Free The Traitor's Tale by Jonathan Moeller Page A

threshold, and
they told me the truth.
    They were from a realm they called Andomhaim, and
they were companions of the Keeper. Not the Keeper I knew, for she
had died centuries earlier, but her heir and successor. A sorcerer
of tremendous power called the Warden had taken her captive, and
would burn her soul to open the gate and conquer Earth. Morigna and
Mara had escaped the Warden’s bonds through cunning (mostly Mara’s,
I suspected, for she seemed the cleverer of the two), but found
themselves trapped in Earth’s threshold. The Warden’s spell had
joined Earth’s threshold to that of Andomhaim, bridging the
tremendous void between the two worlds, and soon the Warden would
open the gate to allow physical passage, killing the Keeper in the
process.
    I could not allow this.
    Mara possessed the power to move both her and Morigna
back to Andomhaim. I fought to defend them as she summoned the
power, for the threshold is a dangerous place. The power of the
Warden’s gate had drawn the creatures I called “cockroaches” like
maggots to rotting flesh. They were spirit creatures, shape
shifters, quick and strong and deadly, and they feasted upon both
magical power and the life force of mortals.
    I fought them with all the rage and power I could
summon. I would not be denied now! The Warden’s gate was not yet
open, but the thresholds of Earth and Andomhaim were joined. Once
Mara and Morigna returned to defend the Keeper, I would follow
them. If necessary, I would aid the Keeper, and then I would beg
her forgiveness.
    First, though, I had to defeat the cockroaches.
    The curse meant I would never die…but that did not
mean I could not be killed.
    ***

Chapter 2: Cockroaches

    I stood in the threshold, my staff in hand, and
watched the cockroaches approach.
    Behind me blazed the ghostly blue flame of the
Warden’s gate, magic so potent and deadly I could scare comprehend
it. Around me wavered the mists and illusions of the threshold.
Specifically, I stood in the threshold’s reflection of Londinium (I
suppose it is called London in the modern era), the shadows of the
city’s people walking past me, heedless of the battle raging
through the threshold half a heartbeat from them. When I had first
seen Londinium long ago, it had been a proper Roman city of brick
and concrete, with a forum and a magistrates’ basilica and an
amphitheater. Now it was a gleaming metropolis of glass and
polished steel, its streets paved in black tar to support
automobiles, its people clad in sleek garments of black and
white.
    The cockroaches wore forms in imitation of them, clad
in black suits with white shirts, black ties hanging from their
collars. The resemblance to humanity ended there. Their hands were
claws of gleaming black chitin, and their faces were a ghastly
combination of squid and insect. They made crooning, croaking
sounds as they approached me, dozens of them fanning out in a
half-circle. I backed towards the gate, my long black coat flowing
around me in the cold wind coming from the Warden’s magic. I saw
the cockroaches’ tactics well enough. Individually, they were
cowardly creatures. Together, they could summon a measure of
courage, rushing me in hopes that one of the others would fall.
    I struck my black staff against the ground, the
sigils I had carved into its length flaring with harsh
yellow-orange light.
    I had lost most of my magic long ago. I still
possessed the Sight, the ability to see the flows of magical power
around me. Once I had been able to command the elements of water
and wind, of stone and earth, but that power had left me. I could
still command fire, could still summon elemental flame to do my
bidding, but I could use it to do nothing but destroy.
    I could work only destruction with my magic…but I had
had fifteen centuries to practice, and I had gotten very good at
it.
    My staff blazed with fire, and I swept it before me.
A curtain of howling flame erupted from the street, spreading
eighty feet in either