Chapter 10
“Explain,” Rys ground out.
Alsia, Grigor, and Fara stood next to him, while Orthrus hovered nearby. The infernals had set up a defensive position, holding off the skeletons that attacked every minute or so. No necromancer had shown himself, but his magic made itself known.
Something scratched at Rys’s mind about what type of necromancy likely controlled these skeletons. Although he knew a fair bit about the general theory of necromancy, he hadn’t considered himself one. But this feeling was familiar.
Had he forgotten some necromancy at some stage? Was that held behind the seal as well?
“The Labyrinth is a single place beneath the entire island. I thought you knew that,” Alsia said.
“I know that, but…” Rys sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I had thought that the Labyrinth changed whenever people entered it. How can people reliably meet each other if they don’t enter from the same location?”
“The individual rooms and connections change, but there is a fixed layout,” Orthrus said. “Although it has been altered since I was last here, most likely by somebody in control of Castle Aion.”
“A fixed layout,” Rys said flatly. “You mean that the sleithneir cut this section of the Labyrinth in two? People on the other side couldn’t get past this door until we defeated it, and now they can?”
“Yes,” Orthrus replied. “Although I suspect the room was mirrored for them. If they entered the room, they would have seen what we did: a sleithneir and a closed door. We simply succeeded where they could not.”
Ah, yes, the mythical “we” that Orthrus used. As if the floating ball of light did anything to help.
“How do they get in?” Rys asked. “I know there are Labyrinth entrances that appear in the mountains, but I hadn’t seriously considered that they led to the same place. The slates hadn’t been touched, after all.”
“There are three fixed entrances on Kavolara,” Alsia said, before Orthrus could. The wisp muttered something unkind about her, and she glared at him. “One is in the mountains of Avolar, another is far to the north of New Ahm, although I don’t know precisely where.”
“And the third is in Castle Aion, which is now my palace,” Rys said, finishing for her. “Which the Kinadain didn’t use for superstitious reasons.”
“Yes.” She nodded.
“And the other entrances?”
“They don’t reliably lead to the main Labyrinth, but they can. It’s advised to never go below the fourth floor, because it’s never guaranteed that you can find your way out,” Alsia explained. “An entrance can vanish at any time, and the Labyrinth might not provide a way out other than the fixed exits.”
That explained a lot to Rys. Fara had mentioned that the hunters didn’t like going too deep in the Labyrinth. He hadn’t connected that to mean that they could enter the same Labyrinth that he was in, but chose not to because they might be cut off.
How foolish of him. He was making mistakes in his old age and becoming arrogant. Gathering information before acting was important, especially in a place as dangerous as this.
That knowledge deeply discomforted him, especially as he knew what his next decision needed to be.
“We need to press forward,” he said. “I intended to only deal with the dragon, then retreat, but this changes things.”
“Why?” Fara asked, raising an eyebrow.
However, Grigor nodded grimly. “We are exposed. If we are now connected to the Malus League through the Labyrinth, our ability to reach the Gorgrian section may be compromised in the future.”
“It’s now or never,” Rys said. “The League has something down here summoning skeletons constantly. That already implies they have a more advanced understanding of the Labyrinth than us. They’ve been harvesting artifacts for export somehow. If they think we can threaten them here, they’ll increase their defenses.”
Alsia and Fara grimaced, but they understood.
“Orthrus, do you have a lead on the path to Gorgria?” he asked.
“I do.”
“Then we’ll make a beeline for it, and deal with the League later. They’ll probably notice us, but I don’t care. Alsia, we’ll send a team of messengers back to let your warriors know to prepare defenses, in case we’re attacked from below,” Rys continued. “Otherwise, get ready. We’ll set off as soon as we can.”
Nobody had fallen while fighting the undead dragon, so the expeditionary force remained strong enough to advance. They had some supplies, just in case something went wrong, so Rys felt confident about pushing on.
The team that returned consisted of a noble demon, three lesser demons, a Lilim, and a Kinadain to guide them. The swordsman seemed reluctant to part with Alsia, given he was sworn to protect her, but she managed to convince him to leave.
After a few minutes, the remainder left. They still had considerable numbers: over thirty strong. Rys, Grigor, Fred, Fara, Alsia, four Kinadain swordsmen, a half-dozen Ashen, over a dozen noble and lesser demons, plus a few Lilim for healing.
It wasn’t quite the force he wanted to handle a power conduit, but it would hopefully be enough. Two demon princes brought a lot of bulk—literally, in Fred’s case.
“How have you not grown tired of those jokes?” Fara asked Rys, after he voiced his thoughts aloud.
“Because I never grow tired of observing the way Fred generates his own gravity,” he said.
Fara shook her head in reply, her tails lowering.
The density of the skeletons increased as they pushed onward. To Rys’s surprise, they encountered few, if any, monsters from the Labyrinth. But the necromantic energy strengthened with each step they took.
“I’ve been meaning to ask. What do your tail movements mean, anyway?” he asked.
Fara’s tails waved back and forth behind her. “Most of the time, they’re just a sign of our emotional state. Curiosity, happiness, shock—that sort of thing.”
“I noticed that, but sometimes you and Mina move them too deliberately to be emotional,” he said. “Not to be insulting, but they remind me of plumage in ways.”
“And now I’m a bird.” Fara laughed. “But no, I’m used to that. Our tails get compared to peacock feathers at times, and we use them similarly. There are formal ways to use our tails, but they vary based on context. In general, fanning them out is aggressive or territorial; lowering them is subservient or loving; the waving motion is playful; and placing them behind or around someone is possessive.”
“Those all sound like something you use in a courting ritual.” He tried to rub one of her tails, but she played keep away with them.
“Like I said, they vary based on context. In diplomacy or meetings, they take on a different meaning than when alone with someone.”
“You and Mina lower your tails quite a lot around me,” he noted.
“You are my king and my lover,” she said drily. “I’m not your possession, but I should be doing it a fair bit. Mina’s likely just having fun, but you’re also her king now.”
Curious. He made a note to keep a closer eye on their tail motions in the future.
Eventually, the party found the stairs down. But Rys felt a nexus of necromantic power nearby. The skeletons grew increasingly aggressive, but no mages made themselves known.
Other than the undead minions, they appeared to be alone down here.
“Orthrus, am I right in saying that the skeletons have been preventing the Labyrinth from resetting?” Rys said aloud.
“Most likely,” the wisp said. “The layout cannot change so long as there is a living being in a room. Presumably, an unliving being works just as well. We used other means in the past—typically binding magical power to the rooms directly, but this crude method works just as well.”
As insulting as Orthrus tried to be, that crude method was incredibly effective. The Malus League appeared to have locked down this entire level of the Labyrinth using these skeletons. Something recreated them whenever they were destroyed.
“Fred, stay with a team here. Grigor, come with me. I want to investigate something,” Rys said.
He, Fara, and Grigor made a short detour with Orthrus. The source of the necromantic power made itself known shortly.
Inside a small hall stood a polished stone altar, upon which was engraved a number of symbols. Magic thrummed off the obelisk, and Rys watched as a dozen skeletons simply appeared from nothing.
There were no flashy lights, and the obelisk didn’t glow. It reminded Rys of the black obelisks that powered the seal on his magical strength, but this was much cruder. Those were complex creations that defied his understanding of the world and reached beyond the observable reality of Harrium. Rys flat out didn’t understand how Castle Aion and the seal worked.
But he understood this necromantic obelisk. It converted astral energy from the local astral plane into skeletons. Necromancy touched lightly on souls, despite being sorcery, and this was an advanced form of it. It automatically sustained a small army of undead using the spirits of the dead.
What Rys didn’t understand was how it was powered. To his knowledge, necromancy required an actual sorcerer.
“Orthrus, the Labyrinth prevents all magical connections from leaving it, right?” Rys said quietly.
“Indeed. Other than your soul, of course.” For some reason, Orthrus chuckled at that. “This creation is no exception. It is independent, somehow. A curious thing.”
Grigor shattered the latest skeletons, which allowed Rys to investigate the obelisk himself.
And he found his prize.
“What the hell is this?” he asked, placing his foot against a strange box with metal contraptions sticking out from it. It was placed beneath the obelisk, and appeared to be directly hooked into it.
Fara gave him a quizzical look. “It’s a magic collector. Every magitech device uses one to draw in ambient magical energy for use. It’s likely hooked up to a converter of some sort, which is what actually turns it into usable magical energy.”
“The Malus League has made necromantic magitech?” Rys said, thinking out loud. “I really am going to need to recruit a few of them.”
“Be careful who you say that to,” Fara warned him. “I know you just want the magitech, but people might react negatively if you talk too positively about the League.”
Whatever the case, Rys wanted the magitech in the obelisk. Hurting the League’s operations here was a bonus.
That’s how he justified it anyway. He smashed the obelisk into pieces and acquired the magitech.
“Stole,” Fara corrected him when he aired his thoughts.
“Finders keepers,” Rys said. “I’m sure I’ll find a use for this once I get some mages to work for me.”
They returned to the group. The onslaught of skeletons stopped now that they had cut off the source—or at least one of the sources. He imagined there were obelisks on the upper levels.
Orthrus led them downward. Surprisingly, they only went down one more level before they reached their goal.
The room they entered was unlike any other in the Labyrinth. The entrances were closed off by tightly sealed steel doors that bore active runes, and they slid open to the sides at Rys’s touch—and only his touch. He felt the runes react to him, and his connection to Castle Aion stirred in response.
Within it was an enormous chamber built entirely from obsidian. Even the domed ceiling was forged from the stuff. Rys couldn’t imagine how they had built the place, given how difficult the material was to work. Not to mention how brittle it was. He had worked with it in the past, and although it was a very pretty material for architecture, it was the stuff of nightmares when it came to engineering and construction.
On the far wall was a flat surface, shaped by raised sections. In front of it was a plinth, and it was the only thing not made of obsidian. Instead, it was formed from the same dark stone as the power slates.
“Is that the portal?” Rys asked. Then he noticed the indentation beneath the plinth. “There’s a power slate in here.”
“Indeed. It is necessary to power this room. How fortunate one was left behind. Although you have one yourself, and could have powered the gate with the castle itself if necessary,” Orthrus said. “This is a warp gate. I had assumed they would be stripped bare and non-functional after so long. Interesting.”
The tone that the wisp used suggested that he had deeper thoughts than those he voiced. Whatever was “interesting” would remain a secret. Rys suspected that something was awry, and said as much.
“As I said, this place should have been looted,” Orthrus repeated.
“The door only reacted to me,” Rys said.
The others poked around the room while they chatted, although Alsia and Fara eavesdropped.
“The beings who would have come here could have bypassed the defenses easily. Do you think angels cannot teleport inside here?” The wisp gave his odd, clacking chuckle. “There have been many odd things that have taken place, I feel. The Labyrinth’s defenses are active, new islands have appeared in the archipelago, and now this. A mystery is afoot, wouldn’t you say?”
Rys grunted in response. “So, this allows us to travel to Gorgria?”
“More than that, it allows you to return to the castle, given it’s fully functional,” Orthrus said. “The gates have multiple functions. The simplest is to connect the Labyrinth between the islands, but be careful. Once connected, the process cannot be undone. Others will notice and be able to move freely between Gorgria and Kavolara.”
“That’s a risk I’ll need to accept.”
Orthrus attempted to nod, but failed, given he was a glowing orb of light. “The second function is that it connects to the Labyrinth antechamber in Castle Aion. These rooms act as way stations for those delving deeper. And the third is more complicated. It allows you to move or duplicate Castle Aion’s location across the archipelago.”
Rys’s eyes widened. “I remember you mentioned that it had been elsewhere, in one of your stories. Is that how?”
“Indeed. But I doubt you need to use that function yet. If your palace appears in the middle of Gorgria, you may attract unwanted attention.”
Damn right he would. The Royal Gorgrian Kingdom would probably try to invade him on principle, if nothing else.
But the idea intrigued him, although he needed to understand how it worked. A conversation to be had later.
For now, Rys allowed Orthrus to guide him through the activation process. It was simple enough. He turned the crystal dial on the stone plinth one notch to the right, while channeling energy from Castle Aion into it.
A rip in reality itself tore apart the far wall. For an instant, it appeared to be formed of pure darkness. Staring into it created a deep, dark terror within Rys, as if he was looking at something he shouldn’t. The abyss was fathomless, bottomless, and incomprehensible.
For a moment, he felt that something stirred within him.
Then the darkness resolved into a room on the other side. It was the bottom of his palace, where he and his group had gathered to dive into the Labyrinth to begin with.
“It is done,” Orthrus said. “I can already feel the connection to the power conduit strengthening. Paths to the rest of the Labyrinth are forming on this level as we speak.”
“I do not believe that was natural,” Grigor grumbled. “Even by the standards of magic and the Infernal Empire.”
Most of the party were unsettled by what had happened, so Rys shooed them away. He didn’t want them panicking over something they didn’t understand.
“I’ve heard of something like this, but only theoretically,” Fara said, eyes wide and tails bolt upright in shock. “The Malus League have huge teleporters that connect their mage towers. But this feels like an actual tear in space itself. My tails tell me that the other side is the castle. I don’t feel a gap, even though I can see the edge of the portal.”
“It reminds me of the portals to Hell,” Rys said. He frowned. “We never worked out how to create those. All of them appeared during the Emergence, and when the last one was destroyed, that was the end of the Infernal Empire. If I studied this…”
The idea of recreating a permanent connection to Hell had its benefits. For one thing, he would be able to maintain a genuine army of infernals without personally using his own power.
The downside was that other infernals could simply walk through it. He would lose his leverage over the Devil Queen and the other noble devils, and they would likely see him as a threat, rather than an ally.
But once again, he had discovered something truly fascinating.
Then he remembered that strange feeling when the portal had opened and shuddered again.
Maybe some things were best left alone.
“We need to keep moving,” Rys said, pushing his concerns away. “We should leave behind excess supplies and what we’ve looted, such as this magitech. Orthrus, lead us to the power conduit.”
The Gorgrian section of the Labyrinth was quiet. That alone concerned him, as it suggested that something had happened. But he sensed no one nearby, and no noises troubled them.
In short order, they found the entrance to the power conduit. Or what Orthrus said was the entrance.
A semi-circular vault door separated Rys from regaining his lost power. The door itself was crafted from the same black stone as the power slates, which made brute force impossible. A number of runes dotted its outer rim, but it was otherwise unmarked.
“Any hints?” he asked Orthrus.
Surprisingly, the wisp remained silent.
“You were rather useful last time,” Rys tried.
“This isn’t right,” Orthrus blurted out. “I don’t remember a door like this.”
“Can somebody actually build in the Labyrinth? We saw the obelisk earlier, but wouldn’t it be destroyed once the skeletons were gone?” Rys asked.
“You cannot. When it resets, all structures are erased. But this…” A lengthy pause. “It feels as though the door itself has been keyed into the Labyrinth. Fascinating. Truly fascinating.”
“I’d prefer a solution, but I guess I need to solve it myself. These runes are different from those we saw last time. They match the faded ones I originally saw in Castle Aion, however.” He looked at Orthrus. “Why are there two different runic languages here?”
“Didn’t I tell you that the Creator was sealed here? Somebody must have sealed him.” Orthrus cackled.
In other words, one set of runes belonged to the race that sealed away the demigod that built the Labyrinth, and another to the Creator himself.
Rys suspected these runes were the latter. The previous set of doors had felt like an intentional defense mechanism, and Orthrus had known about them in advance. That made it more likely that they were constructed by the sealers, rather than the sealed. Further proof was the fact that similar runes existed in a ruin on Gauron.
But who could possibly have written runes in a language that only existed here and had been lost for millennia? Even in the time of the Infernal Empire, Rys knew of only two people he felt capable of comprehending conceptual runes of this power.
One of them was an archdevil who had apparently gone shopping and gotten sealed away. The other was standing in this very room, with no memory of how he had been sealed away for 1500 years, pondering the runes in question.
“I’m going to need an hour or two,” Rys said.
“That’s it?” Fara said sarcastically.
“There aren’t many runes here, and I’ve been analyzing those I’ve seen elsewhere in the castle and Labyrinth in my spare time,” he said. “The magic isn’t as complicated as it seems.”
As it turned out, he only needed an hour. The runes were deceptively simple.
“Teach me how to cast infernal sorcery,” the runes said.
If he wanted to, Rys could cast a spell with a flick of his wrist. Summoning a ball of hellfire was as easy as tapping into his knowledge Gift, channeling infernal energy through it, and voila.
But would that be teaching?
The trick to infernal sorcery was that it relied on infernal energy from Hell. Said energy was lethal to humans and needed to be processed before use. Rys used Gifts to process it for him, and most infernalists used magical foci for the same effect.
But there was a long way to accomplish the same effect and filter the energy by hand. It was completely unusable in practice, but if Rys was going to teach somebody about infernal sorcery from first principles, it would be how he would go about it.
So he went about the process without skipping any steps with his centuries of skill and experience, then watched as the runes lit up. The door then rolled to one side.
“That’s it?” Fara asked.
“I believe I understand,” Orthrus said.
Grigor and Fred nodded.
“Don’t you fucking dare pull this shit. Rys, what did you do?” the fox growled.
As tempting as it was to leave her in the dark, he explained the trick.
Fara blinked. “So it was a riddle only solvable by infernalists, but the door will eat your soul if you fuck it up?”
“A little more complicated. Whoever set this up was a cynical bastard who knows that most infernalists rely too heavily on external foci to cast their sorcery, and probably can’t cast from first principles. Most sorcerers use a lot of shortcuts when casting, but you instill bad habits if you teach like that,” Rys said.
“This cynical bastard sounds a lot like you, then.”
He didn’t have a response for that jab.
The room beyond the door was empty. No obelisk appeared to be within it.
“This is what I am familiar with,” Orthrus said. “Once you enter and activate the conduit, you will be challenged. Enter all at once, not one at a time. I will be able to briefly speak with you on the other side.”
The other side? Rys ignored his concerns and decided to trust the wisp. It had worked out last time.
“Everyone in,” Rys ordered with a wave of his arm.
Grigor, Fred, and Alsia ushered everyone inside.
Rys entered last. He took a deep breath, then reached out with his magic and activated the defense system that he instinctively sensed.
The world warped, twisting his vision and senses.
When they returned to normal, Rys found his senses assaulted by the sharp tang of blood, the foul smell of charred flesh, and the choking heat of flames. Smoke filled the air around them. A cacophony of screams, roars, shouting, and the clatter of furious battle and panic split the air.
Orders in a half-dozen languages shot in and out of Rys’s ears in the space of a few seconds. Elvish, dwarvish, draconic, and three different infernal tongues. It took him a moment to realize that he hadn’t said any of them, and wasn’t being given those orders.
Rys looked up and saw that he was in the midst of a sprawling cityscape so vast that it seemed to loom over him. Every stone seemed familiar and called out to him, almost by name. The buildings burned. The ground itself shook with violent battle.
Bestial roars echoed across the city from the distance. A couple were draconic in origin, but he somehow knew others were from devils transforming into their monstrous forms in desperate last stands.
The world turned to shadow as the sources of the roars flew overhead. Jets of flame incinerated entire city blocks as a trio of dragons jetted past. Spells and magical lances chased them, and once blew the wing off a dragon, sending it spiraling down into a tower. The entire structure toppled within moments.
A chill ran down Rys’s spine. He stared in horror at one of his darkest memories.
Ruathym was burning. His home was ablaze with the fires of rebellion, as the Infernal Empire came crashing down in the space of a single day.