Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon) (49 page)

He raced after her and screamed, “Escentra, do not let this sorcery consume you. Come back! Be freed of this bondage.”

But she sprinted toward the wall. Below each portal along the stone structure, a fence of spears and blades rose out of the ground. The girl stabbed her staff into the ground ahead of her and vaulted the obstructions. She landed on the other side and raced down a street between the ruins of ancient buildings.

He stood on his side of the wall, seething. He had been deceived, and now the wizard’s agent was winning the race to the key—because of him.

Taking his anger and feeding it into his sword, he unleashed a torrent of flames against the wall of spears and blades, for they were too thick for him to pass through. But the sword’s flames ricocheted off the wall, and the Living Fire died, the flames receding into the sword’s hilt. His armor vanished, and though he closed his eyes to concentrate, the sword’s power was gone.

“No! This will not happen.” Ilfedo raised his sword and struck at the spears, hoping to break their shafts, but his blade bounced off them.

For a long while he tried to cut them down, but to no avail. When his arms wearied of the struggle, he sheathed his sword and sat on the ground. Beyond the forest of spears lay a once-grand city. He could see the columns fallen on the ground, the gold strewn across its streets. Portals flashed open and others closed. The portals were everywhere. Some hovered above the ground, others lay upon it like puddles, and others covered the distant cavern walls. By now Escentra was halfway through the ruins.

He imagined what would happen if he destroyed her staff. Could she be redeemed? He would raise her in his own house, if that would save her soul. She was so young, beautiful, and fearful.

He stood and pushed his way between the spear shafts. But tiny blades along the shafts exacted the payment for his passage in blood. He felt the blades open his skin. Warm blood ran down his arms, but he filled his mind with Oganna’s face, Dantress’s laughter, and the brutality of Razes. Today must not be an occasion that would allow evil to flourish.

He had lost so much blood. He struggled just to place one foot in front of the other. The shafts’ blades cut his arms and his legs. His legs lost their strength, and he fell to the ground. But he grasped the shafts with his hands and tried to pull himself up. The blades sliced his palms and he screamed, but turned that energy into rage.

Drawing his sword from its scabbard, he slashed at the nearest poles and, at last, cut through them. He swung again, hewing the spears at ground level and opening a path to the city. He took another step forward, and tiny flames sparked along his sword blade. Another few steps, and the Living Fire roared out of the blade, burning his body and then soothing it. His cuts healed, and his muscles filled with strength. He cried out for joy and hacked his way out of the spear-and-blade forest.

When he emerged on the other side, he ran into the streets of the Hidden Realm. Escentra had probably slain Albino’s agent, so he would have to go after the key alone. “So be it.” He ran down the street, flaming sword upheld in his fists.

“Escentra,” he said as he ran, “surrender, and I will free you of your demons.”

After running for several huge city blocks, he slowed his pace. The buildings around him were huge, imposing. Yet he noticed for the first time that suits of armor lay in every corner and in every street. He stopped before a set of complete body armor and raised a shield off the ground. As the dust and dirt fell off the object, the figure of a white dragon spewing fire gleamed back at him. A flame pattern entwined the dragon’s legs. Black smoke had been painted to billow around the creature, as if it walked unscathed on a lake of burning oil.

Something snapped behind him and he turned, just in time to jump out of the way as a green portal funneled past him. The portal lingered there as he hefted the shield over his back and walked farther into the city.

For a long while he searched for Escentra, until the city structures turned into heaps of rubble. He stopped and studied the lay of the land. The structures in this area were in far worse shape than those in the city he had already passed through. Everything appeared to have been through a war, except for one structure built into the wall of the cavern.

A white stone cathedral rose there, with pillars across its face and broad double doors. A stone patio fronted it, and a strange pedestal stood atop it, for the pedestal glowed with a blue shell of energy. And inside that shell hovered a gold skeleton key wreathed in flames.

He had found it.

Striding up the steps, he let the shield clatter to the patio as he touched the energy dome. Soft and warm, it caressed his hand with the undulating rise of its shield. It did not resist as he lowered his hand, fingers stretching toward the key. A dragon had been formed along its shaft, spewing the Living Fire from its mouth. It was magnificent.

He drew the key out and held it forth, marveling that he had secured it. Then a purple staff flashed across his vision, and a delicate hand snatched the key from his fingers. Escentra vaulted the steps and landed amid the rubble and an empty suit of armor. She cackled as the Living Fire receded from his body and his sword, sucked toward and into the key.

“It is all as my master declared it would be. I am sorry, Ilfedo, but this day power has passed to me.”

He darted toward her, but she raced into the city and fled faster than he was able to follow.

Climbing yet another hill, Specter again tried to close the distance between him and Auron. Since exiting the ice tunnel into an unknown land on the border of a cold lake, the traitor ran as if hellfire burned in his wake. He didn’t stop once, not even for food or sleep, though he did swim across a river and drank some water on the way.

The starry sky seemed to watch in grim anticipation of the coming confrontation. But not long thereafter a tree of gargantuan proportions eclipsed half the sky. Specter raced into the clearing just as Auron’s ice armor flashed with harsh flames. He burned with the fervor of a torch, screaming all the while. Flames ripped across the ancient ruins as Auron walked up the steps and the portal flashed open, swallowing him.

Specter jumped the remaining distance. In midair the portal caught him. His shoulders stiffened; something squeezed his head, then his shoulders, all the way to his feet. A current swept him through light and shadows in utter silence.

28

WHEN FOES MET

W
hen Specter emerged on the other side of the portal, his knees thumped on stone. He rolled, then got to his feet. Before him rose the city that had been hidden from the world—hidden by the prophets, according to legend.

A cathedral of immense size stood down the highway before him. The rest of the city sprawled in crumbling ruin, yet the cathedral was magnificent. To his right he could see a wall of pillars far down the road. He stepped forward, and a young woman ran headlong into his chest. She fell, and a gold key flew out of her fingers.

Specter caught it and smiled as the Living Fire tickled his hand. This must be the key . . . and this must be the witch, the same one of whom Albino had spoken. The key must not be allowed to fall into the hands of any wizard or witch, for then the sword of the dragon would lose its power.

He sighted Auron stumbling toward the cathedral. The light of a thousand portals glinted off his ice armor as it melted off his body.

Ilfedo glanced between the new arrivals, but when the hooded man held up the key, Ilfedo charged him. The man stepped out of his path and kicked him in the back. Ilfedo stumbled into a heap of rubble and turned, spraying flames out of his sword at the man.

“Peace, Lord Ilfedo; we are brothers in this struggle.”

“I don’t know you,” Ilfedo said.

“Ah, but Oganna does. For it was I who slew the Grim Reaper on the ramp to Ar’lenon.”

Ilfedo narrowed his eyes and pointed his blade at the man’s chest as he got to his feet. “Tell me whom you serve, for I have already been deceived by this witch, and I will not fall so easily again.”

“I serve the great white dragon, the prophet whose blood ran through your wife’s veins and therefore her child’s. I am Specter and I have no quarrel with you, but do not stand between me and him.” Specter pointed to the other man who was now scaling the cathedral’s face. “Here, the key is yours.” He laid the key in Ilfedo’s hand and turned his back to him, then ran toward the cathedral.

What appeared to be ice melted off the other man’s body. The man climbed the cathedral. Flames sprang from the darkness overhead as a thousand or more torches shed more light upon the ancient stone columns and ruined city. They were underground. No wonder this place was called the Hidden Realm. Above the spires of the magnificent cathedral a host of men and one black dragon hung as if suspended from the cavern’s dark ceiling. Veils covered the bodies of the men and the dragon.

As the man climbed the cathedral he shouted, “Awaken, master of winged serpents! Awaken! Let thy sleep come to an end; let your army arise as you lead them in conquest.” Something groaned amid the mass of bodies, and Ilfedo froze as the veil fell off the black scaled dragon and its sharp tail slapped the cavern roof, raining stones on the pedestal where the key had been held.

Escentra screamed, and her staff caught him in the midriff. He gasped, grabbed for his chest—and the key fell to the floor. As it landed, it flashed with light and vanished! But the pedestal atop the cathedral steps flashed too, and the key again floated in its shield.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Escentra struck him on the shoulder, on the leg, her staff raining blows until he could not breathe.

The sword of the dragon jolted his body with fire, and he parried her next attack, then kicked her in the stomach. As she rolled away from him, the sword spat fire in her wake.

Bodies hung from the ceiling of the cavern in which the city lay. In the midst of those that slept, above Specter’s head, there hung a large scaled black beast. Auron held himself halfway up the building’s face and threw his broken staff toward the creature. Its orb shattered on the dragon’s snout, and Auron fell to the ground.