“Elves wrote things down, but sometimes they could imbue their words with blood magic. Creating a magic echo. Essentially it records everything that happened in the few minutes after the magic was used. It was quite the interesting use of power. Also, it only works with words that glow.”
I looked around at the words written on the walls of the cell. “None in here, but there are a lot of those back at the realm gate. I assume that is a realm gate?”
“Yes. Very few of us knew about them. The elven civil war was fought because the shadow elves wanted to tell the world about what they knew, and the sun elves refused. The realm gate requires blood to use, though. Quite a bit of it.”
“A sacrifice.”
“You can see why they weren’t popular.”
“The blood elf they found?”
“That would do it. If someone came here through a realm gate, they’d need a sacrifice to get back out again.”
“So a month ago they come here, open the cell, drag Asmodeus out, kill a blood elf, and escape. We need to know exactly what happened. I need to go use one of these echoes. Thanks.”
“Glad to have helped,” Erebus said before vanishing.
“I have an idea,” I said, running out of the cell to see that several of the group had made their way across the bridge. There was a rumble from beside me, and I had to throw myself aside just in time to avoid one of the massive swords of the now-moving stone giants.
Soon all four giants were moving, ready to destroy anyone close to the cell.
CHAPTER 25
Nate Garrett
Selene, Sky, and Zamek all dodged aside as two of the stone giants moved to attack them. One of them swiped with its massive shield, catching Lucifer in the chest, sending him flying into me.
I tried to catch him, but the force was too much, and we collided, throwing us back toward the edge of the island. I used my shadow magic to anchor both myself and Lucifer to the ground as I caught a glimpse of Zamek scaling one of the giants and using his alchemy to tear it apart with his bare hands as Galahad and Harrison removed its legs.
Lucifer was on his feet before me, and pure magic leapt from his fingers, smashing into the closest giant and taking it off its feet, making the ground shake from the force of the landing. Sky brought one stone giant to its knees so that Leonardo and Caitlin could place their hands on its head, turning it to dust, while Selene jumped up onto the last giant, turning into her dragon-kin form as she moved. Her strength and power tore into the giant with vigor, and it took only seconds for the fifteen-foot goliath to be turned into several tons of rubble.
I got to my feet and brushed myself clean.
“Glad you could help out!” Zamek shouted to me.
“You could have left me one,” I said with a smile.
“Sorry, I guess I figured if you wanted to take part, you wouldn’t have been lying on the floor.”
I walked over to the nearest giant, which swiped at me with its one remaining arm. I darted back, activating my matter magic. Purple glyphs appeared over my hands and arms, and my world became a purple haze. I took a step toward the giant and focused all my power into my right hand, pouring as much matter magic as I could into it.
It took only a second for the punch to completely destroy the giant, showering everything around it with dirt and rubble. I stood there for several seconds as I removed my matter magic and my body got used to seeing normally again.
“How’d you do that?” Zamek asked. “That was crazy.”
I shrugged. “Everyone okay?”
Everyone made it known that they were fine.
Selene took my hand in hers and kissed me on the cheek. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I am. I haven’t used my matter magic like that before. I wasn’t really sure how it worked until I switched it on, but I figured I’d give it a try. Erebus said he’s drip feeding knowledge into my head. He told me about an elven magic echo.”
Caitlin poked the destroyed giant and looked back at me, surprised at the devastation my punch had caused. “That’s new.”
“I’ve got a lot of new things since I saw you,” I told her. “I don’t know who set that trap, but I’m guessing it was done by whoever came here a month ago and removed Asmodeus.”
“What’s a magic echo?” Galahad asked.
I quickly explained what Erebus had told me.
“So, we need to go back to the realm gate?” Leonardo asked. “This is turning into an incredibly interesting day.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure ‘interesting’ is how I’d put it,” Galahad said. “I guess it at least breaks up the day’s council meetings.”
Everyone made their way back to the realm-gate cavern and stood around the outside of the cave, near different pieces of writing.
“So, how does this work?” Galahad asked from beside me. “Do we each have to bleed, or is this a one-off thing?”
I shrugged. “Leonardo assumed that the color changed because someone used the realm gate.”
“I thought the same thing,” said Lucifer.
“Maybe that’s not what the color is for,” I suggested. “Pass me your knife, will you?” I asked Harrison, who removed the dagger from his belt and gave it to me.
I used it to cut into the palm of my hand, then placed my hand against the purple writing. The effect was instantaneous as all the writing in the cavern turned a deep red and several figures started to appear on the dais in the middle of the cavern.
I took my hand away—my magic would heal it within moments—and watched the six figures flicker for several seconds until the picture settled.
“It’s like they’re holograms,” Selene said. “Tommy would be comparing it to Star Wars about now.”
To my mind it wasn’t a bad comparison. The figures were all in light blue, and we couldn’t hear sound, but we got the gist of what was going on. One man, his arms shackled behind his back, was kneeling on the floor.
“That’s Asmodeus,” Lucifer said. “It’s weird seeing him like this. It’s been so long since I had contact.”
One of the elves around Asmodeus was talking to him, and after listening for several seconds the king of the devils started to laugh.
The two elves behind Asmodeus each took one arm and held him down while a third elf slit his throat, allowing the blood to pour into several vessels below the dais. The vessels were a few feet high and sat in front of Asmodeus and the two guards, who continued to hold Asmodeus until he had no strength left to fight. It was at that moment that I noticed a vase.
The elf who had slit his throat unsheathed a curved sword that sat at his hip and cut Asmodeus’s head off. He picked it up by the hair and dropped it into one of the containers that was full of blood.
“That’s not exactly what I was expecting,” Galahad said.
I walked to the dais as the elves dragged Asmodeus’s body away, toward the cell in the other cavern. The picture of the blood-filled containers and the vase remained for several seconds before they, too, vanished from view as the footage ended.