by Dante King
We walked through the cavern and found a thin fissure concealed in an opposite wall.
“Through here,” Odette said without hesitation.
It was a bit of a squeeze, especially for me being the broadest of shoulder out of our little fellowship, but we got through and found ourselves at the bottom of a spiral staircase that corkscrewed up into the mountain.
“Stairway to heaven?” I asked Odette, momentarily forgetting that she wouldn’t get the reference.
“Who can say in this place?” the dragonkin replied. “After what we found in the last cavern, I have given up trying to fathom what Mallory Entwistle ‘as in store for us. It is clear that she ‘as taken on a fundamental change in ‘ow she acts as Holy Mage.”
We began to ascend the spiraling staircase. The stairs were annoyingly spaced, shallow and long. I could tell within about fifty steps that this little climb would stress the old calf and thigh muscles to their max.
“These trials and tribulations that we’re being put through,” I said as we climbed, “is this standard for all hopeful devotees of the Priestess?”
“It’s ‘ard for me to say with any certainty,” Odette said. “I ‘ave an inkling though, that these trials are specifically designed for us.”
“She knows that we’re here?” I asked.
“Oh yes, you can bet that lovely derriere of yours on that,” Madame Xel said, treading with cat-like lightness up the stairs behind me. “She is well aware of our presence.”
“Something tells me that she is ‘oping we will make it through the final task so that we can stand before her,” Odette said.
When we finally reached the top of the spiral staircase, my lungs were burning, my legs crying out for a break. I was glad that, due to the nature of a spiral staircase, we couldn’t see behind us. I wasn’t in the mood to peer over my shoulder and discover that we had somehow only gone ten steps, or maybe ended up back where we started, or something wacky like that.
All I wanted was to get this trial over with and face the Priestess, who was so casually warping and destroying the minds of the hopefuls deemed unworthy to follow her.
I thought back to the guy who had taken the one-way ticket and plummeted from the mountaintop. When he had spread himself untidily over the snow covered rocks, I had thought him unlucky. Now that I had seen what his fate might have been though, I wasn’t so sure.
We emerged into harsh, clear daylight. A frigid wind woke me up like an espresso. With the potion still coursing through me, I felt more alert and alive than I had since we had come here in the Celestial Elevator.
And the place where we had first arrived was most definitely far below us now. We’d climbed a lot of steps, but nowhere near enough to bring us to the very pinnacle of Entwistle’s mountain.
We were standing on an icy plateau walled on three sides by jagged, snow-capped rocks. On the opposite side, dead ahead and connected by an icy bridge, was the tower of ivory or horn that we had seen from the bottom of the mountain.
I found the lyrics of Led Zeppelin’s masterpiece come to my mind. I hummed the tune of Stairway to Heaven, and before I knew it, I was singing a verse as my voice carried on the wind.
Everyone listened to me, and I couldn’t help but grin after I’d finished.
“Shit,” I said. “I forgot how much I’ve missed rock music since I’ve been in this world.”
“What was that song?” Alura asked me.
“Only one of the greatest rock ballads of all time,” I replied, reaching out and squeezing her hand encouragingly, my own eyes narrowed against the cutting wind.
“A ballad,” Alura said, nodding thoughtfully. “Yes, I can see that. What does it mean?”
“No one really knows,” I said. “Everyone has their own interpretation of it, you know. That verse just came to me now—after climbing that freakin’ staircase and ending up here. I hope it means that this Entwistle will be less tough than Odette and Madame Xel thinks.”
“We can hope,” Alura said, her tone not giving me confidence.
I shrugged and stretched my neck. “Let’s head off,” I said to the others. “We’ve a final trial to undergo, then a priestess to whack.”
I walked out to the icy bridge, toward the tower, leading the way now. My staff was in my hand, pulsating with expectant energy at the inevitability of the coming fray. I could feel a smile tugging at my lips, like a flag in the wind, and I let it fly.
No fear, I thought, firing the thought up at the tower like a mental arrow. Time to go big or go home.
The dung hit the proverbial windmill when I was about halfway across the icy bridge, with the others following a few steps behind me.
It was the whistle as the arrow dropped toward me that warned me of the coming of the enemy.
I conjured a curving Flame Barrier over my head and the arrow, which was white feathered and had a white shaft and white tip, burst into flames and crumbled into ashes as it struck it.
I looked up, through the translucent, flickering orange barrier that I had summoned and saw the angels—a dozen of them—swooping toward us.
“Look to the skies!” I yelled as more arrows began to rain down.
Alura was struck in the shoulder by one of the arrows, but being of the Gemstone Elemental persuasion, it simply pinwheeled off her and away.
“You did not just try to shoot me,” she said in the indignant and offended tone that only royalty could deliver.
“Oh shit!” I yelled up at the incoming angels. “You’ve really gone and done it now! That’s attempted regicide, kind of!”
The angels rushed down in a rustle of feathery wings. As they drew closer, I could see that they were dressed in the expected white robes, although these flowed into pants that were tucked into white leather boots. Their long golden hair was shaved around the sides and bound back from their faces in warrior’s queues. They were armed with bows and arrows, and at their sides hung short swords.
That was just about where they stopped looking like any angel I had ever imagined. There was nothing cherubic or divine about their facial features. Their faces were as pale as bone, but were as sharp and vicious as those of a vulture. Their large eyes were almond-shaped and filled with a cold fire that suggested this fight would be no holds barred, no quarter given.
As they swept in closer, six of them slipped their bows into the specially designed quivers that sat between their feathery wings and drew their swords from their scabbards. The blades were not crafted from metal, as far as I could tell, but were made of glass and edged with blue fire.
The six sword-wielders swept long and divided into two groups of three, one going left and the other going right.
“Alura, get behind us and concentrate on the bowmen!” I yelled.
“I can—” the Gemstone Princess began to protest.
“You’re impervious to their arrows!” I barked sharply, trying to instill my voice with a commander’s steel. “We can protect you from the sword carrying dickbags while you hit the shooters with that light beam of yours!”
Alura, who had a cool head on her shoulders, nodded and backed away to the rear of our little group, summoning light into her body as she went.
A few more arrows rained down, hissing into flame as they struck my Flame Barrier. It was going to be a real pain in the ass and would hinder me in my attacks having to keep the Fire Magic shield up until we had killed the bowmen.
Then I remembered my Metamorphosis spell; the spell that transmogrified me into a lesser Gemstone Elemental. It would slow me a little, but then hopefully I wouldn’t have to worry about getting stuck full of shafts and turned into a porcupine.
Hopefully.
I hadn’t actually tested it against arrow fire…
Still, there's a first time for everything! my brain said, trying to invest the rest of me with a little self-confidence
“Take them down!” I yelled, and let fly with a Storm Bolt at the trio of sword-wielders cutting in from the left.
/> The angels were skimming along the deck, flying at about six feet high. They looked like a trio of ghostly, evil-eyed hawks, ripping toward us in a way that reminded me of the best parts of Top Gun.
They dodged my Storm Bolt with ease, the spell zipping past them and exploding against a rocky outcrop behind.
I used my Metamorphosis spell to transform into what was effectively a Gemstone Elemental. I had used it in a few missions before. It had always served me well. It had never let me be hurt or in any other way inconvenienced.
I had a feeling that these motherfuckers might test the spell to its limit.
The three angels zoomed toward me, their eyes as focused as any peregrine falcon, their mouths curling in cruel smiles.
They looked like they knew what they were doing. Like they had a plan of attack. Professionals who’d put countless other wannabe devotees to the sword.
Before I could test whether they were as hard as they looked, the three angels were suddenly impaled by three fingers of fossilized bone that shot out of the ground with a swiftness usually reserved for pneumatically powered pistons.
The bone stalagmites punched up out of the rocky plateau and turned the oncoming hardass angels into robed shish kebabs. Their already massive, ungodly eyes bulged further and golden blood—as thick as acrylic paint—flew in gobbets from the matching wounds. Two were killed almost instantly, hanging limply from the bone spikes. The third, a woman, had taken her lance through the guts and was struggling weakly, cawing out in harsh tongue that sounded like the screeching of a gull.
Her struggling ceased however, when Odette’s spear smashed through the center of her face, through the bridge of her nose, and out of the back of her blonde head.
“I’m not going to lie,” I yelled over the furious howling of the other angels,”I think I just got a stiffy witnessing that! Odette, you’re a fucking badass bitch!”
Odette let out a whooping battlecry. “I’m going to help with Alura with those damned shooters,” she said as an arrow skipped off the ground just in front of her.
“Dragon?” I asked.
Odette winked. She turned and threw some Enchanted Ashes onto the ground. Immediately, the Bone Dragon ripped itself free of the earth, rock and snow and soil cascading off its bony flanks. It shook its heavy head and roared defiantly at the oncoming winged swordsmen, who changed their trajectory and headed straight forward.
That’s one of the great things about a dragon—be it flesh, bone, or whitewalker—they’re a really good distraction. Just ask the Night’s Watch dudes on The Wall.
While the dragon was being summoned, I laid a blanket spell over the six bowmen and women. The idea had come to me when I had realized just how pissed off those angelic bastards were; they were super angry. Driven by wrath. Consumed by it.
I used my Compulsion spell to fan those red-hot flames that burned within the angels. I hoped to make them erratic, to make them lose what little composure they had. It was clear that they were capable of fighting with almost militaristic skill and deportment, and that would only serve to make them stronger as a whole.
Weaken the foundations of the unit, I thought, and sooner or later, they’ll crumble.
The trio of swordsmen streaked past the bone dragon, their swords rising and falling in a coordinated attack. Pieces of rib and spine and nose horn were sheared away, and the dragon bellowed in anger. The angelic flaming glass swords must have been sharper than any mortal weapon, judging by the neat straight cuts along the edges of the severed bones.
Odette launched herself on to the back of the dragon and called for Madame Xel to join her.
“Justin dear!” the potions mistress yelled at me as she sprinted in my direction, arrows shattering on the stone at her heels. “How about a boost?”
I linked my fingers, forming a saddle of sorts with my palms, knelt down, and held out my cupped hands. Madame Xel hit my improvised step at full tilt, and I launched her up and over my head. The succubus performed an Olympic level straight backflip, lobbing out a small vial of potion toward the trio of returning swordsmen, who had banked sharply and were heading back toward the bone dragon.
Was it luck? Maybe.
Was it my Compulsion spell that had agitated the bowmen so much that they were now firing indiscriminately at anything that moved? Could have been.
Was it some sort of insanely accurate forward thinking on behalf of Madame Xel? I imagined she’d say it was.
Was it a combination of all three factors? Perhaps.
The result, whatever the cause, was the same. As Madame Xel landed deftly on the bone dragon’s back behind Odette, a wayward arrow hit the flying vial of potion and shattered it. I had no idea what the vial had contained, but whatever it was reacted vigorously with the mountain air.
There was a flash, like a small star bursting into being, which hit the oncoming trio of angels like a physical blow. They screamed as one, and two angels veered wildly away. The third—the unlucky guy who had been closest to the exploding bottle of potion—continued onward. His sword fell from his grip, and his hands clapped to his eyeballs, which looked to be running down his face.
And the bone dragon opened its jaws wide to receive him.
The angel was snatched out of the air like a particularly pissed off mayfly being gobbled up by a very anorexic trout.
The dragon, of course, had no throat or stomach or anything like that, but its teeth were more than real enough to make a mess of the angel. It impaled and ground the fucker to mincemeat before he could so much as scream. Then, when a creature of flesh and blood would have swallowed, the dragon belched a gout of green flame into its own mouth and vaporized the remains.
Alura had also managed to take advantage of the dragon distraction. She cut through one of the angels with a burst of Light Beam, sending it tumbling to the ground some thirty feet below where they were hovering. None of the other bow and arrow wielding angels, maddened by my Compulsion spell, had so much as batted an eyelid at the fall of their comrade. One had turned its attention on Mortimer, who was patiently observing the drama unfold, and sent an arrow winging in his direction.
Alura had seen this other opening, and aimed her next piercing beam of focused light at the half-turned angelic bowwoman. The beam sliced through the joints of the woman’s great feathered wings, sending gold blood gushing out. The angel plummeted instantly to the ground and broke her spine on an outcrop of rock below. The sound was like a dry branch cracking. Her wing stumps wiggled in a grotesque manner before she twitched and died.
The last two swordsmen, having recovered their eyesight sufficiently, pelted toward me. I stood my ground and grinned at them, hoping to annoy them into making a mistake.
As the pair of brutes made double-time in my direction, they just so happened to pass under the flight path of the latest volley of arrows sent in all directions by the bewitched bowmen. One of the speeding swordsmen took an arrow—as far as I was able to discern—square in the butthole. He veered off, while the other angel sped on before plowing unceremoniously into the ground with an arrow through the back of his neck.
With the dragon and the way that I had addled the brains of the remaining bowmen, the rest of the fight was almost a foregone conclusion.
Mortimer and I teamed up to take down the final desperate swordsmen. Mort acted as the most relaxed piece of bait ever used in any sort of trap. He drew the furious angel in his direction, fired a curling lick of Chaos Magic at the speeding winged asshole, which the angel narrowly avoided with a barrel-roll. Then I launched myself out from on top of an outthrust rock and crushed the guy to the ground.
The angel it turned out was as strong as a fucking troll. He flipped me off him, and his hands inched toward my throat. I struggled to keep his iron-hard fingers getting a grip on my windpipe. I managed to get a little wiggle room before I put my hand against his chest until I could feel the alacritous rhythm of his heart. Then, with a kicker of a great idea, I summoned my black crystal staff. The w
eapon started to appear from the center of my palm and continued to extend with the speed and force of a bullet train. The crystal vector punched straight through the angel’s chest. He struggled for a moment, but only a moment, then I pushed his lifeless body off me. I planted one foot on his chest and heaved the staff out from where it had impaled him.
The final four bowmen were angry to the last, firing arrows at the bone dragon as it bore down on them. From a dozen feet away, I thrust my staff forward and flung a Blazing Bolt at an angel. The hybrid Fire and Storm Magic spell punched through him like he was made of crème brûlée, blowing all his important organs out of his back in a pretty explosion of wing feathers. Odette flung her spear through another, but the dragon claimed the rest; rending with its talons, tearing with its teeth and stamping the remains of the final three angels into the rocks and snow beneath.
Then, there was just the sound of the wind and the clatter of falling bones as Odette released the conjured bone dragon and it fell to pieces.
“Done,” I said, letting out a slow breath.
Mortimer tensed, his lanky frame standing suddenly as erect as a California redwood.
“Something is not right…” he said.
And the fabric of reality dissolved around us.
It was the weirdest thing. Almost as if the surrounding world was no more than the backdrop of some theater production that was simply being peeled up and away to reveal the real world beneath. It was so disorientating that I had to close my eyes or risk losing my marbles altogether.
Odette gasping made me open my eyes again.
“Chaos Magic,” Mortimer said helpfully from beside me, before I could let out a long string of expletives. “Chaos Magic of the highest order.”
The five of us were in a throne room. I had been in a throne room once before. They had definite clues that told you that they were, indeed, throne rooms. The throne in this one, for example, was a dead giveaway.
Odette, Mortimer, Madame Xel, Princess Alura, and I were now on our knees and chained at the ankles, knees, and wrists. Our arms were behind our backs. Rows of guards, much like the ones we had fought on the icy bridge, lined the walls all the way to the throne.
