it—

  Ach! Reticula had to lunge forward to snatch it out of the air before it fell. She clasped it to her chest protectively. Sud
denly, she felt very tired and very much in pain, as the waves of power that the Magister usually exuded swept away from the workroom.

  Reticula waited for three more breaths, some impulse inside of her asking her to open the box alone. When she was sure that she could not feel Inedi’s presence anymore, she carefully flipped the catch and opened the box lid. Inside, she saw the crystal-glass tincture of the holy Demiene Flowers, glowing just as strong and bright as before.

  “Thank the Stars!” Reticula breathed, taking the small vial out to turn it around in the light, before carefully placing it back in the box.

  Only to feel something shift inside of it.

  “What?” Reticula looked closer, holding the vial and the box together as she carefully turned the box. There. There was a slight shift in the wood, as if the box wasn’t securely made.

  Wait a minute . . . The inner wood of the box’s bottom was a slightly lighter shade of red than the deep mahogany of its outer, thicker walls.

  “Jacques does like to have his hiding places,” Reticula repeated Inedi’s words. She slipped the Demiene tincture into her pocket, before holding the box in one hand. She reached in to carefully press and pick at the box’s floor.

  The edge raised just by a fingernail. With some careful teasing, Reticula managed to find the false bottom and lift up the flap of thin wood, attached to the finest coils of spring.

  And inside, there was a square of yellowed parchment, faded and worn around the corners. Reticula lifted it out. It was slightly oily to the touch—the paper must have been old, as it had been waxed to preserve it.

  Reticula set down the Chief’s wooden box and unfolded the parchment, before gasping at what she read there in Jacques’s own spidery-black writing.

  Seventeenth Moon Day after Midwinter.

  Arcanum’s Restricted Library.

  Catalogue Number: Jeta-Thirty-Three (small red-bound hardback).

  The Prophecy of the First Magister (full/unabridged version):

  You who may look upon my efforts and scoff have not the eyes to see the shape of the future, nor the storm that is coming for our world.

  There will be those who will seek to discredit what we do here. They will say that I am cruel, and that we are mad—but we must gird ourselves with my Book of Corrections, and the Path that I have discovered, out here on the roof of the world.

  Because this is a fact that any who studies history should know, were they not too sheepish or weak to admit it! Our world exists in cycles, and there will come a day when the cycle will return in full, and the Blood Gate will open once more.

  So, I have brought my people here, to preserve what we may, and to protect our precious heritage and watch the Vale of the Blood Gate.

  But we will inevitably fail.

  We will fail because the magics that made that Gate are greater than any lone sorcerer or enchanter. They required the power of the other realms to make them, Ungol and Aesther. The belief that it was the Loranthian of the First Family alone to craft the Blood Gate is a myth.

  We will fail, because we will not be able to stop the Gate from opening again, and again, and again. The Queen of a Thousand Tears will never tire so long as she exists—and even though there is the Ungol Blade—there is no mortal hero in Midhara that can vanquish a First Creature.

  And so, there has only ever been one way to save our world. And this is what I have scried and seen in deep magics—that there will be born to this world a null. Yes, one of those abominations without magic that we routinely put out of their misery at birth.

  There will come to the world a null whose curse is powerful enough to unknit the magic of the Blood Gate. Every null is an unraveler of magics, and I have seen a time when there will be one capable of this most potent act.

  So, I have decreed that members of my Enclave will travel external to the others to seek out these nulls, and that every student that comes here to study with us will be tested upon reaching their majority. They shall be tested with ochullax, and if any nulls are found—although the odds are small—they will be tested again, and again, to see how powerful their curse is.

  But my visions also warn of this fact, this null that we are searching for. This last null capable of unraveling the magic of the Blood Gate will also bear us a terrible danger. For their wrongness will be so great that they will be able to undo the magic of these walls, of all of us, and so, so much more.

  I have seen rivers of fire and the land turned to smoking ash with this null, its instigator, at its heart.

  The Last Null—the Dagger of the World—will be able to undo the magic of our world of Midhara entirely. They will be able to destroy everything.

  And so, I entrust this heavy task onto the future generations of the Enclave: to seek out the nulls. To train them, but also to study them. And, at the moment that they reach the peak of their powers—if they have not, cannot, or will not be used to dismantle the Blood Gate, then they must be put to death, by any and every means necessary!

  4

  The Ancient and Royal Guild

  The Emarii looked battered and weary, their rugged cloaks and jerkins scarred with mud and rain, and their eyes hard with the glint of recent battles.

  “We had to fight our way out,” Tanwen explained as she fell in beside Terak on their march across the heaths. Kol, although recovering, had been forced into one of the three carts that accompanied the ragtag group. These included not only the storytellers, but also a small phalanx of Tor citizens.

  “Tor has fallen?” Terak asked, earning a silent nod from the human woman beside him.

  “King Justus of Tor called all the soldiers against the War Burg, but the city had no defenses to fight off such a foe,” she admitted. “We started leading people out as Kol asked of us, but the southern roads were blocked,” she explained. “There were more orcish warbands traveling up from the southlands in great columns . . .” The woman’s voice faltered, as the implication became clear.

  That the South had fallen. The kingdoms of Ara and the Southern River Princes were gone, swept away by a tide of fanatical orcs, all intent on marching northwards.

  To the Blood Gate. To greet their Ungol Queen, Terak thought. His mind naturally flew to that last bastion that stood in the way—the ancient fastness of the Black Keep of the Enclave on the edge of the Tartaruk mountains, all alone against the tide of oncoming night.

  “There’s Brecha, of course,” Terak murmured. He remembered the maps of Father Jacques. Above the middle kingdoms stood the wilder lands, with the human kingdom of Brecha—whose young Lord Falan had been Terak’s companion for some time—sitting next to the foothills that rose to the Tartaruk heights.

  “Word has it that Brecha is besieged.” Tanwen sighed heavily. “They were ravaged by the Blood Plague. Now every foul thing from every nook and hole and forgotten place has crawled out.”

  Everything awaits the arrival of their Queen. Terak nodded and felt a shiver of apprehension at the thought. The North had always been a wild and a dangerous place, with beastials and orcs and ogres and worse—had the Queen of a Thousand Tears summoned them all to start her conquest?

  The way ahead seemed bleak, even to one trained in the Path of Pain. It was hard for the elf not to see his morose feelings mirrored in the dark of fell, heath, and scrub that lay ahead, dusted with eerie fogs and mists.

  So, Terak was surprised when he heard the woman let out a snort of mirth beside him. “Ha,” she nodded at the paler forms that appeared every now and again through the cossetting mists, always keeping pace with their group. It was the feathered Elder Beings, moving silently as ghosts beside them. Terak thought that more had joined their “nest” as the guide had called them. He couldn’t be sure in the fogs.

  “Now that would make a fine story,” Tanwen said. “You managed to raise the Elder Beings from their hiding. Bring them back into the world.”

  “I don’t think they ever left it,” the elf murmured thoughtfully to himself. He remembered how their guide
had seemed to be physically distraught and hurt at the injuries done to its forest home.

  And what good will it do to have them with us, a darker, Enclave-type thought rose in Terak’s mind, just to have them fall beside us?

  “Ho!” A low voice from up ahead broke through Terak’s cynical thoughts, and there was a flare of light in the mists. It was Rugar, another of the Emarii, standing beside a dark stone pillar, just like the ones that Terak had seen across the North—the boundary markers to the Elder Being’s realm.

  What had Lord Falan called them? Terak wondered. Sentinel Stones?

  “We’ve found it,” Rugar said when Tanwen and Terak approached, a little ahead of the marching caravan of refugees.

  “Found what?” the assassin asked, looking at the pillar. Rugar—a thin, rangy man with curly black hair—nodded not to the pillar itself, but instead to three large slabs of rock that sat at its base. The man had to scrape aside moss and grass from their faces. He leaned down with his torch for Terak to see what was inscribed.

  One of the slabs, the one facing their group, held the simple inscription of TOR, whilst the one to the north-east of the pillar showed a simple “B.”

  “Brecha,” Terak guessed.

  But it was the third such slab that Rugar and Tanwen were the most interested in—it held an upturned halfmoon, with a small crown hanging over it.

  “The Guild of Navigators,” Tanwen said in a pleased tone.

  Who are they? Terak frowned. In all of his lessons under Father Jacques or even the Chief Arcanum, he had never heard of this group. Although he did have to admit that the Black Keep’s idea of education meant that they only told their students just what they needed in order to serve the Enclave . . .

  “The Ancient and Royal Guild of Navigators,” Rugar corrected solemnly. “It’ll take too long to sing you the tale, elf, but back when there was only one human High King—this was after the Reign of the Elves, you understand.” Rugar’s voice went deeper, and Terak nodded that he did understand.