by Toby Bennett
Out of his good eye the goat saw the other thief drop the broad blade of the halberd and scrape it over the floor. Given its size the chimera did not have much to fear from any man-made weapon. It had already nearly cleared the bolt from its eye and though it would not be wise to blunder into the halberd's points, it was unlikely that the humans would have the strength to pierce the chimera’s armoured hide. The blinking goat gave a bleat of alarm as it realised that neither human was trying to use their halberd against it directly. The broad blades dipped in unison and were raised hissing with flame and acid respectively; the steel did not last more than a second under the punishment of the chimera’s excretions but that was enough for Ilsar and Akna to lob molten stone and clinging acid at the huge brackets that chained either head to their wall.
Druzkul’s chain had been designed to withstand almost any kind of corrosion but the heat of the molten stone had a different effect on the metal, which began to glow, more slowly than the halberd blade, which had been reduced to slag in seconds but under the tremendous forces of the thrashing reptilian neck the link began to stretch and warp. Grizkul’s chain reacted even more dramatically to the gob of venom that hit it, though impervious to heat, the alloy reacted explosively when exposed to such concentrated acid. Shards of stone and acid spun into the air. The lion’s head swept down, its mouth opening wide to reveal baleful fires, such as might boil at the heart of a live volcano. One breath would spray the air ahead with a blast of heat and stone that could not help but incinerate at least one of the interlopers, but in that instant, Grizkul felt the chain at his throat go slack for the first time since he had been fused into the abomination that he knew himself to be; the cold lizard blood pumped thought his warm veins and each heart beat was a steady drumming of chilling pain.
A roar followed close on the heels of the goat’s panic and Druzkul knew her danger, even before Grizkul could move to strike. The reptile gave a below and jerked against her own chain, shattering the smouldering bracket on the wall. The metal drew sparks from the floor, as she whipped her head back then struck, as swiftly as any serpent, scything down on the raging lion that came up to meet her, his mane wreathed in fire. The goat bleated pitifully as the two other heads tore at each other and he absorbed their pain. The room shook as the gigantic heads lashed in and then recoiled for a new strike; the floor was awash with dark blood and the hissing gouts of cooling stone and bubbling acid.
“Now!” Akna yelled out through the chaos and dashed towards the door. Not that Ilsar really needed to be told, even if she had not shared any bond with Akna, her own instincts would have told her that there was no time to wait for any result to the chimera’s conflict. Crossing the room meant risking being injured or killed by some random movement of the chain or flying venom but there was no way that the fight would go unnoticed for long, their time grew shorter with each cry of pain and rage.
So Ilsar and Akna ran the gauntlet of flame, flesh and gore. They arrived together at the iron bound door into the Cardinal’s chamber of stolen dreams. Akna reached for the door and wrenched the black latch up, to his surprise there was no resistance, the door swung open easily. Akna took a step into the room and if he had not still been holding onto the iron loop of the latch he would have been dead. The polished tiles that he had stepped onto proved to be paper thin and they broke beneath him with a sharp glassy crack. His fingers strained as they gripped reflexively at the iron ring and the door creaked dangerously. A few seconds later glass shards tinkled on the sharpened steel that lay five meters below Akna’s dangling feet.
“Don’t say anything.” Akna growled as Ilsar helped him to climb back out of the room.
“It hadn’t crossed my mind, after all charging in has worked so well this far.” Ilsar ducked a glowing fragment of stone, which splattered against the wall.
Akna pretended not to hear the sarcastic assassin, he regarded the shattered floor at his feet and the identical tiles that still stretched the length of the gallery in front of him towards a large dais and an open window, which looked out onto the blazing torches of the Asylum.
“The Cardinal must either have an exceptional memory or he must weigh a lot less that I would have imagined.” Akna lent down and picked up a piece of stone that had fallen from the wall as a result of the chimera’s writhing, he threw it out onto the gleaming floor and there was another crack of glass. The stone had not actually fallen through the brittle tiles this time but the network of cracks told the assassin that the rest of the chamber was just as dangerous as his first steps had been.
“He cannot go this way.”
“We’ve not got long to discover what he does do.” Ilsar shouted over the chimera’s screams. “If he doesn’t walk on the floor how does he circumvent it? Perhaps he climbs?”
“I can’t picture Lothar scaling the walls.” Akna’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the ceiling of the chamber, he ran his hands along the inside of the door’s lintel and sure enough he felt a raised piece of stone. The raised stone seemed firm but he tried pushing it from all directions.
“Nothing.” He complained.
“Try now.” Ilsar said putting her weight on one of the smaller flag stones to the left of the door. The button gave under Akna’s hand and light bloomed from above, sparking off the greenish grey of the thin tiles. A part of the ceiling began to descend, silhouetted by the light issuing from above. The sound of the great gears working as the platform came down was drowned out by the conflagration behind them. Despite the danger of turning their backs on the chimera and standing still, neither Akna or Ilsar shifted their weight or released the pressure on their parts of the mechanism until the platform had fully descended for fear that there was some other subtlety that they had missed and the lift might stop working. The lift was actually little more than an oversized basket, the bottom of which had been camouflaged to meld with the ceiling of the chamber. Akna shifted himself so that Ilsar could step past him then lifted his fingers from the stone and stepped in himself. A tug on a leaver sent the lift slowly climbing up over the glass floor and towards a hole, that represented the true entrance to the crystal chamber.
The room was small compared to the long gallery and its glass floor but Akna had never seen so many crystals collected in one place. Akna had imagined that if he came close to the stones that held so much of his soul, he would be able to feel them calling to him but now that he looked around he saw nothing to distinguish any of the finely carved crystals. Only one stone stood out from the others, the crystal was clear and had been shaped into a perfect sphere, which was unusual for a soul stone. The stone was so clear that it might have been mistaken for clear glass, but for the ethereal figure trapped within it. There was no mistaking Ilsar’s features in the woman, staring forlornly from the crystal sphere as if she was genuinely aware of the world beyond the perfect orb that was her prison.
Akna left Ilsar to go to her stone and focused his attention on the stones that lined the walls. There was no need for the glow stones here, some of the soul stones blazed so brightly that it was difficult to look directly at them. Akna had never expected to get this far, perhaps it was the proximity of the stones that held so much of himself but he realised that he had been in pain for a long time. He had torn himself to pieces just to survive, it was impossible, then, to admit to himself that he had no taste for the life he had so dearly bought. Time and again he had thrown himself into danger on Alanchi or Zenker’s order, he had thought he was indifferent to death but the truth was that he had been seeking it for years. It was only the prospect of regaining the life he had lost, that made him see himself so clearly, but, and the irony nearly brought him to tears, now that he was close enough to reclaim what was lost, he did not have the sensitivity to know which stones might contain his stolen dreams.
It was possible that the emotions Akna took for his own, were actually coming through his unexplained connection to Ilsar. Her own life had not been dissimilar since Lothar had brought her into his service
but it was subtly different for her. Ilsar could not remember anything before she had been awakened into Lothar’s service. She had not seen the stone since that day and it seemed to her that the few years she could remember were empty and stark. She yearned to be able to remember what she had been before or to some how share the memories that she felt stirring in her companion. If Akna’s frustration arose from not being able to recognise what he sought, her own discomfort came from not knowing exactly what it was she was picking up, as she slid the smooth crystal sphere onto the palm of her hand. She stared into the eyes of the diminutive copy of herself but there was no sudden connection only electric tingles where the crystal touched her skin.
“We have what we came for, then.” Ilsar said softly, Akna looked up from his examination of a purple crystal that seemed familiar to him.
“I can’t be sure, I think I feel something but I have no way of knowing which of these is mine.”
“Take what you can, we don’t have long.” Ilsar whispered absently
“I know that but I’m not as lucky as you.”
“Lucky?” The word caught in her throat, “You think it’s lucky to be made Lothar’s slave?”
“I didn’t mean it like that, just that he made it easy to find your stone.”
“You think that matters? What he took from you he took in moments, I don’t know how many years he’s lavished on this stone,” Ilsar closed her eyes, “sometimes there were flashes, little pieces from other times and places…” Ilsar’s voice trailed off as she looked into the haunted eyes of the woman in the crystal, “I am in this stone, more of me than you see before you now, I don’t know how many times he has brought me here, the pain is a vague memory but he has changed me, of that much I am sure and even now, when I hold this stone in my hand, I might as well be Kresta staring at stars.”
Akna snorted, “Kresta never reached his stars, he never got his chariot to fly higher than the spires on King’s Hill, you are holding your dreams in your hand.”
“Kresta died.”
“What do we have to lose?”
“At least you remember being someone, I don’t even know who I will be if I reclaim everything Lothar took, I am…” her voice broke, “I am his creation as surely as the beast that guards this room.”
“We don’t have time for doubt now.” Akna replied, pulling an armload of soul stones of the shelf and snatching the most familiar looking ones from the floor.
“Of course I know that, I just don’t know why…”
“You know, you might not be as aware of your emptiness as I am, how could you be when he has taken even the memories of who you were before? But we would not feel as we do towards each other, if something within us had not called out.”
Ilsar looked doubtful, “Who knows why the link was formed? The veil had been warped there for centuries, we were the only two souls in there, perhaps it would have been the same for anyone.”
“It happened is what matters, we can’t go back but I feel something for the first time in years, I cannot abandon that and nor should you.”
“All right, tell me how I am supposed use the stone? I am no summoner and I doubt that Lothar will have made this as simple to use as some brothel stone or market trinket.”
“Once we are clear we will have the time to find what we need, the solution may even be in the books I gave to Zenker.”
“And what if Takiaza is the only adept to have ever found this secret? Gaining these stones is just the first part of what we must do.”
Akna winced, he knew what she wanted, but he was reluctant to go along. It had been so long since he had had anything to risk and his instinct rebelled against taking further chances.
“Takiaza will be well protected you know, we’ll likely die for nothing and the ritual will go ahead.”
“We could have died several times already, we had an agreement.”
“There’s no need to remind me but I never agreed to die senselessly; you still haven’t told me how exactly you expect us to be able to stop the ritual.”
It was Ilsar’s turn to feel doubt, they both knew that they had to do something but what? And how could she bring Akna along, when his unexpected success in finding the stones seemed to have awakened his forgotten caution? Akna had deliberately left the details of stopping the ritual till after they had gained the stones because he thought she would see the hopelessness of risking so much and she couldn’t help but acknowledge to herself that she didn’t really have a plan to stop the ritual. They had no chance at all, if Akna decided to run. She decided to appeal to the need that had driven him this far.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Lothar had Takiaza’s stone on his person, we have not found it here.”
“Perhaps he has already been given a new body.”
“And why would Varkuz free his old master? Everything I ever read told me that even the minor demons resented service to a mortal.”
“So you think he is using the Hierophant like any other summoning?”
“Why not? It is what he is now. Varkuz needs the Hierophant’s lore but only until he can open the way to his older masters, the daemon will keep him compliant with promises but just in case, he will have Lothar keep the stone close, so that the Hierophant can be compelled, if necessary.”
“So we go after, Lothar in the heart of his own fortress and when the daemon within him is siphoning the energy of hundreds of children?”
“You know we have no choice.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t call it madness.” Akna threw the last few crystals that he had identified as being of interest into his bag. “Still it is better than trying to herd those children out of here somehow, we might as well do what we do best and go for the head of the serpent.”
A bellow from the room below echoed through the crystal chamber.
“Looks like I touched a nerve.” Akna said with an uncharacteristic grin, it was the first time Ilsar had seen him smile and she took some hope from that.
Chapter 17:
“So silence gives to growing riot and stillness grips us as we strain;
Against the gravity that holds us, and the dreams that yet remain.”
Akna and Ilsar could barely catch his breath as the lift returned to the lower chambers. The battle between Drazkul and Grizkul had left the chamber, through which they had entered, a smoking ruin. Somewhere in the clouds of hissing acid and smoking stone, the great beast was dying but the fitful roars coming from the caustic haze, made it clear that the chimera was still something to be reckoned with. That only left the trapped floor.
“It can’t all be trapped, or they’d never have been able to fit the floor” Akna reasoned out loud.
“That won’t do us any good if we come across a weak spot in the floor in the middle of the room, there won’t be any doors to hang from.”
“It’s the gallery or the way we came, for all we know there’s half the Cardinal's guard waiting on the other side of that smoke.”
“Good point but I’ll bet you’re really wanting this way because you know I’ll have to go first.”
“You weigh less.”
Ilsar was slightly caught aback by the lack of emotion in Akna’s tone, she’d hoped to tease him into smiling again but it was clear that any humour that Akna might have briefly felt had gone. For the best really, Ilsar thought to herself, dour as he was, Akna the killer would be far more useful than Akna the man.
Akna made himself busy, unfastening some of the tackle from the lift. The basket swung precariously and would probably have difficulty rising again but, for now, he could help lower Ilsar onto the treacherous glass floor. If she spread her weight as much as possible, it was possible that the surface would not crack and if it did the rope offered some security. Akna could only hope that she found a route he could follow over the slick tiles. Once Akna had the rope through the lift’s block and tackle, Ilsar tied the other end around her waist. Akna took some of her weight onto his arms, reassuring both of them tha
t she could be lifted and held. The lift creaked and swung slightly but it took Ilsar's weight, when she was satisfied Ilsar walked over to the side of the basket and stepped out into thin air.
Long seconds ticked by before Ilsar touched the reflective surface of the tiles, she winced as the glass creaked and then settled under her. Time slowed even further, as Ilsar blocked out the groans of the floor and the roars and whimpers from the chamber behind her and started the careful advance towards the window. Each movement of an arm or leg was slow and carefully measured, putting the minimum weight on the groaning floor. Akna let out the rope behind the spread-eagled assassin, wincing each time the glass tiles shrieked. Their luck held longer than either of them could have hoped, Ilsar was three quarters of the way across the room before a yell of warning burst from Akna’s throat, a small crack had begun to form and the sound of shattering glass came hard on the heels of Akna’s call. Ilsar’s muscles bunched and released all in a single moment, as she made her last lunge for the stone, just beyond her reach. The impact of her limbs on the fragile floor accelerated its disintegration. The sharp shards flew away as the pit full of pikes yawned beneath her. Ilsar screamed, despite herself, then her straining finger tips caught on the stone lip. Ilsar’s tendons strained to drag her in, she gritted her teeth as the sharp edge of a glass tile, still jutting out from the wall, sliced into her palm. Akna tensed, Ilsar had gone too far for him to pull her away from the pikes and even the slightest tug might be enough to break her tenuous grip and send her tumbling down, he saw the dark red drops flowing down Ilsar’s wrist and he felt the pain as she forced herself to grip harder to steady herself. Islar’s body twisted and jerked and a second hand joined the first on the stone ledge.
