“I barely managed to pass the sentinels when I think I got stabbed in the leg by one of those retched three golems.” Cage read aloud in a whisper and raised an eyebrow, realizing a theme. Somehow everyone who reached the exit was struck down by a debilitating leg injury. Once chance, twice coincidence, three times were a pattern. “Hurts worse than any pain in my life, but I outsmarted the mindless guards. Sadly I had to cut off my own leg. When I get out I’m going to kill the newly established Twilight council for interfering with my life and pay them back for sending me hear. Damn warlocks too, nothing but trouble the lot of them!” Cage smiled and knew the book in his hand was over ten thousand years old. Twilight originally started as a council before growing into a thriving city, especially after the warlocks were sent away in the Great Divide. The final entry spoke in desperation. “What is the solution?! Seeker thread would find a way out in moments. Am I in an inverted space without exit or are the paths just one long circle that takes a week to travel? Food is running low and I’m down to forty more candles. The stream to the right for a half a day is clean at least. I haven’t felt symptoms like the dragon carcass or that fool person on the ledge. Wish I had both legs to move faster, but I cannot sit here to die.” The last words said “If whoever is reading this doesn’t see my body, despair, for it means I’m dead. I would have returned for my notes, but take my warning. I cannot figure this trial and if I cannot, nor can you.”
Cage grinned. “Challenge accepted.” He said as he sat the journal down and put out the torch, living in darkness to think.
Fresh water trickled from a crack in the tunnel, enough to refill his containers and bathe with a cloth. The water was hot, almost scalding, but when a single sip didn’t have a result in two days did he drink from what he collected. He had to make sure the journal was true and in another two days Cage came out right back to the fork. By then his leg was moving painfully again, but far from healed. The whole tunnel was surprisingly uniform and during the four days Cage came upon two hundred and eleven skeleton corpses. There was minimal breeze in the hot air, but it seemed to come from nowhere. Each had a deep cut on a leg, proving the pattern real, but remodeled healing showed they didn’t die from it. Likely from starvation or suicide. At the least the foul air wasn’t stagnant.
Taking the path back to the golems was impossible as another barrier blocked the way, much as it had before. It meant, figure out the solution or die.
Standing in the center of the room in contemplation, inspiration struck. Cage knew all the walls were real, like the bones, but one place in particular was off.
About twelve hours later did Cage find the water source again. No corpses lay nearby, but he carefully came closer to the pool, avoiding gouge marks from claws where giants came to drink. The water trickling down was maybe fifty feet wide and black as tar below ten feet. The heat was bad, but there came an idea. “Rope.” He said as he pulled out a long coil and tied a rock to it. ‘Plop’ it slurped into the water while he held an end, watching as the line was sucked deeper and deeper. The speed was constant till nearing the end when it was jerked by something. Before Cage could react, the cord was jerked away and lost.
“If that didn’t scare anyone to not try, no wonder they would rather try another way. That rope was a hundred and fifty feet long. Well fortune favors the bold.” He said as he sat down and submerged his feet in the scalding water, barely resisting the instinct to get the hell out. He would likely need the flippers for what is next. While they soaked Cage took out a length of rope and began tying softball sized rocks into a netting, also recovering from the walk to get here.
The flap of the boots did as hoped and bonded to his toes to extend out another six inches into a flipper over the next hour. Breathing changed as he readied for a difficult challenge, hoping whatever snatched the rope before was actually a strong current and not some underground monster reacting to movement. Cage’s deep breathing and training began slowing his heart rate so he wouldn’t drown once he reaches the end.
The rocks tied together came to his hand as he closed his eyes and focused on returning to Daku and the arms of his loving women. With a last exhale to squeeze out every pocket of air he took a deep breath and packed more in by swallowing three more mouthfuls. As his lungs felt painfully full he hopped forward into the overheated water that was almost boiling the skin away.
Weight from the rocks drug him down without exerting any extra energy to burn oxygen. The watery heat and total darkness would make weaker men terrified, but Cage wasn’t normal. The challenge alone made this exciting.
It took almost a minute till the heat of the water started cooling, but by the time Cage felt the difference something sucked at him. His powerful grip held onto the rocks but the suction led to an underground river which tossed him around like a ragdoll. Eyes screwed shut and holding on for dear life, he almost lost it all as his back slammed into a wall before getting taken in a different direction.
The minutes seemed days long and after a second slam on his left shoulder the grip on his weighted lifeline was lost.
Just when his lungs felt ready to burst he relieved some pressure from his mouth, but held on tight to not lose it all.
When all hope seemed lost did Cage get shot out over a waterfall, unable to rotate or know up from down he curled onto a ball after gasping for fresh air. From hot to cold, Cage felt himself fall. It felt forever, a never ending pit that went through the planet, but it was a trick of the mind and actually lasted just several seconds. Wards flared around him before making a deadly impact with the water below. The splash was large, sending him nearly forty feet below, but the air he stole in the moment of being ejected allowed him to swim effortlessly to the surface thanks to his flippers and following dull sound from the water.
The chilled, spring water opened as he surfaced and tried looking around. What was total darkness vanished as he opened his eyes. Unlike the plants that glowed, Cage found several floating orbs lighting up a small island outcrop, like he was being led. So far he had managed to take the path and survive so he took a breath and submerged beneath, put his hands forward as if diving and dolphin swam. Both legs working as one. His right protested, but worked enough to swim across.
Something brushed Cage’s leg but he was too close to the outcrop to rest and he crawled up and out just as something bit his foot and broke a tooth. Under the magical light, Cage pulled himself out of the water and turned to see something like a Great White Shark-sized eel slip below the water. The darkness made it vanish, but a floating piece of white from a tooth was longer than his middle finger. “Glad he didn’t bite anywhere else.” He murmured while his feet stayed in a pool. The bare rock he sat on was maybe fifty feet long, jagged except for a flat top and was barely an island.
Catching his breath and scanning for another imminent attack, Cage quickly felt the chilly air seeping in, but the faint smell of sulfur once again made sure he could not use magic though it lit up overhead. Before freezing he pulled himself all the way up to the top and slapped his robe out, making the water leave since it couldn’t soak into the spider silk. A dry cloth from a pocket wiped him dry and was wrung out before being put away.
Not surprising, it was another massive underground cave, but this time it was a massive lake. The roof was maybe fifteen feet higher than the mountain of his home island and many stalactites of limestone looked like teeth biting into the water. Cage mused the lifeless beast needed an orthodontist. But as Cage took in the terrain he noticed another light and narrowed his eyes for a closer look. Surprisingly it led to what looked like a wall carved with stairs that zigzagged up into the ceiling. It was a good distance away, like the distance across the entirety of Cage Island. The size boggled the mind, but there were random boulders sticking up between the outcrop and the stairs, with currents undulating with more of those giant eels. It was impossible to tell the deepness or if that eel who bit his foot foolishly was small compared to some real hidden monsters.
The
only consolation was Cage realized someone else had figured out how to leave the tunnel that was actually a huge circle that snaked around. Below were the markings in Draconian and a single claw mark, how it fit through and survived the waterfall was hard to believe.
Still, Cage wasn’t going anywhere for a day as his back was badly bruised and his shoulder throbbed. The moist flat top was icy cold and acted perfect for an icepack across his entire back. And still the magic floating eerily above remained constant. He then closed his eyes to rest and recover.
Tiny tapping moments later had Cage sitting up and looked around to find tiny, blind, freshwater crabs no larger than a copper coin. Hundreds climbed onto the outcrop, but stayed well away from him. A strong explosion of water showed another black eel strike out at the edge, eating a few crabs. They too were blind, but didn’t leave the safety of the water.
As if it were the signal, dozens more giant predators attacked for crab. The smaller prey wizened and hid in holes, avoiding the water and top where he stood. Cage then watched the huge one that likely bit his foot, chomp down on a smaller eel. Survival of the fittest to be sure, but it attracted more unwelcome visitors. A feeding frenzy lasted almost a half hour as the eels cannibalized one another. Luckily Cage didn’t see any other predators. The shark size eels were enough. When the waters stilled and tinted red did Cage lay back down to recover.
A bright new day beneath the light orbs greeted the warlock. The crabs had left awhile ago and from time to time there echoed a far away splash. His back was stiff, sore and likely badly bruised. Two weeks worth of beard finally irritated him enough to do something and with a sharp knife he shaved by feel alone since his reflection in the water was too chaotic from the three different waterfalls at the back of the cave and he didn’t dare try to get close enough to be attacked by eels, likely waiting for a taste of man. Then he had a delightful meal of two oranges, three hardboiled eggs, several cold biscuits and a handful of salted peanuts. He still couldn’t believe how fresh the biscuits tasted when Meeka cooked them two months earlier.
In his own notebook Cage later wrote the dragon words carved in the stone, wanting to have them translated later. From the debris of eggshells and orange peelings Cage began testing how these things hunted whether by sound, movement or thinking the worst, able to detect electrical impulses like sharks. Shells began being flicked out all around as the test began. Random throws showed no results till he isolated an area. By the fifth throw a large eel mouth broke the surface and ate two orange peels in one large snap. The test progressed as he brought out another rope and flung several yards out. It wasn’t immediately attacked, but more than one ripple swam beneath the line out of curiosity. When the water calmed he slowly pulled the line, not raising a response. On the twelfth toss did a reaction take hold. Each time he moved the line faster and faster until it was barely a casual swim before the line was snagged and lost below, never to rise again, but it was already cut and useless.
“Now that I know you hunt through movement, let’s try something alive.” He said and his strong hands began probing cracks and plucking out the small crabs who hadn’t left to scavenge the lake floor for food. Collecting eleven he chose three, threw them from a different area he’d been testing and watched as they plopped in the water and sunk.
Nothing happened. Using the same method he replicated it in different directions, all results the same. Cage went back to collecting a full dozen crabs this time, only he crushed the pale exoskeletons before throwing.
This time it was an almost immediate reaction as the dead crabs brought in the predators. It wasn’t a frenzy like before, but enough to prove a point. “So you smell the blood and hunt movement, but not the electrical signals.” He grinned, realizing their weakness in hunting.
Cage slowly approached the water, limiting vibrations the eels could detect and lifted rocks to form a pool so he could wash all the blood from his robe. Just as he was almost finished he looked up and at the water as one eel had caught the scent and tried sneaking up on the wounded animal. He carefully stepped back from the almost alligator stalking method, not making a sound while throwing his robe all the way back to the flat top.
Its head snaked out the moment the soaked robe landed, but wasn’t ready for the roundhouse kick Cage delivered. His heel connected with the gill, knocking it back as he lithely got back out of range. The attacker didn’t survive it’s cannibalistic kin, getting ripped apart.
An hour later, when the water cleared did he finish washing out every crust of blood from the robe. He held it out over the water from a stick, seeing if any more came, but the droplets of water didn’t arouse suspicion.
Deciding on a course of action, Cage put on the mostly dry robe again and began eating large quantities of protein, starches and sugars over the next six hours, storing up. He relieved himself far away from the ideal launch point and waited for another cycle the underground creatures lived by.
A second frenzy as fierce and loud as the first began all over the lake, eating crab and each other. When it calmed Cage soaked his feet and waited. After such a daily fight for survival he noticed a heavy silence, like the cave took a breath, but wounded and full animals sought refuge.
When the flippers eventually reappeared, Cage slipped into the water without making a ripple, turned on his side and began a slow swim, fighting his excitement and lust to fight these things that would tear him apart without magic in this element. Back and forth his legs cut like scissors, swimming sideways so the kicks didn’t make a sound. Not a dozen feet after leaving the outcrop an eel brushed beneath his arm. Resisting the urge to jerk and dig his fingers into its gills, Cage continued moving as if nothing happened and the slimy skin didn’t irritate.
The eel went on its way.
Not doing the obvious, Cage swam sideways and away from all places where rocks rose from the water. In his mind he pictured swimming over the deepest point of the lake, not knowing what swam in it, but staying far from shallows where most of the food gathered.
Then he cursed, but didn’t stop as once he left the first place of rest did all the magic of light go out with the flip of a switch. At least the one in the extreme distance stayed lit, a beacon to safety, a goal to reach.
Chapter 11
If not for self control and patience Cage would have really screwed up.
The enormous underground lake was tedious and deadly to say the least. Not once did he come within a half mile of any outcropping, which was difficult in the almost nonexistent lighting, keeping the exact same speed which was slower than a natural walking pace. Only the rhythm saved him for out in the deepest areas swam eels as large as an Blue Whale. There weren’t many, at least that Cage could determine. One though came too close for comfort and moved exaggeratedly slow. It proved merely curious as to what swam out and when it found Cage wasn’t worth the effort even as a snack it began swimming away.
Taking a stupid and fun risk, Cage grabbed the giant eel’s gill and rode the underground express for close to a quarter hour before it decided to go deep down. Unable to be followed. Even if it was slow, catching a ride did save time compared to the normal pace. Heart beating with excitement, Cage resumed swimming and slowly so as to not be seen as a wounded animal.
Especially as he counted one more not a minute later and that one somehow seemed bigger.
Not trusting the ancient water, Cage made sure to go slow and drink from a canteen.
A day and a half seemed to pass as he inched closer, not pausing to urinate or rest till leaving this primal place. Cage couldn’t resist daydreams of fighting these creatures. Their daily fights for survival he embraced completely.
But as the goal’s light brightened, so did the sucking sound of a nearby waterfall. The sheer wall beckoned while to the left were rapids, showing jagged rocks that would strip flesh from bone.
When the deadly current threatened certain death did Cage swim with all he had and hope the giant carnivores had enough sense to stay away so h
e could get out. With tired muscles he pulled himself up to a short wall and felt himself attacked. Only these were pitiful. Two baby eels hung off the ends of the flippers while four larger tried biting through his form fitted robe. Acting as light armor, teeth their size couldn’t pierce the silk as they gnashed their teeth.
Strong fingers found cracks for Cage as he pulled himself all the way out, finding it difficult to climb with flippers. Nevertheless, he managed and sighed while tearing off the babies and throwing them back where they belong.
More than the length of three football fields stretched a flat area, all being perfectly flat. Sight of more bones weren’t so big of a deal anymore and a minute later his flippers shrunk back to boots. The bones were from one lion size griffin and two dragons, neither were elders. Judging by what he knew, Cage decided they couldn’t have been seven hundred years old at most. Their bones all looked pulverized by a great fall. Cage knew many had obviously died in the crossing of the lake. The giant eels could definitely take down a dragon and everything else in between. And a glance up into complete darkness made one wonder how three natural flyers died by falling… besides suicide. How high the stairs went was beyond assumption, but the stairs were obviously wide enough for six elephants side by side to use.
Strong white light began flickering and Cage turned to the fifty foot wide orb of pure white light in a black room. The pulses dimmed as it shrunk to a basket ball before rising straight up the shaft the stairs were cut into.
Too tired to follow, Cage barely held off hypothermia and staying still would only make matters worse. Removing all the burnt out torches and two long burning logs from his pocket, Cage sparked another fire with shaky, almost numb hands. As it came to life he stripped and warmed up everything and the shaking stopped.
Ascension of the Warlock (Book 4 of the Death Incarnate Saga) Page 33
