Famfrit's Jewel - Chapter 7
The Sacrifice
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Dagnar hung from those chains for days. His skin began to peel and fester, the stones wept pale green liquid and the darkness clung to him like a cloak. There was no day. No night. Only the every so often opening of the high trap door for Dagnar to suck upon a sponge. Dagnar held his rage close, that “impudent rage” kept him warm at night, kept him alert when awake, kept him fed when he was hungry, and joyous when he should have slipped into misery.
It was then, in the bowels of his anger and waking hours imagining himself pummelling Mazaroth, that the trap door opened and the customary wet sponge did not appear. Dagnar glared up toward the invading light, though his eyes were a blur and began to water from the strain. He stared anyway.
‘Unhook his feet,’ one growled to another.
A man dropped down, a long thin knife in one hand, ‘No sudden movements. The sorcerer needs you alive but not whole, if you get me.’
Dagnar understood and stalked the man headed towards him watching him as he knelt and freed his feet from their restraints. He could have snapped the man’s neck then and there but he was still trussed up by his wrists. The man backed away and climbed out of the oubliette, shaking himself with relief.
‘Pull him out,’ one growled to another. A great chain rattled overhead and Dagnar was lifted higher into the air and then, somehow, towards the trapdoor. The light of the braziers was blinding. He felt the cold stone beneath him, calloused hands on him, and Mazaroth’s lackeys groaning and retching from the smell. ‘Clean him up and dress him in this.’
Dagnar was scrubbed as buckets of icy water crashed against him. He smiled as sores opened. He laughed when the chill reached his bones. Soon he would see Mazaroth and have his revenge, one way or another. The world returned to him as patches of colour first and then outlines and by then he was dressed in a fine silk gown and soft slippers. The clothes felt ludicrous on a man of the forest used to heavy skins and thick furs yet he did not flinch as the callous hands dressed him. The guards bound his wrists behind his back, the coarse rope making his open sores sting and itch.
Gentle footfalls echoed towards whatever chamber Dagnar was in and the guards backed away our of reverence or fear. ‘Gentlemen,’ Alaea purred. ‘Our woodsman cleans up well,’ her eyes flared as she bit her bottom lip. ‘This way, Dagnar. It is time for you to fulfil your destiny.’
Dagnar did not move until one of the guards prodded him in the back. The three followed Dagnar and Alaea at a close distance, their weapons shining in the torch light.
Gradually they climbed out from the dungeons beneath the city of Ankoron. Staircase after staircase entombed in stone wormed its way through an ancient labyrinth, a city beneath the city. The air was thick with secrets and warm breezes warned of hidden rooms. Dagnar wondered how deep he had been, how close to hell his cell was. He had not felt the heat of the great fires or smelt the pits of sulphur yet that meant little when encased in endless rock. He remembered the pale green liquid and questioned where it came from but that mattered little as the first beams of moonlight crashed through the windows of whichever palace or fort he had been held beneath. The moon was whole, and unfathomably large; a great white orb shining down upon the world. Dagnar paused to admire his death sign. A guard prodded him in the back.
Alaea swayed as she walked in the moonlight, though she glided more than swayed. The caressing light pierced through her thin silk dress to reveal the skin beneath but the fabric constantly shifted to hide the skin as well. The dress flowed like water across the stone, rippling with each half-visible step. She led them through a courtyard, still and silent, and up a wide staircase, through an archway, toward an altar beneath a glass dome many feet overhead. The full moon shone down with full radiance to illuminate Mazaroth and Asparion knelt in reverence. The pair of sorcerers had their hand up high and wide, their faces downcast, each muttering arcane words the ricocheted off the fluted stone pillars and floor. Dagnar found the sound beautiful even with the curved blue-steel dagger resting on the altar, glistening in the moon, waiting to slit his throat. Beside it, on a small iron stand, was Famfrit’s Jewel. The god stone spat waving tendrils of crystallised light from its centre and emanated a soft hum to background Mazaroth and Asparion’s chanting.
Alaea halted at the foot of the altar. Dagnar behind her. The three guards behind him. There was no one else in the chamber, there had been no others anywhere along the journey from oubliette to altar. Dagnar found that foolish. No one, not even a sorcerer, could be so sure of their abilities as too forego good swordsmen. Mazaroth had an army, but where was it? Dagnar closed his mind to the chanting, to the moonlight, to Alaea’s allure and focussed on his rage, on his lost family, and burning village of Kol. He was here to be killed. He was here to kill.
Mazaroth ceased his warbling and rose to his feet, Asparion followed. ‘How good of you to join us, please ascend the steps.’ The sorcerer’s hand swept the air in a dignified manner. Alaea climbed the three steps, Dagnar followed.
‘You had the sense to clean him up at least,’ Asparion badgered.
‘Everything as Mazaroth commands, you could learn a thing or two about that,’ Alaea smiled.
‘Enough.’ Mazaroth approached Dagnar, his own gown richly embroidered with angular patterns in gold and purple. ‘Dagnar, please step into the moonlight,’ he took Dagnar by the arm and guided him towards the altar. ‘I’m sure you recognise this illustrious bauble,’ he stroked Famfrit’s Jewel. ‘You will be immortalised in the histories as the man whose soul unlocked its power. Do not fight your destiny for your death will bring about a revolution of the heavens. The world will be transformed, away from the petty squabbles of minor kings and towards a united aim under my soon-to-be divine direction. The injustices of the past will be punished, the wrongs righted, and you will be my key to doing so. Please,’ he caressed the stone altar, ‘lie down.’ Mazaroth took the blue-steel knife in his left hand and sauntered to the head of the altar, Famfrit’s Jewel glistening before him.
‘My wrists,’ Dagnar shrugged.
‘You three, help him up,’ Mazaroth sneered to the brutes. The three men hoisted Dagnar onto the stone and plopped him down like a sack of oats. ‘Lie down,’ Mazaroth said.
Alaea circled round the altar. She completed one turn, her eyes never leaving Dagnar’s, and on her second coil she paused behind Mazaroth. Asparion stood to one side watching the moon, ‘We don’t have much time to wait.’
‘Dagnar, lie down. Glory awaits you,’ Mazaroth held the knife in one hand and pressed the point of the curved blade into his forefinger. ‘You won’t feel a thing,’ Mazaroth lied with a smile.
Dagnar continued to sit. His rage had got him there but what was next. He hopped off the altar and the three guards made to grab him, he barrelled into the first, cracking him under the chin with his shoulder. The man’s teeth made a popping sound as he rebounded and flew backwards through the air. Dagnar turned to the next man but was taken across the skull by a mace. He fell, slumped with his face to the stone. Blood pooled against his cheek.
‘Lift him up and hold him down,’ Mazaroth barked, one hand on the Jewel. ‘I have no time for games.’
‘Nor do I, my love,’ Alaea purred. She drew something from her dress and lunged but Mazaroth vanished in a puff of smoke, along with Famfrit’s Jewel, as the dirk slipped through his back. ‘NO!’ she screamed, slashing at the smoke until it dispersed like mist, a thin trickle of blood on her blade.
The guards dropped Dagnar and turned their weapons on Alaea. Asparion looked around, confused and uncertain. Alaea crouched and circled the altar so the men had to split up to get to her, then when they lunged she leapt over the stone and severed Dagnar’s bindings. His arms free he scrambled for the sword the third guard had dropped. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I was helping myself but now I’m helping you.’
‘Why?’
‘Do not ask me that,’ Alaea was panicked, her cheeks reddened as she tried to hold a fighting stance in a sheer silk dress.
‘Asparion, deal with her and capture him!’ Mazaroth’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
Asparion turned to Alaea, his eyes narrowing. The air gathered to his hands, becoming white with cold, ‘Turnout bitch!’ He sent a blizzard out from his hands, far colder and sharper than any Dagnar had experienced. He ran toward the other two of Mazaroth’s men but Asparion continued to cast. Dagnar grappled the first one, holding him before the chilling spell. Asparion blasted his own man in the face. He fell dead in Dagnar’s arms, his face black with frost. Dagnar dropped the corpse and hurried to the second. He swung, was riposted, and as he swung again the spell caught his arm and the whole left side of his assailant. Mazaroth’s man screamed as his arm withered and bone was exposed. Dagnar’s skin cracked and weeped thickened blood, he dashed behind a pillar.
Alaea slit the throat of the man Dagnar had cracked with his shoulder moments before. There was no ceremony it in. The man searched for his sword, which Dagnar had stolen, only to find a different sharp blade parting his skin without a word of explanation. She darted, expressionless, toward Asparion as he cast his bitter spell at Dagnar, his face a twisted maw of malice and jealousy. She pounced, catlike, and thrust her dirk at the sorcerer.
Asparion flinched, ceased his cold spell and clicked his fingers just as Alaea’s weapon slashed his sleeve. He vanished in a torrent of fog, a fan of his blood decorating the altar. He reappeared in a pool of mist on the other side of the room, ‘The master should have killed you when he met you, like he was going to before you wormed your way inside his head.’
‘He is only a man after all,’ Alaea sprinted at Asparion.
‘Not for long,’ Asparion clenched his fists, blood dribbling over one, and launched an invisible force at Alaea. The blast crashed into her like a wall and she was thrown backwards, skidding across the floor and landing at the foot of the altar. Coughing and spluttering she attempted to stand.
Dagnar circled the altar. Darting from one pillar to the next under the cover of shadow until he was mere feet away from Asparion. There was no chance he could get close enough by running head first so instead he had to track him like a deer. Dagnar stayed low, crossing the stone floor with shushed footsteps and staying to the shadow as much as he could, wishing he had a bow.
Asparion crossed the room with measured steps, ‘Stay down. There’s no point fighting a fight you can only lose. Die with dignity, Alaea, and perhaps the master will remember you fondly.’
‘Hell take you,’ Alaea found her feet and dashed for the sorcerer, her dirk in both hands and out in front.
Asparion threw another matter-less spell but Alaea ducked left as her hair was caught in a rippling breeze. She was three feet away from the mage when a crackle of lightning zapped her. Her body glowed, her bones sparking underneath her skin bright enough that Dagnar could see them. She fell, a spider’s web of black scars across her entire body. Her clothes were little more than charred thread and she lay, still, on the cold stone. ‘Foolish girl,’ he lorded over the woman.
The acrid smell of burnt flesh reached Dagnar’s nostrils but he could not stop, could not consider. He raced out from behind a pillar, his feet silent upon the stone, and launched himself at Asparion. The sorcerer turned at the last moment but it was too late. Dagnar speared Asparion’s side, the sword slipping between his ribs and smashing out his other side in a shower of blood and bone. Asparion flinched into a rigid puppet, his mouth agape, eyes white and wide, as he struggled to move. He staggered side ways trying to gather the energies about him but his own gasping prevented him. Asparion fell to his knees, swayed for a moment, and collapsed, dead.
Dagnar left the sword in the mage and knelt at Alaea’s side. He gathered her into his arms, her skin dry and cracked from the lightning. She coughed, her eyes peeling open with considerable effort. Dagnar was taken aback but held his tongue lest he said something foolish. ‘Can you stand?’
‘I think so,’ Alaea her lustful voice reduced to a dusty croak. ‘I feel broken, as if every bone in me has been snapped and rejoined.’
‘You look worse.’
‘Thanks,’ she coughed, or perhaps laughed, Dagnar wasn’t sure. ‘Marazoth will have retreated to his lair. I got him you know, I stabbed him through the kidney. Even a mage has to rest from such a wound.’
‘Where is this lair?’
‘Take me to a doctor and I will tell you, better yet I will give you a map.’
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