by Layton Green
At last his fingertips broke the surface, and he plunged headfirst into another waterfall that landed in a pool of water twenty feet below. He lost his form and ended up belly flopping, swimming to the side just before Marek squashed him. The others plopped into the waterfall soon after, Yasmina holding Caleb by the arm.
The cavern was filled with phosphorescent mushrooms that emitted a faint blue light. Everyone stood shivering by the edge of the water, ears cocked for another horn blast. Lisha looked the most miserable of all, and Will wondered how long it would take her internal heat source to recharge after melting the rune door.
We have gained time, she said, but the delvers will find us. They will listen to the stone and know what we have done. Our only hope is to reach my people.
“How long?” Tamás asked, after Will translated.
Half a day’s journey to the Great Chasm. My people live at the bottom. The delvers will not follow us down.
Twelve hours, Will thought. Twelve hours and they would survive, at least for another day.
I do not know if we will make it before the delvers catch us.
“You can stop talking now,” he said.
Will expected Lisha to keep them off the grid, but after navigating natural pathways through the caverns for another half hour, they stepped through a hole in the wall and back into the delver tunnels. Will wondered if her people had made the hole in the wall and why they weren’t continuing through the undeveloped portion of the Darklands, but the darvish girl offered no answers.
He had a thought. “Yasmina, if you can communicate with the giant moles, how about calling up some more? We could use a few right now.”
He thought she would scoff at his half-joking request, but instead she said, “Elegon said to beware of calling for animals in the Darklands, unless you knew exactly what to do. I am not yet ready,” she said, looking both confident and embarrassed by her own speech.
“O-kay,” Will said. “Yasmina . . . was Elegon some type of ranger?”
“A what?”
Yasmina used to join Caleb when he teased Will about his love for fantasy. She was very much a real-world kind of girl.
That was, until she left the real world in the rearview and started talking to giant moles.
“Someone who roams the outdoors, is good with animals. Usually a caretaker of the land.”
“He called himself a wilder,” she said. “And yes, he was very attuned to animals.” Her eyes drifted. “It was . . . magical.”
Yasmina was acting strange, but she had been through hell and back, and Will was just happy she seemed alive again. He could quiz her later.
The scenery turned spectacular, taking Will’s mind off the fact that his brother was in extreme pain, they were all wet and shivering and probably catching some rare form of pneumonia, his legs felt like they had refrigerators tied to them, and they still had a fifty-fifty chance of being caught by the search party and flayed alive by Farzal.
The tunnel floor merged into a natural rock path that ran alongside an inky, narrow lake for at least a mile. Violet phosphorescent minerals in the walls provided natural lighting. The ceilings were low, just above Marek’s head, and they had to weave through thousands of stalactites and stalagmites crisscrossing the long cavern like the jaws of some vast stone beast.
After that, they used a rope already in place to rappel down a cave with the smooth sides and funneled shape of a nuclear reactor. At the bottom, the tunnels resumed, only to spill into another walkway that wound through a series of formations made of black marble and scooped out in the middle, like half-cleaved giant pearls.
The combination of tunnels and fantastical natural caverns continued, awing Will with their beauty. He felt as if he were inside a Jules Verne novel, exploring unknown realms far beneath the surface. The sense of wonder continued until the tunnel dead-ended at a platinum-colored rune door, and the feeble but chill-inducing notes from a delver horn sounded in the distance.
Everyone looked anxiously at Lisha, but she made no move to place her hands on the door.
This rune door is special, impervious to our fire. The delvers are quite aware of our abilities.
“That’s great,” Will said, then relayed the message.
“You tell us this now?” Marek snarled. “After ve reach a dead-end?”
But Lisha was already moving. She approached the door, turned, and marked off fifty paces, ending at a non-descript portion of the tunnel. She put her hands up, and then stepped right through the wall.
Will’s jaw dropped, and Lisha poked her horned head back into the corridor.
Many ages ago, when the tunnels were built, our people employed a wizard. Or shall I say, she said, producing an impish grin and flicking her eyes at Caleb, who she had been eying with gratitude the entire journey, we seduced one.
As the party stepped through the illusory wall, Will put his hands out and felt solid rock on either side of the opening. The tube-shaped passage continued for fifty feet. Lisha pushed on the wall where it dead-ended. A concealed door swung open on silent hinges, and they stepped into a natural rock passage, twenty feet down from the other side of the rune door. The entrance to the hidden passage swung shut behind them, indistinguishable from the wall.
Tamás whistled, and Will said, “Nicely done, Lisha.”
The delver horn sounded again. Dalen tensed.
We are close, the darvish said. This is neutral ground. But I have no more tricks.
Will pointed at the portion of the wall concealing the invisible doorway, then shrugged and pointed at the rune door. “How will they know?”
Unless they brought a wizard, they will not discover our secret. But they will listen to the stone, and know to open the rune door and follow.
“What does she mean by listening to the stone?” Will asked, after relaying Lisha’s words.
“I’m uncertain,” Tamás said. “I only know that delvers can somehow communicate with the stone, perhaps sensing faraway vibrations.”
The ‘neutral ground’ was a series of natural rock passages, at times so tight they had to crawl on their bellies or squeeze their bodies through cracks and fissures. There were no mineral lamps, but Dalen figured out he could create bursts of light using the glow from Lisha’s fingertips. After one of Dalen’s spells lingered and dissolved into scattered motes of light, Lisha would warm her palms for another burst. It wasn’t much, but it allowed them to see.
The sound of the delver horn drew closer, and then closer still.
“How far?” Will asked, gripping his sword at his side.
Lisha didn’t answer.
The tight passageway opened up into a maze of wider, intersecting tunnels. They debated making a run for it, but Caleb and Dalen were too spent. Will had to admit he wasn’t sure how far he could have run either. They stumbled forward as best they could, the stronger members of the party pulling the weaker ones along.
The next horn blast echoed through the cavern. Will looked over his shoulder in panic, sure the delvers were right behind them, yet only darkness loomed. He willed his legs forward, dragging Dalen with him. Marek and Yaz supported Caleb.
They turned a corner and saw an awesome sight: fifty feet ahead, the passage widened even further, ending at a staircase that plunged into a vast abyss, extending as far into the distance as he could see.
Lisha’s voice brimmed with excitement. The Great Chasm! We have only to descend to my people.
Will translated. The party raced forward with a burst of adrenaline. Will’s intuition told him that if they could just reach the staircase, the delvers wouldn’t follow them down.
Halfway to the chasm, a familiar voice sounded from behind. “Lookie lookie. Six humans and a darvie girl, all by their lonesome. A merry chase ye led me, indeed ye did.”
Will whipped around, his blood curdling at the sound of the voice. Farzal stood thirty feet away, hands on his hips and a wide grin splitting his beard. He had donned a helmet and a bronze breastplate with
red insignia, hammer in hand, his battle axe gleaming from a hook on his belt. A cadre of delvers stood behind him, the ones in front holding crossbows aimed at Will and his party.
There was no way they would reach the stairs in time.
Will heard a twang, and saw an arrow speeding towards Lisha. Just before it struck her, it exploded into a net that ensnared her within its strands. She screamed and struggled and tried to burn her way through, but the magical netting held tight.
“Tis a pity how close ye were,” Farzal said. He flicked a wrist, and the delvers behind him bristled. “Take the darvie with us, and kill the rest.”
-38-
Though the delay failed to register, since time did not exist in the same manner for a being merged with spirit, it took the Spirit Liege nearly a month to track down the trail of the sword.
For weeks it roamed back and forth, drifting on currents of spirit, popping in and out of dimensions, until at last it found a clue: a trace of congealed spirit lingering in the campsite of a group of tusked humanoids.
Yes, the Spirit Liege thought, cloaked in spirit as it drifted silently past the perimeter guards, the sword was here. That or another being like the Spirit Liege had passed by, or the wart-covered creatures had been in possession of an arcane item of similar power.
Both unlikely.
It waited until the camp was asleep, then drifted into the center, where the leader, an enormous specimen of its kind, snuffed and snorted in the throes of slumber.
Acting on instinct, as the Spirit Liege did not yet know the full extent of its powers—it suspected not even its makers did—it placed its hands on either side of the bulbous head. The Liege’s hands grew even less substantial, until they were wisps of blue smoke that soaked into the tusker’s head, worming into his brain. It absorbed from memory that the creature’s name was Grilgor, that it was called a tusker, and that, yes, the humans who carried the sword had been in this camp not long ago.
But memories were fickle things, inchoate. Nor were the pathways of spirit an easy read, even for a being such as the Spirit Liege. The current location of the sword remained a mystery.
The Liege sent the wisps of spirit deeper, until they found Grilgor lounging in the mysterious realm of the dream world.
“Eh?” Grilgor said in the tusker language. He was in a hypnagogic state, neither awake nor asleep. “Who’s there?”
Though the Spirit Liege whispered its words, they sounded inside Grilgor’s head as if they had boomed from the mouth of a titan. “The sword. Where is it?”
Confusion crept through Grilgor’s fear, and the Spirit Liege realized the stupid creature might not have realized the true nature of the weapon. It caused images of the humans who carried the sword to drift into the tusker’s head.
The images sparked a memory, and the Spirit Liege watched from inside Grilgor’s mind as the humans entered a cave in the company of a group of shorter humanoids, one of whom was carrying the sword. The Spirit Liege recognized the landscape around the rock fissure. In its previous incarnation, it had gone there once before.
After gaining what it sought, the Spirit Liege congealed its hand as it pulled out of Grilgor’s head, just enough to rip out the tusker’s memories.
The Spirit Liege flew through the night, straight to the cave it had seen in Grilgor’s mind. After a brief search, it found the invisible wards which shielded the entrance from detection—but which had no effect on the Spirit Liege.
Once inside, the scent was clear.
-39-
Mala hurried back to the kennel after ingesting the gray worms, hoping she hadn’t lingered too long in the forest. She thrust the vial with the last drops of the Potion of Diminution at Hazir. “It’s time.”
He held the vial in his hands, eying it with suspicion. “You could crush me with your heel after I drink this.”
“I gave you my word,” Mala said evenly, “and that’s the chance you’ll have to take. Now hurry! The hags rise at dawn.”
The majitsu pressed his lips together, stuffed his robe through one of the holes in his cage, then drained the last of the potion. He shrank to the height of Mala’s index finger and climbed out.
The other creatures were fast asleep. Mala paced nervously back and forth inside the kennel, waiting for Hazir to return to full size. She had to suppress her desire to bring his fears to fruition and squash him like a cockroach. Without him, she knew she was no match for all three hags, even if weakened.
Even with her secret advantage.
The potion wore off just as the first rays of dawn brightened the horizon. After tying on his robe and silver belt, Hazir followed her outside. “What now?”
“I’ve come to believe the hags are dependent on the gray worms for their magic.” The majitsu’s eyebrows raised, but she said, “I’ve no time to explain. If I’m wrong, then we will likely die. But if I’m right . . . we might have a chance.”
“Your proposal?”
“We attack while they’re weak, after the long night has lessened their powers, before they’ve had a chance to eat and replenish their magic. We attack right now.”
Hazir looked in the direction of the three huts, then back at Mala. His eyes gleamed with a cold, vicious light as he balled his hands into fists. “I see no better time than the present.”
Side by side, they strode towards the mud and thatch dwellings, heading for the largest of the huts first. Take out the leader and destroy their will.
Just before Mala and Hazir arrived, one of the smaller hags stepped out of the hut right in front of them, covering her mouth as she yawned. Mala and Hazir didn’t look to each other for support or discussion. They simply attacked.
Mala stabbed the hag through her gut with the short sword, while the majitsu flew forward and pummeled her with strikes and kicks, so fast and powerful the hag gurgled her last breaths before she slumped to the ground. Hazir had crushed the hag’s skull with his blows, and her insides spilled forth as Mala ripped her short sword out of the creature’s stomach.
She turned to see the other two hags emerging from their huts. The smaller one stiffened and extended her hands to release twin streams of gray tendrils towards Hazir. The missiles were slower and thinner than usual, and when Hazir bladed his hands and swiped them in midair, they split apart and fell to the ground.
Mala’s spirits soared at the validation of her theory. The hags were weaker. They had a chance.
Instead of joining the attack, the larger hag reached for her necklace and tore off a handful of worms. She rushed to plop them into her mouth, but Mala was twirling her sash in anticipation, and she let it fly as soon as she saw the hag reach for her choker. The sash struck the hag in the throat, the weighted ends twirling around her head and thudding into the side of her face. She let out a strangled cry and dropped the handful of worms, clutching her ruined cheekbone.
Out of the corner of her eye, Mala saw Hazir leaping at the smaller hag. The majitsu batted away another round of gray projectiles as he approached, then doubled his fists and leapt forward. He struck the creature in the chest, propelling them both through the mud wall of the hut.
As Mala sprinted towards the larger hag, the creature recovered and fired off two ropy strands of gray magic, then reached for more worms. Mala ducked and rolled under the lethargic missiles, choosing not to reveal her new weapon unless she had to. She recovered in time to whip her boot dagger at the hag’s hand holding the worms, spearing her through the palm from twenty feet away.
The hag roared and dropped the worms, stomping her feet in anger and clutching her injured hand to her chest. Mala experienced a shiver of fear at the raw physical power of the creature, but she pushed through it, whipping out her curved dagger as she approached, then slicing downward with both dagger and short sword.
Just before her blades cut through the hag, the creature caught Mala in the chest with two more gray strands, hurtling Mala backwards and then slithering around her. Mala freed a wrist just before she was c
ocooned, working furiously to saw through her bonds. They were much weaker than usual, and she was able to cut her way through.
But not before the hag ate a handful of worms.
With a triumphant cackle, the creature swallowed the wriggling invertebrates and shuddered as the power of the forest coursed through her. As Mala prepared for the next round of missiles, sure to be faster and stronger than before, the hag stepped forward and raised her hands—and then Mala saw a blur of movement rushing towards the hideous creature from behind, right before the hag’s chest exploded.
Hazir retracted his fists, ripping backwards through the ruined body, smiling wickedly above his gore-streaked hands. The hag collapsed at his feet, the light in her eyes extinguished.
“I commend you,” the majitsu said, eying the bodies as he reached for the amulet still clasped around the hag’s neck. “Had you not been common born, you would have made a good majitsu.”
“I’ll take the amulet,” Mala said coldly. “I know how to use it.”
“Do you think I’ve never seen an amulet such as this before?” His grin was mocking as he undid the clasp. “I just depress the back and rotate, no?”
“We had a deal.”
“I promised to grant your freedom if we returned to Urfe. And so I would have. But I’m sorry to say you won’t be coming with me.”
He stood with the amulet grasped in his right hand. When he reached up with his left to maneuver the device, Mala extended her hands, releasing twin ropy tendrils from her fingertips that shot towards the majitsu too fast for him to react. The magical strands struck his wrists and wrapped his body in a bundle of gray coils.
He toppled over, cocooned by the powerful tendrils, gasping as Mala picked up the amulet. “How?” he spluttered. “How?”
After she gave a mocking grin of her own, he continued, “You found the worms in the forest, didn’t you? You found them and ate them yourself.”
“How astute you are,” she replied, the memory of the foul experience returning in a rush: standing alone before the tree, feeling the strange power of the forest surge through her after she swallowed a dozen of the wriggling larva. They were disgusting, but she had felt the magic oozing out of her, swimming in her veins. Just in case, she completed a successful test run with the gray strands, which seemed to naturally coil around whatever they came into contact with.