Chapter 11 - Glory #3
Unfortunately, the distraction of this demon interfered with my recall. With a huff, I pulled my pack over one shoulder and dug through it until I found one of my reference texts.
“Forgotten Languages of the Golthwainian Empire,” Cammon read over my shoulder. “Some light reading?”
“Something like that.” I flipped through the pages. “Here. That looks similar, wouldn’t you say?”
He crouched beside me, all evidence of mischief replaced by the same academic interest he’d shown with the map this morning. “The same accents, and the same strange curve to that squiggle there. I’d say so.”
Not the most professional comparison, but since it confirmed my opinion, I let him have it.
Afraid of missing any nuance in the text, I took it word by word, cross-checking both languages where Mage Tersey seemed to have combined them.
“It looks like this puzzle is pretty straightforward. There’s a button we need to press.
Or maybe more than one? This looks like it might be the plural form.
And then there’s another mention of cave, but the words around it are smudged.
” I scrunched up my nose. “If it’s supposed to rhyme once translated, I might be missing something. ”
“Thank temptation for small favours. Poetry exists for quiet nights and soft whispers, not some ego-driven sorcerer looking to keep other sorcerers off his trail.”
I couldn’t find it in me to argue with him.
“Where are these buttons, then?” he asked.
I trailed my fingers over the surface of the box. Somewhere in the writing there had to be more details, but I couldn’t read anything else.
“I’m more curious about this supposed cave,” I replied.
“That’s twice he’s brought it up. It has to be more significant than—oh, I think I found something.
” I dragged the tip of my finger around the edge of a rough circle and continued to the right, where I found the outline of a second.
A third circle sat to the right of that.
“There are three buttons.” I sat back on my heels, keeping my fingers over the circles so I didn’t lose them.
“What do we think? All at once? One at a time?”
Cammon leaned closer, and I caught a whiff of spices that made my mouth water. “You’ve made it clear I’m only a pretty face, but what does the rest of the message say?” He rubbed his thumb over the words, but the packed earth didn’t make way for him either. “Can you magic this dirt away?”
He was testing me again, not so subtly prying for information.
“My magic doesn’t work like that.” It was an honest answer, if not the one he wanted.
“The only way we’d find out is if we take the time to give the box a thorough cleaning.
Which is impossible since we can’t move it.
” I bit the inside of my cheek and considered our options.
“I don’t know what might happen if we press the buttons in the wrong combination.
We know how that first box reacted to the grass and the second one to my breath.
There are a few references in the journal to traps connected to some of the later puzzles. What if we’re looking at one here?”
Cammon looked around. “We’re in a giant, empty field. How many traps do you think we could spring? What is wrong with this mage of yours?”
I raised my chin, defensive of a man I’d never met. “He was very protective of his magic.”
The demon did have a point about the low odds, but there were too many unknowns.
“All right.” I arrayed my fingers to ensure there would be equal pressure on each button. “Here goes nothing.”
Holding my breath, I squeezed the box and pressed all three at once.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the top of the box slid open, revealing a strip of parchment inside.
I started to exhale my relief when a low rumble caught my ear. Except it wasn’t a noise. It was a tremor in the earth. Cammon tensed beside me and rested his palm against the ground.
“Well, that doesn’t sound—”
A deafening crack interrupted him as the earth split open beneath us.
I grabbed the clue and scrabbled at the grass to find stability, but the ground gave way, pulling me down.
A shriek of terror slipped from my throat, and I curled my fingers into the dirt, desperate to hang on.
Darkness opened under my feet, and glinting at the bottom of the now gaping hole were rows of sharp spikes that threatened to tear me apart if I lost my precarious grip.
Olodin’s bookcases, this is how I die.
I squeezed my eyes shut so I couldn’t see the cause of my impending impalement. My lungs burned with withheld screams, and my heart beat so frantically I tasted blood.
“I guess we found the cave,” Cammon said through clenched teeth.
Slitting one eye open, I stared at the demon dangling beside me. Despite the tautness of his neck as he held himself in place on the edge of the sudden cavern, he appeared to be taking our situation in stride, as though he encountered giant rows of spikes every day.
I, on the other hand, struggled to keep my panic at bay.
My pack had never weighed so much, and my fingers were cramping.
We needed to pull ourselves up, but my grip was too slick.
And always—always—in the back of my mind, there was my fear that if I showed too much strength, Cammon would discover what I was.
The earth shuddered again as the cavern grew wider, and a large rock tumbled into the gaping maw to shatter against the spikes.
Another scream slipped from my throat, and I shut my eyes and tore at the ground for purchase.
With every racing beat of my heart, I asked myself if dying by royal executioner would be worse than being skewered by those teeth.
Assuming my thrashing heart didn’t give out first.
“I don’t suppose you can use your magic to help us out here?” Cammon gritted out, finally giving away a smidge of the terror currently shrieking through my limbs.
I squeezed my eyes so tightly that black spots scurried across the backs of my eyelids. Of course he would ask.
“I can’t,” I said between forced breaths. “That’s still not… how my magic works.”
Although I couldn’t see him, his silence spoke volumes. Incredulity. Disdain. The same expressions my fellow mages gave me whenever I failed to prove my worth. He could judge me all he wanted. My answer wouldn’t change.
He grumbled something under his breath, and the next thing I knew, his arm was around my waist. My eyes flew open.
He’d swung himself towards me, pulling himself close, until his chest was seamless against mine.
I stared at him in shock, wanting to shove him away but not at the cost of plummeting to my death.
“What are you doing?” Was he going to drain my emotions to strengthen himself? Use me as leverage to throw himself out of this hole?
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
I blinked. “I really don’t.”
His red eyes gleamed over his grin. “Then this is going to be fucking terrifying.”
His chest flexed, and then, to my mind-crushing shock, the sun disappeared behind two massive, black-feathered wings.