The ravagers behind the first ranks leapt high into the air, effortlessly clearing the ten-foot deep field of spikes. Azerick barely had time to cast a protective ward and roll out of the path of the bounding ravagers. He sprang to his feet and cast a flesh-freezing wave of cold air and frost, catching nearly every one of the creatures that leapt inside the small area surrounded by the stone spikes.
The ravagers caught in the icy blast shrieked in agony as their skin froze to the point of splitting when they tried to move, and many died a painfully horrific death. Two of the creatures crouching to each side of the sorcerer leapt at him in tandem. Azerick ran forward, spun, and released a blast of lightning, striking the two creatures that collided in their haste to draw the sorcerer’s blood. The ravagers became even more entangled as they flailed under the painful lightning strike. Azerick sent a swarm of magical bolts pounding into their reddish, pebbled flesh until they ceased their struggles.
Azerick waited several minutes, crouching and scanning the land all around him for any further signs of attack. When no other creatures presented themselves, he picked his way through the spikes and continued to march toward the castle, much more wary of his surroundings. It would appear that this land was not so lifeless after all.
The fortress was definitely drawing closer now. It was a massive structure, easily twice the size of the castle in Southport or even the Academy. Whoever, or whatever, lived in the massive ziggurat must be a giant. The colossal black structure could easily house most of the population of North Haven without being horrendously over-crowded.
The wayward sorcerer did not even question his reasons for approaching the castle. Wherever he was, whatever the intentions of the master of the ebony fortress, that was where he would find answers—even if the answer was simply his own death.
He wondered if he was actually alive or if he was even physically in this place. Azerick was confident he was in the abyss. What little he had read of the hellish dimension seemed to fit this desolate world. Whether he had been sent here bodily or just spiritually, he could not tell.
Azerick’s spine suddenly tingled, and he dove to the ground without conscious thought. A large body swooped past the space he had just occupied, shrieking its rage at having missed its prey.
The sorcerer scrambled back to his feet and was forced to jump and roll away once more when a second creature strafed him. He did not even try to stand a second time as a third creature circled, waiting for an opening to attack. Azerick stayed on his back, not taking his eyes off the sneering cambions and cast his duplicity spell before rolling to his feet.
Azerick tried to retaliate with an offensive spell, but the winged demons forced him to dodge away as they hurled fiery orbs at his moving form. Two of the orbs struck the ground behind him, but one tore through one of his illusions and destroyed it. He sent a spread of magical darts into the nearest cambion. The creature shrieked and flew up higher. Azerick dodged another pair of fireballs, losing another image while he avoided the attack.
He scooped up a handful of stones, each one the size of a man’s eye, and infused them with his magic. He hurled the stones at one of the female demons. The stones sped to the velocity of a heavy crossbow bolt and tore into the cambion’s flesh and wings. The demon screeched and tumbled from the sky, one of its bat-like wings ruined by the speeding bullets, and struck the hard ground.
He released a lightning bolt at another demon just as she hurled a fiery sphere. This orb, instead of simply tearing through one of his images, arced between them, destroying his remaining duplicates, scorching his clothes, and blistering his flesh. The lightning bolt caused the cambion to stagger in mid flight. Eager to finish the demon off, he sent another half dozen luminous darts slamming into her chest.
Azerick smiled in satisfaction as he watched the demon fold up and fall. So intent was he on the demon he just killed, he made the grievous error of forgetting about the first cambion that had flown off. A heavy object struck him in the back, pitching him headlong onto the rocky ground. Pain erupted across his back from the talons the demon raked across his flesh.
Azerick rolled in an attempt to pitch the weight off his back, but the cambion moved with him and straddled his prostrate body. The sorcerer looked up into the malevolent, red, glaring eyes of the demon as she swiped at his face with her clawed fingers. He brought his arms up and tried to fend off the creature’s blows. Azerick managed to get a grip on the demon’s wrists and tried to throw her off him.
The demon was surprisingly light but immensely strong. It was all Azerick could do to maintain his grip on its wrists as it flailed about. He managed to roll the both of them onto their sides but dared not let go. He kept his body pressed against the cambion’s very feminine, albeit alien, form in an effort to keep its taloned toes from tearing into his abdomen. Even taking this precaution, he still received several long gashes carved into his thighs and shins.
Azerick knew he had to end this quickly. Having its hands and feet all but neutralized, the cambion snapped at the sorcerer’s face with its needle-like teeth. Without the use of his hands, Azerick had to shape his spell without them, which required a great deal more effort and concentration. He managed to pull the energy from the Source and articulate the spell well enough to bring the desired effect but on a smaller scale. Several stone spears erupted from the ground, impaling the cambion through one side of her chest and out the other. A second stone spike pierced her right thigh, pinning it to her left as the spikes lifted the demon off the ground.
Azerick rolled away while the cambion shrieked in rage and anguish and cast him hateful glares before finally dying upon the stone skewer. He examined the wounds on his legs, one of them caused by one of the spikes he had conjured a little too closely, but it was not terribly deep. His legs were a bloody mess, more from the number of scratches he had received than the severity. He felt blood trickling down his back, but they did not feel severe enough to be lethal or overly incapacitating.
He wished he had his healing potions, but they were gone as well. Tearing his cloak to shreds, he was able to bandage most of his wounds. With a resigned sigh, Azerick resumed his trek toward the dark, enigmatic bastion.
As he finally drew near, seemingly hours or even days later, Azerick spied two large, grotesque demons standing to each side of a huge, closed door. The door, as was everything else concerning the fortress, was built at twice the scale of anything Azerick had seen of the castles back home. Thick, pointed spikes erupted from every corner and angle. Dozens of minarets sprouted like giant black horns from every tower.
Azerick watched the two immobile figures as he warily drew closer. They were huge and powerful, standing at least eight feet tall and four feet wide. They had a vaguely insectoid appearance with their bodies covered in hard chitin. Each possessed a pair of large arms with powerful pincers and a pair of thin spear-like limbs that grew from their backs and articulated over the tops of their wide shoulders. The creatures stood rigid until Azerick closed to within a score of yards of them and the door they apparently guarded.
“We have been waiting for you, human,” one of the bug demons called out, the voice coming out almost like a hiss between the large mandibles that clacked together as it spoke. “The massster hasss been mossst anxiousss for your arrival.”
“Good, does that mean you will let me pass?” Azerick asked without a trace of the fear buried beneath a thick layer of righteous anger.
Both demons laughed a hissing reply. “You have not yet been found worthy, sssoft little human. You mussst prove yourssself to our princcce before you will be granted an audienccce.”
Azerick gave the two big bugs an annoyed look. “You know, being sent to the abyss is bad enough, but your complete lack of hospitality is really beginning to aggravate me.”
The two demons hissed another laugh before they rushed toward the sorcerer in a loping, skipping gait on powerful, grasshopper-like legs. Azerick swept his arm and summoned a line of stone spikes, but the at
tack did not catch the creatures by surprise. They both leapt up and back, easily avoided the deadly protrusions.
“We have been watching you, flessshy human,” one of the demons hissed. “We know your little tricksss.”
“Is that right? I bet you do not know this one,” Azerick smiled wickedly and thrust both his hands forward as if he were trying to push them away.
A dozen of the stone spikes snapped off two and three-feet down their length and flew at the demons like javelins from a ballista. The stone spears slammed into the demons, pierced their hard carapaces with loud cracks, and hurled them back with great force. Azerick approached the large door that now had one of the insectoid demons hanging from it like a winter fest wreath.
He stepped next to the demon that lay on the ground next to the wall and examined its corpse. He had never tried using his sunder spell on a living, or once living, creature before, but he quickly severed the five-foot chitinous spear at the joint where it extended over its shoulder.
With his short spear in hand, he walked up to the door, grabbed the pincer of the hanging demon, and used it like a doorknocker to rap loudly against the portal. Azerick heard a distinct click, and the huge door swung silently open, seemingly of its own accord.
Flickering torches, which surely would have blackened the walls were they not constructed of black stone, lit the halls. Enormous, double-sized doors stood closed in random places down each side of the passage. Wall hangings, tapestries, and paintings depicting grotesque and highly imaginative macabre scenes adorned much of the onyx walls.
Azerick had no real idea which direction to go in this bizarre place, but he figured the lord of the castle would reside in a large hall near the center or rear, so he followed the long passage, not deviating through any of the closed doors. After what he assumed to be several minutes of travel in this timeless world, he spied a small, winged demon on its hands and knees muttering to itself and scrubbing at what looked to be dark blood spatters with an ordinary brush and pail of water.
“Stupid cow-headed prince thinks Skulk has nothing better to do than clean up his messes. Skulk is a demon, not a scullery maid to scrub floors and polish his stupid skulls. One of these days, Skulk is going to make that bloated windbag respect—ouch!” Skulk cried out and leapt up, rubbing his posterior where Azerick had jabbed him with his spear.
“What da hell ya poke Skulk in his rump for?” the little fire demog demanded, giving Azerick an indignant glare.
Azerick thrust the point of his makeshift spear under the hovering demog’s chin. “Take me to whoever is in charge of this place—now.”
Skulk flapped up out of the spears reach, spun away, and began flapping his way down the hall. “You comin’ or what?” Skulk turned and asked irritably when Azerick made no move to follow.
Azerick walked below and just behind the little demon as he fluttered slowly down the hall, muttering once more. “Stupid human poke Skulk in the rump like a piece of roasting meat and demand he take him to see big cow-headed prince then stand there like a wart on a blattazuu’s butt. First Skulk is Prince Hornhead’s maid scrubbing floors, then he is stupid pasty-faced human’s escort. One of these days Skulk will show all of them, then get some respect.”
Skulk eventually stopped in front of an enormous set of double doors carved with detailed scenes of slaughter and mayhem. “Lord Klaraxis in there,” Skulk informed the human with a jerk of his thumb.
“How do I gain entry?”
Skulk looked incredulously at Azerick. “You knock, stupid, what else?” Skulk fluttered off back toward his scrub brush, muttering. “Squishy human is too stupid to know how to knock on a door. Maybe he thinks Skulk got a promotion from escort to doorman. Like Skulk has nothing better to do than open doors for stupid, lazy humans who are probably just gonna get eaten as soon as he walks in the room anyway.”
Skulk turned back toward Azerick who had just raised his fist to pound on the massive door. “Hey, try not to bleed so much! Skulk gots better things to do than clean up stupid human blood because he gotta bleed so much!”
Azerick watched the strange, bitter little demon fly away, bobbing down the hall, continually muttering his complaints about his lot in life. He took a deep breath and pounded on the door, making little more than soft, dull thuds against the impossibly thick wood.
To Azerick’s surprise, they swung inward to allow him admittance to the huge throne room. Azerick strode purposefully down the wide, red carpet that ran from the doors to the foot of a tall dais. Twenty feet up sat a throne made from the bones of various creatures. Upon the throne was an enormous black demon with blood-red eyes, horns, and claws.
It had to be at least ten feet tall not counting its long, red horns that thrust up and forward from its huge head. Its facial features were largely human, notwithstanding the horns, though the nose looked more ape-like than human. Huge bat-like wings were folded tightly against his body and draped over a backless throne of skulls and bones.
“Ah, my honored guest has finally arrived. I am Klaraxis, demon prince of the fifth circle of the abyss. I am master of all you see around you,” the demon told Azerick imperially, making a sweeping gesture with one of his powerful, ebony arms.
Azerick looked around the enormous but largely empty chamber then back at the demon sitting on his gruesome throne. “You mean the carpet?”
“No, not the carpet, you simpleton!”
“You don’t own the carpet? How can you claim to be the master of anything if you do not even own the carpet?”
“I am master of everything within the fifth circle! Every demon, every stone, the air you think you are breathing all belongs to me! The lesser masters of the lower circles show me deference as their better! I am…ah, you are being clever,” Klaraxis said with a smile. “I despise cleverness in my subordinates. You have proven yourself to be a worthy vessel to house my spirit and transport me back to the material world. I was especially impressed with how you dealt with the mantar’ri demons; quite entertaining.”
“I hate to disappoint you, demon, but I am not here to be anyone’s vessel. Tell me how to return to my home, and I will leave you in peace.”
“There is no way home for you, little human. This is your home now, and you had best get accustomed to it.”
“You will find me a rather bitter and troublesome houseguest and highly resistant to any plans you may have for me. You had best get accustomed to that,” Azerick returned.
Azerick sent a concentrated, electrical beam at the seated demon prince without warning, but Klaraxis simply deflected the spell with a flick of his wrist, sending it to strike the distant wall where it burned a deep hole into the black stone. Obsidian ooze slithered down the black surface, and a faint screeching reached Azerick’s ears as if the stone cried out in pain.
“Not only are such attacks rude, they are quite futile. Come, allow me to show you something that may interest you,” the demon lord invited, stood to his full, imposing height, and descended the steps of the dais to tower over the much smaller sorcerer.
With little other choice, Azerick followed Klaraxis through a doorway that was more than large enough to allow the enormous demon to pass through without fear of even coming close to scraping the wing joints that peaked over his shoulders and head.
They descended a long, descending hall and stopped before an ornate door that looked to be made of solid bronze. The door swung open at the demon’s touch, and Azerick followed him into a room that looked much like Azerick’s own vault chamber only much larger.
“Here is where I keep all of my most precious artifacts. Since you will be residing as a shade here for, oh, about an eternity, I thought you might like to amuse yourself by looking at them and studying them. Of course, as a shade, you will not be able to interact with anything, but I think it is a fair trade in exchange for what you are giving me. Would you not agree? No? Well I suppose I might feel I was getting the short end of the deal if I was in your place but, since I am not, I feel
quite good about it.” Klaraxis chuckled.
The demon began pointing out some of the more significant artifacts in the room, where he had gotten them, and whom he had to kill to get them. He pointed to a black-bladed shortsword hanging on the wall.
“This is by far my most prized possession,” Klaraxis told Azerick. “With that sword, I can trap the soul of any creature, even a god. I hope to put it to use one day, preferably against that damnable Solarian.”
He retrieved a clear glass or crystal sphere from a velvet-padded box sitting on a shelf. “I suppose it is time for the show to come to an end.” Heavy black chains erupted from the wall and wrapped themselves around Azerick’s wrists and ankles.
Azerick backed away as the demon stalked toward him until his back struck the wall. He knew he was only going to have one chance at what he planned, so he waited until Klaraxis stood just before him and pressed the crystal orb lightly against his forehead.
Azerick reached out with his power, using a spell similar to the one he had used to hurl the stones at the cambion but, this time, he pulled rather than pushed. Since the distance between him and the object was greater, it took more effort to achieve the effect, but the sinister black shortsword flew from the wall and into his outstretched palm. Azerick thrust the blade forward without hesitating. The demon’s eyes widened as the blade sunk deep into his bare flesh just above where a human, or most any another creature born of a mother, would have had a navel.
Azerick felt a burning in his hand and tried to drop the sword, but his fingers would not release their grip. Either that or the sword would not release his hand. The sorcerer felt an evil intelligence emanating from the blade, and it held his body immobile. Klaraxis’s knees finally bent, and he fell kneeling onto the floor in front of Azerick, still looming over him when the room filled with a deep, gratified laugh. The demon prince toppled to the side, but the laughter continued, and it took several moments before Azerick realized it was coming from his own mouth.
The Sorcerer's Path Box Set: Book 1-4 Page 125