by A. Lawrence
That was exactly what the magic in these tunnels felt like.
"I'm not going to be any help, I need my shields to be up around here." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, shoving his glasses up into his hair. Without them the world became a little fuzzier and that seemed to help the headache forming directly behind his eyes. Pulling up his shields helped even more. "Sorry, Rhyss."
"Well, you did find the tunnel." Rhyss conceded. "As a Guard Trainee I need to be ready for everything at all times, not just whenever my friend tells me to be."
"Aww, we're friends?" He grinned at her, not able to help poking just a little bit of fun at her. She took herself far too seriously.
She, of course, punched his shoulder in what she probably thought was a gentle show of camaraderie. "We jumped down a stairwell together, of course we're friends."
"I was actually trying to forget that…" Heln rubbed the spot and hoped that his arm going numb was temporary. Poking fun at her was really not worth it at all. He had no idea how Bel kept it up. At least they were friends, he'd hate to know how hard she punched her enemies.
"You'll live. Now stop distracting me."
Even Bel went quiet, apparently lost in thought. Heln would have rather kept up the weird conversation, he hated the way the silence seemed to be waiting to descend upon them.
The tunnel was darker than it had been and not just because the entrance and the eddying mists were far behind them. It felt darker, the air choking the already small space until it felt like the walls were caving in on them, even though he knew that the tunnel hadn't changed in size at all.
Heln was intimately aware of potential tons of rock and earth pressing down on them, enough that he pulled his shields down for just a moment, just to reassure himself that the scripts keeping the tunnels from collapsing were in place and they weren't in danger of being crushed at any moment.
They were there, thick and strange, but it was enough.
He was about to pull up his shields again when something tugged at the corner of his senses, something new. He frowned in concentration, trying to reach for it, but it was like trying to get a marble out of a thick pile of foam, his fingers just brushed it but it would slide away again.
He hadn't realized how long and hard he had concentrated on it until someone literally yanked him out of it. Bel and Rhyss had stopped and his sister had grabbed his arm.
"What?" He felt like he'd just woken up. Whatever he had been trying to sense was gone, so he reluctantly pulled up his shields.
"The tunnel splits." Rhyss gestured ahead of them. The tunnel they were in kept going forward, there were two tunnels branching off of the one they were in, curving away from Bel's illumination bubble. "Are you okay?"
"Fine." He did his absolute best not to snap at her. He almost succeeded. "I just thought… never mind. Tunnels. I'm guessing you were hoping I would have some sort of valuable insight? Because I don't."
"I'm thinking we each pick a tunnel then fight to see who's right." Bel grinned. "Of course, Rhyss would win, so Rhyss which tunnel do you pick? I'm getting a forge straight ahead vibe from you but tell me if I'm wrong."
"Shut up." Rhyss told her, but she started walking straight ahead, just as Bel had predicted. "Well? Are you two coming or are you going to live down here?"
"Don't tempt me, it's free!" Bel yelled back. She and Heln fell in line between Rhyss. She looked over at Heln again. "You sure you're okay?"
At least she hadn't yelled that part.
"Thought I felt something before Rhyss spoke to me. I don't think it's anything but it's too hard to figure out in this stupid tunnel." Heln wanted to kick the tunnel wall, but he decided against it. Breaking his toe was probably not conducive to fleeing for his life. Judging by their track record it was only a matter of time before he would have to.
The three of them took a quick break when Bel complained that her feet were actually going to fall off. Heln was tired, too, though it was more of a constant, all body ache that he had sort of grown accustomed to. He couldn't remember when he hadn't felt sore, exhausted, and hungry.
Luckily, or unluckily, Rhyss had shoved a bunch of moss into her bag and handed it around. It tasted even worse after being wrapped up for hours, but it was something and Heln wasn't going to be picky. At least the water wasn't awful.
"Question," Bel said.
"Possible answer." Rhyss looked at her expectantly.
"What happens when we run out of water? I don't know about you but my mouth tastes like cave already."
"We won't." Rhyss grinned a bit, setting the canteen down and twisting the cap until some of the marks on it lined up. They glowed briefly, a thin curl of mist swirling down into it. "As long as there's water in the air, we have water. And there is a lot of water in the air."
Bel let out a low whistle. "Okay, that's extremely fancy."
"Gift from my mom when I joined the Guard." Rhyss looked happy and smug. The expression looked out of place a bit, but it was nice.
"Second question." Bel smiled at Rhyss when her expression turned to annoyed. "What do we do when we run out of food?"
"You can live up to thirty days without food as long as you have water." Heln had to smile at the look Bel gave him. "Oh, relax, we won't be down here for thirty days."
Thirty days alive, anyway, but he decided not to add that. Honestly, between being crushed by a dirt pile or starving to death, he was pretty sure he'd rather be crushed.
"Okay, but assuming that I don't want to do that. Because I don't."
"If we run out of food and we are in danger of starvation, getting back to the other cave won't be hard,” Rhyss said. "We can rest, recuperate, and then try again. Does that please your highness?"
"Yes. Yes it does. I like having a plan and being referred to by my proper title; both are fantastic things." Bel ate the rest of her small portion of moss, surprisingly without complaint. She was even the first one on her feet, swinging her satchel over her shoulder. "Well, shall we?"
*~*~*
Heln was glad he hadn't expected Bel's attitude to stay positive because it probably wasn't even ten minutes before she started to complain again.
"It smells awful here."
"The whole tunnel smells awful, Bel, we all know." Rhyss paused, then glared at her. "Unless that was a jab at how we haven't bathed in a while, in which case I'll have to break your delusions because you don't smell like a rose garden yourself."
It didn't seem that bad to Heln, of course, he wasn't as sensitive as Bel and Rhyss were. To him, it just smelled like a shut in, closed place. The sour of damp stone, too, but it wasn't exactly offensive after he got used to it.
"No, I grew numb to that a while ago, this smells much worse than you ever could."
"Okay, so something probably got in here and died." Rhyss scrunched up her nose a bit. "Yeah, I smell it, too. We'll get past it."
"It must have been a big something." Bel was pulling the collar of her shirt over her nose and mouth. Heln doubted it was much of an improvement. "Because those sealing scripts would have kept it pretty well preserved."
Heln thought she was exaggerating until he finally smelled it, too, and did the exact same thing. No matter what his shirt smelled like, anything was better than the almost sweet reek of decay that hit him like a wall. "Maybe it was someone who worked on this place. Or blood sacrifice or something."
"There has never been any type of magic that actually worked that relied on sacrifice." Bel's voice was muffled by her shirt, but her disdainful tone wasn't.
"We've never encountered magic like this." Heln reminded her. "And that's just what they tell you in school, which is clearly not always right. Exhibit A, that statue back there."
Rhyss undid the button at her collar, pulled it up around her mouth and nose, and refastened it. "I don't care if someone tripped and broke their head open a hundred years ago, let's just go."
"Rhyss, that's cold."
"Shut it, DoVan."
The smell became
almost unbearable when the tunnel opened up into a wide, dark space. Heln was on the verge of suggesting they go back. The stink was so strong his eyes were watering. Bel sent her bubble out again, cautiously. It was a large, circular chamber, made smaller by another circle of tall, roughly carved pillars that supported empty air. They threw slanted, angular shadows against the wall as the light passed them, like giants were dancing.
"Dead end?" Rhyss asked.
"No, there's a door." Bel said. "And… something in front of it…"
On the opposite side of the room was a small flight of stairs leading to a door that looked like the one Rhyss had knocked over. The stairs were flanked by the two tallest, widest pillars. Both of them were easily bigger than any tree in the Grove.
Something was between them, lying at the base of the steps. When Bel's bubble got closer to it, the light snuffed out, leaving them with Rhyss's.
"Magic eater," she said, softly. "Everyone back away slowly, we'll take the other tunnel, we—"
The thing moved, and even in the dark it was clear that the shape was all wrong for a magic eater. There was a clanking, the sound of something heavy and hard being dragged against stone.
"I don't think that's a magic eater." Heln took a few steps back. He pulled down his shields and the assault on his senses was so horribly wrong that he was on his knees before he realized it, his mouth bitter with the taste of metal. "Ugh. It. How did I not…?"
And then he realized why he hadn't sensed it before. The chamber was even more tightly sealed than the tunnel had been, each one of the pillars acting as a further seal.
The thing rose up, its head was somewhere near the ceiling. A deep glow started in its chest, lighting up the chamber just enough for them to see what it was.
It was a dragon.
Chapter Fourteen
Heln blamed Bel.
He barely had enough time to realize just how immense the dragon was before Rhyss yanked him behind one of the pillars. The head alone was colossal and so, so far above them. A clicking sound echoed through the cave before the neck twisted around. A stream of fire so hot it was almost white screamed down the tunnel, scorching the place they had been standing moments ago, the rock cracking with a loud snap. Ghosts of steam and smoke swirled into the tunnel and the temperature rose so sharply and suddenly it was hard to breathe.
Rhyss's illumination bubble hurtled into the middle of the room and exploded, lighting up the entire space.
Illustrations of dragons were common enough and he'd read plenty of heroic adventures about slaying the beasts and saving kingdoms, but that seemed very unrealistic.
His books said dragons were huge. Massive. Absolutely enormous.
Somehow none of those words seemed to really encompass the actual creature, because it was so large it didn't look like it could possibly be moving.
The dragon was the color of smoke, eyes glittering like pale gems. It was on all fours in front of the stairs, wings spread nearly the entire width of the chamber, tattered and beaten, the tips scraping against the pillars. Its head swayed back and forth on its long neck in a way that would have been serpentine if it weren't for the almost clockwork jitter of the movement, its eyes staring straight ahead. The glow they had seen was a red gem imbedded deep in its chest, the plates of its scales almost overlapping across it. It glowed sullenly like a dim star.
Each pillar was inscribed with an insane amount of magic script, and the two tallest had large chains attached to them, running to a thick collar nearly the same color as the dragon's plating that encircled its neck.
"It's a flesh construct." Bel had a death grip on Heln's sleeve, her voice barely above a breath. "Someone… someone made a dragon into a flesh construct."
The dragon’s head swiveled around. It let out a horrible noise, something between a scream and a roar that Heln felt in his bones, made him press his hands against his ears, just as the light died.
He blinked furiously, but the light had done its damage and he couldn't see anything. It was too late, anyway, with a rattle of chain and a thrumming sound the dragon was moving, slamming itself into the pillar right next to him.
All of the script lit up at once, extending beyond the pillar to the next, until the entire chamber was bathed in blue light. The pillars formed a massive, incredibly powerful barrier, like the stone bars of a cage.
"Thank Eleti and Jasmerne and Fola…" Bel was busy naming every single hero from the war and Rhyss was dragging them along because the dragon was rearing back, its chest glowing with a radiance that spilled through the gem like blood.
Fire streamed around the pillar they had just been cowering behind and Rhyss threw them both forward, pulling her cloak up around all of them as best as she could. Even with the tattered and torn edges some of the scripts must have held.
"Go!" Rhyss screeched when the fire died down to blackened, smoking rock. "Go go go go!"
Heln didn't need to be told twice, let alone five times. The chamber had been warm, now it was boiling hot and he couldn't seem to get enough air into his lungs. What he did breathe in was searing.
They ran along the outside of the pillars and up to the door, taking the steps two at a time.
"Knock it over!" Bel yelled. Rhyss already had her dagger out and slammed the pommel into the stone.
Nothing happened.
"Okay. Okay okay." Heln tried to pull down his shields and remain calm, doing his best to not notice how the dragon had recovered from hitting the barrier and was already getting to its feet. It was still moving in short bursts, despite one of its legs dragging limply behind it.
The sealing magic on the door was much, much stronger than the one at the end of the tunnel. Several scripts had been placed on it, the signatures of each one overlapping, covering any weak points.
There were still weak points.
"Here." He jabbed his finger at the top right corner, then at a point closer to the left side. "And here. Hit there, I—"
"Down!"
Rhyss shoved him off of the stairs and if he hadn't been ready for it he probably would have cracked his head open. He landed well enough and was already halfway to his feet before Rhyss landed beside him and was finishing hauling him up by his shredded hood. Heln didn't see Bel, but it was too late, the clicking behind him motivating him to move forward much more effectively than Rhyss's hand shoving him between his shoulder blades.
He glanced back just as flames washed over the door. With the barrier lit up it was easy to see the dragon, how the fire in its throat shone through where the scaled plating on it was nearly worn through, how part of its jaw was eroded away. The eyes stared blindly straight ahead. Despite their opalescence, there was no intelligence behind them. Every motion the dragon made originated from the gem in its chest.
The dragon had been dead for a very, very long time.
"Bel got out." Rhyss told him. "I think. It needs a minute between blasts, once it's done we run up the — now!"
She was hauling him back to the stairs the moment the fire died down, ignoring the heat rising from the stone. Bel was next to them a moment later. The dragon's jaws snapped once, twice, like it was trying to find fire, the clicking coming from the back of its throat. When nothing happened, it pressed against the barrier, hot and huge and terrifyingly close. So close that Heln could have counted the scales on its shoulder if he wanted to. The links on the chain, each one probably roughly the size of Heln himself, clattered and rustled together.
The barrier actually flickered.
Heln felt like his heart was flickering, too, but Rhyss was already at the blackened door and smashing at the two points he had shown her.
The door trembled, but held.
"Hit it harder, Rhyss! Like you mean it!" Bel was screaming again, her voice a full octave above normal.
Rhyss didn't waste energy replying. Her dagger glowed, the light washed over her hand, and she hit the door with all of her magic behind it.
The door moved maybe two inches. R
hyss stepped back, panting slightly, her eyes wide and wild. Bel shoved on the door ineffectively.
"The barrier isn't going to hold!" Heln watched, horrified, as the dragon slammed up against the barrier again. When the barrier had been established, there was no way the dragon could have gotten out. Time had weakened it and from what Heln could tell the gem that made the power core in its chest was draining magic, siphoning it off of everything, including the script that were supposed to keep it in place. "We have to go back!"
"We'll never make it." Rhyss still had her dagger out. "I… I have a plan. Just trust me. Do you trust me?"
Heln supposed that he did, but he didn't have much choice, because one more impact would probably weaken the barrier enough that the dragon could get through it. He nodded.
"Great. The dragon is—"
Whatever Rhyss's plan was, it was lost in a horribly loud scream from the dragon that made them all flinch back. She just nodded when it was over, like they understood. Her face was pale and determined, a smudge of soot on one cheek.
Heln didn't understand, but he nodded back anyway.
The dragon hit the barrier again and the glowing blue magic stuttered. One of the pillars it had been chained to made a groaning noise, then began slowly toppling towards them like a felled tree.
Heln had time to think two things.
One, the pillar was much bigger than the dragon.
Two, it was heading straight for him.
"Heln! Move!"
He wasn't even sure who had screamed that, it was high pitched with hysteria, but it did get him moving, because the pillar was falling faster than he had thought, gaining momentum. When it crashed against the wall with a terrific boom, he was surprised that no part of him had been turned into paste.
Dust and debris exploded around him. He covered his head and tried to make himself as small as possible against the onslaught.
When the world stopped ending and the ground stopped shaking he looked up. He was absolutely coated in rock powder. Something had clipped his shoulder. It felt hot and damp, but it hadn't started to hurt yet. He knew it would.