by D. R. Rosier
The chamber was about twenty feet wide, and sixty feet long, along both edges there were statues of the small short red and bulky race.
Lisa said, “I think this place was built by one of the extinct races. Although, I don’t think I recognize either of these.”
Harold cleared his throat a bit nervously, “The statues appear to be of a race called the duergar, a cousin to dwarves. Neither race has been seen since the second great war, about three thousand years ago. I don’t recognize the half spider, half man, species at all. The walls are enchanted with light spells by the way, all I did was activate them. We should move forward.”
We moved across the chamber, and looked through the door on the other side. It was a very wide corridor leading down, the entire wall was lit, and it looked like it curved to the right. I could see the turn in the corridor about a hundred feet in. We moved forward carefully, and I felt like this was a really bad idea.
Despite my feelings, we walked down the corridor unimpeded, more of those statues were located against the wall in pairs, every sixty feet or so at a guess. I got the idea we were going down in a very long, seemingly endless, spiral. I felt a shiver go up my spine, something was bugging me about this place. I wanted to object.
After about a half an hour, we eventually came to the end of the corridor, it looked like it opened into a large cavernous room. I started to feel pinpricks on my skin as we got closer to the open doorway.
“Stop, I think that door is warded, even if it’s open.”
They both stopped and Harold said, “I’m going to cast, give me a few moments.”
The stone floor was remarkably clean, Harold pulled out a large piece of chalk, and started to draw out a circle. I knew this would take time, there were a lot of symbols and such to draw on the ground. I tried to relax, and think this through, what was bothering me? I lowered the defenses I put up, so that the song wouldn’t be overwhelming, and that’s when I heard it.
The song of nature from the earth around me was really loud, but below that I could hear a song I’d never heard before. It was discordant and unnatural, twisted. I could barely hear it, maybe there was a lot of rock in the way, but it was coming from in front of us and down.
“I know this is going to sound crazy, but there is something alive down there, a lot of somethings.”
Lisa raised an eyebrow, “Are you sure?”
I grunted, “Yes, I can hear their songs, and it isn’t pretty.”
Harold must have finished, because his circle came up in a blast of magic. He chanted a short phrase, the same one from last night, a spell to read the ward. Then the lights went out, completely, and I heard the grind of stone again, from behind us.
Harold lit a fire in his hand, and looked back our way, “Fuck, I set off some kind of protection.”
I snorted, “Probably, and I think it’s those statues coming to life.”
Harold grumbled beneath his breath, “Keep them off of me, I need a few minutes to figure out how to reverse it.”
His face went blank, but he looked confident that he could pull off what he’d just said. The sounds were getting louder, and I was pretty sure the statues were on their way to us. I pulled out my sword, not sure what the hell it would do to a stone statue, my guns might make a dent, or a chip or two, but stone statues coming to life… I needed a sledgehammer, or explosives, and I was all out.
They were magical constructs of some kind, driven by magic but not truly alive, golems maybe, and as such they had no song, which meant my magic would be worthless to confuse or stop them. The light grew, and I turned around. Harold had a small ball of fire, it looked like a miniature sun, up near the ceiling. I saw the first of the golems come into sight as Harold started to chant.
I hoped that meant he figured out what to do, but it had taken quite a while for him to finish cracking the ward above, I really hoped he could do this one faster.
I pulled out my gun with the iron cores, and emptied a mag into one of them. It looked a bit pockmarked on its face and chest, a few dimples in the stone, but still coming. I wondered if the thing even registered the hits or not. I put up the sidearm, and held up my sword and rushed the thing before it got any closer.
My sword did little better, composed of steel, iron, and silver. It was backed by my new strength and speed, as well as enchantments, but all it seemed capable of doing was sending a few small rock chips. I figured a thousand or two more swings, and I’d have it beat. Lisa wasn’t doing much better, and when I dodged a punch, the thing’s fist got buried in the wall.
Getting hit seemed like a really bad idea right now.
We managed to slow their progress, but we were retreating towards Harold and his impromptu circle, and he was still chanting. I started to chop at one of its legs, it was a bit lumbering and slow, but there were a lot of them coming. It became obvious to me why the trap was set so far below, because if they came alive upstairs we’d have been able to waltz back out the door.
Still, something nagged at me. My conclusion wasn’t quite right but I couldn’t think of what else it could be at that moment.
There were maybe twenty feet left, and I was only a quarter of the way through the damned thing’s leg. I dove past it hoping to get it chasing me in the other direction. I’d be boxing myself in, I knew the next set was only sixty feet behind this one, but it would buy us a few more seconds. At least, it would have if it worked. The golem ignored me, and kept moving toward the ward, until I attacked it from behind, and it spun about.
I felt relieved that it wasn’t moving forward anymore, but I had to stay too close to it to keep its attention. It swung an arm and I was a bit too slow, it clipped my left shoulder and my whole left arm went numb. I could also feel the back of my neck itch, it wasn’t moving forward but the ones behind me were, and I couldn’t hear a song, luckily they were loud as hell. I really needed a sledgehammer, or maybe some C-4.
Harold stopped chanting, but the golem didn’t stop attacking.
He said, “Get to the ward, now.”
I dodged the next swing and dove past again, and ran for the entrance. Lisa had a grin on her face and was doing the same. I laughed, crazy vampire. When we got to the ward I could feel its magic scan us, and then the horrible sound of rock grating on rock completely dissipated, and the wall light enchantments turned back on.
“What happened?” I asked, a little out of breath.
Harold sighed, “My scan of the wards activated the protections in this place, and the golems. It’s possible I did the same last night, but never knew it because we were outside. Now that this ward is compromised by my own magic, it recognizes us. After scanning you, it thinks you aren’t intruders anymore so cancelled the alarm. This ward has the same feeders charging it as the one at the main door, I still don’t know what’s connecting them yet.”
I frowned as what was nagging me finally jogged loose, “What if the golems are guards, not protection to keep us out? But prison guards.”
Lisa raised an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”
I shrugged, “At first I thought the ward down here turned the golems on to trap any intruders, but that makes little sense. Why let an enemy get so deep before attacking them? What if the ward is here to keep something else from leaving? I’m still hearing that unnatural song, the farther we go down in this place the louder it gets.”
Lisa replied after a moment, “I’m not scenting any other life down here, so if there is something it’s behind another door or two.”
Harold nodded, “We’ll be careful.”
I briefly considered knocking him out and dragging him back up and outside. We really needed better weapons if those golems turned on again, but I simply nodded.
We went out of the arched door, and onto a stairway that lead to a very large cavern. The ceiling was a hundred feet high, and the walls to the left and right were a good fifty feet each way, and it had to be three hundred feet long. It wasn’t irregular at all, it looked like it had been carve
d into a perfect rectangle. The doorway we exited was about halfway up the back wall.
The large room was empty with the exception of two of those golems, except these two stood thirty feet tall, and had extremely large war hammers with steel tips.
“If those get turned on, we run.”
Lisa chuckled, “Fair enough.”
There was an extremely large glyph formation on the floor, and I could feel magic radiating from it when we got close. There was also another door at the other end of the chamber, much like the one we came in through only three times as large. We approached it carefully, giving the large spell in the middle of the floor wide berth as we moved across the room.
I muttered, “There is nothing good behind that door, I can hear the songs more clearly now. It’s a mockery of life, whatever is behind the door is alive but completely unnatural.”
Harold studied the door for a moment, “This ward looks the same as the one on the outside, and the one at the open doorway. I imagine if I scan it, I’ll have to recast that same spell to modify it. Those very large golems might take exception to that.”
He turned and walked slowly toward the center of the room, and studied the glyphs on the ground. He shook his head, took out his cell phone and started snapping pictures.
Harold said, “I think I need to study these, and if we decide to come back for that last door, I’ll precast the spell to modify the ward, that should minimize any issues to a half a minute or less. I think this spell in the center of the room is the key to this place though, and I want to study that first.”
We headed for the entrance, taking the stairs up, and then the spiral walkway. I was pretty happy to get out of there. The front door opened as soon as we got close, the ward recognizing us now as being allowed. Stone golems weren’t nearly as fun as flesh and blood opponents…
Chapter 14
That afternoon we had a quick lunch, and then we returned to our rooms. My left arm seemed to be okay, and I wondered if it had been some kind of spell effect rather than any actual damage, because it’d been just a little under two hours and I was healed already.
After about an hour of studying the glyphs on his tablet, and comparing it to the glyphs and spells on the doorways, he made a few phone calls.
Harold said, “We need to meet with my counterpart down here for a debrief, and the government liaison over at Martin security enterprises. Carol Martin and Leo Davis.”
Lisa nodded, “Let’s go, did you find anything?” she asked as she held the door for us.
Harold grimaced, “Yes, you could say that, but I’ll explain when we get there.”
The security offices weren’t that far away from the hotel, a quick ten-minute car ride over and we pulled into a parking lot. Martin security enterprises was in a large one story building, I didn’t get to see much of it, we met in a conference room right off the entrance to the building. Leo and Carol were already in the conference room when we arrived.
Leo Davis, the local government liaison, was in his fifties, salt and pepper hair, in good shape, and had a no-nonsense air about him. His dark brown hair was cut very short, and I guessed by his bearing he was ex-military.
Carol Martin wasn’t impressed at all by my presence, and I limited myself to a nod in greeting as I took a seat at the other end of the table. Just like men, the response to what I was for women varied, from a mild cool disdain, to outright hostility. Carol seemed to fall toward the harsher end of the scale, so I decided I wouldn’t talk at all unless absolutely necessary. Besides, I was just the hired guard here anyway. Ask me how to kill something and I was your girl, three-thousand-year old magic was quite beyond me.
Leo on the other hand, was having a hard time not staring, which made it even worse as it obviously irritated Carol. I could tell both Lisa and Harold were a little amused by it, which annoyed me for some reason.
Carol ignored the two of us and looked directly at Harold as she asked, “So what did you find Harold?”
Harold remotely connected to their video and brought up the pictures of the spell in the center of the large chamber. He briefly went over what we’d done, and had run into below ground, before he introduced what he’d discovered. Unfortunately, he gave me credit for the idea that this was a jail of some kind.
“This is what is powering all three wards and the golems that we’ve found so far. It creates a magic field, that drains magic from nearby lifeforms, and routes it to the golems and wards through sympathetic magic. I believe we just broke into a jail, where both the guards and wards to keep them inside are powered by the very ones in that jail of sorts. I’m not sure how it’s possible, but between the fact the magic is still active, and the songs that Melody could hear, the inmates are still alive, perhaps not the original ones, but their ancestors? I couldn’t say for sure. Also, based on the spell in the floor, it looks like it’s only powering the golems and those three wards, so that last door is most likely their jail cell door.”
Carol frowned and sounded disappointed, “So no new breakthroughs.”
Harold shook his head, “No, we can do the same thing, we just choose not to.”
That made sense, I could imagine the lawsuits if the government started to steal peoples’ magic that either worked at a government building, or needed to visit it for the day, just to power the wards. Even if it was just a small drain from everyone.
Leo frowned, “So that’s it? What about the jail or whatever’s in it?”
Harold frowned, “We’ve compromised its security. Whatever is down there only has one door to get passed now. Any creature can now walk through the other two wards without repercussions. It should be guarded at the least in case the current inmates escape. It’s also possible I’ve created errors in the wards that will compound over time, actually setting them free at some point, whatever they are. My money is on the spider people.”
Leo raised an eyebrow.
Harold explained, “It’s the only other race in the pictographs on the walls of the antechamber that we didn’t recognize. If the guards are duergar golems, it stands to reason. Plus, as I said before, whatever is in there is unnatural life according to what Melody sensed, so it can’t be one of the known races.”
Leo nodded, “If there’s a threat we should remove it. Can you handle that last ward? I can have some strike teams down here tomorrow morning.”
Harold nodded slowly, “I can take down the security on the last ward easily with a little preparation beforehand. Then your guys will take over? I’m a researcher, not a battle mage. Things might happen rather quickly at that point.”
Leo smiled, “Not a problem, whatever is down there, it won’t get past my men. I’ll also make sure they bring enough small shaped charges to take out the golems if that becomes necessary.”
Wow, overconfident much? I didn’t like the heavy calibers, but I could handle them easily enough with my strength. I needed to use forty fives at least instead of nines, and bring the mace I had in the trunk, that would do more damage against a golem than my sword. Just in case.
Harold said, “Sounds good, send me a message for what time we should meet there when you know their arrival schedule. I need to do a little enchanting this afternoon, was there anything else?”
Carol shook her head, “No, thanks for coming down Harold.”
I stood up, and felt Leo’s gaze on my ass, and Carol’s gaze staring daggers at my back, as we left the conference room. Just as well I didn’t have to talk at all. At that moment I was pretty happy about working for Brent despite the secrets he had hidden from me. I couldn’t imagine having to deal with either of their attitudes from a boss.
Not that it was anyone’s fault, it was just who and what I was. I also wondered if their stronger reactions had anything to do with me being closer to the ocean, or if it was merely random chance. Somehow the idea of walking around the city and a lot of people to find out wasn’t an attractive one, so I’d live with the mystery.
When we got back to the hot
el, Harold booked the ritual room for an hour. The bigger chain hotels had highly warded ritual rooms with permanent carved generic circles that could be used by mages that travelled. Lisa and I stayed outside of the room after clearing it. Harold indicated it would take a little less than an hour to cast and bind his spell into an item, which would make the spell take a little under ten seconds to cast and between five and twenty seconds to take effect on the ward tomorrow morning.
There was no one else around, and Harold wouldn’t hear us talking at all while casting.
Lisa asked, “What do you think?”
I laughed, “I think we’re in deep shit.”
Lisa made a noise of agreement, “How’s your energy today, you know, since we didn’t…”
I shrugged, “Still good, I could probably go for days.”
She looked a little disappointed at that.
“Although, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to top off later, if we get a chance,” I teased, “Problem is we’re on the job.”
She nodded and winked, “You’re right, maybe we should make sure he’s very close by. You know, in case of danger,” she added with false gravity in her voice.
I laughed, it was a tempting thought, but…
“Aren’t there rules against fucking the client?”
Lisa frowned, “Yeah, but do you think he’d say no? You were right yesterday, it’s hard to think of him as a client, and not just another partner during this job.”
I shrugged, she was right, but it was kind of shady. The problem was it was too damned tempting as well. Outside of the fact he wasn’t enthralled, and we could make a real connection, I’d be harvesting energy from both him and Lisa at the same time.
Lisa added in mock dismay, “Your ruining my opinion of you.”
I raised an eyebrow, “The slut part?”
