Mikahl rose and wiped away his tears, then turned and nearly ran out of the death-filled cell. As soon as Mikahl was gone, Hyden sought out Talon’s vision. He found his familiar ’ s sight. After it combined with his own into a spectral view of the land below the soaring bird, he began calling out, not to Claret, but to the goddess of his people. He was about to die, and he wanted her company as he went. He needed Talon to make the journey to her. He knew that he was far too weak to make it alone.
Mikahl stopped and leaned against the wall outside the cell. He was certain that Hyden was dying. He understood his friend, and he knew that Hyden wanted him to finish what they’d started. To do otherwise would make Hyden’s death pointless. After he steadied himself, and got the tears to stop flowing from his eyes, he decided to dispense with the subterfuge and started back through the dungeon the way they had come.
He walked for a while in a daze. His mind couldn’t stay focused. It kept drawing him back to his friend and the horrible death that he was probably facing at this very moment. He found himself at the cross passages where Hyden had first heard the dying giant. It was the third time he had been there since he’d left Hyden. At least that’s where he thought he was. It looked exactly the same, yet felt different. He forced the dire thoughts of Hyden’s situation from his mind and tried to concentrate. After a few minutes he realized what it was. He hadn’t gone back down any stairs yet. This crossway was probably exactly over the other one, just on a higher floor. He started for the stairwell, which he thought he might know the location of. As he turned a corner, he heard a distant conversation taking place. He nearly tripped over a small creature, a cat, or maybe a big bug. It fled into the shadows before he could see exactly what it was. It didn’t matter, though. The conversation suddenly stopped. It took him only a moment to figure out why. The deep blue light of Ironspike’s blade had found those who were speaking.
A scuffling sound came from ahead of him. He squinted into the gloomy edges of Ironspike’s light trying to see what it was. Just as he took a step in that direction, a zard-man leapt from the darkness at him. Its toothy pink mouth was open wide. In its big black-orbed eyes, Mikahl could see his own distorted reflection growing larger. He didn’t panic, nor was he startled. Almost casually, he sidestepped the creature and let its own momentum carry it across Ironspike’s blade. The zard was dead before it hit the floor.
Mikahl strained his ears over Ironspike’s roaring chorus to listen for the other one, but he heard nothing. He took a few quiet steps back toward the intersection of tunnels he’d just left and chanced a glance down one of them. He saw nothing but darkness. He held his sword up to extend the range of its light and still saw nothing.
Suddenly, he heard a crackling roar from behind him. His own shadow leapt forward down the hall as a sun- bright flash exploded at his rear. The blow hit him in the back and sent him sprawling. The massive jolt jarred him to the bone. He could barely see now, and would have surely been cooked by the magical lightning had Ironspike’s protective wards not absorbed most of the blast’s power. He rolled and called forth shields from Ironspike’s symphony. A translucent shell formed around him, but not before he was blasted again, this time by some bright red kinetic beam. After the shield stopped its burning power from reaching him, he looked down to see a big smoking hole in his shirt. The smell of burnt chest hair and flesh filled his protective globe. When he looked back up he saw the demon-wizard Pael looking back at him, and the rage that filled him turned the bluish glow of Ironspike’s blade white.
As Mikahl gained his feet, another red blast exploded before him, but this time his shield diffused it. The bald-headed wizard at the end of the dungeon’s hall wasn’t Pael, he realized, but the bastard sure looked like him. The wizard was a bit worried too, now that Mikahl was shielded and on his feet. The black-robed mage started to charge down a side passage, but wasn’t quick enough. The swath of magical energy that shot forth from the end of Ironspike’s blade evaporated everything in its path. Stone, steel, and flesh flashed into nothing more than dust, leaving Cole half there. His shoulder, part of his ribcage, and a portion of his hip had been vaporized. Shocked, and still trying to flee, the wizard took half a step before folding in on himself and smacking wetly into the dungeon floor. He screamed as he realized his condition. Cole couldn’t cast a spell even if he could have mustered the concentration it took to do so. He only had one arm now, and his guts were draining onto the cold stone. He let out a bone-chilling wail that echoed down the corridors, but Mikahl didn’t hear it. His blast had burned through the dungeon wall, and several more walls, including the outer wall of the castle. Ironspike’s symphony was raging in his mind and he was moving toward the sunlight. Purposefully, he strode to the first hole and started to duck through it.
“Please,” Cole begged.
Mikahl spat, and left him to die in misery. He followed the big holes he vaporized until he found himself looking out over Lion Lake. He was maybe forty feet above its surface. He took a few steps back, and then he charged and jumped into the open air. As he fell toward the surface of the lake he called forth the bright horse from Ironspike’s symphony. In a brilliant flash of golden flames, the winged stallion came into being between his legs. Its wide powerful wings caught air, and some ten feet over the shimmering water they swooped round and started to rise.
It was late in the day and still the bright horse stood out like a lantern in the evening. Mikahl didn’t care anymore. He flew straight for Pael’s tower.
When he was hovering outside of the upper chamber where Princess Rosa was being held, he used Ironspike to blast a hole into the wall, big enough for a person to crawl through. Once the pieces crumbled away, Mikahl was shocked to see that it wasn’t just Princess Rosa staring out at him-Phen was standing beside her. The boy was fumbling crazily at his neck for something, but stopped when he saw that it was him.
Rosa was crying, but smiling, and trying to get her fingers through her tangled hair. It was clear that she was foolishly worried about how she looked. Her embarrassment seemed to fade when Mikahl smiled brightly at her.
“Phenilous,” Mikahl called sharply. “Are you a prisoner too? Did they take the ring Oarly told me of?”
“I still have the ring, but you are in peril. It’s a trap. They’ve used Rosa as bait.”
“I’ll worry about that.” He shook Ironspike in his hand, as if its presence could foil any trap that existed. “Hyden is down in the dungeon. Do you know how to get down there? He needs help badly.”
“Aye,” Phen nodded, thinking about the creatures he knew to be down there too, including his familiar. “I can find the way.” He helped Rosa out onto the bright horse. He could feel the urgency of Hyden’s situation radiating off of Mikahl, and as soon as Rosa was on the fiery magical creature he yanked the ring from his necklace.
Rosa hugged herself so tightly to Mikahl that he could barely breathe. “Hurry away before they come,” she said to Mikahl. Then she turned back to the gaping hole in the tower. “Thank you, Pin…” She was going to say more, but the space was empty and she didn’t know if he was still there or not.
Mikahl heeled the bright horse away from the tower. After the magical stallion put it a few dozen powerful wing strokes behind them, Mikahl began to think that the trap had failed. Already he and the Princess were hundreds of feet away.
“Oh, King Mikahl,” Rosa sobbed between his shoulder blades. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“I couldn’t resist the chance to save the most beautiful girl in the realm,” Mikahl replied, oddly thinking of Lord Gregory’s smoothness with his wife. It was the last thought he had before a wave of thick blackness came over him. It was like he had flown into a glob of honey. Princess Rosa, the bright horse, and even Ironspike faded from his world. There was nothing but himself, the blackness, and the sensation of falling.
At first he waited for the bone-crushing impact, but eventually he realized that he wasn’t falling at all. He was lying in a garden. He couldn’t move, not even his eyeballs. The woman looking down at him seemed blurry. The pink teardrop scar on her cheek, and the bald patch on one side of her head were alarmingly familiar, though. She smiled a wicked, sinister grin. He’d never seen Shaella up close before, and he had to admit that she was beautiful in her own dark sort of way. He tried to speak, tried to lash out at her, but he could do nothing. He felt as if he had been turned to stone.
Chapter Forty-Six
Shaella woke to Fslandra’s gentle touch. Sunlight was streaming through the half open shutters. The golden
