Aeron was shocked. “A weapon?”
“Yes,” Master Doronal replied. “There are a few offensive spells. And defensive ones as well. However, to get back to the point, you must take great care if you use Safisha’s Flame.”
Aeron nodded. “If I ever have need to use it, I will be careful.” He had never thought about it before, it had simply never occurred to him, but he could see that magic could definitely be used for harm. Which gave him an idea.
“Master Doronal,” Aeron began, “is there any magic that can be used to help against nahual?”
Master Doronal’s eyes narrowed. With a sudden smile that made Aeron wonder if he’d imagined the contemplative look, the magic master asked, “Now what has you thinking about nahual?”
Aeron looked at his feet and shifted them nervously. “Some of us heard about the attack at Cotter’s Grove.” He looked up at Master Doronal. “And with it being only a few days travel from here, well, I was just wondering whether there was anything I could learn in case a nahual ever shows up here.”
“Don’t you worry yourself about nahual here,” Master Doronal said. “We are quite safe in the Caer.”
“I just want to be prepared in case something happens.”
“That is a commendable attitude,” Master Doronal said. “You will learn offensive and defensive spells.”
Aeron’s eyes lit up.
The corner of Master Doronal’s mouth lifted in a slight smile and he said, “When you are ready.”
Aeron’s expression fell.
“Don’t look so glum,” Master Doronal said. “You’ve done quite well today, and you’re progressing admirably in your studies. You must understand that your magic studies, the order in which you are learning spells, and even the specific spells themselves, are all designed to teach you about magic’s rules, along with its strengths and weaknesses.”
Master Doronal walked back to his desk. “Magic is very powerful. And because it is so powerful, it is dangerous. Many lives have been lost in pursuit of magic knowledge due to a lack of care and understanding.” Master Doronal’s expression was grim.
Aeron had followed Master Doronal and now sat again in the leather chair.
“That,” and Master Doronal pointed to Aeron’s primer on the desk, “has some spells, basic lessons and information. But there is more to magic than just spells.”
Master Doronal’s expression softened. “You are progressing extremely quickly. And so I am being extremely careful to make sure you don’t progress beyond your understanding. Not only must you know how to cast a spell, you must also know its consequences, small or large as they may be.”
Aeron sighed and said, “I understand.”
“Good.” Master Doronal smiled and opened a drawer. He removed a small slip of parchment and slid it over to Aeron. “Here are the spells for the next test.”
Aeron looked over them briefly before sliding the parchment along with the primer into his satchel.
“You have a couple of hours until dinner,” Master Doronal said. “Might I suggest you start on those spells?”
Aeron smiled ruefully and said, “An excellent idea, sir.”
Shadows shifted wildly along the walls of the passage each time Aeron’s lantern bumped against his leg from where it hung, clipped to his satchel. He felt a little guilty about returning to his explorations after dinner, but he had spent all the time before dinner in study, so he felt he could do a little exploring now. Besides which, he didn’t want to skip exploring tonight. He wanted to get farther along the passage.
He was almost to the spot where he had been forced to stop last night. He made sure to bring a couple of ropes of some length this time, so he would be able to climb down the steep ramp that had halted his progress, and more importantly, be able to climb back up on his return.
So far, he had been unable to find anything to explain why this passage had not been enchanted as others had in making the work and living areas of the caverns. Of course, he had only been able to travel along it for ten minutes or so before he came across the ramp, which, though it would not have been enough to stop the expansion this way, it was enough to stop him.
The ramp was just inside a cavern, the bottom of which he had not been able to make out with the light of the lantern. Shuttering his lantern last night had not revealed anything further, either. So now, he carefully tied the end of one of the long ropes around a column near the top of the ramp and checked to be sure it was secure. He then stared down the ramp into the darkness beyond the reach of his lantern and had a moment of fear.
Was he crazy to try this? He nibbled on the corner of his lip. He had no idea what might be down there. After all, it could just be a dead end. But what if it was a bottomless pit? He could fall to his death. That wasn’t likely though; he heard very faint drips of water out there. Somewhere, there was a bottom. But how far down?
He shook his head. No! He was not going to let his worry and fear get in the way. He was going to have to stop letting them control him. He would move forward. However, he thought as he furrowed his brows, I will be extremely cautious.
He paused a moment at the top of the ramp to gather his courage and then slowly made his way down, watching where he placed his feet. The loose structure of the rocky ramp was a little nerve-wracking. And because he still had no idea what was at the bottom of the cavern, he wanted to be very, very careful as he made his way down. The thought of a bottomless pit kept popping into his mind, but after several minutes of slow, careful progress, he finally reached the bottom of the ramp, reached the floor of the cavern, and was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
He made some notes about the ramp and set about exploring farther. The uneven floor of the cavern was bare stone with gravel and sand here and there in patterns that suggested to him that water had flowed along here at some point. Farther along, there was a passage leading out of the cavern that veered right. After updating his map, he continued along it.
The passage, which sloped downward, quickly leveled off and opened out again slightly, revealing one possible reason why this passageway had not been expanded. The way before Aeron was covered in water, depth unknown.
He walked up to the water’s edge and peered in. It seemed fairly shallow for the most part, maybe two, two and a half feet deep or so at its deepest. Well, at least from what he could see of it at this end. The passageway ahead was about ten or fifteen feet wide. The ceiling was about that distance above, covered here and there with unusual stone formations, some that looked like small cut reeds and and others like short curtains of stone.
He grabbed a handful of dusty sand and tossed it in, trying to gauge whether there was any movement to the water. Most of it sank straight down, small ripples radiating outward on the surface from where it had splashed in, but the dustier bits formed a cloud in the water and slowly drifted down the passage. So there was a current, it seemed, though not strong. And looking closer, it appeared as if the water emerged from below an underwater shelf in the right side of the passage.
“Well, Aeron, do you want to walk around in soaking wet pants?” he asked himself aloud, staring unhappily at the water. He had come a long way and had even braved that stupid ramp just to be thwarted now. He grunted. He was not going to let some stupid water stop him. But he didn’t want to wear soaking wet clothes.
He took his pants and socks off and jammed them into his satchel. After putting his shoes back on, he carefully made his way through the water with his satchel held up well clear of its surface. As he walked along, the passage floor’s slight downward angle soon had the water halfway up his thighs.
He mentally crossed his fingers and thought, If I’m lucky, the water will stay shallow enough that my smallclothes won’t get wet.
No sooner had he completed that thought when his next step took him into water that was waist deep, quite soaking his smallclothes and the bottom of his shirt in the process.
“Aaargh!” he yelled, desperately raising his satch
el higher to keep it from getting soaked. Shadows flew along the walls and ceiling as the lantern was tossed around with the satchel’s movement. A few seconds later, a faint echo of his shout came back to him.
He looked down at the water and sighed. Well, at least the water was nice and comfortable, not freezing cold or anything, he thought.
He grimly continued along the passage, which, he was happy to see, eventually started to rise and veer to the left. After another ten minutes or so of careful walking, he was through the water and back on dry ground.
There was a small boulder jutting out on the side of the passage, so he decided to take a break. He sat down on the outcrop and sighed, then placed his satchel on the ground, being careful to keep it away from the water pooling off of him. Maybe his clothes would dry soon.
He looked back the way he had come. In all, the water covered over a hundred feet of passage. That was probably one of the main reasons it had not been explored. Even at Lake Wonder the pier only extended thirty feet or so into the lake. Maybe it was too much trouble to enchant a walkway that far over water?
After a couple of minutes, he removed an apple from his satchel and bit into it. He’d picked up a few snacks at the Dining Hall in preparation for his exploring. The crisp, sweet and tart fruit made him feel a little better, but both his shoes and his smallclothes were still very wet. He looked down at his shoes. They made squelchy sounds when he moved his toes. He supposed that it was too humid in the caverns for things to dry quickly.
An idea occurred to him.
He removed his shoes and placed them on a clear spot on the stone floor of the passage. He then backed up and used Tikhon’s Thermal Shift on the shoes and the boulder. When he was done, he squatted down, reached out and tentatively touched his shoes. They were very hot to the touch, and faint steam rose from them. He smiled. Seconds later his smallclothes hit the floor next to the shoes and he repeated the spell.
After several minutes, his smallclothes and shoes were dry enough and cool enough to put back on. They were still very slightly damp, but much more comfortable than before. He was sure his smallclothes would be completely dry soon and he’d be able to put his pants back on. Until then, he could still explore. So he updated his map, including an indication of the extent of the water, returned it to the satchel, and moved on.
The scenery was pretty monotonous. Rock walls, floor and ceiling with the occasional patch of light moss or other plant-like growths. There was also the odd formation here and there, but after exploring caverns for the past three weeks, small ones like these weren’t as exciting to him any more. And as for finding more of the amazing caverns, he’d had no luck thus far. The passage widened once slightly, but then it quickly narrowed again. At least his smallclothes had dried enough that he had been able to put his pants back on.
He had been walking along the passage for several minutes more when he started noticing more and more creatures. Only a single one here and there at first, but as he ventured farther they became more frequent. They were insects and lizards, mostly. And he recognized them not from his exploring the caverns, but from up top. The air was getting cooler too, he noticed. He was glad his clothing was completely dry now.
Soon enough he discovered the reason for it all. The passage had come to an end. He walked out into the bottom of a small cavern whose ceiling had collapsed. He was in a sinkhole looking up at walls perhaps thirty feet high, which opened up to the night sky. The cool autumn air was crystal clear and the stars, bright pinpricks in the black sky, twinkled serenely.
There were openings to the surface! He couldn’t wait to tell Sharrah. He stared at the night sky a bit longer before examining what he could see of the collapsed small cavern in more detail.
It was roughly oval-shaped, about twenty-five feet long and maybe fifteen feet wide. A lot of rubble was strewn about; he assumed it was the remains of the collapsed ceiling. There was a rough pile of rubble and debris that angled up toward the surface to his left. He noticed that there were only two other openings in the sinkhole. One, to his right, was twenty feet up the wall and inaccessible. The other passage was ahead beyond the rubble. That tunnel was quite wide, more than twice as big as the passage he had stepped out of, and it was at ground level. He took a few minutes to update his map and headed that way.
After only ten feet or so, the passage started angling downward. Not long after, the downward angle of the passage got steep. He had to be careful not to slip or trip as he walked along. He also checked several times that he was able to go back up the passage before continuing. He didn’t want to get stuck at the bottom of a section of passage that was too steep to return from.
A half hour passed. The passage had widened a couple of times, but only momentarily. And there had been one cavern, but it was so small he almost didn’t want to dignify it by calling it a cavern. He had stopped there to update his map. Now Aeron was thinking about giving up on the passage. He had been out here now for almost two hours total and had found nothing of note. No wonder no one had bothered any more with it, he thought sourly. It was boring. All it had was that sinkhole and that stupid hallway of water and nothing else. The sinkhole had been a little interesting, at least.
Suddenly the passage opened up on an enormous cavern. It was so large, he could not see the walls beyond the glow of his lantern, and the ceiling was completely lost in the darkness. This is more like it, he thought. He set his satchel on the ground, took out his map and updated it. When he was done, he shuttered the lantern and closed his eyes. If this was another Live Cavern, he wanted to see it all at once.
He could hear drips of water here and there in the cavern, some sounding farther away than others. He also heard the occasional scurry of cave rats. He had seen them everywhere in the cavern system. They seemed to eat pretty much anything, and so could survive in most of the caverns just fine.
He opened his eyes. Light moss on the walls near the passage gave off enough light so that he could see the ground near him. Faint light of some kind could be made out on distant sides of the cavern to his left and right. More light moss on those far walls, he assumed. He felt a little disappointed. It wasn’t a Live Cavern. At least not what he could make of it so far. He walked farther into the gloom of the large cave.
Very shortly the floor ended at a ragged ledge that overlooked a dark, gaping vastness below. Aeron, a little nervous at the immense emptiness he could sense, decided to examine the area near him first. He looked around the ledge he stood upon. Off to his right was what looked like a very rough rocky ramp that led down. He carefully looked over the edge before him. It looked like there was another ledge twenty or thirty below this one; that ramp to the right lead to it. Near the end of the ramp was a clump of large, spectacular fungi that gave off light. With it he could see that there was a small rivulet of water that emerged from the bottom of the ramp, gathered in a pool near the mushrooms, then ran over the edge to the cavern below.
The other end of the lower ledge, to Aeron’s left, was more difficult to make out in the gloom. There didn’t seem to be very much light-producing life on that end. He walked over to the left side of the upper ledge, hoping that would allow him to make out more of of what might be below. Once he got there, however, it was still difficult to see anything. There did seem to be something there, but what it was, he could not say. He would have to make his way down for a closer look, and that ramp would be a perfect way to get there. He started toward the rough slope of rubble when the ground below him gave way.
He gasped and tried to stop or slow his plunge. He grabbed for the lip of the ledge as he passed it, tried grabbing the wall of stone and earth as he fell farther, but everything seemed to be crumbling and falling with him. As he fell backward, he thought about how glad he was that he’d left a note in his room.
Suddenly, his plummet ended with a loud ‘thud,’ and a burst of pain at the back of his head shot forward through his skull like a hot metal spike. He passed out.
Chapter
10
Therday, Duody 22, 1873
Late Evening
Aeron heard birds singing, and he smiled. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his face, and he could see its light, muted and tinted red, through the lids of his closed eyes. As he walked, the light dimmed and brightened as he moved in and out of the shadows of leaves and branches of the trees. The basket he carried bumped his leg as he continued along the path. Somewhere nearby a woodpecker was pecking the trunk of a tree—looking for food, announcing its territory, or maybe digging a home. It sounded like a rather large woodpecker.
Tap, tap, tap.
Aeron looked around the woods. He should be paying more attention. He was supposed to be gathering berries for his mother, but he wouldn’t be able to see them if he kept his eyes closed. Sure enough, he spotted a bush off to the right. All the different kinds of berries he was gathering would make a delicious cobbler together. And cobbler was one of his favorite desserts. As he picked the berries, only eating a couple, he loaded them into his basket.
He gathered the last of the ripe berries from the bush and dropped them in. He picked up the basket to continue down the path when he noticed that some of the thin strips of wood that made up the sides of the basket were loose. He lifted it up for a closer look.
He needed to slide that strip there back under the frame just so. And that strip there needed to be slid over a touch.
“What have you got there?” his mother asked him.
He looked up at her. She was sitting at her worktable, a small hammer in one hand, a tool in the other. Light, coming through a window behind the worktable, outlined her face in a soft glow.
He smiled at her. “It’s a puzzle box. I’m trying to figure out how to open it.”
“Oh, I love those puzzles. Did your father get that for you?”
“I . . . don’t know,” Aeron replied, brows furrowed. “I guess so.”
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