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.
When the scene faded at last, Meisha saw the breached wall, just as the vision had rendered it. Empty.
"The demon's awake," said Dantane.
"I don't understand," Meisha said. "Why did he do it? Why did he stay to fight?" He could have escaped, come back when he'd recovered from Prieces' death and the battle with the elemental, Meisha thought. Why had he fought the demon in his weakened state, using magic to merely put it to sleep?
"What was that spell?" asked Dantane.
Meisha had no idea. "It seemed to allow him to control the demon, at least in that moment."
"Through a mental connection," said Dantane, nodding. "It requires a focus. In this case—"
"The jarilith's eye," said Meisha, and the truth dawned on her. Varan hadn't been weakened or desperate when he'd cast the spell. He'd known exactly what he was doing. "Watching gods, he couldn't have wanted to keep it alive," she said.
"For curiosity's sake," Dantane affirmed. At Meisha's revolted expression, he added, "Fueled by arrogance, I grant you. Your master saw a new vehicle to test his spells and acted accordingly, believing his will would be enough to overcome the jarilith. He discovered differently, to his doom. The spell drove him mad."
Dantane's voice was coldly matter-of-fact, but he was right. Meisha accepted the truth, though it filled her with a profound anger and disappointment in her former teacher. "Are they still linked?" she said. "Is that why Varan opened the portal and cast us down here? Is the demon fighting him for control?"
"Fighting him, fighting the dwarves," said Dantane. "There may be hope for us and your master, if that's the case."
"But if the demon escaped from Varan's spell, why is he still down here? Why has he not tried to get to the surface?"
"Can't you feel it?" Dantane asked. "The demon's aura? It's everywhere."
Meisha nodded. "I've felt it ever since I was a child. I still wake at night blanketed in the dread and the cold. I just never had a name for it before. What does that have to do with the demon's escape?"
"He doesn't want to escape," Dantane said. "From the dwarves, yes, and from Varan's control, but the Delve has been absorbing the demon's essence for a century or longer. The Delve has become part of him—the ideal hunting ground. I suspect all the demon wants is something worthwhile to hunt."
"Through Varan, he's gotten everything he needs," Meisha said bitterly. "All he has to do is pick us off one by one."
"An appealing fate for the Shadow Thieves that may have followed us," Dantane said. "In fact, without the demon's interference, we might have died at their hands."
"Astounding how the gods sort matters out," Meisha muttered. "This way," she said, leading Dantane on to the next testing chamber. "We have to move quickly. We don't know where the demon is now."
As with the other chambers, raised rock platforms dominated the next room they entered, but the entire back wall of the cavern had gone, plucked from the surrounding stone like a cork from a wine cask. Darkness, impenetrable by her spell light, stretched down a long passage Meisha had never seen before.
"A permanent tunnel of darkness," Dantane said. "Small wonder your master concealed this entrance. There will be traps and wards, unless he cleared them himself."
"Let's hope so," Meisha said. "We'll have enough to worry about when we find the jarilith." She took stock of her weapons. Her stilettos were gone, but she still had one dagger. Fire crackled in her mind. "Ready?"
Dantane nodded and stepped forward. They were almost to the mouth of darkness when they heard the demon roar.
* * * * *
Talal didn't look back. He knew the creature had turned to pursue them. He could hear the sizzle-click of his paws hitting the stone. The beast's huge strides would have overtaken them immediately if the passage hadn't kept making sharp corners.
Morgan swung around a bend and came up short, shouting, "Too narrow!"
Talal fetched up behind Laerin. He saw the bigger man wedged between two slabs of stone. Beyond lay an open chamber.
"We can't go back!" Laerin shouted, before he plowed into Morgan from behind.
Morgan's tunic ripped as Laerin's weight pushed him through the narrow gap. The half-elf followed, and Talal, grateful for once to be the slightest, had no trouble slipping through the crack.
In the chamber beyond flowed an underground river.
Talal stopped and stared at the black water darting with shadows under the torchlight. The river rushed from a fissure in the northwest corner of the room, flowing out through a wishbone shaped crack at the opposite end. On the other side of the water, the cavern dead-ended.
Morgan crouched at the river's edge. He splashed handfuls of water on two wicked slashes across his chest where the stone had cut into his flesh. "That's got it," he wheezed. "Game's over before it began."
Talal looked at Laerin. "We're trapped," he said. "Maybe if we double back—"