He angled higher to get a better view, scanned the terrain with his sharp eyes, and it only confirmed his initial thought. He cursed in amazement but it came out only as a squawk.
The roads formed a shape, a shape he knew. He could not see the entirety of it, of course, but he could see leagues of it, and it was enough. The implication was clear. The roads were not roads at all. They were the lines of a binding cross, a circle divided into quadrants by perpendicular lines, a tool used to summon, contain, and constrain horrors.
He squawked and cawed at Egil but the priest just made a confused squawk in response. Egil couldn't see it. Nix could see it, but he could hardly believe it.
Almost the entirety of the Demon Wastes was circumscribed by a magic circle, an arcane symbol carved into the face of the world, a circle that delimited an area leagues in diameter.
He tried to imagine the time and power it would have taken to scribe such a symbol, but could not wrap his thoughts around it. He struggled in vain to come up with a compelling reason to scribe it in the first place.
His mind worried at the problem. Was it connected to Rakon's plan somehow? Could the circle be designed to contain the Vwynn? Or perhaps to hold some other horrors that slept under the broken land?
Had the civilization that once ruled the lands have inadvertently awakened something under the earth, scribing the circle as a way to hold it, perhaps while they fled the region? Or had the civilization been trying to draw something toward Ellerth? Perhaps to use as a weapon?
He looked skyward, in his mind's eye seeing magical energy reaching up from the circle and into the vault of night, into neighboring planes and dimensions, drawing and pulling creatures and magical esoterica from all over the vault of night. He imagined flaming objects shrieking toward Ellerth, drawn by the power of the symbol carved into the face of the world. He imagined balls of stone and metal and flesh and scales slamming into the surface, leaving the once-fertile plain a ruined waste inhabited by degenerate devils. He imagined slits in reality forming in the air, saw spirits and demons and devils slipping through, summoned by the symbol.
He thought the idea fanciful, but then… he'd seen much. Anything was possible.
He pushed it from his mind and gave it no more thought. He didn't need to know the purposes of the people who'd once ruled here. He knew Rakon's purpose, and that was purpose enough.
They flew on in dour silence, chasing the sun, chasing the sisters, heading to the center of the binding cross, to the glass sea, where sat the prison of Abrak-Thyss.
Nix stayed as high as he was able, hoping thereby to avoid the swarms of fiendish, bat-like creatures that patrolled the night skies of the Wastes.
They eyed the air ahead, looking for the sylph and its cargo, their speed westward stretching the day's length. Frustratingly, they saw nothing. After a couple hours in the air, Nix felt his body tingle. He knew what it meant. He tried to curse, but the beak allowed only an angry squawk. He angled downward for the earth. The tingling increased and his body started to shift back, the magic unable to maintain such a foreign form for long. Egil followed him down and they alit on the rockscape of the Wastes as their bodies painfully reverted back to their normal form.
"Shite!" Nix shouted.
Egil held out his arms, checking his form, his gear. "What? Change us back. You still have the wand."
"I need to touch the thing into which I change us, Egil. You see any gulls about?"
"Shite," Egil said. He started to say something else but Nix held up his hand.
"Don't! Don't!"
"Damned gewgaws," Egil said with a grin.
"Fak you."
"I jest because this problem is easily solved," Egil said. "We find a flock of those winged things we encountered before. Touch one of those. Change, and continue the pursuit."
"You call that easy? A flock of those nearly killed us all."
"Aye," Egil said. "You have a better idea?"
"No. Let's go find some. Wait…"
"Wait what?"
Nix checked his body, saw that the cut in his stomach was healed, most of his burns. "My wounds seem healed. Reconstituting after the transmutation must help the body heal."
"I take back what I said about your gewgaws," Egil said.
With that, they readied weapons and stalked off. The sun stared at them, red and orange, just hanging on over the horizon. The both knew that nightfall would bring the Thin Veil, and the Thin Veil promised horror.
"The roads here aren't roads," Nix said to Egil, making conversation to distract himself. "They're the lines of a binding cross. I could see it from the air."
Egil stared at him. "So what does that mean?"
Nix made a helpless gesture. "I don't know."
"Bah. Then stop worrying about it. It's ancient. Whatever happened here happened long ago. Ponder it when we next sit at the Altar of Gadd in the Slick Tunnel, yeah?"
Nix nodded slowly, letting go of the problem. He appreciated his friend's pragmatism.
"Aye. Let's find a hole and get airborne."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They kept their eyes open for Vwynn, but saw none, saw nothing but the cursed red earth of the Wastes. After about a half-hour, they located a likely hole in the ground. The soft mound around the lip of the hole, bones and bonemeal, was spongy under their boots. Warm air emanated from the aperture, carrying with it a fetid, organic stink. Nix could hear distant rustling, a faint squeaking.
They looked west, where the sun was about to fade under the horizon. Nix held the wand in one hand, his hand axe in the other. Egil had shed his cloak and held it in one hand. The priest looked to Nix.
"We grab the first one we can, before the whole swarm gets clear," Nix said. "We change and we get the Hells clear."
"Aye, that," Egil said. "Try not to get carried off this time."
"I'll do what I can."
The priest cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted down the hole. Squeaks and intense rustling sounded from deeper down in the hole. Nix had the eerie sensation of the entire earth shifting below his feet.
"Ready, now," Nix said, tensing.
They could hear the creatures moving, shrieking, but none emerged from the hole. Egil, holding his cloak at the ready, looked over at Nix with raised eyebrows. Nix shrugged, leaned over the hole. Lots of movement somewhere below, but nothing coming up.
Suddenly the swarm burst from the earth ten paces to their left, a dark cloud of flapping wings, scales, and fanged mouths. A cacophony of their angry shrieks polluted the air. The cloud of the flock turned and wheeled toward them.
"Shite!" Nix said. "There, Egil!"
With nothing else for it, Egil and Nix ran straight toward them. Immediately Nix was swimming in an ocean of wings, shrieks, claws, and teeth. The creatures ripped clothing and flesh, tearing holes in Nix's skin, drawing blood. Nix flailed frenetically at the creatures, threw one to the ground, stomped it, struck another from before his eyes, took another by the throat and held it before him. He drew the wand and spoke a word in the Mages' Tongue. The wand warmed, the golden tip glowed, and he moved to touch the creature he held, but another of the creatures, perhaps drawn by the light, snatched the wand from his hand.
"The wand!" Nix screamed, lunging after the creature. But the weight of the creatures that clung to him proved too much and his leap turned into a stumbling fall. He crushed a few rolling on the rock, but dozens more took their place and tore at any exposed skin. He rose to all fours, trying to spot the one that had taken the wand.
Egil, covered in the creatures and bleeding all over, dove after the winged fiend bearing the wand, his cloak spread wide like a scoop. The priest enveloped the creature, hit the ground in a roll, his body crushing half a dozen of the creatures, and rose, soaked in his blood and theirs. His cloak, looped into a bag, bounced about from the movement of the creature's he'd caught.