Free Into The Abyss (Demons of Astlan) by J. Langland

feel the heat on his face and chest and he realized that it had to be incredibly hot, but he felt only mild discomfort from the intense blaze.  In all, the fireball must only have lasted a few seconds; however, it seemed to go on for several minutes.  Only after the ball had shrunk back to a small flame and then out of sight, did Tom realize that he was hovering in midair.  He hadn't fallen; maybe, just maybe, he'd finally be able to get the hang of this flying business.
    Eventually they did reach the base of the mountains.  "Here we are!" Tizzy exclaimed. "We actually made it, and you still have all your parts."
    Tom looked speculatively over at Tizzy, wondering for a moment about the demon's comment, and wondering how much of the confidence he had seemed to show in Tom had simply been faked.  "So where do I go from here?" Tom asked.
    "Why anywhere you want to live."
    "Just go pick out a cave, anywhere?"
    "Well, any uninhabited cave.'
    "How do I tell which ones have demons in them?"
    "Easy, every demon makes his personal mark above the entrance to his cave, just don't go in any marked ones."
    "How many caves have demons in them?"
    "Oh, I don't know, not all, certainly not even most of them."
    "Well, I guess I'd better start looking," Tom said, not knowing really where to look, since he couldn't see any caves at the moment.
    "The best ones are over there."  Tizzy pointed beyond the first layer of mountains, deeper into the range.
    "Very well, I guess I'll start looking."
    "Yes, I always say ..." Tizzy's voice drifted off a little as he seemed to look off into space for a moment, puffing on his pipe.  "Sorry, gotta go."  With that, the small octopodal demon vanished into thin air.
    "Hmm, guess I'm on my own."  Tom said . He supposed Tizzy had just been called off to see his `accursed master.'  Tom flew up higher in the air so that he could pass over the mountains.  The mountain range seemed, like the river, to be larger and more imposing than any he had seen on Earth.  The mountains were all jagged, torn and extremely rocky.  None of the close ones had snow, which was to be expected if the temperature was two hundred degrees Fahrenheit.  It did appear, however, that some of the more distant mountains did have white on them.  Thinking back on what little geography and geology he'd had, Tom guessed that those mountains would have to be incredibly high for the temperature to drop from two hundred degrees to the point where snow could exist.
    He was now flying over the first mountains.  He was higher than he'd been, since any time after he fell off the pillar.  He guessed he was still not as high up as the pillar had been, but this mountain had to be at least nine thousand feet high.  He guessed this by the time it took him to fly to the top, based on what he estimated his speed to be, about twenty miles per hour.  If this mountain was nine thousand feet, then some of those further in had to be twenty thousand feet high, and those snowcapped ones would have to be higher than Mount Everest.
    He tore his eyes off the distant mountains, and began scanning the valley below him, now that he had passed the tops of the first mountains.  Occasionally, he spotted what appeared to be dark spots on the sides of mountains.  The first one he saw, he swooped towards, and saw that it indeed was a cave, this one had some sort of strange circled `Y' engraved above its entrance.  Apparently, it was occupied.  He continued on, when he saw a cave that was situated in what looked like a convenient location he would swoop down on it, to see if it was marked. 
    To his dismay most of the caves that he examined in the first few valleys were marked, or else they were extremely shallow.  So he flew on, he had searched for what felt like several hours, when he spotted a large cave near the top of an extremely high peak.  He flew up on it in a sweeping arc, the more he flew, the more impressive looking tricks he learned.
    This cave