The Blood of Vampire: Chapter 21 - The Obsidian Compass
The Screaming Canyons had quickly transformed from a place of terrifying spiritual revelation into a death trap. Jatex, the exhausted, thirteen-year-old vessel of the Sanguine Stain, sprinted through the swirling maze of wind-battered rock, the chilling echoes magnifying the relentless drumming of his own fear. Behind him, the pursuit was a dual, perfectly coordinated agony.
First, there was the invisible presence of Elder Kael, whose spiritual malice was a pure, cold pressure on Jatex's neck, an echo of the Purification Lance. Kael was fast, driven by righteous fury, and constantly searching for a spiritual opening to strike. Second, there was the heavy, rhythmic thud of General Commander Vorlag's main Aerthos company—hundreds of soldiers whose collective pulse of hostile Light-Aethyr created a wall of suffocating spiritual heat that threatened to destabilize Jatex's fragile Shadow-Blood Weave.
Jatex had to find the third Ward, and he had to do it immediately. The knowledge absorbed from the Chalice of Silent Light—the terrifying truth of The Sleeper and the Shadowed Pact's true purpose—demanded urgent action. He was the key, and he had to secure the lock.
He found a momentary respite in a shallow crevice that the wind had miraculously missed. He didn't have time for rest, but he desperately needed the next clue. He pulled out the Obsidian Amulet and the recently acquired Chalice of Silent Light. The Chalice, a dull black stone, was now silent, the knowledge sealed. The Amulet, however, pulsed with a faint, steady internal warmth—a warmth that always intensified when Jatex was near a spiritual anchor of the Wards.
Jatex realized the Amulet wasn't just a focus for his ancestor's consumption; it was a spiritual resonance key. The Amulet, keyed to the primordial Source Blood, reacted to the massive spiritual anchors that imprisoned The Sleeper.
He placed the Chalice on the ground and then carefully laid the Obsidian Amulet on its side, the ancient, forbidden sigils of the pre-Vaelanar deities facing the swirling dust. He closed his eyes, ignoring the metallic scream of the Thirst, and focused his entire, exhausted consciousness on the purpose of the Wards: containment of the Void.
The effect was immediate and profound. The Chalice, acting as a spiritual amplifier, received the focus. The Amulet's sigils flared with a pure, black light—a deep, perfect darkness that seemed to swallow the ambient light of the canyon. The Amulet began to spin rapidly on the stone, then slowly, with grinding precision, settled.
It didn't point toward any geographic marker. It pointed toward a direction of spiritual essence.
Jatex followed the vector of the compass with his eyes, tracing the line of power through the rock and out into the greater world. The line was dark, cold, and heavy, pointing directly toward the hostile, unforgiving south: the direction of the Dwarven Deep Road.
The Chalice gave up its final, silent clue, transmitted directly into Jatex's mind: "The Mountain Heart's strength is the final word. Deep below the iron law, the Scepter of the Deep Forge awaits the touch of the Shadow's Heir."
The Scepter of the Deep Forge. A dwarven relic, likely hidden in the deepest, most secure vault of the notoriously isolationist and mercenary Deep Road Clans. Jatex swallowed, the magnitude of the task nearly paralyzing him. The Shadowed Pact had been signed with the Dwarf emissaries; he was heading directly into the territory of one of his enemies' most powerful allies.
The moment of silence broke catastrophically. The faint pressure of Elder Kael's malice suddenly compressed, focusing into a single, needle-thin point—Kael had found his location. Simultaneously, the rhythmic thud of Vorlag's advancing army was now close enough that Jatex could feel the tremor of their steps through the rock.
He snatched up both artifacts and scrambled from the crevice, throwing himself into a rapid descent down a crumbling rock face.
"There!" Kael's voice, amplified by his Shadow-Weave, tore through the canyon wind. Kael appeared like a silver-white blur at the canyon rim, his face twisted in a mask of murderous resolve. He was too far to use the Lance, but he raised his hands, preparing a massive, area-effect concussive blast designed to cave in the entire crevice.
Jatex, driven by sheer terror, activated the Obsidian Compass again, but this time, he used it for evasion. He didn't look at the direction of the Ward; he focused its power on the vector of Kael's spiritual malice. The Amulet instantly absorbed the hostile spiritual energy, creating a small, localized vortex of black, pure Aethyr that wrapped around Jatex like a tight, temporary shell.
The dwarven mages of the Deep Road had a saying: "The mountain's greatest strength is its indifference." Jatex was indifferent. The small, localized vortex pulled Kael's massive concussive blast not toward Jatex, but sideways, into the spiritual flow of the canyons.
The blast detonated. It didn't strike Jatex, but it pulverized a massive, cantilevered outcrop of the canyon wall just above Vorlag's main advance column. Hundreds of tons of rock, dirt, and ash collapsed into the canyon floor, creating a temporary, deafening chasm. The torrent of debris slammed directly into the Aerthos soldiers, burying them not in death, but in absolute, temporary spiritual and physical chaos.
Jatex didn't wait to see the damage. The momentary chaos was all he needed. He scrambled out of the Screaming Canyons, the sound of Vorlag's enraged, muffled orders quickly fading behind him.
He emerged onto a wide, desolate plain where the only markers were the setting sun and the cold, unyielding direction indicated by the Obsidian Compass.
He paused only once, turning to look south. The Deep Road was the heart of the enemy's logistical power, and the Scepter of the Deep Forge was locked away by the very people who had signed the pact to destroy Syldavia. He was a 13-year-old boy, spiritually starved and constantly on the brink of becoming the monster he feared, heading straight toward the most secure, hostile location on the continent.
He gripped the Amulet, its cold darkness matching the grim resolve in his heart. Sartus. Consumption. He would not run any longer. He would hunt the final Ward. His path led through the heart of the Aerthos Dominion, to the iron gates of the Deep Road.