"Farther than I can fly without hitting a wall." The raven turned its tail to him, cocking its head to peer at the ceiling.
Candlemas cursed. He was like a cockroach trapped in a rolling jar of marbles. If only he'd brought his potions, or his grimoire, he might have…
No. "If only" led to sorrow and madness. It had killed more than one dream, and dreamer.
Hissing at rasped skin, the mage continued to crawl from marble to marble, like a pigeon hopping from fencepost to fencepost. But his palms were raw and slippery with blood, and when his hands betrayed him he careened and smacked his cheek into another cold marble. The hand, slipping into the crevice, was chilled to the bone. If not for his magic shields, he'd have been frozen solid by now. If only he'd worn a cape.
The bird waggled its tail, then leaped into the air. Candlemas yelled, "Hey! Come back! I need a direction-"
But he'd reached out unconsciously. The marble underneath him shifted and rolled. The surface from below was frigid, almost paralyzing, and he jumped to get away.
Everything whirled, and his head was flying toward another marble. He stabbed out with numb hands to halt his fall, felt his finger snap as he rolled helplessly.
He'd never catch himself in time, came a doubt. Then he recalled with a shock…
… There was a way out.
He'd seen it before. In the palace of Tyralhorn the Archmage, in Anauria, at Sysquemalyn's "entertainment." The benighted human hero had suffered in a hellhole like this too. And he'd won free by doing… what? Something about cutting saplings, tying them under his arms to support himself? No, there was more to it.
But at that point in the story Candlemas had been distracted, wondering what Sysquemalyn intended, reckoning how he might get the upper hand and defeat her without harming himself.
If only he'd paid better attention.
These black thoughts came in a flash, then exploded to black as his forehead crashed on glass.
Groggy, Candlemas snorted and pushed at something brushing his face. His clumsy hand banged against stone.
Sitting up with a start, he bumped his nose on more rock. He could see nothing but darkness. If stone lay all around, he must have been buried in an avalanche. With the thought came panic, and he bashed his knuckles and hands on more stone that was oddly warm. Then he realized his hands were free, after a fashion.
The stone before his eyes slipped down, away, and he could see. Though not everywhere, for a searing, blue-white light filled the center of the chamber, and he had to avert his eyes.
He saw that the stone prison moved on its own, like snakes of living rock. Then he saw fingers and knew they were stone arms. Moving, passing over and down his body, trapping him. He could stick his arms through gaps, but then sliding stone arms would force them down again, pinning him like a fox in a trap.
"Awake, dear?" cackled a woman's voice. "I'm so glad! I've much to tell you!"
Oh, yes, Candlemas recalled, I'm in the Nine Hells. Animate stone beings were to be expected where madness reigned. And there would be no waking from the nightmare. Or rather, only waking as he'd just done, plunging him afresh into new nightmares.
This one was worse than most.
The stone arms were only part of the phenomenon. The walls in this large chamber rippled and convulsed in all directions, so a body grew seasick watching them. Corpses of animate stone formed the walls. Humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, and other races that Candlemas couldn't identify had been turned to stone and fused together like madcap building blocks. Yet some life or unlife still remained in them, for the carcasses heaved and twitched and groped until the walls seemed thick with gray, crawling beetles. A head would bob up, roll blind eyes, then be submerged as a hand or leg or buttock shoved it back and down and another lost soul writhed to the surface. Arms, fingers, toes, breasts, shoulders, bobbed on the sea of living stone like drowning folk struggling for air.
And perhaps they were. Candlemas couldn't imagine a much worse torment than being turned to stone-to live forever frozen-then being cast into an ocean of like-damned sinners, to struggle for purchase, for air, for a chance to see light, only to be dragged back down into black death. The mage, who'd seen many awful things in his years of magic-making, shuddered uncontrollably at the fiendishness of it.
But there was more to see. He was pinned by groping arms and legs that somehow had been stimulated to entrap him. So, too, was Greenwillow, who hung, upside down, on the far side of the chamber. The doughty elf struggled against her stone bonds whenever she got a hand or leg loose, but she only succeeded in winning herself more scrapes and bruises. Still, Candlemas had to admit she was trying to win free, and he wasn't. But then, he knew better how small their chances of survival really were.
Here, too, was the raven. The flustered bird hopped and flew a dozen times a minute as it vainly sought a spot to alight that didn't writhe or bear thorns. It had little luck and squawked unhappily. Some of its discomfiture communicated itself to Candlemas, its master, pity heaped on sorrow. Much of his own making, his own fault.
There was still more to take in, for at the center of the chamber was a huge, twisted ball, like a giant snarl of yarn. Yet the strings were metal branches studded with wicked thorns. Suspended in the thorns, punctured in a dozen places, was the still-unconscious Sunbright. The silvery metal glittered in the eye-smarting, blue-white brilliance that emanated from deep within the center of the loose snarl. Candlemas couldn't comprehend the source of the light, but guessed they would all have been blinded by it if not for the thicket of thorns. What could shed that much light?
"Do you like it? I fetched you all here to admire it!" Striding over writhing stone bodies came Sysquemalyn, raking her red hair back in her vainglorious fashion. She still wore her Ruellana garb, with the rips and claw marks from the fiend that had dragged her off. For that matter, some of the wounds still dripped blood. But the female mage didn't seem to notice as she wiped her nose and left a red streak. From her scraped hand trailed Sunbright's heavy-nosed sword, Harvester of Blood.
"This is my finest creation!" The mage waved her arm and sword at the hideous chamber. The blue-white light cast her shadow dozens of feet tall, eclipsing the lost souls in their perpetual struggle. "It's not what you think, not the Nine Hells, but my very own unique construct for the delight of my friends and enemies!"
"You're mad." The whisper slipped from Candlemas unintentionally, but it didn't matter, he supposed.
"What?" The woman peered up at him like an adult puzzled by a child's odd question. "Did you say mad?"
"Insane. Moonstruck. Addled. Crackpated. Buzzy-brained. Pickle-witted." Candlemas had to pause as a stone arm slid past his nose, brushing his beard. He resumed, strangely calm, in the voice of a tired man ready for death. "Funny I never spotted it, working with you all these years. But such is dementia. It creeps up slowly, and no one notices, until one day the loon lashes out and kills folks, and then it's too late."
The red-haired mage lifted the sword to where Candlemas hung pinned and prodded his toe, drawing blood. "I don't like to be called mad."
"No, I imagine not. Nor do ugly people like to be called ugly, nor cruel folk cruel, nor fat nor slow, and so on. But anyone who would meddle with the Nine Hells…"
"This is not the Nine Hells!" Petulant, Sysquemalyn jabbed at his foot, missed, and bounced the point off a stone orc's head. "I made this place, I tell you! You're just jealous." Angry, she batted at a stone finger and only dinged Harvester's edge.
"By the Silver Lady!" Candlemas shook his head, thumping his ear on a stone nose. "You don't know what you're dealing with. It's impossible you made this place. Look around! There are thousands of trapped spirits here. Where did they come from? You couldn't have conjured them all from thin air. Most gods couldn't do that. And these tunnels, endless numbers of them, all dipping deep into the very bowels of hell. Can you honestly believe you've plugged them all? And what about that yellow fiend that dragged you here? You're still dripping blood from the wounds, yet you claim to have crafted it? You've tapped the wrong portals. You don't have the strength to cope with the Nine Hells!"