A light suddenly blasted out from the corner around which the Lord of Light had just walked. It was a warm, soothing light, like bright sunlight on a clear day, and it was so dazzling that everyone but me had to turn their faces from it and shield their eyes. From around the corner, instead of shouts of anger and cries of alarm and the warning bell ringing, there came gasps of disbelief and murmurs of wonder.
“Whatever he’s doing over there is working,” I said to the others, who were still shielding their eyes against the dazzling glow. “Hold tight, and we might be able to walk out of here with the two most valuable objects in this building without Elandriel knowing a single thing about it.”
We heard the sound of a door being opened and excited voices chattering. The light continued to shine with brilliant intensity, and after a few minutes, it grew even brighter, so much so that even I had to turn away. Then, just as it started to grow impossibly bright, it abruptly shut off, and the Lord of Light walked around the corner … followed by the entire company of guards.
“You lying piece of shit,” I snarled, preparing to lunge at him with the Dragon Sword. It seemed this was the one occasion where my judge of character had been false.
“God of Death, stay your blade, please,” he said calmly. “They are under my spell; they do not know that you are there, and they cannot even see you. All they know now is my light, and with my light, I can command them to do whatever I say.”
I cautiously lowered the sword, then took a closer look at the guards. Through the eye-slits in their full-face helms, I could see that their eyes were shining with a soft yellow glow. They reminded me of my zombies, except, of course, that the guards were still breathing, and living blood still flowed through their veins.
Yumo-Rezu had been ready to unleash a volley of glowing blue arrows on the guards, but when she saw what they were dragging behind them, she lowered her bow, and her jaw dropped open. The guards were pulling an ornate golden carriage, and on it was an enormous glass jar the size of a cave troll. And inside the jar, suspended in embalming fluid, weas the biggest heart I’d ever seen.
“The Dragon Heart,” Yumo-Rezu murmured, tears of joy glistening in her eyes. She almost broke down and started weeping, but she managed to restrain herself.
Friya looked on in wonder, her eyes sparkling. I didn’t need to read minds to know what she was thinking. With this Dragon Heart, she was that much closer to fulfilling her dream of transforming into a dragon.
In the Lord of Light’s hands was a more familiar object, for I’d seen and used one of them before: a crystalized tear, glowing gently.
“Can’t you just cry more of those things out?” Rhuz asked scornfully. “It’s just a tear turned to crystal.”
“I cannot,” the Lord of Light answered. “This tear is not something I wept out; it is the essence of a falling star from the heavens. I caught this one at the height of my powers. I called it my tear because of the shape the crystalized power took, but I cannot produce this kind of magic; only the stars can. And a star like this one only falls from the heavens once every thousand years … and, what is more, my powers will never reach the levels they were at again. I burned most of them out, and even with your generous assistance, God of Death, they can never be fully restored.”
“That doesn’t matter right now,” I said. “We’ve got what we came for, and now we need to get the hell out of here and put these treasures to use. Elandriel is preparing for the final battle, I’m sure of it, but he doesn’t know that it’s going to start a lot earlier than he’d hoped for. That fool thinks I’m still flying from Brakith with the harpies and the rest of my party. The longer we can retain this element of surprise, the more of an advantage we’ll have; we’ll be able to force him into battle before he’s fully prepared.”
“We will have to make our exit from the vaults with caution,” the Lord of Light said. “While I was able to bring these guards under my spell, it will not be the case with all the guards we encounter. Those who have abandoned their faith in me and chosen to worship the Blood God will be immune to my powers, and they will certainly raise the alarm if they see us.”
I stroked the blade of the Dragon Sword. “Not if I separate their heads from their shoulders before they utter a single word, they won’t.”
“We should go back through the secret tunnel into the sewers to avoid detection,” Yollah said. “If we move fast and deal with any guards we come across even faster, we should make it out without them raising the alarm or realizing that the Inner Vaults have been robbed until it’s far too late.”
“Then we’ll go back through the sewers,” I said. “Lead the way.”
We turned back and hurried through the maze, keeping our eyes and ears wide open for any signs of trouble. I’d done my best to memorize the way we’d come, and since I’d always had a talent for directions and finding my way, along with all the experience I’d accrued when it came to navigating my way through crypt mazes, I was able to correctly predict every
