enough.”
“Right,” nods James. Pulling forth the cloth, he casts his spell and they are elated to see it begin to move and then point to someplace below them and to the right.
“Yes!” exclaims Jiron.
“Can you see if he’s still alive?” he asks.
Putting the cloth back in his pouch, he removes his mirror. Concentrating on Tinok, he tries to bring him into focus. They all gather around and watch the surface of the mirror as it begins to shift. Then it clarifies and Tinok’s image appears. He’s gripping what looks like iron bars as he stares out at something beyond the image in the mirror. His face is bathed in a red glow.
“Try to see what he’s looking at,” Brother Willim tells him.
He works to move the image away from the bars and just when something begins to appear, the mirror shatters in his hand. A drop of blood wells from his thumb where one of the glass shards impaled it.
“What happened?” asks Miko.
Eeeeeek!
They turn to see one of the little creatures James and Jiron had met before hovering not more than two feet away. Its shriek sends a chill down James’ spine. Jiron pulls his knives as Brother Willim exclaims, “A Hikuli!”
“You know these things?” Jiron asks him.
“Oh yes,” he replies. “We’ve known about them for some time, only we didn’t know where they were.”
Eeeeeek!
Screaming again, the creature disappears.
“Come on,” James urges the others. “We haven’t much time.” The prickling sensation suddenly intensifies, whether due to the creature that just vanished or for some other reason, he can’t tell. He sends forth the magic and creates a translucent floating sphere. He’s used similar ones before when trying to locate someone. As it moves down the hallway, he says, “Let’s go.”
Jiron takes the lead with James right behind. Miko and Brother Willim follow closely.
“Do you feel it?” Brother Willim asks Miko.
“I feel something,” he replies. “Never felt it before.”
“This temple resonates with evil,” he explains. “What you feel is the signature of evil. Remember it.”
Miko glances to him and says, “I doubt if I’ll ever be able to forget it.”
Following the sphere, they hurry down the corridor. The coldness of where they are increases the further they go until their breath begins misting in the orb’s light. And still the temperature drops. As they approach the end of the corridor, they see it open up onto a very large room. Jiron pauses a moment before entering.
“Why did you stop?” James asks as he comes to stand besides him. Then he looks to where Jiron is pointing.
Across the room from where they stand, lies a seat made entirely out of bones, some human, others not. On either side of the dark throne are two braziers burning with a purplish glow which seems to suck the warmth from them even from halfway across the room.
“It’s the seat of Ozgirath,” Brother Willim states, “the High Priest of Dmon-Li. We are in the Hall of Despair.”
“Where is he?” Jiron asks.
“I would think he would be wherever Tinok is,” he replies.
Eeeeeek!
All of a sudden the air is filled with Hikuli. They screech as they swoop down and begin raking them with their razor sharp claws. Each strike brings pain like acid.
Miko draws his sword and begins attempting to strike them out of the air, but they move so fast, that even with his speed he misses as often as not.
“The Star!” yells James as he pulls forth his medallion. “Use the Star!”
As Miko pulls forth the Star, its light shines brilliantly. For the first time in time unknown, light dispels the dark in the Hall of Despair.
The creatures pull back some distance and hover. Chittering among themselves, they shriek and hiss at the companions they are no longer able to come near.
James sees Brother Willim kneeling on the floor and is arranging a circle of leaves. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“Making a Vyrilyzk,” he replies. Once the leaves are in their proper position, he begins talking softly and quietly.
“What’s he doing?” asks Jiron. “We have to get to Tinok.”
James turns back to Brother Willim to tell him that they have to move on when he sees a small creature that looks remarkably like a garden gnome standing within the Vyrilyzk. “An earth spirit?” he asks in surprise. Brother Willim ignores the question. Instead he keeps his attention focused on the earth spirit and points to the Hikuli hovering in the air.
The earth spirit looks up and sees them there. The expression on the earth spirit’s face changes to what can only be called hate. Disappearing for only a second, it reappears a moment later. Launching itself upward, it grabs hold of a Hikuli and the two creatures start clawing each other as the earth spirit drags the Hikuli to the ground. Then from out of the Vyrilyzk more earth spirits begin boiling into the room, each one launching itself at a Hikuli. The Hikuli in turn screech as they attack the earth spirits.
Brother Willim stands up and turns to the others. “Their enmity for the Hikuli is older than time,” he explains. Soon the air is empty of Hikuli as scores of battle-locked creatures writhe upon the floor. Still more of the earth spirits boil forth from the Vyrilyzk to join the fray.
“Let’s go,” he says to James and Jiron. “They’ll take care of them for us.”
Jiron gives him a grin and a nod. Then turns to follow James’ sphere where it is again moving across the Hall of Despair toward the opening of another corridor.
Ozgirath stands before the crystal that’s aglow with power being channeled to it from temples both within the Empire and without. Every temple is sacrificing slaves and sending the power here to Ith-Zirul, for what he’s about to do requires an incredible amount of magic.
The time for his lord to come has arrived. Ages have been spent in preparation of this moment. Plans that began centuries past have at last come to fruition. All is in ready. The six Gygnai from the home plane of Dmon-Li stand within the circles of power, two slaves who will give their lives to complete the ritual lie before each of them.
As he summons the enormous reservoir of power within himself, Ozgirath sends it forth. One by one he envelopes the Gygnai with the power and activates the magical symbols engraved in the floor about them. The symbols flare with a dark radiance as they begin absorbing power contained within the glowing crystal. When all six of Gygnai are fully intertwined in his magic, they bend down and grab the men lying before them, one in each hand. Then, they come erect again and await his command.
In the back of his mind he senses the presence of an age old enemy, but so engrossed in the ritual is he that it is soon pushed to the back of his mind and is lost. Once more bending the power to his will, he signals the Gygnai that it is time.
As the Gygnai begin absorbing the life of the slaves each holds, the symbols surrounding them begin to writhe. Then the symbols flare with a purplish radiance and the bodies of the Gygnai start to shift and waver as they in turn are absorbed by the symbols surrounding them.
The union of the life forces from this world and that of the plane which Dmon-Li calls home will now enable Ozgirath to create a gateway that will allow his lord to cross over and claim this world for his own. Enormous power is being sent to the crystal, which in turn is taken by Ozgirath. Bending the magic to his will, the High Lord of Dmon-Li invokes the final spell to create the gate.
Where the six Gygnai had stood are now six areas of shifting and pulsating darkness. With the power coming from the crystal, Ozgirath causes the areas of darkness to move toward the crystal. One by one, the darkness envelopes the crystal until it can no longer be seen. Then, the crystal ceases to be as the darkness completely consumes it.
At the point when the crystal ceases to be, the darkness latches onto the tendrils of power being sent from the temples and begins absorbing the magic directly. Coalescing into a large sphere, it slowly grows under the
