Барб Хенди - The Night Voice

Leesil crept onward behind Ghassan, who still held his glowing cold-lamp crystal while carrying one chest, as they went deeper into a ragged tunnel they’d found in the chasm’s far side. Leesil supported the forward ends of the poles for two chests with Brot’an behind him at the poles’ back ends. Somewhere farther back were Chane and Ore-Locks doing likewise.

They did not go far before Ghassan halted suddenly, and Leesil lurched to a stop.

The domin turned about, set his chest aside, and straightened with a finger over his lips. Leesil quietly lowered his poles and only released and set them down once he felt the chests settle.

Ghassan turned ahead once more, and upon stepping forward, Leesil saw the crystal’s light expand into an immense cavern of walls that all slanted leftward. The domin halted again, and Leesil stepped up beside him. He was too fixed on what he saw to even notice the others gathering.

There were huge bones spread out in the cavern’s rear, as if the creature to which they’d belonged had simply lain down for the last time and never moved again. Nearest was its skull. If he walked up to it, the top would be taller than he was. The rest was just as large.

All of it was darkened and discolored. Some bones glittered, as if ages of dripping moisture had embedded minerals in the crust over its bones.

Fearful of stepping closer, Leesil noticed something else. It had no limbs. Just the spine of bones curled like a serpent too immense to imagine all the way to that skull with three ridges of what might’ve been horns.

The side rows ran around the back from empty eye sockets big enough to crawl into. The much smaller center spikes started near the bridge’s midpoint and ended at the midtop.

“A serpent,” Brot’an whispered somewhere behind Leesil.

“No, gí’uyllæ ,” Ore-Locks corrected.

“All-eater,” Chane explained, “or dragon.”

“I have never heard of one so large in any tale,” Ore-Locks added.

Leesil stepped carefully toward it, listening and watching everywhere for anything. More than once he slowed or paused. The skull grew larger in his sight the closer he came to it. Of what teeth were still whole, the longest had to weigh more than two—or even three—of the men who’d come with him. The more he stared at the huge skull, imagining what such a creature would have once looked like, the more his mind rolled backward to a memory.

Below the six-towered castle in the Pock Peaks, Magiere had been caught in a daze when they’d found the first orb, and she had opened it with her thôrhk. In the chaos that followed, as the orb of Water tried to swallow all moisture in that cavern, Leesil had seen an immense shadow coil through the cavern’s upper reaches. Like a serpent bigger than any of the towers, its open maw had come down as if to swallow her.

“What is this?” he asked aloud.

In answer, a hiss echoed throughout the cavern.

—Where is my child?—

Leesil retreated from the skull and pulled both blades. He heard the others spread out as they drew weapons, so they’d heard it too, but he kept his eyes on the enormous skull. Had he really heard those words in his head? Hesitantly, he looked about at the others.

Chane did the same, though he was frowning in confusion.

Leesil thought they’d all pulled their weapons. Not Chane, but he did so upon seeing that everyone else had.

Then Leesil saw Ghassan.

A strange manic look covered the domin’s face. Was it fear, hate, or both? Wide-eyed, his head rolled about, perhaps looking into the cavern’s heights, but then his gaze resettled to glare at those bones.

“It is still here,” he whispered slowly. “The bones do not matter. We will set up the orbs and end it here, now.”

Leesil felt completely at a loss.

End what? There was nothing here but that hiss, whatever it was. From what he’d once seen when the first orb was opened, opening all of them wouldn’t touch anything that wasn’t physically here, alive or dead. And the orbs were supposed to be a last resort.

And no one knew for certain what the orbs would do.

—My child ... where is she? What have you ... they ... done with her?—

Leesil went cold.

He knew “child” meant Magiere. This thing—whatever and wherever—might be what had spoken in her dreams, and if so, had it lost touch with her? What had happened to Magiere?

—Then you will serve me a last time—

“Ignore it!” Ghassan ordered. “Get the orbs, quickly, and take off your thôrhks for use.”

Leesil looked around, wondering to whom that voice was actually speaking. Was it to him, someone else here, or all of them?

“Why do you hesitate?” Ghassan whispered, rushing two steps toward Leesil. “This is why we came here.”

“What is happening?” Chane rasped, making everyone start.

Leesil twisted about and startled Chane in turn. The vampire watched only Ghassan.

—Open the anchors ... end this now ... and forever—

“Do you not hear it?” Ore-Locks whispered.

In one glance at the dwarf, Chane’s eyes drained of all color, becoming clear in the light of Ghassan’s crystal. Chane turned to Leesil.

“Do not listen to what you think you hear!” he rasped.

Leesil’s every instinct took hold of Chane’s warning.

Whirling in search of the archer, Chap spotted Osha. The young one stood not far off, haloed by Wynn’s distant light. And that light glinted too brightly on the head of another drawn arrow.

Osha’s large amber eyes streamed tears down his long face.

He had shot Magiere, most likely with a white metal arrowhead from the Chein’âs. Chap could not even guess what that had done to her. Osha’s eyes then blinked. Did his aim falter at something else?

Chap quickly looked back.

Sau’ilahk had recovered from shock, and he slammed his hands to the earth again.

Twisting around, Chap shouted into Osha’s thoughts.

—No!— ... —Shoot Sau’ilahk, the duke!—

Osha’s aim shifted instantly, and the arrow released. Chap heard the shriek before he could follow the arrow’s path.

Sau’ilahk reeled back on his knees, mouth gaping. An arrow still shuddered from impact in the center of his chest, and he began to shake. Inky lines spread up into his face from beneath a strapped leather collar and then down into his hands as well. Those lines split and bled as smoke rose from the same cracks. He fell back upon the broken earth.

Sau’ilahk’s wild thrashing was quickly obscured by the increasing smoke, though his wails and screeches still rose in the night.

Chap bolted for Magiere, lying still and prone, and he lunged past her, planting himself between her and the wild thrashing amid the smoke. Uncertain of anything, he watched the broken ground for whatever might still come out of the earth from the conjurer’s touch.

One shriek cut off too suddenly. Not another sound or movement disturbed the billowing smoke.

Chap remained rigid in waiting and watching, even when he heard Osha come running. As the smoke began to thin, he saw something more. The body was still, dead, and the skin was blackened. Chap began to wonder if something more than just Chein’âs metal was at work here. But nothing came out of the earth where Sau’ilahk had crouched a moment ago.

Doubtful relief kept him watching longer. Osha stepped beyond him toward the duke’s finally fallen and charred body, at last the corpse that it should have been. Then the young one turned, looking back beyond Chap.

Osha cringed, back-stepped once in visible anguish, and dropped his bow.

No matter what Chap felt, no matter what he wanted, he had no time for Magiere. She would not be the only one to die if he did not reach Leesil, and there was only one way to accomplish that.