Hellforged

silver thread like a lifeline. When my right foot stumbled into a hole and I crashed down, cutting my knee and wrenching my ankle, I didn’t look away. I kicked and yanked at my foot, ignoring the pain, until I’d freed it. Then I crawled forward, sweeping away debris with my hands.

It couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes to cross the cavern, but it seemed like days. Despite the damp, cold, and darkness of the mine, I felt like I was crawling and crawling across an endless expanse of desert toward an oasis I knew was a mirage. But Hellforged was no mirage. When I finally arrived at the silver glimmer, I hauled myself up onto my knees and turned on the headlamp. There it was, the obsidian athame, whole and undamaged.

I grabbed it. Hellforged flew from my hand and shot off like an arrow across the cavern, disappearing once more into the darkness beyond my headlamp. Damn it—why hadn’t I taken a few seconds to get centered? And why did the dagger have to be so damn jittery? I didn’t have time or patience for its crap right now.

I limped in the direction the athame had gone, but I’d lost sight of it. So again, I turned off my headlamp, located the glimmer a few feet ahead of me, and approached it. This time, I took several minutes to let my impatience drain away, breathing deeply and slowly and going inside myself until it didn’t matter whether I was deep in an abandoned mine or snug in my own bed. When I’d achieved that feeling of centeredness, I switched on my headlamp.

The light didn’t come on.

I tried the switch again. Still no thin beam boring through the darkness. Oh, no. Please, no. Not now.

My hand went to the flashlight on my belt. As I touched it I knew it was the one Pryce had fried earlier, but I tried anyway, flicking the switch half a dozen times like I had before. It didn’t work. What a surprise.

The panic I’d experienced before was the baby brother of what hit me now. I fought down the urge to scream, but not for long. I shrieked and howled and tore at my hair and just wanted to run. My sprained ankle saved me. As soon as I tried to take a step, pain shot up my leg and the ankle gave way. I fell sideways onto the floor, clutching my leg. My face landed in a puddle, but the shock of cold water and hard stone did nothing to snap me out of it. I kept screaming, the sound echoing like a chorus of the damned, until I drew a breath and inhaled a mouthful of water. I sputtered and pushed myself to a sitting position.

I coughed my lungs inside out, but by the time I finished I no longer felt like screaming. The cavern was silent, except for a steady drip drip drip nearby and, farther off, the muted rush of running water. Mab had mentioned an underground river. If I’d run off in a blind panic, I might have fallen in and been swept away by the icy water. Mab and Kane would never know what happened to me.

Okay. No more running, no more screaming, no more panic. I had to get out of here, so we could get Mab back to civilization. I wasn’t going to wait around for a rescue party, and I refused to enter the demon plane. If I stepped into Uffern carrying Hellforged, I might was well wrap up the athame with a pretty bow and give it to Difethwr as a birthday present. The only way out was to shift.

I’d have to be careful. It was difficult, sometimes impossible, to hang on to my human thoughts and intentions when I shifted to an animal. And the animal I had in mind was so much smaller than my human form that its tiny brain might not serve my purpose.

One thing I had going for me—the only thing, as far as I could see—was that we were just a few days into the new lunar cycle. This early in the cycle, my animal form would be weak. Maybe my human side could retain enough control to get Hellforged out of here.

I stood and placed the athame on the ground at my feet. Then I concentrated. Like a mantra, I repeated three words: “Knife. Out. Car. Knife. Out. Car.” For several minutes I said them out loud, then I drew them inside myself. Knife. Out. Car. I repeated the words until they were etched into my mind. I hoped my reshaped brain would be big enough to hold all three.

Knife. Out. Car.

I took off my boots and shivered at the clammy touch of the cold, damp floor on my bare feet. Lightly, so as not to send the athame rocketing off again, I placed my feet over Hellforged, favoring my throbbing ankle, and curled my toes around the grip. Knife. Out. Car.

I extended my hearing, sharpening it, listening for tiny sounds I wouldn’t usually notice. Knife. Out. Car. I thought of wide, leathery wings; a snub nose; beady eyes. Knife. Out. Car. I thought of hanging upside down, wings wrapped around me like a blanket. Knife. Out. Car.

I started shrinking. Big, I thought, big enough to carry a dagger. Then I resumed my mental chant: Knife. Out. Car. Pain squeezed my head as my skull compressed and my ears slid to the top of my head. My arms stretched and grew impossibly long, my fingers spreading out, webbing growing between them. My legs shortened to little more than feet and ankles; my toe-nails became sharp, strong claws. As it felt like my head was being crushed to powder, I managed to repeat my mantra one last time. Knife. Out. Car. Then the energy blasted out, and I changed.

Water sounds. Dripping, trickling, rippling. Rock groaning. A pebble rolling. I leapt into the air, wings going fast. Cried out. Sound bounced back at me. Too many echoes. Too many sounds. Walls, floor, rock, dust—crowding in. Confused. I couldn’t hear where I was. I slammed into rock, fell. Something fell with me, clattered onto rock.

I shook myself. I stretched my wings, flapped. No hurts. I cried out again, many times, listened. Cried out, listened. Sounds came back to me, gave me the shape of the nearby wall. I cried out again, again, again, listening for shapes. I could hear my location. Into the air I went, wings carrying me. I cried out, cried out. Listened. Heard shapes, heard spaces. Moved through them. Wings beating fast, fast.

Through the sounds, a light. Small, color of the thinnest moon. Near where I fell. Knife—a shapeless sound inside my head. I wanted the silver light. I swooped, touched rock. My feet found the light, grasped it. At its touch, I wanted out. Out. Under the moon, the big moon, where air smells like grass, not rock. Out where sounds go a long way before they come back.

I called. Heard an open space that went up. Up meant out. I flew up, toward out.

Narrower here. No water sounds, just my cries, bouncing off stone. I flew fast. My ears brushed stone. The tip of one wing, the other wing, brushed stone. But no crashing. I heard the shapes. I flew through a tunnel of sounds.

Now, echoes took longer to come back. Wider space here. But rock smells, not out yet. I heard another up- slanting space, flew there. Echoes closed in. Up I flew. Other sounds now. Voices—coarse, two-legs, no-wing sounds. Wind. Grass rustling. A big water lapping its shore.

I flew toward the sounds, toward out, carrying the sliver of moonlight.

I burst out of the rocky place, into the wide air. Cold. Many sounds, but long echoes. I flew up, dipped, swooped. Cold. I listened for food. Too cold. Cold felt wrong. Felt like sleep.

No-wings below, pointing. I dodged, moved fast. Too fast for no-wings to see. Out is no good when it’s cold. I wanted shelter, warmth. Wanted to fold my wings and sleep.

Back to cave, to shelter. No, cave felt wrong. Where was good shelter? Warmth came from no-wings, from a shelter beside them. Car. It looked warm, a good place to sleep. I swooped down. A no- wings made an opening, and in I flew. A four-legs, gray and furry, lay on its side, eyes closed. Yes, a good place to sleep.

I dropped the sliver of moon, moved in close to the four-legs. Warm fur. Safe smells. Sounds of breathing, heart beating. Good feelings inside me. I found a perch, covered myself with my wings, and slept.

30

THE ENERGY BLASTED OUT, AND I WAS NAKED AND FREEZING and it was dark and I didn’t know where I was.