Lowelm's Shadow (Part 2)

If you're reading this without having read the redone version of part 1, go forward and read that first. The story has been reworked, so part 1 is different from before.



They moved through the stone passages carefully, the cold silence interrupted only by their sound of their feet against the floor. Naptali held close to Drauglin, making sure she was not separated from the magical light that surrounded him. They moved through a series of interconnected chambers, each of them square and empty. The featureless void was disturbing, for the underground secret seemed home to nothing but stale air.

They made their way along a downward sloping tunnel, which eventually opened up to an octagonal room with a passage leading from each face. A large circular dais dominated this central room, flanked by eight pedestals, one for each corner of the room. A turquoise glow filled the room, acting as the visible partner for the embrace of icy air within.

Naptali shivered involuntarily. “Why is it so cold in here?”

Drauglin looked around for a few moments in silence. He walked around, inspecting the floor. “This was once used as a summoning chamber. There are still faint marks on the stone from it. The coldness is artificial, either for the summoning, or because of it. I don’t know which.” He looked at her. “Come. We need to look at these ante-chambers.”

“You might want to start with this one,” said Naptali, the distress audible in her voice.

Drauglin turned and peered to see that the small room Naptali had entered had lit up, exposing three dead bodies. One had been charred so badly it was only a blackened skeleton, another lying with a broken neck, a look of sheer horror upon the perfectly preserved face. The last was the most disturbing, for it was simply missing the top half of its body. It was as though its head and upper torso had simply disappeared.

“They killed each other with magic,” said Drauglin.

“But who was victorious?” Naptali asked.

“I’m not sure,” he replied. “But I think we’re going to find out. Let’s look at the other rooms.”

They moved with a sense of urgency between the rooms. “Alchemical lab,” said Drauglin of the first. It was monopolised by a large table, with shelves on the walls holding all manner of glass apparatus. “Reagent room.” It appeared like a ramshackle arrangement of drawers, cupboards and chests. The fourth passage was a staircase, leading down an indeterminable distance deeper below. “We’ll look there later,” said Drauglin.

The next room was empty, followed by a chamber with small platforms that Drauglin explained were used for practicing spells. The last contained three bookshelves packed with heavy tomes. Two had been pulled out and lay on the small desk. Drauglin moved forward and looked at them. “Here,” he said. “Look at this.”

She looked at him frostily. “You know I never learned to read.”

“Sorry,” Drauglin replied. “They’re on summoning. This one appears to be some sort of journal.”

“Read them, then tell me,” Naptali said.

She waited silently as Drauglin read, a soft mutter occasionally escaping his lips as he flicked through the old pages. “It’s not clear,” he said softly.

“What?”

He looked at her frustrated. “The notes indicate they were trying to summon extraplanar creatures, but…”

“What’s an extraplanar creature?” asked Naptali.

“They don’t really exist. Or at least, not in a ‘solid’ sense like things that we know. They have to be forced into a corporeal form as they are summoned.”

“Next question,” she said. “Why?”

Drauglin smiled. “That’s easy. Power. The more difficult questions are ‘whom’ and when.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at these tomes,” he said. “You can see the fingermarks that have taken away the dust. At least on these two.” He turned to the bookshelf on his left and pulled a book from it. A plume of dust shot forth to accompany it. Once they stopped coughing, he spoke. “None of the other books have been touched. The dust alone says that they’ve been here for a long time. The almost unintelligible language means that they were also written then. But those dead magicians we saw, they didn’t write these. They only died recently.”

Naptali gave him a quizzical look. “What you’re saying is that those magicians did something to cause the disturbance and get themselves killed?”

“Exactly!” Drauglin said, clapping his hands together. “The worrying thing is, I’m not sure exactly what they disturbed. But it was nothing good.” Naptali gazed at him attentively, so he continued. “Whatever was originally summoned was too powerful for the summoners. The diary notes that there was a group of magicians, and several of them died trying to control it. The last entry indicates only that the author trapped ‘the beast’ permanently in a cage of magic.”

“Down the stairs?”

Drauglin nodded. “But I need to look in the reagent room first. The diary mentioned the use of crystals to drain its power. I have no idea what might be down those stairs, but I don’t want to go without those crystals.”

“Take all the time you need, Drauglin.” Naptali said. “I don’t like my chances at being able to hit something with my sword if it doesn’t have a body.”

Drauglin looked through the drawers carefully, and began pulling out long amber and violet crystals. “I think these are what we need,” he said. “They can store magical energy, and nothing else in here is remotely useful. At least, not anymore.” He picked up an unidentifiable ball that crumbled to dust between his fingers. Eventually, a total of eight crystals went into his small pack.

“Is that enough?” Naptali asked.

“It will have to be,” he replied.

“Then let’s go.” She walked towards the stairs calmly despite her terror of the unknown horror below.

The slow descent fuelled a growing unease that was suffocating in such close quarters. Neither of them spoke for fear of disturbing the cloying silence, as though it would be animated by the palpable magic that permeated their bodies. The feeling was nauseating in the way it emanated from everywhere, and each step seemed to cause more energy to rise and envelop them.

Naptali shuddered involuntarily and stopped. “I can’t stand it Drauglin.” she said.

“I know,” he replied. “It’s filling me as well.” His eyes glimmered with a vague aura of fear. “The magicians didn’t kill each other.” He said with a sudden note of realisation.

“They didn’t?”

Drauglin shook his head. “No. They killed themselves because they couldn’t control their magic.”

“You still can?” Naptali dreaded asking the question, but dreaded his answer more.

“At the moment.”

She inhaled worriedly. “It’s getting stronger, isn’t it?”

Drauglin nodded. “But we have to keep going.”

Naptali said nothing as she took another step down the long staircase. A soft, flickering colour was growing stronger as they moved down, distorting their perceptions even further. They finally saw the bottom of the staircase, and it appeared as though an ever-changing sun was captured below the earth.

They stepped forward into a massive chamber carved from the rock. It was impeccable in creation, a circular space with perfectly angled slopes carving a cone-shaped hollow into both the floor and ceiling. And within that vast emptiness was the blinding flurry of colour that was the source of the unrelenting light and energy. Naptali squinted as she tried to look at it directly, an act that felt as though it caused her physical pain.

“There’s far too much wild magical energy here,” said Drauglin. “Whatever is inside is trying to break free, and it doesn’t really care how it does it.”

“What do we do?” asked Naptali.

Drauglin held his finger to his lips and shut his eyes. Naptali could only wait as his eyes flickered wildly from underneath their closed lids. She could not imagine what he was doing, and was not sure that she wanted to.

“It’s as though this being exudes magic,” he said. “That’s what they needed the crystals for, to drain some of its essence and power before caging it.”

“There’s too much magic?”

“Yes, and I need to dissipate some of that energy first. Otherwise I don’t know what will happen when I try and strengthen the bonds.” Naptali had never seen Drauglin look so apprehensive about magic before, and it filled her with trepidation too. “I’m going to have to weaken the cage slightly and pull the energy from the ‘beast’ itself in order to do so.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Yes, but less so than trying to strengthen the cage as is it. Draining energy is a simple spell, but manipulating it into a cage…” Drauglin let his voice trail off.

The magician laid out the crystals on the floor in front of him. Standing bolt upright, he moved his arms in a circular motion and brought them in front of his chest. His fingers were splayed apart, with his thumbs barely apart and his palms directed at the crystals. The crystals began to glow faintly as Drauglin’s fingers became fiercely rigid. They lit up with ever increasing strength as Drauglin held his position for what seemed like an eternity.

The vague hum of energy filled the room with an oppressive air, as though it were demanding their silence. Naptali felt her head throb as the colour in the centre of the room grew stronger and thrashed more violently as time passed. The gentle glow of the crystals had swelled into a strong light source as Drauglin’s spell continued. As they approached a luminescence that nearly drowned out their original colour, Drauglin stopped.

He turned to Naptali. “They’re not enough.”

“What?” she asked, worriedly.

“I wasn’t able to drain enough energy into the crystals. There’s still too much magic for me to be able to strengthen the cage without the threat of killing us both and setting it free.”

Naptali beamed with pride as an idea entered her head. “Can we go find more crystals?”

Drauglin shook his head in resignation. “Those crystals aren’t easy to find, and I’ve weakened the cage too much. In the time it would take to get them, this thing would have broken free.”

The elf exhaled helplessly. “Then we best run as fast as we can and hope we get help in time.”

“I don’t know what it is, Naptali,” he said. “But I from what was written in that journal, we can’t let it get free. There’s one last option.”

“I’m not going to like it, am I?” Drauglin shook his head. “What is it?” she asked.

“I drain the magical energy into you. You’re a better vessel for it than anything else we could possibly find in time.”

Her expression was tinged with anger. “I don’t appreciate being called a vessel.”

“Sorry. Magical term,” said Drauglin. “I know it makes you feel sick, but the fact that you can feel the energy means that you can hold a lot of it, as though you were storing it to cast a spell.”

A wave of anticipatory sickness gushed over Naptali, but she knew Drauglin would not have suggested it except as a last, desperate resort. “Where should I stand?” she asked resignedly.

“There is fine,” he said. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

She nodded at Drauglin and saw his hands clench as his face turned harsh with concentration. He thrust an open hand in her direction and another towards the centre of the room, and suddenly beams of the kaleidoscope flow arced towards her through him. She felt the energy flowing into her from the visible stream that burst from Drauglin’s fingers. Each crest in the undulating wave assaulted her with a surge of nausea that made her want to vomit. Her skin felt hot and sweaty with an unrelenting blistering that fought to overwhelm her senses.

“Just a little longer!” Drauglin yelled.

Naptali could not find the strength to respond verbally, her eyes looking helplessly at him with palpable suffering. Suddenly she felt her body lurch to the ground and her stomach heaved and violently expelled its contents. The acrid taste of bile filled her mouth and caused her insides to churn more, trying to rid itself of the unknown evil that wracked her.

She suddenly felt herself launched into the air, and saw a new multi-coloured stream flying towards her chest directly from the centre of the room. It hit her with indescribable agony, and she barely managed to avoid passing out immediately. “Drauglin!” Every fibre of her body provided fuel to the ear-splitting scream of pain and terror.

His expression was filled with utter dread, and immediately he turned his full attention towards her. She felt the burning of her skin subside slightly as the stream between them grew thicker, though it was obviously that Drauglin was now draining the magic from her.

“Hold on!” he yelled. “I’ll break the bond as soon as I can!” He moved his hands frantically as his eyes danced in spasm. Streaks of colour flashed into the air, forming a semi-transparent lattice as they flaked towards the centre of the room in disparate pieces.

Naptali felt her consciousness slipping from her grasp and the room fade into an insubstantial blur. It was as though she were ceasing to exist, burning away into sheer magical energy. It had transcended pain and she simply felt disjoint from her body, unable to feel emotion or sensation, merely sensing the phenomenal flows of magic in this alternate space.

She suddenly felt her feeling return as her body dropped to the hard floor. No longer suspended in space, her head landed with unbroken force on the cold stone. She could still see the streams of magic flowing around, Drauglin desperately trying to repel the large worm-like tube that was trying to push its way towards him.

The magician was beading with sweat over his entire body from exertion, desperately tearing off parts of the raw energy to reinforce the slowly growing lattice cage. The stream pushed ever closer, creeping with deadly intent to envelop him. Drauglin’s actions grew even more erratic, a wild flurry of hysterical movement to save his own life.

In an instant, the lattice closed and the malevolent force dissipated harmlessly into the air. Drauglin’s actions slowed gradually in pace, the lattice growing and layering itself in increasing depth. The unpredictable multi-coloured glare gave way to a constant, cooler glow as the magical beast became wrapped in an impenetrable weave.

An eternity seemed to pass before Drauglin finally stopped. He cast a final concerned look at Naptali, and then collapsed onto the ground with exhaustion. He looked at her blankly in his inert form. “Sorry I couldn’t help you faster.” The words were a bare hush before he passed out. Naptali felt herself losing her own struggle for consciousness, and saw the black edges of her vision meet and fold over until all sensation disappeared.

When she awoke in a hazy rush, her skin still felt on fire and her entire body throbbed with an unquenchable pain. Her insides felt as though they had been churned through, and her muscles swayed feebly. Naptali forced her eyes open under protest, and saw an unwelcome blur cloud her vision. She managed a soft groan of pain, and she felt a stopping sensation. It was strange because she had not even registered that she had been moving.

She was placed on the ground, and saw Drauglin looking down at her. “I didn’t expect you to be awake quite so quickly. You need more rest.”

Naptali tried to object, but her mouth fought and refused to make an intelligible sound. She realised she wasn’t even sure what words she wanted to say. Then a sudden wave of tiredness wracked her, and her eyes drooped to close.

“I’ll get us back to Lowelm. You’ll be able to recover there.”

Consciousness became an abstract concept for Naptali as they moved. She wasn’t sure where Drauglin was finding the strength to carry her and travel at the blurred speed she almost felt them travelling at. Night had fallen, but they still moved with great speed, and Drauglin’s main concern appeared to be getting to Lowelm as quickly as possible.

She eventually felt herself being lain down, and the comforting voice of Lowelm’s priest murmuring incomprehensibly. His reassuring tone was tinged with grave concern, but her body responded to his ministrations with welcome relief. Her eyes occasionally blinked open to see Drauglin’s worried form, hunched vigilantly by her side.

Eventually, a wave of cold struck Naptali with force, sapping the feeling of unnatural warmth that had tormented her. She searched vainly for a blanket as her eyes struggled against the recuperative sleep. Drauglin had collapsed from fatigue, by awoke with a start as he heard her rouse. “Why is it so cold in here?” she demanded.

“Glad to hear you’re okay,” he said groggily. Disappeared momentarily before placing a blanket over her and collapsing beside her again. If a sudden lack of energy had not stopped her, Naptali would have smiled.

By the time she woke again, Drauglin was gone. The priest looked back at her with his characteristic benevolence, making sure of her health. “Where is Drauglin?” she asked.

“He just left,” the man said. “But said to tell you that he’ll see you far too soon.”

Naptali gave an amused grunt. “I’m sure. And I’ll bet he’s right.”