Fate Rides Wicked: Volume I of the Lerilon Trilogy (49 page)

Tych waited to be alone then closed his eyes to
concentrate. He used the limits of every power he had
learned to probe the cosmos for the evil signature matching
the one where he stood. He knew acts like this didn’t take
place for any other reason but to draw people into situations
they didn’t want to be in and he also knew a trap was being
set. Suddenly, he found it.

Energy raced into camp in giant arching rainbows and
into the tent. The infirmary seemed to explode in the eyes
of the soldiers. They had been deceived, for when their
vision returned to normal, the tent remained. Not a sound
could be heard for over a minute. Then Quez went to work
to block off the area while Keln entered the infirmary.
Keln, a venerable human wizard, placed special signature
spells in the tent to help Tych return if need be.

Mist and darkness filled the cave but Gaylin landed
where Tych wanted it to anyway. Gaylin could not sing
nor shine in this evil place as credaril, the lost race, fell to
her bite. Finally, it ended and Tych’s staff lit a large
chamber of corpses.
This place is strong with evil,
Tych
thought.
This is not the home of the credarils; they serve a
more powerful being.
Somehow he knew in his heart that it
wasn’t Rangdor, but that their master probably did serve
the evil in the north of Li.

He held Gaylin up and mentally urged her to seek good
energy. A small burst came from one of the many exits. In
a step he reached the speed his dragon side gave him and
sped down the tunnel as fast as sound. The wizard rushed
right into a room full of demons, ghosts, zombies and
xadineft. He slowed, but before he could stop, the
creatures had wounded him. There seemed to not be a
space left in all the room, and the ceiling brushed the top of
the tallest demon’s horns.

He quickly used his staff to place a box of ice around
him. He cursed. First of all, he knew he shouldn’t have
been moving so fast and, second, he shouldn’t have slowed
down. Demon magic would bring down one or more of the
ice walls soon. Quickly, the prince wrapped his scar on his
right side, reopened by the creatures’ blows. Sheathing
Gaylin, he took a drink of some magic healing potion he
carried and cast a spell to protect him from evil.

Preparing his staff, he waited. As expected, one of the
walls disappeared and there stood a demon, nine feet tall
with wings three times that size. Those wings caught
Tych’s whirlwind spell and carried the demon and those
behind him into the wall. Only the stunned demon lived,
but Tych’s lightning bolt finished him. For close to two
hours, Tych knocked down undead with wood or spell.

Finally, he realized there were too many opponents for
them to be natural. This immediately broke the illusion, for
he no longer believed them to be real. His belief proved
true as only the corpses of demons remained a second later.
But the illusions had worked for too long and again Tych
reprimanded himself.

The ceiling now rose three times as high. When he
summoned, white energy came out of the opposite tunnel.
He jogged briskly down it. As he left the chamber, twenty
credaril entered from behind him. He used his staff to
create fire elementals, creatures made of and attacking with
fire. The prince resumed his trek to the sounds of
screaming, the light of his staff lighting his path.

Suddenly, the tunnel and the floor ended. A three-inch
wide lip of stone ran all the way around the huge pit to
another exit. The endaril could only barely see the bottom
several hundred feet below. Just as he prepared to fly
across, an instinctive flash hit him and he stopped. Picking
up a rock from the tunnel, he tossed it above the pit, which
rose as far as it fell, and tried to control it, as he should
have been able to. It fell to the floor at an incredible speed,
far beyond what gravity could create.

Wanting to reserve his energy, he grudgingly teleported
himself to the other side, forty feet away. Energy raced to
him from a tunnel, on his side and one hundred feet below,
as he summoned. Discouraged by this obstacle, he absently
tossed another pebble in. It raced up to the ceiling at the
same speed the other one had fell. Intrigued, he tossed
another. It fell down like the first.

The endaril sat back on his heels to think about it. In a
few moments he knew what to do. Walking a few more
feet down the tunnel, he found a stone a little more than
half his weight. Quickly, he wrapped and tied a rope
around the stone and carried it to the opening. Bracing
himself for the pain he might endure, he tossed the stone
out, waited a half second and followed it. As he had hoped,
the rope fell before the stone could pull the end up on its
rise and he fell. The jolt of catching the rope sent pain
through both shoulders but they didn’t feel dislocated. The
opposite pulls froze them in midair for a minute and then
they began to drift down. Tych’s speed slowly increased,
but by the time he swung himself into the right tunnel, he
landed only slightly hard.

As he let go, the stone flew up and he avoided
bouncing. Leaving his staff on his back, he drew Gaylin
and began down the tunnel. Suddenly, with the help of the
sword, he heard Andri screaming. Enraged, he increased to
the speed of sound, and the screams sounded different. For
half an hour he turned down tunnels, chasing the cries of
agony Gaylin let him hear, kicking up dirt and gravel to
blinding thickness behind him.

Something made him stop. The sounds of running
reached him as he looked at an extra dark spot a few feet in
front of him. He backed up and fired a bolt of energy at the
spot. It swirled in a battle for control. For a moment, the
good energy won and Tych could see the chamber beyond.
The evil revealed itself to be only as thick as a curtain.

The endaril removed his staff, realizing Andri had
stopped screaming. He used it to cast a protection spell and
charged through the swirling battle of energy into a huge
chamber, staff in one hand, Gaylin in the other. It extended
on for five hundred feet and the ceiling rose ten stories
above his commanders in the center of the room.
Everybody but Andri sat back-to-back, tied together. A
huge male credaril continued to rape the neftir commander
and a gag showed why the screams had stopped. He
realized the lack of sound had made him slow and saved
him from serious injury from the curtain. Blood ran down
the side of the neftir and he knew he had to act. Forty or
fifty other credaril roamed around the cavern.

He had only one problem with helping Andri. At the
other end of the cavern sat a castle-size, two-headed black
dragon. The beast raised his heads and said, “You have
survived my traps, endaril. Now see if you can survive my
personal guard.”

The other credarils suddenly formed into an organized
unit and came towards him. The prince glanced over
quickly at the largest one, and saw him rise up from Andri.
Drawing a throwing dagger, he spun in the commander’s
direction and fired. As the large credaril drew his blade to
finish the neftir, Tych’s missile buried itself in his neck.

The endaril turned his attention to the onrushing
soldiers. Tossing his staff in Andri’s direction, he took up
a fighting stance. He met the first to reach him with
blinding fury, pitting Gaylin against ordinary steel and
leather. In a few minutes he stood in a puddle of blood
amidst the corpses of his evil cousins.

“Endaril, you are indeed powerful. You have yet to
meet your greatest test. Me.” With this the black dragon
spread wings a hundred feet from tip to tip and left the
ground.

Tych glanced over to see Andri crawling towards the
other commanders with her attacker’s sword. As a stream
of black acid raced towards him, the endaril ran to his left
and towards the treasure pile. The dragon discontinued his
breath weapon, unable to keep up with the speed of the
prince. Tych’s direction forced the beast to sweep right,
which put one wing tip on the floor and one on the ceiling.

A stream of weapons, jewels, coins and gems blasted
the dragon as he came toward Tych. Two cones of acid
began to eat away at the telekinetic storm flowing towards
the beast as he approached. Tych ended the attack and
dove away from the unobstructed stream. As he rolled, he
jumped into the air, the dragon coming in low. With a yell
of triumph, he severed one of the necks of the black and
sent it crashing against the wall.

Gaylin began to sing, louder than the roars of the
pained dragon lying several yards away. Tych watched as
the beast began to undergo a metamorphosis. Half of the
dragon fell away, and only a normal sized black dragon
remained. Still fierce, the creature stood and launched into
the air again.

As his sword filled the cavern with light, Tych felt an
eerie sensation of power roll over him, both evil and strong.
He knew the temptation the credarils fell into and that
Gaylin could not convert the energy she absorbed into
good. He could hear pain in the melody ringing from the
blade, so he sheathed it and stood his ground as the smaller
monster swooped down from the other side of the cavern.

Planting both feet shoulder width apart, the endaril
placed his fists together and concentrated. In that moment
of evil power, he had sensed a deep skill. He had tossed
around small amounts of energy, like he had at the curtain,
but now he knew the part of him that could release power
only limited by the wells of magic. For the first time he
really felt most of the ability inside him. The commanders
watched in amazement as a large beam of energy left the
endaril’s hands. They covered their eyes at the force of the
explosion that destroyed the black dragon. Only ashes fell
to the ground.

Immediately, he knew his error. He had just used every
ounce of good energy available down here without killing
the commanders or knocking them unconscious. His knees
felt weak and he collapsed on the treasure pile. Cort
walked over and knelt beside him. “Corl described you as
powerful, but you have just surpassed even my wildest
imaginations.”

“Ah, my brother, with a price. We are now stuck here
for at least a couple hours until enough energy is built up
for me to get us out of here. I really haven’t accomplished
that much. I would have won with my blade soon enough.”

“Of the power of your blade, I am sure. You have,
however, accomplished a lot.” He gestured behind to point
at Findra tending the wounds to Andri’s breasts and thighs.
“Before your work, it would have taken much more dire
circumstances to bring a mendar to help a neftir like that, or
for the neftir to allow it. You have broken down a lot of
barriers.”

“I hope they will all fall before the enemy is upon us.
You had best return to them. I have to seek any other
useful energy in this place besides the commanders.” Cort
nodded and returned to the group. Tych focused on the
area outside the cavern. Like a tree trunk, a beam of energy
knocked him onto his back. He reeled for a moment, and
then absorbed it.

Instantly, strength returned to his body and he stood.
The commanders watched as he drew Gaylin again and
marched across the cavern. When he reached the curtain,
he found it weakened and it vanished with one swift slice
of his sword. He remembered a tunnel he had passed
earlier and he walked down this one with determination. In
ten minutes he reached the entrance to the other and entered
it cautiously. The passage would be too small for most
humans, but it fit the endaril perfectly.

He steadied himself as it started to slope downward,
sensing he approached his destination. In another half hour
he reached a small, square room not more than a wagon’s
width wide. The white walls almost blinded him and he
failed to see the tall endaril standing near a small alcove.

The male stepped forward and Tych jumped in surprise,
not knowing he was there. He leveled Gaylin at him.
“Who are you and why are you here?”

“I am Oaktree, your six great grandfather.”

“You are dead, a long time ago. You died in the
explosion from your attempt to return the credarils to the
side of good. Some returned as the thrandrils, and started a
new race. Explain your presence here.”

“Unknown to any other creature except that black beast
Zanudra, when I cast the spell that saved the thrandrils, I
did not die. Zanudra was a master of illusion and the
explosion was his doing to hide my abduction. Zanudra
was still young but talented. In his search for power he
brought me here, straight into a time stop, which ended a
few minutes ago. I had been a pest to the demon lords and
evil dragons for some time, so as a reward for capturing
me, they gave the black extraordinary longevity.

“When Rangdor came, Zanudra had to obtain a ward to
prevent him from discovering my presence here. It’s
behind the curtain in the alcove. It emits good energy to
protect this room from evil eyes. And of course, good
darils wouldn’t look. What is your name? The prophecy
didn’t say.”

“Tych di Corl. I tend to discount prophecies, though
they have proven true so far, especially the ones that
involve me. How much do you know about the last five
thousand years?”

“Only of Rangdor’s arrival because Zanudra told me of
it. Hopefully I can catch up. Here, let me get the ward for
you.”

“No.” With a moment of concentration, Tych tried to
pull energy from the alcove. No good energy came and he
brought his sword up. Suddenly, the illusion broke and the
room quadrupled in size. Tych could see an endaril frozen
in suspended animation where the alcove used to be, in the
middle of a spell. A clear case of some fashion surrounded
him. Normal stone walls and floors appeared.