The Heavenly Host

“Are you saying that our current plan of retreat is better than standing and fighting?” Talarius asked.

“Pretty much,” Tizzy said.

“Very well then,” the knight said matter-of-factly.

They rounded another corner.

“Should we branch off at some point to try and elude them?” Tom asked.

“There are various theories of castle design and dungeon design, but long hallways often lead to exits. Unless the builders are particularly crafty, dwarves and drow being very good examples of such. Orcs are not crafty. Sneaky, untrustworthy and ruthless, but not crafty. I am thinking the best bet is to try and get to an exit. They know these halls far better than we,” Talarius said.

The point might be moot, Tom realized, as they had not seen any side corridors or even doors since they had turned that last corner.

“Crap!” Antefalken exclaimed as they emerged into a larger room. The group stopped, as there did not appear to be any place else to go.

The corridors for some time had been mostly masonry. The front half of this room was the same; however, the back wall was rough brown stone leading all the way to the top of a forty-foot-high ceiling. There were no doors or other exits.

“This is not good; we will have to backtrack,” Talarius said as he moved around the room, apparently searching for secret doors or who knew what. He shook his head and walked back to the center of the room near the back wall, staring down the corridor through which they’d entered.

Tom blinked at the wall behind the knight. He thought he could see what looked like a drawing on the wall. The knight’s armor light was off, so the room was completely dark, but the drawing on the wall seemed to be softly glowing. It had not been doing that when they’d entered.

“Does anyone else see that?” Tom pointed to the wall behind the knight.

“Yes,” Antefalken said.

The others looked and nodded. Talarius turned and clearly saw it as well.

“What the...?” The knight walked up to the wall. As he did so, the writing grew brighter. There was what looked like a door drawn on the rock wall, covered with all sorts of runes and designs both on the door and on the door’s drawn frame.

“Do you recognize the writing?” Tom asked.

“It seems to recognize you,” Reggie said.

The knight’s helmet moved back and forth. “Some of it looks familiar. It may be very old Etonian, or even Ætòênyân. However, I’ve only seen it in some very old books and engravings.”

“I don’t suppose you can read it?” Tom asked Tizzy.

“Sorry. Not big on reading religious propaganda, so never learned,” the demon said.

“Talarius, step back. Let’s see if it goes dark and if it will light up for anyone else,” Tom instructed.

Talarius stepped back, and the light dimmed and then went out as he moved further away. Each of the others moved close to the back wall; however, the wall remained dark.

“So for some reason either Talarius, or maybe something on him is causing the runes to show,” Tom said.

“So these are Etonian runes? How would they get here in the middle of nowhere in the Abyss?” Antefalken asked, clearly troubled and puzzled. More noise came from the corridor.

“They are getting closer,” Tom said. “Any of you know much about rune magic?” They all shook their heads except for Antefalken, who made a so-so motion. Tom looked at the bard. “What do we need to do? Read them out loud?”

Antefalken shrugged. “Not necessarily; they could be instructions or maybe a riddle, or maybe you read them aloud to a particular response. It’s hard to say without actually reading them. You really have to get into the runes and understand them somehow.”

Get into the runes? That might be an idea. Maybe Tom could trace them like a link or something. “Talarius, move up to the runes so I can see them.” The knight did as Tom asked. As he did, Tom opened one of his belt pouches and carefully removed an arrowhead and hid it in the palm of his hand. He stared intently at the writing, looking for a starting point. The lower right-hand corner looked as good as any. He got down on his knees up close to the runes and carefully, so that the knight could not see what he was doing, tried scratching at the first rune with the arrowhead. It did not seem to do anything.

He concentrated his essence into a strand, as he had on the battlefield, and channeled it through the arrowhead. Thinking more, he tried to reach into himself to the wad of god mana that had been giving him indigestion. Trying to separate it out was not easy, but it was the only thing he could think of. As he scratched, he tried to force his stream into the arrowhead and insert it into the rune. He imagined himself, his essence stream becoming part of the rune, even as he had done with the mana streams, treating the rune, which was clearly magic, as if were a stream or a priest that he wanted to possess.