by Paul Barrett
As her blood and Klaus’s mingled in the center and ran into the drain, the thrumming grew into pressure in the air that hurt my ears.
Nearby, Loray watched all this with avid, buggy eyes. His hands posed like a steeple in front of his chest. A gleeful smile stretched his pasty face.
Quinitas moved to his sister. “Just one leg, dear brother,” she said. “We don’t need that much of my blood.”
“Don’t even have the conviction to give it all for your own ritual,” I said. “You are the most pathetic excuse for an elf I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying a lot.”
“Pater, be a dear for me and shut him up.”
Pater Loray extended both his hands toward me. He muttered a word I didn’t hear.
Whatever he said, it translated to pain. Blinding, searing pain that took away my vision and made it hard to breathe. It was nails driven through my eyelids. Stinging ants in my ears. The beaks of a hundred birds drilling into my skull. I may have screamed.
The only thing that drove it away was the shock of another torment. A burning itch in my leg. My vision cleared as the other pain receded.
Quinitas stood in front of me with falchion in hand. My blood danced on the blade’s black edge. He moved toward my other leg. The blood that ran down my leg slid into the clay channel. The chanting reached a fever pitch. The malevolent energy in the chamber had become an almost physical presence.
Now was my best chance. I had no idea if my plan would work, but I’d be an orc’s sex slave before I’d go to my death without a fight. I stared at the circlet on Quinitas’ head. Concentrated. A pinpoint of agony drilled into my head. The cuts in my legs burned. I wanted a drink.
The circlet shifted on his head and then flipped off. It landed on the platform with a small metallic sound barely audible over the chanting.
The elf’s eyes cleared. He shook his head, a sleeper waking from a bad dream. I looked at Loray. The mage stared at Siralanna with a leer on his pasty face. He hadn’t heard the circlet.
“Cut me loose,” I told Quinitas. He didn’t ask questions. His movements were stilted as if he still fought for control. The falchion slashed through the leather straps as it might paper. The ropes fell away like spider webs brushed by a hand.
“We have to stop this,” I told him. “Take that bug-eyed bastard out.”
Quinitas turned with more confidence, control returning to him. Loray saw the movement. He grasped the situation immediately. I launched myself from the box.
His hand came up. He shouted a word that hurt my ears. A fist of energy slugged my entire body and threw me right back into the box. The coffin rattled as much as my teeth, which bit into my tongue. Quinitas landed at my feet. He still had the sword.
Loray staggered a second. He was pushing the limits of his power. If I could get him to do five more spells like that and I survived, I’d have him in a corner.
My ears rang. I tried to move. Invisible molasses slowed my reflexes. Quinitas floundered on the floor like a fish out of water.
The mage recovered before we did. He walked over and took the sword from Quinitas like you would take a bone from a puppy.
“What are you doing?” Siralanna said.
“What I meant…to do…all along,” the mage wheezed. He ran the blade across his forearm, cutting through his robe. His blood gathered on the falchion’s edge. He leapt to the center of the platform like a robed frog.
Siralanna realized what was about to happen. “No!”
“Yes,” Loray shrieked in triumph. He shoved the sword into the mechanism above him. The falchion slid into the slot made just for it. Click.
The emanation of malevolence that radiated from the machine made all my bones ache. For a second everything went silent as a grave. The chanting faltered. No one on the platform moved.
With a bone-splintering mechanical crunch, the gears began turning. The crane arm shifted. The auger moved toward the blood-filled pit.
“Recite the final incantation,” Loray screamed to the elves in the pit.
“No, don’t,” Siralanna shouted. She jumped out of the box and ran to the edge of the platform. “I command you to cease.”
The elves obeyed the voice that had probably always been their master. The chanting resumed.
The insane mage was about to dig up and take command of the Demon Twins.
18
The tower shuttered as the gears ground. The auger descended toward the pit. The leaden feeling disappeared from my muscles.
“You bastard,” Siralanna shrieked. She launched herself toward Loray, her hands crooked into talons. She struck at him. Blue sparks stopped her inches from his face. She bounced away. Skittered toward the platform’s edge. He stalked toward her, ready to assist her deadly plummet.
I had to stop him. Not because I cared about Siralanna, but I had grudgingly grown fond of Quinitas. Plus, I would need every bit of help to survive this.
I threw my mind at the mage. The mental burst struck him and flung him away. His shield glowed. The energy rebounded on me. I hit the box a second time. It splintered under the impact. I landed on the floor amid the debris. Blood gushed from my nose and soaked my beard.
Loray got the worst of it. He disappeared over the edge. I knew better than to think he would fall to the bottom and die. I hoped we had a chance to recover and make a plan before he returned. I decided to try the most obvious, least likely to succeed action first.
“Quinitas, try to pull the falchion out,” I said as I ran toward Liz. He had recovered and stood up. While I worked to free Liz, the elf tugged on the sword.
“He betrayed me,” Siralanna said in a shrill voice.
“Someone you trusted fucked you over?” I asked. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”
“This isn’t working,” Quinitas said.
The auger moved toward the pit. I finished unshackling Liz.
“Free Klaus,” I told her.
“Can I punch the bitch first?”
“Save it for later.”
With a hiss, she moved toward the hobgoblin. I turned back to Quinitas. He still tugged at the sword, his legs dangling off the ground.
“Forget it,” I said. “I didn’t think it would work. How can we stop this?” I asked Siralanna.
“You can’t.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” Liz and Klaus joined us in the center of the platform. “Is your magic back?” I asked the elf.
He lifted his hand and made a gesture. Nothing happened.
“Of course,” I said.
“We need to bind these wounds,” Liz said, “or we’re all going to bleed out.”
My head hurt so bad I had forgotten I was bleeding like someone whose legs and feet had been sliced by an evil-tainted blade. Liz’s reminder brought the pain to the fore. We all had blood pooling where we stood. “Good idea.”
Torn strips from our clothing worked as quick makeshift bandages. The slices on my feet stung. I winced as Liz wrapped them.
The auger had made it halfway down to the pit. Liz moved away from me. A few seconds later I heard a thud of flesh followed by a shriek.
Siralanna sat on the floor with blood pouring from her nose. Liz towered over her. “If you weren’t a twin, I would pitch you over the side,” she said. She looked back at me. “I figured this was later enough.”
I scowled, though I couldn’t blame her. “We need to figure out how to stop this.”
“You can’t,” Siralanna said. “I already told you that. The auger is going to drill a portal to the dimension created by the ritual, and the blood is going to fortify the demons. Then they’ll―”
“Enough with the mumbo,” I growled. “If the drill is stopped, nothing happens.”
“You can’t stop the drill,” Siralanna said. “It’s enchanted to run until it completes the job. And it’s protected from magic attack.”
“I’m willing to bet it’s not protected against tons of rock,” I said.
“What are you thinking?”
Liz said.
“That this is going to hurt like a bugbear.” I stared at the ceiling above us. All the stalactites pointed down like gigantic daggers. I had never attempted anything close to this. I didn’t know if I could do it. I suspected I might not survive it.
“If I die,” I told Liz, “have a drink for Crizlyk and me.”
“What are you going to do?” Siralanna asked. She looked wounded by Loray’s recent betrayal. I failed to dredge up any empathy for her.
“Stop your madness,” I told her. “Liz, if she takes a step toward me, raises her hands, or even breathes wrong, you have my permission to knock the shit out of her.”
“Oh, good,” Liz said. She aimed her narrow eyes at the elfette. “Please, please do something I don’t like.”
Siralanna had taken away her brother’s magic. She had removed Liz’s ability to metamorph. But she had either forgotten about my psionics or had no way to stop them.
Or she didn’t think I was insane enough to try what I was about to try.
I picked a spot on the cavern’s ceiling and concentrated. I imagined the dolomite fracturing along specific lines. I wanted to crush the auger, not us. My head pounded. My vision blurred. My stomach clenched. I wanted to eat a small herd’s worth of beef.
I felt the rock weakening. I had to be careful and apply enough force to break the soft stone without turning it into powder. I also had to make sure my head didn’t explode. Literally.
Pressure built, rivaling the worst sinus migraine ever. Blood bubbled from my nose. Cracks formed in the ceiling. Powder drifted down. I had a cluster of three or four stalactites ready to sheer away. Another break or two would do it. My vision had gone red and fuzzy as if I drank twelve bottles of bad ale. I didn’t think I could finish. I knew I had to.
“I’m getting…really sick of you…people.”
Loray the Insane had returned. Through my watery eyes, I saw him floating near the platform. It was now or never.
Several things happened at once: Loray raised his hands. Liz ran across the platform. I forced my will on the cracking rocks; subtlety be damned.
The overhanging rocks broke from the ceiling. Sharp pops echoed through the chamber. The pressure in my head fell away like a snake’s skin. It left the throbbing of an orc war band marching through my skull and a horde of rats chewing on my stomach. My vision resembled staring through a crimson wine bottle. I saw crackling energy form on the mage’s hands.
Liz launched herself into the air with arms outstretched. She slammed into the mage and latched on to him. His arms dropped as five sizzling bolts of energy flew from his hands. They were meant for me. Thanks to Liz, they slammed into the platform supports at the same time the falling stalactites hit the auger.
Two smells pushed past the coppery tang of blood in my nose; burning wood and the pungent fruitiness of red wine. I wondered if I was hallucinating. Then cool liquid hit me even as I started to slide across the now tilting platform.
“Grab something,” Quinitas shouted, his voice a spike through my sensitive skull. I heeded his words. My arms flailed as I reached toward anything solid. Through sheer luck, I snagged the edge of the nearest box. I clung to it by my fingertips as the tower crumbled toward the floor. The crack of boards blended with the terrified shouts of elves. Rock splintered above me. Metal groaned as the drill’s supports bent and twisted. I had no idea how I was going to survive the apocalypse around me.
I caught a glimpse of Liz and Insano fighting as they rolled down the collapsing tower. They disappeared from view as I concentrated on staying alive amidst the landscape shifting beneath me.
Surrounded by thunder and crashing rocks, I landed on the ground. Well, I landed on my back. On a timber. My ability to breathe disappeared. I lay there, unable to think as the world fell around me. I eventually managed to suck in a breath and was rewarded with a lung full of dust. Coughing racked me for a while. I floundered, bent backward over the board.
By the time I recovered, my eyes watering, the collapse was over. Dust floated in the air, but the noisy falling had stopped. My head felt like a barge of barrels had rolled over it. I grabbed a piece of wood sticking up and pulled myself off the board I had landed across. My back protested. I joined it with a groan.
A wipe of my eyes to clear the water showed me I had landed atop a heap of shattered wood and twisted metal. I sat on the remains of the amazing gearwork tower. Fires burned in spots. The tang of alcohol filled my nostrils.
Movement caught my attention. Klaus hobbled up and knelt beside me. Dust covered him, and his clothing had been all but shredded. The acrid smell of fear wafted on his breath as he said, “Are you okay?”
“We stopped it?” I asked, uncertain. Though wreckage lay scattered over the cavern, I had no idea if I had managed the destruction in time.
“You tell me,” Klaus said. He pointed toward the lake of blood. The auger sat immersed in the center, torn from its supports but still upright. It looked like a giant child’s spinning top mired in mud. Shattered wood and iron rings lay scattered, either floating on the blood or gathered at the lake’s edge. Here and there, gems gleamed on the floor and reflected the fitful fires.
The falling debris had killed several of Siralanna’s family. The survivors stumbled about in a daze. They began to gather in small groups.
I looked up and saw a giant hole in the roof where I had torn away the stalactites. Clues played in my addled brain: the remnants of barrels; the smell of wine.
In a burst of intelligence, I put it together. The wine cellar we passed through earlier had been above us. In tearing away the ceiling, I had weakened the cellar’s floor. The barrels had plummeted through to join the destruction. I almost wept. Then I remembered it was elvish wine, so no great loss.
“Where is everyone else?” I asked. “What happened to Liz?”
Klaus shook his head. “Last I saw her, she was riding the sorcerer like he was a wild griffon. Then I had to duck. I wasn’t quite fast enough.” He sat down beside me. It wasn’t until then that I saw the bone protruding from his lower leg. I winced.
He offered a tusk-filled grin. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said.
I didn’t know how it could be much worse, short of being amputated. Hobs have a high pain threshold. I stood up. After my head stopped spinning, I scanned the cavern. “Liz!” I shouted. “Liz!”
“We’re here,” Quinitas said behind me. “Quit screaming.”
I turned and saw them limping up the destruction toward us. Liz leaned on Quinitas. Her broken arm sat cradled against her chest. She looked like a team of horses had played badminton with her. Dark green bruises covered the bulk of her body. Abrasions took up the spots that weren’t bruised. Dust-clotted blood covered a gash in her forehead. Her clothes looked as if they had been run through an eggbeater.
Except for some dust and a few rips in his shirt, Quinitas looked untouched beyond the cuts his sister had inflicted on him. Elven dexterity and luck. I spat in annoyance.
“Did you finally kill that freaky human?” I asked.
Liz shook her head. “He pushed me off and ran,” she said. “Thankfully the tower broke my fall―and my arm. I did manage to leave a bit of myself as a present, though.” She smiled. Three teeth on her left side were missing. I winced again.
“He could still be around,” I said. “He seems to enjoy showing up at the worst possible moments. Where’s your sister?”
“I don’t know, other than she’s not dead.”
I nodded. “We need to-”
I was interrupted by the bubbling lake of blood. The smell of copper and wine roiled across the surface. The auger disappeared, sucked into the lake. I heard the thunder of rock crumbling. The liquid drained as fast as I suck down grog. The bottom of the crater had broken inward in the center. Dark red light radiated through the hole, lighting the dust that hovered in the cavern. A deep belching sound rumbled from somewhere below the hole, sending forth the reek of wine and putrosium. A roar fol
lowed the belch.
“This can’t be good,” Liz understated.
“Now…” said the voice I had come to loathe, “you will see…true power.” I spotted the mage, fifty feet away. He wore a maddened, feral grin. Even as I considered hitting him psionically, the thought made my head and stomach protest. I looked for a physical weapon amidst the rubble. A slim rapier protruded from the debris. I would have preferred a wand, but a toothpick was better than nothing.
“Distract him,” I yelled to the others. I don’t know if they responded. As soon as I moved toward the sword, the crater exploded outward. The ground beneath me launched me forward. I landed on my stomach. A rock punched the breath out of me.
“Holy shit,” I heard Liz shout. A rumble deep enough to crack foundations growled through the cave. Panicked screams and one maniacal laugh played underneath. I rolled over with a groan and wished I hadn’t.
Two heads rose from the abyss. A quartet of ebony horns appeared first, five feet long and thick as my torso. The faces followed. Crimson-skinned and black-eyed, they had mouths big enough to swallow me whole. Their glassy eyes held no pity, no love for anything. Nostrils large as my fist flared as they snuffed the air. They continued to rise, revealing muscular chests with cracked skin that dripped fire. Their lower halves followed, legs large as a mastiff, covered in writhing tattoos. They wore no clothing. Their penises were thick as fence posts and as long as my entire body.
Talk about giving a guy an inferiority complex.
They stepped up to the unbroken stone, twenty feet of terrifying, nightmare-inducing hell-spawn times two.
“Behold…the great infernal powers, Aznag and Azrog,” Loray bellowed. “The world…shall meet…its doom.”
At the sound of the voice and their names, the demons turned and stared at the magician. Aznag was the taller of the two. He grinned.
And then hiccupped.
Out of any sound I would have expected, that wasn’t one of them.
