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Sidra hated to use the day’s only fireball so early on.
She hoped she would not need it later. She faced the door and pointed the sword’s tip toward it. A fireball the size of her fist shot from it. It expanded in a whirling dance of heat. The wildfire exploded against the door. A high keening wail sounded. When the fire died away, the door was a blackened hull encircling the doorway. The ruined door was screaming.
The sword said, “Such work deserves a hearty meal.”
Sidra did not argue but let the blade slice over her left wrist. The vein was slashed and blood welled dark and eager over the hungry blade. It stayed near, lapping at the wound until it closed.
“Follow close, Milon, but be wary. Not everything in a demon-made tower will be civilized enough to know you for a bard.”
He nodded. “I have followed you into many adventures. I would not miss this one out of fear.”
She said, “Then come, my brave bard, but watch your back.”
She stepped over the blackened door rim of the door creature. It whimpered as she and the sword passed through it. They stood in a circular chamber made of the same black rock. But a staircase made of good gray stone curved downward in the center of the room.
“Light the lantern here, Milon, and carry it high.”
The lantern’s flickering yellow light soon danced in the small room.
Sidra led the way and tripped the first trap. Three darts clanged against her shield and fell to the steps. She knelt carefully, shield up and alert. The dart’s tips were blackened with a thick tarry substance. She did not touch it.
She spoke for Milon’s benefit. “Poisoned. Don’t touch anything unless you have to. Watch where you step.”
Sidra found the next trap and tripped it with the sword. A spear shot out and buried itself into the stone of the far wall. It would have taken her through the chest. And still the stone stairs wound deeper into the earth. There was nothing for a long time save the lantern’s golden shadows and their footsteps echoing on the stairs. Then the stairs ended at a small landing in front of a door. But there was one last trap. And Sidra was not at all sure she could trip it without being harmed.
She studied it for a time, directing Milon to point the lantern here and there. There were six separate pressure points on the stairs that she had found. They were set in a pattern that would make it difficult if not impossible to walk the last five steps. They could jump, but Sidra didn’t trust the landing either. And they were too far away for her to find traps on it yet.
She could not pass the stairs, but the sword could. If it would do it. Moving without human aid was something Leech did not prefer to do. Only twice before had she asked it to and each time the blood price had been high.
“Leech, I want you to set off the traps on the stairs and then come gently back to my hand.”
“Payment,” it whispered.
“Blood, as always.”
“Fresh blood,” it asked.
She offered the blade her naked arm, but it remained unmoving against her skin. “What do you want, Leech?”
“Fresh blood.”
“I’m offering it to you.”
“Fresher blood, new blood.”
Milon said, “Oh, no, no.”
Sidra said, “I agree. You are my weapon. You taste my blood, no one else’s.”
“When we kill, I taste blood.”
“I will not sacrifice Milon to feed you.”
She could almost feel it thinking, weighing its options. “A taste, a fresh taste, just a nick, just a bite.”
Milon said, “No, absolutely not. That steel monster is not going to taste my blood.”
Sidra sighed and said, “Then I will attempt to remove the traps.”
He gripped her arm. “You said you couldn’t do it.”
“I said that I didn’t see how I could do it without getting killed.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I can’t let you be killed.”
She just looked at him, waiting for him to make up his mind.
He shuddered and held out his arm. She unlaced the sleeve and pushed it back to bare the pale skin. The sword chuckled. “Just a taste, just a bite, just a nibble.” She held the sword firmly two-handed, for she didn’t trust it, and placed it against Milon’s arm. The sword bit deep and quick like a serpent’s strike. Milon cried out, and opened his eyes to stare in horror as the blade lapped up his blood. The wound quickly closed and the sword sighed, “New blood, fresh, good, yum.”
Sidra felt that the last was added for Milon’s benefit. Milon took it very seriously. He yanked down his sleeve and said, “Yum or not, that is the last of my blood you ever get, you bloodsucking toothpick.”
The sword laughed.
Sidra pulled Milon back up the stairs and then released the blade. It settled onto the first pressure point. A rain of poisoned darts filled the hall like black snow.
Leech floated back to her, obediently. “I have cleared the way, O master.” Sidra ignored the sarcasm and led Milon to the landing. It was not trapped. But the door was.
The poisoned darts were soon removed. And the well-oiled lock clicked under her pick. The door opened into a short straight hallway. Doors dotted the walls in geometric lines to right and left. Torches were set at regular intervals along the walls. In the still air there was the sound of chanting.
Milon started to blow out the lantern, but Sidra stopped him. She spoke close to his ear so the sound wouldn’t carry. “We may need light if we have to leave quickly.”
The sword started to hum in time to the chanting and she hushed it.
Sidra stared at the floor and said, “Place your feet exactly where I place mine.”
He nodded to show he had understood and then concentrated on following her over a five-foot-wide area of floor. She let out a breath of air as if she had been holding it. He relaxed as well, stepping back just a half step. The floor fell out from under him and he was tumbling backward helplessly. Sidra caught his arm, but his weight pulled them both downward. He was left dangling over a pit, and she on her stomach, holding him by one arm. The torches glimmered off silvered spikes set into the floor of the pit.
She hissed, “I told you to walk where I walked.”
“Let us argue this later. Pull me up.” She did, rubbing her shoulder. “You’re lucky you didn’t dislocate my arm.”
He shrugged an apology and picked up the fallen lantern.
The chanting seemed to be coming from the last door on the right-hand side. They were only three doors away from it when Sidra stopped the bard with a hand movement and knelt to study the floor. She shook her head, sending light bursts from her helmet to the walls. She said, “When I say jump, leap forward as fast as you can.”
“Why?”
She stared at him a moment and then looked upward.
He would have missed it, but with her gaze to direct him, he saw the portcullis spikes ready to come crashing down. He swallowed and said, “When do we jump?”
She stood beside him and said, “Now.” They stepped forward and flung themselves across the stones. Sidra rolled easily, coming to her feet before the spikes had bitten into the floor. They were trapped.
There was a swimming in the air near the torches in one corner. Sidra pointed Leech at it and concentrated. Illusions bled near fire. A demon stood at the end of the hallway.
He was perhaps eight feet tall, fairly short for an ice demon. His scales were the color of new frost and winked in the light like diamond glints on snow. His teeth were ivory daggers. His four arms were crossed over his chest and his tail rustled over the floor. He grinned and said, “Welcome.”
His bat-ribbed ears rolled into tubes and then unrolled. “I would speak with you before we fight.”
Sidra found herself staring into its smooth blue eyes, no pupil, just empty blue like a frozen lake. Peaceful.
Milon gripped her arm and pulled her back. “Sidra.”
She shook her head roughly and faced the demon in a fighting crouch, shield close, sword ready.
He said, “Perhaps you are right. Enough talk, let us fight.” He strode forward and said, “And you, bard, I know the rules; by touching her, you gave up your safe conduct.”
“I do not regret what I did, ice demon. You cannot harm me if you are dead.”
It chuckled, then, low in its chest.
