Lore of Eternal Shadow: The Fugitive King

Chapter Thirty-Four

It was hard to know how much time passed, night and day had no meaning underground. The Blazing Sea was sustaining Runa, Zicone, and Tiberan gradually, as if they all were unendingly sipping at Sussurri coffee. Just that fact alone frightened them into quickening their pace. Every moment they spent here brought closer to being forever tethered to this place. The Fire Zey^Rey no longer harassed them and Zicone realized his masking magic had improved. The Vampirex led the way as always. The volcanic tunnel continued on but only led to more of the same thing.

The Vampirex slowed down and walked over to the cave wall opposite to the Blazing Sea. He folded his arms in front of the rough but evenly cut side of the tunnel, "This is it!"

There was literally nothing to distinguish this bit of wall from any other. "How can you be sure?" Runa asked.

The Vampirex looked at the other two Zey^Rey, "Surely you can feel the energy?"

Zicone looked at the hunk of wall. The calculations surrounding it stood out more and more like a sore thumb the more he concentrated. They were ordered very similarly to a door lock. The door lock, of sorts, asked for a very specific list of life forces to connect to it. Zicone turned back to the Vampirex, "Can we open it?"

"You can," the Vampirex replied, "It wouldn't be much of a dungeon for my weapon if I could open it. More than two thousand years ago, the human slave mages that accompanied me were able to crack this open... of course they all died horribly. Not five minutes later Argon called me back to Narbon. It was very annoying." The Vampirex gave the wall one more examination, "Clearly the entrance has sealed itself up again."

"Um," fretted Tiberan, "Could we not gloss over the fact that all of your colleagues died horribly!?"

"Boy, relax," the Vampirex dismissed, "One, this is Zey^Rey magic and the human mages didn't know what to do with it. Two, both you and Zicone are Zey^Rey. If nothing else your natural resistance to magic should protect you from... whatever killed them."

"You don't know?!" Tiberan cried.

"I had five minutes to study the corpses before Mr. Pouty Princess called me back to his pink throne."

Zicone shook his head before returning to his study of the calculations. Zicone realized that as an Isducainia, he'd probably be welcome. Glancing over at Tiberan, he realized having members of two Time-Master houses couldn't hurt in opening the lock. "Tiberan, will you help me?"

Tiberan turned to Zicone, who nodded toward the invisible calculations. Zicone went first, extending a stream of calculating energy like a hand to shake. Tiberan quickly replicated the spell and felt the calculations in the wall grip him firmly. The guarding spells seemed to accept the two young Time-Master's "keys" and a slab of the wall began to split from the rest, lowering into the floor. A grand staircase fell beyond into forever.

Skeletons appeared at their feet as the door disappeared into the floor. Zicone and the others jumped before realizing the skeletons weren't moving. Scraps of red cloth, only preserved by tidbits of magic, clung to the ancient corpses.

"You were much more successful than them," the Vampirex commented. Runa scowled at the Vampirex. These had been mages. All those centuries ago they had been just as fascinated with this Zey^Rey magic as Runa was now. These people had lived miserable lives serving Caligo only to be led to a miserable death by the Vampirex. Runa wondered if these men and women had families they never came home to... but all the Vampirex could do was sigh completely without remorse and say, "Well, shall we?"

Zicone gave the Vampirex a dirty look as he carefully stepped over the corpses. The air changed as they drew further away from the Blazing Sea. It was comparatively refreshing. Torches of similar make to the ones back in the Zey^Rey Dimension lit up whenever the four figures came close enough. "I guess somebody planned on coming down here again," noted Tiberan.