by Bill Albert
“If we don’t survive this attack, it won’t matter,” she said. The double attacks from Jakobus’s axe and the increased swings Luvin had with the hammer helped, but they were wearing down. They were sweating profusely and even Luvin’s youthful energy was finding it difficult to keep going.
Gallif stood aside as Pate spoke a few words she didn’t understand and cast at the area behind them. She saw as soon as it went into effect that it was changing the stones to mud, but nearly jumped for joy when she saw exactly what he was doing. Instead of the usual casting on the floor, he had cast it at the ceiling. Mud was pouring down on the revenants. It was so heavy they were quickly buried and lost in the weight. Gallif was about to turn and join Jakobus and Luvin when she saw he was casting again. She followed his casting to the target and the mud was quickly turned back to solid stone. The revenants would be slowed down considerably, and they could concentrate their attention on the group ahead of them for now. Pate winked at Gallif and they started running to join their comrades.
“We have to go,” Jakobus said as he gasped for breath. “Do you have another cast?”
“No,” Pate shook his head and sweat sprinkled from his body
“It’s okay,” Luvin said as he coughed. “I remember the training from Professor Frenore. Revenants will only go so far from their burial sight.”
“Of course,” Gallif said as she and Pate all nodded at the reminder of their training. “Let’s quickly make sure that we’re clear.”
“We need to cool down somehow,” Luvin spoke quickly as he wiped some sweat from his face.
“I think we’ve got other problems,” Jakobus said and they all looked at him questioningly. “Breathe deeply,” he said as he did so by example. “This isn’t just from combat,” he said as he wiped his hands on a rag from his armor. “The air is hotter here.”
“He’s right,” Gallif said as she breathed in deeply. “We’ve got to be closer to that shaft,” she said and took off at a quick pace.
Soon Pate was next to her and they used the flame swords to help guide their way. Not long after that they started to make out the shapes of ghoulish figures not far ahead of them.
They had all heard of these creatures but until now they had only seen them in nightmares. Each and every one of them checked their grip on their weapon to make sure they were ready to fight.
“Don’t let them touch you,” Luvin warned them all.
“I know,” Gallif assured him.
As they got closer they could see the undead figures better and they realized their suspicions were correct. Though they walked slowly and appeared barely flesh covered skeletons they were a very dangerous threat. They could fight quite well, were very hard to take down, and could age a living being by ten years with a brief touch.
“Stand back,” Pate warned the members of his party as he stood before them and cast one of the few attack casts he had left. There were a few quick movements as he spoke a strange language, then a blast of light and heat extended from his fingertips. The effect was immediate and devastating and the fire flame he had cast destroyed half of the approaching ghouls. There were a dozen still remaining. They were approaching steadily with the blunt stone clubs in their hands. They were also on fire.
Gallif and Pate moved towards them believing an early attack would be their best advantage. Their instincts were good and they each took down two of the ghouls with swift blows. As they collapsed the skin and bones piled up in burning heaps that reminded Gallif of dried leaves. She was careful not to step into the piles, not only to prevent burning, but for fear that the aging cast of the undead spirits remained.
Jakobus saw a ghoul that had been away from the blast step out of the shadows and reach towards Gallif. She was facing away, attacking one of the burning figures, and didn’t see it. He jumped forward as fast as he possibly could and used the shadow blade to cut the arm off just inches away from her. He moved close and pushed her away with his back to keep her out of reach. As she brought down the figure in front of her Jakobus also made a victory over his.
Pate took down two of the undead with powerful swings from his long sword and Luvin’s spot on strikes took down a third.
Gallif glanced around quickly as they advanced to make sure her friends were holding their own. She removed half of the torso of the ghoul in front of her and took a quick glance over its shoulder. She could see that the tunnel ended just a hundred feet away. She could see the shaft that Luvin had mentioned and an incredibly bright orange glow that was coming from below.
The ghoul she was fighting tried to push forward to grab her, but she made two rapid low cuts and removed its legs. It fell to a heap and tried to grab at her again as she passed, but Jakobus finished it off.
Dirty and covered with sweat they defeated all the ghouls ahead of them and went running to the open shaft. They stumbled as they came across a small pit and Gallif, Luvin and Pate easily cleared it in a single jump. Gallif turned back to help Jakobus, but too late, discovered it was a trap. As he jumped there was an explosion of darkness and black clouds as the wraith reached up and grabbed him in the air.
Gallif screamed for Pate and Luvin and reached out to grab her friend. His momentum carried him close enough that they gripped hands. The wraith pulled on Jakobus with such force that Gallif slid with them and managed only to stop herself by digging her heels into the dirt.
“No,” she screamed in anger. “I will not let you go.”
As Gallif watched Jakobus grunted in pain as his hair grew at least a foot in length, and wrinkles covered his skin. She swore as she watched him age and pulled back with all the strength she could muster.
Pate and Luvin returned with one of them on each side of her. Attacking a wraith was difficult when it was on its own and even more so when it had a victim in its grasp. The dark shadows it used to hold its prey in place were strong, but very small and thin and it was difficult to hit it without injuring the victim. They each took a few swings into the darkness but missed.
The wraith plunged downward and pulled Jakobus and Gallif with it. She was dragged forward in the dirt until the heels of her boot were completely underground, but she was barely an inch away from the edge. Another plunge by the wraith and Jakobus and Gallif would be gone.
Pate called for Luvin to join him on one side. He quickly pushed Luvin to the ground face down but had him hanging over the edge of the pit at his waist. Pate straddled Luvin’s legs, grabbed the younger man by the belt, and then dug his own heels into the dirt.
Luvin was now close enough that he could make clean strikes at the wraith without injuring Jakobus. Even though it was difficult to see the creature he could estimate where it was and made several swings with his axe. He could tell by the resistance that he had struck something. When he drew back to attack again he kept the hammer flying hard so that none of the wraith’s deadly appendages could grab him.
Gallif cried as she held on to Jakobus. He gritted his teeth in great pain as the length of hair doubled and he aged another ten years.
Luvin rolled slightly to one side and tossed his hammer to safety. He reached over and took Gallif’s flame sword from where it lay and swung it as fast as he could for another attack.
Two strikes and the wraith’s grip on Jakobus loosened enough that Gallif was able to pull him a few inches away from the pit. A third strike and Jakobus was completely free; Gallif catapulted him to safety. Pate quickly reached down and grabbed Luvin’s arm and pulled him away from the darkness of the pit.
While Pate and Luvin kept watch to make sure neither the wraith nor any of undead creatures were approaching them, Gallif pulled Jakobus to safety. She turned him on his side and tried to hide the sadness as she saw his face.
“I’m okay,” he said as he looked into her eyes. His voice was deeper, crackled, and he spoke a bit slower now.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have been more careful. You’ve aged at least twenty years.”
“You are forgettin
g,” he said as he sat back and looked down at himself. “I am a dwarf. For me twenty years isn’t as much of my life span as it is for a human.” He went and picked his discarded shadow blade up off the floor. He made a few swings with it to prove his strength. Even though he wasn’t as limber as he had been before, it was obvious he was still a powerful fighter.
“There’s nothing coming after us,” Luvin said as he took his attention away from the undead alley they had come from. “At least, not right now. Could it be sunrise soon?”
“No,” Gallif said. “A couple of hours yet. At least with the wraith pit here we won’t have anything coming up from behind.”
Jakobus nodded and said, “Those runes we saw at the other end,” he continued. “I thought at the time they might be to keep the aquilus from coming into this area. I think, now, that they must have been there to stop the undead from going out.”
“What else is there?” Pate asked all of them and none of them. “We all grew up with the belief that no one had ever entered Starpoint Mountain. Now we’ve seen hundreds of living, and not living, creatures crawling around inside. What else is there?”
“There’s a man who wants to be a god,” Gallif said without looking up at him.
“A false god,” Pate corrected her.
“But what if he’s right? What if the legends that whoever reaches the top of Starpoint Mountain becomes a god are true?”
“We must take him,” Jakobus said.
“Him or the mountain,” Luvin whispered and they all turned to look at him. “I was thinking of the other beliefs. Beliefs that the mountain had always been there and always would be there.”
That comment left them all silent for several minutes. Finally, Gallif got them all moving towards the shaft.
The heat rose considerably with each step and by the time they reached the end of the cave it was almost stifling. Gallif was in the lead and looked over the edge to see the source of the orange light and heat coming from below. She never would have suspected the source in a thousand years and as the rest of them reached the edge they were as shocked as she was.
“What is that?” Gallif asked no one in particular.
“It’s quite like I imagined the entrance to hell to be,” Jakobus said.
The shaft was fifty feet in diameter and the walls were perfectly smooth and unbroken. Above them, almost out of sight was a sharp-edged rim with nothing but blackness beyond it. Beneath them, five hundred feet down, was a molten hot pool of lava. It was constantly churning and bubbling and pushing the super-heated air upward. There were explosions of lava that scorched the rock walls and had created jagged edges near the bottom of the shaft. Whether by accident or design the shadows cast on the walls created a distinct skull like image.
Gallif held her hand out over the edge. It was hot, but not blistering, and she pulled it out of the way after a few seconds.
Luvin, Jakobus and Pate were considering the impossible task of getting up this obstacle but Gallif was already ahead of them.
“Kites,” she said looking at Luvin. “You mentioned before about kites that were being used.”
“Yes, they are kept over there,” Luvin said and nodded to a small alcove. He led them into the darker space and showed her a large wooden cabinet with three locks. “This has acid traps, so you’d better stand well back.”
Gallif told Pate and Jakobus to stay outside and keep watch for the wraith or any of the other undead. Luvin protested, but Gallif insisted on staying with him to help provide enough light so he could work with both hands. Though he wanted her to be away and safe, he reluctantly agreed with her plan and got to work on the cabinet.
The first lock was easy to reach, and he picked it open in a few seconds. The second had an acid trap and it took a bit longer to break but he did so without incident. His first attempt on the third lock failed, without tripping the trap, but he readjusted himself and opened it on the second attempt. He smiled, stood, and opened up the cabinet to reveal the kites inside. They grabbed four of them and pulled them into the cave so all could see.
These kites were six feet in length and made of thick and heavy rectangular cloth. Each end was secured around a solid wooden staff by leather straps and included loops to hold on to them.
“What must be cast on these to get them to fly?” Jakobus asked.
“I don’t know,” Luvin shook his head.
“I’m not sure what it would take,” Pate said with his mind racing through the casts he knew.
“None,” Gallif said as she brushed her red hair back. “None at all,” she said. With her flame sword safely secured in its sheath she tightly grabbed one end of the kite in each hand, held the contraption above her head, and jumped over the edge into the shaft.
Luvin yelled and ran forward trying to save her, but Jakobus and Pate had figured out what was happening.
“She’ll be fine,” Jakobus spoke quickly to calm Luvin down. “You were correct on them being kites, but there is no casting.”
As they spoke, they looked into the shaft just in time to see Gallif slowly circling upward to their level. Her legs dangled below the kite as she hung on tightly to the straps.
“If you want to go forward tilt the front edge down,” she yelled. “Do the opposite to go back and hold it even to go straight up.” With that she evened the kite and rose rather quickly. She held her place and she was over the top edge of the shaft onto a flat surface in several minutes. Once there she tilted the kite so she could slowly move out of the open pit area and then let herself settle onto the ground. She set the kite gently on the ground and looked around. She tried to discern the distance from the shaft to any rock walls or caverns leading off but saw nothing but black.
“Hey,” Pate called as he came over the edge of the shaft on his kite.
Gallif saw him hanging nearly fifteen feet above ground. He tilted the kite and moved slowly forward barely an inch. He tilted the kite again and barely moved. He had almost reached the edge when Jakobus sailed up on his kite. Gallif reached out and pulled Pate to the ground while Jakobus settled to a gentle stop.
Finally, Luvin joined them. He was moving fast and Gallif feared he could hit the ground to hard. She ran around the rim until she could intercept him and pulled him to the ground. He was shaking badly, and she held him tight until he let go of the kite. His face was covered with sweat and his hands were so soaked he had nearly lost his grip.
“You can trust me,” she whispered to him. “You’re on safe ground.”
Jakobus and Pate joined them and Jakobus assured the young boy that he would not fall down the shaft. Pate stood a respectable distance away and waited to see if there was anything he could do.
Finally, Luvin looked around and made sure for himself that he was on solid ground. He held his arms out even to balance himself and Gallif took a half step away. He took a deep breath and nodded at his friends.
“There has got to be a better way out of here than that,” he said looking at the kite lying at his feet.
“There is,” Zaslow said as he walked from the darkness. He wore a long blue cloak that was closed in front of him, effectively hiding what he wore beneath it. It was the incredible air of confidence he carried about him that struck them the most.
Luvin grabbed his hammer from the loop on his side and swung it back ready to rush at the man, but Gallif grabbed him and stopped him from attacking. Pate and Jakobus were also expecting a battle.
“Wait,” she ordered them all and they held in place. Then she turned to Zaslow and asked, “What do you want?”
“You,” he said pointing at her.
“Over my dead body,” Luvin shouted and it was obvious by their protests that Pate and Jakobus agreed with him.
“You,” he said again to Gallif. “You can either join me or you can leave.”
With that he waved his hand and the air shimmered and colored to form an open door. Through the door they could see the remains of the school as it had been when they left.
It was still night and there were a few campfires in the distance, but no sign of anyone they had known.
“Someone will see that,” Luvin said to try and threaten Zaslow. “They will see the light and come through.”
“Resourceful thinking,” Zaslow said with a smile. “Unfortunately, this door is only one way. You can go out, but you cannot come in. There you go,” Zaslow taunted as he turned back to Gallif. “There is your home, Gallif. It was in your mind when I asked you that day we drank together.”
“And you used me to find out where Rayjen and the rest were. Where the hidden school was.”
“Of course,” he nodded and took a few steps closer to her. “I had picked up traces of something protected in the area but couldn’t find it. Thanks to you, Gallif, I was able to target it.”
Luvin tried to take a step forward, but Gallif continued to hold him.
“He didn’t even know you and now he’s dead,” Pate spat.
Zaslow smiled at Pate as if keeping a great secret and just said, “Maybe.”
All those who had known Rayjen felt their hearts skip a beat with the possibility he could be alive.
“You’re lying,” Gallif said to break the moment, but then another thought occurred to her. “Or maybe you just don’t know.” If it meant anything the man failed to show it, but she continued. “You don’t usually do the dirty work yourself. You just use people, and mindless animals like the elves, to do the worst.”
“I saw the body,” Pate spoke loudly to back her up.
“Did you really?” Zaslow looked at him crookedly. “Or did you see the remains of a body?”
“Don’t listen to him,” Jakobus said with great strength. “He’s lying. He’s trying to break your confidence.” Pate was still staring at Zaslow and Jakobus stood next to him and forced him to look away. “Trust me, Pate. He’s lying.”
Pate took a deep breath and then nodded. “Yes, he’s lying. I know my father is dead.”
Zaslow shifted his position ever so slightly and then turned to Gallif. It was the first time, she thought, that he had shown any surprise.