Page 231 of Eldritch
“Buried in the wall of a dead vein was the amulet that housed the curse of Pestilios. Broken by a single sacrifice. One life.”
“Dorjan. You bound Prince Dorjan’s soul to it.”
“Yes.” Tipping his head, Cadavros circled the image he’d drawn. “Even I feared the amulet’s power. As I studied it, learned what it was, I found myself changing, my thoughts darkening, as if molded by something unseen. I had become infected by the amulet.” A wild glint shone in his eyes. “Obsessedwith that chthonic glyph, the most intricately complex glyph I’d ever seen. It was said to have derived from deep in the pits of Nethyria. A means to destroy two worlds.”
“And who hid thesewonderfulgifts inside the vein?”
“That is a true mystery of the gods. A subject for scholars to postulate for centuries to follow, had I chosen to share it. But I refused. You see, what I’d discovered was useless without sablefyre.” The man’s words were a distant sound to the quiet thud of blood in Zevander’s ears as the glyph burned itself into his mind.
A deep sizzling pain raked across his skull and Zevander clenched his eyes as it seeped into their sockets.
“I could guide the flame, of course,” Cadavros kept on. “Manipulate it—that I possessed the skill to do. But I had neither the power nor skill to harbor it. To summon it from nothing and let it feed on my vivicantem as it bent to my command. I’d read countless tomes about the Emberforge ritual. How dangerousand impossible it was. Nothing but a myth to some academics. But possessing the flame was the only way to enliven the vein.”
A piece of the puzzle snapped into place.
Zevander had never quite grasped what it was that Cadavros had wanted of him, not until that very moment. From the time he was a child, he’d heard stories of the monster who’d cursed him, had been told vague speculations. But as he stared down at that symbol, he could see an image in his mind. A version of the flame he’d been cursed with, but stronger, far more destructive. It wasn’t the vein Cadavros sought, nor the vivicantem. He’d wanted the most devastating form of sablefyre.
“You proved centuries of speculation wrong, Zevander. You proved that a mere mancer,a child, could house the power of a god. A power strong enough to unravel creation.”
“And so, what? You long to consume me, as you attempted to when I was a baby?”
Cadavros chuckled. “Unfortunately, Deimos bound us in a way that would destroy me if I attempted such a thing again.”
“It isn’t Deimos you need to worry about. I’m not the weak and helpless boy you manipulated all those years ago.”
“Manipulated?” Cadavros scoffed and waved his hand dismissively. “I trained you to become a powerful ally. An equal.”
“You long to destroy the Umbravale entirely. We are not equal.” Zevander fought to look away from the glyph he’d drawn. Willed his mind to discard what he’d seen. Against the pull of the symbol, he lifted his gaze to Cadavros.
“The Umbravale has served as the door to my prison for centuries. But do not mourn its destruction. It was prophesied to fall by the goddess of foresight. Those in the mortal lands would cross freely, carrying their tainted and diseased blood into Aethyria.With the Gods’ Glyph, the vale shall fall. An ancient power loosed from thrall. Two worlds smothered by a pestilentpall. From the tree of rot, the insects crawl. Decay and blight unslain by steel, will bring the strongest men to kneel.”
The ground shifted beneath Zevander’s feet, and he looked down to see a fissure glowing purple between his boots. Enlivened, the molten rock flickered with the first pulse of life.
Cadavros held his arms out. “An impossibility proven true. A dead vein brought to life by the power of a single glyph! And sablefyre, of course.” He gestured toward Zevander. “I could not have managed without you. And with this vein, we shall feed the army of infected that I intend to bring to Sagaerin’s door.”
“How could you ignite the vein, if this is Caligorya and I am dreaming somewhere?”
“The same way you endured the general’s abuses, your body moved by my command, while your mind remained in a dreaming state.”
“Why?”
The mage let out a cold, mirthless laugh. “You, of all people ask why? Have you not suffered enough at the hands of tormentors? Tell me, if your beloved death goddess were to fall into the general’s hands, would you not burn the world to the ground for her?”
Jaw clenched, Zevander pressed his lips together, knowing damned well he would.
“You and I are not so different.” Hands behind his back, he paced. “Do you know what happens to spindlings when they die?” Not giving Zevander the opportunity to answer, he continued. “They’re not given the honor of being thrown into the vein like mancers or even Nilivir, who harbor enough vivicantem to make them worth gathering up. No, spindlings have so little vivicantem in their blood, they’re deemed too useless to replenish the vein.” Pausing his steps, he stared off, his brows pinched together. “Their bodies are carelessly ground up and used to fertilize the fields of fresh fruits and vegetables theynever got to eat in their lifetimes. While they die on nutritionless slop, with just enough vivicantem to keep them from losing their senses, the high bloods gorge themselves, nourishing their bodies with food spun from spindling remains. And the sanitation fog they send over The Hovel?” Hand waving in the air, he growled. “It causes horrific blood diseases that result in mortality for spindlings and Nilivir.”
It didn’t make sense that the mage whose very existence threatened both worlds would give a damn about spindling children. But before Zevander could question the purpose behind his criticism, heat coiled across his palm, and he looked down to see the flame burning there. He clenched his fist over it, then yanked his sword from its scabbard.
Cadavros held up his hands and chuckled. “I do not wish to fight. What I hoped to accomplish is already done.”
Zevander swapped the sword to his other hand and opened his palm again to find the glyph from the stone glowing across his flesh.
No.
He swung out with his sword, but before he could land the strike on his old mentor, the other man disappeared into a cloud of black smoke and an explosion of spiders that scampered toward the wall of the vein.
“You there!” one of the guards called down to him and Zevander summoned his vanishing glyph again, cloaking himself.
