Looming Shadow: Journey to Chaos book 2

by Brian Wilkerson

  “HA-HAA!” Haburt shouted. “WE'RE IN!”

  His jubilation was cut short by the sound of rustling bones. All over the courtyard, the bones of Dengel's victims slid through the dirt and dust to each other. They built up into complete skeletons. They grabbed stones and stray bones and formed a mob. They outnumbered the group 2-1, counting the non-combatants. They marched forward and a mysterious whisper reached Eric's ears.

  “....Dengel...Die....!”

  Eric's blood boiled at that accursed name. He jumped into their midst, flung his arms to either side, and they flared with the light of mana. Seconds before the skeletons struck him, he unleashed it, and a flurry of buckshot plowed through the mob. They obliterated ribs, disintegrated skulls, and busted hips. Eric fired again and again and again until each and every skeleton was reduced to dust. Then he felt the toll of his actions and fell prostrate to the ground, gasping heavily.

  He shook so violently that Basilard brought out his emergency Mana Juice. Eric gulped it down as best he could, but even then, his panting continued. When his breathing finally stabilized, Nolien asked, “Eric, are you okay?”

  “Fine! Let's just go to the top of the abyss-cursed tower so the client can get his blasted research and we can leave!”

  He marched past his teammates and client and finally, Zettai. She stepped away and said, “You're scary.”

  He rounded on her and shouted, “I am The Trickster's Choice. That means I am scary! Somehow, I gave ORDER the willies because he tried to kill me on my way here!” The tower's golden-brown crown pulsed. “I'm coming! Be patient!”

  Inside the doors was a bare stone room with nothing but a staircase leading up. The stairway was an illusion snare: once entered, any trespasser is trapped in an eternal flight of stairs. Eric advised his party against the stairs and instead selected one of the bricks in the left sidewall. He pushed it inwards and the stairs swiveled.

  The genius is that even if some experienced treasure hunter finds the right brick, they will think the second stair is real. Would you expect anything less from Dengel Tymh? The real entrance was behind the brick. Eric pushed it all the way in and clear of the wall, then tapped a rune on the inside. This triggered the wall on the right side of the room to reveal a secret passage.

  It was small chamber housing a spiral staircase. Made of cold grey stone and, to the naked eye, it was completely empty. The party took five steps before Eric held out a hand to stop them. The secret passage would spell death for all who entered, except for me, of course. I know the location of each and every trap. Furthermore, I am immortal, so a missed step is not fatal for me.

  “This is where we part ways. I'm going the rest of the way alone.”

  “Come on, Dimwit. That's not fair. I haven't gotten to do anything fun since that squid tried to eat you. You even hogged those skeletons.”

  “If it's booby traps you're worried about, then I should accompany you in case you trigger one.”

  “You guys don't get it. Every square inch has a booby trap. Dengel wanted to make his lair impregnable, so he made a tower where only a battle mage has a chance of success. I am the only one who can get there safely.”

  Basilard grabbed his shoulders and looked him square in the eye.

  “Eric, I'll let you do this on one condition: if something goes wrong, you must retreat immediately. This mission is not worth your life. Understand?”

  Eric nodded. “I’m not going to kill myself over this.”

  “If you find any ghosts of Dengel, try to make contact with them. They will not know you and so you can convince them to help you. Do you know how to do that?”

  Eric nodded again. “Chapter Ten of Introduction to Magecraft talked about the mechanics of ghosts and astral communication. The Spirit and Its Power also had a few things to say on the subject.”

  Finally, Basilard regarded Haburt. “Do you have a problem with this, Professor?”

  Haburt shook his head. “The courtyard will compensate me if the tunnel is too dangerous.”

  “If you're not back in an hour, I'm going in after you.” Basilard smiled. “Good luck.”

  Eric drew his staff, saluted, and turned around to face Shadow Dengel. It made the typical taunts and barbs and they riled him momentarily. Then he took a deep breath, let it out, and something occurred to him.

  Kasile?

  Yes?

  Don't contact me for the next hour or so. I'm in a supremely dangerous place and cannot be distracted for any reason.

  What if Annala has been kidnapped by ordercrafters and is about to be sold into sex slavery? Eric stiffened. Hypothetically speaking. Nulso hasn't made a move on her since you met him.

  If that were the case, then I would trust that you, my dear divine friend and mighty monarch, would resolve the issue quickly and thus see no need to worry me.

  Touché. Alright, I won't contact you for the next hour or so.

  Eric stepped forwards.

  An Air Disk made all the floor traps harmless. Even though Dengel had the foresight to install traps activated by Air Disks, he told the lair raider the location of every single one. Eric merely had to jump past them, cancel the spell in mid-air, and recast it before he landed. After his narrow escape in Mambi, he practiced this feat until it was second nature.

  The list Eric was forced to listen to lasted a week in a desert, and then all the time back to Roalt. Dengel then repeated himself in the sewer. He would not shut up about all the booby traps and runes and automata he hid in the floor and walls and ceiling. Now Eric was glad he didn't tune it all out. He would take great pleasure in bypassing them all.

  Thanks to his tenant's never-ending bragging, Eric knew precisely where to step, where to jump, where to crouch, where to hold his breath and cover his nose and mouth, and where to stand absolutely still. All the careful planning... Eric sidestepped a hidden lance. All the tedious carving and installing... He carefully stepped over a trigger that would summon a golem. All the trouble of avoiding these traps for centuries. Eric closed his eyes and plugged his ears to prevent the artificial Venus flytrap song from seducing him. All of it made useless by his own hand!

  Fire came at him from the walls and encountered with water. The ceiling fell to crush him, but he held it at bay with wind. Water poured out of the exit and down the stairs with terrible force, but he held his ground and evaporated it all with fire. When he reached the top, wind tried to knock him from his victory height, but he smashed the source with stone pillars hewed from the very walls.

  The novice mage was giddy with excitement. His fingers twitched, his lips quirked up; it was hard to prevent himself from running. All the traps were gone, defeated, overcome. Only one more barrier remained and it was a solid wall.

  What truly kept my greatest lair secure was the final door. No lock, rune, or anything of that nature but a password. A password that was inscribed with a staff and mana. A brilliant idea if I do say so myself. Dengel never told Eric the password, but after all their time spent together, he could guess.

  Staff alight with mana, he drew the sequence that would unlock the final barrier: a straight line connected to a half moon, a tree with three branches, the symbol for lightning on its side, the serpent that eats its own tail, a second tree, and finally, a crowbar. The key shined blue in its lock:

  D-E-N-G-E-L.

  The gears behind it clanked and groaned from disuse. This was the first time in over a thousand years that this door had opened. Slowly, ever so slowly, the wall slid back and granted him entry.

  There it was. The pearl, the rose; the very thing he wanted to expose and violate. Eric savored the moment. He was the first person to enter in this space since Dengel disappeared almost two millennia ago. The first to smell the air and the feel the energy. At long last, I can destroy Dengel's legacy! He stepped inside.

  The chamber was small; he estimated it was the same size as his bridge house. He took another deep breath and grinned ecstatically. For so long, he breathed the thin air of Cei
ha, but here the air was full of life. The age-old walls contained ancient energy. It swirled back and forth and cast shadows all around him. He could see and hear Dengel pacing as he pondered the depths of Chaos or sitting at his desk recording a new deduction on the nature of magic. Standing here, Eric felt invigorated.

  This power preserved everything. Since the hour Dengel closed the door for the last time, nothing had decayed. From the desk to the vials, nothing showed two thousand years of disuse. Scrolls were everywhere: on shelves, on the desk, on the floor. They were long since dried and stiff, but still intact. All these ages and the knowledge of magecraft remained intact.

  How long it remained such depended on Eric's self-restraint. Everything in this room was a valuable historic relic. This was what his client had come for and hired him for. Collecting these was his purpose for coming all this way. No mattering how tempting, he couldn't smash everything in a flurry of righteous revenge. Instead, he took stock of the room for his report.

  In the center of the room stood a white-silver cauldron with a casing of red-gold. If that weren't ostentatious enough, the cauldron was elongated in its design and handles raised in such wide and delicate loops as to be mere decoration. Nothing but the best for the Founder of Magic, right?

  Silence.

  What's wrong, shadow? Don't like that I'm in your lair!? The oh-so impregnable secret sanctum of the Great Dengel!?

  More silence.

  That is so like you. You never could admit you were wrong. Eric began a Searing Wind spell. I'm gonna cut this up and sell it! Your cauldron will make me rich! How do you like that, shadow!?

  No outraged cry answered. Eric growled and dropped his spell.

  What else is in here? He looked around again. If there’s anything chaos-related, like a blessed staff or something, I could use that against Nulso. Dragon’s Lair Rule Number #6: Not all that glitters is gold, but it could still be worth a lot of money. #7: Grab what is whenever you can.

  Along the left wall were rows of sealed clay containers. The labels were in a language resembling Latin, but Eric could still read the spell diagram on the lid. It was a freshness rune invoking the sea god. These might still be good, but I doubt anyone would use them....maybe a museum...

  Apart from the cauldron, there was a large wooden desk and chair. Open in front of it was a sheet of papyrus with the same language as the labels on the containers. Alongside it was a crystal ball on a silver stand and a skull. Eric ran his hand over the latter from the base to the top; still polished after all this time. Maybe you can tell me something.

  “Wake up, Skull. Your master is here.”

  “Welcome home, Master.” The skull's mouth didn't clatter, but a breeze moved through its jaws. “What do you wish of me?”

  “Tell me the year.”

  “It has been two thousand years since Fiery Human Upstart murdered your Glorious Patron, and one thousand eight hundred and fifty years since you left the service of the Insolent Dragon-girl who poached you for your marvelous skills, my master.”

  Eric chuckled. Dengel made clear his dislike of the Mother Dragon, but this? ...He worked one hundred and fifty years under her and I bet he never dared call her that to her face.

  “How long have I been gone?”

  “One thousand four hundred and fifty years, my master.” In other words, he disappeared in 550 AA. He spent four hundred years tormenting these people.

  “What was I going to do?”

  “You left to demonstrate your power over the earth to your subjects and simultaneously send a message to Imposter Dragon Criminal that she was vulnerable to your might and would soon die.”

  Eric rubbed his forehead. Dengel programed this skull to turn every word into flattery. I suppose an ego that big needs constant maintenance.

  “Subjects” referred to people living under a ruler, which explained the legend of the mountain king and why the locals thought the Crimson Killer was a zombie king. “Demonstrate power over the earth” could refer to earth magic and something Dengel would think impressive would have to be mountain-sized. That explained where Mt. Heios came from and if he were researching chaos, then it would explain why Mt. Heios was covered in Fog. That, plus the intimidation purpose of the message meant Dengel developed an attack spell using chaos to kill an immortal. “Imposter Dragon Criminal” referred to someone that pretended to be a dragon and that Dengel viewed as a criminal that was also immortal. Dragon, immortal, criminal, Dengel's era....The Bandit Empress! Dengel planned to murder The Bandit Empress with chaos magic! It suits his ego and matches Basilard's story...

  “Skull, tell me again how impressed my subjects were with my chaos magic.”

  “They trembled in fear, my master. One of them called you a chaotic god and another called you a blasphemer for harnessing primordial energy.”

  He could have put that research to use helping others with mana mutation…

  “Where is my research regarding mana mutation?”

  “Mana mutation, my master? What is that?”

  Abyss...Either there is mana mutation research here and the skull doesn't know it by that name, or there isn't anything here at all.

  “Where are my notes regarding chaos magic?”

  “In your heart, my master. You often said that chaos magic wasn’t something that could be learned academically or studied as lesser magic could.”

  Abyss…That could be a bust too.

  He looked around again and his gaze fell upon a tall object directly across from the desk. It was shrouded in a thick cloth that shimmered with threads of orichalcum. What aroused Eric's curiosity was that these threads depicted ordercraft runes. He left the skull to examine it up close. The cover smelled funky and the hairs composing it felt prickly on his fingertips. These look like the prison runes Annala was tricked into wearing...the ones that sealed her magecraft...

  The revealed object was a full-length mirror framed in orichalcum. Its feet were those of a gargoyle and the heads of a hydra looked down on him. Hairline cracks ran in four lines. Dengel loved the sound of his own voice, so he must have also thought himself the beautiful creature on Tariatla.

  “Is that the best you can do?” the Eric in the mirror asked.

  “What?” Eric asked in reply.

  “You are in the lair of the greatest mage in history; the final lair! The peak of his knowledge is at your fingertips and yet all you're interested in is money and slander?” Mirror Eric sneered. “How brutish.”

  “I'm a mercenary, not a scholar. I do not care what esoteric principle Dengel was working on. All that nonsense from the New Scepter exam was useless.”

  “You believe it is useless because you do not understand it. How could you? You barely know the basics of magic. How could you be expected to understand the depths and heights of its mysteries?”

  “I don't talk like that. I get straight to the point. Poetic language is for impressing patrons.”

  Mirror Eric laughed. “Spoken like a true sell staff. Magic is for money, correct? If it can't kill something, then what's the point?”

  “Isn't that why Dengel wanted chaos magic? To kill the Bandit Empress?”

  “You presume much to think you understand the mind of Dengel. A truly sophisticated mage doesn't need to use magic for his opponent to feel its effects.”

  “You could have just said he wanted to 'scare her.'”

  Mirror Eric shook his head sadly. “That is why you shall never be more than a simple battle mage. You lack vision. You lack aspirations and dreams. Dengel, despite moral failings, still followed his dream and made the world a better place. For millennia, it has remembered his name.”

  “When I'm done, it will inspire disgust, and the world will be a better place because of it. Without humans heaping praise on the elves' boogeyman, there will be greater understanding between them.”

  “It is your own selfishness that truly motivates you.”

  “Yes, it is. Now tell me about Dengel's research or I'll cover you
up again.”

  Mirror Eric grinned a trickster grin. “Okay...Dengel wanted to bridge the gap between humans and elves so he conducted his research among like-minded Ceihans. He invaded the lair of Ariek Valeten to acquire me and demanded that I tell him about the older mage's research. He inhabited a wuss to ingratiate himself to a princess and continue his work.”

  “I'm not interested in Dengel. I'm interested in his research.”

  “Did I mention he used a mage’s spear, crushed on a fellow nerd, and was bullied as a child?”

  “Boring.”

  “...What?”

  “Your breaking speech is boring me. Is your command matrix too simple for anything else?”

  Mirror Eric spread his arms. “I'm nothing more than a projection of you.”

  “You're a spell diagram.”

  Eric flipped the mirror around and tapped the rune on the back. The mirror's surface flashed in annoyance. Eric flipped the mirror back, tapped it again, and the mirror's surface rippled.

  “Tell me what I want to know or I'll break it.”

  “I don't know anything about Dengel's research!” the mirror confessed. “He brought me here to serve as his trickster's advocate, but I can only reflect the heart, not the mind. Please spare me!”

  “Then you're useless. Your only value is what you can tell me about Dengel.”

  “Amazing! You did my job for me.”

  “Huh?”

  “You reflected yourself.” Eric raised the spear and the light gleamed. “Sorry! You're a smart kid; maybe you can figure out something to please your client.”

  Eric lifted the cloth and said, “Good enough.” He re-covered the mirror.

  There has to be something useful around here. He checked the containers, scroll, desk, skull, and mirror. The only thing left was the ghost Dengel flitting in and out of the thin mist. It was the same color as the soul goop he drank last summer and also the same as the light in his crystal.

  ....I believe the professor said “belief determines reality.”