Shades of the Past: The Morcyth Saga Book Six (48 page)

Turning back to Jiron he starts to say
something when a small creature suddenly appears in the air behind
Jiron’s left shoulder. “Jiron!” he whispers as he points to the
creature hovering just beyond his shoulder. Barely a foot in
height, the scaly creature is roughly man-like. Hunched over as if
it’s carrying too much weight, it stares at them from its gnarled
head with glowing red eyes.

When Jiron turns and sees the creature, he
quickly takes two steps backward. “What is it?” he asks. The
creature stays there but a moment before disappearing.

“I don’t know what that was,” replies James.
“But we better get out of here fast.” A sense of foreboding comes
over him and the room all of a sudden feels smaller.

“I’m with you there,” agrees Jiron. A single
corridor extends away from the room. With knife in hand, he takes
the lead. He doesn’t make it far before another of those creatures
appears between them.

This time, the creature reacts animatedly and
chitters at them before disappearing. Jiron glances back at James
who shrugs. Turning back, he continues down the corridor.

James’ feeling of foreboding begins to grow
into one of impending doom with every step he takes. Just then, the
tingling that warns of magic being worked comes to him. Strong and
powerful, the feeling is more intense than anything he’s ever felt
before.

“Jiron,” he whispers urgently. “Magic!”

Stopping, Jiron glances back and sees the
pallor of James’ face. “Close?” he asks.

“It has to be,” he replies.

Then Jiron’s eyes widen. “James!” he says
pointing to his chest. “The medallion.”

Looking down, he sees light coming from his
beneath his shirt. Pulling out the medallion, the Star upon it
bursts into brilliant light.

A frigid wind sweeps down the corridor from
further ahead bringing despair and sapping the will. James looks
down the corridor to find a figure standing there. Suddenly, the
air around them is filled with dozens of the tiny creatures.
Chittering and shrieking, the creatures avoid close proximity to
the light as they move to strike at them with their tiny claws.

Jiron draws forth both knives and begins
fighting back. The creatures move so quickly he is having little
effect. A shimmer forms around them as James creates his barrier to
keep the creatures at bay. But it does little good, the creatures
begin appearing within the barrier.

Jiron finally manages to impale one on his
knife. The creature lets out a high pitched squeal then disappears.
“James, do something!” he yells as his knives continue to dance,
keeping the creatures away.

You have come, mage.

The light coming from the medallion keeps the
creatures away from him, the effects of contact with it appears to
hurt them. James stands transfixed by the figure at the other end
of the corridor until one of the creatures braves the light from
the medallion and scores on his right arm. Three lines of red, each
several inches long burn like acid as blood begins to well. Then
another scores on his leg, ripping the pant leg and baring the
flesh beneath.

The tingling sensation spikes and he throws
up a barrier to seal off the corridor between themselves and the
figure in the hallway. Energy, massive energy strikes the barrier
and shatters it. Then all of a sudden the air is free of the little
creatures as they disappear all at once.

Jiron grabs him by the arm and hollers, “Come
on!” Dragging him back down the corridor, they flee.

James glances back and sees two other cowled
figures in the corridor next to the first one. Moving around the
stationary figure, they make their way down the corridor toward the
fleeing pair.

Running fast they return to the room with the
raised dais. “Now what?” asks Jiron. From his position at the
entrance to the corridor, he sees the cowled figures coming closer.
The original one they encountered is now lost in the darkness.

“I don’t know,” admits James. Searching the
walls, he prays to find a secret door or any other way in which to
escape.

“How did we get here?” asks Jiron. “Think
fast we don’t have much time.”

“Uh, we were fighting,” he says as he tries
to recall just what happened. “We were struggling and then the
ceiling fell in. Then suddenly we were here.”

“How!”

“How…” mumbles James as he tries to figure it
out. From his position in the room, he can see the two figures
coming closer. Glancing around the room, his eyes settle on the
dais. The dais?

His skin crawls as the tingling sensation
spikes. “Away from the opening,” he yells to Jiron.

Jumping backward behind the wall, he narrowly
misses being struck by a flash of light which strikes the far wall
with a sizzle. When it’s gone, they see the surface of the wall
where the light hit now has a hole, six inches wide and three deep,
eaten out of it.

“They’re almost here!” he cries.

James feels another spike in the tingling
sensation and hollers, “Watch out!”

Jiron jumps to the side again but no attack
materializes.

“Just what is going on here?” a deep male
voice asks from behind them.

They both turn to see the armored figure of a
warrior priest standing upon the dais.
That’s it!
Lashing
out with a wave of magic, he catches the warrior priest completely
by surprise. As the warrior priest is thrown backward off the dais
to smash into the wall, James grabs Jiron.

“Now!” he yells. “Dive for the dais!”

They both jump and land on the dais at the
same time. A momentary feeling of disorientation then they find
themselves upon an identical dais sitting in a different, larger
room. James immediately recognizes this place. They are in the
underground temple they found on their way back from Saragon last
year. But why did they come here of all places?

The room is large with two rows of three wide
columns, each extending all the way to the ceiling. Between the two
rows of columns lies an open area where four braziers form the
points of a square. Fire burns in each giving ample light with
which to see. The dais they find themselves upon sits in the middle
of the square formed by the braziers.

“How is this possible?” Jiron asks as they
get down from the dais.

“I have an idea,” says James. “But I’ll tell
you as we go. They may be able to track us to here.”

No sooner do they get off the dais than one
of the cowled figures appears upon it. James lashes out immediately
with magic as Jiron moves to attack.

The cowled figure is thrown backward off the
dais and lands on its back. A flash of light shoots toward James
only to be absorbed by the medallion, causing it to burst forth
with light.

By this time, Jiron has closed with the
figure on the floor and strikes out with a knife. The blade sinks
into the robes striking the flesh underneath. One hand of the
cowled figure touches his shoulder and he rears back in pain. His
arm goes numb and lets go of the knife still embedded in the cowled
figure.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jiron sees
another cowled figure appear upon the dais. “James!” he shouts as
he points to the second one. Turning back to the one on the floor,
he lashes out with his foot and connects with the side of its head.
The force of the blow knocks its head to the side and causes the
hood to fall away.

The sight of what’s revealed elicits a gasp
of surprise from Jiron. He steps back two feet as the skeletal face
turns its lifeless gaze upon him. “They’re dead!” he exclaims.

James, now turned to face the new arrival,
lashes out with a wave of force which picks up the creature and
throws it across the room. His head is clearing from the earlier
blow Jiron dealt him but it’s still an effort to summon the magic.
He glances over to the other one on the floor and sees the skeletal
head and empty eye sockets. A spike in the tingling sensation and
the creature on the floor hits Jiron square in the chest with a
flash of light. Knocked backward through the air, Jiron lands on
his back a dozen feet away. Rolling, he quickly regains his
feet.

“Jiron!” he cries as he rushes over to
him.

“We can’t win this,” Jiron tells him, the
front of his shirt smoking.

“Maybe,” asserts James. “You okay?”

“Not really,” replies Jiron. The front of his
shirt has been burnt away and the skin of his chest is an angry
red. “My left arm is numb too.”

James turns to face the two attackers and
summons the magic, encasing each within a barrier. One of the
creatures reaches out and touches the barrier with its hand. Upon
contact, James cries out and sinks to his knees. His head feels as
if it’s about ready to explode. Releasing the power maintaining the
barriers, the pain eases and then finally disappears.

Holding aloft the medallion, its light
blazing forth, he gets back to his feet and faces the approaching
creatures. One sends another flash toward him but is absorbed by
the medallion. Lashing out with his own magic, he knocks them off
their feet. One took the brunt of the wave of force and is thrown
backward several yards. It hits one of the large stone braziers
before sinking to the ground.

An idea forms quickly and James removes a
slug from his belt and throws it with the force of magic behind it.
The slug flies through the air and impacts with the side of the
brazier directly over the creature. When the slug hits, the side of
the brazier cracks open and the oil contained within pours out upon
the creature. As the oil flows from the opening, James tweaks the
flame burning atop with magic to ignite the oil.

When the burning oil lands on the creature,
it bursts into flames. A scream that is felt rather than heard rips
through their minds like a red hot knife. It thrashes about for a
minute before it finally lies still and the scream stops.

Another flash of light from the remaining
creature and the medallion flares into blinding brilliance as it
again absorbs the attack.

With one taken out of action, James can now
concentrate on the other. The creature approaching still has
Jiron’s knife sticking out of its ribs. Removing another slug, he
sends it flying toward the creature. The creature makes no attempt
to avoid it and the slug rips through its stomach and exits out the
back.

Not even slowing, it continues to approach.
Suddenly, the flames burning over the remaining braziers roar to
life. A ball of flame shoots out of each toward the dais. Meeting
in the air, the balls explode as they collide. When James’ eyes
recover from the brilliant explosion, he sees one of the hell
hounds standing upon the dais.

Behind him, he hears Jiron get to his feet. A
brief glance back shows him that Jiron has his remaining knife in
hand and is preparing to sell his life dearly. Tuning back, he
throws a confining barrier around the hell hound while at the same
time lashing out with another wave of force to push the cowled
figure backward.

“Jiron, get me out of here if I fall,” he
says.

“Do the best I can,” he replies. Though how
effective he will be with a numb arm and a chest that’s throbbing
horrendously with pain, he’s not sure.

The hell hound fights the barrier. James has
to funnel more of his reserves to simply maintain the barrier while
he deals with the undead creature before him. Behind the
approaching creature, the oil continues to spill forth from the
broken brazier, creating an ever widening area of flame.

Lashing out again with a blast of force, he
knocks the creature backward into the pool of flame. The fire
instantly ignites the creature’s robes. Their heads are again hit
by the mind tearing scream as the fire consumes the creature, which
almost causes the barrier surrounding the hell hound to fail.
Falling over into the pool of fire, the creature thrashes around
for a moment before lying still.

When the scream tearing through his brain
stops, James is again able to focus his attention back to the hell
hound and the barrier encasing it. As he’s done several times
before, he turns the barrier cold and begins to shrink it in upon
the creature.

Struggle as it will, the barrier continues to
shrink until the creature’s struggles cease and all resistance to
the closing of the barrier vanishes. With a pop, the barrier
implodes completely.

James sags and almost falls to the floor
before Jiron catches him with one hand. On the verge of passing out
he says, “Help me up. We have to get out of here.”

As he helps James to his feet, he glances
over at what’s left of the two bodies burning in the pool of fire
on the floor. “What were those things?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” he replies. The memory of the
warrior priest that he slammed with his magic before they came here
is very much on his mind. Why he hasn’t made an appearance yet
baffles him. “You remember the way out?”

“Yeah,” replies Jiron. “Let’s go.” He puts
James’ arm around his shoulder for support before moving toward the
double doors they had passed through during their previous visit.
Kicking one of the doors open, he and James pass through to the
corridor on the other side. James’ orb springs to life as they
leave the light of the braziers behind them.

Turning down to the right, they walk quickly.
Coming to the end they arrive at another corridor that runs
perpendicular to theirs. Without hesitation they turn and follow it
to the right. They soon come to the winding flight of stairs
leading down.

On their previous visit, they had come up
this way after crawling through a drainage pipe found in the side
of the mountain. At the time they were being pursued by soldiers of
the Empire and were just looking for a place to hide.

“Not that way,” says James as they come to
the stairs. “Better leave the same way as last time.”