The HaRT Knight Decaverse

Heir of Magic

Chapter 19

Silver Chain Trap

Dante gave Alexander a radiant smile that framed his deep brown eyes with wrinkles. He remained focused on his opponent however and didn’t say a word. He continued to send blasts of the strange liquid at the creature until it covered it completely. Dante then began to rotate the pentacle key floating in front of him and as he did so, it shrunk. The scorpion screeched in protest as the substance coating its body shrunk as well, tightening around the creature. Its reddish liquid continued to shrink until there was a sickening crack and Dante’s spell crushed the creature to death.
Dante jerked his staff to the side, and the pentacle key, along with the substance it had painted the scorpion in, exploded, leaving behind only a few sparks in a cloud of dust.
“I thought I told you to wait at The Spider’s Den?” Dante said, wiping the sweat from his brow.
Alexander smiled, “I’m sorry. I know those old bones of yours have trouble keeping up sometimes, but we overstayed our welcome in The Wandering City.”
“So I heard,” Dante laughed and embraced Alexander in a hug.
“I am so glad you’re still alive, Dante,” Alexander whispered to his mentor.
“And I, you, My Prince. And I, you,” Dante replied.
Nearby, Merrick cleared his throat. When the other two men looked at him, he just waved one hand in greeting.
“Ah, you must be the accomplice I heard of in The Wandering City?” Dante said.
“Dante, please allow me to introduce you to Merrick the Wolf. Merrick, this is Dante, the person I was waiting for at The Spider’s Den.”
“Ah, the septim wizard,” Merrick said. “Well, that explains how you crushed that bug.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Merrick,” Dante said in a polite tone.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Merrick said as he and Dante shook hands. “Alex has told me all about you.”
“Has he?” Dante said, giving Alexander a disapproving look. “Well, with that scorpenox dealt with, our path to some shade is clear. And I could use a drink. I’ve been traveling non-stop since I heard you had left the Wandering City to catch up to you.”
As they made their way to the luscious green paradise, Alexander said, “So that thing was a scorpenox?”
“Yes, they’re the unfortunate product of thaumaturgic mutation. Those fools from Dinas Alchimiour to the north perform their idiotic experiments in the desert,” Dante sneered. Like all septims and natural born mages, he despised the people of Dinas Alchimiour who were none of them born with magic but found ways—viewed as unsafe or unethical—to perform it, nonetheless. “It was about a hundred years ago that one of those experiments caused an explosion that has left the land saturated with unstable thaumaturgic energy. The north of the desert still emits that unstable thaumaturgic energy that altered scorpions into the scorpenoxes.”
Dante continued his lecture on the history of Dinas Alchimiour and their foolishness, but Alexander had stopped listening. They had reached the oasis, and the sudden change was equally jarring and welcome. It was the greenest they had seen in days. A cool breeze carried the smell of fresh water and the muddy ground made a squelching sound under their feet.
“We should gather firewood first and then get the water,” Dante said when he realized no one was listening to his lecture.
“Right, it’ll go faster if we split up,” Merrick said, a mischievous glitter in his eyes that made Alexander certain he would head straight for the water and a swim. “I’ll go this way.”
He vanished though a curtain of greenery and Alexander was just about to stop him when Dante placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. The wizard raised his staff over his head, and the same pentacle he had used back in Moondrake to prevent people from listening in formed like the canopy of an umbrella above them.
“Dante, what are you doing?” Alexander asked perplexed. “Why are you casting a silencing spell?”
“I want to make sure your friend can’t hear us,” Dante said with a stern look. “What did you tell him about yourself? About us and our mission?”
Alexander had expected this argument to come, just not so soon. “I told him everything.”
Despite the silencing spell he had cast, Dante whispered, “What? I told you it was better for as few people as possible to know.”
“I know, Dante, but I had to tell him. Besides, we can trust him,” Alexander said.
Dante pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed in frustration. “Are you sure we can trust him? So he told you his secret, then?”
“What secret?” Alexander asked, stunned at the old man’s insight. I know full well there is more to Merrick than meets the eye, but how could Dante have figured it out in such a short amount of time?
“Come now, Alexander. Don’t tell me you have not realized there is something off about him,” Dante said.
“Sure, he is stronger than most people, and agile, but that doesn’t mean—”
Dante interrupted Alexander as he said, “Are you blind? Haven’t you noticed? In the short time it took us to walk into the oasis, all the wounds he sustained against the Scorpenox have healed.”
Alexander was silent then said, “My wounds—”
“—heal faster because of the tremendous amount of thaumaturgic energy in your system. It speeds up your healing, but Alexander, look at your shoulder, even with the abnormally high concentration of magic in your system, you haven’t healed completely yet. But Merrick has.”
A sudden thought occurred to Alexander, and he said, “Could it be possible that Merrick is an angelian?”
The question took Dante aback for a second, but when he recovered, he looked sad. “No, My Prince. I’m afraid not. After you left with Aenor, I spent a few years to try to find any other Angelians out there who might help us. The methods I used—it doesn’t matter. But you and Cain are all that remain of the angelian people.”
“Oh.” Alexander looked away in disappointment.
“I am sorry, My Prince.” Dante placed his hand on Alexander’s uninjured shoulder.
“I just thought, since he could do so many angelian things—” he trailed off and fell silent.
“No, lad. Your friend is something, but he’s not that.”
“Dante, I trust Merrick with my life,” Alexander said with a tone of finality.
Dante stared at him for a long moment then nodded. “Very well, My Prince. I trust your judgment. If you say we can trust him, I will believe you.”
“Thank you,” Alexander said.
Dante ended the silencing spell and said, “Have you been keeping up with your studies since we were separated?”
“You mean that bloody boring book you gave me?” Alexander sneered. “Yes, I’ve been studying it every night.”
“Good, then I think it’s about time I teach you your first gate magic spell,” Dante said, pointing at Alexander’s shoulder. “Your angelian physiology heals much faster than most, but sometimes it will be useful to know how to speed it up even more. For your first try, you will trace the pentacle key I draw here.” Dante used his staff to draw the circle in the mud at their feet. He filled the circle with geometric shapes and strange runes. When he finished, he said, “Fill the grooves I’ve made with your thaumaturgic energy. Try to feel the shapes and maintain them.”
Alexander did as instructed and sent his azure and ruby energy into the grooves on the ground. It took more concentration than he had thought it would to maintains the myriad of shapes, but after stumbling for a few minutes, he finally had it.
“Good, now lift it, and point it at your shoulder. Once you're ready, open the gate by rotating the pentacle. You’ll feel the gate open,” Dante said.
Alexander lifted the pentacle, and it fell apart. He started over and tried again. This time, Dante told him to stop and begin over. He had allowed some symbols and shapes to shift which had changed the key of healing into something called the key of Blood Mold, which didn’t sound good so he was all too happy to start over.
On the third try, he managed to maintain the pentacle key and point it at his shoulder. Sweat poured down his forehead as he rotated his wrist to open the gate. Dante had been right; he felt the gate open as if massive tumblers were falling into place with heavy clunks. When the gate snapped open, blue and red light shined onto the wound in his shoulder. It felt warm as the wound healed itself. Within seconds, it was gone. The blood on his shoulder could just as well have been from a slain enemy.
Alexander snapped the gate shut and allowed the thaumaturgic energy to dissipate. He breathed hard as he said, “It’s gone.”
“Yes, but how do you feel?” Dante asked.
Alexander rolled his shoulder. “Good as new. It doesn’t even feel like I injured it.”
“Not your shoulder. How do you feel?”
Alexander understood what Dante wanted to hear. “Tired,” he said.
“And weak, right?” Dante nodded.
“Well, yes, I feel weaker. Like it drained my strength.”
“Yes, that is important to remember. This spell is useful, but to use it on yourself rapidly drains your thaumaturgic energy,” Dante said. “That was just a shoulder. If it were a more serious wound, you would have fallen unconscious with the strain of healing it, or worse, you would deplete your reserve of voynich energy, cutting yourself off from the source forever.”
“Guys, look what I found,” Merrick’s call came before Alexander could ask any more questions.
Merrick appeared from out of the bushes, soaking wet and carrying a pile of wood so high that it obscured his face, and on top of the pile, he balanced three coconuts. When he reached the spot where Dante and Alexander were standing, he dropped the wood to the ground and picked up a coconut. “Food you can drink.”
“Brilliant,” Alexander said, taking a coconut. He pulled his silver dagger from his boot and sliced the hairy shell in two. The dagger had always been unnaturally sharp and Alexander had, on more than a few occasions, wondered if it wasn’t magic, but other than its edge, there was nothing special about it he could tell.
He cut open Merrick and Dante’s coconuts, and they all devoured the milk and copra with gusto. When they finished, the two young men went off in search of water, and Dante started building a campfire.
By the time Alexander and Merrick returned to the campsite, the wizard had already built a fire and was lying against a nearby tree, both hands still clutching at the staff as he snored.
Alexander took the staff from the old man’s hands to lay it beside him. The oak stick was beautiful, carved with voynich runes that flowed into each other. At the top where the staff had branches that curved in towards one another, there was a large argentari crystal filled with thaumaturgic energy that must have taken the septim years to make.
“Ah, bloody Tartos, I think I left something of mine at the watering hole,” Merrick said. “I’ll be right back.”
He then disappeared through the foliage again. Perplexed, Alexander stared after him. He is going the wrong way, Alexander thought. He could almost hear Dante’s words from earlier echo in his head again. Come now, Alexander. Don’t tell me you have not realized there is something off about him.
“No. I trust him,” he whispered to himself.
Yes, well, you trusted Faulkner too, and look where that got you, a small part of him pointed out.
This thought, more than anything else, spurred Alexander into action. It was time for answers. He pushed though the bushes and back into the barren landscape of the desert. About a stade ahead, Merrick, which his bag slung over his shoulder was making his way toward the canyon he had almost fallen down the previous night. He walked right up to the edge and jumped.
Alexander was too shocked to scream after his friend, who had just evidently committed suicide. He sprinted across the desert floor to the place where Merrick had just jumped, when the sand started to fade into stone he dropped to his knees. There, on the cavern floor, stood Merrick, casually unpacking his bag as if he did not just survive a near fifty-foot vertical drop without even a scratch.
Alexander fell onto his belly and watched Merrick perform some sort of ritual. He used a tar-like liquid he kept in a jar to draw five circles around an even larger circle on the ground. He then used a wand made of a glowing metal to fill each circle with runes that were neither voynich nor dhaesían. When he finished, he stripped off his tunic to reveal the mass of silver chains wrapped around his body. He uncoiled the chains and dropped them in a pile in the largest circle. Merrick stood over the chains, and using a dagger, cut the palm of his hand and let the blood drip onto them.
Blood magic, Alexander thought in horror. It was a dark and forbidden art and did not seem to match anything he knew about Merrick.
As the circles began to give off an ominous black smoke, the chains came alive like serpents. Merrick held his arms out to his sides, and the chains shot through his body, in and out, they weaved through his flesh and bone and he screamed in agony. When silver restraints shout through his hands and feet, they embedded themselves into the ground of four of the smaller circles. From the fifth circle, black smoke shot up and wrapped around Merrick’s neck like a leash.
That’s it, I’m going down there, Alexander thought and slipped over the side of the canyon. He climbed down as fast as he could, and once he was low enough, he dropped the rest of the way, cushioning his fall with aeroturgy.
“Alex? What are you doing here?” Merrick snarled.
“What am I doing? What are you doing?” Alexander asked.
“You need to leave now!” Merrick yelled, sounding deranged.
“I am not leaving until I have some answers. Why are you doing this to yourself?” Alexander asked, pointing at the symbol Merrick had drawn on the ground.
“I’ll explain everything later. But you have to leave. Now!” The last word came out in a beastly roar. Merrick whipped his head up to look at the rising full moon. When he lowered his eyes, they were yellow with vertical slits for pupils. “No. Alex, run!”
As realization dawned on Alexander, it felt like he had fallen into a frozen lake. With pity in his voice, he said, “Oh, Merrick, no.”
Merrick screamed in pain as his entire body contracted, forcing him down to his knees. The chains running through his body dug themselves deeper into the ground.
“Alex, leave,” Merrick said in a feral voice.
“No. I am not leaving you, Merrick,” Alexander said, staring his friend square in the eyes. “You stood by me, you trusted me, and now let me do the same.”
Merrick let out another scream of pain at this, a piercing scream that became a howl as the flesh at his cheeks tore open and his face began to elongate. He spasmed and hair grew rapidly all over his body and his teeth fell out to be replaced by long and menacing fangs. In a matter of minutes, Merrick vanished and in his place was a giant black werewolf.
The werewolf was so large that Alexander was only as tall as its waist as it rose onto its hind legs and howled. It looked down at him with its golden eyes and bared its fangs that were longer than fingers.
“I’m not afraid of you, Merrick,” Alexander said without blinking, never removing his eyes from those of the werewolf.
Merrick sent clouds of fog from its mouth as he breathed hard, but he did not move, and neither did Alexander. They just stood there, staring at each other as their wills clashed. The wind in the cavern stirred up Alexander’s hair and phoenix cloak, but the rest of him was perfectly still, like a statue. He just stared resolutely into the eyes of the werewolf, searching for a trace of his friend.