Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon)

by Appleton, Scott

  “Begone, foul spirit.” Ilfedo writhed on the ground as a smoking hand clamped over his throat.

  “A body is all I need in order rise again. I had one once, and I will have one again.”

  Half of a humanoid now stood over Ilfedo—man or demon, he couldn’t tell. The people dropped to their knees, trembling, but Bromstead gazed openmouthed at the being as it coalesced. He drew his sword and held it defensively.

  “Captain of the guard,” Ilfedo choked out. “Pull out my sword—”

  The demon sprouted a bare, smoking human foot. This it pressed against Ilfedo’s chest and leaned over him, a face taking form. “Strong one, what makes you think you can fight something like me?” It reared back its head and cackled, spitting smoke from its mouth. “Long ago I led this people underground. I ruled them well, and then I let loose my companions so that when I died I would not die but would live on in my scepter. I have returned to rule, to rule today!”

  Bromstead slipped a couple of inches closer, his fingers reaching for Ilfedo’s sword.

  “Fool,” the demon billowed over him, “you have a sword of your own if you wish to face me. Use it!”

  Seeking to distract the thing, Ilfedo balled his fist and immediately met resistance. The demon stretched forth its hand, long fingers of charred bone that clamped around the scepter’s staff, and pulled it from Ilfedo’s grasp. “At lasssst.”

  Ilfedo glanced at the captain of the guard, still lying speechless on the ground. “My sword, Bromstead!”

  “Cease your foolish, powerless grabs at authority!” The demon’s eyes took form, staring at Bromstead. “Hail me, Soldier, and submit to my authority so that days of glory may be restored to Dresdyn. For here I stand, the last Lord Warrior, Brunster Thadius Oldwell!” And with that the demon leaned over Ilfedo and struck him on the chin.

  Stars danced in his vision, flashes of light that changed to darkness. He was losing consciousness. At the same time, the demon’s hold on him relaxed, so with a desperate grab Ilfedo’s fingers curled around the hilt of the sword of the dragon. He laughed as ribbons of fire lashed from the sword onto his arm. A wave of flames enveloped his body and drove the demon backward ten feet.

  Ilfedo stood and fully drew his sword, poising his blade at the being. Driving forward, he took hold of the demon’s arm and hacked it off. It screamed and leaped into the air. Remembering his fight with the Grim Reaper, Ilfedo blasted the ground with fire from his sword, sending himself flying after the being.

  In the air they collided, and the people below scattered as, blow upon blow, sword rang against scepter. They fell to the street. Blood ran from Brunster Thadius Oldwell’s stub of an arm.

  Ilfedo stared at the blood. The thing had become flesh. He swallowed his fear and said, “You are not welcome in this world, Demon. It is time to meet your eternal Judge.” Ilfedo stabbed his sword into the being’s heart and it collapsed upon the ground.

  The body dissolved into smoke, which seeped into the scepter.

  Taking the evil thing in his hand, Ilfedo climbed the hall steps and faced the people. “No device of sorcery must be allowed to continue. If it were, then it would visit our children or their children.” He frowned and held forth the scepter, crossing it with his sword blade. “I will not risk that.”

  Tensing his sword arm, he sliced through the scepter. As the golden halves clattered to the steps, a cheer rose from the people, and Bromstead climbed the steps to stand behind him. Tendrils of smoke wafted from the scepter at Bromstead’s feet as he kicked it away, smiling down at Ilfedo, his Lord Warrior.

  Ilfedo raised his sword. As if he had dropped a blanket over the assembly, they ceased their cheers, and with every eye engaged on him, he spoke loud and strong. “A time of change is upon you all. The time has come to leave your homes and return to living aboveground, where there are trees for shade, ground for tilling, and seas to explore.” He went on to promise them a welcoming union with the people of the Hemmed Land.

  “The sword that I wield draws its power from an ancient place that I must find. Someone is trying to steal that power. I cannot allow that to happen. I must continue on the journey I started before finding your city. But in my absence I will leave your ministers of state with instructions that you are to follow. Upon my return we will leave this cavern forever.”

  The rest of that day was filled with meetings. Ilfedo laid out his plan for the construction of a ramp along the cavern wall. By means of this he hoped to lead all the people out of the cavern by the way he had come. Building materials would be needed, and seeing as the city was made of wood, he ordered the buildings to be deconstructed. At first objections were raised, but Ilfedo would hear none of it. “I have ordered it to be done. Now make it so,” he said.

  At the end of the day, seeking peace and solitude, he wandered back toward the street where the haunted home had been.

  The city was quiet, and the Dewobins flew to their nests high in the cavern walls. The Nuvitor flew ahead of him between the rows of beautiful buildings. It circled, then landed on his shoulder. He caressed its chest and sighed. “Where do we stand now, Seivar? Have I gone too far?” He fingered the dragon ring, now as tight around his finger as the day he’d acquired it. The amethyst-eyed creature growled at him.

  He shivered in the still, damp air as he walked past a church, snowy white with a steeple fronting it, rising perhaps fifty feet. He stopped and stared at the dim cemetery on either side of the church. Gravestones large and small covered the ground. He stood to the side of the church and leaned against it. From this street to the next, a quarter mile away, all he could see were more graves.

  Bathed in the Dewobins’ pink light, the scene looked deceptively simple. He knew from his glance through the city’s historical records that many remarkable people had been buried here.

  He wandered among the stones, mulling over the strange demon he’d faced earlier that day. Demon or spirit, he didn’t know what to call it. He stooped as the Nuvitor bounced onto a gravestone. Brushing dust from the engraving, he read “Hugo Emitzer—beloved husband and deacon of God’s church; we’ll see you again.” Nearby stood a triangular stone. “Relmund Fletcher—trusted prophet; your kindness brought us light in this dark place. May God smile upon you until we can follow you Home.”

  Not far off rested a stone larger than all others. It was square, about a foot thick, three wide, and twice again as high. He walked up to it and crossed his arms, for the inscription read “Brunster Thadius Oldwell—In the time that our ancestors fled their homeland in search of another, he became the Lord Warrior to secure for us a future. His knowledge of sunlight’s power enabled us to keep our homes, but his denial of God’s existence will forever be our sorrow. He will be sorely missed.”

  Ilfedo stepped back and was startled to bump into something soft and hear it grunt. He spun around, and the Nuvitor flashed across his vision. With his hand on his sword, he faced the church.

  A bearded man looked up at him with a smile. “Relax, relative.”

  Ilfedo laughed and shook Everett’s hand.

  “You have a way with death.” Everett clasped his hands behind his back and faced the gravestone. “I suppose we’ll never know if that thing today was the Lord Warrior purportedly buried here or not.” Then he shook his head and put an arm around Ilfedo’s back, walking him back to the street. “Ha! God be praised. We are not alone in this world after all. You proved that. Now all that remains is getting out of this nightmare hole.”

  “The bridge out of this cavern, once built, will make escape possible. But with several thousand people, I doubt the journey will be easy. And during my absence you will have to endure this continuing darkness.”

  Everett stood toe to toe with him, staring into his eyes. “Frankly, there is a way for you to do something substantial about that. It would tie in with the prophecy.”

  “There is a prophecy concerning this?”

  “Indeed. There is another building like the one you destroyed. Exc
ept this one is no abandoned home. It is the observatory housing a device long ago used to light our city. Supposedly it has the ability to turn our night into day. It was built by the Lord Warrior and was abandoned upon his death. It seems the creatures—or demons, as you have called them—inhabited it on the very day of Brunster Thadius Oldwell’s demise. There was a caretaker of the observatory, according to our historical records—a man by the name of Miles. But on the day the Lord Warrior died, Miles remained in the observatory and refused to come out or light our city ever again. Some men broke inside after two weeks of darkness. The records are not clear, yet it seems only one man returned alive, though missing both arms, and warned of a beast within the observatory. No one has ventured inside since. From time to time passersby have testified to hideous manifestations that beckon to them and then vanish back through the observatory walls . . . but then there is the prophecy concerning the coming of a new Lord Warrior—”

  “Tell me of it,” Ilfedo said.

  Folding his hands to his forehead, as if in prayer, Everett nodded. “The prophecy was spoken around sixty years ago by the pastor of Holy Commons Church, which is now a ruin in the haunted neighborhood. The pastor was Hubert Apelgen, and I have put to memory what the books quote as his prophecy:

  “ ‘Woe to you, city of darkness that lies in the heart of this fallen world. Woe to the people that live in your streets. For many and wicked are the spirits that seek you out. The possessors come that cannot be cast out. They come for your wives and your daughters. They seek not pleasure but pain. Fallen, fallen is the house of God in the midst of the darkness. But when a child cries and the new Lord Warrior hears, then salvation comes for you. Run, run he must and will, to the window of heaven, to open and shed light on this dark, fallen world. Unbind the soul held within the prism. Break and scatter the pieces thereof, that the spirits shall release and be gone forever. Blessed is he that comes in the righteous indignation of his Creator, for he sheds the light of truth from one Lord Warrior upon another.’ ”

  Ilfedo raised his eyebrows, and Everett laughed in a nervous sort of way. “I know. You’re thinking coincidence, or was Brunster Thadius Oldwell truly not dead.”

  “The prophecy is a puzzle until proven true or false. Yet, what do you think that last phrase means?”

  “I have long wondered, cousin. But who am I to understand the prophecy beyond its words? Perhaps the answers can be found in the observatory.”

  “Regardless, this bears looking into. I cannot leave until I know the people will be safe in my absence.” Ilfedo waved toward the street. “Show me the place.”

  Everett stroked his beard, frowning. “If your greatest concern stands on that sentiment, then what do you plan to do about the black beasts? They will surely return.”

  Ilfedo shook his head. “To what are you referring?” As soon as he asked the question, he remembered Seivar’s dance with the Dewobins. The Nuvitor had said something about a battle between black brutes and humans.

  “You have been with us this long and no one has told you about the creatures?” Everett’s mouth hung open, and it was his turn to shake his head. “I thought the city council would have informed you.” He put his hand on the back of Ilfedo’s shoulder and led him down the street, toward the farthest corner of the dimly lit city.

  Everett told him of six-legged creatures that lived in the tunnels and caverns nearby. They breathed vapor and fire like Vectra’s Megatraths, but these had black hides. Ilfedo could only reason that he was very close to the underground Megatrath realm. It was possible, he reasoned, that, like humanity, the Megatraths were divided into various skin colors, or races.

  “The army of Dresdyn is in the midst of a small war with the brutes,” Everett said as they passed a red house with green shutters and turned down a narrow street. “Bromstead returned from the tunnel defenses only a few days ago, yet he had been gone for a month. The bulk of our military force is guarding several tunnels in that direction.” He pointed to the far wall of the cavern, the opposite direction from which Ilfedo had come, and thus Ilfedo deduced he was pointing southwest. “I’m not well informed when it comes to soldiers’ dealings,” Everett continued. “Yet I hear things from members of my congregation. The Tresk family has two sons gone in the tunnels. They had a third son, but he died last year in battle. They say the fight has not gone in our favor, but they have reason to hope that it may change; the brutes have not ventured this way for several weeks now, which is most unusual.”

  As they passed a gray home with white trim, fronted by a porch, the door opened and a young man hobbled out on a cane. He wore pink trousers, and a pink shirt was visible between the folds of his brilliant yellow sweater. Seeming not to notice Ilfedo and Everett as they walked by, the young man patted a book in the crook of his arm and dropped into a swing seat at the porch’s far end. Laying his cane across his knees, he pushed on the floor with his leg, rocking the swing. Then he opened the book with great care and fingered several hundred pages through before smiling to himself, licking his lips, and holding the page before his eyes. His peg leg slid back and forth over the porch. Rit-a-tat, rit-a-tat, thud! Rit-a-tat, rit-a-tat, thud!

  Slowing his steps, Ilfedo listened to the steady rhythm of the engrossed reader’s peg leg and the creak of the swing’s chains. “Do you know him?”

  Everett looked at the porch and nodded with a big grin. “Him I know well! That is Ardius, and, as he would say, he teaches history and literature and math at High Glory Academy. Or, as it is commonly known, his house. But his academy is well reputed. He teaches around thirty children.”

  “Did he lose his leg in the war?”

  Everett laughed and slapped his thigh. “Ardius? Go into battle? No, my good cousin, he came into the world with one leg. There is hardly an iron muscle in his body, save for his eyes, I suppose, and his brain . . . if one can call that a muscle. Ardius is an avid follower of the prophets’ works, and he’s often brought very strong debates into my parish. He believes most prophets are false, yet the few he accepts he ardently defends, for he knows the whole of their writings, I believe, by heart.”

  Guiding Ilfedo to the end of the street and turning another corner, Everett said, “Among your new subjects there is no one whom you should trust more than Ardius, and also whose trust you will need to work as hard to earn.”

  At the end of the road, a row of shabby homes and businesses rose into view . . . with one very unique, very large building rising out of their midst. The sword thrummed against his leg, and he glanced at the sword of the dragon, still sheathed. He sensed a thick, growing evil somewhere ahead. Something strong, something elusive, that connected through the sword. He grasped for it, yet . . . yet it remained illusive. It wanders, stumbles, drunken and bidden against its will. It hates and wants to kill. Too long has it been alone. These walls of stone and wood are a prison and a home to its infested soul.

  The building before which Ilfedo now stood was dissimilar to all other structures in the wooden city. Its round base was about eighty feet in diameter, and the walls stood half as high. It sat nestled at the base of a very high cliff, and its roof was adorned in white and beige square tiles. Its pitch was steep, rising to an arrow point some thirty feet higher than the walls.

  Perhaps the most curious sight, however, was the mighty metal gears. They were slightly taller than he. The core of each gear had been carved from a dark wood, but an iron band had been wrapped around each, much in the same way that iron forms the outer ring on wagon wheels. To the outer bands had been fixed bronze blocks the size of a man’s head. These teeth fitted between the teeth of each succeeding gear all around the building. From the orange discoloration on the gears’ shafts, where they pierced the building, Ilfedo could see that the contraption had been out of use for a long, long time.

  Everett shifted from one foot to the other, staring down the length of his beard at a dead Dewobin on the dirt street. He dropped to his knees. “Be glad I’m not an atheist.” He folded h
is hands and closed his eyes. “I will remain here and pray that you succeed.”

  Ilfedo walked down the winding path to the observatory doors, standing before them in the silence until the Nuvitor shrieked, diving, and landed on his shoulder. “Wait out here, my friend.” Ilfedo stroked the bird’s chest and set it on a post sticking out of the ground. He would rather venture in alone, at first.

  As he drew his sword and reached for the door latch, a low rumble filled the building. He grasped the latch, then lifted it and pulled. The door, some twelve feet high, squealed on its hinges and opened barely enough to allow him to squeeze through the opening and into the hazy, dim room beyond.

  Dust clouded the air, falling from the arched ceiling rafters. He brushed the dust from his shoulders and sneezed into his elbow. The air felt warmer in here, humid almost. The Living Fire played over his body unimpeded as he scrutinized the walls of the small oval room; he half expected a series of portraits that would spawn the demonic creatures he’d found in the house.

  But here the walls were devoid of furnishings and color. Also, his armor shed light, and his sword blazed without dimming. He strode to a smaller door at the far end of the room—the only other door—and opened it.

  Something was different about this building.

  The room that he gazed into was circular and enormous. Its walls extended to the full size of the building as seen from the exterior. And the cathedral ceiling was fully exposed between rows of tree-thick beams crisscrossing some thirty feet above him. Cobwebs in abundance overflowed the rafters and draped onto the machinery below. Twin rows of enormous gears, like those outside, flanked a broad aisle leading to the room’s far end. A faint glow emanated from a yellow panel on the floor, and a series of weights on chains filled the wall behind it. Beneath the motionless weights was an assortment of levers, both large and small. The levers had been built into a hammered iron box. As he stepped down to the floor, his aura reflected off the iron box, blushing it a shade of violet.