An Angel’s Road to Hell

Cassandra Pendragon

Viyara’s claim that kitsune might be born of draconic magic still circled my mind while we approached the dais. I would have liked to question her further but we were close now and there were more important things to do. I simply added it to the growing pile of stuff I’d do later…

The closer we came the more impressive the hoard appeared. From up high I hadn’t been able to judge how tall the mountains of treasure truly were but when we circled about 30 meters above, I realised that buying a kingdom wouldn’t put a dent into the amassed riches, probably not even in a single tower of gold coins if I was honest. I wasn’t a greedy person but I couldn’t deny the allure of the glittering heaps and was well aware of the financial problems I was facing as soon as I reached the others again. We’d need a home for the children, preferably in a city with a school. Tuitions, transport, food, clothes… the list went on endlessly and I couldn’t help but wonder how many problems I’d be able to solve with just a tiny piece of what laid in front of me.

With the clattering of hardened scales on marble Viyara touched down close to the edge in one of the only unoccupied spots. I wanted to jump down as soon as she had regained her balance but Barzuk turned around and stopped me immediately:

“Don’t, there are probably some hidden runes or still active enchantments as a nasty surprise for anyone who isn’t of the family. Until we have the fey on our side I wouldn’t touch a thing. Stay here, it’s safer that way.” I swallowed dryly when I imagined the sea of magma rising and swallowing the dais or an explosion that would simply throw us into the streams of red hot, molten rock. I nodded energetically.

“Sure, thanks. You’re warming up to me, aren’t you?”

“Not really, I just don’t want to find out what kind of traps a draconic mind can think up in 2000 years. But if you want to throw yourself from the platform, be my guest. Just don’t touch anything on your way down.”

“Oh my, and I thought we’d become friends,” I chuckled. I didn’t take his words seriously, ever since he had seen me comforting Viyara his demeanour had changed. He might not like me but he trusted me and that was more than enough. Now that I thought about it he seemed like the gruff warrior type. Prickly on the outside but quite sweet once you got to know him.

He harrumphed and turned back around. Viyara was slowly moving forwards into a maze of glittering metal and humming magic. My tails itched and trembled, I really wanted to explore and maybe snatch a thing or two but I wasn’t going to. I really didn’t want to turn into fox well-done so I contented myself with staring left and right and asked Viyara out loud to include Barzuk:

“So, a spirit queen, one of the fey. What’s going to happen when we reach the ruby? Anything I can do to help?” I again felt her mind connect with mine and an echo of Barzuk’s presence brushed against my senses before she replied.

“I’m not sure, I was never really taught much about Erya. My studies in magic aren’t nearly advanced enough and there was never a reason to ask. I know my father included a way for one of his blood to take control but I have no idea if it will open the ruby. Right now I’m stuck with cutting myself and feeding the gem a drop of blood. If nothing happens we’ll have to think of something else.” Barzuk’s voice reached me through Viyara:

“I’m not an educated wizard but I’ve picked up a thing or two over the last 50 years. If I remember correctly, you’ll indeed just have to provide your blood, even though a drop may not be enough. I don’t know how it works but the magic will recognise your lineage and reactivate the subjugation spells on the fey, which in turn serve as a key to her prison. It’ll open once she is under your control. Honestly, it’s quite fool proof.”

“How do you know that?” Viyara wanted to know.

“Well, when your father’s artificer, you know, Khartan, the gnome, had botched one of his little projects, he drowned his sorrow in a bottle or five of elven wine and I, responsible master of the kitchen that I was, of course kept him company. He was soon reminiscing about the marvels he had helped create and some of the spells on Erya’s prison are of his making. I got a fairly detailed description of how it worked even though I couldn’t understand most of it.”

“Do you by any chance also know how the subjugation works?” I interjected. It was Viyara who answered:

“I do. My mother told the story many times, she was quite proud of what her husband had achieved.” It was the first time that I realised she had never spoken the names of her family before. I had heard of cultures where the deceased wouldn’t be called by name again to allow their spirits to rest. Maybe this was something similar. “He bested the fey but spared her life in exchange for her servitude. The spells he added later on when he was searching for a way to pass on his lair. They compel Erya to accept whoever is offering his blood as the legitimate successor to her promise under the same conditions. I just didn’t know that they would unseal her prison at the same time.”

“Could she refuse? Just remain locked up instead of willingly prolonging her servitude?”

“I don’t know, maybe? Probably? I assume the spells have weakened when my father died, I’m not sure if she can resist the compulsion. But we’re going to find out either way.” She slithered around a stack of crystalline swords, we had been constantly climbing a rolling hillside made of gold coins, and stopped in front of the golden pillar I had spotted from above. Up close I could see the top was formed like a crouching dragon, the gem nestled between its wings. Glyphs and runes ran up and down the pillar and along the dragons body. The ruby itself had an immaculate surface the eerie glow from within illuminated patterns, etched on the inside. The whole thing was nothing more than a shell, hollow and perfectly suited to seal something inside.

The concentration of magic I had already felt up in the air was suffocating this close to the source. My hair began to float and my fur stood on edge while swaths of unbound energy danced around my body. I was tempted to use my second sight but I feared it might temporarily blind me like a flash of bright light in the middle of the night. Viyara gingerly slithered forward until her snout practically touched the ruby, its light flowed along her head and made her horns glimmer.

With a shove of my wings I glided past Barzuk, completely ignoring his undignified yelp, and hovered over Viyara’s head, in between her horns, to get a better view of what she was doing. Her slit like pupils reflected the glow of the gem and she seemed entranced, staring into its red depths. “Viyara?” I gently asked with my voice and mind. I could feel a soft pulse from my spark in her carbuncle and she appeared to shake her self loose of a half forgotten dream.

“Sorry, I… I’m back.” “What did you see?”

“Nothing, I felt something. A longing that I don’t quite understand but it’s gone now. I wanted to… to just curl up here and wait for the end. I felt so tired and afraid. Afraid of dying or worse, being caught, afraid of the future… it just seemed so much easier to stand here and stare into the light until it wouldn’t matter anymore. I felt like giving up.” She finished morosely. I slung my wings around her neck and patted the ridges above her eyes.

“Not on my watch, kiddo. If it makes you feel better, I’m reasonably sure that was a first greeting from the little fey. She might not be able to interact with us at the moment but that shouldn’t prevent her from influencing her prison. Better not stare at it for too long, you know, abyssus abyssum invocat and all that.”

“You’re right, best get to it. Maybe you want to stand back a little?” “No, not really. Don’t worry about me, just do what you have to do, I’ll be fine.” “Thanks,” she mumbled before she straightened and brought her head above the gem. With a quick movement and a hiss of pain she sliced her tongue on one of her fangs and thick drops of steaming blood flowed over the ruby which swallowed them up with a hiss.

Its light immediately intensified and the faint etchings I had seen on the inside before now flared with sparkling energy, a string of complicated glyphs arranged in neat rows. The ruby started to pull in energy from the surroundings and shone ever more brightly until suddenly it stopped and the sigils dimmed down again.

“That felt anticlimactic,” Barzuk grumped from further down Viyara’s back. I wanted to answer but a voice, no, the idea of a voice whispered through the cave, resonating with the free energy around to actually reach our ears despite the thundering magma falls in the distance.

“There won’t be no bargain, struck in the past. If you want what I have to offer you’ll come inside and face me.” The rumbling noise that filled the cavern seemed deafening after we had to strain our ears to hear her quite request. Barzuk said out loud what we were all thinking:

“I take it back. That was fucking ominous.” A puff of smoke escaped Viyara when she added mentally, a thick blanket of anxiety covering her words:

“And pointless. I can’t enter the prison, maybe I can but I don’t know how. Even if I was willing to confront the fey on her own terms, I wouldn’t be able to. Are we just stuck here?”

“At least I already had my go at the good stuff,” Barzuk projected unintentionally. That guy seriously had to get his priorities in order.

“Now, it’s a little early to bury our heads in the sand. You may not be able to enter, but I might.” I flared some of my wings before Viyara’s eyes and hopped down along her snout. “They don’t just look impressive, just give me a minute and we’ll see what I can do.”

I had already suspected that millennia of servitude wouldn’t incline Erya to just jump into the next contract. Considering that most of the safeguards had been purely theoretical and hinged on the spells of a now deceased dragon, his death had to have some kind of effect on his magics, I had already suspected that we wouldn’t just waltz in and do as we please, hence my questions from before. If I had been in Erya’s shoes, I wouldn’t have hesitated to fight a prolonged servitude. With time she might be able to escape the prison or Viyara might die and the spells might break down completely, there were a thousand things that could set her free. But if she was bound again, she would have to help the very person who held her chains and make sure they survive. Not a very enticing prospect. I had already thought about how we might reach the fey and I was pretty sure I could use my wings to pierce her prison and teleport inside, hopefully without tearing the whole thing to shreds along the way. That was what I wanted to find out: Could I get inside without destroying the enchantments and allowing her to leave immediately?

Honestly, it wasn’t half as difficult as one might expect. I couldn’t understand the complex formations of glyphs and energy anyway so all I did was activate my second sight and channel enough energy into my eyes to see through the glare the abundant magic caused. The next few minutes I studied the most intricate web of tightly spun energy I had ever seen but I didn’t have to comprehend or memorise what was going on, I was just looking for a tiny hole, a minuscule space where I could slid a wing through without disturbing the flow of energy. If I wouldn’t find one I’d just make one, but I’d really have preferred not messing with the spells. Worst case scenario: we would have to face a spirit queen, possibly with access to all the power this place could provide, who might or might not intend to kill us. I didn’t particularly want to find an answer to that question the hard way.

It took me a while to get used to the brightness and quite a lot of energy to heal my eyes over and over again but after a while I found what I was looking for. A tiny mote of shadow among the sea of silvery light. It took me a couple of tries to narrow my wings by drawing more and more energy out of them until just the fraction of a ray of silvery energy slithered smoothly through. I dropped my second vision for a moment to actually be able to discern anything else despite the flows of magic and spoke up:

“I think I found a way. I’ll try to talk some sense into her, if I can. I’m sorry but I can’t take either of you with me. You’re going to have to trust me.”

“What if you can’t,” Viyara asked nervously. “She’ll tear you to pieces. She has lived in that realm for ages, who knows in what ways she has managed to change it. Remember what happened to me when I only stared at it intently.”

“Fey are creatures of magic, aren’t they? And that’s a magical prison. Im going to be fine, I might not be able to get my wings on her if she’s careful but she’s not going to harm me.” Charming as ever Barzuk said:

“I’m not overly worried about your safety but are you sure she won’t be able to leave in the same manner you’re going to get in?”

“Thanks, it’s great to be valued… no, if she hasn’t left by now she won’t be able to squeeze through. I’m not going to change anything about the framework of spells and enchantments. If everything goes south I’ll be back in a couple of minutes with nothing to show for my trouble, that’s it.” “In that case, go… and good luck. We’ll all need it.” The orc answered gruffly.

“Go, but if anything seems amiss, don’t hesitate and return.” Viyara added with more than a hint of worry. I hovered forward to look into her eyes and smiled reassuringly. Than I waved at Barzuk and vanished along a silvery path.

I materialised at the mouth of a valley. Lush red grass covered the ground and filled the air with a rustling sound and a minty fragrance I had never smelled before flowing into the distance until it vanished underneath the edge of a forest. Towering black mountains liberally streaked through with veins of gold formed insurmountable walls to my left and right. At the opposite side of the valley an immense stream shining with different colours, reds and greens were dominant though, thundered towards a lake at the centre, filed with the same glowing water and surrounded by a pearly white beach. A verdant forest enclosed the lake but I couldn’t recognise a single one of the plants. I saw oaks, but their leaves were golden and they didn’t carry acorns but huge violet nuts. Something like a fir stood taller than a sequoia, the bark had a deep red shine and the branches seemed to move on their own accord. Yellow fern and crystalline flowers covered the ground, the blossoms emitting a soft light. A myriad of smells reached me over the grass’ minty flavour but I couldn’t place them, either. Notes of vanilla and cinnamon were definitely present but there was so much more I just couldn’t discern the individual fragrances.

When I turned around, astoundingly the same scene greeted me again. I looked down into a valley with the same stream of luminescent water, the same forest and the same lake. It didn’t matter which way I’d turn, there was only one place I could go and on second glance I knew exactly where I’d be headed. A small figure was standing on the beach, her features blurry with distance but I felt the burning concentration with which she focused on me and my tails curled up on themselves.