Jaleigh Johnson - The Howling Delve

• Название: The Howling Delve
• Автор: Jaleigh Johnson
• Жанр: Фэнтези

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"Shaera?"

"It doesn't matter." Meisha waved the memories away. "She's gone now—they're all dead—and Varan is not the master I knew."

"What about the boy," Dantane persisted, "the one who followed you?"

"Talal," Meisha said, and something inside her constricted. She'd avoided thinking about the boy. "Talal is ... he has no scrap of magical power in him, and yet I find myself wanting to mentor him, in life, if not in the Art. It's strange. Then, in the next breath, I remember what I am and what I could do. When I remember, I want to put him as far from myself as I possibly can."

"It seems he would choose otherwise," Dantane observed.

Meisha shook her head grimly. "I pray that choice doesn't bring about his doom," she said, "if it has not already."

She touched the crystal, and the phantom Varan appeared again, drawing Meisha's attention back to the pedestals. This time the apprentice was not Meisha, but a young man with short blond hair cropped in a bowl shape.

"Prieces," Meisha said. "The earth savant. I've never seen this."

The young man appeared pale and drawn, even by the blurry magic illuminating the memory. His gestures were not as crisp as the child-Meisha's had been. His arms weighed heavily with fatigue, but he pressed on under Varan's encouraging gaze.

The earth elemental crawled up from the ground opposite Varan, but it was bigger—twice as broad as the creature Meisha had helped to summon. The force of its arrival shook the cavern, knocking Prieces from the pedestal. Varan reacted instantly, throwing out a spell to keep the apprentice from injuring himself. He didn't see the earth elemental smash the pedestal Prieces was standing on in half. Stone shards flew, striking Varan in the back. The wizard turned, intending to banish the creature, Meisha thought, but the thing rose up, crashing headfirst into the ceiling. Cracks fissured through the stone, and the chamber, unstable from all the tunnels carved in one place, began to come apart.

The elemental thrashed wildly, seeking release. It picked up the shattered pieces of the pedestals and threw them. The flat portion hit the wall and fell back, crushing Prieces beneath it.

Meisha cried out and ran forward. Dantane caught her arm. "It is an illusion. It isn't real," he hissed in her ear.

"But it did happen," Meisha whispered. She watched helplessly as Varan shouted an incantation that blew the stone aside, into the earth elemental. The force of the spell knocked the creature backward off its massive feet, giving Varan time to levitate Prieces to safety, but it was too late. The body of the unfortunate apprentice hung limply in the air, his neck broken.

Varan turned, chanting a spell that finally banished the elemental. The wizard collapsed to his knees next to Prieces. Stone continued to fall, but he erected a magical barrier that deflected the falling rock.

"Look there," said Dantane, pointing across the chamber.

The back wall of the cavern had completely caved in, revealing another set of passages that curved and split off in the darkness. Within them, a light burned, but Varan was oblivious to it.

"Is that another testing chamber?" asked Dantane.

Meisha shook her head. "There should be nothing behind that wall but solid rock."

They watched the strange light grow brighter, and as the rumbling gradually ceased, another sound filled the silence—the tap-tap of what sounded like rain on a campfire.

The light flickered and went out, but only because an object had passed in front of it, a swift, blurry movement not unlike the fire elemental.

Not rain, Meisha thought, as the thing coalesced, taking on shape and substance, but claws.

Dantane gasped when he saw what the walls had imprisoned. "Impossible," he said.

* * * * *

Laerin hauled Morgan to his feet. The rogue's boots skidded on a pile of bones. Morgan regained his footing and cursed a loud, long streak that echoed down the tunnel.

"See how you corrupt the children," Laerin tutted, shooting a wink at Talal.

Talal didn't share the humor. He was still on the ground, shards of broken bone digging into his knees.

"Where are we?" he asked. He dislodged an oblong skull from a pile. "What are all these?"

"Animal remains," Laerin surmised, taking the skull from him. "Wolves of great size. They all died here together."

"In pieces," Morgan said. His head perked up. "Quiet."

Talal listened and heard the echo of footsteps. Swiftly, Morgan picked up the remains of a battered rib cage and smashed it into the face of a Shadow Thief as he came around the corner.

The thief went down, and Morgan put his boot on the man's neck.

"Brittle pieces." Morgan sniffed. He cast away the shredded bone cage.

"Is he harmless?" Laerin asked. The squirming thief was trying to reach a dagger clipped in his boot.

Morgan pressed harder, until the man choked. "As kitten teats." he grinned.

"Let me talk to him." Laerin squatted next to the thief. "Where are the others?" he asked calmly.

"Your friends or mine?" the thief rasped. He spat blood in Laerin's face.

The half-elf wiped the dripping red trails. "This one's as lost as we are," he told Morgan. "Have you ever been down here before?" he asked the man.

"No," the thief said, for he couldn't shake his head under the weight of Morgan's boot. "We've never been in these tunnels."

"Think Meisha knows about this place?" Talal asked hopefully.

"Maybe, but I wouldn't wager on finding her soon," Morgan said, "if this place's as vast as it seems." He pointed to three tunnels splitting off the cavern, all stretching an indeterminate distance before branching again.

"We'd better start looking," Laerin said. "Let me scout ahead."

"What do we do with him?" Talal asked, indicating the thief.

"Trap trigger," Morgan said cheerfully. "We'll move faster that way, with him testing the path ahead of us."

"Clear," Laerin declared, trotting back up the passage. "Narrow, but more likely to be free of traps. These caves are buried too deep to be heavily protected."

"Cheerful thought for this one," said Morgan, dragging the Shadow Thief to his feet. He shone his last torch over the walls. "Not one of these tunnels looks to be sloping up. They're all going deeper underground. Anything look familiar?" he asked, nudging Talal.

Talal shook his head. "Where do you think the others are?" he asked, though he feared the answer. He'd seen Meisha fall down the chasm.

"Portals malfunction," said Laerin. "When that happens, they can deposit a person off the mark from where they intended to appear—a few feet, a mile . .."

"Into a wall," Morgan muttered, and Talal's heart wrenched.

Laerin squeezed his shoulder and sent Morgan a quelling glance. "The portal is old," he said, "but I believe it to be sound. We'll find them."

"I suppose more of them damn shadow mongrels got scattered about, too," said Morgan.

"That might be a blessing," said Laerin. "If they followed us and are separated, we may have a better chance of overcoming them. Speaking of which . . ." The half-elf drew his dagger and prodded the Shadow Thief in the back. "Hearty congratulations," he told the man, "you're taking point. Stray too far ahead and you'll find my blade between your shoulders."

The thief nodded curtly, and the group set off with him and Laerin leading.

The first tunnel bent to the right, then bent back on itself so sharply that the way was impassable for even Talal; they had to backtrack to the second tunnel.

Morgan made slash marks on the walls with a crusty piece of chalk to show where they'd been.

The center tunnel connected three larger chambers. A blackened firepit in the center of the first room suggested a kitchen; fragments of rotting wood might once have served as furniture.

"Living quarters," Laerin said. "If the Howlings did dwell all the way down here, they lived sparsely."

"The tunnel's are defensible," Morgan said. "Long bottlenecks, mazelike. And if the portal's the only way down, they can dig themselves in cozy if they have to."

"I have a hard time believing the dwarves would rely on magic alone to move them through the earth," said Laerin. "It's not their nature."

Talal gazed down the third tunnel. The passage spilled into a long, narrow chamber. Chipped and sheared stalagmites formed stone benches. A dozen men would have fit comfortably in the room, Talal thought, but the benches squatted close to the floor to accommodate shorter legs.

At the back of the room, situated in front of another tunnel, a wide altar rose up from the floor. Spiky writing was etched deep into the stone, but a crack cut a jagged line down the center of the monument.

Talal watched Morgan and Laerin examine the writing. The half-elf's lips moved as if he could read the words. His face creased in consternation.

"What does it say?" Talal asked.

The half-elf cocked his head. "The script is Dwarvish, of course. It's an altar to Abbathor, the dwarf god of greed."

Talal knew nothing of the dwarf gods, not enough to blaspheme them, anyway. He would have to ask Meisha about Abbathor.

The thought of the Harper sent an unexpected stab of pain through his chest. If she's alive, she's safer than you are, Talal told himself. He was the fool. He'd had the opportunity to escape and see daylight again, but he'd wasted it worrying over a fire-twisted Harper he barely knew.

His thoughts shattered when a sharp blow cuffed the side of his head.

"Watch him!" Laerin shouted, and the half-elf was suddenly in front of Talal, shielding him with his body.

Dizzy and in pain, Talal heard Morgan grunt and, a breath later, the sound of a body dropping on stone.

Laerin's arm caught his. "Are you all right?"

Talal wiped blood from his temple where the Shadow Thief had struck him. "Second time they've roughed up my head," he mumbled.

Laerin grinned. "Luckily you keep nothing important up there." His face sobered. "Forgive me, I should have been watching him more closely." He turned to Morgan, who was wiping blood from his sword. "Dead?"

Morgan nodded. "Hope you were done questioning him."

"I was," Laerin replied, taking one last look at the altar. "A pity Garavin isn't here. He would have wanted to see this."

They headed for the tunnel at the back of the temple, but Talal stopped abruptly. His head still felt fuzzy from the blow. He wondered if he were imagining things. "Did you hear that?" he asked.

Morgan and Laerin continued ahead of him. "Keep up," grunted Morgan.

"It sounded like . . . rain."

They moved past an intersection of four tunnels. Laerin choose to keep going straight, but the sound persisted just at the edges of Talal's hearing. He wondered why the half-elf couldn't hear the steady beat, water against stone.

Talal glanced behind and saw movement in the darkness of the intersection. "Look at that!"

Laerin turned, following the streak of Morgan's pointing torch.

A dwarf ran into the intersection. He was bald, dressed in plated armor that should have creaked loudly in the stillness. His short legs skidded on the loose dirt, but he caught himself with a hand on the ground. He half-turned toward them, and Talal gasped.

The entire left side of the dwarf's face was gone, exposing white skull and a length of jawbone. Torchlight flickered off the shadows and hollows created by the missing flesh. No one could be that injured and live. The dwarf was dead, Talal thought, just like the one he and Meisha had encountered in the upper tunnels. He was dead, and he was running. None of the other ghosts had run, and none had looked at Talal with such terror-filled eyes.

The dwarf regained his feet and plowed on down the tunnel. The sound of rain drew closer.

"Talal," said Laerin, drawing his sword, "Run. Down the passage—now!"

Talal felt the half-elf shove him hard. He stumbled and fell, unable to take his eyes off the intersection. Fear crawled along his body. A breeze passed over his skin, bringing heat and a scent that made his eyes water. The tunnel suddenly felt humid. Steam pools rose up from the floor, and the sound of rain became a sizzling.

Talal crushed his eyes shut, and time seemed to slow, as if he were experiencing everything from a great distance. He opened his eyes in time to see a shape pass through the intersection, filling it utterly with weight and light. The timeless silence shattered, sundered by a roar that filled the caverns, knocking Morgan and Laerin to their knees.

Talal covered his ears and screamed, but he could not hear the sound of his voice over the terrible roar. Morgan and Laerin crouched beside him, shielding him with their bodies and weapons. They, too, seemed incapable of movement.

The beast's head looked vaguely like that of a lion. A full, red mane streamed out behind it, stained with black ash from an ember fire. His body, as it stretched into the tunnel after the dwarf, filled the length of the intersection. Huge, muscled haunches tapered to four black-clawed feet that scraped furrows in the stone. The rain sound was the sizzle of the demon's claws, constantly burning where they touched the earth.

Talal watched, transfixed, as the creature drew his head out of the tunnel. In his jaws struggled the dead dwarf. The beast bit through its shoulder, and the dwarf's screams were as loud and pitiful as any living being's. It was the screaming that finally galvanized them.

Morgan grabbed Talal by one arm, Laerin by the other, and they ran down the tunnel at breakneck speed, careening around corners at random.

Morgan cursed liberally. "What the bloody piss and Hells is it?" he shouted.

"A demon," said Laerin grimly. "Meisha's beast. The doom of the Howlings."

* * * * *

"A jarilith," said Dantane as the phantom image of the creature stepped into the chamber. "A tanar'ri—a hunting beast from the Abyss."

The demon leaped at Varan. The battle that ensued was horrifically beautiful to watch. Varan hurled spells that ravaged the left side of the creature's face, removing the jarilith's eye. Enraged, the demon sprang forward, curling around the wizard. The jarilith raked his claws sideways along the wizard's flank.

Varan retreated, trying to heal himself with a cracked potion vial, but he bled from dozens of small wounds. He grasped the demon's lost eye and chanted. The words spilled out, booming with power, and it seemed he would complete the magic before the beast could launch another attack.

But the demon charged, tangling with the release of the Art. Tremors shook the cavern, and suddenly, Varan clutched the left side of his face. His mouth twisted in agony.

Horrified, Meisha watched the flesh beneath Varan's fingers blend together and melt, becoming a hideous mirror to the jarilith's ruined visage.

The demon tossed his head in renewed frenzy, as if some invisible foe were attacking him. Clawing the stone, the jarilith, fell back into the caves from whence he had come. Varan followed, crawling on his hands and knees, one arm clutched awkwardly against his face. He did not have to go far. The demon collapsed, unconscious or enspelled. Meisha could not tell which.