The Rise of the Demon Prince

by Robert Kroese

  “He must have turned back,” Rodric said.

  “Or perhaps he has camped for the night,” Vili offered.

  “Or maybe,” said a voice from behind us, “she anticipated your ambush and opted not to participate.”

  Chapter Four

  A young woman in a long gray cloak came around the rocks and stopped before us. Slender fingers threw back the hood to reveal an alabaster face framed by close-cropped red hair. Rodric, who’d trained his bow the moment we heard the voice, slowly lowered it. I left my rapier in its scabbard although I was not certain the threat had passed. The woman wore her hair in the style of the acolytes of Turelem.

  She turned and gave a whistle. After a moment, a small dappled gray horse—not much more than a pony—came around the rocks toward her. The woman made her way across the dry riverbed, the horse following her. As she stopped again a few paces in front of us, I saw that she was young—perhaps nineteen or twenty. It was hard to believe the acolytes would send a pretty young woman this far out into the wilderness alone—particularly only a few weeks after one of their own was murdered on the way to Nagyvaros.

  “Why are you following us?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Says the man with the warlock’s brand on his face.”

  “I am no warlock,” I said. “This mark was given to me against my will.”

  “And yet you seek the way to Magas Komaron.”

  “That is our business.”

  “As you like. You will never find it.”

  “That is troubling news. I understand the acolytes are experts in the matter of not finding Magas Komaron.”

  The woman smiled, refusing to rise to the bait. “Be that as it may, I might be of some assistance to you.”

  “You were sent by Delivaros to follow us in the hopes of finding the way to Magas Komaron.”

  “It is true that I seek the way to Magas Komaron, but the Council does not know I am here.”

  “You think your disobedience will be forgiven if you are successful.”

  “I may hope.”

  “And if you fail?”

  “I will not return to Delivaros.”

  I raised an eyebrow. An acolyte renouncing her vows was no small matter. “You are very brave or very foolish to travel alone. One of your number was murdered on the way to Nagyvaros not long ago.”

  “An acolyte named Klotild, yes. Killed by sorcery.”

  “You do not fear such a fate?”

  “Klotild bore an urgent warning for the Governor. I do not think my mission faces the same sort of opposition.”

  “A warning about what?”

  “I would not tell you even if I knew.”

  I sighed quietly. So much for my attempts to learn why the acolyte had been murdered.

  “You offer assistance,” said Rodric, “but you admit you do not know the way?”

  “I know the way to the Stone Door, which is apparently more than you. As you have come this far, however, I assume you have come across some clues left by someone who has been to Magas Komaron. I can only hope you know how to open the door.”

  Rodric glanced at me. I gave a noncommittal shrug. “If we do reach Magas Komaron, you are unlikely to be welcomed there.”

  “That is my concern.”

  “And ours, insofar as your presence in our party biases the sorcerers against us.”

  “The issue is moot if you never reach the place.”

  Rodric put his hand on my shoulder. He whispered, “She is right. We can ill afford to waste a day traipsing about in these rocks. Do you know of this Stone Door?”

  “The song mentions a door, yes.”

  “Then perhaps she speaks the truth. The acolytes have, after all, been searching for a way to Magas Komaron for many years.”

  “You would have me lead an acolyte of Turelem directly to the sorcerers’ refuge?”

  “I don’t see that we have an alternative. Let Varastis deal with her, assuming we make it there. If we arrive in time to warn him of Voros Korom, he will likely forgive us for allying with an acolyte.”

  I nodded and turned back to the young woman. “What is your name, acolyte?”

  “I am Ilona.”

  “Ilona, I am Konrad. These are my companions, Rodric and Vili. We provisionally accept your offer of assistance. Beware, though, that if you attempt any mischief, we will take your horse and leave you here to find your way back to Delivaros on foot.”

  “I intend no mischief. You will have to extend me some trust if you expect to reach the Stone Door before sundown. We will need to leave the horses.”

  “Leave them here?” Rodric asked.

  “We have gone some miles in the wrong direction. I did not reveal myself until I was certain you did not know the way.”

  “Reveal yourself!” Vili cried. “I spotted you a half-mile off!”

  “As I intended.”

  Vili snorted, but the woman continued, undeterred: “There is a brook a mile ahead. If we leave the horses there, they can survive a week or more. There will be little for them to eat and the water is sulfurous, but it will sustain them. We will cut across the hills to the north for three miles toward the cliff wall into which is carved the Stone Door.”

  I looked to Rodric, who shrugged. We seemed to have little choice in the matter. Without assistance, we would not find the way to Magas Komaron in time to warn Varastis. We allowed Ilona to lead us to the brook, which turned out to be dry. We carried only enough water to last the horses three more days; I had hoped to find water on the way to Magas Komaron. Barring that, one of us could climb one of the nearby peaks and fill the skins with melted snow. The horses would be unable to reach the snow on their own.

  “They will die of thirst!” Vili cried.

  “The brook is intermittent, as it is fed by a spring that erupts once a day. In a few hours, there will be water.”

  Vili was not mollified by her reassurances, but he did not object when I told him to unload the horses. Sensing that something was wrong, Ember neighed in protest, and I did my best to reassure her. We fed and watered them, leaving the feedbags open so they could eat the rest of the oats when they got hungry. I could only hope that Ilona was right about the brook. She unpacked her horse as well, taking only what supplies she could carry. If she were mistaken, her horse would face the same fate as ours.

  The sun was hidden by the peak to our southwest, but long shadows told us that we had less than two hours before dark. If we hoped to find a stone door carved into a cliff wall before the morning, we would have to hurry. We followed Ilona as she scurried over the rocks on a meandering route that carried us slowly upward and toward the northeast. The scent of sulfur grew stronger as we traveled, until it at last became almost overpowering. As the sky began to darken overhead, we came to a canyon, at the bottom of which was a shallow pool of murky water. Steam roiled over the surface. Three rock formations, each some twenty feet tall, crouched like giants at the edges of the pool, roughly equidistant from each other.

  “We must hurry,” Ilona said. “We need to reach the northern mouth of the canyon. Oreg Huseges usually erupts just before dusk. When it does, this canyon will fill with boiling water. Even if we escape drowning, we will be badly scalded.”

  “Oreg Huseges is the spring that feeds the brook?” Vili asked.

  “A geyser, yes. Pressure builds underground until it erupts from that crack yonder. First scalding steam and then hot water. Sometimes there is a warning. If you hear a whistle before we reach the crack, we are too late. Turn and run back the way we came.”

  “I will not speak for the others,” I said, “but I will not turn back. If we do not reach the Stone Door today, we will be too late to warn Varastis.”

  “We are with you,” Rodric said. “Onward.”

  Vili nodded and followed us as we began across the canyon floor. Ilona shook her head but followed as well.

  The canyon was perhaps a quarter mile wide; the crack that Ilona had indicated zigzagged across the bottom of
it. The crack was easily identifiable even in the dim light by the curtain of steam that wafted from it. The floor of the canyon was uneven; some places were dry while muddy pools persisted in others. The largest of these was the impression at the southern end of the canyon where the three rock formations perched.

  I soon found my way blocked by a pool that looked to be several feet deep at the center; the steam that rolled across its surface suggested it would not be amenable to crossing.

  “We must cross the chasm,” Ilona panted from some distance behind me. “There.”

  I looked where she indicated and nodded. The crevice was perhaps ten feet across there. For most of its length it was thirty feet or more. I moved as quickly as I could over the uneven ground, skirting boulders and pools of foul water. I heard a faint whistle as I approached and did not slow, vaulting over the chasm in an easy leap. I stopped and awaited the others. Vili, who was the fastest runner among us, came next, besting my leaps by two feet despite his smaller size. Rodric reached the edge of the chasm and stopped. Ilona lagged some twenty paces behind. She was gasping and holding her side. The intensity of the whistling increased.

  “Hurry, Rodric!” Vili cried, but his words were lost in the piercing scream from the canyon. Rodric went to Ilona and threw her arm around his neck. He helped her to the edge. I had little sympathy for this woman; it was one of her kind that had been responsible for my six-year stint in Nincs Varazslat. But without her, I doubted we would find the Stone Door in time. I watched, fists clenched at my sides, as Rodric pleaded with her to cross the chasm. She held her side and shook her head. Then she put her hand on his shoulder and spoke to him, pointing toward the northern end of the canyon. Was she telling him how to find the Stone Door? Or was this a trick of the sort for which the acolytes of Turelem were notorious?

  Rodric shook his head. Blast him! I wanted to tell him to leave the woman and leap across: if she intended to trick us, it would be just as well that we left her, and if she were telling the truth, we did not need her. No harm would come to her if she ran back to the horses now. But my words would not reach him across the screeching chasm, and in any case it was clear that Rodric would not leave her. At last she appeared to agree to attempt the leap.

  She and Rodric backed several steps away from the edge and he motioned toward her to go first. She took several deep breaths and then sprinted toward the chasm. Her leap would have cleared the chasm easily, but she slipped on loose gravel and came up short. She grasped futilely at the smooth rock on the other side and would have fallen into the chasm had Vili and I not each grabbed one of her wrists. We pulled her to safety just as a sheet of white steam blasted forth from the chasm. A moment later, Rodric burst through the curtain, crumpling to the ground a few feet away from us. His clothes were damp and a blanket of steam enveloped him. As soon as he caught his breath, he began to scream. The steam around him dissipated, and I saw that every inch of his skin was bright red.

  Unthinking, I unstoppered my waterskin and doused his face and hands with it. Rodric continued to scream, and I snatched the waterskins Rodric and Ilona carried as well. When I’d spent our entire supply of water, Rodric’s pain seem to ease a bit. His skin was still red, and I could see blisters beginning to appear on his wrists and cheeks.

  “Konrad, we have to move!” cried Vili. I turned to see that the sheet of steam had turned into a wall of water. It was only a slight breeze carrying the water away from us that had spared the rest of us from being scalded. I helped Rodric to his feet and we ran toward the eastern wall of the canyon, where the ground was a bit higher. The scalding water was already filling the lower parts of the canyon.

  “No!” Ilona shouted from behind. “If we go that way, we will be trapped. Follow the canyon wall north!”

  I turned to Rodric, who was badly burned but seemed otherwise uninjured. He nodded. “Go!”

  There was no time to argue. I turned north and ran along the gravel bed, parallel to the canyon, and the others followed. A few paces to our left was a wall of water and steam nearly a hundred feet high; even with the breeze carrying the mist away from us, the heat was nearly unbearable. As the canyon continued to flood, we found ourselves splashing through an inch of scalding water. The odor of sulfur was almost overpowering. I felt sorry for Ilona, who was bringing up the rear and must be getting the worst of the splashing. The oiled leather of my boots was waterproof, but scalding water splashed my trousers and had begun to work its way down my calves.

  At last we reached the end of the water wall. More precisely, we reached a point where the wall gave way to a roiling bloom of water in the center of a shallow pool. The water at our feet was already two inches deep and getting deeper; my feet felt like they were on fire. The only escape was a slope of loose rock to our right that formed a ramp up to a narrow shelf along the eastern wall. To reach it, though, we would need to run another hundred paces through scalding hot water. The deeper impressions in the canyon had already been filled, and now the water level was rising even faster than before.

  I had reached a patch of gravel that rose just above the water and stopped a moment for the others to catch up. Vili, whose ragged shoes were little defense against the scalding water, sprinted past me, his feet barely disturbing the surface. Rodric came up next to me, followed shortly by Ilona. I saw terror on Rodric’s face. His burns must have hurt him terribly, and the idea of splashing through another hundred yards of scalding water must have horrified him. If he fell, he might not get up again. But there was no going back: the water was even deeper behind us.

  “Rodric, we cannot stop,” Ilona pleaded, seeing the look on Rodric’s face as he surveyed the distance we still had to go to reach safety. Rodric glanced back to see a wave of water rushing toward us: having exhausted every pit and low-lying crevice, the flood had nowhere to go but across the canyon floor. Rodric groaned but stepped into the water again and ran toward the rock fall. I ran alongside him, hoping to catch him if he stumbled. Ilona, panting hard, managed to keep pace a short distance behind.

  We weren’t fast enough to outpace the wave, but it had dissipated somewhat by the time it reached us. Still, the shock of the heat on my calves nearly made me fall. Rodric cried out but did not stumble. Ahead of us, Vili had reached the rocks. Having climbed high enough to avoid the encroaching water, he fell to the ground and tore off his shoes. Rodric slipped as he climbed onto the gravel, but I grabbed his arm and helped him to safety. Ilona arrived a few seconds after us, just ahead of another wave that crashed against the rocks and splashed us with hot spray.

  “Keep… moving,” Ilona panted, crawling on her hands and knees up the slope of gravel. Rodric and I groaned in unison as we saw that we still were not safe: the water continued to rise rapidly and would soon reach us. We got to our feet and climbed up the slope to the shelf that ran along the eastern canyon wall. I could see from the erosion and striations of mineral deposits below us that the water did not ordinarily rise to this level. At last we were safe.

  But still we could not rest: there was barely room to stand on the shelf, and we would have to hurry if we hoped to find the Stone Door before nightfall. Most of the canyon was already shrouded in darkness. We continued along the shelf for several minutes, the stink of sulfur growing gradually stronger until we came to an opening in the rock from which poured hot steam and foul-smelling vapor.

  “Do not stop,” Ilona said. “The path continues on the other side of the cave.”

  We did as she instructed, Rodric moaning as the steam touched his burns. We passed the cave opening quickly, but it was some time before we were free of the stench. Vili had to stop to retch, and I nearly did myself. I walked carefully along the path with my hand against the rock wall, dizzy from the noxious vapors. I was relieved when the narrow shelf abruptly widened into a broad plateau.

  “This way,” Ilona said, slipping past me and starting diagonally across the plateau. Rodric, Vili and I followed without a word. It was now dark as night in the canyon; ove
rhead a deepening azure sky told us the sun had not yet set, but little light penetrated the canyon. To our right, the ominous black shadow of the eastern canyon wall towered over us. Ilona stopped abruptly and I nearly ran into her. We had reached the foot of the cliff.

  It was a sheer stone wall, so uniform and featureless that it was essentially invisible in the dim light. Only the contrast with the gray-blue sky far above indicated that there was anything there at all.

  “The door is around here somewhere,” Ilona said. “Do you have a torch?”

  Vili produced a torch and I managed to light it with my flint and steel. I lit another torch from it and then handed the first to Ilona, who began walking to the right along the stone wall. I lit a third torch and handed it to Vili. “Head left, in case she’s gone the wrong direction.” Vili nodded and set off.

  While they searched for the door, I tended to Rodric’s burns. Lacking cool water, there wasn’t much I could do but lance the worst of the blisters and bandage the burns to protect the skin.

  “You know I’m not one to complain,” Rodric said, “but oh, how it burns! What I would give for a sip of wine….”

  “Don’t talk foolishness,” I said. “You suffered worse wounds than this as a Scout.”

  “Then at least do something to distract me from the pain. Sing me a song. How does the rest of the song about Varastis go? The part about the Stone Door?”

  I hadn’t brought up the song again for fear that the vagueness of the later stanzas would only demoralize the party, but I saw no harm in singing them now. Perhaps Rodric could help me make sense of them. I sang:

  Turelem’s eyes watched the plain and the heath

  and all of the gaps in Galibar’s Teeth

  so clever Varastis took the way underneath

  to Magas Komaron

  “Who is Galibar?” asked Rodric.

  That part I knew, from reading one of General Janos’s books on mythology. “A huge dragon who was said to be slain on the plain of Savlos thousands of years ago. I assume Galibar’s teeth are the jagged peaks of the southern Kerepes mountains.”