“No.” Elyon’s voice tightened on instinct. “I don’t need it in here.”
Mallister Monsort knew him better than that. “You’re worried he’ll take it off you? Ilith? Don’t tell me you’re becoming obsessed, Elyon.” He smirked.
“I’m not,” Elyon said, too quickly, in a way that screamed the opposite. “It’s just…I still need it, that’s all. I’ve got lots of things I have to do. People are relying on me.”
“Ilith would know that,” Mallister told him. His face had gone more serious now. “He wouldn’t take it away if he thinks you’re doing some good.”
Elyon shrugged. He didn’t want to take that risk. “I’ll give it up when I have to,” he only said, eager to avoid the conversation. “But it’s not time yet.” He marched on, holding his torch up to light the way. Neither of them was wearing their armour, nor bearing anything more than small godsteel daggers at their hips, to make the going easier. There were some sections where it paid to dress light, he knew, requiring that you squeeze through tight gaps, though Morwood had said his workers were going to get to those sections soon, chipping away at the rock to open the passages out a bit. Elyon wondered how long that would take. Best not dally, my lord. If you take too long, Drulgar will return, and there will be no one left to save.
Mallister caught up with him a minute or so later, carrying a torch of his own. “I’m sorry about your arm, you know. I wasn’t intending to injure you.”
“No, just kill me. You wanted a death duel, Mallister.”
“I was angry.”
“And now?”
“Still angry,” he said. “But…not so much at you. This whole thing with Mel…”
“We don’t need to talk about it.”
“I want to clear it up.”
Elyon shook his head. He had said everything he could ever hope to say on the subject. “You won the duel, Mallister.” Let the gods decide, they had said. “If you take that to mean I’m to blame for Mel’s death, there’s nothing I can do about that.”
“I don’t think you’re to blame. I’ve thought about it enough now, and…” He paused. “I just want to put it behind us.”
“It’s behind us,” Elyon said. He turned and reached out to take his forearm, and the two men engaged in a brief grip and shake. “Now let that be the end of it. My shoulder is getting stronger, and hopefully I’ll be able to fly in the next few days. Properly, I mean. Without falling back to the ground.”
It turned out, an injury to Elyon’s sword arm was fatal to his ability to fly. He had thought - hoped - that he could simply use his left arm instead, but it was like starting all over again. The same as it would be if he were to try to use his left in combat. He would only make a fool of himself, and flying was the same. He needed the correct arm operational in order to soar and the dislocation to his shoulder was taking a while to heal.
They walked most of the rest of the way in silence, through tunnels and stone corridors and wide open caves, passing the occasional plunging drop, squeezing through some tight spaces. Elyon was careful to avoid aggravating his shoulder all the while, picking his way along carefully whenever the floor was uneven to make sure he did not fall. It was all easy enough in the end, though far from pleasant, and not a journey the smallfolk were likely to enjoy. The wind made strange noises here, as it came whistling eerily through the mountain, and sometimes up from the depths, growling as though some monstrous creature was trapped down there, and there was no natural light at all. All they had was their torches, which threw sinister shadows on the walls, and if they should gutter out, well…Elyon didn’t want to think about that.
Eventually, they made it to a series of tunnels where in places the walls and ceilings had collapsed. Some of the tumbled stone had been shifted aside, making spaces between them, with scaffolds erected to secure the roof. There was a wooden sign here, hammered into the ground. It had an arrow scrawled onto it, and a single word: portal.
That made Elyon Daecar laugh. “I guess the portal’s this way.”
They saw it but a minute later, a shimmering black void at the end of the passage. It was quite unlike anything Elyon had ever seen. Shaped like a large door, it had no lintel, no frame, and seemed to float, undulating, between the rock to either side, opening to a lightless, soundless space that made the hair on the back of his neck and forearms stand on end. Elyon wasn’t going to pretend he liked it. “I don’t like it,” he said.
Mallister laughed. “It’s something, isn’t it.”
“Something I don’t like.” Elyon inched backward. “Supper, Amilia said.” He made to turn. “We’d best be getting back.”
“How about we go through first?” Mallister suggested, with an easy smile. “Who first? You or me?”
“Together?” Elyon offered.
“It’s hardly wide enough. Best I go first. If you trip or fall when you’re spat out the other side, I’ll be there to catch you. You know, so you don’t fall on your shoulder.”
Elyon appreciated that. “Then I’ll see you there.”
Mallister took position, drew a deep breath, and stepped forward. He snapped out of existence.
Elyon blinked. “Gods,” he said, out loud. The word echoed through the tunnels. It was instantaneous. He took a deep breath, wondering on the wisdom of going second. He would rather not have seen that, in truth. But what’s done was done. He stepped to the wall, placing his torch in a sconce; Morwood’s men had sensibly seen fit to hammer a couple of those onto the walls here too, one either side of the door. With luck they would still be burning by the time they got back.
He stepped to the doorway. “Well. Here goes.” And without delay, he paced inside.
There was a jerk, as though some hidden force was tugging him forward, then a sense of floating. In the blackness, he perceived shapes, bodies, and those were floating too, and there was a sound of screaming, no, many different voices screaming, far away at the edge of his hearing, men and women all shrieking at once. But it was a flash, an instant, no more than a heartbeat or two, and suddenly he was stumbling forward into an echoing stone antechamber, with polished walls and high ceilings, tripping and falling to the floor.
There was a jolt through his weak right shoulder, but his left side had taken the brunt. He grunted and breathed out, pushing up with his left arm. “Damn it, Monsort! You said you would…” He looked up and cut himself off. Mallister was standing right ahead of him, in the company of a small man in old grey robes, frayed at the hems and sleeves.
“And there he is,” came a nightmare of a voice, all full of mocking tones. “The Prince of Vandar, Elyon Daecar.”
Elyon stood and brushed himself down. The mage was cowled, his features shadowed, though the end of his long dangly nose was visible, and he caught glimpses of the rot behind the hood, the haunting visage he’d heard tell of. “You must be Fhanrir,” he said.
The creature cackled. “My reputation precedes me. Now who told you about me, I wonder? Your brother, was it? Or the betrothed of the other brother that he killed?”
Elyon understood at once why Amilia hated this mage. “The princess spoke of you. I have not seen Jonik since…”
“Since he killed your other brother.”
“Yes.” Elyon was already on edge, and Mallister seemed less than comfortable in the presence of the warlock as well. A cavernous hall opened out beyond them, and he could see many other chambers and corridors leading off it. Even from here, it was possible to get a sense of the vast scale of this place. “You were expecting us?” Elyon asked.
“No. I just like standing around here all day and night, waiting for brilliant men like you to grace us with their presence.”
Elyon did not know how to respond.
Fhanrir snorted. “Champion of the Windblade, not wit. Suppose that runs in the blood. Jonik was never the sharpest either.” He sneered, and Elyon caught sight of mouldy gums and brown dead teeth and purple lips cracked and split. “You look like him, though. Bigger, but the resemblance is clear.”
