Space Wizards

32. Below

The castle dungeon was silent and dark, a gnarly old guard dog its only occupant. Black hair spiked up across the animal's back, drool dripped off its pointed K9s, and the red electric glow of Grimble's axe reflected in mirrored eyes. The hound growled, barked, and leaped at Grimble and Øregård. The latter kicked it across the room with a mighty boot. It bounced off the bars of an empty cell and fled down the secret back staircase. 

Melock held the King's sword, it produced a soft golden glow that illuminated the first turn of the narrow closed-in spiral stairs. 

"It's a tight fit," said Grimble leading the way. 

"Gastraddars don't like small spaces," added Øregård dragging his shoulder plates against the wall and ripping mortar from the stones. 

The two wizards followed with Sister Murphy behind them. She looked back from time to time hearing what she suspected was de Martín moving about in the dark. They wound down what felt like four flights in the glow of their weapons to find the dog barking on the banks of an underground lake. 

Between the barking alarms, they heard rowing out on the dark waters. Arrows whizzed past their heads and tinged off the Sentinel. Øregård cornered the hound at the water's edge and punted it in, silencing it with a splash. Arrows pelted him, one painfully sticking into his cheek. 

He ripped the arrow out of his face and fired his blaster out over the lake. A square cargo raft became visible above the inky black waters. It was rowed by living skeletons; four of whom stood in the center firing arrows. 

Tykö was batting arrows out of the air with his robotic hand and Melock simply stood behind Øregård for cover. He blasted the oncoming skeletons to pieces. Their skulls exploded, bones shattered, and their raft began to sink. 

The arrows ceased to fly and the sound of dog-paddling drew everyone's attention back to the shore. 

"There's a platform and a tunnel on the other side of the lake," said Melock. "We'll go there, now." 

In an instant, they were teleported across the massive cavern. When they arrived on a wooden dock on the other side of the lake, Murphy saw Sabastian for a second before he disappeared again from the visible spectrum. He winked at her and held a finger up to his lips in a hush before he vanished. 

Melock waved his hand and torches lit on either side of a large stone archway. Two skeleton guards with spears were startled into action. Øregård grabbed an oncoming spear and hurled it and the skeleton into the lake. Grimble simply let the second skeleton stab his robot harmlessly before he smashed the guard to pieces. They walked through the archway down a short tunnel to the next room.

The cavern was as big as the lake room but filled with an army of zombies, skeletons, and other undead ghouls standing in formation. Above them, circular chandeliers lit the arched ceiling of a catacomb cathedral. A hundred generations of fallen soldiers of the Western Kingdom had been buried here. The newly risen dead stood before them, dressed in the ceremonial armor of their funerals, and ready for battle. 

"Are you up for the big fight, my friend?" asked Grimble from inside his robot. 

Øregård answered with a war cry as he fired systematically into the ranks. His turbo blaster cut through zombies ten rows deep with each blast, but there were thousands of them. Grimble's Sentinel swung its axe back and forth, mowing down the undead like a farmer harvesting wheat. The bodies piled up and more kept coming. They hardly moved forward at all. Grimble could tirelessly swing but Øregård's blaster would lose its charges and he would eventually tire out himself. 

"If you'd be so kind as to walk with us, my dear," said Tykö to Sister Murphy. 

She stepped between the wizards crushing any undead that got through with her hammer. Melock and Tykö cast spells together in a language she didn't know. A shield of energy surrounded them and they walked into the horde. Around the middle of the room, the entire dome of energy that protected them was covered with dead soldiers clawing and stabbing their way in. Points of swords and edges of shields began to break through. Melock changed his incantation and a blazing fire exploded on the surface of the force field. 

The undead army ignited into a rancid fire of burning flesh. The catacombs filled with a smokey cloud of sickening poison that burned the lungs. Murphy found the metallic and gamey stench horrific but her ring protected her from any murderous side effects. 

Outside the wizard's protective bubble, Øregård and Grimble furiously battled. The clammer of futuristic alloys smashing classical armor was deafening. The crush of bone and skull was hardly even audible. The two hulks thrashed their way forward, taking full advantage of the burning chaos. 

The wizards moved toward the front of the chamber as well; their burning shield repelling the undead and sending flame-covered bodies into flight.  Out of an archway, that presumably led deeper into the catacombs, walked a tall slender figure in black robes. His face was like a skeleton with the thinnest of milk-white skin stretched over prominent cheekbones. His lips, if he ever had any, seemed to have been cut away to reveal blackened teeth growing out of stark white jawbones. His eyes were orbs of swirling green plasma that resemble toxic waste and he tapped the points of his long-nailed fingers across the cover of Dicax Sid's spellbook. When he spoke a pink forked tongue slithered across his black teeth. 

"I did not expect... To see you, again."

His voice boomed across the room in a stereophonic blast, that vibrated in the eardrums and sent a shiver of fear into one's bones. Murphy steadied herself against this vilest of ancient evil ones. The undead army let out a roar on hearing their master's voice. Even the burning ones jumped to their feet and attacked with everything they could muster. 

Melock with a twist of his wrist froze hundreds of the ones surrounding the bubble and Tykö rubbed his thumb and forefinger together sending out a red laser burst that disintegrated them. 

"It was your voice we heard in the pocket dimension," said Melock. 

"We've come to return you to your prison," added Tykö. 

"I doubt any of us could find our way back, even if we wanted to," said the sonic voice of the evil one. 

Melock felt a deep sense of dread and tried his best to not let it affect him in apparent ways. 

"So you are the Necromancer?" he asked. 

"I am." 

The certainty of this simple statement sent echoing waves of terror across the room and fried every electrical circuit inside Grimble's Sentinel. Melock and Tykö felt their minds numb, invisible Sebastian retreated toward the exit, and Sister Murphy gritted her teeth in a clenched desperate prayer for courage.