4 – The Scroll of Haryxis

Peregrine set the bulk of her armoured shoulder against the trapdoor, bracing her legs. With a heave, she forced up against it and it flew open, no bolt having barred it. Blade darted through the opening even before the heavy trapdoor clanged to the ground, his rapier at the ready. Peregrine scrambled up after him, heavy broadsword in hand.

The room above the trapdoor, at the zenith of the tower, was unlike any of those that they had passed through during their climb towards it, being both clean and orderly. A small hearth set into the wall contained a crackling fire, though it appeared not to be devouring the wood fuel upon which it danced, or giving off smoke. Shelves of scrolls and tomes rimmed the wall, while a table dominated the centre of the room, set with a wide assortment of paraphernalia, of vials and flasks, crystals and herbs, and more besides, some of which they could not even hazard a guess to its origin or purpose. A thick emerald green carpet blanketed the floor, and tapestries hung from the walls, not a one of them touched by decay.

A tall backed chair stood before the fireplace, facing for the most part away from them, and in it a person sat, one wearing a cowled robe of deep green, almost to black, with mystic sigils of red thread sewn into collar, cuffs and hem.

A voice emanated from the seated person, and about it there existed a curious lack of emotion, neither excitement nor worry, nor anything that lay between. A deadness existed about the voice of the man, a hollow, sepulchre sound that could not but cause chills to any upon hearing it.

“It has been many a long while since last visitors made their way into my chambers.”

Peregrine was the one to answer, defiance in her voice. “If the reception had not been so hostile, then mayhap you would not have had that worry.”

“There were reasons profound behind it,” the man replied, “Amongst the foremost being the desire to deter the idly curious. You, however, appear to be beyond the merely curious. Why is that, I wonder? You avoided the traps and wards, which suggests a certain cunning and awareness. You even dealt with the guards, reinforced over the years by those less audacious than you. Should an intruder fall, then they would return to help guard against the next.”

“Black sorcery,” Peregrine snarled, tensing up. Here sat the one responsible for the deathless guards that they had battled.

The seated man arose slowly to his feet. “Perhaps, but that is because of the way I have been made.”

He turned to face them, and they almost recoiled in horror at his countenance, for no longer could he be called a man, or more accurately, no longer was he a man. Instead there stood revealed a thing long dead, kept alive by the power of sheer will, and of magic dark. His desiccated flesh had been pulled gaunt about his body, the skin dried out to the consistency of leather. About his hollowed out eyes, an unnatural fire burned within. Yet for all his frightful appearance, he simply stood, making no movements towards them, nor threatening actions of any kind.

“I mean you no ill will,” he told them, “Yet you have come, I suspect, as have many others over the long years of my existence, at the bidding of my brother to seek out the scroll that he so desires with a deep and desperate need.”

“Your brother?” Blade inquired, a brow arching marginally. He kept his rapier raised, the tip pointed towards the robed man.

“Aye, my brother. It was he that cursed the both of us to this unnatural life, so long ago that it is almost forgotten, the result of his foolish desire for power. Now he remains trapped within a dead body, as do I, yet his desires remain unfulfilled. Power is all that he craves. You have the key upon you, I presume?”

“We do,” Blade confirmed.

“Then come and see for yourselves just what it is that you have strived for, and then, perhaps, you can judge what best needs to be done.”

The deathless man took hold of a dark velvet cover draped across a squat object beside his chair and threw it back, revealing beneath it a solid chest, one of mahogany that had been bound with bands of red gold, all secured by a heavy lock. He stepped out of the way, motioning for the pair to approach. Peregrine kept a guarded eye upon him, her sword never wavering from covering him should he make an unexpected move. Blade took the key that they had been given and slotted it into the lock, giving it a twist. No reaction followed, not even a sound.

“Patience,” the undead man told them after Blade looked across at him.

A wait of long drawn out seconds followed, of bated expectance, answered at last when a series of faint clicks began to emanate from the lock. The key rotated twice within the lock on its own accord, culminating in a final snap that saw the lock fall open. Blade took a hold of the lid of the chest, ready to open it, but Peregrine was quick to lay a hand of warning on his arm.

“Is that wise?” she asked, her eyes never having left the ghastly visage of the man across from them.

“There is no trap there,” the man reassured them.

“After all that I have seen and experienced of this place, you will forgive me if I find that a little hard to accept,” Peregrine replied.

A quiet, dead chuckle sounded from the sorcerer. “Sceptical still I see, yet wise in the circumstance. If you will allow me, I shall show you that there is indeed no harm.”

As Peregrine and Blade backed away in precaution, the man stepped forward. Grasping the lid with bony hands, he lifted it up. Sparkling, frozen fire greeted their eyes, as piles of gems beyond count and imagining caught the light and reflected it back in a dozen vibrant, iridescent colours; diamonds and sapphires and rubies, emeralds and opals and amethysts filled it to near overflowing. Some lay rough cut, others polished to an intense brilliance, or were strung out on chains of silver and gold, while yet others were set in bracelets or rings or circlets. Seated upon them at the top of the chest was an aged, yellowed scroll, sealed with red wax into which was imprinted the seal of a stag.

The sorcerer lifted the scroll from out of the chest and, with a withered hand, held it out towards them. “The Scroll of Haryxis,” he announced in sepulchre tones.

A brow twitched on Blade’s long face as he accepted the scroll. “Haryxis is but a myth.”

Haryxis; spoken of in hushed tones, of a man who had mastered the Mysteries, who walked in realms not meant for the ken of man, yet for all that he was merely a myth that had grown more elaborate with each retelling over the generations, or so Blade believed.

“Yes, that is what they say.”

Blade snapped the seal from the scroll and started to unroll it, slowly reading what it contained as he went. “Fascinating.”

“What is it?” Peregrine asked. Her guarded caution had not yet abated, and she remained wary still.

“Arcane equations, spell patterns, the formulas and fabric of magic, much of which is beyond my meagre understanding, and yet the overall structure of what it forms is apparent to one even as limited as myself, even if I could not replicate it.”

“So?” Peregrine asked, much impatient. She did not much concern herself with the nature of magic, that being the pursuit of soft city dwellers who never had to strive a day in their life to survive the harsh wilds.

“The scrolls is both a blessing and a curse for our erstwhile employer,” Blade explained, “For it contains the key to unravelling the arcane energies that sustain him, yet if he were able to get his hands upon it, it is also the means by which he could become nigh unstoppable. That can not be allowed.”

“Long have I guarded it,” the deathless sorcerer told them, “So as to prevent my brother coming into possession of it, yet much as I would wish to have used it upon him to bring him to an end, I could not risk the chance, for in doing so it may have fallen into his avaricious grasp.”

“It is too late for that, brother,” a cold voice said, the last words spoken with bile filled loathing. A figure rose up through the trapdoor into the room, clad in cloak and hood and veil. Behind him spilled a number of soldiers in black mail shirts, their swords drawn.

The sorcerer hissed, snatching the scroll back from Blade’s hands.

“This time I come to end it myself,” the veiled one said. “These dupes have cleared the way for me, for which I thank them, and now I will claim that which for far too long you have denied me.”

“I shall never allow it,” the sorcerer responded resolutely. “I will destroy the scroll before allowing you to claim it, brother.”

“Then you shall die,” came the snarled reply. The veiled man raised his hands, and from them bursts of dark flame snaked forth, lashing at the sorcerer. Coruscating blossoms of colour danced and rippled around the sorcerer, his robes smoking, as he struggled to hold back the flames.

Instincts kicked in as Peregrine responded with a sudden, unexpected explosion of channelled violence, launched upon the veiled man, so startling in its fury that none had a chance to react to it, let alone prevent it. The affairs of wizards and sorcerers were beyond her concern, and for all she cared the pair could have utterly destroyed each other, yet Blade she trusted, and his belief that the veiled one could not be allowed to capture the scroll resonated strong in her.

Her sword slashed bright through the air, biting deep into the veiled man’s side. No blood flowed from the wound, nor cry of pain sounded, though the magic that he unleashed upon the sorcerer faltered as his concentration was disrupted. His head turned to look down at the sword lodged in his side. A punch slammed into Peregrine, the force of which sent her sprawling backwards, ripping the sword from out of even her iron grip.

The soldiers who had accompanied the veiled man moved in on her as she lay upon the carpet. Blade leapt into their path, shouldering one aside, buying time for Peregrine to pick herself back up. Her short sword rasped from its scabbard as she sprung lightly back up, stabbing at the man Blade’s mad leap had knocked off balance. The blade drove deep, and she screamed as she wrenched it free, spilling forth bright blood.

Searing flashes of light and thunderous detonations erupted as the two lifeless brothers clashed, unleashing their sorcerous powers upon the other, though Peregrine and Blade could spare no thought for that fight, caught up as they were with their own struggles. A buffeting blast swept through the room like the fierce winds of a howling gale, knocking any objects lying loose around and tossing those locked in combat sideways.

Peregrine was the swiftest to recover, surging back to her feet with the vitality of a lioness. She stabbed down at one of the soldiers as he sought to scramble back up from the ground, wrenched his sword from his dying grasp with her free hand, and leapt at the next. The stolen blade sung like a vengeful harpy and a crimson spray splattered across the room.

The twin blades whirled in a deadly, elegant dance of violence, ripping through defences as if they were not there, Peregrine’s Aedring blood singing in her veins with the glories of combat, while the battle chants of her people sounded loud. The last of the soldiers soon fell and Peregrine, blood drenched, turned back to the true fight, her blades dripping with the spilt blood.

The two brothers had battered each other in their fury, their robes tattered and desiccated flesh torn asunder, their attention locked firmly only upon their rival. Peregrine came swooping in, slashing with both of her blades across the back of the veiled man’s legs.

He shouted as his legs gave out though it was in no way a cry of pain, but instead of rage and anger. Peregrine’s swords swung again and again in violent savage butchery, rising and falling with dreadful resolve, each blow one that would have felled a mortal soul, yet the one she faced could not be counted as one.

The veiled man struggled against the strikes, trying to ward off the punishment inflicted upon him. Little could be done by him to stop it. At last Peregrine stepped back, breathing hard and her eyes ablaze, leaving behind a dismembered body. Despite that it still lived, the head spitting forth threats and curses, searing the air with the intensity of them, and the hands crawling across the floor, dragging themselves forward by the fingers.

Peregrine picked up the velvet cover that had lain across the chest from where it had been tossed aside and cast it over the head, so that the words came to them muffled.

The sorcerer sank back down into his chair, his form in little better condition than that of his brother’s.

“I have one last task for you,” he announced in a voice laden with weariness. “You must take up the scroll and use it, to undo what was done long ago and bring it to an end.”

“That will end you as well,” Blade pointed out.

“Release after all these years will come as a welcome relief. There exists no joy in this existence, only a long weariness. It may well be that this is the only time the scroll and my brother will be in such close proximity as well. We should not pass up this opportunity.”

Blade nodded and recovered the scroll from where it had fallen during the battle, blood stained from having rolled through a pool of the crimson liquid. Unrolling it, he began to chant out the formulae that were written within, the sound strident, almost triumphant, like the clear clarion call of a trumpet. A glow started to shimmer in the air, and a low hum could be heard, like a buzz right at the edge of hearing. When the final words were sung out, the light burst outwards, sweeping through Peregrine and Blade with no ill effect. The same could not be said for the two brothers.

The sorcerer in his chair began to crumble away at the touch of the light, dissolving into dust. At the last moment there appeared across his face a content smile, and then he was gone, as were the parts of his brother that had been scattered across the floor of the chamber.

A low groaning commenced from the walls of the tower, and it began to shift as if stuck by a tremor of the earth, swaying and shaking. Cracks started to radiate outwards across the stonework of the walls and ceiling.

“The magic that has for so long supported this place is failing,” Blade yelled out. “We must flee now!”

The pair began to run without a moment’s hesitation, the chest of riches ignored, scrambling down the stairs of the tower with such haste that they almost fell, but at last they reached the safety of the lowest floor of the tower as it continued to shudder in its death throes. Bursting through the now open door back out into the sunlit overgrown garden, they were just in time. With a resounding rumble, the tower started to collapse in on itself, stones falling away from the walls. The whole edifice came crashing down in a tangled pile of rubble, of billowing dust and splintered shards.

Blade looked forlornly upon the pile once the dust had begun to settle, the great tower that for centuries had stood untouched now gone.

“There is a fortune in there, somewhere,” he said.

“And there, I fear, it will remain,” Peregrine told him. “It is buried well, and I would not trust that the whole thing would not come crashing down on us if we dug into it to try and recover it.”

“And here we are, destitute once more,” Blade sighed languidly.

Peregrine laughed loudly, giving him a solid slap upon the back. “Come, let us return to Qaiqala. Something will turn up. It always does.”

The End