SIX
“My lord, my lord,” Ekkbar called out. “I have news.”
Batuk flicked his hand, tossing an arc of power at the magician to prevent him from rushing forward.
Ekkbar’s skinny legs continued to run where he stood, but they didn’t carry him forward.
Batuk growled at the half-wit he’d warned not to show his face again in the great hall. At least not for a thousand years if he wanted to continue breathing. After all, it was Ekkbar’s fault their Kujoo people had been cursed to live beneath Mount Meru for the past eight hundred years.
Snakes carved as arms on his throne began to undulate beneath Batuk’s tense muscles.
Ekkbar’s high voice pleaded, “Please, my lord, you must listen. I have found a new portal, I have.”
“Lies!” Batuk roared. They’d all been searching for a new portal. It was inconceivable that this lowly piece of excrement would be able to succeed where the rest of them had failed.
Rock walls glowed, shifting as if molten lava. Flames spit out between cracks in the stone.
By the gods, he would kill that scab if not for one problem.
Every member of his Kujoo tribe was immortal.
Because the gods hate us. Better we should have been slaughtered in battle than subjected to this horror of eternal, never-relenting hell. He curled his fingers, muscles tight with the need to kill Ekkbar.
His fingernails sharpened into metal claws.
The elite guard drew their swords and moved forward. His men couldn’t kill Ekkbar, but with a little encouragement they would make the magician scream for mercy, which might alleviate a few minutes of his boredom.
Batuk’s fury stoked the temperatures high until the nihar billowing around his throne turned from fog to hot steam.
Ekkbar bowed his head in reverence—a lying act, like all his other actions. “But, my lord, I bring you good news. You said not to return unless I could free you of this place. I would not defy you, my lord. Not defy you.”
Batuk held his hand up to stay his guard. What if this pathetic maggot had actually found a way for more than one of them to escape?
Could his army ever be free again? Batuk’s silent question echoed back at him from the weary eyes of his men.
He glared at the magician. “For my tribe, I will hear you. But heed me now when I warn you to take care. If you use lies to sow false hopes, I will have your skin peeled off daily.”
Ekkbar swallowed hard, then bounced his head up and down. “Yes, yes. Free my legs, my lord, and I will tell you great truths.”
Grunting with disbelief, Batuk lifted his chin in the magician’s direction to release his legs.
The magician hurried forward until he stood in front of the throne. His silvery silk pants rustled against his scrawny limbs. His body shriveled along with his manhood, Ekkbar weighed no more than one of Batuk’s legs.
“Speak fast or I’ll unleash the guard on you.”
Ekkbar swallowed hard. “I have spoken to a witch in my dreams—”
Batuk cut his words short with a vicious hiss. “Not another witch. I’ve had my fill of them for a thousand lifetimes.” Which at present he’d be living here as he fulfilled them.
Ekkbar opened his arms in a gesture that questioned why his master lacked simple knowledge of how majik worked. “I know of no other save a witch who can open a path for us, my lord. But this one is different, far more powerful than the last one.”
“The last witch fell into league with the Beladors and betrayed us. How do we trust that this one will not as well?”
“When you’ve heard all I have to share, you will know the answer to that question, O Revered Highness.” Ekkbar shifted from foot to foot, an impatient dance he performed whenever he was anxious.
Batuk wasn’t so easily sold. “You’re treading dangerous landscape, worm.”
The dance stopped immediately. Ekkbar fell to his knees, stirring the nihar that smoked around his chest. “Never, my lord.”
“What does this witch claim she can do?”
“To release you and eight more warriors from our realm—”
“Nine? Only nine of us? I want all of my men freed!”
Ekkbar bounced his head up and down again. “I understand, my lord. I do. I do. But she says once you pass through the portal you will be able to free all those loyal to you. She says ten will be enough men to—”
“Ten?”
“Vyan is still alive from when he escaped. I have spoken to him in his dreams, too. He tires of waiting and stands ready to free his warlord.”
Batuk grunted, pleased at the unswerving loyalty from his first in command, who had gone through a portal two years ago. Vyan had tried to capture the witch who’d opened that first pathway to force her to help his people. He’d battled her Belador lover and lost only because more Belador warriors had entered the battle, outnumbering him. “Does Vyan know this new witch?”
“No, my lord. I would not share this news with anyone until I spoke with you.” The humble curve of Ekkbar’s shoulders sat poorly on a man who bowed only when forced to do so.
“How am I to free the others once we leave here?”
“The witch says all you have to do is gain control of the Ngak Stone—”
“It is gone. Forever.”
“No, no, my lord. The stone hides until it chooses to be found. I did not even know the Ngak Stone had lived with me beneath Mount Meru all these years until the stone revealed itself in my chest two years ago. Did not know until Vyan stole my treasure,” he accused, muttering to himself.
“Your treasure?”
Ekkbar’s yellow eyes turned almost white with fear over his slip. Batuk knew without a doubt that Vyan had taken the stone to find a way to save the tribe, whereas Ekkbar would have saved his hide only.
The magician’s shoulders trembled. He clutched his hands together, twisting them as an old woman begging for mercy. “I meant only that I treasured the stone, yes, only that. All treasures are yours, my lord. All yours.” He bowed his head again.
Batuk had to fight the urge to kick him. But he didn’t want to sully his foot. “You never did tell me how the Ngak Stone came to be in your possession to begin with, Ekkbar, did you?”
A shadow fell across Ekkbar’s face, guilt peeking through before he brightened. “You did not ask, and I could not say while banished from your sight. I found the rock glowing in a creek near where you battled the Belador heathens back before we were cursed. Wicked heathens. I had just placed the stone in my chest upon returning to camp—but only to keep it safe for you, my lord—when Shiva sent us to live here. Most unkind of our god. Most unkind.”
Don’t remind me. “Where is the stone now?”
“I know not for sure—”
Batuk pounded his fists on the arms of his chair. The carved snakes came to life, striking out at Ekkbar, who slid backward on his knees as if gliding upon a majik carpet. “I warned you not to sow false hopes.”
Steel clanged throughout the great hall when each warrior struck his sword against the rock walls in anger, hungry for Batuk to toss Ekkbar to them.
Ekkbar remained on his knees, shoulders now quaking with fear. “My lord … please. You are an honorable warrior. Hear me out before you decide if I have deceived you.”
Lifting his hand to silence the noise, Batuk released a sigh that built from deep in his gut. “Speak.”
Ekkbar floated forward again, his folded legs a hand’s width above the floor when he stopped just out of striking distance. He warily eyed the snakes, which had returned to carved serpents, and continued, “What I meant to say was that I do not know the precise location, but I have had a vision of the Ngak Stone. It still resides in the creek where the stone was lost during Vyan’s battle with the Beladors. The Ngak Stone will cause a giant shovel to dig this creek up soon, bringing the rock to rest upon the bank. The stone will reveal itself to a new master before the full moon three nights from now.”
“Will the Ngak Stone choose Vyan again?”
The squirt of noise from Ekkbar’s lips conveyed his disgust for Vyan, no doubt because the warrior had outwitted the magician the last time a portal had opened. “I believe the stone chose Vyan only for his two hands that carried the stone out of here, not to be a master, or the stone would have remained within his grasp. The stone has always chosen a powerful being, but this time it waits for a woman.”
“The witch?” Batuk ground his fists against the arms of his chair. Snake eyes glowed with life.
“No, no, my lord. The witch does not want to touch the stone. She claims it carries majik that will fight hers. And she warns that if you or any of your men touch the stone when you arrive in Atlanta, the Beladors will know that you are in their world before you have the chance to use the rock. She tells me she has seen this in a scrying bowl.”
“If neither I nor my men can touch the stone, how will it serve me to be at the mercy of Beladors, who will outnumber our ten?”
“The witch has a plan, yes, she has a plan.” Ekkbar’s kneeling body floated up with his excitement. “Once she brings you and your men out, she will tell you how to find a being who can gain the Ngak Stone for you.”
“What is this being who will help us?”
“An Alterant.”
Batuk scowled at the unfamiliar term. “A what?”
“Someone who is born part Belador …” Ekkbar lifted his hands palms out as he waited on Batuk’s snarling to quiet. “And part unknown. Yes, this being has the blood of your enemy but is shunned by the Beladors.”
“I trust no Beladors!”
“This is not a true Belador but one who is considered a lowly mongrel, a castoff their tribe holds in low respect. Alterants change into dangerous beasts and have killed Beladors.”
Batuk sat back in his throne, scratching his beard. “A Belador beast that kills its own tribe? I have not heard of this.”
If a shriveled-up male could preen, the foolish magician did just such. “I am most pleased to bring you good news. Most pleased.”
“What does this witch want in return?” Batuk began to believe this hairless blight on his existence might actually have found a way out of Shiva’s curse.
“After you have gained what you most desire, the witch says you may take the Ngak Stone and do as you please if you give her the Alterant to do with as she pleases.”
That was it? He could keep the most powerful stone in creation and all the witch wanted was this Alterant?
Batuk hesitated. When something seems too easy, it always is. No one would give up the stone for something so petty. Not without good reason.
But that being said, they could deal with the witch and the Alterant once they escaped and had the stone. Then the world would bow and tremble before them. Their wrath would be legendary.
“Tell the witch she has a bargain.”