Stones slipping from beneath her feet every few steps, Robyn continued her slow descent, clinging to boulders whenever opportunity provided until, at last, she stepped among the shelter of the thick trees just as the sun began to sink. She walked between them, scanning her surroundings with interest. The trees were not only thriving in the little valley but seemed to possess a certain magic within them as silver leaves trembled with her passing. The ruins of the keep came into view slowly among them.
Broken masonry was at first only barely visible beneath the soil deposits and the plant life that had encroached upon them, but walls slowly became more visible, and then half-broken arches that disappeared among the tree branches with their unseasonably dense foliage. Just ahead, a gaping hole from the side of the keep stared back at her with an utter empty darkness.
“Not unnerving at all.” Her words bounced along the stone arches, making her shiver.Did it just moan? Gods, please let it not have moaned.“Don’t be silly, Robyn,” she whispered sharply to herself. “Whoever heard of a necromancer being afraid of the dark?”
It wasn’t the dark, though. It was an enmity in the air as if the keep were waiting to devour her the moment she stepped inside. And obviously her curse of possessing an overactive imagination paired with the presence of an aggressively demanding spirit caught there. She had no doubt now that the one who called to her was there. She could practically feel him—yes, definitely a him, she could sense that now—calling to her from the dark abyss.
Tugging her heavy cloak closer around her, she lifted her hand and with a whispered word summoned ghostfire into her hand. Its lavender wisps of energy stretched and flickered providing an eerie sort of illumination that turned the descending darkness into a velvety purple. Although its true purpose was to give a focus for spirits to be drawn into, Robyn found it useful when she required a bit of light. It wasn’t as good as an actual torch when it came to having a clearer visibility, but it would do.
With the ghostfire spinning around her, she stepped into the ruins of the keep, leaving the familiarity of the outside world far behind.
ChapterTwo
The ghostfire flickered against the walls as Robyn followed a winding path through the silent keep. Two things soon became obvious: one, that the gaping hole in the side had never been any sort of entrance, and two, that its origins were definitely not human. Random arches interrupted the corridor, leading into walls without purpose in their design but possessing such fine detail that she couldn’t recall seeing anything quite like it before.
The stone appeared almost like marble, but it possessed a luminous, crystalline hue that made it shine like a beautifully cut moonstone with the touch of the ghostfire. They appeared almost like spidery bits of glass set with rows of large gemstones, luminaries apparently since they immediately began to glow, shedding a soft light as she passed beneath them. The same sort of webbing snaked up the walls in decorative swirls set with interspaced luminaries. Robyn might have been tempted to release the spell except that the walls and numerous arches were frequently cracked in many places rendering the luminaries unreliable. She never knew when she might step into one of the many dense, shadowy pockets.
Though a part of her was curious and awed by the intricate architecture, she didn’t slow to peer at any of it too closely. Part of her was worried that whatever fae magic that was still there could close in around her suddenly like a trap even as it drew her. She shivered as the lights pulsed and danced with gentle flickers, but the call was getting louder and more insistent. She picked up her pace until she was hurrying down the twisting corridors after it, the soft thump of her footsteps echoing all around her. It was as if she were chasing after a ghost that continued to remain in the distance ahead of her as she passed numerous halls and doors leading into unknown rooms and passages in pursuit of it.
Robyn stumbled to a halt as the corridor opened up into a vast room. Large sections of wall had fallen, some of which had crumbled into once beautiful statuary of powerful, elegant women. Those still standing were silent sentinels, each and every one lacking their head as if someone had purposefully decapitated them. She slowed in front of one of them, studying the statue’s elegant and finely detailed robes, catching only briefly on the stones that studded the lithe figure’s belt. Like all the others, the neck was a ragged mess where its head had once been.
Curious, her eyes dropped around the base of the statue where broken fragments lay as if the head, broken free from the neck, had toppled and shattered upon hitting the ground. With the toe of her boot, she kicked over one large shard and peered down at the fragment of the face staring sightlessly back at her, its mouth downturned with its scowl.
“Can’t say that I’m unhappy that you’re not here,” she muttered to it. “You don’t look like the friendly sort. I think I would even feel some sympathy for this mage if he ran into one of your descendants still lurking around here all those years ago.”
She tried to imagine the hall as it might have been with numerous formidable figures glaring down at her, their hands upraised, some bearing weapons as if prepared to smite anyone who entered who didn’t belong. Was it the mage who destroyed the heads, or others who invaded and killed the remaining inhabitants to whom this keep belonged? She sent out a coil of energy, once more feeling the currents in the environment around her. The feelers were truly feeders that allowed her to drain essence from living beings should she wish to, but were exceptionally useful for determining if there was a powerful being nearby that she might need to be wary of.
A vast quiet met her, with only a subtle glow of magic that seemed to be buried within the stones of the keep itself. She didn’t know what had once been there, but whatever race they had been, one thing she was certain of: none of them remained.
Robyn stepped over the glowering face and the rubble from the statue’s broken head, her footsteps carrying beyond the row of sentinels into the central room. Several beautifully crafted chairs, among which only two seemed to be broken, were arranged along long tables set up along the room. At the head of them all was a great table that ran horizontally at the fore of the room where several far grander chairs were placed, each set with purple rubies. At its center was a throne of such beauty in its intricate webbed and curling lines, amid which appeared to be coiled serpents, that her feet carried her to it without thought, the furious shrieks of the spirit growing louder with every step.
It wasn’t until she neared, however, that she spied the broken human remains leaning against the throne, a sword driven through its chest. The skeletal mouth gaped with what remained of ligament and muscular tissue not yet entirely rotted away at the joints.
The throne forgotten at the sight of the remains, she clucked her tongue and the spirit, whose cries invaded her peace for days now, silenced as she circled the table to get a better view.
So this is him. Finally.
Whoever he was, he had been exceptionally tall. The sword that pierced him, though it seemed less impressive in his broad ribcage, was an impressive size at closer look. She didn’t recognize the metal that it was fashioned from. It was too dark, almost black, rather than common steel and, like the thrones, set with more of the purple rubies in addition to what looked like beautiful amethyst accents along the handguard. The entire hilt itself was of such size she was certain that she would need both hands to move it. Unfortunately, she was going to have to do just that before she could do anything else.
“Shall we get that out of you, friend? Wouldn’t do to bring you back just for you to bleed out from a sword in your chest.” She grimaced. “Not a fun way to die. I’m sure you don’t want to repeat it.”
Wrapping both hands around the hilt, Robyn tugged with all her strength, pulling even when a low groan escaped her from the strain. Her arms burned and ached, but she gave a victorious shout when she felt the blade shift and begin to lift free. The weight was such that it knocked her back a couple of steps when she finally pulled the sword from the remains. The tip of the blade dropped like a dead weight and clanged against the stone floor. She winced at the sound, grateful that there was no urgent need for quiet. With another grunt, she heaved the sword just high enough to drop it on the table with another loud clatter before turning to face the remains once more.
Wrinkling her nose, she scrutinized the almost entirely skeletal body. Broad shoulders, narrow pelvis, long body and legs. He had been very tall and had seen battle before from the various nicks scratched into the bones. That was curious. Perhaps the mage had been in the military before the collision. She was tempted to try and shift the body so that he would be more comfortable when he awoke again but, on the other hand, if something became detached that would just be another headache to deal with to realign everything properly before resurrecting him. Better to not risk it.
“All right then,” she whispered, taking a step back from the remains. “Might as well get on with it.”
Drawing her hazel wand from its strap at her thigh, Robyn raised it authoritatively in front of her. The ghostfire shifted and withdrew as her will focused through the wand, fashioning it as a beacon and vessel through which to draw and direct her energy.
Let it be as a torch to guide the spirit forth.
The dark incantation fell from her tongue, the hissing words filling the air as she drew forth the power. The bright threads of her energy flared and twisted until it coiled like numerous serpents around the wand as if it were a staff. They were wholly of her essence and yet possessed a subtle life of their own as the energies of the living that she harnessed infused every writhing, luminous body. Raising the wand higher, she felt an aetheric blast of energy surround her like a ghostly wind signifying that the moment had come.
A word, a single word, fell from her lips with a rush of wind, issuing the command of the power born within her blood. Her power, unleashed, burst forth from her, the serpents dropping from her wand to swim through the air with winding bodies. They flooded the corpse, every ghostly coil curling and snapping as they forced their way in and slipped through the mouth of the skull.
The bones jumped at the impact and rattled louder as every single one disappeared into the skull’s silently screaming mouth. Yet, when the last glowing form of her manifested spell disappeared, the skeleton seized, the entire length of it trembling as its jaws worked and its rapidly reforming hands clawed helplessly at the air in front of its neck as tissue and muscle began reform and quickly knit together. It was grotesque—a scene fit for a nightmare—as the corpse thrashed in obvious agony. Layers of strong muscle gathered over it, sculpting the body that it once was, reshaping powerful thighs and muscular arms. Vocal cords laced through the neck forming beneath its hands before being layered with the necessary muscle, and the muscles over the face began to gather fleshy additions as eyes formed and then lips.
The moment it possessed the ability to scream, it did so, the torturous sounds attacking her with its suffering as its body continued to put itself back together. The shrill, airy screams gradually deepened, but they did not cease as more muscle regenerated and roped into place. Only then did the flesh begin to form as it built up over the muscle masses, stretching. At first it was pale and colorless, but the more it grew, the darker it became, and Robyn’s eyes widened at its silvery hue that deepened further and further into a dull pewter hue that no human being possessed.