As Kellanved hesitated, Dassem reached in past him and took the latch. To Dancer’s great surprise it lifted, and the swordsman pushed open the door. Kellanved entered, while Dancer came in last. As he closed the door behind him, he glimpsed the pale lad’s scowl.
Dassem gently laid the roll down in a side room just off the entrance hall. Dancer and Kellanved watched, curious. He drew back folds of the rolled blankets to reveal the head and face of a young Dal Hon girl, her eyes closed, her hair a sweaty mess, to all appearances asleep.
‘What’s this?’ Dancer asked.
Dassem did not look up from the girl. ‘Someone I swore I would protect.’
‘She will be safe here,’ said Kellanved, and Dancer was quite surprised by how serious the mage sounded.
With the back of his hand, Dassem eased the girl’s sweaty hair from her face, nodding. ‘So I was assured.’
Dancer was going to ask who in the Abyss had assured him of that when the mage brushed his hands together, announcing, ‘Good. So, we have an accord?’
Kneeling next to the girl, the swordsman bowed his head. ‘We have an accord.’
‘Excellent. You will accompany us, then. We have an … errand, of a sort, to run.’
Dancer eyed his partner in open suspicion. ‘What’s this?’
Kellanved was grinning. ‘You’ll see…’
Shadows now came swirling up about them and Dancer raised a warning finger. ‘I told you! No sudden damned—’
The three disappeared, leaving dust motes and a few dried leaves and needles to swirl about the sleeping girl. After a time, heavy footsteps sounded and the armoured colossus appeared in the arched entryway. The helmed head lowered as it regarded this strange new visitor.
*
The first thing Tayschrenn became aware of were his hands and feet – they prickled abominably. Next, his arms and legs registered their agonizing reawakening, and he groaned. Or thought he did.
His chest suddenly flinched and his back arched. The pain was transporting; every nerve in his body was aflame. Now he was certain that he screamed until his throat was raw.
Then he slept the sleep of tortured exhaustion.
Noise awoke him next; the heavy dragging and brushing as of something very large moving over stone and dirt. Whispering reached his ears and he strained anew, listening.
‘He’s awake,’ a male voice said from the dark.
‘Yes, yes,’ a female voice answered, impatient and dismissive.
He decided to ask them what was happening. He drew a breath and exhaled, moving his tongue and trying to speak. All he heard was a dry rasping and animal-like growling.
‘He’s dying,’ said the male voice. ‘Isn’t that him dying?’
‘No, it’s not,’ answered the female voice. ‘Water,’ she commanded, ‘water for our guest.’
A short time later water suddenly poured over his face from the total darkness and he gasped, spluttering, trying to swallow without drowning.
‘Enough water!’ the female voice commanded once more. ‘I apologize,’ she said. ‘We get so few visitors down here.’
‘Where,’ he managed, croaking, ‘where am I?’
‘Far below your island, little man. Very far indeed.’
‘Who … who are you?’
‘What?’ the man answered, incredulous and angered. ‘Who among all the ancients do you think?’
‘Now, now,’ the woman said. ‘He is disoriented after his ordeal. Light, I think. Let light be our answer.’ Multiple hands clapped, brusquely.
While Tayschrenn watched, straining his eyes in the absolute black, tiny pinpoints of a greenish-bluish light blossomed to a glow. Here and there, all about, they multiplied by the thousands and thousands, until he made out an immense cavern, vaulted far above and boasting many tunnel entrances, and facing him two giant snake-like entities, each emerging from a different tunnel, titanic, each as large in scale as the tower of a fortress to him. One bore the upper portions and features of a human male, the other a female.
And Tayschrenn, the sceptic and doubting scholar, forced his agonized and punished limbs to move, and he rose to his knees, bowing before the pair, murmuring in awed reverence, ‘D’rek…’
‘Well, I should think so,’ huffed the male portion.
‘Thank you,’ said the female, and she clasped her tiny hands together. ‘Now, our time is short. We spare you, Tayschrenn, as your sentence was unjust. We are not without mercy, as you see.’
He bowed again, touching his head to the floor before him, and discovering it to be a sea of writhing beetles, roaches, centipedes and silverfish.
He attempted to disguise his shudder of revulsion.
‘We shall send you back to the temple,’ said the male.
‘Yes,’ nodded the female. ‘And we ask that you carry a message. A warning.’ Her voice hardened as she continued, ‘Elements within the priesthood are advocating new directions for the cult and we are not pleased – is that clear?’
Tayschrenn bowed once more. ‘Quite. I am honoured by your trust, and—’
‘Yes, yes,’ the male cut in. Aside, to the female, he murmured, ‘He cannot remain much longer.’
She nodded. ‘Indeed. Tayschrenn, the chemicals injected into your system are abating and you must go. Frankly, the atmosphere here within this cavern is poisonous to you, and so we shall dismiss you. Farewell, and good luck.’
He struggled to his feet, his head bowed. ‘My thanks, Great One.’ Even as he spoke, a strong ammonia stink assaulted him as he inhaled, making him cough. This air, he realized, was that of underground caves where those who wandered within soon expired for lack of breathable gases.
Male and female entities waved their dismissal and his vision dimmed. As they disappeared it occurred to him that the female’s lower quarters curved to the left as they disappeared into a tunnel, while the male’s curved to the right. The two, it seemed, might be the oppposite ends of the same entity.
A great dislocation assaulted him as he moved through a Realm he did not recognize, which he realized must be that of Elder, and unavailable to him. The vastness and depth of puissance he glimpsed in passing was beyond his imaginings. Then it disappeared in a sudden, disrupting shear.
*
The cavern lay dark and empty but for the uncounted millions of squirming insects.
‘There is a strength in him,’ said the male voice into the darkness.
‘There will have to be,’ answered the female.
‘K’rul seems to think he may be the one.’
‘Yet another candidate,’ murmured the female sadly.
‘Someone will have to succeed.’
‘Perhaps,’ allowed the female. ‘Perhaps not. Change comes to us all.’
‘I will not just step aside,’ affirmed the male.
‘No,’ agreed the female, her voice hardening. ‘Neither will I.’
*