Excerpt 2 Hunter

Riyan practically stumbled and fell when he was suddenly plunged into darkness. He continued a few steps before coming to a stop. “Kevik!” he hollered. “A little light please.” The way his spells go away without warning is beginning to grow annoying. There was no sound of any fighting, so the sudden cessation of Kevik’s light spell must have halted the impending fight between Seth and Bart. A moment passed by and still the light failed to materialize. “Any time now Kevik,” he said with growing impatience.
Silence surrounded him. “Kevik?” he asked nervously. The silence was deeper than it should have been. “Bart? Chad?” His fear rapidly grew when no one replied. He had one torch in his pack. That was one thing Bart had insisted on, that each carry a source of light only to be used for emergencies. For once, he was glad of that suggestion.
He slung his pack off of his shoulder and set it on the ground. Kneeling down next to it, he soon had the torch out and was striking sparks against the floor with flint. When one of the sparks landed on the torch, he blew gently upon it to encourage it to catch. On his second attempt, the spark ignited the flammable material encompassing the torch’s head and a flame blossomed to life.
The light from the torch revealed that he was in a small circular room with but one exit, and that he was alone. The walls and ceiling of the room was composed of plain stone. The floor on the other hand, except for a two foot outer stone perimeter, was an exact duplicate of the circular area bearing the King’s symbol from the room he had just been in.
Picking up the torch and slinging his pack once again across his shoulders, he tried to figure out how he came to be here. Bards have told tales of magical devices which could transport people across great distances. The fact that he was where he was suggested he had inadvertently triggered such a device.
He glanced at the circular area. The last thing he remembered before coming here was running to stop Bart. He had crossed over the circular area, then he was here. It would then be reasonable to assume that his stepping on the circular area had in some way caused him to come here. But why not Bart? He had already stepped on it without triggering the device. So how had he?
Stepping onto the circular area again, he hoped to be sent back. But nothing happened. Stepping off of it onto the stone perimeter, he walked around to the other side then tried entering the area from a different direction. Once more, nothing happened when he stepped upon the circular area. “Why won’t you work?” he asked it. Turning his attention to the exit, he hoped there was another way out as this appeared to be just a one way portal.
Entering the passage, he followed it for no more than ten feet before it opened onto another room. As the torch’s light began to fill the room, he saw a statue standing against the wall to his right. It was that of a double headed falcon, the same as was on the coat of arms. In the torch’s light, the statue gave off an eerie feel.
Across the room from the statue was a niche in the wall four feet from the ground. From where he stood he could tell there was something within the niche. Certain that he knew what it was, Riyan hurried into the room.

“Stop!” yelled Bart.
They were gathered around Kevik who maintained the image of Riyan in the bowl resting on the floor before him. When they had discovered Riyan missing, Bart had Kevik immediately cast his far seeing spell to locate him. At least they knew he was alive, all they had to do now was to determine how to reach him.
Kevik figured he had to have been caught in some sort of teleportation spell. The flash of light, the fact he disappeared while crossing over the King’s symbol in the circular area, all led him to that conclusion.
While he had gathered his bowl and the flask containing the mixture necessary for the spell, Bart had tried to duplicate Riyan’s movement with no results. Then when Kevik had cast his spell, they were all relieved to find him still alive.
“How are we to get to him,” Chad had asked worried.
“I don’t know,” replied Kevik. “At least he’s alive.”
They watched him pass through the short passage and then pause at the entrance to the room. The room he found himself in was small enough for the image to reveal both the statue and the niche.
“What’s wrong?” asked Chad after Bart’s declaration for Riyan to stop.
“This feels wrong somehow,” he said.
“In what way?” Seth asked.
“I don’t know,” replied Bart. “It just does.” Keeping his eyes riveted to the image in Kevik’s bowl, he watched with growing trepidation as Riyan crossed over to the niche.

The glint of gold caused him to quicken his step. The light from the torch soon revealed the niche in its entirety. A velvet pillow, or rather what was left of one, sat within the niche. Time had faded its glamour and turned the material into tattered remains. An object nestled within the tattered remains was what gave off the golden glint.
“That’s it!” he exclaimed out loud as he neared the niche. The shape and size were both consistent with the two segments of the key he carried in his pack. Just as he reached the niche, a groaning sound came from behind him.
Riyan stopped and turned to look back. The statue of the double headed falcon was vibrating. He stood there frozen, fully expecting the statue to come alive and attack him. Instead, the statue gave out with another groan just before water began issuing forth from each of the falcon’s mouths. Then, a clanging sound drew his attention to the mouth of the passage. An iron portcullis suddenly dropped out of the ceiling and barred the only way out of the room.
He raced to the portcullis and gripped the bars. Using all his strength, he tried to lift it back into the ceiling but failed. It would take more than just himself to budge it. A trap! A demon cursed trap! Setting his pack on the floor, he grabbed the bars of the portcullis and once again heaved with all his strength.

“Come on Riyan,” Chad urged as he watched him attempt to raise the portcullis for the second time. “Damn!” he cursed when he saw Riyan let go.
“We have to get to him,” urged Seth.
“How do you propose we do that?” asked Chyfe.
Bart thought for a second then looked to Kevik.
Kevik saw him looking at him and his face paled. “What?” he asked.
Pointing to the circular area, Bart said, “You have to get that thing working.”
“Do you have any idea how much power that thing has?” argued Kevik. Glancing to the others, he saw that they were looking to him for a solution.
“How much time do you think he has?” asked Bart. They all looked to the image in the bowl and saw that the water level was already a couple inches deep and rising. Riyan was back over at the niche in the wall and they saw him remove the segment and put it in his pack.
“He also has all the segments,” Chad said. “If he dies in there, so does our quest.”