“Aye,” Shiara said, studying the cave mouth. “Well, we will learn little more sitting here. I think it is time to take a closer look.”
“Tread softly, Light.”
She turned to smile at him. “I will, my Sun.”
The pair approached the cave mouth cautiously. Cormac had his broadsword out and Shiara held her silver wand before her like a torch.
As they came closer Shiara stopped and pointed to a line carved in the living rock across the front of the cave.
“The ward line. The demon cannot cross it.”
“Are you certain?”
“Certain enough. Give me a torch.”
Cormac reached into his pack and pulled out one of the pine torches Shiara had prepared. The wizardess tapped the end with her wand and it burst into flame. Shiara drew back and threw the torch across the line and they both ducked back out of sight of the cave mouth.
There was no sound or movement from the cave. When they peeked around the corner they could see the torch lying on the rough rock floor of the cavern, burning brightly.
The space revealed by the torchlight was perhaps three times Cormac’s height and somewhat less than that wide, but it ran back into the mountain well beyond the circle of illumination. There was no sign of life or movement.
“The demon must only materialize when someone enters the cave,” Shiara whispered.
“Well what now?” Cormac whispered back. “Are you satisfied with your view of the demon’s empty home?”
“Wait,” said Shiara, pointing inside the cavern. “What’s that?”
Cormac followed her finger. There was something lodged in a crevice high on one wall of the cave. “A box, I think,” he said.
Shiara eyed the thing speculatively. “I wonder . . . Cormac, have you a rope in your pack?”
“You know I do, Light. And a grapnel too.”
Quickly Cormac retrieved the rope and hook from where they had dropped their packs.
“You want that box then?”
Shiara stood by him, her wand in hand. “I do. But be ready to run if we get more than we bargain for.”
Cormac swung the grapnel and cast it expertly into the cave. There was a hollow “clang” as the hook connected with the box. Cormac tugged and it clattered out of the crevice and onto the cave floor.
In the torchlight Cormac saw that his prize was a bronze coffer, decorated in high relief and apparently bearing an inscription on the top. Another quick throw and Cormac dragged the box out of the cave and across the warding line.
“Don’t touch it,” Shiara warned. As Cormac recoiled his rope she bent to examine the coffer.
Shiara opened the box with a pass of her wand and a whispered incantation. Nestled inside was a smoky gray globe about six inches in diameter.
“The heart of the demon!” Shiara exclaimed triumphantly. “Now we can truly control this creature.”
She removed the ball from the coffer and held it in her hand. Another muttered spell and a dense cloud of smoke began to form within the cavern. Through the smoke loomed a great black shape.
The huge horned head swivelled toward them, but before the creature could do more, Shiara raised her wand and spoke another spell. The demon froze as it was, the only sign of life the fire burning in its eyes.
Shiara sighed and sagged. “That should hold it,” she said. Carefully, she replaced the sphere in the box and carried it back into the cave. The demon did not even twitch when she crossed the threshold.
The wizardess was still considering the coffer when Cormac came up to her.
“Do we take that with us?”
“I wish we dared. It is a dangerous thing to leave behind, but it would be a greater danger to carry it with us. There might be something above us which can undo what I have done and I do not wish to find a rampaging demon here when we return.”
“Conceal it?”
“That is best.” She cast about the cavern looking for a hiding place.
“Light, come look at this.”
Cormac was standing over a head-high pile of bones.
“So our demon did clean the place deliberately.”