Aces and Eights
Part 8: Trapped
The tower door would not budge. It
seemed to be barred. Still holding my saber, I braced myself and pushed. After
several moments of creaking, the door splintered inward, making a dead-rousing
racket. I cursed and entered quickly, telling myself that any element of
surprise had already been blown by the gargoyle's screeching, anyway.
Inside was a small, dry room
containing many wooden packing crates with foreign letters stenciled on them in
black. The crates, I guessed, held supplies for whomever was staying within the
tower. And it seemed safe to assume, at this point, that the resident had to be
Kashfa's mysterious foe--the sorcerer who had been behind both the theft of
Luke's phoenix, and the creation of the Trump which had delivered me to this
place. Ignoring the crates, I scrutinized the remainder of the room.
In the area farthest from the door,
behind a stack of boxes, I found a narrow stairway that curved its way up the
wall and to the left. The steps were smooth stone, pale and green--very
different than the gray rock that had comprised the tower's outer wall. Certain
steps--at oddly placed intervals--bore strange characters, flush with the stone,
and formed of what appeared to be inlaid mother-of-pearl.
Through the ring, I sent forth
tendrils of psychic awareness, looking for anything of a magical nature that
might cause me harm. The stairway itself radiated a fairly strong level of
energy, but it did not feel like a trap. Stepping forward, I set my foot upon
the first pale green step. Climbing as quickly as I was able, I began to ascend.
At regular intervals, intricately
carved brass hands extended from the curved outer wall. Each hand held in its
palm a green crystal orb that shed about as much light as a forty watt bulb. The
dim light had a green tint, of course.
The first landing I arrived at led
to a wide, wooden door, painted an odd shade of orange. I stopped and tried the
knob. It was locked.
Taking a firm hold of the thing, I
applied as much pressure as I could and twisted hard. With a metallic,
click-crunching sound, the locking mechanism snapped free within its place. When
I released my hand, the knob bobbled and rested several inches below where it
had been before. I pushed open the door, and entered, saber in hand.
Beyond lay a comfortable-looking
room. There were several exotic rugs scattered about upon the floor, three
stuffed chairs with faces carved into their wooden backings, and a table bearing
an ochre-colored carafe. There was another door on the other side of the room.
After checking it out, I discovered that it lead to a kitchen. The entire area
seemed ordinary enough, and there was no one around, so I made my way back out
to the pale green stairway.
At the next landing, I felt a
prickling sensation. Some sort of enchantment lay beyond, I could tell. I was
about to repeat my lock-breaking performance when I found that the knob turned
freely. I entered.
Beyond the door was a hallway,
stretching on a good distance, then turning left. As quietly as possible, I
proceeded. The hallway twisted several times, before finally terminating at an
archway that lead into a wide room. From what I could see, the room was empty.
Its floor was made of smooth stones, quite a bit smaller than those making up
the bulk of the tower. I took a step forward, but did not pass into the room.
From my position in the archway, I could see a similar opening on the opposite
side of the empty. Leaning forward some, I saw two more of the archways on the
far left and right walls. At the room's center was what appeared to be a shallow
fire pit. The dimensions of the room, I was sure, exceeded the natural space
limitations of the tower itself. Some Shadow-bending magic had to be involved,
giving the tower's master additional square footage. I knew an Earth
architectural major who would have paid a pretty penny for that trick.
Still holding my sword ready, I
stepped into the room, thinking to move along the right wall and check out the
hallway beyond the archway on my right. However, as soon as my foot touched the
smooth, shiny floor, I felt a power fall upon me.
I was drawn forward, pulled by some
invisible force toward the room's center. I resisted, of course, trying to step
backward into the archway. The pull was too strong, though, and I found myself
turning, against my will, to face the middle of the room. Simultaneously, a
massive design--an intricately detailed wheel of some kind--flared to fiery life
across the floor. Various symbols glowed within the limits of its outer
perimeter, each connected to a spoke that lead to the fire pit at the wheel's
center.
The flames tracing the borders of
the design stood only half a foot in height. They were an inky blue, and
flickered slowly, as if made of animated syrup. A dull droning sound rose in
volume until it caught my notice. A column of the same ink-colored fire rose up
from the fire pit, swaying like an eight foot serpent.
My left foot slid forward until it
touched the nearest edge of the wheel-design. The flame did not burn, but the
tugging increased, and the pitch of the humming sound rose by a notch. My right
foot followed the example set by my left, and soon I was within the perimeter of
the wheel, having passed over what appeared to be a spidery flower, rendered in
dark shades of purple and violet. I moved involuntarily along the spoke
connected to the flower.
Though I poured the sum of my
efforts into resisting the thing, it was just too strong. After a short time, I
unwillingly came to another symbol along the flower-spoke. This one, a
vine-wrapped skull, had been rendered in the same purplish shades. Even as I was
pulled forward, I studied the wheel.
The symbols along each spoke seemed
to be related in theme. I had crossed over a flower entering the circle, was
nearing a skull criss-crossed by thorny vines, and, farther ahead, I could see a
pair of saplings, their branches intertwined. Those portions of the spoke to my
left bore yellow, insect-related symbols. Those to my right were elemental
images in red. I was at a total loss to understand the significance of the
pretty pictures, but I knew for certain that they meant nothing good for me.
As I reached the
vine-and-skull-design a numbness spread over me. The feeling grew more complete,
until I was utterly paralyzed. I was unsure as to why my progress had been
halted on that image, as opposed to any of the others glowing on the floor.
The flames fell away then, along with the drone and the central column of fire. Shortly afterward, the symbols on the floor vanished as well. I was left standing, unable to move, in the empty room.