7 – The Curse Breaks Free

The open door revealed not another passage, but an opening out into the dark, though whether chamber or cavern could not be readily told.  The floor beyond was thick with ice, having banked up against the door.  Small, broken shards of ice, broken off during Peregrine’s push, lay strewn over the floor.  Blade summoned down the orb of light from the roof above and sent it drifting through the doorway, into the darkness.  As it drove the dark back, they got a sense of what lay beyond.

No chamber carved by the hands of man lay there, but a naturally formed cave, deep beneath the hill.  The floor and walls, from what they could see, were all uneven, with stalagmites and stalactites protruding in abundance, a veritable forest of them.  Curtains of stone, wavering as if caught mid breeze, and delicate stone lacework clung to parts of the cave, in a wide hue of colours, of greys and reds, oranges, browns and even purples.  The whole of it had been reduced to a wintery wonderland by the overlay of the cold and ice.

Faint mists hovered in the air, highlighted by the bronzed light of the orb.  To the right of the entrance, they could see the cave slope away downwards.  There, at the lowest point, water had gathered into a pool, now frozen solid.  An island stood in the centre of the ice pool, the seat of a mighty stone pillar that had formed as stalagmite and stalactite had met and merged, crated and sculptured by the actions of the earth, so as to appear like a tower, with layer upon layer of arched windows upon it.

The light cast forth from the orb could not touch all parts of the cave, for it continued on into the darkness, unexplored, for how much further they could not tell from where they stood.

Barely had they taken all of that in then, from out of the cavern, coming through the door, there erupted a blast of cold air, an exhalation of types, as if the cavern itself was alive.  It washed over them, dark and chill, and sent tremors running through their bodies, down their spines, as it buffeted them.  No natural wind was it, as it touched not just their bodies, but their minds and spirits as well, gnawing at them with doubt, and with hints of death.  They could feel the wrongness of it, and it projected to them the feeling of standing on the edge of a great precipice, looking down over an endless abyss filled with stars, one that threatened to reach up and drag them down into it, there to swallow them.

Then the wind was gone.

The two exchanged glances.  No words needed to be spoken.  A challenge had been cast down before them, one they had no intent to ignore.  Peregrine stepped through first, with Blade right behind.  The door they left open behind them, in case of the need to facilitate a hasty exit.

Beware.

The word came to them not in a spoken form, but reached right into their minds to be planted there.  Soft, barely heard, it seemed to come from a great distance, echoing silently.

Peregrine let vent a growl, the short sword she had taken from the corpse coming clear in an instant.  She dropped down into a crouch, spinning about, her eyes ablaze as they sought out the source of the word, yet none could be seen.  No Aedring stood for intrusions into their mind, for they valued their independence highly, and considered their thoughts and emotions the bastions of their freedom.

Beware.

The voice sounded once more, a fading word little more than a whisper that lingered for but a moment.

“Beware of what?” Peregrine called out.  No answer came in response.

“Most enigmatic,” Blade noted.

“I do not like it,” scowled Peregrine.  “There is no need for warning.  I am always wary.  If it wanted to help, it could have offered better advice than that.  Let’s push on.  I mean to put an end to this.”

A path seemed to lead away from the doorway into the cave, the stone floor worn smooth by the passage of feet before the ice had come to coat it.  It headed down the slope towards the frozen pond.  By unspoken agreement they followed it, the only sign of any activity in the cave beyond the natural works of the earth.  Slowly they made their way down so as to avoid slipping on the icy floor.  As they reached the edge of the pool, they could see dark, still shapes near the surface of the ice, fish that had been caught up in the freeze, unable to escape.  Beyond the stone pillar, they could see a frozen waterfall tumbling down the far wall, into the pool, now a veil of long icicles.

“Curious,” Blade commented after inspecting some of the fish encased in the solid ice.  “It would seem that the freeze came most sudden, to trap the fish near the surface like so.”

“Unnatural, that is what it is,” Peregrine said, ill at ease with the thought.  “This place does not smell right.”

Though his skill with magic was of a limited nature, Blade nevertheless could sense the presence of when it had been used.  Here though, no such residue existed, at least of the kind he knew.  “It is not magic,” he told Peregrine.  “Not as practised by man.  If some force is at work here, it is alien to me.”

“Zoacanan then?” Peregrine asked, referring to the long dead race of dark sorcerers who had ruled over primitive man at the dawn of the world.

Blade shook his head slowly.  “No, it is not them either.  We have had dealings enough with them for me to have a feel for their magic.”

Peregrine grunted unhappily at the thought and continued on along the path.  It followed around the pool before rising again, over a crest that formed the northern bank of the pool, through a narrow opening between two curtains of stone that had formed over long ages, striated with a variety of earthy colours, the most predominant of them being a deep red.  The orb that floated on ahead of them set the curtains to shimmer beneath their shroud of ice.

Clambering up to the top of the rise, taking great care due to the slippery nature of the ice beneath their feet, they saw another chamber open out before them, colder yet than anywhere else, a cold that sapped the strength from their bones.  The mists there lingered thicker, while the whole of it had a dense sheet of ice covering all surfaces.  There, right at the heart of the chamber, was the coldest place of all, the air shimmering with an unearthly chill, one that radiated outwards, and one lit from within by a pale, white light.

A mass arose from the centre of that chill, larger by far than either of them.  It had the shape of a man, but beyond that remained featureless, a nebulous mass of mists and cold air, ranging in hues from the deepest blues through to palest white.  The air appeared to bend around it, twisting the perspective to make it the focus of all things.  From it, tendrils of cloudy air stretched forth, out to the walls, the floor and the ceiling, there to attach themselves, giving the impression of ethereal chains that anchored the form to the spot.

Its head swivelled about and eyes of the deepest black, devoid of all light, focused upon the pair.

“Far too long has it been since fools have dared set foot into my presence.”

The voice came from the mass of air and mists, deep and ancient, devoid of any concepts of pity and mercy.  They reeled back under the impact of the voice as stars wheeled through their minds, before plunging into darkness so profound and distant that it made the creature’s eyes seem to pale in comparison, tumbling over and over through it.

“So the pygmies send yet more dupes to realise their futile designs.  Your fate shall be as all others who have come before you.”

Peregrine shook her head, trying to clear the lingering effects of the words that battered at her.  “Who are you?” she growled, her blood up, stirred by the fear of such an unnatural thing as stood before her.  Part of her froze, uncertain as to how to react, and it warred with the fierceness of her Aedring heritage that knew only one response to fears and danger, even of a thing so obviously of a supernatural origin.

Laughter echoed through the cavern, laughter that contained the echoes of ages, seemingly to come from all places, all times, focused in on the here and now, and upon them, so that it bored into them with a mocking menace that made them feel small, insignificant, unworthy of having even contemplated the question in the first place.  Peregrine’s hand tightened about the hilt of her sword and her tanned features paled as she fought against the compulsion to fall down before the creature.  Blade’s knees trembled and started to bend before he caught a hold of himself.

“Who am I?  Who am I?”  The voice boomed out and an icicle that hung suspended from the roof above swayed and groaned in response.  “You come before me and ask me that, you who could not even begin to comprehend what I am?  I have seen your world come into being and I have seen it end, unhindered by your petty concepts of causality.  I saw waves wash away an empire that ruled a world through fear and blood, even before they had made their first steps from primordial origins as a primitive people.  I have seen your insignificant race from its birth to its death, all at once.”

The words meant little to Peregrine, beyond a boasting of prowess, a fact she was well acquainted with.  For Blade, though, who had studied many esoteric matters, they did answer some questions.

“You are Igliq-Nuuaki, the Heart of Forever.”

“A mere name.  Those who gave it to me can not fathom my true existence, and so grasp for meaning with their pitiful, inadequate words.  I am beyond them.”

“Trapped is what you are,” Peregrine stated defiantly.

A roar shook the cavern in outrage, sending icicles to fall round them, shattering as they smashed into the ground.

“It is but temporary, as are all things to me.  I shall have my freedom again, and when I do, those who bound me here shall suffer as only I can cause them to suffer, from the moment of their birth to the moment of their death, a perpetual, eternal agony.

“Fascinating,” Blade mused, his intrigue as to events outweighing his fears.  “You are now bound to the flow of time as are we, and bound by fate as well.  Meryti-Senefer played her part in this too, I should not wonder.”

“Long have I contemplated the torments that I shall unleash upon her, the horrors she shall be plagued with beyond compare.  A curse I was upon Metsheput and I revelled in their pain and misery, as I shall do again.  Yet she faced me down, knowing that I would be drawn to the purity of her soul, like a moth is to a flame, and thus I fell into a trap that should not have been, could not have been, for all things I foresee.  That cursed wizard had prepared her so that she drew me to her, and then he shackled me, drawing my essence from all places and times into the one.  Much I raged, seeking to break free, and in time I would have done so, but here they brought me and here they entombed her, guarded for all time, and I was trapped in the dark places along with her.  Still I have some spark of my power, and her bloodline remains cursed to this day and always because of me.  Even my eyes have been bound by those base creatures that tend my prison, ensnaring them in stone so that I remain blind but to that which they allow me to see.”

“You talk much for one trapped and irrelevant,” Peregrine boldly told the creature.

Another roar was let vent in response, livid fury flowing through it, whipping up shards of ice from the ground to send them flinging ahead of the blast, to clatter against them.  One nicked a gash across Peregrine’s cheek, drawing a trickle of blood.

“You dare mock me?” the voice boomed. “You dare?  Trapped I may be, but not entirely irrelevant, nor powerless as you shall see.  Behold my wrath!”

The floor of the chamber about them began to shake, accompanied by the long, low groaning of ice under great stress.  Cracks began to emerge and snake across the surface of the ice, shattering into chunks.  From beneath, rusty weapons forced their way up, grasped by skeletal hands.  Skeletal warriors emerged from the holes, their bones frozen, encased in ice.

Blade let forth a melancholy sigh at the turn of events. “You had to goad the abomination,” he said aside to Peregrine in quiet tones.

Peregrine responded with a short laugh, full of mad mirth.  Her short sword stood at the ready to meet the new threat.  “We need to know what we are dealing with,” she replied.  “This creature thinks far too highly of itself, and is easy to provoke into anger.  Angry opponents are prone to make mistakes.”

“A risky proposal.”

Peregrine grinned broadly, but no more could be said for the first of the frozen undead had reached them, hacking away methodically though unimaginatively with their fragile, rusty blades, ones held together more with ice than anything.  Peregrine reacted in the only manner that she knew, by taking the attack to them.  Even as she blocked one swinging blow with an upraised sword, she slammed her boot into the leg of the skeleton responsible.  The knee shattered under the impact and the creature toppled over, its leg useless.  Another strike came whistling in, but this she ducked under with the speed of a striking serpent.  She surged upwards again as the blade slashed over her head, driving her sword up and through the neck of the one that had swung, twisting the blade after it had driven home.  The skull broke clean off, bouncing away across the ice while the rest of the body fell apart and tumbled to the ground.

The skeletal warrior whose leg Peregrine had kicked off still fought on, grabbing at her ankle with an icy grip.  Where it touched, a film of frost began to form, spreading outwards from its frozen fingers.  Growling, Peregrine stomped down with all her might on the arm with her other boot, snapping it off.  A second stomp demolished the skull.  Yet even in destruction the hand remained affixed and the icy touch still spread its deathly chill.

As Peregrine stooped to extricate herself from the clinging grasp, Blade moved forward to defend her from more of the advancing creatures, the only sound they made the click of feet on ice.  His rapier swiftly parried aside a clumsy blow and then he was riposting, running his frozen opponent through, there to lodge stuck.  The strike had less effect than he had hoped, for the icy foe showed no response to it and launched another ungainly strike.  Blade had no choice but to release his grip on the rapier and duck back, only just in time, the very tip of the sword scraping against his coat.

With the rapier still lodged firm in its body, the skeletal warrior pressed on, chopping at Blade mechanically, blows that he easily dodged aside from, though each time he was forced to retreat further back.  All he had to hand was the carved leg bone.  Loathe he was to use it for fear of damaging it as it appeared most fragile compared to the solid mass of ice and animated bone that faced him.  A measure of last, desperate resort came to him, and he slung his pack down from his shoulder.  Whirling it through the air, he slammed it into the skeleton opposing him.  The heavy weight of the pack sent it stumbling away though it did not defeat it.  It righted itself and came on again with its remorseless advance.

Suddenly a ferocious blow came from behind it, cleaving its head from its body.  The creature fell, to reveal Peregrine behind it, sword in hand.

“Ware behind!” Blade called out in warning.  More of the shambling creatures were advancing on them, and beyond that others still clambered forth out of cracks in the sheets of ice.

“Mayhap the taunting was not the best of ideas,” Peregrine admitted, before laughing, her blood afire with the clash of blades and contest of arms.  Swirling her sword about in her hand, she advanced on the skeletons, hacking down one before the sluggish creature could react.  Blade reached down and recovered his rapier from the unmoving form that Peregrine had dispatched.

Shoulder charging another one aside, Peregrine burst through the line of advancing skeletons, to fall upon those still trying to extricate themselves from the ice.  In such a perilous position, they were easy prey for destruction.

“Your minions leave much to be desired, vermin!” she called out loudly, shattering a skull with a well placed boot.

The scream of rage that followed deafened any that had come before, the creature of mists and cold thrashing against the bonds that held it tight.  The sound and movement sent tremors rumbling and skeletons toppling as they misplaced their steps.  Blade went down as well, and only by bracing herself against a frozen wall did Peregrine manage to retain her footing.

“I will destroy you!  Your misery shall be stretched through the aeons, yay, even from the beginning of time until its very end!  I will feed on your anguish and rejoice in it!  None shall suffer as you have suffered!”

Regaining her balance, Peregrine responded with a derisive laugh, her eyes blazing with the wildness that surged through her blood.  “You would not know how many times I have heard that threat before.”  Her sword struck down with tremendous force on a prone skeleton, cleaving its skull in twain.

Another roar shattered the air, volcanic in its fury.  The frozen skeletons, trying to pick themselves up with clumsy, ungainly motions, suddenly halted in their actions and began to crumble into dust and flakes of ice, falling to the ground in piles.  Within the swirling cold that formed its prison, the creature strained and raged, thrashing about as if in great pain, bellowing curses and vociferations as it tried to break free.  Well had that prison been designed, yet the forces arrayed against it were colossal, driven by a rage that could blot stars from the skies, and fuelled by a hatred that would wither worlds beneath its gaze.  Slowly, ever slowly, it began to force its way out of the energies that wrapped around.  To do so required the expenditure of much of its malice and might, so that what emerged was but a shadow of the true power that it could bring to bear, and one that could walk the world but a little while.  That, though, would do to crush those that mocked it.  They would suffer exquisite agonies before the bonds of its prison snapped back in force and dragged it back into the vessel that held it, leaving it to sink once more down and rage impotent against its captors.

“Now you have done it,” Blade murmured.  The sheer presence of the beast as it made its escape washed over him, overwhelming in its intensity, making a large part of him want to cower, or to run, while the rest of him remained frozen to the spot with indecision.

The fragments of the broken skeletons on the ground began to shake and tremble before they slowly rose up into the air.  They were drawn through the air towards the creature, streaming towards it in long streamers of ice and bone.  As they collided with the nebulous mass, they started to give it shape and form.  No longer was it a creature of mists and cold air, but now one of part ice, part bone and one that reminded them of the face that had leered at them from the black iron door.

“Pitiful whelps,” it snarled, stretching forth arms longer than they stood tall.  “There are times, brief as they are, when my prison weakens enough that I can stretch out my influence into your world.  Learn now what happens to those who bring my wrath down upon them.”  He slashed through the air with an arm, one tipped with claws of ice so white that they steamed, freezing the air as they passed by.

“That is what the message meant,” Blade exclaimed of a sudden, his mind overcoming the fear that rested upon it as thoughts rushed over in it.  “The opening that the message referred to, it meant the times in which this creature is able to break free of its bonds.”

“Now is not the time for your pursuits and observations,” Peregrine told him, taking a position between Blade and the creature, facing down the ice beast with steely determination ringing in her eyes.  “You can do all that after.”

“I think you miss the point,” Blade responded, his usual somnolent disposition not able to contain his unexpected excitement.  “This beast, it is as bound to fate and time as much as we are now thanks to the trap it finds itself in.  More, in this moment and place, it is free from its chains, able to assume a corporeal form for a time.”

“You mean to say we can kill it?” Peregrine asked, casting a dubious look across the beast.  Fully free, and fully formed, it began its advance towards them, the ground shaking with each step it made.

“Yes.  The question is how.”

The Song.

The words that came into their minds were distant and soft, yet clear in their clarity.

Blade had barely a moment to ponder the words.  His exact recollections of the Song of Nakhataway remained sketchy and from what he could recall of it there were no mentions within it of how to defeat the beast.  Nor had it specified the methods by which Nakhataway had ensnared it to begin with.  The Song provided no aid, and yet that was what the words that came to them had said.

The beast roared and leapt from where it stood, straight at Peregrine.  Its claws tore the air as it swung, leaving rents that bled cold beyond that of any mortal realm, so deep that it would freeze a body solid in but a fragment of a moment.  Only narrowly did Peregrine dive aside from the scything claws, rolling aside across the ground, yet even in so doing she struck out with her sword.  It glanced across the beast’s wrist, shaving off a few flakes of ice and bone, yet seemingly it hindered it not at all.  Quickly she rolled back to her feet, crouched low with her sword held before her, ready to meet any attack.  The knowledge that the fight could end but one way stood stark before her.  Despite giving it her best strike, one that would have severed a man’s hand from his wrist, she had barely marked it, while from the evidence of its swinging claws, it would take but one strike against her to end the battle.  Even so it was not in her nature to surrender.  Until her last breath she would battle with all the ferocity of her fiery soul, striving to slay her foe.

The beast slashed once more, its claws raking across the ground where but moments before Peregrine had stood.  Huge gouges were torn out of the ice.  Peregrine let vent a thunderous war shout as she stabbed with all her might at the arm.  The blade penetrated perhaps half of its length into the beast’s arm, and there it lodged.  Before she could attempt to pull it clear, a glacial freeze took hold, running along the sword, creeping up to its hilt.  Peregrine released her grip on the sword before the same freeze could take hold of her.  She backed away, unarmed but for the broken sword at her side, yet still determined to resist.

Blade started to make his way around the fight, to come at the beast from the far side in an effort to lend what aid he could.  He had seen the futility of Peregrine’s attacks, and knew that his own sword would do little more than provide an irritating sting, yet he could see no other options before them.  Always before they had managed to survive through brains or brawn, or both, but here they faced a foe neither could defeat.  Nor was fleeing an option, not with what faced them.

The Song.

The words came to him more strident this time, with an edge of desperate pleading to them.  He felt a faint tremor shaking his hand, and looking down he could see the carved leg bone he still clutched in his hand vibrating.  As he watched on, he beheld the surface of is sloughing away, revealing a line of three small holes at one end, and a larger one at the other, as some form of subtle concealment fell away, one that he had not realised had been present, even for all the time that he had held it and studied it.

It had become a pipe, a musical instrument that he had a little understanding of playing, though one that he had not done for many a year, not since the days of his youth.  The concealment could only have been so that it could be brought to that place, undetected until the time came for it to be unveiled, and used, he suspected.  Yet the why and what for still eluded him.

Peregrine scarcely dove aside to avoid another glacial strike, all of her focus narrowed in on avoiding the blows.  Even her boundless vitality was put to the test by the energy sapping cold that surrounded the creature, making her feel lethargic, her limbs heavy with fatigue.  Sooner or later the claws would connect, rending her flesh from her bone, and worse, reducing her to but a frozen statue.  Her style was always one of offence, not defence, and not being able to strike back maddened her.

Blade, watching his friend and companion rolling aside from the blows, realised that their choices were limited.  They could not defeat the creature physically, and his limited mastery of magic was of little use.  Only the pipe remained, even if he did not know what the Song was.

First sheathing his rapier, he then raised the pipe to his lips as his fingers assumed position along it, hovering over the holes.  Taking a breath, he tested it out, simply intending to get a feel for the sound it made.  The sound that emerged was unlike anything that he had expected, being as delicate as fine crystal, with a piercing clarity that defied the origins from whence it came, sending the heart to soar.  The beast paused in its stalking of Peregrine, lifting its head to listen to the sound that rang clear through the chamber.  Its icy tongue flickered out of its mouth, almost tasting the air and the music.  Ponderously it turned about to stare at Blade, the deep black of its eyes staring at the man as he played on.

“Music?” it sneered.  “Has your mind broken at the prospect of your impending doom so much that you think music can defeat me?  No, that is not it.  What are you playing at, worm?”

A soft chime of laughter echoed through the chamber, its source unknown.  While the laugh of a woman, it came not from Peregrine.

Long has this day been coming, Nazaara, long its planning.  Could you, who claim foresight, not have foreseen this?

The beast clenched a fist and hammered at the wall of the cavern with it.  “Meryti-Senefer,” it snarled.  “Cursed be your name for all time.  You think that these insignificant gnats have what it takes to defeat me?”

No words came in answer.

“Answer me!” Nazaara bellowed, slamming at the wall again.  A large slab of ice detached under the blow, falling to the ground to splinter into jagged shards.

As Nazaara raged, Blade felt a peculiar sense of warmth wash over him, warmth that flowed through his body, driving out the chill that lingered heavy in the chamber.  His fingers twitched of their own accord and he began to play the pipes, his actions no longer entirely of his control.  The song that went forth was a lilting, melancholy tune that echoed and soared, filling the chamber with its magnificence.  Never before had he heard music of its like, and though he played it, he knew not whence it came.  Never again, he knew, would he play something so heart achingly beautiful, music that caused tears to flow from his eyes and down his cheeks, even as he played, to tumble to the ground where they froze.  Yet still he played on, unable to, unwilling to, resist the call of the song.

Nazaara began to lurch towards him in response, prowling across the ice.  Blade slowly started to back away but could not break the grip from the pipe and the tune that he played, throwing it into the face of the beast.

Behind Nazaara, forgotten with the emergence of the song, Peregrine drew her broken sword sheathed at her side, in an effort to distract the beast from Blade.  Her cheeks glistened moist from the haunting tune that he played, and though she knew not its purpose, its importance was obvious and it had to be allowed to reach its end.  For that the beast needed to be distracted and kept away from Blade.  Swiftly she ran forward across the ice, both hands grasping tight the hilt of the sword.  As she reached Nazaara, she bellowed from deep in her lungs and stabbed with all the strength of her iron thews, propelled by her wild Aedring blood.  The broken blade drove deep, all the way to the hilt, into the back of Nazaara’s leg and there it stuck.  Peregrine leapt back as Nazaara howled in outrage and span, pounding at the ground where she had stood.

Then, all abrupt, the music came to a halt, though the echoes of it lingered in the air, the ripples of them playing on.

On to Chapter Eight – The Khondoka Resolute