«Why, you black… !» Slanter exploded in fury and came at the Mwellret in a rush. Helt caught him about the waist as he tried to push past and hauled him back, the Gnome yelling and struggling as if he had gone mad. Stythys’ laughter was a soft hiss as the members of the little company closed about Slanter to keep him back.
«What is it, Gnome?» Garet Jax demanded, one hand fastening about Slanter’s arm. «Do you know of these caves?»
Slanter wrenched himself free of the Weapons Master, though Helt still maintained his grip. «The Caves of Night, Garet Jax!» the Gnome snarled. «Death bins for the mountain Gnomes since the time they fell under the rule of the lizards! Thousands of my people were given over to the Caves, thrown within and lost! Now this… monster would do likewise with us!»
Garet Jax turned quickly back to Stythys. The long knife appeared as if by magic in one hand. «Be careful of your answer this time, Mwellret,” he advised softly.
But Stythys seemed unperturbed. «Liess from little Gnome. Cavess are passsagess into Graymark. Takess you beneath the mountainss, passt the walkerss. No one sseess.»
«Is there truly passage in?» Foraker asked Slanter.
The Gnome went suddenly still, rigid in Helt’s firm grip. «Doesn’t matter if there is. The Caves are no place for the living. Miles of tunnels cut within the Ravenshorn, black as any pit and filled with Procks! Have you heard of Procks? They are living things, formed of magic older than the lands — magic from the old world, it’s said. Living mouths of rock, all through the Caves. Everywhere you walk, the Procks are there in the cavern floor. One wrong step and they open, swallowing–you up, closing about you, crushing you into…» He was shaking with fury. «That was the way the lizards disposed of the mountain Gnomes — pushed them into the Caves!»
«But the Caves do offer a passage through.» Garet Jax turned Foraker’s question into a statement of fact.
«A passage useless to us!» Slanter exploded once more. «We can’t see to find our way! A dozen steps in and the Procks would have us!»
«Havess not me!» Stythys cut him short with a hiss. «Mine iss the ssecret of the Cavess of Night! Little peopless cannot passs, but my peopless know the way. Prockss cannot harm uss!»
They were all still then. Garet Jax stalked back to stand before the Mwellret. «The Caves of Night run to Graymark beneath the Ravenshorn — safe from the eyes of the walkers? And you can lead us through?»
«Yess, little friendss,” Stythys rasped softly. «Takess you through.»
Garet Jax turned to the others. For a moment no one spoke. Then Helt gave a quick nod. «There are only six of us. If we are to have any chance at all, we have to reach the fortress unseen.
Foraker and Edain Elessedil nodded as well. Jair looked at Slanter. «You’re all fools!» the Gnome exclaimed bitterly. «Blind, stupid fools! You can’t trust the lizards!»
There was an awkward silence. «You don’t have to go any farther, if you don’t want to, Slanter,” Jair told him.
The Gnome stiffened. «I can take care of myself, boy!»
«I know. I just thought that…»
«Well, keep your thoughts to yourself!» the other cut him short. «As for not going any farther, you’d be better off taking that advice yourself. But you won’t, I’m sure. So we’ll all be fools together.» He glanced darkly at Stythys. «But this fool will be keeping close watch, and if anything goes wrong in this, I’ll be there to make certain the lizard doesn’t see the end of it!»
Garet Jax turned back to Stythys. «You’ll take us through then, Mwellret. Just remember — it will be as the Gnome says. What happens to us happens as well to you. Don’t play games with us. If you try…»
Stythys’ smile was quick and hard. «No gamess with you, little friendss.»
They waited until nightfall to resume their journey, then slipped down out of the rocks above the Silver River and turned north into the mountains. Light from the gibbous moon and stars brightened the dark mass of the Ravenshorn. as it rose about them, great barren peaks towering against the deep blue of the skyline. A worn pathway ran parallel to the riverbank through a scattering of trees and brush, and the little company from Culhaven followed it in until the forestland south was lost from view.
All night they walked, Helt and Slanter in the lead, the others following in cautious silence. The dark peaks drew steadily closer about the channel of the Silver River to wall them in. Save for the steady rush of the river, it was oddly silent within these peaks, a deep and pervasive stillness wrapping about the barren rock as if Mother Nature cradled her sleeping child. As the hours slipped away, Jair found himself growing increasingly uneasy with the silence, staring about at the massive walls of rock, peering into the shadows, and searching for something he could not see yet sensed was there, watching. The company chanced upon no other living creature that night, save for the great cliff birds that winged silently overhead across their nocturnal haunts, and still the Valeman sensed that they were not alone.
A part of this feeling sprang, he knew, from the continued presence of Stythys. Trailing, he could see the black figure of the Mwellret immediately in front of him. He could feel the creature’s green eyes constantly shifting to find him, watching him, waiting. Like Slanter, he did not trust the Mwellret. Whatever promises Stythys might have made to aid them, Jair was certain that behind it all lay a ruthless determination to gain mastery over the Valeman’s Elven magic. Whatever else happened, the creature meant to have that power. The certainty of it was frightening. The days he had spent walled away in the prisons at Dun Fee Aran haunted him like a specter so terrible that nothing could ever entirely banish it. It was Stythys who was responsible for that specter, and Stythys who would see life breathed back into it once more. While Jair now seemed free of the Mwellret, he could not shake the feeling that in some insidious way the creature had not lost control of him entirely.
But as night lengthened into early morning and weariness blunted the sharp edge of his doubt and his fear, Jair found himself thinking instead of Brin. In his mind he saw her face again as he had seen it twice so recently in the vision crystal — once ravaged as she experienced some unspeakable grief, once awestruck as she looked upon the twisted image of herself in the form of that shade. Glimpses only, those two brief visions, and nothing in either could tell the Valeman what had come to pass. Much had befallen his sister, he sensed — some of it frightening. An empty feeling opened within him as he thought of her, gone so long now from the Vale and from him, on a quest that the King of the Silver River had said would cause her to be lost. It was odd, but in a sense she seemed already lost to him, for the distance and the time that separated them was strangely magnified by the events that had transpired since last he had seen her. So much had happened, and he was so far from what and who he had been.
The emptiness grew suddenly into an ache. What if the King of the Silver River had misjudged him? What if he were to fail and Brin be lost to him? What if he were to come to her too late? He bit his lip against such thoughts, swearing fiercely that it would not be so. Deep ties bound him to her, brother to sister — ties of family, of a life shared, of knowledge, understanding, and caring, and most of all ties of love.
They marched on through the dark of early morning. With the first light of dawn, Stythys took the company up into the rocks. Moving away from the Silver River where it churned dark and sluggish in its channel, they passed deep into the cliffs. Trees and scrub disappeared and barren rock stretched away on all sides. Sunlight broke east above the mountain’s edge, a brilliant, blinding gold that flared through the cracks and splits of the rock like fire. They climbed toward that fire until suddenly, unexpectedly, their ascent took them into a cliff’s dark shadow and they stood at the entrance of an enormous cavern.
«Cavess of Night!» Stythys hissed softly.
The cavern yawned before the little company like an open maw, jagged rock split and twisted about the passageway like teeth. Wind blew down across the mountain heights, and it seemed as if it whistled at them from out of the Caves. Lengths of dull, whitish wood lay scattered about the entry as if stripped by age and weather. Jair looked closer and froze. The lengths of wood were bones, splintered, broken, and bleached of life.
Garet Jax placed himself before Stythys. «How are we to see anything in there, Mwellret? Have you torches.?»
Stythys laughed, low and evil. «Torchess not burn in the Cavess, little friendss. Needss the magic!»
The Weapons Master glanced back momentarily at the cavern entrance. «And you have this magic?»
«Havess it, indeed,” the other answered, arms folding within the robes, body swelling slightly. «Havess the Fire Wake! Liess within!»
«How long will this take?» Foraker asked uneasily. Dwarves were not fond of closed places, and he was less than anxious to venture into this one.
