by Linsey Hall
“All this for slate?” I asked. “It has to be the biggest mine in the world.”
“Not just for slate,” Morwena said.
“What else?”
She shrugged. “Other things.”
The boat beached, the bow shoving up onto the shore. I jumped down, grateful to be off the water, and turned back. “Thank you.”
She nodded. “Remember. Stick to the tracks.”
“We will.” Roarke jumped down beside me.
Morwena waved, then leapt off the boat into the water. She disappeared beneath the black surface without a splash.
“That was good luck.” I pulled the map from my pocket, unfolded it, and scanned the contents. “It mentions a Path Red as Rust. That must be the railroad tracks that Morwena mentioned. We’re supposed to follow it to the Great Black Mouth.”
“Great Black Mouth?” Roarke frowned. “A cave?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
I turned to search for the tracks, finding them quickly on the bare beach. They were the rusty iron red of the ones in the woods on the other side of the lake, but there was nothing to obscure them here on the beach.
I set off toward them, Roarke at my side.
He looked up at the first ramp. “That thing is enormous.”
I nodded, climbing up onto it. The angle was steep—at least forty degrees—but the slate that had been used to build it was still well stacked. It was an incredible piece of architecture.
We began to climb. I leaned my weight forward so as not to fall backward, and kept behind Roarke who was faster than me. Soon, I was huffing and puffing, my lungs burning. Beneath my hat, my hair began to sweat. I pulled the hat off and shoved it in my pocket, grateful for the cool air on my head.
We made it to the first flat level, which was carpeted with yellowed grass. A building sat at the top of the ramp, housing a large piece of rusty machinery with broken metal cables hanging out of a massive wheel thing.
“That must be the pulley system that raised and lowered the mining carts,” I said.
Roarke nodded, then pointed to the rusty railroad track that turned left, heading toward another huge ramp that sat fifty yards away. “That way.”
I followed him, sticking to the track, which occasionally disappeared beneath the grass. We passed a couple more roofless and doorless buildings built of slate. I craned my neck to see inside, spotting rusty table saws that looked like they could cut through my motorcycle. Scooter wouldn’t like that. But they must have been for cutting the slate before sending it down the mountain.
We began the hike up the second ramp, then the third and fourth. Despite the light snowfall, I was sweating like an old guy in a sauna, my jacket unzipped and my scarf shoved in my pocket.
“Think we’re almost there?” I wheezed.
Mist shrouded the mountain above, lending it a threatening air.
“Not even close,” Roarke said.
An eerie laugh sounded from a building to our left. I spun just in time to see a sheep run out of the building, hurtling toward us on spindly black legs. I dodged, barely missing its fluffy body, and stumbled in the grass.
“Del!” Roarke grabbed my arm and pulled me back onto the tracks, but it was too late.
The laughing sound increased, followed by the scuttling of footsteps on the slate around us.
“The Coblynau,” I said, just as twelve gobliny-looking creatures jumped out from behind piles of slate.
They were about four feet tall and horribly ugly, wearing old-time miners’ clothing. Their eyes and fingertips glowed green. Was that their power to kill with a touch? And Morwena said they would multiply if we killed them. Crap.
“We can’t hurt them.”
“Run,” Roarke said.
We set off down the tracks. I sprinted behind Roarke, my muscles burning. The climb up nearly killed me, but the Coblynau were slower than us because of their short legs. Just barely.
When I turned back, we were nearly at the top. I leapt onto flat ground just in time to see another group of Coblynau pop up on the hill above. They stood on a massive pile of discarded slate right overhead.
Their laughter grew as they began to push and kick the slate. It slipped and slid.
My heart leapt into my throat. “They’re trying for a rockfall!”
“I’ll shift.”
But there was no time. Before Roarke could call upon his magic, the massive pile of slate began to slide down. There was a tiny round building right in front of us. It had massively thick walls and was the only building we’d seen with a roof still remaining. The roof itself was a domed shape, formed by slate that was several feet thick.
I shoved Roarke toward it, diving inside behind him just as thousands of pounds of slate crashed down around us, cutting out all light. Dust billowed in from the entrance to the little hut. I coughed, then sat up.
I called upon my Phantom magic, using my ghostly blue glow to illuminate the building. It was even smaller on the inside, a tiny round space that barely fit the two of us.
“Quick thinking.” Roarke stood. Mostly. He had to crouch because the ceiling was so low.
“Maybe,” I said, suddenly doubting my actions. What if I’d trapped us forever?
“What the hell is this place?” Roarke asked.
I inspected it, catching sight of something on the ground. I knelt to get a better look, discovering an old fuse for dynamite along with a wire that led out of the building.
“I think it was a blast house. I’ve read about these.” I pointed to the equipment. “They’d blow up parts of the mountain to get at the slate. But they’d hide in here while they did it, so they didn’t get crushed.”
Roarke reached up and touched the ceiling. “Glad this place held up, then.”
“Yeah.” I stood and went to the entrance. Jagged pieces of slate formed a wall of indeterminate thickness. Who knew how big this pile of rock was?
“I’m going to walk through it in my Phantom form,” I said. “Maybe I can move the rocks.”
“No.” Roarke’s voice was sharp. “Morwena said the Coblynau can kill you even in your Phantom form. You wouldn’t have time before they got to you.”
“Then what do we do? Do you think you can blast us out of here?”
Roarke shrugged. “I’m going to have to try.”
I flattened myself against the back wall, and Roarke went to the entrance. His magic filled the hut, the taste of wine and the smell of sandalwood growing strong, which just made me think—what I wouldn’t give for a mug of my boxed wine and a few hours on my couch right now…
The tornado of black mist formed around Roarke. A moment later, he stood transformed, his clothing gone and replaced with an expanse of dark gray muscle and massive wings. Though he folded them in toward himself and crouched down, there was still barely enough room for the two of us.
He spoke in his gravelly demon voice as he turned to me. “If we manage this, be ready to run. It’s not going to be quiet, and the Coblynau will notice.”
I nodded.
He turned back to the entrance. His magic surged again as he heaved his fist back and then punched the wall of slate. The stone exploded outward, and my heart leapt.
But no daylight flooded in.
Roarke walked into the hole he’d created, but it was barely anything at all.
“Too much slate to go that way,” he said.
Damn.
“Come here.” He gestured to me.
I stood and walked to him. He scooped me up in his arms, clutching me to his chest.
“What the heck?” I asked.
“We’re going through the roof. But you have to come with me, or you’ll be crushed by the falling rock once the roof is destroyed.”
“I can just go through as a Phantom,” I said.
“I know.” His brows drew together and he hesitated. “It’s just that…when I’m near you—touching you—my power is enhanced.”
“What?” That sounded crazy.
; “I don’t know if it’s because of what you are and the fact that I’m the Warden of the Underworld, but contact with you increases my power.”
That was weird. I’d have to unpack and examine that later. “Um, okay, then. But do you think busting out through the roof will work?”
“I hope so.”
It was better than me trying to fight off the Coblynau while trying to dig him out, so I nodded and curled up against his chest, trying to make myself as small as possible.
Roarke crouched low to the ground, his wings wrapped around us so that we formed a bullet-like shape, then pushed off with a massive surge of force.
We hurtled upward, crashing through the roof and up into the sky. The blast of slate was enormous, scattering the stuff all over the mountain. When we began to fall, Roarke extended his wings, a groan of pain escaping him as he did so.
I looked up, catching sight of his wings, torn and tattered. Blood poured down his forehead and dripped from his wings.
Oh shit.
His wings slowed our descent to the ground, but there was no way he could fly. I just hoped he could walk. We landed with a thud, Roarke stumbling to his knees.
I leapt out of his arms and knelt in front of him, tilting his chin up. His face was covered in blood. His wings were a broken mess behind him.
“I thought magic protected you when you broke through things like this!” I cried. “You tore through Tintagel Castle with no problem!”
“It protects me…mostly.” He swayed on his feet. “That was a lot…of jagged slate.”
Laughter sounded around us, growing louder and closer. I glanced up. The Coblynau—a dozen of them, at least—leapt out from behind piles of slate and slid down the loose rocks toward us.
“We gotta go,” I said.
Roarke staggered to his feet, but was slow.
One of the miserable little goblins was nearly to us. My skin chilled. I couldn’t let him touch us!
I shot him with an icicle. It threw him back about twenty feet, but when he finally stood, another Coblynau appeared right next to him.
The doubling that Morwena had mentioned.
Damn it.
“Can you run?” I asked Roarke as I shot another Coblynau, willing to duplicate a few of them if it meant keeping them off us long enough for Roarke to recover.
He nodded, straightening and stretching. “Yeah, let’s go.”
We sprinted off, tumbling and sliding down the pile of slate until we found the metal tracks again. We raced along them and up another ramp, into the mist that shrouded the very top of the mountain.
The Coblynau followed, their eerie laughter attracting more of their kind. It was hard to see them through the mist. It was hard to see anything. Visibility had been cut to only twenty feet.
We gained speed as Roarke recovered, sprinting up the last bit of ramp and turning left, following the track.
For fate’s sake, I hoped we were near the top! I knocked on my head for good measure, nearly missing the fact that the track disappeared into thin air in front of us.
Roarke grabbed my arm, yanking me to a halt.
“Shit.” My eyes popped out as I took in the old iron track disappearing into empty space. The ground beneath the track had fallen away at some point, leaving nothing but air. The track had followed, and now hung eerily off into nothingness. Forty feet away, the ground started up again. I could even see a bit of track on that side.
But there was no way to get there. Just a massive pit in the middle from a rockfall.
I glanced at Roarke, whose wings hung limply behind him.
The Coblynau’s laughter grew louder.
Double shit.
“I can try to fly,” Roarke said.
“We’d fall out of the sky.”
It was one thing to bring a boat up out of the water. It was entirely another to bring back a mountain. That was too much. Far too difficult.
An idea sparked.
It was only forty feet across. I could do this. I had to do this.
Ice was just a Cat 2 power. Easier to manipulate. It would work.
I knocked on my head, then called upon my ice power, letting it fill me with its shivery cold. When I felt full to bursting, I pressed my hand to the track and sent a blast of ice outward, envisioning a bridge.
Let it goooooo! I sang in my head as the glittery blue ice shot across the open air, forming a bridge with the other side. It was a few feet wide and at least as thick. It would hold.
I hoped.
I stood. “Let’s do this.”
Roarke glanced doubtfully at me, then shook his head and started across, leading the way. After the first few tentative steps, we started to run. I slipped once, nearly plummeting off the side, but Roarke caught me. The Coblynau’s laughter echoed behind us, bouncing off the mountain and echoing.
Goosebumbs prickled my skin and fear chilled my blood. There was nothing below us except open space and jagged rock a thousand feet below. Just my magic.
Sweat broke out on my skin as we sprinted the last half. When my feet finally hit solid ground, my knees turned to rubber.
Roarke turned, kneeling and raising his fist. He punched the bridge with one big fist, sending his magic through it. The ice shattered, sending the Coblynau plummeting.
He turned to me and we ran, racing along the track. We reached another ramp and scrambled up. The eerie laughter of the Coblynau grew. They climbed out from crevices in the rock from all around us. More and more. The whole mountain was teeming with them.
There would be no fighting them. Only running.
I thought my heart would explode by the time we reached the top. A decrepit iron mining cart sat there, long abandoned after carrying its last load of slate down the tracks to the lake.
I dodged around it, catching sight of the mouth of the cave in front of us, perched on the cliff.
We’d made it! The Great Black Mouth. A cave, just like Roarke had guessed.
The Coblynau’s laughter and their scrambling footsteps sounded louder.
“Hurry,” Roarke said.
We hurtled toward the cave entrance, darting inside. I spun around to look out. The Coblynau crested the top of the ramp and caught sight of us, their eyes brightening.
Shit!
I called upon my magic, nearly drained, praying that I had enough. As the Coblynau sprinted toward us, the ice filled my chest and limbs. I touched the cave wall near the entrance, willing the ice to fill it like a wall. It grew outward from the rock, glittering and bright, closing us in like that weird circular door on the spaceship in the movie Independence Day.
The Coblynau reached us just as it closed. They beat their fists against the ice, but it was at least two feet thick. I lowered my hand, panting. I’d used up almost every ounce of magic I had and was running on fumes. I’d need to rest to regenerate.
Somehow, I doubted I’d have the opportunity.
“That should buy us some time,” Roarke said.
“Yeah.” I stepped back, sticking my tongue out at the goblins.
They shrieked, enraged, their eyes and fingertips glowing green. I turned, joining Roarke, who still looked like hell covered in blood with tattered wings.
“Now what?” He wiped some of the blood off his face with his hands, but it didn’t help much.
I pulled the map out of my pocket, unfolded it, and read by the light that flowed through the ice wall.
“They wait in the darkness broken only by the fall of the water,” I read.
“That’s obscure.”
“No kidding.” I started forward. “Let’s go figure it out.”
We set off through the dark. A faint blue glow shined from the black slate walls, just enough that we could see where we were going.
“Thanks for getting us out of that blast house,” I said.
“No problem.”
“Sorry you got so badly hurt.”
He grinned and looked down at himself, hoisting his wings up a bit. He winced at the moti
on, but said, “This? It’s nothing.”
“Yeah, sure.” Nix and Cass were right. He’d more than proved he had my back. I should trust him with my secrets.
We walked in silence for a while. The tunnel was about as wide and tall as a school bus and very uniform. Eventually, splattering water sounded in the distance.
When we walked out into a massive cavern lit by a silvery blue waterfall, my jaw nearly dropped. The water glowed, shedding a hazy light over the cave. Blue lights glittered against the ceiling high above. Gold ore was piled high against the walls, thousands of pounds of it. My dragon sense lit up immediately, making my fingertips itch to go touch the stuff.
Touch it. Hell, I wanted to dive in it like Scrooge McDuck.
“Whoa…” I murmured. “They weren’t just mining slate.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Roarke strode to the pool of water and knelt beside it to wash the blood from his face.
I explored while he cleaned up, desperately trying to ignore the gold while looking for the exit. There was none.
Which meant this was our destination.
But no one waited here.
I pulled out the map and consulted it again. There was nothing new on it.
When I looked up, Roarke was mostly clean and had shifted back into his human form. Thank fates he was powerful enough that his clothes had reappeared. I was already starting to get cold again now that we weren’t running for our lives.
“Where are they?” I asked. “No one is here.”
“This is the end?”
“Yeah.” I paced, searching for any sign of life. “I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this.”
The waterfall tumbling into the little lake was glorious. So was the general feel of this place, all misty and blue.
But that it was empty except for the gold.
And I had basically no magical juice left to bring this place back to life and see what had once been here. There was no way I could turn back time right now. Not the way I was feeling. My magic was just dregs. I continued to pace, eyeing every inch of the cave like it held the secrets of the universe.
“What do you think those look like?” I pointed to four big slate rocks on the other side of the pool. They were roughly square.
