Fan Fiction ❯ Summoner ❯ Chapter 6 ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter 6

 

 

Nix had made it down a set of steps and through three separate ante-chambers before he was passed through a short archway and entered a well-lit room that was incredibly familiar to him. It was large, sun was pouring in from an open door and a large table dominated the centre. Around the edge of the room skirted various work-surfaces and a large oven. Hanging from the low rafters were various dried herbs and pots. It was the kitchen back at his old master's modest kitchen at the farmhouse. Outside birdsong and the sound of horses being fed filtered through and the smell of a large stew being cooked tickled his nose. From another door bustled Neela, the elderly human head of house, and trailing behind her were three boys. One of them was nix, his unruly thatch of blonde hair as disorderly as ever. Behind Nix was a darker-skinned boy with cropped curly hair, and behind them, a skinny rat-faced runt of a boy who was barely out of toddler-hood. Even then he had a furtive air to his eyes.

 

Nix turned about to look back through the archway, but there was just another wall of the kitchen with a faded picture of the matriarch on. Dimly, he was aware of Neela talking.

 

“You boys have gone and done it this time. You know you had your chores to do, and now young master Kuko will be coming down to discipline you.”

 

Nix remembered this. This was when he and Carver were 8. They'd forgotten to shut the doors to the stables after they'd finished mucking them out in the morning and as a result the horses had escaped. Half of the household had spent most of the day chasing them down and getting them back. They'd been beaten savagely for that. However this time was different. Carver had stood up to the master's heir, Kuko, and was sent to the local Okiya to work for the Companions for a month. While this sounded like an easy job, it was quite the opposite. The Companions were often ruthlessly cruel to their slaves and worked them to exhaustion, often for no other reason than to revel in their misery, laughing at the last dregs of the once-proud race of men.

 

And Kuko did come in, and he beat Nix and Carver for a full half-hour, raining blow after blow down on the boys with a thin stick. In the end Neela intervened as she couldn't bare it any longer and received a back-hand for her daring to question Kuko's judgement, but he did stop. Trewella, the third boy, stood in the corner watching, sometimes grinning slightly. He'd told Kuko that they'd left the door to the barn open, and had been given the morning off as a reward.

 

Nix was horrified at the savagery Kuko displayed towards two young boys, but the scene quickly changed. He was back in an unremarkable chamber back in the catacombs under Tyllan's tomb. Scattered about the place were pieces of rubble, and a great fissure jutted across the centre of the room. Dimly visible across on the other side of the room was the other door. He backed up a few places and gave him self a running jump, barely managing to clear the breach. The door opened upon Nix's coming towards it

 

He hurried through the entrance, determined not to be intimidated by the seemingly omnipresent Tomb. Darkness greeted him. Darkness and a distinctly leathery sound of leather being hit against stone. A lot of leather being hit against stone. It was the sound of wings, many wings flapping through the dark. He was keenly aware of the tingling sensation of eyes watching him, but he couldn't see any of the creatures In the near-pitch black chamber. As soon as he was a couple of meters in the doors behind him slammed closed.

 

There was a moment of silence, then, with a flurry of wings flapping against each other, the creatures descended onto him. He yelped out in fear, desperately feeling about for some water, his only real form of defence, but there was none. He was repeatedly battered by the creatures that were surprisingly big, and was soon overwhelmed.

 

This time he was on his own. He was older, and it was at night. He stood in the mansion's courtyard with a black cloak clasped about him. He's snuck from the slave quarters and was on his way to the Okiya, he needed to see Carver. He needed to make sure he was okay.

 

Nix chuckled to himself as he remembered his feelings that evening. He was full of hope; Carver and he had been planning to escape from the village and join up with the resistance for months using a method of communication they'd developed when they were younger; whistling. Depending on what tune they whistled as they worked, they could tell their mood, their plans for the day (which verse of a song or ballad they whistled) or even ask questions to one another. Another unusual by-product of this was that the birds around East Ridge were fast studies. They mimicked the tunes the boys whistled, which had allowed them to keep in contact despite living at different ends of the village. However, tonight was the night. Only there was one problem: Trewella.

 

He'd watched Nix sneak from the slave quarters and had rushed to Kuko, who had laid in wait and had caught his prize slave, and was now dragging him back to the slave quarters, probably for a few days in solitary confinement down in the basement of the mill, making sure the mules kept the grinder turning. He looked up a watched on the rooftop of the stables as a figure detached itself from the shadows; Carver. He silently pulled a bowstring taut and readied an arrow, but Nix shook his head violently; he'd catch up with him later. The larger figure nodded and then vanished down the other side, his cloak flapping quietly in his wake.

 

The Summoner awoke in that same cavern. The giant bat-like figures nowhere in evidence. He stood shakily and felt for the skin of water he kept on him, but the flask wasn't there. He cursed and headed for the exit. The pathway through the various chambers that followed was distinct, if a little dusty, and the dim light and distant sounds of something not quite human wailing sent a chill down to his very core; this was not a happy place to be.

 

The caverns and chambers were uniform in the low, diffuse light that seemed to emanate from cracks in the floor tiles or from some source high above in the cavern's case, and in the chamber Nix found himself in at one moment, a huge one that gave way to a fissure stretching up as far as he could see, cleaving the chamber in two. He stood at the laughably small entrance to the mighty area, giving himself a moment to take it in. This wasn't the work of human architects; this was natures' own way of remembering King Tyllan. The only problem was that natures' way made it impossible to get to the other side, and there was no way he'd be able to jump the breach.

 

A gust of air brushed past him, ruffling his hair slightly. On the wind a voice was carried.

 

“Go…” It urged. Nix frowned, remembering with stunning clarity the last time he'd heard that voice; his escape from East Ridge, but this time there came a familiarity; he'd heard that voice, and could tell it was female, and old.

 

However, it was telling him to go, and in the split-second he let these thoughts run through his mind, he felt the wind behind him once more, urging him onwards. Breaking into a sprint, he leapt out into the fissure.

 

Time seemed to slow. The air crackled past his ears, a sound like rushing water enveloped him and as his legs cycled through the air in a vain effort to reach the other side, he felt a pressure on his feet. Looking down in agonising slowness glowed a bright orange fire. From the burning ground far far below reached skeletal lands, their palms up to provide stepping-stones for Nix. He landed on one of these hands and pushed off onto the next. As he looked past the outstretched limbs he saw a face glowering back at him imperiously. It was vaguely female, strikingly beautiful, but the face was as white as snow, a stark contrast to the harsh glare of the fires dancing about her face. Her lips were a pallid, dead blue and her eyes all black, yet the softness of her youthful skin seemed everlasting. Then time seemed to catch up with him, and he was on the other side.

 

He stumbled, fell and rolled over, coming to a stop in a seated position, looking thoroughly dazed. He spared a glance back at the fissure, but there was no crackle of fire, no skeletal hands reaching up at him, and no woman staring back at him.

 

“Oh you are indeed powerful” the soft yet resonant voice came through the fog of his mind, drawing his attention back to the small exit to the great chamber. Braya stood framed in the archway, the hood of her simple brown cloak drawn low over her face, yet still it was unable to mask the grizzly visage of blood.

 

“Braya! What happened?”

 

“I drove off our pursuers, but it came at a cost. It is immaterial. Come, we must proceed, there is much to be discussed.”

 

“How can you see?”

 

“Perceiving the world around you through your eyes is like staring into a room through a crack in the door. I expect I'll be less distract without the hindrance of sight.”

 

The Mage grimaced at the thought of one being so callous about the primary sense, but wasn't in the mood to argue about that, not after what he'd just seen.

 

The pair quickly proceeded through the small maze of tunnels that followed the fissure cavern, seemingly more and more narrow and random in origin, yet Braya seemed certain of the route, despite her lack of sight. Eventually, they arrived in a final chamber with two exits.

 

“One leads to Tyllan's final resting place, the other, our chosen route, leads to the surface, and to my home. We shall leave this place swiftly.”

 

She declared, and Nix was in no rush to argue; he'd had quite enough of the tomb for now.