Prologue
Lord General Zizyon de Met followed King Vaxilshiin through the dark, crumbling tunnel deep beneath the surface. His soldiers had put up a handful of torch sconces along the length of the passageway, but their light was weak and sporadic; the flames seemed to be struggling for oxygen to continue burning, and so the ground and walls were strewn with ever-changing shadows. The floor was slanted downwards heavily and was rough and cracked and littered with stones that had fallen loose from the stonework above. All of this made the trek somewhat treacherous; however, Zizyon had fought countless battles in the rain and the dark, and on rocky or muddy ground, and his footing was steady and sure. His King, too, kept his royal stride uninterrupted, contemptuously kicking aside stones that dared sit in his path without slowing. Zizyon occasionally heard the soldiers who followed behind breathe curses or scrabble briefly to avoid tripping as they traipsed along behind the two leaders.
As he and his King slowly outpaced their military escort, Zizyon moved closer to Vaxilshiin and said, “You needed not come down here, Your Majesty. I could have taken the report myself rather than waste your time. More likely than not, Wira and her sorcerers are overreacting. We’ll get down to see this urgent discovery and it will simply be that they discovered a new and unknown combination of runes or something equally trivial. You know how excitable she is.”
“Do you feel it in the air, Ziz? The sound your footfalls make, the feel of your heartbeat, the taste of your breath?” Vaxilshiin did not look at Zizyon as he spoke in his deep, steady voice, keeping his gaze fixed forward.
“I don’t-”
“Look at the torches, friend. There is no draft in these tunnels. The torches burn fitfully, as if a summer storm was blowing through, though the air is still. Their light is weak and pale… Sickly. Wira has discovered something real this time. I can feel it in my blood and sense it in the Beyond.”
Zizyon did not reply, but walked along silently for a time. Vaxilshiin had studied with the Court Sorcerers for a time under the orders of his father, the late King Vinmovshiin, and while he could not draw forth power from the Beyond, he did indeed have a sensitivity to it, and had used this sensitivity as a guide in his years as King. He was rarely, if ever, wrong when acting on these hunches.
“I had a dream this morning,” Vaxillshiin said. “Just before your messenger came for me. I do not recall much of its contents, only the feeling of it. Heat. Power. Delicious pain flowing through my veins, wracking my body with both agony and ecstasy. A horrific, splendid light, splitting open my skull between the eyes. I think the light was the truth being revealed to me. I think it was nearly within my grasp, nearly mine at last… and then I wake to a message: Wira says she has finally made a truly significant discovery. I do not believe in coincidences, my friend. Not in this world, not in these times.”
Zizyon gave his king a long, deep look without breaking his stride. He had known King Vaxilshiin since they were children; always prone to extremes of mood, Vaxilshiin had learned to hide his emotions well as befit a King, but was honest about his thoughts and feelings with Zizyon, his closest friend and most trusted advisor.
Zizyon knew that Vaxilshiin truly believed in the work that he had set Wira to. He had told the King many times that the nation and peoples of Shali’toia were strong enough to achieve their goals without Wira’s madness, but Vaxilshiin would not relent.
Vaxilshiin had told Zizyon one night, after Zizyon had opposed the plan once again: “Once we start moving forward, the whole continent will set its will against us. I do not plan on having our people beaten down. Not again. We will need not only victory, but victory on a scale unheard of since the Last Stand at Dlaividel. Wira’s work can get us there. Put your trust in me, old friend. Put your trust in your King.”
And Zizyon did. So here they were, off to see what kind of lunacy Wira had dug up, despite the foul taste the whole endeavour left in his mouth.
The floor levelled out as they neared their goal. An enormous, heavy steel door - inlaid with elaborate depictions of the Nine Lords and the Betrayer - stood closed a hundred paces ahead. As they approached the door, a heavy, metallic smell began to fill the still air. It was a smell any soldier was familiar with -- blood.
Zizyon instinctively took a half step in front of his King as the smell reached them. Listening carefully, he could hear a faint sobbing coming through the heavy door. Stopping in front of the door, Zizyon saw black liquid pooling out slowly from the sealed room.
“I’d say Wira has indeed discovered… something,” Vaxilshiin muttered, his face stoic, but Zizyon could recognize the faint glint of anticipation in his steel-blue eyes despite the shadows cast over his face.
“You should step back and let my men and I clear the room, Your Majesty,” Zizyon said, jerking his head towards the door as his soldiers finally caught up to the two. They hurriedly drew their weapons and formed up around the doorway, preparing for a breach.
“I think not, Ziz. Something grand has happened and I intend to witness it firsthand. I shall go in with you.” Vaxilshiin said, rolling his shoulders in anticipation. Vaxilshiin was rather short for a Shali’i, but heavily muscled. Though he did not carry a weapon as was tradition for a Shali’i king, Zizyon knew from first-hand experience in the sparring ring that he was a dangerous foe even unarmed. Still…
“Vax, please. Let me do my job as your general for once. We don’t know what Wira has unearthed in there.”
“Vax? I know you must actually be worried if you’re forgetting your honorifics.” Vaxilshiin said wryly, showing white teeth against his dark-skinned face.
Flustered, Zizyon shook his head briefly, then bowed apologetically, “My apologies, Your Majesty. But it is as you said… Something is amiss in these tunnels and in the room beyond. I cannot risk--”
A high pitched, agonised scream sounded in the room beyond the door, echoing through the hallway. The echo reverberated for seemingly an eternity amongst the rough stone, the sound shifting subtly as it bounced off the walls, from a painful scream into a haunting whine before finally fading away into nothingness.
“We breach. Now. That’s an order, General,” said the King, and Zizyon obeyed without hesitation. Old friends or no, one did not disobey a direct order from the King.
He moved up, taking the forward-most position in front of the doors. He drew his enormous broadsword from his back, holding it in a loose but comfortable grip in both hands. As the familiar weight settled into his hands, he began to relax; this was where he was most comfortable - facing unknown dangers, preparing for a fight to protect his men and his King. He nodded briefly at the two soldiers on either side of the door, and they pushed the massive steel slabs open simultaneously. Zizyon surged forward as soon as the gap allowed, gritting his teeth and preparing for the worst.
The stench of blood strengthened immensely the moment he entered the cavernous chamber ahead. Blood and viscera were splashed over nearly every surface visible; the floor, the dozens of columns throughout the room, the walls, and even the high, arched ceiling above. Zizyon saw the source of the sobbing he had heard earlier: propped against a nearby pillar was an injured woman wearing High Sorcerer robes.
Seeing no immediate threat around him, he kneeled next to the figure. His men poured into the room, taking position behind pillars and along walls, checking for signs of life from the other bodies scattered through the room, all that remained of Wira’s cadre of Sorcerers. Vaxilshiin, to Zizyon’s relief, was standing at the doorway, seemingly content to simply observe the horrific scene. His face showed no emotion as he looked on at the nightmare laid out before him.
Looking down at the slumped figure, Zizyon realised that it was Wira, the Court Sorcerer Vaxilshiin had assigned to this project. She was a rail thin woman with heavily hooded eyes and sharp, angular features. She was typically meticulous with her appearance, and it took Zizyon a moment to recognize the filthy, bloody figure slouched before him.
She was missing an arm at the elbow; her other hand was raised to the stump, a deep purple light glowing in her palm and surrounding the torn flesh and ragged bones that were now the end of her arm. She appeared to have two deep, vicious cuts on her abdomen that were glowly faintly with light from several purple runes surrounding the cuts, but still slowly leaked thick blood. She had several other deep slashes on her legs and her remaining arm, though they appeared untended to. Her hair, normally pulled back in a shiny, tight black bun, was loose and fell over her exhausted, ashen face. Her mouth hung open as she panted hard, still sobbing slightly between breaths. Her teeth were stained red with blood.
Internal bleeding, Zizyon thought. Even with her attempt to magically heal her wounds, I doubt the witch will survive this.
“What happened here, Wira?” he asked. “What did this? Is it still here?” he glanced back at his King as he asked this, though Vaxilshiin still stood at the doorway, his arms now crossed in front of his chest and his gaze fixed on something deeper in the room ahead.
“We broke the cipher… Finally broke it. Just a crack, but it was enough... That thing, the terrible creature came through the crack… Broke our binding spells and started… Just started ripping us to shreds. We could… We could do nothing to stop it.”
“Where? Where is it?” Zizyon asked, his voice firm but with a tone of sympathy he would have never expected to use in a conversation with Wira.
Wira let the spell drop from her good hand; the stump immediately started to ooze too-thick blood. She pointed around the pillar behind her, into the middle of the room. Zizyon stood up and looked to where she was pointing, Vaxilshiin moving up to stand beside him.
The room was likely beautiful once, before time had crumbled the stonework and whatever creature Wira was talking about had repainted the place with blood. It was roughly octagonal in shape, with a lower roof around the walls and vaulting upwards to a point in the middle. Standing squarely in the centre of the room was an enormous marble mural, easily fifty feet square. Unlike the stonework of the rest of the room, this mural was in immaculate condition, the marble still highly polished white - Zizyon noted in passing that the marble was unmarred by the blood that covered every other surface of the room. It was painted with runes that he did not recognize; though he did not understand the language, he understood it was beautiful - all flowing lines, large loops, elaborate brushwork. The letters were emitting a deep golden hue. Near the bottom left corner of the mural, however, one of the runes glowed in dark purple light and seemed to be faded and somewhat scratched away, with black scorch marks around the edges of its lines.
A few feet away from the mural, roughly in the direction Wira pointed, was another corpse. Zizyon and Vaxilshiin took several steps forward, Zizyon again assuming a protective position slightly ahead of the King. He waved for a few of his soldiers to fall in behind and to either side of the King.
As they approached the corpse, it began to twitch and squirm. Zizyon tightened his grip on his sword and shifted his body subtly, continuing his approach. Without warning, the chest of the dead sorcerer burst open, a dark red blur leaping free in an eruption of gore and moving towards Zizyon with incredible speed.
Instinctively, Zizyon slashed out with his blade, his strike lightning quick despite the weight of the enormous length of steel. He hit the thing midair, feeling his blade strike something hard and unyielding. There was a high pitched screech, like steel on steel, and the blur went flying off to the side before slamming hard against a nearby pillar.
Zizyon saw that the blur was, in fact, a small humanoid figure. Caked in gore, the thing was all wiry muscles and disproportionately long limbs tipped in vicious black talons. It had an oblong face topped in a pair of pronged horns and a protruding jaw that had several large fangs jutting from its lower lip.
Already recovering from slamming into the pillar, it began picking itself up, sinewy legs folding underneath itself as it readied to pounce once more. Zizyon was upon it in an instant, swinging his booted foot heavily into the thing’s hideous face. Its head snapped back and it again slammed into the pillar, this time cracking the stonework and throwing out an accompanying cloud of dust with the impact. Not doubting the creature’s resilience, Zizyon swung his blade for its head before it could recover once more.
“Stop!” Vaxilshiin’s voice echoed through the chamber. Zizyon’s sword stopped a hair’s breadth away from the dazed creature’s neck. The thing blinked its dark black eyes several times and hissed softly through its ugly mouth, but did not attempt to move from its place at the base of the pillar.
“It’s dangerous, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, indeed it is. But it came from beyond the Gate. Wira succeeded; she broke the seal.” Vaxilshiin’s normally slow, deep voice tinged with an unmistakable tone of excitement as he spoke.
“Why just this thing? Why not more?” Zizyon asked, not taking his eyes off the creature as Vaxilshiin kneeled beside him.
Vaxilshiin shook his head slowly, a large grin spreading across his face. “The Great Lords did their job well when they sealed the Gate. Likely this is all Wira was able to call through. But if this thing could make it through, so could more.” He reached down, past Zizyon’s sword, and gripped the thing by the neck. It resisted slightly, but Vaxilshiin’s grip tightened, the creature’s eyes bulging from their sockets slightly, and it ceased struggling immediately.
“Yes, good. You are intelligent enough to understand your situation. That means you are intelligent enough to help me and my people, and at the same time, help your own people.” Vaxilshiin’s eyes narrowed, his voice lowered. “Linmisha vo tra siona krenma.”
The words came out in a hiss, echoing through the room despite their low volume. The creature’s eyes widened even further at hearing them, for he understood the language being spoken.
King Vaxilshiin had said, in the ancient, nigh forgotten language of the Demons of the Underworld: “I shall open the gate to your world.”
