Dance of death the syran.., p.1
Dance of Death (The Syrane Chronicles Book 3), page 1
The Syrane Chronicles
Book Three
Dance of Death
PETER DIGGINS
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Warning: This book contains descriptions of violence, innuendo, occasional coarse language and some attempts at humour.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 (Australia), no part may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of the publisher.
Peter Diggins asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Map adapted from an original artwork by Tad Davis.
Copyright © 2023 Peter Diggins
All rights reserved.
The story so far.
1.Norton Keep.
2.Back in Torun.
3.It’s all my fault.
4.Gryphon.
5.Revelations.
6.Inside the mind of the spectre.
7.Oh, that woman.
8.Lost and found. And, um… lost.
9.Master of the tower.
10.Shhhhh, I’m thinking…
11.The least we could do.
12.On the road again.
13.Space Race.
14.Ah, so that’s what a Wyvern is.
15.Meanwhile, back at Olfaern.
16.Heading into danger.
17.They’re heading south.
18.Concerning Elves.
19.Complications.
20.What became of Akaros.
21.Ambush.
22.The Temple again.
23.The Room.
24.The Altar.
25.In the lap of the gods.
26.Back to Torun.
27.Back in a dungeon.
28.Deliverance.
Epilogue
To Riley.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Scott for the inspiration to breathe new life into the Kingdom of Syrane.
Many of you provided inspiration for characters and passages in this book. I’m very lucky to have such interesting friends. Thanks for being so entertaining!
To my family, who wait patiently for me to return from being swept away to magical lands for days, weeks, months on end.
Thank you.
The story so far.
Within the magical land of Syrane, adventurers reawakened an ancient evil.
Mergoth, the dead god once venerated by thieves and assassins, was also the God of Corruption. This corruption caused the perversion of nature that is the undead.
Treasure hunters exploring the ruins of the Temple of Mergoth had inadvertently rekindled the spark of half-life for the undead, who had lain dormant for an age. The group was engaged in a running battle within the temple, fighting off hordes of undead ghouls. But they found they could not defend themselves, for Mergoth’s corruption affected their magic. It had stopped working as it should when the undead reawakened.
Camulus, the noble god of knights and warriors and ancient enemy of Mergoth, is thought long-dead. But he also appears to exert influence. A small statuette of his likeness appears in modern-day Earth, where Duncan Hawkwind sees it.
In the temple, the adventurers realised too late that Mergoth’s corruption extended further than they thought. The long-disused ability of Derek Moondreamer, the party’s priest, to banish and dismiss the undead had seemed at first to be their salvation; but the ancient evil they had reawakened had corrupted the power of the cleric and seemed destined to doom them.
Forced to barricade themselves into a room with no exits, the adventurers turned in desperation to an old magical spell on a scroll that promised a guardian, a protector. A being of great power summoned from the outer realms to aid in a time of great need.
Jade Hewen the mage cast the summoning spell, but instead of a monstrous protector, they got a man. A very normal man from Earth. This magic too was corrupted, and it whisked Duncan Hawkwind away from Earth to the bowels of the Temple of Mergoth. The terms of the spell were simple. Duncan would remain there for a day.
Duncan helped the companions escape the temple, but several things went wrong in their escape. Two of the group died; Rex Cornish and Galara. The dwarf, Jongus Bloodaxe, Derek the cleric, and Jade made it out. When free of the temple’s influence, Derek called upon his god-given banishment ability to destroy the ghouls that pursued. The banishment worked, and destroyed many ghouls, but it also had an unexpected consequence: as an outsider, the banishment affected Duncan; it transported him many miles away to a hillside, on the road to Torun, Syrane’s capital.
Assuming they had returned Duncan to his home realm, the three who remained buried their comrades and resumed their journey back to Torun.
Duncan spent the night in an inn, and the next day walked toward the city. He expected the expiration of Jade’s summoning spell would return him home.
Unfortunately, Duncan did not return home, and switchers attacked him while he camped by the roadside. A switcher is a man or woman, who can transform themself into a man-beast. Reviled by all; when transformed, switchers are immune to all but silver or magic weapons. They have enormous claws, big teeth, red eyes and thirst for warm blood.
In a stroke of good fortune, Duncan had been carrying Galara’s backpack when banished. Within the backpack was a magical gem, which helped him to kill one switcher with an enormous fireball and drive off the other.
The Torun City Watch arrested Duncan as he walked toward Torun. It turned out the switcher he had killed was the brother of Lord Manfred Von Borin, richest man in Torun.
Von Borin called in several favours to influence the magistrate and manufacture a case against Duncan. The switcher that escaped was none other than Von Borin himself, and he didn’t want his secret exposed. Convicted of murder and other trumped-up charges, they sentenced Duncan to death by hanging.
And so, they carried the sentence out. Except Duncan did not die. His hanging was a failure, and he survived.
Unsure what to do with him, the magistrate commuted Duncan’s sentence and agreed to sell the outsider to slavery. An unscrupulous man named Tobias Thorsten bought Duncan to use as an arena slave, a gladiator.
Brother Walter, a priest of Dian the Just, discovered that Duncan was invisible to the gods. Divine magic could not heal him. His healing had to be done by natural means or by other healers; people who can use their own personal energies to heal, rather than clerics who rely on the gods to grant healing prayers. Walter also discovered this invisibility meant Duncan could not die by normal means while in Syrane.
The survivors from the temple eventually returned to Torun and found, to their dismay, what had happened to Duncan. They set about trying to make matters right, to find Duncan and return him home. They enlisted the help of Yarn Darkwood, a pathfinder of renown and Corvus Anzorevante, High Mage of Torun.
Manfred Von Borin, hoping to be rid of Duncan, hired assassins to track him down and kill him.
During his time as a gladiator, Duncan fought in pits and arenas across Northern Syrane. Duncan regularly sparred with Karnak, a native of Gund, a country to the east. Eventually, Karnak and Duncan paired up to fight against other teams in the arena. Duncan befriended Aurelia, a disfigured former gladiator who had healing powers.
Von Borin’s assassins caught up to Duncan in a town called Northaven, where Duncan and Karnak were to fight against ogres in the town’s temporary arena. Unfortunately, a poorly constructed grandstand collapsed, killing many spectators. In the chaos that followed, Duncan and Karnak fought past the ogres and assassins to escape, but got separated in the confusion.
Duncan made his way south, but an unfortunate incident of eating poisonous mushrooms left him deathly ill on the side of the road. Fate again intervened, and Turgon Ancalímon, Elven priest of Khor, found him and nursed the outsider back to health.
Jongus and Yarn, on Duncan’s trail, found and rescued Karnak from pit fighting in the town of Rivercastle. Karnak had been recaptured and lost his right hand in an unfortunate incident on a sinking ship.
Duncan eventually made his way to Torun, where he unexpectedly reunited with the figurine of Camulus. Also in Torun, he encountered Von Borin’s assassins again. A vicious fight in the sewer concluded, with Duncan emerging victorious. He crawled from the sewer and lay gazing at the night sky. Soon, he realised with a start that he could recognise many constellations that were the same as those of Earth.
Duncan found the inn where Karnak had suggested they meet and waited for his friend to arrive. He caroused with Angus Bloodaxe, cousin of Jongus, and found Jongus Bloodaxe at the same inn.
They soon reunited Duncan with his friends, both old and new. Discussions turned to how to return Duncan home to Earth. The group undertook to find a long-lost temple of Camulus, in the Pass of Xiphos, hoping to find answers there. Meanwhile, Manfred Von Borin, annoyed that his assassins failed, hired a new agent to destroy Duncan Hawkwind.
Duncan, with Jade, Derek, Jongus, Karnak, Angus, and Yarn, set out to find the lost temple, and the answers they sought.
Yet all is not as it seems. A mysterious being watched from afar and manipulates the outsider and
Duncan, with Jade, Derek, Jongus, Karnak, Angus, and Yarn, set out to find the lost temple, and the answers they sought.
The group travel to the Pass of Xiphos and entered the long-abandoned Temple of Camulus. In the temple, Camulus appeared to Duncan in a vision and explained all that had transpired. The vision tricked Duncan into placing the figurine of Camulus onto a fake altar to gain passage through another portal. This portal led him to Olfaern, the tower of the Archmage Xiphos. Xiphos hid the tower underground for a millennium, on a peninsula of land to the southwest of the city of Dunport.
Xiphos was long-dead, but had lived on after death as a lych, a powerful undead wizard who used magic to cheat death. When Jade and her friends had rekindled Mergoth’s power, it had also reawakened Xiphos. Xiphos had watched from afar as they had drawn Duncan from Earth to Syrane. The undead lych had sought to trap Duncan, and to transfer his life-force into Duncan’s body. After the ritual, he would become an immortal archmage of incredible power. Xiphos had posed as Camulus to perpetuate the ruse.
However, a serious flaw in Xiphos’ plan soon became apparent. So eager was the lych to inhabit the body of the outsider that he hadn’t stopped to consider what impact it would have on the ritual if the subject did not die. Much of Xiphos’ knowledge and spell casting power had transferred to Duncan, and the outsider defeated the weakened Xiphos using the lych’s own magical spells.
Avoiding the lych’s undead servants, Duncan escaped. He made his way to the city of Dunport, and along the way learned to use and control some of the lych’s spell casting ability. In Dunport, he encountered Victor, brother of Derek. He waited in Dunport for the return of his friends from the Pass of Xiphos.
An ambush cut their joyous reunion short. The High Mage Corvus had accepted a bribe from Manfred Von Borin to assassinate Duncan. Corvus killed Karnak and Angus during the ensuing spell battle, and all the companions suffered varying injuries. Duncan destroyed Corvus using the magical might of Xiphos.
Duncan and Jade returned to Torun to deal with Von Borin. Yarn stayed near Dunport to make funeral arrangements for their friends who’d perished. Upon arrival in Torun, Duncan declared himself Archmage of Torun and assumed stewardship of the Mages Tower, now the Archmage’s Tower.
They tracked Von Borin to the royal palace, where he attended a function hosted by the king. Upon exposing the truth of Von Borin’s treachery and his true nature as a switcher, the merchant transformed into a man-beast and attacked Duncan. Several of his accomplices did the same, and the throne room descended into chaos.
Duncan disintegrated Von Borin and his cronies, but unfortunately, killed several royal guards in the melee, much to King Robert’s annoyance.
Duncan reached an uneasy truce with the king and returned to the Archmages Tower to investigate a way home.
Ezekiel, wraithknight servant of Xiphos was despatched by the lych’s revenant to track Duncan’s whereabouts. Duncan, meanwhile, spent his time to continue Jade’s magical education and his portal research.
Agents of King Robert investigate Duncan to determine his motives. Jongus and Derek eventually return from Dunport to continue their healing process in Torun’s temples.
Several people arrive on the doorstep of the Archmage’s Tower in Torun, seeking the help of the city’s new archmage. Lisette, who is the widow of one soldier caught in the magical crossfire in the throne room battle. And Margaret, a pregnant young woman whose husband had abandoned her. A cursed magical item has possessed Margaret.
Yarn goes in search of Turgon, to seek his aid, to ask the elven mages of Anavyr for help to find a functional portal for Duncan to use.
Back at the tower, Duncan uses his magic to free Margaret from the curse, but he inadvertently opens himself up to Xiphos’ insidious manoeuvrings.
One evening, Duncan and several of his companions seek the Royal Swan Inn for refreshment.
Near the inn, Ezekiel confronts Duncan and Jade. The fearsome wraithknight stabs Duncan in the back at an opportune moment and kidnaps Lisette. King Robert’s Court Mage Parker Hardstaff, Turgon and Yarn arrive just in time, and drive Ezekiel off, but Duncan disappears…
1.
Norton Keep.
They built the town of Norton Keep on a peninsula atop a moderately high plateau on the southern edge of Syrane. Surrounded on three sides by water, Norton Keep and the small archipelago at its southern foot marked the border between the East and West Sapphire Seas. For years an impregnable military station, it was home to hundreds of the King’s Marines.
It also housed the best Royal Rangers’ regiment in all of Syrane. It was a former member of this esteemed group that Sir William Thornhill, Castellan of Norton Keep, sought on this cool spring afternoon. He walked at a brisk pace along a wide avenue, but had to shield his eyes from the late afternoon sun. His lively, alert manner belied his advanced years. As he walked, many people in the street nodded, smiled or saluted. As Castellan, Sir William was governor, watch captain and constable of Norton Keep. Upon his retirement from the military, Prince Rufus appointed him to be responsible for the defence of the keep, as well as ensuring the administration ran smoothly. Sir William was a popular leader. His management of the keep and its surrounds sat well with the residents and the crown alike.
He smiled and nodded in response to the greetings as he walked. Soon, he came to a solid wooden freestanding construction. The shopfront was typical of its kind, with a small window; the interior difficult to see through the drawn curtains. A weathered timber advertisement hung from a signpost out the front and swayed in the breeze. The old man looked up at the sign and nodded once to himself.
‘The Order of the Gryphon,’ the sign said in stylised lettering. Above the lettering was a drawing of a noble gryphon. One front talon rested upon a longsword; the sword pointed downward.
“Ah, here we are,” he said to no one in particular.
He grasped the door handle and pushed the door. It refused to budge, and so he pushed again. Nothing. Indignantly, he peered through the window. Inside, above the door, he noted a small brass wind chime that should have signalled his arrival into the store with its usual warm jingle. Instead, it sat silent.
In a very undignified manner, he pressed his face against the glass and cupped his hands over his eyes to get a better view through the lace fabric of the curtains. Inside the shop, he saw it as he remembered. Shelves on two walls. A carved wooden counter and a plain oak door in the back wall. In front of the counter were the comfortable chairs he’d often sat in. Muttering to himself, he peered through rheumy eyes at the shelves. Various antiquities, items and some plain, unremarkable junk lined the shelves. There was no one in sight.
He rapped loudly on the wooden doorframe. No one answered his knock.
“Harrumph!” he said to himself through pursed lips. “He’s not here.”
###
“A curved sword,” Felman Hagen muttered as he turned the perfectly balanced blade in his hands. “Like the elves prefer.” The maker had forged the sword from a single piece of metal; Hagen could not identify the alloy used in its making. The remarkable blade was three feet long, razor sharp on one side with a stiff spine, tapered, with a slight curve at the clip point.
The curved, slightly thicker blade would give the sword an almost axe-like ability to chop through armour and yet keep the advantages of a sword. Although designed as a cutting weapon, its pointed end could penetrate deeply with a hard stab.
He glanced at his selected duellist, Garth Bowen, and the identical blade that hung low on his left hip. Hagen shuddered.
He has two of them.
He passed the weapon back to its owner hilt-first and nodded his thanks.
He walked to the far side of the room to Dabner, the Master of the Melee here in the town of White Bridge, a small settlement a day’s ride north of Norton Keep. Dabner’s hall was a combination of fencing school, duelling house and meeting place for mercenaries who looked for employment. The large open hall was ringed on three sides by weapons racks; Dabner hung melee weapons of all shapes and sizes about the room on stylish wooden racks. Above the racks, a mezzanine platform would give spectators an uninterrupted view. A staircase in the remaining wall led to the platform, and a door permitted entry to the hall.
