by Mel Odom
The skeleton’s brittle bones snapped with hollow pops.
The object was longer than Wick had at first thought. He handed his torch to Cobner, who took it automatically.
“Looks like you found yourself a knife, little warrior,” the big dwarf growled in approval.
Wick studied the object in his fist. It was a knife. Not even an elegant piece or memorable in any way except the manner in which he’d discovered it. The double-edged blade seemed worn but well cared for, with a simple cross hilt handle. A small, irregular sapphire set in the handle had caught the torchlight. Overall, the little librarian felt disappointed by his find. He hadn’t known what he was going to find, and he certainly wasn’t expecting some bit of treasure, but a knife hadn’t even entered his mind.
Brant thrust his own torch out, beating the darkness in the tunnel back but revealing nothing else of interest. “Maybe that old knife isn’t worth much, little artist, but it’s a wonder that you saw it at all.”
“It’s because he has halfer’s eyes,” Cobner said. “They catch a lot of things most eyes don’t. Some have even told me halfers can even see around corners if you put something bright and shiny there.”
Wick knew that wasn’t true, but he also knew he had seen the flash when no one else did. He placed the knife back on the floor by the skeletons.
“What are you doing?” Brant asked.
“Leaving it,” Wick said. “The knife doesn’t belong to me.”
“It’s not going to do those men any good,” Cobner said. “You should keep it. That’s a good knife from the looks of it. Good steel and solid craftsmanship. And those men were warriors. All dwarves are. They wouldn’t want it to be left lying here and getting no use. Not when it could serve someone.”
“I’m no warrior,” Wick reminded.
“You could be,” Cobner said. “All it would take is a little training.”
“You should keep the knife, little artist,” Brant said. “Perhaps it’s offered as a good luck piece. At the very least, the knife can be a memento.”
“I’ve heard great stories told about much less than a knife that looks like it’s been carried through a number of wars,” Cobner agreed. “If you want, I can help you make up your first magnificent lie.”
Reluctantly, Wick reached down and took up the old knife again. He thrust it through his belt. The blade was so long that it fit him like a sword. He followed the master thief and the dwarven warrior back into the main mine shaft.
After two more hours of walking, the mine shaft ended in a massive cave-in.
Cobner cursed when he saw the avalanche of rock that blocked the way, then he spent long minutes prying at the rocks, shifting some of them and starting spills that sent dust flying in choking clouds. All of the thieves stayed back from the frenzy. The mine car tracks continued under the blockage.
Wick pulled his traveling cloak over his lower face in an effort to block the dust from his nose and mouth so he wouldn’t breathe it in. Grit still filled his eyes, making them tear and leave dirt tracks down his cheeks that crusted and felt tight against his skin.
“Cobner,” Brant called gently. “Give it up. There’s no way you’re going to move enough of that rock to allow us passage.”
Cobner yelled in angry frustration and hurled a small boulder at the massive blockage. Stone cracked and impacted with sharp retorts. “This isn’t fair, Brant. We’ve got to be over halfway through the mountain. We should have been able to see ourselves clear in a few more hours. There’s no other way around this.”
“Not without going back,” Brant agreed. “But that’s what we’re going to do, Cobner.” The master thief turned and faced the whole group. “It’s what we have to do, and we can still do it. There’s another tunnel that we didn’t take back in the main cavern.”
Wick heard the exhaustion in both men’s voices. He blinked at the mass of rock and felt defeated himself. His wound throbbed dully now from all the riding and walking, but surprisingly it wasn’t anything crippling.
“It’s well past nightfall outside this mountain,” Brant said. “We’ll rest here tonight.”
“I don’t like the idea of sleeping here,” Baldarn stated. “There’s no telling what else might be in these caves just waiting to catch someone sleeping.”
“We haven’t see anything so far,” Brant reasoned. “I think we’re safer resting here and getting a fresh start after a few hours of sleep than in trying to press on now.”
“Brant is right,” Tseralyn added. “A warrior is always at his best when he’s had adequate rest and a full stomach.”
Despite Baldarn’s misgivings, the rest of the group voted to follow Brant’s advice. They unsaddled the horses and fed them from small grain pouches they all carried. Once the feeding was done, the thieves hobbled the horses over on one side of the large mine shaft. The animals were given water from the waterskins, and they drank from one of Lago’s pots in turn. Only then did Brant allow any of his group to spread out bedrolls. Wick was again amazed at the master thief’s leadership skills. The little librarian had helped Tseralyn take care of the mount she’d been riding.
Tyrnen and Zalnar broke some of the torch sticks they’d gathered to make a small campfire. However, the campfire also reminded everyone there that they had only the meager scraps from Lago’s once seemingly endless larder to eat. The heat barely cut the chill filling the mine shaft, but it was more than enough to be welcome and appreciated. The thick gray smoke pooled against the stone cavern ceiling. Nearly half the thieves were asleep within minutes after Brant had given them the watch rotation.
Wick stretched out on his stomach on his own bedroll and flipped through the pages of his journal. He took out one of the quills he’d found in the hidden room in the Hanged Elf’s Point graveyard and elaborated on the notes he’d managed to take during the day, wanting to get everything down while it was fresh in his mind.
On the other side of the campfire, Tseralyn had set up her borrowed bedroll near Brant’s. The two of them were involved in an animated discussion that Wick was unable to overhear despite the little librarian’s best attempts to do so. He satisfied himself with flipping to a fresh page in the journal and capturing Tseralyn’s likeness with a detailed rendering as she sat talking to Brant, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her hands stayed busy, grouping and regrouping the rocks near her as if she was filled with nervous energy.
The little librarian added quick drawings of the web and the scene in the Forest of Fangs and Shadows. Is it a coincidence that Brant says he’s heard of a mercenary queen with her same name? Most people wouldn’t be as comfortable as she appears to be among this group—especially after what she experienced today. Wick considered that for a moment. However, she didn’t have much choice, did she? Still, the mystery that the elven woman presented was captivating. And the little librarian was certain the master thief was feeling the effects of it.
He capped the inkwell and pushed it aside, taking a moment to organize his thoughts. He’d thought to work at least an hour or so more, but his eyelids closed before he knew it. He fell asleep between breaths.
Later, although he had no idea of how much later, Wick awoke from a nightmare. His heart slammed against the sides of his chest and he gasped for air. The shadows wriggling amid the smoke pooled against the cavern ceiling didn’t help ease his mind. For a moment he believed the foul creatures that had chased him in his dream were still after him. Then he realized it was the campfire casting the twisting shadows and most of the panic left him.
After closing his eyes and learning that sleep wouldn’t so readily return to him, the little librarian tossed the thin blanket aside and crept out into the full chill of the mine shaft. He shivered, then his teeth chattered.
Rithilin sat near the campfire feeding small pieces of wood to the flames. “You should sleep, halfer,” the dwarf whispered. “Brant has us all on short watches so that we won’t get overtired after being up most of the night running from Hanged Elf�
��s Point, but I also wager he’s planning on having us up and about early.”
“I will,” Wick replied. “My throat is parched.”
“It’s all this smoke trapped in this mine shaft with us,” Rithilin replied. “It dries a man out quickly. I’d thought perhaps it would rise up and follow the mine shaft back the way we’d come and clear out of these parts, but it seems insistent on staying.”
As he drank from the waterskin, Wick glanced up at the stone ceiling. The smoke eddied against the ceiling that angled up in the direction they’d come down the mine shaft. By rights, the smoke should have drifted back up the mine shaft. Wisps of it did, but still more of it stayed in one mass.
Something is holding it here, Wick told himself. He secured the waterskin again, then stood and watched the smoke.
“It’s drifting toward the caved-in section of the mine shaft,” Sonne said.
Wick glanced over at the young girl. She sat up on her own bedroll, her blanket draping her shoulders. “Where?” the little librarian asked.
“There.” Sonne pointed.
Wick peered through the morass of slowly revolving smoke that seemed only to roll constantly into itself. He tasted the acrid burn of the smoke against his sinus passages and the back of his throat now. Watching carefully, he managed to spot the two thin tendrils that wormed into the caved-in section. They poked delicately at the jumbled rocks and vanished somewhere between them.
“If the smoke is being pulled through the rocks,” the little librarian whispered, “it can only mean that—”
“That an opening exists on the other side of those rocks,” Sonne finished. She pushed herself up from her bedroll slowly, as if afraid to get too excited about the possibility.
Wick followed her, wanting to know as well. So far, the Purple Cloaks hadn’t put in an appearance, but that didn’t mean that couldn’t change at any moment. The little librarian had fled from those frightening men as well as gigantic spiders all night in his dreams. The thought of getting trapped in the caved-in mine shaft tunnel was nerve-wracking.
With athletic ease, Sonne climbed to the top of the rock hill. Wick hesitated below for a moment, then crawled up the rocks as well. His backside still pained him as he pushed himself up, but it wasn’t agony. The smoke was thicker against the cavern roof when he reached it, and it burned his nose and throat like tiny, hooked claws.
Sonne coughed as she dug her fingers between the rocks near the cavern roof. She scraped out loose stones easily, and it had an immediate effect on the smoke flow. A steady stream of the gray cloud from the campfire curled into the opening she made, then disappeared.
Wick helped her dig but was quickly overcome by the wracking coughs. “We need wet cloths,” the little librarian croaked. “Climb down a moment and catch your breath while I get them.”
Nodding, Sonne climbed back down after him. “That last time,” she gasped, “I think I put my hand … my hand through to the other … other side. The mine shaft continues on the other side.” She sat on the rocks and hung her head between her knees as she continued to cough.
“Maybe,” Wick cautioned, not wanting the young girl to get her hopes up too high, while at the same time desperately wanting to believe what she was saying was true. “But it could only be a narrow chimney of space that goes for a hundred feet before another cave-in. We wouldn’t be able to shift that much rock very quickly.”
Sonne coughed and wheezed a moment more. “I want to know.” She looked at the little librarian desperately. “I’ve got a bad feeling about staying here, halfer, I really do.”
Wick nodded, remembering how the young girl had stood by him and kept up his own hopes while he’d worked on the Keldian mosaic. “All right, then. We’ll find out about this, Sonne.” He crossed over to Lago’s pack and took out two of the cheesecloth scarves the old dwarf used to wrap bread loaves in. The little librarian soaked the cheesecloth with water from his waterskin, then returned to the young girl. “There. Soaking the cloth will help filter the smoke out. We should be able to breathe better.”
Together, they returned to the top of the pile of rock blocking the mine shaft. They worked in tandem, scooping out rock and letting it clatter down the side of the pile. Wick used his newfound knife to lever some of the bigger stones out of the way. After only a few minutes, they had a hole to the other side and both of them were soaked from the sweat of their exertions.
Sonne thrust her flaming torch into the narrow hole, following it with her head. Wick waited impatiently for his turn to peer through.
“The mine shaft does continue on the other side,” Sonne said excitedly when she pulled her head and shoulders back from the hole. Dust and grit stained her features, darkening up some spots so that she looked bruised.
“The opening isn’t very wide,” Wick pointed out. Under the loose scrabble of rock and dirt they’d dug through, they’d found a huge, squared-off rock that looked as though it had split off from the section of cavern roof they’d dug under. The space they’d managed to clear resembled the upper and lower jaws of a cow’s teeth, as if they could slam closed in the same flat, grinding manner.
The volcano rumbled again, filling the cavern with chaotic, booming thunder. Dirt and rock tumbled down from the cavern roof, littering the lower rock again. For a moment, Wick feared that the two rocks might slam closed without the other rocks and debris to help them stay apart. They yawned only a little more than inches apart, not even enough for a grown human or dwarf to slither through.
“Did you hear that?” Sonne asked after her coughing fit passed. Dust stained the front of the wet cheesecloth draping her lower face.
Grit crunched against Wick’s teeth as he tried to find enough spit to clear the dust from his mouth. The cheesecloth helped, but it didn’t keep all the dust out. “What?”
“The echoing on the other side of this hole.” Sonne thrust her torch forward again, lighting the flat edges of the upper and lower shelves of rock.
Wick peered at the two rocks carefully. The ceiling section was huge, and the flat rock they worked on was larger than one of One-Eyed Peggie’s johnboats. Have they gotten any closer? He wasn’t certain, but in the wavering torchlight it was easy to imagine that the two rocks had ground an inch or two nearer together. “No,” he answered. “I only heard the echo here.”
“The chamber on the other side of this blockage must be huge.” Sonne grabbed a small rock and clambered between the two stone shelves. “Come over here and listen.”
Wick joined her, feeling painfully sharp rocks gouging his stomach, chest, knees and elbows.
. “Closer,” Sonne ordered.
Reluctantly, Wick crept closer, finally sticking his head under the overhang of rock because he realized she wouldn’t be satisfied until he did. The two shelves of stone were so close that he could scarcely turn his head without bumping his chin or his crown.
“Listen.” Sonne pitched her rock along the bottom stone. The rock bumped and rattled across the stone shelf, catching the flickering light of the torch struggling in the cloud of dust that still hadn’t settled from the volcano’s last rumbling. Then it disappeared, falling over the side.
Wick listened intently as the stone struck once, then twice very quickly, sounding very clearly.
“Do you hear it?” Sonne whispered.
For a moment, the little librarian was going to say no, then he did hear the other sounds. At first Wick thought the sounds were just additional impact noises of the stone falling. Only the same pattern—tap, tap-tap, followed by the final thud—repeated.
“Echoes,” Sonne whispered.
Wick started to respond, but the young girl held up a hand, grinning excitedly. More faintly this time, the tapping pattern of the falling rock sounded yet again.
“You heard it?” Sonne asked.
“Yes.”
“The cavern on the other side of this landslide is big.”
Wick nodded, trying to remember Chulinbok’s Theories and Mathematica
l Progressions. Somewhere in that reading—and Chulinbok’s very humorous sidebars about past students—the little librarian had read about how to figure volumes based on echo patterns. However, Chulinbok’s complicated equations evaded Wick at the moment. He glanced at Sonne, feeling the mud caked onto the wet cheesecloth plastered against his face. The accumulation was so heavy he tasted the mud. “Very big,” the little librarian agreed, giving his best professional opinion.
Sonne grabbed another rock and threw again. They listened to the quick tap, tap-tap, and final thud together. “The drop-off on the other side of this rock pile isn’t too steep. We could make it.”
“We?” Panic seized Wick in its icy claws, aided by the wet cloth across his face and the chill in the mine shaft. He rose up suddenly and bumped the back of his head hard enough to trigger blinding pain. “Ow!”
“Yes,” Sonne insisted. “You and I could make it through this gap.” She tested the rock shelves above and below them. “We’re small enough to get through.”
Wick shook his head. Crawling around on the other side of an immense rock pile that could keep the others from helping him when he needed it most was very probably one of the last things he wanted to do. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“We’ve got to do something.” Sonne sounded exasperated.
“We are doing something,” Wick replied. “When everyone gets up, we’re going back to try the tunnel we didn’t take.”
“That will take hours that we can cut off if there’s a way through here.” Sonne looked into his eyes. “Besides the Purple Cloaks, there are also goblinkin slavers in the area. I’d really rather not run into them.”
Neither would I, Wick thought. But the idea of crawling into the darkness ahead was almost as frightening. “The others will never be able to get through this rock. They’re all too big.” Surely she can see the common sense in that.
