The Divided Knight - Chapter Twenty-Three

Atraxos the Black found himself in a position he had no longer thought was possible – standing before the Hidden King, his ability to use magic stripped from him. Atraxos had no memory of how he had arrived here – his last clear memory was of some violent, external force disrupting his journey from the platform outside the Guardian's dwelling to its twin outside the Gates of Eclipse, the disruption hurling him, screaming, toward some unfathomable, black abyss – and it troubled him that it seemed he had arrived alone. What had happened to the Sword Priest who had accompanied him? Had he been flung into the abyss and left there, falling forever in that endless nowhere between worlds? The thought was enough to make Atraxos shudder.

“He will have no knowledge of where he is or what is happening to him,” the Hidden King suddenly said. Then he chuckled. “Not after the first few millennia, anyway.”

“Great One,” Atraxos said, “why am I here? What has happened?”

“You are here because I decided to take pity on you. As for what has happened, the most direct answer would be that, once again, you failed me.”

“Failed you? Great One, how did I fail? What disrupted my journey?”

“A Spellbreaker disrupted your journey, fool. More than that, a Priestess of Adarion disrupted it, turning the energy of the transit spell into a force that augmented the abilities of the Battlemage she is with. Why did you not stay and deal with them as you should have done?”

The cleric that had been with Thaddeus was a Priestess of Adarion? That couldn't be true. The Order of Adarion, though most of its teachings lived on through the Order of Catharzen, was as dead as the Divine Council, its only remaining vestige being the amulet Atraxos sought. How could the Hidden King – or any of the Demon Lords, for that matter – believe that a cleric who had nothing more remarkable than the rare talent of Spellbreaking was one of those holy women who had once been called Sorceresses? Are they really that afraid they might return?

“Let me go back and deal with them, then,” Atraxos said. “Even if the cleric is what you say she is, her magic can't stand on its own against the power of the Demon Lords.”

“Not even if a Nightslayer stands by her side?”

Atraxos almost laughed. “No Nightslayer stands by her side, and none ever will. The Nightslayers are all dead, and have been for thousands of years. You know as well as I do that only the Divine Council can appoint someone a Nightslayer, and the Divine Council is no more! Great One, how can one such as yourself be so afraid?”

“You think me foolish, do you?” the Hidden King asked.

Atraxos suddenly remembered who he was addressing. He said nothing.

“Answer me.”

Still, Atraxos said nothing, even though his silence was as much an admission of guilt as any word he might have spoken.

“Let me explain something to you, Atraxos the Black,” the Hidden King said, derision dripping from his words as he used Atraxos's name. He rose from his throne and moved to stand in front of Atraxos. Heat radiated from the Hidden King in waves, and the reek of sulfur was overpowering. “Since you are new to being . . . one of us . . . you need to understand that even Demon Lords have much to fear. The Nightslayers, coupled with their Priestesses, were, and are, our deadliest enemies. To think, even for a moment, that they are gone forever would be a mistake too great for any of us to allow. Do you realize what would happen if the Battlemage you allowed to survive found the Amulet of Adarion before you were able to?”

“No,” Atraxos said, hating how small and afraid his voice sounded.

“He would become a Nightslayer. Just as the amulet would give you the power to free us from out prison, it would make him a foe that could destroy any of us. That must not be allowed to happen. Do you understand?”

“I . . . I understand, Great One.”

The High King returned to his throne. As soon as he sat, Atraxos felt a rush of power as, once again, his magic was back under his control. “Do not fail me again, Atraxos,” the Hidden King said.

“I will not, Great One,” Atraxos said. “I swear it.”

“It will be your death if you do. By my hand, or that of the Nightslayer.”

The Nightslayers are no more. “As you say, Great One.”

“Remember what you are, and who the enemy is. Now, begone.”

And then Atraxos was no longer in the Sundered Halls. He stood atop a great, barren plateau of gray rock that seemed to stretch forever in every direction. Clouds, low-hanging and thick, roiled in the sky overhead, blotting out the sun, and an icy wind bit at Atraxos's skin. Though it looked very different than it had the last time he'd been here, Atraxos knew where he was – the Plateau of Leng, deep within his homeland of Eltara. The Gates of Eclipse, which lay at the foot of the Mountains of the Moon, were miles to the east, and it would take days for Atraxos to reach them. Unless Aldraden still exists, he thought. If it does, there might be something there that could help me move faster.

Up above, somewhere in the clouds, something that wasn't a bird screeched. Atraxos looked up, straining his eyes and his magical senses to find out what it was, but he saw and felt nothing. There are worse things than Abominations here. Damn the Sprites and their promises!

Atraxos set off across the plateau, feeling weaker – and much more alone – than he had since being freed from his captivity.