< Return to Cry of the Glasya Part 7

We’re at the final stretch team! It’s been a long journey, but hopefully worth it. Sadly, this means I’m going to have to create some original content in the future so my easy street ride is done. But at least you won’t have to put up with these silly pieces for awhile.

On to the show!

“Are you sure you don’t need something else?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Head of a chicken? Beating heart of a girl.”

Keirn gave Derrek a withering look.

“Shut up and pass me the chime.”

The bones rattled against each other as Keirn held the object awkwardly in his hands. It was strange – this morbid talisman seemed to be channeling quite a lot of arcane energy lately. Keirn puzzled briefly his sister’s intentions in making it but then realized that he probably didn’t want to know her reasons. Sometimes people did things that were best left unexplained.

The seal had been formed from melting what wax they could scavenge from the packs of their colleagues. They were short on the supplies that Keirn needed for his original ritual. He wasn’t sure how necessary they were. So much of this process was as much a mystery to himself as it was to Derrek.

He held the chime aloft, letting the femurs, skulls, knuckles and whatever else stitched together to rattle emptily in his hands.

As Keirn began began the binding, Derrek shuffled over to a bunk and watched. Both men had cleared a large space upon the floor, pushing beds together and lifting trunks to the corners. Keirn then set about drawing the intricate symbol on the floor, his hands tracing the lines that his mind had forgotten. To the sorcerer, the symbols were meaningless. Possibly some ancient iconography that had been lost long before any age of remembrance. Derrek made no comment on them, quite unlike the bard who was very forward with sharing what random useless bit of trivia he knew.

And given the work Keirn had to go through to discover the seal, he would not have been surprised to discover he was the only one who knew how to draw it.

With the seal complete, Keirn clattered the chime a couple of times before breaking different bones off and setting them at cardinal points around the seal. He placed them in smaller circles drawn in the perimeter, as if the symbol had been created with the full purpose of having additional items placed within.

With the last of the preparations completed, Keirn retrieved a long knife and took his place in the centre of the seal.

“You ready for this?”

Derrek merely nodded.

Keirn took a slow breath then drew the blade viciously across his palm.

Blood pattered along the seal and dripped against the thick wax. It almost sounded like it sizzled when it struck the floor and Keirn couldn’t help but feel a familiar rise in temperature as he worked. He clenched a fist, holding his hand over the centre and squeezing a small trickle of blood upon the most prominent symbol.

During the whole process he whispered that strange incantation he had committed to rote. His words were softer than a strangled whisper. It didn’t matter how loud he was, where Keirn was trying to call was a place that wouldn’t be reached through sheer volume alone. Veracity was the key, and Keirn steeled his heart in anticipation.

The stubs of candles ringing the seal fluttered as if a massive, invisible form rushed past them. The shadows along the walls stretched and twisted as if in eternal agony. As Keirn drew close to the conclusion of his chant, darkness welled up from the furthest corners of the room like an approaching fog.

The candles sputtered again and in the growing gloom Keirn could almost see a massive form shifting in the darkness. Derrek just watched in fascination as the room darkened and swallowed him up in the emptiness.

With the last whispered syllable a ferocious rumble bounded about the walls. From the floor burst thirty six twisted and cracked spikes, ringing the seal and pinning Keirn within. Those spears formed a barrier just as much to keep Keirn within as to hold the braying beasts in the darkness out.

The metal shook and and vibrating as the circling predators tested the boundary. Keirn watched with wary eyes as darkened fangs and claws seem to scrap against the cold metal. But the spears held, though they rattled fiercely.

Further cracking drew the sorcerer’s attention to the floor. The ground swelled and burst, splitting in large sections as piles of bones were belched from the ground beneath. They jutted up in rising piles around the sorcerer, feet and hands tumbling and clattering down the piles. Where Keirn’s blood had spilled before him rose the greatest pile of skulls, an otherworldly wind echoing from their empty mouths and eyes in an unnatural groan.

With the last pile formed, a loud flutter filled the air above Keirn. From the gloom descended a ragged and bloodied eagle. Its twisted talons settled immediately on the skull pile as the bird limped upon its roost. It hopped briefly about, as if its bleeding and twisted legs were pained with its landing. Dark eyes inspected the corpses strewn around as if it expected to find some twisted carcass to scavenge. Having found nought but bone, it turned unimpressed to the sorcerer. It cocked its head before opening its beak and emitting an ear piercing wail that sounded far too similar to a woman’s last dying scream.

“It’s been awhile… demon.”

The shadows shook at his utterance, the spears rattling all around as if the force stalking the darkness was testing each chain simultaneously. The wind howled and the bones clattered and clapped against each other. The eagle merely blinked.

“You know why I have called you. I demand you release your current charge.”

The eagle ruffled its feathers, shaking its head before opening its beak once more. This time, a heavy man’s voice cried out in terrifying agony and pain.

“You know why,” Keirn replied calmly. “If you have any desire to breath this world once more you’d do well to obey.”

The bird called and a young man screamed in sorrow.

“When was the last time you drank from this place? How long was it that I last called you? You think just because you have a new binder that your freedom is assured? We both know that she can not contain you and you will burn through her in no time. She will die if you insist on enslaving her.”

The bird cried and an elderly voice croaked from within.

“I have given you plenty. And I will give you far more than that pitiful feast you have out there. Know that if you don’t obey, I will end her. And with her dies the last knowledge of your bindings. And if I have to raise my blade, I vow with my dying breath I will never contact you again. You can rot in your emptiness for another eternity with only the faintest memories of your bloodshed to drive you further mad.”

The bird glowered upon the skulls.

“I have given you a Countess, Viscount and Princess. You know that where I go death falls in my wake. You can engorge yourself now and vanish from the minds of every living thing again. Or you can leave her and know that even greater sacrifices shall be made in your name. But I won’t debate with you anymore, monster. I’ve retraced those ancient steps and recalled the first pact we made. Know I won’t bend to your will anymore but you will bend to mine!”

The bird cried out in a blood curdling scream as it took to its great wings. In a fluttered of darkened and black, oily feathers, it vanished into the dark and the fog.

“Then let the contract be sealed.”

Keirn took the knife gingerly in his wounded hand. He wrapped his fingers around the blade and cut deep into his other palm. The heat was almost scorching as he squeezed the drops on the gaping skulls beneath him. The blood pattered against cracked and bleached teeth, bubbling immediately as it hit the bone.

From the stone burst great rusted chains. They shot up, wrapping tightly about his wrists and forearms. Keirn could feel the metal scratch and dig into his flesh as they wound and bound his arms together.

But he resisted.

With an agonizing scream he pulled and twisted, wrenching the chains apart. The metal clattered and groaned, trying in vain to assert its dominance. But fire fueled Keirn’s veins and he pulled against their strength. The coarse metal dug deep into his skin, tasting blood again. But the more they struggled, the further Keirn separated his limbs. At last, the metal burst in a great clatter of iron as links smashed into the ground and tore through the scattered bones.

Then, just as loud as they came, the bones scuttled back into the earth. The spears retreated after them and the darkness lifted. Only the sounds of massive retreating paws echoed back to the two men still practically naked in the middle of the room.

Keirn followed Derrek’s gaze towards his arms. A rash of metal links stained his flesh where they had wrapped and the skin itself was raised and bumped as if the iron had been buried just beneath his skin. Conscious of the physical marks, Keirn hurried over to his pack and quickly pulled out a tunic to unroll over his arms.

“It’s done then?” Derrek asked.

“Felicia should be fine,” Keirn said.

At the mention of her name, Keirn felt an echoed whisper just on the edge of his hearing. But that trembled voice was easy to ignore.

“How much did you see?”

“I don’t understand a log in the Urðr Well, man,” Derrek shrugged. “But if you say it’s done then it is done.”

Keirn paused before the door, remembering the sound of frenzied hands pounding against it earlier. Slowly he inched it open, looking up and down the hall. There was no sign of bloodthirsty guests or rotting bodies and Keirn wondered how bad things really were and what was all part of Derrek’s complicated illusions.

Keirn waved for the bard to follow and the two cautiously started towards the hall.

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think Felicia knew what she was doing.”

“Doesn’t bother me.”

“No, I mean that I don’t think she knows how to do the binding. I think someone set her up – built the seal and inserted the chant within her song without her knowing.”

“Women just ruin everything, eh? The aria itself isn’t half bad when done by an actual professional.”

Keirn stopped, looking gravely at his friend.

“This means that someone learned how to do this and they probably learned it from me. Much like you recongized the ritual from following me at the Academy. And even though Felicia will have no idea how to do it again, whoever is behind this can always trick another. I think we were lucky this time that bards have some arcane understanding. The next time could be much worse.”

“So someone has been following us on our adventures and learned it when you did a binding before?”

Keirn nodded.

“Someone has an unnatural interest in us. Maybe we should be more careful from now on.”

“That’s unlikely to happen.”

They started again down the still hall.

“So if they learned it from watching you, how often have you been doing this?”

“How long have you been sleeping with Felicia?”

Both men looked accusingly at each other.

Derrek shrugged again.

“Forget I asked.”

“That’s what I thought.”

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