by Ember Lane
My feet thudded onto solid ground, and my knees bent and sprang, launching me forward. Behind me, the tunnel lit with darting fire. I rolled until I was on my feet, tried to stand and cracked my head on the tunnel’s roof. My night vision showed me nothing ahead but black. A foul smell of ancient, stale, rot grabbed my nostrils making me retch. Blanking it as fast as I could, I sat and focused my eyes on its darkness. Calming my breath, I thought all the way back to the onion-shaped wagon and a magic lesson with Shylan.
I opened my palms and imagined a small light into being. I grew it as a potter would a vase and then changed it, drew it out, and altered it to resemble a glowstone from the Land of Petreyer. It spread its light around, and I coaxed it to hover a few yards in front of me. It was then I realized I was in some kind of disused sluice, but it didn’t bother me, because it meant one thing—I’d found them. I’d found those that had tried to trap me, had tried to break me.
I started crawling down the cramped tunnel. It went on and on, the orange of the chimney receding, a terrible claustrophobia running through me as I realized I must be headed into the heart of the mountain, but my anger was now my fuel. I forged on to its end.
Then I saw a glint of silver, a chink of light reflected, and a bloodcurdling scream rang out and chilled me to my very bones. I instinctively made to grab my sword, but realized it would be no use and was stowed away anyway. Snatching my sack out, I chose the Black Knight’s dagger. If ever I needed its random magic, I needed it now. The sluice opened up, and I crawled out, now able to stand, ready to fight.
What I saw made me do a double take. I was standing in a square stone box, cut in half by a wall of silver bars. A creature cowered on the other side of the bars covering its eyes, a strange, strange being made up of rock-like scales. It had a box-shaped jaw and forehead, and stone-like scallop shells where its chest should be. Over half its body had been ravaged by the strange stone affliction, and ravaged was the right word, though body may have been an exaggeration.
“The light!” it growled, and so I doused the glowstone to a shimmer. The beast stayed still for a moment and then glanced out. “Who are you?”
I took out my sack and retrieved my water bottle, taking a swig myself and then offering it on. The beast declined.
“Did you do this?” I asked. “Did you trap me here?” But I knew it hadn’t.
“Who are you?” it asked again, now standing up, and walking toward the bars.
I saw the thing in its true horror, and that was sadness. The rock scales covered a horrifically emaciated body, just twigs for bones, no more than a skeleton. I knew in that instant that everything I thought about this place had been true. The puzzle above was a deterrent, it was supposed to drive any adventurer to despair, but only to stop them finding this man, for man I was now certain he was, or had been, once. And even if he could breech the bars and reach the bridge, surely his body would pass straight through it? That was why the bridge let the molten stone through.
“You know who I am. You called me,” I whispered.
For a second, his deep-set eyes showed a glimmer of hope, but it was just that and no more. “Are you the one?” he asked.
“You called me. I am Alexa Drey.”
“You’re the healer?”
“The what?”
I felt his compulsion as he pulled my stat board to the forefront of his mind. My concealment couldn’t stop him. Even in his feeble state, I could not resist his mind. He began to nod, then fell to his knees, weeping dry tears.
“You cannot know how long I have waited for you. We have much to do.”
“One slight problem,” I said.
“What?”
“We need to get out of here. Is there a way out?”
If possible, the stone-man looked blanker than before. He sat on his cell’s floor, right by the silver bars. I sat opposite him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I lost my wager with the demon, and woke up here.” His shoulders shook. “I have no idea what is beyond these bars.”
“Are you a graveling?”
For a while, he didn’t answer. When he did, it was filled with shame. “No, my name is Krakus, and I am the last shaman. It was I who made the bet with Quazede.” I heard laughter in my mind.
Quazede, the name of the first demon trapped within the amber ear studs that Zybandian had gifted me, and Star had pressed home. Quazede, one of the five demons: Balazar, Quazede, Novorum, Alastor and Orobus. “I named Alastor once and had to fight him in an imaginary battle.”
“It must have been imaginary for no mortal could best a demon in a true battle. They are the real gods, I know that now.”
“You called. What do you want from me?” I asked.
“Want?” he said. “I want so much from you, but I have so much to give you in return.”
“What?”
He looked at me, his drawn, scaly skin making him look no more that a ghoul from some terrible horror story. Yet I sensed beauty within him. “I want to teach you magic—a way that will make sense to you, where all others failed. A way that you will embrace. Your magic is destined for greatness, Alexa Drey, much greater than you could possibly imagine. There are better ways to win a war, to vanquish evil. I will teach you such a way. That is why I called you.”
I asked no more, just nodded. Now I really wanted to escape.
A stone box. We were in a stone box.
How did they get out?
Pulling my glowsphere closer, I began an inch-by-inch search of the cell’s floor. Nothing. I looked again. Nothing. Then I studied the first wall. Nothing.
The final wall gave me a slight, faint hope. At its top, where it met the ceiling, the mortar had cracked. Taking out the Black Knight’s dagger, I scraped at it. Tough at first, it started coming away in chunks. Painfully slowly, I raked it out—the top, sides and bottom. With a final poke, the stone brick dropped a little, and I coaxed it out.
Looking through, I was greeted with a black face of rock. My heart sunk, but then I saw it—the slightest slither of a crack, and I started raking out the first of the ceiling blocks. How long it took, I could not tell you, but Krakus was silent throughout. After two ceiling blocks were done, I saw a way, a thin, bored hole just to the side of the cell. It led away into nothingness, but I smiled, for I felt a surge of airflow in, then out; in, then out, as Hell’s Chimney breathed.
“There’s a way,” I told Krakus.
“Are you coming back?” he asked me.
I looked at the skeletal man and laughed. “You’re coming with me,” I said.
“But...” He looked at the bars.
I shrugged.
Taking out my sack, I put on my sword and set my staff to one side. Passing the sack through the bars, I told him to get in. He looked at me, confused at first, but then nodded.
“A benefit of not eating for a hundred years or so,” he muttered, and stepped into the sack, pulling it up and around him. Shaman or magician, I couldn’t tell, but the sack swallowed up his feeble frame and then went limp. I fished it back with my staff.
Quite pleased with myself, I tucked the sack into my tunic, took up my staff, threading it through my belt, and climbed up the cell wall into the hole in the ceiling. Though I didn’t know where it would lead, I had hope. If nothing else, just beyond the smooth part of the chimney would do.
I heard a rush, a great whoosh, and a blast of hot air flowed around me. A searing pain in my ankle made me scream in agony as some molten thing grabbed hold of it. It yanked me, pulled me from the hole and I was sent sprawling to the floor, sliding toward the sluice.
A glowing, molten, orange chain had wrapped itself around me, tugging me, pulling me back toward my death.
“Quazede!” I screamed in defiance, but knew I was doomed.
8
It Wasn’t Me
I clattered to the floor, my staff falling free. Horror ran through me as I felt the demon’s chain tightening on my leg, the heat of its grasp burning into my boot.
I kicked it away, but then another chain snaked in, whipping around the stone cell trying to blindly get me. Ducking, rolling, my only hope to evade its swipe, I tried to fight it off with my staff, but it was impossibly fast, impossibly erratic. Throwing it down, I unsheathed my sword and started hacking at its links.
One damage warning after another flashed up in my mind’s eye as the charmed chains whipped at me, but I ignored them. If I died, I died. I desperately looked up at our escape, it flashed past me as the demon’s chain caught me in my midriff for 52 damage, but my new agility kicked in, and I kicked my feet out, meeting the wall which pushed me away and over the thing’s molten metal. Raising my sword, I hacked down in a brutal strike. Sparks flew as my reward, and I severed the second chain. Molten, larval blood flowed out as if the chain was part of the beast. A great bellow sounded out in the chimney beyond the sluice.
Without time to smile, I hacked again, but Quazede’s chain shot back into the small tunnel. I stood, wondering if it was over, knowing it wasn’t, and then I heard a slithering. I drew out the Black Knight’s dagger and sheathed it in my belt, then leaned my staff behind me, readied my sword, and waited.
My heavy breaths, the slithering sound, cold sweat blooming on my neck, I briefly wondered if Krakus was still in one piece. Then a thick whip burst from the hole. Brilliant orange, like a ranging arm, it struck around blindly, hunting me out. I sliced down with my sword, severing its end, and it hesitated. A great growl came from the chimney. Another whip shot forth, the severed one’s end flopping around on the stone like it was alive. I danced around, avoiding it, ready to strike, when another, then another came through and at me.
I ducked, rolled, lunged, struck, then withdrew, but the room was too small, the whips ranging all around. As one swiped at me, I cut at it, watched the next, avoided another. Everything became a blur of repetition. Just as I thought I had this, just as I thought I could best this demon too, my foot was jerked from under me, my sword clattering away, and I landed on my back, breath exploding from me. The other molten strands retreated. The one around my ankle tightened its grip.
For just a moment, all was still.
The ahip morphed into a chain and jerked back, constricting, and I screamed in frustration as I began to slide helplessly toward the hole. Panicking, I grabbed out behind me for my sword, but felt my fiberstone staff. As I slid toward the sluice, toward my certain death, I pulled the staff around and forced myself up, sitting as I sped forward. Instinctively, I positioned the staff across my body, and as I was about to get swallowed by the sluice, it jammed across it. My breath exploded again as I was doubled around the staff. Without thinking, I grabbed the Black Knight’s knife and started slicing at the chain.
The knife’s magic, the magic of Ruse started gathering in me. I felt my shadow mana filling as I stabbed and sliced, and stabbed and sliced. The demon tugged and tugged at me, appearing immune to the falling knife. I felt myself slipping, being dragged under the staff. I fought and fought, straining to keep hold, but Quazede was too strong, and I was dragged down the sluice, my grip giving way, and I waited for my fate.
Expecting to be catapulted into the chimney, I tried to gather my magic, the knife’s magic, to let the pulsing shadow mana erupt and hoped the black tendrils would mingle with my own magic like before, but nothing came, no anger, no pent-up frustration. At the tunnel’s edge, I braced to fall into the lava; readied myself to be consumed by Quazede, but the chain unraveled and just let me go. It left me sitting on the sluice’s edge, and staring at the demon.
My heart stopped, my breaths so shallow they barely touched my lungs. A slight sniveling noise chattered from my mouth. My eyes strained at their sockets like some startled cartoon character.
The glowing demon towered over me, flames licking its scaled skin. It filled the chimney, its horned head where the bridge had once flickered, its massive shoulders nearly scraping the rocky sides. Chains draped from its arms like some devilish talons, and slowly it focused its raging gaze on me. Insidious, red eyes stared through me, and I got the feeling it was judging me, even scolding me for my resistance. Funnels of steam billowed from its nostrils. It screamed a humongous, heart-wrenching scream, then gradually leaned closer to me as if it was going to swallow me whole.
The demon’s glower ripped right through my soul.
As slowly as it leaned into me, it withdrew, and rose to its immense height, a deafening bellow sounding out again, magnified by the chimney. My eardrums nearly imploded, and my head was close to splitting. Its tongue darted out of its mouth like a forked spear. It crashed into my chest, spearing my heart in one fell swoop. I felt the twin tips of its fork squeeze around the pulsing organ, but instead of wringing the life from me, I felt a flood of strength rush in, felt my pool of shadow mana expand, its limit increasing rapidly.
A thousand things crashed into my brain, ancient memories, anguished recollections. The tongue pushed me back, back up the sluice, and my magic exploded, bursting up in a black-and-orange pillar of power, searing right through the cell’s rocky ceiling to create another chimney. And then the magic flowed back into me, and the tongue withdrew, slithering back down the sluice.
Slumping to the stone floor, I sat there, numb, not even able to comprehend what had just passed. The severed chain slithered toward me, as I looked on in horror. It wrapped itself around my bare ankle; my boot gone in the melee, in one last, defiant bid to get me. But then it shimmered, tightened, and crisped to black. I reached down. It was cool to the touch, either a bangle or a shackle, I couldn’t make up my mind.
Congratulations! Quazade has gifted you a slave’s anklet from the bowels of Slaughtower. +5 for strength. Item = Nefarious.
Glancing at it, I discounted it, more pressing things on my mind. I had a way out. Quazede had given it to me. I felt my ear stud pulse, the top one—the one with his name trapped within it. Scrambling back down the sluice, I cried the demon’s name, but it had gone. I screamed its name again, and when it didn’t come, I took off the stud and threw it into the lava, freeing it from whatever entrapment the jewel had held it in. Turning, I made to crawl down the sluice, but an eruption of noise from behind, from below, then the searing pain of a chain wrapping around my ankle again, stopped me in my tracks. Swiveling around, I came face-to-face with the beast again. It reached out with its maimed hand and dropped the stud between my legs. I nodded to it and picked it up, pressing it home in my ear. Quazede sank back down into the lava and was soon gone.
Crawling back up the sluice, I stowed my black knife in my belt, sheathed my sword, and stashed my scattered staff in my sack. I quickly looked in its top and shouted Krakus’s name, but received no reply. Looking around, I took out Grog’s grasping powder and dipped my fingers in it. I jumped, grabbing the newly formed tunnel, and climbed toward the bright, blue plug of sky at the funnel’s top.
Once out in the open, I collapsed back onto the cold rock and took a deep breath of fresh air. I thought about letting Krakus out of my sack, but decided it would take an age for him to walk down the mountainside. I did need a bite to eat though, and was sure that there was some water left. Opening the sack, I thought of the bottle, and nearly jumped out of my skin when the shaman’s hand held it up for me.
“I’ve eaten the few scraps of food though,” he told me. I took the bottle, and his hand snapped back. “Oh and I agree, it would be better if I stayed in here,” he added, then he tossed a boot out, and I looked down at my bare, shackled foot. It was one of the boots Zybandian had gifted me, and just the thought of the lord made me smile. How I wished he were here now.
Taking a swig of the warm water, I looked out at the lush, green bowl of Joan’s Creek. It must have been midmorning, as the sun was high in the sky. Jumping up, I started my descent. The chimney had burst from the mountain about a hundred feet higher than the cave I had entered by. All around, scattered rock told of the eruption the demon’s magic had dispersed. One particular lump caught my eye. It resembled molten metal
, almost silver in color, but with a tinge of pink. I kinda liked the look of it, and I picked it up, throwing it in my bag.
“Ouch!” shouted Krakus, and that made me smile.
Once I’d picked one piece up, I began to see them everywhere, and I wanted them all. The sack swallowed them up, one after the other, Krakus’s hand eventually just reaching up for the next. It was a peculiar thing, the sack, something I’d never quite gotten used to. Someone, at some time, had told me it had twenty slots—Marista I think—but it held more. I could only think it could hold twenty different things. In theory, I could put as many skeletal, stone-ravaged shamans in as I could find. I dismissed that thought. They were too hard to come by. Once I’d collected all the pink metal up, I started on my way.
Congratuations! You have collected one hundred and twenty-four scarletite ore. You can craft the ore into ingots and use that to fashion items. Scarletite is a precious metal and can only be crafted in a level 6 workshop and molded in a level 8 forge.
Fine, I thought. All useful, if only I knew what crafting was.
It took me until the middle of the afternoon to descend to the mouthlike entrance to the cave, and another to get to the cleft I’d thought was a mine. It turned out it was, except no one was working it. All around, partly filled carts stood idle and discarded pickaxes and shovels were strewn around. It looked like Lincoln’s workers had left in a hurry. Probably a late lunch, I thought.
A little farther down, I came to the white road, and much the same scene greeted me. Chunks of white stone were piled up, picks and shovels scattered, and just two copper robot things loaded a wagon. Shrugging, I decided Lincoln must know what he was doing.
Soon, I was in among the foothills, and I stopped by the stream that filled the lake. Filling my water bottle, I reflected on my night. I could plainly see that I was a complete wreck again. My hair smelled burnt, my sole mauve boot was charred, my tunic torn by the beast’s tongue, seared by its molten chains, and scratched and scraped all over. My arms were blistered, reddened, burned, bruised—you name it, they had it. Yes, I was a wreck again, and yes, I was about to walk back into a peaceful settlement and probably scare the children.
