We fly closer to the floating black rock guarding the southern pass. It looks like a solid chunk of obsidian, with rough edges and a reflective surface. I'm guessing it was made at the Caldera. That's probably where Thaddeus has been growing his numbers and planning this thing for over three hundred years. That's how he managed to keep hidden in that time, using the natural Field energies created by Yellowstone's underground geothermal activities to camouflage his actions.
We all hold our breaths as we fly around the floating mountain. Minutes feel like hours as we slowly skirt around it, hidden from the night sky by its enormous shadow. Once we've passed, we can breathe once more, and the obsidian mass gets smaller behind us.
Forty-Three
Nearly four hours later, we land in the Gallatin Range, one of three mountain ranges that form the Caldera's northern rim — on the old Montana and Wyoming border. Tamon assures us the old dwarven metropolis of Laksona is directly under or around Mount Washburn, and there is an entrance to the Underways near Joseph Peak.
The woods are thin here. The landscape is dominated by soft hills, and rolling grasslands good for grazing. Areas of tall conifers sprout out here and there. We land at the base of Joseph Peak, on rocky terrain with Little Quadrant Mountain to the southeast of us. We're in a narrow valley with a river snaking down the middle; its shore made up of smooth rocks and pebbles.
We debark down a gangplank. Lev is wearing the green and brown leather armor given to him by the elves. He's got an assault rifle over each shoulder, a couple of ammo bags, and two Glocks. I’m wearing green and brown leather armor similar to Lev’s, and have The Destroying Angel sheathed at my hip. Tamon is in heavy dwarven armor with strategic spaces at the joints to allow him maximum mobility. He’s got a battleaxe strapped to his back and is carrying a duffel bag full of all kinds of goodies — shotguns, grenades, rifles, pistols, and a ton of ammo. Lara is in her erolith uniform with helmet, a silvered lance latched on her back, and a shortsword sheathed at her waist. Kyle is wearing protective leathers as well, and has my twin katanas on his back. He wraps a cloak around himself, provided by Tamon, and hugs it tight. The high mountain air is cold, and I imagine colder than usual for him since he has been weakened by magic.
"How are you feeling? You okay?" I ask Kyle.
"I'm fine," he says.
I want to tell him he doesn't look fine, but what's that going to accomplish. His shoulders are more stooped than they used to be, his face a bit paler.
We make our way north, following the river along its eastern bank. Tamon is leading the way. Lev and Lara are behind him. Kyle and I are at the rear.
We follow the river for three miles, then we turn west, following a mountain trail. The trail continues, ascending for two miles or so, before snaking down toward a wooded valley. After a few twists and turns, Tamon leads us to a small pass between two steep rock walls. We follow this trail for another half hour. Then we see two statues carved into the rock wall up ahead. As we approach, the statues become clearer. Two wide-shouldered dwarves in full armor and helm are standing guard — one armed with a battleaxe, one with a warhammer. The statues are carved into the rock wall and stand fifteen feet tall.
"This is it," Tamon says. "This is an old entrance to the Laksona underways, and cavern systems."
"Where?" I ask.
"Right here," he says, putting a hand on the rock wall.
"Who were these?" Lev asks, looking up at the statues.
"Old dwarven Kings of Laksona," says Tamon, his thick fingers studying the etchings along the rock face.
"How do we get in?" Lara asks.
Tamon puts his ear up against the rock. Then he smiles. He backs up from the wall and jumps. He finds hand and footholds in the rock that are barely visible to me. His huge arms propel him left, right, up, and down. At certain places he turns a rock here, he knocks on something there, then rotates something here. After five minutes of performing acrobatic feats and climbing at least fifty feet up the rock wall, he lands in front of us and dusts his hands off.
The ground shakes beneath us. Dust and pebbles fall from the stone in front of us. The rock face rumbles shakes and slides open. When there is a foot of space, I hear metal grinding on metal — the creaking of gears. When the noise stops, the mouth of a tunnel, five feet wide, stands open in front of us.
We walk through the tunnel, then a system of gears and pulleys start moving behind us. Rock fills the opening we entered from. There is a look of worry on Lara's face before the light goes out, and we are enveloped by complete darkness. For the first time, I hear Lara's worried breaths. She was always so calm, and now, inside the darkness of the mountain, her hyperventilating echoes through the deep black.
Lara tries to gather Field energy into a crystal in front of her to light our way, but the crystal blinks erratically before dying out. "We are too far from Ashyanthinasi for me to maintain my magic.”
There is little life within these rock walls, and the Field energies given off by Lev, Tamon, Kyle, and myself are hardly enough to sustain even her most simple spells.
"I could use the energy stored in my suit," Lara says. Her voice quivers a little.
"No," I say. "Save it. You're going to need it in Laksona."
"He's right," says Tamon.
There is a flash, followed by an explosive hiss. The narrow cavern is now bright with torchlight. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. The cavern is narrower than the path we came from.
"Here," Tamon says, handing me the torch. Then he lights another one and gives it to Lara. "And one for the lady."
"Thank you, Tamon," she says. Her breaths are quick, her eyes are darting around, and beads of sweat form on her hairline.
"Are you going to be okay?" I ask.
"I'll be fine. Let us continue," says Lara.
Lara is first to go, her footing unsure on the set of rock steps leading downward. The steps are worn, though they look as if they were once precisely carved with sharp edges and geometric patterns. Some look to be lettering, others look to be pictographs. The walls too were probably once smooth and carved like the steps leading down. Time, however, has blurred these details, so there is only a hint of what was once there. Carved rock and natural rock blend into each other, and the edges of the steps are rounded, with rock crumbs in the crease of each step.
Tamon tumbles past Lara. While up top Lara may be the more graceful of the two, down here Tamon moves as effortlessly as the wind, even using the walls to swing and propel him past Lara.
"Best let me lead the way, my lady," he says. "These pathways are old and worn."
Lara gladly steps back to let Tamon lead, Lev follows behind, staying close to Lara's torch. Kyle is next down the line with me bringing up the rear. After a hundred feet, the passage gets steep, and the steps begin to narrow. Lara, Lev, and Kyle slow their descent. There's not much air down here. Therefore the steps are less eroded than the ones up top near the entrance.
Lev loosens the collar on his elven armor. The light from Lara's torch reflects from the glistening sweat on the back of her neck. She's not having a good time. Underground is not the right place for elves. Kyle is more used to it than Lara, but he still coughs from time to time. I don't know whether it’s from lack of air or from the fact that he's already pretty sick.
He's stumbling and weak, walking down with a hand on the wall for balance.
The deeper we get, the echoes of our footsteps get louder. There is an overwhelming sense of being alone. Tamon moves silently in these caverns. I can barely hear a peep from him, just some light shuffling as he moves down the passageway.
After a mile, our path opens up. The passageway we are in leads to an open tunnel exit, or entrance, depending on your perspective. There is a tall archway, ten feet, and wonderfully carved with swirling designs and gemstone carvings standing out in relief of the surface. The stone is smooth, and shining yellow in the torchlight
"That's gold!" exclaims Lev. His voice seems to echo for miles.<
br />
"Yes. The Laksonans took what they could of their precious metal when they allied with The Thadamar, but they left much more behind."
We pass through the golden archway, and beyond it is an enormous cavern. The passage we are on widens on the other side into a sturdy stone bridge. The bridge is long, about a mile to the next exit. Above us are similar bridges. They look like streets, with intersections, some connect three bridges, some four. From where I am, I can't see the top. My torchlight can only reach so far, but once in a while, our firelight would make something glitter a hundred feet above. Below us, surging, bubbling, and roiling is a slow-moving river of magma. From the looks of it, this gigantic cavern went on to depths unfathomed. I can see remnants of old bridges below us, half consumed by molten rock.
The smell is awful. Sulfur stings the nostrils as smoke drifts up from below. The air is wavy, and the further we walk into the chamber, the woozier my head gets.
This was their main thoroughfare. The dwarves have their own economy, based on needs and wants, supply, and demand. The ancient Laksona dwarves must have had the same. Looking around, I can imagine what this place must have been like in its heyday. Market stalls would have lined the sides of these bridges. Dwarves from all around would trade goods from the upper world or their part of the mountains. Make no mistake; there were humans there too. Some humans made trade pacts with dwarves, and were granted access to precious stones and metals from beneath the rock in exchange for upper world luxuries like meat and furs and guns. Eventually, the dwarves got good at making guns. Real good, and the way they make silvered bullets to combat demon-kind and all creatures from Ashyanthinasi is world renowned.
We cross this dwarven thoroughfare and connect to another, and another, and so on. The dwarven underways are a labyrinthine series of these connected passageways.
Although the smell is bothering Lara, being this close to magma flows makes her feel better. She can feed off of the Field energy generated by the powerful forces shaping and molding the Earth through pressure and time. Once in a while, she would gather Field energy into a crystal in front of her to feel close to it once again.
"How much further?" I ask Tamon.
"We shall meet King Hurdalin a few more miles away," he says.
Then, after twenty minutes or so, we get to another large chamber with thousands of bridges crisscrossing up and down. Tamon stops.
"What?" Lev asks. "What's going on?"
"We're here," answers Tamon.
Forty-Four
The chamber we're in is a lot larger than the ones we've been through before. There is no magma under us, but steam bubbles up from beneath so we know it’s there. Our torchlight dances on the rock surfaces, and we can see more bridges below us than in any of the other major thoroughfares we've been through. So either this place hasn't yet been touched by the Caldera's volcanic activity, or we've been climbing higher and higher with each turn, and each new passageway took us here.
Honestly, it could be fifty-fifty either way. I'm lost, and I have no idea where we are. The signs are all worn and written in Dwarven. The place is quiet and still.
"What are we waiting for?" I ask Tamon.
He puts a finger, as thick as my big toe, to his lips. "Listen," he says.
I search the stillness for sound. Then comes a shuffling from all directions, like the rustling of autumn leaves in the wind. The sound gets louder, and the bridge we're on rumbles with quick oscillations. Bits of rock and dust fall from above. Then out of the hundreds of passageways above and below us come a steady stream of dwarves walking, rolling, or tumbling into the room. They find holds in the rock face and climb up and down each level with ease. There are hundreds of them, gray-skinned, all dressed in heavy metal armor. They take over the entire chamber in seconds. Tamon looks around and smiles at his Thadamar cousins who move along the walls fluidly. Then, down from above, King Hurdalin and his retinue of ten drop and land softly on the balls of their feet in front of us.
"It appears you have led them true," the king says to Tamon.
"Thank you, your majesty," Tamon says with a bow
"Well, as promised I am here," says the king.
I look around me, awed by the size of his army. We might actually win this thing.
"How many did you bring?" I ask.
"Two thousand, more or less," the king answers. "That was all I can do. I have spread my people thin enough as it is. As planned, I sent near an equal amount to Silanthanos, in aid of your people, Captain Uthanasa."
Lara gives a respectful bow. "Thank you, King Hurdalin."
"Oh, don't thank me yet, my lady," he says. "They are still outnumbered, and the barrier is almost down."
"Then all the more reason to move things along," says Lara.
"Agreed," says King Hurdalin. "We can set up a small war council here to prepare for the upcoming siege. We will need to determine our approach."
A member of the king's dwarven retinue approaches, carrying a scroll case among his many armaments. He hands the case to King Hurdalin.
"This was taken from our libraries," King Hurdalin says. "These maps are almost ten thousand years old. But from the description you provided, former Bearer, most of the markings on this map should be accurate."
King Hurdalin opens the map and lays it down on the ground. We gather around it, and oh my goodness — we're looking at the tightest fortress I have ever seen.
The city of Laksona is nestled in an immense underground cavern, with many other large caverns connecting to it. From above, the city looks like an enormous circle and is divided into three concentric rings, like a target with a bullseye at the center. Fifty foot walls separate the rings, like the bulkheads on a ship.
"In case of an invasion, the people would move towards the inner circles," explains the king.
At the center of the city is a near-empty circle with the words 'The Irispire' written inside it. There is a square structure marked in the middle of this nearly blank circle marked 'Temple of Iri.'
"And there lies the Irispire," says King Hurdalin. "That is where we presume your visions lead, Kylanthansa."
"What are these?" Kyle asks.
"Those are the old city districts. Twelve of them," answers the king.
Within the three rings are little partitions. The outer ring has three large districts.
"Most of the old Laksonans lived and worked in these three outer districts. They were where most of the trade was done. According to our histories, few outsiders were allowed beyond that circle."
The middle circle is divided into five smaller districts, packed with ornate buildings. These are the foundries, and the temples, where the guild-masters practiced their craft, and trade. The next circle has four, even smaller districts. The buildings look palatial, with several large monuments in honor of dwarven heroes and dwarven gods. These, the king informs us, were the administrative offices and homes of the clan leaders. Since they are closest to The Irispire, they were thought of as closer to the gods than most.
"Our best hope is that the city has eroded some, and these walls don't look as strong as they do in these drawings," says Lara.
"They are not," says King Hurdalin. "The ancient Laksonans were a proud lot. Some of that pride clouded their judgment when it came to the construction of their city."
Tamon, King Hurdalin, and I chuckle.
"Why what's so funny?" Lev asks.
"Gold, boy," says Tamon. "The walls are made of gold."
"Solid gold?" asks Lev.
"Yup," I say. "It looks pretty, but it's one of the softest metals in the world. Hard to melt, though, which is handy living this close to the Caldera. But if the Laksonans' fears have come true, then those walls should have fallen into the Caldera by now."
"We presume that at least most of the southern half of the city is destroyed,” says the king. “And Kylanthansa’s vision was of the northern portion of the Laksona cavern. Which is how we were able to deduce that the Bearer is at The Temple to I
ri."
He points to the temple perched on top of the Irispire. The building, like most of Laksona's temples, is built like a steppe pyramid. The map looks daunting even with what remains of Laksona proper. The streets are narrow and were built with little organization. There are too many places to hide, too many blind corners, and not enough straight shots. I suppose it could work in our favor as well.
"How far away are we from all of this?" asks Lev.
"We are about ten miles from the outskirts of the Laksona Plain's northern edge," answers the king. "That's the only way to approach the abandoned city."
"Great, and you're saying the army Marchosias is building is right outside the northern walls of the city, right? And Astraea and Marchosias are all the way here," says Lev pointing at the Temple of Iri.
"Correct," says King Hurdalin.
"So to get to Astraea,” Lev says, “we have to fight through five legions of demons, break down a fifty foot tall wall of solid gold. Which, of course, is easy since gold is so soft. But in the small chance that we beat these demons back, they'll only retreat further into the city, and defend these inner walls. And then if we survive that, there will still be Marchosias to contend with. Effectively we're going to have to beat them back on three levels, with how many dwarves?"
"Two thousand," I say.
"Against..." Lev says.
"About fifty thousand demons," I say.
"You underestimate our capabilities," the king says to Lev.
"It's not that. I've seen what you and your warriors can do,” says Lev. “You're great fighters don't get me wrong. But this is not going to end well if we go knocking down the front door."
"He's right," I say. "And remember what happened when we effectively killed a conjured demon's physical shell?"
"Yeah,” Lev says, “they absorbed into another one making the ones still kicking around more powerful. Okay, so maybe going through the front door is not the best idea. There must be another way."
"Can the city be approached from beneath?" asks Lara.
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