Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (my reading book .txt) 📕

so he had a hand on each horn and its green light shone down the steps into the dark passageway.

“Quickly,” Imrah urged from just beyond the light, and Milo followed, feeling as though they were traveling down the moss-floored tunnel again.

He quickly learned the Underpassage of Ifreedahm was far less peaceful than the quiet, steady seclusion of the tunnels that led to the ghul realm. The skull lamp shone on worn walls and floors, their surfaces pitted and scored, and a few times, he spied great, many-fingered cracks on the floor. Occasionally these uneven places nearly turned his feet underneath him, and only Ambrose’s steady hand kept him from pitching forward.

In the untouched blackness beyond the lamp’s light, the impression of many creatures moving swiftly and quietly nearby could not be ignored. Ghuls seemed naturally cat-footed, but there were so many of them that they could not be completely silent. There were other noises of movement as well, rustlings and flutterings that Milo would not dwell on. At irregular intervals, there was an eruption of ghul speech, sometimes soft and insistent, other times sharp and combative, but it always set Milo’s teeth on edge. Once he felt something pass within inches of his arm, moving so quickly it was only a dark, spindly blur. He heard the awful torn-jugular sound of ghul laughter echoing behind him, growing fainter with maddening slowness.

His nerves deadened to the terror of the Underpassage as time dragged on, but Milo was becoming more and more aware of his discomfort. Since the interruption of his sleep and the abductive introduction by the ghuls, they had been walking for several hours, and he was tired and sore. After taking no fewer than three twisting turns that led deeper under the city, Milo began to wonder if Imrah really did intend for them to see her father.

He was just about to raise the question when they rounded a bend in the upcoming passage and stood before a baroque door made of worked bronze and set in a wall of the same dark, gemlike stone as the central citadel. In front of the door stood two ogrish ghuls, their blind heads crowned with glowing ridged helms that nearly scraped the ceiling. Their huge hands were encased in scalloped gauntlets, and around their necks hung thick chains from which several glass orbs dangled. In the light of the skull lamp, something noxious and hungry seethed within the glass.

Both guards, nostrils flaring, bowed deeply to Imrah.

“The Bashlek’s guest has arrived,” she stated in a voice that presumed attention and obedience. “He had word sent that he and his consort were to be taken to the southern antechamber of the court in preparation for their audience.”

Both creatures bowed again, then in unison, they slapped their metal-shod hands to the gate and rumbled a single bass note.

The door swung inward with a groan on heavy hinges.

“Consort, eh?” Ambrose chuckled as they moved toward the yawning portal. “You’ll have to let me know if that’s a promotion or demotion after this is all done.”

The interior of the ghul citadel was a strange combination of bleak and alien that left Milo vacillating between shock and near boredom until they reached the antechamber.

They moved through labyrinthine corridors that all seemed very much the same, little more than passages of dark stone smoothed and shaped to inhuman aesthetics. Their odd, slanted design was at first unsettling, but as his mind accepted the foreign geometries, they blurred one into the other. Even the pale-blue witchlight that illuminated the place could be accepted as commonplace.

That lasted until they came to a gallery of bas reliefs full of strange and sometimes animated art or passed a room where an unliving servitor was busying itself with a menial task. Then the reality of where he was came crashing back in, and Milo was torn between disgust and dread fascination.

By the time they arrived at the antechamber, a circular room with several low couches and tables, Milo was thankful for a place to sit and compose himself before meeting the ruler of the city. One of the goblin ghuls was waiting for them when they arrived, and it displayed a maddening combination of excitement and irritation at seeing them. It rubbed its knobby hands together as it eyed Milo and his lamp before pulling a puckered look at Imrah.

“Mysuchastate,” it gibbered in a breathless string of sound. “Maimedandsmellingofthesurfacewhatwillyourfatherthink.”

Imrah held out her stump of a wrist and examined it as though just remembering what had happened to her hand.

“If he notices, I will be shocked,” she replied tartly. “But I have a regenerating salve and all the necessities. Go let him know we are about to be announced, and I’ll get things sorted.”

The simian ghul gave an irritated little prance as it made its way to a door opposite the one they’d entered.

“Notlikelynotlikelyatall,” it sing-songed as it capered. “Andyou’llstillstinkofthesurfacenomatterwhatyoudo.”

Imrah’s jaws clacked in irritation, and the shrunken ghul gave a shriller rendition of a ghul laugh before tugging the door ajar just enough for it to slip through. In the room beyond, voices echoing in a great hall could be heard.

“This will take a minute,” Imrah explained almost apologetically, then paused to look Milo up and down thoughtfully. “Actually, you might want to watch this.”

Milo looked at Ambrose, who shrugged, and together, they stepped over to the ghul princess.

“Perhaps you will learn this someday,” she said, then, reaching her clawed finger to her collarbone, she dragged a line that split her inky skin and tugged away a loose flap.

Milo and Ambrose swore in shock and horror, drawing Imrah’s startled eye. Seeing the faces of the two humans staring at the flap of hide she’d sheared from her body, she gave a derisive snort.

“Be silent and learn,” she hissed irritably, then pulled hard on the flap.

Milo heard a familiar rending sound akin to what he’d heard in Room 7 with the shade, but instead of a crawling nest of darkness, there was a