Book 8: Chapter 7: Where it ended
They looked at a vaulted chamber with clear signs of damage, but not from the destruction that had torn through the upper structure and the city itself; instead, they were signs of battle. Walls caved in, floor tiles ripped up, and machinery torn to pieces. Furthermore, about ten corpses lay throughout the room. All reduced to bones, though their clothes were mostly intact, except where ripped by weapons or spells. Several of them still clutched weapons, staves or daggers.
Atreus stepped forward and knelt next to one. “Zoe,” he remarked, looking over his shoulder at his living companions with a mournful smile. “I trained her myself. Took her on her first assignment. I knew one day she’d surpass me, and it gave me peace.” He looked back at the remains. “Knowing our order was in good hands, once I was out of the fight.” He breathed fast. “Spellbreakers don’t grow old. Didn’t. Only me left.”
Martel released his sense of magic. It told him of no heat, other than the expected sources, but he felt the presence of malicious power. It sent shivers down his back, and for a moment, he felt nauseated. Still, to be expected at the epicentre of a malevolent ritual. “Should we leave?” He disliked lingering in this place.
Atreus did not appear to have heard him. “We arrived from that passage.” He pointed back to another opening opposite where they had entered the chamber; it was collapsed, and probably part of the blocked passage by the gaping hole underneath the dining hall. “Their wards warned them – we didn’t get the surprise we had hoped for. Four of us against nine of them.” He stepped forward. “All of them at the ritual in the far end, but it quickly devolved into a skirmish. I saw Gregory kill one with a well-placed frost ray, followed up by his knife.” Atreus bent down and pried such a weapon from the bony clutches of his dead companion.
Both quiet, Martel and Eleanor watched his progress, following a few steps behind.
“Soulfire killed him. Another maleficar tried to leech from Andros, but he turned it back on her and killed her. He took down another before a fire spell and a phantom blade took him out.” Atreus moved through the scattered corpses, looking at them as if he read the signs of battle to recreate what had happened, yet Martel knew that the spellbreaker spoke from memory. “I didn’t kill any. I let my brethren bear the brunt of the assault, letting me weave through the enemy ranks.”
Atreus walked by the remainder of the dead to reach the far end of the chamber. Torn between feeling like an intruder, yet also driven by curiosity, Martel followed, as did Eleanor. Together, they saw a curious sight. A row of strange markings carved into the stone on the floor. In one place, the rock had been smashed to pieces, breaking the circle.
“This is where she stood. Elena. You remember her.”
Hard to forget the Archean maleficar they had battled in the catacombs of Morcaster, but Martel knew there was no need to reply.
“She brought me to my knees with her soulfire. I think she saw how outnumbered we were and thought she would win,” Atreus speculated. “She didn’t realise I didn’t care about the fight. I figured all that mattered was stopping the ritual. Fortunately, I was right.” He exhaled. “Unfortunately, I was right.” He knelt down in front of the destroyed tiles. “I knew I could not dismantle the magic at work or dispel a ritual of such power. So I did all I could think of. I smashed my hands down to break what could be broken. And in that moment, I ended Archen.” They stood behind the spellbreaker, and his face was hidden from them; yet judging by the movements of his shoulders, he was distraught. And Martel could not think of any words that might console a man carrying such a burden. He stepped forward and placed one hand on Atreus’s shoulder, steadying it.
They waited in silence until the spellbreaker got back on his feet, once more composed. “Forgive me this indulgence. I did not realise how I would react once I stood here again.”
“No apologies necessary. I can’t imagine how it feels.” Except Martel could; he was brought back to the Undercroft in Morcaster, and the night that he and Eleanor had traversed it to complete a surprise attack on the capital. The memories of the place, coupled with his guilt for all the blood spilled by his actions, had incapacitated Martel. Perhaps he understood the spellbreaker better than he would have thought.
“This is not Archean,” Eleanor remarked, kneeling down to inspect the glyphs on the ground. “They look familiar, yet no language or script that I know.”
“It’s old. Magic older than Archen. From Phoenik,” Atreus explained. “But ask me nothing further than that. Long before Archen was a village, the people of Phoenik had disappeared, and I know nothing of their magic.”
“So Archeans did not discover the secret of portals?” Eleanor surmised. “This magic was created by this civilisation instead. Who disappeared…”
“Which should have been sufficient warning to us,” Atreus remarked bitterly. “Yet the promise of power proved stronger, especially if others had done the hard work of developing the needed magic.”
“We’ve seen this before,” Martel exclaimed, and the others quickly turned their heads. “Maybe not this exact writing, but similar.” The unpleasant memories strong in his mind, he recalled fighting a strange guardian in the subterranean city. “Below Morcaster. Do you remember? When we had to cross the Undercroft. We saw writing similar to this.”
She looked at him in wonder. “We did. Does that – is the Undercroft the abandoned home of the Phoenik?”
“Wait…” Atreus closed his eyes and opened them again. “I’m a fool. We’ve lingered here too long. We’ve disturbed them.”
A rattling sound informed Martel of what the spellbreaker referred to. Throughout the chamber, between them and the only way out, the undead mages rose.