It would take centuries to navigate them all. Cage thought. Dragons never do anything small. Easily more than half of the Blind Mountains could make up what I just escaped.
But on the outside of the immense underground mountain, Cage saw four other exit points all about nearby his shelf, relatively speaking. On the other side, the tendrils began growing thirty three different entrances to the next step. He kept the increasingly powerful spell going and Daku was right, the tunnels did resemble an anthill. The thirty three snaked around, bending together, separating swirling around each other, but they all seemed to take an upwards angle before randomly exiting to a large underground valley. Not as immense as the one he stared into, but plenty enough. They all seemed to be similarly distanced and if all were trapped the same, it didn’t matter which to chose. Unable to fully see the valley was due to the mana required to see so far used too much and if he didn’t stop soon he’d pass out.
Cage randomly selected a passage in his mind and the labyrinth fizzled away, leaving a single thread by which to follow.
He took a minute to recover before saying “Try to keep up boys!” Cage conjured his flying board and flew straight off the ledge and made a beeline for the other side while manipulating the orb on his shoulder to focus all light forward and increasing output. Almost fully recovered, the warlock charge forth with a bright grin.
Chapter 12
Stronger than any handheld searchlight, the orb’s power beamed a wide forward area, piercing the veil of darkness. Cage surfed through the air on his conjured flight board faster than the relentless birds could ever hope to match. But more seemed to still be coming as they ran headfirst into him, connecting with the active barrier. Blood splattered on the invisible force, but was whipped away by wind and speed. He was guided by seeker thread at a fifteen degree upward angle and in under a minute his shoulder mounted light revealed the opposite wall and that of the tunnel, barely fifteen feet high and ten wide, dome shaped. Before reaching it he found three more naked birds flying out silently, single him out by light and sound and tried another silent attack that ended in their demise.
The last one though struck an idea and Cage took control of the spherical barrier and canceled the diamond’s use for a few moments, draping a thin barrier like a second skin all over, like he’s done many times before in close range magical confrontations. With the barrier cloaking him he instead grabbed the bird by the throat before collision. It struggled vainly in his overwhelming grip as he aligned himself at the tunnel entrance and stopped to send his senses forth to determine any signs of deception. It all looked like unused tunnel made many millions of years ago. Even his eyes and hearing couldn’t locate any signs of Daku’s warning. Still he trusted his Familiar without reservation.
Cage squeezed till the bird’s neck snapped and it gave a jerk before attaching a thought of magic to it and sent it forth. It entered the center of the cave where Cage knew he would have landed if Daku hadn’t said anything. Then he let the corpse go and watched as three feet off the ground the bird was impaled by hundreds of needle thin, invisible spikes. Whatever spells disguised them were sure impressive and going about blindly wouldn’t work from here on in. Even with Cage’s own sense of caution hadn’t dreamt of such a trap.
As the blood dripped and pooled around the edge it coated even more spikes facing out at him. Using the crimson liquid for a purpose, Cage summoned a gust of wind which blew and sprayed the blood like a mist all around the entrance and several meters inside. The droplets revealed the entire wall was covered with outward facing spikes now revealed and the floor from wall to wall was packed thinly by needles all uniformly three feet tall and perfectly straight. It was then Cage knew how the birds avoided the trap for their large ears were like a bat’s who use echolocation. Cage closed his eyes and whistled into the tunnel. Sound came back and his augmented hearing picked up the sonic vibrations bouncing around and his mind naturally pieced the information together to reveal he too could see the floor coated in spiked, through his mind’s eye.
Just as he finished testing that took all of twenty seconds, the first of the stalking flock latched onto his back and tried digging in and stabbing its sharp beak in his spine, but it felt less than a tickle. “Later, guys!” Cage mocked before returning the cloak barrier into a sphere, reapplying it to a diamonds and shooting straight down the tunnel’s gullet at over fifty miles per hour, surfing above where the spikes were and constantly making sure the short roof wasn’t hit or he would inevitably be bounced straight down to his death. It caused nothing but excitement and a thrill to zoom though the winding tunnel, leaning horizontally when a hairpin turn was found and he’d lean and move his body with expert movements and never once hit the wall, ceiling or come within a foot of the dreaded needles.
At the constant speed it took two hours till there came signs of frost. It made the warlock slow and as he came around a corner he found a single hanging ice sickle as clear as glass. It was ten feet long, sharper than a spear and left only five feet to survive. Cage came to a complete stop in the air and whistled, using his hearing to realize there was a gap just below the spike where no invisible needles were made for a six foot width, five back.
Enough to land. No needles could be detected after the ice.
Landing was easy and the black board vanished. Judging everything, Cage backed as close as he dared before lunging and at just below the tip he leapt and tucked into a ball to roll.
Like the drop of a guillotine, the heavy ice sickle dislodged from the ceiling as it sensed his magical presence and crashed not a half second behind. The tip shattered on the floor and it broke apart like glass. As Cage bounced back to his feet he watched as another spear of ice reformed in under a minute from some automatic spell which resets the trap.
Shrugging, Cage began running at a swift yet manageable pace. His legs had fully recovered and relished the exercise. Along the way he was curious about Daku’s specific instruction not to fly and picked up a rock, enchanted it with flight and threw it.
Not ten feet after it shot off did a thousand tiny strands of light surrounded it, coming from all around the room, resisting its attempts to get away. Cage carefully shot his black, combat fire, used his swords and every trick he had learned, but the threads held strong to the rock.
He was careful to avoid even gliding across the floor as he does when walking on water. Even that could be considered flight and the trap was sure worse than the quick death the spikes had offered.
After another hour of running Cage stopped and sighed when he heard the birds’ sonic sounds to fly the tunnel and were soon upon him. Cage figured the birds could get away with it for they didn’t use magic, even passively to get snagged. He had to reapply the silence function of his barrier and extend it to fill the fifteen foot tall room thereby blocking the creatures from getting in the way. He then continued running and the only sounds that could be picked up was breathing, a single and athletic slow heartbeat and the softest sounds of feet hitting the ground.
Three more hours pass as Cage climbed the upwards growing tunnel that was no longer cold and slick with ice. The uniform tunnel untouched by time finally had a difference to the constant look as he came upon a large impression.
Clearly it was a huge dragon’s handprint, scales and curved talons at the end of humanlike fingers were deeply pressed into the ground.
Immediately he began punching and kicking the impression, sending chips of stone flying. The ground was hard, but nothing compared to the density of his feet, fists and bones hardened from years of fighting and hitting solid objects without restraint. When the palm was unrecognizable he began destroying the fingers. It wasn’t till he started stomping on the index claw that he felt a vibration rattle the ground and loose debris. He dropped the silencing spell and heard a deep moaning sound that made it felt in every cell of the body.
The birds squawked bitterly and Cage turned to see many fleeing away for their lives and the more aggressive ones s
eemed to be unable to make a decision, flapping and looking at Cage and around to those escaping.
Seconds later the deep groan stilled and silenced. Thinking whatever scared them of was over, the horde returned in full force.
Cage sighed and shook his head. “Silly critters.” He shrunk the barrier back to a normal size and flew straight ahead.
In a half hour, killing more birds who was flying in, Cage’s jaw dropped as he dropped from the tunnel and down into a lush valley. There was more bioluminescent moss brightly covering the ceiling he fell from, but the plants were tripple the brightness and not an inch of the ceiling wasn’t covered. A thick spray from a lone waterfall fed the moss that gave light to the valley full of green trees and a river that snaked its way down the middle. Thousands more bids flew the air, hunting some kind of large insect with a hard shell only a sharp beak could pierce. Glowing fish swam the river and pools. It was a sustainable microclimate more intricate than he ever imagined.
But at the end, where the river flowed directly to and disappeared back into the rock, grew a mighty willow tree with branches thicker than a mature oak. The weeping branches were well over a mile wide and stood before a twinkling wall. Even from this distance Cage could feel the power radiating from it and a quick scan spoke of magic that will kill with just one touch, but not till after a searing and staggering amount of pain that no mind could withstand, not even one like his.
The new presence of fresh meat and sound drew in every bird of the valley like a flower would a bee. Cage was swarmed, but it wasn’t much of a bother. They had no chance of getting in and sampling warlock flesh.
Meanwhile he hovered and created a sight mirror which allowed him to remotely see beyond them and zoomed towards the weeping willow in search of this passage behind it. Cage found it easily enough directly behind the trunk, a quarter mile from it and the branches covered it. Cage knew even if he flew for it, those tendrils could move in to capture. Before, he didn’t see one bird fly anywhere near the huge tree. They avoided it at all costs.
A grin began forming as an idea popped to the forefront of his mind. He decided to use more birds as he first had and surrounded over a hundred in a barrier to separated them from the pack before flying forward and recreating the sound they obviously feared. The flock’s reaction was immediate as they scattered for cover, leaving him and his test subjects alone in the air.
Cage flung one bird like a cannon being shot, directly to the tree.
He then watched as a half dozen drooping limbs suddenly writhed and struck like a snake, capturing the already dead bird, bringing it to its roots and dropped to make its fertilizer. In the first test Cage learned the speed at which the tree strikes, how close one can get before it reacts and how many birds he’ll need.
He canceled the sound to keep them at bay and the flock returned. Only they didn’t stand a chance. Cage left only forty out to repopulate, gathering the thousands into a green box of mechanical, moving magic. Cage constructed an air cannon system along with a barrel over fifty feet long and altered the box of birds that floated right in front of him so that each one lined up. He didn’t want needless killing, but this was the best idea and the single-minded creatures annoyed the wrong person for too long.
When the bird cannon built up enough pressure the warlock grinned and mentally released the valve while sliding the lineup of birds in front of the pressure.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. The birds were fired like an fully automatic machine gun air cannon. He aimed the barrel all around the willow to maximize range and to occupy more branches.
The tree surged in reaction to the immense influx of stimuli. It became too much for the tree to handle, unable to capture every single bird in its branches.
Just as the final bird was fired off, the cannon vanished and he shot forward, angling to the gemstone wall and flying a foot away while all the limbs were preoccupied with all its new plant-food. The curtain covering the tunnel was open as every limbs was in use.
Suddenly a single limb broke away and Cage flipped over it and turned into the square tunnel with a hundred foot length and height. The end of the limb took off in pursuit of Cage, the end showing a sword-like edge trying to stab. Cage knew the guardian tree likely was a magic-breaker and could run him through. All he could do was increase speed and that he did before the limbs jerked to a stop when it could not stretch further.
Cage settled down on the ground after making sure it was safe and broke out more rations while replenishing his mana. Afterwards he stilled and sent his thoughts far away. “Oooh Daaakuuu?! I’m at the checkpoint. That was a huge weeping willow.”
“Good. You made it. Much faster than I anticipated.” Daku sounded pleased.
“I’m glad for the intel. You saved my ass big time!”
“Well information is better than ignorance. Next will seem like a walk though the island compared to your next task, but you will like it much better.” The Familiar chuckled. “My memory was cloudy on the next task, but Rex Gralla and two of the original creators of The Deep were summoned and I am currently in council with them. One created the challenge you must pass before the last. It will be a battle much like the golems you had faced originally. And as I expected, Gralla was dumbfounded to learn you passed her gauntlet she spent sixty years designing and took you about five days from your experience. You should have seen it. But back to the task you will face, the tunnel you are in will become vertical and will come up into a den about three miles wide. In it will be an earthen construct, a golem of granite powered by a diamond that randomly runs through it. The only way to pass that room and gain access to the Stronghold is to somehow break through the granite, grab the constantly moving diamond and break it magically with pure force, nothing else can pass the wards in place. You must be able to do all of it in five seconds once you remove it from the granite before it jerks from your grasp and flies back into the golem and you have to try all over again. It is imperative you break the gem with force and break enough of it off to destroy the spell. As diamond is the hardest element, you must put everything into it…”
“By using force on the sharpest scale possible, atomic being the only way.”
“That is what I’m told.” Daku admitted and gave a mental nod that his Summoner knew the best solution. Pressure wouldn’t work. Only something infinitely sharp would have success. “Just separate enough of the diamond to beat it. And be careful, like many things you’ve likely noticed, it will break magic. So stay out of reach and be faster than the golem.”
“So what must I face at this nexus Stronghold when I’m done?” Cage asked. When Daku didn’t respond instantly he knew something was up. “Uh, hello? Anybody there? Olly olly oxenfree! Daku, answer me damn it!”
“Cage,” Daku finally thought, sounding tense instead of calm and collected. “The war against the Tiaxm had many, many casualties. Warrior and queen’s, when they killed dragons, griffin and warlock sometimes had problems. Instead of becoming spirits, some dead instantly became ghosts. The Deep’s sealing was for a reason. No soul escapes it because the Stronghold is haunted by tens of thousands of ghosts, more than warlocks at that time could ever handle. When all the criminals died the ghosts attacked the new spirits, turning them also into ghosts and adding to their incorporeal army.”
“WHAT!!!” Cage mentally shouted in outrage. “Tens of thousands of ghosts! Seriously? What am I supposed to do? Heal each and every one of them to get out?”
“No!” Daku hastily shouted back. “Don’t even try. It will kill you, Cage. No one has that kind of power, not even in the height of the warlock nation when yours and my kind joined each other. Your best chance to get out is to find the exit crystal and touch it and get out as fast as you can! Some ghosts can burn through your shields, especially griffin ghosts. Sometimes when my predecessors were killed by a warrior Tiaxm and became a ghost, their ability to resist magic continued after death. Only the power of the planet keeps that ghostly horde contained. If yo
u led an army of a million warlocks you might manage to heal the fallen warriors, but alone you stand no chance. The Deep was meant to be an impossible escape for a good reason. Punishment.”
“Daku, I’m going to stop communicating because I’m really pissed off about this, but I’m glad you told me. I need to prepare and any distractions will only make things worse. I’ll give you a mental nudge when I’m about to face the golem and take a rest after. We’ll discuss this Stronghold and exit again before I try getting out. Work with the elders and try to reconstruct the Stronghold and tell me everything you can so I have every advantage.”
“You have my word you will get everything I can offer. I understand your anger. I too do not like those who fell from the flock to suffer for thousands of thousands of years in constant agony. Good luck, My Partner.”
Cage pulled his focus back and found his fists shaking in great anger. The wall was a casualty as he vented his rage at the mistreatment of fallen warriors turned ghosts and not a damn thing had been done to help them after all that time.
“Swept under the goddamn rug!” He yelled and finally settled when all the tension and rage was expended.
He then really felt uncomfortable and worked magic to open a hole in the wall and crafted a bowl to sit and relieve himself. Afterwards he made camp and began working on the diamonds in his hand, modifying wards and adding new ones. At the top of the list was crafting a ward to never allow anyone to teleport him again. No man or dragon would ever be able to change his location by force without a fight. The diamond that received the application was eager to receive it. It used no power, but was ready at any time to fight. Relentlessly protective. Hours were spent focused on preparing for battle and what lay ahead.
Tired from the long physical exercises and heavy uses of magic, especially the air cannon, Cage fueled up on bread, cheese and a spicy soup before turning in for some shuteye.
Ascension of the Warlock (Book 4 of the Death Incarnate Saga) Page 36
