[game-notes version here]

VIII.

Frostmere 16, Hearthday, Year 731.

Alric’s mouth went dry. The Nightwight was here?! In Thornmere Hold? But… but there were no other exits! The air felt suddenly thinner, the stone walls closer. The heavy vault door at their backs may as well have been a cliff face. There was nowhere to run. His mind whirled. They were trapped.

“Now, now Old Yara,” a hollow voice echoed in the underground chambers, somehow both raspy and resonant. The words entered the vault room like a physical presence, making the torches flicker. “I come with… curiosity. Who are these little fireflies, who kill my Lanternless? And where has their meager light led me?”

In a panic, Alric spun to look at his two companions. Maelen was adjusting the grip of her huge sword, swearing softly, eyes searching for some sort of tactical advantage in the room. She had jammed her torch into a wall sconce to wield her weapon two-handed. Vessa, face shining with sweat, was busily trying to extinguish her own torch.

“Keep the light,” Alric hissed at her urgently. She stopped and regarded him, eyes wide. “It’s a Nightwight. He shuns it!”

“What does that mean?” Vessa whispered back. “I’m better if I can hide.”

“Shut it,” Maelen grunted. “They’re here.”

The three of them had congregated at the back of the long room with alcove-riddled walls, near the immense black vault door. Vessa let out a low curse and shuffled quietly towards a corner, yet he was grateful that she kept her torch in hand.

The first through the doorway on the far side was skinny, long-limbed man with a shiny bald scalp riddled with scars. Thick, tarry lines ran under each eye, the signature of the Lanternless.

“We got ‘em, Night Captain!” he called over his shoulder, then hocked and spit to one side. “They’re in ‘ere.”

Two more human figures stepped through the doorway, one after the other. The man was a broad-shouldered bruiser, scalp shaved to stubble like Vessa, with leather armor and longsword. The woman was squat, pig-nosed, and dour, carrying a battered wooden shield and a woodcutter’s axe. The two of them moved in opposite directions, flanking the doorway like palace guards. Alric supposed it made sense that, if the Lanternless had been hunting them since the encounter on the hillside, Sarin would have brought seasoned warriors. The first man, then, was probably their tracker. These thoughts passed through the scribe’s mind like a catalogue of facts, distant and detached. His panic had given way to abstract interest. It was like watching an artist carefully lay out her paints and brushes—these were to be the instruments of Alric’s demise, and he found himself in as much wonder as terror as it unfolded.

Old Yara followed the pair, smiling with gums that held few teeth. The white-haired, stooped woman rubbed her dry palms together as she entered the room, as if anticipating a feast. Her black eyes glittered with malice in the torchlight.

“Now you done it!” she cackled, hopping ahead and out of the way. “Sarin the Night Captain is ‘ere!”

Alric held his breath, waiting. The figure who entered the scroll-room was so tall that he had to duck slightly through the doorway, leading first with a long lamplighter’s pole, its iron hook bent. When he straightened, Alric guessed he towered over seven feet high, his figure unnaturally gaunt and skeletal beneath a heavy black cloak. His face was uncovered, skin pale as parchment stretched thin across sharp cheekbones, proud nose, and jutting jaw. Veins, dark as ink, traced visibly along Sarin’s neck and temples.

But it was the Nightwight’s eyes that were most disturbing. The sockets were sunken and hollow, but where his eyes should have been were pools of ash-gray light that managed to dance and waver without noticeably illuminating the room. Alric found himself staring fixedly at those simmering werelights before blinking and pulling his gaze away forcibly.

“Ah,” Sarin said, thin lips grinning like an indulgent grandfather. “Here we are. Where have you led us, little fireflies?”

“What happened on the hill was a misunderstanding,” Maelen said grimly, sword held in front of her. “Your people attacked us before we could talk. We meant them no ill will.”

“Mmmm,” Sarin said thoughtfully, thin lips pressed together. “And yet, this is not the question I asked.” Once again, when he spoke the torches flickered as if buffeted by a wind only they could feel.

Alric swallowed. The detachment filled him, so that when he spoke his voice was clear and calm. “It’s called Thornmere Hold,” he said, and the Nightwight’s gray lights focused on him. “A former vault of the Inkbinders Lodge. We had hoped to find treasure, but it’s merely historical documents. You’re welcome to them.”

“Now, see?” Sarin intoned. “This firefly can answer a question. But lo, there is something else about this place, something perhaps you cannot sense. Orthuun, the Blind Sovereign and my eternal patron holds sway here. Did you not feel his influence outside? The silence and shadows are his domain. And here, there is yet more evidence of his blessing, including those two servants of Orthuun you’ve slain in the room beyond. Yes, the Shadow King favors this place.” The Nightwight turned his head, taking in the entirety of the vault, as if savoring a beautiful hilltop view or an enticing aroma. Alric noted that when his gaze passed over the torches, Sarin seemed to squint and recoil somewhat, and the flames did the same, their light dimming. The scene made Alric’s stomach roil with nausea, breaking through the detachment.

The Nightwight waved his free hand. His knobby, thin fingers were too long, like the branches of a dead tree. “And so, I claim this place as sanctuary and holy ground for my Lanternless. Thank you, little fireflies. As boon for leading me here, I will forgive your earlier transgressions.”

Alric blinked.

Maelen’s eyes narrowed. Instead of relaxing her grip, she tensed. “So we can leave, then?”

“Oh,” Sarin chuckled, and when he spoke next it was with no more nor less singsong gravity than before. “I’m afraid not. You are forgiven your earlier sins, but now I find you trespassing upon my lord’s holy place. This will not do.” His bony hand waved again. “Kill them. Their blood will anoint our new church.”

The two warriors let out a whoop of violence and rushed at Maelen, feet stomping the stone floor. The burn-scarred woman got there first, swinging her axe in an overhand arc. Maelen parried with a clang! of iron, but then the musclebound man was upon her. His longsword bit into Maelen’s hip, eliciting a snarl of pain and anger. She kicked the axe-wielding foe away and chopped horizontally with her sword. The blade sliced across the bald man’s exposed throat. Blood fountained from the wound and he dropped his weapon, clutching at his ruined neck and falling sideways.

Intentional or not, Maelen had kicked the woman towards Vessa. With a fierce snarl, Vessa lunged with her shortsword, plunging it through the woman’s back. The red-smeared steel erupted from her chest, and then Vessa pulled her weapon free with a yank. The woman dropped her axe clattering to the floor and slumped forward, gurgling and wide-eyed.

Alric couldn’t believe it. In the space of three heartbeats, the Lanternless’ two hulking warriors were down. The tracker with the hunting knife seemed equally startled, and he paused his charge to stare wide-eyed at the carnage.

“C’mere, boy!” Old Yara spat, dancing towards him in the torchlight. Her eyes glittered with malice, and she held a small knife out front, jabbing out in jerky thrusts.

Perhaps he was inspired by his companions’ prowess, or perhaps it was the surreal, detached acceptance of his death returning to him, but Alric curled his lip and swung his staff out one-handed. Before the white-haired elder could close on him, the end of the staff struck her across the head. She screeched momentarily, then went down in a heap.

Vessa hissed in pain and Alric’s head whipped to see her arm wet with blood. The tracker’s shirt was also stained from a wound, and his face shone in the torchlight with sweat. The two wiry combatants danced and circled between the central table in the room and one of the alcoved walls.

She caught Alric staring and flicked him an angry look. “I’ve got it! Help Mae!”

The central table blocked a straight path, but Alric angled around it toward the front, near the arch where Sarin still loomed over Maelen. The warrior whirled her sword down and across in a diagonal slash, and it seemed to connect. Yet the long black robe did not tear. Instead, it seemed to pull and flow around Maelen’s blade, like she was chopping through thick, black mud. Sarin grunted, almost like reading a clever line in a poem, but showed no other effect. Alric suddenly wondered if their weapons could damage a Nightwight, something he hadn’t even considered until now.  

“Enough!” Sarin intoned, and as he said the word he stretched his free hand out in front of him, spindly pale fingers curled like an enormous spider. The Nightwight muttered something in a language just beyond Alric’s hearing, but the back of his throat and spine itched as some part of him registered the words. Sarin the Night Captain was using magic.

A wave burst out from the Nightwight, unseen but causing the three torches in the room to dance madly as if caught in a sudden gale. As it did, Alric’s jaw locked, and his stomach heaved in abject terror. This was not the fear of seeing a wolf in the forest; it was the fear of knowing that an entire pack of unseen predators watched you in the darkness, waiting for you to drop from fatigue. It was an anticipatory, abstract, and primal sort of terror, and for a moment Alric’s eyes rolled and he meant to drop his torch and staff, fleeing and screaming from Thornmere Hold.

“No!” he yelled, his voice resonant and echoing in the vault, and as he said it the fear retreated. He didn’t know what words he muttered next, only that they weren’t his. They rose like echoes from a memory of a dream, strange syllables that burned on his tongue. His torch’s flame ceased dancing, and the scribe stood straighter. Ahead of him, Maelen paused and lowered her guard for a fraction of a moment, and then, snarling, raised the sword defiantly and swung again at the tall, thin creature before her.

Sarin was faster than his deliberate speech and fluid steps would suggest, and he brought the lamplighter’s pole up to block the sword. Then, quick as an adder’s strike, his still-outstretched hand fell upon Maelen’s head.

Whatever happened next—the Nightwight’s palm atop the crown of her head, the long fingers reaching down across her skull—Maelen screamed, a voice high and desperate and undignified. She dropped to the ground lifelessly as Sarin released her head like an overripe piece of fruit.

“Maelen!” Alric yelled. Before he understood what he was doing, he had surged forward, torch cocked back like a mace. He swung it with all his strength and, when the torch struck the creature’s black robes, the fabric seemed to wither and retreat from the flames. Sarin hissed in surprise and pain, those gray ember eyes looking down upon him incredulously.

Without conscious thought, Alric swung his torch back and forth, yelling and beating at Sarin’s tall, cloaked form. But he was not a trained fighter like his companions, and the Nightwight seemed to flow away from each blow, avoiding the flickering fire. His pale, dark-veined face peered down, thin lips snarling.

“Irritating firefly!” Sarin rasped, “Begone!” He began murmuring again in susurrant, alien words. This close to the Nightwight, Alric could… almost… understand…

And then the world went black.

It was as if someone had thrown a hood over his head. This was no absence of light. This was light swallowed whole. At first, Alric thought that perhaps he’d inadvertently closed his eyes, but as he stumbled backwards into a wall, he blinked and stared wide. He could feel the wall at his back, his staff in one sweaty hand, torch in another. He could even, bizarrely, hear the telltale guttering of the flame at the end of his torch. But though he could feel these things, everything in Thornmere Hold was utterly and completely without light.

“Alric?” he heard Vessa’s voice call out from several strides away. “Are you there?”

“I’m here,” he said. “He’s cast a spell. We’re either blind or this is darkness.”

“Where is he? Where’s Sarin?”

Alric swallowed, his eyes uselessly darting left and right. The Nightwight could kill them at his leisure now, with both of them defenseless. They were doomed. He pressed his form against the alcoved wall, shuffling back towards the vault door and away from where he’d just seen Sarin looming over him.

In desperation, he began murmuring once more. Alric could not have said what words he spoke, nor their meaning. He called on the feeling when he’d first stepped into the glade above Thornmere Hold, that lingering sense of… something, just beyond his senses. He called on the barely remembered syllables he’d just heard from Sarin the Night Captain. And, most especially, he called on the words from the slim, leatherbound book, etched in a script that never stayed still when he looked at it too long, which lay stuffed deep within his travel pack. As he spoke, all muscles in Alric’s body slackened, and he almost lost his grip on the torch and staff. Then he closed his eyes, concentrating on pulling the energy around him apart, like fanning away smoke from a fire.

When he opened his eyes, the darkness was gone. Three torches—one in his hand, one in Vessa’s, and another mounted in the wall—burned weakly but illuminated the long room in dull orange and yellow light. The thief stared back at him with round, frightened eyes.

Sarin was gone, but five bodies lay sprawled across the stone floor: The two fighters and tracker, all in widening pools of dark blood, and Old Yara, bloody face staring sightlessly at the vaulted ceiling with her mouth agape.

And there, near the doorway, was Maelen Marrosen, face down and still.

Next: The Black Vault [with game notes]