Page 13

Talysse

“ T

alysse, wake up!”

A rough shake forces my eyes open. The first thing I see is the moon hanging low in the sky like a ripe fruit.

Gale’s face slowly drifts into focus. His dark brows are locked with worry, and loose curls stick to his sweaty brow. He looks exhausted.

My muscles ache, but I’m alive. How, in the name of the Elders, did I survive this? The memory of the fall and the blackness choking my senses hits me, and I nearly vomit.

“What—what happened?” I mumble, wiggling my fingers and toes. Nothing is broken. “How did I make it here? Alive?”

Gale’s almond-shaped eyes lock onto mine as if considering something. “Thank the Elders, the drop was not too deep. And you landed...on me. All I did was carry you to safety. Can you walk?” he says after a brief hesitation.

Nothing comes for free in this dark, cursed world, yet there is no sign of calculation or ill intent on his handsome face.

“We need to get moving. They’ll catch up at any moment.”

No need to ask who they are.

He slings an arm around my waist and pulls me up. We’re on an empty alley leading to the white mansion glowing with old magic like a beacon in the night.

Questions and doubts about my miraculous salvation crowd my mind, but I know that we need to get going. And it seems we both agree on the direction.

The mansion looks nearly intact from the outside but groans under the centuries, its walls cracked, and ceilings sagging from the inside. It is the smell that alerts me that something is not right. Dust motes dance in the beams of moonlight that drip through the broken windows. The air is thick with the stench of rot and decay, laced with malevolent magic.

The entrance opens up to a wide hall framed with balconies. The checkered floor tiles are adorned with mosaics of unseen wildlife and plants. What’s disturbing are the dark stains on them—some old, some still crimson-colored. Blood had been spilled here. The walls behind the tattered tapestries are covered with writings by a shaky hand, repeating the same sentences over and over again.

the eagle flies

the wolf’s keen cry

And the words dawn and moon scribbled chaotically by fingers that seemed to have forgotten how to write.

“Look at these words! I can recognize the words wolf, eagle, moon…moon’s embrace? And this looks like dawn,” he remarks, studying them up close. “Written in blood, no less. Why would someone so obsessively write this on the walls?”

“It looks as if a mind consumed by madness was holding on to the single thought that still keeps it human…”

“No sign of any magical artifacts here, Talysse. Maybe we can find some stairs leading down?” Gale muses, peeking behind a pile of rotting furniture. An old chair slips and causes an avalanche of rubble, and I wince when the sound reverberates down the desolated corridors.

“I don’t like this place,” I say, poking with the tip of my boot a pile of something that looks like tree branches. When I take a closer look, my breath hitches. “Bones, Gale! There are human bones on the floor.” He joins me and probes the pile with a chair leg. Elders above! This is a disturbing number of bones, skulls, ragged clothing and even some chainmail.

“I don’t like this place too, Talysse,” Gale echoes and raises the chair leg like a weapon.

“Eagle, wolf, moon’s embrace.” My finger follows the scribbles. “Does this make any sense to you? And who wrote this? The whole city was swarmed by Shadowfeeders and Tainted Ones centuries ago!”

“Dawn…” I tap at another word. “Dawn’s first light…you are right. It doesn’t make any sense.”

We continue our search for clues. Distant sounds startle us a few times. Rocks crumbling or floorboards screeching—the final breaths of a dying house. Something wiggles in the back of my mind. A melancholic melody the bards at the inn play when it is close to daylight, and they want to send the last patrons home. It finds its way to my lips, and I hum it while sifting through the trash.

Gale leaps toward me, eyes wide.

“Is this the ballad of the Sun Queen, Talysse?”

I nod. One of the last Seelie Queens made her way through unimaginable dangers to the Holy City to beg the Elders for forgiveness. Nobody has ever seen her again, so legends and fairy tales waived different stories about her end. I remember a street spectacle with fireworks and confetti, where she found happiness with a mortal man and withdrew with him in some secret place, living her happily ever after.

Then it hits me.

The Ballad is old. As old as the walls of Teír Mekheret. And the lyrics haven’t changed for centuries.

In moon’s embrace, the wolf’s keen cry,

In dawn’s first light, the eagle flies.

Step on the wolf to find your way,

Eagle’s mark reveals the day.

The queen had to carefully choose her steps on the traitorous mountain pass leading to the Holy City. Is it possible that the scribbles on the wall refer to the song?

The floor tiles—

Before Gale can ask, I run up the crumbling marble staircase to the balcony, overviewing the hall. I jump over the rusty chandelier chain and the piles of rotting books, their sheets scattered around like the wings of countless dead birds. Leaning on the filigree railing, I can see the whole hall beneath my feet.

“What got into you?” Gale looks up at me, brow raised in confusion.

And there, beneath the heavy bronze chandelier, darkened by time, lies the answer to the riddle. Black and white tiles, each one depicting an animal or a plant, stretch down into the corridors.

Two wolves—one on a black tile and one on a stained white one.

“In moon’s embrace, the wolf’s keen cry, Gale! This should be the wolf on the black tile. Black as the night, do you see?” He follows my hand, frantically pointing at the tile. His full lips slowly stretch into an understanding smile.

“It’s the tiles, Talysse!” He heads to the spot I’m pointing at, and for a moment, everything seems to be going to plan.

And then Seuta pulls her damned threads again.

Thunder shakes the old building. The sound of collapsing walls echoes down the passageways and probably awakens things better left undisturbed. The sound came from the entrance. Silence settles in when the last rock rolls down an unseen slope. The minutes into eternities, yet nothing happens.

“Gale,” I call hoarsely, and he whips his curly head up to me, “step onto the black plate with the wolf!”

He whips his head left and right, peering into the dark corridors, then heads to the tile. We have to recover this artifact, and this place is as dangerous as any in this city.

He steps on the black tile depicting a fearsome wolf with bristled fur, and some unseen mechanisms in the depths of the house are set in motion.

“Pressure plates! Step on the eagle tile—there!” He points with the leg chair to the far corner of the room. “It’ll open something!”

Yet the doubt remains—is it wise to open a door that has been closed for centuries? Did all the dead treasure hunters who left their bones here try to do the same?

No time to think about it and succumb to fear. I swiftly make my way down to the tile Gale is pointing at and leap on it. Heavy chains rattle and move in the depths of the mansion, and screeching indicates that an ancient mechanism has just been activated. A tiny move in the side of my vision draws my attention. There stands an old altar of Seuta, still covered with dried flower wreaths, while the floor before it shifts.

A large trap door appears as the tiles nearly soundlessly slide to the side. White stairs descend into the inky darkness below.

“There!” Gale exclaims. “We need a torch or a candle; help me search. We need to save our magic.” We start looking around when we hear it.

Something massive is heading our way. Something big enough to push its way through piles of furniture and rubble in the passageway opposite the entrance.

The stench gets unbearable, and then it arrives.

The first thing I see is a pale human hand crawling out of the gloom, followed by—

My breath hitches.

“Talysse,” Gale calls me softly, “run.”

Then he turns to face the abomination, armed with his chair leg.

The creature towers twice as tall as a man, a grotesque mass of intertwined corpses. Human limbs jut out at unnatural angles, and the stench of death clings to it. Its torso is a horrifying tapestry of melting faces, each one frozen in a mask of agony. With eyes wide and unseeing, mouths open in silent screams, the skin on these faces sags and drips like molten wax, merging into a monstrous collage of flesh. The abomination’s legs are a tangle of bones and sinew, each step it takes causing the floor to tremble under its weight. Its movements are both lumbering and unnerving. The creature’s head is an ever-shifting mass of features. A gaping maw, filled with jagged, broken teeth, dominates it. A set of bloodshot eyes burn with madness and hunger, a feral intelligence shining through.

I am not sure if it is the skull shape or the thick golden amulet hidden amongst the rotting skin folds, but it bears an uncanny resemblance to a man I’ve seen before. His eyes still follow us from countless decaying portraits and murals. Is this the lord of this mansion? I have heard that human mages of old were able to prolong their lives with spells and dark enchantments, making them nearly immortal as Fae. This one here seems to have done the same by absorbing the intruders in his unholy sanctuary.

“Run, Talysse! Get into the tunnel—” Gale points with the chair leg at the gaping trap door, too narrow for the monster to pass. But I cannot just leave him here. Not when the terror is already upon him.

“Hey, you! Ugly one! Yes, you!” I taunt. The mountain of reeking flesh changes direction and lumbers toward me. I dash left and right without a plan.

Great job. Resourceful , Myrtle used to call me. I wish I had a brilliant idea now to save us.

“Keep him busy for just a moment, Talysse!” Gale shouts. Risking a glance over my shoulder, I see him struggling to flip a massive bronze table. A loud rumble signals his success. What is he up to?

No time to think as the abomination, surprisingly swift for its size, is so close that its hot, reeking breath brushes my skin. Claws reach for my doublet. Sweat trickles into my eyes. I run in frantic circles around the hall, praying to all Elders that Gale’s plan works.

How long can I keep this up?

“Hey, you! I know who you are! Mage Ornatus!” So Gale has also noticed the fleeting resemblance with the portraits around here? The heavy steps and dragging flesh behind me suddenly cease. Gale was right. This abomination is indeed the legendary mage Ornatus.

“I’m here to take your most precious one, Ornatus! Look, I’ve found where you hide it!” Did Gale go mad? I skid to a stop and turn around, breathing heavily. The nightmarish tangle of legs and arms glides over the stained tiles toward Gale.

And this crazy, amazing man stands between the overturned bronze table and the monster and looks at it with a snicker.

Elders, I’ve never seen someone grinning like this in the face of certain death. Gale is one remarkable man.

“Talysse, quickly,” he hisses to me. “Bring that chandelier down!”

One look and I see through his desperate but brilliant plan.

I slip behind the abomination as quietly as possible and make my way up. There it is—the rusty chain I’d spotted earlier, connecting the chandelier to a wall crank. Probably an old mechanism to lower the chandelier when needed. I yank the chain with all my strength. Nothing. It doesn’t even shake.

Heroy, help me! I wrap the chain around my forearm and pull, but it doesn’t budge.

“Talysse, hurry!” Gale’s strangled voice urges me. Elders above, the monstrosity is at him.

There! A heavy cabinet stands next to the crank. I slip my hand between its back and the wall and push, muscles bulging, joints burning, sinews straining. Every last drop of strength in my body I pour into this, praying it’s not too late. Finally, the cabinet shakes and topples. It lands on the chain and raises clouds of dust. Sharp pain pierces me as I land on my knees, but the sense of triumph soothes it. The chandelier sears up, hits the ceiling, sending bricks and stones to the floor, then the chain holding it breaks.

It crashes down with a deafening rattle, followed by an agonizing shriek. I leap to the railing, pressing my ears.

The monstrosity lets out a final, blood-curdling howl. Its carcass is crushed under the chandelier, pierced by the table legs; its grotesque limbs twitch one last time and go limp. Next to it, covered in white dust, lies Gale.

I fly down the stairs, taking three steps at a time, and kneel next to him.

“Gale!” I shake him. “Gale, say something!” He blinks and rubs his reddened eyes.

Praised be Heroy, he’s alive.

“Did we—” He looks at the pools of blood staining the mosaic black. “We did it, Talysse!” He slings his arm around my shoulders. For a moment, we sit on the dirty floor, laughing like lunatics.

“That was quite the plan, Gale. Now—”

“Oh, give me a break, Talysse. I just had a brush with death, and you want us to go into that tunnel?”

“Aren’t you curious what’s there?”

Slow clapping startles us.

By Atos, will I ever know a moment of peace in my life?

The mercenary steps out of the shadows, his chainmail and golden rings shimmering in the moonlight. Was the bastard hiding there the whole time, waiting for us to finish the dirty job?

Gale squeezes my shoulders reassuringly, still holding that ridiculous chair leg.

“Excellent job, kids! I must say I am impressed. I’d have probably done the same, but this quick thinking and teamwork was just—” He touches his lips in recognition. Me and Gale look at each other in confusion.

Then he slowly lifts a rusty ax he has retrieved from Elders know where his expression impassive.

“Unfortunately, there can be only one winner of these cursed Trials. Nothing personal, but I need only one of you to guide me to the relic. And I choose the pretty girl.”

Without warning, he swings at Gale, who surprises me yet again. He grabs a handful of dust and throws it in the eyes of the mercenary, then swiftly rolls away from harm’s way.

Without saying a word, Gale grabs me by the back of my doublet, lifts me with a superhuman strength, and throws me into the darkness beyond the trapdoor.

Agony pierces my joints, and I hear the mercenary curses in the background when I hit the bottom of the stairs. Then some slashing sounds that sound so odd, and something tumbles down the stairs, landing next to me.

I cup my mouth with shaky fingers to muffle my scream. The lifeless eyes of the mercenary stare at me in the scarce light filtering from above. His head, cut off clean, landed at my feet.

Then the trapdoor above me closes, and I am alone in the darkness.