59.

  “Waaaaaah!” I cried out, backpedaling at the sight of the eye.

  It had to be 6 feet tall and the same wide. It swallowed the entire end of the hallway. Veins as thick as my arms crept towards an iris the size of my torso. It was black, completely jet black, and wildly rolling around like it belonged to some frantic cyclops off his meds.

  "What the hell is that?" I yelled, and even the Pigeon King looked perturbed for a change.

  As I stumbled backwards, I glanced over my shoulder and remembered the shadow creatures. The hall behind was still pitch black, and I realized the eye must have a glow of its own for us to be able to see in such detail. As I stared behind me, preferring that to what was in front of us, I slowly saw candles being lit and the shadow monsters began closing in on us.

  "Oh, that's not good," I said.

  The Pigeon King looked at me and then looked behind. I heard him mutter an oath under his breath.

  "The only way is forward, mageling!" the Pigeon King said.

  "You've seen that, right?” I said, pointing at the eye. “I'm not just imagining that thing.”

  "No, I've seen it," the Pigeon King said, his eyes steely and resolute. "But still, we must go forward.”

  "How?”

  “It is a creature of Somnix. We must defeat it.”

  "What, you want me to just run up and punch it or something?" I said to him, and the Pigeon King thought for a moment.

  "No, doubtful. That thing has some sort of energy around it. The only way we're going to defeat it is by binding it.”

  "Okay," I said. "Go ahead."

  The Pigeon King gave me a cold look.

  "I have expended more energy than I should have fighting those shadow things," the Pigeon King said. "I do not wish to spend the last vestiges of my energy on a damned eyeball, boy. It's time for you to do something.”

  "Like what?" I said. "Should I shoot it?”

  "I don't think that will have much effect,” the Pigeon King said, checking on the progress of the monsters behind us.

  "So, what then?" I said.

  "That is a metaphysical being, a guardian. The only way we can defeat it is by binding it with the Chain Rune of Awareness. We must see past this facade to the doorway behind. You need to channel the energies that I have taught you, and you need to bring forth your chain once again and bind the eyeball.”

  "We don't have time for that!" I snarled. "Those things are catching up to us."

  "Don't be silly, mageling," the Pigeon King said nonchalantly. "We have the rest of our lives."

  I eyed the sardonic pigeon and scowled.

  "No time like the present," he said.

  I muttered under my breath and sighed before sitting down cross-legged on the floor, drawing power back into myself, and channeling the Chain Rune once again. The pattern still burnt bright in my mind from when the Pigeon King had taught it to me. As I searched for that space of perfect stillness, I felt the tingle of the Pigeon King’s borrowed power intertwined with mine. I slowly began to put together the Chain Rune. I could see it etched out in light before me, I captured that light and...

  "Mageling, quickly." the Pigeon King said nervously.

  "Well, if you don't interrupt me," I muttered back through clenched teeth.

  "They're almost on us," the Pigeon King said.

  "Alright, give me a moment," I snapped.

  Settling back down, and stilling my thoughts, I pictured the chain once again, thick and perfect for binding. I felt its weight in my palms. I knew the exact length and the number of links in that chain, what they were made of, and even how they would sound. Slowly, I began to feel the weight forming in my hands. Then I opened my eyes and saw the chain resting on my palms.

  "Good, mageling, good!" the Pigeon King said, trying to keep the rising panic from his voice. "Do it now!"

  He turned, and I saw the glow of his talons in the corner of my eyes and knew that the beasts were upon us. I whirled the chain around and whipped it at the eyeball.

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  "Bind!" I roared, my voice echoing with a thunderous power I'd never heard before, and the chain did exactly that.

  It lashed around the eye, enveloping it, squeezing it, and I heard the Pigeon King squawking, his beak and his talons clashing and scratching behind me. Then the eye exploded. I'd expected a shower of goo, but instead, the thing just sort of deflated and then popped out of existence. I spun the chain, whirring it around my head. Glowing Runes lit its length as I turned it on the shadow beasts, whipping it at them.

  I watched a lot of Indiana Jones as a kid. My Grandad used to love those films, and I'd often play at whipping things with belts and strings and pretty much anything I could get my hands on, and I'd always sucked at it. But this chain reacted as if it was a part of me, and it flew with such accuracy and dexterity that it could have been another limb. The chain lashed at the shadow beasts, wrapping around them, corralling them into a group. Soundlessly, they screeched and hissed, reaching for the sky as the Runes enveloped them.

  "Bind!" I roared again.

  The creatures went stiff and then the shadows simply melted away, not back into the walls and ceilings this time, but just into nothingness. They disintegrated, and the chain fell to the floor with a heavy thunk. The corridor went still.

  I took a deep breath and looked at the Pigeon King and smirked.

  "Did you see that?"

  "Yes, mageling," the Pigeon King replied, smoothing down his feathers. “I saw.” I felt the words ‘well done’ forming on his beak, but he stopped just short of it. "Come, our battle has not yet begun, for I feel Somnix’s wickedness emanating from that door." The Pigeon King turned to face the bronze door that had been hidden behind the eye. "Somnix awaits us."

  "Let's go kick his butt," I said, whipping the chain up and around, mimicking Indiana Jones, and then wincing as the heavy metal slapped against my body.

  "Wait, mageling," the Pigeon King said as I stepped towards the door. "This battle won't be like any you've ever fought before. Somnix is an immortal monstrosity. He is a 1000-year-old wraith and he has not survived this long by being a fool. He is wicked and devious, he fights his battles in the mind as well as with his physical form. And we are in his kingdom. He can do as he pleases, bend reality, and reshape the laws of nature as he sees fit." I swallowed nervously at the gravitas in the Pigeon King's voice. "We must work together to destroy the beast.”

  “Right. You fight him and I’ll bind him,” I said, trying to sound confident.

  “I fear I will not be able to,” the Pigeon King said.

  “What? Why not?”

  “I underestimated how diminished my abilities would be this far from my body. I do not underestimate Somnix, he is a powerful foe.”

  “Then… I’ll fight him… and you bind him?” I said halfheartedly.

  “No.” the Pigeon King said flatly. I tried not to show it, but I was relieved. “We must fight together. I fear we will have to try and destroy the beast if we are to return alive.”

  “Okay, how do we do that?”

  “Somnix has but one weakness: a glass heart."

  "A glass heart?" I repeated.

  "Yes, well, it's a chamber more than a heart, but it's where he stores his true self. If we can shatter that heart, then Somnix will lose all power temporarily.”

  "So, I bind him and you break the heart?" I said.

  "No," the Pigeon King replied abruptly. "Your power is nowhere near strong enough to bind Somnix. I was hoping I could bestow another portion of my strength upon you but I have little to spare. However, that chain can be used as a weapon against it. You can lash him down, and hold him still for a few seconds, and maybe even harm his body. But you will not be able to bind him to your will. We will need to wear him down, get him to expend his energies on us, and then when the moment is right, we will destroy the heart," the Pigeon King said.

  "Okay, just like a raid boss," I replied.

  "A what?" the Pigeon King asked.

  "Never mind, sorry, go on."

  "Somnix will attack your mind, mageling," the Pigeon King continued. "Especially if he senses he's in danger. My mind is, of course, far too strong for a creature like that to invade, but yours will be open wide for him. Do not attempt to bind him until he is weak. When you bind a creature that powerful, you open a two way gate between your minds. If Somnix does attack your mind you must, beyond anything else, remember the Rune on your palm. It is the only link you will have to the real world and to sanity. No matter what he shows you, do not lose yourself in the visions and nightmares of Somnix. Do you understand me?”

  I nodded solemnly. The previous adrenaline and excitement of crafting and fighting shadow monsters and giant eyeballs had completely dissipated. Only the cold dread that we were fighting something well out of my league was left.

  "I will engage Somnix's body," the Pigeon King said. "I have enough energy remaining to fight him for a short time, so we will hit him and hit him hard. I need you to provide distractions, and to keep his minions away while we duel. Use the chain and use your senses to see the heart. If you get an opportunity, strike at it.”

  I swallowed and then nodded again.

  "Good, come now, my faithful featherless follower. Let us lay low this foul beast that dares besmirch the Pigeon King's kingdom.”

  The Pigeon King marched towards the door. Alright, it looked more like a waddle, but he moved towards the door with courage and surety. I felt the immense drawing of his power in the air as the Pigeon King prepared himself for battle. The door practically exploded open in front of him.

  We found ourselves in what I could only describe as Dracula's castle. It was a monstrous Victorian affair with giant stained glass windows, stone pillars that reached far into the sky, and, I kid you not, there was a freaking organ playing in the middle of this cavernous room. The ceiling was so high it was completely shrouded in darkness. Thousands of floating braziers twinkled all around us.

  The creepy organ wailed a mournful dirge that echoed around the walls. Hunched over in a blood-red cloak in front of the organ on a raised dais was a monstrous creature. I didn't know how to describe the thing I was seeing in front of me. He was huge; the width of his shoulders looked taller than I was standing. All I could see of him beneath the cloak was his head. It was the shape of a ram’s head. His horns were long and curled and black as the night. He had fangs and a long snout, with eyes that were as black as his horns. There were no pupils, no whites, just black slits. His skin, or was it fur, was some sort of dark green that bled into black, which glistened under the flickering candlelight.

  As we approached, those black holes of eyes focused on us, and I saw him draw back his lips, exposing his fangs.

  "Welcome to the kingdom of nightmares and your final resting place.”