The Dungeons of Arcadia

by Dan Allen

  “Who summons us? Who wakes our sleep?” the deep voice rumbled.

  Faster. Gork willed his throttled legs to run more quickly.

  Ruby let go of Gork’s hand and ran head.

  Don’t leave me!

  As he rounded the next pillar, Gork found Ruby emptying her waterskin onto the floor. Then she dripped a single drop of blue liquid from the necklace vial. The drop hit the water, freezing it instantly, spreading a thin layer of ice across the cavern behind her. The icing of the floor was immediately followed by a series of even louder-than-normal crashes.

  Apparently desert gargoyles were not the best ice skaters.

  “That was crazy,” Gork said, grabbing her arm and tugging her forward.

  “Or brilliant,” Ruby said.

  “Both,” they laughed in unison.

  More crashing of gargoyles falling reverberated through the seemingly endless cavern. Gork wondered how far ahead the tonnerians were. They were faster and could see in almost complete darkness.

  The game was to find out who could get farthest into the tombs. The tonnerians were ahead, but the portal was the point of greatest darkness, attracting the chimera with a primal urge. That was as far as anyone could go in this world. That was the goal. Once there, the sword Gork carried would close the portal. The enemies within would be cut off from the source of their strength. Ideally, they would give up or put up a token fight, and the return journey would become far easier.

  Gork wasn’t sure he believed that. It was the kind of blind hope adventures were built on. Hope was all he had as he raced beside Ruby, zigzagging through the pillars and following the faint sounds of tonnerian feet racing over the stone ground.

  All at once, the cavern ended. Gork just managed to stop himself from hitting the wall in front of him.

  “Where did they go?” Ruby said. She turned anxiously, as if expecting to face one of the pursuing gargoyles.

  A hand reached out of the wall and seized Gork. He drew his hand ax, but it was too late. The hand pulled him off balance and into the wall. The moment he passed into the stone, Gork had two thoughts. The first was that he was going to suffocate to death again. The second was far more disturbing.

  He had failed. Ruby was alone.

  But complete immersion in the stone passed as quickly as it started.

  Gork fell to the floor and looked up to see Ruby stepping through the rock.

  “A portal in the stone,” she said. “How fascinating.”

  Terras, who had pulled Gork through, helped the dwarf to his feet. He had transformed back into his half-figure and was now clothed in snow wolf fur. The tonnerians were also there, clustered tightly in the narrow space.

  Gork again felt a keen sense of failure. If some kind of monster had pulled him through the stone instead of Terras, Ruby would have been left alone.

  I shouldn’t have let go of her hand. We have to stay together.

  “Did you feel the barrier sense your soul as you passed through?” Terras said as a chorus of wails sounded around the cavern, now loud enough to briefly interrupt Terras’s explanation. “Those gargoyles are bound constructs. They won’t be able to cross through.”

  “Terras, how did you find this passage?” Ruby said in wonder.

  “Smell.”

  “Smell of what?” Gork asked as he peered into the dim room by the light of Ruby’s necklace.

  “Pain,” Terras said.

  “Pain has a smell?” Gork wondered.

  Terras nodded. “As does fear. And there was one other smell I caught in the moment before I transformed back to human.”

  “What was that?”

  “Hope.”

  “Hope?” Nyan-Nyan said. “In this place?” Her words were echoed by a mournful wail from deeper in the cavern.

  “We have brought with us the light of the Goddess,” Ruby said. “There is always hope where there is light. Now we must finish what we started. We must close the portal. The Blasted Tombs will be free. Arcadia will rise again. The tide will turn here.”

  “Blind hope,” Torbin murmured.

  “Do not let your grief dampen your courage, captain of the tonnerians,” Ruby said. Her entire body seemed to glow as she spoke, the blue light from her necklace pushing back the darkness. “Press on. The end of our game draws near. Your bravery must now prove itself, a legacy to last the generations.”

  The chase began again. The cavern narrowed into a corridor with a rocky ceiling. Only when the entire group had passed into the corridor did the shadows in the ceiling show their teeth and claws.

  “Vampire bats!” Meeraz cried.

  A horde of arm-length bats struck down on the company with furious hook-clawed wings and fangs. The tonnerians answered back, their swift paws dealing death and dismemberment as fast as the voracious creatures dove. The moment a bat attached itself to a warrior, it was slain by the tonnerian’s partner. But the bats focused their attack on the source of the light—Ruby’s necklace. Wielding his hand ax in a whirling blaze, Gork dispatched every bat to beat its wings past the leaping, thrashing tonnerians.

  By the time the peril was past, nearly every tonnerian was scraped and bleeding. It did little to faze them. If anything, the warriors’ steely eyes seemed more determined. This was now a full-blooded hunt.

  The passage ended abruptly at a closed iron grate. Several tonnerians pulled upward, trying to lift the barrier, but to no avail.

  Wails from deeper in the corridor rattled the bars.

  “Now what?” Torbin growled.

  Gork moved to the edge of the corridor and peered up into the gap, surprised to find the locking mechanism on the outside of the chamber rather than the inside.

  Whatever is on the other side was locked in.

  The Hyrian mages . . .

  As Gork expected, the crank mechanism was long gone. Grumbling to himself, he took his long ax and pried at a cotter pin securing an axle rod through a secondary gear. Under the force of his lever, the rusted pin cracked and fell away.

  Tonnerians stared in quizzical interest as Gork changed the direction of his lever and pushed on the axle rod, forcing it free and dislodging the gear.

  Sensing the change in resistance, tonnerians gathered en masse to lift the heavy gate. Inch by inch it rose as tonnerians roared with the strain of exertion.

  Gork and Ruby passed under with Terras.

  “Somebody jam it!” cried a warrior. Sweat poured down his forehead where a vein pulsed. Gork looked around, but none of the tonnerians seemed willing to volunteer one of their defensive weapons.

  “Quickly!”

  Gork considered the dilemma. If some of the warriors did not return, they might not have enough strength in the group to open the portcullis again.

  With a roar of frustration, Gork thrust his long ax under the portcullis, near the wall. Though it would not have had the strength to hold the entire weight of the heavy iron barrier, the imbalance of force caused the huge iron grate to shift and wedge in its track. Gork’s prized long ax was stuck permanently.

  He was down to his one remaining hand ax and the sword of the Dark Consul. It was too long for a dwarf’s ideal use, and Gork hesitated to risk damaging the prized artifact in battle.

  Just the dagger-tipped ax and my fists.

  Nyan-Nyan passed close to Gork. “You gave me these,” she said, flexing her claws. “I’ll cover you.”

  Gork nodded and hurried to rejoin hands with Ruby.

  The cavern widened ahead where a dim red light permeated a haze of dust and chill fog.

  The sounds of crying and screaming seemed to reach past his ears and into his very soul.

  “This is a place of darkness.” Torbin raised his forearm blade and sniffed the air. “We should not be here.”

  “This is not the end,” Ruby said, meeting his eyes with a gaze equally determined. “My courage continues.”

  Nyan-Nyan’s ears twitched. “I can hear many o
f them now—different voices.”

  Gork tightened his grip on his ax. “So can I.”

  Ruby gave a shiver.

  “Are you all right?” Gork asked.

  She nodded. “This place tears at my heart—how could the Dark Consul have wanted to come here?”

  Taken by curiosity, the tonnerians began to edge forward, crouching low, step by step. As the cavern grew wider, the floor dipped lower and the ceiling rose higher, as if into an amphitheater. Gork began to feel he had seen this place before.

  The images on Ruby’s balloon. We’re here.

  As he stepped forward, the limestone formations along the walls lost their sharpness.

  “Be on your guard.,” Terras said. “The portal is close.”

  The clink of a chain to his right sent Gork whirling to protect Ruby. What he saw made his heart ache.

  It was a man, or what was once a man, chained to the ground by manacles. With sunken eyes and a toothless mouth that stretched as wide as his whole head, he reached out a trembling hand to Gork, mouthing unintelligible words that filled Gork with terror. More skeletally thin arms, all pale as fog, reached out, their manacles clanking in a creaking chorus. On both sides, rows of prisoners mouthed their soundless screams.

  Gork heard them deep in his heart.

  Free us!

  “Look,” Ruby said, pointing to the forehead of the trapped man. She knelt in front of the wretched creature, reached out, and pushed aside strands of wispy hair.

  “A gem,” Gork leaned forward for a closer look. Bound to the man’s forehead was a smaller version of the red ruby in the pommel of the Dark Consul’s sword.

  “I thought they wore them around their necks,” Ruby said. She knelt in front of the man. “Can you tell us why the dark army comes to Crystalia?”

  He made no response, only continuing his pleading motions.

  “Help us stop the Dark Consul—the man who did this to you.”

  Ruby said, “Tell us how to stop his army. Is it possible?”

  “It’s useless,” Terras said. “Time has driven them to madness. These are but poor, suffering souls.” He pointed to the ruby on the mage’s forehead. “According to legend, a Hyrian mage is bound to their amulet. The consul must have bound their amulets to the portal—that’s how he trapped them.”

  “Then we unbind the amulets.” The princess reached into her dress pocket and withdrew her scissors.

  “Now is not the time for a charity haircut,” Torbin growled.

  “If you break the connection,” Terras said, “it will kill them.”

  “Do we have a choice?” Gork asked.

  From all around came desperate wails, pleading, begging to be set free.

  “I can endure their pain no longer.” Ruby reached forward and snipped the tether binding the gem to the forehead of the wasted figure.

  But it was the blades of scissors that fell to the ground.

  “The amulet is protected,” Terras said. “We must first break the spell.”

  “What are these beings?” Meeraz asked.

  Ruby returned to Gork’s side. “The mages the Dark Consul enslaved to widen the first portal to the Dark Realm. He never freed them.”

  “Then where is the portal?” Terras asked. He stood in the center of the room. Behind him, the fog gave way to shadow and darkness.

  “Don’t step backwards,” Gork called. “I think you’re almost in it.”

  “We need more light,” Ruby said. She squeezed her necklace and closed her eyes, then released her necklace, and a burst of blue starlight penetrated the fog.

  Like a crooked cat’s eye, the portal emerged from the fog shrouding it. It was a long diagonal slice through space stretching from the ground halfway to the ceiling. Its indeterminate edges wavered like a flag in the wind, as if passing into and out of reality.

  “This is the end,” Torbin said. “We have proven our bravery. Now we return.”

  “No,” Ruby said. “We must close the portal. This is why we risked so much.”

  “What does that require?” Torbin said. His eyes were now almost as red as those of the gargoyles that had chased Gork and Ruby through the foundations of the crypt.

  “Gork has the sword that first bound the Hyrian mages’ amulets to widen the portal,” Ruby explained. “We believe its pommel has the power to break the connection and possibly seal the rift.”

  “The portal is vulnerable,” Terras added. “We must destroy it before the Dark Consul’s forces arrive to reinforce it.”

  “You are meddling with things you do not understand,” Torbin said. His voice was fierce, even more than it had been on the day Nyan-Nyan had smashed her way into the Desert Drop Oasis.

  “I will take the sword and close the portal,” Ruby said. “Then we will need your strength and bravery on our return. You will have a very proud tale to tell your kin when you return, something to honor your sacrifice.”

  This seemed to touch a nerve. Torbin would return to the Desert Drop Oasis without his son Corix and his son’s fighting partner Felion. If he could say it was in the cause of a great victory, it would go a long way in assuaging the guilt and sorrow that would follow.

  “Gork,” Ruby said. “Give me the sword.”

  Gork nodded and drew the blade. He laid it across his hands, offering it to the princess in the traditional gesture of respect.

  “Be careful,” Terras said. “It will try to drain your magic.”

  “I know,” Ruby said. “I am prepared with the light of the Goddess, although I believe closing the portal will require far less power than opening it.”

  It seemed like hopeful speaking.

  Ruby took a deep breath. She looked Gork in the eyes and gave a nod. Was that her way of thanking him? A mere gesture of appreciation? Or was it something else, something more?

  Gork had no time to ponder. Princess Ruby reached forward and gripped the handle of the sword. Upon touching the skin of the princess’s fingers, the sword blazed with white lightning that raced to the tip and shot out, colliding with the portal.

  No!

  Instantly the blackness swelled. The edges of the portal rippled, and a second seam appeared, stretching in the opposite direction. Together, Gork and the princess twisted the sword away from the portal, breaking the shaft of energy that blazed out. Ruby fell to one knee, exhausted by the effort.

  It was a costly mistake. Ruby’s mere touch had activated the latent magical energy the blade had taken from Terras. Adding to it Ruby’s curiously strong magic, the tip of the sword had reached out and connected with the portal, renewing the spell and adding to it her strength.

  “What have you done?” cried one the tonnerians. “You made it larger!”

  It was Gork’s mistake. He should have turned the sword to face the other direction before offering it to the princess.

  Dwarf tradition.

  Gork had offered the sword the way he had been trained since birth, so that she could take it with her right hand. Instead of facing the pommel of the sword toward the breach, to draw energy out of the rift, the point of the sword had connected with it, pouring all of the sword’s gathered energy into the tear.

  Growls and catcalls sounded from around the chamber. But they sounded only for a moment before being drowned out by the thunderous eruption that came from the portal.

  Chapter 17: The Destroyer

  The X-shaped tear in space stretched. Dark fog hissed into the cavern like steam from a geyser. A small sphere appeared in the breach. It swelled, and in one breath, it grew to the size of a troll and continued growing. As it rose in front of the billowing portal, the figure increased to more than four times the height of Gork. Little else could be discerned, for it had no face yet, only a hole under a hood where it should have been. The body was still cloaked in writhing black fog.

  “A demon!” Torbin cried. “Like the one that ravages the Frostbyte Reach.”

  Nyan-Nyan’s
fur stood on end. “That’s not Cernonos. It’s bigger.”

  The demon laughed long and deep as its body took on more corporeality. Muscles appeared, threaded with bulging green veins. Huge rocky fists extended from its arms, with glowing red cracks like rock cooled over molten lava. There were still no eyes as the body took shape with armored scales appearing over its chest. A savage tail covered with long spikes trailed out from behind it.

  The demon drew a huge black blade with a hand of three clawed fingers. “Cernonos,” it repeated, laughing at the name. “That creature serves the Midnight Queen—enslaved to a mortal’s whim.”

  “We know nothing of the Midnight Queen,” Ruby said boldly. “And we have no quarrel with you.”

  “Ha! Ha! Ha!” The face suddenly appeared as the shroud of fog cleared. It thrust forward, and even the bravest of the tonnerians darted for cover at the sight of a smiling crocodile head large enough to swallow a tonnerian whole. Fog curled through the nostrils at the tip of long jaws laced with daggers of teeth. “But I have a quarrel with these chimeras, an old grudge. They turned against us. They helped the dwarves drive me back into the Dark Realm—for which I suffered disgrace! The great Destroyer, forsaken by the Dark Consul!” It snorted a gust of smoke as its gaze swept across the tonnerians. “Now I will end the fight, forever.”

  “We will not allow you to ravage our world,” Ruby said. “Turn back to your place.”

  “There is more than enough darkness already in Crystalia to conquer it,” said the demon. “I am here to call it to me. I will be the one to finish this battle.” The huge black blade swung low and pointed at the tonnerians. “You are creatures of the dark. Yet you serve these things.” He swung the blade and pointed it at Ruby. Its tip was only a few feet away.

  Gork was desperate to do something—distract it, charge at it—anything.

  “Humans—weak. Elves—soft. Dwarves—fools. All slaves of a fallen Goddess.” It breathed out a blast of dark fog that seeped into the tonnerians and disappeared. But it’s contact with them seemed to waken them from their weariness. Their red eyes glowed even more fiercely.