But the monster could send energy back into the skeletons to send them against intruders.
"Wizard!" Yverne cried in despair. "Magic, or we are lost."
Not much choice, now. Matt had to risk alerting Gordogrosso to their raid, or atrophy. But there was one slender hope. A magical creature, just exercising its natural processes, might not attract attention, any more than this dark energy-drinking monster did. "Max! Get us out of this!"
"How, Wizard?" The bright spark danced before him, and the laughter halted. Then it redoubled, and the darkness thickened about the spark. But Max blazed brighter, and the darkness thinned and was gone, while the laughter suddenly transformed to a shriek.
"There!" Matt shouted. "Just what you did! Leach the energy out of that creature! Dry it up!"
The shriek turned to a snarl of rage, echoing all about them, and the darkness drew in to form a black ball in the middle of the passage, hiding Max from view—but the Demon's voice carried clearly to them. "Even as you say—though I am loathe to do it, to a creature so much akin to me. Still, it has no conscience, and knows only how to destroy. It shall be done."
The snarl soared back into a shriek again, and kept on rising and rising until it seemed as if it would shred Matt's brain—but the ball of darkness grew smaller and smaller, then thinner, till Max could be seen through it, growing brighter and brighter...
Then the monster was gone, with a final, echoing scream.
"It is finished," Max said.
Then suddenly, he began to vibrate, then to give off streamers of light-colored mist that radiated away from him and were gone.
"They are free now," the Demon said, "the souls he held imprisoned, the spirits of those skeletons you destroyed. So long as the bones endured to anchor the souls, the mortals were imprisoned here. But you have freed them."
"Us?" Matt gasped, astounded. "No way! It was you who zapped him, Max!"
"I?" the Demon vibrated with delight. "I can do naught, Wizard! I am only a force, a personification of a concept! I must be directed, commanded—and it is you who have loosed me. Nay, 'tis your doing; I am but your tool."
"If you say so." But Matt had his doubts. "Care to guide us the rest of the way?"
"I cannot. Summon me at need." And Max winked out.
Matt sighed in the sudden darkness. "Have any torches left, Sir Guy?"
"I have dropped them," came the knight's voice. "Let me see, now...where...No, that is a bone...Here! Stegoman, if you will?"
Flame brightened the gloom, showing Sir Guy holding a torch in Stegoman's flame. Then the dragon's glow shut off, and torchlight flickered on the walls of the chamber. "Four left," the knight said.
"That ought to get us there—we can't have far to go now."
Matt took the torch and turned away down the tunnel, trying to be careful about stepping over the bones.
The passage ran straight for about sixty feet, then took a sudden, right-angled turn. Matt slowed down, instinctively wary of a next step where he couldn't see ahead—but as he came around the corner, his torchlight flickered off oak planks and iron straps. "A door! We've made it through! Come on, folks!" And he leaped ahead, just as Fadecourt shouted, "'Ware!"
Matt's foot came down—and down, and down! He was falling, and he howled in fright—then jerked to a halt, slammed against a rock face.
He caught his breath, amazed to find he was still alive and not falling. Then he looked back up over his shoulder and saw Fadecourt, lying flat against the edge of the drop-off, one huge arm knotted and bulging with strain. "I saw," he grated. "Reach up and grasp the edge, Wizard. You must aid me in drawing you up."
"Yeah, right!" Matt reached up, as Fadecourt pulled, and caught the edge. Then he strained with every ounce of strength, and the cyclops yanked him up and over. Matt rolled away from the edge and sat up, wild-eyed and panting. "Thanks, Fadecourt. Guess I was right to invite you to join us."
"As I was, to ask." The cyclops squeezed Matt's shoulder. "Are you restored, Wizard? For we still must pass this pit."
Looking up, Matt saw that they stood on one side of a huge hole, filling the tunnel from wall to wall, and at least twenty feet across. Beyond it was about ten more feet of stone floor, then the door. "Somebody really didn't want visitors, did he?"
Then the smell hit him, and he gagged. The pit emitted a dank, fetid aroma, and far below, he heard suspicious rappings.
"Let us be gone, and quickly," Sir Guy said. "Whate'er dwells here, it may rise, and I have no wish to meet it by torchlight."
"Me neither." Even unseen, the thing was giving off vibrations that made the hair rise on the back of Matt's neck. "But I wouldn't try a broad jump."
"I would." Fadecourt stepped up to the edge.
The scrapings below became faster, more eager.
"I pray you, do not!" Yverne cried, reaching out to catch his arm. "We cannot bear the loss of you; 'tis not worth the risk."
Sir Guy didn't look all that sure about the last part, but he dutifully shook his head. "We must be all together to attack the sorcerer, good cyclops. We cannot spare your strength."
Fadecourt hesitated, flattered, then smiled up at Yverne and stepped back. She breathed a sigh of relief. "I thank you, good Fadecourt."
"At your pleasure," he murmured, and Sir Guy bristled.
The bulls were pawing the ground, and Matt definitely didn't need them to butt heads here. "Flying," he ventured.
Stegoman wagged his head from side to side. "I can barely squeeze through this passage, Matthew. Assuredly, I could not open my wings."
"Well, I might try...but no, I'd rather do this without magic." Matt glanced down to the pit, felt the emanations, and shuddered. Whatever was under there just might be able to cancel his spell in midflight. No, he didn't think he wanted to try levitation.
And the scrapings were coming closer.
"An arrow." Maid Marian took out her bow and strung it. "Can you lash a line to it?"
"Sure, if we had one!"
" 'Tis bound to my waist." Marian pulled a rope end loose. Fadecourt caught the coil, took an arrow, and began to tie the one to the other. "But to what shall you affix the arrow?"
"The door," Marian said simply.
Fadecourt and Matt exchanged glances, both feeling like idiots for not having thought of the obvious.
"But who shall draw the rope across, and make it fast?" Yverne asked.
Maid Marian smiled, tying the light line to her arrow. "There is a ring upon the door, milady, and 'tis set into a plate—-see you?"
Yverne looked and saw the huge iron circle set into the door in place of a knob. She frowned. "Aye. What of it?"
Marian aimed and loosed.
The arrow sped out over the pit, slammed into the metal plate with a clank like a boiler meeting a sledgehammer, and ricocheted down.
"Oh, well done!" Yverne clapped her hands. "But how shall you draw it back to us, to make it fast?"
"There is no need; 'tis a four-barbed head, and the shaft is iron." Marian drew back on the rope; the barbs of the arrowhead caught on the ring and held. She handed the line to Fadecourt. "Brace it well, cyclops." Then she took hold of the rope.
"Hey, no!" Matt cried "Let one of the guys take the risk!"
"Wherefore?" Marian gave him a challenging glare. " 'Tis my arrow, and my shot; 'tis my risk. Do not think to—"