‘I’ll take you there,’offered the elder elemental, and before Aquitain could sayanything, a whirlwind appeared around him and he was lifted up intothe sky and flown off to the south.
Zephira screamedthrough the mindlink, ‘What’s happening?’
‘I think I’ll be allright,’ said Aquitain calmly. ‘An elder air elemental is taking meto see their problem,’ and then the mindlink faded.
They didn’t fly far,perhaps a league from the town, and Aquitain felt himself dropping.He fervently hoped that the old air elemental knew what it wasdoing, but needn’t have worried. He touched down on the ground noharder than if he had jumped off a chair, right beside the top edgeof a rocky cliff, which extended down into darkness. A closerinspection revealed that the cliff circled around the edge of adark hole, possibly fifty paces across. In most places the jungleencroached right to the edge of the cliff. He couldn’t hear anywaves nor smell the sea air, so he concluded that it must be inlandsomewhere.
The ground was roughand uneven. He was concerned that moving around with metal feetmight be dangerous. He might slip and fall into the hole, so heslithered out of his body shell and reformed as a newman. Hereached into his shell and took out three powerstones, each loadedwith useful mental powers, and being naked and having nowhere elseto hold them, swallowed them. He had also brought one of Zephira’srings with him and placed it on a finger. This was his mainprotection and means of escape. It was a teleport ring allowing himto instantly transport to a teleport marker, such as the one nearwhich they had arrived just outside the town, or the entrance toFeatherdown’s tower, both of which he had memorized.
Finally he retrievedAlpha and asked it to grow thin spider-like legs, and placed it ontop of his head where it could cling onto his hair and have a goodview all around, as Alpha had much better vision in low-level lightand darkness than he.
‘Show me what you cansee Alpha,’ he commanded.
Alpha’s view revealedthat they stood on the edge of a roughly circular sinkhole that wasabout 10 paces above the surface of the water that filled it. Hecould see the glow of the sky reflecting back off its surface.Aquitain picked up a rock and threw it in the hole and heard thesplash. He re-used his power to see the glow of magic, and lookedaround for Whooshoo. The old elemental was a good hundred pacesabove him.
‘Where is the oldentrance?’ he asked, using Alpha to relay the message usingmindspeak, and Whooshoo sent him an image of a large crack in therock face below his present position. He lay on his stomach andlooked over the edge of the cliff, but couldn’t make out the crackproperly until one of the small air elementals, still glowing fromhis fairy sprinkles, darted down into it.
‘Wizard, why do youhide in a box when you can walk as a newman?’ asked the oldelemental.
‘My spirit is newmanyet my body is not. I can only make it look newman for a short timebefore I get tired,’ replied Aquitain through Alpha.
‘I have often thoughtthat newmans do strange things.’ said Whooshoo. ‘You have onceagain proven me right.’
**
Back in Panmagica, HighPriest Kelnor’s assistant received some interesting informationwhich he hurried off to show his master.
‘Excuse me yourHoliness; I have something here from the Inter World Council ofJustice. One of their archons captured a political criminal inPanmagica a couple of days ago. The archon also detected that thecriminal had an accomplice who was using forbidden magic inPanmagica. The archon was not allowed to apprehend him without awarrant or agreement from us. They want to know whether we want himarrested for breaching Panmagica’s laws.’
‘Do we know who hewas?’ asked Kelnor suddenly attentive.
‘We have a drawing ofhis likeness here, Your Holiness. He was last seen in the groundsof the wizard Sol Theolaur’s estate. You will recall that he is theSecretary to the Wizards’ Guild.’
‘Really!’ said Kelnor.‘Now isn’t that interesting. The Secretary of the Wizards’ Guild isharbouring and aiding political criminals who use forbidden magic.I think we need to have this person arrested. Draft out an arrestwarrant for me to sign and send it to them. Let’s do a bit offishing and see what we catch.’
Chapter 8 The Hatchery
Aquitain decided thatthe best way to get down to the entrance crack in the cliff facewas as a slime creature. So he changed to his Logicon body, andholding Alpha up on a pseudopodium like the eye stalk of a snail sothat he could see, he slithered down the vertical cliff face to thecrack, and then into it. Alpha acted as an eye, sending him imagesof their surroundings through their private mindlink.
He followed the crackdown a few paces, passed through a narrow roughly circular openinginto a larger chamber, and followed it down to the water. The youngair elementals kept him company, flying around excitedly. Heslithered along the wall, following the flow of water until finallyhe saw a section where a newman could walk and on arrival thereshape changed to newman form.
Absolute darknessgreeted him, mildly disorienting him until his eyes adjusted; thenhe was able to see the six young glowing elementals exploring thecavern above him. He created light on himself and the cavern lit upin eerie yellow light generating huge shadows, which moved as hemoved his body. He carefully edged along beside the flowing waterfor a few hundred paces, and came to a dead end. The ceiling hadrecently collapsed, blocking off any further progress along theunderground waterway.
He examined the waterflow and surrounding rocks. It seemed that the cave in must havetotally blocked off the water flow for a while as there were recenthigh water marks along the cave walls, but in the end the water hadfound a new way through and was eroding its own passageway right atthis moment. He could see a hole and a lot of turbulent wateraround it as it sped through. This was as far as the air elementalscould go.
He stood therewondering whether he should continue when he was hit in the face bya large splurge of greenish goo,
