by Dante King
“Enough with the interior decorating observations,” Tamsin said curtly. “What do we make of this?”
The hobgoblin’s yellow eyes were gazing across the empty chamber to the far end of the large room. I followed where she was looking.
There was a three-sided cage set into the rear end of the room, the fourth side of the enclosure being made up by the wall of the temple. Inside this cage, coiled around a stone dais, was the gargantuan skeleton of the kind of serpent that would have made the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets look like a worm out of the bottom of a bottle of tequila.
“Kakra was right,” Hana said as we approached the cage, “whatever live thing had been guarding the Fateseeker’s Cavern clearly perished here long ago.”
“Thank the fucking gods,” said Tamsin.
“Was it a basilisk?” I asked, not being able to shake the picture of Harry Potter out of my head.
“A basilisk, or a dracaenae, I think,” Renji said. She had her face pressed through the bars of the cage, all the better to examine the skeletal remains.
“What’s a dracaenae?” I asked.
“They are an ancient race of beings, born with the torsos of attractive women, and the lower bodies of legged serpents,” Renji said. “They were a very private and very proud race, from what little I know of them. Many people used to believe that the lower halves of their bodies were actually dragons. Of course, that’s preposterous. I’m sure Penelope would be able to tell you more.”
The mention of the Knowledge Sprite’s name made me recall that even now she would be back at the Grand Library in the Drako Academy most likely, pouring through the tomes, dusty volumes, and grimoires for the knowledge that we sought.
“If they had the upper bodies of beautiful women,” Hana said, “wouldn’t one simply be able to reason with them. What good would they be as guards for treasure?”
“As I said, they were very proud,” Renji said in her deep voice. “Once they were tasked with a duty, they took it very seriously and were apparently extremely formidable. They were more beast than human when it came to combat, ripping and rending and eating human flesh when the red mist descended on them.”
I looked down at the skeleton that lay coiled about the dais.
“Still,” I said softly, “it’s a pretty shitty way to die. All alone, down here, in a cage.”
All of us considered that until Tamsin cleared her throat and said, “We’re still posed with the question; how the hell do we open this cage door so that we can get to that.”
The hobgoblin was pointing up at the top of the dais, where a small and quite unremarkable pendant was hanging. The pendant itself might have been unremarkable, a simple black stone set in at the end of a silver chain, but the fact that it was dangling in midair was not.
Looking closer, I could just discern a strange quivering forcefield surrounding the thing. If I moved my head one way and then the other, the shape of the pendant changed slightly, distorting as if it was behind the thinnest glass imaginable.
I craned my head around, looking for some clue as to what we were supposed to do now. Kakra had mentioned a puzzle or riddle, but I couldn’t see anything carved anywhere.
“Do you think it could be something as simple as a password?” Hana ventured.
“What’s the Elvish word for friend?” I asked drily before I could stop myself.
Hana cocked one of her angular eyebrows at me, in a way that made my cock give a little moan of yearning. With her new haircut—long on top and shaved at the sides—she looked every inch the Viking heroine. Capable of knocking you flat on your back with her martial prowess before knocking your socks off with her skills in the bedroom.
“The Elvish word for friend? It’s ‘al’mel’,” she said.
To my private disappointment, nothing happened.
I reached out and grasped the bars of the cage with both hands and thought, Come on, just give us a chance to open you. Don’t stop us here. We need this. The slaves need this.
“Whoa!” Tamsin exclaimed, looking up.
Will darted like a surprised terrier behind Renji’s legs.
I took a couple of steps away from the floor to ceiling bars to see what Tamsin was looking at and noticed that the bars at the very top of the chamber, illuminated by some careful spotlighting were twisting into words.
“It is a riddle,” said Renji happily.
The four of us gazed up with our mouths open as the solid metal bars twisted and turned like snakes, moving as fluidly as if they were coming out of some giant’s quill.
Walk on the living, they don't even mumble. But walk on the dead, they mutter and grumble. What are they?
No one spoke. Each one of us was absorbed in the task of solving the thing, of making sure that whatever the answer was it was right.
I looked around for inspiration. I had always loved riddles, always thought them a fantastic way to guard something that you wanted to make sure that only the worthy would be able to access.
But, truth be told, I had never really had the patience required to be supremely good at them. In my life back in Los Angeles, it had usually been my modus operandi to go through a problem rather than think my way around it. Some might argue that the ability to figure out a riddle was important, as it surely pointed to a rational mind working in hunky-dory order.
My response to that would be: where the fuck is the fun in being hunky-dory and rational?
Another thing that hampered me in my riddle solving attempts was the way I would regularly be derailed by other thoughts; as had happened then. By the time that I got my mind back on the track, Renji had cleared her throat and said quietly, “Leaves.”
“You want us to leave?” Tasmin said.
“No,” Renji replied in a louder voice, “the answer, it is leaves.”
“Walk on the dead and they mutter and grumble…” I said to myself. “Shit, that’s what happens when you live here too long, huh? I was thinking it might be zombies or something.”
Tamsin laughed.
“How do we know if Renji is right?” Hana asked.
“Because that happens, I guess,” I said, pointing up at the words.
The riddle that had been crafted from the metal bars was melting, running back into itself so that the side of the cage that I had been touching lowered, from the roof by about half.
“Ah, so that’s how things go, huh?” I said. “We answer the next one, and the cage melts the rest of the way and then we’re through.”
“Why don’t we just jump it now?” Tamsin asked. “We have the strength and the agility where other mortals wouldn’t.”
She was right, we could make the jump, even though it was still a good twenty feet.
I shook my head, looking about at the sagging stone roof and the crooked columns that held it up like so many broken fingers.
“Nah, I think we should play this one by the book,” I said. “There’s no point risking bringing this place down around our ears. Besides, three is the magic number, isn't it? I bet even if we can scale the cage, we would still not be able to get the pendant out from behind that miniature thaumaturgical forcefield.”
I didn’t make any mention of Indiana Jones, collapsing tunnels, rolling boulders, or magical circular saws concealed in tunnels. They wouldn’t have got it anyway, and I didn’t feel like jinxing anything.
“I am inclined to agree, Mike,” said Renji.
“In that case, let’s just screw our thinking caps onto our heads and try to nut whatever riddles come next, yeah?” I said.
“Speaking of which,” Hana said, pointing upward.
The bars of the melted cage were reforming and twisting into fresh words.
There are four siblings in this world, all born together. The first runs and never wearies. The second eats and is never full. The third drinks and is always thirsty. The fourth sings a song forever.
Once more, the four of us lapsed into silence.
Will, though I bet the clever l
ittle bastard knew the answer in about a tenth of the time that we did but could not convey it due to being hampered by a lack of vocal equipment, contented himself with cruising around the chamber.
I watched the wisp as I mulled the words over.
Four siblings… all born together. Runs but never wearies. Eats and is never full.
The wisp bobbed over into a far corner. By his own radiance, I could see that there was a large crack—almost a fissure—running up the wall there. Even as I watched, Will halted and cocked his whole phantasmic body to one side.
Drinks and is always thirsty. The fourth sings a song forever...
The wisp quivered slightly. Then, slowly, he began to back away from the crack in the wall. Gradually, the corner fell back into impenetrable shadow.
“I’ve got it!” someone said and, to my surprise, I found that the words had issued out of my mouth.
“You’ve got it?” Renji said.
“Don’t sound so surprised, Renji,” I laughed. “You might not be quite so shocked if you knew the amount of time I’ve spent sitting in bus stations back on Earth, with nothing but crappy puzzle magazines to pass the time with.”
“So, you figured out that it was the—” the djinn began.
“—four elements?” I finished. “Yeah. Water, fire, earth, and wind.”
“You’re sure your dragons didn’t help you, Mike?” Tamsin teased. “Seven heads are better than one they say.”
I laughed as the metallic words of the riddle once more collapsed in one themselves like a molten alloy of steel and magic. “In spite of much Earthling belief to the contrary,” I said, “I don’t think dragons go in for riddles much.”
“Correct,” came Noctis’ bored voice from the recesses of my head. “The infantile preoccupation with these strange questions that humanoids have is one that I have never been able to get my mind around.”
“I bet it’s so mancers like me have a harder time breaking into treasure chambers like this one, instead of just being able to tap into the almost bottomless well of knowledge that you possess,” I said.
Noctis didn’t bother to answer, and I grinned.
The cage wall melted into the ground. It pooled and solidified in a few moments. When we stepped gingerly onto it, it was like walking on a sheet of smooth metal. The only hint that the melted cage was in some way magical was the slight warmth that I could feel through the soles of my boots.
Without delay or ceremony, Hana and Tamsin easily ripped away the heavy bones that would have taken a couple of burly dudes to lift. Then, we were standing in front of the dais, looking up at the pendant behind its little bubble of protective magic.
“Anyone want to make a swipe for it?” I asked with mock innocence.
“Oh sure,” Tamsin replied, “so long as you put yourself forward to unscrew my jars and do anything else requiring two hands when that thaumaturgical field burns my hand off.”
I pulled a face. “I’m terrible with jars.”
As one, the four of us climbed the steps of dais until we were standing before the pendant. Had I been hasty and dumb enough, I could have reached out and tried to take the floating necklace.
Behind us, Will bobbed at the bottom of the stone steps. I couldn’t be sure, of course, but I reckoned his gaze was fixed on the corner where we had both seen that big crack.
“Give us the last riddle, please.” I was speaking to the chamber at large, to myself even, but words suddenly blossomed across the surface of the forcefield.
It was the final riddle.
You can swallow me, but I can consume you too. What am I?
I was surprised, so surprised that I blinked for a second or two, waiting for more. Nothing else appeared on the surface of the occult shield, though.
I looked at the other three mancers and together we said, “Pride.”
The thaumaturgical force field popped, with a noise like someone running their finger around the edge of an enormous wine glass.
“That’s it?” Hana said softly.
“Looks like it,” I said. “Bearing in mind that we might have had to deal with a dracaenae, had things gone as the designers of this place had anticipated and the temple not sunk into the desert.”
“Quite true, quite true,” said Hana.
Not wanting any of the others to take a risk that I myself wasn’t prepared to take, I reached out before any of them could and grasped the floating pendant. A gentle, lightning quick shudder trembled through the floor under our feet and then…
Nothing.
The black crystal was cold in my hand, the silver chain dangling from my fist.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “I guess that means we can get the fuck out of here now, do you think?”
“Is it just me,” Tamsin said, “or did that feel a little… anticlimactic?”
My palm seared white hot. No, that was wrong, it was burning with cold. Actually, that might have been an incorrect observation too. The pendant might actually have been vibrating in my palm at such a pitch that it felt like it was on fire. I tried to let go of the necklace, but found my fingers frozen around it.
“Do not fight it, Mike,” Noctis said quickly.
“What are you talking about, Noctis?” Wayne said heatedly, but the younger dragon’s protestations were quelled by a telepathic snarl that would have had Fenrir, the Norse monster, scampering under the nearest table like a scolded puppy.
“Do not fight it, Mike,” the Onyx Dragon repeated. “I would do nothing to allow harm to befall you. This might very well help us.”
I surrendered to the pain and gritted my teeth. Dimly, through a weird buzzing in my ears, I could hear my three female companions asking me if I was okay and what was going on.
I let out a great breath that I had not realized I had been holding as the pain suddenly dissipated.
“Where is - where is the necklace?” I panted. It was no longer in my hand. I looked down to see if I had dropped it.
“You have taken the power of the pendant, whatever magic it might have contained, into your body, Mike,” Noctis said from inside my head.
Kakra’s words came back to me, then.
‘A relic of delectable power and unique properties lies guarded…’
“Great balls of dragonfire, dad,” Garth said inside my mind.
“What?” I asked, smiling to let Hana, Tamsin, and Renji know that I was all right.
“Noctis was right, Father,” Pan said. “That charm or pendant or whatever you just grabbed has done something to your crystal slots…”
I relayed this information to the three mancers standing in front of me.
“What exactly has it done?” I asked, out loud this time so that the girls and the dragons could hear my question.
“It looks like this one will allow you to use multiple dragons in a single slot,” Cyan said slowly.
“You mean, I could transfer all six of your mana reserves into, say, the Right Arm Slot?” I asked.
Renji’s eyes bulged at this. Hana and Tamsin exchanged stunned glances.
“That’s right, Dad,” Brenna said.
“Shit,” I said softly, “that’s… that’s…”
But what exactly that was had to wait, for at that moment, Will went off like a fucking supernova.
“That’s his version of a warning cry!” I said, blinking the sunspots out of my eyes.
The four of us staggered down the steps and smashed through the dracaenae skeleton like it was made from polystyrene and not heavy bone. Just as we cleared the cage, there was a tremendous, resounding ba-boom and dust exploded out of the far corner of the chamber.
“Fuck me, but Isengard is emptied,” I muttered to myself.
The four of us stood in a loose diamond formation with me at the front, Hana to my left, Renji to my right, and Tamsin behind. Will, prudently in my opinion, was in the middle of our quartet.
A huge battalion, some three-hundred strong, of goblins, trolls, imps, and dark elves burst into the Fa
teseeker’s Cavern.
Whether they had been lying in wait inside a tunnel behind that crack, biding their time while we solved the riddles, I don’t know. It seemed likely. I should have been paying more attention to my instincts when I’d seen Will back away from the crack. Clearly, the hideous bunch of shadow bastards had now appeared so that they could get their hands on the pendant.
That was too bad, of course, now that the pendant was gone.
Unfortunately, I got the impression that we were unlikely to be given the chance to explain that I had inadvertently soaked the solid piece of wizarding bling into my hand before the horde cut us to shreds.
And cutting us into sashimi certainly appeared to be what the murderous, slavering bunch of Shadow Nation minions looked to have in mind. They were armed well and truly to the teeth—to the molars, I imagined.
The mad little eyes of the goblins were rolling with battle-lust in their disgusting, pinched, unintelligent faces. I’d had experience with them with Elenari, on the very first day I had set foot into this world. They were not a particularly strong race, but even rats will be able to overrun and eat an Alsatian if there are enough of the fuckers.
The trolls looked like poorly carved statues, huge and square and craggy. They were holding clubs and mauls in their three-fingered hands, their yellow eyes fixed on the four of us as they bellowed and stamped their guttural war cries.
Imps whizzed about the place, armed with tiny crossbows. They nattered indecipherably to one another, mana sparking off their forked tails like loose electrical cables.
Compared to the other three races, the dark elves were all cool composure. They made up the flanks of the battalion and had the look of enforcers. I had an idea that they had been sent to make sure that the trolls, imps, and goblins didn’t screw the pooch in the numerous ways that they could have done.
“All this for little old us?” I growled, my face going cold, my mind entering that killing place, the place I shared with the six dragons who inhabited my head.
