by Colt, K. J.
The sound of a distant drone grew louder as he ascended. It agitated his sensitive ears and renewed the dull ache in his head from his injury. He hoped he had not triggered an alarm, but the sound remained consistent and distant enough that he doubted he was its cause. He began to wonder how far the lift would allow him to go when the rope grew taut. As soon as it did, the sound of grating stone began anew, and the Demon dissolved into Shadow just as the wall behind him moved away.
The light of the adjoining room was brighter than the green runes of the shaft. The flames were amber, unaltered by magic. The room was also warmer and flavored with the scent of burning wood and a savory meal. As strange as this mountain-dwelling seemed, it still harbored a kitchen; people had to eat.
Unfortunately, the kitchen was not empty. A bald-headed man with dark skin was busy at the hearth, but he had not yet noticed the seemingly vacant lift’s arrival. The Demon scanned the room, sighting two possible exits. One was a stairwell at the far end of the room; the other was an open doorway with runes above it that read, “Divination.” He was literate, but he was not so well versed in the common tongue that he knew this particular word.
A distant cry of pain startled him, and the glasses slipped from his nose and onto the platform with a clatter. The Demon was quick to retrieve them, but by now the steward had lifted his head in his direction. Judging by the confused look upon the steward’s face, the Demon knew his shadowy form remained undiscovered. He had only a few seconds before the man would come to investigate, and in that time, he had to decide which way he would take.
Sure enough, the steward began his approach, and the Demon’s thoughts raced for a way to slip past him unseen. He focused upon the hearth and the flames within. They wavered as if a breeze had caught them, then they flared violet and reached to snare the handle of a nearby broom. Once ablaze, the fire returned to its normal hue in time for the steward to witness the “accident.” The man gave a cry and set to stomping out the flames.
The Demon fled to the closer exit, the doorway of Divination. He stepped into a large, circular room lit by green torches. The dome ceiling was a glowing map of the stars, though at its zenith was the same eye-like symbol he had encountered in the temple. This was the source of the drone, and it caused his head to throb with a beat that rivaled his heart. The floor was a smooth basin, and from it came an entirely different sound—the sound of pain.
A bearded man, dressed in white, was shackled and on his knees before two hooded figures in black robes. One of the figures held the prisoner down while the other sprinkled something powdery into his eyes. The prisoner screamed and writhed until he collapsed and lay still.
Sickened by the sight and the sound of this room, the Demon fought the urge to set the robed figures aflame. The noise was like a drum pounding in his ears; he had to leave. Swathed in Shadow, he backtracked to the kitchen and found the steward in the midst of cleaning up what was left of the broom. The Demon walked behind him, past him, to the stairwell. The steward never turned his head.
The drone had diminished, but it was not gone. This otherworldly mountain prison with its sickly green light, giant glowing eyes, head-splitting sounds, and torture—the Demon could not wait to leave it behind him. He would sooner set foot on the island of his birth—the island he fled—than visit the Black Mountain of Kirou-Mekus again.
He relaxed his concentration and allowed his form to solidify, clutching his temple as he climbed the stairs, unmindful of the sticky wound beneath his fingers. The stairs twisted a ways before they flattened into a dais. Here there was a corridor with a doorway at its end, with the same glowing eye above. The Demon shook his head and continued his ascent. Wherever the eye was, he would be elsewhere.
He came upon a similar dais, complete with door and corridor. Above this doorway was a different inscription, and he replaced the glasses to see what it read. “Stewards.” Maybe I should ask them where the library is, he thought with a smirk.
Upwards he climbed until he reached the final step. There were no options here: a door at the end of a dark hall. “Archives.” About bloody time! He half expected the door to be locked.
It was not. When the handle gave way, he withdrew his hand. From what his ears could perceive, there was someone inside engaged in a quiet activity—the shuffling of papers or turning of pages. The Demon hoped this person was not attentive to the door, for shadows did not move without a source, and that was exactly what he would be: a source-less shadow. He concentrated to darken his form, though he was still solid enough to soundlessly push the door open and slip inside.
Another bald-headed steward was seated at a desk with a candle, facing away from the Demon. The man was bent over a text, engrossed in whatever he was reading. Several other books were open around him, and occasionally he would glance at one of them. The Demon was satisfied with the steward’s level of concentration, and so he passed behind him to stare at a wall loaded with books. With the wizard’s glasses, he could decipher the letters upon the spines. He sought two objects: one was a magic stone—a “Stone of Prophecy”—and the other was a luminous journal. In theory, both items should be found in the archives, though his source of information had never actually beheld either.
After a few minutes, he grew tired of scanning the walls. Nothing here sparkled, let alone glowed, and there were no rocks in sight. He was also growing tired from maintaining his shadowy form. The distant drone in his ears and his persistent headache had shortened his patience. On a whim, he decided to see what the steward was studying so intently. He drew closer to the desk, leaning near enough to whisper in the man’s ear.
One book was opened to a map of the night sky; another depicted the exterior of a castle. The other books’ pages were completely filled with writing. The Demon moved to improve his view and was nearly struck by the steward’s fist as he stretched backward and yawned. The Demon’s stomach twisted when he glimpsed the corner of a page. There it is. Under his elbow. Like foxfire, the faintest aura of blue light shone from a book buried beneath a pile of papers, under the steward’s arm. Even more amazing was the palm-sized, egg-shaped stone that held open another book at the corner of the desk. A glance around the room betrayed it as the only rock in sight. What were the chances both objects he sought were right there—obvious and easily obtainable?
Then again, if these special items were so special, did it not make sense that both would be actively employed? Maybe this was not so miraculous after all. Regardless, the Demon had at least one obstacle to overcome: the steward.
You look tired, the Demon thought as though the man could hear him. He focused his attention upon the air in the room, giving it a magical shove away from the steward. The candle flickered and dimmed, and the man yawned again. The Demon continued to draw the air away from him, watching with satisfaction as the steward swayed in his chair and rubbed his eyes.
At last the man stood—unsteadily—and turned from the desk. He did not blow out the candle, did not even close the books as he headed for the door. The Demon followed him, keeping the air thin around the steward’s head. He tailed him out the door and down the hallway into the stairwell. There he stopped and watched as the man descended out of sight.
In an eye blink the Demon raced back to the archives. He dropped his Shadow so that he could uncover the luminous book. He could perceive the aura better than before, and it tingled in his hands—almost uncomfortably. His fingers flipped through the soft, worn edges of the pages as he scanned through drawings, written notations, and neatly printed headings. A journal, to be sure. He slipped the thin book into the bag that had been on his shoulder.
He lifted the rock and found it was deliberately shaped and polished, the bottom of it flat so that it could be set safely upon a stable surface. It was milky-gold in color, but otherwise nondescript. No glow, no vibration of energy, nothing. So this is the Stone of Prophecy, he thought. He did not believe in prophecy anyway, so even a radiant boulder would not have impressed him. The ston
e was tossed into his bag with the journal.
The wizard didn’t lie, he thought, marveling that the bag was no heavier than it had been empty. He paused to rub his aching head, almost failing to hear the approach of footsteps outside the door. Quickly he faded from sight with a silent curse. The drone, the ache—it was all so distracting, and it wore at his wariness.
A different steward entered the archives, and drawn to the sight of the abandoned candle, he went to investigate the desk. The Demon was already slipping out the door when the man noticed the fresh blood stain upon the disturbed papers. The steward murmured something to himself and hurried out of the room, just a few paces behind the Demon.
The Demon stepped out of the way and watched, disquieted, as the steward rushed down the stairs. Something was amiss. He hoped to be gone before he could learn what that something was. He was beginning to feel as unsteady as the lightheaded steward, using the wall to brace himself as he moved down the stairs. The sound intensified as he approached the level with the door and the eye, and he thought his ears might explode. He had spent too much energy in this venture—even without the maddening pain in his head—to continue to function properly.
Above the ceaseless ringing he heard voices calling urgently to one another from the level he had just passed. Some stewards were now in the stairwell. In his haste the Demon stumbled and fell down several steps, landing on the dais below. The voices grew louder, as did the accompanying footsteps. He looked up to see the glowing eye above the door at the end of the hall. His eyes watered at the green light—now searing into his mind with blinding intensity.
The Demon picked himself up and staggered forward. He would have to endure the noise and what lay behind the door, for he would never make it through the kitchen before they would catch him. As he closed the door behind him, he tried to ignore the feeling that he was cornering himself. He needed a place of refuge just for a short while—until he could make his escape. If only he could hide from the noise.
There were doors on either side of the corridor in which he now stood, and each door bore a different symbol—a number. He braced himself against the wall as he hurried along, the floor suddenly less solid, the hallway shifting as though he stood aboard a ship on a choppy ocean. He could not concentrate, could not gather any notion of where he was headed or what he would do when he got there. He just wanted to escape the pain.
The corridor ended at an intersection that branched to the left and to the right. The right hall was lined with more doors; the left was fitted with a board that barred the passageway. On the board the letters read, “Restricted.” Unless his imagination had seized control, the drone from the left passage seemed fainter.
The Demon ducked beneath the board and found his observation was correct. There was only one door in this hall, at the darkened end. From the cobwebs adorning the ceiling, he concluded no one had been this way in some time. He took care not to disturb them as he approached the door. If the room beyond was as neglected as the hall, he should be able to hide inside.
He propped himself against the door, his head resting against the wood. Each breath was not enough to push away the advancing darkness from the periphery of his vision. His arms and legs tingled with his growing weakness, and it took great effort and concentration for him to grip the handle. He noticed in a daze that he had at some point dropped his shadowy guise. He pushed the door open just enough to slide inside to the darkness within. The door had barely closed behind him before he collapsed upon the floor.
The Demon returned from the void of unconsciousness with the acrid flavor of bile rising in his throat. He rolled onto his belly and shoved himself upright just in time to lurch forward and retch on the floor. He did not feel much relief, but he did notice the absence of the head-splitting drone from this room. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and looked up through bleary eyes.
What he saw was a mixture of lines and forms. Half the room had been rendered in chalk—line drawings of trees, birds, fungi, and plants decorated the curved, black walls in a life-size mural of amazing detail and intricacy. Down to the veins on the leaves in the trees, the drawings began at the floor and traced upward to embrace the dome ceiling. A solitary hole near the top of the wall allowed unfiltered light to stream down in a spot upon the floor. At that spot was a withered, potted plant on wheels that apparently was moved—the wheel marks were worn into the floor—with the passing of the day. Real objects were stationed in the few places without drawings. There was a cot for a bed, several shelves with books and paper, a chair, and a table with a quill, candle, and inkwell upon it. There were cobwebs and dust everywhere.
On the floor, near the cot, sat a motionless figure with so pale an aura around it as to resemble muted moonlight. Long, colorless locks of hair draped like spider webs over the figure’s shoulders and partially obscured its face. Its frail form was slightly bent over something in its hands. A book. Rather, a glowing journal.
The Demon drew a breath and reached for his bag. For the first time, he noticed the pillow that had been placed beneath his head. He blinked and reached into the bag to feel the smooth surface of the Stone of Prophecy.
He stared at the figure, which had now turned to regard him. The way the limited, cool light fell upon the figure’s face, the Demon could tell it was a man. Shadows nestled where his eyes and cheeks were sunken, but there was no length of beard, no lines to define the man’s age. The Demon suspected that this was a creature of which his brother had spoken—one of the immortals. It was Light, not Shadow, that surrounded the prisoner, and so he could only be an Ilangien. Given how his brother had described the Ilangiel, this one did not quite match the image the Demon had formed of them in his mind.
Again, the Demon’s eyes fell to the journal in the Ilangien’s hands—the journal he needed in order to make this venture successful. The prisoner had also taken the wizard’s glasses and was now wearing them as he studied the pages. They met each other’s gaze. Neither of them moved.
The Ilangien broke the silence in a whisper of a voice. “Durmorth.”
The Demon was not sure if he had heard him correctly or if he had spoken in another language. With the quiet broken, he took this as an invitation to approach. He realized how exhausted he was when he stood. His legs felt like blades of grass in the wind, and as he approached, his stomach began to twist and turn. He was still several paces away when he sank to his knees and tried to think of something to say.
“I…I need that, mate,” he said softly, feeling like he was taking a child’s only toy. He reached for the journal, and the Ilangien closed it and drew back from him. “No, really…” He considered what this object meant in light of his mission, and if he returned without it, there would be consequences. Namely, he would not be paid, and if he did not get paid… “Please.”
His empty hand was left waiting.
The Demon looked at the prisoner’s face. Gray flesh formed a mask around a pair of silver-blue eyes. Even in this prison, the Ilangien’s eyes had their own light, and reflected in them was the image of a forest, wild and timeless. The Demon’s gaze drifted to a thin silver collar around the Ilangien’s neck.
Again the Demon looked around the room, the confining walls that must have taken a long time to adorn in such artwork. “’Ow long?” he murmured, not expecting a reply. He had been a prisoner himself, long enough to understand such confinement. He considered the man he had seen being tortured; that, too, brought back a memory from his own past that he had tried hard to bury.
But what of the journal? What did he truly know about his mission? He knew nothing about the mountain or its inhabitants. He was told to retrieve two objects, and that was all. Kirou-Mekus was a prison, but it was more than that. What was inside the journal, that he risked his life to obtain it? He had not known or cared about the content of the material he was to retrieve, and now he was starting to regret his lack of foresight.
The Demon stood and backed away with a sigh. I need the journal, and h
e won’t give it up. I’m not going to take it from him, either. He searched for the door. He could come with me… The idea was not impossible. Still, he had struggled just to infiltrate the mountain. How could he escape with a prisoner who probably did not have the strength to stand?
His stomach lurched, and he found the Ilangien was standing behind him. All right, he can stand…and he’s tall. “Where’s the bloody door?” he mumbled in awe, not believing that his eyes could misplace the way he had made his entrance.
The Ilangien moved past him and stood beside a particular chalk drawing on the wall. The Demon shook his head. Is this a joke? The drawing was of the door, but that was all it was: a drawing. Magic. He sighed and went to inspect the depiction. Just as the Demon started to feel ill, the Ilangien stepped away, and the feeling abated.
Solid stone, chalk drawn atop it. The dust came off on the Demon’s fingertips as he traced the lines. He turned to the prisoner. “The door is ‘ere, right?”
The Ilangien nodded.
Last place I want to be is stuck inside a wall. The Demon sighed again and removed the bag from his shoulder. He tossed it at the Ilangien’s feet. “Y’ won’t give me the journal, so y’ave to carry the bag. Y’ better keep up, or I’ll take it from y’.” He could swear he glimpsed a hint of amusement on the captive’s face. If it had been amusement, it was quickly replaced by a hopeful expression—one attentive to the door.