There could only have been one explanation for Demeron’s failure to take any notice of these details. He had already spent a lot of time in the room.
He continued to gaze at the black orb with a look, hard as it was to tell with him, of frustration and disappointment. Then again, it could easily have been anger or even hunger. Gauging emotion from the face of minotaur is tricky for a human. The pelt covering his face continued down his neck and body, which was humanoid in shape. His legs too were human in overall design but large and powerful, covered in the same glossy fur, ending in hard black hooves. His eyes were black but held a cold reflection in them, merciless and cruel. A faint swirl of foggy breath was twisting its way from his nostrils. The room was bitterly cold.
He was armoured in tightly linked metal plating over a chainmail corset and thick singular pieces of metal had been forged into guards for his arms and legs. Slung over his back was a double headed axe of terrifying proportions. Every inch of the armour and even the head of the axe was covered in shallow carvings, some kind of runes used by a select few literate members of his race. The edges of the axe’s blade seemed to glow, albeit dimly, in the same fashion as his eyes. There was a reason that the humans of Otthon feared the Minotaurs and Demeron was a perfect explanation as to why. The very sight of him was terrifying enough and he exuded an aura of power and danger.
He wondered what to do next. He had just lost control over a human dreamer in the new world called Earth and had done so without having gained any useful additional information.
He was close now, he was sure of it. The disturbances in the dream plane were emanating from the western side of the human city. Budapest, they called it. He sneered just thinking about the name. In his mind it sounded far too much like an elven word. The humans there did not speak the same language as the humans in Otthon either. They spoke some bizarre dialect that seemed to be based on an old form of elvish but every now and then words popped into use, which were totally bizarre to his ears. This was making it very difficult for him to gather any useful kind of information from the humans themselves. The minds of the humans whose dreams he was dominating clearly understood what was being said but while he controlled them he could not understand the words himself, only a sense of deeper understanding at an almost emotional level. It was utterly unhelpful.
Something had happened in this last dream though that was both confusing and intriguing. The young human boy had shown him a small device glowing with lights, clearly magical, and the mind he was controlling had instantly recognised it as if it was something commonplace and mundane. That was strange. Very few humans could use or understand magic. For a young boy to have such an item and for a man to think it commonplace must mean these items were very easy to come by. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realised that this kind of item must have been what he had seen other humans holding to their ears in previous dreams. Here was something important, he thought.
What was this device? How might it be useful Demeron wondered. He was slowly beginning to understand parts of the humans’ odd language and had recognised the word ‘call’. Perhaps this device could be used to attract the attention of someone by magical means? He couldn’t be sure but it seemed vaguely plausible. All in all, he was very annoyed at how slowly he was progressing. He was no closer to discovering the dreamwalker and the only interesting information he had gleaned about this new world, he didn’t understand.
There was a strange noise from behind him like the sound of a heavy stone being slid across another stone, though the tone was exceptionally smooth. A good-sized portion of the wall was twisting at great speed, disappearing into itself to form a doorway into the room, an opening easily four meters high and three wide. Behind the doorway was the clear beginnings of a wide, dimly lit spiral staircase which disappeared a little further up ahead around a sweeping corner. The pale light came from black, gruesomely decorated lanterns on the wall, which glowed with balls of what looked like frozen charges of lightning.
On the bottom step at the entry way to the room stood a man who, aside from his horrified and fearful expression, appeared completely normal. He was dressed entirely in black, distinctly shabby clothes and had a gaunt, hungry face.
“Master.”
The man bowed deeply before Demeron and then straightened himself.
“I trust your endeavours were fruitful.”
The remark hit a nerve with Demeron, primarily because he did not feel like they had been at all fruitful. He glared at the man, clenching a fist tightly. Sparks of lightning jumped dangerously between the tips of his horns and the man took a step backwards. He stuttered as he tried to get his words out hurriedly before Demeron did something… drastic. It wasn’t unheard of and his master was clearly angry.
“He… he… he… he w-w-w-wants to see you m-master. Immediately.”
This succeeded in distracting Demeron’s attention from the unappreciated remark. His fist opened and the glow in his eyes dimmed. It took a moment before he actually responded.
“Let us go then.” His voice was exceptionally deep and rough, as befitted his appearance. He strode forward to the door and his hooves made a very strange, hollow echo in the room. He was a few steps up when he stopped and turned back to cast an eye over the man.
The human had not budged and was staring with what appeared to be unfathomable disgust and loathing at the orb in the middle of the room. It was as if he was itching to run and attack it. His upper lip and his hands were twitching.
Demeron smirked with pleasure at the man’s hatred. Before them, the wall reformed itself with the same sliding noises as before and closed off the entry way to the room. The man turned slowly and followed the minotaur, whilst avoiding actually looking at him. His head was hung low and he stared at his feet which lifted one after the other, drearily up the unending stairwell. The sound of Demeron’s hooves bounced off the walls ominously and he was deep in thought about how he was going to deliver his report.
He was trying. It was not as if Demeron didn’t have his own reasons for wanting to hunt down the last of elves. An enormous scar which reached from the front of his neck all the way down his chest stood as a reminder why he wanted revenge on Arnorial, and that was only the tip of an iceberg full of hateful memories. Then again, Demeron knew the lord would be disappointed by his lack of progress and disappointment was a dangerous emotion to invoke in him.
Demeron had no truly useful information as yet. The problem was, his quarry seemed to have found a way to obscure their dreams and had left him searching by means of his human puppets in the physical world, a most awkward and unproductive way to work. Nevertheless, it did work. It was the gift of the minotaurs’ that they could dominate weak minds through their dreams.
The trip up the stairs took forever and became dizzying for the man due to its long, persistent spiral. The walls never changed. They were the same kind of swirling stone as in the chamber below and the way was lit with more frozen lightning lanterns. Eventually however a small doorway opened out onto a parapet. The view was astonishing but grim. They were standing on the highest pinnacle of a multi-turreted citadel, the like of which does not exist on earth. It was massive, stretching out around them with the appearance of a small, tightly packed city of skyscrapers shaped out of towering shards of stone and tile that had been thrust unhappily out of the ground.
Every inch of the citadel was made of more swirling stone. But in many places, it was richly decorated with intricate metal facades and statues, some exceedingly beautiful, some horrifying depictions of vicious monsters or twisted, tormented figures. The tower on which Demeron was standing was right in the middle of the vast settlement of turrets and stood a solid twenty meters at least above the next tallest spire. Wrapped around its pinnacle was a deceptively lifelike depiction of a dragon, designed to look as though it had been impaled on the tower. Its mouth was open in the suggestion of a defiant roar. Despite being pierced through its chest by the tower, its claws w
ere outstretched angrily and its tail was clearly a frozen moment of violent thrashing. It looked as if it was still fighting.
The land around the castle was much like the castle itself when it came to instilling fear. The earth was black and grey, as if it had been burnt to charcoal and then bedecked with ash. It was utterly flat to the north, south and west but to the east it swelled up quickly into barren hills and then beyond to lofty snow-covered mountains. Here and there a tree was to be seen in the otherwise rock riddled earth but none of them looked alive. Even if they had been blackened it would have indicated that at some point they had been living but these trees simply looked like they had always been dead. They did not shimmer, they had no leaves, they simply stood there like statues, frozen in a moment of writhing agony. A cold wind, which carried small portions of mist, was chilling the human man to his core, another reason for him to want to keep moving. The sight of this place was already soul crushing.
This was the smoke Citadel, the expansive, terrifying point of operations for Gorhoth, the Fallen. All but the darkest, most hateful living creatures avoided the Citadel with a considerable berth. It had been some time since the last great conflict when the elves had attacked Gorhoth and left him apparently destroyed. Back in those times the land around the Citadel had at least shown some dark and twisted signs of life but in their struggle, Gorhoth and the elves had completely ripped all the magic in the area asunder, leaving nothing but truly dead shadows of past beings. When magic was utterly removed from something, even if it be from a rock, it is left an empty shell. The Citadel itself had not been affected. Gorhoth’s skill when he had built it had ensured that much. However, Gorhoth’s own physical form was destroyed when the Elven leader Teldenar sacrificed himself to try and destroy Gorhoth utterly. The fool had failed.
In recent times, fear had begun emanating from the Citadel once again as Gorhoth slowly regained a degree of his power. His most powerful servant, Demeron had returned, following the calling of his master and now the Citadel was filling with dark creatures and pitiful, captured human slaves. Demeron did not know how Gorhoth had survived or where he had lain, hidden while he recovered but it mattered not. He was back and he was now hunting hungrily for the elves and the human who had helped them. He would have his revenge on them first before pursuing his ultimate goal. Without Teldenar to stand against him they would not be able to resist his power. He did not want to kill the elf-woman. He needed her to fulfil his plans, not to mention death would be too kind an ending for her actions.
Demeron led the way down the external steps which wrapped their way around the outside of the tower in the opposite spiral to the internal set. There was absolutely no protection from the terrible drop. The open side of the stairs and the dizzying height was enough to make any living man uncomfortable. Demeron however strode forward confidently, completely unperturbed. It took a frustratingly long time to enter or exit the orb chamber, a fact which Demeron begrudged right now but it was the entire purpose of the Tower’s design. Anyone who sought to reach it had to make their way, completely exposed, to the top of the tower before descending beneath the Citadel’s foundations, and there were many more unseen defences along the way.
When Demeron finally reached the base of the spiral around the Tower he was still standing on top of a large structure which was linked to other areas of the Citadel by narrow stone walkways. These were only accessible from inside and not from the roof top. He made his way a short flight of stairs that could be found leading to a precarious doorway to the inside. Demeron led the way through the labyrinth of structures without hesitation. The path he took bent through countless hallways and expansive rooms. Here and there other slaves were moving about on duties, overseen by other minotaurs or dark creatures of some kind. Doorways simply appeared before Demeron and disappeared behind him. Sometimes the floor would simply rearrange itself into stairs which lead high up to what appeared to be solid, unyielding walls. But as the stairs reached them, doors would appear, revealing yet another hallway. It was as if the entire building was strangely alive. In actual fact, this was precisely the case. The history of the Citadel was an ancient and terrible story of conflict, defeat and eternal subjugation.
Eventually, Demeron reached his intended destination. He stood before an unbelievably wide and high wall where he waited patiently as the stone reformed itself into an extravagant archway. Behind it lay a lofty throneroom, lined with pillars in the shape of writhing dragons which bore the weight of the high roof. At least, so it had to be assumed. The roof itself could scarcely be seen for its height.
The man who had delivered the message to Demeron did not take another step forward as Demeron entered the hall. He was not needed nor wanted here and it would have broken his will if he had been forced to cross the threshold. He turned with relief and left. It was a sign of the fear that Gorhoth commanded in others that a Slave would rather return dutifully to his backbreaking work than be in the same room as their enslaver.
Demeron meanwhile was striding down the long row of pillars towards the grim dais at the other end of the room. It was based on a set of five broad steps and seemed to be riven into the stone with terrible spiked legs, rather than sitting neatly on top of them. The throne itself was jet black and gleamed as if it had been polished carefully for days. Its back seemed to be formed by piled up skulls and sweeping out from its sides were a set of large dragon wings, half unfurled so that they almost formed a cocoon for the person seated within them. They did not overlap however, drawing around only as far as the side of the throne itself so that Gorhoth could be clearly seen by those in front of him. The arm rests of the chair took the form of a dragon’s clawed and muscular forearms.
One might have expected the Monarch who sat upon this throne to be covered in terrible armour, flanked by menacing servants but it was not so. The figure seated upon it would barely have been noticed unless a person knew what they were looking for. Even Demeron, who’s eyes were designed for living underground could only distinguish the seated figure’s features as he neared the broad steps. The figure fit the composition of a man, broadly speaking, but the only thing that seemed solid about him was his deep black robes which blended in with the dark colour of the throne. The figure was hooded as well so that his face could not be seen but his hands showed that whatever he was made out of, it looked like dense black clouds and certainly not flesh and blood. His eyes were visible as hateful balls of a blood red hue that seemed to float disturbingly in mid air underneath the hood.
Demeron bowed low before him, taking a knee to do so.
“Lord.” He proffered simply. It would be unwise to say anything more without being asked to do so.
Gorhoth’s voice was strangely high and piercing, perhaps because it did not have a solid body to resonate sound properly. However, the effect was appropriately chilling. It was a voice capable of instilling fear whilst simultaneously captivating its listener.
“I expect good news Demeron. We are being stalled far too long. I need the elf!”
The final words had an angry and fanatical tone.
“My lord,” Demeron’s voice was unbecomingly nervous and shaky. Compared to the small shadowy figure in front of him Demeron had a much more intimidating appearance of power, “the elves continue to hide themselves when they are in the dream plane. I have followed the disturbances to their source but… it is almost as if their creator does not exist.”
Gorhoth’s eyes might have narrowed, or rather the visible light from the orbs of light under his hood narrowed. Whether this was because of movement of unseen eyelids or something more sinister it was impossible to tell. Demeron had not said the right thing.
“What of the physical world then? Surely now that you are close to the source in the dream plane you can get close in the physical plane as well? I gave you use of the orb for a distinct reason Demeron, not so that you could bring me excuses. I hope you are not using it simply to disappoint me?”
The words had a notice
able effect on Demeron’s composure. His hands clenched and unclenched nervously, sweat started to trickle slowly from his forehead creating dark patches of wet hide. He was reluctant to answer but knew that he must say something.
“There has been no sight of them yet my lord. I did find a girl who frequently passes through the physical centre of the disturbances but she has shown no signs of being linked to it. I have been searching the area near to where she lives as a starting point.”
“Fool!”
Gorhoth’s voice was rent with malice.
“You waste our time like an imbecile! You followed a girl? A human girl? You know the elf we need by sight do you not? Her presence is ancient, not young and certainly not human. I did not think that the difference would escape you so easily. As for the girl passing through the area constantly, it is of little consequence. Humans are naturally drawn to creative powers. No doubt the true cause of the disturbances has drawn her there unwittingly. It is a habit that makes humans invaluable as dreamstate slaves. I expect results Demeron. Why have you not simply torn the homes asunder until you found the elf?”
This time Demeron had a legitimate answer he could give and he was quick to explain himself.
“It cannot be done. The world is completely devoid of magic. I thought the minds I had dominated were simply inept but it cannot be so that all of them were utterly incapable. I have tried with all of the minds I controlled but the voices of magic are silent. Nevertheless…” Demeron faltered. The object he had been shown was clearly magical, as were many things the humans seemed to use. They moved about in lightning fast carriages that seemed to propel themselves with no obvious signs of power other than noises like a loud roar. They also seemed to be able to create light without any kind of fire or lightning and that had to be magical too.
“Nevertheless what?” Gorhoth asked dangerously.
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