With candles they had taken from Zalasfir’s room, they headed back out into the corridor once more, seeking to track down the serpentman. He had gone, disappeared somewhere into the night. A corridor led through the house, doors branching off it.
“This way,” Aedmorn said, not even stopping to explain his choice, and hared off down the corridor, away from the direction they had first come in by. The corridor disappeared around a corner, and without though to self-preservation, Aedmorm hurried around it and pressed on, forcing Ivkarha and Kato to scurry to keep up.
They saw as they turned the corner that the corridor headed to the entrance of the building, and that the door was swinging open, evidence that Zalasfir had left the building in a hurry. They barreled on out of the building, into the cleared area around it. Of Zalaskir there was no sight. From the doorway, they could see clear down a wide path to the gates at the front of the compound, but there was no sign of Zalasfir upon it, and the gates were still closed.
“He must be hiding somewhere in here,” Kato observed, still breathing hard after the excretion of the fight and the chase.
“It is a large area, with plenty of places to hide,” Aedmorn told him. “We could be here all night, and no closer to finding him when dawn breaks. If he reaches the wall anywhere, he could climb it and be gone, lost in the city.”
“A snake may be easy to spot,” Ivkarha added.
“I would suspect he may resume his disguise,” Kato pointed out, “And as the well regarded parakor, seek out aid to defend him. We must stop him before he can leave.”
“That will be no easy thing,” Aedmorn said. He knelt down to study the ground near by to the doorway, using the candle for light. His keen eyes scanned the ground, seeking out any disturbances. “Tracks here,” he said,” Faint, but made by a person in a great hurry. He milled about here, confused about which course to take, before taking off in that direction.” He pointed off around the side of the house.
Once more they made chase, following the faint trail left behind on the ground as best they could in the starlight and candle light. It was slow going, even with Aedmorn’s sharp gaze, blessed of the Green Goddess that he was, skilled in the hunt and pursuit.
Their path lead them around the building, to to he back of it, where first they had gained entrance, an there the trail ended. Aedmorn circled about, trying to discover it once more, to no avail.
“He can not have just vanished,” Ivkarha stated as she looked all around, at the building, the hatch and the dense foliage that grew not far away.
“No, he has not that skill, not unless he use the Soul to grant him wings. More like he recovered from his earlier fear and flight and was able to effect some plan to disguise his passage.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“What then?” Kato asked.
“Quiet, listen,” whispered Ivkarha and they fell silent. They heard off in the distance, among the foliage, the faint sound of trees and bushes rustling. It stood out in the still of the night; no wind blew to disturb the gardens.
Without pause for thought or reflection or conversation they took off, plunging into the growth, headed towards the noise. The candles they discarded, stubbing them out and tossing them aside.
As before, travel through the thick growth proved difficult going, with branches snagging at them and the uneven ground underneath impeding going, but there was the faintest of paths before them, of limbs snapped aside and cleared by the passage of one who had traveled along it recent. While dark still, they had starlight this time to help guide their way, and while shadows thick lay about, they were better able to make out obstacles in their way, to avoid them and search out better ways to go.
They went without words, straining with sense to try and detect the sounds of movement ahead of them, to follow it deeper into the constricting growth and not loose it, for sense of direction was hard to maintain in such closed environs, when even the stars above were hard to keep a track of under the canopy of trees.
Then ahead of them they caught a faint trace of light, of a sickly green, all reminiscent of poisons and pestilence, of death and decay. Pushing through the growth, they came to a small clearing, one in which an open air shrine had been constructed. A ring of columns supported a domed roof, and within the shrine was an effigy, that of a snake rearing up to great heights, a snake with six arms.
Zalasfir was there as well, and once more he appeared as a man, his disguise resumed. He was kneeling before the effigy, raising the Soul of Angfaeled towards it, and the light they had seen was bathing the effigy. A low chant in an unknown, sibilant tongue spilt from his lips, over and over, rising in pitch.
The chant cut off and rose and span about, to face them. “Will you just not die!” he snarled.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Kato replied merrily, “But no. Just had over the bauble and we will spare you.”
Zalasfir raised himself to his full height, looking at them imperiously. “Spare me? You may have defeated my minions, but still you delude yourselves as to your true worth and importance. Feel now the wrath of a god!”
“We have faced you down once already,” Ivkarha retorted, “And this time you have no minions to aid you.”
“I refer not to me,” Zalasfir told them, “But Isfasar of the Red Venom.”
“The effigy?”
“I have called upon him, a god of my people, and lo, he comes, to inhabit this form for a while. Long enough to defeat you.”
“You would be a god,” Ivkarha pointed out, “And yet you worship one. Gods to not share power easily.”
“I do not worship him, for he is a fallen god, dead, and can only be called back for a while through mighty rituals.”
“No god is truly dead,” Aedmorn said quietly. “It is best not to meddle in such matters.”
“Bah, dead or no, there is one here still alive,” Kato said, pointing at Zalasfir with his sword, “And he we can deal with.”
Yet no sooner than he had said so than a noise like the grinding of stone came to them and the effigy began to move within the shrine.
“Oh mighty Isfasar of the Red Venom, protect me, thy humble servant from these warmbloods,” intoned Zalasfir.
So be it. The voice that spoke was deep and ancient and resonant with power, echoing through the shrine and surrounds. The effigy flexed its stone arms. The warmbloods shall die.