“It seems he would choose otherwise,” Dantane observed.
Meisha shook her head grimly. “I pray that choice doesn’t bring about his doom,” she said, “if it has not already.”
She touched the crystal, and the phantom Varan appeared again, drawing Meisha’s attention back to the pedestals. This time the apprentice was not Meisha, but a young man with short blond hair cropped in a bowl shape.
“Prieces,” Meisha said. “The earth savant. I’ve never seen this.”
The young man appeared pale and drawn, even by the blurry magic illuminating the memory. His gestures were not as crisp as the child-Meisha’s had been. His arms weighed heavily with fatigue, but he pressed on under Varans encouraging gaze.
The earth elemental crawled up from the ground opposite Varan, but it was bigger—twice as broad as the creature Meisha had helped to summon. The force of its arrival shook the cavern, knocking Prieces from the pedestal. Varan reacted instantly, throwing out a spell to keep the apprentice from injuring himself. He didn’t see the earth elemental smash the pedestal Prieces was standing on in half. Stone shards flew, striking Varan in the back. The wizard turned, intending to banish the creature, Meisha thought, but the thing rose up, crashing headfirst into the ceiling. Cracks fissured through the stone, and the chamber, unstable from all the tunnels carved in one place, began to come apart.
The elemental thrashed wildly, seeking release. It picked up the shattered pieces of the pedestals and threw them. The flat portion hit the wall and fell back, crushing Prieces beneath it.
Meisha cried out and ran forward. Dantane caught her arm. “It is an illusion. It isn’t real,” he hissed in her ear.
“But it did happen,” Meisha whispered. She watched helplessly as Varan shouted an incantation that blew the stone aside, into the earth elemental. The force of the spell knocked the creature backward off its massive feet, giving Varan time to levitate Prieces to safety, but it was too late. The body of the unfortunate apprentice hung limply in the air, his neck broken.
Varan turned, chanting a spell that finally banished the elemental. The wizard collapsed to his knees next to Prieces. Stone continued to fall, but he erected a magical barrier that deflected the falling rock.
“Look there,” said Dantane, pointing across the chamber. The back wall of the cavern had completely caved in, revealing another set of passages that curved and split off in the darkness. Within them, a light burned, but Varan was oblivious to it.
“Is that another testing chamber?” asked Dantane.
Meisha shook her head. “There should be nothing behind that wall but solid rock.”
They watched the strange light grow brighter, and as the rumbling gradually ceased, another sound filled the silence—the tap-tap of what sounded like rain on a campfire.
The light flickered and went out, but only because an object had passed in front of it, a swift, blurry movement not unlike the fire elemental.
Not rain, Meisha thought, as the thing coalesced, taking on shape and substance, but claws.
Dantane gasped when he saw what the walls had imprisoned. “Impossible,” he said.
Laerin hauled Morgan to his feet. The rogue’s boots skidded on a pile of bones. Morgan regained his footing and cursed a loud, long streak that echoed down the tunnel.
“See how you corrupt the children,” Laerin tutted, shooting a wink at Talal.
Talal didn’t share the humor. He was still on the ground, shards of broken bone digging into his knees.
“Where are we?” he asked. He dislodged an oblong skull from a pile. “What are all these?”
“Animal remains,” Laerin surmised, taking the skull from him. “Wolves of great size. They all died here together.”
“In pieces,” Morgan said. His head perked up. “Quiet.” Talal listened and heard the echo of footsteps. Swiftly, Morgan picked up the remains of a battered rib cage and smashed it into the face of a Shadow Thief as he came around the corner.
The thief went down, and Morgan put his boot on the man’s neck.
“Brittle pieces.” Morgan sniffed. He cast away the shredded bone cage.
“Is he harmless?” Laerin asked. The squirming thief was trying to reach a dagger clipped in his boot.
Morgan pressed harder, until the man choked. “As kitten teats.” he grinned.
“Let me talk to him.” Laerin squatted next to the thief. “Where are the others?” he asked calmly.
“Your friends or mine?” the thief rasped. He spat blood in Laerin’s face.
The half-elf wiped the dripping red trails. “This one’s as lost as we are,” he told Morgan. “Have you ever been down here before?” he asked the man.
“No,” the thief said, for he could’n’t shake his head under the weight of Morgan’s boot. “We’ve never been in these tunnels.”
“Think Meisha knows about this place?” Talal asked hopefully.
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t wager on finding her soon,” Morgan said, “if this place’s as vast as it seems.” He pointed to three tunnels splitting off the cavern, all stretching an indeterminate distance before branching again.
“We’d better start looking,” Laerin said. “Let me scout ahead.”
“What do we do with him?” Talal asked, indicating the thief.
“Trap trigger,” Morgan said cheerfully. “We’ll move faster that way, with him testing the path ahead of us.”
“Clear,” Laerin declared, trotting back up the passage. “Narrow, but more likely to be free of traps. These caves are buried too deep to be heavily protected.”
“Cheerful thought for this one,” said Morgan, dragging the Shadow Thief to his feet. He shone his last torch over the walls. “Not one of these tunnels looks to be sloping up. They’re all going deeper underground. Anything look familiar?” he asked, nudging Talal.
Talal shook his head. “Where do you think the others are?” he asked, though he feared the answer. He’d seen Meisha fall down the chasm.
“Portals malfunction,” said Laerin. “When that happens, they can deposit a person off the mark from where they intended to appear—a few feet, a mile …”
“Into a wall,” Morgan muttered, and Talal’s heart wrenched.
Laerin squeezed his shoulder and sent Morgan a quelling glance. “The portal is old,” he said, “but I believe it to be sound. We’ll find them.”
“I suppose more of them damn shadow mongrels got scattered about, too,” said Morgan.
“That might be a blessing,” said Laerin. “If they followed us and are separated, we may have a better chance of overcoming them. Speaking of which …” The half-elf drew his dagger and prodded the Shadow Thief in the back. “Hearty congratulations,” he told the man, “you’re taking point. Stray too far ahead and you’ll find my blade between your shoulders.”
The thief nodded curtly, and the group set off with him and Laerin leading.
The first tunnel bent to the right, then bent back on itself so sharply that the way was impassable for even Talal; they had to backtrack to the second tunnel.
Morgan made slash marks on the walls with a crusty piece of chalk to show where they’d been.
The center tunnel connected three larger chambers. A blackened firepit in the center of the first room suggested a kitchen; fragments of rotting wood might once have served as furniture.
“Living quarters,” Laerin said. “If the Howlings did dwell all the way down here, they lived sparsely.”
“The tunnel’s are defensible,” Morgan said. “Long bottlenecks, mazelike. And if the portal’s the only way down, they can dig themselves in cozy if they have to.”
“I have a hard time believing the dwarves would rely on magic alone to move them through the earth,” said Laerin. “It’s not their nature.”