Jaleigh Johnson - Spider and Stone

The spell took effect. Breathing deeply, Icelin fought back a brief, intense wave of dizziness and nausea. Ruen was right about the magic weakening her, but that wasn’t the only reason for the nausea. The smell of damp earth rose strongly in her nose, mingled with underlying hints of a dozen varieties of fungus and cave moss and the unmistakable odor of decay. Her spell had heightened her sense of smell ten times over, bringing the layers of scents in the tunnels to life in an overwhelming tapestry. Icelin stretched her awareness outward down the passage, seeking beyond the cavern odors, searching for familiar scents, beloved smells that had become like home to her.

“There,” Icelin said, drawing in another breath. “Mint, hints of fish and butter-it’s very faint, but it’s coming from the main passage. We’re going the right way.”

“Well done,” Ruen said. “Anything else? What about the group that has him? Can you detect their scents, how many there are?”

Icelin’s brow furrowed. “No … there’s nothing,” she said. “That’s odd. I only smell Sull.”

“It’s enough,” Ruen said. “Let’s go.”

Relieved that they were on the right path, Icelin moved forward, Ruen following at her side. For a while, he said nothing, though Icelin sensed him watching her. She picked her way carefully by the wavering light, half her mind fixed on maintaining the spell and letting her heightened senses guide her. She stepped on a loose stone in her too-large boots and stumbled.

Ruen gripped her elbow briefly, steadying her. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “I know I’ve been … pushing … making the journey difficult for the three of us. I forget you’ve never traveled before.”

Icelin glanced at him, surprised by the turn in the conversation. “My parents were adventurers,” she said. “I suppose they did a lot of this sort of thing-crawling around in caves, digging through ruins, sleeping on the ground every night. I did want a taste of that kind of life. Well, all except for the sleeping on the ground part. I could do without that and not be troubled.”

“Has it been everything you thought it would be?” Ruen asked.

“And more,” Icelin said with feeling. She glanced at him in the torchlight with a raised brow. “I never thought I’d see the whole of the Sword Coast in a pair of months, for instance.”

Ruen offered her a strained smile. “You did say you wanted to see everything.”

“I’m not going to expire in the next few months, you know,” Icelin said lightly. “I intend to torment you for years and years yet.”

His smile disappeared. “I know that, but our time on the road-it passes faster, somehow, almost as fast as the scenery flashes by on a galloping horse. One day runs into the next, and I keep thinking …”

“What?” Icelin asked. She kept her voice low, but still it echoed in the silent passage. The darkness pressed close, creating the illusion of a small, intimate room in a globe of torchlight. They hadn’t been alone like this for months, and Ruen had never spoken to her as he did now. Icelin found herself holding her breath, though what she was waiting for, she couldn’t quite say.

“It’s not fair,” Ruen said at last. “You’re young, seen almost nothing of the world, and just when you start to come into your own, you discover you’ve been cheated out of a full and happy life.” He gazed at her with such an earnest, intense expression that Icelin felt her cheeks flush. “Others who’ve lived twice as long haven’t lived so well as you.”

“You honor me by saying that, but I’ve made my share of mistakes, and I have my regrets,” Icelin said. She glanced at the cave ceiling above her head, as if she could look through it to greater Faerun beyond. “You know enough about the world to know things are rarely fair. If I hadn’t had this burden, I might never have left Waterdeep. I’d still be in my great uncle’s shop, reading books about adventures in far-off lands instead of having one of my own.” She dropped her gaze, staring into Ruen’s strange eyes. “If I hadn’t been scarred, I would never have met you or Sull.”

Ruen shifted the torch from his right hand to his left. “Yes, I remember that night well. I was fishing on my boat-”

“You never really caught anything edible from the harbor, did you?” Icelin interjected.

Ruen ignored her. “Happily alone, content with the world, and suddenly this impertinent wench rows up to my boat and demands my aid.”

“I’m certain I asked nicely.”

“Not a coin to her name to induce me to help her, but oh no, that didn’t stop this woman.”

“Didn’t I offer to sleep with you in return?”

“I should have dumped you in the harbor, saved myself a lot of trouble,” Ruen said.

“We did get dumped in the harbor, and you surely never used to jest this much, before you met me,” Icelin pointed out. “I’ve been some good to you. I’ve given you an appreciation for the absurd.”

“Who said I was jesting?” Ruen checked what was left of the tracks. “Is your spell still working? Are they still on this path?”

“Yes,” Icelin said, breathing deeply to confirm that Sull was still ahead of them. “I feel like a tracking hound.” She raised a hand and glared at Ruen before he could speak. “Be very careful with your next words,” she warned him.

Ruen’s lips twitched. “You did say I should jest more.”

Icelin stepped toward him. She’d only intended to swat at his shoulder with her hand, but when Ruen saw her reaching for him, he stepped back and raised the torch between them as a barrier. He said nothing, merely quickened his pace, leaving Icelin lagging behind as she recovered from his reaction.

As suddenly as it had been there, the humor and warmth drained out of that small circle of light. Icelin suppressed the urge to scream in frustration.

Gods above, will you kindly smite him in the arse with a lightning bolt? she thought. Is that truly too much to ask?

She caught up with Ruen at an intersection and snatched the torch out of his hand. He shot her a look. “Now what have I done?”

Icelin scowled at him. “Are you really going to spend the next twenty years flinching and scrambling away like a rabbit every time I come near you?”

“You know why I react that way,” Ruen said calmly, but Icelin sensed the tension radiating from him.

“Of course,” Icelin said. “It’s because of the ever-present reminder of death clinging to me, obviously.” What man in his right mind would want to be near such a person? “I just wish you’d be a bit more subtle about it,” she grumbled.

“That’s not …” Ruen sighed. “Never mind. Nothing good will come of talking about this.”

“Nothing good at all,” said a voice from the darkness of the adjoining passage.

Icelin swung the torch toward the sound. A pair of dwarves stepped into the circle of glowing gold. The nearest one had a cluster of tattoos covering the left side of his face, strange symbols similar to those Icelin had seen carved on the stones at the cave entrance. Engraved stones wove in and out of his plaited gray beard and clicked faintly when he stepped forward. Icelin sensed power in the dwarf, carefully contained but unmistakable magical energy.

The other dwarf was much younger, with a rich mahogany beard and no tattoos, but there were strong echoes of the elder dwarf’s features in his face. They had to be father and son.

“Gods above, you humans will talk yourselves into your graves,” the elder dwarf growled in Common. “We heard your voices echoing down the tunnel.”

Icelin was surprised. The dwarves could not have been very far ahead of them if they’d heard Icelin and Ruen talking, yet why hadn’t she detected their presence with her heightened senses? Even now when they stood right in front of her and she sniffed the air, expecting to inhale the odor of sweat and dwarf breath, she detected nothing but the scents of the damp earth and stone.