The Howling Delve - Jaleigh Johnson

"Don't we all," Meisha muttered. She began pulling on her boots. "Does Varan know?"

Jonal shook his head. "He hasn't come out—"

"Of the workroom," Meisha finished disgustedly. In the three years since finding the secret tunnels, Varan had squirreled away an unknown number of treasures. He barely left his chambers anymore, for toying with them. "Perhaps it's time to remind him of his responsibilities . . . again."

"But you can't," Jonal sputtered. "If he's in the middle of an experiment, you could be killed."

"We're out of food again," Meisha snapped. "The north wards failed last night, letting in two deep bats and gods know what else we haven't seen. All the while Varan's been tucked away in his nest. It's time someone shook the branches."

The workroom was lit and locked again, but Meisha was three years older, and Varan had grown careless with his simple magics.

She grabbed the door latch and summoned fire to her hand. Wood disintegrated into black charring, and she dropped the searing latch to the ground.

Meisha burst into Varan's chamber, and immediately saw the glowing circle centered on the wizard's worktable.

Varan stood with his back to her, his attention on an object hovering above the table.

"I'll ask you to repair that door at your earliest convenience, Meisha," he said testily. He moved his hands over the object: a glove that appeared to be made of liquid metal, a shimmering waterfall of steel. "I've grown accustomed to your late night poundings on my door; but what brings you so suddenly and so violently into my room? Risking your own life in the process, I might add."

"Shaera's gone missing," Meisha said. "Jonal says she went beyond the wards."

"Gone exploring, I expect." Varan still hadn't turned around. His shoulders drooped as if he carried sacks of stone, but he maintained the swirling pattern of magic around the glove. "Does Jonal know where?"

"The Climb," Meisha said uncertainly. "I didn't know what he meant."

"You wouldn't," said Varan, "because I have not gotten around to showing the passage to you or warning you that to attempt it is beyond stupidity. Shaera, if she turns up injured, will have taken care of both tasks quite capably."

Meisha, her jaw clenched, stared hatefully at the wizard's back. She fought the temptation to shove him into the bright sphere of his Art. Anything to get his attention for one breath, even if it turned out to be her last on Toril.

"Don't you care?" she spat. "If nothing else, she is air. Your training will have gone to waste if she dies!"

Varan made a gesture, and the floating miasma froze in place. Slowly, the orange glow of torchlight replaced the magical light in the room. He turned to face her.

Meisha flinched involuntarily at the haggardness of his face. Gray hairs shed from his beard to litter the front of his robes. Meisha did not know if stress or the force of his Art had caused them to fall out. The magic seemed to be taking him a piece at a time.

May any watching gods smite me if I come to this, Meisha thought. She found herself unable to feel a shred of pity for her master. She was too angry.

For his part, Varan did not seem to notice her fury. "Did you come here to ask for my help, or my permission to go after Shaera?" he asked. He leaned against the table for support. "In either event, I'm surprised at your outburst. You've never shown any inclination of friendship to Shaera or the other apprentices. In fact, you consider yourself superior to all of them."

"Because I am."

"I won't dispute you. But I do warn you: be cautious where you aim your righteous anger, little firebird."

"I don't have time for this," Meisha snarled. "If you won't help me, tell me what the Climb is."

"As you wish."

He told her.

* * * * *

"The Climb," Meisha chuckled bitterly. She regarded the round rat hole in the wall and the impenetrable darkness within. "More like a long fall."

Varan said hands other than his had tunneled the hole out of the stone. Meisha wondered briefly if those hands had been a dwarf's, and if one of them had carried a broken battle-axe. Varan's mark hung on the wall above the hole, warning the apprentices away.

Jonal stood hesitantly at her elbow. "Do you think it's true?" he asked in hushed tones, as if the wizard might overhear. "Do you believe the tunnel goes all the way down to the testing chambers?"

"And beyond—so he claims," Meisha said stiffly. She didn't know what to believe. She had no idea how far down the testing chambers lay. Varan had always teleported them between the spider and the star, with no indication of the distance traversed. If Shaera expected to find the entrance to Varan's hidden tunnels using the Climb, Meisha hoped she'd prepared for a long journey.

"He hasn't come out of the room?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

"No," Jonal said. "He hasn't spoken to anyone since you entered his chamber. Will he come out," Jonal asked, "to aid in the search?"

"He will not," Meisha said, "until his experiment is complete. He claims that releasing the magic prematurely could endanger us all."

"Will you wait for him?" Jonal asked hopefully.

Meisha turned a stony gaze on him. The apprentice ducked his head.

"I suppose if I don't return, he'll inquire about our fates eventually," Meisha said, her voice rich with scorn. "Wait for me on this side," she told Jonal, "and do not follow."

Meisha knew her warning was unnecessary. In his heart, Jonal was a coward. He would never enter the dark passage to come after either of them. She saw it in his eyes.

She moved to the tunnel mouth and heaved herself up onto its stone lip. Speaking a word, Meisha blew on her outstretched palm. Her fingers began to glow. The orange light spread down her palm to her wrist. Varan had taught her the spell for light; the variation was her own.

By the glow of her palm she saw the tunnel stretching ahead of her in a narrow tube, and above her in a slender shaft. If Shaera was trying to find the testing chambers, she would have certainly gone forward. Meisha would have to follow, crawling on her belly for gods knew how many feet, and pray that at some point the path widened. She knew it would have to dip down. Far down, if the tales were accurate. And if she were attacked, it would be nearly impossible to mount a defense with spells.

"Lovely," she murmured, and she began to crawl.

* * * * *

Waiting, his claws tense, the fire beast felt the magic coursing through the Delve. He willed it to falter and rage out of control, to shake the caverns and tear his prison apart—it would only take a single misguided stroke of power, and the dwarves' ancient bonds would crumble.

How fragile the structures of mortals were. The beast's fire, his very presence, only served to corrupt the integrity of the Delve further—a consequence of his imprisonment that never ceased to delight him. By the time he won free, the entire stronghold would be suffused with his essence. His hunting ground would be complete, a place of nightmares that merely awaited prey. The beast relished the thought.

Content in his future, the beast settled back into the fire and waited for the dwarves to be reborn into their ghostly existence, so he could hunt again. He did not mind honing his skills.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Howling Delve

12 Uktar, the Year of the Serpent (1359 DR)

Meisha thrust herself forward another foot. Her stomach felt raw through her coarse linen shirt. Sweat poured down her face, dripping salt in her eyes, but she kept crawling. The physical discomforts kept her mind occupied. She would endure almost anything to keep the memory of the dream at bay.

The beast of fire and claws. Every time she had the dream, the presence was there, stalking the helpless dwarves. She watched them die over and over again.

Ten more feet, Meisha counted in her head. The stone chilled her flesh, making her lightheaded and feverish.

She pressed her face against the ground. The taste of rock and dirt and something foreign filled her mouth.

A wave of nausea hit her gut. Meisha turned her head to one side and gagged, spitting to clear her mouth of a taste worse than bile. Instinctively, she tried to curl up in a ball, but the tunnel bound her in the shape of a worm.

Meisha forced herself to breathe deeply, to push away the tight fear in her chest.

"You've slept on stone every night for the past four years," she said aloud, just to hear the sound of her voice. "This should not disturb you now."

Perhaps it was because she found herself so far from Varan's circle of protection. She'd always felt more at ease in the wizard's presence. Possibly his magic in some way mitigated the oppressiveness of the Delve.

Not enough, Meisha thought. She ached for the sunlight and the heat, almost as much as she craved the fire inside herself, the power of it. Living in a deep hole in the ground had never stopped feeling unnatural to her.

Was the presence in her dream merely a manifestation of that wrongness?

No, it was more than that, Meisha knew. There was something wrong with the Delve, something Varan chose to deny or ignore. She didn't know which state of mind was the more foolish.

Pushing herself back up to her elbows, Meisha began dragging herself forward again.

Ahead of her, a rock outcrop burst into soft glow. Before she could react, a cold hand closed around her ankle.

A scream ripped from Meisha's throat. The sound echoed down the tunnel. Power flared involuntarily in her mind.

She flipped to her back and splayed her fingertips. Fire rolled down her body, an inch-thick gout of flame that lit up the passage.

When the flames died, the glow had gone, and the only sound was Meisha's ragged breathing. The passage sat empty behind her.

"Show yourself!" Meisha shouted.

The answering silence mocked her. Meisha threw her hands up against the curved stone ceiling, emptying her fear and the fire into the rock. Orange clouds of flame licked along the tunnel in either direction until her anger spent itself.

When the flames grew cold, she regarded the blackened stone above her. Meisha felt some small satisfaction knowing she could leave a mark on the Delve's impenetrable armor.

Reigniting her light source, Meisha squinted into the distance ahead of her, and saw that the tunnel dropped off sharply ten feet ahead of her. She hadn't seen the precipice earlier.

She crawled to the edge and saw a steep, angled drop of roughly fifteen feet. Crawling blindly, she might have fallen over the edge and broken her neck.

Cold sweat pricked her scalp. Meisha closed her eyes and pictured a dwarf's face, for she had no other explanation for her mysterious rescue.

"My thanks," she whispered.

She still had to navigate the steep drop. Feet first, the fall might have been manageable, but Meisha had no way to reverse her position in the tiny space. Shaera, an air savant, would have bypassed the drop easily. Meisha knew few such spells, but would have to learn more, she thought. She'd never trusted magic that did not involve fire. Flame felt natural to her—rendering her body light enough to float down a fifteen-foot drop, did not.

Calling the little-used words to her mind, Meisha cast the spell. Outwardly, she felt no change, but she could sense the release of magic from her spirit, and knew the spell had worked. Still, as she shimmied to the edge of the drop, she felt a hint of trepidation.

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