The Crystal Cage Part Three

THE CRYSTAL CAGE

An Aurivyn Tale

First published in Abandoned Towers Magazine Issue 3, 2009

Part Three

“Not a Trycadian wizard,” I sniffed haughtily. “A Gyltari, perhaps a Kordanian.  Evil and wizardry are common in both kingdoms. Why?”

Rolglor sighed. “To hunt a wolf, you must know it. The mountain wolves act differently from the ones in the woods.” I nodded in understanding as he cautiously stepped into a hallway.

I will spare you the step-by-step search of the keep. Suffice it to say my new barbarian hero was a finely trained hunting dog. He tracked the goblins through the stony keep, and I’ve no idea how he could have done it, lest he smelled them.

Skeptically, I followed him. Down halls, through rooms, and to a stairwell. That basement level was dark, and we returned to a room with a blazing hearth, where we seized a burning piece of firewood to use as a torch. Then we continued down.

We were walking through a hall down there, when we turned a corner and saw a light through an open door ahead of us. Rolglor turned to me, raised one finger to his lips indicating quiet, and tip-toed to the door.

Being the smart one, I remained at the corner, with the torch. From my vantage point, I saw him creep stealthily to that doorway and peer inside. Then he began to tremble with rage, and charged in with his sword high. That was when the screams began.

Obviously, a heroic deed such as this is meaningless without a witness to verify it.  This is why I trod softly down that dark hall and looked into the room.

It was not a very large room. Boxes and debris were crowded by the walls, a statue stood in the center of the room on a squat pedestal.

There were goblins there, but not the goblins I was expecting! I expected the stout green goblins known to wander the Engatharian steppes. Instead, these were thin, red-skinned devils from the cursed Yzaruam deserts. Their scimitars flashed dangerously in the lights of those long brass teapots the Yzari call lamps.

There were three of them, and one was bleeding on the floor by the time I arrived.  “Yoo-man, you die now!”

But he didn’t, of course! No, he parried and dodged, thrusted and feinted, and all those other things that swordsmen do. In frustration, one goblin threw his lamp into the fray. The oil splashed onto the barbarian’s tunic and caught fire. He didn’t seem to notice, but the goblins’ eyes went wide in terror.

“You spilled Holgonn blood!” he cried amid hacks and slashes, felling another goblin so only one remained.

“You no keep me from cellar! We find statue’s secret!” the red goblin snarled at him, “The princess is mine!”

The barbarian let out a mighty roar, and ran his sword through the goblin’s chest.  The Yzari devil choked on a cry, fell to his knees, then off the sword and to the floor.  Rolglor stood over him, glaring down at the body for a moment. Then the flames licked at his face and he rushed to remove the baldric and the thick flaming tunic.

“Did you hear the goblin’s words, story-man?” he cried as he slipped the baldric over his head again. “There IS a princess here!”

“Yes, I also heard something about the statue having a secret.”

He frowned at the small stone figure critically. He stroked his cheeks like some smart men do when lost in thought. It was a crude little statue, of a warrior with fists on hips, standing perhaps four feet tall. At last he said, “Well, I see no words carved on the statue or the stand.”

I nodded and realized it was time for a little nudge. “Didn’t that goblin say something about a cellar? Here I thought we were in the cellar!”

The barbarian nodded blandly for a moment. Then his head jerked back in my direction, with eyes and grin wide as they could go. “Aha! Perhaps it’s like a pit trap!”

On the inside I was smiling, on the outside I frowned. “What?”

“A pit trap!” he enthused. “You dig a pit, cover it with branches, then an animal comes along and falls in!”

With just the right dubious tone I asked, “You think this statue is covering some way down to a deeper floor?”

“Yes I do!” he cried as he looked over the statue again, this time with an eye towards moving it. He grabbed the statue’s shoulders and heaved, muscles straining, and grunting with effort.

One side of the pedestal rose shakily from the floor. The barbarian grunted some more, pushed some more, and tipped the statue so it was dangerously balanced on one edge of its stand.

I rushed over and looked. “You were right! There is a shaft here, and a rope!”  The rope was tied around a wide stone ring, attached to the bottom of the pedestal. The rope itself was knotted every foot or so, to make climbing easier.

The statue fell over and landed on the stony floor with a loud thud. He panted and rubbed his arms as he looked at the shaft beneath the statue. He took the torch from me, his sweat glistening in its light, and dropped it down the shaft.

“We must hurry,” he said as he sat on the lip of the shaft, “The goblins are sure to have heard that.” Then he reached for the rope and froze still. “What is that?” he asked, pointing at the hand of one of the dead goblins.

I looked and saw the gleam, also. I crossed over for a closer look. “It is a ring.”  I plucked it from the goblin’s finger and examined it in the light of the burning tunic.  “There is writing on it. ‘The Ring of Truth Shatters…’” Then, on the inside, “…’The Fragile Glass of Lies’. Hmm, wonder what that means?”

“Who cares? Hand it here.” said Rolglor. I gave him the ring and he slipped it onto his finger. “Come along, story-man! We must be getting close!” Then he shimmied down the rope, quick as a blink.

Once we got to the bottom, there was no trick to deciding which way to go—there was only one hall to follow. It ended at a wide chamber, empty of furniture, save a quartet of blazing braziers, one in each corner. In its center was the woman.

Tall, shapely, statuesque. Long flowing hair, wearing jewelry on her head, about her neck, on her wrists and ankles. She wore one of those funny outfits, like a dancing girl in the court of some Yzari desert sheik.

Oh yes, Hazerium, she was imprisoned, of course! She was trapped inside a giant shard of glass or ice that floated above a skull that was inscribed with weird runes. She saw us as we entered, and pressed against the transparent walls from within, screaming pleas at us that we could not hear.

“That must be the princess!” Rolglor exclaimed as he rushed into the room. “She is trapped by the magician!”

To Be Concluded...