“We must flee,” said the human wizard as she came into earshot of Glissa.
Glissa nodded. “Not without Bosh.”
Bruenna put her hand on the elf’s shoulder. “What he does, he does as a gift. Don’t let his bravery be lost.” She guided Glissa toward the tunnel.
The human wizards filed into the passage. One scouted down a ways, disappearing from view. Glissa reluctantly let herself be pulled toward the opening, glancing up at Bosh with every step.
The golem remained stubbornly attached to the thrashing centipede.
Glissa glanced down. Slobad clung to her thigh. With every step she took, he took two, and now the goblin looked up into her eyes. They were sad, scared. He looked like she felt. Reaching down, she grabbed hold of the goblin’s hand. She expected him to say something, but all she got was a tight squeeze. He knew what was going through her mind. It was going through his as well. There was no need to say the words.
The elf and goblin crossed into the tunnel. As the lip of the ceiling came over them, they ducked down, not wanting to look away from their friend.
“We must go,” said Bruenna. “The sooner we get what you have come for, the sooner we can face Memnarch.”
Glissa didn’t budge.
“Bosh would want you to go,” said the wizard.
The elf looked down at the goblin. He shook his head.
“No,” she said. “No, he wouldn’t.” Squeezing Slobad’s hand she broke away from Bruenna’s grasp.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go save Bosh.”
Glissa bolted back from the tunnel and into the chamber. Slobad ran right beside her. High above, their friend clung to the thrashing centipede.
“How we get him off, huh?” asked the goblin.
Glissa shook her head. Looking around the room, she searched for something, anything that she could use to help her. Half way up the wall, near the side of the lake closest to Bosh and the centipede, she found what she was searching for.
Grabbing Slobad’s shoulder, she pointed. “You see that?”
Slobad narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“The joint. The big round thing with the seam in it.” She shook her hand as she pointed.
“No,” replied the goblin.
“There, half way up. The silvery bend. Can’t you see it?” She got down on her knees so that she was closer to his level and pointed with both hand.
Realization blossomed on Slobad’s face. “Yes. Slobad see now.”
Glissa smiled. “If I can get you up there, can you take it apart?”
Now it was the goblin’s turn to smile. “Slobad can take anything apart, huh?”
She grabbed him by the cheek and kissed his little face. “That’s why I love you.” Then she stood up, lifting Slobad under her arm.
“Hey,” he said. “Goblins not toys, huh? Ride up here.” He climbed under her armpit and onto her back, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.
Glissa nodded and began reciting the words to a spell. Relaxing the muscles along her spine, she opened herself up to the powers of green mana. Here, deep under the Dross, there was little of the arcane energies that she sought. But the spell she was about to cast needed very little, and she could improvise with what was abundant here in the stronghold of darkness.
Gathering to her the powers she needed, Glissa began to form the framework of her spell. It was an incantation many of the forest elves were taught when they were very young, useful in many different situations, this one being no exception.
When the words were spoken and all the pieces in place, Glissa focused her attention on the pipes on the ceiling near the coupling and let the spell loose.
Long, stringy white strands of sticky silk shot from her fingertips, reaching high into the air. As they flew, they spread out, expanding like fingers reaching to grasp hold of the ceiling. Squeezing hold of the silk, Glissa and Slobad were lifted from the ground, propelled toward the wall by the web the elf had spun.
The first moment was the most exhilarating. Having been jerked from the floor, the pair accelerated, and everything became a blur. As they continued upward, the chamber again came into focus, and Glissa turned to check on Bosh.
In the time it had taken the elf to cast her spell, the centipede had slowed its thrashing, and the iron golem had come to rest against the great creature’s back.
“Uh oh. It see us, huh?” said Slobad from her back.
Glissa shivered. It was true. The centipede was watching her and the goblin as they sped toward the wall.
With lightning speed, the bug lunged, snapping its razor arms together, trying to catch the soaring elf.
Glissa twisted in midair. There was nothing she could do to control her flight. All she could do was cling tightly to the strand of webby silk. The creature moved in on them, rustling the air and pushing before it the foul stench of the underground lake. Glissa’s hair whipped around, and the unnatural breeze whistled as it whipped through the metal on her shins.
The centipede’s closing arms reached out, grasping for the elf and the goblin. Metal closed down on metal, missing flesh but slicing right through the magical web and sending the pair spinning off toward the wall.
The room whirled, and Slobad’s grip tightened around Glissa’s shoulders. Closing her eyes, the elf quickly ran through the words to another spell. It was all she had, and she wasn’t even sure it would work, but she forced as much power into it as she could.
The final word spoken, Glissa let loose. Strands of wire that looked like leafy green vines sprouted from her hands and feet.
Slobad gasped then giggled. “Hey,” he said, letting go with one hand. “Stop. Tickles, huh?”
Glissa ignored him. As they spun, falling back toward the floor, she grabbed hold of the wires with both hands. Whipping them around like a lasso, the elf flung them toward the wall with all of her might. It was her only chance, and she took it.
The wires clanked as they collided with the tubes, slapping around and spanking off the slippery, slime-covered metal.
“Damn!” shouted the elf.
The vines trailed down the wall as the pair fell, slapping and flapping the whole way. Then one of them got stuck in between two of the pipes-and it jammed. The other end of the cable-attached to Glissa’s foot-pulled tight. The goblin and the elf were flipped over, upside down, and flung sideways as their descent was stopped cold by the wire.
The pair swung out over the lake, suspended upside down by Glissa’s magical vine. All the blood in her body ran down into her head, and she struggled to recover from the sudden stop.
“You okay?” she asked Slobad.
“Yeah,” replied the goblin, though his words seemed labored.
Reaching the end of their swing, the vine brought the two back toward the wall. Glissa squeezed her gut and leaned into the vine, trying to accentuate the swinging.
The centipede loomed up large behind her, getting ready to strike again.
“Slobad,” she shouted. “Can you grab hold of my hand?” Reaching back up over her upended shoulders, she spread her palms out for the goblin.
Without a word, the goblin grabbed hold. Immediately his body flipped over, righting itself. The force of the shifting bodies changed the course of their swinging, and the vine gave way.
Glissa gasped as they fell again. A loud creak filled the chamber, and their descent was stopped once again. Only a few inches below where they had been, the vine caught again.
Suspended there, arms outstretched, looking up into the eyes of the upside down elf, the goblin said, “Now what, crazy elf?”
“Now I’m going to toss you onto that pipe coupling.”
Slobad’s eyebrows lifted. “What?”
“We’re going to swing as hard as we can, then I’m going to toss you up toward the coupling.”
“Why?”
“So you can take it apart.”
“What ’bout you, huh?”
Glissa smiled at him, her head still filling with blood. “I’m just going to hang out.”