by TR Cameron
Chapter Thirteen
The tunnel came to an abrupt end as the path suddenly leveled and opened into a chamber she hadn’t seen coming because of the angle. It was similar to the room above in that the walls and floor were crafted and covered with geometrical symbols. It was dissimilar to it by virtue of the statues positioned all around the perimeter and the fact that it was easily three times as large. Maybe a little bigger than two basketball courts side by side, but rounded, her brain supplied helpfully.
The brazier in the center was proportionate to the one in the larger room, and she hurled a ball of fire into it before she could second-guess the wisdom of doing so. Again the fire spread, but this time in straight lines to each of the statues, where it vanished only to reappear in several of the figures’ cupped hands. When the space reached full illumination, the ceiling emerged from the shadows. It was a dome with arches that met in the middle, covered in a series of beautiful paintings depicting the Mist Elf villages, the mountain, the lake, and the forests. The images were all rendered with a beauty that spoke of a mixture of magic and talent, which was an art some of the mystics pursued. Was this here before the mystics, or are they somehow involved in the venamisha?
She stood near the entrance, hands on her knives and her gaze on the pictures for long enough to realize she’d become entranced and lost track of time. Ruby shook her head, thinking about the tongue-lashing Keshalla would give her if she knew she’d let her defenses down that way, although the force shield was still active. She walked clockwise around the room, examining each statue in turn, interrogating them with both her mundane senses and her magical ones. The first was the Oriceran version of a deer, much like the Earth animal, rearing up on its hind legs as if attacking a threat in front of it. She ran her hand over the work, the carving so perfect and detailed that it almost felt alive. The eyes were sapphires, again so meticulously detailed that if not for their color they could be real.
That’s not creepy at all. She suppressed a shudder at the feeling that something alive was trapped in the immobile rock and moved on. All the statues appeared carved from the mountain’s native stone, and as positioned, none of them could retain their balance only by the force of gravity. There had to be magic at play in the chamber if only to keep the astonishing works of art from tipping over. The next was of a woman who looked very much like a Mist Elf except for the sharp pointed teeth she bared in a grin and the tentacles that stuck out from her scalp in place of hair. Her hands held fire as if she would hurl it at an unseen enemy. She was a creature from a children’s tale, a siren that lurked under the waves to draw innocents to a watery grave. The siren’s eyes were carved jade. This time the chill raised gooseflesh on her arms.
Ruby muttered, “Come one and all to the house of nightmares. This would make a hell of a sideshow attraction.” The third statue was a tiger rearing up as the deer had. Shadows, ridges, and maybe different colors of rock indicated the stripes; she couldn’t tell. The muzzle seemed twisted in something that almost looked like a superior smile. It was so lifelike that she backed away from it reflexively. The eyes of this one were crimson, carved from a scarlet gem, and instead of a round pupil like the Earth version possessed, this one had the slitted pupil of a domestic cat.
Ruby stepped quickly to the fourth statue, which she was pleased to discover didn’t look as if it was going to attack or eat her. It was a mystic in long robes with an impressive beard, his eyes straining upward as if looking for wisdom. It held flames in its upraised palms like the siren and seemed to be trying to peer into them, or through them. The eyes on this one were flat stone, no jewels. She frowned, wondering what the difference was, then shrugged. Not enough evidence to draw any conclusions.
The voice in her head suggested, “Maybe when someone who’s called dies, their spirit is trapped in one of the statues. Think about it. You could be here for eternity.”
We could be here for eternity. Also, shut the hell up. The situation was challenging enough without her overly critical sense of self-awareness helping matters along. I could be at home playing video games, but no, I had to be called to a dusty, dangerous, weird place under a mountain. She walked to the final statue, which was the most unsettling of them all. It was from another legend, a creature of the forest. The figure resembled a Mist Elf, but with bark for skin and leaves for hair. He appeared to be wearing armor, and the handles of six knives were visible at his hips, thighs, and boots. His face was arrogant, and he seemed to be looking down his nose at her no matter where she moved from side to side. His eyes were carved diamonds, and his lips framed a scowl. She got the feeling he would prove a formidable opponent, skilled in both magic and combat, and was very glad that he wasn’t alive, despite how much the statue might try to convince her he was.
She reversed her direction and examined the statues again. None of them seemed any different on the second pass, so she returned to the only one that was unique, the one with the stone eyes. Ruby ran her hands over it to see if her eyes told a different story than what was physically there, as it was doubtful any illusion would stand up to two of the Mist Elves’ senses. Nothing registered, but when she touched the figure’s face, a chill breeze swept through the room. She stepped back, ready to fight or run, moving slowly toward the exit.
Ruby was halfway there when a door rose from the floor to seal it off. She ran to a wall and put her back to it, drawing and positioning her sword in a diagonal guard in one smooth motion. A kindly voice emanated from somewhere above. “Welcome, junra. You have reached your destination, and the object of your calling awaits.”
She snapped, “Maybe you could be a little less creepy about it, huh?”
The voice didn’t reply to her comment but continued in the same tone. “Before you can depart, you must endure the trial. Only those who prove themselves worthy may leave this place.”
“Jerk.”
“Those of us who have gone before wish you well, junra.”
Her adrenaline surged through her veins, and she forced herself to remain calm. She’d seen enough James Bond movies to know that it could be anything next: flooding the room, lasers, maybe poison darts. Her mental voice added, “Or bees. Or spiders. That would suck.”
You suck. Shut the hell up. The room changed again as she sensed another presence, or motion, or both. She scanned wildly, looking first at the thing that had given her the most visceral scare, but the siren with her nasty hair-tentacles was still in place, still immobile. A sound from her right caused her to turn in that direction, and she saw the forest warrior step forward. He turned to her, bowed, and drew the knives from his knee-high boots. They were longer than she’d imagined, almost short swords. Some keen sense told her he probably wouldn’t put a force shield over the edges to protect her.
Fine. I’ll do it myself. She’d never tried the idea, but it shouldn’t be too hard. Ruby had anchored spells to objects before. It was part and parcel of creating magical items. In this case, she’d need to power it up, attach it to the blade, and let it run. Sure, it would be a continuous draw, but she could handle it if she didn’t expend too much other magic. If he couldn’t cut her, it would go a long way toward evening the odds since she was fighting a creature made of stone.
She envisioned and cast it in a matter of seconds. Her jaw dropped in astonishment as nothing happened. For the first time in her life, other than when in the proximity of a powerful anti-magic emitter, Ruby couldn’t access her power. Her foe grinned as if he’d been waiting for that realization to hit her, then lurched into motion much smoother than a stone being should have been able to pull off.
“Holy hell. I’m dead.” Naturally, at the moment she could have used some intervention from her mental voice, a little confidence, maybe an ego boost, silence reigned.
Chapter Fourteen
While a small part of Ruby’s mind might have decided the fight was over and she’d lost, most of it leapt into action thanks to a combination of stubbornness and long training. She shuffled
quickly to her left, circling the brazier with her opponent walking after her like the gods-damned Terminator, that arrogant smile on his lips, and the stone knives that appeared sharp as steel in his hands. The fact that he didn’t blink, only stared ahead with those diamond eyes, was as creepy as anything else about the situation.
Her mind catalogued his movements while she avoided him. He advanced in fits and jerks, which would help her recognize attacks, but he looked far faster than he should be. It seemed downright unfair that she couldn’t use magic while he was obviously magical. She tried fire, shadow, and frost in quick succession with zero effect. Even her fallback protection was now suspect since the amulet probably wouldn’t work under whatever anti-magic field was in operation.
Okay, then, I’ll have to beat down this rockhead on my own. Fine. If I’m lucky, the sword will act like one although he’s stone. If not, I’ll chip away until he’s dead. Or something. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the only one she had. She took one more shuffle-step away, then used her forward foot to push her into a run at her opponent, hoping her speed would lend her an advantage against the living statue.
He pivoted, and his lead arm came down in a block to protect his torso, but that wasn’t her target. She slid at the last instant, wincing as the hard stone floor slammed into her leg, and slashed her sword across as she passed. It smashed into her enemy’s ankle and chipped off a piece of rock but otherwise failed to accomplish anything useful. The statue lifted a foot to stomp on her, but she rolled away before it landed and got back to her feet. Well, that sucked. At least she knew that she could damage it, but it would take a while to evade its defenses enough to cut off its foot, which was likely her best option. Even then, he’ll probably stump around the place after me, or grow a new one, or something equally annoying.
She backpedaled as he attacked, easily picking off the thrusts and sweeps of his knives. He surprised her by hurling one at short range, but she’d practiced defending against that particular move a zillion times with Keshalla and deflected it with a slight twist of her sword. He had another blade in his hand almost instantly, and they continued their progression around the room. She tested other parts of his body, slashing at the neck, the ribs, a wrist. None was any more effective than the attack on the ankle had been. When her mental voice finally joined the fight to observe, “We might be screwed,” she couldn’t disagree.
A swift set of strikes forced her to dive aside, and her shoulder complained as she rolled on it. She came up facing the deer-equivalent statue and was utterly surprised to see a weapon lying at the base of it, a forked antler that appeared to be metal. Her opponent drove her away from it with sweeping slashes, and she spotted more weapons on the next two statues. The siren had a chain and a trident, both of which were similar enough to weapons she’d trained with that she could use them. When she saw what lay at the foot of the tiger sculpture, she dashed for it, her desire for its offering overwhelming.
She snatched up the gauntlet at a run and slipped it on over her left hand, instinctively knowing that’s where it would fit. Each of the fingers ended in a long claw, like the tiger she was borrowing it from might have. She slid her sword into its sheath and drew a knife, committing to keeping the rest of the fight up close where she could use the new weapon. It has to be here for a reason, right? It has to be able to hurt that thing, or why bother? She’d retrieved the knife mainly for blocking. Fortunately, Keshalla believed in unarmed combat and ambidexterity, so Ruby was well-positioned for the battle ahead.
Her foe’s stone face didn’t change, but he seemed to move faster as he darted in and sliced at her in a flurry of blows that she was hard-pressed to defend. She evaded some, deflected others with her knife, and finally had no option but to grab the one coming in at her eye with the gauntlet. Her opponent’s weapon snapped in her hand, and a smile blossomed on her face. “Oh, that’s not good for you at all, is it?” He had another weapon in his hand in seconds, but not before she landed a solid slash across his neck. The claws cut through like the statue was made of wood rather than rock, and while she would have preferred something softer, pudding maybe, she could cope. The blow left a trio of gashes that looked deep, and a small part of her brain deeply resented that statues didn’t bleed.
Her foe expressed neither pain nor worry, only kept coming at her. He slashed with the knife, and she jumped back to avoid it but ripped his arm with her claws. He thrust low, and she blocked with her blade then stabbed forward with the talons. She realized her mistake as his other elbow slammed down on her forearm and caused the arm to go numb for a moment. Feels like there’s something fractured in there. Can’t let him do that again. She was more careful in the follow-up exchanges, only countering when it was safe to do so, and eventually it came down to one last blow. She blocked and leapt while slashing at his neck. When the statue’s head fell off from her claws’ final impact on the portion that remained, the figure vanished, only to reappear in its regular spot. She sank to the floor and downed her healing potion, gritting her teeth against the pain as her bones moved back into position before the wash of comfort spread over the injury.
She held up the claws, admiring them, and probably would have continued to do so if not for the throaty, feminine growl from behind her. “Take off the glove.” She turned to see that the tiger statue had transformed into true life, a tiger that could somehow speak and was prowling toward her.
Ruby tried to summon a shield but still couldn’t. “Uh, okay, sure. Nice giant tiger.” She pulled off the gauntlet and stood after setting it down on the floor, then backed away. “There you go.”
The tiger sat behind the gauntlet and stared at Ruby. The cat’s fur was orange, gold, and black, and resembled the Earth species but somehow conveyed her magical nature. Maybe it was the slitted eyes, which stayed locked on her as the tiger swiped at the gauntlet and it vanished.
Ruby frowned and crossed her arms. “Hey, not fair. Why do you get to do magic?”
“I am magic.”
“Well, so am I.”
The creature snorted at her and shook its oversized head. “No, you have magic. I am magic. There’s a difference.”
Ruby nodded. Okay, crazy cat. Whatever you say. “Sounds good. So, what’s the way out of here?”
The tiger lowered herself to lie on the floor with her paws underneath her. “The only way out is through.”
“Through what?” She looked around the room, hoping to find that another tunnel had materialized. Nothing was any different, though, except for the fire in the brazier, which had started to burn a little less brightly.
“Through me.” Laughter colored the words.
Fear stabbed through her. The tiger surely outweighed her by hundreds of pounds, and without her magic to protect her, Ruby wouldn’t be able to take more than a couple of blows before succumbing. “Okay. How about rock, paper, scissors?” The look the tiger threw at her would have withered a less confident person. Not me. I’m full of confidence. “No, uh, Monopoly? Parcheesi? Go Fish?”
The tiger climbed to her feet again, then stretched and yawned. And, improbably, kept stretching. Her body elongated and shrank until a Mist Elf woman stood before her, but with the same orange, gold, and black in her hair. She was covered with fur as well, except for her face, which looked normal. Her eyes were still those of a cat. Her voice sounded higher in this form as she said, “No, you must only answer a question. If you get it right, the door to exit this place will open. If you get it wrong, it won’t. I’ll go back to where I was before your entrance summoned me here, and you’ll eventually starve to death if you don’t go insane and end yourself first.”
Ruby considered attacking the creature, but only for a moment. The tiger-woman would doubtless be less powerful in this form than in the other, which might give her the edge she needed to win. Then she thought about how easy it would probably be for the tiger to revert to all cat, or maybe only regain her claws. The wry smile on the other woman’s face revealed that sh
e knew exactly what was going through Ruby’s mind. “Okay. What’s the question?”
“Do you suffice?”
She blinked. “What?”
The other woman laughed at her, and Ruby took note of the sharp teeth that had hidden behind her lips. “Do. You. Suffice?”
She considered what the question would mean, coming from this magical creature. Could she defeat her in combat, maybe? She’d already won a fight, so perhaps the answer was yes. By most accounts, she’d been successful in most of the things she’d seriously tried to be good at in life. Was that the same as being sufficient? She thought back to the items her teacher had insisted she bring, the rations and water that she would have forgotten, not to mention the extra weapons and armor. No, I most certainly do not suffice. Still, was that the correct answer, although it was the true one? Only one way to find out.
“No. I do not suffice. I need others in my life to help me.”
The tiger-woman grinned and nodded. “The beginnings of wisdom. Very good. You may call me Idryll.” It sounded like eye-drill, and that’s what the other woman’s gaze was doing to hers.
“Okay. Hi. I’m Ruby.”
“Interesting to meet you, Ruby.” She gestured, and a door at the far end of the room opened to reveal a passageway. A passageway leading steadily upward, it appeared.
Ruby sighed. “Looks like I have a walk ahead of me.”
Idryll nodded. “Indeed, we do.”
Ruby blinked. “We?”
The woman laughed again as she shifted back into her tiger form, and again her cat mouth looked strange as she spoke. “Indeed, we. As you said, you do not suffice. From here on out, I will make up what you lack.”
She couldn’t put thoughts together, only followed the tiger as it led the way out of the room, its muscles rippling. Fine. This is fine. Surely, this is fine.