Paul Thompson - Riverwind

Riverwind, gripping the sword tightly, set off after Di An. Catchflea lingered by the chest, still holding his stomach. Riverwind went no more than twenty yards and found the girl waiting by a gigantic stalactite a dozen feet wide. Where the massive spire thrust through the floor, several iron rails had been bent back, creating enough of a gap for Riverwind and Catchflea to squeeze through. Di An waved for him to come on.

“Where are we going?” he insisted again.

“Just come!” Di An pushed herself forward and slipped into the hole. Riverwind ran to the opening and looked down. Di An was floating slowly down, hands held tightly against her sides. The slow-falling spell again.

A commotion arose in the smoke behind him. He turned and saw two figures struggling. Catchflea cried, “Tall man, help!”

Riverwind dashed back. He found the old man fighting a losing battle with Karn for possession of the second sword Di An had brought. Riverwind shouted a challenge. The elf warrior punched Catchflea in the belly and seized the sword.

“I knew you were up to something,” Karn said triumphantly. “Surrender, giant!”

“You'll have to fight, bully,” Riverwind replied.

Karn whirled his sword around his head and cut hard at Riverwind. The plainsman easily turned the attack and countered with fast slashes at Karn's face and neck. He knew from experience that fighters used to armor would retreat if these vulnerable areas were threatened. Karn backed up.

“Get moving, old man!” Riverwind snapped. Catchflea crawled weakly behind him. “That way.” Riverwind tossed his head. Catchflea tottered to his feet, clutched his stomach, and shuffled toward the stalactite.

“You can't escape!” Karn yelled.

Riverwind sidled away, always keeping his sword toward Karn. He found the old soothsayer leaning on the stone spire, breathing hard.

“What are you waiting for?” Riverwind said. “Jump!”

“Down there?” Catchflea gasped. “Are you mad?”

“The slow-fall spell, remember?”

Understanding gleamed in the old man's eye. “So? Be of stout heart, Catchflea!” he admonished himself. “Here I go, yes!”

Catchflea eased himself into the space between the stalactite and the floor. Eyes screwed shut, he let go the stone spire and plunged a few feet before an invisible net slowed and caught him in its folds. The spell felt different than that in the long shaft that had brought them to Hest-weird tickling sensations crawled over his skin, like the strands of an enormous spider web. The spell was different in another way, too, for Catchflea could feel himself fall faster, slow down, fall, slow, and so on as he descended. He prayed aloud to Majere to strengthen the hand of whomever was performing the spell.

Riverwind saw his friend disappear. In the next instant, Karn was on him, slashing madly, first from one side, then the other. Riverwind retreated before the elf's wild assault until he felt the great spire at his back. He couldn't lower his guard long enough to get through the opening in the floor. If he could just distract Karn for a moment…

Riverwind reversed his grip on the Hestite sword and hurled it at Karn. He turned to jump. Something hard hit him square on the back of the head. He pitched forward, crashing into the stalactite and falling to the floor, still in the High Spires.

Riverwind shook off the blow, but as he started to rise, he felt a cold steel edge against his neck. “Give me a reason to strike,” Karn said. Riverwind saw, not ten inches from his outstretched hand, Karn's sword. The fighter had caught him by throwing his own sword at Riverwind, retrieving the plainsman's weapon, and pinning him as he lay stunned.

“Stay your hand or die,” Karn rasped. “I want Her Highness to prescribe your fate.” His dark eyes gleamed.

Riverwind drew in his arm.

The panorama of the great cavern spun around Catch-flea's feet. This giddy swirl, combined with the lingering taste of the Hestite food, made him sick to his stomach. He vomited all he had eaten, but felt better for it.

Catchflea couldn't see where he was falling to. He appeared to be moving laterally as well as vertically. Above him, the High Spires seemed very far away. The smoke thickened and closed in, and even that landmark vanished. He was lost in the smoky void.

Then his feet struck solid ground. Catchflea's knees folded from the shock. A cluster of figures surrounded him.

“I'm so glad to be down!” he declared. “Thank-”

Before he could finish, a heavy drape of copper mesh was flung over his head. Catchflea was lifted onto the shoulders of a dozen silent Hestites. He protested loudly, but the mesh muffled his cries. He tried to kick, but he was held by too many hands and the mesh weighed him down. Catchflea was spirited away without even knowing that Riverwind hadn't followed him out of the Spires.

Karn Marched Rivenwind at sword point back to the High Spires' bridge.

“What do you intend to do with me?” asked Riverwind.

“I must tell Her Highness what has happened. The elder giant won't get far.”

“Catchflea is more clever than he appears.” Riverwind hoped the old soothsayer was safe, wherever Di An had taken him.

“My mistress will glean him out no matter where he goes,” Karn boasted. The limestone bridge emerged from the smoke. Riverwind did not understand how Karn and Di An were able to find their way in the murk. Perhaps elves had keener eyesight than humans.

“Ho-la!” Karn shouted to the guards on the other side.

“It is me, Karn!”

After a second's delay, a faint voice replied. “We're not to converse with you, my captain!”

Karn's eyes scanned the shifting smoke ahead of them. “Nalx, is that you? Listen to me: go to Her Highness and tell her the giants tried to escape. One got away, but I caught the younger one. Tell her, Nalx. She will reward us both.”

“A hard tale to believe, my captain!” said the guard. “Where could the giants escape to?”

“How should I know? There's magic afoot, fool, and if you don't tell Her Highness, what do you think her reaction will be?”

There was a longer delay. Finally, Nalx's voice said, “I will do it, Ro Karn. What a feat, to capture a giant twice -”

“Yes, yes. Go quickly, Nalx!”

After several minutes, Karn stiffened. “An entire company of soldiers!” he exclaimed to Riverwind.

The plainsman squinted into the gloom, but saw absolutely nothing but smoke and noxious vapors. However, he trusted the elf's eyesight.

Nalx called, “You are to cross with the prisoner, Ro Karn!”

“We come!”

The plainsman straddled the bridge as before and inched across. Karn sauntered behind him, his narrow feet comfortably centered on the slick stone path.

A score of pikes was leveled at Riverwind as he gained the platform. Karn had been right about the number of soldiers. An officer raised his arm in salute. “Ro Karn, Her Highness bids you come to her at once.”

With a jaunty, triumphant air, Karn slammed the sword Di An had brought to High Spires home into his scabbard. Another elf stepped forward and handed Karn his helmet.

“I kept it for you, sir,” he said.

The warrior seated the iron helmet on his head and sighed with satisfaction. “My thanks, Sard.” He looked up at Riverwind. “You see, giant, how quickly fortune changes.”

Riverwind regarded him disdainfully. “Yes, and it may change again, and not to your liking.”

Karn laughed. He ordered the soldiers into formation and took his place at their head. They marched in lockstep down the spiral tunnel to Li El's throne room.

The escort halted outside the golden curtains. The domed room was suffused with the spicy scent of incense, and the formerly bright lighting had been dimmed to twilight level. Karn and Riverwind entered through a flap in the curtains.