by Joseph Lallo
“Undermine!” the rider said, raising a hand in a peculiar sign, evidently to signal his allegiance.
“Are you now?” Caya said with irritable familiarity. “I don't remember accepting you.”
“I know that voice,” Deacon said, raising his crystal. “That is Desmeres. He is a traitor.”
“Impossible, Desmeres can't be a traitor. A traitor has to have some sort of loyalties to betray, or at least some principles. I’ve dealt with him before, he has nothing of the sort,” Caya said, motioning for the bows to be lowered.
“No, you don't understand, he is the one who helped the D'karon capture us,” Deacon said frantically.
“D'karon?” Tus questioned.
“Err, the worst of the Alliance Army,” clarified Deacon.
Caya took on a stern look and motioned for the weapons to be readied again.
“That association is over, I am afraid,” Desmeres remarked casually, hopping to the ground. “And I will have you know that I am a man of very strong loyalties. It just so happens those loyalties are to myself. As for principles, I am about to betray them all.”
“Oh?” Caya said.
Desmeres released one of the bundles and, slowly so as to avoid triggering a salvo of arrows from the soldiers, undid its bindings and unrolled it. There, seeming to gleam with their own light, were blades of every shape and size. Short swords, long swords, hatchets, axes, daggers, knives, and shapes too unique to name. Each was a masterpiece, emblazoned with careful mystic engravings meaningless to all but Deacon and Desmeres.
“Take them,” he said in a pained tone.
“These are your own creations. As I understand it, there are only two beings in the world you've deemed worthy to hold them,” Caya said, looking over the weapons with hunger in her eyes.
“Yes, and the Alliance has seen fit to destroy one such being. I offer them to you to see to it that the other worthy party is not similarly destroyed. And to taste a bit of this vengeance that seems so popular these days,” Desmeres replied. “So take. One each and there should be enough for all of you. The balance will be off, I designed them for the Red Shadow.”
Caya snapped up the weapon nearest in size and shape to her own.
“I don't know what you mean. They seem perfect to me,” she said with glee, experimentally slicing the weapon through the air and beaming a wide smile at the satisfying ring it produced.
“Compared to the relics you've had to use I'm sure they seem that way,” he replied.
The others clambered for the weapons greedily. As they did, Desmeres pulled Deacon aside.
“You might buy them with weapons, but I am slower to . . . “ Deacon began.
“Yes, yes. Healthy suspicion. Commendable. I don't have time for it though,” Desmeres said, thrusting a deceptively heavy bundle under Deacon's arm. “Don't open it until you find them all. All of the Chosen, understood? And here. I know you'd have little use for anything I might have had time to make, but I managed to liberate these. I think you might be able to get some use out of them. You may read them at your leisure.”
A thick leather messenger bag was pushed into his hands. Desmeres turned back to find the mat of weapons picked clean. He gathered it back up and mounted his steed once more.
“Wait!” Caya called. “How is it that you found us? And how is it that you knew that Deacon would be with us?”
“Our networks of informants have a good deal of overlap,” he explained, turning his horse to the open field. “Oh, and do not get comfortable with those weapons. I'll be getting them back when you are through.”
“Over my dead body,” Tus grinned, holding the bulkiest weapon, a battle ax. It looked like a toy in his hands.
“If it comes to that,” he replied, casting a final glance at his weapons as a mother might when her children leave the nest.
With that he was off. Deacon pulled open his satchel and slid the large bundle inside, eagerly pulling open the messenger bag once both hands were free. He'd only managed to pull the first page out when Caya put her hand on it.
“What was that?” she asked.
“What? The page?” Deacon asked in confusion.
“Where did you just put that big bundle Desmeres gave you?” she asked. “It couldn’t have fit into that little bag.”
“It is a localized distortion of dimensional . . . it is bigger inside than out,” he explained.
Caya nodded. “I see. Well, I'd say we find someplace out of the wind until this storm blows over. Once . . . “
“No. No, there is no time for that!” Deacon objected.
“Look here, wizard. Dedication is one thing, but we've got to reach them in one . . . “ Caya began.
Deacon pulled his crystal free and released it. The gem floated up slightly and took on a bright glow. The wind around them slowed to a slight breeze, the snow sprinkling gently down. All around the group the wind whipped and raged, but among them it was gentle as a lamb.
“Right . . . well then, we continue,” Caya said, leaning over to Tus to add. “We should have gotten a wizard a long time ago.”
#
Above the clouds, the others flew until the sun neared the opposite horizon. Then, suddenly, Ether dove through the clouds, her windy body boring a tunnel through the icy mist. Myn dove after her. The clouds were thicker and denser than they had been that morning, and they had taken on an ominous darkness. Fat crystals of ice pelted them mercilessly as they made their way through, soon emerging into a swirling tempest of falling snow. There was no hint of the blizzard from above, but now it raged all around them. The wind whipped Myn side to side and threatened to tear her riders from her back.
Ether was lost among the swirling flakes, but Myranda managed to guide Myn. What little light made it through the clouds served only to turn the world around them into a blur of gray and white. When the ground came, it seemed to leap out at them from nowhere. Myn landed as softly as she could, dislodging an unprepared Ivy in the process. Myranda climbed down and helped her to her feet.
“Where are we?” she screamed over the howling wind.
“The Eastern Mountains, about midway between Entwell and where I found you, but deeper among them,” Myranda explained.
“What's that smell?” Ivy asked, covering her nose.
Myranda ventured a sniff of the freezing air. Even among the snow and bitter cold she could detect something. It was a hot, acrid smell that clutched at the nose.
“Brimstone,” she replied.
“This way! Quickly,” came Ether's voice through the gales.
They set off toward the sound and soon found her in her stone form, making her way steadily along the mountainside.
“He is inside. We need to find a way in,” Ether stated.
“A way inside a mountain? I didn't know there were places to be inside a mountain. I thought there was just more mountain,” Ivy said in confusion.
“This mountain is different. It is that rare sort that is alive inside. Molten and vital, like the land when it was young. A fire mountain,” Ether said, purposefully stalking along a steep bit of slope, crouched low and running her fingers along the rocky ground.
Slowly she paced until she seemed to find what she was looking for. Clasping her hands together she hammered at the mountainside. Blow after blow rained down, seemingly with no result. Finally she shifted to air and launched skyward. Moments later her stone form came crashing down with earthshaking force. Cracks began to radiate outward from her crater, and the rumbling sound of stone giving way managed to momentarily surpass the din of the storm around them. With an earsplitting crash a whole section of the mountainside slumped inward, crumbling to boulder sized stones and exhaling a scalding hot breath of sulfurous fumes. The dust and snow settled around it to reveal a jagged, pitch black tunnel leading into the heart of the mountain.
“How did you . . . “ Ivy began.
“Never mind that, this way, quickly!” she ordered, leaping inside.
Myranda looked
hesitantly into the gaping hole in the mountain. It was large. Large enough for Myn to slip through with room to spare. With great care she navigated the broken ground down into the tunnel, Ivy on her heels. It was like walking into a furnace. The air was heavy with choking fumes. When the others had cleared the entrance, Myn slipped in. Whereas for Myranda and Ivy the heat pressed down on them like leaden weights, Myn seemed instantly revitalized by it. Her eyes closed as she let the intensity of it replace the biting cold she'd left behind. The satisfaction was more than apparent on her face.
“Well, at least she's happy,” Ivy said.
After a few moments to adjust to the massive swing in temperature, the heroes rushed to catch up with Ether. Myranda lit the way with her own magic, as the staff she held contained no enchantments for illumination. In contrast, it had quite a few for extinguishing light. The walls of the tunnel were rough and wavy, and colored a lustrous black. As they moved on, it twisted and folded upon itself, taking a meandering path toward the recesses of the mountain. The heat grew steadily as they moved deeper. With it grew the understanding of Ether's words. The mountain did seem alive. Deep in the walls were faint rumbles and groans. Periodically there came a shudder, the walls trembling as though something were moving just beyond their surface. The air swept past them in ever warmer breezes. Then there was the glow. It came in tiny shafts from cracks in the walls; a deep, primordial red.
#
In a field, surrounded by the Undermine as they rested, Deacon was in a panic. They were far, too far to be reached in anything less than a few days, and they had stopped. They had found Lain, or at least found where he was hidden. If their past encounters were any indication, they would be moving on soon after. There wasn't enough time to catch up with them. This was troubling, but it was not the source of his panic. Indeed, he had expected, even anticipated it. What concerned him was the presence he felt elsewhere. The pages offered to him by Desmeres were a very detailed summary of some of the more fundamental principles of D'karon magic, as well as personal notes made by Epidime himself. With their help he'd been able to attune himself far more closely with the unique energies their magics created. It made them clear to his mind's eye like never before. What he discovered was a focus of activity near to the capital. A massive force gathered about a gleaming ember of magic. The ember was a dormant but powerful spell waiting to be awakened, and it had a counterpart very near to where Lain was located. The scenario was revealing itself to him, and it spelled ambush.
The contents of the messenger bag had clearly been selected with great care. Desmeres was no fool. He knew that too much information would take too much time to pour through. No, he'd plucked choice bits of data, specific dispatches, individual pages. Desmeres had a plan for these pages, and it was a brilliant one. There were no instructions, no indication of what Desmeres had in mind, but the pieces he'd provided opened a single avenue of possibility. It was a narrow one, and called for considerable risk, but it was nonetheless a possible route to savior.
“You should get some sleep. That mind of yours must need a fair amount of rest to work those wonders,” Caya suggested.
“No time. Besides, I don't know if I could keep the storm from burying us if I am asleep,” he muttered.
“Oh, yes. The storm. I'd forgotten,” Caya said, glancing at the impossible way that the wind and snow seemed to purposely avoid them.
Deacon looked to her. “How quickly can your troops ready themselves when the time comes?”
“My soldiers can be ready at moment's notice. Pray tell, what time is coming?” she asked.
“The time for battle. If I am right, it will come soon, and suddenly,” he said, continuing to mumble to himself aloud. “ I can't create it . . . they have to create it . . . can't close it . . . but once it is open . . . “
#
After a few narrow bends proved a tight squeeze for Myn, the path began to level. It merged with a handful of similar tubes, eventually leading to a still wider passage that had some signs of use. The rough floor had been walked smooth, and scattered among the walls were glowing gems. At choke points in the path there seemed to be thin metal bars clinging like vines to the curved walls. Nowhere was there the slightest hint of resistance, not a single guard.
The heat was beginning to wear on Ivy and Myranda. The latter was wringing wet with sweat, her boots hissing gently with each step. Ivy’s mouth was slightly open and every few moments she had to consciously prevent herself from panting. It was difficult to say how long they had been trudging though the dark interior of the mountain, as each moment seemed to crawl by. The stone on stone clack of Ether's footsteps guided them onward tirelessly. Then suddenly Myn stopped. She drew a deep breath of air through her nose and flicked her tongue. A moment later she was running as quickly as the confined passageway would allow, Ether's pace quickening to a run as well. The others forced their tortured bodies forward. When they reached Myn again she was scrabbling to get through a bottleneck in the tunnel that was far too small for her. Her claws dug long grooves in the stone and her heaving thrusts fairly shook the walls, but still she could not pass.
“Easy, Myn. Calm down and let us through. If Lain is in there, we will find him,” Myranda said.
With eyes wide and maddened with desperation, the dragon let them pass and watched pleadingly as they entered a cavernous chamber on the other side of the opening. Ivy and Myranda pushed into the intense heat of the room. The fumes here were a thick haze that burned the eyes. Glowing crystals speckled the tall, domed ceiling, but what little light there was came not from them but from the deep crimson glow in the floor. A ring-shaped trough engraved into the floor released an ominous red light, illuminating the stone spire at its center. There, his hands and feet fused into the very stone, was Lain himself.
The signs of torture were too numerous to count. There was not an inch of exposed flesh that did not bear some manner of scar, gash, or burn. The skin hung from withered, emaciated arms and legs. He was breathing, but only just, with the breaths drifting painfully in amid a quiet, painful wheeze. Ether had already leapt to the spire and was easily cleaving the stone with her rocky claws. In moments his feet were free. His weakened form was draped over her shoulder as the last of the stone was carefully chipped from around his hands. She leapt from the spire and lowered him to the ground. Instantly Ivy and Myranda ran to his side.
“Do your work quickly. We need to leave this place,” Ether said, eying the crystals shining above them with suspicion. One with a bluer tint prompted a more prolonged stare.
“Is he alright? Is he going to be alright?” Ivy asked desperately amid a flare of blue.
“Just be calm. I will do my best,” Myranda said, looking with concern at the tremendous task ahead of her.
Lain was more dead than alive. The fact that he had been freed was only now registering in his savaged mind. Eyes veiled in a gray haze attempted to focus on the blurry form bending over him, but to no avail. His ears, however, were still healthy, and he recognized the voices. Thoughts were moving slowly and vaguely through his usually razor sharp mind. He could feel magic at work on him. Wounds were closing. Fog was lifting. As a hint of clarity returned to him, a single, burning thought brushed the others aside. He tried to shift his eyes to the exit, a ragged breath fighting its way into his tattered lungs.
“Go . . . “ he croaked.
“We've come to save you, Lain, we won't leave without you,” Myranda replied.
Lain struggled and gulped down another breath of the acrid air.
“R . . . Run!” he ordered, fingers closing about Myranda's cloak.
As if in reaction to his cry, there came a metallic sliding from the opening and a renewed clawing from Myn. The bars that had lined the walls were slithering into place, nearly strangling Myn until she managed to pull her head free. Before Myranda could raise her staff to offer the slightest counter spell, one of the long metal tendrils lashed out, knocking the weapon from her hand and wrapping around her
, and drawing her back against the wall. A second and third bar pursued the others. One caught Ivy about the leg. The other twined about Ether, but a moment later it was writhing uselessly about in the air she had become.
The shape shifter burst toward the blue gleam above just in time to see it dislodge itself and launch through her, revealing itself to be the accursed halberd they'd faced so many times before. The crystal tore at her as it passed through, but Ether shrugged off the pain and chased after it. It was too late. The weapon had thrust itself into Lain's hand. Instantly a terrible and all too familiar look of cold intellect came to his face. Ether tried to attack, but Epidime willed Lain's lightning reflexes to the task and deflected every attempt. Ether's airy form was ill equipped to defend against the assault. Before long she had to pull back and regroup. The usurped Lain surveyed his surroundings. The living metal bar wrapped tightly about Myranda was on the verge of crushing her. What little concentration she could manage was entirely dedicated to holding off its grip. Ivy was fighting both the tendrils that gripped her body and the fear that gripped her mind valiantly, but with a metal bar coiled about each limb, she was beginning to tire. Myn stood just out of the range of the flailing metal bars and watched helplessly from the tunnel.
“I must say, I was beginning to grow weary of waiting. I've always prided myself on my patience, but once I'd weakened this assassin's surprisingly firm mind, I had very little worth doing while I awaited your arrival,” he remarked. “Not that this little encounter is what I would call worthwhile. It is a victory to be sure, but you will be pleased to know I consider it to be a hollow one. You were defeated not by the D'karon, but by the rules of the game. Worthy opponents such as yourselves deserve better. That said, I am not so foolish as to allow you to survive.”
With that he swung his halberd to speed and leveled it at Myranda's throat. There was a deafening clang and a spray of sparks. Ether had swept in and assumed her stone form, her arm held defensively.
“Well,” Epidime said. “You've gotten a bit faster at that. I rather thought that you might be the greatest challenge.”