by Greg Curtis
Finally happy with his handiwork, Alan sat down a long way behind his wall of stone protectors, concentrated and cast his magic so that he could see himself sitting from the crystal in the elemental’s forehead, and then sent it into the cavern. The result was everything he’d feared it would be as with its very first step the elemental was assaulted by a blast of magical fire that would have killed a wizard in a heartbeat. Fortunately his elemental was made of the essence of stone, and fire didn’t bother it particularly. Instead of dying as he would have, it simply stood there, weathering the fire-storm and slowly turning red, until eventually the fire subsided and it cooled again.
It took a while as the magic that had gone into that first blast had been substantial, assuring him once more that this was the resting place of a true ancient and not some second rate later wizard. But that in turn confirmed for him that there would be many more of these traps, and not all of them would be fire. Some would destroy stone. Still, the first one was dealt with safely and that counted for something.
When the elemental had cooled sufficiently, he sent his mind’s eye back into it and then further on into the cavern ahead, which, now that it was inside it, was perfectly clear. From outside it had looked like a dark opening into blackness, but inside torches could be seen shining with magical light. They were magical stone torches of course, and the walls - massive stone walls as high as the pillars that had formed its entrance - were covered with drawings and writing. He spent some time studying them, knowing that the key to who was sleeping here, and possibly the traps themselves, was possibly written down on them.
His mastery of the ancient elvish language was poor at best, and the ancient language of the chamber’s walls was only vaguely similar to even that. Often he had to resort to studying the pictures to gain a clue as to the writings, but with time and a lot of cautious steps as the elemental made its way down the entrance hall, he managed to piece together some of it.
The cavern was the resting place of the Falconer family, though it could just as easily have been hawkers or any others concerned with the raising and handling of predatory birds, and there were warnings at every point along the walls, of traps ahead. Big traps. The first one according to the writings, had just been a warning. That spoke volumes about how powerful those they believed might come after them were and how carefully they had prepared.
The family itself consisted of a mother, father with eyes of ice and death, and two young daughters, all of them considerably elvish in their appearance, and all of them apparently determined only to ride out the terrible wizard wars of their time. They hadn’t, or they claimed they hadn’t, (one could never be sure of anything with ancients) taken part in the wars, choosing instead the path of least danger, and had fled and hidden, awaiting a safer time to awaken and return to the land of the living. But when that time was, they didn’t know.
They’d set their wards to look for a time when there were no wars, and no magical assaults, apparently forgetting in their desperation, that there were always wizards at war with somebody. The only time there would not be, was when there were no more wizards, and that day would probably mean there were no more mortals either. And so they had slept through the centuries and millennia, while the world had changed and grown. While the devastation they had wrought to it was slowly repaired, and while the magic that they had unleashed in their rage was slowly reabsorbed and the wizards grew in power once more.
It was as the elemental reached the end of the first passageway and encountered the first fork in the path, that the next trap was unleashed, and he found himself staring at a trio of stone basilisks. Alan almost laughed out loud in unexpected pleasure. Normally such creatures would have been deadly unless the wizard had taken precautions, but in this case, as they turned their petrifying gaze on the elemental they were completely out of luck. His elemental was already made of the essence of stone. Instead of freezing into place, the elemental simply strode towards the three of them, and then stepped on each in turn, crushing them into dust. It was a pity to do such a thing. The magic involved in the creation of such golems was powerful and the artistry even greater, but it had to be done, and as he reminded himself, since they had never been alive they therefore couldn’t have died.
That left Alan with a decision to make; which path to take. The left path heading upwards into the mountain, or the right one heading down into its bowels? He was torn of course, knowing that only one could be right, and that the other would surely be a series of ever more deadly traps leading to oblivion, but he still had to choose.
The little he’d read from the walls of the previous passage way suggested that they were fleeing and trying to remain as protected as possible, and that therefore they would want to tread deeper into the mountains where they might feel safer. So he chose down. But it was only a guess.
The right passageway swiftly became a wide spiral heading down, and he sent his elemental walking slowly down it, step by step, looking for traps all the way, and yet despite his caution, he still missed several of them.
Some he spotted, their magic undeniable to his finely tuned senses, even through the elemental’s stone body, and he carefully triggered them all from a safe distance, dropping rocks on the magically sensitive patches of ground and sending forth blasts of sand past the other triggers. And each new trap surprised him with its strength and subtlety.
A series of glowing steel axe blades swinging down from their hidden slots in the walls to slice anyone passing by was impressive because of the size of the blades, as well as the magic in them which made them swing far faster than they should have. Some sort of haste spell had been cast on them. But once they’d finished swinging, he had the elemental simply reach up and rip out each axe one by one from its securing point, and leave their remains on the floor.
The ice trap shocked him, simply because he’d never seen one used in that way. Instead of a blast of super cold air which would have frozen his elemental had he been mortal, this one was a series of ice arrows that were suddenly released as though by an army of visually impaired archers. There were so many arrows that they would hit anyone, without the need to be aimed. And those arrows were sharp. That was the first of the traps that harmed his elemental, as the arrows gouged large holes in his stone skin. He knew it wouldn’t be the last.
The pack of hell hounds caught him off guard as well, but simply because they were the genuine, living, breathing beasts, somehow kept alive and ready to be used in a trap for thousands of years. That spoke of strong and unknown magic. But fortunately their fiery breath simply bounced off his elemental’s stone skin while their teeth broke on it, and when they leapt at it the elemental simply caught them and crushed them with its enormous hands. It was a terrible shame killing the beasts, even such demon creatures as they, but it was necessary. And as he reminded himself, they weren’t rare or endangered, nor were they natural and they weren’t friendly.
It was the ice drake though, that really shocked him. He’d never seen one before, never expected to, least of all from this close. Cousins to the dragons but without their intelligence and having only vestigial wings, they were still magnificent creatures and formidable opponents, and he had just enough time to take in its angry ice blue eyes and ice white scales before it flicked its forty foot long tail at him like a whip. An armoured whip. And when the flat scaled blade on the end touched his elemental with almost blinding speed, his elemental shattered it into a thousand pieces before he could react. Even a steel elemental would have been destroyed by the impact.
The destruction of his elemental left Alan shocked for a little bit. He’d never been so intimately associated with an elemental when it had been destroyed. In fact few of his elementals had ever been destroyed, not since he’d changed his earth elementals from clay to stone, and for a heartbeat it was almost as if that tail had struck him. But he shook his confusion off quickly, knowing that it would likely not be the last he would lose this day, and prepared his next servant.
The elemental sped through the already explored parts of the complex without a single problem, and for that Alan was glad. His first elemental had clearly found most of the traps. Then again the air elemental was a lot faster than the earth one, and even if there were some traps left, it was likely that the air elemental was too insubstantial to trigger them.
Then finally when it did reach the ice drake’s cavern, the drake itself ignored it. The chances were it couldn’t even see it in the darkened chamber. Instead it just lay there, still slightly curled up, suspiciously scenting the air as if it knew something was wrong, but not quite sure what and unwilling to move until it did. The intruder as far as it knew, was dead and lying in stone pieces at the entrance to its lair.
That gave Alan his first chance ever to see a drake in the flesh, and even as he had the elemental release the first of the sleep spells he’d loaded into it, he studied it intently.
One hundred feet long at least, sleek and deadly, and all of it covered in those ice white scales, in the snow it would surely have been invisible. But like all terrible thunder lizards, it didn’t like the cold and it tended to hibernate through the winter, despite its name. The question was how long had this beast been sleeping? Thousands of years like the hell hounds and the ancient wizards themselves? Or was this simply a natural ice drake burrow, which this and perhaps many other beasts had made their home over the years, while the ancient families had been sleeping elsewhere in the other part? If so, how did it awaken in summer such as it was and how did it pass the traps?
Though it was an incredibly powerful beast, it would surely have been annoyed and maybe even hurt by the fire traps, although those axes would not have bothered it particularly as they would have shattered on its flesh. And that would have left the traps useless after its passing. Unless it had some sort of pass key through the caverns which would stop the traps from activating? A key which could be very useful. But if it did, the creature didn’t know about it. Unlike a dragon it wasn’t intelligent.
He studied its ice blue eyes closely, seeing the wariness in them, and the natural savagery that was a part of its nature, but no sign of awareness that it was being ensorcelled as its eyes slowly closed over under the influence of the first spell. But as he studied its long and slender body, inch by inch, he could sense no sign of a pass key or a spell that would have allowed it to come and go freely either. The mystery would have to remain as it was.
In time when its eyes had closed over fully, and its breathing had returned to the regular, slow and deep drafts that were normal for its kind, he realized the argument was academic anyway. Even with a key, he wouldn’t have trusted the passages enough to risk his own flesh and blood. The likelihood was that if there was a key then it was its own flesh with the traps recognising the great beast. Unless of course it had just slept there in that cavern for thousands of years like the ancients themselves?
After letting the elemental release the spells of non-sensation which would mean no noises, no sights and even no magic would awaken it from its magical slumber for at least a week or two, he let his elemental start searching the cavern and eventually discovered that it had another exit. This massive cavern wasn’t an end to the system, just another way point along its length.
But its exit was far different to that which he had already passed through. Instead of a grand fifty foot high passage way with vaulted ceilings, this new one was barely twelve feet tall, and there was nothing particularly grand or ornate about it. It was carved and it was straight, and there were still stone torches along its wall lighting the way, but it wasn’t the same. It was more cosy perhaps, and he had the strange feeling that these were the passages leading to the family of ancients, rather than those of an ancient temple or public edifice as the first part seemed to be. Illogical as it might be, the thought gave him hope.
An hour or so later, when he was sure the drake was completely under his spells, and after he’d eaten some more food and rested his eyes a little, he had the air elemental continue its journey through these new passages, with a feeling of anticipation running through him. A feeling that was quickly doused with the very first trap perhaps ten feet down it.
The sudden screaming of the rock all around his servant, was his first clue that something was wrong, and he was immediately glad that the drake had been ensorcelled. That sound would have surely woken it if it wasn’t, and because of its long slender shape he was certain that its head with those terrifying ice white fangs filling its ten foot long mouth, would have been busy biting him within seconds had he been present in the flesh. But the drake slept on, unbothered by the sound, and the air elemental was equally unaffected.
In time though the screaming stopped, and he realized that the spell itself had been deadly, as had all the other traps to date. He realized that when he saw the dust on the ground all around his servant, and realized it had been a sound of disintegration, and his stone elemental would probably have been dust by the end of it. The air elemental having no physical body, simply couldn’t shatter. Meanwhile the drake, the tip of its tail barely twenty feet from him flittering about peacefully, continued its slumber undisturbed.
Warily he had his air elemental carry on down the passage way, all senses on full alert for another spell that might awaken the beast.
It was just as well as barely another dozen steps down the passage way he deliberately triggered another trap and watched as thousands of red hot stone fragments suddenly exploded from out of nowhere and tore through the narrow cavern like fire arrows. Naturally they passed harmlessly through the air elemental, but again the stone elemental would have taken more damage, the drake would have been awakened by the pain of the burning shards, and he himself like any wizard, would have been killed outright. One thing was sure, these ancients liked to defend themselves. But then that was well recorded in the histories of the previous awakenings.
A third trap of poison gas, came and went without incident, and wouldn’t have bothered any of his elementals as none of them breathed, and then a fourth of acid rain he managed to trigger from far enough away that even had he been there in person, it wouldn’t have touched him. Yet even as he was congratulating himself, he was beginning to wonder what was going on. Four deadly traps within the space of fifty steps, he had the feeling he was approaching something quite important, maybe even the resting chamber itself, and he felt hope building within him. But that was before the fifth was triggered accidentally, and a tornado arose from absolutely nowhere in the middle of the passage, and tore his second elemental apart in a few short terrifying heartbeats.
Yet even as he sent in his next elemental, this time another earth elemental, Alan knew hope. The traps were so thick and deadly, and so powerful, that he was sure he must be nearing the ancients themselves. And he was doing it in more or less perfect safety. The ancients were powerful by any measure, but apparently they weren’t subtle, and they hadn’t considered the idea of someone sending in elementals or golems to do their work for them. Elemental magic probably differed from their own and they weren’t prepared for it. That wasn’t something that had ever been in his readings, but then the last time anyone had tried to do what he was doing was fifteen hundred years before. A lot might have been lost since then.
The stone elemental
took him through another hundred paces of tunnels and easily a dozen more traps before it too succumbed, this time to a trap of liquid stone in which it simply sank and was frozen in place. While it hadn’t “died” it was immobilized beyond his ability to free it, and he released its energy and sent in a fire elemental instead after it. The traps were so thick, it was time to see if he could remotely activate them.
The fire elemental did just that as it hurled balls of fire everywhere, and caused the stone walls and floors themselves to explode and rain debris down on even more trigger points. It was impressive as he watched whole hundred yard long sections of the stone passageways fill with fire and ice and all manner of stone creatures and poison gasses, all at the same time, even if he had to watch it through eyes of flame. Fire elementals had poor vision because of their very nature. But still this elemental made it further in one session than any of the others. Then again it had only one weakness, water, and few of the traps were water based; ice yes, but not water. Still, just as the flood appearing from nowhere had doused his first fire elemental’s essence, he realized the ancients had prepared for everything.