Finding The Soul Bridge (The Soul Fire Saga Book 1) (32 page)

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Thist rounded the last part of the circular stone stairwell. The basement of the castle keep was vast and expansive like a large reservoir. It was cold and dank but the dark stone walls glowed with the warm dancing light of a hearth fire.

Thist walked slowly with his imbued dragon bain sword drawn in his right hand and the orb of power in his left hand. The orb throbbed as his mind toyed with the arcane power with in it. An eerie sound echoed through the massive chamber as he reached the last step. “Doy-oy-oy-oy.”

Thist’s entire body reacted at the echo of water dripping into water. His skin rippled with goose flesh and his neck and ears glowed. His heart raced and his vision sharpened. Thist stood still for a moment and then stealthed forward, his boots making no sound at all.

Thist noticed a few shiny golden coins on the floor as he walked around the stairwell pillars. The few golden coins became many as he skulked forward. Then it became a pile of gold. The treasure room started to reveal itself as Thist came out from behind the support pillars. The colour drained from his face as his mouth dropped open. He had not reached the bottom of the stairwell but a small landing that had been constructed halfway down as a resting point. The mountain of gold and treasure was stacked so high that this landing was as far as one could climb down.

“Doy-oy-oy-oy.”

The familiar sound of the caddels jarred Thist to the bone again as he ducked behind a pillar. He could hear the voices of the souls in the soul stones start to chatter.

“Guide me.” said Thist.

All the voices fell silent but one.
“Find the dragon.”
said one voice. It was the unmistakable sweet whisper voice of Skylah.

Thist’s heart raced, “Skylah! What must I do?”

“Calm your heart and find the dragon.” whispered Skylah.

“What then?” Thist trembled; his feet seemed to have turned to lead and welded themselves to the floor.

“Find the dragon.” said Skylah.

“I’m on my own, aren’t I?” said Thist.

“No.” said Skylah. “There is a dragon.”

Thist rolled his eyes as he resigned himself to his fate. “Great, I’m alone in a deep scary death-trap.”

“So is the dragon.” whispered Skylah.

Thist’s vision cleared as adrenaline rushed over him. It became clear to him that the dragon was at some kind of disadvantage. His feet loosened up again and he stepped out from behind the pillar. Thist surveyed the scene that lay before him. He was in a treasure room where the wealth of the world had been amassed. To what end the pile of treasure could serve any living thing, Thist could not fathom, and he shook his head, at a loss for words. The piles of gold and silver and precious stones lay before him in mountains, obstructed by mountains of more treasure. He gazed at the shimmering lustre as if it were the rolling swells on a stormy ocean, flowing up in high peaks and spilling over.

Thist walked out of the small stairwell landing and onto the dune of treasure. As he stepped onto it, he heard a deep guttural rumble, like a volcanic tube that was about to vent hell.

He tried to stand still but a slow avalanche of gold coins had started and his feet were moving along with it. He kept his balance as he would have while descending a mountain on a loose gravel track. As he slid down the dune he adjusted his feet back up to the top of the sliding gold so as to not get bogged down. He reached the bottom in good time and stepped free from the gold around his ankles. Some coins had fallen into his boots and Thist pulled them off and tipped them over to pour the gold out. As the coins fell the sound of money echoed through the vast hall. Another guttural gurgle echoed.

“Is that the dragon?” asked Thist.

“Yes.”
whispered Skylah.

Thist composed himself. His resolve grew as he fought back the urge to turn and flee like a coward. He stepped forward. He was determined to scale the mountain of treasure ahead of him without falling back with the avalanche. At this speed he made little progress but progress it was. He scaled the first hill only to have the horizon reveal two more. He scaled the next and the horizon revealed another.

Thist’s tread was light and quiet as any disturbance to the treasure would bring forth a rumble. He made the summit of the last pile of treasure and peered stealthily over the peak of the gold mountain, so as not to startle the infamous dragon. What he saw shook his resolve to the core as his soul filled with terror, regret and realisation. His feet seemed to turn to lead again but this time he was too frightened to even wet himself or whimper for help.

“Dig deep into your soul.” said Skylah. “The courage is already there.”

Thist had known from the start of this foolish quest that he would have to face a dragon. He had done what preparations he knew he could do. In the face of danger and an unfamiliar adversary, he had unwittingly fallen into a trap, where he was in the worst tactical disadvantage that he could have imagined.

Thist closed his eyes and his mouth and started to count backwards from fifty. Even in his mind he stammered. ‘f-f-f-fifty..f-f-f fourt-t-ty n-n-nine…’

Certain death was now staring him in the face and he wished for himself to die in advance, just to save himself. He would now have to make a choice. Surrender and die, or grow indestructible spheres of courage and face the dragon.

“…ONE…ZERO.” Thist’s eyes flashed open and glowed with renewed soul-fire.

The sword in his hand started to shimmer with an ominous blue haze as the dirt on the blade began to smoulder. He stood on a large pile of gold and under it was a gargantuan dragon. Its tail curled out from under the last pile of gold and past four stone pillars. From the ground up the tail was as thick as a house.

Thist realized his advantage. He was as small as a mouse to this dragon and the dragon was encased in a stone box in which it could hardly turn. He was loath to test the theory but he would have to start somewhere.

He sat down on the pile of gold and edged himself forward. As his hands touched the coins he heard the sound of the angry volcano again. It was the dragon. It growled when someone touched her gold. Thist slid down all the way to the stone floor and ran for the far side of the basement. When he reached the end of the tail he sliced into it deeply with his sword and then dashed for cover.

The dragon reared its head out of the veritable gold blanket and roared with a wide open mouth. It spewed out a blaze so long and so hot that it melted the stone stairwell. The heat from the fire flushed through the whole basement chamber. Thist could hear the hissing of molten objects as they fell into water. He no longer feared for his life, he knew that he was beyond salvation and that the dragon would cremate him on this day. Thist was now in a manic state as he shouted.  “Did you feel that? Did I wake you?”

The dragon turned its head and licked its lips. It had woken many a time in its sleep to burn a thief, like a man who stirs in the night to slap an annoying insect. But this was different. The dragon could feel by the sharp painful sting to its tail. It knew that dispatching this intruder would be more than a midnight chore.

“Why do you wake me?” roared the dragon.

“Expose your throat so that I may cut at it!” shouted Thist.

The dragon’s voice thundered as it raised its entire body from the floor. The rain of gold coins and treasure was deafening. Thist hid behind a pillar and closed his eyes as he drank in the sound. He cherished the moment as he realised the pinnacle of his life. If he lived for a thousand years, he would never again hear the sound of an ocean of gold coins and jewels hitting a stone floor. It was like the music that flooded your soul and defined it in a moment.

Thist opened his eyes and surveyed his terrain. He was trapped in the vast basement with an immortal, homicidal leviathan that he had hurt, enraged and threatened. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve and peered around the pillar at the dragon. What meagre light filtered into the chamber was poor and everything had a ghastly golden shimmer.

Thist tried to size up his opponent from a distance. The dragon turned its head like a snake twisting itself around in an old boot. A sudden ‘THUD’ rang through the whole castle like a giant boulder hitting the stone floor. The dragon thrashed its body left and right slapping the wall and sending treasure flying all around.  Another thud echoed back and forth. “What is hitting so hard?” mouthed Thist as he stepped closer to his foe.

The dragon turned its head and glared at Thist from the far side of the great hall.

A deep rumble sounded from its throat. The lava sound rolled through the air as it blew a steady stream of flames over the far wall. The flames curled and licked the stone wall like a creeping spirit, gaining purchase on it as if by magic. Thist tensed his lips as he watched the fire spirit claw its way toward him and then smoulder out.

The dragon spoke in a slow and deep voice. “Why?”

Thist didn’t understand the dragon’s question. He ducked this way and that as he tried to glimpse an escape route for himself. Then he noticed the thick chain around the dragon’s neck.

“Why?” said the dragon again as it sent flames toward Thist again.

“Why what?” shouted Thist.

The dragon thrashed and jerked, the chain on its neck making a loud ‘THUD!’ sound that reverberated through the whole castle. “Why did you break into my prison?”

“What prison?” shouted Thist.

Then he understood. The castle guards were never trying to keep anything out. They were trying to keep something in. The castle is a prison for the dragon.

“I came for the soul bridge.” shouted Thist.

The dragon jerked on its neck chain, again and again. Each time it did the earth quaked. A dust cloud started to form as the walls started to crack. The gold on the floor was lofted an inch above the ground on each jerk and the sound was deafening.

‘THUD! THUD! THUD!’ The dragon bucked in frustration, thrashed its tail and jerked on the chain. Its thick scaly skin started to glow as the energy surged through it. Thist had disturbed the dragon thoroughly and now it was awakening completely.

“Hurry!”
shouted Skylah

‘THUD! THUD! CRACK!’

Thist knew that he had done something terrible, he had awoken a dragon. He knew that at this point there was no going back. He would best the dragon, or most likely, the dragon would swat him like a fly. ‘THUD! CRACK! THUD! CRACK!’

Parts of the building started to collapse. Thist sheathed his sword and unclipped the whip from his belt. He lashed the dragon on the hide of its right leg. Suddenly the dragon was still. It had felt no pain to its leg, but it had felt an irritation to its mind. A puny human was playing a dangerous game in its hitherto accepted sleeping lair. It glared at Thist and this time it bared all its teeth as a deep rumbling growl boiled up from the deepest recess of its belly. ‘THUD! SNAP.’

The sound of splintering chain shrapnel exploded in all directions. The chamber filled with dust which blocked out the light, then came the flames. Thist ducked and rolled for cover and hit his head on a pillar in the dark. The flames rolled up and over him missing him as the flames rose. The heat singed the hair on the back of his head. Thist held his knocked head as he glanced back only to see his adversary now free of its chains and ready to pursue him. He held his head for another moment as his eyes watered.

Thist checked his hand to see if his head was bleeding. “If it hurts so much, then why doesn’t it bleed?” he said.

An opening had formed in the roof of the basement just above a large pile of rubble. Thist ran for the opening as he scaled the rubble pile. He lashed his whip out at the dragons face catching it with the tip of the whip, right in its eye. The dragon shrieked and jerked its head back smashing out a support pillar in the basement. The blind spot lasted just second, enough for him to scamper out of the dragon’s lair and seek cover behind a pillar in the great hall just above the basement.

Thist stood behind the pillar, the orb of power in his left hand and the whip in his right. He swung the whip over and under, forward and back in the shape of an infinity symbol, causing it to sing.

The dragon exhaled from its nostrils and a smoky shadow rolled out and cascaded up to the ceiling. The sound of the singing whip put the dragon’s teeth on edge and caused its upper lip to quiver. “Show yourself!” roared the dragon.

It clawed its way out of the lair. The hole in the basement roof was only large enough for an ox wagon to fit through but the dragon forced its way out, smashing large pieces away as it sailed through. The building had started to disintegrate in the area where Thist was and he decided to draw the fight to another part.

“The soul bridge is all I am after.” said Thist as he ran down the great hall.

“I have only one part of it,” boomed the dragon.

Thist could hear the words of the dragon echo like thunder back and forth down the deep halls of its throat. It lunged forward as it snapped its teeth at Thist. He leapt out of its reach as another coil of flame rolled passed his head.

“The soul bridge consists of three parts.” continued the dragon, “The right half and the left half of the master stone and a wielder. I only have the right half.”