The entrance chamber was completely silent. “Where is everyone?” she said and her words echoed throughout the huge chamber. Other than her own voice, she didn’t hear the slightest sound of speech, clink of armor, rustling of clothing. It was hollow, achingly empty. Her familiar flew to land on her wand. Zeph buzzed his wings, showing his nervousness.
Feeling as though she were sneaking into someone’s home without them knowing—which she more or less was—she crept forward, her jogging shoes not making a sound on the smooth floor. Her wand light cast a bright golden glow that played off the carvings in the walls and made shadows seem to move and writhe, sending a crawling sensation up her spine.
When she reached Garran’s chamber, her heart pounded as she peeked in. No one was in the room. The glow from her wand sparkled off the thousands of crystals, creating a dazzling scene. The one blight on the crystal was the obsidian door that seemed to suck up all the light from her wand.
She’d bet her last dollar that obsidian door was the doorway to Otherworlds.
Her stomach felt queasy. “Why would Garran leave his chamber unprotected?” she mumbled, and Zephyr moved down her wand from the tip to her hand, tickling her a little.
A noise behind her caused Copper to whirl around. Her braid flopped over her shoulder and her earrings swung. She moved out of the chamber and held her wand out, prepared. But she saw nothing.
Zephyr buzzed back to her ear and she felt his increasing agitation mingling with her own.
For a moment she paused, looking from one exit to another leading from the circular area. “Well, Zeph, which exit should we follow?”
But her gut knew exactly which one to take—the one that led to where the Drow and Tiernan had fought the giant.
It was obvious to her now that the Drow had been digging far below the surface to find the door that would release all manner of evil. The giant had come from deep beneath the ground where its kind stayed unless disturbed.
Copper crept across the large room to the exit leading to the chamber where the battle had taken place. When she reached the tunnel she took a deep breath. It smelled of dry dirt and she sneezed when she inhaled some of the dust. Her wand light lit the way through the tunnel.
It wasn’t long until she reached the landing overlooking the pit. She raised her wand and it gave off just enough light to illuminate the expansiveness of the pit. From this very point she had watched Tiernan and the Drow fight the giant.
In her wand light she was able to make out the huge hole in the floor of the pit. One large enough for the giant to have climbed through.
Her shoes skidded on the dirt path when she took a step forward, she stumbled over a rock, and almost lost her balance. “Oooookay. Let’s not do that again.” Holding her wand out, she peered over the side of the path and swallowed when she saw just how sheer of a drop it was. Heart beating just a bit faster, she continued down the trail that led around and around the pit, slowly making its way to the stony floor and the enormous hole.
It took so long she should have been tired by the time she reached the bottom of the pit and the hole itself, but she wasn’t. Between that and her six-mile jog today—from one end of Golden Gate Park to the other and back again—anyone else would probably have been nearing exhaustion. But thanks to all of her workouts during her captivity, she could more than keep up, and she was only a little sweaty. Wisps of hair clung to the perspiration along her neck and brow. She felt sticky beneath her bomber jacket and she shrugged out of it and set it aside with her backpack while she checked out the hole at the center of the pit.
The hole was enormous. It was blocked off by dirt and boulders lying all around it, as if something had exploded upward. The dirt pile was open on one side, and through that opening she could clearly see the hole. She moved past the boulders and dirt, closer to the hole and peered over its edge. It was very deep by the look of it, and as wide around as the kitchen at Enchantments—or rather the giant that had come through to attack the Drow. Her wand light didn’t reach the bottom.
Copper had no doubt this was the tunnel the Drow had used to reach the door that was to be opened to free Balor. It all made perfect sense. Why else would they have been tunneling here? The giant being disturbed from its guard post far belowground and coming up through the tunnel to attack the Elves clinched it.
Of course, that meant she needed to follow the tunnel that was bound to lead her to the Drow, to Silver, and to the door itself. Why weren’t there any ladders, or ropes? Something that could be used to climb below? After all, the Drow couldn’t fly. Well, she didn’t think so, anyway.
She raised her wand so that she could see better and saw that there was a rope tied around one of the boulders and it disappeared into the depths of the giant hole. She hadn’t noticed it at first because it was so thin and almost transparent. It glistened in the wand light.
Unfortunately, it was several feet away from her. Copper stuffed her wand in her back pocket, keeping the lit end up. It threw just enough light around her to see, but she would have preferred its full light in front of her. Carefully, she climbed over piles of rocks and dirt, grasping handholds and finding footholds, as she worked her way to the rope. Dirt was under her fingernails and she scratched the insides of her arms on the rocks.
Her pulse elevated every time pebbles slid beneath her shoes or fingers and into the darkness below. Stones would bounce against the walls of the hole, but the fact that she didn’t hear them hit bottom added to her feeling of urgency to reach that rope.
“Not gonna fall. I’m not gonna fall.” Sweat coated her forehead and she took shallow breaths as she worked her way around.
When she finally reached the boulder that the rope was tied around, she sagged against the rock in relief and gave herself a moment to catch her breath.
“I can do this.” She worked to convince herself as she reached for the strange-looking rope that glittered in the faint wand light that came from her back pocket. She hugged the boulder and reached as far as her arm could go, and made a frustrated sound when her fingers came just short of it.
“Damn.” Her arms trembled from the strength it took to hold on to the boulder and keep her footing. Just a bit farther and she’d have it.
Any farther and she was likely to plunge into the hole.
She was about to try to stretch a little more when Zephyr buzzed off her ear and toward the rope. He zipped straight to the other side of the rope and landed hard against it—hard for a honeybee.
Surprisingly, the rope moved closer to Copper’s fingertips. He flew off it and then back to it—harder this time—swinging on it as it came even closer to Copper’s hand. Familiars were stronger than their forms, and obviously Zephyr had more strength than she’d realized. “A little more, Zeph,” she said.
He buzzed off, then rammed his little body into the rope, causing it to swing close enough for her to grab.
With relief she gripped the rope. “Thank you, Zeph.”
The fingers of her other hand slid across the boulder’s surface.
She lost her hold.
Her feet slipped out from under her.
Copper cried out as she fell.
She clenched her fingers tightly around the rope. It burned her palm as she slid a few feet down. She grabbed the rope with her free hand and with a jerk and a cry she brought herself to a halt.
Copper clung to the rope, tendons stretched tight, her arms aching. She brought her knees up around the rope and crossed her feet at the ankles as she’d done in gym class all those years ago when she was in high school. Her whole body was coated in sweat now and her heart beat like crazy. She wanted to rest, but her muscles burned and her body cried for relief. Good thing she’d been doing all those pull-ups during her imprisonment.
“Okay.” She sucked in her breath as her familiar landed on her ear. “Here we go, Zeph.”
She started to slowly ease down the rope. One hand under the other. One hand under the other.
How
much farther? she asked herself.
The tension in the rope vanished.
The rope dissolved in her fingers.
She dropped.
Copper screamed as she fell. Wind rushed past her face. She braced herself for the impact she knew was coming.
She fell. And fell. And fell—
With a thud and a whack she landed on her ass. A snapping sound. She fell back. Her skull struck the hard-packed earth. She swore she saw little lights sparking in her mind. Her entire body ached, from her head to her back to her tailbone.
Groaning, she pushed herself to a sitting position. It was pitch-black . . .
Copper’s pulse jumped as she realized she’d just landed on her wand. Her hand shook as she reached back and withdrew her wand from her back pocket. Already she could feel that it had been flattened in the middle since it was only made of copper. Heart sinking, she brought it in front of her, focused her magic on it. Rather than a quick illumination, it slowly grew just faint enough that she could see. She looked closer at her wand—
The quartz-crystal point had cracked. The tip had fallen off.
“Nooooooo!” She shook it, as if that would possibly fix it, and peered at it again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Again she tried to make it work, but nothing helped.
She crouched on her knees and wrapped her hands around her belly. “Now what am I going to do?” she whispered. “Now how am I going to help Silver?”
Zephyr buzzed up to her ear and he sounded more than sympathetic, he sounded incredibly worried.
She had to have her wand to do magic. She wasn’t any good at hand witchcraft like her sister was. When she became proficient with her wand at a young age, she had completely relied upon it.
Copper held the wand up and the meager light glinted on the broken crystal quartz on the floor of the cave. She scooped it up from the dry dirt and her stomach pitched as she stared at the piece in her hand. Maybe a spell could fix it. The round crystal at the other end of the wand was unscathed, so maybe it would help.
Her hands trembled as she tried to fit the shard to the broken crystal at the end of the wand. Ignoring the pain in her back, neck, and head, and the burn from the rope on her hands, she sat cross-legged on the floor of the tunnel and held the shard between her thumb and forefinger as she said her spell.
What was broken will be remade,
For this crystal is needed to aid.
In fighting the evil this way come,
With this wand good shall be from.
By the earth and fire will this be forged,
So that all that is evil may be scourged.
Copper held her breath as the broken part of her wand glowed. A soft gold, not the brilliant light she was accustomed to. The glow reflected through the broken shard, casting fractured light throughout the huge tunnel. Her fingers that held the shard felt a horrible burning sensation. Tears of pain prickled at the backs of her eyes.
When she didn’t think she could take any more, the wand light went out. The crystal shard fell from her fingers and into her lap. “No, no, no, no!” she shouted and her voice bounced against the walls of the cave.
This time a tear did roll down her cheek, and with one fist she pounded the earth beside her in frustration, anger, and fear. This hadn’t happened in her dream-vision. She’d had her wand, dammit!
How could she get out of this mess? Then her chest seized. She had to get to Silver. She had no choice. What if her sister lay dying at this very moment? What about Silver’s baby?
Pain shooting through her body, Copper eased to her feet and stuffed the shard in her pocket. She raised her stupid wand high enough that its minimal glow let her see that she was in a huge tunnel—big enough for the giant to travel through. That was different from her dream, too.
She wiped her hands on her jeans and started down the tunnel, which led in only one direction. The other side was blocked. Rocks crunched beneath her feet and the smell of freshly dug earth was strong. No doubt the giant had widened the Drow tunnel when he’d made his way to the top.
It seemed as though she had been walking for an hour before she finally saw an opening into some kind of chamber—and heard noises. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled toward the opening, certain her wand light was too dim for anyone to see. Her thumb and forefinger still stung from when she’d tried to repair the wand, and the dirt beneath her fingers and palms magnified the pain from the rope burn.
When she reached the edge of the chamber she blinked in the darkness. Her eyes had become adjusted to seeing with very little light, and her heart caught in her throat as she saw four giants. Two lay dead in the center of the chamber, their bodies riddled with arrows and holes the arrowheads had made when they exploded in the giant bodies. Their throats were slashed, too. Copper recognized those arrows. They belonged to the Drow.
Like the other giant Tiernan and the Drow had fought, these giants were hunchbacked, had skin of bark brown with stringy mosslike brown hair. Their eyes were all a brilliant green and their teeth mossy green and jagged.
Scattered on the floor were shields the same size as the one the other giant had used, as big as a garage door. Two clubs the size of a commuter plane lay haphazardly near the giants.
The two living giants carried nothing. However, they were making grunts and other sounds of fury as they looked upon what must have been guards to the gates—gates that surely led the Drow closer to Underworld.
Each of the enormous beasts grabbed a dead giant by the foot and began dragging it across the floor of the chamber to a huge tunnel on the other side of the room. Big ponds of blood remained behind and some streaked the floor as the bodies were hauled away. The smell of the giants and the blood was like garbage left out in the sun too long.
The blood looked fairly fresh, so the Drow must have passed this way not long ago. That thought actually gave her some hope. Maybe she’d still reach them before it was too late.
Adrenaline rushing through her body, heightening her senses, Copper scrambled from out of the tunnel and onto the dirt floor of the giant chamber. She bolted across it, dodging the pools of blood, and running toward the opposite wall where she saw another large tunnel. Goddess, it was so far!
When she reached the midpoint of the chamber, she heard the rumble of a giant nearby. She cast a look in the direction the two giants had gone through and her blood rushed in her ears when she saw that one of the giants had come back. Thanks to being a track star when she was in high school, she was able to double her speed.
Earth pounded and it shook dirt and rocks loose from the ceiling of the chamber as the giant rushed toward her, its huge steps giving it an advantage she didn’t have. Terror knifed through her as the beast drew closer.
Copper was almost to the tunnel. She pushed herself harder, faster, and slipped through its entrance. The barely glowing wand kept her from smacking into walls as she ran, and she prayed there wasn’t a wall that ended this passageway.
The only problem was that the tunnel was large enough for the giant to crawl in after her. Chest heaving and sweat pouring down her brow, she continued to run. Her thighs burned, her lungs burned. She ran straight into a cobweb and wiped it out of her face as she heard the grunting and panting of the giant still behind her. It was a tighter squeeze for the giant, but it was gaining on her.
She felt Zeph leave her ear and she didn’t have time to stop to call him back. What if he got caught in the cobweb? Did he have enough magic to free himself?
In the next moment she heard the giant bellow. The pounding behind her ceased as the giant cried out in obvious pain and fury.
Zephyr! The familiar had attacked the giant, probably stinging it in the face multiple times. Goddess, how she loved that little guy.
Even though she could barely breathe, and her body ached, she kept running until she was positive nothing was behind her.
She bent over, hands on her thighs, her head dizzy, legs and arms trembling. Her braid flopped
over her shoulder. She straightened and tipped back her head, trying to control her breathing and slow down the racing of her heart. Just like when she’d raced in track meets in high school, she knew she had to walk off the run. Her face was hot and her chest still burned.
Copper braced her hands on her hips and walked forward, barely able to see because her damaged wand was peeking out from her clenched fist at her side.
She took a step forward. Her shoe met nothing.
With a scream she tumbled into darkness again.
Twenty-four
Hawk met up with Tiernan outside the brown gates of the court with Keir at his side. Keir was Hawk’s bastard-born half brother and held little love for Hawk. Keir was a formidable warrior, had a scar across one cheek, and fought like the hounds of Underworld. He had returned to Other-world after Samhain to attend to the training of additional D’Danann warriors who were to join them in Copper’s world.
“I have enlisted more of our brethren. They will join us shortly,” Hawk said to Tiernan. His features were still twisted with anger, his hand clenched around his sword hilt. “I shall kill Darkwolf with my bare hands when we meet. And if Silver or our babe is injured, I shall kill him again.”
Keir’s arms crossed his chest and his look was thunderous. He might have no love for his half brother, Hawk, but he obviously respected and cared for Silver.
Tiernan felt the same way about Silver. And Copper . . . he couldn’t find the words to express himself.
Hawk gave Tiernan a long measured look as they waited for the warriors. Tiernan could hear the men and women coming in the distance.
“You have been trifling with Copper’s heart,” Hawk said. “If you hurt her, D’Danann brother or no, I shall have to flay you.”
“I deserve that beating. I have already hurt her.” Tiernan gave a great sigh as Hawk’s eyes darkened. “However, I hope she will have me once I explain—and now that I have freed myself from my responsibilities of the court.” He raked his hand through his hair and scrubbed his scalp in frustration. “I broke my vow to Airell. I gave all my wealth to Urien so that he may rise in stature within the courts to wed her. My parents have disowned me, but what is important to me is Copper.”
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