Hubris - 44. Tunnel Vision

Barghast steered Mammoth up to the caves, trying not to think about the tracks leading up to them or the uneasy silence that followed them. He was grateful to be away from the caravan scene at the bank’s edge. The caravans reminded him of the scavengers’ caravans from his old life back in the desert. A life he worked very hard every day not to think about. I like this one much better.

The stench of fear pulled his eyes back to the tracks; their spacing and rapidity of the tracks suggested she had run. Fled from the scene of carnage to the only place where she might find safety. Only that supposed sanctuary turned out to be a den of death. He wrinkled his snout at the stench emanating from the mouth of the caves that tunneled beneath the earth. Wedges in the dirt showed the caves were not naturally formed. Something massive had made them, clawing its way through rock, perhaps burrowing under to sleep and wake when the Iteration dictated. The thought made Barghast whine.

The barbarian peeked over his shoulder in need of a comforting glance, to find his twin o’rre staring intently ahead. His brows were drawn in a pensive expression; he often looked this way when his mind was stuck on something that bothered him. Which was often the case. His beloved had quite the habit of getting himself tangled up in his own dark thoughts. The Okanavian relished every opportunity to pry him loose of them but there were moments when such issues could not be addressed. Moments like this. Still, he thought stubbornly. I must try. We have half a mile and a half before we reach the caves. They’d both silently agreed to leave Mammoth behind, not wanting to risk their own mode of transportation. Still the practitioner moved with a speed and determination that grew more apparent with each day. A powerful will drove him as never before. He’d seen that power at play on the beach. A power that had left the lycan and everyone around him in awe. How could Barghast not follow?

“What bothers you, my sweet?” Barghast asked in Okanavian.

Crowe waved his hand dismissively. “Later. When we find the girl.”

The Okanavian opened his muzzle to persist, but dropped it at the thought of upsetting the practitioner. The joy of getting to know him was in the unfolding of every crease. Crowe was like the most intricate of puzzle boxes, delicate but complex. He’d had the treat of holding such a puzzle box many times when visiting the seer when his ears were still floppy. His twin o’rre was a puzzle box that liked to open on his own one corner at a time.

Crowe surprised him by speaking half a mile away from the cave. “Damn it to the Void!” he snapped in the language to the North. He fell into a shy silence before continuing cautiously. That boy. The way he acted after he…drank my blood. You acted the same way, but he acted feral. You showed more control. He acted how I thought you would act when we first met.”

Barghast’s ears twitched at the guilt he heard in his voice. Wrapping an arm around him and pulling him against his broad chest, he needed the comfort as much as the practitioner did; the stench coming from the caves had grown so strong it made his eyes water and his nose tingle unpleasantly. He nosed at the top of the herald’s scalp, inhaling his scent. The quivering in his belly calmed.

“Fret not, twin o’orre. You did not know me like you do now.” One day we will come to know each other so well it's like we can read each other's thoughts, he did not add. Better to let things build between them naturally. Remembering the scene on the beach all too well, his voice became grim. “I didn't like it either. I know why you did it…that fool would have died if you hadn't…but it pains me when you cut yourself like that.”

Crowe laughed. The sound had an edge of hysteria the lycan didn't like. “He's not a fool, Barghast. He cannot control what happened to him. You know, you are going to have to learn to get along with others at some point. It won't always just be the two of us.”

Barghast pressed a kiss to the top of his head with a growl. “Don’t remind me.”

As the network of caves loomed ever closer, Barghast’s mind returned to the scene on the beach and his own brush with death. It had been Crowe who had saved him, giving him his own blood; had he not done so Barghast would have only known agony during his final moments; for this alone he would follow Crowe to the end of this Iteration. He recalled how Crowe’s blood had tasted like honeyed fire. Like the sweetest of wines. It had taken all his will not to devour him whole in that moment. A thought he didn't like to think about and one he would never share with his beloved.

Another thought pricked at the barbarian’s mind. The first time - with me, he thought possessively - his beloved had been so exhausted he couldn't keep his head up after the exchange. This time it had not slowed him down a bit. If anything it seemed to have bolstered his determination to find the missing girl.

Before he could decide how he felt about this new development, Mammoth stopped. They'd reached the caves.

                                                                              …

As soon as Mammoth came to a stop, Crowe climbed down from the towering shire horse. He scanned the darkness inside the massive gouges that had been punched into the limestone. No doubt the creature that is the cause of this formation still dwells somewhere beneath our feet. He bit the tip of his tongue to stall a bitter laugh. The girl sure knows how to pick a hiding spot. That he could find humor in the situation at all made him cringe inwardly.

He lit an oil lamp, pulling his rod from the strap at his belt. Barghast followed suit, lighting his own lamp and unslinging his rifle. The darkness inside the tunnels beckoned to them like a black palm. Half a dozen tunnels seemed to converge to make one giant tunnel and couldn't. The practitioner tried to imagine what would possess a young girl, even one who was in a fright to run into such a place.

All at once the thought of going down into the caves for any reason seemed insane. Who knew what horrors awaited them down there. We have a more important mission than saving the stupid girl who wandered blindly into the monster’s den. The future of my people is at stake. He only needed to think of her parents waiting on the beach to ward off his momentary lapse in courage. “Monad, give me strength.” He flicked a glance back in the lycan’s direction. “And Gaia as well.”

He turned back to Mammoth for a final time. “Go back to the caravans, Mammoth. Wait for us and remain there until we return.”

He felt a nudge of acknowledgement from the massive horse inside his mind. Since leaving the Mirror Expanse, the bond between animal and rider seemed to have only grown stronger. He could communicate with the mount without touching him now. When the notion that it might be another consequence from the surgery crossed his mind, he turned away from it as one might a disturbing facial deformity. Regardless of his feelings on the matter the horse turned about and centered off with a bellow of farewell. Crowe hitched his pack up on his shoulder once more. His rod was charged. He stepped to the side, letting Barghast take the lead. Crowe had the sense he would be relying a great deal on the lycan’s senses through this nightmare.

Together they entered the cave.

If the practitioner needed further proof that the cave was not made by natural means then they need look no further than the inner curve of the wall. Grooves and ridges carved in the rock formed a pattern that was organized. Decorative. Who could guess its true purpose?

“Twin o'rre.”

They’d only walked thirty paces or so into the main chamber and the bright golden sunlight had dwindled down to a weak glow. Even so, Barghast was impossible to miss. He was master of the dark, able to see without light when he could not…he'd brought the extra lamp to increase their chances of finding the girl or the girl finding them. Now he stopped. His eyes flashed intently in the dark. He pointed at something he'd discovered on the floor.

Covered in a puddle of translucent muck was a child's doll. Crowe felt a bolt of ice shoot through his chest. It doesn't mean anything. It's not an omen of death. Monad is just as much with Felisin as he is with me and Barghast.

He bit back a protest when Barghast stooped to pick it up. The lycan did not shriek or begin to writhe in pain when he lifted it curiously into the lamp light. He sniffed it. He winced with a snort that made every nerve in the sorcerer’s body leap. Barghast coughed. He pressed his ears back, giving the practitioner an embarrassed sidelong. His tail flicked anxiously from side to side.

“She went this way.” He cocked his head in the direction of the perfectly smooth archway leading into the next cavern. “Her scent is growing faint. The stench of those foul creatures is too strong. I'm sorry, twin o'rre,” he said in a voice that was somewhere between a whine and a growl.

“It’s alright.” His own voice sounded strange and far away. “We'll just have to find her the old fashioned way.” They entered a long tunnel that had been smoothed out into a corridor with the same ridges that continued on from the cavern they'd just exited; the ridges trailed along the curve of the tunnel that wrapped out of sight. Crowe imagined a small girl staggering along the corridor, so terrified she'd forgotten her only doll.

The practitioner shook the thought from his head. Stop it! Have faith! You were all courage and bluster earlier…

You were a fool and a hypocrite is what you were! a voice snapped in his head. It might have been Petras’ or it might have been Bennett’s or an amalgamation of the two. Both had grown fuzzier over time until the only voice that seemed to exist in his mind was Barghast’s. He chucked all doubts and voices out of his mind, focusing on the lycan’s broad furry back. Appreciating the plates of muscle that pushed up beneath his coat, muscles that were most definitely human. Barghast who would follow him anywhere and do anything to keep him safe. Barghast who kept pulling him to his feet when he fell.

The stench was all around them now, so strong there was no escaping it. Clots of the muck they'd seen earlier clung to the walls. Crowe shrunk away from the walls, sucking in a deep breath. He suddenly became quite aware of a wet crunching sound. The sound of moldering bone crunching beneath water. He saw the bones of animals who had made the misfortune of wandering into the caves or perhaps dragged in when the crustaceans left the water to breed during the summer. He saw the skeletons of squirrels, rabbits, fish, and heels; and that over there, leaning against the wall with vines of ivy sprouting out of human eye sockets. It wasn't the sight of a human skeleton that slammed into Crowe’s stomach like a fist of steel, it was the man’s uniform. He recognized the blue diamond. One of Matthiesen’s men.

A scream built up in his throat. Soon the panic would overwhelm him and he wouldn’t be able to hold it back. What horrible fate would he reign down upon their heads if he did? Before he could act upon his terror, he lunged forward, kicking aside jawbones and femurs in his haste to reach the lycan. He snagged the back of his harness. “Don’t stop,” he hissed when the barbarian came to an immediate halt. “We don't have time. Nightfall will be upon us soon and who knows what ills will fall upon us then. Lead the way. I'm right behind you.”

He felt the barbarian nod. The tip of his tail streaked across the practitioner’s cheek like a loving caress. Crowe smiled. In spite of the stench of rot and algae and salt water that filled the cave, he found he could breathe now. Whenever he was frightened just being near the lycan - touching him, reminding himself he was there, reassuring himself he wasn't going to go anywhere - was a comfort.

The tunnel sloped downhill, the descent leading them smoothly further underground. Crowe was not sure how long they traveled like this before Barghast paused in his step. “There is something up ahead,” he rumbled. There was a small pitch of both caution and wonder beneath the gravelly sound. “You can't see it yet, but you will. It's coming from up ahead.”

“Do not let the light fool you,” Crowe cautioned through clenched teeth. In his mind he was back in the corridors of the temple in Timberford. “We cannot afford to let our guard down.”

Barghast must have been thinking of the temple in Timberford as well for his broad head bobbed up and down. He had to stoop to keep his ears from touching the ceiling. To Crowe the tight fit in the tunnel looked uncomfortable but the barbarian showed no signs of displeasure. “I am prepared for anything, my beloved,” he said in an attempt to reassure the herald.

The practitioner was not convinced. You can never be too prepared. He noted that Barghast had tucked the doll in his pack; he could see the head sticking out of the bag. Crowe smiled to himself a little more convincingly this time. He wasn't the only one determined to return Felisin to her parents alive.

A moment later the darkness was broken by a pale blue glow emanating from the opening at the end of the tunnel. Tendrils of mist slithered through the opening, coalescing at the bottom where the stone flattened out. A chemical smell broke through the heady aroma of salt water and algae. They doused out the lamps, setting them in the corners of the tunnel where they wouldn’t be in the way should they need to make a quick getaway. Crowe and Barghast exchanged looks. The practitioner pushed a trickle of his will into his blasting wall. At once the runes carved into the wood lit up with a hearty thrum. He was prepared as he was going to be. He nodded, the signal for I’m ready. He cocked an eyebrow. Are you?

Barghast nodded with an excited flick of his tail. I’m ready.

Together they entered the chamber.

Crowe didn’t know whether to be amazed or terrified.

Blue spores twelve inches in diameter pocked the walls, climbing up towards the wall. Crowe craned his head back until his eyes reached the night sky somewhere high above their heads. He could just make out the first glimmer of stars peeking out from the darkening sky. The spores pulsed with an inner light, glued to the wall by thick puddles of the translucent muck that had covered Felisin’s doll; only this time it looked like it had hardened halfway, forming a white crust. From each spore he heard something throb inside like a heartbeat. These aren’t spores, the sorcerer thought. These are eggs. He thought of the crustacean who had attacked the caravans. He could only assume that the creature had been an adult and there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of miniatures who would one day grow to be its size. And what of the creature who had laid the spores? They had yet to see it, but it had to be here somewhere within the caves or else there would be no spores.

A disturbing thought.

The more he looked, the more he saw, the more he didn’t want to see.

Because held aloft by the same transparent goo and serpentine veins of algae were human figures in various stages of decay. Skulls grinned back at him, their bones beginning to turn to jelly. Others were shriveled, flesh darkening and caving in, peeling away to reveal the bones underneath, mouths yawning open in silent screams. Just when it seemed like the sights couldn’t get any worse they did. Many of the corpses had holes, holes in their arms, holes in their chests, holes where their eyeballs had exploded out of their skulls, flaps of flesh pushed out from where something had pushed or clawed its way out of their bodies.

Crowe felt the blood drain out of his face. What in Monad’s name could do that? It must be a creature corrupted by Inferno. With this thought the panic he'd felt earlier fell away, leaving a cold resolve in its wake. Whatever the nature of the creatures who dwelled in the cave only one thing was clear: he'd led Barghast into another death trap.

“We need to find this girl and leave,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

“Aye,” Barghast whispered with a nod.

Crowe opened his mouth to suggest that they were out of their depth when something seized him from behind. He whirled around, ready to slash the thing that had him with his rod; it was his body's first instinctive impulse. Only the thing that had him did not have scaly flesh, massive claws that could rend flesh like shears slicing through paper, and scuttled about on six legs. The thing that had him was a man.

The man waved his hands in front of him. His face was milky white in the glow emanating from the spores. He sobbed, falling to his knees. He made unintelligible sputtering sounds. Crowe didn’t need to understand him to know what he was saying. The gestures he made were universal. Don’t kill me, I want to live!

The practitioner felt everything inside him come crashing to a halt. Barghast and he had come here looking for a little girl. The circumstances hadn't prepared him for the complication of there being others trapped in this cave of parasitic carnivores that originated from the sea. His eyes shot to the lycan in search for the counsel of someone who was trapped in the same nightmare as he. No luck there. While his rifle was trained on the twitching man, the look Barghast gave Crowe reflected the practitioner’s own uncertainty.

For Monad’s sake, what am I thinking? He shook his head as if someone had slapped him. I can't leave him here. I can't leave anyone in this mess. He balked at the thought of what he'd been about to do. Monad, help me, who is this pilgrimage turning me into?

An ember sparked in the darkness. He sucked in a breath. He exhaled. With it calm washed over him. “It’s alright,” he said. Though he did not shout, the wide space of the cavern amplified his voice, making it sound like a bark. It reassured the man, stilling him enough to gawk at the herald with wide eyes. “A-Am I d-dead?” he stammered.

“Not as of yet.” The practitioner could not hide the bitterness in his voice. It was the bitterness of his youth chipping away one terrifying encounter at a time. “Who are you?” He scanned the man’s uniform. He wore a thick coat over a worn blue vest, breeches, and knee high boots. The blue diamond on his back marked him as a member of Matthiesen’s renegade army. If this were the case, Crowe hoped he would be a friend to Monad’s people. Right now we need friends. Right now we need all the help we can get.

“Corporal Harvey Lask,” the man said. He raised a shaking hand to his dirt streaked forehead in a pitiful salute. “I don’t blame you if the feeling isn’t mutual, but I am very glad to see someone else walking around here. Something that only walks on two legs.”

The feeling wasn’t mutual so the practitioner said nothing.

Barghast drew closer to Crowe. He cocked an ear, listening for movement. The practitioner drew reassurance from the lycan’s presence. “How did you come to be here, Corporal Lask?”

“My squad was sent to this bloody beach by the big man himself,” Corporal Lask said. A hint of pride shown like steel through his quaking voice. “Governor Matthiesen. He wanted someone to get rid of the crustaceans causing mayhem on the beach. He was rightly disturbed by them. You see, for the past several months they’ve been tracking up and down the coast, wreaking havoc on the goods that come in and out of Caemyth if you catch my drift.”

The practitioner nodded. He thought he could understand the implications. If the Theocracy decided to strike out against the governor’s army, the resistance could be at a disadvantage in terms of resources. “Is this malignant behavior common among these creatures?”

Lask cocked his head in speculation. “Forgive me for sounding overly suspicious but that’s why the captain and the rest of the squad…myself included…thought we’d find Hamon’s black hand all over it. Dating as far back as Caemyth’s records go these creatures have been known to feed off whatever lives in the ocean during the cycle under the water. During their time on land they are known to eat the fish and ocean life that wash up on land, gulls, the occasional runaway, horse, or cow, but they’ve never been known to aggressively attack humans unless actively provoked. At the very least let me put it this way: we’ve never seen anything like this before and it scares the shit out of us all. Enough to send a squad of the best to exterminate the infestation. Only the infestation ended up exterminating us, I think.”

The practitioner narrowed his eyes, studying the soldier of the resistance intently. “What do you remember?”

“Nothing to be honest.” Lask’s face squeezed up as if he could lodge the memories from his mind if he flexed it hard enough. “It’s all quite fuzzy. A lot of noise and motion and terror. And forgive me for sounding like a coward, I don’t want to remember.”

The sorcerer smiled humorlessly. “No, I imagine you don’t.”

The corporal’s eyebrows drew together as if he were truly just noticing Crowe for the first time. When he looked beyond the practitioner to the towering edifice of the lycan, the blood that had begun to color his face again drained back out. “Is that a lycan?”

“He is.” Crowe reached back to run a hand along the muscled curve of the barbarian’s shoulder. This earned him a playful swat on the rump from the lycan’s bushy tail.

“Monad, help me, he’s not going to eat me, is he?” Lask reached for his belt, perhaps searching for a pistol or a knife. He didn’t seem to have either. The severity of the situation made Crowe feel for the man. He’s about as helpless as the girl. A harsh reminder that time was of the essence and it was best to leave this place sooner rather than later.

“We’re here looking for a little girl. She’s five years old. Her name is Felisin.”

“Why the fuck would a little girl run into a place like this? She’d be better off in the jungle.”

“What does it matter? We found her doll here in the caves. We brought it with us in case we find her.”

Lask’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a grimace. “I’ll help you look for the girl but I don’t think we’re going to find her. We thought we were safe, the place was mostly deserted, and then we were attacked by a swarm of them and though they were just babies they were big enough. All I remember is waking up in a cocoon made of the same nasty shit you see sticking to the walls and ceiling. The only way I managed to break free was to cut myself loose with my knife. I snapped the blade in the process. Can’t say I’m not grateful. What I can say is I don’t want to know what would have happened had I not woken up and cut myself free. I imagine we’ll see more cocoons just like it further in.”

The thought of seeing more victims made Crowe shudder.

The trio fell into silence as they picked their way carefully along a more or less straight path down the center of the chamber. Being the most graceful and the one with superior senses, Barghast took the lead. Whatever his stance was on the barbarian, Lask seemed eager enough to accept the lycan’s presence in the matter of survival. The practitioner volunteered to take the rear of the group. “It’s best to make sure we aren’t being followed,” he said earnestly.

If Lask thought he had an ulterior motive, it didn’t show on his sickly looking face. In truth he didn't trust the man. It was growing more and more difficult to trust anyone but the lycan. It's been the two of us for too long. Perhaps it’s getting to the point where I don't know how to get along with others. Strangely the thought made him feel numb.

They were almost to the other side of the cavern when Barghast lifted a fist into the air. The signal for them to stop. A second later he snarled, his muzzle snapping shut. “We should leave this place!” His hackles rose. He turned his flashing eyes to Crowe. “Forget the girl…”

“What's happening?” Lask groaned. He clutched at his stomach. Crowe wondered if he would vomit. The practitioner felt like vomiting himself.

“The mother!” the lycan hissed, though he addressed the practitioner not the soldier. “She has awoken from her slumber. She knows we are here…”

Before the herald could utter a reply, a roar sounded with such force it shook the walls and floor around them. Crowe clapped his hands over his ears as the barbarian yanked him out of the path of falling debris. Agony battered him from all sides. The merciless pitch of the roar drove into his skull until he feared it would explode. Hairline fissures appeared in the stone beneath his feet. All around them the spores strobed, shaking with an inner vibration that made the air ripple.

Remembering the corpses stuck to the wall trapped like insects fossilized in amber, Crowe thought, I don’t want to know about what lives in those spores.

But it was too late to turn away. The spores burst apart in a cloud of gelatinous membranes and fluid. Crustaceans no bigger than the size of the practitioner's first knuckle scuttled along the walls in waves, each spore filled with thousands of parasites.

Just when the herald thought the nightmare couldn't get any worse, the bodies pinned to the wall began to move. Not all of them are dead! a voice screamed at him shrilly inside his mind. It was the voice of a frightened child who finds themselves hovering on the brink of insanity. No, he could see men and women thrashing about, waking up from a deep sleep. Their muffled cries of confused agony as their flesh began to writhe and then come apart in torrents of red as the creatures that hatched inside them burst their way out.

A moaning sound pulled Crowe’s dazed eyes back to Lask. The Corporal seemed to dance before his eyes, his flesh writhing with things that crawled beneath. He reached for Crowe. “Help me!” he cried, even as larvae poured from his mouth, his nose, his eyes, his ears, until his head burst apart like an overripe tomato.

Crowe felt Barghast tug at his arm and they were fleeing into the next chamber away from the terror that swarmed at their back. Older versions of the larvae scuttled out of the darkness at them. A blur of scaly flesh and flashing pinchers was all Crowe could see. And all he could think was, Damn it all to the Void if I'm going to die the same way.

His fear made his wand pur eagerly. It was the only warning Barghast needed to duck out of the way. The practitioner struck out at the cause of his fear with a scream of defiance. The crustacean closest to him burst apart in a cloud of torn flesh and slimy ichor that had the sorcerer dancing out of the way to avoid it. Already another lunged to take its place. The size of a horse, its mouth stretched open to reveal a cavern of razor sharp teeth that went back as far as the eye could see. According to Lask, up until recently these creatures had been benign for the most part. Now they were terrifying creatures of destruction written from the pages of the practitioner’s nightmares and for everyone he sheared apart with Monad’s flame, three more appeared in its place.

He was vaguely aware of Barghast pulling on the back of his cowl. Other times he would appear in front of Crowe like a wall, steering him through the gloom. Occasionally he would turn and fire his rifle. A single round would barrel through half a dozen of the larvae that swept towards them like a living carpet. They twisted through a narrow tunnel, dodging where jagged pieces of rock jutted out of the wall. Barghast climbed down into a depression where the ground dropped into darkness. He twisted around, offering Crowe a paw. There was no time to question whether or not they were heading deeper into Inferno - they most certainly were. The only thing they could do was keep moving forward in order to survive.

The rock crowded in from all sides. Barghast led them further away from the tunnel, away from the furious screeches that sounded somewhere just behind their heels. He would stop every few feet and wait for the herald to catch up. For Crowe his world had shrunk down to a single directive: survive. All else had fallen into the forgotten corners of his mind so that he was no longer sure of how’d they come to be here in the first place. What he did know - the only thing he could trust in - is that when all else failed he could trust the Okanavian to keep them alive. Only one fact rang loud as steel in his heart: He is my anchor.

The opening in the rock seemed to grow more narrow but still he pushed on. Never mind that he felt as if his lungs would explode at any moment. If Barghast can squeeze his lumbersome bulk through the cave then I should be able to do the same; if Barghast can be brave then I can be brave as well. Never mind that if he were to open his mouth he would scream and the scream would be one of utter insanity. He hated dark spaces. He hated feeling trapped with no way out. He hated insects. Especially ones that could lay their eggs inside you so that their spawn hatched from in. He found himself pleading with Monad. Transport us out of here. You’ve done it before. You’ve used me as a conduit to perform miracles. You did it when we were at Fort Erikson, when there were a hundred torchcoats bearing down on us with rifles, and you can do it now.

The thought vanished when Barghast’s paw closed over his hand. Somehow he’d managed to twist around to look back at the practitioner. “Quiet,” he whispered now. “Be as silent as the night.”

The barbarian needn’t have worried on that count because he couldn’t speak, let alone move. All he could do was stare into the familiar suns before him and draw comfort from their glow. We’ll get through this, Crowe thought. As long as we’re together we can get through anything.

He wasn’t sure how long they remained like that, crammed into a tiny wedge of empty space between two molars of rock, before the screeching and the sound of insect legs slipping over rock faded and all he could hear was the thunder of his own heart. At last Barghast patted his arm affectionately. “It’s safe, twin o’rre. We should leave this place while we still can.”

“The girl,” Crowe heard himself in a weak whisper of defiance. The swarm may be gone for the time being but it didn’t stop him from shaking so hard his teeth rattled together.

Barghast’s face softened. He pressed a kiss to the practitioner’s forehead. “I know you want to save her. I know you want to save all of Monad’s people.” He swept a lock of the practitioner’s hair out of his face. “What good are you to them…to anyone…if you’re dead?”

Monad’s flame burned inside him, stilling all his doubts with leaden certainty. “She’s alive. She’s still alive. And she’s close.” He did not say, We must not lose faith! They were the scripted words of a lunatic. He was not ready to stoop to such lows just yet. He clawed his way back to the main vein with a hidden reserve of stamina he didn’t he had. I pray it’s enough to carry me out of this place.

“You feel her?” Barghast rumbled softly. “I cannot smell her. I cannot smell anything in this befouled place!”

Was it just the practitioner’s imagination or did he hear doubt beneath the disgust in the lycan’s voice? Can you blame him? You led him into this mess and you keep leading him deeper into it when you should very well leave.

Yet the deeper he led the lycan into the crags the brighter Monad’s flame burned. Felisin was alive and soon they would find her.