“I appreciate that,” he noted, “but I think it’s equally up to me to make sure I don’t do something symptomatically reckless.”
“Just hold onto that notion, and I think you’ll be fine.”
“You’re not all bad, you know.” The thoughtfulness in his tone was an unexpected surprise. “I mean, don’t get me wrong I still hate your guts, but underneath my festering hatred, you’re all right. Don’t tell the princess. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”
For the first time in a long time Bren laughed, a genuine chuckle as he pushed off the wall. “Your secret is safe with me. In the meantime we still have a ways to go. We should wake Lorelei and set out again.”
“Right,” he affirmed. “I’m getting tired of standing around feeling tired. Let’s get this over with.”
Lorelei was more sullen and quiet than Bren after they woke her, falling into line behind Finn as the trio worked their way through the oppressive blackness. Bren was so wrapped up in his own thoughts it took Finn’s continued prodding to keep both of them from succumbing to their woes. He joked, the light-hearted jests he threw over his shoulder sometimes so absurd it was impossible not to laugh and feel just a little bit lighter.
Loathe as he was to admit it, she would be in good hands with Finn. He wondered if he ever came to that conclusion on past attempts to complete the task before them. Had he ever taken a step back and truly witnessed what grew between them on the long road from Dunvarak to Sorrow’s Peak?
On the rare occasion he hadn’t been scowling and begrudging their senseless arguments, he allowed himself to see the light in her eyes when he caught her glancing in the U’lfer’s direction. From the outside looking in, they seemed an impossible match that would spend the rest of their days tearing out each other’s throats, but from time to time he saw something else in her eyes. Something beautiful that promised her future would be filled with light and laughter so long as he did the right thing and gave it to her.
Finn’s strength was indomitable. He came into the mountain knowing he never made it out during any other attempt, and yet there he was determined to walk into the sun again. It was astonishing to think he would willingly lay his life on the line for her.
Would Brendolowyn do the same if it came down to it? He’d faced death a thousand times or more in the duration of his life, and every time he walked away with little more than cuts and bruises. The more he thought about it, the less heroic it felt. His father’s people, Finn’s people, stood unwavering in death’s wake, ready to embrace it when it came.
Could he sacrifice himself if it meant saving Lorelei? He wanted to believe he could, but history’s repetition suggested he was unable. And yet… he felt different about things, or at least he thought he did. Ever since Gwendoliir showed him glimpses of the future, the balanced conflict between love and hate he saw in her eyes as she looked upon him at the end of all things certainly put things into perspective. The Light of Madra showed him happiness, but that happiness was not meant to be his.
He still didn’t understand why she would give him the burden of those things to carry with him through his days. Surely she had some purpose for having done it, but maybe he would never know what that was.
He only knew he owed her for the wrongs of several lifetimes. He would be a coward no more.
“Do you smell that?” The U’lfer called back over his shoulder, disrupting Brendolowyn’s steady train of troubling thoughts.
Lorelei stopped in front of him and he nearly collided with her. Gripping her shoulder in his quick hand, he saved her from tumbling forward and sending her and Finn both over the edge.
“Fish…” she muttered with a startled gasp. “It smells like fish and dirt and… wet.”
“Exactly!” There was a certain amount of triumph in his tone. “The fact that it smells like anything at all is nothing short of a miracle.”
“The northern side of the mountain leads to the sea,” Brendolowyn told them. “There are dozens of caverns winding through the mountain. That was how the dragon got inside.”
“We must be nearing the bottom,” Finn said. “I keep thinking I see flashes of light, little hints of it burning through the darkness.”
“Sunlight would do that,” Bren confirmed. “This is the kind of darkness that cannot abide the light of the sun.”
“Too bad we can’t just hammer through the stone,” the U’lfer sighed.
They trudged on, tentative footsteps leading them ever downward until their knees and their backs ached with the angle they had to hold their bodies to avoid pitching forward too quickly and losing their footing.
“I think Finn might be right,” Lorelei announced shortly after Finn’s revelation. “I think we’re getting close to the bottom. I swear I keep seeing flashes of light.”
“I thought so too,” Finn agreed, then added, “I thought I was crazy.”
He didn’t know where he was supposed to look. He could barely see Finn beyond the edge of Lorelei’s shoulder, even with the dimming ball of lights he strung between them and the sparse light of torches barely stretching beyond their flame to light the way. He stared ahead into the nothing, keen eyes narrowed and waiting for a glimpse. Disappointment bloomed; all he saw was darkness, and then it flashed so suddenly he almost didn’t believe what he was seeing. Maybe it was the burst of Lorelei’s excitement, her aura so brilliant it tricked him into believing there’d actually been a hint of something beyond the stifling gloom.
“I saw it again!” she cried. “I saw the bottom!”
“Blessed moons,” Finn rejoiced. “It’s not far now.”
“Creator’s light, all I can think about now is getting out of here. I actually feel… hopeful.”
“Right, hope is good, Princess, but first we find what we came here for,” Finn said. “Come on.” And then he headed downward again, driven by the promise of an end to their seemingly endless journey.
Drawing in a deep breath, the lightness of the air was invigorating. Brendolowyn started to forget how tired he was, but with that renewed sense of wakefulness, his mind sharpened and his apprehension grew tenfold. His empty stomach was a tangle of knots that only kept twisting tighter with every step they took.
It was hours of careful footwork before they reached the bottom. The air grew lighter, the darkness less oppressive, but the drakoren seemed to double its relentless efforts to weaken them before confrontation. Even Finn started to get testy again, easily annoyed when Lorelei refused to let his playful banter just roll off her back.
While the two of them argued back and forth, Brendolowyn repeated the words, “I can do this,” over and over in his mind like a mantra.
He survived Bok’naal. Only an arcane warrior of legend could survive the arena for as long as he had. He stood against epic foes and won the right to live time and time again. They were up against a single enemy, weakened by centuries of loneliness. He could take it if he fought hard enough. He was more than capable. In fact, he’d come to believe that wretched time in his life set him up for the battle with the drakoren, prepared him.
Only he would not fight for his life. He would fight to save the lives of his friends.
And they were his friends. Even Finn, whom he could barely stand at the best of times. The safekeeping of their lives was all that mattered, and though some selfish part of him was terrified, the piece of him that wanted to do things right was far more powerful.
His thoughts disturbed the drakoren. He could feel it ebbing away whenever it delved too deep, as it sifted through dark memory and danced around the edges of things powerful enough to fill a warrior like Finn with dread. He found himself almost arrogantly questioning the full extent of its power, wondering if a face to face meeting with the drakoren would really grant it full access to their minds and allow it to turn nightmare and unspoken fear into physical reality.
Or were the niggling thoughts and invasions into their fears all the creature was capable of after centuries alone in the belly of
the mountain with no one to entertain it but itself?
As if in answer to his silent speculations, an echoing hiss of throaty laughter shook the mountain stone. Shuddering in response, Lorelei took a step back and nearly bumped into him. He held a hand out, lowered it trembling onto her shoulder and kept her steady.
“It’s all right,” he muttered that hollow reassurance and squeezed the muscle before loosening his grip. “It has no real power over us.”
“I know,” she whispered, but she sounded about as convinced as he felt.
The closer they grew to the mountain floor, the more amused it seemed to grow. It shook the stone each time it cackled, bringing sharp stalactites shattering to the ground like piercing spikes. None of them actually hit them, but their fears grew as they realized being beneath one when it fell was a death sentence for sure.
When feet finally touched solid, steady ground, torchlight spread further, alleviating the heavy darkness and the negativity it layered over them like a blanket. For the first time since they descended into the mountain, Brendolowyn felt like he could breathe. More than that, he felt hope.
Finn surveyed the cavern ground, eyes squinting as he spun around to take in their final landing place, and Lorelei actually laughed, turning wide circles in an almost gleeful dance. Brendolowyn drew his light wisps together into a single ball and summoned it to hover over them. He and Finn both watched her pirouette and laugh. It had been so long since he’d seen her smile he almost forgot what happiness looked like, and for the slimmest fraction of a moment there was no dread.
She squeaked as she tilted her head upward to take in the distance they’d come, the winding, treacherous passage into the belly of Great Sorrow was barely visible, but she knew it stretched higher above her than her eyes could see. A droplet of water splashed against her forehead and she laughed, the happy sound making the ball of light he summoned glow brighter until the darkness of their surroundings cowered from the light.
“It’s probably been hundreds of years since feet touched the earth and stone upon which we stand,” he marveled. A strange shiver moved through him, both shoulders shaking as he shrugged it off.
Lorelei spun again, as if she knew not what to do with herself and felt the strangest urge to dance. He watched her eyes scan the cavernous tunnels branching away from the landing in several directions, shaded in shadow and layered in sticky curtains of old, dusty cobweb so thick they would have to burn through them with their torches.
No one said anything for a long time after that, but just stood in the center of it all, marveling how good it felt not to watch carefully over every step they took for feel of tumbling to their death below.
He hadn’t realized until that moment he could finally breathe. It was as if he’d been holding his breath for days, and the full, deep breaths he drew in made his lungs ache with every inhale.
“We are very near the ocean,” he observed as the continual roar and thunder of water crashed against the mountain cliffs.
“That one,” Finn gestured over Lorelei’s shoulder. “The air is cleaner, I can see it rippling through the cobwebs like curtains in a breeze.”
“Praise be to all the gods,” Lorelei sighed relief. “That means we won’t have to go back out the way we came in.”
All three of them looked upward again, into the long and spiraling darkness from whence they’d come. It was impossible to gauge how much time it took them to make that journey, to know how many days passed since they’d entered the mountain through that hidden passage. Time had no meaning in the dark and the drakoren’s prodding during the descent inspired more than a little bit of madness in them all.
Finn looked crazed. Hair wild, beard growth thick and eyes wide as they took in the light, he was ready to strike at the first object that edged too close to his shoulder, no matter what it was.
Good, the mage thought. They were going to need to stay on their toes.
Lorelei stood between them both, and he wondered as he looked her over whether or not she was truly ready to do what they’d come to do. Her brow was furrowed, lines etched deep beneath the mussed copper strands of hair that fell into her face, and though she was frowning again, it was a studious look. One that spoke of resolve and acceptance, and for that he was glad. There was no turning back, and no one needed to point that out.
Once again she turned a circle, surveying the dozen or more passages slinking away from where they stood. The westernmost tunnel, where the air smelled sweet and tinged with the salt of the sea, was how they’d leave Great Sorrow, but it was not yet time to leave. They had to go deeper.
“The widest passage seems like it would be the most likely option,” she pointed out, spinning back in and pointing toward a gaping, chiseled maw in the stone. “I can’t begin to guess how large a dragon might have been, having never seen one. Master Davan said they were monstrous creatures, some big as cottages, but I don’t know if I believe anything he ever told me anymore.”
“Bigger than cottages,” Brendolowyn told her. “Taller, anyway, not generally as wide, but they were rather huge.”
“So a dragon would have needed a broad passage, right?”
“One would assume so, yes.”
“All of those passages are likely too small,” she decided. “There are only two I think would have been large enough for a dragon to travel,” she went on. “That one,” she pointed toward what they’d all agreed must be an exit and then pivoted on her foot toward the overwhelmingly dark passage diagonal from the exit, “and that one.”
“It is possible,” he agreed. “Though dragons did use their magic to walk among us undetected, much the way the U’lfer do—”
She cut him off quickly, adding, “But if you were infiltrating a mountain, you’d hardly walk through the back door in humanoid form.”
“And if you had a lot of treasure to hide in the belly of that mountain, you wouldn’t carry it as a human, would you?” Finn offered.
“No, it would be too heavy.”
The light of understanding finally dawned and Finn’s whole face stretched into an appreciative grin. “You’re a genius, Princess!” He stood between the two widest passages, glancing back and forth between the two. “If the dragon came into the mountain that way,” he pointed toward what they were sure was the exit, then went on, “it only makes sense it would fly straight through to that gaping tunnel right there.”
“The dragon made its hoard through there. I’m almost sure of it.”
Lorelei followed the crooked point of Finn’s finger, but their revelation was cut short by an unexpected tremor that shook the mountain again and made the earth tremble beneath their feet. Chunks of angry stone, lance-like stalactites showering down around them in a fit of dust that made them all cough and hack as they breathed it in. The three of them huddled together, Finn’s arm immediately lifting to duck Lorelei protectively beneath him before he brought the battered protection of his shield overhead. Brendolowyn had only a second to cast a temporary shield around them, but it spread in a veil of light and rocks thunked and battered at the invisible force he’d raised. They watched in awe as stone tumbled and rolled away, littering the ground in front of them.
Wispy hushes of laughter hissed out to meet them, and for the first time since they’d come into the mountain the drakoren spoke outside the terrified whispers of a thousand provoking thoughts that haunted the darkness of their dreams and thoughts.
“Clever girl, clever, yessss.”
The strangest thing was that the voice did not speak in words from any language any of them were familiar with, but its meaning translated clearly in their minds as it reverberated through the belly of the mountain.
The rasping, throaty sound was terrifying, and when one last stone crashed into the shield just above Lorelei’s raised head, she let loose a shriek that lingered long after the mountain began to still.
The force of the drakoren’s amusement caused Brendolowyn’s power to waver, the ball of light he cast nea
rly flickering out like a candle in the wind, the shield over their heads dissolving to allow the final shower of pebbles to thump against their shoulders. She screamed again when Finn grabbed onto her and drew her back down.
And then the ball of light he’d summoned grew brighter than the light of the sun, the drakoren drawing and sapping its energy until it exploded in a blinding jolt of brilliant white that left bursting yellow patterns on the mage’s eyes before all went dark again.
“It’s already interfering with my energies,” he whispered, his breath a hush of sound through the sudden silence.
“What do you mean it’s interfering?” Finn challenged. Boots shuffled in the dark, just inches away from him, but he couldn’t see anything and that strange blindness made him stagger on his feet.
“Exactly what I’ve said,” he snapped back. “It’s blinded me with my own light. Sapping my energy and jumbling my spells inside my mind. I can’t cast…”
Before he could finish, the U’lfer insisted, “Well, you need to work that out, Mage. We kind of need you.”
“Did the torches flicker out?”
“Nearly, but not all the way,” Lorelei said. “I dropped mine on the floor.” He could hear her shuffling, fingers scuffing across earth and stone below him before a dull, orange glow flashed through his blindness.
“Are you holding it toward me?”
“I am.”
“I think it’s only a temporary trick,” he hoped aloud. “I can see the fuzzy glow, but can’t make out what it is.”
“Well this is just great!” Finn huffed. “Our mage is blinded by his own light…”
“I said it’s only temporary.”
“What are we to do in the meantime? What if it attacks?”
“Finn, please,” Lorelei scolded him. “We’ll wait it out, and if it attacks, we’ll have to do our best to fight it without Bren’s magic, won’t we?”
The wolf harrumphed, muttering some gruff response she wasn’t meant to hear, but she ignored him and took several steps toward Brendolowyn. He could see the golden light growing, the darkness receding from his eyes. He blinked, keeping the lids down and willing away the strange blindness.
Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) Page 52