EPISODE 70: A LIE OF OMISSION

Corwin struggled against the pair of Nightscales who dragged him down the corridor. They ignored his efforts and kept moving. Even boosting his strength with Enhance Ability barely slowed the creatures down.

They're taking me back to the Heart? Corwin thought when he saw which direction they headed. Why? The Heart has already begun its transformation. Consuming me right now wouldn't help any…would it?

A knot of Scalebacks trotted past them. The leader, a large Bull with a yellow-and-white striped chest patch, stopped to hiss a question at the Nightscales.

One of the Nightscales rumbled back a quick answer in a dismissive tone.

The Scaleback growled a low threat, legs preparing to spring.

The Nightscale did not even break stride. It lashed out with one dinner-plate sized clawed hand. It wasn't a hard blow, likely the Nightscale hadn't meant to do any harm beyond getting the smaller lizard-man out of its way. The claws ripped open a gash in the Scaleback. Black blood flowed in a torrent and Corwin could see the white of bone beneath torn grayish-white muscle tissue.

Gods, it made this thing before it became a full Dungeon Heart. Corwin thought. I hate to think what it can do once it finishes its transformation.

Walls and doorways moved and changed all around him as they trudged back towards the Heart. Plain black stone walls smoothed in texture, becoming something closer to obsidian. Decorative touches formed along the tops of the walls, designs that Corwin didn't recognize and probably didn't have any other significance than the Dungeon Heart's whim.

Doorways formed, blocks of stone transmuting into slats of oak with iron fastenings. Jabez had spoken occasionally about Dungeons, but never in great detail, since their jobs didn't involve such places, normally. So, Corwin knew a Dungeon could create anything it came in contact with, absorb it and use it in new and creative ways. The older a Dungeon got, the craftier and more dangerous the Heart became. The famed Alsorak's Labyrinth in northern Solaria had been around in one form or another for almost a thousand years. Wayfarers used the upper levels of the Labyrinth to train Journeymen.

Those levels were the 'tame' part of the Dungeon. Patrolled, mapped, cataloged, and kept under constant vigilance. The closer one got to the Heart, he'd heard, the more nightmarish the Dungeon became.

This Dungeon, being brand new, was just flexing its muscles. Corwin didn't want to think about what it might do when it matured.

The corridor twisted and turned, no longer the straight pathways that Vash led them along. Corwin quickly lost his bearings entirely, especially with the shifting, changing nature of the walls and rooms around him.

Before long, the Nightscales shoved him to his knees on the tiled floor before the altar to Noctus. Mounds of dimly lit crystals lay haphazardly around the room. It took Corwin a moment to realize that those were the remains of bodies, both the Wayfarer captives and the dead Scalebacks and Nightscales.

A wall of stone and crystal grew behind the altar. Carved in relief on the smooth, dark gray surface was a stylized eye. The horizontal pupil formed from a white quartz, while the pupil was black marble. The eye gave off a low pulse of mana, the white quartz pupil glowing and fading in time with the pulses from within. Corwin realized that this grotesque carving was the Dungeon Heart's newest form.

A shape lay on the altar, a body twisted by the warring magics within it. Though not nearly as impressive as he had been, Corwin still recognized the sorcerer Zakarias.

After making sure that Corwin would not jump back up to his feet, the Nightscales fell back, leaving him alone in the center of the chamber. Corwin looked around, trying to assess how bad his situation was.

The walls continued to ripple as the Dungeon changed itself on a moment by moment basis. Kneeling on the black-and-white tiles, Corwin watched as part of the room sank into the floor, leaving deep holes on either side of the chamber. A rush of water rapidly filled those holes, and large white crystals glowed in the depths, throwing strange ripples and shadows on the walls.

Smooth pillars rose at regular intervals, stretching up to support a vaulted ceiling lost in the shadows above. Corwin couldn't see many Nightscales or other monsters, which was disconcerting. Either they had mostly died during the Dungeon's transformation, or they were off somewhere posing a danger to Corwin's friends.

Corwin was so deep in thought that he didn't notice when Zakarias sat up suddenly and painfully from the stone altar.

"You're looking well." Zakarias said, his words distorted from new growths that bloomed on his face and neck. "I'm surprised you seemed to be the one we wouldn't get without a very bloody fight."

Corwin looked up at the twisted sorcerer. Zakarias stood awkwardly, like he wasn't sure how to make his body move. When he moved through any light source, Corwin could see Zakarias' eyes take on a purple reflective sheen, like a cat's eye.

I don't think he's alone in his head anymore. Corwin thought, choosing carefully how to react.

"I put up a fight. Left a bunch of your creatures bleeding on the stones. Those brutes got lucky and caught me off-balance." Corwin said, jerking his head towards the Nightscales that stood at the back of the chamber.

"I didn't mean to make light of your prowess," Zakarias said. "Merely making an observation."

"Oh, and what's that?"

"You're a survivor, Corwin." Zakarias said, lurching around the altar like a badly handled marionette. "You have done what it took to survive at every step of the way since you left Durron's Ford."

"Left?" Corwin barked a laugh. "Banished would be more accurate."

Zakarias tilted his head to one side, face contorting into a strange, patronizing smile. "Come now, Corwin, you can't tell me that when you agreed to rob that tax collector you seriously expected to return to your previous life? You always wanted something more, and you needed to escape that village before it was too late."

Corwin felt a hollow pit of dread in his stomach. How does he know all this about me?

"We have watched you for some time, Corwin Walker. You and your half-blood friend." Zakarias continued, giving voice to Corwin's thoughts. "Fate has wound its strands tightly around both of you. Others have laid their mark upon Vash, but so far, you remain delightfully unclaimed."

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"I'm not comfortable with the idea of someone claiming me." Corwin said, carefully. Draw this out until I can get a weapon or find an opening. Corwin wasn't at full fighting strength, but he had enough to make a good showing with a bit of luck.

"That's the unfortunate reality of the world." Zakarias made a lopsided shrug. "We must choose where our loyalties lie. Choose who we pledge our swords to and, ultimately, our lives. You've made some interesting choices on your journey to this moment. Most of which you chose not to share with your friends."

He's bluffing, Corwin thought. There's no way he could know anything about what's happened either during my Gauntlet or during that goblin hunt.

"I can tell you don't believe me," Zakarias said. "But those experiences leave marks on your soul that those like myself can read with a fair degree of accuracy."

"Olom, Lord of Fate, marked you near the beginning of this journey." Zakarias shuffled forward, dragging his left leg, which had twisted in on itself and locked into place. "You got a glimpse of the future, didn't you? A vision that involved Vash? You never told your master why you always kept an eye out for your boyhood friend everywhere you went. I wonder why? Fate can be especially cruel to those in circumstances such as his. Perhaps you wanted to save your friend? Or were you worried about yourself? No, I think the guilty conscience is the culprit here. You got Vash involved from the beginning. You blame yourself. If his fate is dark and cloudy, then you're hoping that you can bring him back to the light."

Corwin stayed silent, eyes fixed on Zakarias.

The sorcerer gave Corwin a twisted mockery of a smile. "You thought you'd make amends, is that right?"

"Vash makes his own choices." Corwin said, putting more iron in his voice than he was truly feeling.

"That's a wonderful lie we tell ourselves." Zakarias said, his grin getting wider. A slow rivulet of spittle fell from the misshapen side of his mouth. "Fate, destiny, the whims of great beings, all take those choices away from us and guide us to a path leading to another's desire. Whether we embrace it or fight is the actual choice we have as mere mortals."

Corwin looked away, partially disturbed by the turn the conversation had taken and partially to find which Scaleback had taken his sword. The edges of the chamber were deep in shadow, making the dark hides of the Scalebacks and Nightscales difficult to discern. Corwin finally spotted a Scaleback standing close to his Nightscale guards. The hilt of Corwin's sword peeked over its shoulder.

An overwhelming desire to charge the Scaleback, retrieve his weapon and lay waste to these vile creatures rose in Corwin's breast. He felt the powerful, violent, dark urge stirring within him. The power was there. He just had to reach out and take it. Corwin forced his thoughts back to the here and now, tamping down the fury within.

Not too much. Corwin thought. Jabez said relying on the Rage too often could change me. He glanced at Zakarias. I don't want to become like that thing.

"That was interesting." Zakarias said, shuffling closer, intrigued. "What happened right there? Was it about your special gift? Does your master know about that one? Where did you get that, I wonder?"

You and me both, buddy. Corwin thought. Memories from the night he and Vash left Durron's Ford floated to the surface of his mind. The darkness, the splashes of red, and when he finally surfaced, Kat was staring at him in horror.

That was the first time I used a Talent.

"You are remarkably hard to read," Zakarias said, amused. "I would have thought that your assassin friend would be the one with all the secrets."

Corwin remained silent, not trusting his thoughts or his emotions at this point.

"And then there's the matter of your blade." Zakarias said, gesturing to the Scaleback Corwin picked out earlier. The lizard-man scuttled forward, yellow eyes darting around the chamber, unsure. Zakarias reached out and drew the bastard sword from over the Scaleback's shoulder. The steel rang softly as he drew it. Corwin felt the slight tingle of connection that he always felt when he drew his sword. Other than a finely worked pommel, the sword looked no different from any other well-kept weapon. The steel gleamed in the low light, but scratches and wear gave it some age and gravitas. "Many Drae remember this sword. Wherever did you find it?"

Unbidden, the memory leaped into Corwin's thoughts. Chasing the goblin through the warren of tunnels. The Rage singing in his veins. He and Jabez had traveled close to the Highland Road, near the Obrun River Valley. A local farmer had hired them to destroy an infestation that got too close to inhabited lands. It was a hard fight. They had only expected a raiding band of about ten goblins, but they had found a splinter tribe of close to twenty warriors. Corwin chased the last goblin, one of their shamans. The shaman had laid a curse on the village that had hired Corwin. People were dying of a mysterious sickness. If he didn't kill the shaman, then the curse would continue.

The shaman bolted for a tiny, offshoot tunnel it could scamper down unimpeded, but that Corwin would have to crawl through. Corwin used his Rage to overtake it. Together they slid into the tunnel, which led deeper into the mountain, at the edge of the Underlands. Corwin killed the goblin shaman with his bare hands and came out of the haze of Rage.

The room he found himself in was not exactly a tomb, but it was a last resting place. The bones told a tale of an epic battle. Corwin recognized the skulls of many Gnolls with their misshapen, almost dog-like heads. A single human skeleton lay against one wall.

To say that the sword had called to him wouldn't be exactly true. Corwin needed a good sword. The cheap, brittle iron blades that he could afford broke regularly. His current sword had snapped when a goblin brute blocked using a knotted wooden club. The sword that the skeleton still held was of high quality, pristine and unmarred by rust, even after all this time.

The moment he grasped the sword's hilt, he felt a connection. It had a comfortable weight and immediately felt like an extension of his own body. The magic that sang between him and the blade felt similar to when he had taken his Guild Marker, so Corwin had thought little about it. He didn't know why he told Jabez that he found the sword in one of the goblin nests. Corwin just knew he wanted to keep this secret. Jabez had never pressed, but Corwin knew that eventually he would ask about the sword. On that day, Corwin did not know what he would say, or even why he kept it a secret.

"Would you like to know her name?" Zakarias asked, the purple sheen in his eyes intensifying. "Where she came from?"

Corwin felt an intense desire to know just that. His mouth went dry, and he licked his lips. A voice deep inside shouted for him to maintain control, to not give in.

"I will tell you everything you want to know," Zakarias said, savoring each word. "There's just one thing we have to attend to first."

Zakarias' hand shot out, fingers elongating, claws forming, thick and yellow where his fingernails once were. The claws scraped over Corwin's breastplate with an ear-splitting screech, leaving deep gouges in the metal. Long fingers encircled Corwin's neck and grasped him with inhuman strength.

Corwin grabbed at the hand around his throat, clawing ineffectually at the hand that held him.

Zakarias' eyes rolled back in his head, revealing a second pair of irises and pupils. These eyes were night black, with a reflective pupil giving off a whitish sheen. The pupil was horizontal, like a goat, like the sigil of Noctus. He opened his mouth impossibly wide, jaw distending, teeth growing long and serrated.

Corwin felt paralyzed, staring at the horror that the sorcerer had become. He felt a power reach out and clamp down on his Core, pulling on it like he would dig a potato from the ground. Those fangs drew closer, and the pulling came harder.

He tried to fight back, tried to force himself to do something, but it was like mentally slamming into a stone wall. Corwin felt a shadow growing at the edges of his vision. The hot, stinking breath of Zakarias came closer and closer, fangs aiming for his exposed neck.

The whistling sound of a thrown weapon flew past Corwin's ear. A knife hilt with the sigil of a sun-crowned mountain on the pommel appeared in the cleft at the base of Zakarias' neck. Pale reddish blood, thick and viscous, ran from the base of the knife.

Zakarias stumbled back, face contorting as it fell back into its previous shape.

"Astochi!" Called a familiar voice from somewhere behind Corwin. The dagger tore itself from Zakarias' neck, flinging jelly-like blood along behind it.

Corwin fell back, following the trajectory of the dagger. He saw Vash emerge from the shadows as his Shadowmeld fell away. The two Nightscales lay on the ground at his feet. Corwin could see Vash's short sword wrapped in writhing shadows while dripping with gray-black lizard-man blood. The dagger slapped into Vash's palm and he quickly flipped it around into the position he preferred.

Vash glanced at Corwin and shook his head. "I can't leave you alone for even a minute without you getting yourself into trouble."

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