Vagner said nothing. He stumbled through the dark, taking his time, and satisfied in the knowledge it hurt Tane as much as it hurt the demon.
There were some rewards in pain.
FIFTY EIGHT
Fenelon was enjoying this madness much more than Etienne thought wise of him. He started out flying straight at the waterfall, but then one of the battlemages managed to cut across his path and forced him to veer like a hawk. Etienne chose to go higher instead, which turned out to be a better move than she expected. For one thing it gave her ample opportunity to see just where Turlough and the platform were.
Closer than she expected, it turned out. No more than a few hundred cubits. Turlough clung to the rail with his beard flying back into his face. Demented terror was visible in the bulge of his eyes and the baring of his teeth. Yet he encouraged the navigator to go faster. The mages who were unable to leave the platform were looking rather green and uneasy. Even the navigator looked like he might be having misgivings.
This is not good, Etienne thought glumly. Fenelon dodged a second battlemage just as a third flew towards her with a grim expression. I don’t have Fenelon’s skill at this. She could fight or she could fly, but she had her doubts that she could do both at the same time.
Flight, then, she decided, and waited just long enough to be assured her own attacker would have to compensate dearly before she flitted out of his path. And it worked for the moment. His momentum in flight carried him well beyond her, giving her plenty of time to take off in another direction.
“This way!” Fenelon shouted.
Etienne looked up in time to see two battlemages closing on him, and one was coming from behind him. And Fenelon seemed intent upon the man who faced him.
“Look out!” she cried.
Just when she thought her warning was too late, Fenelon surged upward, and suddenly, his two attackers met chest to chest in their vain attempt to shift with him. Like a couple of netted crows, they dropped towards the ground.
“No!” Etienne screamed.
Her concern, it turned out, was not necessary. Fenelon shouted, “Adhar cum,” and suddenly their descent was stopped. Then he looked towards Etienne and motioned towards the falls.
“Follow me!” he said and took off once more.
Etienne shifted her direction. She glanced at the two men who had nearly fallen to their deaths with a moment of relief, then turned her attention towards her own escape. Fenelon was making a straight path towards the waterfall again, and Etienne wondered just what he had in mind. They were getting close enough that she could feel the wind of the falling water buffeting her.
Fenelon made for one side of the curtain of water. He suddenly disappeared behind the rush. Etienne almost lost her spell as he did. “What?” It took a few moments for her to realize he had found an opening under the falls. She took the same path and felt the damp spray wash over her. Horns, she was apt to freeze if this soaked her. And then what good would it do?
Fenelon was up on a ledge that set back into the cliff for a good ways. Plenty of space to stand, Etienne noted as she landed. “This is your plan?” she asked as she looked at him.
“Use what nature gives you, love,” Fenelon said. “Water is a powerful element. It will keep Turlough from casting fire.”
“As well as our selves,” she reminded him.
“Ah, but you see, Turlough has never been one with water, so to speak. It’s not an element he can readily control.”
“Neither can we in this place,” she said with a frown.
“Wrong,” Fenelon said. “We have Lunari beads now, remember?”
She glanced down towards the entry way. “We’re also about to have company,” she said.
One of the battlemages could be seen just around the end of the falls. He hovered as though debating whether it would be wise to enter unaccompanied, or to practice bravado and go alone. Etienne said a silent prayer he would wait and give her time to gather her own wits. A quick glance told her there was no other escape.
“And this is wonderfully defendable. Observe.” Fenelon touched the beads then stretched his right hand towards the opening and the unassuming guard.
The water of the fall suddenly came alive when it lashed at the battlemage and soaked him. He retreated rather than continue to receive another unwanted bath. Under other circumstances, Etienne might have been mildly amused, but not here. Not now. Besides, a shadow had formed against the opaque wall of water and ice, and Etienne had a feeling Turlough had arrived.
“Attack or defend, love?” Fenelon asked.
“What do you mean?” she said, frowning at him.
“I expect they’ll start rushing us with spells at any moment now, and it would be wiser if one of us plays the aggressor, and one of us defends,” he said, quirking his eyebrows.
“Is this a part of your plan?” she asked testily. “Trapping us here and forcing us to go to war with Turlough and other members of the Mage Council?”
“Well, no,” Fenelon said and brushed back hair that was looking damp. “My real plan was to lose them, but that’s starting to look more difficult than I hoped. So I say we need to be the distraction. As long as Turlough’s pissed off enough to come after us, he’ll be too preoccupied to interfere with whatever Alaric and Ronan are doing.”
What they are doing, she thought glumly, is taking on Tane without our assistance. Not to mention the fact her own apprentice was there. She worried about Alaric, but she admitted only to herself she was worried about Shona more. The lass was intelligent and gifted and fearless, but those talents might prove useless in a confrontation with a bloodmage of Tane’s experience.
Etienne had little time to debate the matter further in her own mind. A shout alerted her to the three battlemages who were surging at the gap as one.
“Uisge mhor buail!” she shouted without even thinking. The edge of the waterfall heaved and closed in like a giant backhand, smacking the three and tumbling them away.
“Good shot,” Fenelon said. “So you’re attacking?”
“Defending,” she said stiffly and chose a place on the ledge that gave her ample view of the area behind the width of the fall. “You gain much more pleasure out of battle than I do.”
“Very well,” he said and stretched a hand towards the icicles that formed here and there. “Isa gath saighead buail!”
Large shards of ice tore away from the overhang and charged through the waterfall with the ferocity of a crossbow bolt. Outside the roar, she faintly heard a wooden thunk as one struck the platform, and several voices raised panicky cries of warning.
Horns, she would much rather have been down in the heart of this crater helping Alaric and Shona and Vagner just now.
But Fenelon was right in one way, she was reluctant to admit. As long as Turlough was occupied with this battle, Alaric and the others were somewhat safe…
So why didn’t she feel reassured?
~
To Alaric, the dark of the tunnel went on forever, and the hundred cubits Ronan had claimed were starting to feel more like five hundred. Another illusion? If it were not for Shona’s voice, he might turn and flee back to the light.
“…So I never quite got over the fear,” Shona said. “Now, it’s your turn. Sing me a song…”
“A song?” Alaric said. Her hand gently squeezed his as reassurance. “Here…in the dark?”
“Why not?” she asked. “Since when do you need to see to sing?”
Well, she had a point, he begrudgingly admitted, and heard a faint chuckle in his head. “Come on, Lark, you can sing in the dark…” Ronan teased.
“Actually, I think a song would be a splendid idea,” Vagner’s disembodied voice echoed.
“So…what shall I sing?” Alaric asked.
“Definitely something cheerful,” Shona said. “I know. Do you know a song called Gin Ye’ll Be My Lassie?”
“I don’t think so…”
“I do,” Ronan said.
Shut up! Ala
ric hissed inwardly.
“Then I’ll teach it to you,” Shona said. And she launched brightly into the cheerful tune without a care. Her voice echoed pleasantly through the dark.
“Gin ye’ll be my lassie,
I’ll let ye milk my kye.
Put yer hand upon the udder,
Stroke it low and stroke it high.
Put yer hand upon the udder.
Hold me pail betwix yer thighs.
Oh, I’ll let ye be my lassie if
Ye promise ta milk my kye…”
Shona sang on, and Alaric was laughing out loud before he could stop himself. The song hinted at a certain raunchy behavior that turned out to be an innocent, misunderstood proposal. “Where did you learn that?” he asked when he could finally draw a breath. The demon’s laughter filled the dark as well.
“My father taught it to my brothers,” Shona said, “and they could never resist bawling it at the top of their lungs while milking. It’s actually a popular courting song in the Highland Ranges…Oh, my!”
Shona suddenly stopped, and Alaric pushed forward to see what had startled her so. The black suddenly gave way to a blinding, cold, blue-white light.
“Horns!” Alaric hissed and released Shona to throw his hands up over his eyes in order to shade them from the sharp brilliance. A moment of blinking adjusted them, however.
“By all the gods,” Shona said, peering between her fingers as she shaded her eyes.
“What is it….gahhhh!” Vagner’s question shortened to a howl of pain. The demon threw up claws and wrapped chiropteran wings about him as if to shield himself from the light. He hunkered as steam suddenly rose from his hide, as though the light were burning him, and Alaric heard a voice curse, a voice that came from somewhere around the demon. An old memory of dreaded pain charged out of Alaric’s memory. He knew that voice!
But Vagner’s distress was filling their ears with agonized cried. “Gahhh! The pain!” the demon shrieked, his tone rising to a pitch that resembled the piercing chirp of a bat. Alaric was forced to abandon the moment of certainty as to whom that voice belonged to. The demon was terrified, and his pain was trying to lash at Alaric through the bond they shared. And just when Alaric thought the pain would come to him, his affinity for the magic in this subterranean haven stretched a shield of power around his mage senses without him summoning one himself.
What? Alaric thought.
“He’s not meant to be here,” Ronan said. “This place is poison to a dark creature like himself. He must leave at once.”
“He’s on our side, Ronan,” Alaric retorted in his head. “We might need him! There’s got to be something we can do to help him.”
“You will have to shield him in darkness, then,” Ronan said. “But it would be better to make him leave…”
“I will not let him leave!” Alaric argued. “What if Tane were to find him and use him against us?”
“Tane should not be able to enter this place…”
“We don’t know that for certain!”
Silence at first, then Ronan hissed, “So be it…” and began to whisper words of an ancient spell in no tongue Alaric recognized. But he repeated the words aloud all the same.
A keen filled the air, as though the magic were resisting him at first, when silence came as an aura of translucent darkness sprang up to cover the demon. Vagner gasped, wild eyes flashing up as he took hard breaths, like one who had nearly drown and was enjoying air again.
“Vagner, are you all right?” Alaric asked.
The demon averted his gaze and nodded. “Thank you,” he whispered, and looked over his shoulder almost fearfully. “For a moment I thought I would die…”
“I will never let that happen,” Alaric said.
The demon turned back, surprise filling his reptilian eyes. “Truly?” he asked, as though not daring to hope.
“Truly,” Alaric replied and looked at Shona.
The demon sighed. For a moment a look of pain creased his features. Then, ponderously, he rose to tower over them. “I will be fine now,” he said wearily.
“Are you sure,” Alaric asked. “You sound rather worn and…” He reached out to touch the demon, and Vagner shied away from the hand that drew near him.
“I will be fine,” Vagner repeated, his gaze wandering about the place in which they found themselves, and registering a mixture of wonder and dread. “By the Barbed One’s Toenails, what is that…?”
Alaric turned from the demon. What the young bard had first only perceived as pure light now had shape and form.
They stood in a chamber so vast, he could not measure it easily with his eyes. Looking up, he saw it grew like a cylinder over their heads, walls of black rock—pumice and obsidian—gradually leaned inward and dangled with stalactites. Have we come so deep? Above, at the very center, he perceived a tiny pinprick of daylight.
“How?” he whispered. “We were up there, and I don’t remember seeing any holes in the ground…”
“There are illusions above as well as below,” Ronan said.
But we walked up there, Alaric argued in his head.
“Indeed, and we did not fall. But you must remember that not everything here is what it seems. The vast power the ancients held created all you see to keep the darkness from ever being brought to life again.
Alaric’s gaze dropped back to the area before them. It was as though the ground sank a bit. At the heart, he saw a huge circular platform of stone around which little vents of steam escaped. In fact, it reminded him a little of a cork stuffed into a bottle. Several sets of steps rose to his upper surface which was well over his head and out of sight range. Alaric hesitated, then started down the slope towards the platforms. He stopped at the base of the closest set of stairs. Each step was marked with the elemental rune of fire. He leaned over and touched them. Nothing happened, so he started to climb.
“Alaric, be careful,” Shona said, holding back with a look of uncertainty.
“Come with me,” Alaric said and held out his hand to her.
“This is one place a demon cannot go,” Ronan said. “His presence would corrupt the magic above and could cause danger to you.”
Reluctantly, Alaric sighed. “Vagner, why don’t you patrol around the outer area and see what you can find.”
“Apart from sulphur and brimstone and a great deal of light?” the demon asked.
“You cannot come up here,” Alaric said. “So perhaps, you should stay down here and watch…maybe look around and see if you sense Tane. The last thing we need is him surprising us.”
“As you will,” Vagner said, and Alaric detected the hint of reluctance in the demon’s voice and expression.
“We’ll be fine,” Alaric added with a smile.
The demon did not respond. He merely moved off around the circumference of the platform, and Alaric felt a twinge of guilt. He sighed and moved on, taking Shona’s hand and giving a tug. She looked pale. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I fell like someone was walking over my grave,” she said with a furtive glance around. “Are you certain it’s wise to send Vagner away?”
“Ronan said demon essence would corrupt the magic above,” Alaric said as he led her up the steep stairs.
“And what’s to say our presence will not be found as adverse…” Shona said. “None of this feels right to me, Alaric. I hate to admit it, but I’m a wee bit scared.”
“Of what?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It just feels strange to me…”
“The magic here is very ancient,” he said. “Older than the Great Cataclysm. From the First Age of The World, I think. But this is not where it was originally. It was all put here at the time of the Great Cataclysm to protect the Dragon’s Tongue from ever being found by those who would carry out Arawn’s dark designs…”
“How do you know all this,” she asked, and her hand trembled in his.
Alaric shrugged, and offered a reassuring squeeze. His head now rose
above the platform’s edge. And there, he paused to take in the wonder of it all.
“Oh, my,” Shona whispered.
The platform’s surface was formed of smooth, grey stone, and beneath his feet, Alaric sensed that heat and cold were at war. Around the outer edge of this platform, four tall columns rose. Five times Alaric’s own height from the edge, there appeared to be a carved moat with four bridges that led to the next higher platform which appeared to be made of a brownish agate. He could barely see the tops of archways in some sort of henge or broch, and around that, the brilliant blue-white glow, like a ring of white fire.
I’ve been here as well, Alaric thought, and a tremor went through him.
“Yes, you have,” Ronan said. “Now…I will sleep.”
What?
He felt Ronan hesitate as though thinking what to say. “Only one of us may be conscious in this place…Otherwise, the powers here will be…confused, and might not let us pass. And since you now possess the knowledge of the Champion of Light…”
Ronan! But the bard’s presence seemed to fade, though Alaric knew he was there, Ronan was silent and still.
“Is something the matter?” Shona asked.
Alaric shook his head.
We’re just on our own now, he thought.
FIFTY NINE
“This is far enough, demon,” Tane whispered.
Vagner stopped. He was close enough to the edge of the platform to be hidden from sight.
“Put me down,” Tane said.
With a sigh, Vagner crouched. He felt the weight slip from his back. Tane stepped outside the darkness that protected the demon, drawing his own cloak of shadows around him to shade himself.
“Now,” Tane said. “We will follow them…Invisibly…”
“The magic here will not allow that,” Vagner said. “I can feel that.”
“What do I care if the magic is unfriendly,” Tane said. “I want the Dragon’s Tongue, and once I have it, the magic here will be mine to command or destroy.”
“What if it destroys us first?” Vagner said. “The little master warned me…”
Dragon's Tongue: Book One of the Demon-Bound Page 45