Kaika looked at Rysha, then pointedly at their glowing swords. “This is going to be our battle.”
“I don’t object to fighting, ma’am,” Rysha said, her gaze transfixed by the inexorable approach of the massive constructs, and the unsettlingly human-like automatons built atop them. “But they’ve each got four chapaharii weapons. We’ve got two between us.”
“Is it necessary to fight them if they can’t follow us into the tunnel?” Leftie asked.
“If we just leave, we came all this way for nothing,” Blazer said. “At the least, I’d like to take those dragon-slaying weapons back to Angulus.”
“I have to see what’s in the temple,” Trip said.
Temple, not pyramid. Did he know something that Rysha didn’t yet?
The group withdrew fully into the tunnel, and the constructs rolled back and forth in front of it, as if they were pacing. From wheels to humanoid figures on the top, they towered over thirty feet high, so only the pyramid-like metal bases were visible now.
Trip didn’t seem to be looking at the constructs. He gazed through them, with his mind if not his eyes, and toward the tunnel leading into that pyramid.
“My blood calls to me,” he added.
“That’s as creepy as ghosts walking, Trip,” Leftie said.
“I don’t disagree,” Trip said.
Rysha looked at the back of his head. If he could get into the pyramid, maybe he could do something. Wake up the dragon. Or find the switch that turned off the constructs. If he couldn’t hurt them with his magic, there was little point in him staying here.
“All right,” Rysha said, nodding to Kaika, who looked like she was ready to leap out, run up the sides of those ambulatory pyramids, and challenge the automatons and all eight of their arms waiting at the top. “Trip needs to get inside the pyramid. That means we get to distract the guards.”
She gripped Dorfindral tightly, feeling its hunger burning in her veins. Whatever those constructs were, there was a lot of magic in them. And perhaps also in the stone pyramid on the far side. Dorfindral wanted to destroy it all.
“No.” Trip looked back, locking gazes with her. “It’s too dangerous. You’re outnumbered four weapons to one. Give me some time to figure out a way to attack those things.” His gaze was drawn back toward the pyramid as he spoke.
Rysha was no telepath, but she could tell he ached to see what was inside, not stay out and deal with the constructs.
“They’ve been here thousands of years,” Trip said firmly, nodding to himself. “As has the temple. There’s no reason to hurry.”
“Look, neither of you two are making the decisions around here,” Blazer said.
“Ma’am,” Trip said. “The best thing to do is—”
A glowing axe spun toward them, aiming right for his chest.
“Trip!” Rysha lunged toward him, but Kaika was the one to step out as Trip scrambled to the side. She whipped Eryndral into the air in front of him, deflecting the axe with her own blade. It struck the wall and fell to the stone floor.
“Gods,” Rysha breathed, her heart in her throat. Trip’s magical barriers wouldn’t do anything to stop the chapaharii weapons, and those constructs were targeting him specifically.
“You’re mine,” Kaika blurted, lunging after the axe.
She landed on it like a cat pouncing on a mouse. Rysha would have laughed if those constructs hadn’t been maneuvering around right in front of the tunnel, one probably looking for the angle to hurl another attack.
As soon as Kaika’s hand wrapped around the axe hilt, she toppled to the side, blurting a startled squawk. Rysha froze in confusion for a second. Something pulled Kaika down the tunnel, like she was a fish being reeled in on a line. The axe was pulling her. Back to its handler.
Cursing, Rysha raced after her. Duck ran at her shoulder. They sprang after Kaika together, gripping her ankles, trying to keep the thing from pulling her out into the cavern.
“I can’t let go,” Kaika shouted in alarm.
Not willing to release Dorfindral, Rysha could only wrap one hand around Kaika’s ankle, but she held on tight and tried to sink her weight into the floor. Duck had both of his hands around her other ankle. He snarled, also fighting the force. But the axe pulled all three of them out of the tunnel.
Light blazed down from the ceiling, though Rysha couldn’t see any lamps, and the hulking body of a construct towered above her, silhouetted by that light. Arms moved, and steel glinted.
Acting more on instinct than understanding, Rysha released Kaika and rolled to the side. A split second later, something slammed into the floor where she’d been, a thunderous crack echoing through the cavern. The wood shaft of a spear quivered, its green tip glowing where it was now embedded in the floor.
“Damn it, I hate magic!” Kaika yelled from several paces away. A clang sounded. Had she gotten away from the axe? Was she striking one of the metal bodies while still attached to it?
Rysha couldn’t tell. All she knew as she sprang to her feet was that one of the hulking constructs had turned toward her. The spear flew back up into the air, landing in its handler’s grip again, and the massive pyramid rolled forward. Toward her. Its bulk blocked her from returning to the tunnel.
“I’m cut off,” Rysha yelled.
She wanted to flee. Every instinct screamed for her to do so, but she ran toward the construct instead. She searched for a target, a weakness in the pyramid base, even as she kept glancing at the armed figure on top, worried it would throw a weapon.
Another clang came from the other side of the construct. Kaika. It had to be.
But hitting the hard metal exterior would be useless. Rysha crouched as the construct rolled close, and swung at one of the wheels under the massive gray skirt.
Her blade sank in, as if she were striking butter instead of solid metal. But she had to yank it free and leap back right away to avoid being run over.
“Watch out, Rysha!” came Trip’s cry from somewhere.
The tunnel? She couldn’t see it anymore. Another spear plunged down from above.
She dodged and swept Dorfindral out in a block at the same time, afraid she would be too slow in jumping away. Under normal circumstances, she never could have knocked a spear out of the air, but the chapaharii blade’s power flowed into her, guiding her movements as it had in previous battles. The spear clanged aside, clattering to the floor.
Rysha lunged in to attack that corner wheel again. She thought she had damaged it last time.
She struck it again, but she got a good glimpse under the pyramid as she struck and saw dozens—no, hundreds—of wheels under there, all rotating and spinning, somehow aligning perfectly to allow the hulking machine to maneuver in all directions. Even if she could destroy a few of them, she doubted it would impact the overall construct.
As she jumped back to once again avoid being run over, her heel splashed into water. The edge of the pool.
She’d forgotten about it—and those plants. She risked a backward glance, afraid the flowers might be readying their acid compound to hurl at her back.
But they had disappeared beneath the surface. Maybe they wanted nothing to do with this battle.
Rysha ran along the edge of the pool, knowing she would be slower if she had to slog through water, but then an idea came to her. What if she could draw the construct into the pool? Would its wheels work underwater?
She knew they wouldn’t rust quickly enough for it to matter, but maybe the water would interfere with its mechanical innards. At the least, it might get bogged down in the pool as it drove deeper into it. Maybe she could maneuver it into some of those stalactites and get it trapped.
“I’m trying to keep this one out of the way, Trip,” Rysha yelled, though she had no idea where he was now.
Another clang echoed through the chamber. She could only guess that Kaika and maybe the rest of the team were battling the second one.
“Now’s your chance,” she added as she turned into the wate
r, slogging toward the forest of stalactites in the back and hoping she didn’t step on any of those plants. “Get inside the pyramid and see if you can find a way to turn these off.”
When Trip didn’t answer immediately, Rysha feared something had already happened to him. But it must have only been his reluctance to leave the battle—to leave them—that made him pause.
“All right,” he finally called. “I’m going in. I will find a way to stop this.”
As Rysha pushed deeper into the water, the construct driving in behind her, the automaton on top readying its spear again, she could only pray that his promise bore out.
24
Trip ran across the smooth floor of the cavern, Rysha drawing one of the constructs into the water on one side, and Blazer, Leftie, and Duck on the other side, shooting to distract the second one so Kaika could dart in and do damage with her sword.
The way ahead of him was completely clear. He felt like a coward, running while his friends battled for their lives. But he hoped Rysha was right, that there was some switch inside he could flip to stop the huge constructs. So far, he hadn’t been able to do anything to them. All the attacks he’d tried had bounced off, their entire bodies protected by the chapaharii blades they wielded.
When he reached the open tunnel at the base of the pyramid, he made himself slow down. He would be surprised if there weren’t more dangers inside.
We’re watching for them, Jaxi told him. But there’s a lot of power in here muddling our senses. A lot of your damn blood.
I know. I feel it. Trip still didn’t sense a dragon, but he sensed magic and blood, blood that called to him, almost achingly so, with its familiarity.
Until he’d stepped into the cavern, he hadn’t sensed the blood, but he did now. Mostly, it seemed centered in the back of the pyramid, but he was also aware of a few more of those bats hiding on the ceiling near the stalactites out there. He hoped they wouldn’t come out and trouble the team, but he sensed fear from them. Whether it was from the battle or from something else—from him?—he didn’t know.
It’s confusing, Jaxi said. I don’t know what to make of it. Azarwrath agrees.
Azarwrath snorted. For once, I do.
The light faded as Trip moved farther and farther from the entrance, but he could still hear the clangs and shouts of the battle, punctuated by rifle shots. Jaxi and Azarwrath increased their glow, lighting his way. Trip sensed an opening before he reached it. The center of the pyramid. The place wasn’t as massive as he’d feared. He’d imagined a maze of tunnels that would take him hours to navigate.
It’s not laid out anything like the giant pyramid we found Phelistoth in, Jaxi said, but whoever built it had a lot less room to fit it into. For obvious reasons, caves aren’t the ideal place to erect pyramids.
That didn’t stop them.
Whoever them had been. Trip eyed the stone walls, heavy blocks that appeared to have been placed by human hands long ago. He hoped to spot some large switch that would turn off the constructs, but he saw only paintings. Though old and faded, they were discernible. Unfortunately. Pictures of young women being sacrificed. Of people slitting their own wrists as they gazed heavenward. Of others prostrating themselves to a dragon, their foreheads pressed to the ground.
Trip was no archaeology expert, but he immediately suspected the same cult that had redecorated the outpost had decorated this place.
The Brotherhood of the Dragon, Azarwrath said.
More like the Bloodthirsty Cult of Agarrenon Shivar, Jaxi said.
Trip didn’t want to believe that, but he couldn’t come up with a plausible counter argument.
He reached a couple of desiccated bodies in the middle of the passage, dried and sunken skin still draped over skeletal frames. They were in far better shape than the bones in the other tunnel, but he suspected these people had died at the same time. Maybe the constructs had kept would-be scavengers from getting inside the pyramid.
As with the other body, these men had fallen in such a way to give the impression that they had been running from something. They didn’t have packs, only the faded clothing on their backs, but they had both fallen with pistols in hand. They weren’t Iskandian weapons, so Trip couldn’t guess the year of manufacture, but they were cartridge weapons rather than black powder firearms, so they were less than fifty years old.
I have a feeling we’ve been running across people from my mother’s mold-collection party, Trip thought.
Gunshots back in the main chamber propelled him forward. He could figure out the mystery after he’d made sure the others were out of danger.
I suspect your mother was the only one here for mold and weird plants, Jaxi replied.
The others may have wished to harness the power of Agarrenon Shivar, Azarwrath suggested. Perhaps she ended up with them because she needed their help to find this place. Or maybe they needed her help to find it.
I’m glad she got out alive. Trip shuddered to think of how close he might have come to never existing at all.
He reached the end of the tunnel, and a soft glow started up ahead of him, gradually increasing in intensity to illuminate the pyramid’s inner chamber. His skin crawled as he sensed the magic in use, and his hands tightened on the soulblade hilts even though no enemy sprang out to face him.
A huge block of clear glass, or something like it, stood in the center of the chamber, the top stretching up to where the pyramid stone-stepped inward toward its peak. Like some giant square terrarium, it was large enough to hold a dragon, but it appeared to be empty. Unless a large part of it was sunken into the ground?
Stone tables and platforms spread across the floor all around the glass enclosure. Here and there, artifacts sat, magic emanating from them. A glowing sphere rested on a pedestal in front of the glass. A long dagger thrust up from between two stone pavers, blood drops etched into the flat of the ancient blade. A large ceramic bowl on a table reminded Trip uncomfortably and unwholesomely of the one in the outpost that had contained blood.
All over, giant slabs of stone had fallen to the floor, many of the pavers shattered from their weight. A couple of the tables had been crushed. Trip spotted the places in the ceiling and the tapered walls where they had tumbled free. He had no idea if it had happened all at once, during some earthquake, or one at a time over the centuries.
He walked around a few of the slabs, heading toward the glass enclosure. He could see more furnishings behind it and sensed more magic coming from that area, but he had to see the dragon first. He had to know… he wasn’t sure what. But he needed answers.
Trip still didn’t know whether Agarrenon Shivar had started this cult or if it had arisen after some people had found him here, locked in his stasis chamber. No matter how it had happened, he had a hard time believing the dragon had an innocent soul. This entire place had a creepy, unholy feel to it.
His pace quickened as the call of his blood drew him toward the enclosure. Maybe the dragon was in there, down below the level of the floor. Something was definitely pulling him.
Trip climbed a couple of steps to a platform that surrounded the enclosure. He eyed the glowing sphere on the pedestal, wondering if it was some kind of control orb. It was one of two such spheres, both on identical stone pedestals a few feet apart, but the other sphere was dark. As he drew closer, he could make out a hairline fracture running along its circumference. One of the massive blocks, its end sheared off, rested on the floor nearby, and he imagined it falling from the ceiling and landing on the orb at some point in history. Though if that had happened, surely, the sphere would have been pulverized, not merely cracked.
Magic makes artifacts powerful, Jaxi said. But not powerful enough in this case.
No, Azarwrath agreed. I believe this all happened long, long ago. Perhaps even before the time of my birth.
Their conversation confused Trip, as they seemed to be talking about more than some cracked sphere, until he stepped closer and could see fully into the glass enclosure. He gaped a
t the perfectly arranged pile of… bones. Dragon bones.
The creature—Agarrenon Shivar?—had died curled on its side. His side. As if in sleep.
There’s a crack in the glass at the top too, Jaxi thought. Enough that some bacteria, or perhaps Rysha’s decomposing molds, got in to munch on his remains. He’s been dead for a long, long time.
Trip pressed his palm to the cool glass. “I don’t understand.”
Some enemy may have attacked the pyramid or deliberately weakened the stasis chamber to make it vulnerable, Azarwrath suggested. If the dragon was weakened from a disease, perhaps he was unaware of it or couldn’t fight back.
“No, I mean… where did I come from if…”
Trip shook his head and stepped back. The dragon bones startled him, since it was so different from the scenario he had expected, but he would have to contemplate it later. He had to find a way to help the others.
The glowing sphere on the pedestal drew his eye again. It was the strongest artifact in the chamber, the one with the greatest aura, the greatest magic. If it had controlled the stasis chamber, perhaps that made sense, but he wondered if it might do more. Such as turn off those constructs.
Trip rested his palm on it, and swirls of light inside captivated him, drawing his mind downward.
Have you investigated the rest of the chamber with your senses? Jaxi’s voice sounded oddly far off. I believe you’ll find the answer to your question.
Her words intrigued him, but he couldn’t look away from the swirling lights inside the orb. A vision started to form, not within the sphere but inside his mind.
It expanded, stampeding through his brain and driving out all other thoughts. All other awareness. He heard distant gunshots, but he couldn’t remember what they meant. The image of a gold dragon filled his mind. It turned toward him, its neck long and sinewy, its head reptilian, its maw full of sharp unfriendly fangs. Its eyes opened, a deep dark green, and Trip knew he looked upon his sire’s face.