City of Towers_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [65]
The ogress didn’t even look down at him. “Enter and learn,” she said. It wasn’t a suggestion.
The door swung closed after they passed under the arch, and the darkness was complete. Lei whispered a few words, and the golden studs on her armor burst into light.
From the outside, the building appeared to be a forgotten temple to the Sovereign Host, abandoned centuries ago and left to crack and crumble. In the light of Lei’s glowing armor, it was easy to see why it had been abandoned. A few supporting beams had fallen from the ceiling, and the floor was choked with dust and rubble. The slit windows had been filled in with mortar.
“Somehow, I was expecting something a little grander,” Jode said, looking around. “If you’re going to bother to get your ogress to wash her hair, you’d think you’d dust your temple.”
“Is it safe?” Daine wondered, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m going to be disappointed if we came all this way to get crushed by a falling stone.”
“I think so,” Lei said, squinting up into the darkness. “Though I wouldn’t throw any stones.”
A cool breeze blew through the room. Daine looked for the source, but he couldn’t see any openings. Then he noticed a dim orange light at the far end of the hall—something set into the floor. “Over there. Let’s go. Pierce, fall back and follow.”
Pierce nocked an arrow to his string and held another in his palm. Daine drew sword and dagger, and Lei held the darkwood staff at the ready. Jode started whistling a cheerful Talentan tune but stopped when Daine glared at him.
“What?” he said. “You really think someone is going to set up an ambush by requiring Lei to fight a minotaur with her bare hands? I must admit, I never saw it coming.” Daine continued to stare. “Fine,” he sighed, drawing his stiletto. “Silent it is.”
Lei whispered a word of power, and the magical light faded. In the new-fallen darkness, the glow at the end of the room was even more obvious. The three spread out in a semi-circle and moved forward, with Pierce following thirty steps behind. Daine began to hear a low bubbling, the sound of thick, boiling liquid. The source of the sound was also the source of the light. It appeared to be a pool of molten metal, almost ten feet across. As they drew close, they could feel the heat and smell the fire. Nine stone altars were spread in a circle around the fiery pool, one for each of the lords of the Sovereign Host. The largest of the altars lay directly before them. It was of red granite and engraved with the hammer sigil of Onatar, Lord of Fire and Forge. A large crack ran down the center of the altar, splitting the hammer in two.
“What a fiendish trap!” Jode whispered. “They know we’ll never be able to resist leaping into the pool.”
Daine sighed and lowered his sword.
“You’re already caught in the fire.”
It took a moment for the words to register in Daine’s ears. He was reminded of the harpy’s song; it was pure beauty distilled into sound, unearthly and inhuman.
The voice came from directly in front of them, and suddenly Daine noticed the vast black shadow crouched atop the broken altar of Onatar. Had it always been there? Or had it appeared with the sound of the voice? The figure moved forward, and it was revealed by the light of the molten pool.
A sphinx.
She had the body of a great black cat, with the neck and head of a beautiful elf-maiden, though if the head had been on a humanoid body, she’d have been nine feet tall to match the scale. Her skin was flawless cream, her eyes glittering gold. Her long hair was midnight black, dropping down and mingling with the vast raven’s wings folded on her back. The black of her fur and hair was striped with bands of brilliant orange, and these seemed to glow in the dim light. When she shifted, the stripes rippled like flame. She wore three chains around her neck—one of gold, one of silver, and one of black adamantine—and they, too, glittered in the light of the glowing pool.
Daine was struck speechless. He’d seen strange creatures before. Some of the beasts they’d fought in the Mournland