Return of the Sorceress (17 page)

Davyn expected the tunnel to be blocked by rubble left over from a cave-in, but it ended in a wall of rock, as if whoever had dug this tunnel had, for some unknown reason, decided to stop here.

“Elidor?” Davyn called over his shoulder.

The elf came forward, bringing their prisoner with him. He handed the rope that bound Shiriki over to Catriona, and then stepped up to the craggy gray wall. He spent several moments standing and staring at the wall. He then reached out and ran both of his hands across the wall’s rough surface. He touched it here and there, seeming to feel no need to cover the entire wall. But how he chose which specific section to examine, Davyn had no idea.

Finally, after what seemed a long time but probably couldn’t have been more than a quarter hour, Elidor stepped away from the wall.

“There are no hidden catches, no seams, nothing but solid rock.”

The elf sounded disappointed, and Davyn wondered if it was because he thought he’d let down his friends or because he’d found no locks to pick or traps to disarm. Probably both, Davyn decided.

Ayanti frowned. “It doesn’t make sense that whoever went through all the trouble to carve these tunnels would just stop here.”

Catriona shrugged. “There are many reasons why such a project might be abandoned. The most obvious one is that Asvoria’s servants stopped digging after she was defeated and her spirit was trapped in the tapestry. Without their mistress around to force them, why would they keep working?”

“Maddoc has had some tunnels enlarged and extended, but not many,” Davyn said. “This may be one he’s never gotten around to—assuming he knows about it at all.”

“So what do we do now?” Elidor asked. “Turn around?”

Davyn looked at the wall once more. While it had been difficult to keep track of the progress underground, he thought there was a good chance that they were close to Cairngorn. He hated to back up and start again. The longer it took them to reach Nearra, the more time Maddoc had to do whatever he planned to do with her. But Davyn could see no other option. Not only didn’t they have the tools or the skill to continue digging the tunnel, even if they had, it would be long, slow work. They’d never—

“… color of stone …”

The words were little more than a whisper, but they immediately caught everyone’s attention. Sindri had spoken them.

The kender still looked exhausted, but his eyes were open and his lips had formed a faint smile.

“What did you say?” Catriona asked.

“The stone of the wall. It’s not the same color as the rest of the tunnel.” The kender’s voice was stronger now. “It’s a subtle difference, but you can see it if you look closely.”

Elidor frowned, but he stepped up to the wall again and peered at it intently. After a moment, his eyes widened and he turned to look at Sindri. “You’re right! I guess I was so busy looking for locks or traps that I didn’t notice the color.”

Davyn didn’t see any difference in the wall’s color, but then he didn’t have kender or elf eyes.

“What does it mean, Sindri?” he asked.

The kender motioned for Catriona to come over. She placed the lantern on the ground, handed the rope that bound Shiriki to Elidor, and lifted the diminutive wizard down from the centaur’s back. Sindri walked to Davyn’s side and the ranger saw the lantern light reflected in the kender’s large brown eyes. The light had a multicolored cast, just like the tendrils of mystic energy Sindri had conjured earlier.

“It’s a spell, of course.” Sindri grinned. “What else could it be?” He stepped up to the wall and pressed his palms flat against its surface. There was a strange look on the kender’s face, as if he were listening to a voice that only he could hear.

For a moment, nothing happened. But then the stone began to change color as threads of blue, red, green, yellow, purple, and orange spread outward from Sindri’s hands. The hues mixed, swirled, and roiled until the wall was a mad riot of color. Then, just like that, the colors winked out. And when they were gone, so was the wall. Beyond, the tunnel opened up into a large cavern.

Sindri’s strange new magic once again took its toll. The kender slumped, exhausted, and Davyn grabbed him by the arm and helped him remain standing.

“What was it?” Catriona asked with an awe-filled voice. “Some kind of illusion?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Sindri said. “The wall was both there and not there at the same time. I just sort of gave it a push so now it’s completely not there.”

Catriona scowled. “You’re right. It
is
hard to explain.” She came forward without waiting to be asked. She lifted Sindri, carried him to Ayanti, and set him down once more upon the centaur’s back.

Elidor gazed into the cavern, his eyes gleaming. “There must be something especially good in there for Asvoria to go to such trouble to hide it.”

“Perhaps,” Davyn said. “But don’t forget, what might be good to an evil sorceress like Asvoria is bound to be something we’d find very, very bad.”

Elidor sighed. “Point taken.”

“Is it possible the wall hid an underground entrance to the keep?” Ayanti asked.

“Let’s hope,” Davyn said. But even if it did, he was certain that wouldn’t be all they’d find in the cavern. If he’d learned anything in his last year of adventuring, it was that anything rarely was simple.

“Weapons out, everyone,” he said. “Elidor, keep a close eye on our friend. If anything happens, the first thing she’ll do is attempt to escape.”

Shiriki said nothing, but her grin confirmed Davyn’s assessment.

“Let me hold the lantern,” Sindri said. “I’m too weak to do much else, and the rest of you will need your hands free in case there’s trouble.”

“What do you mean,
in case?”
Elidor said. “You mean
when.”

Davyn ignored the elf. “Good idea, Sindri.”

Catriona lifted the lantern off the ground and handed it to the kender.

Davyn took a deep breath, and not for the first time wondered exactly what danger he might be leading his friends to.

“All right. Let’s go.”

Davyn and Catriona took the lead, Ayanti following behind with Sindri on her back. Elidor brought up the rear, pulling Shiriki along after him.

The cavern was huge—at least seventy feet in height, maybe even a hundred. Stalactites hung down from the ceiling, looking
like stone teeth, as if they weren’t entering a cave but rather the mouth of some gigantic monster that might devour them any moment. Stalagmites rose from the cavern floor, but not so many that they made passage too difficult. It was hard to estimate how wide the cavern was since the walls were uneven, curving in here, curving out there. Maybe an average of two hundred feet wide, Davyn guessed.

“It’s cold in here,” Catriona said.

“It’s your armor,” Davyn replied. “Metal doesn’t retain body heat the same way that leather armor does, so it gets cold faster.”

“I know that,” she said, sounding irritated. “Just as I know that caves are supposed to be cool and damp. But it’s more than cool in here. Haven’t you noticed our breath?”

Davyn hadn’t, but now that Catriona had pointed it out, he saw that their breath was misting in the air. Davyn knew that the temperature below the earth remained constant, the equivalent of a cool autumn day.

“This isn’t a natural cold,” Sindri said.

Shiriki looked at the kender. “No! Do you
really
think so?”

Everyone ignored the elf’s sarcasm.

“Let’s just keep going,” Davyn said. “The sooner we find our way out of here, the better.” He didn’t bother telling them to be quiet. It would be pointless. The glow of the lantern had already announced their presence, and he wasn’t about to ask Sindri to close the hood. Trying to make their way though the cavern in total darkness wouldn’t be stupid, it’d be suicidal.

As they wound their way around the stalagmites, they saw no signs of life. No bats, no rats, no insects, not even any molds or lichens. Davyn told himself that this wasn’t necessarily an ominous sign. If the cavern had been sealed off from the outer world, how would any creatures get down here, and even if they did, how would they survive? Still, some instinct told him that
wasn’t the reason for the absence of life. There was no life here because this was a place of death.

Davyn felt a crawly-cold sensation in the pit of his stomach, and he was about to suggest that they turn around and try to find another route to Cairngorn, when from behind, Elidor said,

“What’s that?”

Davyn gripped his hunting knife, but the elf’s voice sounded excited, not alarmed. He scanned the area in front of them and saw what Elidor was referring to. A metallic glint came from a stalagmite thirty feet away.

“Do you think it’s some forgotten treasure?” Elidor said. Davyn didn’t turn around to look at the elf, but he could imagine him nearly drooling as he spoke.

“More like a mineral deposit,” Shiriki muttered.

“Probably,” Davyn agreed. “Still, we should—”

Davyn was interrupted by an eerie sound, a whispering-clacking noise, as if a leather bag stuffed with splintered bones was being dragged across stone. Strangest of all, the sound seemed to be coming not from in front of them, but rather from
above
them.

Davyn looked up and saw that something was detaching itself from the shadows between the stalactites. It was huge, and it looked like a—

“Dragon,” Catriona whispered in fear and awe.

“No,” Shiriki corrected. “It’s a dracolich.”

The undead creature turned its fleshless reptilian head toward them. Glowing points of baleful yellow-green light blazed from deep within its shadowy sockets.

Davyn experience a wild urge to laugh as he realized he’d been right earlier. There
was
nothing alive in this cavern.

And then the dracolich spread its half-rotted wings, dropped from the ceiling, and swooped toward them.

    N
earra sensed that something was wrong before she felt the drop in temperature. There was an itchy-tingly feeling at the base of her skull, as if a colony of ants had suddenly decided to nest there. She looked at Jirah and saw that her so-blue eyes appeared to be glowing with a soft inner light that had nothing to do with the lantern she carried.

“Almost there,” Jirah said. Her voice sounded different now. It was still Jirah’s voice, and yet it wasn’t. The tone and inflections were wrong, and there was a dark anticipation underlying her words that sounded nothing like her sister.

“I’m getting scared, Jirah,” she said, her breath coming out of her mouth in wisps of white fog. “And I’m cold. I want you to take me back to the keep—now.”

Jirah stopped walking and turned to her. When she spoke, her voice was kind and concerned, but her eyes remained empty of feeling.

“But we’re so close. You’re freedom is almost at hand.”

Her eyes narrowed.
“My
freedom? Or Asvoria’s?”

Jirah recoiled, and Nearra wished she had her dagger, or a good
strong staff to defend herself with, but she didn’t. The best she could do was take a step backward to get out of Jirah’s reach.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “And where are you taking me?”

The being who wore Jriah’s face opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything, a sound echoed from farther down the tunnel. It was a cross between a roar and a scream, and Nearra felt a jolt of fear upon hearing it. Not ordinary fear: dragonfear. But the cry wasn’t exactly that of a dragon. It sounded like a dragon, yes, but it was higher-pitched and reverberated in a way that had nothing to do with the tunnel’s acoustics.

The impostor’s head jerked in the direction of the sound. “Blast! Someone’s gotten there before us! We must hurry, before they get the Daystar!”

The being grabbed Nearra’s hand and pulled the girl along. At first Nearra tried to tear free from the being’s grip, but then she realized that it wasn’t holding her hand. Instead, its fingers had curled around hers like serpents, and its flesh had fused together, completely encasing her hand. It was as if they were joined at the wrist.

The impostor ran down the tunnel in the direction of that awful cry, with Nearra struggling to keep from stumbling and falling. It seemed as if the thing’s legs had grown longer so that it could run faster.

It’s a shapeshifter, she thought. And then she wondered how she knew this. But then she had no more time to wonder about the imposter, for the tunnel suddenly opened into a huge cavern, and Nearra saw a half-rotted dragonish thing hovering above her friends—Davyn, Catriona, Sindri, Elidor, and Ayanti. standing beneath it. They’d come to rescue her!

But Nearra’s joy instantly gave way to horror at their predicament.

The imposter continued to pull her forward, but Nearra grabbed hold of a stalagmite with her free hand. The shapeshifter tugged and pain shot through her arm and up into her shoulder, but she refused to let go.

If that monster is some kind of dragon, then maybe my friends need another dragon to fight it! Nearra thought.

Nearra concentrated on tapping into the magic power of the sorceress that dwelled within her. She could feel Asvoria trying to stop her, but Nearra redoubled her efforts, and she began to feel the familiar warm-tingling sensation in her hands that meant she was channeling Asvoria’s magic. She had to be careful, though. If she summoned too much power, she risked triggering Maddoc’s paralysis spell.