The silent call of the second shard echoed from the darkness, somewhere not far off. “The Gatekeeper was right. We’re close to the second shard,” he told his friends.
“Thank Tymora for that, at least,” Maresa muttered.
“Have any of you traveled in the Underdark before?” Araevin asked.
“I have, a little,” said Jorin. “There are extensive caverns and passages under the Yuirwood, at least in places.” He shivered. “I don’t remember it being this cold, though.”
“I traveled through the upper reaches of Deep Shanatar two years ago,” Donnor said. The Tethyrian grimaced. “I can’t say I liked it much.”
“Until today, I’d succeeded in avoiding the place,” Maresa answered. Her pale hair hung still around her shoulders, unstirred by even the faintest breeze. In the depths of the earth, the magic of elemental air in her veins guttered as low as a dying candle-flame. “My mother never had anything nice to say about it. She told me plenty of stories of the horrors the Company of the White Star encountered down here.”
“I remember well,” Araevin said. It had been more than twenty years since he had ventured into the vast warrens beneath the Chionthar Vale with Belmora, Theleda, Grayth, and the rest, but he had not forgotten a moment of it. “Let’s make sure that we all have light close at hand. If you get separated from everyone else, you’ll want illumination.”
They searched through their packs, and shared out the candles and tinder kits they carried. Donnor had a half-dozen sunrods, and divided those as well. Of course, Araevin and Donnor had minor light spells they could call on, too.
“We’ll use our spells first, and save the sunrods for an emergency,” Araevin suggested. “Now, as for the Underdark… above all else, we must stay together. This place is vast and featureless. Sound plays tricks on your ears, so that you may think a distant voice is close by, and someone only a stone’s throw away might not be able to hear you even if you shout. I can’t warn you enough about how easy it is to get lost, and how hard it is to be found once you’re out of sight and earshot.
“You’ll find that this place is more hostile than the worst desert you can imagine. We may get lucky and find fresh water, but food is almost nonexistent. We must conserve our rations and our water carefully, for as long as we are down here.
“Finally, this place is home to dreadful monsters such as aboleths, mind flayers, beholders, and worse. Many are drawn by light and sound, so we should try to stay quiet and use as little light as we can.”
“Anything else?” Maresa asked, rolling her eyes.
The sun elf frowned, taking her question literally. “Oh, one more thing-we can’t count on teleporting. There are magical emanations in the rock all around us that often ruin teleport spells. It should be our very last resort. Once we leave this portal, we have no easy way back to the surface unless we retrace our steps to this spot, or stumble across another portal somewhere else.”
“Fine,” the genasi said. “Let’s get going.”
Araevin glanced up and down the passageway, and turned toward his right. “This way, then. The shard is somewhere in this direction.”
CHAPTER SIX
3 Eleasias, the Year of Lightning Storms
They marched for what seemed like an eternity through the cold gloom, following the passage through the miles-long crevice. From time to time the path broke out into open spaces where small cairns of stones marked the trail through vast, black caverns. Araevin guessed that their path followed some subterranean road or trade route. Fortunately, they encountered no other travelers along the way.
After several miles, Araevin called a halt, and they rested for a time in a small cave that led away from the main path. It was almost impossible to judge the passage of time. There was no sky to see, no wind to taste, no forest-sound to listen to. The Underdark was truly a timeless place, in the sense that time altered nothing in the utter darkness and silence. Every moment was the same as the one that preceded it, and countless moments before that.
“What a dreary place,” Nesterin said quietly to him while their companions slept. “I can’t believe that anyone, not even the drow, could endure it for long.”
“This seems to be a desolate stretch of the Underdark,” Araevin agreed. “Not all of it is so featureless. In other places there are titanic vaults where great forests of fungus grow, vast lightless seas, spectacular waterfalls miles high, even caverns lit by glimmering veils of wizard fire, like the midwinter lights of the far north.”
“You have seen these things?”
“Only a few. And to be honest, for every secret wonder one finds in the depths, there are ten deadly perils. We are not made for a life so far beneath the earth.”
Nesterin glanced up at the ceiling of their small cave, and shuddered. “I could go mad just thinking about the weight of the rock over my head right now.”
“It’s better not to dwell on it,” Araevin advised him. He stood and stretched, rubbing his arms vigorously. Strangely enough, he wasn’t as troubled by the pervasive chill of the place as he would have been before the telmiirkara neshyrr. He sensed the heavy cold of the stone sinking into him, but it seemed to have little power to sap his strength. His companions, on the other hand, clearly needed every blanket they carried in their packs. Next time we’ll have to risk a fire, Araevin decided. “Let’s rouse the others. I think we’ve rested at least a quarter of a day, and I am as anxious as Maresa to finish our work down here and leave this place behind us.”
The small company broke camp and pressed on into the darkness, winding farther from the portal leading back to the surface. At one point they found that their road led through a tunnel hewn through a bed of solid rock. The entrance was marked with a squared-off archway with a distinctly trapezoidal outline. Strange old runes marked the heavy stone slabs that made the arch, interspersed with sharply geometric designs.
“Is that Dwarvish?” Donnor asked after studying the ominous archway.
“No,” Araevin replied. “I’m afraid I don’t recognize the language.”
They continued through the hewn tunnel, and Araevin became conscious of a subtle change in the quality of the air. It was growing colder, bitterly so. And it seemed that the air felt more open, less constrained, even as the darkness grew almost impenetrable, muffling all sound and drinking in their feeble lights with endless and ancient hunger. He felt his companions tensing uncomfortably, shoulders tightening, hands straying closer to weapons.
“There’s something up ahead,” Jorin whispered. “The air’s changed somehow.”
“We know,” Maresa answered him. “It’s sort of hard to miss.”
They emerged from the tunnel but saw nothing ahead. Then Jorin, who was in the lead, scuffed to a stop with a muttered oath and threw out his arm to stop the others.
“A sheer precipice,” the ranger said. “Our road turns to the right and hugs the wall. Be careful, or you’ll walk right off into nothing.”
Slowly, they negotiated the turn. Araevin paused for a moment, staring out into the gloom. The light shining from his enspelled coin illuminated a great wall that towered up out of sight overhead and fell away into blackness underfoot. Their tunnel simply emerged in the middle of this vast vertical obstacle, and met a narrow ledge winding along the side of the empty space. Staring into the darkness, Araevin could feel in his bones that it was vast indeed, cold, silent, and still as the crypt. No rail or wall marked the edge of the drop. The ledge was simply a path about eight or nine feet wide cut from the side of the immense cavern.
“By the Morninglord,” Donnor Kerth murmured. “It’s titanic.”
The illimitable darkness around them seemed to deaden sound, swallowing their voices as if to enforce its own silence on the intruders.