A tunnel long, a fearful flight

A tense stand-off in violet light.

The tunnel continued for a long time, a dead straight passage boring ahead through the heart of the mountain. There were no side passages save one, briefly, to their right; Arzath ushered them quickly past it.

Behind them, darkness followed, thick and impenetrable, and no one could tell if it was the cold, quiet lightlessness of the deep rock, or the deathly touch of trigon reaching out to grasp them. Ahead, the shadows retreated before Arzath’s magical light, the walls beside them stained vivid purple and dancing with frantic silhouettes, closing them in like an endless tomb.

They ran until their breath was gone and their legs screamed to stop, and then ran some more, driven onwards by panic.

Finally, just as they were all on the verge of collapse, the tunnel ended.

It simply ended, in a flat stone wall.

Everine, running in front, crashed Hawk’s wheelchair into the wall and went down in a tangled heap.

Ben and Araynia brought themselves up behind her and sagged against the side of the tunnel, gasping for breath.

Arzath pushed past them all. Breathing heavily himself, he ran a hand over the rough rock adjacent to the smooth wall, then placed his palm flat against it and pushed.

There was a grinding sound and the wall that blocked their path shuddered and lifted itself upwards, showering them all with fine dust.

Glancing back once, but not bothering to look at anyone, Arzath strode ahead, his eyes illuminating the space that lay beyond.

Not wishing to be left behind in the darkness, the others scrambled to their feet and hastened to follow.

They entered a smallish square room, neatly cut into the rock. It was made more cramped by the fact that it was almost completely filled with crates, boxes, barrels, sacks and various equipment, stacked against the walls right to the ceiling. Everything was covered in dust and cobwebs. It looked as though this room had not been used in a very long time.

The door behind them closed with an impossibly loud, echoing sound that made all of them jump save Arzath, who was sweeping his purple gaze around the room. He moved to one side and brushed the dust off one of the crates.

Leaning forward, he peered closely at the wood. A faint blue design appeared beneath his fingertips, glowed weakly, then faded and was gone.

“Preservation spells,” he muttered, feeling an uncomfortable chill at the touch of the old, familiar magic, as though he were somehow touching the ashes of his brother. Brushing the feeling away, he crouched and prised open a wooden box. It was full of apples, red and healthy, as though freshly picked. He pocketed a couple, then stood.

“A storage room,” he declared aloud. “My brother likely stocked it half a century ago. Everything remains in good condition. Take whatever you need.”

Though he had never explored this far into the tunnels, he wasn’t surprised at the existence of such a room. Requar had spent most of his life in the valley besieged. Arzath’s own castle had been designed with similar escape routes and contingency supplies. He was fairly sure the tunnel ran straight east to the other side of the peaks, though where exactly it emerged he did not know. He estimated another day of travelling, at least. There would be no time for sleep.

The wraith knew where they had gone, and it would not stop until it found them.

He turned his attention to the stone door through which they had come. Striding over to the wall, he found the concealed mechanism and placed his hand over it. Summoning his magic, he let it course though his hand into the switch. Dazzling white-purple sparks leapt over the stone and crackled across his glowing fingers. He poured magic into the metal mechanism until it melted sufficiently to jam the device, rendering the door immovable.

It would likely not stop the wraith, but the more obstacles between them and it, the better. He didn’t bother with a spell trap: magic was ineffectual against trigon.

He could not be sure of the strength of their enemy, but it was obviously no ordinary demon-wraith. It had found its way somehow to this remote valley. It was purposeful and intelligent, not some mindless dead thing. And those vicious black spikes…

His stomach quavered a little. He recognised those spikes. He had seen them before, felt them pierce his own flesh, worming into him, seeking to devour his soul. Their touch had infected him, sickened him, stole his life away little by little, until he was barely a shell of a Human being.

And what they had done to his brother was far worse…

Pushing away from the wall, and the memories aside as he did so, he spun into the centre of the room.

The others were huddled to one side, pale and miserable, having not moved from where they had collapsed. The young noblewoman was curled in a corner, half-buried in her fluffy cloak, weeping softly; the only sound to disturb the chilly, ominous silence. The boy Ben sat beside her, holding her hand, his face haunted. The blonde woman sat on a crate, knees pulled up to her chest like a child, face buried in her arms. The battered wheelchair stood near her, its occupant slumped grotesquely, one arm dangling over the side, like the corpse that it was.

Taking a single step forward, Arzath raised his arm slowly.

Catching sight of the movement, Ben leapt to his feet. “No!” he cried, eyes wide.

Ignoring him, Arzath allowed his hand to fill with sizzling violet light.

“No!” Ben shrieked again, his voice rising shrilly. “No, stop! STOP! PLEASE!!”

Arzath turned his head, regarding the boy coldly. “This thing,” he hissed, “is riddled with trigon! It has drawn a monster into MY castle. As long as it exists, it will attract wraiths like flies to rotting meat!”

The boy looked at him, his brown eyes filled with both fear and understanding. “I…” he swallowed. “I know! But…” he shook his head. “But you can’t!”

Arzath snorted. His fingers flexed wider, the glow surging in brightness as electricity licked forth. “I do as I wish!”

Ben gave another cry, and started to leap forward…

Arzath swung his arm towards the boy.

Everine screamed, leaping off her crate. “DON’T YOU DARE!”

Arzath paused, regarding her. Then he turned his arm towards her. His face twisted into a sardonic smile. “Would you rather be first, instead?”

Her face went bloodless, then flushed as anger surged through her. Her fists were balled at her sides as she stood her ground, her blue eyes flashing. “You wouldn’t.”

Arzath sneered. “I care nothing for any of you, you snivelling–”

“But Ferrian does,” Ben interjected quietly.

Silence fell.

“If you kill any of us,” he went on, “including him–” he gestured at the chair– “do you think Ferrian will forgive you for that? He’s spent years trying to find a cure for Hawk. Are you going to take that away from him?”

Arzath said nothing. Slowly, he turned to look at Ben.

The boy’s expression was steadfast. He held the sorcerer’s fearsome gaze, at least for a few seconds, before blinking and swallowing. “He’s more powerful than you, isn’t he?” he went on, either bravely or foolishly. “He’s only twenty and he’s already a better sorcerer than you ever were!”

Everine’s intake of breath was sharp. “Ben!”

Ben ignored her, and the flare of light from Arzath’s glare. “You think he won’t be furious? You think he won’t come after you? And then you’ll have to fight him! He has a Sword and a Dragon; what do you have?”

Arzath’s eyes blazed into him like twin purple suns, so bright there was barely a shadow left in the room. His free hand clenched, unclenched, then clenched again. The boy stood there like someone who knew he couldn’t be touched. Anger boiled inside Arzath, power sizzling through his veins, acrid and searing, longing for release. For an instant, he considered letting it loose, torching the entire room and everyone in it…

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Swinging his arm back towards Ben, ignoring Everine’s yelp of fear, he walked forward, forcing the boy backwards until he was stopped by a wall of crates.

“What do I have?” His voice spat and hissed like the electricity arcing around his fingers. He stepped even closer, so that the magic licked only inches from the boy’s face. “What do I have?!”

His eyes widened. “I have nothing to lose!”

To his satisfaction, the boy’s defiant expression finally wavered, going several shades paler, doubt flickering in the brown eyes along with the reflection of the sparks in front of his face.

Arzath held his position long enough for the fear and uncertainty to take a firm grip of everyone watching. Then he dropped his arm with a vicious swipe, extinguishing the magic. Turning, he swept away from them, cloak swishing, towards the opposite door.

“Stay here and die if you wish!” he snarled, slamming his hand on the wall to open the slab. “I go on alone!” For a moment he paused and looked back, his face eerie in the purple light radiating from the furious bright holes of his eyes. He pointed a finger at Hawk. “And if I discover anyone attempting to follow me with that disgusting corpse, I will destroy ALL OF YOU!”

Then he was gone, melting into the darkness, silhouetted by the violet glow of his magic until the door slid closed behind him, blocking the sorcerer from view and plunging them all into deepest blackness.

When he could breathe again, Ben began to feel his way quickly around the room towards the stack of torches he had seen beside the door. Everine’s breathing was loud: he could tell she was starting to panic. The blackness was so complete that they could see nothing at all. Carmine could be standing in the middle of the room at that very moment, tentacles silently extended, and they wouldn’t even know…

Ben’s own heart hammered wildly as his hand finally found a torch, and he fumbled a match tin from his pocket. The darkness felt as though it was crushing him, the silence deafening…

Then light flared, chasing the shadows away with a warm, fiery glow. Ben swung the torch around.

Nothing.

No wraith.

Everine sank heavily onto a crate, taking deep breaths in an effort to calm herself. Ben hurried over to his sister. “Are you alright?”

She nodded, but her face told him otherwise. She was struggling to hold herself together. She managed a scowl. “You… you shouldn’t have pushed Arzath like that!”

Ben glanced in the direction the sorcerer had gone, his heart still pounding from the encounter, and flushed slightly. “Someone had to stand up to him!” he said. “He’s a bully! And besides,” he shrugged. “He’s all bluff. He wouldn’t have actually murdered us.”

Everine bit her lip, looking unconvinced. She was silent for a moment. Looking over at the wheelchair, she swallowed. “But,” she said quietly, “he was… right.”

“What?”

She looked up at him, her eyes filled with despair. She shook her head, and sighed deeply. “Ben. We… we can’t just keep dragging Hawk around like this. Especially if Carmine can find him wherever we go!”

Ben stared at his sister. “What are you suggesting?”

She glanced at the wheelchair again unhappily. “Perhaps,” she whispered. “It’s time… to let Hawk go.”

Ben shook his head in disbelief. “What? Just… leave him here?”

Everine sighed. “She’s his fiancée, Ben,” she said. “She came here for him, and we cannot stop her. Do we… do we have any right to?”

Ben said nothing. They both stared at the pitiful hooded figure in the half-broken wheelchair. His left hand hung exposed, dangling over the side of the chair; gruesome, black and rotting. Beneath his plain brown robes, the golden silvertine armour sparkled like sun-beaten water in the light of Ben’s torch. It had not dulled in the slightest after all these years.

Neither had Ben’s hope. Not once. Not even when the Angel Legionnaire had stood at Hawk’s bedside, sword raised…

Ben shook his head. “No,” he replied. “That Angel back at the Inn spared Hawk’s life. He disobeyed a direct order from his Commander, and he didn’t have to do that. He doesn’t even know Hawk. To him, he’s just another dying Human…”

Ben took a deep breath, closing his eyes. “That’s a chance we can’t just throw away!” He looked back at his sister, taking her hand in his own. “We have to hold on a little longer, Everine. At least survive until Ferrian gets back!”

Everine shook her head. “Ferrian doesn’t know how to help him, Ben...”

“We’ll think of something!” Ben insisted. “If Hawk’s going to die, then Ferrian should be the one to decide, not us! He left us to take care of Hawk, remember? He trusted us!”

Everine’s eyes filled with tears. They spilled over her pale cheeks. “I don’t want to lose you, Ben,” she said, her voice choking. “Not like… this. Not like… Luca…”

Ben hugged her, feeling her body trembling as she embraced him tightly. She sobbed softly into his shoulder. He blinked back tears of his own. He had been too far back in the tunnel to see what had happened to Luca, but Araynia had been standing in full view of him when he died. Her anguished scream still echoed awfully in his mind.

It likely would forever.

Luca had been the kindest and most gentle person that Ben had ever known. The young Centaur had wanted nothing out of life but to cook good food and make other people happy. He had never complained about anything, not even when Everine was being insufferable.

He hadn’t deserved to die like that.

His bravery had forced Arzath to save all of their lives.

Ben squeezed his eyes closed. He was afraid too. He didn’t want to become a wraith, or have to watch anyone else die so horribly. But they had to try to save Hawk. They’d managed to keep him alive this long. They couldn’t give up now!

Pulling away, he brushed the tears from his face. “I still have the dagger,” he said, checking that the beautiful gold-gilded Angel blade was stashed safely in his belt. It was. “The silvertine dagger that Legionnaire gave to me.”

Everine sniffed, wiping at her nose, looking at him dubiously. “It’s a dagger, Ben.”

“It’s better than nothing.” He took a deep breath. “Arzath should be far enough ahead by now. We’ll follow him at a distance, at least until we’re out of the tunnels.” He looked around the storeroom. “We should hurry and pack up some of this food.” Nervously, he glanced at the stone door behind him, but it remained resolutely closed. No hint of inky black shadow penetrated its seams.

Turning back to the centre of the room, he suddenly stiffened.

Everine got at once to her feet. “What’s wrong?”

“Lady Araynia…” Ben walked slowly to the opposite corner, where the young noblewoman had been huddled. Then he spun back around, waving his torch.

“She’s gone!”

The darkness was cold as a crypt, enclosing her, an endless grave through which her feet dragged her lifeless body. The fur trim of her cloak brushed the hard-packed dusty floor; the scuff of her boots and whisper of her breath the only sounds in the utter stillness.

There was no light, and yet, there was only one light left in existence. Her cupped hands cradled the sapphire pendant, held it close; her head bowed, honey-coloured eyes tinged blue by the soft, gentle glow.

Darkness and horror and sorrow pressed around her, lingering on the edge of her consciousness. They were enormous, threatening with each fragile beat of her heart to overwhelm her. But as long as she remained fixated on the blue stone, they kept their distance. Memories faded, became an almost meaningless blur. She lost all sense of time. She forgot her companions. She no longer possessed any hopes or plans or dreams or worries.

She was no longer a person, just a moving body.

There was only the stone, and the simple loveliness of its swirling depths, the faintest fairy touch of magic on her fingers.

Only the stone. It was all that mattered in the world. It was the only thing left of her shattered soul.

She didn’t know how long she moved through the darkness. Perhaps forever. Perhaps, for that unknown passage of time, the rest of the world simply ceased to exist. At some point, she became aware of dull pain in her feet, and a gradually increasing heaviness that slowed her steps, but these things weren’t important.

Nothing was important, except to keep her eyes on the stone. She knew only that she must not look away – not to see where she was going, nor where she had been, because those were irrelevant. And if she dared to lift her gaze, even a little, she was aware that monstrous things would claim her, snatch her down into a pit of madness and despair from which she would never escape…

She clung to the stone. It smoothed out her thoughts, calmed the black terror that skulked around her tiny haven. It filled her mind with cool, blue swirling mist.

The stone was eternity.

Eventually, Araynia became aware of something different. A gradual brightening of the darkness. It embraced her like gentle arms.

At last, stiffly, she looked up, and came to a stumbling halt.

Light spilled out of a crack before her, a half-moon shaped cleft in the rock. She blinked, squinting in the glare, then slowly shuffled forward. She had to turn her body sideways to fit through the gap.

The crack emerged into a small, shallow cave. The floor ran another fifteen feet or so further, widening as it went, until it opened out onto a cluster of huge boulders that lay tumbled down the mountainside. Opposite her, and immediately to the left of the cave entrance were soaring cliffs, scoured harsh, pale grey by the blazing sun. To the right, at the bottom of the boulder slide, was a stand of venerable, red-skinned myrtle trees, their canopy so dense that she could see nothing within, or beyond, save a few small birds flitting back and forth between the twisted limbs.

And at the very entrance to the cave…

Araynia limped forward.

The Sword of Healing was stuck downwards into the sandy stone, rising reverently against the backdrop of the Barlakk Mountains. The sapphires in its hilt cast a dappled blue pattern on the floor amid the shadow of the long blade.

Standing on the lip of the cave, Araynia lifted a hand to shade her eyes and peered warily around the bowl of the small rocky valley.

Lord Arzath was nowhere to be seen.

There was no trace of demon-wraiths, either; no shadows, nor smoky mist. There was only clear, bright sunlight, a stunning blue sky, and lichen-covered mountain stone. A cool, fresh breeze washed down off the peaks, ruffling her dark hair and cloak, soothing her tired, burning eyes.

She turned back to look at the crack leading to the tunnel.

Nothing moved there.

Confused, she stood where she was for several minutes, not knowing what to do. She looked down at the pendant in her hand.

Its wistful light had gone out. It was a clear gemstone once more, glittering as it caught the sunlight. She replaced it around her neck, feeling suddenly cold inside despite the heat of the sun, and very, very alone.

The Sword rose beside her, sparkling and majestic. For long moments, she simply stared at it. A strange ache filled her heart, a kind of longing. Tentatively, hesitantly, she stepped up to it and reached out.

Her fingers brushed the hilt.

Nothing happened.

She drew her hand back for a moment. Then, swallowing, she reached out again, and curled first one slim hand, then the other around the handle.

She lifted the Sword free.

It came forth easily, sand and light sliding off the blade. It was very long: from tip to pommel only a couple of inches shorter than she was. She expected to have difficulty hefting it, but the Sword was much lighter than she expected. She turned it upright to look at her reflection, but regretted it instantly.

Tears filling her eyes, she looked away, swallowing against the tightness in her throat. She hadn’t wanted this Sword, hadn’t asked for it. She had been lured to the valley unknowingly, for it to be bequeathed to her by its former master, largely against her will. But evidently it was hers, now.

Too late to save Luca, she thought painfully. Too late to save my family. Why? Why me? Why now? Her vision blurred. I don’t even know how to use it!

Blinking the tears away, she looked back down at the boulder-choked valley. It took a few tries to find her voice.

“L… Lord Arzath!” she called, hoarsely and not very loudly.

There was no reply.

Alone with the wind and the birds, Araynia sank down at the mouth of the cave, folding her legs beneath her, placing the Sword across them. Fresh tears slid down her cheeks, speckling onto the metal. She did not like Arzath; he was a cruel and arrogant man, and he terrified her.

But she wished, more than anything, that the sorcerer had not left them.