stuck, Rozt'a wrapped her arms around his dangling legs and pulled with all her strength. Druhallen entered the ancient mines of Dekanter with a groan.
Moments later, after he'd kindled a light spell, Dru had forgotten his discomfort. A pair of gilded symbols had been carved into the squared-off ceiling. He didn't read dwarven script, but he knew their Dethek runes by sight.
'We've come to the right place.'
The goblin set a steady pace. There wasn't time to explore, even when their path took Dru past side chambers where the Netherese wizards had perfected-or not perfected-their art. The chambers had been looted- Dru could see that much from the corridor-but debris remained. The walls of several were covered with the Empire's ancient script.
Dru's head said, keep walking. His heart said, take a moment, read the walls-what harm can a moment bring? The light spell followed him into a square room.
Woe betide the… He racked his memory for a translation. Woe betide the moon-eyed thief…
Rozt'a broke Dru's concentration. 'We're in the dark up here. Get a move on. You're the one with the light.'
Dru hurried, caught up. He deliberately hadn't memorized the Candlekeep scrying spell. He couldn't succumb to the temptation to cast it; that didn't stop the aching. 'You don't understand-' he muttered and quickly swallowed the rest of his private disappointment.
'I don't,' Rozt'a agreed. 'Galimer would. He'd be wide-eyed beside you, if he wasn't stuck in Weathercote Wood.'
Druhallen nodded. Remembering where Galimer was effectively dashed his curiosity. 'Lead on,' he said to the goblin.
Sheemzher led them along sloping corridors. They were moving away from the quarry, at least Dru thought they were. Over the years, his sense of direction had proven reliable above ground, but this was his first experience with caverns and mines. He was calm until their corridor ended at a cross passage. Dru matched the Dethek runes above them with the ones he'd seen at their entrance. He deduced that the four on the cross-passage ceiling were directional guides-useless directional guides for a man who could read a Netherese wizard's curse but not a dwarf's clear-cut runes.
Left or right? He asked himself and was suddenly in the grip of primal terror: They had torches, but no water, no food. If they made a wrong turn or failed to retrace their steps accurately, the light spell would eventually fizzle, likewise the torches, and they'd be trapped in the dark. Dru felt the mountain around him. His heart raced, his lungs labored-The damned goblin wasn't even looking up at the Dethek runes for guidance!
The light spell revealed Sheemzher standing on his toes in the intersection. He turned slowly to the right, then to the left. His eyes were shut, his nose was pointed up, his nostrils were wide, and he sniffed the still air like a dog.
After a few moments of this behavior, he chose the right-side path. 'Come,' he said. 'Come. Sheemzher remember. This way.'
Dru had beaten back his fear-or he thought he had. His feet weren't moving. 'You remember what?' Dru asked, sounding like Tiep. 'This can't be the path you followed six years ago, not if you followed Elva and the Takers underground from that black stone.'
'Sheemzher remember smell, good sir. Sheemzher never forget egg-smell. Smell stronger this way. This way, right way, good sir. Come.'
'Bad eyes, good ears,' Rozt'a muttered, repeating the common wisdom. 'Good nose, too… I guess… hope.' The light spell made all of them look pale, but Rozt'a's face had no color at all.
They hadn't gone far when they came to an intersection that offered three choices and more Dethek runes. Sheemzher took the middle path. Dru committed the runes to memory. Wizards trained their memories the way warriors sharpened their swords and merchants counted their coins. They didn't make mistakes-Druhallen of Sunderath didn't make mistakes when he memorized.
Make a mistake with a fireball and he'd be dead instantly. Make a mistake inside Dekanter and there'd be time enough for despair.
The mountain was all around Druhallen, pressing inward, interfering with his memory and, maybe, his judgment. They kept going forward because that was easier than making a decision to turn back.
The squared-off, rune-marked corridors gave way to rougher, unmarked passages. Newer passages, Dru thought, and wondered why.
'Not far,' Sheemzher announced when they came to another intersection.
They heard that before in Weathercote. This was their eighth crossing, the third with no runes, the third where they'd followed the straight-ahead path. Dru looked for something… anything… physical to commit to his memory.
He heard something instead, down the left-hand path-garbled sounds that might have been voices. Sheemzher tugged Dru's sleeve. The goblin's ears were as good as a man's.
'Quick! Quick, good sir!'
'What are they?'
'Demons, good sir,' the goblin predictably answered. 'Quick!'
Dru called the light close and dimmed it to a firefly spark. They linked hands and trusted Sheemzher to lead them through the darkness. No one spoke, but they weren't silent. Their boots clattered on the stone. Rozt'a's sword clattered against her hip. Tiep yelped and Dru had never heard anything half so loud as the hammering of his heart… until he heard the sound of pursuit.
Daring a backward glance Dru saw light and shadows behind them. Whatever the demons were, they didn't have a goblin's dark vision advantage over humankind. Dru planted his feet and the quartet came to a stop. He fingered his folding box and found a sliver of quartz near the hinge.
'Roz-What do you think? Stand or run?'
She swore once and whispered her decision: 'Stand. Everybody, flat against the wall and hope they've got to get close before they can start fighting. What about you, Dru? Can you fire them from here?'
He rubbed the quartz between his fingertips, warming it. 'I'd sooner give you an advantage. By the time I have something to aim fire at, there won't be enough time for me to blur you.'
The blurring spell would make Rozt'a shifty and elusive in the eyes of anyone trying to attack her. It was like armor, without the weight or encumbrance and usually she welcomed it.
'I'll take my chances.'
That wasn't the answer he'd hoped to hear. 'There's risk to fire-they might not be against us until we use it and we could find ourselves with nothing to breathe afterward.'
'We're here to steal a golden scroll. Burn them.' Rozt'a surged forward to take the point position in the tunnel.
Druhallen shifted the crystal to his offhand and retrieved a cold ember instead. They waited in the dark until he saw something he considered more silhouette than shadow.
There-he thought, aiming the spell as an archer would aim an arrow. He felt a prick of icy cold as it leapt off his fingertips. A magician could track his own spells; a good magician could track the spells of others. For several heartbeats, the question in Dru's mind was: do they have a good magician with them?
The answer, when it came, was a resounding No! Blinding light and screams filled the tunnel. Dru's fireball eliminated an unknown number of their pursuers, but not all of them. His aim had been slightly off, or his timing- whichever, the magical fire had erupted behind the front ranks of pursuit. If they hadn't had enemies before, Dru and his companions had them now. The silhouettes that raced toward them had thrown down their own torches and were lop-sided with drawn swords.
There was no advantage left in the darkness. Druhallen let his light expand and rise to the ceiling, then weighed his next move, defense or offense? Blur Rozt'a or throw more fire? He knew what Rozt'a would say. She'd rather have him take down one of the long-armed swordswingers coming toward them. Dru could cast a fiery streak with the ember bits that remained on his fingers after the fireball, and he did, as soon as the kindling power had flowed back to him.
He aimed for the base of the forefront swordswinger's neck and his head disappeared in a sphere of flame. The three behind the first never hesitated; that was ominous. They leapt over their fallen comrade and two of them
