The Heavenly Host

There! It caught; he was coursing through the rune. In his mind he heard a noise that somehow he knew was the verbalization of the rune. All the runes were lightly connected. He allowed himself to flow from one rune to the next, and as he did, he could mentally hear the runes speaking their sounds.

“They are getting closer! Any luck?” Antefalken asked.

Tom could not spare his attention to answer; he was too busy flowing through the runes. He did try to speed up the process though; he poured more of the god mana into the runes.

“Whoa!” came a voice behind him — Boggy’s, he thought.

“He’s doing something; they are getting brighter, rune by rune,” Estrebrius said.

“I’ve never seen runes do that, but then I don’t usually deal with hidden glowing runes,” Antefalken said.

“They are definitely powering up,” Talarius said. “For something.”

“All the rune words are lit; the door and frame are still dim,” Reggie observed.

The sounds of the runes were echoing in Tom’s head. He did not need to touch the runes to keep the link. He stood back up, palming the arrowhead. Find the starting one — there. Tom proceeded to intone the sounds he heard in his head aloud one by one; with each completed rune word, he injected more mana.

“I don’t know that language at all,” Antefalken said.

Talarius shook his head. “Nor do I.”

Tom completed the intonation and felt a cracking sensation. Suddenly the dimmer outlines of the door and frame flashed brilliant blue. As the light faded, they could clearly see the door and frame as real objects. The barking was very loud now from down the corridor, accompanied by what sounded like shouts of victory. Tom reached out and twisted the door handle and pushed the door open. Behind it was a landing with stairs leading upward. “Hah! A stairway to heaven!” They all cheered.

“You better hope it’s not going to Tierhallon!” Tizzy shouted.

Tom went through the door and made room for the others to come through. They all quickly did, even as a large arrow slammed into the rock frame of the door before bouncing off. Tom looked through the door to see a large horde of very big and angry D’Orcs charging into the room. He quickly slammed the door and began pulling himself out of the runes, with luck depowering them. “Everyone go, up the stairs! I’m trying to lock the door behind us.” The handle he was holding suddenly vanished, leaving a solid stone wall with no markings.

Tom leaned against the wall to rest. He could hear angry shouts and yells from the other side. The stone wall and door had been rather thick, but not insurmountable. They might be able to break down the wall, given time. They needed to hurry. He charged up the steps after the rest of the group.

The stairs went quite some distance and ended on a landing that had more steps going upward on the other side of the landing. The more interesting thing, however, was on the wall to their left. In the center of the wall was an ornate marble entranceway, or rather door frame, with a very white marble door with a heavy vault handle, a wheel sort of thing, and giant stone hinges on the right. It looked to Tom a little Greek or colonial in style, but the door and the frame were heavily inscribed with more of the same runes.

This time as Talarius approached the door, it was his armor that started to light up. “This is most unusual,” he said.

“Why would Etonians be wandering around in the Abyss making runic doorways?” Antefalken asked.

“How would they even get down here? That would be an act of war that would trigger all sorts of repercussions,” Boggy said.

“Do you know anything, Tizzy?” Tom asked.

Tizzy shrugged. “Never been through that invisible door. Certainly never been in this room. Back in my day, no Etonian in their right mind would have set foot in the Abyss.”

“So none of this was here when you were last here?” Boggy asked.

“No idea, but I think that if it had been installed at that time, there would have been a lot of dead bodies lying around. The demons that lived here would not have let an Etonian in, I can guarantee you that.”

“So what’s behind the fancy door?” Rupert asked.

“Up for another try?” Antefalken asked.

“Uhm...” Estrebrius made a hesitant motion. “Perhaps it’s locked up for a reason? Maybe it’s dangerous?”

“Dangerous for whom?” Tizzy asked. “I cannot think an Etonian would try to protect demons from something.”

“I find this very disturbing,” Talarius said. “I must confess, I am very curious. I am also very hesitant, but this should not be. It’s very wrong.”

“Okay, so I think we open it,” Tom said. Antefalken and Rupert shot him big grins.

Tom stared at the runes. They looked exactly like the runes downstairs, so while he knew how they were pronounced, he had no idea what they meant. He decided to start by just reading the runes aloud.