Your epics are ALWAYS enjoyable.

 

Thanks Darthel, glad to hear that. The next chapter/s should be up friday.

 

₰₰ Book One: Chapter Seven ₰₰
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The battle raged for many minutes more as cloaker after cloaker was shredded, battered, burned, crushed and mangled by the elementals, the energons, and the magic of Chipper and Nelson. Finally, the inevitable point came when one cloaker decided enough was enough, winged-over and fled as it called for all others to follow. In ones and twos, others commenced to retreat, and then a full route developed as the elder cloakers winged-over and departed.

On Nelsons command the elementals and energons pursued them to the limits of their magical bindings.

Five minutes later, an exhausted Nelson listened to one surviving energon describe the massacre which had occurred. The cloaker force was truly devastated, but at a cost of all save for one elemental of radiance and five of the energons; he thanked them for coming to his and Elsa’s calls and released them to return to their homes.

The eternal night returned in full as they departed and Nelson conjured into existence another quartet of the ghostly lights he has become fond of.

Chipper climbed upon a large boulder, stood on his haunches, and then danced about, whooping and hollering out as grand a victory dance as he could. He declared to the cosmos at large, “Never challenge a squirrel and his magic! I won! I won! I won! I am the greatest, I am the king! I am undefeatable! Squirrel's rule, yes, Squirrel's rule...now, forever, always...”

Nelson gave the squirrel a truly sarcastic look and asked, “You beat them?”

Chipper looked upon the young man and nodded his head, as he gestured with his paws at the great chasm. “I did beat them! If you had not shown up, Elsa would never have become attached to you as she is; and thus not only would this battle have been avoided; she would be spared the heartbreak that must inevitably come from you and her becoming lovers.”

Nelson went to one knee and stared daggers at the squirrel as he harshly asked, “Where is Elsa?”

Chipper gestured to a location far below in the chasms depths, and said, “Down there, about a thousand or more feet. As usual she refuses to see reason and has dealt with another problem; she cannot help but make another discovery in this labyrinth of madness. Of course it’s your fault; she and I should already be well on the way to finding that gateway. No, oh no, instead we have to be followed by a truly incompetent magician…”

Nelson looked at Chipper, and asked him, “What, what did she find? Where is she Chipper?”

Chipper moved to the edge and pointed into the depths. “As I said, down there, about a thousand below us, Elsa found a wide balcony that faces a pair of large and magically sealed doors. When she burst out of the passage she could not stop her momentum in time and plunged into the depths below. Thankfully she landed on that balcony and survived the fall. There was some kind of beast that waited for her, now it’s dead, so that does not matter, though she thinks other beasties may wait for you and me on the cliff as you climb down it.”

Nelson gave Chipper a scathing look, his hackles raised at the continuing arrogance of the rodent. “So let me get this straight,” he said in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “I’m suppose to descend down this cliff of some thousand or so feet, holding onto barren rock for dear life and battle hostile monstrosities every inch of the way, and still carry you down as well? How about I do this the easy way and use a spell so we can levitate down to her elevation and arise in one piece?”

Chipper leaped onto Nelsons shoulder, his eyes filled with cold fire born of rage and fear. “Let me be clear on this young human. Elsa is not here to protect you, that gate is down there past those doors. I am giving you a simple choice: you will either do just that, or you will perish right here, right now. Which shall it be?”

The squirrel squealed and cringed when he gazed upon the anger and indignation which blazed in Nelsons eyes.

He understood a line had been crossed, one in which he had threatened his life, challenged his honor, integrity, and his very relation with Elsa. Once again, Chipper cursed himself for his arrogance and pride which caused him to lord his superiority over the lesser species of the cosmos.

Nelson gave Chipper a wicked grin, and spoke in a voice of great power backed up by unyielding steel, “So you present me with two choices, do you Chipper? Then I think you need to understand exactly where we stand with one another. threats and insults I will tolerate to a certain degree, yet I gave my pledge to Elsa as student to their teacher, apprentice to master, and I keep my promises.”

Chipper began to backpedal, his eyes wide in terror, ears flat and tail thrashing about as his panic mounted by the moment. He watched as Nelson lifted one hand, and said, “Now then, how I about offer option number three; which of course, is the option I choose to exercise here and now.”

A minute later, Nelson, quite satisfied with the resolution began the long descent to rejoin Elsa. He laughed and said, “A very satisfactory solution, very satisfactory indeed.”

Needless to say, Chipper was not very happy with the outcome…

Not by far.

₰​

Thirty minutes later Elsa helped Nelson onto the balcony and embraced him in a hug so strong and savage that he grimaced. She looked him over, then looked around and finally asked with some confusion, “Where in the blazes is Chipper? He has been telepathically complaining for some time now?”

Nelson explained the ‘conversation’ he and the rodent had far above and grinned when Elsa shook her head and cursed in a half-hundred languages. “I’m sorry Elsa; I know he is your spirit-companion. But understand, I will not be threatened by a pint-sized, eccentric, and completely insane squirrel while I’m miles underground. So I had to deal with him thus…” From under his robes he pulled out a scroll tube and held it close to one of the glowing orbs for her to behold. He smiled with some satisfaction and emptied the contents into one hand, and laughed as Elsa first issued a tittering chuckle which flowed into hysterical laughter that left her doubled over on the floor.

Chipper could only continue to rant, rage and complain at Elsa via their mind-to-mind link. For Nelson had enacted ‘option three,’ which left the squirrel bound, gagged, wrapped like a mummy in burlap and stuffed into the scroll tube; then, as Nelson descended the stony cliff, he had to endure the maddening jokes and needless rambling of the magician.

Finally, their shared laughter concluded, Elsa freed Chipper with a gesture of her hand that unwound all of the binding fabric. Before the enraged squirrel could carry out any of his hundred-fold threats she ordered him to calm down at once; he did so, for her tone indicated the level of fury which still beat within her.

Nelson looked around and asked of Elsa, “Chipper said you found something…” He fell silent as he gazed on the wonder of the great doors before him. Each one measured one hundred feet in height and half that across, bound in iron and polished to such perfection that the illumination from the four orbs rippled across them as the sunlight upon a ripple-filled pond. Twin dragons, intertwined in an eternal dance of life and death, shone as if a thousand suns suddenly erupted into life across their surfaces.

He gasped as stood in compete awe-struck wonder as he understood the truth displayed before him: the dragons were not carved into the wood; instead, they had been forged from pure diamond, sapphire, emerald and other precious stones. A thousand thousands kings’ ransoms would not even compare to the value of the smallest bit of dust to ever wear free and be gathered by human hands.

Nelson willed the glowing orbs to climb higher and allow the entire door structure to come into view. Arched in twin dragons to either side, he beheld craftsmanship beyond the greatest of mortal works. Thousands of detailed reliefs, symbols, words and expressions from ten thousand worlds interwove one with the other, and he guessed that a mortal man could study them for a millennia or more, and never begin to exhaust all to learn.

He walked up to the door, and, contrary to Elsa’s frantic and alarmed cry not to, placed one hand upon the great wooden surface. Softly, reverently, he chanted cabalistic words of power and enacted a simple divination magic which allowed him to see an historic event on any structure or site: he beheld a thousand angelic beings at work on the doorway as they secured the last hinge in place. Once accomplished, they and a thousand beings from as many worlds gathered and lifted to the heavens songs of praise, glory and thanks to their patron deities.

Seven great angelic beings, each one four times the height of a man looked upon Nelson and politely bowed. Then, hands held apart before them, seven images blazed into existence, the light of such power and purity he almost went blind. He heard the seven names being spoken, understood how a mortal may pronounce them in turn; the vision dissipated, as the spell expired in a blur of light and fire.

₰
​

Elsa looked at him, hands held tight before her mouth as anxiety, hope, desire and passion filled her eyes of liquid moonlight. When Nelson had not moved for many a minute, she focused her mind and gently called out to him telepathically: “Nelson? Nelson, are you alright?” She sensed the maelstrom of his mostly undisciplined mind, yet sensed he was unhurt, actually…in complete awe over what he had learned.

Chipper, completely overwhelmed by the structure before him climbed onto her shoulder and, for perhaps the first time in his existence, remained silent.

Nelson looked at Elsa and asked, “Is this…I mean beyond the doors…”

Elsa smiled and nodded as she said, “Yes Nelson, this is one of the landmarks we have searched for. Once we get them open, and pass through, we will be that much closer to the gateway and the beginning of our hunt for the seven tigers…” she cringed, her ears flattened tight against her skull as Nelson screamed. She watched as Chipper, startled by the sound, leaped clear of her shoulder and bolted for the nearest cover.

Elsa gave off a mirth-filled grin and walked over to the shaken man. “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about that.” She gestured with one hand at the shattered and mangled remains of a sixteen-headed beast. “I take it you never have seen a hydra before? This thing appeared moments after I landed on the balcony and commenced to try and have me for dinner.”

Her face blanched as she continued, “never can get used to the taste, too much akin to vinegar and garlic mixed together.”

Nelson cringed and shook as he looked upon her in true terror. “The taste…what do you mean? Have you now become some kind of vampire or such? Or a devil in disguise and the real Elsa is dead?”

Elsa rolled her eyes to the heavens and shook her head. “No Nelson, I’m not a vampire. Nor am I one of those demonic creatures that walk around the world eating people or stealing their souls. Boy, my joke-telling must be way off anymore.” She laughed when he gave a melodramatic sigh of relief, glad that her greatest of secrets remained safe, and unaware that Nelson had seen the lone crimson tear which she had shed from absolute fear of his finding out.

He looked at her and gently nodded his head, then solemnly stated, “We all have our secrets Elsa, as Chipper mentioned to me after the fight with the Effigy. I understand, more than most people realize. I just hope there will be a day I can win your trust enough to learn what it is that haunts you so badly.”

He gave her a feigned conspiratorial look and whispered, “I mean, I know the stones are conspiring against us…”

Despite her best effort Elsa laughed long and hard, the sudden tension between them broken. She gave Nelson a curious look and in a voice giddy with excitement asked, “So then, what did you find out about the door?”

Nelson explained what he saw in the vision, of the angels, the door being set in place.

Then he said to her, still in awe of the vision, “Seven of these angelic beings, greater than the others showed seven names in images of fire and heavenly glory.” He paused and looked at the thunderstruck expression on Elsa’s face, then continued, “I heard the names of these images, and learned how to say them. Its new magic for me, brand new spells that no one has seen before…” he paused, and sheepishly continued, “or at least I think that is the case.”

Elsa grinned and slapped him playfully on the shoulder.

“Tell me about it; one of the greatest headaches of my life is a love for magic spells, lore and the unknown bits of esoteric knowledge. If you only knew how many of the ancient books, scrolls, tomes and other such stuff I have recovered, examined to learn their secrets, and then screamed at in pure frustration. Most of this ‘old lore’ has been around for such a long time, it is now common knowledge to magicians. But every now and then, something new is discovered…” she paused, looked at the door and then frowned as a lock of her hair descended over her eyes.Elsa batted the hair out of the way, only to scowl as it fell again and again.

Frustrated, she growled, looked at Nelson and quietly giggled. She continued to explain, “Apparently the door holds some kind of ancient secrets to those who can figure them out. How did you know to cast a divination spell upon it?”

Nelson mulled the question over, then, unable to reach a conclusion shrugged his shoulders and said, “I have no idea, other than it…felt…yes, it felt like the thing to do. It was a sensation akin to the pressure I feel in the back of my mind when enemies are close by.”

He paused and looked around, then continued, “something similar to what I am feeling now; a kind of warning but not as with enemies.”

Elsa whistled and said, “It looks like your psychic abilities, the mind magic that we awakened not long ago,” she and Nelson shared and embarrassed look as they remembered that all-to-brief time of intimacy. “That little warning you feel, it is instinctive. The ‘hunch’ you had as to use this magic instead of that comes from the same disciplines of the mind magic. Simple explanation, as a magician, you have specialized in illusions; in the way of the mind magic, you have begun to develop and harness a kind of divination magic.”

She put her hands on his shoulder, leaned in and kissed him, her desire clear and bright in her eyes. “Now then, if your instinct has detected what I wish to do with you,” she kissed him again, felt the warmth of his breath and heard his heart begin to thunder in his chest.

“That is, if you want to Nelson…OH NUTS!” Once again, just when her life is getting interesting, chaos descends only as a cat-girl could understand.

₰



​

The twin dragons flared with white hot flames that crackled and flared, then unleashed out in a mighty roar that swept across the entire stone balcony. Elsa barely had time to pull her and Nelson to the ground, pull her cloak over them, and shout off a word of eldritch power. Moments before the consuming flames hit, a ghostly bubble of force appeared around them, and deflected most of the primordial power.When the holocaust ended, Elsa peeked out from under her cloak and cringed at the sight of stone which had blackened, boiled, bubbled and cracked.

“Blast it, what set that thing off,” she asked, terrified, and looked at Nelson, “you and I were nowhere near the thing…”

The two of them nodded, having reached the same answer and screamed out at full volume, “CHIPPER!”

Chipper emerged from the darkness complaining and cursing as he stormed over to his companions. He stood forepaws on his hips and skewered them with an angry glare that left no doubts as to who he blamed for this latest mess.

His anger redoubled as Elsa snickered, bemused at the sight of him covered in ash, his fur scorched here and there with wisps of smoke ascending to the heavens. He shook himself several times, clearing much of the ash and soot, checked his tail to ensure it was not singed beyond recovery and then turned back to the matter at hand…

He shook his head, snorted great gouts of smoke from his nose and ears, and furiously said, “Every time you two decide to make whoopee I nearly get killed. All I wanted was a piece of the dragons, they are gemstones right? All was going good, you two heat up and start to get all mushy and then I nearly get cooked…”

Elsa watched as Nelson rolled his eyes and covered them with one hand, wishing he could be anywhere but here with an irritated, irate squirrel on a rampage. After a moment of consideration, she agreed with him, and moved over to his side; a quick and whispered conversation was held and then, smiling at one another, departed into the shadows and left the griping squirrel alone.It took Chipper over three hours of ranting and raging before he realized he had no audience.

₰
​

Exasperated by the unceasing rampage of Chipper, Nelson looked from the great doors, to the squirrel and then to Elsa. He saw she was frustrated as he, though more at the puzzle of the doors than at her spirit-companion. He asked her with a wry grin, “Is Chipper going to be like this every time something happens or we hit a delay? I never knew squirrels to have long attention spans, but still, he is eccentric and probably insane to boot. Why does he hate me so much Elsa? It’s not like we are here fooling around…” Nelson blushed, stammered and then gulped as he realized how his words could be taken by her.

Nelson grew ever more nervous as Elsa looked at him quizzically and grinned. Her eyes gleamed with out-and-out humor from his discomfort, and his foot thumped against the ground. She gently sniffed along his cheek, chin and lips, her heated breath cloy, warm, soothing and exciting on his skin, before softly placing a moist, blazingly intense kiss upon them.

Pulling on the collar of his shirt Nelson gulped time and again, still overawed by Elsa whenever she approached him in such a manner. “Uh, Elsa, I meant no disrespect…” he started to say; all too aware of one axe she wore at the hip pressing into his thigh. His all-too-vivid imagination rendered the scene of that magical blade impacting with his flesh: the devastation would leave very little of him to be found by scavengers.

She took one hand into hers and said to him, “It’s okay Nelson, I’ve been around long enough to know you did not mean any offense.” As their fingers intertwined and she bashfully lowered her head, her eyes never leaving him for a second, she continued, “I have a few centuries of age on you. So when one falls in love for the first time, it’s never easy…”

One portion of Chippers diatribe reached intense hyper-levels of rage and venom-filled words. Her eyes became mere slits, ears flared back and a deep, long, low, resonating growl flowed from her and drew a look of concern from Nelson. She looked at him when he placed a hand on the back of her neck and gently began to massage the area; her burst of anger subsided and she understood he was trying to keep her at ease so they could solve the mystery of the great doors.

She appreciatively nodded, then reached a decision. She said to Nelson, “Let me explain some about Chipper and his peculiar quirks. It might sound somewhat crazy, but we are talking about a squirrel after all,” Nelson and she laughed as one at this, while Chipper simply remained oblivious in the depths of his tirade. “Once he was human, like you, a powerful priest of the forests and a magician. Yes, an incredibly rare combination, but such does happen from time to time. His last battle was in the defense of a small family of elves; from what they told me of it the sheer number of giants he took down was impressive even to them!”

Elsa continued as one ear flattened to block out part of Chippers latest subject, “In honor of his sacrifice the eldest magicians of that elf kingdom conducted a powerful magic over him called reincarnation. Unlike most other such magical spells, this did more than restore him to life in a new body, with most of his old skills and power intact. It transformed him into a squirrel, granted him some rather unique abilities such as great speed and endurance, along with being made immortal.”

She chuckled as Nelson gasped, unable to believe or grasp in full such a gift being granted to any being. Elsa continued, “Yes, he is immortal. Mind you, only in regards to age, health and such; he can be killed as any of us mortal creatures, just not very easily. For obvious reasons I never have pressed the limits with him, I’d hate to discover them and lose my friend forever. One side effect of the magic is that he is a full human mind and soul within a rather large squirrel’s body, so he has become rather eccentric, and in some cases borderline insane.”

Nelson cringed, then looked at the squirrel and shook his head, “No wonder he’s crazy. I assume soon after this happened you used a ritual of calling to find a spirit-companion and got him instead of a nice fox, bat, smallish dragon or an irate red-head?”

Elsa rolled her eyes and laughed; delighted that Nelson could be so dead-panned honest in his humor and in his ideas. “Yes, to a degree. I had only recently won my freedom from some very terrible people and beings.” She held a hand over his chest, felt the beating of his heart and hungered for what she could never have, and then, denying the beast within, she continued, “Don’t ask about them, some things I will only share when the time is right, please trust me on this Nelson. Some secrets are deadlier than you can imagine.”

Nelson looked into her eyes of liquid moonlight and nodded, for he saw how much pain and hurt existed. He felt the scars inflicted upon her mind and soul, some so deep he nearly cringed in horror at the inhumanity it would take to inflict it on one such as she. “I understand,” he said.

Elsa slowly nodded and continued, “now then, back to the earlier question. I did conduct such a ritual to call for a spirit-companion. I was extremely lonely, not of a solid mind and adrift in the cosmos. Most of the folks I had tried to help out, or even just encountered…” she gulped down a sob, “would assume me to be some kind of monster. Try making friends when most people want to kill you on sight; for nearly ten years after I won my freedom I was hunted to no end until I found a path to the greater cosmos and became a planes-walker.”

She got back to the matter at hand and continued, “When I called, Chipper appeared, and bonded to me; the link of mind-to-mind we share is common, but much deeper due to the centuries of our communion. His rage to you is not born of hate; to the contrary, it’s born of his fear of me getting hurt. He does not understand that, I want companions in my life, for however much time I may be in theirs, as that is the only thing which keeps me going at times.”

Her expression suddenly turned deadly serious and held him in a vice-like grip. “Now then, Chipper shared with me the way you commanded those ribbons of fire against the cloakers. The spell you used is a rather uncommon type of illusionary magic; not overly complex in and of itself. Yet the coordinated effort of three ribbons of fire; the perfect command and power inherit in the illusions; plus the volley of dark-fire you survived; tells me there is much more to you than I know.”

Nelson gulped and struggled to explain what had occurred. Finally, frustrated, he threw up his hands and sighed as he said to her, “I have no real idea Elsa. When I wear these robes, and work my magic, it lasts longer and is sharper, keener, and more potent upon any foes. I cannot command more powerful spells than I already have knowledge of; I just suddenly have an instinctive understanding of how to enhance them; its as if concepts and theories of esoteric lore come together and poof, it happens.”

He shook his head, “On my own, one ribbon of flame might harm a cloaker if it surrendered to its fears. The robes are probably highly resistant to magical spells, and I have seen many a time when blows failed to breach and rend the flesh underneath.”

Elsa mulled this over as she rested her head upon one hand, the elbow resting against her chest. No matter how hard she tried to dismiss the only logical conclusion, she failed. Finally, she had to say: “Nelson, some mages of great power wear such robes as you describe. Such relics of magic are incredibly rare, and highly prized for the abilities they impart to their wearer. When we first met, I had cast a couple of spells of revelation upon you to ensure you were not a doppelganger in disguise. I learned a little of the robes magical abilities, and only can conclude one thing: they are the robes of a powerful elven mage, probably the Royal Grand Mage, of a large and ancient kingdom. Be careful Nelson, for you possess a wonder of magic, a relic of immense power that has secrets yet to be revealed.”

Nelson softly whistled, his respect for Elsa elevated to a new height and looked back at the door. “Now then, how do we get this bugger open without incinerating ourselves?”

Elsa looked at the door and shrugged, “I don’t know, do we just go up to it and knock? Or say ‘kindly open so we may travel to the stars beyond…’

To the absolute amazed terror of the two, a great mechanism deep within the stones began to activate. Gears turned and metal moved upon metal, then came a moment of absolute silence that left them breathless, unsure of what was to happen next…

Nelson whispered to Elsa, “What happened?”

Elsa looked at him, eyes wide in confused bewilderment, “I have no idea, and I just repeated a phrase from that journal. I never assumed it would use the same phrase over and over given the constantly shifting nature of the labyrinth.” She gave him a sheepish grin, “guess I was wrong….”

Both turned to watch as the great portal opened, both doors moving with deathly silence to reveal the great passage beyond. Elsa looked at Nelson and said, “Looks like we can get going. I know your all but exhausted Nelson, but can you hold on a bit longer until we find a place to hold up?” She smiled as Nelson nodded, and went to get her gear.

“Alright, the blasted door is open; I knew I could do it!” Chipper bolted between Elsa and Nelson, determined to reach the darkened passage beyond the doors.

After a moment he came back and impatiently declared, “What are you waiting for? We’re this much closer to that gate, and all you two lovebirds want to do is waste time and fool around…” Chipper continued his unceasing discourse in complete silence, for Elsa had created a bubble of magical silence around him.

“Now then,” Elsa said with a satisfied grin, “let’s get our stuff and get going...”

Nelson began to go to get his gear when Elsa grabbed him by the arm, spun him around and stepped forward to press her bosom against his chest. She leaned in closer to him and rubbed noses as she smiled. Her tail gently tapped him on the thigh and slowly crossed his flesh until it rested upon a most intimate of regions, and caused him to gasp, gulp and softly groan in mounting desire.

Her kiss catapulted him to the heavens and beyond. Such a kiss, it promised him pleasures and passion that he had yet to experience, and held in it the threat of a silent battlefield, the promise of an unannounced avalanche as it descends from the alpine heights. Danger and love all wrapped into the enigma of Elsa; the perfect storm only which existed within a cat-girl.

Elsa softly whispered into Nelson’s ears, “When we next find a place to be together, we will be Nelson. I do not forget those I choose to be close with; I must tell you up front Nelson, there will be times when, while both of us may have the heat of passion blazing away in our bodies, we cannot couple together. The physical danger to you will be immense, and I will not have you perish that way.”

Nelson looked at her and smiled as he said, “I’m standing before an open pair of gigantic doors, preparing to go into unknown dangers, deep in the worlds foundations, and you warn me of danger? Fine, when you say no then it means no, and given Chipper I imagine he will do all he can to keep us from fooling around more than we have. Now let’s get our stuff and get inside the portals before they close.”

Two minutes later they were beyond the portal, and cringed as it silently closed again, barring any way back.

“Now we’re fully committed,” Nelson glumly said, and Elsa agreed.

Chipper looked at them with ever growing impatience, and, still bound by the silence-magic of Elsa, gestured with his forepaws for them to get going.

 

₰₰ Book One: Chapter Eight ₰₰
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Since they had passed the great doors, the three companions, Elsa, Nelson and Chipper, have beheld wonders beyond mortal understanding. Within the unending labyrinth of halls time itself was meaningless; the silence eternal; the darkness complete, yet not oppressive to the soul. To them, it was as if they had been permitted to enter a house newly finished, the tradesman long gone, and the owners soon to come and dwell within. For in this place, they all knew, mere mortals were intruders, and expected beings of great and awesome power and stature to come and do battle with them at any moment.

For ten days they have explored the passages and overcome all challenges to date. From great stairwells which descended for miles; magical archways which hurled them vast distances in a single step; cunning and deadly traps of spear and dart, flame, fire, lightning and so much more. By magic and cunning, by skill and wisdom they have defeated all, and come closer to their ultimate goal: the gateway which will take them across the cosmos.

Nelson shifted the quartet of ghostly lights here and there as they passed through the latest hallway; the soft blue-white and golden-red flames gently parted the eternal night. In the light he beheld the great stone columns which ascended to some great ceiling, hundreds of feet overhead. Each column was thirty feet thick, of an unknown white stone polished to mirror-like finish and carved into the shape of great dragons which spiraled ever upward.

Nelson examined one, and marveled at how each scale of the dragon was unique, the facial expressions down to the eyes, horns, jaws and all other features distinct and perfect; no two dragons he examined showed any duplication.

Each section of the floor and walls were carved in great reliefs, frescoes, murals and inlays, all made of precious stone and metals. The three companions beheld great displays of majestic beings, animals and wilderness areas, of entire continents and worlds, of heavenly constellations, and a million other such matters. Here they beheld the scenes of daily life in an elven city, there the humble home of a mother singing to her newborn while father and son tilled the soil.

He heard Chippers frantic call of, “Here! Here! Elsa, the blasted thing is right here!”

It took all of his discipline to not unleash a fiery blast at the annoying squirrel. With each discovery they made, each step forward, Chipper had grown more haughty and arrogant; more demanding and, in Nelsons opinion, more insane. Not for the first time he wondered if the squirrel had a death wish.

“Blast it already, will the two of you get over here and open this thing! I want to get after the seven tigers while the universe still exists!” Chipper said, his voice filled with impatient rage as he danced around in a whirlwind of excited motion.

Nelson muttered a string of curses and wondered what squirrel soup would taste like. “Why will Chipper not be silent for one time? Anything living down here will have no problem finding us by his rants and raving tirades alone.” He headed off in the direction Chipper called from, saw Elsa in front of a great stone arch inlayed on the wall, and held his position. The three had learned the hard way never to assume these arches, portals to other portions of the labyrinth, were safe to approach.

He looked upon the archway and softly whistled. It was human-sized, carved in an intertwining band of vines which bloomed in the spring, the leaves delicately frozen in mid-movement from an unfelt breeze. Upon the vines rested wrens, doves, pigeons, quail, and songbirds of a thousand worlds. Each leaf, each flower petal, each bird, held within its depths a thousand more images which tempted to reveal mysteries of power if one bothered to seek…

That alone alarmed Nelson, for of the last dozen true archways that allowed them access, five times as many had either been false paths; decoys designed to waste their time; or contained cunning traps concealed with intricate and powerful illusions. Often, these traps were set to unleash an initial holocaust of death by fire, ice, poison gas or flesh reaveing forces; then, as survivors would lower their guard to attend to wounded friends, a second chain of traps would trigger, in a hope of taking them by surprise and cast them into the hands of death.

After surviving by fortune alone three such traps the companions had developed their current search routine.

Elsa moved close to the archway, examined it with exquisite care to absorb every last subtle nuance and detail of its design. Next came her checking of the old journal: a written page here, a picture there, all in an effort to confirm the magical gate was safe to use. Satisfied, she pocketed the journal, pulled her cloak tightly about her body, and nodded for Nelson to proceed.

Nelson passed his hands in mystic gestures and spoke words of cabalistic power which produced eight smallish orbs of golden light. Silently, guided by his will, they floated to the archway and illuminated it within an ever shifting dance of light and shadow.

At the same time Elsa steeled herself and whispered a word of power. Instantly, a dozen small, ghostly hands of mystical force appeared. With infinite care, she backed towards the archway and halted mere inches from it, and commenced to examine the structure. Her eyes closed, and she focused her mind to catch all the subtlest of tactile sensations conveyed by the ghostly hands: nuances of grain and smoothness, of patterns and symbols, of the very magical fibers woven within, all were revealed.

For over a half an hour Nelson stood silent, anticipating the worst, while Chipper fumed and paced, his patience long expired. Finally, pushed beyond any squirrelish endurance, he threw his paws out in disgust and shouted, “Why can we not just open the blasted thing and go on through instead of having to deal this nonsensical testing, probing or examinations? Honestly we have survived each of the traps set for us to encounter; why not just take the…”

Chipper stopped, for he heard the soft whispering of a magical incantation being woven about him. He gave Nelson a withering glare, a one-fingered salute of pure defiance, gave off a great yawn and toppled face forward to the ground, sound asleep. Soon the halls were silent again save for his non-stop snoring.

Nelson grinned as he slipped his medallion back under his shirt. He took Chipper up in his hands and gently eased him into the pockets of his robe, where the squirrel would be safe. “Hopefully that will keep him out of our hair for a few days,” he softly mumbled to himself.

Elsa telepathically called to him, concerned about her spirit-companion, in a matronly voice, “Nelson, what did you do? I know Chipper has been getting on your nerves lately, but how did you manage to put him to sleep?”

Nelson focused his mind and gently reached out with his thoughts towards Elsa. He declared in a smug tone of final victory over the squirrel, “It’s only a minor illusion, I altered his perception of the seasons and he has, for now, entered a semi-state of hibernation. He’ll be back up and complaining in a few hours again; his tirades have gotten more than ‘on my nerves.’ The entire area we are in…” he allowed the link to dissipate, threw his hands up in frustration and resumed watching Elsa’s magical examination of the portal.

Elsa sensed the unease, confusion, frustration and so much more which writhed and surged around in Nelsons mind. More amused than annoyed, pleased with the way he handled Chipper in such an innovative means, she dismissed the ghostly hands, and gave off a giggle of springtime warmth and the chill of deep winter in equal measure.

She looked at Nelson and nodded as she said, “This is one of the real ones, no deadly traps waiting for us to blunder into or trigger off due to a rampaging squirrel.”

“So we can get going then?” Nelson asked, the strain of their journey plain upon his face, “Right now, I want to get to that gateway just to get out of this place. We don’t belong here; these passages are meant for beings that are beyond our existence: celestials from the heavens made this area, though I have no idea why.”

Elsa’s preternaturally keen hearing picked up the soft snoring of Chipper as she smiled. “Yes Nelson, these halls are the handiwork of angelic-beings, those from the heavenly realms. Some other connections to them are the work of diabolic forces, and don’t ask what they are like, in time we probably will wind up among them. I have seen other places so geometric perfect, ordained to law and order, that I wanted to scream.”

Elsa, hands on hips, one leg behind the other, gave Nelson a coy grin as he gasped in surprise. “Yes, you finally get it. These passages, or ones akin to them, are part of a great network that crosses the cosmos; they touch with countless worlds, communities, realities and dimensions. I and Chipper have explored, documented, and even discovered new ones over the last couple of centuries; this is a new route for me, one deadlier than the journal had described or warned of. Right now the gateway, and the Guardian the journal described, is nearby. That can mean a dozen or more portals between here and there, assuming I can figure out how to open this bugger, it has an extremely complex activation mechanism.”

Nelson sighed in despair, “Too bad we could not just activate the portal and somehow have it sweep us to one right next to the gateway.”

Elsa looked at him, eyes wide in shock at the audacity of such an idea. She mulled it over and, with a snap of her fingers, said to him, “Why not? This labyrinth has been nothing but one set of tests after another; it changes and adapts to us, so why not take advantage of that to speed ourselves along the way?” She chewed on her lip for a minute before continuing, “Assuming we can figure it out.”

“If anyone is able to do so Elsa, you can.” Nelson said to her, his spirit uplifted with this possibility. Then he saw her rueful look directed at him and asked, “It can be done, right?”

Elsa looked form him to the portal and back again. With one hand she indicated the carved archway and said, “The key to open this portal is among the bird carvings; press the right ones in the right combination and the door opens for a short time. Do you understand how such magic is crafted and how it works?” When Nelson shook his head she explained, “In a nutshell, the magic opens a door here,” she gestured to indicate the area about them, “through an echo-dimension, literally allowing us to bypass space and time, and exit it somewhere else. Normally that is locked in place – one entrance, one exit.”

“Sounds easy enough so far,” Nelson said. “But now I learn why it becomes nightmarish to attempt this?”

Elsa snorted, “I wish it was easy Nelson. What we have to do is bend the magic which connects the two ends of the portal, and direct it to a new destination. It’s similar to heating a piece of metal, bending and twisting it, and then quickly chilling it so the new destination is fixed. If we do it right, fine. If not, then the portal may dissipate or become distorted and useless; worse case, it ruptures the space-time continuum and we get annihilated for all of eternity.”

She crossed her arms over her bosom and raised one eyebrow as her tail swished back and forth, “Does it still sound easy? Until I ran into that blasted life-drinker a few years ago I probably could have done this with few problems; one vampire drained me of so much ability, knowledge and power in mere moments that took me a lifetime to build and that I may never recover in full.”

Nelson stood in mute silence, flabbergasted, as he absorbed this revelation. Finally, his earlier despair restored in full, he asked, “So do we just give up? Or is there some other way to go?”

“I don’t know Nelson,” Elsa said as she seductively stretched to her full stature, arms held at length above her head. “Right now, I want to think about this before we attempt it; we have no room for error. So let’s set our camp here for the time, and see if we geniuses can come up with a plan.”

Nelson watched with wide-eyed terror as she strolled over to his side, locked her arms around his waste and gently leaned into him. His heart hammered hard and fast as he felt the warmth of her breath upon his neck; the soft caress of her cheek against his; her tail and knee gently caressing his inner thigh; until he felt as if his body would become enveloped in flames, and leave a charred skeleton to fall in a clatter of scattered and blackened bones upon the floor.

He softly whispered to her, “Elsa, are you putting me through another test or do you have something more planned?”

When she looked at him with those liquid moonlight eyes, he had his answer. Soon enough, the timeless halls were filled with the soft sounds of two beings in love, making love to one another.

₰₰


​

Deep in its meditations, the Guardian sat cross legged, hovering in mid-air. Its twin rams horns glowed with the deepest, richest of iridescent fires. Via its fantastic mental powers it observed and listened to the plans of Elsa and Nelson, quickly calculated probabilities of their success and was not pleased with the conclusion. Others had done the same, attempted to shift one portals destination to another, with mixed results; some survived the backlash of magical forces, others were torn asunder or annihilated on the spot.

Between the cat-girl and the latent ability of the human magician though, the Guardian knew they could succeed.

It opened its eyes and the small chamber it occupied filled with the harsh fires of molten gold contained within their depths. Silently it lowered itself to the ground and sat there for some time, wondering how to deal with this latest twist the companions represented.

Finally, compelled by its magical bindings, it focused its mind, and then sent its thoughts across the cosmos to its one true master, “The Cat-girl shall be here within thirty hours. As you have commanded I now prepare for the final confrontation; the one called Elsa will fall to my weapons. Then the others will be no match.”

It sensed the mixture of rage, trepidation, hate and delight from the Primus. The hollow, deadly voice of its flowed and echoed like a thousand seas in its mind: “Destroy them completely. Not one is to survive; call in the other creatures you command if need be to ensure this is so. Take them down now; do not let them reach the gate. I so command you and by the oath you swore, you cannot avoid it. Do not fail, or the torment you know now will pale in comparison to the eternal darkness I have planned.”

The Guardian gave obeisance to its master, and to its major-domo, for there was no choice other than to comply.

Yet, in the instructions its two masters gave, there sprang a slender sliver of hope. For its deadliest, darkest, foulest of masters had made a mistake, a minor one, yet critical beyond imagination. In giving contradictory orders to ‘take them down now,’ and ‘call in the other creatures you command’ a paradox has been established. And in matters of magic, such paradoxes allowed an enslaved being, such as the Guardian, a second chance at freedom.

It selectively interpreted the orders, and thus perverted to the smallest degree the magic that shackled its will: it would begin the task of taking them down, but only after calling in person all of the minions it commands in the endless depths of the Labyrinth.

There will be battle, of that the Guardian knew beyond doubt.

Yet if the cat-girl, the young human and their insane squirrel companion were powerful and cunning enough, then freedom would at long last belong to the Guardian, and its eternal duty would be at an end. Giving off the first genuine laugh in centuries, it calmly and sedately strolled down the passages, determined to take its time before battle commenced.

 

Next portion of the story will be up either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Thanks to all who have been reading and enjoying.

 

I have to wonder about a cat-girl who has designs on her lovers trash.

 

Never depend on spell-check - ugh, gremlins again.

 

₰₰ Book One: Chapter Nine ₰₰
​

As he pulled up the hood of his robe Nelson looked over at Elsa with considerable trepidation. He placed a gloved hand upon the wren which glowed with green-blue flame: he felt the subtle tingle it induced upon his skin and nerves, and sensed the latent magic of the portal prepare to surge to life if he properly commanded it to awaken.

The plan he and Elsa had devised was in and of itself elegantly simplistic: just alter the magic from one destination to another, the means she explained to him was akin to a riddle woven into a mystery and bound in a enigma of an apocrypha.

Anyone else he would have assumed to be completely mad. With Elsa, he figured this just might work.

“Assuming it does not up and annihilate us if I foul this up,” Elsa telepathically said to Nelson. “Worse comes to worse Chipper will suddenly awaken, find himself still in your robe pocket, and resort to his usual calling down lightning and fire upon all of us while we make this effort.”

She chuckled at his sudden nervousness as she struggled with her own; annihilation was something she no longer feared. And in one way, might actually welcome, as it would silence the 'beast within' for all of time. For the hundredth time she cursed that life-drinker which stole so much from her, and which had awakened that she had despised for so long.

“Are you sure this will work? You have shown me how two minds linked as one like this can be more efficient, yet the timing of it all…” He shook his head and wondered if he could fulfill his part of the plan. He snorted and scolded himself for such thoughts. Elsa’s role was the hardest by far, as she alone possessed the aptitude and the esoteric magical knowledge to reweave, redirect and redefine the magic of the portals existence. His part was to ensure the right keys to the portal were activated with inhumanely precise timing.

Elsa moved to stand before the portal, double checked that her gear was secure, and that both of her axes were loose in their belt loops. She telepathically responded to Nelson, “Am I absolutely sure, no. Highly sure, yes, so long as we suffer no interruptions from some kind of monster, magicians, the guardian or a thousand and more things that can go wrong. Remember, what we are doing here will render the portal extremely unstable; once it opens, rush thorough but be ready to do battle as well. Knowing my luck there will be a dragon or ten ready to breathe a holocaust upon us.”

Though he did not reply, Elsa sensed his resolve and knew he was steeling himself to do battle. “Have you given any thought to the seven new magic spells revealed to you at the double doors? Any revelations, hunches or any messages from the divine we should be heeding right about now?” she mentally asked of him.

“No to the latter question,” Nelson sheepishly grinned as he continued, “As to the former, some. Seven new bits of illusionary magic; four are fairly simple, akin to the ones I can command. The other three, they are advanced enough I cannot get a full grasp upon them; not yet. The last one, it is that last one, which troubles me the most. I feel within its depths the ability to alter reality itself in accordance to my own desires and will.”

Nelson shuddered, terrified of such power being misused. “I’m years away, at best, from being close to having command of such skill, knowledge and understanding to do such magic. I fear what I could all too easily do with it if the day comes…”

Elsa looked at him and nodded in approval, for she understood his trepidation. Such a combination of common sense, intelligence, wisdom and self-restraint was incredibly rare in young magicians. She had survived one too many close calls as an apprentice than she cared to remember.

Secretly, Elsa was thrilled to no end by the steady progress made by Nelson. Though not much of a mentor in her own right, she helped fill in the extensive gaps of basic knowledge, esoteric lore, and trade secrets which he lacked.

‘Within the year,’ she said to herself, ‘he will be a competent journeyman. Another five years, and no master of magic can stand against him one on one. Even a covey of master magicians would be hard pressed to stop him…”

Elsa paused in mid-thought and contemplated the best approach to handling this, and at length said to him, “One thing, keep that particular respect you have for magical power.” She saw his quizzical look and continued to explain: “Respect. That is the key Nelson, and not mind-numbing fear. Know where the balancing point is, and maintain it; fear will kill you as fast as losing respect for the power you wield, especially with illusionary magic as you command.”

₰​

Once again the Guardian observed and listened to the companions as they prepared to twist and redirect the magical portal to their own ends. Originally, it only intended to monitor their progress, to see if they had given up and moved further into the labyrinth, or would succeed and thus walk into one of three ambushes it had established. The latter, of course, assumed the companions plans succeeded and they were not annihilated.

Now though, as it listened to the two, it had to adjust the calculations, change the plans and seek a new means to ensure their ending as it had been instructed.

The Guardian had noted with keen interest that the large squirrel had vanished, and could not be located by its formidable mental magic: another complication, another unknown variable in an expanding equation that held far too many for its liking.

“Which is the decoy, which is the real move being played out by these two?” The Guardian clenched its jaw and rested it upon one fist. Too many variables, too many unknowns, and not enough solid and reliable information. So it decided to observe and adapt, for information is power, and to gain power over these two, it needed more information.

₰​

Nelson tilted his head as he looked on her, curiosity manifest upon his face. “It sounds like you learned this the hard way. What occurred?”

She gave him a stern look, one intended to drive home the point of her impromptu lesson, “Not from my having lost respect of the magic I then wielded. Quite to the contrary, those…those…things, which had bound me to their will never, assumed I would be free of their dominance. Far from it, after all they put me through, and had me do for their gain, at little or no risk to them; they got arrogant, they got careless, and after the one chance I saw to gain my freedom, they paid for their momentary faltering with their lives.”

When Nelson gulped Elsa knew her point had been made.

She held her hand up for him to keep quiet; a single tear flowed down her cheek as her voice filled with melancholy. “Please Nelson; I’ve said far too much as it is. Some matters about me have to remain a secret, and it’s more for your safety than anything…” Her words fell off into silence as Nelson came over and kissed her on the cheek.

He looked into her terror-filled eyes, keenly aware of the conflict which raged within her bosom: the 'beast-within' demanded she reach out and devour him for his arrogance. The tender, golden soul of a long-abused cat-girl reached forward, desiring a companion, friend, and lover for all of time.

Taking her hands into his, he smiled and bashfully said, “Elsa, I’ve seen you cry tears of blood before, and sensed the…” he paused, searching for the right words. He sighed, shook his head and continued, “You are one who walks between two worlds? One who is part mortal and part immortal, and thus constantly tormented from within and without…”

Elsa cringed, on the edge of complete despair as Nelson told all of this to her. She gnawed on her lip and the tears slowly began to build, as did the soul-shredding pain of another companion about to drive her away. “I never lied to you Nelson…”

The first sob wracked her body, followed by a second, as she braced herself for the words she has long come to dread, the ones which will separate them forevermore. “I cannot help what they made me into…”

Nelson wrapped his arms around her as she rested her head on his shoulder. “Elsa, I was not accusing you of anything. I just recognized some of the same signs in you, as I saw in another long ago.“

He smiled as Elsa raised her head to look into his eyes, and he continued, “His mother was human, while his father was a being form the angelic realms. He was a man of great faith and magical power. A magician capable of terrible deeds when he had to do so. He was capable of creating great wonders of beauty and good.”

“I had a chance to speak with him as I debated becoming a magician’s apprentice.” Nelson smiled as he recalled that long ago discussion. “He spoke of how all beings. From the lowest of life to the greatest, struggled to choose between one path in life and another; of making the best choice one can. He helped me weigh one side against the other in my dilemma, and yet left me to make the final choice.”

His hand came up and gently stroked her cheek, as he continued, “Then he said something profound. ‘Nelson, in life you will often be confronted by the way your mind wishes to go, and that of the heart. Such is the way of most beings in the mortal worlds. Others, such as me, being of human and angelic blood, have to struggle that much harder. For the mixed blood calls us in many directions at once; this is the way for all who walk between two worlds.

“What, what was his name Nelson?” Elsa asked.

Nelson rested his head on one clenched fist as he struggled for some time to recall the name. At long last he nodded and turned to Elsa, “His name was Aden, no…” he remembered something more specific, a fact which troubled him to this day, and hour, “His full name and title he gave was Master Aden of the Academy of the Arts. At the time he made a passing reference to being a teacher of summoning magic, or as he put it ‘the fine art of pulling a creature from somewhere else, deliver it to my side, and hope it does not manage to devour me while I have a little chat with it.’

Nelson shook his head and snorted at the flagrant disregard the man held for the creatures he called. “He had a rather flippant attitude towards the trade of magic; and yet I sensed there was more to him, that he held a true command of magic which only the greatest of magicians could dream of approaching…”

Elsa’s sudden gasp of alarm cut him off and he hastily looked around, but could determine no cause for her reaction. Truly puzzled, he looked at her, confusion abundantly clear on his face.

₰​

“Impossible, absolutely impossible,” the Guardian said as it shuddered in absolute terror. “Master Aden! Master Aden! Of all the thrice-cursed beings I would have to once again contend with, it had to be that one from the Academy of the Arts!” A heated rage flowed from the immortal depths of its being, and granted such strength that it smashed the stone walls, rending foot deep gouges with its iron-hard claws.

Finally, its great discipline restored order in its mind, body and soul, and allowed the rage to dissipate. It gave a snort of disgust at its momentary lapse and said to itself, “I have seen first hand what my masters duly fear in the cat-girl. She is the foil, the probe, being used by Master Aden to draw them into the open and thus to battle. Their final, grand and glorious battle for their corner of the universe itself; how I long to see such inflicted upon my tormenters.”

The Guardian focused its will and continued to observe the companions. It considered the human magician, and had come to the conclusion he was an apprentice of Master Aden, one sent along to ensure the cat-girls success and enable her some chance at survival.

“To ensure she has a chance of survival? No, there will be no way for her to survive, for my masters have given their command to me.” The Guardian gave off a mental smile though, for its dawned upon it that the sliver thin hope of freedom from its masters had just grown by a significant amount: if the cat-girl knew or discerned the secret key for the gateway, its ancient magic would permit her passage, and enable the Guardian to be free from its masters binding enchantments.

“Hope,” for the first time in centuries it declared that simple word, and knew it to be true: so long as hope was left to a sentient being, anything could occur. Until the companions discovered the gateway to the cosmos, the Guardian would have to confront them; yet it would do so in its way. It said, “I have faced Aden once before in battle, and have to assume he will arrive again. So I need to summon additional help from deep in the heart of darkness…Old Sparky, he should do quite finely.” With that, it dismissed the minds-eyes, and departed.

₰​

Hands held over her mouth, Elsa softly whispered, “The Academy of the Arts, in Stars End. You actually got to meet and talk with one of the Masters from there? And of all of them, it was Master Aden; and you still walk the land of the living?”

Nelson looked at her in shock, his jaw suspended in mid-thought as her words sunk into his mind. Finally, he asked of her, “What do you mean by ‘and you still walk the land of the living?’ Did I somehow miss something about Master Aden? He usually came to see my grandfather on his travels, but I was never permitted to hear their discussions…” He hesitated, his entire body swept up in a shiver, the very air charged with the stillness of an open grave. “Was my grandfather in some kind of danger or such?”

“No Nelson,” Elsa said as calmly as she could, “among those who travel the cosmos, the Academy of the Arts is renowned for the quality of magicians it produces. Master Aden, rumors have him tied by blood to the current leader of the Academy, the Chancellor surnamed Storm Dragon; and mark him as one of the deadliest and most feared conjurers of the region. Stories of his gentle nature are only matched by ones in which a great being of fire, a spirit of vast age and power called a Primordial bowed to him in obeisance. In battle, his techniques are of ruthless efficiency, spectacular to behold, and quite lethal to whomever has earned his wrath.”

“If Aden spoke to you about choosing to become a magician or not,” Elsa shook her head in awe, “then you are destined to shake the cosmos from head to tail. Nelson, I can tell you for weeks on end of stories, which even if one in twenty are true, of how his speaking with one sentient being or another has stopped wars, freed people, or seen entire empires of darkness turned upon themselves.”

“He sounds like a hero, not some kind of ‘turn the cosmos on its head for the worse’ person…” Nelson stopped as Elsa gave him a look of pure despair. He threw his hands wide, completely vexed, “So then, what have I missed?”

“Just one very important part, a man as powerful as Master Aden makes many enemies of equal power.” Elsa held one clenched fist under her jaw, “It is a great game they play, stratagems so long in play, so complex, and so unbelievable, few of our ability can comprehend the least of them. So Aden had his reasons for speaking to you; and his enemies have noted it, and thus you. In short…”

Nelson finished for her, “In short, I’m a dead man no matter what I do.”

He paused; confusion clouded his face as he felt someone was watching over his shoulder. For a time he mulled this over, discarding one possibility after another, until only one remained. He slyly looked at Elsa and asked, “May I take a look at that journal of yours? You can hold it but I have an idea, I think we missed something…” He explained his hunch; and at the same time he pantomimed the fact of a third party observing them with magic and hoped she would figure it out.

She did.

Elsa whispered a word of mystic might as the two of them held hands. She said to him, “We’re safe for the time being. Each of us is protected from magical detection and observation. Mind you, it’s only going to last for a few hours; I should have anticipated the Guardian, or another such being, could use magic to watch, listen and locate us with surprising ease. Come on, let’s get going, we have a day or more worth of backtracking to find that other locale.”

Without any further hesitation they ran off. No matter what, Elsa wanted to open the distance between them and any minions the Guardian may send after them; for at long last she had an idea of what it was, and even of how to defeat it…

Yet even as pressing of a matter as the Guardian was, she had another, more urgent concern, one which grew with each passing hour, gnawed away at her iron resolve, and would, in a few days, endanger Nelson if she could not deal with it. She struggled to contain the wild laughter of the beast within her, and cringed as it told her of what it would do to the young lad when it got loose.

Hours later, unable to view the companions with his psychic abilities, the Guardian dispatched large groups of his minions to all corners of the Labyrinth. Their orders were the same: find their trail, track them down and eliminate them if possible.

 

₰₰ Book One: Chapter Ten ₰₰
​

The small chamber, roughly ten paces on a side with a single arched entrance had lain unused for millennia until this very night. From beneath a metal tripod a smallish magical flame flowed, danced, hissed, crackled, popped and occasionally belched as it heated an iron stewpot. The heavenly smell of potatoes, onions, countless herbs and other spices enticed and tantalized Nelson as he wafted the complex odors, ladled out a portion into a bowl and sampled it.

Nelson looked to where Elsa sat and asked, “The stews done Elsa, and do you want me to bring you some?”

Elsa nodded and said, “Just bring it over, that is if you don’t mind?”

Nelson nodded, and as he ladled out a second bowl of stew, he chuckled. Elsa had become obsessed in her drive to divine every secret within the ancient journal.

Seated on the floor, Elsa continued to examine the journal within her lap, her gaze constantly shifted from it, to the mirror held alongside of it, and then back to the ragged, weathered pages. Time and again she traced one symbol, hieroglyph or picture with a fingertip as she examined its reflection in the mirror. Her smile was one of delight and bemusement in equal measure as Nelson sat next to her. She looked at him and said, “Your hunch is right. The author of this journal was an illusionist of great skill, and a lover of riddles, often weaving them one within another which concealed a third or fourth. As you guessed: examine it upside down, backwards and skip every third word, image, or such.”

Elsa shook her head and ruefully smiled, “I’ve had this thing for over thirty years, and never considered that it held such a code in its pages. Ingenious, absolutely ingenious; how did you figure it out?” She took the bowl of hot stew from Nelson, sniffed it once, and guzzled it down. She grinned, gravy clinging to her chin, and said, “Perfect, absolutely perfect.”

Old Chipper, disgusted, yawned and stretched out on Elsa’s bared foot. He skewered Nelson with a foul look and said with considerable vehemence, “How could he figure anything out? I had just solved how to open the portal and get us to the gateway when he stole my moment of glory and caused me to enter a temporary state of hibernation!”

Ignoring the irate squirrel Nelson fetched her a second bowl of stew, and sat as she guzzled it down. “There are stories of illusionists who protect their trade secrets that way. Riddles, enigmas, apocrypha and much, much more, often carried to the third or fourth level. One riddle leads to another and then to a third or fourth; thus the secrets are protected save from the wisest, most learned, most cunning and smartest of magicians. The book of magical spells I study from has many such secrets within it; some of them I may never fully understand.”

Chipper closed his eyes and said, “Good, then at some point I can be assured you will part company from us and we can…”

Elsa glared at Chipper, her eyes ablaze with eldritch power and via their mind-to-mind link, shouted, “STOP IT ALREADY! I’m tired of your non-stop complaints and remarks about Nelson. So far he has been more of a help than you down here in the Labyrinth!”

Nelson laughed at the sight of Chipper, teeth chattering and fur standing on end, struggled to calm his shattered nerves. He said to Elsa, “Now that is a handy talent to quiet him up!”

Elsa looked at Nelson, grinned, and said, “And at some point you figured out the same set of principles applied to the Labyrinth. Riddles within riddles, and once again it was something I completely missed, even after all I had discerned about the changing nature of the tower above us.” She scuffed Nelsons hair and grinned.

Chipper, back to his usual irate self, stood on his haunches and gave Nelson an imperial ‘send him to the gods’ thumbs down.

Elsa rolled her eyes and said to Nelson, “Here, let me read this to you…” She shifted the mirror and journal a bit, and read aloud: ‘And so I have discovered at long last the means to access the thousand steps that shall lead to the ten thousand lions of valor and fame. In the mountains of the east what is found is not; sea and sky come together as one, and behold, under sun, beheld by the lone moon, within the sea of stars, I found the lever. With hands that held nothing, perceived nothing, and moved nothing, I moved it and the door silently opened before me to the unknown beyond…”

“Is there anything more about that area of the Labyrinth?” Nelson asked.

“Just one more tidbit he seems to have written as an afterthought,” Elsa said as she read aloud: “Note for the next time I come through this region. Watch out for the one called Old Sparky.”

She closed her eyes and massaged her aching temples, and said “Do you have any ideas about the first passage or even this ‘Old Sparky’ he speaks of?”

Nelson mulled it over and said, “That hall we passed through, the one about a half-hour of hard walking from here; it’s decorated with mountains, lakes, and all that is associated with them. You commented that there were stars that climbed into the darkness above. The clues are, as typical for an illusionist, cryptic beyond belief, yet detailed to a degree I think we should go back and check the area out.”

Nelson pointed at the journal and continued, “As for this ‘Old Sparky’ reference, I think we should prepare for the worst: assume it to be a trap, creature or both set in a grand booby trap.”

Elsa sighed, closed the journal and returned it to her magical pouch. She said, “It’s as good as anything else we have. From what I can determine in the journal, now that you cracked the code, is the archway portals we have used for to date were sending us in circles. Apparently the writer of the journal tried a similar trick and nearly paid for it with his life. If we had proceeded, it’s highly probable the Guardian or his minions would have been waiting for us; assuming we had not up and been annihilated in a maelstrom of magical forces gone wild.”

Standing up, Elsa stretched to her full height, worn muscles and joints groaned and popped in protest as Nelson looked on with a feral gleam in his eye. A moment later she looked down to see Chipper, enraged at the undignified removal from his resting place, standing on his hind legs, forelegs crossed and glaring at her with feigned indignation.

To the amazement of Nelson and Elsa, Chipper actually held his peace as he scampered off, climbed on Elsa’s haversack and curled up to sleep.

Elsa stretched out on her bedroll and looked at Nelson as he did the same and said, “It can wait until tomorrow. No matter what we find: the lever, nothing or something more, we must use all due caution and prudence. The Guardian must be irate beyond measure at having lost track of us; we can expect to find its minions blocking our efforts at every step. We have, unintentionally, played its game for too long, and now we play our own, and we have to keep that edge.”

₰₰


​

Silently their group advanced on the wing, determined to catch their prey at long last. Hours ago they found the faintest signs of their passage; scouts led the tribe through the unending network of passages, chambers large and small, and across vast gulfs of darkness. Sometimes they ascended statue-lined stairwells, others they went deep into great shafts which plummeted without end into the earthly depths.

Without fail they followed the trail, not once pausing for rest, to eat, to drink, or even to sleep. Such needs of flesh and blood were long past them. Now all they lived for, nay, all they desired, was the thrill of the hunt, the chase, and, after pursuit of worthy prey, the thrill of the kill.

The Guardian had given its charge, and now the tribe would carry it out.

The tribal chieftain, a gigantic gargoyle named Iron-blood, would ensure those instructions were fulfilled; if not, today would mark the end of his tribe, for all would perish before retreat was even considered. One lone scout returned faster than anticipated, and he listened to its report and grinned: the three companions were at ease in a small chamber that had but one entrance within a section of smaller side passages, and thus were trapped. The end of the hunt was at hand and he motioned his tribe forward with a casual gesture of one mighty clawed hand.

Easy prey, normally that would be true, but as Iron-side and his tribe discovered, ‘easy’ did not apply in any measure to the companions. The triggering of a magical alarm heralded the gargoyles arrival, and unleashed a second trap Elsa had set: a half-dozen nightmarish wolves born of pure shadow appeared, growled, howled, and assailed the gargoyles in a battle royal.

₰₰


​

Nelson sighed and looked up from his spell book to the crackling flames of the magical fire. He softly sighed and said to no one in particular, “It’s lasted nearly eight hours since Elsa created it; and from all I can tell about it, the magic will keep it in existence for three or four days if she wishes. Amazing, I wonder if I will ever come close to such ability in wielding magic.”

After staring into the flames for a time he decided to put the time to good use and practice his own magic. His hands flowed through a simple string of gestures as he whispered words of cabalistic power, focused his will and desires, and grinned as three blue-red orbs of flame appeared in his hand. Within their depths writhed and roiled great gouts of flame; devastation which begged for release so it may burn, rend, consume and destroy all it encountered.

The orbs pulsed once, twice, thrice. Nelson watched as tendrils of flame rose from the nearby fire. One, two, five, and then ten danced and clawed their way through the air and orbited around them; then, one by one, the orbits tightened, until all completely merged into their fiery depths. Each orb pulsated time and again, as if it reveled in the new heights of power bestowed upon it.

Twice more Nelson watched as the tendrils arose from the fire to merge with the orbs. A moment of inspiration hit, and he whispered one of his newly learned spells: the blue-red tempest was joined by a maelstrom of pure gold, silver, green, violet and white flames. Quietly, by force of will alone, he cast a second spell over the orbs and grinned as they flared and shrank to half their former size, yet redoubled in destructive potential.

Destructive potential, that caused Nelson to pause and heed the earlier warning of Elsa to maintain respect for his command of magic. He inspected the orbs for the faintest, subtlest, and most minimal of flaws; and found none. For the first time one of his illusions was visually, aurally and tactilely perfected.

Nelson grinned, delighted that he had, after such a long time of study and practice, mastered one of his basic spells. He turned to gaze upon Elsa, ready to declare his success, but held his words in silent check when he beheld her sleeping form.

Half covered by her bedroll she slept, oblivious to the world. He watched her chest slowly rise and fall as she breathed, and one dainty locket of her amber hair shifted this way and that as she exhaled. Strange, he thought, ‘how can anyone sleep still garbed in a cloak and such fine armor as she wears, even though it’s enchanted beyond anything I have heard of before…’

Nelson halted his train of thought, the subtle pressure in his mind warned of nearby enemies, and in numbers to be a true threat. He feigned fanatical interest in the three orbs as he monitored the sole doorway from the corner of his eyes; one hand eased a magical wand from a pouch. Silently he willed the slumbering magic within its slender wooden depths to awaken, and felt the potential thunderstorm build and surge as it awaited his orders to fly loose, and tear apart his enemies.

He focused his will and drew upon his psychic reserve to open a brief telepathic link to Elsa, hoping against hope that his instincts were wrong. His thoughts brushed hers and she let him enter. “Elsa, we may have some guests coming upon us in the next few minutes; it’s that infernal warning pressure I keep feeling in the back of my mind. If the Guardian has his minions on the loose in the area, and they start to disappear, or even worse, manage to get word back to it of our location, the heavens are going to come crashing down on our heads in quick order.”

Elsa responded as her body roused to full awareness. She replied to Nelson, “No false alarm this time, one of my magical alarm spells not far from here has activated. The little surprise woven into it will detain them only for a few minutes at best. Make your preparations and I’ll do what I can, we have at least sixty of them, maybe more, and figure them to be gargoyles or other such horrors. At least one is a magician of considerable ability, and six or seven lesser magicians are among them as well.”

“Great, just great, that’s all we need.” Nelson looked upon the glowing trio of orbs which floated above his hand, and his scowl turned into a wicked grin of pure devilish delight. “I have an idea…” he mentally said to her; and, at a speed only thought could obtain, the two forged their battle plan, and hoped it would actually work.

Their conversation done, Nelson severed the telepathic link, gasped and shook his head to clear the gathered mental cobwebs. Even such a brief usage of telepathy had left his psychic reserve, the wellspring of all mental magic, exhausted. He hoped the gargoyles, or whatever else might be with them, had no mind mages among their numbers. If they did, he would be in deep trouble.

The eerie, ghostly howls of the summoned shadowy wolves reverberated long and deep across the passages and chambers. Nelson cringed, and knew battle had been joined between them and the gargoyles as a chain of hollow boom-booms followed in short order.

Old Chipper, his dander raised, rushed to the entry arch, looked into the darkness beyond and hollered out, “It’s a battle alright! Yeah, time for the slaughter to begin!” He charged off in a blur of motion before Nelson or Elsa could stop him.

“That blasted squirrel will be the death of us yet!” Nelson cursed under his breath and heard Elsa say the same.

₰


​

Iron-blood and his six magician cohorts lifted stone claws and called out words of cabalistic power. Moments later, seven bolts of white-hot lightning cleaved into the shadowy essence of the wolves; three of which went into the eternal night of death. So far, four other wolves had perished; seven more continued their onslaught, and brought another gargoyle, the thirteenth so far, down for good.

Iron-blood knew he had erred and badly, having failed to foresee the magical alarm and the secondary trap it had triggered. This was nothing more than a delaying movement, one designed to allow the companions to prepare for the true onslaught, on their terms.

“So be it,” Iron-blood declared as he unleashed another sundering blast of lightning. He focused his will and contacted the Guardian, then reported, “We have located them my master. The assault has begun; I have called upon the other gargoyle tribes to ensure their destruction. I estimate this will be concluded in mere minutes.”

The Guardian coolly acknowledged the message, and replied, “Continue then, I will dispatch reinforcements of my own incase they manage to escape or defeat your minions. Die with honor warrior.”

Iron-bloods rage redoubled; for it comprehended the Guardian expected him and his minions to fail. He roared in absolute anger, and unleashed another lightning bolt which forked into two of the shadow wolves. “Forward and take them down my warriors,” Iron-blood bellowed, his eyes ablaze with molten-iron rage, “take them down and strike at our rightful prey…”

A voice called out from the darkness beside him, “I don’t think so. Return to the eternal darkness your kind sprang from so long ago.”

Iron-blood had enough time to turn and behold the large squirrel which seemingly appeared out of thin air. He saw Chipper stand tall, eyes ablaze with eldritch power, forepaws held wide as he called out cabalistic words of power.

The other gargoyles screamed, shouted, and pled for mercy as Iron-blood sang to his ancestors, knowing his final doom was at hand. Then Chipper unleashed a white-hot blast of lightning which ended Iron-bloods life in a surging torrent of pure death and devastation.

₰


​

Dismissing the reckless dash into battle by Chipper, and hearing Elsa make her own magical preparations, Nelson took a deep breath, steeled his will and focused his mind. Systematically he wove one defensive ward after another about him: his skin turned hard as granite, thus able to withstand four or five blows in combat; a translucent field of magical force strengthened his magical robes and clothing; the third would cause a great apprehension, uncertainty and hesitation in foes when they struck out at him; and last, his most powerful of defensive magic: Any adversary who observed and assailed him with claw, blade, bow or spell could never be sure exactly where he was: his physical image was displaced by two to three feet from his true location.

He sensed no more time was left before combat would begin in earnest, so he commenced to prepare his offensive onslaught. Nelson called forth three ribbons of sacred fire which danced about him, awaiting his command. Instinctive insights guided him as he used the esoteric lore to redouble each in turn, and bestowed upon them the forces of eternal cold, corrosion and clinging flame. At the least, any being hit by them would feel such forces at work, unless their willpower could overcome the illusionary sensations at work upon their senses.

₰


​

Elsa, her own preparations finished, took up both of her axes in one hand and looked over at Nelson. She saw his grip upon his wand adjust slightly, noted how he had turned and watched the entrance, and waited for the moment to strike. Just behind and above him, the three ribbons of sacred flame rested; she sensed the power bound within each of them, and the solid control Nelson maintained.

“I was right,” she softly whispered to herself. Days ago, Chipper had mentally shared the sight of Nelson hard in battle against the Cloakers; and yet, here before her Nelson displayed the same instinctive control and ability of a great magician, something far beyond his abilities as a mere apprentice. Her hunch, that the robes he wore belonged to a Royal Grand Mage of an elven kingdom; the magic woven into them was too subtle for any other sentient beings to have crafted – only elves lavished such skill and effort upon one creation.

Her gaze refocused upon Nelsons eyes and she cringed. For in their depths she saw the fires of pure righteous indignation: the visual manifestation of one whose conviction affirmed their commitment to shatter enemies and protect their friends in mortal combat. She had seen such intensity of purpose only once before: in the eyes of Master Aden of the Academy of the Arts over a century before.

She wondered if Aden and Nelson were related in some fashion. Deciding to deal with that at another date, she ruthlessly shoved the question aside and focused her preternaturally keen hearing on the faint click – clicking sound that closed with alacrity. “Nelson,” she telepathically said to him, “gargoyles, in strength, and closing fast…oh no!”

Her ears sagged as she shook her head and cursed, for four of her alarm spells had triggered: more adversaries were on the way. Three muffled detonations brightened her mood; three magical traps had been triggered, and hopefully cut down some of the enemies’ numbers. Right now she, Nelson and Chipper needed any edge they could gain.

Elsa watched Nelson lift the hand which held the three orbs, and begin to silently count down the seconds until he would strike. She telepathically reached out to him and softly said, “More company is coming, we have at least three groups approaching. Strike hard and I’ll follow as we planned…”

Nelson nodded, held his focus upon the countdown, and, just as the first gargoyle appeared in the entry, threw the three fiery orbs into the darkness beyond.

₰


​

Chipper howled in sheer delight, thoroughly enjoying the chaos of battle which flared about him. He leaped off the wall, leap-frogged across the heads of three gargoyles, and somersaulted to the floor; white hot death ripped from his forepaws, and lanced them through the heart; dead before they hit the floor, Chipper howled in joy as he won another round of the fight.

More gargoyles emerged from the darkness, their eyes aglow like molten metal in a foundry. Armed with spears and wearing thick armor of cold iron, Chipper calmly stood before them and bowed as he said, “Warriors who are about to die, I salute you!”

To his amazement the gargoyles, hideous beyond description, raised their spears in salute, grinned, howled as one and charged. Chipper screamed, whirled about and raced for his life with three-score of elite gargoyle warriors in hot pursuit.

Time and again he dodged, danced, wove and pranced about as spears clanged against stone. Up the wall and a mighty backwards leap positioned him in the midst of a dozen gargoyles: right where he wanted to be. With a mighty shout he flung his forepaws wide and unleashed a visible shockwave which reduced the gargoyles to broken lumps of flesh and bone.

Slam!

Chipper looked with slack-jawed horror at the six foot hole rent into the wall by a rock flung with hypersonic speed. He turned to face the approaching gargoyles and observed five of them, their clawed hands aglow with blue-black death about to be unleashed. Troubling as he found this to be, it was the presence of a great force of darkness, all but palatable to mortal senses, which drew his attention. From long ago he remembered such a beast and shuddered: a demon of great power had been called from the depths of Hades to aid the gargoyles in their fight.

Through his mind-to-mind link shared with Elsa he transmitted the darkened outline of the demon and shouted out to her, “GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

He decided that discretion was the better part of survival, and he bolted for his life as magical death reached out to end his existence.

₰


​

They heard gargoyles scream in primordial terror until their final cries perished under the thundering retort of the orbs detonation. Instantly, a searing flash of white light filled the chamber, followed by the volcanic roar of a sun momentarily being birthed; Elsa screamed, nearly blinded, deafened and stunned by the cacophony of sensations which assailed her mind. She fell to the floor and clenched both hands over her ears, in mortal fear that her hearing was shattered beyond hope of restoration.

A chain of concussive blasts penetrated the maelstrom of pain, fear, rage, anger and death which held her mind captive in an iron-tight grip. Vital seconds passed as she struggled to regain control, and discover she had been rendered half-blind and nearly deaf by Nelsons spectacular invoked devastation.

“Damn it! Why, why now, did this have to happen?” she shouted to the world at large. Elsa focused her will and called forth one of her most potent mental abilities. Instantly, she perceived the location of all things out to one hundred yards from the vibrations of sound through stone and air. The thundering heartbeats of ten-score and more gargoyles echoed in her mind, while Nelson remained a stoic anchor of calm determination in the chaos.

Elsa grinned as she ran to his side, and called out, “I need you to guide me Nelson, Chippers up to his eyeballs in gargoyles.” She whirled, sensing a score of gargoyles silently flying overhead, and shouted a single word of mystical power enhanced by her esoteric knowledge.

Boom – boom – boom – boom!

Four massed blasts of blue fire reduced the gargoyles to little more than soot and ashes which softly rained onto the battlefield far below.


“Ha! I got them!” Elsa called out as she whirled back to face the next wave of gargoyles. As her hands came up, and she called forth another magical onslaught, she felt Nelson raise his magical wand and command the three fiery ribbons to form a protective barrier about the two of them. With a shout Elsa unleashed ten white-hot arcs of lightning that reaved life from nearly two-score gargoyles.

Nelson unleashed a chain of shattering blasts from his wand, and claimed a dozen more.

The gargoyles continued their onslaught for nearly ten minutes until, after seeing scores of their kin slain by the young human, cat-girl and insane squirrel, turned about and fled for their lives. The two cheered at their victory, and rejoiced even more as Chipper, grinning from ear to ear, his fur scorched here and there, joined them.

“Elsa, can you hear me?” Nelson said, his voice sounding to her heightened sense like the roar of a thousand waterfalls. He bit his tongue in sympathy as she visibly cringed, then understood as she tapped her eyes and ears, while shaking her head.

Elsa opened up a mind-to-mind link between them, one that allowed for communications on an instinctive level. Thusly, she told what had happened, and continued: “The Guardian may not be able to find us magically, yet it has still achieved the same by flooding this area of the labyrinth with its minions. Every time we encounter one, if it’s not eliminated in a short span of time, the Guardian will know our location, path and gather its minions for an ever larger and decisive effort to finish us off. We have to move, and fast, to get to the area described by the journal.”

“Get your stuff quickly then, we have other gargoyles not far behind me.” Chipper looked over his shoulder to the darkened passage. “Douse that fire and no more of these glowing orbs of ghostly light Nelson; they will give our presence away almost instantly.”

Nelson scowled at Chipper and declared, “Listen, how am I supposed to see in the dark? Unlike you or Elsa I don’t have such vision as you two enjoy; so stop your complaining and for once, figure out some way to be of use and work with us.”

Elsa turned on them and sternly said, “Enough of this, we got gargoyles and a demon after us. Get your stuff and let’s move. I’ll get some decoy magic set in place; it will buy us only an hour or two at most, after that no guarantees. If the demon shows, then it has to fall first, and fall fast and hard. No hesitation.”

She ordered Chipper to watch the passage as she turned to Nelson, “How much longer will the ribbons of fire last you?” She nodded at his estimation of about thirty more minutes. “Good, keep them around and active, the light they generate will enable you to see to a fair degree. After that, we’ll have to risk another set of your ghost lights. Now, let’s get our stuff and put as much ground between us and this place as we can.”

They gathered everything inside of two minutes, and Elsa dismissed the magical campfire.

She gasped, winced and groaned as her hearing and sight returned in full measure; once again, her heritage had come through and healed her injuries. “Good to have that back to normal. Nelson, what in the world did you do with those fiery orbs? Even illusionary magic can only be given so much physical form and substance; and that was a pure devastation even I could barely have managed.”

Nelson sheepishly grinned and stammered in response, “Uh, I have a few glass beads that, when shattered upon a hard surface, unleash a concussive blast of unbelievable strength. I figured that would add some extra oomph to the perceived devastation wrought of the orbs…”

From the entrance Chipper gave off an exasperated, “Oh brother! We’re fortunate he did not bring down the entire place for a mile or more upon our heads. Why do they never teach magicians to use their brains anymore…”

Elsa laughed as Chipper went on another of his tirades, and asked of Nelson “Later on I would like to see one of those glass beads; to have such devastation come from one…” she shook her head in disbelief. Then she gave a quizzical look at Nelson as an idea for pure mischief came to the fore. She explained it to him, and held out one hand into which he placed a half dozen of the glass beads.

Nelson grinned and said, “I actually tossed five of them along with the ‘flaming orb’ illusion. As the old saying goes, ‘when in doubt, its better to use too much than too little’ Turned out to be the right thing to do this time around.”

He watched Elsa prepare six overlapping traps for their pursuers, and envisioned the carnage they will reap on the clueless gargoyles. He laughed along with Elsa as they departed the chamber moments later.

₰


​

The Guardian listened to the reports of its minions and was not pleased. No not pleased at all, as the three foes continued to silently evade one group of scouts after another, no trail discernable after the last massive fight. It had to admire the cunning of the cat-girl, whose booby traps had claimed nearly three-score gargoyles and the demon which had first pursued them.

And, once again, it continued to underestimate the power and skill of the young human – he annihilated almost one entire gargoyle tribe with the three flaming orbs; not to mention the erratic, eccentric, absolutely insanity of the large squirrel. No, it was not pleased, and it made this amply clear to its minions as it ordered them to find and destroy the companions at all costs.

Deep in the recesses of its mind, the Guardian was pleased and thrilled to no end. Once again, it hoped against hope that the cat-girl possessed the key to its freedom, and if so, it would then turn upon its captors and show what true, soul-deep, mind-numbing fear is all about.

Yes, it secretly hoped this, but it still was bound for the time by its masters magic and had to hunt for the cat-girl and the others; though it ensured one area of the Labyrinth was cleared of its minions, due to the fact that the region had been swept five times already with no sign of them: no, no ‘sight’ of them.

In the end, even if they made it past the countless secrets and traps within the depths and made it to the gate, then the companions will face the Guardian, and good 'Old Sparky.’

“Freedom,” the Guardian said, and hoped its great desire would soon be made reality.

 

For all readers: the next portion/s will be up either Sunday or Monday.
I hope you are enjoying the adventure to date.

 

Welcome the Sojourner...

₰₰ Book One: Chapter Eleven ₰₰
​

The eternal darkness parted before the illuminating glow of four ghostly blue-green lights. Nelson beheld the vibrant, life-filled frescoes painted upon the walls; he marveled at the hands who made them; the minds which dreamed of duplicating perfectly the mountains, lakes, forests and even the animals in such detail as to let one believe they were alive.

Nelson looked around and wondered if the Guardians minions would show up anytime soon. He said, “I hope they don’t. We need time to find that lever, and what I hope is the stairway beyond; and right now one more blasted fight will keep us from doing so.”

He felt Elsa’s telepathic communiqué brush his thoughts, “Nelson, over here to your left. I think we have one part of the puzzle at hand.” She hesitated, trepidation in her voice, “I hope this is it. The stars hang low over a mountain and shine upon a deep lake, one large enough to scale to be a freshwater sea. We have a lone moon setting just above the mountain, but nothing more.”

Nelson rushed over and examined the scene Elsa described. After some time he shook his head and said to her, “No, this is not it. Look here;” he indicated to one small line of clouds alive with the fires of a setting sun, “It is a scene facing to the west. All of the mountains we have seen and examined in detail are the same. Elsa, I think we have missed something that is blatantly obvious within the journals clues: one thing I learned about illusions is sometimes the easiest means to hide an item of value is out in plain sight.”

From Elsa’s shoulder Chipper gave of an exasperated, cursed-filled sigh of disgust at Nelson. “And once again you state the blatantly obvious: you have no clue, nor are any great asset to our party. I must have committed some great wrong to be cursed with your presence for this length of time…”

Nelson and Elsa shared a knowing look and rolled their eyes, for Chippers tirade was empty of real anger or scorn. The squirrel was frustrated beyond measure, as they all were, and wanted to get out of these endlessly winding passages.

Elsa softly whispered to Nelson, “So then, if we are to look for the obvious, let’s go over what we definitely know from the journal: Mountains facing east, sea and sky are one. We have a sun, beheld by the lone moon, and within the ‘sea of stars.’ So are all of these together in one spot or are we looking at more than one spot on this wall?”

Nelson mulled this over for a fair amount of time and gasped, face-palmed himself, and softly chuckled. He pointed to the far wall of the passage and gave Elsa a mirth-filled grin. “Over there, on the far wall, did we not already pass a scene in which a complete solar eclipse was happening? The sun and moon combined in totality and observed by a second moon in close proximity? Anyone want to guess if that is what we are looking for and had missed?”

Elsa closed her eyes, ears pressed back along her skull and her shoulders slumped. With a great and profound sigh of self-disgust she said, “Of course. Why do I keep missing the obvious? I expected this to be so much easier than it has been; some great adventurer I am.” With that, she raced for the far wall, Nelson in close pursuit. Minutes later, they found the particular scene, and grinned, for indeed, there was a full eclipse, and a lone moon observing the scene.

Nelson bent down and pointed to the lake beneath one particular mountain chain as he commented: “Look here, the lake shows a mixture of clouds and stars; that only occurs during a total eclipse, and for only a few minutes at that.”

He shifted to a farm located on the lakes shore, a scene definitely out of place with the rest of the fresco. “Here, the farm, the animals are being fed by the farmers and their helpers: yet the sky is in an eclipse, from what I understand of farm life, this is at the time for feeding the animals in the morning. So the mountains here are shown as the sun rises from the east; the eclipse occurring early in the day.”

Elsa grew giddy with excitement, yet she felt a growing unease, a feeling of trepidation she could not place. A glance at Chipper revealed the same with him, his furry tail flicked here and there in nervous energy beyond the normal for a squirrel.

She shifted her interest to Nelson, who seemed unaffected by this strange unease.

Chipper suddenly asked his belligerent voice louder and harsher than normal. “Fine then, it is a lake, set before mountains, a solar eclipse and stars shining in the waters. Yet once again you have missed the most blatantly obvious argument against this spot. ‘In the mountains of the east what is found is not’ is what the journal recorded. So if we have found the point, how can we even be sure your foolish stubbornness is not about to set off one more chain of devastating traps to kill us?”

Nelson ignored the insults, went to one knee and calmly said, “Because the writer said he found the lever. So the reader of that passage has to look a layer deeper than what is obvious. Or at least what I assumed would be obvious to a centuries old squirrel; maybe Chipper you have finally gone so insane you have become sane and only assume you are not?”

Chipper lifted one forepaw into the air, ready to deliver a scything response.

Elsa brought her hands over her mouth and desperately tried to silence her musical giggle. Her eyes danced with pure laughter though, delighted that Chipper continued to find his match in Nelson.

Chipper lowered his head and softly asked of her, “Have I lost you as my friend Elsa? Since Nelson has joined us you have fawned over him like a love-struck teenager. No matter what I say or do to convince you of how big of a mistake your making you will not listen. You know the inevitable will occur, and your hurt will become all the bigger due to how close you have allowed your heart and mind to become with Nelson. Have you forgotten all the others who have died over the centuries?”

Elsa gasped, shook her head in denial, unable to believe the anger and venomous spite in her spirit-companions words. Chipper had never turned on her like this in ages, her iron will suddenly snapped, and she chewed her lips in trepidation of what else he would say, while one portion of her mind warned her something was at play with her emotions.

Chipper threw his paws wide, stomped his foot and shook his tail this way and that as he declared, “Why will you never listen to me Elsa? Why did I ever answer that call and allow you to bind me into your service like an indentured servant to the creditor?”

Elsa looked at Chipper as the tears began to fall, her voice breaking as a sob began, “Why, why did you have to say that Chipper? Why? I am your friend but I had thought you were only jealous of Nelson. Why did you have to remind me of the others? Why Chipper, just tell me why, you, of all beings, would cut me to the quick like this? I had thought you were my friend as well, and I never wanted you as a servant, not in the least. I guess I have failed after all; just say so and I’ll sever the bonds between us…”

She covered her face with her hands and began to sob. “Just say so Chipper, and you will be free for good.”

Chipper stood still, completely stunned at Elsa’s reaction. He at long last understood the depths of her feelings for Nelson. He put one forepaw on Elsa’s cheek. He said in heart-felt apology, “No Elsa, you are my friend. I just want what is best for you in the end. You’ve been hurt too many times by others who have used you to their ends…”

“How dare you Chipper,” Nelson roared. He stood and speared the squirrel with a look of righteous rage and pending wrath, a looked that caused him to squeal and shudder in absolute terror. “Your intentions may seem good to you, and yet you treated Elsa as cruelly as any slaver would his slaves with your assumption of superiority over her own decisions in life. You are her friend, and she is yours in return. That is rare beyond measure in the relationship of a master and spirit-companion.”

“Since I have been with the two of you, look how far we have come.” Nelson threw his arms wide to encompass the entire passage about them. “Together we have solved more of this massive riddle than on our own; and do not forget Elsa opened the great doors and not you: you nearly incinerated us by your greed for the gemstones embedded in those doors.”

“And now, instead of helping us by calming Elsa just when we need her the most,” Nelson shook his head in disgust at Chipper and his antics, “to open the door before us, you had to go and discomfort her to such ends I cannot be sure if she could open it. Why do you not see the magic at work here, and not anywhere else? It seeks to cause strife between allies and friends…to ensure they cannot pass the doorway!”

Elsa and Chipper looked at Nelson, flabbergasted, and understood his words to be true.

Chipper shook his head and said to Elsa, “I’m sorry Elsa, for as Nelson pointed out I have been acting like a jackass of the highest order.” He held up a paw to silence the coming retort from Nelson, “He’s right Elsa, an ancient magic is at work here; it took my idiotic fears and desires not to see you hurt again and played them against me. For that Elsa and to you as well Nelson, I am truly sorry.”

Elsa looked at Chipper and nodded in acceptance. She wiped the tears away, her preternaturally keen senses now detecting the intricate web of spells at play around the three of them. “It’s alright Chipper. I’ve always been afraid of causing harm to my friends,” she looked at Nelson and suddenly turned sheepish, “or to those I have become…rather fond of…so apology accepted…HUH?”

The ground vibrated as ancient mechanisms shifted, turned, twirled and spun; for ancient magical directives caused them to once again come to life after many a century. Slowly, silently, a fine line appeared and flew from the floor to just below the eclipse: then the wall parted to reveal the darkness beyond.

Elsa and Chipper looked at Nelson, completely stunned for he grinned like a Cheshire cat. “How, how did you know this would happen?” the two asked in unison.

“The passage, with hands that held nothing, perceived nothing, and moved nothing I moved it…” Nelson held his hands out to indicate Elsa and Chipper. “The greatest foe of the illusionist, even when it is the greatest of assets: Truth. Truth is truth, and when truth comes to light it moves, perceives and holds nothing back; for in its light all things are revealed and all obstacles duly moved out of the way. This matter between you two needed to be dealt with; and I grasped that the ancient magic here was playing upon those fears.”

“So when we, at long last, got the truth out into the open, fears no longer had any power over us.” Chipper sagely nodded his head. “Not bad for a young human, you actually show more wisdom than most at your age are capable of dealing with. There may be hope for you to achieve your dreams yet Nelson; and before you ask, no, that secret is for me alone to understand.”

Elsa walked over to Nelson, swept him up in a crushing bear hug and kissed him hard on the lips. “Thank you Nelson, thank you. When I get the chance I want to show you my appreciation if you don’t mind? But I think we need to get going before those doors close; and before the Guardians minions arrive.”

Chipper and Nelson looked at each other in thunderstruck shock, having forgotten about their deadliest of foes who still awaited them deeper in the Labyrinth. “Let’s go, and right now.”

With that, the three departed into the darkness, watched the doors close silently behind them, and beheld in the ghostly light the great stairwell into the depths, great lion-like statures lines small niches in the walls. Each one stood five feet high, eyes, teeth and claws crafted of the finest gems, and bodies made of pure gold.

Nelson held up one hand for them to halt and said, “Remember the warning written in the journal Elsa? The one of the creature or thing called ‘Old Sparky’?” When she nodded he continued, “I know your cloak grants you a great deal of protection from lightning, as do my robes. What I want to know is, do you command any magic that can turn such forces back on its owner?”

Elsa nodded and said, “Yes, I do, my specialty in magic is the usual fire, smoke, brimstone, eternal cold, call down lightning and so forth. It’s easy enough to counter and turn back upon its owner such assaults; but why do you ask?”

She blanched when Nelson gave his conclusion.

₰₰


​

In the unknowable depths of the Labyrinth bisected by the lion-lined stairwell creatures great and small stirred and watched. They had sensed the doors opening and knew intruders had arrived for the first time in centuries. Eyes of molten iron flared with unholy life and power as they donned armor and cloaks, emplaced magical bracers to forearms or other appendages, and took up enchanted weapons designed to do more than kill: they pulsated with unholy power and corruption, power designed to rend and tear the very soul from a mortal husk.

In all of the Labyrinths extensive regions, this one area was such that even the Guardian, for all of its vaunted skill at arms, and command of magic of spell and the mind, dared not enter. For these creatures were as far beyond it as the Guardian is to its own minions, and had no command over them.

So it is that the creatures of darkness prepared for the intruders to arrive, and in turn each relished the fight to come: victory would allow them to return to the smoldering depths of Hades from which they arose long, long ago in the eternal dawn of the cosmos. Failure would condemn them to millennia of servitude to guard the stairwell.

Such was the magic commanded by the ancient one simply known as The Sojourner.

 

A devil of a good time...

₰₰ Book One: Chapter Twelve ₰₰
​

She looked over the landings wrought-iron railing, her cloak and hair tossed around by the howling winds that passed into the unknown depths below. Elsa shook her head, groaned and cursed in equal parts of pure anguish, anger, frustration and exasperation, as her hands tightened upon the railing and turned white from the exertion. Down into the depths the great statue-lined stairwell descended a thousand steps to yet another landing, and on to another and yet a third before vanishing into the unnatural twilight so far below.

Elsa turned to see Nelson seated on the floor, his back against one gigantic, solid-gold and gemstone lions. Old Chipper was stretched out on Nelsons knee, sound asleep and contently snoring. Silent as death she walked to their side and plopped down, and rested her hands and head on Nelsons shoulder.

Her preternaturally keen senses detected the golden lion’s endowed magic flare to life, a soft, translucent light that blocks all magical efforts of detection and communications into and out of the stairwell. For a moment, the beast locked deep within her being flared and raged against the magic in the lion, until she forced it away. It laughed, and reminded her that the time would soon be at hand: it would take control, and be free to carry out a blood bath as it has done before.

As much as she wanted to deny the beast inside of her, she knew time was rapidly running out. Only three or four days remained at most, and then, she would succumb. If that happened there would be no telling what she would do.

Elsa looked at Nelson and smelled all the rich scents which defined him in the keenest, most subtle of detail. His heart beat strong and steady; the heated blood surged about in his veins; the steady rise and fall of his chest with each breath taken; a man asleep, unconcerned and safe from the maddening world about him. She knew it was not the full story, for his mind was a flurry of mental energy, partly disciplined, mostly not; a chaos-filled maelstrom of potential in which he may become one of the greatest mind mages the cosmos has ever seen or known.

Once again, as she softly stroked his cheek with her own, she wondered if his inherit ability with magic was due to him being related to Master Aden. Or could he be related to another being, one born of the heavens or hells, one of order or of chaos? She knew he was not born of a nightmare given form and life as was she, and Elsa silently thanked the cosmos for that.

Nelson spoke as he feigned slumber, and shifted around ever so slightly. He revealed to Elsa the two wrought-iron diamond-tipped wands which rested in the crook of his elbow. He grinned at her soft, melodious chuckle and said, “Let me guess, based upon the evidence, that great groan of yours was accompanied by you shaking your head; you discovered the stairs continue to extend downward to infinity. And, of course, we shall face the endless hoards of screaming creatures of darkness, doom, and despair who foreshadow some malevolent entity of absolute madness, evil, corruption, vileness and insanity that has an affinity to rend people limb from limb for the sheer inherit joy of its psychotic delight…”

Elsa looked at him and quizzically raised an eyebrow.

Nelson continued. “Either that or we have discovered the ‘long lost mother-in-law’ of doom and despair that all sons-in-laws dread and rightfully fear. Or one extremely cute cat-girl who is appreciated very fondly by a rather eccentric human magician…”

₰₰​

Five great beasts of darkness glided silently down the stairwell, prepared to do battle with the three intruders into their domain. Over seven feet in length, great bat-like wings pulled tight against their gray-black furred backs as iron-hard talons of fore and back limbs grasped the stairwell railing; eyes aglow like molten iron that locked upon the human, squirrel and cat-girl below.

They knew victory would be theirs, for the companions had no defenses in place, no magical or even mundane alarms to give warning of deaths silent approach. No, this would not be a battle, it will be a slaughter. And that pleased them to no end, so long as it was brutality perfected as only a demon of the darkest depths could dream of.

Each one called upon its demonic heritage and further enhanced their formidable defenses with wards against weapons and blows, increased their reflexes, speed, strength and endurance. Iron-hard claws and fangs glowed with unholy corruption and perversion while potent acid etched holes in the wrought-iron railing; as one they nodded, leaped into the air, and began to descend in a sweeping spiral to their prey below.

Unknown to them, five human-like four-armed muscle-bound brutes watched and prepared in the shadows. The twin recurve bows they wielded pulsated with darkness: flames of hellfire waiting to be unleashed. In a quick and silent telepathic discussion, they took position on the landing, drew arrows from quivers and nocked them to bowstrings. When the first demons, the beasts of darkness commonly called Nabassu struck, the five Archer-demons would engage as well; all that mattered for them was to score the kill and be free to return to their infernal home in Hades.

₰₰​

Elsa plopped down next to him and rested her hands and head on his shoulder as she asked: “Am I that easy to figure out? I mean, concerning the sighing and seeing that the stairway still had no ending in sight?”

Nelson opened one eye, gave her a mischief-filled wink and said, “No.” Then he turned melodramatic, lifted his hands into the air and declared, “I am the genie of the lamp. I know all, see all, and smell all…and I need a bath as I have been stuck in that blasted lamp-thingy for over a thousand years.”

Chipper, awakened by the two’s antics yawned, shook himself from head to toe and flopped down on his back as he gave a thumbs up for Nelson’s improvised routine. He spoke to Elsa via their mind-to-mind link, “Humble squirrel politely requests of cat-girl friend to have tummy rubbed. Very bad itch disturbs humble squirrels very deep slumber and to prevent unnecessary devastation of area by twitching leg as squirrel scratches itch with it, please assist in avoiding the end of the known universe…”

Elsa gently stroked Chippers stomach with her fingertips, and giggled as he squirmed about, one foot thumping wildly in the air. She said, “Nelson, to answer your question: yes. The stairs continue downward for gods alone knows how many more landings; I cannot even see the end, assuming anymore that there is one. I wonder if the journal has anything in it concerning the staircase, and even more importantly, how we can get out of here and closer to the gateway.”

₰₰
​

​

On the third landing below the companions resting place the great wolf-headed fiend looked upward, sniffed the air and shifted its ears to listen upon their conversation. When it heard about the journal it hesitated, shocked to the core of its immortal existence, and softly mumbled. “So the cat-girl has the old journal. Interesting, most interesting, and a very fortuitous turn of events to my advantage and my subsequent gain; she does not appear to understand even one-twentieth of the secrets contained within. I shall take it from her dead carcass, capture her immortal soul for my own pleasure, and seek the power of the Seven Tigers for my own.”

The Seven Tigers, even among the ancient-most of fiends they were considered at naught more than myth and legend. Yet the fiend knew they existed, having long ago seen one of them when bound to the service of the one called the Sojourner. It imagined the power it had witnessed then under its control; and how it could use such power to gain the highest rungs of position within the diabolic hierarchy. It growled a sound which resonated far throughout the stairwell and the stone walls themselves for miles.

Quickly, estimating the capabilities of the three companions and the demonic foes it knew to be on the way, it drew upon its infernal heritage and called for reinforcements across the known cosmos. Moments later, that very help heard, acknowledged the debt being repaid to the wolf-headed fiend, and appeared from the shadows near the companions.

Twelve lesser devils, commonly called legion devils held their positions in deathly silence. They had been told not to attack unless discovered, attacked or until the demonic assailants had weakened the three companions. As one unit, all twelve telepathically acknowledged their orders.

The wolf-headed fiend lifted its great axe and casually swung it through a series of offensive routines, and then drew it against its body. It moved against the wall, and upon a silent command, its magical cloak shifted, flowed and swirled as it concealed the fiend in a field of living darkness. Thus it would wait, until one side or the other emerged victorious, and, thus weakened, became vulnerable to its own considerable magical and combat skill.

Come what may, it anticipated its freedom after untold millennia in the stairwell, bound by the Sojourner whom it hated above all others.

Little did it reckon that, from another certain point of view, it would have its freedom; just not at such an large price as it would pay in the end.

₰₰​

Nelson opened his eyes and looked at her with grave concern. “I’m not worried about that Elsa. What bothers me is we have yet to run into any creatures guarding this area. Even with the protective magic you use to keep the Guardian from finding us, this area is different; I cannot place my finger on it just that my warning instinct is pounding. Trouble is coming, and it’s coming upon us in force.”

Elsa continued to stroke Chippers stomach as she telepathically spoke to Nelson, “I’ve sensed it as well. I think we have at least four or five on the landing above us and others in the area. No matter what this fight is going to be brutal but you and Chipper can handle them. The greater danger is down below us, or I assume it is if my hearing is correct.”

She gently placed a hand on his shoulder, kissed him on the cheek and silently cast a series of spells upon him by the force of will alone. Elsa continued, “Nelson, one spell will block the hardest of blows from harming you, it will only do so for about twenty strikes, so don’t get reckless. The others have enhanced your speed, reflexes, strength and endurance. I’m off now to deal with the brute below and see if it’s edible or not…”

Nelson startled; his jaw hung loose as he struggled for breath to speak.

She giggled – it conveyed images of a bubbling brook and the book of the dead silently being opened – as her eyes danced with pure mischief. “Honestly Nelson, you can be brilliantly original, and yet you are unable to tell when I am making a joke. Either that or my sense of humor is just that weird, which it probably is. ”

Elsa eased one axe from her belt and pulled her cloak about her body; then vanished from sight as it shifted to match her surroundings. She telepathically spoke to Nelson and Chipper, “I’ll be back as soon as beastie down there is dead on the ground. Get your defenses ready Nelson…” She paused, nodded and smiled, for he was ahead of her: she sensed the field of translucent mystical force which enshrouded his body. In addition, he had enacted a spell of displacement: his opponents would be confused as to his real location, and thus he gained an extra degree of protection.

Nelson whispered to her, “The ribbons of fire, they will be of no use here. As much as I wish to use them they are useless against a demonic foe: the chaos that encompasses their existence bars such illusionary magic from influencing their warped and perverted minds.” He held up one wand and smiled, then continued: “So I just have to do this the old-fashioned way. Hope Chipper is up to the task on his part.”

He paused and raised his eyes to the sky above them. Elsa nodded as he resumed softly speaking, “Above us, something is coming on the wing, I don’t think we have more than five minutes before they are upon us and this fight will really begin. Take care of that thing down there as fast as you can and get back to us. If we get hit with two groups, above and below, we’re in royally hot water.”

₰₰​

Elsa gave Nelson a goodbye kiss on the cheek, leaped to the wrought-iron railing and raced down it with the grace and speed only a master acrobat could duplicate.

Five demonic entities that silently observed the wolf-headed fiend from the shadows never knew what hit them. One after another they fell from a single well-placed axe bow to the neck, head or spine, depending on the one area of weakness they possessed. Just shy of her destination, one final fiend, a great rat-shaped beast eleven feet in length emerged from the shadows. It hissed, acidic drool cascading from between six-inch incisors, and bared iron-hard claws that smelled of corruption and death.

“Taste death my lovely little cat-girl, and know…ACK!” it said as Elsa leaped forward and delivered a double footed kick to its gut, followed by an elbow to the head. One quick whack with her axe and the magic endowed within it ended the beasts’ existence in this world with a thundering retort that reverberated for some time off of the stone walls. Elsa took note of the twin gold lion statues which stood mid-way across the landing; for in their shadow she sensed her ultimate foe and grinned in anticipation of the fight to come.

For she had decided that this brute could solve two problems at once: allow her to hone her battle magic a bit more; and alleviate her frayed nerves from the ever-growing hunger she could not restrain for much longer.

₰₰​

Nelson’s eyes blazed with golden fires as he silently willed one magical protection after another in preparation for the pending battle: the ward of stone-hard skin, mystical armoring, protections against fire, air, water, stone and minor enchantments which heightened his strength, endurance, reflexes, precision of strikes made with his wands, and one other trick he had never considered viable until now…

He focused upon the magical mayhem dormant within his wands; silently mouthed a single spell and bade it to wait his orders to strike. Three more times he repeated this spell, and felt the instinctive warning pressure grow by the moment. Focusing upon his psychic abilities he telepathically warned Chipper: “Something is coming, its big, and invisible and on the wing. I think it’s a demon; there’s the odor of brimstone and death, a very palatable sensation as I’ve not felt since my late mentor summoned a demon and almost was devoured by the thing. More than that, we have others around us on all sides, at least a dozen in strength; though they are not demonic, but diabolic…”

Chipper sat on his haunches and stretched, forepaws held high into the air. His keen nose picked up the scents of death, decay, corruption and brimstone which grew stronger by the moment. In addition, he felt the opening of a magical gate: the creature, no, the demon, was bringing from the infernal worlds more of its kind. “Nelson” he said, using his magic to silently mind-speak with the lad, “we have more than one; at least five, maybe seven are descending on the wing towards us. I’ll deal with the ones above, you deal with the devils; they are five paces away in the shadows, on the four cardinal compass points.”

Nelson eased the two wands into his hands, crossed his arms and smiled. His eyes glowed with starlight flames of righteous indignation: he felt the purity of his cause, demons and devils were mortal foes of his father, and now the son would follow in his footsteps and crush them or die trying.

Chipper heard ten bow strings being pulled back high above them and knew trouble was coming in spades. He heard the soft demonic wing-beats grow still and knew they hovered; in mere moments they will commence a full-speed power-dive, ready to strike as a hawk does down on its chosen prey. His eyes glowed with eldritch power as he chanted a spell, his forepaws ablaze with golden motes of light that redoubled in number with each word he spoke.

To Nelson, Chipper called out, “Get ready…get ready…NOW!”

₰₰
​

Elsa’s grin only grew wider as she sensed the trepidation in the wolf-headed fiend, a being she recognized as a mercenary from the infernal depths of Hell itself. “Come on out you overgrown mongrel-cur born of a human and an angelic sire. Come on out and face me, or prove how much of a coward you truly are.”

A great curse resounded around her as the living darkness unfolded from around the fiend. It howled in rage again and again, lifted its great axe with both hands and swung it through one offensive routine after another, as it sought to cow and intimidate the upstart cat-girl. It stopped and beheld her with eyes ablaze like molten iron in a foundry as she calmly stood, one foot behind the other, yawned in sheer boredom and gave a dismissive ‘I am not impressed’ wave with her free hand.

“Good grief, why do I get stuck facing such worthless foes such as you,” she said. “Honestly, I had assumed or at the least hoped, you might be a real challenge. But no, as always, I just find another cur-mutt who pretends to be a powerful demon…”

It roared and looked upon her as its furred hands clenched the axe handle in a death grip. It said, “Never, never compare one of my power and heritage to those upstart mongrels your kind calls demons. I am a general in the armies of the legions of Hell, and command minions you cannot begin to conceive of, let alone defeat…” The beast roared a second time as Elsa stuck her tongue out at it. Incensed beyond measure or restraint, it roared yet again as it charged at her; a charge she more than willingly returned and soon the stairwell resounded with the clash of axe upon axe, and magic against magic.

₰₰
​

Pandemonium erupted as ten bows sung, ten blue-flamed arrows sped past the diving Nabassu, then joined by a second, third, and then a fourth volley in less than ten seconds. Five small cinders of amethyst-laced flame came from demonic hands, flung duly to burn, rend and maim the human and squirrel. A heartbeat later, all five cast spells designed to crush the living life force out of their foes…

Their world erupted in a blaze of flame, holy and pure and glorious, that devoured the arrows, the five flaming cinders – the initial manifestation of a fireball – and one Nabassu. The surviving quartet unfurled wings and clawed for the sky, blinded, deafened, and in pain from burns that will not heal due to the corruption of their immortal souls.

Nelson shouted a single cabalistic word and grinned with righteous delight. All twelve of the devils hiding in the shadows glowed with flames that did not burn; the magic commonly known as faerie-fire. He watched as Chipper leaped onto the golden lion statue and heard his chain of rather inventive insults directed at the many demons high above.

The twelve legion devils, divided into four groups of three, drew swords of sickly blue-green steel that dripped acid and corruption. As one, they charged, determined to take down Nelson before he could possibly react to this sudden onslaught; the greatest weakness of any magician was when they were forced into close-quarter battle, and thus unable to safely employ their magical arsenal of spells.

Of course, Nelson was no ordinary magician, not by far…

Quick as thought, Nelson enacted one of his waiting spells, and felt the magic inherit in the wands redouble in strength. In a blur of motion he struck, hard and fast, pointing the wands to each side, forward and back over each shoulder. Great forces hammered away at the approaching devils, thunder roared and shook the stairwell with such ferocity that the arrow-demons lost their footing, and Chipper screamed in panicked protest from atop the golden lion statue.

Nelson shouted out “Chipper how many are still above us?”

He looked around as he gained his feet and held both wands upward, ready to render death upon the first demon or devil to approach. Of the twelve legion-devils he held no more concern, for they, their infernal armor and arms, all had been reduced to a crushed mass of metal, blood and bone. He crinkled his nose in disgust and said, “And I thought the things smelled bad on the outside…”

Several enchanted arrows bit into the stone floor mere inches away from his real location, the magical acid sent gouts of sickly hissing steam. He shouted a word of cabalistic power and teleported a short distance away, thus avoiding the next three salvos of arrows which sought his life; save for three which impacted his shoulder and backside. The enchanted robes he wore denied them access to flesh, muscle and bone, yet Nelson knew there would be fine bruises on his bum come the morning.

With a leap he dove behind the lion statue and cringed as he heard the demonic arrows ricochet off of its golden surface. A momentary glance at Chipper held him in complete awe, for the insane squirrel was a whirlwind of pure poetic motion: a dance of utter bewilderment of leaps, jumps, running and spinning all designed to leave his assailants confused and bewildered as to his every intention.

Time and again, the Nabassu swooped down from on high and struck at the irritatingly irrational squirrel with spell, fang, claw and spiked tail to no avail. Each miss drew them deeper into primordial rage, amplified by the unceasing torment and heckling from Chipper. In his frenzied dance, Chipper unleashed sacred lightning, acid and fire which wounded the demons; invoked holy blessings upon them that wracked their unholy and corrupt bodies with such pain, that they either retreated or dug claws into the stone walls; there they struggled to clear their minds from visions of purity and holiness that were anathema to their kind.

Between volleys of deadly arrows Nelson sniped at the Nabassu with one of his wands. When one of the flying beasts slammed head-first into the wall, he shouted in triumph as its corpse slid to the landing and left a trail of hissing acidic blood behind. His victory was short lived though, as the air dislocated behind him, and he knew the demon has only appeared to die: an illusion which he had fallen for.

Eight hundred pounds of demonic bone, flesh, talon and fang pummeled Nelson with hammer-like blows; the stone-hard skin magic absorbed many, until, exhausted, it dissipated into nothingness. Nelson managed to get both wands into line with the beasts’ chest, and unleashed them at point-blank range as it slammed his head with a double-fisted hammer-strike.

Stunned, Nelson lay vulnerable for a precious few seconds as he struggled to clear his head. Blood flowed from his nose, split lips, one ear and countless smaller cuts; he discovered, as he recovered enough to stand, that his hearing was almost gone. Of the Nabassu, upon one look at its torn and pulverized form, he knew there would be no hope for recovery.

His grin of delight quickly dissipated as a howl of pain and despair from below swept on past. The demonic archers took advantage of his lowered guard…

₰₰​

The wolf-headed fiend knew it was in deep trouble as it pivoted this way and that, barely able to keep up with the relentless assault by Elsa with axe and spell. Time and again she unleashed a whirlwind of enervating cold, searing white-hot lightning, orbs of acid and of reaveing sound. Sometimes the fiends heritage and resistance to magic prevented injury; often as not, it was hurled by the impacts into hard stone.

Elsa continued her hammering, unrelenting assault, determined to end this fight on her terms. She knew better than to give the fiend a moment to recover, for it could easily gain the vital edge that would turn her victory into a decisive, and quite final, defeat.

Twice more lightning arced across the landing, twice more the fiend howled in immortal pain and despair. It launched itself forward in an all-out assault, blasts of amethyst-colored lightning leading the way. It watched with undiluted horror as Elsa literally ran up the wall, jumped forward and somersaulted to land behind it. The great axe swept about and deflected her axe, the force of the impact numbing its arms.

Blow upon blow the two assailants delivered, axe upon axe, and the fiend retreated ever closer to the edge of the landing. Never in its ageless existence had it met such a foe! No matter what moves or techniques it tried, the cat-girl was always two steps ahead of it on offense or defense; not one opening presented itself in her fighting style, not one!

The devil decided there was nothing left to lose, fully aware that in the cat-girl before him, that death prepared to come and banish it back to the infernal worlds for a century or more. It raised its great axe high, charged it with unholy black magic of vileness, corruption, and death; then it roared, and threw itself forward in an all out do-or-die charge…

It got exactly three steps into the charge before it froze in place, the great axe slid from its hands to clang on the stone floor as the fiend began to shake in fear. “No…no…this is impossible, you cannot be one of them, they do not exist…” it said as it tried to deny what its own eyes beheld, that its own deepest fears acknowledged as truth.

It looked into Elsa’s eyes, twin pools of eternal blackness, and knew absolute despair of the damned.

As Elsa advanced, one relentlessly steady step at a time, the fiend wished for obliteration.

Elsa lifted one hand and touched its muzzle and said, “And so your wish is granted.” And so it came to be, and the fiend was obliterated.
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:rose:for all who have read the continuing adventures.

 

₰₰ Book One: Chapter Thirteen ₰₰
​

His howl of pain echoed loud and long, for three arrows pierced the enchanted robes, and sunk deep into his hip and leg. Magically created acid burned flesh and wracked him with ever growing pain while muscles began to flex and tighten of their own violation. He struggled to get behind the statue again, teeth gritted in pure rage at his moment of supreme carelessness; steeled himself and took hold of an arrow with both hands, prepared for the massive pain to come as he ripped it free of his flesh: fiery blasts of agony crashed and buffeted his mind as the arrow refused to yield, its magic binding unholy steel to mortal flesh until death came to claim Nelson.

Nelson tried again and again to dislodge the arrow, knowing it would only be a matter of time before one of the demons realized his vulnerability, and come to end his life. Born of pure anger and desperation, he hit upon an unorthodox idea: clenching the arrow in his hip in a death-grip, he called out words of cabalistic power that sizzled and distorted the very air around it. His hands glowed with white-hot flame that ate away at the enchanted arrow, until, at long last, it vanished in a steaming cloud of ash and metal; the remaining two arrows followed it in turn.

Hearing the now all-too-familiar pop of displaced air, Nelson struggled to his feet, only to topple face-forward as his leg refused to support his weight. Looking up, he saw three of the arrow-demons malicious grins of evil delight. Each of them secured twin recurve bows across their backs and drew four gleaming scimitars that shed an evil, malevolent red light; the fourth of their number held a rams-headed staff which charged the air with magical mayhem about to be unleashed.

“Time for you to die human,” the fifth demon declared as it emerged from the shadows to join the rest.

Something deep inside of Nelson snapped and unleashed a flood of power such as he never dreamed of before. His eyes blazed with white iridescent flames as he spoke a single word of great power, a word older than the foundations of the cosmos itself. it was a word which the demonic entities knew was the end of their existence on this world.

The five Arrow-demons and surviving Nabassu screamed in pain and rage, their senses overloaded by visions of holiness made manifest, purity and righteousness overcame and consumed their corrupt, vile and desolate souls as their physical shells vanished in sacred flames until nothing remained save fine ash.

Overawed, unable to comprehend what mayhem he had just unleashed, Nelson began to shake in terror until Chipper raced over and stared at the lad.

Chipper asked, in wide-eyed wonder, “Nelson, how did you do that? Such magic only the most powerful and righteous of goodly priests can even dream of executing, and yet…” he looked around and shook his head at the proof of what Nelson had done. Turning back to the lad, Chipper was about to speak when he noted the pain on his face and beheld the savage injuries he had taken from the demons. “Not good, not good. Hang on Nelson and I’ll get you patched up what I can. Sometimes having been a priest of nature in my last life can come in handy.”

Chipper leaped up onto Nelsons hip, apologized when he winced and hissed in pain, and, after examining the wounds on hip and leg, declared: “Nelson, I can heal the physical wounds easily enough; the poison in your system is going to take some doing and you will feel a great deal of pain. I’m sorry, but my magic can only do so much; I need you to grit your teeth,” Chipper hesitated and gulped, “and think of Elsa, plus what she has come to mean to you and likewise from her.”

Nelson steeled himself, nodded to Chipper and said, “Do it.”

Red hot, savage, primordial pain filled Nelsons world as Chipper invoked one sacred blessing after another until the acidic venoms were purged; flesh rendered hale and whole; and the evil demonic corruption removed from his body. He lay still for some time while Chipper attended to his other injuries, commenting here and there on Nelsons need to learn to ‘duck and avoid the blows in the fist place.’

Once finished, Chipper leaped to the ground and looked Nelson over. Finding no more injuries or reasons for alarm, he said, “Rest for a moment, and then we need to get out of here. There is no way any creature above or below us failed to hear that mess we wrought on these idiotic demons and devils.”

Chipper grinned and punched Nelson on his knee with a clenched forepaw as he said, “By the way, good job handling yourself in the fight; a bit of refinement is needed, but that will come with more practice. Now that we know demons and devils are in the area we need to get to Elsa and warn her.”

For once, Nelson was glad Chipper refrained from his normal scything commentary and seemed genuinely to regard him as a friend.

His eyes fell upon the rams-headed staff left behind when the demons perished; and he sensed the latent power which had returned to slumber in its depths. “Chipper, what about that staff? Is it safe to handle or even wield? I sense the power within it, but I cannot tell if it’s fell, benign or something more that can be used safely by a human.”

Chipper scurried over to the staff and examined it for some time.

He cast three different spells of revelation to learn all he could of its abilities, shook his head in bemusement and told to Nelson, “The staff in-and-of itself is safe for you to wield. It is enchanted to serve as a weapon and possesses other powers related to the magic of illusions: there are other traits hidden within its depths, unusable save to an master of illusions such as yourself. Take it up Nelson, and learn to harness its power with respect and great care. Remember, it’s a tool, akin to the arrows stored in a quiver; great harm can be inflicted, and once loosed not be halted. Yet it has only so much power to yield, don’t get reckless with it.”

Nelson stood, walked over to Chipper and claimed the staff as his own. Five feet in length, light as a feather and perfectly balanced, he sensed the rams-head magic along with the other magic that rested within. “Incredible, it is incredible,” he said, amazed by the mastery of magic and craftsmanship that went into the making of such a treasure. It reminded him of how far he still had to go before he mastered enough esoteric lore and secrets of magic to craft such wonders with his own hands.

Chipper grinned at the lad, understanding his moment of pure, innocent delight. “Yes it is incredible Nelson; I have seen the same on countless magicians of your age and ability. And I assume I held the same expression on my own, with the first item such as that I ever held and claimed as my own.” Chipper leaped high and perched on Nelsons shoulder as he continued, “mind you, this staff is of only middling power; if you wish, assuming we ever get out of the Labyrinth, I can pass onto you the secrets of making such a staff. It will be a few years before you can fully do so, but when the time comes, the knowledge will already be a part of your repertoire.”

Nelson looked at the squirrel, saw his offer was sincere and said, “Deal. And if we can, I may be able to craft something for you. Probably nothing more than a trinket, but I did learn how to craft simple defensive items such as bracers and vests: they make the wearer harder to hit, deflect blows, or endow them with a slight boost to health, reflexes or their willpower. It’s not going to be much, but any edge can help. Again, assuming we get out of this Labyrinth…” His eyes flared wide as he remembered something, “Elsa! We have to get to Elsa and help her out, if the demons and devils were here…”

“Then it would stand to reason the boss of them was downstairs waiting for me,” Elsa declared as she climbed up the last stairs to join them on the landing.

Chipper howled in joy and rushed over to her, leaped up to her shoulder and fired off a barrage of questions so fast no one could understand them.

Nelson had rushed over and gave her a crushing bear hug, then released her as quickly when she hissed in pain. He stepped back and noted the layers of grit, grease, soot, blood and gore across her head, arms, cloak and her fantastic armor. She held one gore-soaked axe painfully in her hand, and winced every time its magic pulsated and charged the air with the sensation of a pending thunder storm.

“Elsa, what happened? Are you alright? What…” Nelson struggled to find the proper words, unable to imagine the ferocious battle she must have fought. Battered, bruised, exhausted and yet victorious; then shook in horror, for ten demons had nearly finished him and Chipper off. Only the sudden and mysterious surge of mystic might that Nelson unleashed with but a word had saved them, no matter what Chipper might say to the opposite. He could not imagine what Elsa faced with nearly a hundred of the fiends and no one to help her.

He noticed upon her cheek a lone crimson tear and held his words in check, out of respect for whatever other secrets Elsa still held as her own.

Elsa winced, clearly in a great deal of pain as Chipper jumped to her shoulder, danced around and told the story of how Nelson had brought their fight to a conclusion. “Elsa, I could not believe it,” Chipper said, his eyes alive with delight and mischief, “somehow Nelson was able to employ the rarest of priestly magic. He uttered a word of divine power and holiness that wrecked such devastation on the demons. One moment we’re on the ropes, and the next, BOOM, no more beasties, and Nelson has his new staff!”

Chipper held one forepaw up to delay the inevitable questions of Elsa, “I’ve already checked it out, and Nelson was extremely cautious before even daring to lift it in his hands. As reckless as most youngsters tend to be he has shown considerably more common sense than most his age.” Chipper grinned and gave Nelson a thumb up as he added, “Though he still has this thing about boxing with a Nabassu while magically cursed arrows rain down around him.”

“He is alright Elsa, any damage taken has been patched up,” Chipper hastily added upon seeing the alarmed look on Elsa’s face. “All of his faculties are intact, including the secondary set of brains you enjoy so much with him in the furs.”

Nelson blushed, and Elsa squealed as her cheeks flushed red with heat and embarrassment.

She sheepishly grinned, stowed her axe in her belt next to its twin, and said, “Somehow I should have known. You have the blood of an angelic being in your veins; and not removed by countless generations. As with me, you also walk between two worlds; no wonder you take to magic with such ease.” At his look of equal parts shock, denial and consternation she laughed a pain-filled laugh which reminded one of a sibilant whisper of a ghost.

“Now then,” she continued as she let Nelson take her up in his arms, “to answer your question. I found the boss of the devils, not that of the demons. It was an annoyance with the usual dire threats, claims of superiority and boasted of ‘torture soul’ and ‘eternal enslavement.’ It gloated, it got annoying, and then it died. Usual stuff when I have to deal with those hide-bound brutes. Unfortunately five score of its brethren rushed through a magical archway and proved more vexing than their now deceased kin.”

“Magical archway, you found another one of those things like the ones that nearly killed us up in the maze of passages?” Nelson shook his head as he adjusted his grip.

Before Nelson could move, Elsa bent in close and whispered, “Take me down the stairs, third landing where there are two lion-statues instead of the usual one. Mind you, those statues are actually a pair of grand dragon statues that make an arch, the same arch through which the devils kindred came through.”

Nelson’s eyes flared wide as he grasped what she was saying, “The Dragon Arch? Something like that had been mentioned in the journal. It’s one of the key landmarks to lead us to the gateway…”

She nodded and said, “Yes, I think we have found our means of egress from this madhouse of a staircase. We’re going to double and triple check everything to make sure. The clues are in the journal, we just have not figured them out yet; so that is as good a place to begin…WHOA!!!”

Elsa screamed in delight, her arms tight around Nelson’s neck and shoulders as he literally leaped upon the railing, then slid, ran and jumped down to the third landing in record time. When he halted before the double lion-statues she grinned, kissed him on the cheek and screamed as he tossed her high into the air, his whoop of triumph and jubilation mixed with hers of pure terror. Three times more Nelson did this over her continuing protests, until; at last, the inevitable happened: he missed and she wound up on the floor, cursing and clutching her injured posterior.

Nelson grinned the grin of the damned, knowing her full wrath was about to come down on his head. He waved his hands before him as he backstepped; then he leaped behind the nearest lion-statue, hoping against hope to avoid any magical death she was about to loose upon his head.

Elsa, hackles raised, ears flat against her head, pure frustrated feline female fury rolling off of her like waves in a hurricanes heart, advanced and growled at Nelson. Her sleek tail flattened out, fists clenched tight in rage as she debated just how she was going to return the undignified insult he had delivered to her. Accident or not, some things a proper cat-girl (if there is such a thing) cannot ignore, and being unceremoniously dumped on ones posterior is near the top of the list!

She was half-way across the landing when a small object crossed before her, screaming in wild delight as it bolted for the magical doorway. She bolted for cover, jumping at the last moment, was caught by Nelson and pulled her cloak over the two of them as he spun about to absorb her momentum, and plopped to the ground.
“Hang on Nelson, Chippers about to do it to us again!” she screamed out as the insane squirrel triggered one more booby trap.

The obliterating storm of flame burst upon them as a newborn sun. Temperatures, pressures and forces that few could conceive of enveloped the landing, and surged three levels above and below. Infernal creatures closing upon the companions barely comprehended that death was upon them before they ceased to be. For an eternity the firestorm rolled forth, one undulating wavy upon the next, until, at long last, it dissipated as if it never had been.

Underneath the sheltered confines of her cloak, Elsa and Nelson held each other in a death-grip; terrified to no end, they understood that only the enchanted material held final annihilation at bay. Their lungs burned, as the air hissed, crackled and popped; their ears were assailed by the roar of a thousand volcanic detonations that detonated as one; perspiration sizzled into steam, eyes stung and exposed flesh turned lobster red from the intense heat generated within their little haven.

Finally, Elsa pulled her cloak back. She and Nelson began to hack and cough, lungs burned from the desperate need for cool air, while parched throats inflicted savage revenge upon them for any effort to speak undertaken.

Nelson sat up and gasped for air; then guzzled down an entire skin of water Elsa had placed in his hands. His first view of the landing was one of absolute horror: the very stones had been rendered to dust to a depth of six inches or more; and beyond, deep cracks, frozen waterfalls and rivulets of molten rock hissed and steamed as they froze for eternity into new shapes. He looked at the wall behind him and gasped, for the area sheltered by Elsa’s cloak had been spared, and casted a harsh contrast of light stone against blackened death.

He turned to her, and silently gestured to the devastation around them.

She finished off her own water skin, examined her locks of hair and her tail, and groaned at the scorched hairs she found. With a self-depreciated look she said to him: “This trap was different from all the others for one simple reason; that firestorm replicated the flaming breath of the eldest and largest of dragons one can ever have the misfortune to run into. Forget what the bards and skalds sing about, I know this because I have danced with a couple of dragons before. They caused trouble to some farmers on one occasion, and so I dealt with them.”

Nelson shook his head at the calm, casual manner in which Elsa related such a statement. “Dragon hunter, I am surprised even though I should not be. Is there anything you and Chipper have not run into or defeated…” He suddenly looked around, his voice growing to fevered levels. “Chipper, is he still alive?”

Elsa gestured with one hand as she doffed her cloak and shook it hard to remove the accumulated ash and soot. “Over there, he is rather ticked off at the moment.”

Nelson watched as an irate Chipper waltzed over to him and Elsa. His fur was scorched and covered with so much ash and soot, that he appeared to be a creature made of coal.

With a great ash-filled snort Chipper gestured to the archway and impatiently said, “I have confirmed where the next portal is located: there between the two lion statues; which actually happened to be magically concealed dragons; shaped into an archway. Not that I doubted you earlier Elsa, but I wanted to double check for myself.”

He gestured to the wall with his forepaws as he rather calmly and sarcastically continued, “Unfortunately the blasted things proved faster in breathing fire than I had anticipated. Otherwise I would have given you two due warning.” He curled up, glared at the two statues and said as he rested his head on his tail: “Now then, I am going to get some sleep while you two do whatever young love birds do all too often, try not to scream too loud Elsa…” he mumbled as his eyes closed, “…at least someone has to use some common sense among us to keep us alive…”

Nelson replied in a deadpan tone, as he genuflected to the squirrel: “Thank you oh mighty Chipper, for all this time I assumed you were simply insane. Now I know you have common sense and insanity wrapped into one. Thanks for proving me wrong.” He looked at Elsa, who was smoothing out her amber locks, and said, “No longer will anyone say I’m the most reckless of our team…”

Chipper opened his eyes are prepared an angry retort to scold Nelson, decided otherwise and closed them again. He said as he drifted off to sleep: “Oh brother, what is it with you two love birds? Every time we make more progress you assume its time to go for a roll in the furs.” He snorted, sending great clouds of ash into the air and continued: “Why not, it’s not like the archway is going anywhere soon.”

As Elsa and Nelson giggled the bounced into each other, fell to the floor entangled in each others arms, and gave off a great laugh until Chipper commented: “Elsa, do set some alarm magic out first; I would prefer not to have a massive demon or devil show up and devour me while I’m asleep. Gnawing one’s way out of a demons gullet is a most revolting way to start a day.”

₰₰

​

The Guardian collapsed to the floor and blood trickled from its eyes, ears, nose and mouth as the unrelenting mental assault by its masters dissipated. It had reported the disappearance of the cat-girl and her companions into the great stairwell, and that they had yet to emerge in the remainder of the Labyrinth. A thousand times before it had delivered such reports, and not once had the masters inflicted such pain and torture, flaying the mind, body and soul a thousand times over within the beating of a heart.

The greatest of the Masters, its name so vile that the Guardian dared never contemplate it let alone say it out in the open air, had lashed out with such fury that annihilation had threatened. “You fool, you arrogant fool I had ordered you to destroy them; to destroy the cat-girl and you have failed. You have utterly failed and allowed the Sojourner to gain an incalculable edge over our faction! Go and destroy them, pierce the heart of the stairwell and then find the Sojourner and destroy it once and for all; do not concern yourself with personal safety for it will be better for you to die or I shall annihilate you with my own hands!”

The greatest master withdrew from the Guardians mind, leaving it in silently endured pain as it grinned and then gave off a wild, victorious cheer. It climbed to its feet and declared, “FREEDOM, FREEDOM, at long last from you cowards and abominations; now you shall truly know my wrath and that of my minions!”

The Guardian had played a desperate, calculated and bold move, one its former masters had not anticipated it to be capable of: any sentient being held captive by such magic, upon being ordered to commit to its own death by its captors, was duly freed from the bondage. Such are the deepest, most ancient laws and tenants of magic; and so the shackles upon its mind and soul have torn free, and it would have its revenge.

The Guardian snorted, “Or at least by a more indirect route. The magic of the gateway still binds me to dwell in the Labyrinth, my ancestral home. Yet it does not prevent me from NOT confronting the cat-girl and her strange companions.”

It mulled a plan over in its head, and decided, “I will not oppose them, though I cannot guarantee all of those who live in the Labyrinth will be of the same mind. If anything, I can ease their travel to a degree, once they are beyond the stairwell, and aid them in finding the gateway to the cosmos beyond.” It knew there would be one major barrier that it could not help the companions past: ‘Old Sparky,’ a captive of its old masters, and one now beyond the Guardians ability to control or influence.

The Guardian grinned, an audacious idea coming to the fore. It closed its eyes, focused its iron-will until all lingering sensations of pain dissipated, and extended its consciousness across the cosmos. In mere moments, at the accelerated speed of thought itself, it held a conversation with one whom it could trust and detailed all of which had transpired in the Labyrinth.

It grinned at the response: “Thank you, tell me when I may be able to assist you and I will lend what aid I can. In regard to your former captors, the one they serve, and the Sojourner for that matter, the time left to them in the cosmos grows shorter by the day. Our great game is soon to reach a culmination and one or both will be swept from the board. On that day, I shall declare to the cosmos at large: ‘Good Riddance to bad garbage.’”

 

₰₰ Book One: Chapter Fourteen ₰₰


​

Seated before one of the great statues Nelson struggled to keep the annoyance from distracting his effort. He extended his hand palm-side up; focused on the desired effect and softly whispered the cabalistic words of power. As the last past his lips he began a silent count to eighteen, and grew a wide grin as a blazing yellow-white ember of light erupted into momentary existence. A moment later, a second ember, identical to the first, burst forth and vanished, exactly as he planned.

He replayed the entire event in his mind, analyzing every critical detail for the smallest error or flaw. Finding none, he decided the next illusion he would employ, and selected a spot roughly one-hundred paces forward, and ten below the landing. “If it goes boom in open air, the entire better for nothing is there,” he said to himself.

His body twitched and squirmed, and his struggle grew to ignore the problem. As he refocused his mind, the annoyance shifted to his back, hips and inner thighs: he redoubled his effort to concentrate and turned his hand palm-side down. One soft, heated distraction after another moistly pressed against his neck, the temperature of his body surged to unprecedented levels; desires great and small clashed against his determination and iron-will for control of his mind and focus.

He whispered the cabalistic words and nodded as a soft ice-blue ribbon of misted frost swirled around his hand and forearm. In accordance to his will, it surged forward with alacrity towards the selected point: it detonated in a silent blast of multicolored bubbles which drifted into the unknown depths below. A quick twelve count later, exactly as Nelson desired, a second blast, identical to the minutest detail, occurred.

Three times more he cast the same spell, once by his silent desire and of willpower alone. Each time the ribbon whirled and danced along alternate paths, as if in pursuit of unknown, unseen and unstoppable foes. Three more times the double burst of bubbles occurred, and at long last Nelson stopped and nodded at the small measure of control he has gained from the practice.

₰


​

On silent wings the great creature ascended the stairwells central shaft. It sensed, and then heard the activities on the landing far above and knew the enemy was close. Fists stronger than stone tightened their grip upon a great scythe made of black nothingness, while great wings with sickly greasy-gray feathers flapped to bring it ever upward, ever closer to the companions, and especially the young human who had defeated demons and devils alike with such ease.

Three levels below the companions it lighted upon the stairwell railing, folded its wings tight against its body and lifted a vulture-like head to take in the view: instantly it spied the young human and sensed the controlled manner in which he carried out his casting of one spell upon another. Calling upon its demonic heritage, the creature, a beast commonly named V’rock, vanished, instantly rendered invisible and inaudible to any but beings not of this world.

It moved with stealth and grace that belied its ferocious appearance and great size and mass. Silent as death, it climbed the stairs one by one, reminding itself to be patient, and savor the kill when it came. It only needed one touch with its scythe, and the human would perish in the body, while his soul would be drawn into the scythe and annihilated for all time.

₰


​

The annoyance, the bane of his current trial and travail, shifted to the back of his neck with the softest of caress that combined moist sensations, a teasing flicker across his flesh, and the sensuous heat and smells of breathe unique to one dear to his heart. The annoyances delicate appendages explored his body, played across his bare chest and made a determined effort to elicit a laugh or giggle form his most ticklish of regions.

Nelson redoubled his efforts to tune out these distractions as he clenched his fist and held it before his face. In the open void of the stairwell a seething, writhing, rolling and boiling morass of black clouds appeared and raged in ferocity with flashes of lightning and thunderous retorts. Moments later, white-hot blasts of lightning lanced into the heavens and the depths; the thunder amplified, one crashing roar amplified upon the next until a cacophony of noise shook the very stones to their roots.

A moment later Nelson unclenched his hand and willed the magical illusion to dissipate and for many a minute the sensation of a wild storm at play lingered coyly in the air.

The annoyance redoubled its effort to distract him, the soft hands sliding into his britches and stimulating with vigorous activity his manhood. Nelson decided enough was enough and it was time to turn the tables: He cast one last spell by sheer force of will, and chuckled as a silk shirt popped into view and gracefully came to rest across his forearm; the resulting scream of rage from the one who annoyed him so made him laugh all the greater.

Elsa slapped him on the shoulder as she screamed, “Nelson, that’s cheating!”

“How is it cheating Elsa?” Nelson asked of her, “You stated that in this lesson you would do the best you could to distract me. You did your best and I followed your teaching as best as I can understand it at this time; so with the lesson ended, I decided to try for some extra credit by demonstrating a bit of useful magic to you.”

Nelson pivoted around to face Elsa, sarcastically saluted her and offered her shirt back. “I believe this belongs to you Elsa.” He leaned in close to her and whispered as he pointed to one dragon statue, “Though I believe the statue may be a Letcher in the guise of a dragon-statue masquerading as a lion-statue. It must appreciate the bared form of a most-lovable and desirable cat-girl named Elsa the Beautiful.”

Furious beyond measure, Elsa snatched it up and then, suddenly conscious of her state of undress, pulled it and her arms across her bared bosom. “Nelson, that is not very nice! At the very least you could have warned me of your intention, what do you think Chipper would say about such audacity on your part!”

Chipper climbed onto Nelsons lap as the lad donned his shirt and robes. He looked at Elsa and, with a shrug of his shoulders said, “Fair’s fair in my book Elsa. I have to say, with you trying to distract him so much: kissing, hugging and teasing every portion of the poor boys anatomy, he did remarkably well. Between the two of us tutoring him, we may make him into a fairly competent magician yet.”

Nelson sagely nodded at Chipper as he said, “It’s a start. I know there is much yet to learn to even dream of such skill as you and Elsa possess. Without the guidance Elsa has given me my abilities would be completely pathetic instead of merely incompetent.”

Chipper turned on Nelson and tapped his forepaw into the lad, creasing his shirt. “Nelson, never doubt such of yourself; you have an honest understanding of what you can and cannot do to this point. Keep to that and as you grow into ever greater command of magic and other skills, you will discover things once thought impossible are now only ‘near impossible’ or ‘moderately hard.’ One rule of the illusionist is that belief grants power to the illusion generated: the reverse is true, doubt in your own abilities and skill will weaken the illusion and allow an adversaries mind a better chance to resist the effects you desire to achieve.”

Elsa straightened out her shirt and donned her magical armor as she said to Nelson: “He is right, you have such potential that you can become, given enough time, one of the greatest magicians known in the cosmos. I had to learn about self-doubt such as Chipper describes; the only difference is it occurred at a time I really needed my magic just to survive.” She silently swept her hands through a cabalistic pass and wove the magic of her spell to appear just behind Nelson. “One of the worst times to lose confidence in yourself is in the presence of an annoyed dragon about to have you for dinner.”

Nelson looked at Elsa with terror in his eyes as he inquired, “Dragon?”

“Yes, dragon, big dragon,” she calmly stated and indicated with a nod something behind his shoulder. She gave off an audible gulp as her hand drifted to the axe secured in her belt; the other lay among her gear nearby, but too far at this time. She looked at Nelson and nervously said, “Big dragon…”

“Dragon, big dragon, such as the one behind you human who is my dinner-to-be,” called a booming voice from behind Nelson. He felt the hot breath and smelled brimstone as the great beast exhaled, felt the stone vibrate as the beast shifted its weight further forward on the landing. Stone audibly snapped and cracked as the beasts iron hard claws found purchase and slowly tapped at the dragon’s building impatience.

₰


​

The demon smiled as the cat-girls dragon appeared. It recognized instantly the truth: the beast was nothing more than imagination and memory given substance and form, a creation of starlight (which pained it to no end) and crafted with great skill. A second insight came to it – the dragon illusion presented the perfect opportunity for a surprise assault. Passing though it would wrack its demonic being with pain, but such it was willing to endure for the sake of taking down the human and the cat-girl.

A double kill for minimal effort, and then it can return to its infernal home, free at last from servitude to the Sojourner.

It unfolded its wings and leaped forward, crossing the distance to the dragon-illusion inside a heartbeat. As the magical starlight subsumed into its very being and great pain threatened to cripple it, the demon held out and grabbed the warped railing around the landing.

With a grin, it brought the scythe horizontal to its chest and prepared to strike…

So did another…

₰


​

Elsa grinned, delighted at the patience, resilience and calm shown by Nelson in the matter. The dragon, nearly one-hundred feet long, scales that glowed red-hot, eyes akin to molten metal. Steam rose in columns from its nose and brimstone filled the air, causing all who would breathe it in to choke and gasp for dear life. In the trade of crafting magical illusions this was one of her most favored and best defined: that of an angry red dragon, a figment given form and definition by threads of starlight magic woven into it.

“Nelson, the dragon is a…” She got no further, for Nelson unleashed an onslaught of such speed and ferocity it caught her completely off-guard.

Nelson whirled and shouted a lone mystical word of great power. Four brilliant white-hot, diamond-ice-tinted, ribbons of sacred fire danced around him. The ribbons of fire raced forward to strike, to rend, to consume his foe as he held out his hand and called for the rams-headed staff to come to him.

Elsa stared in horror as the staff vanished from sight and reappeared in his clenched fist. She cried out “Nelson, don’t do anything! The dragon is not…”

Too late, for she was bodily flung against the wall by the four simultaneous detonations that reaved the air apart around the dragon-image. Bruised, blinded, deafened and stunned, Elsa curled up and moaned for some time as she struggled to regain control of her faculties; she flinched as Nelson swept her up in his arms and pulled her close.

Nelson whispered to her, “The dragon is gone,” over and over, unaware her hearing was all but shattered. He did hear the constant, deep, resonating music which flowed and surged around the landing, the statues and all else from some unknown point of origin. He ignored it and focused his attention on Elsa, who softly mewled in pain.

Slowly Elsa felt the regenerative powers of her heritage begin to knit and mend broken bones, rejuvenate torn muscle and ease the throbbing sensation in her head and body. “What did you hit it with…” she tried to say, the words coming out half-slurred from the pain and confusion that still held her tight.

Chipper rushed from behind one of the great statues and leaped up to her shoulder. He checked her over, placed both forepaws upon her cheek and called out blessings of healing which restored her eyesight, hearing and then mended the few wounds her heritage did not.

Not one of them noticed the torn and pulverized carcass of the V’rock tear free of the railing and return to the eternal depths below, very dead.

“Now then, will someone tell me what happened?” Chipper asked of them. “I heard someone say ‘dragon, big dragon’ and I dove for cover; next thing I know Nelson unleashed a quartet of those ribbons of fire and used the boom-boom powers of his staff.”

Elsa sheepishly looked at Nelson as she said, “Nelson, I was putting you through one more lesson in the fine art of concentration. The problem is it backfired upon me in style; the dragon was only made of starlight woven to give it partial reality – something like a poltergeist, one of those ghosts that is able to physically move or toss things around and harm people just by physical blows. Next time I’ll know better, or, at the least, get myself out of the way. What the heck did you hit my illusion with?”

Nelson looked away from her, distracted by the melodious sounds that flowed, and asked Elsa and Chipper if they heard the same. Both remained still, smiled and nodded, though they too wondered at the origin of this strange, eerie and other-worldly sound.

Elsa looked at Nelson and repeated her question: “What the heck did you hit my illusion with?”

Nelson picked up his staff and explained, “Remember the seven spells I was granted knowledge of back at the double doors with the dragons upon it?” When Elsa and Chipper nodded he continued, “The one I used has the effect of replicating and amplifying to ferocious intensity any sound I have heard before. It was to be a massive thunderclap focused upon the dragon a moment after being hit by the four ribbons of sacred fire. The diamond-ice aspect is a variation on the basic spell itself: freezing cold, after intense flame of sacred blessing, that the dragon could not resist; followed by a sudden and abrupt hammer blow against its armored hide.”

Elsa nodded in approval for she remembered her own lessons in such matters. “Fire heats, Ice chills, and for an instant the object is weakened and vulnerable to a crushing blow of sufficient force. In such means stone, metal or other things can be destroyed with efficient and economical usage of magic. Not a bad approach, but I still do not see how you managed FOUR such blasts at once?”

Nelson gestured to the rams-headed staff with one hand. “I have heard that some magical staffs, such as this one, can be used to channel the mystical power of a spell. In this way, the effect is strengthened many times over as the owner desires. Thus the spell was amplified in strength and force, multiplied in number, and,” he gave Elsa a wry-filled grin of contrition, “thus all the more devastating against anyone hit by the accumulated forces. I had intended it for the ‘dragon.’ You crafted it so realistically that I could not tell the difference.”

Chipper interrupted the discussion: “Nelson, not to sound impertinent but what name will you give to the magic you now command? Please, use some discretion and not pick an outrageous name that demonstrates the ego of humanity…” he shushed at the look Elsa gave him, “…and the egotism of certain squirrels in your presence.”

“How does ‘Thunderbolt’ or ‘Thunder Strike’ sound to you two?” Nelson inquired.

Elsa teasingly kissed him on the cheek and said, “Since you can focus it into a sphere of effect, or a single bolt of devastation like a lightning bolt, consider it as two distinct variations: thus Thunder Strike for the area effect and Thunderbolt for the precision strike.”

She looked at Nelson and kissed him a second time, teasingly put one finger on his nose and said, “Now that the fun of today is done, let’s get to work on opening this archway. We’ve had a day free of any opposition coming for us; but this means they are watching and waiting, so the sooner were gone, the sooner we get to that blasted gateway.”

₰₰


​

As she stood before the twin statues Elsa looked from the ancient journal, to the statues, and then to the wall itself. She gave a melancholy filled sigh and let her feline ears fall against her head, tail twined around one leg and her eyes filled with frustration and simmering anger. She eased the journal closed and shook her head, and said “Nothing, absolutely nothing. I thought we had it that time, but now I have to wonder if we are heading on another false trail. What are we missing? What is the truth of the matter, and what is hidden away within layers upon layer of deception?”

Nelson came over to her side and asked, “Let’s start from the beginning then. We have tried all the other tricks and ideas from the last two doors, to no avail.” He pointed to the wall upon which Elsa had discovered faintly carved twin dragons akin to the first twin doors they passed. The images around the dragons told the tale of how the first twin doors had been created emplaced, and the celebration by celestial beings beyond count which had followed. “This labor alone must have taken a thousand exalted beings a hundred years to accomplish, and they dedicated themselves to it with such devotion any mortal priest pales in comparison. I’m going to look them over a second time, and yes I know not to touch the door and unleash another holocaust as Chipper did earlier.”

From Elsa’s shoulder Chipper softly snorted and said, “I’ll check out the statues themselves for another time. They are safe enough, or so I hope, and it’s better than doing nothing.” He leaped high into the air and landed on the left-hand statue, then raced here and there in an insane effort to discover anything he missed.

For her part, Elsa reopened the journal and sought any information on the archway before them. “Twin lion-statues that are disguised dragons. The author left no information on it other than what he named it, plus the three drawings of it. Three identical drawings…”

Nelson and Chipper heard her comment, turned and looked at her as she began to mull this over. “We got the first door open more by dumb luck than anything else. The second one had layers woven in layers; it finally opened when the truth of our disagreements was cast into the light and finally resolved. Now we have another set of contradictions: the two statues, they are dragons disguised as lions; the images worked into the wall and the three identical drawings in the journal. Truth revealed and truth concealed hidden in a maze of camouflage and deception…”

“And yet they always have started with something so obvious and simplistic we miss it on the first and tenth times through,” Chipper excitedly from atop the statue.

“Let’s go with Chippers theory, and see what we can figure out before committing to a course of action” Nelson stated, excitement showing on his face. “Right now I would have to say, the most obvious and simplistic part of this puzzle is right before us: the twin lions that are disguised dragons. I have a hunch that the images there on the wall, the statues, and the identical pages are linked: the three pages may not be as identical as we assume it to be. So which part should we tackle first – lion-dragons, the wall or the pages?”

Elsa returned the journal to its protective pouch and headed towards the right-hand statue and grinned, “I think the statues hold the first key. The matter I cannot grasp is why they are dragons disguised as lions?” She held one finger out and pointed at key portions of it, “Look at how the legs are lion-like yet the talons are clearly of a dragon. The torso and head are primary leonine in definition; yet the eyes and whiskers are dragon; they speak of a blending of dragon might and magic, with the nobility, heroism, and honor normally represented by that of a lion. What kind of creature on the hundred worlds I have walked combines such features?”

She and Nelson looked up at Chipper as he softly cursed and slammed his head upon the statue. He gave them a rueful grin and indicated the statue with one forepaw. “They are not beings of this world, but ones of the higher realities in which the angelic and celestial beings call home. That is why we have been having such a hard time with these riddles: they are based on the tenants and ideals of the heavenly realms, definitions of what beings deem as ‘good, holy, just, sacred’ and the like.”

Elsa closed her eyes and shook it as understanding dawned before her. “Of course, these are Foo Dragons!”

Nelson looked at her with some confusion, “What are Foo-dragons? What is the truth about such great beings of the heavenly realms?”

A thousand voices akin to the roar of a thousand storms called out: “Child of the heavens, your question is one of honest discovery and desire for knowledge. Behold, so it is answered, but for the rest, it has already been made manifest. One heart, one mind, one union of note, for the key is not yet it is, between you and your mate of all time.”

Golden fire enveloped the twin statues and danced across the wall. Chipper leaped clear and landed on Elsa’s shoulder in a state of near panic. “What is going on with the things? And what has that young rapscallion done now?”

All three of the companions watched in awe-struck wonder as the golden fire shifted, flowed, altered and then became. Before them stood thirty-foot high, six-footed, great winged statues composed of pure diamond that gleamed like a million suns. Heads and tails touched to form a true archway that pulsated with magic which promised to speed them on their way, and warned of death if they failed to discover the means of entrance.

Elsa, completely thunderstruck, looked sheepishly at Nelson and said, “I guess we solved the first part of this mystery. So what do we do now?”

Nelson shrugged his shoulders and said, “Your guess is as good as mine, though I suspect the three identical pages in the journal might be a good beginning. By the way, what did the voices mean about ‘you and your mate?’ I don’t have a wife, family, or anything else like that, so how can that apply to me?”

Chipper slapped himself on the forehead and explained, with considerable exasperation, to Nelson, “Even you cannot be that ignorant Nelson. Elsa and you are intimate with one another; she is, in matters of the heart, your mate, as you are hers. Sometimes why sentient beings deny the obvious is beyond me! And mind you, I once was one of those very beings such as you Nelson!”

Completely thunderstruck, Nelson choked, gasped, stammered and stuttered in surprise as he looked at Elsa in alarm. She blushed, took up his hand in hers and softly kissed his cheek. “I fell for you almost from the beginning Nelson. And, no, we’re not man and wife, but in the future? Let’s settle that after we get out of the Labyrinth and have ourselves a proper honey moon for a few weeks…”

Nelson gulped and said, “Great, just great, now I am really doomed.”

Chipper gave off a wild, knee-slapping laugh, tears rolling from his eyes, and he said: “True lad, very true, but few human males would complain dying in such a manner. Think of the smile on your face as you perish and pass into the next world, especially during one of Elsa’s mating frenzies: she is insatiable in those times. I’ll have to tell you the full story of the day she visited a monastery and left behind two-hundred very happy monks and visitors a week later.”

“Chipper,” Elsa’s roar shook the very stones and echoed into the depths and heights of the stairwell.

Chipper simply laughed, bowed and gave a courtly salute to Elsa, pleased to no end to have teased such a grand reaction out of her. Elsa, then Nelson, and at long last even Chipper, joined in a grand laugh at the squirrel’s irreverent jesting.

₰


​

Upon the great stone dais the beast sat crossed-legged as a whirlwind of iridescent flames danced and writhed in a living canopy of magical energy. Silently, with patience born of millennia of existence, it observed and heard all which passed between Elsa, Nelson and Chipper; it was not pleased, for it knew the true danger all three of them represented, along with the opportunity if it gained possession of the journal, and the power inherit within the cat-girl.

Around the dais its minions stood at the ready, from the greatest to the least, prepared to rush forth and engage their liege’s foes in mortal combat. And yet, for some reason incomprehensible to them, their liege, the being simply named Malevolence, held them in place, having only stated “The time is not yet ready, for such is the will of the Sojourner for the moment. The time will come when the cat-girl, the one who has cast my son into oblivion, will pay with her life and eternal existence.”

For now, he would watch, wait and test them, for Malevolence had been ordered by the Sojourner not long ago to eliminate them. And so he would carry out the instructions, but in a way as to guarantee victory, and grant him his most desired prizes.

Soon afterward, he would then dispose of the Sojourner.

₰₰


​

Elsa looked at Nelson and said, “It’s time to get back to the riddle and open these doors. We’re close to solving it; I can feel it, almost like I could feel that strange music from when you obliterated the dragon illusion…”

“Music,” Elsa pondered as she looked at the great diamond statues before them. She lowered her head to rest on her hand, deep in thought as she sorted the matter out. Then, in a moment of inspiration, the answer arrived and she whooped in delight. “Music; that is the key: the music of the heavens. The vision you had before Nelson, showed the celestial beings singing at the conclusion of their labors; the musical tones we all heard earlier when your sound attack nearly annihilated the region; and the voices which spoke when the statues transformed to their current state.”

Elsa pulled out the journal, sat upon the floor, and opened it to the identical pages. She tapped them and gave Nelson a loving grin and motioned for him to sit with her.

Nelson slapped his forehead and groaned at the obvious, “Three identical pages: illusionary images upon pages enchanted to reveal their secrets only when a key is presented. Usually it’s a spoken word or phrase: in this case literally a key-note of music. Whoever wrote that journal had a love for puns and bad jokes. But what note?” He sat down with Elsa and looked the pages over as Chipper ran over to them.

“One heart, one mind, one union of note,” Chipper said with some impatience. One forepaw on his hip, and the other shifting between Nelson and Elsa he continued, “For the key is not yet it is, between you and your mate of all time. That is exactly what was declared earlier: you and Elsa, one heart in love; one mind united by the mind magic both of you command; one union of note, a union of songs sung from the heart.”

Nelson and Elsa looked upon Chipper as he continued to explain, “The KEY is not yet is: the magic of love and of song is not between two individuals; it is between two people who have truly become one; and that is the two of you. The two of you are the key to opening this door, and before you question my conclusion Elsa remember what we had figured long ago about the Labyrinth: it tailors itself to all who challenge it, and not just the tower we first encountered.”

Elsa rolled her eyes to the heavens, snorted and softly issued a string of particularly strong curses which caused Nelson to blush. She looked at him and said, “Chipper is usually just annoying with his antics, and with his jests but enough of the time he surprises me with his wisdom and understanding; now it one such time, so now we just need to figure out the note, or how to express it…HMPH!”

Once again, Nelson had caught her off guard and disarmed. He had leaned over and began to kiss her on the lips as one arm slid behind her back, the other around her waist and he literally pulled her into his lap.

Elsa was alternatively thrilled, delighted, chagrinned, exasperated, shocked and pleased to no end along with a thousand other emotions that churned, flowed, surged and rocked her being. She felt the heat of his body against hers, heard the thundering of his heart and blood, and felt the beast within growl and howl for her to take him and feast. With a surge of her iron-will she denied the beast within, leaned into Nelson and wrapped her arms about his neck as her tail teased his back.

Then, much to the chagrin of Chipper, Elsa fell into the kiss with all her heart and soul, and then opened up a telepathic link to Nelson: “I love you Nelson, I honestly do. I never expected to find someone like you and be with you. Do you remember the waterfalls you showed me the first time I showed you how to open your mind to the magic within? Show them to me if you will Nelson, for I want to do something here between us that we cannot safely do in the stairwell…”

With a mental grin, Nelson responded, “As my love and my lady desires so I shall do…”

In less time than one can comprehend, both stood on the shore before the thundering waterfalls. Together they shared in the music older than time: two beings consummated their relationship in the magic of pure thought, open to depths of passion, emotion, and discovery greater than the grandest of dreams given form and life. So it is, in the span of ten breaths they enacted this union ten times, before Nelson’s link with Elsa began to fray as the real world intruded…

“BLAST IT ELSA, will you two lovebirds finally finish rutting with each other and get back here?” Chippers plea drew a shared mental giggle, groan, moan and melancholy sigh from the two lovers. With a final hug, kiss and wave they parted and returned fully to the real world, wondering what Chipper was so blasted excited about this time…

They agreed with Chipper, once the screaming, cursing and thunderous retorts were finished, that the sudden arrival of a sixteen foot high, six-winged, seven-horned, eight-armed, green-scaled, foul-smelling, brimstone-belching, acid-drooling, molten metal-eyed, sword-wielding demon was worth getting excited about.

₰₰


​

Malevolence smiled, vile acidic drool dripped from its wolf-head and hissed as it hit the stone floor. He had to give the squirrel credit, for indeed the demons sudden appearance was worth getting exited about; and, to his delight, he learned of another great prize to seize from the young humans dead hands – the rams-headed staff.

He gave off a low, long, soul-bending growl of pure diabolic delight, stood to his full evil height and said, “Soon, soon, soon…”

With that, he began to call his army together and make plans for the battles to come.

 

Next portion will be up around Wednesday or Thursday.

 

Until going back through the thread I did not see this one. So easy to miss them.

In the case of 'something vaguely vampiric' about Elsa, and her makeup, your on the right path.
Let's just say there is a rather unusual twist or three to it.

All I can ask is for people to be patient: "Old Sparky" will be along soon enough, and then things will really be electrifying...nuff said.

 

₰₰ Book One: Chapter Fifteen ₰₰
​

Rams-headed staff in hand Nelson walked a ways, paused, looked around and listened determined to find any foe which was closing upon them. Twice more he shifted to another area of the landing, gazed into the infinite heights and depths, cringed for a moment at the sight of dozens of hellish green eyes gazing back, and laughed when they suddenly vanished.

Nelson focused his mind and called upon the latest mind magic Elsa had begun to teach: a brief message, one of pure thought born on the whispered winds of psychic energy, reached out to her by the archway. “Elsa, we have company below measuring in the dozens. Smells like rats, brimstone rats, hell rats, swamp rats, devourer rats, plague rats, lunar rats, local politician, or something worse? Any ideas would be appreciated?”

Elsa looked up from the journal and smiled as she gazed upon Nelson. Her ears flicked about, picking up the faint and steady beating of his heart, the soft and methodical breath which flowed in and out his lungs...

All the while the 'beast-within' reminded her of what had happened to ones she had loved in the past. It growled in diabolic delight as she jerked, cringed and ruthlessly tamped it down with demonic fury born of pure rage and despair. It called out as it departed, in a voice akin to the dry leaves born on a hot desert wind: “It is only a matter of time Elsa; you cannot escape it, no matter what you do…I am a part of you, since the fires of creation united us, from when you rose from the darkness of death. I am you and you are me; I have eternity to take command of your body again...”

The 'beast-within' roared as Elsa loosed a crushing fist of psychic energy upon its being. Instantly cowed, it retreated to the deepest shadows of her soul and mind, to bide its time for the next round of their war.

"Now to find those rats," Elsa said and came fully on guard.

A whiff of the air reminded her that even with such vigilance; they can be caught off guard and assailed with relative ease. Through their shared mind-to-mind link she inquired of Chipper, high up on the left hand dragon: “What do you see or know Chipper? Smells like brimstone rats approaching, and in strength; if that’s the case, they will come in a massed swarm or ten when they build up their courage enough.”

Chipper studied the stairwell, sniffed the air and nodded his head as his tail danced here and there, telling all of his nervousness. “Indeed, but there is more right behind them, and one of them is powerful, incredibly powerful at that if I can sense it from this distance. I think we have a Duke of Hell coming towards us, or at the least one of the baronial ranking. Nelson destroyed my illusion of the eight-armed demon easily enough. WHY did you not tell me he could throw around those blasted Thunder Strikes with such lethality? I have NEVER been hit seven times in such short order. Next time I’ll know better. ”

Elsa shook her head, for she had screamed in uttermost terror at the sight of Chippers demon-illusion. Nelson, calm and collective as ever, used his ram-headed staff and struck with surreal magical might as demonstrated by the seven foot deep gash cleaved in the far wall for ten paces in length, and half again as high. “Say what you will, his battle techniques have dramatically improved: demon shows up, so then you smash it with the quickest, deadliest, strongest spell you can employ in the shortest amount of time. His natural abilities are immense, and he commands the basic skills and learning of magic quite well; and unlike most young apprentices, he has an unusual degree of common sense and wisdom to balance out his intellect. I know he has been examining some of the more advanced magic in his spell book but cannot command them as yet; though inside another two or three years, he will use them with ease of a journeyman magician.”

Elsa grinned at such thoughts of Nelson, then squealed and blushed as other thoughts creeped to the fore, ones so blatantly erotic her cheeks blushed hot and she shivered in anticipation. The beast within growled again with infernal delight, and howled in eternal pain as she ruthlessly crushed its with a blast of pure mental energy born of love, hope and affection for Nelson.

Chipper, having sensed the contest between Elsa and the beast within, smiled, tapped her cheek with one paw and gave a thumb up. His continence fell a bit when he saw, and felt, how shaken up Elsa was by this last call from the beast within, and he knew the next great struggle between her two sides was soon to begin in earnest.

₰₰

​

From above death comes on silent steps as a dozen and ten lion-like demons descended the stairwell to confront the companions. The pride’s leader paused, smelled the air and flicked ears forward; its mottled hide glowed orange-red and shifted to match its surroundings; eyes blazed with unholy fires of uttermost black. Briefly, their leader detailed its plan for the coming battle, aware that many of its pride would fall in the coming conflict, yet still confident of the outcome.

“Take down the cat-girl and the human as fast as possible,” its mental voice declared to the rest, “once one has fallen, concentrate on the other with all might and magic you command. After we feast upon their carcasses, we turn to the true hunt below…the Duke of the infernal realms who approaches…”

With that announcement the other pride members growled, hissed and clawed the ground. Moments later, all of them departed, determined to win and then begin their greatest hunt in which they shall claim a diabolic Duke.

₰₰


​

Elsa shuddered, calmed and then continued her conversation with Chipper: “Those robes enhance his ability to shape and command his magic instinctively; and we need to find out exactly what limitations, if any, are placed upon it so he does not push too far, too fast and get into too much trouble. His staff is showing more abilities, more surprises; I don’t think its made just for specialists in illusionary magic…” She paused, mulled it over and shook her head, determined to save this mystery for another time.

Chipper considered the growing might and potential of Nelson, calculated one variable after another, and then, with heart-felt respect for the lad, said: “A year, maybe less; in my old life I had mentored hundreds of mages and priests, from all ranks, classes, abilities and more. Nelson is of immense potential and I too suspect he is of mixed blood – the direct offspring of an angel or other being of ‘good.’ If that is truly the case Elsa, it accounts for his incredible ability with magic of spell and of the mind…let me try something….”

Chipper wove a magical spell used to probe a beings subconscious memories and touched the outer depths of Nelsons mind. He cringed, squealed in fright and severed the connection instantly: a blinding wave of pure psychic energy had gathered, ready to burst forth and strike hard and without mercy at Chipper for his audacity.

As he shook his head clear, the distracted squirrel continued: “Shish, his mental defenses are formidable but he still needs to learn some control over them. Remember Elsa, if we have a devil or demon with such power show up and strike, it may be the only edge he has against it.”

“Yes I know, I’ve seen it first hand, so to speak when he and I…” Elsa blushed and shuddered in delight at the fond moments she and Nelson have shared in such intimacy, so many desires, dreams, hopes and more they shared in their mind-to-mind communions that held no secrets between the two of them. She focused back on the discussion with Chipper: “He had come far; under the tutoring I’ve been able to give him. Consider how extensive his repertoire of spells is, and yet, he focuses upon a handful at a time, until he has mastered every aspect possible given his current experience and abilities. That alone speaks of his dedication; and it will be a major asset as he commands higher orders of magic.”

Chipper grinned continued to mind-speak with her, “Just remember Elsa, you command a very rare and special magical heritage that few can grasp, let alone stand against. You combine the magic of the mind, of spell and more – that of faith as a priestess of the Companions. As for the rest of your heritage, you have to stop living in terror of it; for it is a part of you, but does not define you. Besides which, it’s only going to be a matter of time before Nelson must be told of the rest; this assumes he has not already figured it out, which I would not put it past him.”

He sensed her trepidation and felt the unholy growl of mirth from the beast within. Chipper continued: “Elsa, he has earned the right to know, and know in full measure the lady he loves with all his heart. He is not some dreamy-eyed lad, of that much I am confident in; nor are you falling for him as with others in the past. In that moment when, you helped him to awaken his mind magic, the two of you shared so much of each other; your bond was established in full measure.”

All he felt from Elsa was a storm of confusion and uncertainty, for something troubled her, and greatly. Chipper knew that Elsa was terrified to no end of losing Nelson due to some mistake she would make, or if the beast within rose with ferocity and overwhelmed her in body, mind and soul.

₰

​

The lone lion-like demon halted its advance down the stairwell just shy of the landing. Concealed from sight, it calculated the distance to the cat-girl and human lad, nodded, growled, and decided it could take them down in a blur of claws, teeth, and flaming death.

The pride’s leader demanded it scout and report on what defenses and wards the companions had in place. But to follow orders was contrary to its chaotic heritage; no demon, none, worthy of that name, willingly submitted to another; hence the pride leader ruled by skill, cunning and brutality greater than the rest combined. It’s body tensed, muscles and sinew taunt like a pulled bow-string, two-tons of mass ready to leap, to land and to tear into its prey with claw, fang and magical might.

One leap, sixty feet in distance, and the surprise would be complete…

Then it beheld the twin eyes of holy indignation which appeared before it. The demon growled and clawed at the flaming eyes with impotent rage, for the magical trap silenced all sound within a sphere of some ten paces in diameter. It began a final, desperate mental call to the pride leader: “The area is heavily trapped…”

Its existence in this world ended a moment later as its body was torn asunder by a whirlwind of blessed blades, and then consumed in a blast of sacred fire which utterly annihilated the remains. The magical alarm attached to the trap failed to work though, having been silenced by the magic of Malevolence.

₰


​

Elsa closed the link with Chipper, gulped, and sighed, knowing that her spirit-companion was right.

Nelson has earned their trust many times over. And yet, as close as she has become to him, and he to her, the purest dread upwelled from the darkest depths of her soul. So she dreaded telling him, and even more, feared his rejection and righteous anger; for he had given her something she had long thought lost: hope. Hope for her to be free of this nightmarish existence, hope for love, hope for a future, and much, much more if all went well.

She focused her mind and telepathically spoke to Nelson: “Nelson, I checked with Chipper and your estimate is right: brimstone rats. Do you know how to handle them when they get their courage up to strike?”

Nelson looked over his shoulder at her, nodded, and blew a silent kiss meant for her alone. He said, “Yes, blast them with extreme cold; alter their minds with sensations of extreme cold; or an old-fashioned mega-blast of a thunder-burst; then, no more brimstone rats. Only problem is, since they are rodents, it’s an even chance of my illusions working: those woven of starlight, thus being partly real, may work, but again they may not. I wish they were a bit more intelligent, then I could play around with their minds even more, to very lethal results.”

He moved to her side and, as he looked at the journal, asked: “Any more progress on the identical pages?”

Elsa pointed out the matching areas of page and designs on wall and the diamond-dragon statues. “I think that the pages hold the key, or one more of them.” She leaned over and kissed Nelson on the cheek and giggled as the lad blushed, his cheeks deep crimson. “After our little mental tryst the magic which secured the true pages dispersed, thus proving again that the journal author had a very warped sense of humor. No matters, the images match with the reality before us, save for the inscribed musical notes that run along the top and sides. What it means I have no idea; it may be nothing, or something, or have more layers hidden within them which will get us past this archway.”

For a time Nelson looked from journal to archway and back, deep in thought as he mulled this over, then turned to Elsa and asked: “Why do you think the archway is our exit from this area? Remember back in the large passages we assumed the archways, those not booby trapped that is, were the proper path until we found the second set of doors. What if the archway is an illusion, camouflage for the proper doors as the lion-image was for the dragon statues?”

Chipper called from above and said, “Not possible Nelson, Elsa described her battle with the devil that it had help come from the arch between the statues. So the arch itself has to be the door, there cannot be any other means of egress or ingress from the stairwell. Your idea is a good one, just in this case impossible; reality is here before us, and the archway is the door we have to pass through.”

“No Chipper, this is one time you are wrong,” Nelson said. He grinned at Elsa and explained: “Door, singular; and yet the two previous times when we found the true trail, it was DOORS, plural. The archway is a magical portal like earlier in the Labyrinth; and thus conditioned we expect it to be real, dangerous but real. In this way a truth serves to camouflage a deeper truth, the DOORS we need to pass through.” He stepped forward, ready to touch the archway and see what he could find, “I wonder…”

Elsa’s eyes grew wide in alarm and she leaped forward, grabbed his arm and said, “Nelson, use some caution, the holocaust Chipper set off earlier, do you remember that?”

Nelson blanched, shuddered, nodded and said, “Thanks for the reminder Elsa. It’s like with the brimstone rats below; I’m getting tired of having to be on edge every moment, and I wished we could get more warning of when danger comes. Even my warning sense is only good for a few seconds of ‘oh, it’s too late’ notice. If I could figure it out, then I can set my magical defenses in place and focus on other things as battle commences. I feel naked without them in place.”

Elsa nodded and replied, “I know Nelson, oh how I know. That is why we prepare in other ways, to the best we can: my cloak, armor and vest, your robes and even that staff. No one can be fully prepared; we just do the best we can to eliminate as may weaknesses as possible.”

She paused, mulled over some bit of esoteric magical lore over and over, and then continued: “The robes can enhance your magical spells; we have seen that first hand. Why not use it with the defensive magic you like to employ? The boost it will give should extend the protections for a full day or more. In this way, if battle comes from the brimstone rats, or other things happen, such as another fine holocaust from a booby trap, you will be that much further ahead.”

Nelson nodded, pondered, and stated, “This is going to sound weird Elsa, but somehow I ‘know’ from the staff a means of further enhancing those defenses. It’s not speaking to me, just on an intuitive level, like the robes, it can guide me through the process and compliment them; more and more I am wondering if creatures that dwell in symbiosis for the better feel like this: each individual magnifies and is in turn magnified by the others.”

Chipper quipped up and said, “I’m not surprised, many magical staffs have such capability. Though I wonder if your staff is much, much more than even we understand at present. Set your defenses in place, especially from fire which may come forth if you are wrong about the archway.”

Nelson took his medallion in hand, and cast a sequence of spells. Soon, he was warded against physical blows and metallic weapons; protected from air, earth, fire and water; his image displaced a few feet from his true location; and a half-dozen other magic spells slumbered in readiness, only needing a silent order, or pre-set condition, to activate.

Then, on a hunch, he cast a variation of a favored spell. Once in place, Nelson knew it would keep any hostile sentient entities from harming him: they would see him as non-threatening, ignore and forget about him so long as he took no hostile actions against them in turn. The magic had an added twist – sometimes it could turn a foe into an indirect ally by causing enemies to turn one upon another.

He looked at Elsa, explained what he had done and asked, “Elsa, do you understand such magic? I have to be honest; this spell has felt different than most I have mastered. Any ideas of what it is about or comes from?”

She excitedly nodded and said, “Yes; mind you, we may vary in our style of casting, controlling and command of magic due to our training. Yet I do know of such as you speak.” She paused and hung her head low in true embarrassment, and sheepishly said, “You know I can command some magic of a priest; though the personal cost to me is great. I’ve begun to suspect you have abilities akin to my own. It’s something we need to consider and explore after we get out of the Labyrinth.”

₰


​

Not one member of the pride, now reduced to a dozen and nine in count, mourned the loss of their brethren. For such sentimentality was far beyond a demon; instead, they feared the loss of surprise, of shock, of sudden death being delivered by them upon their quarry. All held their place, claws impatiently scraping the stone as their leader extended its preternaturally keen senses and concluded surprise was still on their side.

Their leader growled and began to head out, the others falling into place behind it, tense, expectant, and ready for the slaughter to commence. Their hunger for flesh and blood of mortal beings grew by the moment, as did their desire to return to the infernal realms they called home.

Moments later, their advance ceased, and they growled, clawed and fidgeted, for they heard the telepathic voice of Malevolence. “Here me well demons, and understand, this is the only warning you shall have. The three who you seek as prey are mine and mine alone to deal with. The choice I give to you is simple: flee now to the higher levels of the stairwell, or be annihilated body and soul here and now…”

For many long minutes they held their place, claws gouging great furrows in the stone floor, until, their fiery indignation made manifest, they turned and fled back up the stairwell, cowed and driven by the brutally honest threat of one, darker than the darkness of a demons heart, far greater than they had anticipated. No matter how the lion-like demons had previously desired to hunt, slay, and devour the Duke, they now understood how far above them in power he really was, as they were far above true lions of the mortal worlds.

₰


​

Nelson looked at her with a lecherous look of sinful desire and said: “O’ great lady of my heart, how then shall I use my mighty magic, strong as that of a field mouse compared to the lioness before me, to pleasure you to the point of your body being enveloped in passionate fires of bliss…” At the same time, he silently willed a dozen small phantom feathers that imparted sensations of cold. The feathers commenced to tickle, tease and delight Elsa as she playfully slapped them away one by one, only to break into another round of laughter as they came back and redoubled their efforts. Her squeals of delight grew by the moment, until it became a gentle song of love and delight in Nelson.

Chipper watched from on high, thoroughly amused by their antics. He said, “Elsa, Nelson, don’t forget we have company waiting down below. Some of that company is a bigger threat than the brimstone rats; the rats are the hounds, the hounds a handler are right behind and then comes the hunter, who intends for us to be the prey if it gets a chance.”

Nelson ended the tickling game with a wave of his hand, thus dismissing the phantom figures. “Worse comes to worse, I have an idea how to deal with that problem…” His words trailed off as the echo of Elsa’s giggle played loud and clear, then repeated again and again, first from one dragon-statue, then the second. He looked at Elsa, and giggled as well as she covered her face with both hands, embarrassed.

“One heart, one mind, one union of note, for the key is not and yet it is…” he softly mumbled. He gasped as a new revelation opened before him, one so outstanding he feared to even try, yet knew it had to be done. “One heart, which is two people coming together in genuine love; one mind, two mind magicians joined together in the purest of intimacy; one union of note, for the key is not and yet it is…”

Nelson grinned as Elsa’s eyes flared wide as she understood what he was getting at. “WE are the key Nelson, the two of us, the union of note is us being mates for one another, and the NOTE: a wedding song. But one carried out between the two of us in one magical song…”

Almost one magical song, for the area between the two diamond-dragon statues flared with iridescent flames in a maelstrom of motion. The three companions watched in awe-struck wonder as the archway faded, and in their place appeared twin doors of pure gold, inlaid with twin diamond dragons as with the first such doorway.

Chipper looked upon the doors and said, “Well, it looks like Nelson was right after all. Goes to prove what one psychotic rodent knows…”

All three shared in a wild, heart-felt laugh which stretched out for a long, long time.

₰


​

Malevolence monitored the companions far above with its innate magic, and decided the time had come at last to decisively deal with them. As it returned to full awareness of the world around it, he sensed the presence of another being, and grew alarmed, for it was an entity of extreme power and ability.

“Primus; you dare to intrude upon the territory claimed for untold time by the Sojourner? In doing so, you are breaking the pact forged between all sides and thus shall unleash the terror of the Hells against you and your minions…huh?” Malevolence paused, confounded by the melodious, mirth-filled laughter which clearly was not of the Primus.

“Your pretensions of power are amusing Malevolence,” the mysterious voice said. “I am neither the Primus nor bound by the pact made between it and the Sojourner. I am the mortal enemy of both, and am interfering here to ensure one of my own assets is not endangered by a minor and slightly annoying runt such as you. Now then, as your kind is prone to commence making devil-centric threats and promises, I will cut to the chase and provide you with my own…”

Malevolence, one of the mightiest of devils in the diabolic hierarchy of Hades, roared loud and long, his cry a mixture of pain, dread, despair and uttermost terror as only an immortal being can generate. So blatantly bare and honest, so terrifying, so horrendous were the images conveyed by the one who claimed to be a member of “THE Academy of the Arts’ that the devil fell to his knees. Cowed, the Duke of Hell decided to comply with the speaker’s wishes and calmly stated: “I will do as you have requested of me. The cat-girl and her companions shall not suffer any attack by my devil-forces. I cannot say the same for the demons bound in the stairwell by the Sojourner for they do not answer to me…politics, I’m sure you understand….”

The mysterious speaker laughed and said, “Better than even you can comprehend. Diabolic forces dedicated to law and order under tyrannical rule; demonic forces reveling in chaos for the sake of chaos, and evil for evil’s sake alone. Politics indeed, though in a way mortals normally care not to understand – an eternal war between the two sides which will never end until the very ending of the cosmos itself.”

Then the speaker continued, his mental voice devoid of all compassion or emotion: “Understand this, one hand lifted against my assets, one threat or move by you or your minions, and I hold you accountable. To collect the just due, I will strip you of your current power and position, add it to my own and ensure you are returned to the lowest, weakest, most scorned and shamed groveling worm a devil can become. For eternity you shall be remembered as a demoted failure…”

Malevolence understood and offered obsequious to the mysterious speaker. The gathered followers, minions and diabolic henchmen of his looked on in awe and wonder, unable to imagine or conceive of the force which could so thoroughly cow their master. Some of them though, speculated that the Duke may have, at long last, become weakened enough to be deposed and disposed of, so his over thrower could become the next Duke.

Such is the way of the infernal realms.

₰​

Three hours later, after a sudden probe made by the brimstone rats, one broken by Chipper with a hail of sleet and hail, Elsa telepathically spoke to Nelson: “That confirms it, brimstone rats, and they will be coming again in a couple of hours. I can sense their ultimate master. Chipper thinks it may be a Duke or Baron of the infernal realms; thus we need to be as ready as possible if it deigns to grace us with its presence.”

She shook her head, rolled her eyes and muttered a silent string of curses as Nelson startled, the waves of shock and fear rolling from him with the mental force of a tsunami. “Calm down Nelson, just calm down. It’s still a fair distance away. Come over here and sit with me, I need to teach you a part of the mind magic which will help you out.”

Nelson hurried over and sat before Elsa as she returned the journal to her pouch. In a fear-laced voice he asked of her: “Duke of Hades? Please tell me you’re joking on this one?” He almost fainted when she gave him a very serious look and shook her head. He said, “Great, just great, I have nothing in my magical arsenal that can harm such a beast; you probably can, along with Chipper, but my most advanced spells are useless.” He looked at her with genuine concern, “I know that word of power I spoke in the earlier fight could, in theory, harm such a entity, yet I feel it will be some time before I can call upon it again.”


Elsa nodded and said, “True Nelson. We still have a lot to learn about your robes and the staff. But that is for the future. There is a more immediate matter we need to deal with: such beings are powerful in feat of arms, and more so in magic of spell and of the mind; I need to teach you ways to shield your own mind against them, just the basics you currently can muster; in time you will discover, or learn, even greater mental defenses. Now I know it’s not much of an edge, but it’s the best I can help you with at the time.”

Elsa smiled at him as he took her hands in his.

Over the next hour Elsa walked Nelson through the many regions and paths of his mind and demonstrated how to erect barriers of willpower here; to camouflage, conceal, and deny other portions from intrusion; to found a storming wall of rage, chaos and ferocious denial that protects against those seeking to shackle his will to their own. As their lessons concluded, she said to him, “Not bad for a beginning. Practice will make perfect for you Nelson. The devils and demons that employ mind magic, or use regular magic that preys upon emotions, will have a harder time deceiving or influencing you. Just do not get reckless.”

Ending the mental link, Elsa looked around the landing and gave off a rueful snort, pleased that Chipper had not deemed it expedient to create another demonic illusion. She turned to Nelson, ran one hand through his sweat-soaked hair, and said, “Nelson you will do fine. We still have time before the brute arrives, or I should say, if it does.” She paused, gestured with a nod to the descending stairs and continued, “The brimstone rats have fled plus one of my alarm-booby traps went off without alerting me at the same time…”


“Oh great, now I really am a dead man,” Nelson deadpanned, “How can we defeat a creature from the infernal worlds that can bypass your magical alarms so easily? Great, now I understand my grandfathers warning that there would be a time when I wound up caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

Elsa looked at him curiously and asked, “It sounds as if he knew something of your future. Did he speak or do anything else at the time he told that saying to you? If so, please tell me, if not, then lets get back to opening the doors before anything else shows up…”

Nelson smiled at Elsa and said, “He whistled a little tune, nothing more than a few notes…” He whistled an odd and haunting melody which resounded across the landing.

Chipper, eyes wide in wonder, pointed with one paw to the doorsill and declared, “LOOK, the door sill is alive with symbols Elsa! The same as on the outer borders of the journal page…” He slapped his forehead with both paws and gave off an exasperated, self-focused sigh and curse of vehement disgust. “Of course, musical song is common among the heavenly angels; and this door is keyed to open with a song of joy, one which comes from the heart and in which Nelson honors his grandfather by replicating it.”

As if in affirmation, the golden doors flared with iridescent power as great mechanical mechanisms moved, turned, and spun. In complete silence the doors opened into the unknown spaces beyond.


Elsa called out, “Come on; grab your stuff and let’s beat feet before the doors close again or we wind up being hit by the brimstone rats, or something else that will ruin our day.”

As they rushed about and broke camp, Chipper asked Nelson a question: “You mentioned earlier about having another idea how to deal with the devils and demons if they showed up; what was it?”

Elsa paused, and looked at Nelson with genuine curiosity, “Yes Nelson, what had you come up with?”

Nelson gulped and shook his head, “Simple, when we would be pressed hardest by some foe, we just have Chipper charge the doors for a second time and set off that fiery holocaust. After a few seconds, poof, there would be no more enemy, and we would gain some peace and quiet…”

Chipper looked at Nelson in slack-jawed shock, and laughed: “And you say I’m the insane one lad? Good idea, but you would be the one to trigger it…” Elsa called to the two of them from before the open door, gesturing impatiently for them to get moving.

Moments later, as they crossed into the next section of the Labyrinth, the golden doors silently closed and then faded as the diamond-dragon statues transformed again into their original lion-like shapes.

₰​

Many eyes watched the companion’s passage deeper into the Labyrinth with mixed emotions.

Two beings – one the Guardian, the other the mysterious man of the Academy of the Arts, were pleased with how far they had come, and speculated on the odds of them reaching the final gateway. Both of them knew of the many tests, trials and travails ahead of the three; ones which will push them to their limits and beyond, yet they figured, blessed with adventurers fortune and luck, they will make it through.

Yet other watchers were not pleased, among them were the powerful rivals known as Sojourner, Primus, Ghost Walker, and Vengeance. Lesser lords of the Labyrinth, some called Mechanus, Scorpios, Wrath, Gloom and the mysterious one called Pandora nervously awaited their arrival. Each of these lesser lords knew that if one gained possession of the journal, and the companions many items of magical power, they can ascend to power over the Labyrinth; if they fail to overcome them, the slaughter will destroy most of their minions and leave them vulnerable to being dethroned for all time.

So it is that the game of immortals continued to escalate, and of all, only the mysterious man knew how great of a role Elsa, Nelson and Chipper would play.

 

So how is everyone enjoying the 'Chronicles' to date?

 

Loving the story. Hate the wait.

I've long enjoyed work like this on his site. I hope it can continue.