"What?" sputtered the Hylar. He pointed accusingly at the Zhakar. "What about Fungus-Face, here-it can't be too sanctified with the likes of him around!"
Ariakas shrugged, unmoved. "He's a prisoner-it's a completely different issue."
"Yeah, he's a prisoner-he's my prisoner! And a damned treacherous one, too. How do you know he's not faking? That he won't pop right up and stick you when you least expect it?"
"I'll come with you," Lyrelee offered.
Ferros looked at the priestess skeptically.
"She's been training me in combat for the last few weeks," Ariakas announced smoothly. "I'll be glad of your company."
"I don't like this!" warned the Hylar, furiously scratch shy;ing his arm. "That dwarf is my ticket to Zhakar."
"And I thought you were just trying to help," Ariakas replied.
"I'm waiting right here, damn it!"
"If you want-but you'll have a long stay." Ariakas, impatient, turned to Lyrelee. "Lef s go."
Leaving the fuming Ferros Windchisel, Ariakas and Lyrelee prodded Tale Splintersteel into the great hall. In silence they stalked through the inner corridors, past the red-coated guards at the gates of the Sanctified Cata shy;combs, and started down the long, straight stairway.
Ariakas employed a technique he had developed dur shy;ing previous forays into the darkness: he cast a light spell on a gem set in his helmet's front. Illumination spread through a wide arc before him, and naturally swiveled with his head whenever he looked around.
The Zhakar shuffled along ahead of them, head held down, hands lashed together at his back. Occasionally he stumbled, and once he fell. Ariakas then lifted him by the scruff of the neck, the man's stomach churning at the thought of the festering skin beneath the robe.
"Where are we going?" grunted Tale Splintersteel eventually. Abruptly the Zhakar stopped, and Ariakas almost tumbled into him. "At least tell me that much, if you want me to keep walking."
"We're going to the place where the Zhakar thief I told you about… the one who claimed he was your agent… was caught."
"I see." Splintersteel resumed his plodding pace, a little more firmness in his step.
Lyrelee, meanwhile, crept quietly ahead. The lithe young woman moved like a cat, thought Ariakas-and fought like one too, armed only with the weapons nature had given her. He found himself again studying the out shy;lines of her body through the filmy trousers and blouse. She darted ahead and whirled into the shadows of a side passage, vanishing for several seconds before reappear shy;ing and flitting across the corridor to the next branching hall.
His first impressions of her, as an exceedingly effective fighter, had become softened by a haze of allure. Now as she scouted these tunnels, the warrior's mind focused instead on the slim curve of her breast, or the tight sinew of her leg. His awakening desire burned low, but with a steady heat that must eventually consume. Ariakas fully accepted his growing passion, feeling it move him toward an imminent plan of action. As soon as they had finished with the Zhakar, he resolved, he would take her in his arms and declare his feelings. He had little doubt as to the affirmation of her reply.
Only then did it occur to him that Lyrelee was acting rather strangely, considering that they moved through the inviolate reaches of their own temple. She scouted the next passage ahead of them before striding back in long, silent steps.
"What is it?" Ariakas asked, seeing the concern etched on her narrow face.
"I don't know," she replied, glancing quickly behind her. "It's just-something feels wrong."
"What threat could be down here?" pressed the warrior, disappointed in her reply. "What do you mean: 'feels wrong'?"
She confronted Ariakas frankly, while Tale Splinter steel's hood followed the back-and-forth of conversation "I've noticed it a few times before… a sensation of being watched, spied on."
"You've never seen anything suspicious down here- signs of an intruder?"
"None of us has," replied the priestess. "But even the high priest has had the same feeling-that there are eyes in the darkness, watching … waiting."
The warrior was irritated. The high priest had cer shy;tainly not indicated any such disquiet in his presence. Ariakas certainly didn't feel any strange sensation, and his acute sense of danger had saved his life many times.
"Let's go," he commanded. "If there is a threat, the worst thing we can do is stand still and gape at our sur roundings."
She flashed him a look of surprise and, perhaps, hurt. But Lyrelee turned unquestioningly toward the deep tunnels, leading them on through the maze that Ariakas only vaguely remembered from earlier treks with Par-kane. Lyrelee turned into another passage while the war shy;rior and prisoner, about ten paces behind, continued forward. Ariakas watched the intersection expectantly, but the priestess did not emerge.
Tale Splintersteel halted, and Ariakas went around the Zhakar, the great sword held in both hands. The warrior cast a quick glance at the prisoner, seeing that the robed figure remained bound and still, though the hooded eyes watched his advance with interest.
Tension tingled through every nerve in the warrior's body. He silently cursed the woman, suspecting that nothing more than her unease affected him. Still, when she had not returned for a space of ten heartbeats, he began to feel real concern. Ariakas, nearly to the corridor, looked back. The dwarf hadn't moved.
The warrior whirled around the corner, sword raised for battle. The light from his helmet-gem spilled down a winding, narrow passage. He saw no sign of Lyrelee. Then, something moved at the limit of his vision, a shad shy;owy flicker partially concealed by the curving walls of the naturally eroded cavern. Ariakas leapt forward, feet pounding along the floor as he raced to investigate.
He didn't see the net until it had fallen from the ceil shy;ing, wrapping him from the tip of his sword to the soles of his boots. Ariakas tumbled to the floor, and then something jerked on a line, contracting the strands around him. His helmet toppled off of his head, tipping in the net so that the gleaming gem shone directly in his eyes. Everything beyond the tight enclosure was pure blackness.
And silence.
His attackers moved with uncanny stealth, passing through the darkness like a soft breeze. After an initial second of thrashing, Ariakas lay still, trying to ascertain something, anything, about the ambushers. He caught a scent of pungent, wet fur, like a hound's after the dog has run through a brackish fen. Strong hands tugged on the ropes securing the net, and Ariakas felt it constrict even more tightly. Trying to move, he found that he could barely even kick his feet.
"What?"
He heard the word, spat indignantly by the voice of Tale Splintersteel. In the next instant the Zhakar cursed, and then his voice was muffled. Mutely Ariakas raged- so close to success, and now to be thwarted!
Straining to penetrate the silence, he heard a pattern of low, deliberate breaths, and recognized the cadence of one of his training exercises from the temple. Lyrelee! Judging from the sound, the priestess was nearby, though she was obviously reluctant to call out. He heard scraping on the floor, and deduced that she, too, had been ensnared in the folds of a net.
Gradually he twisted his helmet around, casting the illumination of the gem. away from himself. True to his deduction, the gleaming light revealed Lyrelee, trussed like a rolled roast of meat in folds and coils of netting. Her own eyes met his for a moment before she turned away from the light and resumed her silent, deliberate struggle to escape.
Ariakas no longer heard anything from Tale Splinter-steel or their captors. They were gone. Judging from the captive's exclamation of surprise, the Zhakar hadn't exactly been rescued. But if not, why had he and Lyrelee not been taken? Or harmed, for that matter? The two had simply been trussed up, with embarrassing ease, and left to squirm to freedom-long after Tale Splintersteel had been spirited away.