Second excerpt from 'A Better Crown'

Chapter 7: The Wanderer

The black fire danced with broken and powerful magic. Dark mesmerising sparks scurried across the sandy floor, dancing and flitting, ending their brief lives by fading into puffs of smoke. The flames hissed like an angered snake, building into a wall of night-coloured heat, extending towards the tent’s canvas roof and threatening to engulf its timber skeleton.

The Wanderer inhaled the grey fumes deep into his lungs and held them there. The smoke burned his insides, tickling his throat; threatening his mouth with a series of racking coughs which never came, though not for lack of trying. He felt power in those ashes. The descendants of the fire, still hot with the heat of their forebears, held magic even he had not dared summon before now. His chest stung with the acrid burn of it, the raw, visceral force filling him up with a liquid fire that cleansed as it flowed, driving through The Wanderer as though his very blood were alight.

He held the fumes a moment longer and then exhaled one slow, guttural breath. It blew over the fire, distorting the flames, making ugly shapes of them, throwing wavering shadows across the tent wall. There was a pause, a moment of stillness, one filled with a strange and sullen expectation, like the seconds before a mere crack in the ice deepens and shatters, and then the flames turned a harsh, acid-green; burning so bright that the darkness was but a forgotten visitor, banished to the night.

Tendrils of smoke curled into intricate wisps, licking the inside of the tent and caressing The Wanderer as he sat motionless upon the floor, his legs crossed, arms out, eyes shut. It thickened, turning into a heavy fog that clung to the canvas walls, the rolling, mesmeric waves spiralling into a vortex, sparks playing across its surface, like lightning in a storm.

The Wanderer furrowed his brow, creasing up the serrated and elaborate runes which covered his bald head, each one etched into the skin with black ink. He clenched his left hand into a fist, knuckles turning white as he squeezed, nails digging into his palm. He was reaching out into the world between worlds, stretching his hand into the shadow that clung to the very fabric of Earthguard, the land that lay between here and there, the place known only as the Void.

The Wanderer murmured under his breath; speaking ancient, forgotten tongues, each word encouraging the smoke into a ferocious storm. His right fist clenched, mirroring the left, as he felt the magic, the Green Flame, lift his weathered robes, the cloth billowing as if in a sandstorm. The dark breath of the world was roaring through him with an unrivalled ferocity; it was angered by his boldness, by his forays into the realm of shadow. He would have to be swift.

The Wanderer’s eyes flew open. His pupils were acid-green torches, each burning as fiercely and as freely as the fire itself. Chartreuse light seemed to burst from one of the runes at the centre of The Wanderer’s forehead, the black marking edged with the same acid-green colour emitting from his pupils.

There was a loud cracking sound that broke the night. The spinning slowed, the vortex unravelled, and shapes formed in mid-air; each one a broken image resurrected from the remnants of a world long gone.

The Wanderer watched as an opaque figure formed in the smoke, folding out of the fire like a corpse pulled from the grave. It was a tall, slender man, or what appeared to be a man, that eventually stepped onto the tent floor. His blank eyes were two dark pools in a sallow, thin face, sunken cheeks pulling in around a toothless mouth. Decomposing flesh hung from every inch of visible flesh, the skin melted and smudged like hot wax across an aged candlestick. Long, silvery hair fell in thin strands across his shoulders and his brow was mounted by a crown of rough Darkstone shards.   

The ghostly figure surveyed The Wanderer with a look of mild disgust, “I will not be summoned by a common Runebearer, you forget yourself, Northman.”

His voice was like cut glass. Fine, thin, yet delicately crafted; seeming to gently vibrate through The Wanderer like a piercing scream emanating from a faraway place.

“I think it is you who forgets,” The Wanderer’s eyes remained fixed upon the apparition, unblinking despite the magic blazing through every sinew of his body, his hands trembling with the force of it. “You have not been called upon for eight hundred years Bealdor; the times have not been kind to your world, or your people.”

The spectre stiffened, leaving his robes to stir like a sleeping child as he closed his eyes, inclining his head as if in prayer. He was searching through the ages, summoning the world, calling on the time he had lost, time spent entombed; millennia decaying.

“You are no Elf.”

“The Elves are gone, Bealdor.”

“I feared as much, they never needed Gods to protect them, unlike men. How can you summon me?”

“I have the Green Flame, the Elves died but their secrets did not die with them.”

Bealdor’s eyes flew open, revealing the two black holes like twin chasms. He pointed accusingly at The Wanderer, who felt the magic pull at him, his grip slipping. He dug his fingers deeper into the palms, holding on even tighter. 

 “Why have you woken me from my slumber? Surely you must see that I am soon to die, truly die that is, to pass into the Void forever.” Bealdor pulled up his robe, revealing an empty ribcage which hung with rotting skin, the flesh pulled and mottled with age, the bone yellowing like old parchment. The Elf smiled, skin peeling back to reveal his toothless expanse, his tongue darting like a snake as he spoke. “I am not long for this world, Northman, I will soon rot away and then there will be nothing between your kind and the Faceless.”

Bealdor gave a deep terrible breath, a thousand death rattles amassing as he pulled all heat from the tent. The temperature plummeted, frost grew in intricate cobwebs across the tent floor and, despite the white-hot magic coursing through him, The Wanderer was gripped by a bone-deep chill.

“Do you feel them, Runebearer?” Bealdor cackled, bathing in his power, in the ravenous cold that ravaged The Wanderer, bearing down on him from all sides. “Do you feel the Faceless? The frostiness of their breath? The way their being kills all warmth? All these years I protected your race with its small minds and small empires, half-crowned kings and usurpers, bastards, whoresons. All these centuries I held onto the line between Earthguard and beyond. Even as my mind and soul begged for the next life, I stayed, I stayed after the last wars… well not anymore”

The Wanderer clenched his fists tighter. He felt a sharp pain and then the warm run of blood oozing from under his fingers where the nail had pierced his left palm. The magic was straining at his grip, desperate to be rid of him, telling him to let go, to just let go.

“I will not beg you to stay,” he managed to say between clenched teeth.

“You’re not as foolish as you look.”

“But I would ask you to tell me, to explain, how to keep them at bay.”

The spectre hissed, provoking purple sparks to dance around his mouth.“You hope to defeat the Faceless? The hordes waiting in the Void?”

“I could not hope for that, I could only hope to hold them off, just as you have done, just as the Guardians have done.”

“In that, you have very little hope.”

The Wanderer stole a breath, saw it billow in the freezing air like smoke from a fire, his teeth chattering as he fought the cold. Raw magic still strained at his grip, eager to escape his grasp, picking at him with talons that went, deep, deep into his flesh. Just let go, just let go. But he had to hold on. He had to.

“I should have let this world burn,” rasped Bealdor. “I should have burned with it. There is no saving you from your doom, no matter what you hope.”

Despite the pain and the cold, the relentless strain of the magic coursing through him, The Wanderer managed to shrug, “At least there is still hope.”

The ghostly figure threw back his head, cackling. The sound was grotesque and dripping with frost, as though the very fangs of winter were emitting from his mouth with each round of laughter.

“That is the problem with you humans, you believe too strongly, rely too heavily, on things that aren’t there for you.” Bealdor finished his cackling. The Wanderer remained resolute, his hands still digging painfully into his palms, his fingers sticky with blood.

“I suppose I could tell you one thing, Runebearer.” Bealdor flew suddenly across the tent, screaming towards The Wanderer. His robes billowed as he went, the yawning pits of his eyes opening so wide that The Wanderer thought they would swallow him, before the spectre came to a grinding halt, stopping a hand’s breadth from the Runebearer’s face.

“The Berserkers, the prophetmakers, say a king must always guard the realms of Earthguard. I will be gone soon, the first Guardian to fall, the first of The Four. Only a king can replace me, a true king, a willing king.” Bealdor pointed a gnarled finger to the ancient helm about his brow; the twisted metal and Darkstone which had once served as a crown. “Only the power of kings can save you now, no matter how much magic flows through you, no matter how you wield the Green Flame. The Gods smile only on the crowned, it has always been so.”

The spectre pulled away, gliding back to the other end of the tent and stepping back into the fire. Green and black sparks played about his figure, patrolling his robes as he merged into the fabric of the world, returning to his everlasting tomb.

“Don’t call on me again, Northman,” Bealdor gave one last ugly smile as his ghost faded into the acid-green flames, smoke and magic billowing about him. “The Peasant or The Warrior may be more appropriate next time; I hear they plan to remain here longer than I.”

The Wanderer saw him pause and look down, as though he was musing over the flames that were burning his spirit away. “Or perhaps The Bookkeeper may be of some… assistance; one who has fared well against the Faceless, although they will succumb in the end, as will we all. Even you.”

And then he was gone.

The opaque outline faded to grey fumes, burning in the green flames. Smoke swirled in a towering vortex, as it had done before, then it dissipated, exploding outwards with the same cracking sound which had heralded Bealdor’s arrival. The Wanderer let out a long sharp breath, the magic pulling at his lungs as his hold finally slipped. The cold lifted as though it had never been, taking the frost with it, and leaving only the warmth of the open fire behind. It burned green for one moment more and then dissolved back into its natural yellow, crackling merrily, as though nothing had happened.

The Wanderer’s eyes dulled, his rune turned back to its muted black and he felt blood, hot and sticky, on his palms. He looked down at the crimson stuck between his fingers, the puncture wounds in his hands, and sighed deeply.

He was in trouble. Deep trouble.

***

That was an extract from Dominic Andrew’s upcoming debut novel A Better Crown. Did you enjoy it? Then check out another extract from the book or read a short story from the fantasy world of Earthguard.