Arcane Dropout 5

by Edmund Hughes

“Here,” she said. “Can you see that? There was a doorway here. It’s been frozen over with ice.”

  She tapped her fingers on it. Lee drew closer and saw what she meant. There was a faint outline of a rectangular shape where the ice was a shade lighter than the rest of the wall.

  “Okay,” said Lee. “If it’s still frozen, aren’t we done here? It doesn’t seem like anything has gotten in or out.”

  “It’s possible someone—or something—used ice elemental magic to reseal the doorway after passing through,” said Eliza.

  “Is it likely, though?” asked Willow. “I mean, the circular door outside was left ajar. Why would they go through the effort to cover their tracks here but not there?”

  “We aren’t here to make assumptions about what’s going on,” said Harper. “Kukachuk wants us to do a full investigation of the tomb. We have to keep going.”

  “Easier said than done,” muttered Lee.

  Harper flashed a dangerous, crooked smile. She took a step back from the wall, fell into her elemental casting stance, and generated a two-foot-wide fireball over her palm. She thrust her arm forward, sending the flaming projectile thrumming through the air.

  It struck the frozen doorway in a crescendo of steam and ice splinters, clearing their way forward. Lee gave an appreciative whistle, and Willow clapped.

  “Well,” he said. “That works.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Lee was the first through the doorway into the next chamber. He drew up short at what greeted him, and Harper bumped into him from behind.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Just… look,” he muttered.

  The room seemed as large as the previous one, though it was hard to tell. Massive columns of ice ran from floor to ceiling, dozens of them, each one glittering with strange bits of crystal throughout their structure.

  “Wow,” said Willow. “Quite the sight. You could charge money for tours of a place like this.”

  The path forward was obvious this time, blocked off by a circular door of the same copper metal as the one at the tomb’s beginning. Lee didn’t see any handholds on it, and it was flush against the ice, clearly intended to be opened through other means.

  The chamber’s air was cold and stale, like the inside of a freezer that had been left on for years without ever being opened. Lee rubbed his hands together, breath white from the chill.

  “What do you’re think they’re made of?” asked Eliza, peering closely at one of the pillars.

  “Ice,” said Willow. “Duh.”

  “No, I mean… Look at the specks in them.”

  Eliza reached her hand out to touch one of the gleaming crystals she was referring to. Just as her finger made contact, the pillar pulsed with light, bright enough to force the rest of them to look away. A single humming note, like a bell had just been struck, reverberated through the air.

  “Jeez,” muttered Willow. “Do they all do that?”

  She touched another and a similar reaction occurred, this time pulsing red and releasing a deeper bell tone. Lee winced, looking away a second too late for the liking of his eyes.

  “Refrain from touching the pillars until we have a better idea of what’s going on,” said Harper. “In the meantime, let’s try to figure out how to open this door.”

  They took the obvious approach first and attempted to pry it open. There weren’t any cracks around the edges large enough for any of them to work their fingers into, but the cold copper was sticky enough for them to make an attempt at sliding the door to the side. An attempt that failed miserably.

  “There’s a chance the ice around the edges can be melted,” said Harper. “Stand back.”

  She fell into her elemental casting stance and proceeded to unleash the brunt of her arcane power in the form of a massive jet of flame. The ice refroze as it melted, stubbornly refusing to give ground. Harper quit after a minute and gave a sigh, shaking her head.

  Lee found himself wishing Tess had come along with them. She could have simply phased through the door and looked for a means to open it from the other side. He missed her, more than he probably should have after just a day apart.

  He blinked. There was a ghost in the corner of the chamber. Not Tess, and not one he’d seen before. An old, bearded man in a torn shirt and stained slacks was sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to his chest, gaze downcast. A rather sorry sight in Lee’s opinion, which was to say it was one of the most miserable-looking entities he had ever seen.

  He started a hand along the chamber’s outer wall to give himself an excuse to make his way over. Eliza and Willow were bickering again, this time over what might or might not help them open the door. Harper was testing one of the pillars, one arm shielded over her eyes as it burst into excruciatingly bright light.

  “Hey,” Lee whispered to the ghost. “How’s it going?”

  The ghost didn’t react. Lee scowled. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of pulling the man into his mystic stream, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He extended it, and the ghost gasped as his body regained form.

  “What…?” The man’s voice wavered. “Why can’t I go? Why am I still here?”

  “Bad luck, most likely,” muttered Lee. “Judging from your clothing, you’ve been dead for a hot minute.”

  The man’s shirt had a cord drawstring tightened across a v-shaped opening in front and probably hadn’t been fashionable for two or three hundred years. From around the time of Shay Morrigan, Lee figured.

  “Please…” said the ghost. “Let me go.”

  “If you really want me to, I can do that,” he whispered. “We have to get through the door, first. Can you help us?”

  The ghost’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “How do I know you will? Lies… so many lies. Everyone lies.”

  “You just have to trust me.”

  “No!” snapped the ghost.

  Lee swore under his breath. “Okay. A show of good faith? What would help you relax and see me as a friend?”

  He already knew the answer to his question even before he’d finished asking it. Ghosts were so predictable.

  He made his way over to Willow who was watching Eliza and Harper touching the pillars at random, clearly of the mind they were the key to opening the door. Willow held herself aside from the others with an affected air of indifference, as though she was above the situation and horribly bored.

  “Still have that flask on you?” asked Lee.

  She smirked at him. “Yup.”

  Lee held his hand out.

  “What do I get in return?” she asked.

  “That’s up to you, but it’ll have to wait until later,” he said.

  “I’m a patient girl.”

  She made a show of unzipping her jacket and reaching inside. She handed the flask from Lee, raising an eyebrow as he walked off instead of sipping from it immediately.

  He sat down next to the ghost with his back against the wall and took a tiny sip of the vodka. The ghost watched him with undisguised longing, and he couldn’t help but grin.

  “Liquor,” he said. “It’s yours if you help. Afterward, if you still want me to give you your exit, I’ll do it. Deal?”

  He held the flask a bit to the side. The ghost gave a hefty nod and accepted it, making a duplicate in the usual fashion of entities within Lee’s mystic stream.

  He gave the original flask back to Willow and waited for the old man to drink himself into a helpful state. It only took a minute. Wordlessly, the ghost led Lee from pillar to pillar, touching them each in turn. He waved a hand for Harper and Eliza to stop their attempts as he made his own. They watched, bemused at first, and then with increasing curiosity.

  The pillars, when touched, were painfully bright. It was annoying when dealing with one and touching a dozen in quick succession left Lee with afterimages littering his vision. He breathed a sigh of relief as he activated the last one and heard the door crunch as it slid to the side through the ice.

  “What in the wo
rld…?” muttered Eliza.

  “Eldon,” said Harper. “Would you care to explain how you knew how to do that?”

  Lee grinned. “Nope. It was an ingenious puzzle, but the clues are pretty obvious if you just look for them. I’m surprised none of you figured it out before I did.”

  It was the smoothest deflection he could think of at short notice. He had solved the puzzle, and perhaps there were clues in the room that they hadn’t noticed. He figured a simple show of acting mysterious and cocky would effectively dull their suspicion, and it did.

  “Who cares how he did it?” asked Willow. “Let’s keep going.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The chamber exited into a much narrower hallway with walls of thick crystal on either side and massive icicles hanging from the ceiling. Lee followed behind Willow as they made their way forward.

  Lee felt like each step farther into Kuh-Matton led them deeper into the cold. The sounds of shaky breathing and chattering teeth told him he wasn’t the only one. Willow had her arms around herself, and she stopped midway through the hall to rub her hands together.

  “This is insane,” she whispered. “We might not make it much deeper into this place if—”

  She took another step, and a sharp click came from above. One of the icicles had broken loose. Lee moved on impulse, diving forward and tackling her out of the way as the jagged frozen spike fell to the floor directly where she’d previously been standing. It shattered into bits of icy shrapnel.

  “Ow…” muttered Willow. Lee landed on top of her, and they stared at each other for a few seconds, faces mere inches apart. She grinned up at him.

  “Now we’re even,” he said.

  “I actually think I owe you now,” said Willow. “Feel free to let me know if you think of any interesting ways in which I could make it up to you.”

  Eliza cleared her throat loudly from behind them. Lee climbed off Willow and helped her to her feet.

  “That may have been a random occurrence, or it may have been a trap,” said Harper. “Keep on guard. There’s no telling what we might be heading into next.”

  She took the lead, with Lee following behind her and Willow and Eliza bringing up the rear. The hallway exited into the first room of the tomb that felt like a true burial chamber. Rows of troll-sized sarcophaguses lined the walls.

  A stairway in the back of the chamber led to another blocked door, this one a mixture of the same crystal-speckled ice they’d seen in the pillar room. Four frozen statues of humanoid-shaped figures wielding medieval weapons stood to either side at the very top.

  Except, judging from the auras Lee could see with his mystic sight, they weren’t statues at all. He took Harper’s hand, stopping her as she was about to take the first step up the stairs.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He considered his phrasing carefully. “I’m not sure. I just have a bad feeling about this.”

  “I trust your intuition, Eldon, but it’s too cold for us to wait around. We need to keep moving forward.”

  She set her foot down on the first stair. The sound of shattering ice cut through the air, piercing and shrill.

  The outer shell of each of the statues had broken, revealing the monsters that lay underneath. They were zombies as far as Lee could tell. He despised zombies, and these ones were a new variety compared to any he’d seen before.

  Their eyes each had a pale-blue glow. Traces of decayed bone and black ice showed through underneath holes in their white skin. All four were completely hairless and dressed in armor, chainmail with shoulder pauldrons, and dark leather leggings.

  “Frost reavers,” muttered Harper. “They’re undead imbued with a frost affinity. Fire should make quick work of them.”

  She fell into her elemental casting stance and threw her palm forward, creating a fireball and unleashing it in the same motion. It shrank as it crossed the first few feet of its trajectory, flaming out into harmless sparks before it had made it halfway toward the monsters. The room itself seemed to have sucked the heat out of the spell.

  Harper’s mouth fell open in surprise. The reavers were already moving, and Lee wasn’t interested in waiting for them to strike first. He leaped in front of Harper, drawing his pistol and firing two rounds at the foremost of the zombies. One went wide, while the other let out a reassuring hiss as it glanced across the monster’s shoulder. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to slow it down.

  He heard Willow let out a scream from behind them. Lee took a step back, bumping into Harper, who seemed caught in between casting stances as she hurriedly tried to work out a new plan of attack. The nearest reaver thrust its spear toward his chest. Lee dove to the side, Harper leaping in the other direction.

  “Look out!” shouted Harper.

  It took Lee a second to realize she was talking to Eliza, not him. He stared in horror as he saw her on the ground, trying to scramble back from one of the other reavers.

  She wasn’t quick enough. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the monster brought its spiked mace down in a killing arc.

  It went right through her, clanging on the stone floor underneath. An illusion, not the real Eliza.

  Lee reacted faster than he realized he could, drawing his dagger and leaping into motion before the reaver could recover from the deception.

  He stabbed his blade through its back, feeling the knife sink into its hilt. The reaver screeched and fell forward, its body shattering into frozen pieces as the silver did the trick.

  “Eldon!” snapped Harper.

  He ducked as the reaver with the spear swung for his head. It was still enough to throw him off balance, and he took the spear’s blunt shaft across the shoulder as the monster attacked a second time before he could get away.

  He saw the spear coming up a third time. Harper snapped her arms into the conjuration casting stance, wrapping an indigo chain binding around the reaver’s weapon before it could bring the jagged tip town into Lee’s abdomen.

  He still had a grip on his kris dagger. His counterattack was swift and accurate, and the result was similar to before. The silver blade sank deep into the monster, and an instant later, it crumbled into harmless chunks.

  Willow was screaming again, trapped in between two of the sarcophaguses with one of the remaining two reavers closing in on her. Eliza was nearby, trying to get the other girl’s attention and, failing that, attempting to use an illumination spell to blind the monster closing in on her. But it wasn’t working.

  The snow fox Willow had bonded with earlier threw itself into the mix, leaping onto the reaver’s back before dancing between its legs. The instant of distraction was enough for her to slip away, and with her out of the line of fire, Lee could attack freely.

  He clasped his left hand over his right wrist and cast his force spell, knocking the monster off its feet and onto its head. A scrape came from the floor behind him. He spun in time to see the sole remaining reaver pulling back a chain flail in preparation to attack him.

  Harper had found the spell she needed. She unleashed a volley of magic missiles that tore through the reaver from behind. They each did small amounts of damage, but the sheer number she was able to cast at once was simply overwhelming. Bits of frozen flesh and ice tore loose from the monster’s body like bits of concrete under assault from a jackhammer.

  The reaver Lee had knocked down was starting to get up. Eliza secured it with conjuration bindings, though from the way it began pulling at them, they seemed unlikely to hold it for long. Lee fell upon the undead monstrosity and sank his dagger into it several times in quick succession.

  The room went still. Harper moved to check on Willow. She seemed uninjured, though tears streaked her makeup and she was trembling visibly. Lee caught his breath, eyes continuing to search the corners of the room for surprises. He was past the point of trusting they were truly safe.

  “Are you okay?” asked Eliza.

  He winced as he rolled his shoulder out. “A bit bruised, but that’s par for the course.�
��

  Harper had helped Willow to her feet and was leading her over to join the others. Lee noticed the flask in her shaking hand and she barely got it to her lips in time to take a calming sip.

  “How you feeling?” he asked her.

  Willow shook her head. “I… froze up.”

  “It happens. Especially given this was your first real fight, wasn’t it?”

  Willow nodded, wiping a hand across her tear-smudged face.

  “Word of advice,” said Eliza. “Vodka doesn’t help.”

  Willow shot a vicious glare at her, but Harper’s stern gaze shut down any argument before it could begin.

  They moved up the staircase and took a closer look at the next obstacle blocking their path. The doorway was sealed with ice, thick and deep enough to go completely opaque, despite being clear for the first few inches. Harper banged a fist against it and made another attempt at casting one of her flame spells, which was immediately snuffed out by the strange ambient energy of the room.

  “Interesting,” she muttered.

  “What’s the deal?” asked Lee. “Your pyromancy is normally what you’re best at.”

  “Someone, or something, placed a dampening aura on this chamber,” said Harper. “It’s probably what kept the frost reavers frozen and preserved. It means we’ll need to find another way past this wall other than just melting through it.”

  “What about ice magic?” asked Eliza. “Not for creating a projectile to smash into the wall, but to reach into the structure of it. We can’t see any cracks, but there still might be some or at least other weaknesses that could be exploited.”

  “Look at how thick the ice is,” said Harper. “It would certainly take a stronger cryomancy spell than I’m capable of. Though the idea is solid.”

  Lee folded his arms, feeling himself wishing he could cast the summoning spell he’d been working on. It took the full allotment of spells he had through both Tess and the spellchain, but if he could have managed it, he would have brought forth Thumper, the snow bunny. He was fairly sure that, as a hybrid ice elemental, she’d be able to make short work of the wall.