Марк Энтони - Curse of the Shadowmage

“Somehow we have to try to unblock the fissure,” Mari responded.

Morhion nodded in agreement. “You must do it, Mari. I will try to distract the shadevari, to give you time to reach the fissure.”

Mari paled, biting her lip fiercely. The mage intended to buy her time with his own life. Yet, could it be a worse bargain than the one he had already forged with Serafi?

Ferret cleared his throat nervously. “If we’re going to do something, we might want to do it soon.” He pointed toward the sky. The second shadowsteed had reached the first, and the creatures were circling menacingly.

Morhion moved toward the thief. “Ferret, find a place to hide with Kellen. You must protect the boy at all costs. Do you understand?”

Ferret nodded. “I understand, Morhion. I won’t say good-bye, but I will say good luck.” He laid a hand on Kellen’s shoulder. “Come on, kid. Let’s get out of here.”

“No,” Kellen said crossly. “I want to help Morhion. I’m a mage, too.”

“Not now, you’re not,” Ferret countered. “Right now you’re a thief, and a good thief always knows when to get his head under cover. Got it?”

Kellen gave Morhion a hurt look, then hung his head. “Very well, Uncle Ferret.”

K’shar approached Mari. “You will need help in the caves beneath the vale. I will go with you, Al’maren.”

She looked at the half-elf in surprise. “Why?”

He shrugged. “You said once that in a different time and place we might have been friends.” A grin crossed his striking visage. “Perhaps this is that time and place.”

After a moment she nodded. “Perhaps it is at that.”

Morhion gave K’shar an appraising look. “And those eyes of yours are made for seeing in the dark of underground tunnels, aren’t they half-elf? Or should I say, half-drow?”

Only the faintest ripple of emotion crossed the Hunter’s calm visage. “I am only one quarter drow, mage. My mother’s mother was a dark elf. Though it meant her death, she dared to love a green elf of the forest, and bore him a daughter. As a half-breed, my mother was cast from the underground city of the drow and was forced to live above ground. In the end, she was slain by humans who feared her dark elven blood.”

Mari stared at K’shar. Legend told that dark elves were creatures of cunning and evil, and that this was why they had been driven underground. Yet she had also heard rumors of a great drow hero in the Northlands. She found herself wondering if the dark elves were long ago forced underground, not because they were wicked, but simply because they were different.

There was no time to consider such matters. Two hideous shrieks rang out over the vale. The shadowsteeds were diving.

“Go!” Morhion shouted, blue eyes blazing, his voice cold and commanding.

Ferret caught Kellen in his arms and dashed down the pinnacle’s spiraling steps. Mari and K’shar followed close behind. At the base of the pinnacle they spotted a narrow crevice that led to a small cave.

“This is where we get off,” Ferret announced. He helped Kellen slip into the cave, then turned to give Mari one last wink. “If I don’t see you again in this life, I’ll see you in the next.”

Despite herself, Mari grinned. “I’m beginning to think you have nine lives, Ferret.” Impulsively, she kissed the thief. He gave her a bemused look, then disappeared into the cave after Kellen.

Mari turned to K’shar. “Let’s go.”

The two started off across the vale at a run. Mari could not keep up with the fleet half-elf, but the blocked fissures were not far. She reached the outcrop a few seconds after him. The shadevari had ignored them. Whatever Morhion was doing, it seemed to be working.

“What do you think we’ll find down there?” Mari wondered, peering into one of the lightless crevices.

“There is but one way to find out,” K’shar replied. Pulling a coil of rope from his belt, he looped an end around a rocky protrusion, then tossed the rope through the largest of the three holes. “I’ll go first.” Without waiting for an answer, he slid into the fissure and vanished from sight.

Mari took a deep breath, then followed the half-elf through the gap. Hand over hand, she lowered herself through pitch blackness until she wondered if she would run out of rope before she ran out of shaft. Without warning, a pair of hands gripped her waist, steadying her as her feet struck hard rock. She turned to see K’shar’s golden eyes glowing in the darkness. They had reached the bottom of the shaft.

After a moment, Mari realized she could see more than just the half-elf’s uncanny eyes. Here and there, spurs of rock defined the mouth of a horizontal passageway. A faint, crimson illumination hung on air that was uncomfortably warm and acrid with the stench of sulfur.

“This way,” K’shar said, moving into the tunnel.

Mari followed on his heels. The passage was large enough for her to stand upright, but K’shar was forced to stoop. The walls of the tunnel were formed of irregular yet strangely smooth black stone. After they had walked for a few minutes, the passage forked.

K’shar squinted his sensitive eyes. “The glow is stronger in the left-hand tunnel.”

Mari peered that way. “It seems to lead down a bit, too. That could be a good sign.”

K’shar gave her a curious look. “How do you know that, Renegade?”

She wiped a sheen of sweat from her brow with the back of a hand. “We all have our talents. You have sensitive eyes, and I happen to have an excellent sense of direction. By the way, K’shar—you’re helping me, so that makes you a renegade Harper yourself. Don’t you think you should quit calling me Renegade and start calling me Mari?”

K’shar grinned but said nothing. They plunged into the left-hand tunnel. After that, the path forked numerous times, and once they came to a natural rock chamber into which a half-dozen passages opened. At each diverging of the ways, K’shar used his sensitive drow eyes to determine in which direction the ruddy light was strongest. In turn, Mari made certain they were not backtracking or moving in circles in the underground labyrinth. Neither questioned the judgment of the other.

As they went, the crimson illumination grew brighter and the stifling heat fiercer. They shed their cloaks. Soon after, Mari tossed aside her green velvet jacket; her thin white shirt clung to her body, soaked with sweat. K’shar stripped down to his black leather breeches. Ruddy light gleamed off his sinewy arms and chest. Each breath seared Mari’s lungs. She wondered if they could survive much deeper.

Abruptly, they rounded a corner and found themselves staring into a gigantic cavern that was a nightmarish fantasy of dark stalactites and stalagmites, all half-melted into grotesque shapes eerily resembling tortured souls. Crossing the center of the cavern floor, like a huge, fiery serpent, was a stream of molten rock. Wisps of yellow smoke rose hissing from the river of lava.

Mari and K’shar stood on the jagged edge of the passageway. From here it was a sheer drop of thirty feet to the hard floor of the cavern.

“I don’t suppose you have another rope with you,” Mari choked out.

“I fear not, Mari. But perhaps there is another way to—”

The half-elf’s words became a cry of alarm. Weakened by countless years of exposure to the heat, the edge of the tunnel crumbled under their feet. Mari screamed as she and K’shar pitched forward. Desperately, she flailed for balance. K’shar arched his back, stretching his legs out and pushing against the crumbling precipice. This action cast him even farther from the edge of the tunnel, out into midair, yet it also had the effect of throwing Mari away from him, backward into the tunnel.