“Minotaur! Listen to-to me!”
“What is it?” Kaz watched in dismay as the monster tried to rise in the air. It was no sooner off the ground, however, than the top of its head smashed into the ceiling like a battering ram. Both elf and minotaur were showered by large fragments.
“By the Oath and Measure!” Whatever Argaen sought to say was again cut off, this time by the intrusion of the Grand Master and Darius. They had come in expecting a battle, but nothing like this. The stone behemoth turned to regard them.
“The Abyss take you, foul fiend! I owe you for many lives!” shouted Darius. He started for the monster in what Kaz thought was typical Solamnic fashion, a head-on charge with only a sword against a creature more than twenty times his size. Kaz was never sure whether such an action ought to be considered bravery or stupidity.
Darius was already upon the dragon before anyone could prevent him. With a loud battle cry, he struck at the nearest leg, only to have his sword rebound off the limb and go flying from his hand. The dragon raised its front paw high.
“No!” Lord Oswal reacted instinctively, rushing to pull the stunned and still angered Darius away from a danger that seemed obvious to everyone except the young knight.
The massive paw came down, smashing a vast hole in the floor and causing the entire vault to shake. More ceiling rained down, but this time it did not cease after a few seconds. The structure had not been designed to combat something so huge trying to get out.
The Grand Master managed to save Darius, but not without risk to his own safety. Several large fragments of rock struck him, knocking him to the ground. Kaz tried to reach him, but Ravenshadow’s uncontrollable stone dragon now blocked his path completely. It was determined to extinguish the two knights. The minotaur steadied his axe, mentally readying himself for a suicide charge.
“There… is a way… minotaur! Listen… to me!”
Argaen Ravenshadow clutched at the ugly hole in his upper torso. The wound had stopped bleeding, but the elf was as white as a dreadwolf. With his other arm, Argaen forced himself to remain in a sitting position. Kaz could see that it wouldn’t take much to shift the arm a little and send the dark one falling facedown into the earth, where he would be too weak to rise again. The temptation was there, but Kaz checked the thought. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Darius was trying to drag his liege lord to safety. He was not making much headway, for the younger knight’s right leg seemed unsteady, as if he had sprained his ankle. Another figure darted into the vault, Tesela, with a look of grim desperation on her visage. Her eyes avoiding the monstrous threat before her, she rushed over to Darius and helped him drag Lord Oswal toward the entrance of the vault. The stone dragon trailed closely behind. Of Delbin, there was still no sign, and Kaz hoped the kender had enough sense to stay out of danger this time.
Argaen’s renewed plea made him turn back to the elf. “Help… me to… bind the sphere… the sphere to my will…”
“Hah! You’re even madder than I thought! Me help you?”
The elf spat blood. “I… cannot control the animate… for very long! You can… see that I… am dying, minotaur! If I do, that thing will rampage until… all of Vingaard is destroyed… and then it… will start on Solamnia!”
“Another sorcerer will stop it!”
“True”-Argaen tried to smile-”but we will be long dead… and who knows… how many others will die!”
Kaz looked back and saw that Darius and Tesela had succeeded in nearly gaining the entrance. As the dragon struggled against Argaen’s control, it was slamming against the walls again. The network of cracks now extended from one end of the vault to the other, and Kaz wondered if the outer chamber was in danger of collapsing as well.
“You’ve precious little time left, minotaur! I’ve… precious little time also!”
“What do you want of me?”
“In… a pouch… a pouch on my belt…”
“Gods, Argaen, not another of your little trinkets!”
“A… very old one, minotaur. This pouch…” The elf nodded to the left side of his body.
Kaz eyed the emerald sphere. Somehow, he could not help feeling that it watched him in return-with amusement. He found its sporadic surges of power unsettling, as if it were playing a game of sorts. The minotaur wondered how well Ravenshadow truly understood what it was he was trying to bind to his mind. The elf’s death would be no great loss to Kaz, but there would still be the emerald sphere itself to deal with.
Kaz reluctantly stepped over to Ravenshadow and began to search the pouch. “What am I looking for? This flat, leathery thing?”
“No… and release it immediately!” Argaen coughed up more blood. “A tiny cube… a box.”
Kaz found what he assumed was the cube. Carefully he pulled it out and showed it to the elf. “Is this what you wanted?”
“Yes. Now… help me to move… a few feet from the sphere.”
Behind them, there was a tremendous noise, and suddenly portions of the ceiling began to cave in, Kaz nearly released his grip on Argaen as he turned to see what was happening. “Pay it no mind!” Argaen shouted madly. “This vault and… likely the entire chamber… is collapsing! Help me!”
The minotaur cursed in the name of every god he could think of as he dragged the dark elf away. When they were a good dozen paces from the sphere, Argaen had Kaz help him into a sitting position.
“Now…” Ravenshadow’s breath was very ragged. “Place the cube on the top of the sphere.”
“Raven-”
“Don’t argue!” The elf nearly toppled. The other walls were showing signs of weakening. Kaz could hear the stone dragon pounding away at something and realized it was trying to get out of the vault, despite the fact that its present girth was too vast to fit through the entrance.
Axe in one hand and cube in the other, Kaz took a deep breath and made his way back to the malevolent globe. Oddly, this time he felt no surge of power, no blinding glare. Rather, there was an aura of impatience.
It’s only an object, he told himself. It’s an Abyss-spawned, cursed object, but only an object.
Though he was not able to completely convince himself, he did succeed in reaching his goal. Steeling himself, Kaz carefully placed the tiny black cube on the very top of Dracos’s pride and joy, then ran.
Argaen Ravenshadow was laughing, or at least attempting to, when Kaz rejoined him. “Were-were you expecting something?”
The minotaur looked at the cube. “It’s growing! Elf, if you’ve unleashed another pet-”
“Keep watching!”
The black cube continued to swell in size, but it also took on a new quality. The larger it became, the less substantial it seemed to become. When it was nearly half the volume of the sphere, it appeared to sink down into the artifact, as if its bottom were melting.
At the battered vault entrance, the stone dragon paused in its rampage, seemingly confused about what it was supposed to do next. Kaz’s companions were nowhere in sight, and he hoped they had departed the outer chamber in quick order.
“It’s swallowing up the emerald sphere, minotaur. Once inside, the power of the sphere will be muted and controllable, transportable.” Argaen arose, very unsteadily, but obviously without as much pain as he had been suffering moments before. “I knew it would work!”
“You knew it would work?” The minotaur’s eyes narrowed.
“You’ve witnessed my pride and joy, minotaur. I designed the shadow box, as I call it, strictly for such a purpose… and it worked! The emerald sphere, the path of power, is mine at last!”