Shadow Gambit by Adam Drake Page A

from view. Although it was brightly lit, I saw no torches or glowing stones. It had to be magically powered.
     
    On one side of the vast cavern were different piles of blue ore shaped into a kind of pylon. There were hundreds of them arranged like a bizarre rocky orchard. Each blue ore pylon emitted a blue ray of light that shot out to the far side of the cavern.
     
    These beams of light struck what I thought was a huge round lake in the floor. But the dark waters that sucked up the lights were something else entirely. They were clouds. I was looking down into another realm. Red lightening flashed deep within these clouds.
     
    It wasn't a lake at all, but a portal. The blue ore must have been feeding it somehow. Maybe, even keeping the portal open?
     
    The other section of the massive cavern was empty. Just flat featureless ground that stretched out to meet the walls. A huge archway led to a sloping tunnel, and from my vantage point I could make out the far entrance. It looked to lead outside.
     
    Then it hit me. I was inside the Demon Spine that loomed over Ashbrook. The Demon King's domain.
     
    What to do? I checked my quest log, but the message had not changed. I looked over at the strange forest of glowing blue pylons. Those must be keeping the portal open. If I could stop them, would the portal close and cast the Demon King back to the Demon Void where he came from?
     
    There was one way to find out.
     
    I ran across the chamber until I reached the closest pylon. It towered above me. The entire thing emanated a low hum and pulsed a blue light up toward its top. From there the light shot straight out to vanish into the large portal in the ground.
     
    Not certain of what would happen if I touched it, I backed up a few paces and summoned a full quiver of arrows. Then I aimed and fired.
     
    The arrow struck the pylon at its thickest point and instantly the ore cracked and shattered. Its light winked off and the beam which fed the portal stopped.
     
    Huh, I thought. This is going to be easy.
     
    Something at the corner of my eye snagged my attention. At the last moment, I dodged and rolled along the ground.
     
    Someone charged over the spot I had been in and then crashed heavily into another pylon, which in turn crumbled and its light winked off.
     
    I shook my head and looked at the person who just tried to kill me.
     
    My jaw dropped in shock.
     
    It was Thorm.
     

     
     
    CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
     
     
    For a moment I stared at him, stunned. What the heck was he doing here?
     
    He was hunched over from his charge into the pylon and stood.
     
    His face had warped to the dimensions of a potato, with the remnants of a blonde mustache smeared across his jigsaw face. What remained of his bright armor had broken and the metal shards fused with his bloated flesh. One arm had elongated to touch the ground and his great broadsword stuck out from the ball of meat that had been a fist. All his flesh was laced with thick black veins.
     
    This was not Thorm. Not anymore. It was his old avatar now under the influence of the Demon King.
     
    Before I could take solace in the fact the real Thorm was prancing around a field chasing pigs with a wooden sword, this Mutant-Thorm vomited a geyser of black fluid at me.
     
    I scrambled out of the way as the horrid liquid splashed where I had stood.
     
    Keeping back, and circling to his side, I assessed the situation. There was no way I could take him on my own. Not even close. This mutant version of Thorm was far more powerful than the real Thorm had ever been.
     
    I needed to stay out of its way and destroy the pylons, of which there was so many. It would take awhile. And the entire time I needed to keep Mutant-Thorm from bashing me or vomiting me into an acidic puddle.
     
    Mutant-Thorm raised his huge sword-fist and charged.
     
    I Shadowed and dodged to the side. The mutant swung wildly, and looked about in confusion, unable to see me.
     
    I ran through the pylon orchard to