to get on with it.
“Which way to Annarah?” said Caina.
“I’m not entirely sure,” said Morgant.
“You don’t know?” said Caina.
“I didn’t go through the gate with her,” said Morgant. “She said she would cast her sanctuary here, and then she entered the gate.”
“The pyrikon,” said Caina. “It was linked to her. It must know…”
Even as she spoke, the pyrikon unwrapped itself from her wrist and floated into the air. The glow grew brighter until it seemed as if the pyrikon had transmuted itself into white light. The pyrikon expanded and swelled, growing larger and larger, and then took a new form.
A human form.
It was a warrior covered in in plate armor, a massive shield upon his left arm and an Iramisian falchion in his right hand, a towering helm concealing his face. The warrior looked as if he had been carved from white flame, and Caina felt arcane power swirling around him.
“Has it ever done that before?” said Morgant.
Caina shook her head, and the warrior turned back and forth, looking for something. On sudden impulse, Caina drew back her cowl, and the helm turned to face her.
“Demonslayer,” said the glowing warrior, his voice like thunder.
“You’re Annarah’s pyrikon,” said Caina.
“Correct, demonslayer.”
“So…that’s what the pyrikons are, aren’t they?” said Caina. “Spirits. Bound spirits.”
“Incorrect. We are not bound,” said the pyrikon. “We are summoned, and we come of our own will. If the summoner is worthy, is the summoner holds true to the oaths of the loremasters, then we permit the use of our power. For as there are spirits of fire and spirits of air, so too are there spirits of death and pain, those you call the nagataaru. Once the Court of the Azure Flame opposed them, but they were hindered. Yet my kindred continue to oppose the nagataaru, for we are spirits of defense, and our purpose is to defend the mortal world.”
“So you’ve been walking around with a spirit on your wrist for a year and a half?” said Morgant.
“Evidently,” said Caina.
“You are the Balarigar,” said the pyrikon. “You are the demonslayer, and perhaps you may be the liberator. I seek to free my mistress from her imprisonment. You must return her to the mortal world.”
“Then take us to her,” said Caina.
“Come, mortals,” said the pyrikon spirit, gesturing with the falchion. The glowing sword looked identical to the valikon in Morgant’s hand. “Time is fleeting, and my mistress is but mortal. The nagataaru have come for her, and she has but little time left. Hasten!”
The pyrikon turned and ran deeper into the rippling plain, and Caina and Morgant followed. She pulled up the hood of her shadow-cloak back as she ran. It blocked the ability of spirits to detect her, even in the netherworld. Of course, a spirit possessing a mortal host would be able to see her. Kalgri had been able to see Caina, even if the shadow-cloak had blocked the Voice’s ability to detect her. Even so, Caina suspected a spirit of sufficient power would be able to find her even with the cloak.
Best to be gone from the netherworld by the time that happened.
They kept running, and started up a small hill. White light flashed ahead, and Caina heard a hissing, serpentine whisper.
“Spirit,” said Caina. “How much farther? Is it…”
The netherworld blurred and shifted around her.
The twisting, writhing sky remained the same, but the landscape morphed. Suddenly Caina stood atop a mountain overlooking a deep valley, a stairway cutting back and forth on the cliff face below her. A broad stone terrace stretched on either side, and before her rose a sprawling edifice of courtyards and halls carved from the living stone of the mountain. The fortress had an outer and inner courtyard, both courtyards encircled by long colonnades of stone. Domed towers rose from the corners of the courtyards, and in the center of the temple stood a high fane of weathered stone, topped with a tall domed tower. Caina gazed at the pillars and towers and saw the reliefs covering their faces, stylized, abstract designs of swirling lines and intricate geometric patterns. Each of towers had been carved with a specific sigil, a pyrikon ring wrapped around a seven-pointed star.
“The sanctuary of my mistress,” announced the pyrikon.
“Silent Ash Temple,” said Caina, looking around. Of course, it wasn’t the real Silent Ash Temple, but only a reflection of it in the netherworld. Yet it was close enough to the real thing that she felt a shiver of dark memory.
“You know this place?” said Morgant, looking at