An angel’s road to hell

96. Of miscalculations, explosions and a little promise

Cassandra Pendragon

Oh, shit. I didn’t think for a minute that my hosts wanted to invite me in for a nice cup of tea and some cookies, yet I was reluctant to simply turn tails and run. If they were going to follow me back up the stairs I’d lead them directly to my friends, one of which was probably still being healed. Grudgingly I used my wings to block the corridor in front of me with a net of glowing energy, pushed the memories of the last five minute through my tattoo towards Ahri and dropped into a crouch. Maybe the animated hunks of stone wouldn’t leave the hallway they had to guard.

They didn’t comply with my expectations. Resounding crashes which made the stone floor tremble slightly, more than a dozen of them, reverberated through the destroyed door and heavy footsteps turned in my direction like the ticking of a doomsday clock. For a moment I clung to the hope that they wouldn’t pass over the threshold and enter the corridor I was in but when the first silhouette appeared as a darker shadow amidst the swirling clouds of dust I had to bury my naivety. As always, the only way forward, or even backwards free of pursuit, would be through.

Over the last week I had learned a thing or two, so I didn’t blindly rush towards the centre of the hallway, wings ablaze. I waited, waited until the first unlucky …golem? marched straight into the strands of energy that blocked its path. In my mind’s eye I already saw him cut to pieces, little fragments of its body tumbling to the ground, smoking along the edges. A confident grin formed on my face until the thing slammed into my wings with the force of an elephant. I had already half turned away, expecting an avalanche of burned slag to flood over me, and was utterly surprised when an electric blue light sparked wherever my wings touched the golem. For the fracture of a second a protective sphere flashed into existence around the statue and the middle of its forehead glowed as if it had opened its third eye.

The sphere of light wavered when it came into contact with my wings but it didn’t shatter. Information flowed through the light touch and I felt a rush of transcendent energy stream from the shining circle on its forehead. Holy… how? There was no way, was there? Reflexively I met the resistance with another outpour of energy until it seemed like snakes of silvery fire were slithering over the protective bubble. A piercing shriek, like tortured metal, made me wince and the momentum of the golem sent it crashing into me. Panicked, getting crushed by a ton of rocks that were powered beyond anything I had expected didn’t appeal to me very much, I teleported away and reappeared several metres further up the stairs, already panting heavily.

At my feet the statue was crumbling to dust, the last sparks of energy dancing over its surface before they vanished into thin air, the core that had held them together consumed by its efforts to withstand my power. That was the good news, the bad news was the army of its comrades that pushed through the doorway and onto the stairs, ready to finish what their brother had started. Two pairs were already ascending the first steps, the same electric blue energy coating their hands and forearms. They didn’t carry weapons, at least the four in font of me didn’t, but two had enormous shields, teardrop shaped and made form a strange metal I hadn’t seen before. It shone with a deep, golden fire, reflecting the shimmer of a huge gem at the centre, which was of the same blue colour as the manifestations of their magic I had seen before. The other two were empty handed. Their hammer like steps drowned out even the frantic bet of my heart.

The statues themselves were made from a light granite, with uniform and smooth textures. A bearded man, somewhere in his 50s was depicted. Stern features and a goaty that reminded me of the men I had seen in Amon’s spell were crowned by an elaborate headdress. A flowing robe covered the rest of their bodies, intricate embroideries replicated on the stony surface. If it weren’t for the eerily glowing third eye on their foreheads a d the strong scent of ozone they would have appeared rather ridiculous than intimidating. To give myself a little more time to think I flooded my brain with energy.

I didn’t know how many there were in total but if I could hold them here, I’d always be able to retreat back up the stairs, I simply couldn’t let them get past me. Considering how much it had taken out of me to burn through the first golem, I thought I might be able to put down a few of them before my body would start to suffer serious injuries. If all of them had the same amount of transcendent energy at their disposal, I wouldn’t make it through much more than the four below me, maybe 8 or 10 all in all if I was willing to strain my limits.

I could try to hold them here and wait for help to arrive but I wasn’t sure if we could hold the rocky flood at bay, Viyara wouldn’t even be able to transform in the narrow passage and there was no telling what the golems could do to my mortal friends. For a brief moment I wondered if I was supposed to take Reia down here but I discarded the idea quickly. If the statues had had tails I’d have been willing to consider that she might be a distant descendant from whoever had built this place, but Reia was a pure blooded noble, she didn’t have human ancestors, even before the cataclysm. Which made me think…

I was going out on a limb but I guessed that this place was about as old as the catastrophe that had split our continent and considering everything I knew about how immortals dealt with other creatures who came close to wielding transcendent energy, I could just about imagine that there was a link. It stood to reason that whoever had been capable of creating golems with a spark of transcendent energy had had some form influence, politically. Assuming he had been a part of the ruling class, it wasn’t far fetched to believe the mana heart had been constructed with the same magic and had ultimately brought the wrath of heaven or hell down on them. If that was the case, the defences could have been aimed at transcendent beings and Reia and my brother might not have triggered them. Maybe I should run. If the golems gave chase I would still be able to hold them somewhere further up the stairs and if they didn’t we’d have a chance to return later, on our own terms. When the advanced pair of statues was about two arms reaches away from me I made my decision. Up the stairs it was.

I kept facing them, most of my wings still blocking the corridor while I used the rest of them to carry me back up the stairs like a retreating spider. Unfortunately the frenzied mob of bricks didn’t much care about my change of heart. They were still hard on my tails, their movement became faster and more fluid with every step they took. They weren’t nearly as fast as me, yet, but it wouldn’t take long, considering how quickly they adapted. At least they weren’t able to throw spells or shoot at… well, maybe they were.

Another pair had made their way through the doorway and the six sparking circles of electric fire that now burned below me on their foreheads flared, pulsed and emitted a beam of the same blue light. Six torrents of energy made the air crackle with power when they converged on me, accompanied by the smell of ozone that had become nearly overwhelming by now. For the fracture of a second it felt like I was facing a mirror image, the streams of light so similar to my own wings that a shudder of fear ran down my spine and along my tails. If those things hit, it would hurt, quite a lot.

Somehow I couldn’t imagine that sidestepping the streaks of energy would do the trick and I sure as hell couldn’t outrun spells. With a thought I moved my wings, the ones that had blocked the stairs now slithering towards the flashes of light, burning with every drop of power I could muster, while I was still rushing up the stairs. When the two torrents of blue met, one shining with silvery flames, the other surrounded by an electrical halo of sparks, the world shuddered. I felt the impact, I could practically see how my wings ripped through the point of each spell and ignited them from the inside. Transcendent structures that were meant to withstand aeons, detached from the flow of time and decay, were torn asunder, breaking down into brilliant sparks which in turned were consumed by the ravaging flames.

A blinding explosions, its centre a pulsing blue and the edges white hot with withering swaths of energy, threw me back and I tumbled up the stairs, the crushing wave of air and heat that carried me along much too strong to resist. Pebbles and dust blew through cracks in the ceiling and walls, the stairs shook violently and smaller clouds of debris ignited on the spot, the temperatures climbing to unknown heights. Loose strands of my hair started to smoke and the stench of burned skin and wood added to the suffocating smell of ozone. And that was only on my side.

Since I had overcome the spells and my wings had pierced through them, most of the energy had been directed away from me and towards the golems and the hallway. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what must have happened down there and frankly, right now I couldn’t have cared less. It took every ounce of concentration I could muster to push away the tearing pain from my burned skin and fight against the overwhelming force that threatened to crush me against the ceiling.

For the first couple of meters all I could was stay away from any obstacle while I tried to ride the shockwave as well as I could. Getting thrown around was becoming something of a habit and I wasn’t enjoying it one bit. I couldn’t anchor myself to the walls, my back would be torn apart instantly and my corpse would follow the blast while my wings would still remain stuck to the walls. I couldn’t teleport away, the shockwave would cross the few meters I’d gain in the time I’d need to regain my orientation afterwards and I couldn’t simply ride it out, I was starting to feel slightly well done, the heat from the explosion had already singed my hair and consumed my eyebrows. I didn’t know that much about physics but I was pretty sure that the temperature close to the centre would be deadly. I didn’t fear the magic, but liquid stone would put an end to my life as soon as I’d materialise. My best shot was to allow the shockwave to carry me for as long as I could manage and then teleport behind it. With a little luck I’d be far enough away by then to survive. Shit, there we went again.

I sent a panicked “take cover” through my tattoo and concentrated on the myriad of impressions my wings provided me with while I was flung up the stairs. The biggest challenge was to keep my trajectory stable and my body close to the middle of the corridor while inertia and tremendously powerful gusts of wind tore at my limbs. I managed for a while until I was blown past the first enchantment I had found on my way down. The energised shockwave, still glowing with the last fading sparks of transcendent energy, triggered it and a concealed set of glyphs lit up.

Two translucent curtains of blue energy shimmered into existence, one a couple of steps in front of and one a handful of steps behind me and they were closing in, fast, ready to squash me. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, I did the only thing that came to mind: shatter one of them.

I fervently hoped that the conjured walls would stop the shockwave and once again drew more energy from my core than was advisable. I couldn’t fail or I’d become the worlds thinnest fox in a matter of seconds. While it coursed through my meridians the rush of power felt good, like a soothing wave of warm water but when it dispersed along the base of my wings, my skin immediately started to blister and I felt how the muscle attached to my wings started to tear themselves apart, writhing and twitching with the magical overload. My wings became distorted behind a haze of light and like a blazing comet, I slammed into the barrier.

The sound of shattering glass reverberated along the corridor, it had been more than enough. I didn’t feel much resistance when I smashed through the barrier but it skewed my balance and send me tumbling head over tails through the air. A deep groan escaped me when I flung my wings towards the wall to regained control of my fall and sent a prayer to anyone who’d listen that I hopefully wasn’t going to get shredded by a wave of superheated air a moment later.

Unbelievable as it seemed, my luck held. When I came to an inelegant halt, hands bloody, hair singed and back flayed, I hung between my wings like a spider in her web and watched a glowing fireball smash into the barrier. Cold fear gripped me when I saw the forces of nature unleashed directly in front of my nose, fiery red swaths of flames curled and played along an invisible wall while clouds of debris and smoke formed and dispersed to the pounding of an invisible drum that drowned out every other noise. I fell to my knees and gaped silently at the destructive display, held back by nothing than thin air and the ideas of a bygone age.

Dark lines started to crisscross the part of the enchantment I hadn’t obliterated and the remaining glyphs flickered, the consuming force on the other side nearly too much for them to contain. From one instant to the next the roiling sea of chaos swelled one last time, fire and earth fighting against magic, and finally subsided. Soot and smoke obscured my vision, turning the stairs behind the barrier into a pitch black tunnel with weirdly glowing walls where the burning sparks of transcendent energy had fused air and rock together. Apathetically I shook my head.

If the enchantments I had passed by so carelessly before hadn’t been bolstered with transcendent energy, I’d have died right then and there, burned, torn to pieces and smashed by rocks my own dumb actions had sent hurtling after me. I didn’t learn and this time, if the devastation had reached the cavern above, I would have endangered the life of almost everyone I had left. The pain that was slowly creeping along my nerves was a welcome distraction. I had underestimated the danger by a landslide and I was lucky that I only had to pay with a few scratches and another entry in the growing list of Cassandra’s painful memories. I would have to do much better in the future.

“Cassy?” Ahri’s soft voice was strung tight with fear and much closer than I had expected. “Cassy! What… oh my!” Before I had even turned around she was hugging me from behind. A hiss of pain escaped my lips when she inadvertently pushed the fabric of my clothes into my ravaged skin but I didn’t mind. Feeling her warmth was worth it, any time of the day.

“I’m fine,” I mumbled when she tensed. “Or I will be in a second. Thanks for coming.”

“Don’t thank me.” I thought I heard a suppressed sob in her voice. “Why are you always bloodied and on your knees? Didn’t you want to scout? Right now I’m honestly not sure if I should fuss over or smack the living shit out of you. Why would you destroy the door on your own? What were you thinking?” And how did you get past the other enchantments? Had I passed out briefly?

“Apparently not much,” I admitted. “I… I thought I could easily get in further, than I wouldn’t have to… I might have found the source and somewhere in the back of my head I didn’t really want to bring any of you down here once I had seen the enchantments and the Blood Oak door.” Her fingers twitched around my neck.

“If you go down that road, again, I might add, you won’t have to worry about your stupidity killing you. I’ll be faster. Cassy, first you ask us to come then you ditch us at the first opportunity. Are you bloody insane?”

“No, but I might be a little stubborn. I’m sorry, truly. It won’t happen again, promise.”