Aglaca led the way. It seemed that he had a dwarf's underground sense, weaving through the dark, perplexing tunnel system, his hands extended before him. Rejecting blind passages almost by instinct, he would feel at an opening, shake his head and pass by.
Deep within the tunnels, Aglaca withdrew a tinderbox and a small lamp from a pouch at his belt. Crouching quietly and suddenly, so that Verminaard almost stumbled over him in the gloom, the Solamnic youth lit the lamp deftly and held it aloft.
The darkness dispelled a little. Amid confusion and discord, rubble and guano, strange, translucent crickets whirred and stalked blindly over the glistening stone walls and the ancient cobwebbed beams that supported the tunnels ahead.
"I had no idea they were…" Verminaard began. But the depth and extent of the caverns baffled him.
Another sound, high and melodious, filtered to the young men like a chorus of a thousand distant voices, the harmonies so intricate that the music itself teetered on the edge of chaos. Beautiful though it was, the sound was distracting, and Verminaard shielded his ears.
"What is it?" he whispered, but Aglaca only shook his head.
"You should know. It's the sound of spellcraft," the smaller youth explained. "Something surrounds the Pen-a shell of energy or light. Since we can't pass around it or through it, we're on our way under it and up to the girl."
"How do you know, Aglaca?" Verminaard slipped narrowly through a latticework of thick roots. "You don't listen when it comes to magic."
"I don't listen to Cerestes," Aglaca corrected mysteriously and handed the lamp to his companion.
Though he was thoroughly lost by now, turned about in the tunnels, and though each passage was indistinguishable from the last, Verminaard could tell that, slowly but directly, Aglaca was guiding them somewhere. Resentfully he held the lamp aloft, giving the smaller lad the light to see by.
The rescue had been Verminaard's idea, after all, planned over runes and misgivings in the dark nights of Castle Nidus, and now this interloper-this hostage-had seized command with his cleverness and know-how.
I am no oracle, he thought. And yet I see the lay of this tunnel-how this venture will be reported to the ears of those at home, and who will receive the glory for the rescue.
He glared at Aglaca, who bent down a tunnel, nodded, and motioned to Verminaard excitedly, urgently.
"Here it is!" he whispered. His blue eyes caught for a moment in the torchlight, flickering a bright, unexplain-able red. "Drasil roots. Looks to be a circle of 'em, like a ring of mushrooms. We're directly under the Pen, I'll wager. It's all digging and a straight climb from here, Verminaard. Set the lamp where it gives the most light."
Verminaard's enmity vanished with the news. Thoughts of the girl returned like a fresh wind in the damp and musty cavern. Verminaard wedged the lamp into a crack in the tunnel wall, split by one of the drasil roots in its blind plummet through both ceiling and floor of the cave. Taking up his sword, he sprang compliantly to Aglaca's side, ready to hack and dig and fight anything that stood between him and the captured girl.
He was so close now to realizing his daydreams. She would be a beauty of unparalleled fairness. Verminaard had had his share of serving girls and milkmaids, but none of them would be like this creature. Her eyes would be pale blue stars and her silky hair the color of flax. She would know him immediately for the one who'd planned and propelled her rescue, and she would be forever grateful-so grateful that she would never wish to speak to another man. The way she would say his name would "Verminaard! I said you can start anytime! Where have you been?"
"You wouldn't understand. And don't get pushy with me."
It was only a matter of minutes before the roots knotted above them, as thick as cords, as fingers, tendrils snagging their weapons, dulling them in a maddening, fibrous web. Verminaard thrashed vainly at the snarl of root and dirt and rock that seemed to open for him and engulf him as he climbed past the more slender roots to ankle-thick, leg-thick monstrosities that broke through the rock above and below, searching blindly for air and water and sustenance.
Slowly the network of roots surrounded them. It seemed like an underground stockade, a mirror image of the Pen that stood directly above.
"We could work like loggers for a week down here," Aglaca muttered, "and still be no closer to squeezing those shoulders of yours through this tangle."
Verminaard gasped for breath and wiped his dirty brow. Between the dust and his exertion, the air in the cavern was slowly becoming unbreathable.
"We'll go back to the surface. Fight our way in," said Verminaard, moving back the way he'd come.
"Nonsense," Aglaca replied. "You saw their numbers. And there are ogres as well-I could smell them through the fog. I'll bet they're penned up nearby, no doubt enchanted into service to build the wall around the temple. Prisoners or not, they'll fight for the bandits rather than help us out. No, between the brigands and their servants, this is still the best of entries."
Verminaard winced and twisted his foot out of a long tendril.
Aglaca grinned slyly. "Listen. I spoke only of loggers," he said. "Not of burglars."
Verminaard scowled. He was doing it again. A plan was hatching in that ever so clever Solamnic brain- something complicated and intricate, no doubt, rife with twists and illusions, masks and double-talk. Sheathing his sword, his hands still numb from hacking at the roots, he sat on the cavern floor, awaiting a long explanation.
He was surprised at how simple it was.
But he did not like it one whit.
And his thoughts dwelt on the woman pent above them, and the charms and imagined deceits of Aglaca Dragonbane.
Hagalaz and Isa, two young bandit sentries, stood watch at the narrow opening to the Pen. It was no more than a small gap in the drasil trees, curtained of late by their courtly sergeant, who respected the captive's dignity and modesty.
Now was the time when the curtain most availed the girl, as the servingwomen brought in the pitchers of warm water, poured it into the hostage's tub, then backed courteously from the living enclosure, their heads bowed and the pitchers empty. Shortly, the men could hear the girl moving behind the thick canvas. She muttered to herself, and it sounded like two voices in the Pen, like a hushed conversation, but that was nothing new. Judyth of Solan-thus always talked to herself, or murmured incantation, or prayed to her foreign gods.
The thoughts of the guards were scarcely on her prayers. Instead, they were concluding a long speculation as to what the Lady Judyth wore beneath that purple cloak and riding tunic, each sentry goading the other to inch aside the curtain and peer in on the girl as she undressed for her bath.
The speculation was merely cultural, they told themselves. It could be of interest to the Nerakan wives and mothers as to how a wealthy Solamnic girl might dress, especially since she hailed from one of the more ancient and honored cities of that western country.
The interest was academic, they told themselves, at least for now, while the sergeant's orders were strict. The temple clerics had told him not to lay a hostile hand on the girl. Not until Takhisis had given them a sign as to her fate.
So for now, the interest was academic, and their attentions as well. They winked in a most scholarly fashion, holding their breath as they quietly peeked through the curtain. It was a far better job than guarding a foul-smelling band of fifty ogres.
Aglaca climbed higher through the tough entanglements, hands clutching at coarse, sandy root, the leavings of guano, and silt and gravelly dust. Finally, balanced a dozen feet above Verminaard, he could reach no farther. The crumbling ceiling of the cave dipped directly above, and the sound of the girl's muffled words reached him through the thin layer of dirt and rock.