by TR Cameron
The cavern it emptied into required a jump down of a few feet to reach the floor. Overhead, the ceiling soared two or three stories high, and purple crystals ranging from small to immense adorned the irregular surface. The largest was probably twice the size of a Mustang, her current wish-list car. Not that I need a car as such, but it sure would be nice to drive around with the top down and past Jennifer’s house once a day. She chuckled at her pettiness, summoned more force-and-flame lights, and rolled them in different directions. The walls and floor had been shaped by muscle or magic into smooth surfaces carved with a repeating geometric pattern that made her eyes hurt if she stared at it too long. Only one exit led from the room, and only one object was visible inside it: a huge brazier in the center, hanging by a trio of golden chains from a pyramid of thick black metal poles. It shone in the flickering fire from her globes, the highlights enhancing the polished silver of the bowl.
Ruby walked around it, looking for clues, but none came. She reversed her path, shifting her gaze outward, but saw nothing of interest other than the tunnel she’d entered through. “Well, if this is your idea of a warm reception, you have to work on your social skills.” Her voice echoed strangely in the room, as though it bounced off more surfaces than were apparent to the eye. She shrugged. “Fine, be that way.” She created a ball of fire in her palm and tossed it into the bowl.
The brazier surged to life. A wash of flame leapt up over the chains and supports and almost reached the ceiling. The fire spread along the floor from under the object. It filled in the geometric patterns in unpredictable ways, ignoring some and jumping across gaps to others with no understandable reason. She stepped nimbly around the expanding fire, ready to bolt back for the doorway. Her magic told her this was real flame, not an illusion, and she had no desire to be cooked in the mystical pizza oven that the room might become.
When the fire finished filling in new spaces, a low rumbling sounded across from where she’d entered. A piece of the wall descended into the floor to reveal another tunnel beyond, again crafted by magic or muscle. She muttered, “Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly,” and paused to consider her options. Okay, I have no options other than to ignore the calling and apparently die or keep going. Guess I’ll keep going. With a headshake at the bizarre life she led, she headed for the door out of the room. “I don’t know who’s behind this, or if you’re listening, but I’m going to slap you so many times when this is over, you’ll be unconscious for a week.”
Her internal voice observed, “Assuming you survive, of course.”
Shut it. If I die, at least I won’t have to listen to you anymore, which will be a gods-damned bonus if you ask me.
Laughter echoed in her ears as she crossed into the tunnel.
Chapter Eleven
This passage proved to be far longer than the previous one had been, seeming to descend into the mountain. Ruby was thankful that she didn’t have to crawl but more than a little daunted at the notion that she might have to make the trip in reverse once she finished whatever she was here to do.
The tales she’d heard of the venamisha hadn’t mentioned going into the mountain, although several had included climbing it. Others had described stepping through portals although as far as she knew, those people could have also wound up right where she was. None of the stories had been anything like highly detailed, as if those who had undertaken the journey had been unwilling—or unable since it involved magic—to remember or share particulars. The air felt generally dry but not dusty. It seemed as if the occupants had left only weeks before although to her knowledge no one had lived inside the mountain in forever.
Literally forever since the Mist Elves had no records of anyone ever making their home within the massive tower of rock that was the dominant feature of their geography. So, it seemed even stranger that the well-kept passage remained that way, given the lack of inhabitants.
The voice in her head observed, “You’re babbling because you’re nervous.”
Shut it. I’m not babbling, and I’m not nervous. Scared out of my wits, maybe, but not nervous. In truth, a mix of fear and anticipation filled her, and each step forward felt more and more like she was moving toward where she was supposed to be. As someone who lived most of her life under a disguise, that feeling was decidedly rare. I hope I’m able to tell people about this once it’s over.
It led into complete darkness and required Ruby to summon another orb of flame and force to light her way. She made this one bigger, about the size of a soccer ball, and kicked it forward, picturing imaginary teammates to pass it to. That entertained her for five minutes, was a neutral experience for the next five, and had become downright annoying by the time a quarter-hour had passed. Then a glow emanated from the path ahead, and a ninety-degree turn revealed the entrance to a room. “Thank the gods.” She dispelled the orb and stepped carefully onto the chamber’s carved floor, staying on the outermost oval of tiles.
Etched squares, rectangles, and trapezoids covered every surface, each with a design that seemed to have nothing to do with the ones around it. Some glowed, again seemingly at random, and filled the room with light. The anarchy that met her eyes put her on edge, and she focused instead on the four tall columns set in a diamond shape in the space. “Probably perfectly symmetrical. Who or whatever designed this place loved geometry.” The cylinders were at different heights, the shortest ending about ten feet above the floor, the tallest reaching twenty or more. The ceiling stood another twenty above that.
Ruby crouched with a frown. The pillars probably have something to do with how I get out of here, but there must be more to it. She summoned a ball of force and threw it at the nearest column. It bounced off with no effect, but when it hit the floor, the tile it landed on vanished, and the sphere fell through. Okay, then. Parkour challenge with something nasty under the floor. Awesome.
Her inner voice offered, “Probably bottomless. Or spikes, maybe. Poisoned spikes. With barbs. Several barbs.”
You’re not helping. Other people used the phrase “My own worst enemy” metaphorically. She was convinced her brain actively sought her destruction most of the time. Out loud, she said, “Okay, then. Let’s do this.” She reached over her shoulder to check that her sword was secure in its scabbard and used a force blast to propel herself into the air, aiming at the lowest pillar, which was also the nearest. As she arrived at the top of her arc, a shimmer to the side gave her enough warning to summon a force buckler to her left arm. A wicked-looking dart, complete with sharp barbs along its length, struck it and dropped to the floor. She landed awkwardly and fell to her stomach, grabbing the lip of the column to keep herself from rolling off.
Another shimmer appeared, this one at the top of the highest pillar, set across the room from her. When it faded, it revealed an elderly Mist Elf with her hands clasped before her. The woman wore a long pale blue robe that set off her almost translucently white skin. Thin braids of ivory hair fell over her shoulders and reached to her waist. Her eyes matched the robe. She nodded. “Welcome, junra.”
Ruby had heard that word only once or twice before in relation to the mystics. It meant something like “pilgrim.” She offered a small bow appropriate to the woman’s apparent age. “Thank you, grandmother.” All elderly women were called grandmother. It was a thing the Mist Elves did.
A smile creased the other woman’s face. “Polite. That’s good, that’s good. Also smart enough not to walk along the floor. A promising sign.”
“Again, thank you.” Another small bow. She’d had manners drilled into her by both her family and Keshalla. Then again, etiquette can only take one so far. “So, what’s the deal here?” She gestured around the room. “I don’t see an exit other than the one I entered through.”
The room’s other occupant nodded. “A challenge, as I’m sure you expected from the outset. Good luck, junra. I offer you this word of advice.” Her smile widened. “Don’t fall.”
She vanished in the now-familiar shimme
r, which replicated on the other pedestals. When it ended, the tallest column was empty, but people inhabited the other two. To her left was a leather armor-clad Mist Elf gripping a drawn bow. To her right, a matching figure with fire already coalescing in his palm. Well, that escalated quickly. She called up a force shield on each arm and deflected the attacks, congratulating herself mentally on not overreacting and jumping to attack. That warm feeling lasted all of five seconds before the column beneath her trembled. Panicked, she kept up the shield against the fireballs and dropped the other while launching herself across the room to the tall pillar on a burst of force magic.
She landed and spun to find the others had moved as well. Now the caster was on her right and the archer directly opposite her. Her only ranged weapons were her throwing knives, and she felt none too confident about making the toss across the distance that separated them. Magic it is. Ruby delegated part of her attention, the one controlling the shield on her right arm, to the foe that now hurled alternating balls of fire and electricity at her. Her defense was adequate but maintaining it was slowly draining her energy. She threw her left arm forward, palm out, and channeled a burst of force from it directly at the archer’s face. It intercepted a pair of arrows, shattered them, and missed the target when her enemy crouched. She growled and lowered her aim, sending another at his torso that he jumped to avoid. When he landed, he took to the air again immediately, this time toward the empty pillar on her left. The one on her right jumped as well, to the one his partner had vacated. She copied the motion, descending a level to the platform on that side. She called, “Quite a dance we have here.”
They didn’t reply, only resumed their attacks. Okay, be that way. Given the archer’s nimble grace, there was only one good option. She shot a wide cone of electricity at him and maintained her shield against the other. Her foe tried to jump out of the way, but she’d anticipated the move and shifted the cone with him. It caught him in mid-transit, and his body stiffened and fell. While she was distracted by the overwhelming desire to see what happened when he hit, the caster smashed her legs with a burst of force and knocked them out from beneath her. She scrabbled at the surface of the platform as she slid off and managed to grab the edge with one hand.
Ruby hung for the moment it took to realize she’d survived, then created a force platform to stand on, attached to the pillar. It shook violently as if the structure was trying to throw her off, but it was enough. She launched herself off it with another magical blast and leapt. The caster tried her tactic against her, but he’d chosen poorly, assuming she’d go to one of the empty columns. He couldn’t redirect the attack fast enough to catch her as she hurtled toward him. She dispatched quick bursts of ice, his preference for fire suggesting that maybe he’d dislike its opposite. The caster intercepted them with a flame shield, and she called up one of ice an instant before she hit.
Her momentum propelled him to the platform’s edge, where he windmilled for a perilous second before he smiled at her and fell over the edge. She turned, her shield at the ready, but no other opponents appeared. Only an exit from the room, directly opposite the one she’d come in. Well, it was too much to hope it would be only one challenge, right?
Chapter Twelve
The tunnel beyond the door continued to wind down into the mountain. The entertainment of kicking her light ahead had faded within the first five minutes this time. Still, Ruby didn’t want to expend any more magic to move it differently, fearing she’d need all of it before the venamisha was complete. She’d tweaked a muscle during one of the jumps that hadn’t announced itself until the adrenaline had worn off, and the unexpected twinges when she moved the wrong way made her grumpy. She barked, “You know, I didn’t train in engineering for six years to wind up as a damned mountain… walking… person. Whatever they’re called.” She kicked the ball harder and almost got hit in the face as it bounced off a turn she hadn’t seen ten feet ahead.
She retrieved the errant item and carried it around the corner. Another opening into another room, but darkness beyond. A roll sent the ball forward, revealing a tiled floor similar to the previous one. Where those patterns had been geometric, these flowed, connecting from block to block. The ball stopped moving, showing nothing but an empty floor. Remembering the brazier in the first room, Ruby directed a thin line of flame at the nearest block, but nothing happened. She tried ice and electricity with similar results. With a scowl, she observed, “You know, force doesn’t make sense, and shadow is, well, dark.” However, a bolt of the latter activated the runes, which glowed purple as they filled in around the room and illuminated it from the nearer side to the opposite end.
Stone platforms hung in mid-air, their thick smoothed edges glowing with the purple lines. The seven surfaces were positioned at different heights and looked too far apart to jump from one to the next, even if they were on the same level. They climbed toward the center of the room, then descended again on the far side. She used a force blast to fly up to the nearest, roughly eight feet off the floor on her left. She advanced unhindered to the one before the centermost, and the center platform shimmered at her arrival nearby. When the glow faded, an elderly man, almost the twin of the woman from the previous room, nodded at her. “Welcome, junra.”
She sketched a bow, holding it for the requisite amount of time plus a couple of seconds. “Thank you, grandfather. Please tell me we don’t have to do battle with one another.”
He laughed at the jest, seeming entirely gleeful. “Fortunately not, as I likely couldn’t have defeated you in my prime, which passed so long ago I can scarcely remember it. No, your challenge here is of a different kind.”
“Do tell,” Ruby replied, and he laughed again.
“When you ascend to this platform, you will be unable to advance or retreat without overcoming the obstacles on the others. The ones behind you will be easier; the ones ahead, more difficult and more dangerous. You may, of course, turn back now, before invoking this next stage of the venamisha.”
Yeah, right. Like Keshalla would ever let me hear the end of that. “Once I’ve done so, it’s over?” He laughed and faded into another shimmer without speaking again. She shouted, “I’ll take that as a yes! Done deal!” Before she could overthink it, she launched herself into the air and landed on the center platform. The room around her platform fell into darkness, then the two nearest it illuminated. A shriek filled the air as lightning crashed down on the one before her, transforming into a cylinder made of that power that extended ten feet toward the ceiling. She turned to look at the one behind, which flames covered. Ice would take care of that one. Electricity, that’s more difficult. She considered flying into the darkness and trusting her memory to where the next one in the sequence was but quickly abandoned the idea. They’d prevent that, I’m sure.
The logical option would be to encase it in force, but the continued sparking and snapping meant that it would be a constant drain to maintain against the lightning while she dealt with the next challenge. So, I need to figure out how to limit that. I have just the thing. She unhooked the canteen from her right thigh, dumped out the tiny amount of liquid that remained, then threw the cap at the platform. It deflected from the outside of the magical cylinder. “Okay, then, how about this?” With careful deliberation, she used pulses of force magic to lift it over the field and drop it on the platform from high above. It attracted the lightning to it, and she quickly created a double force barrier above it to insulate herself from the metal, then launched herself over.
The next one illuminated. On it stood a statue with its arms extended like it wanted to hug her. Circular holes were positioned where its face, hands, and heart would be. Magic filled each, cycling through ice and fire in quick succession. She put her hands on her hips and observed to the room, “This looks way too easy.” A flick of her fingers sent a bolt of flame into the ice, and the figure’s forearm shattered. A moan echoed through the space, and the statue moved with a groaning scrape, pulling the arm in protectively. Ru
by frowned. “Okay, what the hell is this? I have to face the challenge, but get a guilt trip too?” She focused her will, ready to strike all the remaining spots simultaneously so she wouldn’t have to watch the figure suffer, but stopped before doing so. As a test of magic, this is neither difficult nor dangerous. So it must be something else. “Oh, I hope I’m right about this.” She checked the draw on her daggers, wrapped herself in a force shield, and blasted toward the apparent target dummy.
The circles disappeared when she landed beside the statue, and it smiled at her before it, too, vanished. The next one lit up, revealing a beautiful pair of swords on a stand. They were pristine, even from a distance. Once beside them, it became clear that they were magical, each faintly glowing in a cascade of changing colors. A double sheath sat beside them, and she knelt to take it up, almost overwhelmed with desire for the blades, which she was certain would render any further encounter trivial.
Almost overwhelmed. Her internal voice cautioned, “Hold up there a second, grabby. This is still supposed to be a challenge, right, not a reward?”
Ruby frowned, but her hands stopped before they touched the weapons, despite the gravitational pull of her need for them. You’re right. The truth is, I haven’t earned the right to wear these yet. She stood, and with a regret that felt almost like breaking, said, “I will not accept these. Still, if you could keep them around until I’m ready, I’d appreciate it.”
The weapons vanished, the lights came back to full intensity, and the exit appeared. Internal Ruby asked, “What would you do without me?”
Be a lot happier, probably. For that one, thanks. She paused to drink from her remaining canteen and refocus her mind, then launched herself through the doorway.
