CHAPTER 24
Nate Garrett
Realm of Shadow Falls
Antonio and Leonardo took us through the mountain, creating new tunnels and stairs out of the sheer rock around us. They hadn’t said much beyond the need to see a prison cell and some elven runes, and that they needed our help. It wasn’t like Leonardo to remain silent for long, so whatever was going on was either really bad, or really, really bad. There were no good options when it came to a quiet Leonardo.
“We won’t have long,” Selene said from beside me. “Those prison guards are going to notice we’ve gone.”
“And then they’re going to come find us,” Zamek said. “I don’t relish trying to explain why we’re escaping when we’re not really sure ourselves.”
“So who does this cell belong to?” Sky asked.
“Asmodeus,” Leonardo said, to the surprise of everyone else.
“Asmodeus’s prison was never meant to be in Shadow Falls,” Lucifer said. After knowing him as Grayson for so long, I was finally coming around to using his original name.
“Where was it meant to be?” Sky asked.
“No one knew for sure. It was a secret. And not supposed to be anywhere near people.”
“Leonardo, can you please tell us what’s going on?” I asked. “In slightly more detail. Is Asmodeus still in his prison?”
“No, it’s empty,” Antonio said. “And Leonardo is not talking, because he’s trying to shift the rock behind us to make it look like we went in another direction.”
“He can do that?” Zamek asked. “That’s incredibly powerful alchemy. Actually forget that. What he’s doing is dwarf-level alchemy.”
Leonardo stopped walking and turned back to face the rest of us. “Thank you for the compliment. I assure you, it took many years of practice. Also, I should inform you that those sorcerer’s bands can be removed whenever you wish. I didn’t put explosives in them like the Avalon ones. I tend not to want to put cruelty into my inventions anymore.”
I pulled the sorcerer’s band from my wrist and tossed it to the floor; the others did the same. My magic flooded back into me. “Thank you. I did wonder how long I had to wear that blasted thing.”
“We’re almost there,” Leonardo said, completely ignoring me once again and walking off to move more rock.
“It’ll be worth it,” Antonio promised. “He’s been excited and terrified in equal measure about this thing since we found it.”
“If it’s Asmodeus’s prison,” Lucifer said, “I’d be more terrified than excited.”
“So, have you finally told everyone you’re Lucifer?” Leonardo asked as he moved several tons of rock out of the way, creating a new passage.
“How long have you known?” Lucifer asked.
“I figured it out when I found the prison a year ago. You’ll see why.”
We were silent for the rest of the journey until Leonardo led us into a gigantic cavern. Purple writing glowed across the walls, and in the center was an empty dais that was big enough to put several dozen people. I walked over and found that it had similar writing to what was on the walls, although there was no color to it.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“What is this writing?” Selene asked at almost the exact same moment.
“There’s no prison here,” Sky said. “Unless it’s invisible, which is a distinct possibility considering the weird shit I’ve seen in the last few days.”
“It’s further on,” Leonardo said. “I just wanted you to see this, too.”
“It’s elvish,” Lucifer said. “I can’t read it, though.”
“The only elvish I know is from blood elves,” Zamek said. “And this isn’t anything like that.”
“I recognize this word here,” Lucifer said, pointing to a long mass of swirling patterns. “It means ‘moving,’ or ‘forward,’ something like that. It’s hard to explain, as elvish writing is a difficult thing to master. The elves kept their language a secret. There were no manuals, or people willing to teach it. What you learned you had to figure out on your own.”
“We believe that Shadow Falls was once an elven kingdom,” Leonardo said. “A shadow-elf kingdom to be exact.”
“That would be quite the coincidence,” Selene said.
“I think whoever came here first and named this place Shadow Falls knew it was always called that. I’ve found information that suggests this mountain was always known as Shadow’s Peak. So, whoever first came here probably knew the history of the realm.”
“So, if shadow elves lived here, it would have been before the elven civil war,” Zamek said. “Long before.”
“Thousands of years before, yes. There’s evidence of old ruins to the north. I think it was an old city that was razed to the ground at some point. It’s hard to say exactly when. I can’t read all that much elvish. There’s something you need to see, though.”
Leonardo led us under an archway at the edge of the cavern, and down a long, winding slope to a second cavern, which made the first one look about the size of a matchbox. Dozens of crystals in the ceiling lit the room, casting a blue-and-pink glow over everything.
“You could fit an aircraft carrier in here,” Sky said.
The cavern was the largest I’d ever seen outside of the dwarven realm, something Zamek appeared to think, too, considering the look on his face.
“You okay?” I asked him.
“It’s like home. It’s a lot to take in. Are you saying this isn’t dwarven, Leonardo? Because elves aren’t alchemists.”
“No. These caves were probably made by dwarves. I have no way of confirming that one way or the other, though. Do you notice there’s no writing?”
“What the fuck is that?” Sky asked, pointing to the center of the cavern.
In the center of the cavern was a cell. It resembled a huge bell with a metal door and several barred windows on what appeared to be two floors. Chains ran from the ceiling to the top and sides of the cell. Separating us was a twenty-foot-wide gap. I walked to the edge and looked down.
“Seven hundred feet deep by our last estimations,” Leonardo said. “There’s a bridge just there.”
I looked where he’d pointed, and indeed there was a sturdy-looking metal bridge.
“It’s the giant statues I’m more interested in,” Selene said.
Four fifteen-foot-high stone elf statues stood around the cell, all looking down on the cell. Each held a sword and shield that were taller than most people, and if the idea was to intimidate whoever was inside the cell into behaving, someone had certainly gone to a lot of effort.
“We don’t know what they are,” a voice from behind us said.
I turned to see Caitlin, Galahad, and Harrison enter the cavern. “Glad to see you made it down here okay,” Galahad said.
“Look, if you’re here to fight—” I started.
“We have a lot of explaining to do,” Harrison assured me.
“Those statues are one of the reasons we think that this was an elven realm,” Leonardo continued, as if the three newcomers hadn’t entered the room. “We’ve found plenty of items that we’ve taken from here showing drawings of elves, various pieces of writing. There’s a lot we don’t know, but we’re almost certain Shadow Falls was an elven realm.”
“What the hell is going on?” Sky asked.
“You might all want to sit down,” Galahad said, pointing toward a nearby workbench. “There’s a lot to go through.”
Once we were all seated next to the lengthy workbench, Leonardo picked up an old leather-bound book, passing it to me.
I flicked open the first page and found a drawing of Lucifer. “You’re in here,” I told him, showing him the picture of someone who looked almost identical to him.
He took the book from me and flicked through several of the pages. “Abaddon,” he said, showing me the picture of her. “And this is Asmodeus.”
Asmodeus looked like the kind of suave, sophisticated vampire that people wrote books about. He was handsome and in any other walk of life would probably have graced the covers of modeling magazines or would’ve been a big-name actor. He didn’t look threatening, or menacing. In fact there was a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
“He doesn’t look like someone I should be scared of,” Zamek said. “He looks like someone who enjoys preening in front of a mirror for hours on end.”
“He’s a monster,” Lucifer said. “Let me assure you of that.” He went through more pages. “The rest of the devils are in here, too. All seven of us. And then there are details on their positions in what realms. I can read the occasional word, so I’m only guessing, but I see the names of several realms here, and not all of the writing is in elvish. This book was used to keep an eye on us. It ends just after the rest of them were banished. This book is thousands of years old. I knew the elves did something to their paper to make it not age, but this is astonishing.”
“The dwarves do the same thing,” Zamek said. “Although we use our alchemy to do it.”
“Okay, anytime someone wants to explain everything,” Selene started.
“Yes, I think we’re owed that much,” Lucifer continued.
“We’ve had some problems over the last few weeks,” Galahad began as he took a seat. He’d cut his dark hair since I’d last seen him, and grown a short beard. There was a small scar on his cheek that I didn’t remember.
Caitlin sat beside him. She wore jeans and a T-shirt instead of the suit she’d worn as a member of the FBI. It was good to see her again, and I hoped that the last few years had been kind to her.
“A few weeks ago a man by the name of Lee O’Hara arrived in the city, claiming to be your friend,” Harrison said to me. “I assume you know that name.”
I nodded, feeling the shock of the name of an enemy for the first time in years. “He’s the son of a crime boss in London. When I lost my memory, after Mordred’s attack, I worked as a thief for the family. Lee was a monster. Human, but evil. He tried to have me killed, and almost got his sister killed in the process. His family had him exiled from the UK for it. He doesn’t like me a whole lot.”
“Well, he’s not human anymore,” Galahad said. “He’s a vampire. A very powerful one.”
“He murdered people,” Caitlin said. “Left marks saying it was the work of Hellequin. He ran off to the forest at the north of the city. We sent people after him, but they didn’t come back.”
“And more than one person in the city defected to his cause,” Harrison said.
“You had traitors in your midst again?” I asked.
“It would appear so,” Harrison said between clenched teeth.
“How can Lee be so powerful after only a few years? Vampires take centuries to become powerful.” I glanced at Lucifer. “Asmodeus, I presume?”
“Those he turns are abnormally strong,” Lucifer said. “It’s possible this Lee is one of his. And if that’s the case, we have a problem. Wherever Lee is, Asmodeus will know about it. He can track his creations, but more than that I doubt very much Lee’s arrival here is a coincidence. Asmodeus must have sent him.”
“What does that have to do with us?” I asked.
“You are Hellequin,” Galahad said. “And several of my council decided that if you arrived, you should be arrested and questioned. That demand only increased when someone calling themselves Hellequin starting murdering humans on Earth realm. So, I needed to make your arrest look good so that when you emerged from prison, everyone would be convinced that I’d discovered your innocence.”
“Yes,” Harrison said. “We had to arrest you all, unfortunately. It wouldn’t have worked if we’d just taken you, Nate.”
I noticed that Galahad hadn’t apologized for what he’d done, although I wasn’t about to hold a grudge about it. “Did you have to punch me, too?”
Harrison smiled. “No, that was just for fun.”
“You’re such a dick,” I told him, and enjoyed seeing that smile falter.
“We don’t have time for this,” Galahad snapped. “We need to discuss what’s happening.”
“Well, Avalon is declaring war on you because someone using my name is murdering humans and attacking Tartarus,” I started. “They killed Rhea and Cronus. They wrote Shadow Falls in blood near their bodies. Someone is doing an excellent job making people think that you and Shadow Falls are behind it all. In just over a day, Avalon will launch an offensive against you. They will expect you to hand yourself to them for questioning. They will expect you to allow their forces into Shadow Falls.”
“Then they will be very disappointed,” Galahad said. “You came here to do what, convince me to let it happen?”
“We came here because we hoped you’d be able to talk to them before this went any further,” Sky said.
“If you can talk to Arthur and make him realize what’s happening, a war might be averted,” Selene said. “You need to let Arthur and some of his people into the realm to discuss what’s going on.”
“So they can try and take control?” Harrison asked. “Never going to happen.”
“This isn’t about taking control,” I snapped. “This is about Avalon’s war machine marching to your front gates. If you can’t convince them of your innocence, they will try to force the issue.”
“Then they will be upset,” Galahad said. “They will not come into this realm. They will not be invaders.”
“Then go talk to them,” I said. “Arthur is coming alone. He’ll be here in hours. I will go with you, to neutral ground. The pair of you can talk.”
“I tried,” Galahad snapped. “About a month ago I was given word that Avalon was looking for reasons to invade.”
“A month ago?” I asked, looking over at Sky and Selene, who both shrugged.
“What can I say? Avalon already has ideas to take this realm for themselves.”
“You really believe that Arthur would invade Shadow Falls without reason?” I asked. “He came to me before all of this death and told me that he’d heard rumors of a Shadow Falls expansion plan into America. He asked me to come here and find out what’s going on. He doesn’t want war with you, Galahad.”
“I agree. I don’t believe he wants war,” Galahad admitted. “But that’s not to say that people who want control of Avalon for themselves wouldn’t move Avalon into a war with us. A war they could capitalize on.”
“Hera?” Selene said. “That sounds an awful lot like her.”
“Or Baldr, or Merlin, or any number of a dozen people who want what we have,” Leonardo said.
“The crystals,” Caitlin finished for him. “You remember those, yes? An unending source of energy. A weapon of immeasurable power, and a way in which Avalon could gain more and more control over all of the realms.”
“They’re unstable,” I said.
“You think they’ll care about that?” Galahad asked.
“Are these the same crystals that created the blood elves?” Zamek asked.
“Similar, yes,” I said. “Less stable, and there have been no adverse effects of magic on people.”
“Blood elves, they used to be the shadow elves, yes?” Leonardo asked. “Before the civil war with the sun elves? Before they lost and were sent to be watched over by the dwarfs?”
“Yes, that’s them,” Zamek said. “Before that, the elves and dwarves lived and worked side by side for hundreds of years, right up until the point they attacked us, killing thousands. You say the crystals here have had no effect? Well, we didn’t think they affected the elves until they became crazed monsters.”
“But the elves are the only species the crystals affected,” Selene said. “And that was after hundreds and hundreds of years of exposure. Before then the humans worked with the crystals with no ill effects.”
“That’s true,” Zamek said. “But who wants to bet that certain people in Avalon will want to experiment with those crystals? You really think that Hera won’t try to create her own blood elves, but with a different species?”
“Zamek, can I discuss the crystals with you?” Leonardo asked.
Zamek nodded and walked off with Leonardo and Antonio.
“I’ve seen what those crystals do in the wrong hands,” I said. “You had us all arrested to appease people in your government. What happens now, Galahad?”
“Now we make out that you were all questioned at length and you’ll be helping with inquiries. I am their king, but I’m not all-powerful. I can’t have my council and advisers fighting amongst themselves.”
“So, why not just question us in the prison?” Sky asked.
“Because you needed to see this,” Caitlin said. “Specifically, the cell over there.”
“It’s a very nice cell,” Selene said. “Asmodeus isn’t inside.”
“No, it appears to be empty,” Galahad said. “It was shut when Leonardo found it during an expedition into the mountain. And then, a month ago, we came here and it was open. Back in the room with all of the purple writing, there was one dead blood elf. That was the first time I’d ever seen one of their kind. It was a bit of a shock, and it took more than a few calls and favors to even figure out what it was.”
“Okay, so it’s quite possible that Asmodeus was inside and is now free,” Selene said. “In fact it’s probable considering that it appears someone turned this Lee guy into a powerful vampire.”
“Couldn’t another master vampire have turned him?” Sky said. “They can make powerful people quickly. It would have been within the last month, so that’s a lot quicker than usual, but it’s possible.”
“It is, but it’s also unlikely,” Lucifer said. “I’d need to see Lee to be sure. Asmodeus’s vampires had a very specific way about them. They were more bloodthirsty than most, capable of acts of depravity that shocked people. They murdered whole families just to bathe in their blood.”
“He did that,” Harrison said. “My men found him lying in a bathtub full of the blood of the family he’d slaughtered.”
“Sounds like Asmodeus to me,” Lucifer said.
“Have any of you been in the cell?” I asked as Leonardo rejoined us.
“Of course,” Leonardo said.
“Is it safe?”
“It appears to be, why?”
I got up. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Did you know he was trying to make a realm gate?” Zamek asked me as I walked toward him.
“Who, Leonardo?” I replied.
“Yes, I’m trying to see if I can manipulate the crystals to make a larger realm gate,” Leonardo said. “Essentially I want to operate one of the gates we have and then use the crystals to widen the gate. It should allow a lot more people in and out of a realm.”
“Or blow up,” Galahad said.
“That’s why I haven’t tried it yet,” Leonardo said.
“That and they won’t let you,” Antonio sniped.
“Yes, and that,” Leonardo replied.
I walked away, across the bridge, repeatedly telling myself not to look down. I took a moment to myself when I was over, and looked around at the four stone giants, trying to make it appear as though the walk over a narrow, old bridge wasn’t something completely awful.
Writing I couldn’t read had been carved into the legs of each of the giants. “I presume this is elvish?” I called back, and discovered that Leonardo had crossed the bridge and was closer than I’d expected. “Sorry, didn’t mean to shout at you.”
Leonardo smiled. “It’s elvish, yes. And no, like everything else I have no idea what it says.”
I walked to the door of the cell and looked up at the writing above the thick metal cell door. “That says Asmodeus, though.”
“Yes. I’ve found his name in a few pieces of writing, but the elves didn’t have an alphabet like we do, so translating an A in ‘Asmodeus’ isn’t the same as an A in ‘apple.’ It’s a . . . frustrating exercise.”
“I can imagine.” I pushed the door open fully and stepped into the cell. “Give me a minute. I have an idea.” I took a deep breath, and in my head I called for Erebus.
“Hello, Nate,” Erebus said. He sat on the bare floor of the cell, wearing a pair of black jeans and a white T-shirt. “I didn’t expect to hear from you again so soon. This isn’t back inside your head, by the way, so we’re operating on real time here.”
“You said the last mark would gift me with knowledge.”
“Yes, your mother told me that.”
“What knowledge?”
“Whatever it was decided you needed to know. Things about history, about the various players in the game of Avalon, all kinds of things.”
“Elven writing?”
“Ah, not so much, no. Elven writing is a by-product of their magic. The elves had a very odd magical ability. Part nature magic, part blood magic. They could instinctively understand one another’s writing. It was the intent of the word, not the word itself, that mattered. It makes it almost impossible for anyone to learn more than a word or two, and even then not everyone would have written that word the same way.”
“Okay, so there’s no way to know what any of this all meant?”
“Not unless you can absorb the spirit of an elf. And even then you might not be able to.”
“And the elves here died thousands of years ago, so that’s out.” I thought about the problem for a few seconds. “Any chance you know any elvish?”
Erebus smiled. “No, unfortunately not.”
“Any chance you could just pour all of the information that the mark held back into my head at once?”
“Only if you’d like to be turned into a vegetable for the next decade. My role now consists of giving you that information at a rate your brain can cope with. This has nothing to do with your power of a sorcerer, and everything to do with the fact that too much of this information at once will overload your synapses.”
Okay, so that was out. “You know, it’s weird you’re Erebus, but you still look like me. Any chance you could . . . not?”
“No. I’m still essentially the nightmare in your body, so I get to look how your nightmare would. Most sorcerers don’t even get a chatty nightmare. You could always use the elven magic echo.”
“The what?”
“Elves wrote things down, but sometimes they could imbue their words with blood magic. Creating a magic echo. Essentially it records everything that happened in the few minutes after the magic was used. It was quite the interesting use of power. Also, it only works with words that glow.”
I looked around at the words written on the walls of the cell. “None in here, but there are a lot of those back at the realm gate. I assume that is a realm gate?”
“Yes. Very few of us knew about them. The elven civil war was fought because the shadow elves wanted to tell the world about what they knew, and the sun elves refused. The realm gate requires blood to use, though. Quite a bit of it.”
“A sacrifice.”
“You can see why they weren’t popular.”
“The blood elf they found?”
“That would do it. If someone came here through a realm gate, they’d need a sacrifice to get back out again.”
“So a month ago they come here, open the cell, drag Asmodeus out, kill a blood elf, and escape. We need to know exactly what happened. I need to go use one of these echoes. Thanks.”
“Glad to have helped,” Erebus said before vanishing.
“I have an idea,” I said, running out of the cell to see that several of the group had made their way across the bridge. There was a rumble from beside me, and I had to throw myself aside just in time to avoid one of the massive swords of the now-moving stone giants.
Soon all four giants were moving, ready to destroy anyone close to the cell.