Firegrass
The drumbeat of hooves shattered the quiet of the forest like thunder before a storm. Two riders, driving their horses to the point of collapse, cloaks whipping behind them in their wake, raced at breakneck speed along the forest track. The lead rider had his left hand held outstretched, holding onto a leather thong that had a small gemstone pulsing and glowing rose red dangling from it. On the path ahead of the rider were footprints, three-toed and glowing green. The indentations of the prints would have been barely visible but for the magical limning. The glowing trail extended thirty feet or more ahead, along the track, and faded away behind them as the horses passed.
The forest was dense with young trees and underbrush, and the trail wandered aimlessly, so the pair had little warning before they burst from the forest at the base of a grass-covered hillside. The lead rider shuddered as they left the forest and pulled his horse to a halt. Their speed was such that they crested the hill before the horses could stop.
The pair sat for a moment, catching their breath and surveying the landscape ahead of them. The forest was gone, replaced by gently rolling hills covered in the rich gold and lush green of verdant grasslands, stalks waving in the light breeze that danced around the land. Specks of purple, blue, and yellow were scattered throughout, signs of flowers too small to be seen as anything but splashes of color, and only then with others of their kind.
The trail continued on down the hill, following its gentle slope, a dark brown slash in the welter of plant life. It widened as it went, connecting with a road, the lines marking the edges of its wide paving stones visible even from a distance. The road stretched from the horizon to the right to edge of a huge walled city.
His companion sat in stark contrast, his stallion black as night, his hair a blinding white, long and unbound, the light breeze trailing it behind him, gold and silver spirals twined though locks, a headband of bronze, inset with violet stones that matched his eyes across his forehead. Slighter in build, though not by much, his cloak was a rich dark green as was the vest he wore, dyed to match the cloak, with intricate knotwork across it. The colors accentuated the light gold of his skin. His bearing and clothes marked him as a barbarian prince.
Though the men seemed relaxed, their horses panted heavily, taking the time the pause gave them to breathe and rest. They had been driven unmercifully the past day, pushed past the point most horses would fall, saved only by fitness and good breeding. Still, they were at their limit. Like most sensible creatures they were unmoved by the sight before them. The men were far more interested.
"Why did we stop?" asked the dark haired barbarian. He pulled a cylinder from out of a saddlebag and held it to his right eye, surveying the landscape that unfolded before them and the city beyond it. The spyglass twitched and jumped as his attention flicked from place to place, examining anything he thought might be suspicious.
"I think we crossed something," his partner said. The necklace he was holding had lost its glow as they'd left the forest. He turned and looked behind him. Where there should have been a massive forest there was instead a small copse of trees. The path they were on led into it and disappeared into the shadows. He frowned as he saw this.
"Damn and blast," he said. "Ben, we've crossed realms."
Ben turned and looked, scowling at the path behind them. "Can we cross back, William?" he asked, as he turned back to peer at the city through his spyglass.
"I think so," William said, looking at the path and the small patch of trees. "If not we'll have to find another way back. I hate these damn pocket dimensions."
"Can we still track the girl and the monster?" Ben asked absently, his attention mostly on the landscape in front of them.
In response William held the necklace up in front of his face. It was a simple one, a long leather thong with a pendant on one end. The pendant was a milky-white round stone, twined with copper wire, shot through with veins of glowing rose. A few small threads of rose and light blue, waving as if caught in a light breeze, emanated from the stone. The threads pointed towards the city below them.
"Yes," he said after a moment's examination of the waving threads, "but not well." He wound the necklace up and carefully dropped it into a pocket in the lining of his cloak. "I think we're wherever that monster thing comes from. Something's getting in the way of the tracer spell."
Ben just grunted in acknowledgement, his attention caught by the city. It was enormous, roughly circular, about three miles in diameter from what Ben could tell. It was ringed by a wall at least twenty feet high, and the buildings inside were laid out roughly in circles. There were five main gates in the wall, each with a wide road that ran to the center of the city. At the center was a flat-topped tower so wide that, even at seven stories tall, it seemed squat. Behind and attached to it, cutting through a few rings of the city, was a long rectangular building.
"What do you think, Ben?" William asked, growing impatient. They'd ridden hard to get here in time to save the girl, and the sudden stop to survey things rankled, even if he knew it was prudent. At least she was still alive; the glowing gemstone showed that, if nothing more. "One of the Great Cities?"
Ben frowned and held his spyglass up to look again. "No," after another survey of the city. "I don't think so. It's not from the First Age, either. Second, I think. It's definitely big, but it doesn't match anything I've heard of the Great Cities, and it doesn't look right for anything from the First Age. Too primitive."
Something had swept through the city, destroying nearly everything. Even from this distance that was clear. The wall ringing the city had huge rents, looking almost as if some great beast had bitten chunks out of it. The streets within were heaped with piles of rubble and debris, and the buildings... the buildings almost looked as if something had taken a monstrous club and knocked the top stories off of nearly every structure. Only one thing seemed untouched, a great tower in the center of the city and an attached hall, a long rectangular building, clear even at this distance, that stretched from the edge of the central tower to a spot halfway to the city wall.
"Something destroyed it, William. We're too far away to tell what."
William sighed. "Great. How?"
"Can't tell," Ben said, pushing the spyglass closed and replacing it in his saddlebag. "Looks like all the buildings have been destroyed. Knocked down somehow."
"Wonderful," William said sardonically. "Another unknown force of great destruction. Tell me again why we do this?"
"Because," said Ben, as he urged his mount forward towards the city, "it beats staying home and playing cards."
At the edge of the city they stopped. The wall was in shambles, in worse shape than it had seemed from the top of the hill. It wasn't just knocked down, it looked like it had been torn asunder, great chunks of stone ripped from the wall and flung around. Entering the city wouldn't be a problem, as the wall had been taken to the ground in several places. Oddly there were no full blocks of stone missing or moved -- the only cracks or seams visible in the walls were in the areas where things were damaged, and clearly were because of the destruction.
The two heroes surveyed the city, not yet dismounting. William held up the heartstone, letting it dangle in front of him on its chain. The stone pulsed a rosy red, strong and even.
"She's still alive," William said. He spoke three words of power and traced a circle around the hanging stone with his finger. The threads that came from it were no longer gently waving, instead sticking straight out, taut as if something pulled hard from the other end. Unfortunately the threads all pointed in a slightly different direction. The stone moved as if pulled, urging them forward into the city.
"Close, too," Ben observed, watching the stone. "Can you tell where?"
William shook his head. "No. It's bound to her, but the spell only makes the bound threads visible. At this distance..." He shook his head and broke the spell, carefully winding the leather thong around the stone and putting the necklace back into a pocket in his cloak. "Magic travels different routes than we do. I'd need some spellwork at the other end to draw a line, but the binding thread's too fragile to push something along."
Ben snorted and shook his head, obviously unimpressed with the limitations of his friend's magic. He dismounted, letting his reins fall to the ground, and walked forward to the edge of the rent in the wall, frowning. The wall had been torn down, there was no doubt of that. It didn't look like it had been battered down from outside, though, as there were huge chunks of the wall both inside and outside the city. The wall itself was three feet thick, far too big to have been destroyed by a lightning storm, and the destruction was wrong for a tornado, if there had ever been a tornado with enough power to knock down a wall of solid stone this thick. There were few scraps of small stone around, making it unlikely that it had been torn apart by explosives or earth spells. The pieces left were just too large.
William had also dismounted and was a short distance away, at one of the remaining solid sections of the wall. Close examination showed it had suffered from time, the surface was rough and pitted, and in many places covered with lichen and moss. It took him a moment to find a clear section a few handspans across, large enough for his purpose. He took out some white colored chalk and, eyes closed, muttering liquid syllables, drew a small seven pointed star. The chalk glittered as he drew, the lines perfectly even, and momentarily flashed a bright white as the figure was complete.
William put his hand in the center of the star, a space just large enough to fit and pushed mana into the figure. It grew as he concentrated, pulsing silver and gold as it stretched. Moss, lichen, dirt, and other debris showered down on William as the star grew, the lines sweeping the surface of the wall clean as they moved out, until the star reached from the ground to well past the top of William's head. With a word and a gesture the star started to spin, moving slowly counter-clockwise. William let his sight shift into higher planes, trying to See what he could.
Ben walked up next to William, watching him work. The star was glowing, each point a different shade of brown. The center was a dark brownish green. Ben frowned, trying to make sense of it.
With a sigh, William let go the hold he had on the star, releasing his hold on the spell and letting it fade. The spinning stopped and the glow faded slowly, leaving nothing but the seven pointed figure, now etched into the stone wall.
"What did you see?" Ben asked.
"More than I expected," William replied. "There's still power here, even after all this time. The walls have protection woven through them, even extending across the gaps, like the magics in the wall were part of one big spell. There's not enough power to hurt us, but if we're not careful someone will know we've been here. There's more, though. It's strange, but from what I could tell the wall and the city..."
"...Are one solid piece of stone," Ben finished.
"Yeah," William said. "Or it was, at least. I could feel it, connected together. Everything's very uniform. The city's not alive, or anything like that, but it's very... homogenous, even now. The magic is strange too. The browns I expected, any city like this would have to be laced with earth magic. The green, though, that's unusual."
"Plant magics," Ben said. "Recognize it?"
"No," William answered, "I didn't. And just one type, there was only a single shade of green. It was strong, though, almost stronger than the earth magics."
"Any sign of the girl?" asked Ben
William sighed. "No, not within the range of this," he said, waving at the diagram on the wall, "It's a big city. I could try and follow the threads running through the city, but it could take me days, and even then could miss her if she's in a section that's cut off. I'm pretty sure this section's not connected to the central tower. I didn't sense anything, honestly. Nothing larger than rodents and birds."
Ben frowned again. "Were there any signs of the creatures, the one the innkeeper said carried off the girl?"
"No," William said, shaking his head. The ornaments in his bangs jangled quietly. "Not that I could feel, not close at least. It was all stone and grass, tied together, but no signs of any creatures. Did you find anything?"
"I didn't go into the city, but from what I could see the place has been thoroughly destroyed. Not by magic, and not by a storm or earthquake."
"Then what?"
"Look here," Ben said, walking over to the gap in the wall. "See up near the top? Those four parallel gouges?" The gouges he pointed at were up high, the topmost one eighteen feet or more above the ground, They were deep, several inches at least, and straight from end to end.
William looked. What he'd taken to be fractures in the stone now looked uncomfortably familiar.
"If you look," said Ben, handing his spyglass to William, "you can see them all over the city. Mostly around the edges of broken buildings, but there are some sections of the wall and a few buildings that have them."
William looked in the direction Ben pointed. Off in the distance, perhaps a half mile away, was the broken husk of a building, perhaps four stories tall, one of the tallest still remaining in the city. The top of the building was gone, and there was no way to tell how tall it once had been. From edge to edge, across the face of the building, was a set of four scrapes, scars in the stone face.
"Claws," said William.
"I think so," said Ben.
"Gods, claws that big. The paw on the creature must be nearly as tall as I am. Dragon, do you think?"
"No," Ben replied. "The destruction's too complete. The whole city was affected. A flock of dragons couldn't have done this. The city's too big. No sign of debris, either. Dragons would have left scales, chunks of claw, dung, scorch marks. A dragon large enough to leave those marks would have enough heat to melt some of the stone, and I haven't seen any sign of that. This wall is also three feet thick," Ben said, running his fingers along the ragged edge of the gap in the wall. "Something just grabbed hold of the wall and yanked pieces loose. No dragon is that strong. It's something else."
"Dead and gone?"
"No promises."
Now it was William's turn to frown. "That doesn't make me happy,... anything else?"
"No. No signs of any creatures. There are five roads into the place, and there's no telling how many holes in the wall."
William frowned. "Do we have a plan? I'm not sure how much time we have. We were four hours behind that creature when we left, and I don't know if we made up any time getting here."
William fidgeted as Ben thought quietly for a moment. "The threads from your spell were pointing mostly at the center of the city. That central tower looked untouched, so I say we head towards it and check our progress as we go."
"Fine," William said, relieved to have a direction. "We should pen the horses back from the city. There's something about it I just don't like. It's too... quiet."
Ben took the horses back from the wall a hundred paces, then took a large roll of string out of one of his saddlebags. One end of the string was tied to a small hemisphere of jade which was covered with a tracery of lines and runes. Ben unwound the string in a circle around the horses, making a circle perhaps thirty feet across. The string ended in another hemisphere, this one of a creamy red stone, again covered with runes and lines. There was a quiet click when he put the two halves together, and the string briefly glowed yellow. Satisfied, he put the stone, now a single piece, carefully on the ground.
"Horses are penned," he said, walking back to the wall where William waited.
Ben and William both drew their swords the twin ringing sounds the only noise they could hear. William muttered a quick spell, making crimson fire dancing along the edge of his blade, while Ben took a small grey pebble covered with fine lines from inside a pocket in his cloak. The lines glowed silver as he stroked the thing with his thumb. William shivered for a moment as they crossed through the hole in the wall into the city, but otherwise nothing happened.
"I somehow expected that to be more eventful," William said after a moment, though the uneasiness hadn't left him. He felt something, just on the very edge of perception, like the chill wind that warns of an approaching storm. They were now in the city itself, standing in the middle of one of the streets that ran around the outer edge, just inside the wall. The street was blocked at either end by great piles of rubble, and there were chunks of stone scattered along the street ranging in size from a foot across to a piece of the outer wall that had to be ten feet wide.
"You wanted to meet whatever threw that?" Ben asked, pointing at the chunk of the outer wall.
"Threw?" William gulped.
"I don't think it walked on its own," Ben said as he turned to his right and started jogging towards a smaller street that looked to lead towards the center of the city. William shuddered and hurried after him.
The city was remarkably clean for all the destruction. While there wasn't a building of more than three stories standing intact, the only thing around was the rubble from the higher stories and the grass that had worked its way in from the plains. There was no litter, no debris, and no signs of people of any sort.
The pair spent ten frustrating minutes making their way towards the center of the city, William's apprehension growing as they got closer to the center. No road had more than a few hundred feet of clear space before it was blocked by rubble. They could climb past some of it, but they spent much of that time detouring down connecting streets and alleys. They had just left one of the ring roads and were standing on the edge of one of the main radial streets when William felt a tingle at the back of his head. "Ben," William said, "this place is beginning to worry me. There's something just not right about it."
"Spooked at the silence?" Ben asked, amusement in his voice.
"More than that," replied William, stopping in the middle of the street, the tingling getting stronger as he did. "Look around. This is a huge city. Could have easily had a half a million people living in it, and it's been completely destroyed. But... there's no sign of the people. I mean... nothing. I have no idea how long ago this happened, but there should be something, some signs. Skeletons, clothing, jewelry, hardware, something. Hell, there ought to be something besides this one type of grass," he said, kicking at a bit of the offending plant that stuck out of a crack in the road, "but there isn't.
"Even if there was some sort of maintenance spell on the place, there should be something here. No maintenance spell on a city this size would ever go after personal effects, you know that."
"Maybe," Ben said after a moment's thought. "But it might also be selective. We..."
Whatever Ben was going to say was cut off by the sound of rock scraping on rock, a loud sharp noise that scraped down William's spine like fingernails down a blackboard. Off to their left, on the other side of the street, were the remains of a large, fancy building. It had a wide front entrance faced with three sets of double-doors, set back from the road by twenty feet. The entrance was shaded by a portico, held up in front by a dozen elegantly ridged columns , an offshoot of the road running under it, clearly to provide a place for coaches of some sort to let off passengers where they could be protected from the rain and sun.
On top of the portico roof were three irregular lumps of stone, one at each end and one in the center. The one in the center was moving, stretching out. The unease William felt grew as he watched. As it moved it was clear that what they had thought was just a lump was instead a creature of some sort, carved out of the same stone as the city. They couldn't make out its true shape before it sprung, leaping out into the road and landing with a crash.
Neither Ben nor William hesitated. Ben threw, with deadly accuracy, the stone he had been carrying at the same time that William flicked his sword, the crimson flames that had limned it lancing forward to bathe the creature. There was a flash of blue and red as the two connected with the thing, obscuring it for a moment with smoke.
The smoke dispersed in seconds, revealing what looked like a statue made of stone and smoldering grass. The creature itself was wholly unnatural, looking like a cross between a frog and a lizard. Its forelegs were long and oddly muscled, ending in human-like hands, claws extending well past the tips of its fingers. Its hind legs were twisted and misshapen, though it looked as if the thing could walk upright if it had to It was a grotesque mockery of a living creature, frozen in a crouch, its left hand on the ground providing support, its right arm upraised showing a clawed four-finger hand, its mouth open showing an array of needle-sharp teeth.
"Nasty," Ben commented, examining the creature. Its feet nearly blended into the stone of the street beneath them, and standing still as it was it looked more like a statue than a moving creature. It had cracks running across its shoulders and torso with tufts of scorched grass sticking out. The acrid smell of burning leaves wafted towards him, making in wrinkle his nose.
"Um, Ben?" William said, looking around nervously. His unease was building to full-blown panic, which he was having a tough time holding in check. All up and down the street he saw that many of the buildings had the same sort of lumps this creature had just been. They were on the surviving building ledges, showing through the cracked facades, and in spots along the sidewalk. The scraping sound that he'd heard when this creature had started to move was starting to sound from other places. Many other places.
"What?" Ben asked, sounding distracted.
"I really think we should run!" William turned and dashed for the street they'd just come from, catching the briefest glimpse of movement from the creature he thought they'd disabled. The tingle in his head went away as fast as it had come as he entered the street, the panic fading with it, Ben hot on his heels.
"We should get out of sight," William said quietly, his breath saved for running.
"That one," Ben said, pointing at a three story building a little ways down the street. "Looks like an inn." From behind them they both heard the sounds of stone striking stone, what must've been the footsteps of stone constructs like the one they had disabled. Many, many footsteps.
"You sure?" William asked as he picked up speed, racing towards the building Ben had indicated.
"The sign over the door says 'Night's Rest Inn'. Seems likely."
The sign Ben referred to was a rectangular bare spot in the stone front of the building, directly over the door. A line of loops and curlicues was carved into it, looking both elegant and complex. It was vaguely familiar, nagging at the back of William's mind, the script of an ancient civilization he felt he ought to have remembered. William couldn't read it, though, and was to busy running to try and puzzle out where he knew it from. A quick glance around showed similar markings on many of the surrounding buildings.
"You can read that?"
"Yes," said Ben as he ran towards the building he'd pointed out, his longer legs letting him outpace William a little.
"And you didn't mention it earlier? Like when it would've been useful?" William's voice pitched up half an octave, clearly pissed.
"No," said Ben. "Thought you could read it."
"I don't suppose any of the buildings we passed had said 'Monster Lair here', did they?"
"No such luck," Ben said as he opened the door.
"Damn inconsiderate monsters," William muttered as he followed, closing the door behind him. "They never make it easy." William flipped the latch on the door. He had no illusions that it would stop a creature seemingly made of stone, but it might slow them down a second or two, and any advantage was a good one. The stone door, he noted, had no windows in it. He was glad of that, hoping that if they were out of sight the creatures would take longer to find them.
The building they entered was obviously an inn of some sort. The door opened onto a wide entryway. Straight ahead was a wide polished wooden counter, behind it the wall was full of square cubbyholes. A few of them had papers in them, ancient mail waiting for people who would never receive it. Above each cubbyhole was a hook, some of which still had keys hanging off them.
Off to the left was a large dining room, a dozen tables still set with yellowing linen, small glass vases with the shriveled remains of ancient flowers in their centers, tarnished silverware still laid out. Two of the tables had plates and coppery metal tankards at them, their chairs askew as if the diners had just stepped away.
To the right was a common room. On the far wall was a large fireplace, nearly as wide as Ben was tall, with the ashes of an ancient fire still inside it. There were overstuffed leather chairs and couches scattered throughout the room, while on the floor was an oval braided rag rug done in browns and greens.
Ben and William both paused, breathless and silent, and listened. They could hear the faint sounds of stone footfalls from outside, but they didn't seem to be growing louder. Their relief was palpable.
"I think we lost them," William said.
"Indeed," Ben agreed. "But why did we find them in the first place?"
William frowned. "I don't know. I remember seeing those piles of stone things all through the part of the city we were walking through, but none of them leapt out at us, not until we hit that central street. There was something else interesting there too," he added.
"What?" asked Ben.
"I don't know," William admitted.
"That isn't helpful," Ben answered.
"I know, I know," William said, sounding testy. "We stepped out into the middle of the street and I felt... something. I didn't get a chance to figure out what before that thing jumped out at us. Whatever it was, I lost it when we came back this way."
"We lost the creatures too," Ben said. "Don't know for how long. Do you still have that picture?"
William rummaged around in the pockets of his cloak, searching their contents. Before they had left the inn in pursuit of the creature that had carried off the innkeeper's daughter, the man had given them a drawing his son had made of the creature itself.
"Ha!" William exclaimed in triumph. "Got it."
He pulled the folded paper from out of a pocket, brushing off the dirt and soot that had gotten on it. Opening it, he and Ben both looked at the image. It was a simple line drawing, done on parchment with charcoal taken from the fireplace of the inn. There were sooty fingerprints around the edges, but the creature, rendered with two dozen lines in a few minutes, bore a striking resemblance to the one that had jumped at them just minutes ago. The artist had even managed to capture the sense of menace that seemed to have shrouded the creature.
"Yeah," William said, "that's the one." He sighed. "So they're lurking around part of the city, waiting to pounce. Great. Why'd that one run out and capture the girl? And why didn't any of them jump out at us before this?"
Ben shrugged at the obviously rhetorical questions. "We seem to have a few minutes," he said. "Maybe something in here will give us a clue as to what happened to the city. Those creatures seem part of it, constructs almost."
"Right, right," William said, starting to sound excited. "City destroyed by some sort of creature, populace seemingly vanished, stone creatures roaming around, it all adds up!" He stopped, a sinking feeling hitting his stomach. "Crap. It adds up to this city being a big trap."
"Yes," agreed Ben. "Sounds that way."
"Great," William said. "When we rescue the girl and get out of here that innkeeper is really going to owe us."
Ben smiled a little smile at that. "We should search this place," he said.
"Got it," William said, walking into the common room. He gave it a quick glance around, noting that the front windows, the ones that would overlook the street, still had heavy curtains drawn across them. "First things... Hel-lo, what's this?" William knelt down next to the remnants of an overstuffed armchair. The fabric and stuffing had long since dried out, but had resisted the effects of dry rot. Laid on the chair was a complete set of clothing, tunic, shirt, pants, and underclothes. On the floor in front of the chair was a pair of boots, the pants dangling so their ends were nearly touching the boots. A quick look inside showed a pair of socks. On the floor to the left of the chair were two rings.
William poked through the clothes with his dagger and found a chain with an odd pendant attached buried inside the shirt. The pendant, which looked to be made of the same stone as the city, was a pair of stylized wings with a large green gemstone in the center. The raised edges of the pendant were gilded, and the chain it was on looked to be made of gold.
"This is interesting," he said, holding the pendant up for Ben to see. "See the gem? It's the same color as the plant magic in the city walls."
Ben was across the room at another of the chairs. Like the one William was at there was a pile of clothing and a pair of shoes. He pulled another pendant, identical to the one William had, from inside it. "Here's another," he said.
A quick look around the room showed three more sets of clothing, two women's and one men's, in three other chairs. One of the tables had a platter with the desiccated remains of a cooked bird from a long-abandoned meal, and on the floor under one of the couches was a metal tankard.
"Search the rest?" Ben asked.
"Yeah. Split up?"
"Yes," Ben responded. "Take upstairs, I'll take down."
It took only ten minutes to do a fast search of the building, and the pair met back in the common room.
"Upstairs was all rooms for rent," William said. "Half of them had signs that people were staying in them. I found another dozen sets of clothes, all with pendants in them. I also found a bed that had two pendants and a condom under the covers, and a tub in one of the rooms with a pendant. It looks like the city had running water and indoor plumbing. No signs of any human bodies.
"I did find one interesting thing, though. One of the rooms had what looked like a dog's corpse in it. Dog was dead, there wasn't anything left but a dried-out shriveled husk, nearly mummified, but from the scratches on the inside of the door it looked like it was trying to get out when it died. No signs it had been attacked, and the corpse was too old to tell what happened to it.
"I don't like this," William said. "It looks like everyone in the building just... disappeared, all at once. No corpses, though, and no bones. I think there's a maintenance spell going, since there's no sign that anything has decayed, just dried out. There's not even any ashes on the fireplace hearth, If the people were dead there should be bodies, but whatever happened to them all seems to have destroyed the bodies but not any clothing or jewelry. And everyone seemed to have those pendants on, even people who weren't otherwise dressed."
"Whatever it was happened before the city was destroyed," Ben said. "The kitchens and cellar were the same. Piles of clothes, and things lying around like the people were in the middle of normal activity when they disappeared. No sign anyone was doing anything unusual. Wouldn't expect things to be that normal if monsters were rampaging through the city."
William sighed. "I really don't like this, Ben," he said. "I don't think we've got the time to look into it, not with the girl out there and those creatures wandering around. Maybe after."
Ben frowned, but reluctantly nodded. "There was an access door into some sort of subterranean tunnel system in the kitchen, probably part of the city's infrastructure. I don't think the monsters, or whatever they were, came from underneath, though. All the damage seems to be done from the outside of the building, not the inside."
"Still think the center's the place to go?" William asked.
"Yes," said Ben. "And you have got to learn a more accurate tracking spell."
A sound from outside the in stopped them, the distinctive clacking sound of stone on stone. There was a creature outside, and very close by from the sounds.
They quietly made their way into the common room, weapons drawn and ready. Neither readied any magic, worried that the creature may be able to detect magic work, both counting on surprise and enchanted swords if it came to a confrontation. Ben crept to the window and carefully moved one of the heavy curtains aside. On the sidewalk across the street from the inn was one of the creatures they'd earlier encountered. It was slowly walking down the street, its head waving back and forth as if it were trying to catch scent of something. The creature's path wandered a little as it walked. It struck Ben that the thing was moving along a crack that ran down the length of the road, the creature moving along it without crossing.
"Interesting," Ben said, as he watched the thing scan the area. "I don't think it knows where we are. That's new. It knew exactly where we were when it first came at us."
William risked a look out the window. "Can it see us, do you think?"
"No, I don't think so. Doesn't look like a visual hunter. Look how it's moving, right at the edge of that crack across the road. Probably uses the city's maintenance spell matrix to find things most of the time."
"I want to find out for sure before I count on that," William cautioned. " Do you think you can take it out if you need to?"
"Yes."
William relaxed and let his sight shift into higher planes. The massive spell that permeated the city became clear to him, the green and brown strands of mana woven into the spell, creating the matrix that made it work, still so unusual in their uniformity. The threads were heavy in the stone around him, though he could See a few gossamer threads floating in the air. He could feel the slow decay of the building in them, felt the magic that was so slowly leaking out of the spell matrix. William pushed his vision slowly forward, towards the creature outside.
The creature gave no notice that it had any idea he was looking. William let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding, and took a moment to get a better look at the thing. As Ben had guessed, the threads didn't cross over the cracked roadbed. The creature itself looked to be a part of the city, the threads of magic animating it looking the same as the ones in the building walls. It looked as if it were actually connected to the threads in the street, though William couldn't tell without a closer inspection, something he wasn't willing to risk.
There was one troubling thing he did take the risk to look more closely at. The threads on the other side of the crack in the street, the ones on the creature's side, were slowly moving, working on repairing the street and rejoining the two sections of the city.
"We have a problem," William said as he let go of his Sight. "The city's repairing itself. It won't be too long before this section's joined back up. I think we'll be seen then."
Ben scowled. "That's not good."
"There's more. That thing, it's not a creature. It's the city, or part of it. The same magic that runs through the rest of the city is animating it. It's a construct, but not a golem. It's tied to the city, and I don't think it could act independently."
"Person?"
"Can't tell. Could be controlled by a person, could be some sort of spirit construct."
Ben risked another look out the window. The creature had moved a few buildings down the street, but it was still looking around, and he had no doubt that it was only a matter of time before they were discovered. He knew a single creature was no problem, but they'd already seen dozens of the things, and hiding just wouldn't be an option, not unless they were lucky and found another disconnected part of the city.
"That invisibility spell," Ben said, "the one you were working on before this all started. Any hope?"
"No," William said. "Not a chance. The magic was just too complex for me. If there's an easy way to do it I don't know."
"Damn," said Ben. "We'd better get moving. Put some distance between us and that thing, and hope there aren't any more around."
"Wait," said William, grabbing Ben's arm. "I think I have an idea. I can't make us fully invisible, but if this construct is tied in as deeply to the city as it looks, I don't have to. I only have to deflect the threads that make up the maintenance spell, and there are only a few colors of those. I think I can do that."
Ben thought for a second. "If whatever's running these things is clever they'd still be able to find us, but it'd be tough. Do it."
William nodded and relaxed, letting his mind relax and his vision slip into the higher planes wizards use when weaving spells. All around him the city's maintenance spell became clear again, looking like fine filaments of color, threads woven throughout the building and the city beyond. He reached into his store of mana, tapping into the force that drives all magic, forcing it to his will.
This wasn't a practiced spell, one he'd done before, something he could throw fully formed. Instead he had to do it from scratch, creating the threads from raw mana, weaving and knotting them into an impromptu spell matrix, hoping a little that it would work. The real world was just a shadow here, where magic lived, but that didn't matter. His will bound the mana, color marking its function; his fingers shaped the spell, leaving trails of colored threads as they moved; his voice gave form, fine structure to the weave of the spell.
William wove the spell first around Ben and then himself, surrounding each of them in a cage of force, tinged the same color as the threads woven throughout the city. Whorls of green and brown force, like little dust devils, danced along the threads, ready to deflect any outside threads that matched their color. It took a minute to finish and tie off the threads of his spell, completing it.
"There," he said. "Done. Should last about half an hour, but that's the best I can do." The cages were gently pushing the city threads away, moving them without disturbing them. It wasn't complete protection if something could sense the movement of the threads, but it would be difficult to detect, much tougher than the direct contact they were making earlier would have been.
"Good enough," Ben replied. The spell was invisible to him, and William looked the same as ever, but he trusted things were in place.
William heard a noise then, like a two-toned bell, ring out through the building. He let his vision slip and saw the threads around them grow a little brighter, get a little tauter.
"Just in time," he said. "This section's linked back up." Ben reached into the pocket of William's cloak, pulling out the heartstone. Instead of the pulsing rosy glow that had been there, it was dimmer and shot through with threads of green and brown. William spoke a word and waved his finger around it once, summoning the threads they had followed earlier. The trailing filaments were still there, though like the stone had green and brown tints to them. They were still outstretched, nearly straight, all pointing in the same direction, though they weren't as taut as they were earlier.
Ben and William just looked at each other. The implication was clear.
"We have to go," Ben said. "Quickly. We better split up. You head for the tower. Find whoever's running things and distract them. I'll take this," he said, gesturing with the heartstone, "and see if I can't find the girl while she's still alive."
"Ben," warned William, "I'm not sure the spell will last you all the way to the center of the city. It's slow going, and I won't be able to do anything to it from a distance."
"I'll head into the service tunnels if I have to," Ben said. Don't worry, Ben thought at William, his voice echoing in William's head. I'll be fine.
"Yeah, and I'll still worry," William said. "I'll go out front. The thing's still out there, and we'll find out soon enough if the spell worked."
"Fine," Ben replied. He sounded nonchalant, but his grip tightened on his sword.
William slowly opened the front door to the inn and slipped out. The creature, construct of the city, was a block down the street, its head slowly bobbing and weaving, scanning for something. Its blind gaze passed over William, who felt a shiver. He figured his shield had just deflected some probing threads from the city and held still, waiting to see if there was a reaction, mentally running through the biggest destruction spell he had at his disposal. It wasn't needed, and he let out the breath he didn't realize he was holding.
It works, he sent to Ben. We're good to go. With that he started jogging down the street towards the central thoroughfare they'd been on earlier. It was the fastest way to get towards the center, even if it was blocked in spots. He just hoped Ben would be OK.
* * *
William was nearly to the center of the city. His decision to take the main road was a good one, though he'd had to make four detours already, two through buildings and two down side streets, to avoid some of the massive piles of rubble blocking the streets. The destruction was getting worse as he got closer in -- he assumed the buildings had once been taller here near the hub of the city.
He felt the spell around him start to wobble and fade as he rounded a corner on his last detour, just a few hundred yards or so from the central tower. It had a minute, maybe two, before it completely fell apart. He briefly considered trying to prop it up, pump more mana into it, but he discarded that idea. The spell matrix he'd created was an impromptu one, and he didn't think it would survive. No point in wasting power.
Ben, he called, reaching out with his mind to his partner.
What, came the reply. William had the impression that Ben was climbing over rubble and distracted.
Spell's almost up. Head for cover.
Thanks.
Ben broke contact, and William picked up his pace. He'd rounded a corner onto one of the radial streets and was only a few hundred yards from the main entrance to the tower. His progress had been much slower than he'd hoped, delayed by all the side streets and backtracking he had to do, working around the blocked streets and destroyed buildings.
Ahead of him he saw no sign of the stone constructs that he'd seen prowling through the city, though he had no doubt that as soon as the spell wore off he'd be spotted. The threads that made up the city's matrix were thicker here, twining into thick bundles, and there was no doubt that inside the tower was the central nexus of the city.
He broke into a jog, hoping to cover the last distance to the entrance before his spell faded and company arrived. The entrance itself was impressive, the wide road ending in stairs that narrowed as they rose up to a door that had to be thirty feet tall. The door itself was ornate, with a huge version of the pendant design across it, the wings stretching from edge to edge, the central gemstone at least as tall as William.
He just hit the bottom stair when he felt his spell fade. Almost immediately he heard the sounds of stone hitting stone, footfalls of several of the constructs, from behind him. It was tough to judge distance, as the stone of the city made the smallest noise echo, but they sounded far enough away to not interfere.
"Time for a big entrance," William muttered, a grin crossing his face. He took the steps three at a time, enjoying for a moment the sort of power and grace of his body, something he'd not had before he'd met Ben.
He reached the top of the grand staircase and risked a glance behind him. Four of the constructs were approaching, their odd half-hopping gait covering ground quickly, but none of them had come near the bottom of the staircase. He muttered a quick spell and knocked hard on the door, the spell amplifying the sound, making it boom out throughout the tower and across the city behind him.
As the echoes of the knock faded the door before him swung slowly open. He heard the footfalls of the creatures behind him stop, heard their echoes fading slowly away. He didn't risk a look, hoping the creatures would stay back, and strode forward into the huge room the opening doors revealed.
The inside of the tower was a single huge space several hundred feet in diameter and at least four stories tall. The back wall, directly across from the entry door, had a large opening in it, beyond it was a truly massive space, stretching off for what had to be at least a mile. The floor of the tower continued off into that space for a few dozen feet, almost as if he was on stage in a great theater, looking into a Herculean auditorium.
A single figure, shrouded in a tattered light tan cloak stood in the center of the opening, looking small and somehow harmless. He knew that wasn't the case, knew that there was no way anyone the city allowed to stay could be safe. It didn't help that William's skin was crawling with the feeling of power and leashed magic, though he didn't dare take the time and attention to look.
"Come here, my dear," the figure said, throwing back his hood and gesturing kindly at him. The voice was a crackly tenor, its owner a man, and clearly not one who'd spoken much lately. The revealed face was that of an old man, what hair he had left scraggly and yellowed, his skin pallid and blotched.
William scowled at that, annoyance dispelling his trepidation. Long hair and fine features or not, it should have been obvious to even the least observant that he was a man. There was something odd about the man, an unusual tone to his voice and squint in his eyes.
"Well, old man, what do you want?" William pitched his voice lower than normal. The acoustics in the space helped, giving it a baritone boom that it usually lacked. The man in front of him seemed oblivious.
"What? Yes, I know," the man said. He wasn't speaking to William, instead talking to the air to his left. "Well, it's good enough, isn't it?"
The man had, for the moment, seemed to forget that William was there. He was muttering and gesturing at the empty space next to him. William walked slowly towards him, taking the opportunity the distracted and seemingly mad man had given him to look more closely at his surroundings. Letting his Sight slip in he was for a moment nearly blinded by the sheer number of threads filling the room. Great braids and cables of them were everywhere as all the threads in the city seemingly converged in this building. Most went up or down, but many snaked forward, through the opening and into a space he couldn't see.
The man who had confronted him was more than just mad. William had almost no experience interpreting people's personal patterns, but even to his untrained eye it was clear from the chaotic tangle of threads woven through him that this man was insane. More than that he was accompanied by half a dozen smaller patterns, complex and probably intelligent, but with no physical bodies. Spirits, which meant he was probably a sorcerer. William frowned. Like most wizards he had a reflexive distrust of sorcerers -- they were notoriously unstable and often dangerous, spending far too much time dealing with things that weren't quite there. This one did nothing but reinforce William's impressions of them.
Most of the spirits accompanying the sorcerer were fairly simple, and likely not too smart. The one he was arguing with, though, was much larger, and bore a striking resemblance to the matrix he'd seen in the stone constructs that he and Ben had encountered. The spirit was tangled in the threads of the city, and its color matched the city's threads, a mix of browns and that single clear green.
He wasn't sure if it would help, but William took a moment to recast the spell he'd had on earlier. He did it slowly, muttering under his breath, imagining the hand and arm gestures instead of doing them. This was the third time he'd cast this spell and was just barely comfortable enough, going slowly, to do it this way. He was more careful with the shape this time, keeping the woven spell as close as possible to his skin. He doubted it would provide much protection from a concerted attack by the city, but anything would help, and he was far from comfortable this deep into the matrix the city was embedded in, especially if it had a sentience attached to it, and one that argued with madmen.
With the spell cast he let his vision slip back to normal, again being able to clearly see the room he was in. The opening behind the sorcerer clearly connected into the large building they'd seen from outside the city, a vast hall with columns along the edges. The building's floor was well below ground level, so even though the building itself was only three stories tall from outside, it had to be a hundred feet or so from the ceiling to the floor of that single vast room. On either side of the opening were the tops of staircases, presumably leading down into the hall.
"You're just in time," the sorcerer said, turning a sickly smile on William. "Yes, just in time!"
"Good," William said, deciding to play along with the man for the moment. "In time for what?"
"Resurrection, of course! You make seven. Seven, yes, a good number. Come, number seven!" The sorcerer turned and started walking down the stairs to his left, gesturing for William to follow. William briefly considered ignoring him, but if this man controlled the power of the city he doubted he'd have much luck getting away. He wanted to contact Ben, but was afraid that he might be overheard. Better to find out what was going on and throw it all at once to him, since William might only get once chance to do it.
Following the sorcerer down the stairs, William was taken by the immense size of the room. The immense size and the decrepit state of the place. While the building itself was intact, the decorative columns that lined the walls had broken and fallen, the windows were mostly gone, and there was grass growing in the maze of cracks that covered the floor as far as he could see.
Directly to his right was a large semi-circular dais that filled the space between the two staircases, with steps all around leading down to the floor of the hall. There were seven chairs arranged on it. The three on the left and right were simple chairs, back and seat on a short pedestal, with no arms. In front of each of the seats was a tray of sorts, a thin rectangular stone slab held up by a stone column.
The seventh chair was far more ornate, more a throne than a chair. The seat itself was covered with a light brown cushion and wide enough for two people to sit in it. The arms were flat and wide, six inches wide at least, the fronts covered with ornate scrollwork in gold and silver. The back of the chair was six feet high, with a stylized pair of wings carved into it, and at the top was a gemstone the size of William's head, glowing and pulsing the same clear green as the stones in the pendants.
The wall behind the chairs had what looked like a mural on it, a hugely complex welter of lines that snaked and twisted and turned, covering the whole surface. There was a small brownish green gemstone set at each spot two lines intersected, with hundreds of the tiny gems twinkling with light reflected from the sunbeams streaming in through the windows and burning from within with an inner fire.
Some of the chairs were occupied, he saw. The three far seats each had a person in them, though they were emaciated and looked near to death. Two of the nearer seats also had people in them. One of them was, like the others, emaciated, but the other was healthy, and bore a striking resemblance to the innkeeper that had started he and Ben on this adventure. He noticed that both the nearer two people were wearing pendants like the ones that had been scattered throughout the city, though unlike those, the stones on the ones on the people were glowing softly.
"So," William asked as he descended the stairs, "what are we doing again?"
"Resurrecting the city! Yes, we are, now that we are seven. It will live again!"
"Great," William said, faking enthusiasm. "How are we doing that?"
"Simple, simple," said the sorcerer, leading William up the stairs of the dais. "Cities need people. Without people," the man said, looking William straight in the eye, "cities are nothing!"
William tried to get a good look at the two people as they passed. From what he could tell they were both women. The nearer of the two, slumped down in the chair closest to the stairs, was emaciated, barely more wrinkled leathery skin and fragile bones, looking like the very life had been sucked out of her. The girl in the middle chair was in better shape, likely the innkeeper's daughter, though without her heartstone it was difficult to be sure.
"Sit here, now, and we can begin in a moment!" The sorcerer fished through the pockets on his robe as he waved William towards the empty seat, the one nearest the center throne. There was clothing on the seat, which he swept to the ground before he sat. The sorcerer came around behind him and dropped a necklace around his neck. William felt the thing try and link to him, felt the tendrils of magic coming out of the thing, but the shield spell he'd cast was holding for the moment and keeping it out.
Taking a chance, he prepared the spell again, readying it for casting. He stood up and turned, trying to sound innocent. "Nice, I like it," he said, holding the pendant up and pretending to look at it. "She's got one too," he exclaimed, walking over to the innkeeper's daughter and kneeling in front of her. As he lifted the pendant she was wearing he let the spell go, layering some protection on her. He was gratified to see the glow fade from the pendant stone.
"Of course, of course," said the sorcerer, sounding impatient. "Everyone has one, symbol of the city. Now, sit!" He gestured at the seat William had just been in, anger starting to color his face.
* * *
Ben had ducked into what looked to be a restaurant when William broke contact. He hadn't seen any of the stone constructs yet, but he'd heard them, moving around the city, presumably looking for him and William. Ben had taken some care to stay away from the sounds, not wanting to be caught. The creatures may have been using the city to help find him, but he knew the city didn't stretch out as far as the inn where this had all started, and the girl had been caught easily enough.
Knowing that he only had a minute or two, Ben ran into the kitchens, then searched around for what he knew must be somewhere -- stairs to the basement. He wasn't sure the service tunnels would be safe, but he hoped the lack of damage meant that the creatures didn't go into them. Even if they did the tunnels should be easier to navigate than the rubble-filled streets. It would be more difficult for the constructs to surround him as well, though he wasn't sure how much of an advantage that would be.
The stairs were, luckily, easy to find, tucked away next to what looked to be a large freezer, now filled with warm and desiccated foods. The door swung open easily, testament to the spells still maintaining the city, lit at intervals by soft glowing lights in small niches in the wall. Ben noted with interest that the walls and stair were in much better shape than the rest of the building. He also noted with interest the distant sounds of stone footsteps. He descended, closing the door behind him.
The stairs ended at a doorway that opened onto a wide corridor. The corridor itself was lit for a few hundred feet to his right, and twenty feet or so to his left with the same sort of glowing niches that were in the stairway, and the light they cast made it clear that the corridor itself continued on far into the darkness. There were doorways with stairs behind them as far as he could see, on both sides of the corridor.
This was obviously a service system of some sort. The corridor was at least fifteen feet high and twenty wide with a track down the center a few inches wide. The corridor itself was in perfect condition, absolutely clean without any scuffmarks, stains, or even dust. Whatever maintenance system was involved was apparently working better than the one maintaining the city above.
Ben wasn't sure, but the corridor seemed, so far as he could figure, to run directly under the street above him. That the direction he needed to go was better lit made him suspicious but he couldn't stay where he was, so he turned to his right and set off at a fast lope. The lights ahead of him turned on as he went, and a glance over his shoulder showed the ones behind him going dark -- something was maintaining a constant pool of light around him.
When the corridor he was in ended at a junction with a much larger corridor he knew he'd guessed correctly. He was only a few minutes away from the central tower now, and hoped that there was a way in from underground -- he didn't want to risk going back to the surface. As soon as he stepped into it the large corridor was lit all the way to the end, and in the distance he could see, on the end wall, a huge pair of wings, much like the design of the pendants he and William had found.
A tingle at the back of his neck made Ben realize William was casting a spell, and he broke into a jog, making for the corridor's end. Ben considered trying to contact William, but decided against it. If William was spellcasting then the last thing Ben wanted to do was distract him, and he was certain William would call if there was trouble.
The wall was as impressive close up as it had seemed from a distance, twenty feet high and twice that wide, the whole of the wall covered with the wings, done in raised stone and silver. In the center, though, cleverly hidden, was a door. Ben wouldn't have found it if it hadn't been open.
The light in the corridor behind him dimmed, and he saw the wall sconces and ceiling lights going dark behind him. The city was leaving him little choice -- either he went in the door or he was left on his own, in the bowels of the city, in the dark. He wasn't sure what else might be in store for him in the dark, and wasn't sure if he might start finding doorways locked, or things lurking. He drew his sword and reluctantly went through the door, intensely disliking being led.
The room beyond was circular, and huge, a hundred feet or more in diameter. The center of the room was dominated by a massive ring of consoles, with more than a dozen chairs around it. On the face of each console was a collection of glowing blue and yellow lines, with twenty or more brown gemstones laying on the lines in random places. There was a phantasm, a transparent glowing green sphere, hovering in front of each chair, each showing a different image of a part of the tunnel complex.
The outer wall of the room had what looked like maps of parts of the city. Each building and street was clearly detailed, with overlays showing the tunnels and piping that ran throughout the city. The maps were lit in green, gold, and red. Most of the maps were red.
Hovering above the central consoles was a massive geodesic sphere made of silvery tubes, rotating slowly. Inside, at every junction between the tubes was a green gemstone the size of Ben's fist, each glowing faintly. A green beam came from each of the gems, converging on the center of the sphere. In the center itself was another green gem, a sphere at least a foot across, broken into many pieces yet still held in place by the latticework of force.
In every crack and crevice of the tube structure, and in the cracked central sphere, there were tufts of grass, the same grass that was everywhere in the city. Ben frowned. There was no way this could be good. He approached the central consoles to take a closer look.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" came a voice from behind him. Ben whirled, sword at the ready.
"Beautiful, and yet so sad." The man who said that was short, his nearly bald head coming up only to Ben's chest. He wore a loose tan shirt and pants, a leather apron with five pockets sewn across the front, and canvas shoes. Pushed up on the top of his head was a pair of glasses.
"Who are you?" Ben said, sword brandished and ready to strike.
"Oh, put that away," the man said, annoyance flitting across his face. "Barbarians and their pointless toys. You can't hurt me, you fool."
Ben frowned. "Ghost?"
"Fah," the man said, waving at the air. "Nothing of the sort. Spiritual construct. I'm a recording of Drosnen Bedlin, one of the Great Builders, though I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about, barbarian."
Ben did indeed know what the man was talking about. If the man, or construct, in front of him was really who he claimed to be, then he was speaking to one of the people originally responsible for building the seven Great Cities, the greatest and most advanced cities ever made, cities that had been lost since the last great Sundering. It had been long rumored that the ancient civilization that once covered, and some thought created, Ynar had a means of preserving a man's mind in a specially prepared powerstone. Ben had always thought it unlikely, but no more.
Drosnen mistook Ben's moment of stunned recognition for confusion. "I'm not really here," he said, waving his arm back and forth through a chair. It passed through as if the chair didn't exist. Or he didn't.
"Then where are you?" asked Ben. If he could retrieve the stone that held Drosnen's matrix in it, he'd have what could well be the single greatest treasure ever found.
"Buried deep in the underpinnings of the city," Drosnen said sourly. "There's no easy access. Believe me, if you could take me out of this place I would lead you there myself. When this city was raised they embedded my stone in the central maintenance core. There's no way to get me out without destroying the city, and I would likely not survive."
Ben discarded the idea of digging out Drosnen's stone with some regret, but he trusted that the architect of this city would know best whether he could be extracted. That still left him with questions. Drosnen seemed to like to talk, and Ben thought he might be less guarded if he considered Ben stupid.
"So why did you lead me here, if not to get you out?"
Drosnen sneered. "So I can shut the city back down, of course. Idiot. Having people in here has woken the city back up. I need them gone so I can sleep again."
Ben thought for a moment. He was certain that Drosnen was referring to more than just himself and William, which meant there were more people here.
"We came looking for an innkeeper's daughter."
Drosnen waved dismissively. "There are several women here," he said. "They are of no consequence, and the city's almost done with them anyway." Ben wasn't at all pleased at the way that sounded. "No, it's the one who awoke the spirit of the city. He's the one that needs to be dealt with. You," he said, eyeing Ben contemptuously, "should be good at that sort of thing."
"So you want me to kill him?"
"Kill, threaten, whatever," Drosnen said dismissively. "He just needs to go. Damn sorcerers, always making a mess of things. He awakened the spirit of the city. That wasn't good."
Ben frowned again. Drosnen, or his construct, was an arrogant man, plainly contemptuous of anyone he deemed inferior, a group that obviously included Ben. Ben was used to being treated like that, and used it to his advantage when he could. Drosnen needed Ben to do something, and that gave Ben some leverage. For what, he wasn't sure, as there was little he had to offer a spiritual construct besides being able to clean up his problem. Still, that might be enough for at least a little information.
"You're free with others lives, spirit," he said, letting his best 'ignorant barbarian' tone slip in. "Is this the way they did things in the backwater you came from?"
"Backwater? Backwater! You miserable, ignorant cretin! I'll have you know I was the central architect of the city of Jade, one of the seven greatest cities this world has ever seen! We had wonders the likes of which you have never beheld, wonders a fool such as you would never believe, let alone understand!"
"Pah," said Ben. The scorn was clear in his voice, and contempt writ large across his face, though he was secretly impressed. "How great can a city I've never heard of be? You lie, spirit. This city of yours is nowhere, just a fantasy you spin."
"Fantasy? Is this a fantasy?" Quivering with rage, Drosnen gestured and spoke a stream of mystic words, and in front of Ben was a three dimensional image of a mighty city, one that did truly impress. Graceful spires lanced into the sky, connected with a maze of walkways and aerial parks arching through the sky, spanning the distances between them. Trees were everywhere, on the ground, platforms, parks, and rooftops, and there were circular platforms flying from building to building.
"This was one of the greatest cities of all time, you ignorant backwater fool. A product of my genius!"
A mad genius, Ben suspected. That the construct could cast spells was interesting, and more so the spell he cast. Ben's Sight was gone, destroyed years ago in a magical accident, so he could no longer see the threads that made magic work, he did recognize some of the gestures and words Drosnen had used. They gave a partial location, in both space and time, for the image that had been conjured. The image was at least four thousand years old. As for the location... there wasn't enough for Ben to pinpoint where, but that single image, conjured in a fit of pique, gave him more information about the location of one of the seven Great Cities, cities now lost, than nearly five hundred years of research and conjuring by some of the best wizards known had gathered.
"Pretty," was all Ben said, making it sound like a grudging complement. "Too much magic."
"Yes, well," Drosnen said, cringing a bit. Those three words had touched on an old sore spot, one that still bothered Drosnen. "That was always a factor. The city tapped into three separate power loci, and there were over a quarter million carats of powerstones in power stations scattered throughout the city." Ben's eyes widened. The amount of power Drosnen had considered inadequate was more than enough to destroy a mountain.
"That was my great innovation here," Drosnen continued, obviously impressed with himself. "The city harnesses the mana of the citizens to run itself. Each provides a small part, harmlessly, but together, with over six hundred thousand residents, there was more than enough to maintain the city."
"The pendants," Ben said.
"Indeed, the pendants," Drosnen agreed. There was a smug tone in his voice and a satisfied look on his face. He was obviously proud of his accomplishment, all puffed up and nearly strutting.
"What happened to the people?"
Drosnen looked chagrined. "That was my one miscalculation. There was no limit placed on the central core on how much power it could draw. There was an... incident. Too much power was used."
Ben's eyes widened in horror as he realized exactly what happened. "The city ate its own people."
"Well, yes. That wasn't the intention," Drosnen said quickly. "It was, as I said, a miscalculation. A mistake anyone could make."
"What was this... incident, spirit?"
"There was some contamination in the core," Drosnen said. "The central controller was compromised, and he caused the power draw."
Ben looked at the grass-tufted construct in the center of the room. "Some grass got into the city's central matrix, it drove the person running things mad, he destroyed the city and ate all the people."
"I just said that," Drosnen said, sounding huffy.
"So why not weed the core?" Ben's tone was condescending, trying to goad Drosnen into giving him more information.
"Once the contamination was integrated into the central matrix there was no way to remove it without shutting down the entire system and recalibrating. There wasn't anyone left alive with the skills to do that, and the system still had too much power running through it to do it anyway. The controller also got imprinted on the central powerstone. It would have to be completely wiped and re-imprinted."
That sent a chill down Ben's spine. "So the madman who destroyed the city is locked into that," he asked, pointing at the stone floating in the center of the sphere.
"That's of no matter," Drosnan said, dismissively waving away Ben's concern. "The city can't act directly, not without a controller to direct it."
"So what's the problem?"
"Well, it has one, of course. I'd have thought that was obvious, even to you."
* * *
"It was great once," said the sorcerer, pacing wildly and wringing his hands. His voice had a sing-song quality to it, and William was pretty sure that the man had finally gone completely mad. Or had been taken over by one of the spirits he had been speaking to. Either way, he was unpredictable, and dangerous.
"This was a great city. Magnificent, a city for the ages, all great and powerful. There was a flaw, though," the sorcerer said, turning his gaze to William. His eyes were green and brown, the same green as the city's magic. Green, brown, and insane. "Contamination. A source of power, yes, but contamination, ruining the city. It was cleansed, oh, yes, it was cleansed. We cleansed it!" The sorcerer's tone was one of triumph as he shook his balled fists at the air.
"But..." William prompted.
The sorcerer spun, a wild expression on his face. A little bit of spittle running down the corner of his mouth, and droplets of it were flung around with his sudden movement. "But there was damage! Damage and we were without power. We languished for so very long, broken, and without a focus to fix ourselves." He seemed to draw into himself as he said this, then exploded outward. "Now, we live again, we can work again. We shall be great again!" He gave a mad laugh and it echoed weirdly down the hall, sounding as if there were two voices instead of one.
William had a good idea where the power was coming from, and he seriously doubted that the life energy of a half dozen people would be enough to fix the city. He certainly didn't want to be one of the ones used in the failed attempt, and wasn't sure if success might be even worse than failure. The spirit of the city that the sorcerer had tapped into was obviously insane, as was the sorcerer itself, and from the condition of the women here they clearly had no regard for the people they used.
It was time to put a stop to this madman and his wild scheme, and for that William needed Ben. Hoping Ben was near, and knowing he had to be quick in case he was overheard, William reached out and nearly shouted with his mind.
Ben. Madman in the central tower, possessed by the city. Uses people for power, he's looking to...
William was cut off mid-thought by the sorcerer. "Silence!" he shouted.Yellow and gold pinwheels flared at each of his shoulders as the sorcerer called two of his spirits to action. They darted out, spinning madly and throwing off fat white sparks as they flew at William.
He dove aside and tried to deflect them, raising his hand in an attempt to cast a half-remembered spirit guard spell, but William's memory was incomplete and his hands too slow -- the spirits slammed into him, one into his outstretched arm, the other into his head. A massive jolt of electricity flowed between them as his body crashed to the ground, jerking spasmodically; the pain of the impact dwarfed by that of the fire that danced in his veins. Then darkness, blissful darkness, fell.
* * *
"So I should go kill this controller and all will be well? What's to stop someone else from coming in and starting all over?"
"Because the city is a self-contained pocket realm with gateways only open when the city is active, of course," Drosnen said, again sounding contemptuous. "That means, barbarian," he said, speaking slowly and enunciating clearly in the way people do when speaking to small children and idiots, "that if you take the people out it will be hidden again."
"Can we get out?" Ben hardly relished the idea of being trapped inside the realm when its gates closed.
"Yes, of course, don't be stupid. Out is easy," Drosnen said, waving away the objection.
"Fine," Ben said. "Still, why should I help you? If the controller has the city behind him we're better off ignoring him, grabbing the girl, and leaving."
"Because, barbarian," Drosnan said, a nasty smile on his face, "the controller has your partner."
Ben scowled, not quite willing to believe Drosnen, yet more than willing to believe that William had gotten himself into deep trouble.
William's message reached him then, and Ben stiffened as a small part of the shock that fell William was transmitted across their link and ran through his body. William lived, Ben could tell, but nothing past that; no idea how badly injured he might be. A fury swept over Ben, driving away his caution and his curiosity, leaving only a burning need to find William and rescue him.
"You," he spat at Drosnen, "where is he?"
"I hardly think you're in any position to make demands," the construct said with a contemptuous sneer. Ben touched the symbol-inscribed band around his left bicep and spoke a single, harsh syllable. His left hand glowed a pale gold as it shot out and grabbed Drosnan by the throat. Much to the construct's surprise, Ben could touch him. Touch him and squeeze, quite uncomfortably.
"Positions change, construct," Ben said, the tip of his sword touching Drosnen's chest. Like Ben's hand, the sword made contact as well, cutting through the fabric of Drosnen's shirt. A tiny amount of blood appeared around the sword's point and trickled down the blade. The drip fell off the edge, turning into a tangle of wispy threads and disappearing a few inches before the floor. Ben paid it no mind.
"He's in the central control room with the controller and five other people and the city's central consciousness and the city is preparing to power up," Drosnen babbled, afraid for the first time since his imprinting millennia ago that he might be hurt.
"Access. Where?" Each word was emphasized with a squeeze.
"Out the door on the other side of the room, down the corridor, third on the left!"
Ben released Drosnen and sprinted across the room, fear and worry building with each step. The door Drosnen had mentioned was wide open, and the lights in the hallway beyond were lit just far enough to make it clear which door Ben should take. The stairs flew past as Ben ran to the top, slowing just before crossing the threshold, taking one last breath. He knew that as soon as he set foot off the stairs the city proper would know where he was.
"Barbarian!" The voice boomed out across the hall as Ben exited the stairwell. He'd emerged at the midpoint of the great hall and turned to his right to look down to the end. "I have your friend, barbarian! I could kill him if I chose!" The words were accompanied by a tittering laughter, making it clear the speaker was dancing on the knife-edge of insanity.
The speaker, the hooded sorcerer that William had earlier encountered, was sitting in the large central chair in the middle of the dais. In one hand he held a blade, bigger than a knife but smaller than a sword, and in the other he held... William. Ben could see him, white hair and bangles distinctive even at this distance, slumped and unconscious. The seats on either side of him, and their occupants, barely registered.
This man had roused an insane, murderous city, kidnapped an innocent girl, and now threatened William. Fury rose in Ben, fury and fire and rage.
Behind the sorcerer one of the gemstones inset in the wall, on the edge of the pattern, twinkled. A construct of dirt and grass leapt at Ben from behind a broken slab of rock. Ben's sword flashed out once, cleaving it in half, the twin pieces falling to the ground, burning. His head never moved, his pace never faltered. Behind him his footsteps were obvious, blackened prints in the dried grass set farther apart than they should have been. Ben was covering ground though his stride was slow and even.
"Let him go." The words were said quietly, but they carried on the wind. The sorcerer heard them clearly, heard the menace the wind carried with them.
"N...no," the sorcerer replied. He cursed the quaver in his voice and the shaking in his hand. The knifepoint he held at William's throat moved in a nervous dance, the long blade amplifying the twitching of his hand. The voices around him were whispering, urging him to hold fast, to take action.
The wall panel behind the sorcerer started to glow again. A pair of stones glimmered, the scrollwork connecting them pulsed with a deep green light. Two more constructs leapt out. They fell to the ground in burning heaps before they got near. Ben hadn't bothered with the sword. The vortex around him grew larger, pushing outward, carrying the flames with it.
"Let. Him. Go." The words were spoken softly, but the sorcerer flinched with each like they were blows. His face broke out in a sweat, his tunic showing ragged smoldering tears, as if struck by a beast with burning claws. The whirlwind licked at the edge of the dais, stopping at the edge. Something glimmered there, a curtain of force only visible where it stopped the whirlwind, the swirling grass beating against it, the flames licking along its surface.
No further, barbarian," said the sorcerer. Any strength had fled from his voice, leaving it thin and reedy. The implied threat was almost laughable, save for the point of the knife so close to William's exposed neck.
The entire wall behind him was active now. Gemstones glittered and flashed all across it, while green and brown pulses of light raced around the intricate tracery of lines that connected them. From all around the dais they arose, a score or more, twisted reptilian creatures, borne of magic, built from stone and grass. It didn't matter. Even before they fully formed the constructs exploded, fist-sized stones and burning grass flying everywhere. Nothing reached Ben, the wall of wind surrounding him deflecting everything, sending the pieces flying to smash against the fallen columns and distant walls.
Ben reached the foot of the dais, the wall of wind and force in front of him making the air shimmer and dance. The sword flicked out, once, twice, slicing through the barrier as if it were nothing but air, the sparkling trails it left the only sign there had been anything there. He never stopped, never slowed, always moving forward like a force of nature.
"No! NO!" The sorcerer screamed as Ben mounted the stairs. He waved the knife at Ben, the voices and his fear eating away at his sanity like an acid on marble. William slumped to the ground as the arm supporting him instead waved at Ben, tracing a rune of summoning into the air. Behind him the gemstones in the mosaic wall all glowed, pulsing green and white. The ground shook, knocking down the few columns that had survived upright. The burning constructs all flared at once, burning away every last flammable bit, the hot stones shattering with the sudden heat.
From far behind Ben, at the other end of the massive hall, came a deep rumble. The ground shook, and a massive construct, taller than the ceiling and hunched over to fit, rose from the floor of the hall. Its thunderous footfalls causing the entire building to shake as it came. Ben ignored it as he reached the top of the stairs and stalked towards the sorcerer.
The rumbling of the hall as it shook, the crash of the columns as they fell, the roar of the creature as it approached, they were all ignored as Ben moved. The expression on the sorcerer's face was one of sheer terror, his eyes so wide they seemed to bulge, his body shaking so much he could barely hold onto his dagger.
"I'll kill him," shrieked the sorcerer. He raised his dagger to strike, ready to plunge it into William's unconscious body, sealing his fate.
Ben leapt forward, crossing the distance between them in a heartbeat. The gem in the pendant around the sorcerer's neck flared briefly, but fell dark as Ben's sword thrust through it and deep into the sorcerer's body. The sword hilt slammed into the pendant and shattered it, the sorcerer shuddered, and rumbling in the hall subsided as the life fled the body impaled on the sword. Ben relaxed his arm the lifeless body slid off the sword and slump on the ground.
Ben knelt down and checked William. He knew William was still alive, knew the link they shared was still intact, but worried William had been injured by the shock that had rendered him unconscious.
"Hey," William said weakly, his eyelids fluttering as he woke, "fancy meeting you here."
"You alright?" Ben asked, his normally gruff voice gentle.
"Yeah," William said, sitting up slowly. "Everything tingles." He winced and rubbed the back of his head. "Tingles and aches. The sorcerer?"
"Dead," Ben replied, his glance flicking to the corpse to make sure.
"The other girls?"
Ben looked around. In a seat to his left he saw a woman, slumped down, though still breathing. There was no one else in the room.
"Only one here," Ben said.
"Ah, damn," William said, trying to stand. His legs were wobbly and he didn't quite make it. Ben had to catch him, holding him upright as William leaned into him. "There were four others, though they really didn't look good."
"Are you in a state for a healing spell?" Ben asked, looking at William. William's eyes were a little glazed and Ben could feel him shaking a little.
"Gimme a second," William said. Ben could feel him relax, could feel the connection between them open, could feel the thudding in William's head subside a little. William muttered a few words of power and Ben felt the familiar tingle of magic as the simple spell cleared away the fog from William's brain and the numbness from his body.
"That'll do until I can get someplace I'm not thinking will try and kill me," William said. Ben released him and was glad to see William capable of standing on his own.
"We need to get the girl and get out of here," Ben said.
"Right. And these damn pendants have got to go," William said, stripping his off and tossing it away before moving over to the girl and removing hers. He was happy to see the gem in the center was still dark.
"No souvenirs?" Ben's voice had an amused chuckle to it.
William shivered. "No. Not a chance. Not from here, not ever." Despite that, Ben slipped the sorcerer's broken pendant into a pocket inside his cloak. Harmless, he hoped, with the gemstone destroyed, but perhaps it would be enough to allow them to return later. Despite its dangers the city had secrets that Ben found nearly irresistible.
William frowned and looked up. His skin was prickling with the feeling of a chill breeze, that deep uneasy feeling again troubling him. Wind was something that shouldn't be happening inside a building, even one as big as this one. He risked letting his Sight shift over, wincing with pain as his head throbbed.
The threads were thick and trembling as if they were being buffeted by a gale, streaming towards the far end of the hall. At the end, in the distance William could see a maelstrom, a swirling storm of magic, growing larger by the second. It was dark and menacing, and William could hear a quiet roar, like a distant hurricane.
"Ben," William said, turning to him. "We need to go. Now."
Wasting no time with questions, Ben turned, grabbed the girl, and threw her limp body over his shoulder. Together they ran to the stairs that led up to the central tower, Ben in the lead, William following close behind, shouting the words of the impromptu shielding spell he had made earlier. He drew as much power as he could, as much as he dared, from himself and Ben, hoping it would be enough to protect them from the storm he knew would soon come.
The building shuddered as they ran, both of them feeling the phantom wind, now coming from behind them. They felt it blow, felt the chill, felt it picking at them, though it made no trace in the dust of the room, had no effect on their clothing. There was no doubt a storm was raging, and gaining fast.
The twin doors in the great central chamber were still open, though they felt the wind. Their movement was irregular but they were swinging shut, caught in the same wind whipping around Ben and William. Ben slowed for a moment, risking the delay, and grabbed a small flask from a pocket in the lining of his cloak. With a word he threw it ahead of them, between the doors. It exploded with a loud bang, the concussion enough to bounce the doors back momentarily, the doorway obscured with acrid smoke which rose lazily towards the ceiling, unaffected by the winds attacking Ben and William.
Ben and William ran through it just as the storm overtook them. It was unreal but no less dangerous for that, the mystic fury sweeping past them, the wind pushing them out while unseen hands tried to drag them back. The raw hate burned like cold flame, the madness cut like razors, the fury choked them, and all around was the screaming of a half a million souls, the last shreds of every person the city had consumed. They wailed and shouted, spitting curses and bellowing warnings, trying to help and hinder in a schizophrenic cacophony of the damned.
Ben was spared the worst of the attack, his magical blindness for once a useful thing, but even he staggered under the onslaught. William was not so lucky, the storm's mad blast all too clear, and in his weakened state it was nearly too much, the power of the storm nearly knocking him off his feet.
Ben grabbed William as he was hit, scant feet from the edge of the stairs. Ben ran, one arm holding the girl on his shoulder, the other holding William, dragging him as much as supporting him as he sprinted down the stairs. He felt the storm weaken as they descended and, on a hunch, dropped to the ground, pulling William down and shielding both he and the girl with his body.
The storm raged overhead for a moment, spewing out from the tower, but its power had been spent in the initial blast, and it lasted only a minute longer. It faded away, leaving nothing but a ringing in their ears and a crawly, shuddering feeling at the backs of their necks.
Ben shifted a little and sat, looking down the stairs and out across the central road they opened onto. A dozen of the stone constructs stood before them, but they were motionless and dead, even the grass growing on them had turned brown and withered. Ben let out a breath, finally feeling safe.
William's daze had passed with the storm and he was up himself, tending to the innkeeper's daughter they'd rescued. She was unconscious still, but unharmed. The city hadn't drawn enough of her life to harm her, and William muttered a healing spell, hoping to rouse her from her stupor.
He was leaning over her as he cast the spell, and as her eyes opened his face was the first thing she saw, tanned and noble, flush with power, the sun over his shoulder making his hair glow.
"My hero," she said, planting a passionate kiss on William.
"Wonderful," Ben said dryly as he watched. "I save the day, and you get the girl."