Her guide, the goblin Varros, had said little since they left the woods. He simply trudged along in front of her, occasionally looking back to check that she still followed. She had seen him staring and scowling at his daggers that were now strapped to Cerana’s thighs. She could almost sense him working out whether he could or even should attempt to reclaim them, but so far, he had resisted any temptation.
Cerana knew that she could not trust this creature for a second, despite earning his trust in her. Once he had done his job and gained her entrance to the mountain, she would have to be even more alert as she would then be in his domain, and she would have to follow his every lead. The thought worried her, but what else could she do? Cerana certainly did not trust him, and she was certain he would betray her as soon as an opportunity presented itself.
Coviche had told her that goblins had little affection for anything other than what they could get out of a situation for themselves; in this case, Varros believed he had escaped with his life and Cerana was not about to admit otherwise. She did not know whether or not she would have killed the goblin if he had not thrown himself at her feet – after all, he was all for killing her not that much earlier. By the fact that she felt no sense of remorse or guilt for killing Civilus Blackwood, this told her that she would have had no problem with killing the goblin too, although this realisation unnerved her somewhat.
After escaping her execution, Cerana Proudstone would still be a wanted criminal, in the eyes of the so-called law. Despite her innocence of these alleged crimes, it occurred to her that she now was guilty as charged. I am a murderer, after all. The king was right to have me hanged. It also occurred to her that even if she was successful in her mission, she would probably never be able to return to her home with Esteri as the guards would surely come looking for her, and probably had already. Not that they would find anything – Jana was missing, presumed dead, Esteri was held captive, and Cerana herself was here, making her way through the remote landscape to the tower of a powerful mage. I must be crazy. Maybe I am.
Her attention had been momentarily lost, and her heart skipped a beat as she realised Varros had vanished, and she started to panic. But her panic was short-lived as the goblin emerged from behind a boulder up ahead and Cerana breathed again.
“Come, mistress!” he squeaked excitedly. “We is here! The entrance is here!”
Cerana hurried around the boulder and saw a vast rockface, just like all the others around her. There was no sign of an entranceway, yet Varros would know better than she.
“Are you ready?” the goblin asked with a certain degree of malice in his tone, his eyes narrowing and, was that a smirk on his face? Cerana could not be sure as she looked again and he regarded her once more, expressionless. I am growing paranoid.
“I am ready, Varros,” Cerana said. “Lead the way.”
The goblin skipped off towards the rockface and raised a scrawny arm from under his cloak. The thin band that he wore on his wrist suddenly began to glow, and Cerana squinted to see what was happening. A purple light took over the band, and small golden symbols appeared around it, growing in intensity until the unseen door began to creak open slowly. The mountain briefly shook - as did the ground Cerana stood on – before returning to normality, and the small doorway opened fully and without another sound.
The goblin darted in, his small body easily able to fit through the low opening.
“Varros!” Cerana half-said, half-whispered. She cursed, suddenly caught between two minds as to what to do. This is it, she thought. The door began to close slowly. Cerana gritted her teeth, steadied herself and ducked whilst running into the dark opening.
I’m coming, Esteri. Hold on, my love.
Inside the mountain was almost total darkness; what little light remained from the outside was slowly being extinguished as the doorway silently closed. Thinking quickly, Cerana realised that she might need to get out of this place the same way she came in. As the door closed further, she reached out and grabbed as large a rock as she could find and fit in her hand, drawing it inwards and positioning it at the edge of the doorway. To her dismay, the door simply crushed the rock to sand as it closed fully. She cursed again as she found herself in total darkness, with no apparent way out, should she part company with her guide.
Cerana held her breath and listened, holding out her arms in front of her, searching for the door or walls.
“Varros,” she whispered. No reply. No sound. The snivelling goblin had taken his opportunity and vanished. This was probably his plan all along, losing her in the darkness. She scolded herself for ever trusting the miserable creature.
There was a musty smell in the air, yet the air was warm. She heard a faint clicking noise in the distance, along with an equally soft scraping sound. Inching her way around in the darkness, her hands would not find solid walls or anything to grasp. She knelt, and felt the ground around her, her heart beating faster and faster as panic grew inside her. Her hands touched the cold, hard floor and she began to crawl, unsure of which direction she now faced. Inching along in the darkness on her hands and knees, she waved her hand out in front of her, hoping to touch something, anything, but all she felt was thin air.
But something felt her.
She gasped in shock as what felt like a hand brushed against her bare arm. Instinctively she recoiled from the unseen contact. Down on hands and knees like an animal, she scampered blindly in the dark, anxious to get away from whatever it was that had touched her skin. Could it have been Varros, playing games with her? Grimacing in fear and shock, she scrambled faster in the pitch black, heart thumping in her chest. On she went; left then right then left, groping in the dark as the rough ground she scrambled on began to wear through her ageing leather breeches and cut her knees. Yet still, she scurried in the darkness, until she could scurry no more as the ground disappeared and she began to fall.
She opened her mouth to scream, but the wind was instantly knocked out of her as she landed hard on her shoulder. She had not fallen far, yet she had no time to recover. Immediately, she started to roll downwards at an angle, small stones and scree tumbling with her as she unwillingly began her descent into further blackness. Cerana was still blind as she ricocheted off a bend in the downward tunnel, and she cried out in pain, unable to stop herself from rolling. But as she tumbled around another corner, a light was finally visible to her, and she was approaching it fast. She was now sliding feet-first with the scree, using her boots to slow the descent as much as she could. Thankful she was wearing her long leather boots and leather breeches to partly shield her from being cut to shreds, the light source grew larger as she approached. Within a matter of seconds, she was upon a small, round opening. Unable to stop herself, she was dumped to the floor below with a thud and a crash. Her momentum carried her head over heels for a few feet until the unforgiving stone wall stopped her in her tracks.
As soon as her head hit the wall, the darkness returned as she was knocked unconscious.
CHAPTER 46 – Turning up the Heat
Cerana’s eyes flickered open as consciousness slowly returned to her. For a moment, she thought she was back home at Barnesbay, but her awakening senses told her that something was not right.
Then her memories came flooding back to her in an avalanche of thoughts. She remembered the darkness, the tunnel, the falling. She had dreamed of falling before; but in her dreams, she never actually hit the ground. But this time she had, and the floods of recollection brought back the horror of the crash. What little of it she remembered before passing out.
She was sprawled out on the hard floor in the room where she had fallen. Her heart jumped, and her body jerked when she realised what had happened. But as soon as she moved her head, a flash of excruciating pain reminded her she had crashed head-first into the wall where she now slumped. She grimaced, groaned and held her hands to her throbbing head. Upon inspection of her palms, blood was evident. A huge lump had already appeared on the top of her head, and she could fee
l dry blood crusting around the painful protrusion. It was agony to touch.
The taste of blood was evident in her mouth, and she spat a large amount of it onto the floor, relieved not to see any teeth go with it. Her eyes stung as she surveyed the room she had unwillingly dropped into. The room looked like it had been tunnelled out of the mountain itself. It was small and dome-shaped, and oppressively hot. Cerana realised she was sweating profusely as she wiped away a handful of salty moisture from her forehead. It occurred to her that she might be running a fever; however when she tentatively touched the hard ground she sat on, that was warm too.
There was nothing else in the small room except the hole in the ceiling where she had crashed through. The only visible exit was another hole in the wall next to her. This roughly-edged opening was the only way she would be able to continue, as she could not reach the opening in the ceiling. It was also from where the room obtained its dim light: a dull orange glow emanating from the passageway. The light was not great, but it was the only light Cerana had seen since she entered the mountain, and for that, she was grateful.
As she slowly rose to her knees, pain pulsed through her whole body. She groaned as she hauled herself up, catching her breath whilst kneeling on the hard floor. She managed to stand, using the wall as a support, stretching her bruised body. She would not have been surprised to find a few broken limbs, but miraculously she seemed intact aside from the abrasions to her hands and knees and a few cuts and scratches on her bare skin. Inspecting herself, she found her breeches had ripped on the inside of her left leg above the knee, exposing a gash that oozed a small amount of blood, but caused her no pain. She was relieved to find her daggers still strapped to her thighs, thankful the sheathes had prevented the sharp blades from impaling her during her fall. Cerana recalled the demise of Pelan Corr - after falling on his own blade, she was grateful she did not succumb to the same fate. She would normally smile at the irony of it.
When Cerana tried to walk towards the opening that contained the orange light, she had to limp due to the wound on her leg being more painful than she first thought. But by the time she had reached the rough opening, she was almost walking normally, albeit still in some pain. Whilst the dome-shaped room she was currently in appeared to have been carefully carved out of the mountain, the opening she now faced looked as if it had been smashed through with little regard to appearance. It led to yet another corridor in the rock, but as she passed through, she noticed that the opening had been hewn through at least five feet of solid rock to get to the next section, and it was getting hotter as she stumbled through.
The corridor of stone forced her to her left and was only high enough for her to pass through by stooping down to avoid hitting her head. And it was so hot in here! Cerana could hear a bubbling noise, like the sound Esteri’s cooking pot made as she was preparing a tasty stew. She guessed that someone had made this corridor through the mountain, rather than it being a natural path, and eventually she found its end. The tunnel swept back to her right before opening up into a much larger section of the mountain, at which point Cerana instantly realised why it was so stiflingly hot.
The room in which she stood was vast. In the centre, a massive column of rock rose as far as she could see. About fifty feet below her, a fifteen-foot wide river of molten lava bubbled and popped as it flowed slowly around the enormous rock. The heat from the river gave a shimmering effect above it, and Cerana stood in awe and amazement at the boiling substance. It glowed bright orange and had crusts of black debris flowing atop it; occasionally, a small, flame-red eruption would pop right out of the river before settling down once more in the slow-moving current.
As Cerana averted her gaze from the river and looked upwards, she saw metal bridges connecting slabs of rock protruding around the chamber - walkways and ledges, giving a direct path to the massive central column.
She nervously edged her way onto a pathway of rock to her left. To her right and in front was a sheer drop into the bubbling river below. Although the path was some three feet wide, she walked with caution, hugging the chamber wall and keeping as far away from the edge as possible. As she followed the ledge around the wall, she saw an enormous metal chute jutting out of the central rock, some fifty feet above her. Down the pipe poured a steady flow of molten lava, coming straight from the middle of the mountain itself. The falling lava created a mesmerising orange and red waterfall of pure heat, splashing into the river of magma below.
This is no mountain, Cerana realised with growing terror. It is a volcano. An active, pulsing volcano.
Cerana inched her way along the wall, rekindled thoughts of fire causing her further apprehension towards the bubbling river below her. Moving slowly along, she soon noticed that the pathway ended further down the ledge, abruptly dropping away to nothing except a fiery death. She stopped within six feet of the sheer drop, anxiety building inside her as her only route onwards was about to disappear. She stood with her back to the wall and looked around for any means for her to continue, but dismay took over when she found there to be no opening or bridge or doorway. There was no visible way for her to get any further.
Her anxiety was rapidly increasing, and she wiped her sweaty forehead with a shaky hand as she searched for something, anything, that might help her proceed. But instead of hope, anxiety turned to terror as she saw movement on one of the bridges connecting two ledges high up to her left.
From an opening like a small cave entrance around forty feet from where she stood, two goblins emerged side by side.
These goblins were different from her former guide Varros insofar as they were much larger, and fully armed. From where she stood, rigid with fear, she guessed they were probably around the size of a human. They wore brown leather armour that covered most of their green-skinned bodies, and wielded wicked-looking spears that were taller than they were.
Frozen to the spot, Cerana dare not move a muscle for fear of being spotted. She was shaking, her heart thundering and her eyes wide open, watching the two creatures march to the bridge and begin to cross. If they looked down, they would see her for sure, and her mission would be over. As she held her breath, sweat dripped down her face. Some of the droplets found their way into the corner of her open mouth, causing an unpleasant salty taste. A gasp almost escaped her as one of the goblins stopped half-way across the metal bridge, his head turning in her direction. Her body shook violently, but to her relief, he continued his march.
The two goblins reached the end of the bridge and disappeared into another opening in the rock on the next ledge. Cerana breathed again and slumped down against the wall, forcing herself to take deep breaths to calm herself down. She squatted there for a good few minutes, watching and listening for any signs of the volcano’s further inhabitants, but none came.
Once she had composed herself once more, she set about trying to figure out what to do next. She could go no further along the ledge, yet if she retraced her steps, she would end up back in the dome-shaped room with the opening she could not reach.
She turned from the wall to face the solid mass of rock she had just edged along, very wary of the deadly drop that was now behind her. Taking a nervous half-step backwards so she could see more of the chamber’s immense wall, she noticed some small indents in the rock, right at the end of the ledge. As she studied the little holes, she also noticed some small metal brackets that had been hammered into the rockface. The brackets were so alike the colour of the stone itself, they were almost impossible to see unless one was close to them. They were so difficult to see, Cerana could only make out three sets of brackets from where she stood. Each set was hammered in a diagonal line from the edge of the ledge, upwards towards the ridge that the two goblins had vanished into. Her heart rate quickened as a glimmer of hope grew. More small holes could be seen in the rock, again forming a diagonal line towards the ledge. Footholds, she thought excitedly. This is my way up.
Cerana’s excitement was short-lived as she realised she would have to
traverse a forty-foot diagonal climb along a sheer rockface, with instant death below her should she put one hand or foot wrong. She would fall straight into the river of lava should she not make it all the way across.
This is my only option.
After another glance around her surroundings to see if there was anything she had missed, she made her mind up. Wiping her sweaty palms on her breeches, she edged towards the end of the ledge and the first foothold. Nervously, she grasped a metal bracket with her right hand and tugged at it to make sure of its firmness. It did not move. Moving as close to the edge as she dare, she held out a nervous leg above the orange and red river below, aiming for the foothold. It took her several attempts to insert her boot into it cleanly, thankful it was just about a perfect fit for her to get a stable hold. She grabbed another bracket, closed her eyes and whispered a short prayer to the gods before lifting her left foot off the ledge and into another foothold.
Like a spider, she clung to the side of the enormous wall, arms and legs spread-eagled.
Cerana remained in this position for several moments, not daring to look down, trying to muster all her courage to continue her ascent. She allowed herself a small moment of triumph: the first step had been taken. But there was a long way to go, and she would need absolute concentration as well as a heap of good fortune – if more of the goblins emerged from the caves and saw her, she was a dead woman for sure. She still did not know what she would do when and if she did make it to the far ledge, but one step at a time was the order of the day.
Slowly and carefully, she continued along the footholds and brackets. Cerana made sure that she had three limbs safely in position before reaching with the other to its next target, then shifting her weight across limb by limb. She was sweating profusely both from the heat rising from the river below and the immense pressure she was under. Often, she was forced to wipe the sweat out of her eyes and off her hands whenever she could. She also realised her legs were shaking and her calf muscles were beginning to hurt from the effort.
The Kiss From a Dragon Page 24