They reached an open chamber with windows set high in the walls and in the ceiling, allowing sunshine to pour in. Everything was of the cleanest white marble, with hanging plants, rugs, and sculptures of gold, silver, and other materials decorating it and giving it life.
It took Aliisza a few moments to realize she was in a suite of rooms-cozy quarters. She saw a pool and a small fountain, a shelf filled with books, and a second doorway leading to more chambers. Beyond, she found a bed and a writing desk, as well as a balcony where sunshine streamed in. Aliisza crossed the floor to the balcony. The view beyond was startling. She could see the greater mountain that rose above the other three, majestic and forbidding as it towered overhead.
Aliisza turned to look at Tauran. He gestured at the limits of the room and said, 'Make yourself comfortable. I must consult with others before I can take you before the tribunal. I should not be gone long.'
The half-fiend frowned and asked, 'But if I did not call, then who did?'
Tauran smiled at the alu again, but she could see that there was sadness in his eyes. 'It was your child's cry that I heard. Your unborn offspring summoned me to rescue it.'
Aliisza gawked at the angel as he turned and strode out, pulling the door shut behind him.
At first, Myshik simply sank in the lava. Despite following both Kaanyr Vhok and the mustachioed human into the swirling Everfire, the half-dragon felt genuine fear. He didn't doubt that the ring the cambion had given to him was real. The fey'ri he had cut it from was obviously one of Vhok's consorts and a trusted minion who had expected to follow the half-fiend on the journey. Myshik was not afraid that he was being intentionally led to his fiery death.
No, the half-dragon feared that Vhok simply overestimated the efficacy of the magic in the ring. No dweomer could save them from the scorching conflagration that was the Everfire. The heat was too pure, the flames too infernal.
Still, the half-dragon had jumped.
He could see nothing. Everything was brilliant white, swirling yellow fire. He clenched his eyes shut to block the intensity of the illumination from penetrating, blinding him.
The sinking slowed, and Myshik felt himself being tossed about, as though being thrown by a great giant at play. He wanted to scream, but he feared to open his mouth, lest liquid fire pour down his throat and incinerate him from within.
The churning battered him, pounded him, and he began to try to swim away from its effects. He clawed his way through the lava, pulling hand over hand, stretching toward the surface. He hoped that he moved in the correct direction.
Myshik felt one hand break into open air. He lunged, trying to climb from the soupy fire that surrounded him. His head broke the surface, but he still felt the syrupy magma covering him, drenching him. He foundered, reaching out to nothing, trying to find anything, an outcropping of stone, to hold on to.
A hand grabbed at the half-dragon. Myshik felt fingers close around his own clawed digits, grip him in a handshake. He welcomed that touch, pulled on it, felt it pull back. He scrambled forward, using his other arm to paddle through the lava, and his foot struck something hard-solid ground just below the surface. He stood.
'Hurry up!' the half-dragon heard, and it was Vhok's voice. 'Get out of there before it scorches everything off you! Come on!'
Myshik felt the hand tug at him, pulling him forward. He followed it, stumbling as clumps of liquid flame sloughed off his body. Much of it clung to him, though, and he could already feel it hardening as it began to cool.
Myshik wiped his face clear and risked opening one eye.
The landscape was fire incarnate.
The trio stood near a pool of molten stone, similar to the Everfire, at the base of a cliff where a firefall tumbled over the side, splashing into the lava like a waterfall. The pool lay in the midst of a small valley, with rolling hills on every side except for a narrow defile, where the magma drained away, tumbling through a series of cataracts and vanishing into lowlands in the distance.
The land resembled the foothills of the Nether mountains, terrain Myshik was familiar with. Instead of rock, grass, shrubs, and trees, everything was flame. The ground was an endless glowing ember, orange and smoking. Gouts of flame shot up everywhere, in various sizes and colors, from dull red and yellow to brighter blue and even white. In an insane sort of way, they reminded the half-dragon of plants and trees.
A small gathering of herd animals foraged along the far edge of the pool. They looked faintly like deer, standing on four slender, graceful legs and sporting antlers on their heads. But instead of flesh and skin, they were made of embers and fire. A few seemed wary of the trio's presence, stock still and staring, but they otherwise ignored the interlopers.
Everything hissed and smoked, and the horizon shimmered and vanished through waves of unending heat. The sky was nothing but low-hanging, angry red smoke as far as the eye could see. Every breath Myshik drew was hot, and though he knew he wasn't dying, it felt worse than the scorching dry air he was used to in the great desert, Anauroch, near his home. Right then, home seemed impossibly far away.
As quickly as he took it all in, the view around Myshik started to fade. Smoke began to drift past him, growing thicker and thicker. It filled his nose with another, even more acrid scent.
As Myshik pivoted, scanning the horizon on every side, he saw great volumes of thick black smoke blowing toward them, sweeping across the valley like a dust storm in Anauroch. The wind that drove the smoke ahead of it also kicked up flames along the landscape. The fires leaped and danced like a wildfire on an open plain, though the half-dragon did not see what fuel let them burn as they zipped along.
Very quickly, visibility diminished to a few paces, and Myshik found his eyes stinging. He hurried to close the gap between himself and Vhok, but the cambion vanished from sight, and the draconic hobgoblin could barely make out his own hands in front of his face.
'Beware!' Zasian hissed from somewhere nearby. 'They're charging!'
'What in the Abyss is char-' the cambion uttered, his words sounding strangely distant.
Something shot past Myshik. One of the grazing creatures he had spotted a moment before bounded into the travelers' midst and was gone again before Myshik could free his axe.
Another darted past the half-hobgoblin, moving close enough that its heat made his skin hot. Then two more came at him, one bounding to his left and another leaping directly over him. Myshik dropped into a crouch, expecting one to attack him at any instant. The soupy mess of liquefied stone that coated him made him stiff and heavy. He tried to wipe it off, but it stuck to him like thick mud.
As several more of the herd animals flew by, Myshik realized the danger lay not in attack, but in sheer numbers. One or two of the creatures became five, six. Then an entire horde of the things raced through the group of travelers, buffeting them as they stormed past. The flames of the beasts singed the half-dragon's exposed skin and left smoking scorch marks everywhere they touched him or his clothing and possessions, despite the magic of his ring.
Vhok began to rise into the air, levitating out of the stampede of fiery creatures. Myshik cursed. Without such a luxury, he was forced to crouch, to make himself as small a target as he could. Even so, he suffered several singeing blows from the creatures.
The thundering, flaming herd of fire-animals began to dwindle, and Myshik thought for a moment that the danger was past. Then he felt a deep, thumping vibration rise up through the ground… then another, and another. A last few straggling deerlike things shot past him as the thumps grew more powerful, louder. Myshik strained to peer through the thick, stinging smoke. His grip on his axe was iron-tight.
With the next powerful thump, the smoke dissipated for an instant, and a huge creature loomed into view, right before the half-dragon. Its great bulk was all smoldering coals and crackling flames. Six long serpentine necks snaked out of a bloated round body. Each head atop those necks sported draconian features, with wide, fanged jaws and blazing blue eyes. In addition to the four ponderous legs the creature strode upon, it manipulated two strange tentaclelike appendages, one from each side of its torso. The appendages thrashed around in irritation, capped on the ends with wide flat flanges, like the end of an oar. A horrific sulfurous odor poured off the thing, filling Myshik's nostrils.
'By Maglubiyet's bones!' the half-hobgoblin breathed, stumbling back.
The fiery thing's six heads writhed and roared, and it lunged forward.
