Jaleigh Johnson - The Howling Delve

Garavin called Borl to his side. "I'll take my chances with ye," he said simply.

"As will I," said Laerin.

Morgan spat. "Don't be believing him!" he said. "He's just doin' it to make me look bad." He faced the portal reluctantly. "Let's go then, if we're goin'."

Kall helped Dantane to his feet. One by one, they stepped off the stones, into the green light, until only he and the wizard remained.

"What about him?" asked Dantane.

Kall knew he meant Varan, but Kall stared across the room at Aazen. He'd gathered his remaining forces under a protected shelf of rock near the blocked tunnel, but even that meager cover was cracking, coming apart like the rest of the cavern.

"He's on his own," said Kall. "So are you, Dantane, if you leave now."

The wizard shook his head. "I haven't gotten my reward yet. I go with you."

"Suit yourself." They stepped off the edge, into nothingness.

Keczulla, Amn

5 Marpenoth, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

Balram stepped into Morel's 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 master's 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 Varan's encouraging gaze.