Maggie Furey - Sword of Flames

The last spark of fitful torchlight vanished. The Mages leaned against each other in a darkness that only their eyes could penetrate, panting slightly from the effort of holding the sagging roof in place. “Bugger!” Anvar muttered. “That was a bad one.”

“He obviously thought so,” With a tilt of her head Aurian indicated the deserted stretch of clear tunnel behind them, down which their winged companion had, unsurprisingly, fled.

“Skyfolk!” Anvar grimaced in disgust, although the Mage knew that he blamed their frightened companion no more than did she. Or did she? Aurian frowned. This mad notion to explore the ruins of the priestly archives below the Temple of Incondor in search of clues that might lead them to the Sword of Flame had been suggested by Cygnus. It had seemed a good idea the night before when discussed at length with the winged physician over a flagon of wine, but the reality of burrowing through these unstable tunnels had proved to be a perilous undertaking indeed. Surely Cygnus must have known of the dangers involved. He had certainly wasted no time saving his own skin when the roof began to crumble. Aurian shook her head. I’m too suspicious these days, she thought. Why should Cygnus harm us after we freed him from Blacktalon and saved his Queen? It could only have been honest fear. Though she and her partner had been shielding the group from the start, she knew it was hard for the Skyfolk to put their trust in something they couldn’t even see. The strain of holding up the sagging roof forestalled any further reflection. Aurian looked across at her partner, and the two Mages shared a wry grin. “Think we can do it on our own?” Anvar’s words were a challenge.

“Why not?” Aurian shrugged. “Besides, the Skyfolk will be back shortly—if only to erect our memorial!”

Anvar chuckled. “Come on, then. Which would you prefer? Keeping the shield up, or heaving stones?”

“The shield,” Aurian said decisively. “Because I have the Staff of Earth, I’ll have more power to take the weight of these rocks above us.” She glanced up doubtfully, at the tons of stone balanced precariously over their heads. “The last thing we want is the whole bloody mountain coming down on top of us—What’s wrong?” She had caught a glimpse of Anvar’s stricken expression.

“Nothing,” Anvar muttered. “I was just remembering the last time I was down here…” He shuddered. “It’s a good thing for us that the Moldan’s dead.”

“Hold on… Just a moment more…” Anvar’s voice was harsh with strain, and Aurian, feeling as though she bore the entire weight of the mountain on her trembling shoulders, knew exactly how he felt. The great slab of tilted rock that Anvar had worked loose from its surroundings teetered on its base and began to rise slowly upright, impelled by the force of the Mage’s will. As Aurian watched, her partner began the tricky part of the operation, maneuvering tne massive stone snugly into position to support the sagging tunnel roof. Almost there, and…

“Lord! Lady!” The sound of hurrying feet echoed down the tunnel, shearing like a blade through Aurian’s tight-stretched concentration and scattering the delicate balance of opposing forces that Anvar was using to move the rock. The great slab went crashing over, and in the split second before the roof came down on top of them, Aurian snatched the faltering shield back into place and felt Anvar throw the weight of his power behind her own. With one quick look at one another, they fled back down the tunnel that they had opened with such labor, crashing into the messenger as they went. Aurian snatched at a flailing arm and pulled the Skyman along behind her, and all three burst out of the tunnel into the daylight together. Behind them there was a thunderous crash within the tunnel, and loose stones toppled from the temple’s ruined walls as the ground shuddered beneath them. Then there was nothing to hear but silence, and nothing to see but the cloud of dust that came drifting from the tunnel’s dark maw and eclipsed the pale light of early day.

“You bloody fool!” Aurian snarled, rounding on the hapless, quaking messenger. “You nearly got us all killed.” Ignoring the Skyman’s stammered apologies, she looked around for Cygnus, who ought to have had more sense than to let stray wanderers into the tunnel when there was magic at work. She was sure she’d caught a glimpse of him as she’d emerged, but he had vanished now—presumably until she and Anvar had managed to get over the worst of their rage.

Anvar, his blue eyes icy with anger, was looking down into the tunnel mouth and scalding the air with curses. He put his arm around her shoulders and sighed bitterly. “That’s done it,” he muttered. “We won’t find anything down there now without excavating the entire peak.”

Aurian’s heart sank. “Well, it was a slender hope in any case, that we’d actually discover something down there that might lead us to the Sword. We’ll manage somehow, love.”

“We’ll have to,” Anvar agreed grimly. “We don’t have any choice.”

The two of them stood hand in hand, gazing gloomily down into the dark mouth of the collapsed tunnel. After a moment Aurian noticed the winged messenger, who was still lurking nervously in the vicinity and clearly trying to pluck up enough courage to attract the attention (and possibly the ire) of herself and her fellow Mage. She turned to the Skyman with a sigh. “Well?” she snapped. “Spit it out, man! What was so desperately important that you had to risk all our lives for it?”

The messenger turned pale beneath her withering glare. “Lady,” he blurted. “A visitor has arrived for you, from Incondor’s Tower. She demands to see you at once.”

“She?” Anvar was frowning, perplexed. “There’s only one woman at the tower just now, if you don’t count the Xandim, and that’s Nereni. But she would never dream of—”

“It has to be Nereni,” Aurian interrupted. “Who else could it be? It could be one of the Xandim, I suppose, but I doubt that Parric would send a stranger when the courier could bring a message just as well alone. But if it is Nereni, and she has actually flown all this way alone, her errand must be urgent indeed. We’d better go and see what she wants.”

Nereni wrapped numbed fingers around the thin metal of the goblet and took another sip of the warm spiced wine, in the hope that it would stop her hands from shaking. The desperate courage that had brought her so far was threatening to slip away now, for the airborne journey in the fragile, swinging net had been a nightmare beyond her worst imaginings. It hadn’t seemed so bad at first, while darkness hid her surroundings and her thoughts had been wrapped up in anger at her unreasonable, mule-headed husband and the cold, sinking fear that Eliizar would, indeed, force her to make a choice between himself and Aurian—the two people she loved most in all the world. Eventually, however, at that freezing altitude, sheer discomfort had taken her mind off her worries. Then the sunrise had caught up with her winged escort, and Nereni, unwisely glancing down, had been treated to a dizzying view of the jagged peaks so far—so terrifyingly far—below. At that point she had forgotten both discomfort and concerns, and had simply shut her eyes tight and started to pray.

The nightmare had ended abruptly as she was dumped unceremoniously onto an unyielding surface. Nereni, muttering imprecations, opened her eyes to find herself upon a narrow balcony without any railings. On one side of her was a mass of ornately carved stonework that proved to be the wall of a tower. On the other… Nereni stifled a gasp and quickly tore her eyes away from the seemingly endless drop.

A tall, arched door of beaten copper led from the balcony into the tower. Nereni was puzzled for a moment by its unusual construction, for metal doors must surely be heavy, inconvenient, and cold; then she realized that wood must be very scarce among these barren peaks, but metal could probably be mined from the mountains’ bones. The smaller of her two winged bearers gave her a mocking bow and gestured toward the doorway with a grin that Nereni wanted to strike from his smug face. She was annoyed that she had let him see how badly the flight had terrified her. The other Skyman, however, proved more considerate. He patted her arm comfortingly and, standing between Nereni and the edge of the chasm, disentangled her from the meshes of the net and helped her to climb unsteadily to frozen feet that had as much feeling in them as two blocks of ice. Leaning heavily on his arm for support, she hobbled as quickly as she could into the chamber beyond the landing platform—and staggered, as her guide dropped her arm and bolted at the sight of the massive black shape that came arrowing out of the shadows.