* * * * *
Meisha had never seen the bottom end of the Climb, but her research since she'd left the Delve told her it should be there. Still, it took her a while to find it. She'd only traversed a portion of it in her search for Shaera—a search that had ended in tragedy. Now she had to lead an entire group to safety through the treacherous passage to the surface—if it still led all the way to the surface. Damn the Howlings anyway.
Kall stood at the base of a tunnel that slanted upward until it was almost vertical. Stone platforms jutted from the walls to form uneven rungs.
"I'll lead," Kall said. "Meisha and Talal come behind me, then Dantane and Garavin. Morgan, take Borl and bring up the rear."
"Slow going," Dantane commented, "with a dog and an injured dwarf."
"Then we go as slowly as necessary," Kall said. He pulled himself up onto the first stone ledge.
Meisha floated globes of shimmering fire ahead and behind them, so they would be unencumbered by torches. She could see nothing of Kall beyond his boots and the tail of his cloak, but she could sense the urgency in his movements.
"What will you do once we reach the surface?" Meisha asked. "Aazen and the Shadow Thieves will be long gone."
"Cesira," Kall said, hauling himself up another rung. "They'll be going for the house. I have to be there."
"And Varan?" Meisha asked.
"The Shadow Thieves will have him," Kall said. "They won't give him up easily."
Neither will I, Meisha thought.
Below them, Garavin succumbed to a fit of coughing that echoed through the shaft. Kall stopped the group.
"How are you doing, old friend," he called down.
Morgan answered him. "He's spitting some blood, Kall. That silver light messed him up bad."
"Hang on just a little longer," Kall said. "We're almost out of this shaft." He closed his eyes and murmured a prayer to Dumathoin.
Don't forsake your servant now.
Kall looked up. He could see an obstacle ahead. He motioned for Meisha to send a fire globe up so he could see.
"Son of a god's cursed whore," he hissed under his breath.
Staring him in the face was a rusty shield floating in a cloud of viscous fluid. The fire globe drifted higher. Kall could make out the edges of a gelatinous cube suctioned to the walls of the shaft.
"Is it alive?" Meisha asked. She touched the oozing substance dribbling down the walls.
"Alive or dead, it can still suffocate us, depending on how far up the shaft it reaches," Dantane said.
Kall leaned closer to the cube. The slime distorted the objects within—relics of the creature's last victims—but he could make out enough of the stone handholds inside the cube to pull himself through.
"Morgan, I need your rope," he called down.
Morgan unhooked an end of silk cord from his belt and tossed it up to Kall. Tying one end of the rope around his waist, Kall handed the other to Meisha.
"When I pull the cord in three quick jerks, it means I've reached the other side," he said. "The next person uses the rope to climb up. We pull Garavin and Borl up last." He looked at Talal. "Big breath," he told the boy.
Talal muttered, "Already drowned once today, why not twice?"
"Hold it in tight," said Kall, "You don't want a lungful of what's up there. You won't come back from it."
Secured by the rope, Kall positioned himself in a crouch on the stone ledge and thrust up from the knees, into the gelatinous cube.
Sound and light instantly disappeared. Kall tried to lift his arms, but it was as if someone had attached sandbags to his muscles. His muscles burning and stretching with the effort, he gripped the next rung and climbed.
His face brushed something hard that felt vaguely like fingers—a lost gauntlet, perhaps, all that was left of one of the cube's victims. Kall would have shuddered, if his muscles could have responded to the impulse.
His lungs burned. The rough stone grated against his injured hands. They would be raw and bleeding again soon. With a desperate shove, he broke through the slimy surface and hit his chest against a stone platform.
Coughing and spitting slime, Kall hauled his lower body out of the cube and onto the stone platform. He lay on his back gasping for a moment. His entire body was saturated with slime, but at least he could breathe air again.
Kall wiped his eyes clear and saw darkness, illuminated faintly by Meisha's fire globes drifting below. The light filtering through the cube cast eerie green glows on the walls.
Gathering the rope about his waist, Kall pulled until it came taut three times. He hoped Meisha's slighter weight would make the climb easier.
A tense moment later, a cap of black hair broke the surface, and Meisha crawled up beside him onto the stone ledge.
"What a wonderful experience," the Harper said, flicking the substance off her fingers. Slime plastered her hair to her forehead, and her eyelashes stuck together in dark clumps.
The others followed slowly, until only Garavin and Borl remained. It took the combined strength of Kall, Morgan, and Dantane to haul the pair through the cube, Borl with his muzzle and nose tied shut with cloth. By the time the dwarf was clear of the creature, he barely breathed. Kall quickly unfastened the cloth that kept the dog from breathing in the slime, then turned to Garavin.
"Help me clean him off," Kall ordered. "The slime will corrode his skin if it's left alone."
They laid the gasping dwarf down onto the stone platform. Garavin dredged up a grin for Morgan as the thief tried to wipe away the slime.
"Laerin would be chuckling if he could see ye playing nursemaid," the dwarf said.
Morgan offered one of his halfhearted grunts. "Don't get used to it," he said.
"All right, finish up," Kall said. "We have to keep moving." He pointed to a tunnel angling away from the shaft. "Level ground, Garavin," he said. "Easy going."
"If it lasts." Dantane said, always the voice of dissension. He nodded to the dwarf. "He won't make another climb like this."
"I'll be looking after myself just fine, young one," said Garavin sharply. He got to his feet unaided, but leaned heavily against the tunnel wall.
Kall exchanged a glance with Morgan. Garavin never lost patience with anyone. For the taciturn dwarf to do so now frightened Kall more than a little.
"We'll rest here," Kall said. "Dantane's right. We don't know how long any of us will last if we encounter another long climb."
The others moved away to give the dwarf some room. Kall guided his friend back to a sitting position and settled beside him.
Garavin leaned heavily on him for support. When he looked at Kall, his pupils had dilated to two piercing black holes surrounded by a mound of wrinkles. He seemed to have aged a decade in the space of a moment.
"What happened, Garavin?" Kall asked, keeping his voice low. "Was it really Dumathoin on the bridge?"
The dwarf closed his eyes and breathed. The rough wheeze was barely audible. "It was ... a power I've never felt before, lad—or could ever hope to feel again."
"Did the power consume you from the inside?" Kall asked urgently. "Can you recover?"
"I think so," said Garavin. "To live on—feels like Dumathoin's plan for me." He looked at Kall. "But we—none of us, have the guarantee of living through this passage."
"Don't worry, I'll see to that," said Kall.
Across the tunnel, Meisha listened with half an ear to their conversation, and used her remaining attention to direct the light globes down the tunnel to scout ahead.