by C. Greenwood
My uneasiness grew.
At length, a solid boulder appeared in our path, and we stopped before it. I didn’t realize until several warriors combined their strength to roll the rock aside that it acted as a strong door, blocking a small entrance into the chamber beyond. It was a tight doorway that would barely have admitted a large man. My guards showed no intention of entering it. Instead they cut the ties binding my hands and indicated I should pass through alone.
I wondered what would happen if I refused. They had seemed reluctant to handle me roughly thus far, possibly fearing whatever magic had been powerful enough to defeat their dragon. But my power was still weak from its last use, and I was not eager to test the warriors.
I did as they wanted, ducking through the narrow space and into the next chamber. Here it was pitch black so that I couldn’t see what kind of room I had entered. I wondered if I was expected to wait indefinitely in the dark. But after a moment, one of the Drejians thrust his arm, bearing a flaming torch, into the space. Its flickering light illuminated a circular cave, most of it taken up by an immense, gaping pit at its center. If one kept close to the walls, there would be just room enough to walk a circle around that pit but not much more than that. There were no obvious entrances or exits to the room beyond the one I had just taken.
The Drejian guard did not follow me into the cavern but grunted and indicated I should take the torch from his hand if I did not want to be left in the dark. He was the same warrior who had fastened me to the ring in the audience hall and who had “introduced” me before the queen.
Taking the offered torch, I asked, “Is this to be my prison then? For how long?”
His shrug might have meant that he didn’t know or simply that he didn’t care. Neither possibility was reassuring.
When he had gone, I watched as the other guards rolled the heavy boulder back into place, effectively sealing me into the tomblike chamber.
I shivered at the draft coming from the yawning pit and cautiously approached the edge as closely as I dared. I peered down into the black abyss. There was no telling what was down there. The only clues were the softly whistling gusts of cold air wafting up and the constant sound of dripping water in the distance. Tearing a strip off my sleeve, I lit it against my torch and dropped the burning fabric down into the deep hole. I watched the blazing rag spiral downward until it shrank in the distance and I could see it no more.
That question was answered then. I was half-relieved to know I would not be escaping this dungeon by climbing down the mouth of the pit. I walked the perimeter of the room, following the circular walls and cautiously avoiding the places where the floor inclined inward, as if inviting me to slip and fall into the hole at its center. Despite my initial impression of a wide space, there was little floor room in the cavern, the pit taking most of it. I did not take long to finish my circuit and return to where I had started.
Enough time had passed that I guessed the Drejians had dispersed. Unless, of course, they had left a warrior or two behind to guard me. But I decided to take a chance. I set my torch against the wall to free both hands and then leaned with all my strength into the boulder. Sweat quickly broke out on my skin as I pushed at the rock until my arms were weak and trembling. But the boulder would not budge. Not even a little. Gasping to recover my breath, I realized it would take many strong hands to dislodge the obstacle.
Frustrated, I sank to the cold floor and gazed up at the grate in the rocky ceiling far overhead. I could almost imagine a faint, whitish illumination filtered through the grate from the glow stones on the next level. I hoped I was right because my single torch would not last forever. I tried not to guess how long it would be before the flames guttered out and plunged me into solitary darkness. For how many hours, days, or years, I wondered, would I be left to linger in that state? Would I ever see daylight again? Would I ever walk along the dappled paths of Dimmingwood again?
Fighting despair, I lay back and tried to rest. The past few hours had been physically and emotionally draining. I needed to recover my strength and wits in order to be ready at the first opportunity of escape.
I did not close my eyes though, watching through heavy lids as the torch burned itself down. I would not close my eyes until the last light had gone and darkness closed in.
* * *
I dreamed of Terrac. In my mind, I clearly saw the hot desert sun beating down on him, its dazzling rays reflected from a nearby pool of water. I recognized the puddle-sized watering hole as one I had passed during my trek across the desert. My heart swelled with hope at the realization Terrac was following my trail.
But something was wrong. He was lying out flat in the sand, eyes closed, body stiff. For a horrifying instant, I thought he was dead. Then I saw that his chest moved. He breathed quickly, shallowly, as if in pain.
A shadow appeared upon his pale face, and then Hadrian leaned over him, spreading a wet cloth across his brow. The warrior priest’s voice was grave as he said, “I’ve done my best to magically isolate the venom in your hand, but I have not the skill to draw it out. We must get you to a healer quickly.”
Terrac’s eyes squinted open, and he said faintly but determinedly, “I’m not returning to Swiftsfell without Ilan. She’s out here somewhere, lost in the burning desert or confronting the dragon’s people, and she needs my help. I should have known she would do this. I should have prevented her from setting out alone.”
Hadrian scrubbed a hand over his sweaty sunburned face, leaving behind streaks of grit. “There’s no use blaming ourselves. Anyway, you are in no state for rescuing anybody. You’re suffering now and only going to get worse.”
Terrac opened his mouth and clamped it shut again, jaw flexing in pain. “It burns,” he admitted.
“A fierce burning sensation is one of the side effects of a desert viper’s venom, and it will only get worse as it travels through your body. Another effect is hallucinations. Soon you’ll be unable to think clearly or make rational decisions. That is why we must turn back now—”
He broke off abruptly, looking around with a sudden puzzled expression, as though sensing my unseen presence. Then he looked directly at me.
“Ilan?” he mouthed, clearly startled.
“Hadrian!” Straining my magic, I tried to reach out to him. I had to communicate, had to tell him to forget me and save Terrac.
But our connection was tenuous, and as I struggled to maintain the link, I could feel it disintegrating. I got one last look at Terrac’s face, twisted in pain. Then he, Hadrian, and the entire scene disappeared from view.
I came back to my world with a cold rush of awareness. I was sprawled on the hard floor of the cavern, trapped in utter darkness and helpless to rush to the aid of my friends.
Or… did they really need my help? I tried to calm my desperate emotions and consider the possibility my dream had been nothing more than a vivid nightmare. It wasn’t as if I had been prone to visions before. There had been occasional memories or fears wrapped within dreams, stirring to the surface at crucial times to nudge me in the right direction. But never anything like this. Why now?
Frustrated, I thumped my fists against the stone. I couldn’t take the chance the vision wasn’t real. I had to get out of this place, not in a few hours or days, but immediately. No matter what had occurred between us back in Swiftsfell, my feelings for Terrac remained strong. If his life depended on me, I could not fail him.
But although he was only a few miles away, we may as well have been on opposite sides of the world. I was buried under a mountain, hopelessly sealed in this black tomb until the Drejian queen or someone else remembered my existence.
I got up and with new determination tried to recall exactly how I had summoned the lightning to defeat the dragon. After a moment’s intense effort, I shaped the magic into what I envisioned and let it go.
A streak of blue fire shot through the cavern and disappeared down the gaping mouth of the pit.
It had only lasted a second, and
when it was gone darkness returned. I blinked, spots dancing before my eyes from the brief illumination. After a moment’s pause, I concentrated and tried again. This time I directed the lightning bolt, not into the abyss, but toward the boulder blocking my door. It blazed through the darkness, and sparks showered as it struck its target. Bits of debris rained down around me. But it was not enough. The lightning had been weak. I directed more bolts and, in the intermittent flashes of crackling fire, saw that I was steadily chiseling away at the stone.
I was also making a thunderous noise that must surely alert every Drejian within hearing distance. Imagining them running down the dark passages toward me, I summoned the most powerful lightning yet and slammed it into the boulder. Instantly, the rock exploded with a deafening noise, shattering into a million pieces.
I hoped light would come flooding through the open entrance, but it did not. The tunnel beyond was as black as the inside of the cavern. And creating more lightning to reveal my path was impossible. I had depleted my store of magic for the moment, and even my dragon-scale augmenter could not restore my strength. My knees too felt strangely weak, a sensation I remembered from the last time I had drawn on too much power—the time back in Dimmingwood when I had burnt myself out.
Shakily I felt my way through the door, leaving my prison behind, and stumbled blindly down the outer passage, trying to remember which way I had come. From ahead there came the sudden thudding sounds of many feet rushing my way. A distant light appeared from that direction. The Drejian guards were coming.
Chapter Ten
I had not thought my escape through, had proceeded without any plan beyond breaking out of my dungeon. But it was too late to form a plan as my enemies approached. All I could do was make my way in the opposite direction as swiftly as possible in the darkness. I could only guess what lay at the end of this passage, but it didn’t matter. There was only one way to run.
I hadn’t gone far, groping along in the dark and stumbling into walls, before I rounded a corner and slammed into another party of guards coming from the other way. I tried summoning lightning to throw at them, but all I managed was a weak blue flame that crackled around my fingertips before fizzling out. The guards seized me and shoved me face first into a wall. They no longer seemed concerned with handling me too roughly and held my wrists firmly, as if my hands were weapons that might erupt with more charges of lightning at any moment.
They dragged me back to the dungeon I had escaped, and when we encountered the shattered boulder, they fired excited questions in their strange language. I gathered by their tones and gestures that they wanted to know how I had destroyed the thing, but I could only shrug, not knowing how to explain.
They debated among themselves, and I got the feeling they were unsure what to do with a prisoner who couldn’t be held by their strongest cell. They soon came to a decision and led me away down the tunnel again. For a long time we walked, leaving the prison area and eventually venturing into a rough-hewn passage that appeared to have been seldom traveled. Because of the empty carts we passed, I thought of an abandoned mine, although I had seen nothing yet in this mountain that appeared worth mining. I couldn’t guess why they were bringing me here.
We didn’t progress far before pausing in a storage area, where barrels and broken tools were layered with dust and draped with cobwebs. In the floor here there was a rusty grate, and someone threw this back to reveal a hole that was little more than a crawlspace carved into the rock below. They indicated I was to lower myself into this and, when I tried to refuse, prodded me with a spear until I had no choice but to do as they wanted. My feet had no sooner touched the bottom than they started to close the grate, and I had to duck or be struck in the head. I crouched beneath the low ceiling and peered up through the bars as my guards locked me in and dispersed.
At least I was not left in the dark this time, for there were flecks of glow stone imbedded in the walls above, perhaps to illuminate the way of those long-ago miners. My position now was worse than before. The walls of my new cell were so narrow that I couldn’t lie stretched out without both ends of me touching opposite walls. Fighting the creeping sensation the rock was closing in on me, crushing me, I took deep breaths to calm myself. I had never been good with tight, enclosed spaces. To sooth the panic stalking around the edges of my mind, I reassured myself that I would not be in here long. As soon as my magic restored itself, I would break out of this cell as I had the last.
But as the hours passed and my magic slowly returned, I found there was a sort of wall separating me from it. Over and over I attempted to summon the blue lightning, but I could not. This was unlike anything I had encountered before, and I was reminded briefly of an exercise Hadrian had once taught me involving the blocking of magic. I could still sense the power flickering on the other side of that invisible wall, but I was helpless to touch it.
Since acquiring Myria’s dragon scale, I was growing used to having magic again, and it was frightening to lose it. But clearly the Drejians had found some mysterious way to cut me off from my power. I could see no other explanation.
It hadn’t taken me long to become familiar with my tiny cell, but I explored it more closely now as I realized my next escape might have to be by nonmagical means. There was little to examine. The walls were thick and solid, the floor constructed of the same material. The only way in or out was by way of the grate overhead. But it was strong and barely moved when I pushed and pulled at it. I even tried bracing my back and shoulders against the sloping wall and kicking at the thing, but the only result was a clanging noise that resounded hollowly down the mine shaft.
By the time I gave up, my mouth was dry and I was sweaty from my efforts. My rumbling stomach told me it had been a very long time since my last meal. By now I guessed I had been underground for around a full day, although it was hard to be sure without the passing of sun or moon to mark the time.
I slept for a while and did not dream this time. I was awakened by a rattling of the bars above. The grate was thrown back, and an expressionless face appeared above. The Drejian guard did not speak but tossed some objects down at me before quickly slamming the grate closed.
“Wait!” I shouted after him. “How long am I going to be down here?”
But he ignored my plea, and I heard his footsteps moving away.
In the dim light, I examined the items he had left me. There was a skin filled with water and a brittle, grainy substance that smelled like corn but had been hammered into a flat sheet. I nibbled at it, finding it tasted well enough and, more importantly, filled my aching stomach. I’d also been given a bucket, presumably for relieving myself. Although I wrinkled my nose, I was in no condition to reject the small favor. I had been enclosed in this place for an awfully long time.
Soon I curled up on the stone floor and slept again. There was little else to do in this place. When next I woke, it was to the sound of voices. The grate was thrown back, and there were several Drejians looking down on me this time. They indicated I should come out of my cell and offered their hands to assist me. But it didn’t escape my notice that several kept weapons trained on me as if expecting trouble.
Most of these Drejians were the same guards I had encountered before, but there was one who was different. This aging, silver-haired man was unarmed and lacked the bearing of a warrior. His face was dignified, but his simple clothing suggested his social status was only middling. These things I took in with a glance, but there was something more unusual that arrested my attention. Although this Drejian had the features of his race that were fast growing familiar to me, including the leathery skin and light scaling, he lacked one obvious aspect. Like the servants in the queen’s audience chamber, he was wingless.
I realized he was examining me even as I studied him. After a moment, he spoke fluently in my tongue. “My name is Kinhira, first servant of the exalted Prince Radistha. I have come to take you under the custody of my master.”
It was a relief to finally be facing
someone I could understand and who could understand me. I poured out my questions. “What is to become of me now? No one has told me anything. For how long am I to be a prisoner, and what has been decided of my challenge to duel the queen?”
He inclined his head and said gravely, “I realize you are eager for answers, but I can offer you none at this time. My understanding is that your situation is under debate by Queen Viranathi and her noble council and that your ultimate fate remains undecided. Until this changes, my ever-merciful master has intervened on your behalf so that you need not suffer these miserable confines. The exalted Radistha has made generous arrangements for you to be released into my personal charge.”
Radistha. I recognized the name but could not think how I came to know it.
“Who is this Radistha, and what is his interest in me?” I asked.
The servant darted a quick glance to the guards on either side of us. “It is not for me to speculate on my master’s intentions. I can only suggest that you accept his generous offer to dwell in the home of his servant until your fate is decided. My home is humble, but I think you will find it more agreeable than these quarters.”
There was no arguing with that. I allowed myself to be led away by this Kinhira with my Drejian guards bringing up the rear.
“We have only a brief stop to make on our way,” Kinhira informed me as we traveled. He was mysteriously silent on what that stop would be, but I offered no questions because my thoughts were consumed by another, more urgent matter.
As we left behind the abandoned mine shaft, I was aware of an unexpected weakening of the wall that had been blocking me from my magic. I was still unable to summon my power, but with every step we took, I felt I was closer to doing so. Had it been something about my cell or about the mine itself that had created that separation, cutting me off from my magic? I could feel the barrier fading now as we put distance behind us. Not wanting to alert my guards, I showed no outward sign of noticing the change. But carefully, silently, I tested the bounds of my strength.