An Unexpected Deity (Book 7) (22 page)

What would he say, or hear, Kestrel wondered.

He reached the first of the two doors, and stood before it, a part of him examining the door and the glowing energy, while another part continued to turn over the question of the reunion with his father – what he should say, what he should do, what he should anticipate.

A steely, rasping noise sounded behind him, and he turned from his bemused trance to see that the doors on the far side of the room were all opening, and a dozen Viathins came bursting out of the doorways.  They seized his companions, who had gathered in a semi-circle to watch him, then one of the Viathins stepped forth, pointed its clawed hand at Kestrel, and shot forth a beam of red light that struck him and paralyzed him in place as it inflicted terrible pain upon him. 

“You are persistent,” the Viathin spoke.  “Even Ashcrayss doubted that you would be able to penetrate to this place.  But I knew that you had killed my brother priest at the high lake, using a resourcefulness and an assortment of allies that allowed you to over-achieve, so I did not doubt that you might manage to surprise us all again, and I waited for your arrival.

“With your capture,” the Viathin began to speak, and it put an increased twist into the beam of energy that held Kestrel in stasis, so that the pain Kestrel suffered increased.  “We have no further enemies left to stop our advance.”

“And all these fools who chose to join you will pay the ultimate price for falling under your control,” the monster said.

It nodded at the Viathin that held the human guard captive, and with a sudden thrust, the bulky reptilian captor slide its sword through the man’s chest, making him give a momentary shout, then a moan and a sigh, as he slumped limply from the grasp of the Viathin, dead.

“No!” Lark screamed.  With surprising force, she raised her booted foot and kicked it against the shin of the monster that held her, then she butted her head backwards, striking the Viathin in the chest, and she managed to break free from the surprised captor.

Another Viathin swiped a paw at her, but she ducked low beneath the fruitless effort, and threw herself down at the body of her murdered comrade.

The Viathin priest bellowed in dismay, and released his painful beam that was holding Kestrel in place, while he swung his arm around to point it at Lark.  Kestrel fell to his knees, weakened by the painful attack, but also bolstered by the unexpected bravery and resourcefulness of the young duchess.  He didn’t want to see her murdered, and he felt an adrenaline burst that triggered a flood of his own energies to burst forth, overcoming his pain and weariness, overcoming the barriers of the blue sun that shone somewhere far overhead, even overcoming the emotional turmoil that he had been embroiled in as he had approached his father.

Kestrel pointed his own left hand at Lark, and emitted a brilliant blue beam of energy that formed a shield in front of her.  His timing was a fraction of a second ahead of the action of the Viathin, and his shield was intact as the monster’s red beam of light struck it and splattered apart.

With his right hand Kestrel shot another beam of his energy at the Viathin priest, causing it to fly backwards and strike the wall behind it with great force.   The Viathin’s energy beam abruptly ceased, and the monster slumped down against the wall, momentarily stunned by the impact of Kestrel’s attack.

And then there was a warlike cry from the dark shadows above the conflict in the dungeon, and Stillwater swooped down, spraying and shaking the water skin of enchanted waters in all directions, squirting the powerful liquid upon all the inhabitants of the room – Viathins, Skyes, humans, elves and the gnome.

As the water struck the Viathins, they all cried out in dreadful pain, filling the room with a bellowing cacophony of noise.  Their hides began to release wisps of steam from the places where the water had touched them, then, in ones and twos, they fell to their knees, or toppled over onto the ground, dead.

“Stillwater!” Kestrel shouted, still on his knees.  “You are the hero of the day!  You wonderful imp you!” he cried.

Stuart rushed over to Lark; she lay prone on the ground, breathing in short, gasping breathes as she recovered from the shocking events.  Gates joined him, and the two of them placed their hands behind the girl’s back to gently help her sit up.

“Kestrel, how do you feel?” Woven asked, as he stepped onto, then over, a pair of Viathin corpses to reach his kneeling companion.

“Help me up, please,” Kestrel said.   As Woven’s strong arms lifted him to his feet, Kestrel looked over and saw that Wren was deep in conversation with the Skyes, explaining what had happened.  She glanced at him, caught his eye, and smiled a brilliant smile, as she continued to retell the events.

“Now, the question is, can we manage to set the captives free,” Kestrel told Woven.  He turned from the triumphant scene to face towards the challenge of the two doors that were still sealed shut with powerful forces.

He still felt the surge of ability that had enabled him to overcome the Viathin priest he had faced, and he held onto the link to that energy that resided within him, hoping that it would provide the power he would need to unlock the sealed cells before him.  Facing the two doors, not knowing which captive god was behind which door, and suddenly remembering again that one of the gods was his father, Kestrel felt a growing nervousness as he chose the right hand door to be his first target.

He called his blue energy forth, and focused it in his hand, then walked up to the sealed door and studied it intently, then cautiously pressed his hand towards the orange field around the closed panel.  He felt a growing tension as his hand drew nearer, and a crackling hiss developed, then grew more prominent as the space between his palm and the door panel shrank.  Sparks began to fly out of the closing gap, and Kestrel paused, his palm just a fraction of an inch away from the door.  He took a deep breath, feeling the way that the orange power tried to repel his hand – the orange sensed the nature of his goal, and it hardened its own energy to prevent entry.

Kestrel plunged his hand forward recklessly, and the direct collision of the two energies produced an explosion that sent Kestrel flying backwards.  He struck Woven, who was standing close behind him, and tumbled the gnome down, while he flipped backwards and then landed on his back on the floor behind the gnome.

He had lost his connection to his energy; he could tell that immediately as he lay on his back looking up at the dark ceiling.

Stillwater floated into view.  “Are you okay, Kestrel acrobat?” he asked.

“I am not as okay as I would like to be, Stillwater friend,” he answered.

“Kestrel, are you okay?” Wren asked as well as she came over and knelt beside him.

“Nothing feels broken,” he told her, as he pressed himself up into a sitting position.

He looked around the room.  The trio of humans were looking at him, breaking their mourning of their fallen companion.

The passage to the stairs they had descended remained open, a yawning opportunity for trouble to sweep down upon them, he saw.  “Can you ask the Skyes to watch the stairs to make sure no Viathins come down and trap us here?” he asked his cousin.

He looked over his shoulder at the door that had won the first round of their contest.  It’s color was faded, he was sure, evidence that the contact between the two of them had not harmed only him alone.

Wren began conversing, as Kestrel stepped up to the door again.  He called on his powers; they came again, but more hesitantly, as though his unconscious fear of more pain inhibited their release.  There had to be a way to overcome the energy lock he faced, and he stood silent, trying to analyze the possible ways he could undo the powerful barrier.

His deep thought was interrupted when he heard a loud clattering behind him, and he turned, annoyed by the disturbance.  A few quick steps took him to the doorway, and he looked into the passage, where he saw an unexpected spectacle at the end of the short passage.  At the foot of the steps he saw the Skyes, climbing up upon the backs of one another, forming ramps that allowed them to climb up the treads of the stairs, as Wren stood over them offering sounds that might have been encouragement, or direction – Kestrel had no idea.  As each of them climbed and plopped itself atop one of its companions, their shells clicked loudly, the noise that had caught Kestrel’s attention

She looked up and caught his eye, and saw the quizzical expression on his face.

“This is how they climb stairs,” she said.  “It’s not their favorite thing to do, but they want to help the team, so they’re going up to the top of the stairs, and if anyone comes, they’ll roll down and alert us.”

“They, they are good partners,” Kestrel said in bemusement.  He turned and went back to the glowing doorway, his focus split by the difficult problem of opening the door as well as the ingenuity of the Skyes, who had realized they could climb atop one another to overcome their problem.  It made sense, and he admired them for thinking beyond the limitations of their short stature.

Could the concept work for him, in facing his problem, he suddenly wondered?  Did he have to only see the door as the way to enter the room, or could he go around it, as the Skyes had worked around and over their problem?

Kestrel stepped back and looked at the solid stone wall that the door was set in.  The wall was undoubtedly sturdy, and thick, but it was unlikely to be able to withstand his efforts to blast his way through it with his energy.  And it was unlikely to strike back – the wall seemed much less likely to knock him across the room the way the powerful energy seal on the door had.

Kestrel focused the energy in his hand, then focused it further, into a single finger, compressing and squeezing his power to the point that it would be a powerful tool, like water pouring out of a hose, with something akin to pressure.

He placed his finger against the cool stone wall just inches away from the glowing door frame, then closed his eyes, and let his power erupt through his finger.  The narrow beam of energy struck the stone, and sparks and fragments of rock started flying away, as Kestrel felt his hand pushed back from the wall by the resistance his energy beam encountered.  Kestrel wrapped his left hand around his right to hold it in place, then leaned forward into the effort, and watched as a deep gorge began to appear in the wall.

He was carving deeply into the stone wall, and he ran his finger slowly upward, then stood on his toes and carved across the top of the wall above the door, before starting to burn his way down the other side of the door.  The flow of energy that he was using was the fullest use of his capacity – there was no more he could offer if needed, and he felt weariness beginning to set in, though he hadn’t even finished the first of the two doors.

He reached the floor, the end of the stone-cutting he needed to accomplish, and stopped firing his energy into the wall, then knelt silently, resting, bone-weary.  This was only the first of two doors he had to open, and it was not even opened yet, he reminded himself.

“Are you feeling okay, Kestrel?” Lark had come up behind him, and was solicitous in her tone.

“Yes, I am; I’m just resting before I figure out what to do next,” he told her, not looking over his shoulder as he hung his head.

“Thank you for saving my life,” the young woman said.

“I’m glad I could.  I’m sorry about your loss,” he told her, raising his head and looking back at the body of the dead guard.

“Thank you.  He was a good man, one of the guards my father trusted most.  So many of them are getting killed in the battles we face, and I don’t know the new ones he has to hire.  It’s a sad thing to see,” she rambled through her answer, melancholy and reflective.

“What do you plan to do now?” Woven stepped up and spoke as he examined the stone carving.

“Well,” Kestrel said with a weak smile, “I think that if I try to touch the energy shield with my own energy, and there’s an explosion like there was before, then maybe the door will be knocked down.”

“And you’ll be thrown across the room again?” the gnome asked.  “That plan sounds like it has some problems,” he said.

“It’s the best I have,” Kestrel said.

“Well, I can at least stand behind you and catch you before you fly too far,” Woven offered, as Kestrel rose to his feet.

Kestrel nodded his head, then stood in front of the door and called his energy forth once more.  It was difficult to reach the power once again, as he grew weary from his efforts and fearful of the burst of pain he knew he was going to suffer.  His hand began to blaze, and he gave a sigh, then shut his eyes, and pressed his hand forward towards the glowing door that had become his obsession.

As soon as the two fields of energy made contact, the same results occurred as had happened before.  There was an explosive reaction, and Kestrel flew backwards, where he made an abrupt stop as he struck the solidly planted gnome.

The air in the underground chamber was full of stone dust, and more importantly, the glowing orange door lay on the ground amid a pile of rubble.  It had fallen inward, into the cell beyond, and its orange glow continued to shine, filling the dusty space with a strangely haunting ambience.

Kestrel stared at the gaping hole in the wall, which suddenly grew dark, as a brawny figure stepped over the rubble and crossed the threshold.

“It’s Kestrel, isn’t it?” Krusima asked.  “Nice work cutting the stone; I appreciate seeing good stone work, you know.