by Logan Jacobs
“What?”
“That’s an enchanted door,” she explained. “It’s a portal to any part of the chamber that the entrant desires.”
“But we’ll be the first entrants,” I said. “Does that mean we can decide where we want to go?”
“I very much doubt it,” Vera said. “Gorander is fully aware of the door’s properties. And I suspect that something about this… vessel he has us in, and the fact that he’s controlling it, probably blocks out our presence to the spell or makes it count us as cargo or something. While it will recognize him as the conscious entrant.”
The door opened at our approach as if it sensed us coming. I wondered how the huge shield would fit through the ordinary-sized door. Then, the shield began contracting around us. We were compelled to fall into a single file line. We were still encased in that translucent layer between us and the rest of the world, but it was no longer a dome, now it was almost like a piece of fabric draped over us, that left only a few feet of clearance around our bodies, but shifted as we did so that it did not impede our movements.
“I wonder how he’s doing that,” Vera said under her breath. Her tone was one of eager academic interest now. I guess it didn’t matter the circumstance, an impressive spell was still going to excite her. “I wonder if it’s some adaptation of Brunhilde’s Variation of the Mirror Reflection spell? Or the Noli Me Tangere spell, in combination with a magnetized tracking spell.”
“Undoubtedly the latter,” I said solemnly.
“I concur, but then how do you account for--” Vera began, but then cut herself off when she seemed to recall who she was talking to, and my virtually complete lack of any sorcerous knowledge. “Hmmph.”
We passed through the door then and found ourselves in a huge open space. The first thing I noticed was the unexpected surface of the ground. We weren’t striding across marble tiles or rough-hewn gray stone as in the rest of the palace I’d seen so far. Instead, we were plodding through sand, our feet sinking slightly with each step.
The second thing I noticed was that we were surrounded by concentric tiers of long stone benches that rose higher and higher above this oval expanse of sand. They were all empty, but their purpose was clear enough. To host the vast audience that would typically patronize a gladiator fight in the arena. Well-- it was certainly a classic touch for an aspiring emperor to incorporate into his home.
There was a stone wall rising around the sand pit that separated us from this nonexistent audience, whose phantom stares of exhilaration and bloodlust I could picture, nonetheless. At every few yards, the stone wall was punctuated by gaping doorways carved into it that were closed off with metal grates.
Since we were inside the palace, not outdoors, there must have been stone walls enclosing us, but they were too far away for me to see them from inside the sand pit. I could see the stone roof, however, which gave the whole chamber an oppressive effect. If you were going to force prisoners to fight to their deaths, it seemed to me that it was common decency to at least let them do it in the open air under a clear sky.
“This is not my favorite room in the palace,” Theo announced glumly.
We looked over to see a canopied box just behind the stone wall at one end of the sand pit. Gorander stood in the center, in front of a throne that was stationed there. He was flanked by four of the pale, red-hooded demons with the maggot-filled innards. I figured that they were probably there in the role of guards, not spectators, since they didn’t really seem to have the emotional capacity for feeling entertained.
“Yes,” Vera said loud enough for everyone to hear. “I should have killed Gorander a long time ago.”
Gorander made no reply.
The shimmering shield that still encased us grew thinner and thinner until it evaporated. There was a moment’s pause. I raised my sword.
And then, we heard the scraping sound as the grate of one of the arena’s tunnels started to roll up.
Chapter 19
The creature that emerged was massive, scaly, and like nothing I had ever seen before. It wasn’t a dragon. Dragons, I knew about, although I couldn’t say I’d ever had the dubious pleasure of meeting one in person.
But this creature was something else. It looked armored, with a huge horn sprouting out of its nose, and a hard crest around its head that featured more horns. It had stout legs to support its body, which must have been at least twice the size of an elephant’s, and a spiked tail that looked like a mace.
There was a metal collar around its neck through which a chain was threaded, and half a dozen demons were clinging to either side of the chain and fighting to keep control of the creature as it thrashed against its bonds. It tipped its head back and let out a furious roar. I didn’t know if the monster was angry about the chains, the sight of the three of us awaiting it in the arena, or the agony of existence itself. Or maybe all three.
“What the hell is that?” I muttered to Vera.
“It must be one of his special projects,” she said grimly.
“Oh, fantastic,” I grumbled. Werewolves, demons, and now this. I guess Gorander must have had somewhat of a monster specialty.
The demons slid the chain free. The monster charged forward into the sandy arena, and they hastily clanged the grate shut again to close off the tunnel.
“Any idea how to kill it?” I asked Vera. She lived with Gorander, after all. She knew about his research and what must have been some kind of horrific breeding program. Unless he had stitched this monstrosity together from scratch out of rhinoceroses, alligators, elephants, whales, and a small castle.
“He’s made others like it, though none quite this big,” she said as it charged toward us across the arena. It was coming from the opposite end, from what had seemed a vast expanse of sand as first, but watching how much ground it swallowed up with every stride made the pit suddenly seem tiny. “Their skin is too hard to cut with a blade. It’s also resistant to fire.”
Well, that disqualified our two most obvious options for attack.
“How to,” I groaned. “Not how not to.”
“Get on my back, both of you,” Theo commanded.
“Vera, you get on,” I suggested. “We’ll be too heavy--”
“Both of you!” Theo repeated. “I can outrun that thing, for a while anyway, but I can’t fight it. And you two can attack it, but you can’t outrun it. We need to work as a unit.”
I didn’t know if that was a good idea, but I didn’t immediately have a better one. So I grabbed Vera, hoisted her into the saddle, and then I leapt up after her. As soon as he felt my weight hit, Theo careened off across the sands.
My mighty Friesian was the fastest horse I’d ever met, but he was carrying twice the usual number of riders on his back, and he was also trying to slog through sand. The latter disadvantage, at least, was shared by the armored beast bearing down on us.
When it saw us on the move, it tried to veer and change course to meet us, but I saw that although it had an impressive galloping speed for its size, it wasn’t able to maneuver any more nimbly than you would expect. It required a slight delay to be able to slow itself down enough to make a turn.
So, that was the tactic Theo would need to use to stay out of the monster’s reach. Make a lot of sharp turns and keep doubling back before the monster could catch up.
My horse, being an intelligent creature, realized this just as quickly as I did. He galloped to get ahead as the monster completed its wide turn and then began gaining on us again once it had resumed a straight path, but I could feel the ground shaking under our feet with the impact of its tread, and I knew we couldn’t keep this up forever.
“We’ll have to get closer,” Vera yelled. I hoped that meant she had some kind of sorcerous attack in mind, since she had told me my sword would be useless, so I sheathed it before I jumped on Theo’s back.
As it turned out, I didn’t think Theo had much of a choice about our getting closer, anyway. He was fast, but he was carrying a heavy load through s
and, and couldn’t sustain his maximum speed for long. The monster was only about ten feet behind us by the time Theo wheeled around to run the other way. It was about fifteen feet tall, and its shadow engulfed us. Then as it realized that Theo was switching directions again it opened its maw and bellowed in frustration, and I felt its hot fetid breath like stepping into a humid jungle, and strands of spittle flew out and spattered us. There were barely five feet between us and the monster as its momentum carried it past us. It whipped its head around to try to impale us with its horn, but couldn’t reach us. Then it whipped its long tail, and the spiked mace at the end flew straight at us. Theo couldn’t stop or turn in time. So instead he lengthened his stride even further and then bunched himself up and stretched himself out in a magnificent leap. The mace swung below his hooves, and he landed in the sand again and continued his gallop.
Just like the first time, it took a comparatively long moment for the armored colossus to swing around and resume the pursuit, but once it had straightened itself out again, it was slightly faster than Theo and started gaining on us again. Vera, meanwhile, who was sitting astride Theo in front of me, leaned back against me in order to swing one of her legs over to the same side as the other. Then, she wrapped her arms around my neck for balance in order to work the first leg between us, over to the other side, so that she was sitting astride again, but this time facing me, with her legs flung over mine.
“Ahem,” I coughed. I didn’t know exactly what Vera’s game plan was. And she wasn’t looking at me, she was looking past me at the approaching horned beast. But the intimate position, and the proximity of her crotch to mine, was definitely stirring some situationally inappropriate feelings, so I decided that if we were about to trampled, this wasn’t a bad position to die in.
“Watch my favorite spell,” Vera murmured huskily in my ear, although her gaze was still focused behind me.
“Mmhmm,” I managed, although I couldn’t exactly twist my head backwards like an owl, and if I twisted my whole torso, that would destabilize her too since she was leaning on me, and there was a decent chance we’d both topple out of the saddle.
Then she yelled a word I didn’t understand that sounded maybe a bit like “fulcendius,” and I was temporarily blinded by a flash of light that seemed to fill the arena.
Vera let out a shriek of triumph, and then Theo slowed to a canter and turned around so that he and I, and not just Vera, could see the results of her handiwork. The monster had crashed to its knees and lay there as motionless as a series of boulders. Wisps of visible smoke curled up from its armored back.
“You struck it with lightning?” I asked, a bit in awe in spite of myself. Sorcery was one thing, but a spell like that approached godlike power in my opinion.
“Damn right I did,” she replied with satisfaction as she bared her teeth in a feral grin. I don’t know what was wrong with my taste in women that made me want to kiss her so badly in that particular moment, but that’s exactly what I wanted most, so that’s exactly what I did.
She responded so hungrily that our teeth clashed. The taste of her mouth and the almost combative play of our tongues stiffened my semi-hard cock the rest of the way. I was glad the leather saddle prevented Theo from being able to feel that, although Vera, from the way she was straddling me, most certainly could. She moaned a little in response and scooted her hips forward to press even closer into me.
Then, some instinct made me open my eyes for a second, and I saw the felled creature’s angry eyes open at the same exact moment.
“Fuck,” I said as I broke contact with Vera’s mouth. She twisted her head to look too as the creature lurched to its feet and caused the arena to shake.
It started galloping toward us, while Theo continued to trot toward it for a closer look. He immediately halted and started to turn.
“No, wait,” I ordered him. “Keep going.”
“What?” Theo demanded incredulously.
“Just do it,” I said. Then I grabbed Vera by the waist and hoisted her up in the air by half a foot, while holding her out and away from me. She seemed to understand my intention, and quickly worked her legs back around so that she was facing the same way as me again, with her bum nestled against my crotch, eyes on the approaching horned monster that had just survived her lightning strike.
“It’s not even limping, I don’t think lightning really harms it, just stuns it,” she said grimly as it barreled down on us.
“That’s all I need,” I replied. There were about twenty yards between us and the monster now. “Can you summon another strike?”
“One more is all I have left in me,” she warned.
“Do it,” I answered.
Vera extended her arm again, her fingers splayed, and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Fulcendius!” Or something that sounded a lot like it, anyway.
A branching streak of incandescent white snaked out and struck the creature right on the horn that protruded from its nose. From there, the crackling electricity seemed to shimmer over its entire body. Its jaws parted in mute agony, and it stumbled and crashed down into the sand again, immobilized, although its open eyes suggested that it might still be partly conscious, and I knew better than to assume that it was dead this time.
Theo sped up and continued straight toward the stunned beast. As he came within a few yards of it, I swung myself off his back, dropped, and rolled as I hit the ground.
“Hey!” Vera cried out with surprise and confusion.
Before she or Theo could question my intentions, I scrambled up, sprinted over, and straight up the armored beast’s side as if it really were just a series of boulders, until I reached its spine, probably eight or nine feet off the ground when it was lying down like this. The creature groaned and shifted beneath me, still very much alive. I slipped and grabbed onto the spined ridge of its back to keep myself from tumbling off. Then I lunged for his head and grabbed onto the iron collar riveted around his neck.
As the monster lurched to its feet, and jerked me off balance, which left me dangling from its collar with my body hanging free, I focused my power, the single magical ability that I had, with which I had so far been able to accomplish pretty much anything I needed to, and shrank the collar.
The iron contracted about the beast’s throat, and it gagged and wheezed in panic as its windpipe was crushed. Its eyes started to bulge from its head, and its ribs convulsed as it sank back down into the same depression that its massive body had already created in the sand. I clung onto the collar with all my might to prevent it from expanding back to its usual size, as the beast’s death throes tossed my body around and threatened to shake my grip loose. Then, after about a minute of frantic struggling, it finally grew still. After that, I wasn’t fighting it any more, I was just lying peacefully atop its still warm corpse, but I kept my hands steadily on the collar and maintained its shrunken size while I counted slowly in my head up to another minute, just to be on the safe side. Then, I slid down its curved flank and walked back over to my faithful horse and my fickle former, and likely future, lover.
Vera gazed at me with her eyes full of relief, exhaustion, and something that could have looked suspiciously like adoration, if she had been the type of woman sentimental enough to show an emotion like that, which she wasn’t. Theo’s giant round eyes were filled with an equal measure of relief and exhaustion, and what most certainly and unmistakably was adoration.
“That was just the practice round,” a voice thundered through the arena. Gorander’s. He didn’t have a naturally thunderous voice, but he was evidently using some sort of spell to amplify it and ensure that it reached our hearing across the sands. “Next time you won’t be so lucky.”
Vera, Theo, and I all reflexively glanced around at the grated tunnels carved into the walls of the arena. Watching for any sign of movement. Wondering from which direction the next threat would emerge. And what kind of horrible new creature it might take the form of.
I laid my hand on the hilt of my swo
rd. I hoped it wasn’t too much to ask that at least the next one wouldn’t be invulnerable to blades.
“You saw my favorite spell,” Vera said to me. “Now, do you want to see my least favorite spell?”
“Well, if our lives depend on it,” I answered.
“I think they rather might,” she replied. I couldn’t begin to guess what she had in mind. Until, that is, she raised her hand and extended it toward the corpse of the hulking reptilian beast. Then, I had a disturbing suspicion that I suddenly did know precisely what she had in mind.
She uttered a series of guttural syllables that I wouldn’t begin to know how to translate into letters of the alphabet. It wasn’t a one word command this time, either. Sometimes sorcerers cast their spells entirely silently in the blink of an eye. Other times it seemed like they had to chant for half an hour to produce any result. According to Vera, this had partly to do with the complexity and origin of the spell, and partly to do with the skill level and personal preferences of the individual caster. In this case, Vera recited what amounted to a long sentence. An ugly, menacing sentence. Or maybe it just sounded that way to me because I was pretty sure I had a good idea of the general meaning of the sorcerous gibberish.
I wasn’t wrong, either. The creature started to stir. Now, I’d seen some gory sights before of a sort that most folk might call blood-chilling, but the sight of this raised my hackles in a different way. I didn’t fear the dead, generally speaking. Not unless there was a common sense reason to, like a pox they’d happened to die of, anyhow. No, other than that kind of danger, or unless they were still fresh enough to stink, I figured the dead were just as good of company as most living folks I’d met, and better company than some.
That was only because all the dead I’d met so far hadn’t shown any inclination to get back up again, though. If they were going to go getting notions like that, then all bets were off.
“Ahem,” I cleared my throat as the armored beast continued to thrash around, not on its feet yet, but definitely something other than strictly dead at this point. “Vera, he wasn’t particularly friendly the first time around, if I rightly recall.”