Across from the dwarf, on a broad platform at the other side of the sanctuary, a bestial skeleton the size of a house lay curled like a dog.
This is part four of an ongoing series. Follow the links to parts one, two, and three.
The maze was the last trial the ancient priests prepared for those who might intrude on the Shrine of the Skull. Comillas followed Lofric out the far side and up a steep ramp, directly into the chamber housing the relics of Saint Clive.
There they found a trial the priests did not prepare.
Santiano stood at the entrance of the cavern, in the middle of a great dais. The immense oval chamber stretched out to his left and right, where the mouths of rough-hewn kobold tunnels riddled the high stone walls. They had turned the hill into one great warren, with the shrine at its heart.
Across from the dwarf, on a broad platform at the other side of the sanctuary, a bestial skeleton the size of a house lay curled like a dog. A high shelf was carved into the living stone behind it, and above that was carved yet a deeper shelf, and on and on, like a series of giant steps leading up and away, to the surface of the hill. Some hidden light shone down, illuminating the recess, and bathing the whole chamber in a ghostly gloaming. On the lowest shelf lay an ancient skull.
Comillas stood stunned, not at the sight of the ivory figure or of its surreal backdrop. His eyes swept instead across the low floor between the two ends of the chamber, where a seething mass of slavering kobolds stretched from end to end of the cavernous hall.
Santi’s eyes met his, but only briefly. He was busy chanting, and Comillas recognized the litany as a prayer of warding. Around the dwarf, power hummed in the air. It lay across the whole dais, a field of holy power the vile creatures dared not enter. To one side, Comillas saw where a foolhardy kobold had made the attempt. All that remained was a greasy mound of soot and bone.
“Lofric,” Comillas said, “He can’t hold this forever.”
The fighter grunted as he moved to the mage’s flank. “Neither can I.”
“You won’t have to. Santi, when I tell you, drop the spell. Let them come. You’ll have to keep them off me for a moment, maybe two. I’ll take care of the rest.”
The dwarf kept chanting.
“You hear me, Santi?”
Without faltering in the litany, the dwarf nodded and hefted his ax. Comillas saw the sweat beading on his face. How long had he been holding this?
Dismissing this thought, the mage reached within himself and found the key to a single spell.
This moment is what he had saved himself for. The spell would be pure and untainted by other workings, virtually guaranteed to succeed. It would take all his power, and whatever he did after would not be half so effective. He would have to make it count.
Comillas grinned.
The sequence of silent images, mental attitudes, and angles of awareness magicians called a “key” flickered through his mind. He felt the arcane power build, a sort of pressure on his soul. Light coalesced in a sphere between his hands, gleaming like a white star in the half-light of the chamber. It spun, whirling in a hypnotic dance that had enthralled more than one unlucky creature in the long history of the spell’s use. He was ready.
“Now.”
The dwarf went silent as the power around him vanished. Air rushed in to fill the void. A kobold stumbled forward a few steps, then swayed. Up above, on a distant shelf behind the far dais, Banco crept out of the shadows and towards the skull.
For a moment, Comillas’s concentration faltered. Where had the thief come from? What was he doing? He pushed away all uncertainty with the will of a trained mind and kept the key at the center of his attention.
Kobolds shrieked as three of them leapt onto the dais and rushed the mage. Lofric’s sword flashed. Santiano’s ax rose and fell. The creatures’ corpses were still falling as the second wave came. Before it reached them, strings of light shot out from the gleaming sphere and fixed in the chest of each charging kobold. The monsters stopped, swiping in terror at the bright strands. Nothing happened.
“Wizard…” Lofric growled.
“Quiet,” Santi said. “Let him work.”
Though the lights did no harm, the great mass of kobolds pulled back from the dais. A hush fell across the cavern. One gleaming strand, fixed in a kobold’s chest, passed through its body and out its back, branching in two. As each new strand fixed in the chest of another kobold, it branched again. It spread through the horde.
Comillas grinned. Lofric was staring wide-eyed at the spectacle. A web of bright and seemingly harmless light stretched throughout the chamber.
As the whole room waited for something to happen, a kobold near the front gave a heart yip and rushed the mage. Lofric turned to meet it.
Then the spell took effect.
The sphere pulsed, and a pearl of light raced down the first strand to bury itself in a kobold’s chest. It exploded. The sphere pulsed again, and other pearls raced down other strands, detonating the entire first rank of monsters. Behind them, the forking strands continued to swell as they carried death from kobold to kobold, filling the room with blinding flashes, deafening booms, and clouds of meat and ichor. The power in Comillas’s body poured out into the crackling air, replaced by glee and deep satisfaction.
The ground shook beneath their feet. Santi stared in awe. Lofric was crouched beneath his shield, eyes wide with fear. The spell rumbled to a crescendo and broke, echoing throughout the warren. As the sound faded, black smoke and the too-sweet smell of burnt flesh washed over the dais.
The dwarf shook his head and turned to the mage.
“You are… very good.”
“Thank you.”
“Lofric!” Santi barked, “Are you well?”
The warrior rose, trembling, and stared hard at Comillas. “Ventrasulf!”
The mage grinned. But clattering sounds interrupted his moment of glory, of hurried movement drawing their attention to the far side of the room.
“Banco,” the dwarf called, “What are you doing?”
The lithe figure was pulling itself up from one shelf to the next. The bottommost shelf was empty.
Lofric growled. “He’s taking the skull. He said he’d move it himself if he got the chance.”
Santi breathed a dwarven curse and stepped off the dais. At the same time, the thief reached the shelf by which he had entered the room, stopped by a small door, and turned to throw something down at the mass of bone curled up on the far platform. As the object struck one gigantic rib and clattered to the ground, an amaranthine glow filled the space between the gargantuan bones.
The skeleton began to move.