The Howling Delve - Jaleigh Johnson

"Why do you live here then?" Meisha asked. With no chair in the room, she settled on the cold floor. "If the Delve is so old, aren't you afraid one day it will collapse?"

Varan chuckled. "From what I've been able to discern, the Delve has withstood far more than an old wizard's spells and come out intact. Now it is my sanctuary. The walls will hold." The wizard shrugged into a thick robe and plucked up a crooked staff as he spoke. "But we haven't solved your problem; you need sleep."

He ushered her out into the hall, spell-locking the door behind them. "When I can't find calm, I work until I'm weary, and I still have a task to finish before I seek my bed tonight. This task will weary both of us, if you'd care to join me?"

Meisha nodded eagerly. Anything would be preferable to returning to her boxlike room in the dark, even with the flame burning all night. The weight of the Delve still pressed down on her, but in Varan's presence the feeling seemed to diminish.

She followed the wizard down a side passage typically forbidden to the apprentices. Meisha recognized the boundary of Varan's wards inscribed on the tunnel wall. They walked right past the sigil, led by the glow from Varan's staff.

They entered a wide-mouthed, bell-shaped chamber that Meisha saw was entirely submerged in water. The cavern's ceiling reflected unbroken across the clear surface of the water, making it impossible to tell where the bottom lay.

Varan released his staff, causing it to hover over the center of the calm pool. "Fresh water source," he said. "Something we're always in need of down here. Close, too, so I'm considering extending the wards."

"So other creatures won't intrude on the watering hole," Meisha surmised.

"Correct-ordinarily-but I've observed this particular watering hole is rarely used by wandering creatures," Varan told her. "Can you guess why?"

Meisha looked at him sharply, at the same time taking a step back. "What dwells in the water?"

"Very good," Varan said, "and to answer your question, something big."

"So I'm to be your bait?" Meisha asked sullenly. She'd thought Varan would let her attack the thing.

Varan laughed. "Hardly, little one. I am not an ogre, or a Red Wizard, with apprentices to squander-and a waste it would be, for the creature that lives beneath the surface would rend you unrecognizable. Besides," his eyes glinted, "I do not require bait."

"How, then?" Meisha asked, intrigued. The wizard's enthusiasm infected her. She trailed his steps around the rim of the pool.

"First, I'll need your aid." Varan twirled a finger, and his staff inverted, shining the light close to the water's surface. "For all its might, the creature is shy and comes to ground only to hunt. It will need an inducement to reveal itself."

He waited, and Meisha realized he proposed a test. Varan wanted to see how she would solve the problem.

Meisha squatted next to the pool and placed her hands above the water. The words came to her haltingly. She envisioned the words dredged up from the bottom of the pool like so many buried coins, humming with power and warmth. She spoke faster, and the power turned to heat. She felt the glaze of it along her palm, a blown-glass ball she shaped using only her mind.

A bubble popped on the pool's surface. Next to her, a small, blind fish with twisted horns floated to the surface on its side. Another followed, and still Meisha let the heat build. Her calves ached from holding the same crouched position, but she dared not move or risk breaking the spell. Steam brushed her face. She heard another loud pop, and the water churned. Meisha thought it was the spell, but suddenly a fleshy mouth broke the surface of the water, followed by twin webbed claws.

Meisha threw up her hand in automatic defense, realizing she might lose the appendage in her foolishness. Spiky teeth closed around her wrist, but Meisha felt no pressure, no severing of bone or tissue.

With a hissing cry of pain, the creature released her and thrust back, churning water in its wake.

Meisha realized her hand was smoking. She'd burned the creature with her touch.

Varan stepped in from of her when the creature came around to attack again. Filmy eyes dominated the ripples of flesh that made up the creature's head. Below them, the mouth gaped from a nest of four tentacles. The creature's body tapered from a humanoid trunk to that of a serpent or an eel. Meisha couldn't tell from above the water.

Varan's hands traced the air in a scythe-cut. Slashes of light streaked across the chamber, cutting into the monster's flesh. Black ichor shed into the still-boiling pool.

Meisha crawled to a safe corner to watch the grim spectacle play out. She had no doubt Varan would win the battle. He stood so confidently; Meisha wondered if he'd ever lost a duel, with a creature or another wizard. The power he expended seemed immense. Her own spell had drained her completely. The heat she'd created in the chamber, blending with the flashing light, mesmerized Meisha. Her last sight of the mysterious creature was bathed in that light, sharp against the black blood. Her vision dimmed, and she passed out.

When she awoke, Varan knelt beside her, supporting her head. His hard expression softened when he saw her eyes open and aware.

"I feared you would not wake," he said.

"And you would have wasted an apprentice after all," Meisha said faintly.

Varan did not smile at her jest. Gently, he helped her sit up and gave her a long draught from his waterskin.

"You passed every test but one," he said, after she'd collected herself.

Meisha waited expectantly, and Varan nodded toward the pool, which still gave off clouds of steam. The black blood and the creature were gone.

"You tapped too deeply into the fire," he said, "The power overwhelmed you, yes?"

Meisha nodded, for once listening without comment or judgment. Varan was right. She'd felt a depth to the magic, a power just out of reach. She thought if she'd stretched a little bit farther, she might have brushed its source.

"When you're ready, we'll explore how deep the fire goes," Varan promised. "Be patient a few years. If you act too soon, the power may burn you from within, or deteriorate your health, as it has mine."

Meisha looked at him in surprise. She hadn't expected Varan to admit any weaknesses to her. Was it a gesture of trust?

"What was the creature?" she asked, glancing at the water. "Will there be more?"

"I think not," Varan said. "It was a kopru, a sea creature, adapted somehow to the fresh water. He was aged, else he would have been more difficult to kill, I think."

Difficult enough, Meisha thought, as weakness gripped her again. She swayed; Varan steadied her and squeezed her shoulder.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

He was concerned, Meisha thought, and marveled at the notion. No one had ever expressed concern for her before, and now it had happened twice in one night.

"I'm tired," she said, admitting her own weakness.

Varan nodded. "You'll sleep deeply tonight," he said, "and tomorrow."

"But our lesson-"

"Will keep," he said firmly. "I'm spending the next few days in another part of the Delve. You can use that time to recover."

"What part?" Meisha asked, curious. She had only a vague picture in her mind of the layout of the Delve. The upper chambers were laid out roughly in the shape of a spider, with the apprentices living and studying in the main body, protected by Varan's wards from the tunnels branching out on all sides.

Far below them, the testing chambers were arranged and connected like star points. Varan had designed them personally as training grounds for his apprentices. Meisha knew of no other large cavern systems within the Delve.

"Is the way hidden?" she asked.

"Quite well hidden," Varan said, "and magically sealed. I managed to unravel the spells and for my efforts discovered a set of caverns adjoining the testing chambers. In all my years here, I never knew of their existence. They will take several tendays, perhaps longer, to explore fully. I am hoping they will contain something of value to make the effort worthwhile."

"Show me," Meisha pleaded. She didn't like the prospect of spending several nights alone in her room, with only the other apprentices for company. "I could go with you, aid you."

"You could, and I'd be glad of a warm fire, so deep in the earth, but you need to rest. When you've regained your strength, I'll show you the way in, and I'll be glad of your aid."

He touched her shoulder, and Meisha, weary but flush with her small victory in the Art, forgot to push him away.

Varan's prediction held true. Meisha slept all through the next day and night, rising only to take small meals. Gradually, her energy returned and with it the brush of power, just out of her reach. She left it alone, as Varan had instructed, but she was eager, for the first time, to tell her teacher what she felt.

When she knocked on his door the third day, there came no answer, nor was there on the fourth or fifth. Meisha returned every night, and during the day, when their water supply ran low, she collected bucketfuls from the newly vacant pool.

After a tenday, they began to worry, not just for Varan's safety, but for their own continued survival. None of them knew how to get to the surface without Varan's magic, and they were quickly running out of food.

Meisha and Prieces ventured out into the Delve seeking fresh meat, while Shaera and the rest returned to the training tunnels to search for the wizard and the secret cavern entrance.

When Meisha returned to her chamber, empty-handed and hungry, she saw the green light coming from Varan's workroom.

Running to the door, she felt the same burst of electrical heat, but this time she ignored it and tried to force the door. The spell lock sizzled along her fingers, hot but not burning. The door was sealed tight.

"Master!" she shouted, pounding on the door. "Are you in there?"

She heard glass breaking and what sounded like Varan's workbench being dragged across the floor. The wizard's voice rang out above the din.

"I'm all right, firebird," he called. "Go back to your room."

"Where have you been?" she persisted, banging harder on the door. "We've been searching the tunnels for you. The food is almost gone."

"I apologize for that, little one, and I've corrected the oversight. You'll find the larder filled, and the next time I leave, you will not be left without provisions."

"The next time?" Meisha cried. "We thought you dead; now you're leaving again? Varan, open the door!"

"Calm yourself," Varan said soothingly. "We will continue your lessons as I promised. I will not be leaving for some time. The objects I brought back will occupy all of my attention for a while."

"What are they?" Meisha asked. "What did you find?"

"Amazing things," Varan said excitedly. His voice drifted away from the door, and she heard more objects being moved around the room.

"Varan," she called. "Varan!"

Light flared through the door, blinding her. When her vision cleared, Meisha heard nothing more from the room. She sensed, without knowing how, that Varan had gone.

She slumped to the floor, wondering what it all meant. Her stomach growled loudly, and Meisha recalled their most pressing need. She headed to the larder, hoping that Varan had indeed stocked it well.

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