“Thank Pelor,” he said, “I think I found mine.”
“Good,” said Naull, “light my torch.”
Regdar carefully opened the little suede pouch that held his flint and steel, realizing that if he were to drop it in his haste, he might never find it. All the while, he kept his eyes closed—he remembered somewhere that he was supposed to do that. The purple blotches brought on by the wayward light spell were gone, leaving only the odd flash and trace of red he saw whenever he closed his eyes.
“Do you have it?” Naull asked, impatience making her voice shake.
Regdar felt the cool of the steel and the roughness of the flint and took a deep breath, holding them away from his face—and stopped.
“Regdar?” Naull asked, obviously sensing his hesitation.
“I can’t see your torch,” he said.
Naull answered with an irritated sigh.
Regdar held the flint and steel carefully in his left hand and pushed his right hand into his backpack again.
“I’ll have to find one of mine,” he said.
There was a rustling of fabric from the same general direction that Naull’s voice had come from, and she said, “I’ll try to find my flint and thrice-bedamned steel.”
Regdar, irritated himself and amazed at how cavernous his backpack felt now that he couldn’t see what was in it, nodded, not realizing that Naull couldn’t see the gesture. When his hand finally closed around the rag-covered head of a torch, he sighed and slid it out.
“I have one,” he whispered to Naull.
He tapped the flint and steel together and a tiny spark flew, not even shedding enough light for Regdar to see his own fingertips for the slightest second.
“Light it,” she urged.
Regdar bit back a response. What did she think he was trying to do? The second spark was bigger, and it leaped from the flint to the ragged edge of the torch cloth. A line of orange glowed in the total darkness and Regdar thought he’d never been happier to see so minute a fire.
“Did it catch?” Naull asked, apparently unable to see the growing line of orange light trace its way along the edge of the rag.
Regdar didn’t bother to answer. He puffed air into his cheeks and blew gently. Specks of light jumped from the edges of the rag, then a fire licked up, smaller than a candle flame.
“You got it!” Naull exclaimed, her words pinging through the darkness around them.
In no time, the torch was ablaze, and Regdar turned to survey the place their long fall had brought them to.
They were, as he’d expected, in a natural cave. The chamber was roughly circular, maybe ten yards across. The floor sloped gradually in one direction—Regdar had no way of knowing which way was north, south, east, or west. He didn’t even know into which end of the chamber they’d fallen, though he assumed the higher end.
The ceiling was beyond the reach of his torch, though when he held it high over his head, he could see the blunt tips of hundreds of thin stalactites. What dominated the cave, though, and explained the sounds of water, was a thin waterfall that stretched up into darkness and emptied into a pool of roughly churning water.
He looked at Naull, who was also surveying their surroundings. She was a bit haggard, her clothes in a general state of disarray, but as beautiful as Regdar pushed that unbidden thought aside and took a few steps closer to the water, looking away from the young mage.
“What do we do?” she asked.
He could feel her looking at him and could feel his face flush. He didn’t turn around, just took a couple steps closer to the edge of the pool. There was something about the way the water moved that seemed strange, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Naull stepped closer to him, and he thought she almost touched his arm, but when he looked down, he saw her pull her hand away.
“That’s not just the waterfall,” she all but whispered.
“I thought so,” Regdar said. “It’s kind of…”
“Swirling?” she offered, stepping even closer to the edge.
Regdar looked down. They were standing on a flat slab of some kind of smooth white rock. The water wasn’t splashing onto it, though, it seemed to… swirl… under it.
Regdar noticed another sound intruding on the splash of the water, and just as he opened his mouth to warn Naull that the stone was cracking, the slab fell out from under his feet, plunging them both into the icy clutches of the strange little maelstrom.
“I’m not used to working with a partner, all right?” Lidda finally admitted.
They were picking their way back through the dark forest of stalagmites, and with every step, Jozan grew less and less sure that they would ever find the bottom of the shaft, let alone Regdar and Naull. Though he knew he was taking some of his nervousness and frustration out on the halfling, it didn’t change the fact that they were in this predicament because of Lidda’s irresponsible actions. He was peering into the utter blackness all around them, hoping to see anything, so he didn’t respond to Lidda’s halfhearted admission.
“Now I get the silent treatment,” she grumbled. “Priests…”
Jozan wasn’t listening. He was angry with her, but anger was a fleeting thing, unworthy of Pelor’s servants. He could feel that Lidda had a good heart and was confident that she could be turned around. It was that feeling for people that led him to the service of Pelor, that same empathy that got him in so much trouble in the past.
Lidda stayed close to him, the light from her lantern the only hope they had to avoid the fate of the impaled goblin let alone find their way back. Jozan tried to keep his attention to the outer perimeter of the light so that he could see whatever there was to see as soon as it was possible for him to see it. Even so, he knew he’d only have a second or two to react. When he saw the web, he reached out to grab Lidda’s arm but misjudged the distance between them and almost pushed her over.
“For Olidammara’s sake, Jozan,” she spat, more surprised than angry. “I said I was sorry, what do you want me to do—”
Jozan shushed her and pointed at the web while slipping his mace off the ring on his belt. He heard Lidda draw her sword.
“We went the wrong way,” she whispered.
Jozan started moving slowly toward he web and was about to shush her again when a long, low moan echoed through the pitch-black cave. It was the unmistakable sound of someone in pain. Jozan could feel it. The hair on the backs of his arms stood on end. The voice had the sound of someone who had given up hope. Jozan had only heard that sound once before, and he’d hoped he’d never hear it again.
“It’s Regdar,” Lidda said, hopping once, then tearing away at a run.
Jozan reached out to try to stop her, but she slipped past him and was hopping over stalagmites on her way toward a sound that Jozan knew couldn’t possibly be Regdar. The priest had no choice but to follow her.
As before, she opened the distance between them quickly. She didn’t appear to be slowed by the dense stalagmites. Instead, she seemed to use them to her advantage, leapfrogging some, spinning around others, so that they seemed to be pushing her through the darkness. Jozan followed her as quickly as he could, bumping his knees and elbows, all clanking armor and panting breaths.
9
There was a loud hiss and everything went black, but that was the least of Regdar’s worries. He could feel himself being pulled underwater even as he was whipped to the side. His nose filled with water, and his eyes burned. He clamped his mouth shut and struggled to hold his breath while the fast-moving water had its way with him. His sword was ripped from his hand, and he hit rock—maybe a rock wall—and he was falling.
He could feel his face come out into air, and he drew in a quick gasp, managing to clamp his mouth shut again when water splashed into his face. He bounced off something hard—another rock—and it hurt, but he knew nothing was broken. The air was forced out of his lungs, though, and it was painful, desperate seconds before he came out of the water again long enough to draw in a breath.