“Dwarves,” Taras reported back. “They only become visible when we got close, and they are lingering on the lower levels, but there are a lot of them.”
“Define ‘a lot,’” Rys asked.
“Hundreds. Heavily armored. Most are carrying a mixture of hammers, axes, and pickaxes. There is a large contingent of crossbowmen. Some runic weapons.” Taras frowned.
“Anything else?” Rys asked. “Rune-knights? Bombardiers? Battlemages?”
“They carried banners, my lord,” Taras said, before describing what was on them.
Grigor and Rys looked at each other in grim surprise.
“Turranem,” Grigor uttered. “But this place does not resemble any chamber within that citadel that I know of.”
“I don’t think it’s supposed to,” Rys said. He bit his lip. “The Labyrinth distorts space and summons monsters. That’s been our belief so far. But we’ve been wrong.”
Fara looked between the two of them in confusion. “What is a ‘Turranem?’”
“The Turranem Mountains contains—contained, I guess—the largest dwarven citadel in northern Gauron,” Rys explained. “It took serious damage during the Cataclysm and its economy suffered. Furious with the Empire, the dwarves rebelled en masse and joined the angels.”
“I had only just enlisted,” Grigor said. “The war against the angels was entering its final stretches. I saw countless veterans fall when we cleansed the rebels from the depths of the mountains.”
“War against the angels? I thought this happened after the Cataclysm,” Fara asked.
“The Cataclysm ended with the destruction of the continent of Pandemonium,” Rys said. “But the war between the Infernal Empire and the angels continued for another century. Ariel and Malusian didn’t forgive the angels for attacking them. The angels said it was an attempt to stop the war from worsening, but nobody cared.”
“Many survivors from the Cataclysm met their end there. The recruiting age in Hell was drastically lowered.” Grigor crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling. “As terrible as it was, without it, I would never have met Rys. I am thankful for that.”
“Well, I rose to power for the same reason,” Rys said. “I was even the one who had to negotiate the final peace treaty, after we drove the angels back to their last fortress but couldn’t oust them.”
Ancient history. For Grigor, they were describing events long past. Even for Rys they had happened long ago. At the start of the war, he was given his first independent command, separate from Lacrissa. At the end of it, Malusian gave him a fortress and treated Rys as one of his trusted generals.
“As I said earlier, we’ve made the wrong assumption about the Labyrinth so far. It can create a lot more than bizarre monstrosities. These dwarves feel ripped from our memories,” Rys said.
“Rys, what is this place?” Fara asked.
He grimaced.
Orthrus had said that this room was part of the defense mechanism for the power conduit. That meant the seal was actively defending itself.
The most likely explanation was that the seal used its connection to Rys to summon the dwarves. There was no way that somebody set this chamber up in advance. What if somebody stumbled in here by accident?
Maybe not by accident, Rys admitted. The vault door made for good security. But any decently talented group of mystic foxes could penetrate this deep. A bunch of dwarves couldn’t stop them, given what he’d seen of Fara. Rys knew there was a village of foxes in the northern regions of Kavolara. That was a strong possibility.
“It’s the defense system for what I’m looking for,” he said after several long seconds of deliberation. “Grigor, you know how to handle this. I don’t think the dwarves will be too dangerous.”
Grigor nodded and barked out orders. The demons hurried into formation and began their descent.
“The Lilim will be necessary to heal any crossbow wounds, but this location favors us,” Grigor rumbled as they walked. “The walls are too far from each side for any crossbow to fire across. I suspect this place was intended to be defended by other means.”
How fortunate for Rys.
Horns sounded when they got deep enough. Their descent had been calm enough, with no ambushes.
Dense formations of steel-clad dwarves met the demons on the walkways. Runic weapons met as the demons crashed into the front of the enemy formation.
The demons scythed through the dwarves, but their injuries rapidly slowed them down. More and more dwarves thundered forth to meet them. While the equipment of the Turranem rebels had been excellent, they had been civilians.
Angry rebels provided numbers but little skill. Many of their hammer and axe blows missed the veteran demons, whose own weapons cleaved the dwarves apart on the return blow.
But as with the Labyrinth monsters, these dwarves knew no fear. Their eyes held no pupils and the only noises they made were guttural screeches of pain and fury. The demons hurled their corpses off the walkway. When they finally got close enough to the bottom, the corpse piles became visible.
The noble demons rotated the weaker demons out under Grigor’s watchful eye. The Lilim took wounded demons into side-rooms and gave them a quickie to bring them up to fighting strength. Then the demons threw themselves back into the fray.
Rys knew this came with a cost. Lilim healing magic favored longer sessions and the dwarves used runic weapons that countered regeneration. The rapid healing Gift used by the Lilim was closer to a burst of adrenaline and a bandage over the wound, rather than proper healing. Only once the battle was over could they take a break and let the Lilim truly bring the demons back up to fighting strength.
“This feels like one of the silliest battles I’ve been in,” Fara said. Her tails shifted, and she knocked a squad of dwarves off the edge using a sweep of force. “I can hear the Lilim behind me.”
“It’s working, isn’t it?” Rys grunted as he summoned a wall of flame to their side.
A volley of crossbow bolts disintegrated before reaching them. A hundred dwarves stood around the circular platform at the bottom, rapidly reloading their crossbows.
Rys considered himself fortunate that those weren’t repeater crossbows. His inferno vanished into prismatic light moments later.
They had finally gotten close enough to the bottom that the dwarves could reach them with their crossbows. That was both good and bad.
Bad, because every crossbow was loaded with a runic bolt. If a demon took a few of those, then he’d be down for the count. Maybe even banished.
But it was good because if the dwarves could reach them, they could reach the dwarves.
“Grigor, I’m heading down,” Rys said. “Fara, I’ll be relying on your force barriers to stop any more volleys.”
He plucked his axe from his belt and pumped energy into his body. Heat seared his veins as his muscles strengthened due to his infernal sorcery.
Rys leaped from the walkway. The crossbowmen didn’t react and instead continued reloading as he fell. Hellfire flickered around the edges of Rys’s axe, which glowed with an eerie black light.
Axe raised, Rys landed in the midst of their formation. He brought the axe down on the ground as the dwarves scattered. A great inferno of hellfire exploded around him, centered on the axe. Scorching, blood red flames turned dozens of dwarves into prismatic light. The screams stopped within moments.
Then the spell ceased, and Rys was surrounded by dozens of dwarves with loaded crossbows. They pointed them at him and fired as one.
Seriously? Had dwarves always been this stupid?
Rys leaped up into the air before the twang of the crossbows reached his ears. Screeches rose from the dwarf-like monsters summoned by the Labyrinth. After he landed, Rys began to cut through the surrounding dwarves. His Gift-enhanced axe carved them apart with ease.
Ripples of hellfire rose up among the remaining dwarves, and Rys looked up. The Ashen stood on the edge of the walkway, hurling balls of hellfire into the fray. Margrim wasn’t pr
esent, as he was on the surface while Grigor was busy down here, but the Ashen deftly avoided hitting Rys.
Within a few short minutes, the remaining dwarves were dealt with. Rys ordered the Lilim to take care of the injured while everybody else rested.
“There it is. Our objective,” Orthrus uttered.
An arched door stood at one end of the bottom story, recessed deeply into the wall. It hadn’t been built for humans, given it towered above even Grigor and could comfortably fit a dozen people through it at once. A huge golden rune gleamed on the front of the door, and more surrounded it on all sides. No handle was visible.
Beyond that door lay one of the power conduits. Rys prepared to take his first step to break the seals that kept him here.
Chapter 20
“So, how do we get this open?” Rys asked aloud.
He approached the door that blocked the way to the power conduit. It remained steadfastly closed, looming over him.
Fara followed closely behind him, her tails quivering as she scanned the door with magic. Both of them gasped at the same time.
The magic lurking within the door was unlike anything Rys had ever sensed. Even inside this monolithic Labyrinth, which exuded magic from every crevice in its walls, the door screamed its uniqueness into the magical and astral planes.
Rys looked closer at the runes on and around the door. The golden rune in the center of the door was in an unfamiliar language, and one different to those used elsewhere in the Labyrinth. Something about it bothered him.
The other languages were more familiar. Angelic, several infernal languages—there were five written languages for infernals, and each was present here—and even pictographs and strange scratchings from races lost to the Cataclysm. Each line said the same thing, but with some minor differences due to the peculiarities of each language.
“Somebody expected divine races to find this,” Rys said. “But not any of the mortal races. Not even dragons, apparently.”
“I can translate if you wish,” Orthrus said. “But I imagine you recognize the infernal writings.”
“‘Activate this sigil, they would seek power, and take but two others with you. No more,’” Rys read aloud. “These runes forge a contract on whoever walks through the door. Multiple contracts, given each set of runes is powered separately. I can’t imagine even trying to break these. Although a few appear defective.”
Orthrus made a noise. “I suspected you knew much, but you are more knowledgeable than I expected.”
Fara interrupted them, although Rys supposed she didn’t know that Orthrus was speaking, “That’s nice, but how do we activate the sigil? I’m guessing that’s the central rune. This thing is like a bulwark in the astral plane. Even if I had six tails and could teleport, I’d never be able to get through this.”
Foxes could teleport with six tails? Rys made a careful note of that knowledge.
He pressed his hand on the door. The golden rune shimmered with light, then split apart. Each half slid into a hidden recess within the wall, shaking dust free from the ceiling.
Beyond the door was another door, exactly like this one.
“It’s an airlock,” he said. “The inner door won’t open unless we meet the requirements.”
“Do you regularly press your hand on runes that you know nothing about?” Fara asked, her eyes wide. “That could have killed you.”
“The magic feels familiar,” Rys said. “And the rune was as well. There’s a ruin in central Gauron that predates the Emergence. I went spelunking there once. Whatever race built that ruin added this door.”
A long silence.
“Added?” Fara asked.
“Yes. The door’s magic and runes are different to everything else in the Labyrinth,” Rys said. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“‘A bad feeling?’” Fara repeated, incredulous. “A bad feeling is what I get before we get ambushed. This looks like a door that seals away an ancient evil. What are we even doing here?”
Unsealing that ancient evil, Rys thought.
But he didn’t know what Orthrus was.
“Grigor,” Rys called out. “Set up a defensive formation outside, then join us.”
Orthrus had vanished somewhere. That made Rys nervous.
“Be ready for anything when that door opens,” he said.
“Rys, I really don’t think—” Fara said.
“I won’t tell you to come with me, but there is nothing that will make me turn back,” Rys said, staring at the far door. “I’ve told you before to make decisions for yourself. That’s because I make decisions for myself.”
“Don’t throw that in my face now, you ass,” Fara muttered. “I’ll come with you. I just think this is way too dangerous. But you know what’s in there, don’t you?”
“I know what the reward is,” Rys said. “But not what’s protecting it.”
Grigor stepped inside. A moment later, the outer door slid shut. The entire corridor shook and dust poured onto them. Fara cursed, shaking dust from her ears and tails.
Finally, the inner door opened.
Inside, a gargantuan chamber revealed itself. The room was shaped like a dome, split into two levels. The upper level ran in a ring around the lower level. A significant gap separated the two levels, taller than Grigor. No stairs led down to the lower level, but there were railings.
Regularly spaced gaps in the railing indicated that there were planned entrances and exits to the lower level.
“Are we expected to fly up and down?” Fara asked, leaning over the edge. “Or is this room unfinished?”
“Maybe the race who built this room could fly,” Rys said. He pointed at an object in the center of the lower level. “That’s what I want.”
A thirty-foot tall black obelisk stood where he pointed. Runes covered its surface. They appeared to be the same language as the golden rune on the door, and similar runes covered the walls of the lower level. The obelisk was formed from the same dark stone as the power slates.
But getting to the obelisk wouldn’t be easy. A shimmering golden barrier cut it off from the outside world. Three obsidian pillars projected the barrier, while also holding the obelisk in place.
“I doubt I have seen many more obvious traps,” Grigor said. He grunted and hefted his axe. “Is there a way to capture our prize from here? The trap has not sprung yet.”
Fara shook her head. “That barrier is as strong as the one on the doors. If I couldn’t see anything inside of it, I’d say that it’s empty. I can’t imagine what ungodly power you’d need to break that barrier.”
“Enough power to break the seal itself,” Orthrus said, showing himself by floating up from the ground. “That is why we are destroying each power conduit one by one.”
That sounded ridiculous to Rys. If the barrier was unbreakable right now, how could he possibly destroy the conduit within it?
Orthrus continued, “Once you step into the lower level, the final defenses will activate. A powerful foe with magic intended to counter the three of you will be summoned. Defeating them should lower the barrier.”
“Why?” Rys asked, bewildered.
Fara and Grigor looked at him, but he waved them off.
“No barrier can be truly impenetrable,” Orthrus said, his voice as smooth as it could be, given how artificial and hollow it sounded. “The greatest mountain can be eroded away to nothing. Cliffs sink into the sea. No security system can be impervious, so the ones for the seals choose the most efficient methods to repel invaders.”
Somehow, the explanation sounded off. It made sense to Rys on one level, but not on another.
The strongest safe would eventually be cracked. No matter how talented the creators of the safe, they couldn’t anticipate what happened in the future or who would try to break it open. At some point, someone would find a way to break into it. Passive defenses, such as barriers, could never be perfect unless time itself stood still.
But the Labyrinth held power beyond comprehens
ion. This barrier wasn’t a wall of energy. It felt like a wall between time and space. Even the protective barriers of the angels had weaknesses that Rys knew how to exploit. Whoever constructed this barrier didn’t want it broken by force.
That meant that the defense mechanism for the seal formed its weakest point. That was deeply illogical.
For now, Rys didn’t look the gift horse in the mouth. But he knew that he would need to eventually.
“Let’s head down,” he said. “Whatever appears, its magic will try to counter us. That likely means astral power, assuming the Labyrinth can manage it. Otherwise, I’d expect something capable of powerful anti-magic that can interfere with Gifts.”
They dropped down to the lower level. Moments later, every rune on the walls lit up. Rys couldn’t see a barrier, but he felt one lock into place within the exterior walls of the dome. They were trapped within this chamber.
Three shadows formed beneath the pillars, despite the omnipresent soft lighting of the chamber. Those shadows wiggled, before creeping across the floor and slipping through the barrier around the obelisk. Rys felt them appear in his senses. It was as if the shadows had teleported into Harrium the moment they crossed the threshold of the barrier.
After a few moments, the shadows pooled together. Fara tentatively threw a ball of her blue fire at it, but it fizzled out on the floor.
The joint shadow rose from the ground and formed a male figure. Blue, hawk-like wings emerged from its back, formed from pure energy. The figure remained clothed in shadow but wielded a long staff.
“Is that… an angel?” Fara asked, her ears drooping.
“A mockery of one,” Rys said. “I can feel its power, but real angels look like humans, not beings formed of shadow.”
It looked different to the shadowbeasts that Darus had shown him, so he assumed they weren’t connected. But the potential connection was concerning.
The angel shot into the air, proving that its wings worked. Lances formed from golden light around it.
“Don’t block them,” Rys snapped.
Rys, Fara, and Grigor scattered. A moment later, the lances shot forth. They exploded against the ground, gouging out craters large enough to fit a coffin into.
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