Several side caverns had been hastily filled-in with rubble, as if the Shadowed Elves did not wish the invaders to get lost—or to find shelter.
“They’re leading us right to them,” Idalia said. “Or to the village, at least.”
Kellen had no doubt of that. And the army, having gotten this far, having sustained horrific losses, would be thinking of nothing but closing with its enemy.
The corridor they were following made a sharp left turn, and suddenly they were there.
The last village had been at the bottom of an enormous cavern. This time, the corridor opened directly onto the village floor. Though their lanterns cast very little light, Kellen had a sense of vast open space stretching off in all directions—all directions but overhead, because the ceiling was still only a few inches above his head.
The lanterns did give them enough light to see the same cluster of stone huts as before, and in the distance, the banked embers of the communal firepit glowed redly.
But to Kellen’s battle-sight, the whole of the low ceiling glowed with the evil green of a Shadowed Elf trap.
He swallowed hard, realizing what he was seeing. Here—somewhere—was the trigger that would bring the whole ceiling down, crushing everyone beneath it as a man might crush an insect between his two palms.
“Idalia—” he said, turning.
And stopped.
Idalia wasn’t there.
—«♦»—
OH, good, now we can go home, was Idalia’s first exhausted thought when they reached the edge of the Shadowed Elf village and she saw the cluster of stone huts. Following Kellen into this chamber of horrors had been nerve-wracking; at times only the thought of the lives they would save had given her the energy to push herself on. She knew she hadn’t seen all the traps that Kellen had; it had been bad enough seeing the ones he’d pointed out. For a while tonight she’d begun to think that the time had come to pay her Mageprice, the one she had offered up to save Sentarshadeen.
But dying down here would serve no greater good, and she had the faint suspicion—no more than that—that when the time came to pay her Price, the Gods would see to it that her death counted for something.
At least so she hoped. Accidents—if anything in war could be called an accident—were still possible. But when she died, she hoped it would be in the light and air, and not buried beneath tons of rock…
Someone was calling her.
Idalia heard it clearly. A voice, off to her right, a voice that claimed every bit of her attention, and made her weariness vanish as if it had never been. Without thought, she set her lantern aside and moved toward it. She didn’t need light to see where she was going.
—«♦»—
KELLEN looked down. Idalia’s lantern rested on an outcropping of rock at his shoulder.
“Idalia!” he shouted.
The echoes almost masked the scrabble of claws against stone.
Kellen whirled back, tossing the lantern he held at the first of the creatures emerging from the rock and the darkness. It broke against the creature’s skin, engulfing it in flame.
He recognized them from Jermayan’s description. Goblins.
They were less than half the size of the Shadowed Elves, but bore a horrible resemblance to them. Their frog-wide mouths gaped as they sprang toward Kellen, exposing multiple rows of glistening, needle-sharp teeth, and their skins were bruise-dark. They squinted their bulging pale eyes against the light of the remaining lantern as they bounded toward him, running on hands and feet both. They seemed to rise up out of the stone itself, as if it were like water to them.
And they could spit poison. A unicorn could heal it, but Shalkan wasn’t here.
And this was not the time to think of any of that.
Kellen let all thoughts and questions drop from his mind, slipping into battle-trance now without even realizing he had done so. The goblins ceased to be goblins, and became targets for his sword.
In the back of his mind, where some part of him made cold calculations and plans, was the knowledge that he dared not move very far from where he stood, for to enter the village might be to bring the entire roof down. No matter how his attackers came at him he spun and pivoted, backing and turning only in his own footsteps—he knew that was safe—and hacked away at the goblins.
For every one he killed, three more took its place. There seemed to be an unending supply of the creatures, but for all their vaguely manlike shape, they didn’t seem to be even as intelligent as the coldwarg, and they kept interrupting their attack to devour their own dead and fight with each other.
But no matter how many were diverted, there were always more than enough to take their place.
In his brief breathing spells, Kellen grudged every moment he had to spend on them, but he dared not leave any of them alive. They were creatures of the Dark, and if he broke off the attack, they might have been given orders to trigger the collapse of the cavern roof.
He dared not stand too close to the cavern walls, either. As far as he was able to tell in the midst of fighting them back, they could move through rock, hiding themselves within stone as easily as Elves could hide within a forest. Time and again Kellen felt hands reach up out of the stone on which he stood to clutch at his ankles, trying to pull him down so that the goblin horde could devour him. He could feel their teeth grate against his armor, searching for any way through its defense, even as he cut and kicked at them.
There were spells he could use to make the fight end sooner. Fire was easy to summon, and he’d already seen how well they burned. But he didn’t dare. Every moment of the fight, a part of his mind was focused on the cavern roof, so precariously balanced. He did not know what would bring it down—perhaps even a Wildmage’s spell—but he knew that if it collapsed, neither he nor Idalia—wherever she was—would survive.
And so he fought on, grimly, killing the goblins by ones and twos. He had no choice.
And then, at last, he cut the last three down—and no more came. Kellen lowered his sword. The goblin bodies were already starting to dissolve, and the acrid stench of their decay made Kellen’s eyes water. He stepped hastily away from them, along the edge of the cavern, toward cleaner air, and came out of his battle-trance.
And the first thing that leaped into his mind was Idalia.
Where was Idalia?
Suddenly he became aware of an odd desire to go deeper into the caverns. He was sure he’d find…
What?
Kellen stopped, realizing he’d taken several steps into the darkness without noticing.
And that something deep inside him had jerked him to a halt with a thrill of alarm.
He probed his own feelings, the way he would probe a wound. The yearning sensation was still there, but suddenly Kellen felt no desire at all to yield to it. It was like the revulsion he’d experienced at the Black Cairn turned inside-out, but he had no doubt its source was just as Tainted.
It’s what would lure the army deep into the caves, Kellen realized in horror. If it worked on Elves—and he had no reason to think it didn’t—the Knights would have followed it to their doom.
As Idalia had followed it.
But why wasn’t he affected? Certainly he felt the call, and could follow it, but he could resist it, too.
He remembered what Jermayan had said, when the Elven Knight had first discovered what Kellen was.
“A Knight-Mage’s gifts turn inward, refining himself, so he cannot be turned away from his path once he has chosen it. A Knight-Mage can withstand forces that would destroy a Wildmage, for his power lies in endurance and the alliance of his knightly skills with his Wildmagery.”
In other words, he was stubborn. Well, everyone had always said so. Kellen bared his teeth wolfishly. Whatever was calling was going to find out it had called up more than it could handle.
He looked at the lantern, still burning undisturbed on the outcropping of rock. Should he take it?
No. Idalia had gone into the dark without it, and h
e would follow her the same way.
He fumbled in his belt for the tarnkappa and pulled it on. At once the cavern was sharply lit. He could see the vast sweep of it—far more than the lantern light had shown him—an enormous area, stretching at least a mile.
And all of it carefully arranged to collapse, as soon as the proper trigger was tripped.
He turned in the direction of the Call.
—«♦»—
THE way was long, but her steps were made smooth. Idalia hurried forward impatiently, anxious to reach her destination.
Which was… what?
She stopped, frowning. Where was she going? Where was Kellen? And why was it so dark?
She fumbled at her belt for her tarnkappa, but before she could complete the gesture, the call reached out to her again, washing over her in a warm wave. Her hands dropped to her sides and she continued walking.
—«♦»—
THOUGH there were no traps that Kellen Saw past the village cavern, once he reached the edge of the village there were several tunnels. For a moment he wasn’t sure which of them Idalia had taken, but then the Call lured him toward the centermost one.
It was smooth as glass and perfectly round, as if made by the passage of some rock-eating worm. At the far end, it opened out into what Kellen had come to think of as a more “traditional” underground cave—a high vaulted cavern filled with tall spikes and pillars of rock. Here he could hear the breath of the mountain, and realized that sound had been absent from the labyrinth of tunnels he and Idalia had just passed through.
He had the sense that this part of the cave system was one that the Shadowed Elves rarely used. But there was something here—these caverns were filled with life. He could sense it—and what he sensed was mixed. Some was Tainted, but some was not. He moved forward slowly, sword ready—
And then he saw Idalia.
She was walking forward, as easily as if she could see, directly toward a monster such as Kellen had never seen before.
It squatted on its haunches, its arms clasped across its stomach, crouched upon a hummock of stone. Its body was squat and wide, and it did not seem to be very large, perhaps the size of a Shadowed Elf, but much wider. Its skin seemed to be a dull black. It was covered, not with fur or feathers or scales, but with little fleshy polyps of skin that gave it a nauseatingly shaggy appearance. If it had any eyes at all, they were so tiny as to be lost in the nest of facial polyps, and it seemed to have neither nose nor ears. Its mouth was slightly open, forked tongue lolling over curved fangs as it radiated the Call that had lured Idalia to it. And by the time Kellen saw her, she was nearly within arm’s reach of it.
Fast as he was, Kellen couldn’t reach Idalia in time.
He drew his dagger. He could put it through her leg, even at this distance. The wound would stop her without killing her.
But then, he realized with a sudden feeling of horror, the creature would know someone was here. And it could spring up and rip her throat out before Kellen could reach it. He could stab the creature, but he didn’t know if that would kill it—or what stabbing it would do to Idalia’s mind.
With a strangled cry of desperation Kellen began to run. He had to try to reach her. No matter what, he had to try!
And oblivious to it all, Idalia continued to walk forward, caught in a spell she could not break—
Suddenly half-a-dozen furry white, softly-glowing spiders dropped from above, directly onto the black squatting creature. It closed its mouth with a startled snap, and the calling Kellen had been following stopped abruptly.
The spiders were the size of young lambs, and swarmed nimbly and quickly over the creature’s body as it writhed and batted uselessly at them. Silently it battled the swarming arachnids, frantically attempting to catch them, but they flowed away over the cavern floor as quickly as they’d arrived.
It was no more than a momentary distraction, but it gave Kellen the time he needed. Idalia had stopped moving forward, and began groping for her tarnkappa, shaking her head as if she’d been roused from sleep. As Kellen passed her, he shoved her hard, knocking her sprawling, his mind already full of what he must do.
He reached the creature and struck unhesitatingly, taking its head from its shoulders in one clean blow. It was not like cutting into a man or a coldwarg—or even a goblin. Beneath the skin, the creature’s flesh seemed almost jellylike, and Kellen’s blow did not meet the resistance of bone. He leaped back, and just in time. Its flesh began to melt away as soon as its head rolled free of its body, dissolving like wax plunged into a furnace, filling the cavern with the sick-sweet scent of decay and something worse.
Kellen looked down at his sword, wondering if it would ever be clean again, and saw to his horror that the metal was black and flaking where it had entered the monster’s body. With a sinking feeling, he set the tip of the blade against the stone floor and pressed gently. The sword bent, then snapped like rotting wood.
Kellen winced. Not the worst thing that could happen, but high on the list. He wasn’t helpless with only a dagger and half a sword, but he wasn’t happy about the situation.
He turned back to where he’d left Idalia. Time for them to get out of here.
Her body was covered in spiders.
Their bodies weren’t just glowing whitely now, they were pulsing in pale colors: green, purple, yellow, pink. And Idalia wasn’t moving.
—«♦»—
SUDDENLY it was dark—the blinding darkness of the caves—and Idalia knew something was terribly wrong. The last thing she remembered clearly was the cavern, the deserted Shadowed Elf village, and then… it was almost as if she’d been asleep.
She groped for her tarnkappa, but before she could pull it free, a savage blow from out of nowhere knocked her sprawling. She hit the stone floor of the cave hard, and in the utter silence could hear nothing but the faint sound of the cave’s “breath” and the pounding of her own heart in her ears.
Then she felt fingers plucking at her clothes.
No.
Not fingers.
Legs.
: Do not fear us. We are friends.:
A voice spoke in her head. More than a voice. Pictures—images—memories. She pulled off a glove and reached out hesitantly. She touched stiff silky bristles.
: Good. Easier.:
Who are you? Idalia thought back.
She could see them—and herself—a strange disjointed picture, relayed by multiple eyes. Spiders. But like no spiders ever seen in the outside world. And with that picture came something she had not expected. Peace—warmth. Welcome, the welcome of one ally recognizing another, one creature of the Light (though these spiders spent their lives in the darkness of the caves) acknowledging one of like spirit. Strange as it seemed, and as repugnant as most humans found spiders to be, these were friends. She relaxed, and opened her mind a little further.
:We are Crystal,: came the reply. : This is our home, and it has been ravaged by the Black Minds. Those you call Shadowed Elves come, and take our webs, our eggs, our children.:
She felt their anger at the pillaging. The Shadowed Elves ate the Crystal Spiders, and used the silk from their webs and cocoons for their own purposes. Idalia felt a flash of alarm, purely her own this time. If the Shadowed Elves were here in the caverns, and triggered any of their traps—
: They are not here now. For—long—they have made the traps. And brought the others to lure you in. Then they left.:
“Idalia?” A voice, with an edge of panic to it. “Idalia, can you hear me?”
Kellen. Alarmed. Sounding not-quite-certain the Crystal Spiders were a threat, but ready to believe they were.
“It’s all right. I’m all right, truly, there’s nothing to worry about. They’re friends, allies, a People of the Light. They’re talking to me,” Idalia said, trying to concentrate on the spiders and Kellen at the same time. “That’s why they’re sitting on me, I think it’s the only way they can speak to my mind.” She turned her thoughts back to these new al
lies. Go on. Tell me more. None of the Shadowed Elves are here?
: Gone. All gone to their other place. It is not far. We are there too, and we know. Other Black Minds, like the one who Called you, are there as well. Beware, for the Black Minds do not need eyes to see. That which is invisible is visible to them.:
The Crystal Spider sent a blurred picture into Idalia’s mind, and she shuddered. A duergar. They were cousins to the ice-trolls but could not bear even as much light as their cousins. They lived in the deepest caves, and lured prey to them with their mental powers.
And they were utterly blind, so a tarnkappa would not conceal its wearer from them.
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