Chapter 8

Morning

The evening had passed without any more incident. Keira had mostly stared at her food the entire time only looking up occasionally to answer questions directed at her. She hugged her brother and sister in law goodbye and spotted a mocking glare from Zane as they departed. She said her goodnights to her parents and ascended the stairs back to her room. When she got to the top she noticed a few of the Nons descending with hand tools and bits of broken door.

Chuckling to herself she inspected her bedroom door. They had patched in a few planks of wood to replace the broken jam that had been blown off by Zane’s magic. The planks were blocky and unformed as replacements, and the iron hinges creaked as you opened and closed the door but it would do.

Keira waved a hand in front of a panel on the wall and the small contained candles around the room slowly went out. She peeled off her clothes and slid under the covers of her bed. She breathed deeply and quickly all was darkness.

***

More than a dozen dark robed monks stood in the ritual circle; they chanted the ancient language of their dark god Zar’zus. Purple light enveloped the large underground chamber that they now resided in. The indigo casting shadows of the monks against the carved chamber walls that depicted the story of the dark god that they were attempting to summon. On the floor was a fiery mural of the ashen realm in which the demon king resided. As the monks finished their chant, one by one they collapsed as their souls were ripped from their bodies and the energy coalesced on the floor.

Out of the energy, a portal opened on the painted floor, as a single clawed hand stretched out of the entrance and clung to the ground. Several feet from the gargantuan hand was a single small girl, cowering and stripped bare; she shivered against the chains that bound her. As the head of the creature made its way out of the portal, and its hulking form came into full view, its horns scraped the ceiling of the large chamber.

The grotesque creature grabbed at the chains on the ground and broke them with little effort. The scales of its skin smelled of ash and death, and black wings scraped along the painted floor. Eyes like fire stared out of the darkness behind the soft smoke that billowed out of the snout that was the demon gods forbidding mien. The girl screamed as the gaping maw of the demon gulped her down. The mighty demon god spoke with a deep and gravelly voice, “KEIRA SILVERLIGHT, BOW BEFORE YOUR GOD!”

* * *

Keira sat straight up in her bed panting, beads of sweat dripping from her forehead and her nightgown drenched. She noticed the light from the rising sun was starting to touch the sky, just above the treeline, on the outskirts of the village. As she regained her wits, she heard a light knock on the door as it opened. “Keira, you alright.” She heard her father say from behind the cracked door.

“Just a bad dream,” Keira answered.

“Just pre-ritual jitters, it’ll pass. The ceremony starts in a few hours, so put on your armor, and meet us downstairs.” He said as he closed the door.

Keira climbed out of her bed and walked over to a large basin that sat on a tall table in the corner of her room. She stretched her hand out, and blue light surrounded her hand, and she thought of the ancient word for water. The light crystallized in the palm of her hand into the symbol for water, and the basin filled.

She pulled off her sweat soaked nighty and washed herself with a small cloth that hung next to the basin. She grabbed a dry towel from a drawer in the dresser next to the table and dried her hair and body. She put on her undergarments and the armor that her father had ordered for her. The armor itself consisted of nothing more than a standard gambeson with a magicite reinforced left shoulder. Metal armor was strictly prohibited, as the metal would interfere with the casting of spells. Iron and steel would reflect magical energies, while gold, silver, and other precious metals absorbed the energy. The lone exception was magicite; it enhanced magic and was the lone precious resource of the village. They made everything from jewelry to weapons out of the magical metal. It was notoriously hard to mine, but Üna-vek s with the acid they could excrete from their palms could render the metal from the stone in the mountains around Arlinstead.

Every person entering the ceremony was given a dagger, a shield, and a crossbow that could not be altered in any way; the family must provide the body protection but it couldn’t be a full coat of plates because of the rituals' requirements. Her brother had almost the same armor as hers, but Zane’s was built without the extra padding on the left arm. Her mind flashed to the memory of her brother's injured left arm, a cocky grin and a soulbrand on his neck. Marveling at the reflection before her as she gazed into the mirror on the wall. She looked like a warrior about to go into a great battle. I guess I am going into battle, we’re warlocks, war is what we do, she thought.

She descended the three flights of stairs and met her parents, Leon and Hella outside the house waiting for her. All of them were dressed in the purple ceremony robes except for her sister, who had opted for her painted magicite cuirass and pauldrons with her Vekian, otherwise known as Üna-vek longsword, at her side. The air swirled chilly and mist fell off her breath. The cold bit through the gambison and her leggings. It’s a bit thin for armor, she thought as she joined them outside.

Harwin grabbed her by the shoulder with one hand and gave the armor a quick jerk with the other. While her body jostled a little, the armor remained secure, and he nodded his approval. He circled around her slowly checking the armor for any loose straps or missing pieces. “It fits well; you look ready.” He said as he finished his circle.

“It feels a bit thin, you're sure it will be enough.” Her nervousness made her voice shaky.

“It’s the best armor the ritual will reasonably allow; the gambeson is woven onto a leather core and bound with magic instead of regular cloth or steel bindings so that it can be thinner, smaller but even stronger than chainmail.”

“Ok.” She replied unsurely.

"Just remember the things I taught you the last few months, and you’ll be fine." Leon reminded her.

The five of them made their way toward the ritual grounds; silence permeated the air as they walked toward the gathering outside the village gates. They arrived at the cave where the ritual took place just as most of the village was getting there. She spotted her brother and Caina standing outside the crowd waiting for them.

The two of them walked over and hugged her, “Be careful in there, sis,” warned Zane.

“I don’t know what we would do if you got hurt,” echoed Caina.

“I’ll be fine.”

The two of them let go and smiled semi-worryingly. Then her brother turned and attempted to cut the tension with humor, “Alright people, move out of the way, we got a Silverlight to ascend here.”

The crowd begrudgingly parted with soft curses as Zane cut a clear path through the crowd. On the other side of the crowd was Torok, standing menacingly and clearly miffed at Zane’s conduct.

“Master Torok.” Zane said, giving a mocking salute as he passed and took a spot in the crowd. Five years removed and he can still piss off Torok like it was yesterday, she thought as she made her way toward her former master.

"Good Morning Keira. Did you sleep well?" The Chieftain greeted her in his booming yet gravelly voice from behind her. She turned and bowed.

"Good," She lied.

"Well, you’re going to need it if you’re going to make it through," he broke into a loud laugh trying to lighten the mood.

"I would just like to do this and move on if you don't mind," she told the Chieftain truthfully.

"Don't worry you're going to do fine, from what I’ve heard, your father's done an exceptional job preparing you for this. So, you should do great," he assured her, "but, no one has ever come out of this without a scar or two, except your father of course."

After about five minutes the bulk of the warlocks of the village had arrived, and the Chieftain began the ritual. The Chieftain motioned Keira to the spot where countless others had stood before her. She stood on a platform made of the trunk of a long dead, great elm tree that sat directly in front of the cave. The hollow in the center of the trunk was a colossal shaped piece of marble, on which was inscribed the name of every warlock who had ever been through the ritual. Carved into the wood were symbols and spells to aid in the extraction of the soul of a warlock, for part of the ritual of ascension was finding your soul in the labyrinth inside the cave. Or more accurately your soul-stone, a soul bound object that holds the essence of a soul.

As the Chieftain spoke the words in the ancient language, faint blue light started to appear in geometrical shapes around her circles of light with off-centered squares inside. The Chieftain raised his hands and waved them in circular fashion till the circles around her began to spin around her and inch ever closer till they enclosed her in their light. Keira felt strange like everything that made her was being stripped away as the light passed through her body and coalesced into a small ball of light about the size of her palm. The Chieftain pointed at the light with two fingers pulling back on it with his open free hand. The orb responded by zooming across the distance between Keira and the Chieftain toward him.

He held it before him hovering in the air and spoke a few more words and the ball shot back at Keira. She felt the ball pass through her heart and it knocked her back a half step. Keira steadied herself and turned to look just in time to see the ball pass into the darkness of the cave. A shiver ran up her spine as she felt the emptiness inside her chest like she was missing all her organs. She staggered off the stump as she approached the mouth of the cave, an eerie foreboding washed over her and paralyzed her on the spot. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t breathe, and fear of the unknown crippled her legs, it was all she could do just to stand.

She felt someone approaching from behind her and she heard the gruff deep voice of Torok, “I believe in the will of the gods, as should you. Prove you are worthy of this gift that they have presented to you. Prove me wrong young warlock,” His words steeled the resolve that had been evaporating inside her. She stepped forth to the mouth of the cave and disappeared into its inky depths.

It was dark inside the cave, but her Lumintari eyes adjusted to the low light quickly. She continued to explore the front entrance to the cave, the cave was tall and wide, the shape of the room it seemed was a semi-circle that radiated out from the mouth of the cave on, the far side of the room was a large hewn stone door. The Gate of Zar’zus, on the large stone double doors, were wards to keep the gate shut, and depictions of the demon lord Zar’zus, horned, winged, and a mouth full of long sharp teeth. His name was rarely mentioned in casual conversations because of the terrible fear that is associated with it.

Even as Keira merely looked upon the door, much like at the entrance to the cave, a chill rolled down her spine at the sight of the depiction of the demon king. She waited for fear of the dark god to subside, and she moved to investigate the gate further. She found that there was a spell she recognized on the stone. She stood up straight, centered herself and began to recite the gate spell. As she finished, she felt the power of the spell working its magic, and a large blue flash of light unsealed the doors. The doors pushed open freely, and Keira stepped into the vast expanse that lay before her.