The Book of Deacon: Book 03 - The Battle of Verril (42 page)

“How did you . . . “ Ivy began.

“Never mind that, this way, quickly!” she
ordered, leaping inside.

Myranda looked hesitantly into the gaping
hole in the mountain. It was large. Large enough for Myn to slip
through with room to spare. With great care she navigated the
broken ground down into the tunnel, Ivy on her heels. It was like
walking into a furnace. The air was heavy with choking fumes. When
the others had cleared the entrance, Myn slipped in. Whereas for
Myranda and Ivy the heat pressed down on them like leaden weights,
Myn seemed instantly revitalized by it. Her eyes closed as she let
the intensity of it replace the biting cold she'd left behind. The
satisfaction was more than apparent on her face.

“Well, at least
she's
happy,” Ivy
said.

After a few moments to adjust to the massive
swing in temperature, the heroes rushed to catch up with Ether.
Myranda lit the way with her own magic, as the staff she held
contained no enchantments for illumination. In contrast, it had
quite a few for extinguishing light. The walls of the tunnel were
rough and wavy, and colored a lustrous black. As they moved on, it
twisted and folded upon itself, taking a meandering path toward the
recesses of the mountain. The heat grew steadily as they moved
deeper. With it grew the understanding of Ether's words. The
mountain did seem alive. Deep in the walls were faint rumbles and
groans. Periodically there came a shudder, the walls trembling as
though something were moving just beyond their surface. The air
swept past them in ever warmer breezes. Then there was the glow. It
came in tiny shafts from cracks in the walls; a deep, primordial
red.

#

In a field, surrounded by the Undermine as
they rested, Deacon was in a panic. They were far, too far to be
reached in anything less than a few days, and they had stopped.
They had found Lain, or at least found where he was hidden. If
their past encounters were any indication, they would be moving on
soon after. There wasn't enough time to catch up with them. This
was troubling, but it was not the source of his panic. Indeed, he
had expected, even anticipated it. What concerned him was the
presence he felt elsewhere. The pages offered to him by Desmeres
were a very detailed summary of some of the more fundamental
principles of D'karon magic, as well as personal notes made by
Epidime himself. With their help he'd been able to attune himself
far more closely with the unique energies their magics created. It
made them clear to his mind's eye like never before. What he
discovered was a focus of activity near to the capital. A massive
force gathered about a gleaming ember of magic. The ember was a
dormant but powerful spell waiting to be awakened, and it had a
counterpart very near to where Lain was located. The scenario was
revealing itself to him, and it spelled ambush.

The contents of the messenger bag had clearly
been selected with great care. Desmeres was no fool. He knew that
too much information would take too much time to pour through. No,
he'd plucked choice bits of data, specific dispatches, individual
pages. Desmeres had a plan for these pages, and it was a brilliant
one. There were no instructions, no indication of what Desmeres had
in mind, but the pieces he'd provided opened a single avenue of
possibility. It was a narrow one, and called for considerable risk,
but it was nonetheless a possible route to savior.

“You should get some sleep. That mind of
yours must need a fair amount of rest to work those wonders,” Caya
suggested.

“No time. Besides, I don't know if I could
keep the storm from burying us if I am asleep,” he muttered.

“Oh, yes. The storm. I'd forgotten,” Caya
said, glancing at the impossible way that the wind and snow seemed
to purposely avoid them.

Deacon looked to her. “How quickly can your
troops ready themselves when the time comes?”

“My soldiers can be ready at moment's notice.
Pray tell, what time is coming?” she asked.

“The time for battle. If I am right, it will
come soon, and suddenly,” he said, continuing to mumble to himself
aloud. “ I can't create it . . . they have to create it . . . can't
close it . . . but once it is open . . . “

#

After a few narrow bends proved a tight
squeeze for Myn, the path began to level. It merged with a handful
of similar tubes, eventually leading to a still wider passage that
had some signs of use. The rough floor had been walked smooth, and
scattered among the walls were glowing gems. At choke points in the
path there seemed to be thin metal bars clinging like vines to the
curved walls. Nowhere was there the slightest hint of resistance,
not a single guard.

The heat was beginning to wear on Ivy and
Myranda. The latter was wringing wet with sweat, her boots hissing
gently with each step. Ivy’s mouth was slightly open and every few
moments she had to consciously prevent herself from panting. It was
difficult to say how long they had been trudging though the dark
interior of the mountain, as each moment seemed to crawl by. The
stone on stone clack of Ether's footsteps guided them onward
tirelessly. Then suddenly Myn stopped. She drew a deep breath of
air through her nose and flicked her tongue. A moment later she was
running as quickly as the confined passageway would allow, Ether's
pace quickening to a run as well. The others forced their tortured
bodies forward. When they reached Myn again she was scrabbling to
get through a bottleneck in the tunnel that was far too small for
her. Her claws dug long grooves in the stone and her heaving
thrusts fairly shook the walls, but still she could not pass.

“Easy, Myn. Calm down and let us through. If
Lain is in there, we will find him,” Myranda said.

With eyes wide and maddened with desperation,
the dragon let them pass and watched pleadingly as they entered a
cavernous chamber on the other side of the opening. Ivy and Myranda
pushed into the intense heat of the room. The fumes here were a
thick haze that burned the eyes. Glowing crystals speckled the
tall, domed ceiling, but what little light there was came not from
them but from the deep crimson glow in the floor. A ring-shaped
trough engraved into the floor released an ominous red light,
illuminating the stone spire at its center. There, his hands and
feet fused into the very stone, was Lain himself.

The signs of torture were too numerous to
count. There was not an inch of exposed flesh that did not bear
some manner of scar, gash, or burn. The skin hung from withered,
emaciated arms and legs. He was breathing, but only just, with the
breaths drifting painfully in amid a quiet, painful wheeze. Ether
had already leapt to the spire and was easily cleaving the stone
with her rocky claws. In moments his feet were free. His weakened
form was draped over her shoulder as the last of the stone was
carefully chipped from around his hands. She leapt from the spire
and lowered him to the ground. Instantly Ivy and Myranda ran to his
side.

“Do your work quickly. We need to leave this
place,” Ether said, eying the crystals shining above them with
suspicion. One with a bluer tint prompted a more prolonged
stare.

“Is he alright? Is he going to be alright?”
Ivy asked desperately amid a flare of blue.

“Just be calm. I will do my best,” Myranda
said, looking with concern at the tremendous task ahead of her.

Lain was more dead than alive. The fact that
he had been freed was only now registering in his savaged mind.
Eyes veiled in a gray haze attempted to focus on the blurry form
bending over him, but to no avail. His ears, however, were still
healthy, and he recognized the voices. Thoughts were moving slowly
and vaguely through his usually razor sharp mind. He could feel
magic at work on him. Wounds were closing. Fog was lifting. As a
hint of clarity returned to him, a single, burning thought brushed
the others aside. He tried to shift his eyes to the exit, a ragged
breath fighting its way into his tattered lungs.

“Go . . . “ he croaked.

“We've come to save you, Lain, we won't leave
without you,” Myranda replied.

Lain struggled and gulped down another breath
of the acrid air.

“R . . . Run!” he ordered, fingers closing
about Myranda's cloak.

As if in reaction to his cry, there came a
metallic sliding from the opening and a renewed clawing from Myn.
The bars that had lined the walls were slithering into place,
nearly strangling Myn until she managed to pull her head free.
Before Myranda could raise her staff to offer the slightest counter
spell, one of the long metal tendrils lashed out, knocking the
weapon from her hand and wrapping around her, and drawing her back
against the wall. A second and third bar pursued the others. One
caught Ivy about the leg. The other twined about Ether, but a
moment later it was writhing uselessly about in the air she had
become.

The shape shifter burst toward the blue gleam
above just in time to see it dislodge itself and launch through
her, revealing itself to be the accursed halberd they'd faced so
many times before. The crystal tore at her as it passed through,
but Ether shrugged off the pain and chased after it. It was too
late. The weapon had thrust itself into Lain's hand. Instantly a
terrible and all too familiar look of cold intellect came to his
face. Ether tried to attack, but Epidime willed Lain's lightning
reflexes to the task and deflected every attempt. Ether's airy form
was ill equipped to defend against the assault. Before long she had
to pull back and regroup. The usurped Lain surveyed his
surroundings. The living metal bar wrapped tightly about Myranda
was on the verge of crushing her. What little concentration she
could manage was entirely dedicated to holding off its grip. Ivy
was fighting both the tendrils that gripped her body and the fear
that gripped her mind valiantly, but with a metal bar coiled about
each limb, she was beginning to tire. Myn stood just out of the
range of the flailing metal bars and watched helplessly from the
tunnel.

“I must say, I was beginning to grow weary of
waiting. I've always prided myself on my patience, but once I'd
weakened this assassin's surprisingly firm mind, I had very little
worth doing while I awaited your arrival,” he remarked. “Not that
this little encounter is what I would call worthwhile. It is a
victory to be sure, but you will be pleased to know I consider it
to be a hollow one. You were defeated not by the D'karon, but by
the rules of the game. Worthy opponents such as yourselves deserve
better. That said, I am not so foolish as to allow you to
survive.”

With that he swung his halberd to speed and
leveled it at Myranda's throat. There was a deafening clang and a
spray of sparks. Ether had swept in and assumed her stone form, her
arm held defensively.

“Well,” Epidime said. “You've gotten a bit
faster at that. I rather
thought
that you might be the
greatest challenge.”

The possessed form of Lain stepped quickly
back and twirled the weapon in a sequence of wide loops, building
speed as it went. Soon the tip was fairly hissing through the air.
Ether stalked toward him. With carefully calculated timing, Epidime
directed an attack at the shape shifter. A clang of steel echoed
off of the walls as a blow powerful enough to chip away at Ether's
stony form met its mark. She recovered quickly and continued to
move toward him. As the weapon clashed again and again, Ivy
watched, her mind ablaze as she fought the metal grip

She felt fear, anger, desperation, hatred.
None of them would do. Anger would bring pain, and possibly death.
Hatred . . . no, never again. Fear took the place of the other
emotions, but this too was no good to her, and she did her best to
bury it down. There was only one thing that could help her now. She
knew what she needed to do, but she didn't know how. It had
happened once before, if only she could remember . . .

Expert timing and inhuman speed had landed
countless attacks on Ether without so much as a single blow being
returned. Her rocky form was striped with cracks and lacerations
and the repeated strikes with the crystal had reduced her strength
to nearly nothing. The shape shifter needed relief, needed to
escape, but she knew that any other form would be instantly struck
down or, worse, squander the last of her energy and leave her a
helpless drifting mind once more. Epidime sensed this, raising the
intensity of his attacks. When victory seemed certain, he began to
highlight his attacks with mocking taunts.

“Remarkable creatures, these malthropes. I've
seldom encountered such boundless stamina. And after days of
starvation and torture, as well. Truly a wonder, and truly a shame
that very shortly they shall be extinct,” Epidime said with a
grin.

He rained blows upon Ether, the battered
creature no longer strong enough to mount a defense. As he raised
his weapon to deliver what would surely be a final blow, a blaze of
white light filled the chamber. The sudden outburst proved
distracting enough for Ether to fall clear of the strike,
collapsing weakly to the ground. Epidime turned to the source of
the blaze, shading his eyes against its intensity.

There, amid the groan of straining steel and
the creaking of stone, was Ivy, immersed in a pure white aura. Her
eyes, now piercingly white, fixed on Epidime. There was no anger,
no fear, just iron determination in her expression. Only once
before had she managed such a transformation. Driven only by duty,
she'd achieved it in her escape from the fort that had nearly
claimed Myranda's life. With the strength brought by her new form
she'd levered her feet free and now stood with them planted on the
wall, pushing with all of her might against the failing grip of the
metal tendrils that coiled about her arms. Her clothes rustled in
the arcane wind that seemed to surge from her in all directions.
Steadily the writhing steel tentacles began to lose their
grips.