Obsidian Ridge

Chapter Thirty-Two

He saw them coming.

These beasts were unlike the others he had fought. They were cunning. They had more patience, and they worked together, watching every direction as they moved through the cracks in the walls of the Obsidian Ridge.

Quinn clung to the ceiling of a wide passage, completely hidden against the pitch black rock. Xeries's creatures worked their way past, scrutinizing everything, leaving no nook unsearched. They were hunters, killers sent out to find Quinn and destroy him.

At the end of the passage, all five of the creatures split up, each going their own direction. Quinn picked one and followed, silently stalking the beast from above. The creature's deep black skin made it hard to see in the obsidian corridors. Its soft, padded feet and smooth gait made it hard to hear against the constant humming noise of the citadel. But neither of these things hindered Quinn in his pursuit.

Had Xeries's hunter not been an adversary, Quinn might have admired its stealth and dedication to its work. He might have tried to study its instincts and see if it had something to teach him about their shared craft of killing. But it was an adversary, and now it needed to die.

Drawing closer, he came down the wall, still concealed in the darkness, silent as a tomb strider. The beast did not see him. It did not hear him.

Lifting a shard of broken stone from the floor, Quinn slipped it underneath the creature's neck and jammed it through the bottom of its throat. The beast scrambled sideways, pawing at its face. It tried to hiss at Quinn, but its mouth was pinned closed.

"Let me help you with that." With a slash, Quinn cut the creature’s face from its head.

The beast shook, thrashing violently back and forth across the corridor, bashing its head against the walls. It could not see. It could not scream-just the way Quinn wanted.

"Time to go to work," he said, then he lit upon the creature with both hands.

+++++

Xeries watched the chase through the eyes of his assassins. These minions were not dependent on him. They could search for the disease that tan through the halls of his home without him controlling their every move. It was a luxury he thoroughly enjoyed. They would seek out this Quinn, and he would watch as they tore him to shreds.

The youngest and smartest of the group led them all as they descended into the bowels of the citadel. At a crossroads, they split up, each going their separate ways. There were many places to hide, and his assassins had to check them all.

The tubes and passages that ran through the walls were remnants from a day when the Obsidian Ridge had been an active volcano. Xeries had chosen this mountain as his home many hundreds of years ago, when he was still with his third wife.

They had been far from Faerun then. So far east, many people would not have believed it was still on the same plane. A place where the earth raged day and night. Red-hot lava shot into the sky, rocking the ocean with earthquakes. The molten rock landed in huge clumps, making jagged mounds as far as the eye could see. It was really quite beautiful, the reds, oranges, and yellows spat from the mouths of the angry volcanoes, juxtaposed on the deepest black of the mountains themselves.

His third wife had so admired this mountain that Xeries couldn't bear to leave without giving it to her as a gift. For three days and three nights he labored to devise a spell that would tear the volcano from the ground. It had worked quite well, and his wife had been very impressed.

It took several months for the stone to cool sufficiently for them to be able to finally go inside. Seeing his minions scurry through the lava tubes deep in the bowels of the citadel reminded him of that time. He and his third wife would take strolls through the tubes often, reminiscing about the places they had traveled and the things they had seen.

When his third wife had become no longer of use to him, he stopped going down to the tubes. His fourth and fifth wives did not care for them, and so he all but forgot they were there. He doubted any of his wives since then had ever even seen them.

A stabbing pain shot through the neck of one of his assassins, and his reminiscing came to an end. His minion was struggling, and for some reason it couldn't get its mouth open. There was something in the lava tube with it.

A second pain shot across his minion's face, and suddenly its sight went out.

The creature was still alive, that much Xeries knew. He could sense its pain, but he couldn't see anything through its eyes. The creature was confused. It thrashed around, trying to get its balance, not understanding why it couldn't see.

Through the assassin's ears, Xeries heard Quinn's voice.

"Time to go to work."

Another pain shot through the beast's body, and Xeries winced. Waving his hand, he severed the magical connection he had with the creature. It was dying, and he did not need to see the end.

His other minions circled back. Responding to his commands, they raced through the tubes toward the dying assassin. It did not take them long to arrive at the spot, but when they did, Quinn was already gone.

Left in his place were piles of tortured, mangled black flesh, cut from the bones of the assassin and laid out on the floor to spell the words, You're next.

Quinn stalked his prey through a very narrow corridor. They had to know he was following. They had abandoned their usual ritual of stopping to sniff the air and searching the cracks as they passed. No, they were headed somewhere-or rather, they were leading him someplace where they could fight at an advantage.

It did not bother Quinn that he was being led to an ambush. He was ready to finish this and get to the real business at hand. Let them come after him. Let them try to corner him. Let them throw a hundred of their best at him.

He would take them all.

Up ahead, pulses of bright orange light came into the passage. The closer they got to it, the more the walls hummed and vibrated. He could feel the bones inside his skin rattle. Ever since arriving, Quinn had noticed the slight vibration in the floors and walls. Where he stood now, the shaking was not slight.

Whatever it was that moved this place, made it vibrate so, was waiting right up ahead.

The creatures stopped at the edge of the passage and looked back, as if they were waiting for Quinn to catch up, then they stepped through, toward the orange light, and disappeared from view.

Making his way cautiously to the end of the tube, Quinn peered out into the chamber beyond. It was a huge, open area, at least as large as Xeries's throne room. In the center, three man-sized rubies hovered in midair. Jagged bolts of magical energy pulsed through them, bouncing back and forth between pedestals on the ground and what looked like a series of magical staves attached to the ceiling.

Each time a pulse of magic passed through a ruby, it sent out a glare of orange light that shone from the reflective, chipped surfaces all around the room. The gemstones moved quickly back and forth, seeming to hum a deep tune. All three had hit the same note, and it was this sound that was making the entire citadel vibrate.

On the floor at the base of one of the rubies, Quinn caught sight of the assassins he had been stalking. They had stopped, all four of them, to look in his direction, once again as if they were waiting for him to follow.

Quinn obliged, slipping out of the tube and into the open chamber.

The room was quite warm, and he could feel the vibrations chatter through his ribcage and shake his chest. It was a strange sensation, the beats of his heart moving at odds with the vibrations of the gemstones.

Once he was out of the tube, Xeries's assassins continued on, passing around the floating rubies and steering clear of the magical bolts of energy emanating from them. At the other side of the room, the creatures began to climb the wall, slipping into another passage near the ceiling.

Quinn followed, not sure where all of this was taking him. Scaling the wall with ease, he continued on, deep into another passage-this one headed straight up toward the top of the Obsidian Ridge.