Then the pair pressed forward, trying to put distance between themselves and the crazed fishmen. If there was any luck to be had in this blasted place, the fishmen would not be able to follow.
The short hallway was the same pitted stone and knee-deep gray water—but it was only short compared to the mile-long stretches they had passed through initially. Helesys followed just behind Taunauk and to his right side, giving her wand-arm a clean line-of-sight.
Meanwhile she kept glancing back the way they came, fearing that the fishmen would return in force. They were so far in the hall that the elf could no longer see the door from which they started. Even if they had a torch, the light would only reach so far. No screeches or splashing came from that direction—no sound at all—and she saw no silhouettes or bulging eyes across the water, yet her concern persisted.
Her gauntlet would be some help in the confined space, but there was no telling the limits of its energy… She doubted it would be enough to withstand the mass of fishmen they had seen on the stone steps.
Helesys pictured the violence again and the gruesome aftermath of her metal arm. It… It did not bother her much at all. She was an intruder here and in seeking asylum had very likely stumbled into a sacred place. The fishmen, gruesome as they looked, might have only been defending themselves and their home. Yet those facts did not give her pause, nor did the violence. The elf shuddered from the cold and not from anything else. That must have spoken to the Terran that she was before she lost her memory. ...One numb to such violence.
~
Helesys and Taunauk left small ripples in their wake that traveled down the hallway and to the end of her vision in the gloom. She was never quite assuaged that those ripples at the edge of her vision were merely ripples of their passing and not something more sinister.
Blessedly, they were nearing the end.
From around the side of the barbarian, Helesys saw an end to the hallway and a soft glow beyond. Running water. Taunauk slowed to steady silence as they approached and she followed just behind.
At the mouth of the hallway they saw another room, this time gigantic and vaulted. Intermittent columns littered the room, supporting the massive spread. Each column was nearly ten paces in diameter—wider than Taunauk—and adorned with torches. The room sprawled out over one hundred yards to either side and even further directly across—so far that even with the intermittent torchlight it was hard to gauge the distance. The persistent flooding continued as far as Helesys could see.
The ceiling rose up and up, the full height of which she couldn’t be sure of. The torches that lit the room only adorned the columns up thirty paces or so, giving the columns the illusion of rising up into an abyss.
All across the room, trickles of water dripped down from the ceiling and splashed into the knee-deep flooding. Were they not just underground but underwater as well?
“We found the source of the flooding,” Helesys whispered. “Perilous place to build.”
“Most strange—look.” Something caught Taunauk’s eye and he pointed out across the great room.
Helesys crept forward and saw in the distance a swirling waterspout—or so it seemed at first. It could only have been a little taller than Taunauk. Tiny compared to the massive room, but nearly as thick as the columns. As it passed from behind the pillars and back out into the open, the sound of running water grew louder. The pair watched the waterspout for several minutes as it wandered aimlessly around columns.
There was no wind. Not even a breeze. The air of the great room was eerily still.
Then the waterspout groaned and shook. At first Helesys thought the sound had come from the columns and had been caused by some unseen shifting of water above the ceiling but then it happened again and there was no mistaking the source. The sound echoed through the cavern like the wooden groan of floorboards. Then twice the waterspout writhed with the sound, its swirling form pausing and becoming a silhouette of shoulders and a head.
A flash of light from its center—an object trapped within the creature.
Both realizations came suddenly, inherently: That the water phenomena was a living creature and that its soundings were cries of pain. Helesys knew not how she knew it, but the urge to help the creature welled up in her nonetheless.
She glanced to her massive companion. “Do you hear its pain?”
Taunauk nodded. “Do you know what the creature is?”
Helesys shook her head in frustration. “I do not, but it is clearly elemental in nature. ...I don’t feel the same apprehension I did with the fishmen.”
“Nor do I.” The barbarian sighed, as if contemplating a plan. “Instinct can be powerful,” he added, “But so can a creature in pain. Be weary of a wounded animal.”
“I’ll lead this time,” Helesys said. “My magic will be more effective than your axe.” The elf walked forward without giving him a chance to reply. She was a few steps out into the open air of the room before she looked back, just to be sure.
Taunauk was behind her. The nearby torchlight cast an enormous shadow behind him that made him appear to fill the room.
“I hope you’re right,” he whispered.
~
Helesys’s heart was beating in her throat as they approached the water elemental. It spun and wandered the room, its path never certain and yet rhythmic, like it was following some incomprehensible waltz. Its sporadic wails echoed off of the stone and water.
Though the creature’s shape was amorphous and swirling, the elf was able to predict its movements by watching the glint of the object embedded in the creature. She could see now that the shiny object in the center was a metal disc. Even more, in spite of the swirling body of water, the metal disk inside stayed
