The Sorcerer's Abyss (The Sorcerer's Path) (32 page)

Out of the corner of his eye, Azerick spotted an indistinct dark blur skitter across the wall of the cave and vanish into deeper shadows. More shadowy figures leapt from every surface and cranny, slashing at him with the cold, spectral touch of death. Azerick’s body felt as though it had just plunged through the ice of a frozen lake. His mind raced, but his body was slow to respond.

He raked the walls with lightning and filled the tunnel with fire. The shadow creatures fled his onslaught, but they returned in an instant, slashing with their insubstantial weapons that passed through clothing and magical wards as easily as it did flesh and bone.

Rage mixed with fear as Azerick tried to figure out how to battle something that did not fully exist. They seemed to fear his fire and lightning, but they immediately returned and harried him. The shade creatures fled again as he filled the passageway with fire. When they returned to attack, Azerick was struck with inspiration. It was not the fire or the lightning they feared, but the light those spells produced. The way to destroy a shadow was with light!

Azerick summoned the power of the Source and filled his hand with a miniature sun. The shadow creatures howled in pain and fled into the deepest cracks and fissures they could find before the dreadful light destroyed them. Motion caught Azerick’s attention and he turned and lashed out with a strike of pure force. The spell caught the Rook full in the chest just as he lowered himself from the roof of the cave to strike Azerick in the back.

“Treacherous creature!” Azerick snarled and summoned the power to crush the demon.

The Rook scuttled backward and pressed himself to the floor. “No, My Prince, Fu’Marb would never attempt treachery! I wandered too far ahead, eager to fulfill my great master’s desire to be free of these caves. I heard the battle and returned as quickly as I could! I came to protect you from the horrible shadow spawn, as feeble as my help would be.”

Crush him now!
Klaraxis seethed.

“Now you want to supply some input?” Azerick asked. “You have been joyfully silent this entire time.”

If you are too stupid to give me control, I thought it best not to distract you. A wasted effort since you failed miserably anyway. I do not like this creature. You should kill him and take strength from his life essence.

“I don’t like him either, but I still need him to get me out.” Azerick returned his attention to Fu’Marb. “You said we are getting close to the way out?”

The demon’s entire body bobbed up and down. “Yes, Glorious Prince! I will lead you out. I will not fail you again.”

“Go, but do not stray from my sight,” Azerick ordered.

Fu’Marb waggled his entire body once more and carefully picked his way down the passage, constantly stopping ensure Azerick was following. Azerick allowed a shudder to reverberate through his body only after the demon turned away. The icy pain the shadow spawns’ attacks caused was agonizing, but he could not allow himself to show how badly they hurt him. Keeping his brilliant light blazing in his palm, Azerick followed the demon at a close but wary distance.

The Rook fumed at yet another failed attempt. The luck of this creature was beyond anything he had dealt with before. He focused on stilling his anger and summoning his patience. Luck, no matter how potent, eventually ran out. It was the law of the cosmos, and when that happened, he would strike.

The passage continued to cut a winding path through the red stone without any discernible indication they were getting nearer to finding a way out. Azerick was beginning to think Fu’Marb was intentionally leading him astray in hopes of creating another ambush. He still was not certain the demon was responsible for the first. Just as his suspicions began to nag him to the point he could no longer ignore them, Azerick noticed a slight diffusing of the darkness that was not due to his magical light.

 “See, Master, I have found the way for you!” Fu’Marb croaked excitedly.

A few minutes later, the tunnel ended at what appeared to be a large, red eye. The landscape beyond shown at the end of the passageway with the usual dreary redness and wane light of the Fifth Circle, but it looked as glorious as the first sunrise he had seen after escaping the psylings. Fu’Marb darted ahead just outside the tunnel’s iris as Azerick followed him out.

The Rook pressed his body against the ground in his supplicating manner, summoned his ethereal, soul-rending blade, and hid it beneath his body. He watched the sorcerer step from the tunnel and look up at the featureless sky. Now was the time to strike, while his guard was down.

Azerick stepped from the tunnel and looked up. He found himself in some sort of canyon. Red stone cliffs stretched what must have been a thousand feet over his head in every direction but straight ahead. He glanced back at the supplicating balrog then looked back up at the towering cliffs and the only apparent way out.

“I would ask where to from here, but it looks like there is only one direction that does not require wings,” Azerick said.

The Rook crept silently closer on his belly. “Yes, My Prince. Through the gorge you will find your way.”

“You sound like you do not intend to go with me.”

“I should return to the battle. Where you must go is no place for Fu’Marb,” the demon explained.

Azerick squinted into the distance but failed to see anything other than the red cliffs. “Where exactly am I going?”

The Rook tensed his legs beneath him, their incredible strength more than sufficient to carry him the thirty feet separating him from his prey. The assassin leapt with his black blade held high.

“Straight into the heart of oblivion!”

Azerick spun, and although wary of the demon, his speed and the suddenness of the attack caught him by surprise. Fu’Marb covered half the distance between them by the time Azerick was able to turn far enough to see him. He saw the shadowy blade gripped in the assassin’s hand and knew if it was the same type of weapon as the shadow spawn in the tunnel then his wards were useless.

Azerick tried to backpedal and raised his arm in a futile defense. Another, much larger shape dropped from the sky and crushed Fu’Marb to the ground hard enough to raise a cloud of dust. Azerick heard bones crunch with the impact. Drak’kar grabbed the balrog by the leg, slammed him into the ground twice, and then hurled him against the cliff with a sickening smack of more broken bones and a splatter of black, viscous blood.

Drak’kar must have been clinging to one of the cliff sides, probably directly above the cave opening, and hid in a dark cleft of rock. Azerick had little time to ponder his fortune, both good and bad, as the demon lord lunged with his impossible speed and kicked him in the chest. Azerick flew back and struck the wall not far from the very dead Fu’Marb.

“You see how pathetic you are? Even your own turn against you,” Drak’kar said.

Azerick had not recovered from their previous battle, but he was not nearly as weak as he had been. He knew he would have only one chance and drew upon the Source. He laced his spell with abyssal power and unleashed it against his foe. Drak’kar actually smiled even as the strike blasted him from his feet and smashed him against the solid stone near the cave entrance.

“I was hoping you were not just going to let me kill you without a fight.” Drak’kar laughingly grumbled as he regained his feet.

“I will never go down without a fight!” Azerick shouted and tore at the two disparate sources of magic with wild abandon.

Azerick shaped the spell similar to the one he had used to undermine the boulder that killed the dragon years ago. Only he fueled this one with the power of abyssal corruption on a scale he could have never achieved in his human body. Azerick struck not at Drak’kar, but the cliffs behind and to both sides of the demon lord. A deafening rumble filled the canyon as the stone shattered and fell in a hail of massive boulders so great it looked as though the world were imploding.

Drak’kar roared furiously and tried to leap at the sorcerer bent in concentration. A boulder the size of a small cottage caught the demon prince in the back and crushed him to the ground much as he had done to Fu’Marb. Drak’kar continued to scream in pain and outrage until hundreds of feet of rock entombed him beneath its crushing embrace. Azerick stumbled back, gasping and avoiding the occasional tumbling rock not satisfied with burying just one demon.

Azerick felt like passing out, but he knew if he gave into his weakness, he might never get up again. He took several steadying breaths and focused on the small mountain of fallen stones. Deep beneath its wasted surface, Azerick felt Drak’kar’s presence, alive, in pain, and very angry. He knew the demon lord was probably already calling to his minions for aid. Azerick needed to leave this area as quickly as his exhausted body would allow.

Azerick thought of the many battles he had faced in his life, and the only one he recalled putting him in this much pain and left him feeling this weak was when the abyssal elf, Teraneshala, had nearly killed him. If it were not for the awesome strength and durability of Klaraxis’ body, he certainly would not be capable of pressing on or possibly surviving such a beating.

The walls of the canyon continued to tower over him, looking down like gods, ready to crush him like an insect at the slightest misstep. The divide narrowed as if they were the hands of that god closing in to swat him. As the towering walls continued to contract, Azerick began to fear the fissure would close completely and he would have to climb the thousand or so feet of sheer rock face to escape this chasm.

Just when he thought he had reached the inevitable end where the walls were close enough to touch with his outstretched arms, the fissure opened into a wide valley just a short ways ahead. Azerick escaped the narrow confines of the cleft and breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped into the much wider canyon. He then jumped when a voice spoke right into his ear.

“I am so glad you finally made it,” the voice said silkily.

Azerick spun and lashed out at whoever had spoken with a pathetic display of magic. Even that small effort made his head reel. He saw the speaker vanish in a puff of pink smoke, leaving behind only a vaporous silhouette and the stench of brimstone.

“So hostile,” Sharellan’s seneschal said.

“What do you want, Krade,” Azerick demanded as he spun and faced the devil.

The devil smiled. “I told you I would make you pay for your impertinence. Now is the time to collect.”

Azerick replied with far more menace than he thought he could actually deliver. “I have faced Drak’kar twice and survived. Do not think that I am afraid of anything you can do.”