The Howling Delve

Chapter Twenty-Six

Balram stepped into Morels main hall. He felt as if time had reversed itself. Suddenly he was back in Esmeltaran, his men at his side, seeking Morel’s death.

But the setting had changed, and it wasn’t Morel or his son who faced him from the top of the ballroom staircase. A woman stood there, wrapped in a hooded cloak, her face painted in forest colors. A long spear rested comfortably in the crook of her right arm. She looked like a savage carved from stone—beautiful and cold—staring at him as if she craved his death.

“Lady Morel.” He bowed in greeting, allowing his men to fan out across the hall. If she was intimidated by the show of strength, her expression did nothing to give it away. She walked down the stairs, her soft boots padding against the wood. She stopped on the first landing.

“Might I have the pleasure of knowing you?” Balram asked when she said nothing.

Certainly, sir, she replied, but Balram could not hear her voice. He could only follow the movement of her lips to make out her words. She tipped her spear horizontal and threw. A soft, singing chime filled the ballroom. The spear impaled the man standing just to Balram’s left, one who’d been taking slow steps toward the base of the stairs.

Keeping his eyes trained on the woman, Balram bent to see that the man was dead. As he did so, his eyes fell on the druid’s spear. Tied among its decorations was the emerald-stone symbol of Morel. When Balram’s fingers brushed it, the woman spoke again. This time her voice rang out clear across the hall, making Balram startle.

I am Cesira of the Starwater Six, Quiet One of Silvanus, and the lady of this house—she inclined her head stiffly—and the doom of Balram Kortrun. She glided back a step and pressed her hand to the banister rail in a certain spot.

Balram’s eyes widened in shocked recognition. Gods, she couldn’t know the locations of the …

“Fall back!” he cried, much too late.

The floor tiles running down the center of the hall creaked from years of lying stationary, but the trap still functioned.

Spikes exploded from the floor, catching the men behind him in a deadly hedge. Two went down as the sharpened edges burst through the backs of their legs. The rest managed to leap away, but the trap had cut them off from the exit.

Balram turned to the stairs, but Cesira had climbed back to the top. She stood behind the balcony rail, a second spear resting on her shoulder.

“You won’t get out of here alive, bitch,” he snarled at her. He motioned to one of his men, who began moving along the outer wall, smashing lanterns and spilling oil in streams across the floor. Fire licked up in tall pools. “You’ll burn with this house, if we don’t get to you first.”

Then by all means, Cesira said, holding out her arms, Come to me.

The fire beast exalted in his find. Magic raged wildly above his head, fueled by the mad wizard and their mental link.

The mortals were scattered throughout his domain. He could smell them leaving their imprints on the Delve in a complex web, moving, trying to find each other.

The woman of fire and one other—they were closest to his former prison. The beast dismissed them at once as too easy. Let them have a start on the game. He relished the challenge of two well-prepared magic wielders.

His senses drifted outward. Two more were near the thoroughfare, and a larger party was across the bridges—but wait. The beast picked out the scent, distantly, in the Howling burrow. Four fighters, moving stealthily—deeper into the mazelike tunnels constructed by the dwarves.

There lay his hunt, a chase through the labyrinth to claim the first of his prizes.

The beast rumbled in satisfaction. He stretched his lean muscles and began to run, tracing the faint scents to their source.

Meisha felt as if her bones had been dashed over rocks. Perhaps they had been. She felt a hand prod her shoulder and hadn’t even the strength to fight it off.

“Meisha.”

Dantane’s face swam into focus. The wizard leaned over her with a vial in his hand identical to the one he’d given her in the portal room. “Drink,” he said, putting the glass to her lips.

Meisha drank, and gradually felt the strength returning to her aching arm and leg. The magic faded, leaving only a dull pain. “Where are we?”

“We came through a second portal,” Dantane said. His voice sounded odd, uncertain. “The chasm in the floor. I found you not far from where I appeared. I don’t know where we are, but you need to see something.”

“What is it?” she asked.

Dantane hesitated. “I believe it’s you.”

“What?” Meisha sat up, gazing over the wizard’s shoulder.

She recognized where they were immediately. The circular chamber was crowded with pedestals of rock rising up four, six, sometimes ten feet into the air, separating the chamber into various levels. Two exits lay at opposite ends of the room. At the ends of those tunnels would be similar testing chambers.

“The star,” she murmured.

Meisha suddenly realized they weren’t alone. She looked up at the shortest pedestal, where a child stood. She was bald but for a dark fuzz beginning to sprout from the top of her head. She waved her arms in the motions of a spell. Below her, a man in well-kept robes watched her casting with a critical eye.

Varan—but not the mad wizard trapped in the Delve. This Varan was whole, and appeared much younger. For Meisha, seeing the little girl was like seeing a ghost.

“We’re in a testing chamber,” she said, for Dantane’s benefit. “Varan designated one for each apprentice, arranged like the points of a star. When I was here, these caves could only be reached through Varan. He teleported us down.”

“You didn’t know the portal led down here?” asked Dantane.

“No. I didn’t know Varan knew of the portal,” she admitted. “The markings on it don’t match his sigils. Perhaps that was how he discovered the secret tunnels,” she murmured, half to herself, “through the portal.”

“There are more caverns?” Dantane prompted. “Do you know where?”

“Varan said they adjoined the testing chambers somehow. We looked, as apprentices, but the entrance was magically concealed. I suppose it’s possible, now his other magics are breaking down, that the connecting passage has been revealed.”

“So we’ll have to explore each chamber,” Dantane said. “Our companions might be there, or in the other tunnels.” He looked at her. “Do you know what they contained?”

Meisha laughed humorlessly. “Whatever great Art the Howlings saw fit to store. You were deposited in the wrong place, Dantane, if you seek treasure down here.”

The wizard grimaced. “Such seems to be the course of my life,” he said.

Meisha stood up, her eyes drawn back to the phantom image atop the pedestal. She watched, fascinated, as the air in front of her double seemed to split in two. Out of the breach came the head of a being that only vaguely resembled a human. Hairless, outlined in white flame, it stared at its summoner curiously. Though she felt no heat, Meisha recalled well how the air around the creature rippled with burning. It was the first time she’d ever interacted with a fire elemental.

The scene blurred and faded, leaving them alone in the chamber.

“What was that?” asked Dantane.

“A memory,” answered Meisha, “from soon after I came to the Delve. I was a Wraith—half-feral—in Keczulla, when Varan found me. He took me on as an apprentice because he sensed my talent. I remember when he brought me down here to converse with the fire elemental. I could feel it burning, just like I burned inside. It’s part of every savant’s training, to recognize how their spirit matches the element they’ve chosen. With proper training, eventually, the spirit melds with that force and becomes part of it,” Meisha said, her voice oddly hushed.

“Is that what you aspire to?” Dantane asked, “to join with the fire and become as an elemental creature?”

She glanced at him. “It’s what every savant wants.”

“But do you?”

Without answering, Meisha stood up, her eyes scanning the floor where the phantom images had been. “There.” She bent down, lifting a small piece of glittering crystal from the floor. “The source of the memories,” she explained.

“Your masters work,” Dantane said, impressed. “He has great power.”

“Obviously, not enough,” Meisha said, “or he failed to follow his own teachings.”

Had Varan recorded all his past sessions with his apprentices? she wondered, and if so, how many crystals, how much Art would be required for such a task?

“Why do you despise him so much?” Dantane asked. “He awoke the power in you. Without it, you might have died a Wraith.”

“I know,” Meisha said. “He cared about me, as much as he was capable of such feelings. He offered me magic and a place in his world, but I couldn’t accept it.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I hadn’t possessed that power and if Varan hadn’t sensed it, he would have passed me by on that street without looking twice. It was the power that fascinated him most, not any of us. And yet, I still wanted to love him.”

“Then why did you come back?” Dantane asked. “Why help him now?”

“Because he was right. He was the only one who understood me, and I still love him for that,” Meisha said bleakly. “That bond—the one I see reflected in Kall’s group—I’ve known nothing like it, not since the night Shaera left the candle in my room.”

“Shaera?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Meisha waved the memories away. “She’s gone now—they’re all dead—and Varan is not the master I knew.”

“What about the boy,” Dantane persisted, “the one who followed you?”

“Talal,” Meisha said, and something inside her constricted. She’d avoided thinking about the boy. “Talal is … he has no scrap of magical power in him, and yet I find myself wanting to mentor him, in life, if not in the Art. It’s strange. Then, in the next breath, I remember what I am and what I could do. When I remember, I want to put him as far from myself as I possibly can.”

“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.”

Talal gazed down the third tunnel. The passage spilled into a long, narrow chamber. Chipped and sheared stalagmites formed stone benches. A dozen men would have fit comfortably in the room, Talal thought, but the benches squatted close to the floor to accommodate shorter legs.

At the back of the room, situated in front of another tunnel, a wide altar rose up from the floor. Spiky writing was etched deep into the stone, but a crack cut a jagged line down the center of the monument.

Talal watched Morgan and Laerin examine the writing. The half-elf’s lips moved as if he could read the words. His face creased in consternation.

“What does it say?” Talal asked.

The half-elf cocked his head. “The script is Dwarvish, of course. It’s an altar to Abbathor, the dwarf god of greed.”

Talal knew nothing of the dwarf gods, not enough to blaspheme them, anyway. He would have to ask Meisha about Abbathor.

The thought of the Harper sent an unexpected stab of pain through his chest. If she’s alive, she’s safer than you are, Talal told himself. He was the fool. He’d had the opportunity to escape and see daylight again, but he’d wasted it worrying over a fire-twisted Harper he barely knew.

His thoughts shattered when a sharp blow cuffed the side of his head.

“Watch him!” Laerin shouted, and the half-elf was suddenly in front of Talal, shielding him with his body.

Dizzy and in pain, Talal heard Morgan grunt and, a breath later, the sound of a body dropping on stone.

Laerin’s arm caught his. “Are you all right?”

Talal wiped blood from his temple where the Shadow Thief had struck him. “Second time they’ve roughed up my head,” he mumbled.

Laerin grinned. “Luckily you keep nothing important up there.” His face sobered. “Forgive me, I should have been watching him more closely.” He turned to Morgan, who was wiping blood from his sword. “Dead?”

Morgan nodded. “Hope you were done questioning him.”

“I was,” Laerin replied, taking one last look at the altar. “A pity Garavin isn’t here. He would have wanted to see this.”

They headed for the tunnel at the back of the temple, but Talal stopped abruptly. His head still felt fuzzy from the blow. He wondered if he were imagining things. “Did you hear that?” he asked.

Morgan and Laerin continued ahead of him. “Keep up,” grunted Morgan.

“It sounded like … rain.”

They moved past an intersection of four tunnels. Laerin choose to keep going straight, but the sound persisted just at the edges of Talal’s hearing. He wondered why the half-elf couldn’t hear the steady beat, water against stone.

Talal glanced behind and saw movement in the darkness of the intersection. “Look at that!”

Laerin turned, following the streak of Morgan’s pointing torch.

A dwarf ran into the intersection. He was bald, dressed in plated armor that should have creaked loudly in the stillness. His short legs skidded on the loose dirt, but he caught himself with a hand on the ground. He half-turned toward them, and Talal gasped.

The entire left side of the dwarf’s face was gone, exposing white skull and a length of jawbone. Torchlight flickered off the shadows and hollows created by the missing flesh. No one could be that injured and live. The dwarf was dead, Talal thought, just like the one he and Meisha had encountered in the upper tunnels. He was dead, and he was running. None of the other ghosts had run, and none had looked at Talal with such terror-filled eyes.

The dwarf regained his feet and plowed on down the tunnel. The sound of rain drew closer.

“Talal,” said Laerin, drawing his sword, “Run. Down the passage—now!”

Talal felt the half-elf shove him hard. He stumbled and fell, unable to take his eyes off the intersection. Fear crawled along his body. A breeze passed over his skin, bringing heat and a scent that made his eyes water. The tunnel suddenly felt humid. Steam pools rose up from the floor, and the sound of rain became a sizzling.

Talal crushed his eyes shut, and time seemed to slow, as if he were experiencing everything from a great distance. He opened his eyes in time to see a shape pass through the intersection, filling it utterly with weight and light. The timeless silence shattered, sundered by a roar that filled the caverns, knocking Morgan and Laerin to their knees.

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, loo 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—”

A loud keening drowned out the rest. Talal went down in a protective crouch, while Laerin and Morgan turned to see what had made the sound.

Curved claws raked the stone, stabbing through the gap in the rocks. Stone chips flew, and the smell of brimstone filled the chamber.

Every coherent thought fled Talal’s mind. Rationally, he knew the demon couldn’t penetrate the layers of rock, not quickly, but all he could hear were the claws shearing away the stone.

“Get in the water!” Morgan shouted to be heard over the awful sound. “Swim to the other side!”

Talal backed away—he’d never liked water—but Laerin dragged him into the river, and soon he was forced to swim.

The current threatened to pull him down. Talal fought it, but it took Morgan’s strong arm to haul him out on the other side, else he would have been carried away.

On the opposite bank, the sound of the river muffled the demon’s claws enough to allow them to talk.

Morgan, his hair dripping in lanky strands around his exhausted face, said, “Figure it drove us in here?”

Laerin nodded. “I probably cracked a pair of your ribs, pushing you through that gap. He’s wearing us down.”

“Not much need for that,” said Morgan, “once he corners us.”

“I don’t think he’ll do that yet,” said Laerin. “He’s just stretching his legs. He knows we’ll get out of here.” The halfelf pointed to the wishbone in the wall. “That way.”

Talal blanched. “We don’t know how far the river runs, do we? That thing won’t need to kill us if we drown first.”

“I’m willing to bet there’s another chamber nearby,” said Laerin. He looked at Morgan. “What do you think? Can’t be much longer than that sewer tunnel in Waterdeep.”

“Least the water’s cleaner,” Morgan said. “I think I got enough breath in my lungs.”

Talal couldn’t believe what he was hearing. They were all lunatics.

“Give me back the fire-woman,” he muttered.

“Sorry,” Morgan said, “Fire can’t go where we’re headed.” He inverted the torch he carried into the river.

Instantly, Talal went blind. The oppressive darkness of the Delve closed in around him. He felt Laerin’s hand on his shoulder, prodding him toward the rushing water. Reluctantly, Talal waded back into the frigid river and let the current snare him.

Treading water, he felt the downward sweep to the wishbone just before his shoulders brushed rock.

For a moment, Talal panicked. He braced his hands on either side of the passage, resisting the water’s pull with all his strength. He didn’t want to drown. He’d end up a blue corpse in the dark, and no one in Faerûn would care.

“You can’t fight it forever,” said Morgan’s voice in his ear. “But you can go on your terms.”

Talal forced a steadying breath into his lungs. Calmer, he closed his eyes and remembered how it was to feel his way in the dark. He’d done it before. He could do it underwater. Cautiously, he let his hands slide down the stones, following the curve of the wishbone.

Pretend it’s a lass’s legs, Dirty Bones, and stop your whining.

The water closed over his head.

Froglike, Talal swam with the current. He kept one hand above his head to brush the stone ceiling, searching for air. The river propelled him forward at a quick pace. He sensed Morgan and Laerin beside him now and then, though he could see nothing in the dark. The water dragged at his shirt. Talal stripped it off and left it for some deep-dweller to find.

Ten feet farther Talal’s shoulder banged against something rough and unyielding. Talal hoped it wasn’t alive, or if it were, that it couldn’t swallow him. He kicked sideways and realized the river bent, angling off to his left. He had no choice but to follow the path.

His lungs began to burn. Unconsciously, he let a tiny gasp of air escape. The respite was brief, however, and the burning sensation that followed was excruciating.

Kicking feebly now, Talal allowed the river to carry him. His hand dragged limply across the unbroken rock ceiling. He felt no gap, no magical pocket of air to save him.

The muscles in his abdomen convulsed. His body demanded air, and in its absence was willing to drag in lungfuls of the killing water. Talal clutched his midsection, trying to hold in his last gasp.

His hand slid off the rock. Talal spasmed, sucking in a freezing cold breath. His lungs suddenly felt heavy. His muscles contorted in agony. Then the pain went away, and the cold, and Dirty Bones went to sleep.

He awoke vomiting water.

Talal heard Morgan cursing and felt the big man’s arm supporting his chest as he emptied the river from his body.

When he could breathe again, Talal looked around. They were in another tunnel, but he could hear the river somewhere behind him. Morgan must have carried his body a short distance before reviving him. Talal had thought himself dead. He shivered violently at the memory of his near-drowning.

Laerin offered a hand to pull him to his feet. “We can’t linger here. The creature will follow the river and fence us in again if we don’t keep moving.”

They moved off down yet another tunnel, but Talal trailed behind. His legs felt rubbery, and his lungs still ached. The only thing that kept him moving was the presence of the demon’s frightening aura, steadily building behind them. Every time they came to an intersection, Laerin changed their direction and increased his speed. Soon they were running again. Behind them, the sound of rain echoed in the tunnels, drawing closer.

“Keep turning!” Laerin shouted as they ran. “Out-maneuvering is the only way. If it catches us, there won’t be any room to fight. We’ll be running through a forest of razors.”

Laerin skidded down a short, steep incline. At the end of the slide was a vast chamber that opened wide and dipped into a crater. Stalagmites, arranged like a maze, rose from the floor like trees, forming dense clusters throughout the room. Two paths led from one side of the chamber to the other.

“Help me,” said Morgan, grabbing Talal by the waist.

“Let go!” Talal kicked air in a futile attempt to win loose, but Morgan’s grip was solid. Laerin came up on his other side, snagging his foot. The half-elf went to one knee and hauled upward, tossing Talal bodily into the air. He landed hard on his stomach on one of the higher platforms. The breath whooshed out of his lungs.

“Stay there!” Morgan hollered when he rolled to the edge. The echo of another roar—so damn close!—and the sound of claws raking stone reached Talal’s ears. He fought the urge to curl into a ball.

“Not enough,” said Laerin. “The demon will smell him before it gets into the room.”

“Suggestions welcome,” Morgan growled. “Stand or run?”

Laerin regarded the two pathways through the chamber. Each led to a separate exit. “Split up,” he said finally. “We’ll each take a path. The boy can run along the top. With luck, it’ll only be able to chase one of us. Talal can follow the other into the tunnel and hopefully find Kall.”

“Awful lot of luck and hope in that plan,” said Morgan, his face white.

Laerin smiled grimly. “We work with what we have,” he said. He looked up. “Do you understand what we’re going to do, Talal?”

Talal swallowed. “I got it,” he whispered.

Laerin met Morgan’s gaze steadily. “One more bet,” he challenged softly. “Let it be a race.”

Morgan grunted, but his grip faltered as he reached in his pouch and dropped two gold coins on the ground. “A race, then.”

“Two danters?” Laerin whistled. “Heavy price.”

“Seemed appropriate.”

A deafening crash sounded nearby, but they felt the demon’s approach long before they heard his claws again.

Morgan jerked his head. “Go.”

Talal crouched near the wall, ready to jump to the next stalagmite cluster. He watched Morgan and Laerin take off at a sprint down their separate corridors. He glanced at the far tunnels, willing the pair to reach them before the demon caught up. He could feel the demon coming closer. Brimstone scent crawled over his skin, into his clothes.

“Run,” he whispered, “run, oh run, oh run.” He chanted it like a prayer, the closest he’d ever come in his life to crying out for divine intervention. But to whom would he implore? There were no gods left that he hadn’t blasphemed. None of them would believe an abrupt conversion to the faith. Talal almost smiled at that, but he was too deeply sunk in despair and the horror of the demon’s aura.

Talal suppressed a whimper when the beast entered the chamber. For a long, terrible moment the beast just stood there, then he raised his head and looked straight at Talal. Talal wanted to run, heedless of the consequences. He held himself down, scratching his nails against the stone until they bled. If he ran, the beast would kill him. Talal sensed the demon testing him almost teasingly with his powers. He squeezed his eyes shut against the awful fear.

Then it was over. The demon passed by, charging down one of the corridors. Talal opened his eyes and forced himself to stand, to watch the beast run down his prey.

From his viewpoint, above the scene, Talal saw which corridor the beast chose. The figure running before the demon—so small in comparison to the beast—never had a chance. At the last moment, he turned, his weapon brandished, and fell beneath hundreds of pounds of burning muscle.

The demon came down on the sword, howling in rage and pain, raking the body beneath him from shoulders to calves. At the same time, the beasts jaws closed on his victim’s neck, snapping it with one careless jerk.

Bile burned Talal’s throat. So much blood, and yet the demon ran on, trailing red prints down the passage on his hunt.

Talal didn’t stop to grieve. He bolted for the other tunnel.

Kall opened his eyes when the green light faded. Garavin and Borl stood over him. He must have blacked out from loss of blood during the transition through the portal. The dwarf was binding his arm. His holy symbol hung away from his neck, brushing against Kall’s bare flesh. Kall felt the same brief, warm jolt he’d felt years ago from the relic.

“Thought I’d lost all of ye,” Garavin murmured as Kall looked around. The three of them were alone in a smaller version of the cave they’d just left. The circle of stones sat to his left, but there was no chasm in the floor or shaft above. The room was dark, but for lines of dim light shining through a pair of doors at the end of a narrow passage.

“Where are the others?” Kall asked, panic rising inside him.

“They didn’t come through,” said Garavin. “Or they ended up somewhere else.”

“Is that possible?”

“In this place, who’s to say? But if this other portal is old as the Delve, and what with the wizard’s magic disturbing the cavern, it may have malfunctioned and scattered us about. The others should be close by, if that’s the case.”

“We have to find them and get out of here,” said Kall.

He headed for the light. When they drew closer, Kall realized the double doors ascended over two stories up the rock. A winch was attached to the doors to pull them open.

“I wonder if the dwarves built this,” said Kall.

“Only way out,” said Garavin.

They took hold of the crank together and pulled. The mechanism ground with age and neglect, but turned after a moment of coaxing. The doors ground against stone, the sounds echoing loudly in the passage. When the doors were half-open, Kall signaled Garavin to stop and peered out through the man-sized opening.

“Gods above,” Kall murmured in awe.

Kall stepped out onto the narrow stone bridge that extended just beyond the double doors. Garavin and Borl came to stand beside him. A memory surfaced, of meeting Meisha, on the Star Bridge outside Keczulla. The markings on this bridge were strikingly similar, except there was no roaring river beneath his feet, only an endless, black abyss stretching off in both directions.

Below and above, more bridges joined two steep rock walls divided like the parting of a great, barren sea. On both sides, tunnels honeycombed the walls—some were open, others secured with doors similar to the ones they’d just passed through. Blocks of a strange, clear substance obstructed three doors; they seemed to writhe and twist within the confines of the stone portals.

“What are those?” Kall asked.

Garavin looked where he pointed. “Gelatinous cubes,” he said.

“Amazing,” Kall murmured. For as far as he could see, there were only the tunnels and the rock walls, and the bridges over the abyss. It was as if they’d stepped into an underground labyrinth. They had only to choose a door.

Morgan whipped around the corner and stopped, listening. Had the demon passed the chamber by or gone for the boy, despite their efforts? He dragged his blade out of its sheath. The tunnel lay open and inviting before him, but Morgan turned his back on it. As good a place as any to make a stand, he thought, much as it pained him to let the half-elf win a bet.

Rocks showered his hair from above. Morgan swung in an upward arc but checked the blow just in time.

Talal came skidding down the stalagmite to land next to him. He paused long enough to grab Morgan’s arm, towing him along.

Morgan pushed the boy away. “Keep going,” he hissed. “I’ll hold it off.”

“He’s dead,” Talal cried, plucking stubbornly at the thief’s tunic. “We have to run, we have to … he’ll kill us…”

The boy was hysterical. He didn’t know what he was saying. Morgan turned back to the room. “Come on!” he shouted wildly. “Come at me, you bastard!”

“Shut up,” Talal squeaked. “He’ll come back. We have to … have to go.”

But Morgan’s feet refused to move. His mind worked sluggishly: the half-elf… Morgan hadn’t heard it. He’d heard nothing. What kind of thief was he, what kind of partner, not to hear when the job went wrong?

The stupid half-elf had always been faster than him. “Legs like twigs, but he moved like he weighed nothing,” Morgan babbled. He tried to make the boy understand. “He should’ve won; we never let each other win. The arrogant bastard should be halfway back to Keczulla by now.”

Talal moaned in despair. “You’re crazy. That thing’s going to kill us both, and it’ll all be for nothing!” He pushed, but Morgan grabbed him roughly.

“Listen to what I’m telling you!” Morgan shook the boy by the shoulder, ignoring his whimper of pain. “We’ll meet up with him at the next intersection. He’ll be there, waiting, and then—”

His head snapped to the side. Stars filled the corners of Morgan’s vision. He looked at Talal in bewilderment. It slowly dawned on him that the boy had punched him in the jaw. He raised a hand; Talal flinched. Tears streamed down his thin face.

Morgan blinked several times to clear his head. Calmly, he forced all thoughts of the half-elf to a dark corner of his mind. Later, after he had spilled enough blood, he would take them out and examine them.

He grabbed the boy by the collar, pushing him toward the tunnel. “Run fast, little mouse,” he growled. “Or we’re all meat.” At Talal’s uncertain expression, he said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be right behind you.”