Drake’s army was trying to get through Astriel’s shield.
“And the sooner the better,” Astriel finished. He glanced at the bartender. “Lead us to the cellar.”
The bartender nodded and hurriedly made his way back to the bar. He lifted the bar’s door and held it open so that everyone else could pile through. Raven followed Astriel, and Loki, Summer, and Grolsch followed after her.
“It’s d-down there,” the man said, nodding toward a large trapdoor in the floor behind the bar.
Grolsch pushed past the others to stand over the door. He bent, took hold of the metal ring of the door, and lifted it easily, revealing a set of stairs that led down into the darkness. Astriel waved his hand over that darkness, and it was instantly flooded with light.
Raven leaned over the trap door’s opening for a peek. The stairs were little more than a wooden ladder, ending approximately a dozen feet down at a hard, dirt packed floor. Not much of the cellar was visible from her vantage point, but she could make out a few shelves along the walls, and upon those shelves, several dusty bottles of wine.
A second blast, this one more violent and louder than the first, shook the establishment. This time, debris fell from the ceiling, cascading in a white shower upon the tables, chairs, and inhabitants below. Someone in the room began crying. Someone else could be heard comforting them.
“Eve” joined her brother at the bar and addressed Astriel as he took the first step down the ladder. “Wait,” she said.
Astriel froze on the first step and looked up.
“You’re the elf king, aren’t you?”
Astriel said nothing. It was as good as admitting it.
She squeezed her hands into fists and looked over her shoulder at the glowing shield that encompassed her building. “And that’s Lord Tanith out there. And you’re going to let him bring my home down around us, aren’t you.”
It wasn’t a question so much as an accusation. It was also a plea for help.
Astriel looked away and continued down the ladder. “You shall be compensated. But for now, I recommend you locate a safe place to hide and stay well out of the way.”
Astriel disappeared below, and Summer went next. She looked over at the woman before she began to descend. “I’m so sorry,” she said helplessly. Then she climbed down after the elf king.
Loki followed her. “So am I,” he said honestly.
When he was gone, it was Raven’s turn. It seemed to go without saying that Grolsch would take up the rear. Raven had nothing to say to the couple that the others hadn’t already said. So she remained silent and descended one hand, one foot, one hand after the other.
Grolsch was halfway down after her when the third blast shook the tavern above. Debris from the ceiling of the cellar trickled loose and shimmered down upon them just as the ceiling had in the tavern itself. Raven couldn’t help but wonder how much longer Astriel’s shield would hold.
The cellar didn’t appear, at first, to have any kind of door. Rather, it was a small room, perhaps fifteen feet square, that was entirely lined with shelves. Most of the shelves were empty and dusty, but a few still held bottles that Raven imagined were remnants of the establishment the couple’s uncle had left them.
“It has to be behind one of the shelves,” Summer surmised.
Astriel nodded. He and Grolsch made their way to the wall that looked most likely, and each positioned himself at one end.
“What did the map say?” Loki asked, leaning close as Astriel and Grolsch each grasped the wood of the shelves.
“Nothing,” Raven summed up. It was true. Either they hadn’t yet found what it was the map wanted them to locate in Culling’s Eve, or what it wanted them to locate was here, under the tavern.
“We don’t have time for this,” she said next. And with that, she willed the shelf out of the way, raising her hand to guide it as her mind lifted it apart from the wall with no more than the power of her will.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Astriel and Grolsch stepped back when the large wooden shelf shook itself free of the wall behind it and groaned a little under the pressure, rising several inches off the ground. There were no bottles on these shelves, so nothing fell down when it tipped a little, wobbling in the air as Raven moved it slowly through the room.
Loki and Summer stepped back out of the way, stumbling a little in surprise when it passed right between them. Raven ignored their shocked expressions and concentrated. Just as she had in the portal when she’d guided Loki’s sword to him, she moved the shelf across the room and set it down directly in front of another one.
It was even easier this time than it had been the last time. Every power she possessed was becoming easier to use, more natural, less of a struggle. Everything was getting easier. Everything, that was, except her feelings toward Drake.
While everyone else was staring at her in silent wonder, Raven rolled back her shoulders, forced herself to focus, and turned her attention to the wall she’d exposed. There was no door.
“Damn,” she whispered. “That wasn’t it.”
Astriel was the first to recover from her use of magic, stepping back from the wall to get a better look at it. Now that she considered it, she wondered why he hadn’t done what she’d just done.
And then the ground shook, and more rubble fell from above, and she had her answer. Astriel leaned against the nearby shelves, shutting his eyes for a moment before re-opening them and straightening once again. That last blast had hurt him. He was focusing every ounce of his power on maintaining the shield he’d placed over the tavern.
That’s why Grolsch lifted the trap door, she realized. Grolsch was a smart ork. He’d traveled with Drake for years. He must have known Astriel would need all the help he could get in this endeavor, and grabbing hold of something that might be iron would not help Astriel keep the inn protected. So Grolsch had gone for the trap door’s ring before Astriel would even have to try.
“I’m not so sure,” the king said, referring to the wall Raven had uncovered. He raised his hand to touch the wall thoughtfully. He at once pulled it back and moved away from the wall. “There’s a room behind there. We found the right wall.”
Raven didn’t wait for anyone else to offer. Again, they didn’t have time to try anything that wouldn’t absolutely work, and it wasn’t important for her to maintain her disguise any longer. It was time to set her powers free.
“Move back,” she instructed calmly. Her magic swelled, humming happily to the sound of her internal call. Her hands flooded with it, and her body felt light. As soon as everyone was safely out of the way, she raised her right hand palm-out, aiming it at the wall.
A blast of hard, cold air shot forth from her palm, growing as it raced across the room until it slammed into the wall full-force, blowing an enormous hole into it and cracking any plaster remaining around it. Those cracks rapidly spread, widening to release everything left on the wall.
Rubble cascaded to the ground, kicking up dust and revealing the metal door they’d been searching for.
Loki and the others seemed to accept that the game had changed, and they wasted no time continuing to be surprised by Raven’s powers. Loki rushed forward to inspect the door. He turned to Astriel. “Do you have some way of protecting yourself from iron?”
Astriel shook his head. “No. But if you open it, I’ll make it through.”
Raven noticed the king was sweating. A trickle had claimed his forehead and threatened one of his blue eyes. Even from the distance he maintained across the room, the proximity of the iron was taking its toll on him.
“I’ll get it open,” said Grolsch. He approached the door, which was just as Eve had said it would be, plain and featureless, without a knob or keyhole. He raised his axe, hefted it high, and swung it forward with all his might.
As the axe descended, its edge began to glow. It looked as though it was moving so fast, it was heating up. That glow rapidly expanded, encompassing the entire axe in a flash just befor
e it struck the wall. There was a loud blast, nearly as loud as the sounds from outside, followed by the groaning cacophony of metal tearing.
When Grolsch pulled his axe back, it revealed a large hole in the metal wall. The edges of the hole glowed just as the axe blade had, heated up like coals. Bits of the metal were raining down from the hole, melted to the point of liquid.
In Grolsch’s hands, the glow of the blade faded, and finally went out.
There were several long moments of silence, permeated by the sound of metal dripping to the floor. Raven didn’t know what to make of what she’d just seen.
“What the hell was that?” Loki asked. “It never did that when I wielded the axes!”
“It usually doesn’t do it for me either,” Grolsch said, wiping his brow. “But if I swing it hard enough and fast enough….” He was literally out of breath, and he’d only swung the mighty weapon once.
Raven shook her head. “I guess it just takes an ork.” With incredible strength.
Grolsch smiled at her, shrugging. He replaced the axe in the sling at his back and looked askance at the still-dripping melted metal.
“I’ll take care of that,” Raven volunteered. She pretended she was blowing out a candle, gave a quick puff, and the remaining metal in the destroyed door rapidly hardened once more.
Grolsch shot her a grateful, if bemused look. Then he ducked low and stepped through the hole. Summer and Loki followed after him.
Astriel turned to Raven. “After you.”
“Why are you coming with us?” she asked him. “Why are you helping us?” He could have grabbed her and transported her back to his castle the moment he’d appeared in Culling’s Eve. For that matter, if his informant had seen them in the forest – had seen her bathing – then he could have struck last night.
He was surprising her.
“You’re in search of the Phylactery of Souls,” he told her simply. “I want you to find it.”
He did? “You do?”
He smiled. “Not everyone is pleased with the way things have played out over the last year, Raven. You are the only one who is capable of wielding the Phylactery. It takes a special soul to do so. A chosen soul.”
“Are you two coming?” Loki called back from somewhere beyond the destroyed iron door.
Raven glanced at it, then back at Astriel. “Will you be alright moving through that?” She recalled the first time they’d met and the iron claws she’d used on him. Even now, she could feel them wanting to extend from her fingertips as the blasts outside grew in strength and Drake’s men loomed closer.
Suddenly, she felt badly about what she’d done all that time ago. She wondered if the wound still hurt him, and whether it had scarred.
“As long as I’ve no need to touch it,” he said, referring to the door. He shrugged. “I will be fine.”
Raven accepted that and approached the door. She ducked and stepped through. On the other side was a short hallway carved out of the natural rock in the ground. It was cool and smelled like damp, and it reminded her of the vampiric elf and his squid shadows. Up ahead, the tunnel wound to the left and disappeared. Against all probability, torch light could be seen flickering against the wall where it curved. The others had already gone around the corner.
“There seems to be a room or something up ahead.”
A hand at her back alerted her to the fact that Astriel had come through the door. She looked up and over her shoulder at him, but his gaze was straight ahead. He was pale. It was taking everything he had to keep Drake at bay.
She and the king moved down the tunnel and around the corner. The carved entryway opened up into a large, naturally hewn cavern. Against the wall were sconces, and in these sconces burned torches.
Loki, Summer, and Grolsch were waiting for them beside an altar at the center of the room, which was also hewn of black stone. There were impressions in the altar, but Raven couldn’t yet make out what they were. The three of them looked up when she and Astriel entered.
She gestured to the torches. “Did you light those?”
They shook their heads. “They were lit when we came in. Some sort of magic, obviously.”
Obviously. Raven noticed they gave off no heat, only light. She and Astriel made their way to the altar at the center of the room. It was a simple square slab, like a massive cube of stone carved out of the cavern. But the top of the slab possessed eight indentations, each about the size of a man’s hand. They were roughly round, and centered within them were symbols carved in bass relief.
The symbols looked vaguely familiar to Raven. She looked up at Astriel. “Do you recognize those?”
He studied them a moment in silence. “They’re very old Abaddonian phrases. However, they are from a form used before even my time.” He paused, his brow furrowing a little as he gestured to the first one. The others gathered closer.
The Phylactery was somewhere nearby, and the altar bore Abaddonian marks. To Raven, that indicated the Phylactery was made by an Abaddonian as well, and that was strange. What did it mean? Did it bode ill?
“This one is something about strength. And this one,” Astriel continued, pointing to the second indentation in the altar, “refers to spirit.” He took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m sorry, but it will require a spell to straighten them out.”
“No, wait….” Raven felt slightly dizzy. But it wasn’t an uncomfortable dizziness. It was more like that numb comfort one felt after a glass of wine or mug of ale. She felt light, and the relief symbols in the altar seemed clearer than they had a moment earlier.
Astriel was right about the first two, to some degree. The first one did refer to strength, but it was physical strength, specifically. “This one means strength of body,” she whispered. “And this one is strength of spirit.”
She moved on quickly, letting the momentum of this epiphany carry her. They had so little time, and magic was a confusing thing at best. She had no idea why she suddenly knew what the symbols meant, but she wasn’t going to question it. Not right now.
“This one means ‘point of pain.’ And the one below it means ‘bloom of pleasure.’” She moved her fingers, trailing them over the stone as the euphoric sensation she was experiencing grew stronger. Now there was no hesitation when she read aloud. “This is ‘source of knowledge,’ and this one is ‘source of magic.’ This one means ‘keeper of kingdoms.’” She pointed at the final symbol. “And the last one reads, ‘keeper of souls.’”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Raven lowered her hand and gazed at the altar top, wondering what it could all mean. They’d been brought to this underground room by the Hunter’s Map. She was almost certain of that now. And she had a very strong sense that this was probably their last stop in their quest to locate the Phylactery.
So, what did the symbols refer to? What were they supposed to do with them?
No one spoke as she looked up and met their eyes, one after the other. Summer’s eyes were large and bright, filled with hope and faith. Grolsch’s were large and dark, filled with a quiet sense of duty and acceptance. Loki seemed hesitant, but hopeful, and his hand was unconsciously wrapped around the crystal he wore around his neck. Magus’s crystal.
Astriel was impossible to read. He simply watched her in silence, his gaze intense, the oceans of his eyes hiding the secrets of kings.
Raven ran a hand through her hair. She winced a little. The hand was sore.
She lowered it and looked at the thin, crooked line of the fading scar that had formed when Loki healed her in the portal after the events in Phlegathos. The blood she’d shed had formed a key.
Raven pulled the key from an inner pocket of her armor and turned it over in her hands. A key… it was a key that would have unlocked a book that was the source of all knowledge in Phlegethos. And that just happened to be a logbook of everything that happened in Abaddon.
The key was literally a key to knowledge. “A key to knowledge,” she whispered aloud. Something clicked in her mind, puzzle
pieces sliding into place. She blinked, looking down at the symbol on the altar that read, “A source of knowledge.”
Without giving it any further thought, she placed the ruby red key into the indentation with that symbol. A beat passed. The key sat there, glittering in the fire light.
And then there was a bright flash, the key was lost in the light, and when it died a second later, the symbol at the center of the depression remained lit-up. The key was gone.
“I’ve got it,” she said. She pulled the dagger from her belt next. It was the dagger she’d stolen from the vampiric elf, the one that had been formed by a rose. “Bloom of pleasure and point of pain,” she said aloud, thinking of the flower’s petals that had healed her, and of the rose’s thorn, which had purportedly been capable of causing much suffering.
She handed the dagger to Grolsch. “Break this in half?”
Grolsch took it without a word, held it between two large hands, and bent it with a snap. The dagger’s blade came away from the handle, leaving the weapon broken and useless.
At least, it was useless as a dagger.
Raven placed the blade in the depression calling for a “point of pain,” and put the other end in the hollow requesting the “bloom of pleasure.” Two more flashes claimed the items, and their symbols were subsequently lit up.
“Perfect,” she said, feeling more confident now. “The source of magic….” She looked up at Loki, and those puzzle pieces just kept sliding into place. “Loki, your medallion. It has the soul of Magus inside it. If that isn’t a source of magic, I don’t know what is.”
Loki considered her wide-eyed for a moment, and then he seemed to snap out of it. He quickly lifted the long chain over his neck and held the dangling crystal out to her. Raven took it and placed it gently into the indentation with the right symbol.
It, too, was claimed by a flash of light, and just like the others, its symbol began to glow.
“Okay.” She bit her lip. “Four down, four to go.” She re-read the other symbols. Physical and spiritual strength… souls and kingdoms. “We didn’t pick up anything else on our journey,” she said, her brow furrowing. “Did we?”