The Keep (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #4)(100)

Alex watched, rooted to the spot, as Caius turned a deathly shade of pale, the entirety of his eyes turning white, the gold of his irises and the black of his pupils draining away to nothing. Caius crumpled behind Vincent, his cane clattering to the ground, his body sliding down the broken surface of the door, slamming it shut as his weight fell against it.

Whatever Vincent had done, it had clearly taken a lot out of him. The veins beneath the surface of his translucent skin pulsed with a darker blue than Alex had ever seen before, the web of it more visible beneath his pale flesh, throbbing thickly in places, like tar. With a weary head, the necromancer managed to turn toward Alex, opening his mouth in a scream.

“RUN!” Vincent howled. Wispy spirits emerged from within the necromancer’s body, pushing through his translucent skin. Their gaping, skeletal faces reflected the screams of their master, floating ever upward. “Get out of here, Spellbreaker! Don’t look them in the eye!”

Yanking open the door, Alex dared to glance back over his shoulder, just in time to see the necromancer turn toward his victim once more, with the clear intent of ensuring Caius couldn’t hurt anyone again. It wasn’t the fate Alex would have wished upon the old man, whose mind had clearly been warped by the things he had seen in his long life, but he wasn’t sure there was any choice in the matter now. It no longer looked as if the necromancer were in control of the deed, as the ghoulish phantoms whirled around him, howling banshee-like wails with their cavernous mouths, the sound sending a tremor of pure terror up Alex’s spine.

Alex hurried toward the nearest window and clambered up onto the ledge, hoping he still had enough focus to keep himself from falling to his death, or into the mouth of a waiting monster. Steeling himself against the nauseating drop that fell away below him, he conjured the necessary anti-magic beneath his palms and forced himself to jump from the ledge. This way, he knew, he’d have less chance of taking some of the keep with him, and getting mixed up in a mass of flesh and stone.

Alex drew his anti-magic back into himself as he plummeted through the air, folding his body in on itself just in time, everything disappearing in a rush of wind. He emerged again with a heavy thump on the grass beside the gatehouse. It was an ungainly, hard landing, and Alex was convinced he’d broken something as a jolt of pain seared through his nerves.

He got up quickly, feeling another sudden sting in his ankle, though less painful than the last. Lifting the edge of his pant leg, he saw that the flesh beneath his sock was swollen, and guessed he must have unwittingly rolled his ankle when he fell. Wincing, he turned back toward the window he had jumped from. The flash of something pale and eerie moved in the distant room. Hollow eyes and a gaping mouth appeared in the vacant frame. A scream shivered through the air toward him, pressing him on as he hurried off toward the derelict town he knew rested in the distance, offering the hope of a safe haven.

I didn’t look them in the eyes, he vowed to himself as he ran. I definitely didn’t look one in the eye.

He ran and ran, dragging his leg behind him after feeling it buckle a few times, making him wonder if he hadn’t broken something after all. Emerging through the tree-line, he saw the familiar sight of the abandoned buildings up ahead, and proceeded onward, past the tumbledown tavern, past the crumbling shops and ancient houses, past Thunder Road, and up toward the mountains. Lightning cracked at the summit, a shard of bright light hurtling toward the great hunk of rock from the maelstrom of black clouds that swirled around the unseen peaks.

It didn’t seem particularly welcoming, but he could make out the ancient scaffold of a structure near the peak, and knew it would be the perfect vantage point from which to survey the whole area and keep an eye out for any approaching enemies. On higher ground, he’d have a better chance of survival.

Trying to ignore the dull throb of his foot, he walked toward the entrance to the steep mountain path. At the start of it, a cracked, peeling signpost stood up from a cluster of rocks, pointing the way. Alex paused to look at it, reading the name written across the damp, warped wood.

“Tempest Mountain,” it read. “Do not feed the birds.”

The name seemed familiar to Alex, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint why as he began the long climb upward, toward the skeleton of an outpost. He just hoped it would prove sheltered enough for him to hide in while he came up with his next plan of action, and prayed that those wispy sprites weren’t going to come after him. Right now, his brain was too frazzled by recent events to even begin to function properly, but he knew he’d have to come up with something soon, unless he wanted to stay trapped in this realm.

Up in the highest reaches, the wind whipped around Alex in biting blasts of ice-cold air. His lungs burned from the exertion of the climb and the thinning oxygen, and though the view was stunning from where he stood, the wind stung his eyes every time he opened them wide enough to see it. The forest stretched away into the distance, dipping where the keep stood, distinctly medieval and looming in the center of it all. But there were other dips too, giving away the locations of settlements nearby. A river glittered on the horizon, snaking through the forest and out to sea, farther than the eye could make out. Alex wondered if the other settlements were in the same state of dereliction as the town below the mountain—a smattering of ghost towns, echoing with the memory of bygone lives.

The outpost still lay ahead, never seeming to get any closer, and desperation for its protection pushed him onward. Turning back around, Alex continued to climb, his face numb from the cold, his path reaching ever higher until the rocks he grasped for were covered in thick ice and the ground below his feet was smothered in several inches of snow. Feeling anxious about how slippery everything had become, he paused to catch his breath, holding tight to a dry ridge of stone as he heaved in as much oxygen as he could, drawing deep for the strength to push on.