Soon they approached the gigantic Temple of Yavreel, the black marble building growing larger. It reached out toward the gray sky, a huge black pyramid, and towered over the city.
A mob of soldiers and priests were guarding the front entrance to the temple. Spells flew back and forth between this mob and a small group in the street below. It was Rikar, Devonia, Caisa, Lord Aurellia, and the two remaining priests fighting the temple defenders. The priests were rapidly losing ground to the smaller force. From what Talis saw, Rikar was the dominant force turning the tide. Luckily, no one on the ground saw nor sensed the dragon flying over their heads. Talis flapped his wings and descended to the back side of the temple.
Once he changed into human form, he felt the disappointment and dull-wittedness of no longer possessing dragon senses. He shook off the feeling and studied the smooth stone temple for signs of a secret entrance.
“Use the map?” Nikulo said, gesturing toward Talis’ backpack. He cast a quick spell and roused Charna. The cat shook off her former sleepiness and glanced around as if confused by her new surroundings. “I’m guessing the priests won’t make it easy to get inside. The place where we left the temple was heavily guarded, if you recall. There’s no one on this side.”
Talis nodded to his friend, retrieving his backpack. But the Surineda Map, despite his repeated requests to display secret or hidden entrances, failed to show a thing. It was as if the stone temple had some kind of a mystical barrier that protected it from magic.
“That’s ridiculous.” Mara put her hands on her hips as she looked up from the map to gaze at the steep temple. “How are we supposed to get inside?”
“We can always walk around to the front and sneak in. With your invisibility and my stink bombs, the area will be cleared in no time.” Nikulo made an impish face.
“You forgot the part about us dying from said stink bombs. I don’t think I could survive.” Mara looked ready to pinch her nostrils closed.
Talis rolled his eyes, wishing they could be serious. “Do you remember how the priests came into the portal room? They either cast a spell or unlocked something that caused the stone blocks to open.”
“They tapped a small block in the wall when we left.” Mara nodded, looking at the ground as if remembering. “While you guys were busy gazing at the city, I was paying attention to what the priests were doing. That’s how they closed the entrance.”
“So there has to be other openings worked by using similar blocks or levers. All we need to do is search.” Talis felt along the smooth temple wall, trying to spot any seams or breaks in the slabs. After searching for a while, he followed Mara’s gaze which settled on a small group of priests jogging around the corner of the temple.
“Or we can wait for someone foolish to enter… like them.” The four men had paused in front of a dense clump of bushes next to a square stone building separated from the main temple by a hundred feet. It was close to the city proper and certainly wouldn’t be the first place that Talis would have searched.
Mara ran over toward the priests and Talis and Nikulo chased after her, with Charna bounding up ahead, still invisible to others. The priests glanced around as if looking to see if they’d been followed. Once satisfied, they turned back to the drab, gray building. One of the priests bent down and pressed a stone lever at the base of the structure. A door opened inwardly, allowing the priests to enter.
Talis called out to Charna and the lynx jumped into his arms, tail twitching. They followed the men and stepped inside before the stone door slammed shut behind them. Talis let out a heavy sigh and looked around. Charna leapt from his arms and darted down a long narrow corridor.
The place was lit by magical lamps that gave off an eerie silver glow, casting snaking shadows along the stone block walls. The air was cool and smelled like the musty crypts underneath the Temple of the Order of the Dawn. He remembered back to when the Jiserian sorcerers had chased Mara and him inside. He wrinkled up his nose, imagining mummies and ancient curses.
They kept up with the priests, not wanting to be locked out on the wrong side of more stone doors. Ahead, there was indeed another door opened by a hidden switch: a small stone block inside the mouth of an onyx gargoyle. The priests were being kind enough to show them all their secrets.
Inside they found another stretch of corridor leading down and splitting into several other corridors. The priests took the one to the far right and headed down stairs, winding around and around for several flights, until they reached what Talis hoped was the final door. But this time, the door looked like a dead end. A smooth stone wall with no indication that it led anywhere.
Three of the priests spread out, taking positions along the three walls. They each found blocks and, looking at each other, pushed against the stones. The dead-end wall groaned and slid inwards, revealing a narrow opening to the right. The priests glided into the darkness.
Talis and his friends followed, cautious as they rounded the corner. This time they a reached a massive library filled with free-standing bookcases and walls of inset shelving. The library was stuffed with leather-bound books, large tomes, scrolls, stone tablets, and artifacts of many kinds.
The stone door closed behind them. The priests marched solemnly past several stone tables covered with various strange objects: daggers, chalices, wooden wands, ivory statues, necklaces, rings, flutes, lyres, and crystal fragments of all sizes and color. The most disturbing artifacts included the ones made of bone, twisted hair loops, and crystallized eyeballs and organs.
A fright went through Talis as he accidentally stared inside a silver mirror. He glimpsed at a horrific alien face that looked like a cross between a carnivorous insect and a grotesque fish. The hungry eyes followed him as he passed by.
After leaving the tables, the priests walked in single-file toward a perfectly square portal frame formed of black crystal. Beyond the portal was only gray mist and shadows. Charna stalked up to the frame and stopped to stare inside, back arched. She hissed and gave a low, menacing growl. Talis spotted a faint disturbance in the air inside the portal and one-by-one the priests disappeared as they passed inside. He glanced at Mara and Nikulo, catching their worried looks, and decided he should be the first to enter. They had no choice but to follow, though Talis was worried by Charna’s reaction to the portal. What was inside?
Talis took a cautious step toward the portal but Mara stopped him.
“Hold my hand. I have a feeling that if I’m not with you through the portal you might turn visible. The portal’s magic might interfere. You might want to hold Charna.” She took his hand and waited for Nikulo. The three of them, with Charna in Talis’ arms, stepped inside.
On the other side, the four priests stood facing each other in the center of a massive, square chamber. Silver light fell from the ceiling and shone down on a stone altar which held a giant-sized black crystal skull. Huge rubies lay inside the eye sockets. The room was dimly lit around the edges, barely illuminating the shine of the onyx walls and floor. The place was empty other than the altar and the priests assembled around it.
“Blessed be the Goddess Nestria,” Mara whispered, as the priests reached out in unison and touched the crystal skull.
The eyes raged like an inferno, casting a blinding light all over the room.
24. The Arrival
When his eyes adjusted to the bright light, Talis found himself dumbstruck by what he was witnessing. The ruby light had altered his vision in a strange way. The priests’ bones were now clearly visible. How was this even possible? In fact, when Talis looked at his own hands, his bones appeared as black shadows inside the red glow of his skin and muscles. What kind of magic was this?
He looked up and realized it came from the giant skull. The priests had activated the skull’s power with their touch, and now the artifact levitated in the middle of the priests, still pouring forth its mystical light.
The priests were leaving with the skull. Talis watched the determination and devotion in their eyes as they returned to
the portal door, the artifact floating ahead of them. Were they using the skull in the hopes of battling against Rikar and the Nameless? He wondered if anything could stop the knowledge and experience of the Naemarians. This was especially true considering they now possessed powerful star fragments and Rikar’s Starwalker essence and composition. The combination was likely unstoppable. That and a horde of Navrian citizens newly controlled by the Naemarians. How would an artifact helped them win?
The ruby glow disappeared after the skull entered the portal, leaving them in darkness. Talis waited for a few minutes, listening to see if the priests were gone. Then he cast a spell of light, illuminating the chamber. He walked over to the altar, Charna padding alongside, taking a closer inspection. Where the skull had once sat now appeared an empty square hole about four feet across. He brought his sphere of golden light over and shone it down inside, but the light failed to penetrate the absolute blackness.
In a sudden rush of insanity, he was overwhelmed by the desire to put his hand inside. He reached out, but then a buzzing, electrical sensation raced up his arm, and he quickly withdrew his hand.
“What’s that?” Mara said, peering inside.
Talis pulled her away and gave her a warning look. “Stay away from there. Something evil is inside. I can feel it.”
“So what are we supposed to do now?” Nikulo rubbed his belly as he craned his head up, searching where the silver light had once come from.
“We keep searching. If there’s one room like this then there are others.” Talis hoped it was true, at least.
“But what if we haven’t finished completely searching this area?” Mara was still gazing, mesmerized, at the hole in the altar. “I have a feeling someone or something is down there… sleeping. Something important and powerful.”
What was she talking about? Talis narrowed his eyes at her. Was she in some kind of a trance?
“I’d be more afraid that whatever is down there will kill us.” Nikulo swallowed, glancing back at the portal like he wanted to leave.
“Or utterly devour us… body and soul.” Talis had no interest in finding out what was there. The very idea made him want to flee to the farthest corner of the world.
“The daggers—” Mara covered her mouth, choking back a scream. Her blades, sheathed at her sides, were pulsing in a strange, vibrant shade of green. “They’re warning and pushing me at the same time. We have to go down there. I may not be able to stop myself. They are compelling me to go.”
“No,” Talis hissed, grabbing her arm as she took a step toward the altar. “What if whatever is down there is trying to lure us into releasing them? Think about it, Mara. Don’t do it. Let’s get out of here.”
She shook off his arm in a burst of strength. Another step closer to the altar and she released a long sigh. Her eyes flipped up until only the whites showed. She withdrew a dagger and stretched out the weapon toward the hole.
“Mara, stop!” shouted Talis.
Under a spell, she turned to him, dagger extended, and shook her head no, eyes fierce. Then she returned to face the altar.
A chill ran down Talis’ back at the way she’d looked at him. Would she really have hurt him if he’d tried to stop her? He felt that she would have. No matter how many ways the daggers had helped them, he still believed them the worse kind of curse Mara could have ever found. And here again, he was losing her to them.
Despite his pleas for her to come back, she continued on to the altar. Kneeling at the edge, she aimed a dagger inside the square hole. The blade tip descended, disappearing.
Something groaned and shifted inside the hole, awakening. The blackness inside extended up, still shaped as a square, rising and obliterating all light that tried to intrude upon its space. It reached the ceiling, a pillar of darkness.
The pillar rotated and along with it, though in an opposite direction, the room turned. Talis felt dizzy and disoriented at the sudden shift. He fell to the floor, along with Nikulo, and they watched the room spin. Charna spread out her legs in an attempt to keep from falling over. The cat’s golden eyes went wild staring at the spinning room. While the pillar spun in one consistent speed, the room began to spin faster, as if it were a flywheel.
A massive popping sound came from underneath the room, a sound like something unlocking. The altar descended. Sections of the stone floor around the altar fell—block by block—until a stairwell was formed, leading down into the depths.
The smell of dead things and preserved flesh flooded the room. And with it came a strange wet heat. Talis began to sweat, wishing he could run and bring Mara away from whatever was down there.
But Mara, moved by some invisible force, stepped like a sleepwalker toward the stairs. Talis followed, unwilling to leave her alone with whatever was down there. He had to protect her, or at least die trying. He glanced back at Nikulo who cringed in a corner, curled up like a ball.
“Nikulo, come on! We’ve got to go help her.”
His friend’s frightened eyes lifted to look at him. Did he just whimper like a scared dog? Talis darted over and dragged him to his feet, urging him on. Nikulo mumbled a string of curses but didn’t resist. The two stumbled over to the stairs and descended after Mara. By now she was already many steps down, though luckily stepping slowly, still in a trance.
This wasn’t going to work. They were heading into a dangerous area without support and he had no idea how to handle whatever was down here. The darkness they entered was all-encompassing and muggy. It was like walking into a pool of warm ink.
Below, Mara disappeared inside the absolute blackness. Once he entered, Talis felt a suffocating claustrophobia overpower him. Everything around him disappeared. He couldn’t even see his hands.
But the smell of death and corpses strengthened, along with the heat. He reached down and touched the warm stone steps, feeling his way through the darkness. Behind him, Nikulo slipped and fell, cursing as he bumped along down the stairs, nearly knocking Talis off his feet.
“Would you be careful?” Talis whispered. He sat on the step to avoid falling like his friend. Despite crawling down quite a few steps, it remained utterly dark. He felt something furry rub alongside him and Charna nuzzled his face. He could see her! Though barely. Her golden eyes glowed faintly, fighting the dark. But when she went off to investigate, the light was quickly swallowed by the consuming blackness.
He turned back toward Nikulo. “Let’s just slide to the bottom.”
“If there’s a bottom to find.” Nikulo’s voice sounded hopeless. “Maybe we’ll find a bottomless pit. Or a carnivorous beast waiting to eat us for lunch. Speaking of which, I’m starving.”
Talis groaned, tired of his friend’s endless appetite. He continued crawling down the steps. After what seemed like fifteen minutes, he reached the bottom. It smelled of something burned and old must. He touched the ground and ran his fingers through a crumbly substance. Was the ground covered in ashes? He dug down deep, but failed to find a bottom.
A shiver ran through him at the idea of sitting in a massive pile of ashes. What kind were these, burned creatures or plants? From the rank smell he guessed the ashes were from some creature—or creatures. But what it was, he was unwilling to imagine. This world was filled with all manner of strange and horrific creatures. He didn’t need to imagine himself sitting in a burned pile of some hideous monster.
“What the hell is down here?” Nikulo said, prompting Talis to tell him to lower his voice.
“I don’t know what it is. Just focus on the sounds… maybe we can hear where Mara went.”
And sure enough, they could hear the swishing sound of Mara traipsing through the ashes somewhere to the right of where Talis was facing.
They crawled through the foul-smelling heap until the ashes gave way to something wet and sticky and rancid-smelling. He almost puked, covering his mouth with his arm. He stood, trying to keep his nose as far from the floor as possible.
Finally, after stumbling for many minutes through the
mess, Talis was relieved to find the floor solidifying and smelling less like rotten body parts and more like dust.
He heard footsteps up ahead. Was it Mara? The sound guided him on through the darkness, his steps becoming bolder and faster.
Behind him, Nikulo shuffled along, and in whispered tones, he asked Talis to wait for him. Charna came up alongside, her blessed eyes providing a faint light in the pool of utter darkness. But beyond that, he could see nothing.
“Where the hell are we going?” Nikulo said, gripping Talis by the shoulder. “I can’t see a damned thing.”
“I have no idea, but I think Mara went this way.” Talis went off again after the sound of Mara’s footsteps.
Nikulo followed, keeping a hold of Talis’ shoulder. “What is wrong with this place? Can’t you cast a light spell?”
“No, it doesn’t work. I already tried it. Nothing happened. The only thing I can see is Charna’s eyes, when she is very close.”
“We’re in serious trouble then. We can’t keep shuffling around here in the dark. What if we fall off a cliff or walk into some pit filled with hungry fiends?”
“Keep it down. I’m trying to listen for Mara.” But it was difficult to hear her anymore. Her steps kept getting softer, though Talis had managed to orient his direction toward the sounds. He continued on after her, but soon, despite his frequent stops to listen, realized he’d lost her track.
They waited for several minutes, unsuccessfully discovering any sounds. Talis released a heavy sigh, frustrated and worried about Mara.
“So what do we do now?” said Nikulo.
“Find Mara. It’s the only option we have.”
“Last time we saw her, she looked like she was ready to kill you. I’d say we have bigger problems than simply finding her. We have to figure out a way to snap her out of whatever spell is afflicting her.”
“You’re the mentalist. Did you learn any new mind control spells along the way?”
Nikulo scoffed. “I didn’t do much of any magic over the last year, honestly. I had hoped to never have to cast a spell again, except perhaps to heal someone in need. This whole experience is like a never-ending nightmare. I keep waiting for myself to wake up. But it’s not going away. Tell me this, are we going to die out here on this planet? I don’t mean to sound defeatist, but I really don’t see a way out.”
Origin Mage Page 16