Mask of Spells (Mask of the Demonsouled #3)

by Jonathan Moeller

  “While I may not possess the wisdom of an ancient dragon,” said Sigaldra, “I like to think I have at least sufficient wisdom not to eat a glowing mushroom.”

  “You would be surprised,” said Azurvaltoria. “There are many streams and pools. Most of them are tainted with various poisons, and it is best not to drink of them. The tunnels near Tchroth are controlled and patrolled by the valgasts, but sometimes predators from the deeper caverns make their way the area, and the soliphages freely build webs here. The valgasts revere the soliphages as messengers of Marazadra so we may encounter them.”

  “It sounds,” said Adalar, “like a delightful place.”

  “It isn’t,” said Romaria.

  “What shall we do for light?” said Sigaldra. The thought of groping through the dark caverns was not an appealing one. “I doubt there are enough of these glowing mushrooms to provide enough light.”

  “There are not,” said Azurvaltoria, “but fortunately, Lord Mazael was wise enough to seek my aid.”

  Sigaldra scoffed. “By rescuing you from the valgasts, you mean.”

  “I prefer to put the best construction on things, barbarian child,” said Azurvaltoria. She lifted her left hand, palm up, and made a sort of fluttering gesture with her right hand as she did. Three spheres of fiery light shimmered into existence above her head, orbiting her in a slow, lazy circle. “This should provide sufficient light for our needs.”

  “Good,” said Mazael. “Let’s go. I will take the lead, along with Azurvaltoria and Romaria. Sigaldra and Adalar, take the back.”

  Sigaldra took a deep breath, steeling herself, and drew her bow from over her shoulder, checking the quiver of arrows at her belt. She did not want to descend into the dark cavern, where every shadow and every whisper of sound would remind her of the darkness of the soliphage’s cave.

  She looked at Adalar, and he gave her a faint smile.

  At least she would not be alone.

  Sigaldra followed the others into the cavern.

  ###

  Mazael had spent more time underground than he would have liked.

  There had been the San-keth temple below Castle Cravenlock, now sealed. There had been the San-keth temple below Morsen Village and the other temples of the serpent priests that he had destroyed throughout the Grim Marches. He had also traveled through the maze of the Trysting Ways of Knightcastle and the dark, haunted halls of Arylkrad in the Great Mountains, to say nothing of the fiery caverns of the Veiled Mountain.

  So he had been underground before, and he had expected the caverns of the underworld to be far more cramped than they were.

  As it was, they were almost spacious. Mazael and the others walked through a cavern as wide as the nave of a good-sized church. The air was damp and cold, and the walls glistened with moisture. Stalagmites jutted from the floor like miniature towers, and stalactites hung from the ceiling like glistening stone fangs. As Azurvaltoria promised, there were mushrooms everywhere, growing in clumps along the base of the walls and clustered around the feet of the stalactites. Some of the mushrooms were white as a bloodless corpse, while others were a leprous gray, and some emitted a ghostly green glow that reminded Mazael of the symbols of fire that had burned upon the heads of Lucan Mandragon’s runedead.

  Despite Azurvaltoria’s warning, he felt absolutely no temptation to eat them.

  They saw other strange things. Some of the caverns held clear pools, eyeless fish darting back and forth through the waters. Several times Mazael saw the thick webs of soliphages stretched between stalagmites, and once they saw a soliphage loom out of the darkness. Romaria had put an arrow into the creature’s chest before Mazael realized that it was dead, that it had been dead for some time, its carapace suspended in the web.

  Mazael also saw evidence that countless valgasts had passed through this cavern at various times. Once he saw the broken hilt of a bone sword of the sort the valgasts favored. Several times he saw withered valgast husks wrapped in the webs, their fanged mouths open forever in silent screams. Sigaldra flinched at the sight, her stark face growing even paler, and she strayed closer to Adalar when they came across a valgast suspended in a web.

  Despite the bones and the webs, they had gone nearly six miles before they came across another living creature.

  “Wait a moment,” said Romaria, holding up a hand to call a halt. Mazael and the others stopped.

  They stood in a large, wide cavern, the floor dotted with stalagmites and small pools, Azurvaltoria’s magical lights throwing harsh shadows against the rough stone walls.

  “What is it?” said Mazael.

  “I can smell it,” said Romaria.

  “I can’t smell anything,” said Mazael, though he knew that meant nothing. His wife had far more potent senses than anyone else in their group, save perhaps Azurvaltoria. Mazael smelled wet rock and minerals, but nothing alarming.

  “I smell motaylakars,” said Romaria.

  Mazael glanced towards the ceiling, half-expecting to see a dozen of the creatures hanging suspended from the ceiling, but he saw only the rounded ends of stalactites.

  “Wait here,” said Romaria, and her body blurred and changed, taking the shape of the great black wolf. Mazael half-expected her claws to make tapping noises against the stone floor, but he should have known better. She glided forward in silence and vanished into the gloom.

  “A useful trick,” said Azurvaltoria.

  Mazael shrugged. “She puts it to good use.”

  “I have seen it a dozen times but I am still not used to it,” said Sigaldra. “I am glad she is on our side.”

  “As it happens, so am I,” said Mazael.

  Azurvaltoria smiled. “Did you think you would wed a half-Elderborn woman, Mazael Cravenlock?”

  Mazael snorted. “When I was Adalar’s age, I gave no thought to a wife at all. I had not yet even entered Lord Malden’s service. I traveled from the court of petty lord to petty lord, fighting wherever I could…”

  “And seducing their daughters whenever you could?” said Azurvaltoria.

  “Something like that, yes,” said Mazael. It wasn’t something he wanted to discuss with the dragon, or with Sigaldra and Adalar. Briefly, he thought of Elizabeth of Barellion and Lydia of the Skulls and Trocend’s apprentice Atalia and the other women he had been with before he had met Romaria. He had not been a good man in his younger days, but he could have been worse…and the Old Demon could have made him far worse.

  He put the matter from his mind. Brooding upon the past was an excellent way to get killed in the present.

  A shadow moved, and Romaria came back into sight, wearing her human form once more.

  “We have a problem,” said Romaria.

  “Motaylakars?” said Mazael.

  “And quite a few of them,” said Romaria. “I’ll show you, but keep quiet. I think they’re sleeping, and I don’t want to wake them up.”

  She led the way across the cavern. At the far end waited a narrow, twisting tunnel, a warm breeze blowing from it. The air carried an unpleasant smell, one that Mazael did not recognize, but reminded him of something else.

  It reminded him a great deal of the odor of moth-eaten clothes.

  The tunnel twisted and turned and opened into a vast cavern the size of a cathedral. At first, Mazael thought that the cavern had been filled with snow. A layer of splotchy grayish-white material covered the stone floor and clung to the walls and the sides of the stalagmites. It was too warm for snow, and he realized that he was looking at some kind of peculiar whitish moss. He had never seen anything like it before.

  The moss, however, was only a background curiosity.

  Nearly thirty motaylakars clung to the walls, motionless in the white moss. Their limbs gripped the walls, their wings folded against their bodies, the white-and-black skull patterns still visible.

  At the far end of the cavern opened another archway, and through it Mazael saw a faint purple glow.

  He beckoned to the others, and they withdrew t
hrough the tunnel and back to the previous cavern.

  “There were at least thirty of the creatures in that cave,” said Sigaldra. “How are we going to get past them?”

  Mazael looked at Azurvaltoria. “Is there another way to Tchroth from here? A way around that cavern?”

  “No,” said Azurvaltoria. “We would have to return to the surface and back to the valley where you rescued me. By then the Prophetess may well have left Tchroth for the Heart of the Spider.” She looked disgruntled. “To flee before a mere thirty motaylakars is galling. In my true form, a single blast of my breath would have turned their wings to ashes, and their power of mesmerism would have no effect upon the mighty mind of a dragon.”

  “We all have limitations,” said Mazael. A thought occurred to him. “Is that moss flammable?”

  “Extremely,” said Azurvaltoria. “I would not recommend setting it afire, though. It burns quickly, and would probably cause a firestorm within the cavern. That purple glow from the far archway? It comes from the lights of Tchroth itself. If we burn the cavern, it would be rather noticeable to the valgasts.”

  Mazael scowled. The only way to the Heart of the Spider was through Tchroth. They were not far behind the Prophetess, but if they had to return to the surface and double back, she might gain an insurmountable lead.

  “The motaylakars,” said Romaria. “What do they eat?”

  “People, mostly,” said Azurvaltoria. “Valgasts. Anything they can mesmerize and catch.”

  “But they can’t always catch people or valgasts,” said Romaria. “What do they eat in the meantime?”

  Azurvaltoria shrugged. “Almost anything they can. Carrion. Mushrooms. Insects…”

  “Insects,” said Romaria, “like the ones living in the moss?”

  Azurvaltoria blinked, and then nodded, a slow smile spreading on her face. “Precisely.”

  “How do you know there are insects in the moss?” said Mazael.

  “Because,” said Romaria, “the last time I was in the underworld, I saw the stuff. It’s full of these insects like that look like shiny green beetles.”

  “Aye,” said Azurvaltoria, intrigued. “The motaylakars do eat the beetles.”

  “How good is their eyesight?” said Romaria. “Can they see well?”

  “Not at all,” said Azurvaltoria. “They can see with reasonable clarity on the surface, but in the gloom of the underworld, their eyes are much less effective. It hardly matters since they rely primarily upon their antennae while in the underworld. Their antennae serve as both nose and ears, and their sense of smell is at least as acute as yours.”

  “The beetles smell bad, don’t they?” said Mazael.

  “To us, yes,” said Romaria. “If the motaylakars eat them, I imagine they enjoy the smell.”

  “Then we want Azurvaltoria to extinguish her light,” said Mazael. “We’ll startle a bunch of the insects and set them to flying towards the motaylakars. While they’re busy eating, we’ll cross the cavern and reach Tchroth.”

  Romaria shrugged. “I can’t think of anything better.”

  “No,” said Azurvaltoria. “It’s clever. It might even work.”

  ###

  They reached the end of the tunnel, and Azurvaltoria extinguished her magical lights.

  Gloom surrounded them, and Adalar felt his fingers tighten against the talchweisyr’s hilt. For a moment he thought he stood in absolute darkness, but after a moment he could still see the purple glow at the far end of the motaylakars’ cavern, could see the light reflecting off the pale moss and the glistening stone walls

  He could also see the light glinting on the black carapaces of the moth-creatures.

  “Wait a moment,” breathed Azurvaltoria. “Let your eyes adjust to the light. We shall have to be swift.”

  Adalar waited, making sure to breathe in deep, slow breaths. It helped with the tension before a battle, and this was no different. They might have to fight for their lives in the next cavern. Sigaldra stood next to him in the darkness, so close he felt the heat of her, that he heard the rasp of her breath.

  Suddenly the fingers of her right hand seized his left hand. Her hand was warm and narrow, the fingers callused from archery and the hard work of the last holdmistress of the Jutai. For a moment he was too startle to react, and then he squeezed her hand. She squeezed back, and he felt a little less tense.

  He hoped that she did, too.

  They waited in the darkness, gripping each other’s hands, and bit by bit Adalar started to make out more details of the next cavern. Either the purple glow from Tchroth had gotten brighter, or his eyes had adjusted.

  “Now,” whispered Azurvaltoria. “Take great care. Have your weapons ready.”

  Adalar released Sigaldra’s hand, taking his talchweisyr’s hilt. He heard the faint rasp as she drew her own short sword.

  “Go,” said Mazael, and they stepped into the cavern.

  Adalar’s nerves screamed with tension, but the motaylakars upon the walls remained motionless. Romaria reached over her shoulder and drew her heavy bastard sword. Adalar had always thought that was an odd weapon for a woman to use, but Romaria was taller than most women, and likely her Elderborn blood made her stronger as well.

  She raised the sword over her head, and the others followed suit, lifting their weapons. Romaria glanced at the walls, at the ceiling, and then nodded to herself.

  “Now,” she whispered.

  She brought the flat of her sword down against the moss. It made a loud whacking noise, as if she had struck an inflated leather bladder. Adalar and the others followed suit, striking their weapons against the moss.

  And as they did, hundreds of the green beetles boiled forth and took to the air.

  They were large insects, each as large as Adalar’s thumb, and they gave off an unpleasant odor halfway between rotting flesh and horse urine. The scent of it made him want to gag, but it was a good sign. If the smell filled his nostrils, how much more would it draw the attention of the motaylakars?

  He struck the flat of his sword against the moss, again and again, sending floods of the beetles into the air. It reminded him of watching a peasant woman using a rug beater to clean the dust from a carpet. Adalar risked a glance towards the walls, but so far the motaylakars had remained motionless…

  Then they erupted into motion.

  The creatures leaped from the walls, and Adalar raised his sword in reflex, but the motaylakars ignored him and the others. Instead, they fluttered back and forth through the cavern, and Adalar realized they were plucking the beetles out of the air and eating them. Perhaps the motaylakars considered the beetles to be a delicacy.

  “Go!” hissed Romaria, and they started across the cavern, striking the moss as they jogged forward. Overhead Adalar heard the endless flapping of wings as the motaylakars swooped back and forth, accompanied by the higher-pitched drone of the beetles’ flight. His neck crawled as he expected the motaylakars to descend, but the moth-creatures remained airborne.

  The ruse had worked. The stench of the beetles had overwhelmed the motaylakars’ sense of smell, masking the presence of Adalar and the others.

  A moment later they reached the archway at the other end of the cavern, the purple glow filling Adalar’s eyes.

  “There,” said Azurvaltoria a few moments later. “We ought to be safe now.” She considered for a moment. “In the relative sense of the term, of course.”

  “That was clever,” said Mazael.

  In the purple-lit gloom, Adalar saw the white flash of Romaria’s smile. “Thank you, husband. I had no great desire to be eaten by a giant moth, so I am pleased that it worked.”

  “You can likely summon your lights again,” said Mazael.

  “No need, Lord of Castle Cravenlock,” said Azurvaltoria. “We are close enough to the lights of Tchroth that we shall have no trouble seeing.”

  Adalar’s elation at escaping the motaylakar-infested cavern settled into grim wariness.

  They would have no trouble
seeing the lights of Tchroth…but neither would the valgasts have any trouble seeing them.

  Chapter 8: Let The Buyer Beware

  Mazael led the way down the sloping tunnel, the purple light growing brighter, the cavern becoming wider. A hot breeze blew up the tunnel, and ahead he heard a faint murmuring sound. At first, he thought the noise came from hundreds of voices speaking at once, but then he realized it was the sound of a lake, the murmur of waters splashing against stone.

  The tunnel took one last turn and opened into a cavern of colossal size.

  “Behold,” said Azurvaltoria. “Tchroth.”

  Mazael looked around, impressed despite himself.

  He had never seen a city like Tchroth before, had never even dreamed that such a place existed.

  The cavern containing the city was huge, as easily as large as one of the mountains, so large that Mazael was astonished that the chamber had not collapsed beneath the weight of its own vast ceiling. A huge lake, perhaps a mile across, filled the cavern, its waters rippling as they reflected the city’s purple glow.

  Tchroth filled perhaps half of the lake.

  A half dozen enormous stalagmites, each the size of a hill, rose from the waters, and a half dozen corresponding stalactites hung from the ceilings. Within each of the rock formations, Mazael saw hundreds of glowing windows, and he realized that the valgasts had built vast tunnels within the stalagmites and the stalactites. Between the different stalagmites and stalactites stretched a bewildering maze of hundreds of bridges, some built from stone, others seemingly grown from the peculiar bone-like substance the valgasts used for their armor and weapons.

  In the midst of the city stood a large, rocky island. A huge statue of an obsidian spider crouched there, as large as a castle, and Mazael realized that it was, in fact, a building. A tower of the same obsidian-like stone rose behind the spider, stretching until it reached the ceiling far above.