Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

handle. It came out on a heavy chain, and the shock of resistance nearly pulled my arm out of its socket and me off the platform. I hung on, sweat pouring into my eyes, and hauled back on it. The iron chain groaned, clanking until it locked out with a deep crunch.

The bolts of the gate unlocked, and both sides of it rumbled as they slid into the walls.

“Thank god.” I was so hot that my teeth were chattering, my Hydration meter was flashing red, and I was pretty sure that I could have cooked an egg on my armor. I hung on until the platform stopped gyrating, then turned and leaped up to the next one. Leaping up on top of suspended platforms was harder than jumping down onto them, but I kept my footing until I reached the comparative coolness of the main walkway. Suri was on the last platform now - which I noticed only had two chains, not four. She was holding onto them with grim tenacity, trying to find her center of balance so it didn't dump her in the lava.

“Use it like a swing!” I called. “If you step on the front, it'll flip!”

She shook her head in disbelief, but tried it anyway. Karalti and I watched from opposite ends of the room as Suri got the big slab swinging, and then, when it was close to the open gate, kicking off from it. She landed halfway onto solid ground, hitting it with an 'oof!' of effort. I tensed, ready to jump and do something, anything to stop her from sliding in, but Suri clawed her way up and got to her feet, panting and smeared in carbonized dust.

“Yay!” Karalti jumped in excitement, then tensed and sprinted forward. She landed lightly on the first platform, bounced from it to the second, did a handspring off the third, and caught the chains of the last one, on her way down. She swung between them like a gymnast, then flipped herself up and over to land beside Suri. “Ta-dah! Best at platforms!”

“Showoff,” she grumbled.

“In her defense, she's got a fully functional gyroscope in her head.” I sprung up and landed neatly on the second to last platform. “It’s a dragon thing.”

“That explains the lack of brains,” Suri said.

Karalti hissed at her. “Shut up! You didn’t figure out the puzzle either!”

I did the same thing she had: I Jumped, caught the chains, swung and used them rather than the platform to drive me forward. I landed in a roll, tumbling over into a crouch, then took out my waterskin and chugged. Suri held out a hand. I passed it wordlessly as we trudged off into the next room.

Dungeon Room #2 was a simple square antechamber with a row of magelight torches set into brackets, and a heavy steel door that bore a handprint seal. Suri pricked her finger a second time and put her palm into the inset lock. The mechanisms inside turned, and the door was pulled up into the roof of the cavern, revealing a pitch-black room beyond.

“Welp. Guess it’s torch time,” I said.

Suri grunted, and took one out of her Inventory as I did the same. We passed into the next room, casting light across a tiled floor covered in sand. There was a row of four empty braziers next to the locked door. Each one of them had a symbol of the Nine carved over it.

“Okay... so we have to light these in some kind of order?” Suri drew up in front of it. “Or what?”

“Guess so.” I held my torch up to get a look at them. I readily recognized three of them: Veles' hourglass, Matir's nine-pointed star, and the heart of Veela. The other one I had seen, but had never associated with one of the gods: a hexagon with a cross drawn through it.

“Okay... so Veles, Veela, and whoever that is,” I muttered. “No Khors?”

“Nope,” Karalti said. “No hammertime.”

I wracked my brains, trying to think what order they represented. “I’m thinking this is some ‘who was the daddy?’ family tree shit. If so, the order would be Veles, Matir, then... uhh... Veela, then the last one, I think.”

“Try 'em,” Suri said.

I shrugged, and touched the torch to the oily scones. Veles, Matir, then Veela, then the hexagon cross. Once all four flames were lit, they almost immediately extinguished. There was a crunch from inside the walls, and I perked up, looking at the door.

The entrance behind us slammed shut, and the walls shuddered. Dust rained down on our heads as they began to quickly close in from either side.

I groaned. “Balls.”

“Try it again!” Karalti squeaked.

“Okay, okay… Let me think. Veles is the eldest, Matir is his son... wait. Didn't he have twins? Fuck. Now I remember. That has to be the symbol of Rusolka.” I winced, quickly touching the torch to the brackets in order: Veles, Matir, Rusolka, then Veela. We heard something mechanical wind down, and the walls came to a halting stop with about seven feet of space between them. The bars across the door slid open, giving Suri access to another palm lock.

Karalti scowled. “You need to study the Nine some more.”

“Do I look like a priest?” I jerked my shoulders and straightened up. “C’mon. Let’s get out of the squish room.”

The door rumbled up, just like the previous one, and admitted us into a great, dusty hall – dark, for a moment, until rows of soft white mage lights came to life along the walls and overhead. This place, more than any other we’d found so far, looked like some kind of church. It was eerie and gothic and beautiful, large enough that two fully grown dragons could have walked side by side down the aisle. The door we’d come through was human-sized, but the one at the end was definitely not. The massive double doors towered over the double row of statues that lined the aisle leading to the dais in front of them. There