While her brothers winced at her words, they also nodded in grim determination.  They had followed her here for the same reason she had led them here.  Tryst was dead, killed helping them escape from Count Adbar’s citadel and he had been working with Dergeras.  All the pieces had fallen into place; Adbar had been collecting the Artifacts of the Original as well.  He had been bent on thwarting them from the beginning and when he lured them in they had taken the bait.  It had cost them Tryst, their mission and likely the world.

If the world was going to burn anyway, at least she would take Dergeras down in the flames.  She set out at a steady trot, her brothers flanking her, and in a few minutes they had arrived at the back of the keep wall.  Here it was still mostly sound and reached nearly thirty feet into the air.  Callindra incanted another spell and leaped into the air with the Winds gathering beneath her.  Landing on the top of the wall in a crouch, she made certain she hadn’t been spotted and then took a rope from her pack and secured it to a crenellation that was still solid before tossing the other end down for them to climb.

They brought the rope up after them and tossed it down the inside of the wall, each scrape of boot on stone muffled by the spell Callindra had wrought around them.  Cronos pointed to a broken window in the crumbling keep and they crept through it without attracting the attention of any of the monsters outside.

The building was thick with dust and decay, but the sound of unceasing chanting came faintly to their ears as they made their way into the depths of the keep.  A feeling of foreboding settled over them a feeling accentuated the Winds fled as they got closer.  The sound of their footsteps began to echo off the moldering stone walls as Callindra’s magic faded, muffled only slightly by the dust that coated everything.

“This feels wrong.  Worse than I thought it would.  Worse than I thought possible.”  Callindra said, shivering.  “The air is dead here.”

“Everything feels dead here.”  Vilhylm said, looking at the dust choked walls and floor.

They found a doorway with stairs leading down.  More importantly, there were many tracks here.  The dust had been mashed nearly into nothing from the passage of many feet.  The chanting came from below.  It stopped the second Callindra’s foot touched the top stair.

“I don’t like this.”  She and Cronos said simultaneously.  For once they didn’t glare at each other.  Clutching their weapons, the three made their way down the stairs.  Callindra idly thought that being a leader unfortunately also meant going first into certain death.  Of course, she didn’t care if she died now, as long as she got her revenge.  As long as they got their revenge.

At the bottom of the stairs the hallway widened into a single large room.  Two dozen or more corpses lay on the floor, bloody knives in their hands.  Callindra shuddered in revulsion, they had killed themselves and spilled their lifeblood on symbols roughly carved on the floor in some dreadful ritual.

Stepping around the corpses they moved into the room itself and saw a dark figure cloaked in rags standing before an altar with a figure assembled from clay pieces laying upon it.  The mold of the original mortal.

“Dergeras!”  Callindra called out, her voice ringing throughout the room, “You have taken my brother from me, you have betrayed the living and made dark contracts with the Abyss.  You will die for your crimes here and now on my blade.”

She sprang forward, Shadowsliver a living extension of her arm and sank his twin tips into the figure’s heart, pinning him to the clay figure on the altar.  Dark blood flowed from his body and dripped onto the Mold.

“You have … completed.”  He gasped, a beatific smile on his face as his life flowed out onto the altar.

A rent tore in reality and something forced its way into the world using the Mold of the Original Mortal as its vessel.  It sat up, moving smoothly and easily; flexing limbs that shed the clay of the shell that allowed it to take mortal form.

“THIS IS A STRANGE WAY TO ENTER THE PRIME.” It said in a voice with the power of a glacier.  “I, MORDE FIND MYSELF FEELING BENEVOLENT.”

Callindra hacked at it with desperate force, her sword slicing through one of its arms at the wrist as it stretched and sat up.  Vilhylm thrust his spear through its torso and Cronos unleashed a torrent of flame that nearly blinded them all with its intensity.

It pointed at Cronos with a finger that flickered with blackness.  “DIE.” It said, and he fell to the ground motionless.

Callindra swung her sword in a vicious arc, hacking deep into the Morde’s chest but he simply grabbed the chain, pulled her forward and slammed her into a wall with bone shattering force.  She tumbled to the floor in a broken bleeding mass.

“Great Goddess of life I call upon thee in my time of need!  Jorda, I invoke the boon you bestowed upon us, come now and save us from this unholy monster!”

Vines and growing plants arose from the ground at his feet, some wrapped around Callindra and Cronos but most of them grew into the figure rising from the altar, ripping into its substance and pulling it apart; the work of a hundred years of growth happening in a few moments.

Jorda rose from the mass of vines, her eyes glinting in sunlit rage as she attacked, “You are not of this world!”  Her voice was the clarion call of the charging bull and the scream of a red tailed hawk.  “Your kind is not welcome here!”

“AND YET NEICE I AM HERE AND I SHALL NOT BE DENIED” Morde responded, the terrible grating of his words unmaking her where she stood.  “I WILL LEAVE YOUR PUNY MORTALS HERE TO BEAR WITNESS TO YOUR DESTRUCTION.”

Jorda looked at Vilhylm and her face contorted in pain as blackness ran up the vines that grew through the man shaped thing that stepped from the altar.  “Run.” She whispered, and her body burst into blisters of dissolving ash.

That brought a laugh and the girl scampered out promising again to get everything she was sent for.  Callindra went to the common room, belting her tunic at the waist and deciding it was long enough for the demands of modesty.  She walked up to the bar, set Shadowsliver next to her and tossed a silver piece at the bartender.  He caught it and walked over.  She ordered an ale and a meal and gave him an extra gold piece to cover her meal.

She listened to the chatter in the room as she ate but didn’t learn anything new.  Eventually Cronos and Vilhylm entered as she was enjoying a pipe and an after dinner ale.  They were clean as was their clothing, which explained the duration of their absence.

“Little urchin brought us a meal while we waited for him to wash our gear.”  Vilhylm said with a grin, “Charged the moon for it but I say it was worth it.”

Cronos grumbled a bit but sat and ordered a mug of mead.  “Tryst went off to see about things.”  He said after his first sweet sip, “I’m guessing what we’re looking for is going to be in the keep but we didn’t want to sign up for this contest before being sure.”

“Weren’t you all just saying we should stick together?”  Callindra asked mock innocently, “Have we changed our minds?”

“Well, we had already sent our clothes off to be washed so we couldn’t go with him.”  Cronos said.

“The deadline to apply for the contests is tomorrow morning so we had to be sure before we committed to it.”  Vilhylm added.

“Ah.  Because we couldn’t just wait a candlemark because that would be too long?”  She asked, exhaling twin streams of smoke from her nostrils.  “I see.  At least I have the fortitude to admit when I’m wrong boys.  You should probably work on that.”

Tryst strode in a few moments later, a grim expression on his almost pretty face.  “We have trouble.”  He said in a low tone.  “Finish your drinks and we’ll discuss it in our room.”

“An ale for my brother.”  Callindra said, tossing the bartender another coin.  When he moved away to pull the pint, she gave him an admonishing look.  “You can’t just show up and then we leave like that Tryst, it’ll look suspicious.  Sit and have an ale with us before we retire.”

Callindra saw her would be laundress slip up the stairs with a bundle in her arms and excused herself.  Returning to their room, she dressed properly and thanked the girl sending her on her way with another silver coin.  The clothes were simple, yet well made and her armor was cleaned and polished perfectly.  She was smiling to herself and changing into a fresh tunic to sleep in when her brothers came in one by one.

When they were all together and the door was closed again they all say around the small table and Tryst took out the Hand.  He set it on the table and it pointed directly at the keep.  As it pointed it moved backward and forward ever so slightly as though tracking the movement of a pacing animal.

“I believe the next piece is in the Keep, but I also believe there may be more than one.”  He said, and as he spoke it abruptly pointed in a slightly different direction almost as if it was illustrating his point.  “At least one of the pieces appears to be on the Count’s person, or someone inside the keep.”

“So we have to enter this contest then?”  Callindra said, not really asking a question, and the others nodded.

“Yes, however this isn’t a city of refugees being led by a man only gifted because he has a silver tongue from the gods.”  Tryst said, his tone serious, “This is a man who has built a city that is a stronghold from the Abyss from all we have seen so far, and built it well.  From what I’ve seen thus far, there can’t be more than one or two pieces left and if the Count has two of them, we may be putting ourselves and our entire mission in danger.”

“There is also the fact that this place seems to be free of the Abyss.”  Vilhylm said, his voice low and sounding a bit worried.  “If we remove the things that are keeping it at bay what will happen to all these folk?”

“Can we afford to worry about one city when the fate of the world is at stake?”  Callindra asked, “I do not wish to visit the horrors we have seen on this city; however we have a mission we cannot afford to abandon.”

“I believe we must attempt to gain an audience with the Count of Adbar.”  Tryst said, “If he is a wise leader he will see the necessity of our quest.”

“If he isn’t we’ll be in serious trouble.”  Cronos said, before Callindra could voice the same thought.  “He has a city of devoted and capable warriors at his command.  Even if he is a wise leader, it is a rare man indeed who would trust a band of adventurers to take artifacts that keep his people safe from the terrible destruction that they will surely face once that protection is gone.”

“What is to stop him from seizing what we have gathered ourselves?”  Vilhylm asked, “We cannot afford to leave them here and to separate ourselves is folly.”

“We have to trust that we are the ones sent here to complete this task.”  Callindra said, feeling surprised by the conviction behind her words.  “Jorda herself sent us on this quest and we cannot and will not fail her.”  Her brothers looked at her, the grim determination she felt mirrored on their faces.

“In this, we are agreed.”  Tryst said.  “I have signed us up for this contest.  We will go there, meet Adbar’s challenge and gain an audience with him.  It is the only way we can complete the journey the gods themselves have set us to walk.”

“I don’t like this.”  Cronos muttered.

At the same time Callindra said, “This can’t be right.”

“See, it seems to be untouched.”  Vilhylm said just as Tryst smiled.

“Nothing to fear here.  Normal trade wouldn’t happen like this in a place where the Abyss held sway.”  Tryst said.

They all stopped and looked at each other.  The look on her brother’s faces was so comical, Callindra started to laugh.  The laughter felt good and the rest joined in, even Vilhylm gave a rare wry chuckle.

“I think I’ve just been on edge since I was kidnapped.”  She said, feeling a knot in her chest loosen.  She hadn’t talked about it with them, had avoided even thinking about it and it took a huge weight off her shoulders.  “I need to learn to let go every now and then.”

“No, I think you’re right to be worried.”  Cronos said, glaring thunderstorms at her for making him laugh.  “There’s something off about this place.  Only servants of the Abyss would thrive in a world where it was gaining a foothold.”

“The same could be said for a place that is a stronghold against that same enemy.”  Tryst said, “If the people here have been sheltered from its influence they’d be equally at ease.”

“We need to all forget our prejudices and walk into this place open to outcomes.”  Vilhylm said, “Our reactions from even this distance prove that.  At least we won’t need to worry about having to sneak in, it’s obvious that plenty of common folk are coming and going at will.”

With the wisdom of his words settled, they all made their way down to the trade road and toward the gate.  As they joined the stream of waggoneers, famers and assorted others they listened to the happy chatter and felt their suspicion fade.

“Are you here for the contests?”  One of the traveling peddlers asked, struggling under a pack twice his size.

“Contests?”  Callindra asked, “What contests?”

“Uh, Lord Adbar’s contests of course.”  The peddler said, glancing at their weapons and travel stained clothes.  “Why else would you have come all the way out here?  You obviously aren’t locals.”

“Oh, the fighting contests?”  Callindra shrugged, “Yeah, I guess I didn’t think about it as a contest since we’re obviously going to dominate whatever competition there might be.”

“That’s the spirit!”  The man said with a smile, “I love to see this kind of newcomers, it always brings out the best spectators and that means I’ll sell everything!  Makes the trip worth it ya know?”  He moved on ahead with renewed vigor, whistling a happy tune.

“What do you suppose that was all about?”  Callindra asked her brothers, watching as the peddler strode toward the gate.

“Sounds like some kind of festival.”  Vilhylm said, brow furrowing.  “I’m not sure but maybe Count Adbar is trying to raise some sort of a resistance against the Abyss?”

All the people streaming toward the fortress city of Adbar seemed to be perfectly happy, and the atmosphere did indeed seem to be a festive one, but Callindra felt her brothers moving together as they walked.  They were unconsciously keeping close just in case things weren’t as innocent as they seemed.

The gates were wide open and the guards weren’t stopping anyone from moving inside them.  As they passed beneath the walls, Callindra felt her breath catch in her throat.  The Citadel Adbar was a towering series of structures built into a massive mountain that thrust up from the base of a lush valley.  With space being limited due to the constraints of the peaks that rose on all sides, the people of the Citadel had built up instead.  Even smaller houses had at least three floors and some of the larger ones had dozens.

“Rumor has it Dwarves built this place, or helped at any rate.”  Tryst said, “We used to have a Chapter House here, but haven’t for several score years.  I read about it in the Temple Archives though, when studying the effects and outcomes of city warfare.  This place was designed to be a fortress that could stand against any invading force and has repelled throngs of Goblins more than once.”

Callindra could see how the streets were organized in a series of long corridors that ended in blind corners and how the buildings on the ends of those blind corners had balconies or flat roofs that looked out and down those straight sections.  A few archers on each could do considerable damage to anyone who was trying to make their way down those streets without putting themselves in danger of reprisal.

The keep itself was high up above the city proper, and was built into a sheer cliff face of basalt.  It didn’t escape their notice that the wide stone gates of the keep were shut, showing polished bronze bands that gleamed in the early morning sunlight.  Tryst began asking about inn rooms, but Callindra smelled a scent that made her head turn.  Someone was smoking Karalan Imperialis.