Dragon's Tongue (The Demon Bound) (56 page)

A keen filled the air, as though the magic were resisting him at first, when silence came as an aura of translucent darkness sprang up to cover the demon. Vagner gasped, wild eyes flashing up as he took hard breaths, like one who had nearly drown and was enjoying air again.

“Vagner, are you all right?” Alaric asked.

The demon averted his gaze and nodded. “Thank you,” he whispered, and looked over his shoulder almost fearfully. “For a moment I thought I would die…”

“I will never let that happen,” Alaric said.

The demon turned back, surprise filling his reptilian eyes. “Truly?” he asked, as though not daring to hope.

“Truly,” Alaric replied and looked at Shona.

The demon sighed. For a moment a look of pain creased his features. Then, ponderously, he rose to tower over them. “I will be fine now,” he said wearily.

“Are you sure,” Alaric asked. “You sound rather worn and…” He reached out to touch the demon, and Vagner shied away from the hand that drew near him.

“I will be fine,” Vagner repeated, his gaze wandering about the place in which they found themselves, and registering a mixture of wonder and dread. “By the Barbed One’s Toenails, what is that…?”

Alaric turned from the demon. What the young bard had first only perceived as pure light now had shape and form.

They stood in a chamber so vast, he could not measure it easily with his eyes. Looking up, he saw it grew like a cylinder over their heads, walls of black rock—pumice and obsidian—gradually leaned inward and dangled with stalactites.
Have we come so deep?
Above, at the very center, he perceived a tiny pinprick of daylight.

“How?” he whispered. “We were up there, and I don’t remember seeing any holes in the ground…”

“There are illusions above as well as below,”
Ronan said.

But we walked up there,
Alaric argued in his head.

“Indeed, and we did not fall
.
But you must remember that not everything here is what it seems
.
The vast power the ancients held created all you see to keep the darkness from ever being brought to life again.

Alaric’s gaze dropped back to the area before them. It was as though the ground sank a bit. At the heart, he saw a huge circular platform of stone around which little vents of steam escaped. In fact, it reminded him a little of a cork stuffed into a bottle. Several sets of steps rose to his upper surface which was well over his head and out of sight range. Alaric hesitated, then started down the slope towards the platforms. He stopped at the base of the closest set of stairs. Each step was marked with the elemental rune of fire. He leaned over and touched them. Nothing happened, so he started to climb.

“Alaric, be careful,” Shona said, holding back with a look of uncertainty.

“Come with me,” Alaric said and held out his hand to her.

“This is one place a demon cannot go,”
Ronan said.
“His presence would corrupt the magic above and could cause danger to you.”

Reluctantly, Alaric sighed. “Vagner, why don’t you patrol around the outer area and see what you can find.”

“Apart from sulphur and brimstone and a great deal of light?” the demon asked.

“You cannot come up here,” Alaric said. “So perhaps, you should stay down here and watch…maybe look around and see if you sense Tane. The last thing we need is him surprising us.”

“As you will,” Vagner said, and Alaric detected the hint of reluctance in the demon’s voice and expression.

“We’ll be fine,” Alaric added with a smile.

The demon did not respond. He merely moved off around the circumference of the platform, and Alaric felt a twinge of guilt. He sighed and moved on, taking Shona’s hand and giving a tug. She looked pale. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I fell like someone was walking over my grave,” she said with a furtive glance around. “Are you certain it’s wise to send Vagner away?”

“Ronan said demon essence would corrupt the magic above,” Alaric said as he led her up the steep stairs.

“And what’s to say our presence will not be found as adverse…” Shona said. “None of this feels right to me, Alaric. I hate to admit it, but I’m a wee bit scared.”

“Of what?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It just feels strange to me…”

“The magic here is very ancient,” he said. “Older than the Great Cataclysm. From the First Age of The World, I think. But this is not where it was originally. It was all put here at the time of the Great Cataclysm to protect the Dragon’s Tongue from ever being found by those who would carry out Arawn’s dark designs…”

“How do you know all this,” she asked, and her hand trembled in his.

Alaric shrugged, and offered a reassuring squeeze. His head now rose above the platform’s edge. And there, he paused to take in the wonder of it all.

“Oh, my,” Shona whispered.

The platform’s surface was formed of smooth, grey stone, and beneath his feet, Alaric sensed that heat and cold were at war. Around the outer edge of this platform, four tall columns rose. Five times Alaric’s own height from the edge, there appeared to be a carved moat with four bridges that led to the next higher platform which appeared to be made of a brownish agate. He could barely see the tops of archways in some sort of henge or broch, and around that, the brilliant blue-white glow, like a ring of white fire.

I’ve been here as well,
Alaric thought, and a tremor went through him.

“Yes, you have,”
Ronan said.
“Now…I will sleep.”

What?

He felt Ronan hesitate as though thinking what to say.
“Only one of us may be conscious in this place…Otherwise, the powers here will be…confused, and might not let us pass.
And since you now possess the knowledge of the Champion of Light…”

Ronan!
But the bard’s presence seemed to fade, though Alaric knew he was there, Ronan was silent and still.

“Is something the matter?” Shona asked.

Alaric shook his head.

We’re just on our own now,
he thought.

FIFTY NINE

“This is far enough, demon,” Tane whispered.

Vagner stopped. He was close enough to the edge of the platform to be hidden from sight.

“Put me down,” Tane said.

With a sigh, Vagner crouched. He felt the weight slip from his back. Tane stepped outside the darkness that protected the demon, drawing his own cloak of shadows around him to shade himself.

“Now,” Tane said. “We will follow them…Invisibly…”

“The magic here will not allow that,” Vagner said. “I can feel that.”

“What do I care if the magic is unfriendly,” Tane said. “I want the Dragon’s Tongue, and once I have it, the magic here will be mine to command or destroy.”

“What if it destroys us first?” Vagner said. “The little master warned me…”

“I am your master, monster,” Tane retorted. “And the magic cannot stop us now that we are inside. And anyway, he only told you that to keep you away.”

“I don’t believe you,” Vagner said. “He does not lie to me, or force me into the form of a helpless girl child, then abandon me in a tower of flames to die…”

Vagner suddenly felt Tane reach through his bond to the demon, hissing Vagner’s True Name with acidic vengeance. A pulse of fire burned a path across the demon’s nerves. Vagner opened his mouth to howl in pain as he dropped to his knees, but no sound came, for the same power Tane used to punish the demon gave the bloodmage the power to silence Vagner as well.

“Do not mock me if you wish to live, beast!” Tane snarled inside the demon’s head. Vagner slumped to the floor. By the Barbed One’s Tail, if he could just put an end to this pain and be free of it forever…

Then calm washed over the demon, building a shield around him. Protective warmth soothed the demon, singing his True Name. At first, he thought Alaric had discovered his plight, but then, he realized the presence had a certain “otherworldlyness” to its essence, almost demon-like in it power. And yet, Tane did not notice Vagner no longer felt the terrible pain the bloodmage wrought.

“What?” the demon thought.

“Be still.
Say nothing,”
the other’s voice whispered in Vagner’s mind.
“Let him think he still causes you pain.
Pretend to promise to obey him…”

Tane stood over the demon, wearing a wretched smile. “Choose, beast,” Tane said. “Do as I say, or die now!”

“I will do as you say,” the demon responded, and felt Tane’s attack retreat. Gingerly, Vagner rose to tower over the man.

“Good,” Tane said. “Now, work your illusion, demon, so they will not see us following them…”

Whoever you are, I hope you are hearing all this,
the demon whispered in his deepest thoughts.

“Patience,”
the other replied.
“We will both have our sweet revenge before this day is done.”

Vagner could only hope that was the truth. He wove his illusions so he and Tane would appear invisible to all eyes.

Then slowly, they made for the nearest set of stairs and began to climb.

~

Something briefly brushed Alaric’s senses; the impression that all was not so well in his slightly less than perfect world. But as quickly as the sensation came, it was gone. It had a familiar essence, though.

Ronan?

Ronan did not respond. His lack of communication made Alaric frown. He’d come to accept the Bard’s spiritual company as though it were a natural part of himself, and only now that it was silent, did he realize he missed the chatter.

“Well? What shall we do now?” Shona asked.

“I think we should start by looking at all the pillars,” Alaric said.

Cautiously, he walked across the grey stone of the platform to the nearest one of the outer columns that rose from cardinal points along the lower platform’s edge. There were words and symbols carved into it’s inward face, and he suspected the others would be marked in the same way as well. Gently, Alaric touched the bottom lines. Shona stayed close, watching with a hint of trepidation mixed with her own curiosity.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen runes like these,” she said, “though they do look a little like the ones we saw on the statues on the stairs.”

“They are,” Alaric said. “And they are also like the ones on the demon skin map in the library of Dun Gealach.”

“I wonder what they say,” she said.

Alaric took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Magic buzzed around him, and he let it flow. The column began to glow under his hand. He sensed it even through his eyelids as he heard Shona gasp and felt her hitch back. Alaric opened his eyes to find the glow had spread so that he sparkled with a multitude of firefly lights. And within it, he sensed a vague, sentient warmth, like a sleeper rousing from a long, hard slumber.

“Alaric?” Shona said, and her voice carried an edge of panic that her eyes revealed more clearly.

“I’m all right,” he assured her. “It means me no harm…In fact, it knows me…”

“Knows you?” she repeated, her concern still evident. “Do you mean…it’s alive?”

“Well, yes and no,” he said, watching the lights dance across his fingers when he moved them. “I think it’s an elemental spirit…or maybe, just a memory of one. It’s hard to explain. There’s something bittersweet about it, like cinnamon on my tongue. I feel a life force, but it’s like no essence I’ve ever encountered before.”

Or have I?

Hail Champion of Light!

Alaric gasped when he heard that disembodied voice rising from the depths of the menhir. He quickly pulled away from the stone, rushing over to Shona’s side and turning back to face whatever presence they were about to encounter.

The columns surface took on a fiery glow, and a figure appeared to draw out of that stone. Taller than any many, it had the clean figure and handsome face of one. But its hair fluttered about its head as flames, and its eyes were burnished coals of red-gold.

Hail Champion of Light.

“Uh…greetings?” Alaric said carefully.

But the creature went on as it if was unaware of Alaric’s words. Instead, it raised a flame-licked arm and pointed a finger toward the heart of the platform as it spoke.

Listen and know.

Four bridges cross the water bright,

But only one will not drown you.

Threefold paths open the ring of earth,

But only one will not bury you.

Twice time, the fire will part its flames,

But only one gap will not burn you.

Air has but one opening among the many

That will not suffocate you.

Only by choosing wisely,

May you enter the Center of All Thing.

Just follow the path of the Sun in all

And you may enter with ease

But should you take the sinister path

The burning womb awaits your fall.

With that, the fiery figure faded back into the column. Only then did Alaric remember how to breathe again.

“Horns,” Shona whispered. “What in the name of the Lady the Silver Wheel was that?”

Alaric shrugged as he took a deep breath. “I’m not really sure. Some sort of message, I imagine.”

“But what does it mean?”

“Sounded like an ancient riddle.”

“A riddle,” she said. “That’s just wonderful.”

Alaric managed a faint smile. “If will be more wonderful if I remember how to solve it.”

“What about Ronan?” Shona asked. “Surely, he could tell you.”

With a frown and a shake of his head, Alaric said, “Ronan is asleep.”

“Asleep! At a time like this? How dare he leave us like that? If I could get into your head, I would give him a piece of my mind.”

“He said only one of us could enter this place,” Alaric said. “My body, so my mind must be awake, I imagine.”

“Well, we can’t just stand here, can we?” Shona put her hands on her hips and looked around. “Let’s see if we can sort it out…”

Alaric nodded and stepped over near the column once more to study the writing. Now he could see that one of the symbols on the face did look like a map, and under that map was a rune in the shape of a flame. He stared at it thoughtfully, then glanced over his shoulder at the nearest of the four bridges crossing the moat to the upper platform.

“Four bridges…only one will not drown us,” he muttered and narrowed his eyes…What was it Ronan had said about the illusions in this place? “Three of those bridges are not real,” Alaric said aloud.

“So which one do you think it is?” Shona asked.

“That’s a very good question,” Alaric agreed. “Let’s walk around and check the other columns. Which way do you want to go.”

“Me?” she said, sharply raising eyebrows. “I’m not the
Avatar
here. Besides, what was it that elemental said about following the path of the sun if we didn’t want to fall into the fiery womb?”

“Oh…yes,” Alaric said. “So I guess we walk sunwise.”

“I would think so,” she said.

They started around the edge of the platform, and Alaric did notice there seemed to be a faint pattern, like the growth rings of a tree, etched into the stone at his feet. The one he followed led in an arch to the next menhir. Alaric stopped and looked at the inward face of the column. This one carried the same writing, and the same map, but instead of a symbol that looked like a flame, it bore one that looked like water. Alaric put a finger to it as realization dawned.

“Water’s cardinal point is to the west,” he muttered.

“And fire is south, and air is north and earth is east,” Shona said. “Even a green apprentice knows that much…”

She paused and looked at him, then pointed back towards the stone they had left behind.

“Fire to the south. Water to the west.” She smiled. “And I bet that stone is air and the one on the other side is earth!”

“Exactly,” Alaric said with a smile. “Which gives us cardinal points for the riddle. So which bridge do you think will hold us up?”

“The bridge closest to water,” she said. “We’re supposed to cross here…” She pointed in towards the bridge that was indeed facing this way.

Alaric nodded. With the water column to his back, he started straight at the bridge. Shona trotted along behind him until he stopped. Close as he was now, the bridge didn’t look so solid. In fact, it seemed as though someone had carved it out of very clear ice. Like a still pond, it stretched across the gap. He knelt at the very edge and barely touched it with a finger. It rippled.

“Horns,” he muttered.

“What? What’s the matter?” Shona said and leaned over to look.

“This looks like its made of water,” he said.