Quill awoke abruptly to a knocking on his door. His first muddled thought was that Noue needed something, having been dreaming of her. His second was that Decontextualized had realized her lock was unraveled and was coming to arrest and interrogate him. And his third was that whoever was knocking was only knocking, not hammering, and certainly not endeavoring to break it down like a squad of Tome enforcers would. Disentangling himself from his blankets, he donned his robe as quickly as he could and answered the door. Whatever fresh nonsense couldn’t wait until a reasonable hour could hopefully be dispatched in time to go back to sleep.
Much to his dumbfounded surprise, Quill found himself face to face with a flushed Parchment, hauling a large duffel bag. This was unheard of, unprecedented, and probably a few other “un”s that he would think of once he was properly awake. Murmuring greetings, he swung his door open wide and stepped aside. He summoned forth his glyph, knowing this couldn’t possibly be a social call. Parchment nodded her thanks and tramped through the doorway.
Quill waited approximately long enough for ten sands to fall from a glass, before asking, as politely as his sleep-logged brain allowed, “What in the fulminating fossilized demon dung are you doing at my abode at this hour?! Or at all, for that matter, when we were relatively certain you were marked as a loyalist?!” Parchment shook her head, and thrust the duffel bag at him. He plunked it down on his table, and if Parchment winced at his rough treatment of her package, she could deal with it. He unsnapped the bag, and took in a sharp breath. “These are enough acid-fire runes to level an apartment block.” Parchment nodded, and inhaled with a ready explanation.
”Press was able to smuggle in a large amount of explosive using Noue’s idea. You’ll notice they’re all stitched together.” Quill gestured for her to get on with it. “I can’t get near the tunnel, Tome has put it under guard and forbidden all access. You’re the only one of us with combat training.” Quill remarked dryly that there was a difference between being a competent duelist and being able to take out a small squadron of soldiers. “You’re better than you like to claim. They’ve brought in the specialized spirit mage as well. One with the capacity to commune with and command the spirits in the undead.”
That earned Parchment a low whistle. Evidently she thought highly of his combat abilities. Especially carrying a duffel bag filled with several pounds of branded silk. “You could use a pack,” Parchment said crossly. “Look, my life is basically over when Tome realizes what I’ve done. And he will find out. I’m the only one who even has the knowledge.” Her tone turned bitter. “As soon as they broke through the last of the stone—masonry, incidentally; someone sealed this away—he ate the entire team of miners. His lackeys, the spirit mage, and myself are the only survivors to know what’s inside. And as you so helpfully pointed out, if Tome knows what is inside, all he needs is the spirit mage to operate it.”
The time for talk was short. Based on what Parchment had said, he had a narrow window in which to act before he might be facing a literal dragon intent upon capturing an ancient artifact of unknown nature and providence. All he knew was that Tome wanted it and that Spine had ordered it destroyed. Shucking his robe, he began rummaging about for clothing that would get him through the cold. Fortunately, his limited wardrobe made this a short matter. Stuffing the wads of silk in a pack, he asked about the trigger. Evidently, there was one rune that would ignite the others which had been incorrectly doubled along a seam of loose cotton thread. Tear off the improperly-formatted rune, and the rest of it would take care of itself.
“And how long do I have to run?” Parchment replied that it wouldn’t explode until the length had ignited, so if he rushed he’d have time to get out of tunnels. A sandglass or two. Nodding his thanks, and strapping on a heavier saber than his usual dueling foil, he strode out of his abode, leaving Parchment to await her fate.
Conscious of the fact he was now carrying an illegal weapon within city limits, to say nothing of the explosive in his bag, Quill moved quickly through Coldpass, out the gates, and up the railed trail that led to the most recent mineworks. There were several branches in the path, and Quill had to double back more than once when the absence of guards confirmed that he’d taken the wrong route. Finally, he found the proper path, one which sloped down and appeared to enter the mountain below even the level of the glacier that gave Coldpass its name.
At the end were two guards in red and blue-gray livery, armed with heavy broadswords. The first one was dead before he could draw his weapon, the second hadn’t counted on not having backup. He must have been a town crier before his recruitment, however, because he had quite the set of lungs as he declared an attack. Or half of the word, anyway, before Quill cut his throat. He didn’t enjoy taking lives, knowing it only perpetuated his Incarnist or Eminate cycle of birth and rebirth, but it was a necessary evil for the greater good. If they’d been able to delay Tome by even a few weeks, perhaps they could have rallied an army of undead, but pitted against another spirit mage such weapons were unreliable, and Tome already had one.
Charging down the tunnel, he was able to run through another lackey before having to engage in any serious sword work. He knew the tunnel behind him was clear at least as far as the city gates, so he took advantage of voluminous space to retreat, wearing down his enemies by degrees rather than risking a wound that would lose him blood and stamina. Speaking of stamina, he really would be religious about his forms, this was wearying. But given time and a hundred yards, he slew all four of the squad. That was one squadron, between the guards at the entrance and the four he had just dealt with, which meant… at least six more, plus untold numbers of undead. Literally untold. He should have asked Parchment.
The tunnel really had been purpose-dug, because there were no branches to get lost going down until a two-way split; one led the way he had been going, from the other were the sounds of men and women sleeping. Evidently the noise of combat hadn’t roused them, which struck Quill as just the least bit sloppy as he moved in to make some quiet kills. Only the last one so much as stirred. Unfortunately, it seemed that the soldiers were considered expendable and Tome had already known there would be an invasion, because Quill found himself boxed in by zombies.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
The popular image of zombies, in penny dreadfuls and the like, was of shambling, flesh-eating corpses. This was wrong on either one count or the other. Directed, bound by a necromantic spirit mage, they moved with purpose and without hesitation. Loose, they simply meandered around idly, seemingly confused. Quill supposed if he’d woken up one day in a new body and not-dead he’d be confused too. He wondered briefly if perhaps he should have devoted the time and energy to learning enough spirit magery to command undead, given his residence in Barbery, but he resigned himself that such questions were too little far too late and he was best off surviving the moment.
Fortunately, the duelist’s art lent itself to the slaying of undead better than soldier’s training. Sever the hamstrings and they’d have to crawl, destroy the heart and the body couldn’t hold the spirit. These were not former soldiers, they bore no armor, and Quill made quick work of them.
Quill hurried down the tunnel once more, and when he heard footsteps echoing behind him picked up the pace. As he went, he wondered at the lack of undead, to hear the reports the tunnels had been full of them. He arrived at the masonry section of wall, and found a breathtaking sight. Luminous from within was an arch of quartz, branded with runes, the top emblazoned with Draconic words meaning “The Outward Eye”. Having stopped to read the sign, he was now certain he was being followed, not by an individual but by what could be another squadron of soldiers.
Inside the archway was a raised path which led into the middle of what Quill supposed could be described as a flower made of luminous quartz. Conscious of those behind him, but curious, he nicked his thumb and summoned his axiom of lore. He felt its consuming passion for knowledge, but this was not its province, at least in him. He used it as a library, an index, it did not extrapolate or learn. With a sigh, Quill made a quick choice. Investing what, for lack of a better term, he would call karma, he imbued the spirit with greater power, deepening his bond to it and granting it greater powers on his behalf. He began reading the runes on the wall, arranged in hexagons with letters, arrows, and other arcane symbols binding them together. His mortal mind grew overwhelmed quickly, but his axiom simply borrowed his eyes and kept reading. Awareness trickled into his mind, along with dread. It was, in essence, an eye. A spiritual eye. It would read the souls—not the souls, exactly—he sighed. Axioms were sticklers at the worst times. It would allow the surveilling of all of Barbery from the single space in the middle, would lay bare artifice like Glue’s. His axiom kept reading and referencing what it was learning; speaking of Glue it made their sorcery look like child’s play, he could make a killing as a brander if only he invested in the ability to create elemental runes.
When he heard footsteps echoing in the chamber, he regretfully cut off his reading to face his opponents. Evidently the undead occupying the chamber had been repurposed by the spirit mage, because a tide of undead approached him. He would be blasting the artifact, he didn’t need to destroy the undead, and so he didn’t. He simply knocked them off the raised walkway, down onto the branded surface some dozens of feet below. But their arrival meant he was out of time. When he’d made it to the entrance to the Outward Eye, he opened his pack and pulled out the length of silk. The patch obscuring the starter rune was easily found, and sparked when he tore it.
Having done his task, he headed back up the tunnel, hoping to encounter the spirit mage and perhaps end their menace as well. Perhaps he could even lay blame at their feet. “But first; more zombies!” he thought to himself. This time, however, they made no effort to restrain him, and in fact began to flow around him. He kept his saber at the ready, and while he hamstringed a few, by and large they got by. Then they were approaching him from behind, from the direction of the Outward Eye, carrying—the silk! The fuse was still going, but if they got it sufficiently far away from the artifact, it would just be a matter of digging the artifact out again! Quill paused, despite himself, his lore axiom still making connections. A month would be enough to rally an army… but it had taken weeks to reopen the tunnel. But that had been a much smaller explosive. He shook his head; he couldn’t risk the artifact falling into draconic claws.
The flow of undead seemed limitless, it must have taken countless mages to operate the artifact, and Quill realized there was only one option. Knowing she couldn’t possibly hear him, he nonetheless said, “I’m sorry, Noue.” He would guard the silk until it detonated, making certain it destroyed the Outward Eye. Outrage at the injustice of it all flooded him, and he relied upon measured breaths and his training as an Incarnate to calm himself sufficiently to continue fighting with precision and skill. Noue admired his commitment to the greater good, and if the One God chose to test him with this, he would stick by his principles.
Charging forward, he snatched the silk from the zombie holding it and ran back towards the Outward Eye. He tied it to himself like a cape, mindful that he was facing superior numbers and would need to retreat, and that the spirit mage was clearly aware that the opponents of Tome employed explosives if the zombies were trying to remove the silk. Where before he had prayed that it was more like two sandglasses of fuse attached to the runes, now he hoped it was more like one.
The spirit mage was no tactician, this much was clear, because they crammed their undead onto the walkway, making them easy targets to overbalance into the hemisphere of quartz below. In Tome’s position, Quill would have hired a spirit mage with skill in reading the hearts of spirits, the better to make the undead operate the great artifact from before the Age of Loss. The mage evidently could learn, however, because the undead began coming towards him one at a time. He skewered hearts and severed tendons, but the press of bodies meant he had to retreat. If he got to the central platform before the explosive went off, he didn’t know what he’d do. Besides die, but that was a foregone conclusion at this point. The only question was whether it would deny Tome his prize for him to do so.
He heard shouting from the tunnel, soldiers arguing that they were not going to stay a moment longer where there were explosives, much less charge into an open space to fight someone carrying them. If he wanted to blow himself to kingdom come, he was welcome to. The other voice seemed to be the spirit mage, insisting that someone with combat training needed to go and stop Quill from destroying an artifact of incalculable worth and utterly beyond even Zrit’isar’s abilities to recreate. If the soldiers had done their job, he wouldn’t have explosives in the first place, how did he smuggle in a veritable cape of branded cloth?! The voices faded, even the spirit mage unwilling to be too close when the explosives went off, the undead continued to hound Quill. He was tired, and his sword felt like it weighed several pounds. Briefly, he entertained fancies of slaying the last undead thrall and leaving the cloak, but those thoughts, fancies of keeping his lunch date with Noue, were to be his last.
Quill had underestimated the reactive strength of several yards of acid- and fire-branded silk. When the explosion finally triggered, mineshafts throughout the mountain collapsed, and the very city of Coldpass felt the ground move. Noue had risen just early enough to feel the movement and wonder what it meant.
