"T-This was a b-b-bloody b-b-bad id-d-d-dea," Jesmind said, her teeth clicking as she hugged her arms to her sides.
"That wasn't very pleasant," he agreed with a shiver, then he used Sorcery to strip the water off of them, then warmed them with a gentle weave of Fire and Air, warming the air around them. "But at least we didn't have to go totally under the water."
"Oh, that's a relief," she snapped shortly, then she sighed as the warmth of his spell started seeping into her cold skin. "You're a handy fellow to have around," she smiled as she closed her eyes and enjoyed the warmth.
"Thank you. Someday I aspire to be more than your slave."
"Don't count on it," she winked.
Though the effort was exhausting, neither of them wanted to stop. They both seemed not willing to stop until they got so deeply into the mountain that neither the Demons nor the blizzard could find any way to reach them. They continued on, steadily descending deeper and deeper, and Tarrin noticed that the properties of the tunnel were changing. The narrow areas were becoming further and further apart, and the tunnel grew noticably wider and the grade of the passage less severe as they got deeper inside the mountain. Almost like the caves in the heart of the mountain were older, and had more time for the water to dissolve away the rock and make them bigger. That made the going much easier and faster, almost like they were walking through a carved passage than a natural tunnel.
It was about then that he noticed the peculiarities of a deep underground passage. It was pitch black, which was normal for such a place, but the air and the rock almost seemed to swallow the light. The little dim lights he made only illuminated a very small area around them, but their night-sighted eyes let them penetrate deeply into the gloom beyond that light, but even that wasn't a tremendous distance. Tarrin found the idea of having the range of his vision impaired extremely irritating, and not a little unsettling. He was a creature heavily grounded in his senses, and a limitation on one of those senses made him jumpy and nervous. The air, though fresh, still had a strange stagnant quality to it. It did move and it was fresh, but it moved in and out of caves that all had the same musty smell, making the air heavy with dull scents that were hard to make out, since the same scents had been drifting around down here for years. Smells of rock and dust and dirt, and also strange plant-like smells like mold, lichen, and fungus. Rare, strange plants that could survive in a world without light. And sound was very curious. They moved quietly, as was only their habit, but ever whisper of sound they made echoed and re-echoed up and down the passage, and the sound of dripping water carried down the passages for longspans. A loud noise would carry for a long way and echo for a long time, and if there was anything down there with them, it wouldn't take it long to find them if they made alot of noise. The sound was trapped, bouncing endlessly off the walls, and he realized that a sound could linger down here in these tunnels for days after the maker of the sound was long gone. Since there was no light, he figured that anything that lived down here that was carnivorous hunted by sound. That was another good reason to be as quiet as possible, though the simple fact that every sound they made lingered around them so long it made both of them unsettled was reason enough.
They travelled for quite a while, and Tarrin realized that being under the ground was going to make it hard for him to track time. He was never very good at keeping time, because of the nature of the Cat, and being robbed of the stars and moons and sun to serve as reference points, he would quickly lose count of the days. And knowing how many days he had to go was very important. When he thought that it was pretty close to sunset, he pulled up when they entered a huge chamber that had the sound of running water in it, like a bubbling brook, though wherever the water was, it was beyond the illumating range of the little balls of light. "We should camp a while," he told her lowly, looking at the cave that he could see. It was a large chamber, with an irregular dome-like roof that was about thirty spans off the floor, the chamber roughly circular in shape. The water turned out to be a small underground river that flowed from north to south through the chamber, with their passage extending on towards the northeast, a decline hiding the passage and letting them see nothing but its ceiling almost as soon as it left the chamber.
"This is as good a place as any," she said in a quiet tone, almost a whisper. "At least we have water."
He had no idea how long they stayed there, because he couldn't easily tell time down in the cave. He Conjured wood for a fire and a roasted goose off some hapless inn's serving table, and then both of them immediately went to sleep. They were both very tired, and though he'd been a bit worried about not posting a guard, he realized that there really wasn't anything down there that could hurt them. He did raise a Ward that kept out everything but air before he went to sleep. He was confident that there was nothing down here, but he wasn't going to take any chances.
He had no idea how long they slept, but when both of them were awake, they ate breakfast without conversation and then set out again. The going was easier and easier as the passage continued to enlarge and become easier to travel as it descended, almost like a grand gallery with a ceiling higher than they could see and a flat floor that almost seemed like a road. It rose and fell, but he could tell that it still predominately went down.
They travelled some time before a strange sound reached both of them. It was extremely faint, barely audible, but the nature of the tunnels carried the sound to them. After pausing to filter out the echoes in his mind, he realized that it was a faint hissing sound, like what he remembered the volcano on Sha'Kari sounded like in the cauldera. But it was a slightly different sound, and he could distinctly hear moving water as well. And bubbling, like a kettle of boiling water, or maybe an area of very gentle rapids in a small stream.
"Sounds like water," Jesmind whispered, peering into the gloom ahead. She could only see about a hundred spans ahead, just as he could, but the reflex to try was automatic.
"I think it is," he answered in the manner of the Cat, a means of communication that was completely silent, and would not interfere with his ability to hear. "Let's go see where it is."
"Let's be careful," she said. "I think I've caught whiffs of some kind of animal in the air. This air is too damn thick and laden with other smells for me to be too sure, though."
He nodded, bringing his staff out of the elsewhere. The passage was more than large enough for him to wield it.
They padded along carefully for a surprisingly long distance, as he realized that the tunnel was funnelling the sound to them from a great distance away. The air began to move, to blow very gently in their faces, and it carried the smell of water with it, along with the tang of minerals, and the air seemed both humid and strangely warm. Curious now, both of them picked up their pace just a little bit, confident that the air blowing in their faces would bring the scent of an enemy to them before the enemy knew they were there. The air kept getting warmer and warmer, until it was almost unpleasantly so, and it grew veritably sticky with humidity, so much so that Jesmind took off the fur-lined shirt he'd Conjured for her. The passage descended again, but now there was a very faint, ruddy light at its end.
Tarrin stopped, remembering the last time he'd seen a ruddy red light at the base of a descending passage. "What's the matter?" Jesmind asked in the manner of the Cat.
"That might be an underground volcano," he told her. "Something has to be making that light. It might be lava."
"Well, let's keep going," she said. "If it gets too hot for me, I'll stop, alright?"
"Alright," he nodded, and they started down again, more cautiously this time.
They padded down to the end of the descent, as the air got hot, but not dangerously so. Tarrin did smell some sulfur and other minerals that he remembered smelling in the volcano, but it wasn't nearly strong enough to be dangerous. They reached a bend in the passage and peeked around it, and Jesmind laughed audibly when they saw what was on the other side.
It was an absolutely massive opening, a great chamber of empty
space at the very heart of the mountain itself. The light wasn't from lava, it was from some kind of strange luminescent fungus or growth that was literally covering all the ceiling and walls, but not the floor. It was a huge circular chamber with an arching domed roof, the top of it more than two hundred longspans from the floor, cast in the strange red light of the luminescent material covering its walls and ceiling. The floor of the chamber was surprisingly flat, but there were multiple rimmed pits in it that were filled with water or dark, thick mud, and both water and mud laid in thin pools in depressions on the wide floor, all of which had tendrils of thin steam rising up from them. The air was hot, sticky, and he realized that the mineral smells were coming from the water itself. The hissing and moving sounds they'd heard were coming from the water, from the hissing of the water and mud that boiled to the sounds of the bubbling water churning in its stone pools, like large kettles on a stove.
It was a hot spring! A hot spring in the middle of the mountain's heart!
"Incredible!" Jesmind said in wonder, looking around. "It's a hot spring!"
"Let's be careful," he said. "Sometimes hot springs erupt into geysers. It won't hurt me, but I think you may not like having boiling water sprayed all over you."
They waited where they were for a while, then carefully circumnavigated the chamber around the walls, wary of any trembling in the floor or rushing sound that would herald an eruption. But none happened. They reached the far side of the chamber, where a wide tunnel led up, and somehow Tarrin sensed that this hot spring was at the bottom of the cave system, that it would be up now instead of down.
"I kind of like it here," Jesmind said. "I've never seen a place so exotic."
"It may be dangerous."
"Well, do your magic thing and find out if it is or not," she said. "I'm tired and I'd like to rest a while, and this place looks pretty good."
Glancing at her irritably, Tarrin knelt and put a paw on the floor, then sent flows of Earth down into the stone. He didn't like using magic as they got close to Val, but what he was doing was very gentle, very passive, and required very little energy. He sent his weave deep into the ground, seeking out the source of the hot spring, and once he found it, he inspected what he found there. The stream that they'd seen before dropped down close to a pocket of magma, which heated it and caused it to rise up here. It was very steady and consistent, and he sensed no erratic motion of water or steam that would cause a geyser. The springs here were very stable.
He told her so, which made her almost squeal in delight. "Let's find one that won't boil the meat off me!" she announced, rushing back into the chamber like a little girl with a new doll.
"What?"
"I want to take a bath!" she called after him.
Take a bath? Then he realized what she meant. A hot bath always was relaxing but a bath where the water would never cool off was a rather attractive concept.
Tarrin looked around. The place was a bit warm and a little muggy, but it had its own light, plenty of water, and it was in the absolute center of the mountain. He couldn't get any safer than this. This would be a perfect place to stop so he could figure out how to keep the Demons off of them… and he had to admit, the idea of bathing in one of those hot springs was rather attractive.
By the time he'd made that choice, Jesmind had already shrugged out of her shirt, and was in the process of shedding her trousers. He was about to warn her not to do that, but she got them off, tossed them aside negligently, then stepped down into one of the pools of water. Tarrin rushed over to where she was in concern, afraid that she'd just stepped into a boiling cauldron that would boil the meat off her bones, and saw with some relief that she had chosen a wide pool of water that was so clear that it did not in any way hinder his view under its surface. It didn't bubble, meaning it wasn't boiling, and the water seeped up from several small cracks in the bottom of the pool. It was also rather shallow, and when Jesmind seated herself in it with a look of dreamy contentment on her face, her head just crested the salt-crusted rim of the pool. The steam that wafted up from the pool shifted when she blew out her breath, then she opened her eyes and gave him a warm, inviting smile.
"Now this is my idea of resting after getting down here," she said languidly, stretching in the water. " Please tell me that this is a good place for us to stop so you can do whatever it is you wanted to do to hide us from the Demons."
"It crossed my mind," he said, squatting down beside her, wrapping his tail around his ankles.
"I could spend half of forever in here," she sighed in utter contentment, then she reached up and grabbed the end of his tail. She tugged on it lightly, grinning at him. "You need a bath, my mate," she told him, tugging a little more firmly.
"Let me put up Wards at the entrances, and I'll be happy to join you, Jesmind," he told her. "Let's make sure we're safe before we drop our guard, alright?"
"Well, alright," she acceded thoughtfully. "Just don't take too long."
"I'll do my best," he said, standing up. "Jesmind."
"Sorry," she said, letting go of his tail.
Tarrin moved off to raise the Wards, silently thankful that Jesmind had found something with which to distract herself. She wasn't as hostile as she'd been before, but he was thankful for anything that distracted his mate from Jasana's abduction, even if it was for a little while. After all the heavy travelling they'd done, taking a few days off here to give him time to devise a means for them to return to the surface without the Demons finding them, time Jesmind would spend languishing around in a place that would keep her from getting restless, was a good thing. It was good for her, and he would enjoy spending the time with her, a last respite from harsh reality before they had to rejoin it, a chance to be together in peace and quiet for a day or two. Though both of them thought of nothing but Jasana and the fact that she was taken from them, they both could use a day or two to recover, to deal with those feelings as a mated pair instead of as individuals, a chance for them to talk, and prepare themselves for the harsh ordeal to come. He knew that when they came out of the cave and were again out in the mountains, there would be little time for rest, little chance to be as comfortable and content as they would be here. It would be a very hard journey, and this place would let them get ready to face the bitter cold and the snow and the treacherous trek across the mountains and over the tundra, until they finally stood before the black pyramid of Gora Umadar and got their daughter back.
It was their last chance to rest before the end of their journey.
To: Title EoF
Chapter 14
He had never faced such a puzzling problem before.
Sitting in the middle of the large chamber full of hot springs with his legs crossed, arms folded and head bowed in thought, stripped down to a pair of ragged trousers, Tarrin continued to mull over the problem. It was the same problem he'd been thinking about for four solid days. Any time he was not eating, sleeping, or spending time with Jesmind, he was considering this most bedevilling of obstacles.
How to get around the Demons.
The problem was a tricky one. The amulets he and Jesmind wore protected them from any attempt to locate them using magic, but they didn't hide Tarrin's effect on the Weave. That was an indirect indication of where he was, and he didn't doubt that the Demons or the Sorcerers that may be working with the ki'zadun weren't going to overlook that for long. They also didn't protect them from purely visual searching, such as what the vrock were doing from the air. The solution he needed had to hide his effect on the Weave, but it also couldn't require such an expenditure of Sorcery that it would be like a beacon to attract Val's attention. They also needed something that would hide them from the airborne searchers, who would only have to find the tracks they left in the snow and follow them back to them. That was where he was running into the problem. Every solution he came up with required too much power to be exercised outside of himself, and that power would be like a beacon to attract Val's attention. Personal magic, contained within,
like the magic of his amulet, wouldn't be noticed because the amulet's power of non-detection hid things like that from others. So long as it wasn't too powerful, anyway. Having to both conceal his physical and magical presence would mean using too much magic to escape Val's notice, especially as they got closer and closer to the pyramid.
He knew Val was there. He'd felt… brushings. That was the best way to explain it. Sweeps of detection from a mind and power so vast that Tarrin's consciousness shied away from them when they passed over him. Val was searching for him, but for some reason, the imprisoned god had yet to find him. Tarrin had no explanation for that, aside from the possibility that him being so deeply in the mountain was somehow interfering with Val's ability to detect him.
Every time one of those brushings swept over him, it chilled his soul and scattered his thoughts. There was an utter, unmitigated hatred behind that power that terrified him. For some reason, Val hated him with a passion that was almost a religion unto itself, a hatred that was a paragon of example for any who hated another. Feeling that hatred worried him even more. Not for himself, but for the very real worry that Val would kill Jasana just to spite him. But that hadn't happened yet. For some reason, he was sure of it. Jasana was still alive, he knew it.
Those tentative brushings told him that things were getting very serious, and he had redoubled his efforts to find a solution. His distance from her had annoyed Jesmind, who had quickly grown restless and impatient in their restrictive wonderland. She could only take so many hot baths before the luxury of them got old, and the heat and humidity in the place had caused her to go around with progressively fewer and fewer clothes, until she finally decided to forego clothing altogether. Her nudity didn't bother either of them in the slightest, since Were-cats had no sense of modesty, but her nakedness had an effect on Tarrin that was quite human. She was his mate, and he was very attracted to her. Seeing her nude was like dangling a waterskin just over the head of a man dying from thirst, and sometimes he had trouble concentrating on what he was doing when she was close by.
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