by Dan Allen
“Why does it have to be underground?” Terras moaned.
Gork sighed. The scent of food in an enchanted place such as this made him feel distinctly like a mouse headed for a bite of cheese from a spring-loaded trap.
“Perhaps a caretaker?” Terras said. Nobody offered any arguments.
Gork stepped into the stairwell, keeping pace with Nyan-Nyan. Her eyes shifted shape, turning into the glowing, slitted eyes of a cat.
Chimera.
“What?” Nyan-Nyan turned up her palms. “Is there something stuck in my teeth?”
“Actually—” Gork was about to start into a new round of teasing but abandoned the idea. It was hot, and high temperatures put him out of the mood. “Why is it so hot? It should be cooler underground.”
“I don’t know,” Terras said. “Keep moving.”
The stairway turned several times, descending to an equally vacant underground floor. A crystal support column in the center of the room glowed as sunlight somehow reflected from the surface.
The crystal columns drew Nyan-Nyan’s booty-alert eyes. “That’s—”
“Don’t touch it!” Gork and Terras said in unison.
She blew a raspberry. “I wasn’t going to break it.”
Terras steered her away. “Sure you weren’t.”
Usually, going underground gave Gork a sense of coming home. A dwarf hall that echoed at your approach called up feelings of a grand welcome. But this place whispered of things forgotten and things taken away, never to return.
“What is this place?” Gork wondered aloud. He wiped sweat from his brow.
“A secret institution of some kind,” Terras guessed. “Perhaps a school for mystics.”
“Or a sauna,” Gork grumbled. “It’s hotter down here than it is outside.”
“Try having fur,” Nyan-Nyan growled.
“So where’s the food you were smelling?” Gork said. His stomach grumbled at the idea of hearty breakfast. “I could do with something delicious right about a few hours ago.”
“We’re close.” Nyan-Nyan crept forward between the pillars of the underground complex, moving silently and swiftly. Terras followed close on her heels, making no more noise than a mouse. Gork’s labored breathing and the clinking of his pack drew conspicuous backward glances.
“You try carrying the backpack,” Gork grumbled.
Nobody volunteered.
Nyan-Nyan followed her nose right up a solid wall. “I don’t get it,” she said. “It’s a wall. Why does it smell like books?” She leaned against the stonework, and her shoulder pressed against a small round rock that slid inward with a click. The wall tipped down, pivoting on its center like a paddle wheel, sweeping Gork and his fellow travelers into a much brighter room. The spinning wall completed its turn and latched again in the same position, with Gork, Nyan-Nyan and Terras on the opposite side.
Inside was a vast library. Shelves upon shelves were stacked with ancient books in the vaulted room. Gork recognized the Arcadian lettering on the sides—gibberish to him. The next thing he noticed were the open books lying on a reading table with a chair drawn up to it. There were even lit candles in several chandeliers around the library.
“Somebody has been here.”
“And there’s breakfast,” Nyan-Nyan said, pointing to a wooden table in the middle of the room with a set of nice pastries and sausages on a silver platter.
“That’s not a trap,” Terras toned sarcastically.
“Whoever was reading in here,” Gork reasoned, “must not be very hungry, or they would have finished the food—we really ought to help by cleaning up. Don’t you think?”
Nyan-Nyan raised a claw. “The dwarf makes a good point. Food in our bellies is less food to put away, after all.”
Gork’s vision blurred momentarily. It was as if he were seeing a desert mirage. “What was that?”
The blur seemed to focus. Closing on itself, it began to glow red, then yellow, then white.
Then there was smoke.
“Fire!” Terras cried, bringing his arm over his nose.
The spontaneous burst of heat fragmented into two jets of flame that began to leap upward from shelf to shelf on both sides of the room.
Not climbing—the flames were actually leaping like rabid, flaming squirrels.
“Burning Gel,” Gork realized. “They just spawned from the Dark Realm.” Small creatures such as these were always the first to materialize. “There must be a new spawning point nearby.”
“Behind that bookshelf over there?” Nyan-Nyan pointed to a section of shelving that was already turning black and beginning to disintegrate.
“And we’re trapped in here,” Terras toned. “Great.”
“You find the button or book or whatever that opens the wall and gets us out of here,” Gork said. “I’ll try to hold off the Burning Gels.”
“And I’ll get the food,” Nyan-Nyan said, darting forward.
At the sudden motion, the flames climbing the walls of books whirled on Nyan-Nyan. Both Burning Gels leapt from the wall, forming balls of streaking fire.
Fast as she was, Nyan-Nyan was going to get fried before she reached the food on the plate.
Gork tossed his pack aside and drew his hand axes in one smooth motion. He hooked a wooden chair with his ax and spun like a discus thrower, launching the chair over Nyan-Nyan’s head. It struck one of the spheres of frenzied fire in midair, scattering bits of flame in several directions.
Nyan-Nyan slid under the table that held the food platter as the second Burning Gel collided with the top of the table. Both Burning Gels had splintered into no less than four smaller Fire Gels which zipped around the room, forming a small tornado of flames and trapping Gork and Nyan-Nyan.
The freyjan reached up and grabbed the by-now toasty platter with her tail and lowered it to their hiding position underneath the table. Luckily, the steel spear cap on the end of her tail had done the trick of saving her from a nasty burn.
Nyan-Nyan shoved two steaming sausages in her mouth as Gork wolfed down a pastry. Beyond the bouncing Fire Gels, Terras frantically punched at rocks on the wall and pulled books from shelves, trying to find the trigger to reopen the secret panel.
“Aren’t you going to save some for him?” Nyan-Nyan asked.
Gork put down a second pastry and picked up his ax. “Fine. How do we stop these things?”
Nyan-Nyan shrugged, then darted out from under the table and swung both arms in a clapping motion, catching a Fire Gel between her gauntlets like a dragonfly. It burst into a dozen more tiny flames which quickly flickered out.
A vengeful Fire Gel hurtled at Nyan-Nyan from behind.
“Behind you!” Gork swung his halberd and clove the Fire Gel in two. The burning fragments shot past Nyan-Nyan’s flattened ears and landed, conveniently enough, on candles where they stuck.
“I meant to do that,” Gork said.
“Hardly!” Nyan-Nyan cried. “That was pure luck.”
“Well, you’re one to talk—duck!”
Nyan-Nyan bent forward and spun in a one-leg pirouette.
“Catch.” Gork tossed the silver platter in front of Nyan-Nyan. Her spinning roundhouse kick sent the plate crashing into the airborne Fire Gel. Burning remnants of battered flame clung to books and shelves around the room. The single remaining Fire Gel danced in midair, making rude gestures with its flames.
“That is quite enough of that,” called a clear, sonorous voice. It was almost like a bell tolling, the way it sang out with equal amounts power and beauty.
The chastised Fire Gel shrank to the size of a small candle flame and scooted toward a dust bin in the corner.
Gork climbed to his feet and looked up toward a high corner of the secret library, where a section of shelves had swung inward to reveal a hidden doorway—an escape.
“By the Goddess,” Gork whispered. He had seen many things in his days: visitors from other lands to the realm of the He
arthsworn, elves, half-elves like Terras, humans, riftlings—but there was nothing to compare with the vision that stood in the doorway, framed by rays of sunlight stabbing through the dust and smoke like royal scepters of light.
She needed no introduction. This could be only one person.
A dress the color of a maiden’s blush, hair as yellow as a field of barley, and eyes so blue and sparkling they likely gave the sky an inferiority complex.
A sense of power and something utterly beyond power emanated from the young woman. Her very appearance had made a Fire Gel cower and flee, and simultaneously in Gork’s heart a new flame was kindled.
Hope.
His jaw slack, Gork could not even introduce himself.
“You found your breakfast?” she said with a chirp of a laugh. “I’d hoped you would find it, and I’m quite sorry about the trouble with the Fire Gels,” she said. “The Dark Consul is very determined to hide his past from me. But I already have what I need. Now, follow me quickly. More enemies are coming.”
Nyan-Nyan tossed a toasty pastry to Terras, who caught it with his teeth and led the way up the book ladder to the secret exit platform on which the princess stood.
“Princess Ruby,” he called. “I’ve come from your father, the king.”
“I know,” she said. “I spied your approach with a scrying mirror on the fifth floor. But the enemy is upon us. There is no time to—”
A section of wall exploded in a gust of heat and flames, throwing books across the room like flapping hailstones. Debris pummeled Gork’s leather armor, which saved him from cuts, but not from bruises. Stone fragments slammed against the far wall, cracking the wood on the library ladder, sending Terras crashing to the floor.
There was only one creature with that kind of firepower. It was black, armored, hideous, and about to climb through the gaping hole it had blown in the wall.
Gork turned and raced through the storm of falling paper to retrieve his backpack.
“Hurry!” Ruby called.
Two Ember Hounds burst through the opening, their flaming jaws snapping with fiery cruelty.
“And the main course . . .” Gork said in a low voice, gripping his long-handled ax.
The breech in the wall filled with a dark presence as the Ember Hounds circled around, driving Gork back into the middle of the room where Nyan-Nyan was helping Terras to his feet beside the remains of the ladder.
“What is that?” Nyan-Nyan cried.
Glowing eyes set on Gork as the great dark thing burst into flames and stepped into view. Fire danced over the glossy black chitin exoskeleton of a huge Blaze Beetle.
A waft of heat, like a blast of air from a stoked forge, passed over Gork. He wiped sweat from his brow. “I really hate bugs, especially that kind.”
The beetle was twice as tall and twice as wide as he was. Escape was the first thing on his mind. But if he turned his back to climb up the shelves, the Blaze Beetle would cook him alive with another venting of its blazing internal furnace.
“I’ll make a ladder,” Terras said as Stranglethorn vines ran out from his wrists and began climbing the bookshelves. “Just hold them off.”
Gork seized two candlesticks from holders on the wall and tossed one at each of the Ember Hounds. The dogs snapped at the candles, melting them instantly and coating their flaming jaws in molten wax. As the stupid dogs thrashed, trying to get rid of the sticky waxy substance, Nyan-Nyan whirled and launched the silver platter like a discus at one of the hounds. The honed edge cut right through the neck of the creature of living flame. The severed, flaming head of the Ember Hound stayed on the platter as it embedded itself in a section of shelving. The flames quickly died, leaving a chattering white skull that crumbled and turned to ash. Gork followed suit, raising his long ax to dispense with the other pesky hound, but was struck on his side with a force like a blacksmith’s hammer falling.
Gork’s breath left him as he skidded across the stone floor. Gasping for a breath that wouldn’t come, Gork spied the long, spiked leg of the Blaze Beetle that had clobbered him, twice the size of an orc’s club.
The Blaze Beetle loomed over him, sucking a great breath of air into its lungs.
A low thrumming sounded softly through the room. The Blaze Beetle shook its flaming head and then turned to look at the source of the sound.
Nyan-Nyan’s mesmerizing purr had its attention. The moment’s distraction was all Gork needed. With a grunt, he swung his ax, severing an armored leg at the joint. The Beetle’s jaws whirled toward Gork, only to meet a second upward thrust from his spear-tipped hand ax at the joint of the head and thorax. Frozen by the blade in its throat, the Blaze Beetle could do nothing to stop Nyan-Nyan’s lights-out punch from her iron gauntlet. A burst of hot air escaped the Blaze Beetle’s scythe-like jaws as Gork leapt clear of the collapsing bug.
The remaining Ember Hound barked angrily but refused to advance, as if waiting for the rest of the pack to arrive.
Apparently, it wasn’t alone.
A thunderous footfall shook flaming books from the shelves. More earthquake-like steps resounded through the room as a large stone club reached through the hole in the wall.
“Inferno Troll!” Gork scrambled for Terras’s makeshift ladder of vines. “Go! Go! Go!”
Nyan-Nyan bounded up the shelves with her claws and shot out through the exit. Gork climbed the vines and quickly hauled Terras up to the exit as the Inferno Troll’s rocky arm, shoulder, and head emerged through the hole in the wall. Hungry flames ran up its body in waves. The Crystalian creature had clearly come straight from the rift. Chimeric magic had imbued it with dragon-like affinity for volcanic fire. It appeared stuck for a moment until another section of wall broke apart like a horizontal cave-in, and the troll’s other flaming arm came flying through the breach with a punch that would level a house.
The thought of a cave-in inspired Nyan-Nyan. She grabbed Terras’s Stranglethorn vine and swung it toward a pillar in the center of the room. The thorny vine snagged the pillar, wrapping around it with an almost unbreakable grip. Nyan-Nyan pulled on the vine and dug her foot claws into the floor, hauling back with all her strength, trying to collapse the support pillar and trap the Inferno Troll. Terras and Gork joined, both pulling on Nyan-Nyan, but to no avail.
Gork’s sense of panic grew as he realized there was no escaping the immense Inferno Troll if it followed them out of the building. It was now or never.
“I’m coming,” called a cheerful voice, and to Gork’s utter amazement, the princess’s hands wrapped around his chest in a hug.
Gork would have laughed at the thought of the princess making any difference in a tug-of-war with a stone pillar, but suddenly, strength flooded into him. As the princess’s magic rushed through him, the muscles in his arms, legs, and back pulsed with strength. Gork gave a mighty heave.
Like a whip cracking, the Stranglethorn ripped through the pillar’s center. Nyan-Nyan and Terras crashed backward onto Gork as the vital support gave way. The secret exit glowed red, and a second later, disappeared in a cascade of rock as the roof of the library collapsed onto the Inferno Troll.
Gork struggled to his feet, apologizing profusely to the princess he had just smashed with his fall.
“Come, quickly,” Ruby called, as she got to her feet. There wasn’t a speck of dust on her.
Remarkable.
“What about the books?” Terras asked as he joined Gork and Nyan-Nyan in swift pursuit of the fleeing princess. “Don’t you need them?”
“I have what I need,” she said. “More minions of the Dark Consul will come. He knows I am here. We must flee while we have the chance.”
The race through the white-walled building was like a dream. What Gork had assumed was an empty building was anything but that. Every turn was a new optical illusion: stairs appearing to be a wall, clever mirrors hiding side halls, and different sized stones spaced apart in depth looking like single, solid shapes.
The dizzying path took them through elaborate reading rooms, a kitchen, meeting places, and a map room, each turn taking them higher.
Gork assumed the abandoned place was an institution of higher learning for Arcadian scholars or mages. But the princess’s surprisingly speedy pace left him little chance to breathe, let alone ponder the mysteries of Arcadia.
Wait a minute.
“Why . . . are we running . . . up?” Gork panted as he followed the rest up a steep spiral stair. “We’ll . . . be trapped.”
Last in the group, Gork climbed up a ladder through an open trap door in the ceiling. He emerged on the top level of the central spire of the palace, where the others were already waiting. Beyond the circular balcony, he saw the maze of mirrors, and beyond that, tall stone walls arranged in an octagon that supported the wall of mirrors that hid the palace.
“Just a moment, please.” Ruby said. She lifted up her necklace chain which held a small stoppered vial. She opened it and took a sip, covered her mouth and gave a small burp. “Excuse me.” She offered one hand to Terras and the other to Gork. “Join hands, quickly.”
Gork reached out with his rough hand and took the princess’s slender hand in his own. Her skin was cool and soft, and her touch was as gentle as a child’s, with an elegance no dwarf maiden could ever match.
Nyan-Nyan completed the circle. “I hope this is a game.”
The princess breathed in peacefully, as if taking in the scent of spring flowers. Gently she blew, and a ball of pink liquid swelled from her mouth, forming a bubble. The sphere expanded rapidly, showing Gork’s distorted reflection. The shimmering pink bubble swelled, heading for his face. Gork inhaled deeply, expecting the bubble to suffocate him. Already out of breath, he doubted he would last fifteen minutes this time.
But the surface of the bubble went right around him, giving Gork the sensation of passing through a pink waterfall.
“Don’t let go,” Ruby said with a smile. “You’ll fall through.”
“Is this some kind of shield magic?” Terras wondered, his face awestruck.
Ruby shook her head, causing the round blue toggles at the ends of her twin braids to bounce on her shoulders.
