The batlike creatures focused on Linsha for a disconcertingly long time, then they growled among themselves before responding.
We sense she is loyal to you, but she guards too many secrets.
I know.
As you wish. We do not sense evil in her, so she may pass as well.
“Thank you,” Lord Bight said out loud, but the shadow-people had already vanished between the thought and the spoken word.
“What was that all about?” demanded Linsha, who hadn’t been included in the telepathic conversation.
“They gave us permission to use their tunnels,” Lord Bight said, moving forward once more.
Linsha looked nervously around at the chamber of stone and everlasting night. “You do not govern down here?”
“Only through cooperation and respect. That is all they want, to dwell in this place in peace. They have been here since ancient times. They are as much a part of Sanction as the merchants who barter or the gully dwarves who help pick up refuse, and I am pleased to have them.”
A resonant tone in his voice caught Linsha’s attention, a tone of pride and attachment she had heard before in her grandfather’s voice when he talked about his inn or her father’s voice when he discussed his academy. “You truly are devoted to Sanction,” she murmured, intrigued by his unexpected sentiment.
“It fascinates me.” He halted in front of her so abruptly she had to slam to a stop and fling her arm aside to keep from hitting him with the torch. He loomed over her, his powerful form menacing in the flickering battle of shadow and light.
A low, rumbling laugh brought goose bumps to her arms. At once wary and alert, Linsha held still and regarded the governor inquiringly as he circled slowly around her and came to rest in front of her again, so close she could feel the heat of his body. It took all her hard-learned self-control to master the impulse to leap back and draw her dagger. Instead, she lifted her brows and tried to breathe normally.
“People fascinate me, too.” he spoke softly, like a whisper of steel. “I like to know who they are and why they do the things they do. Especially those I allow close to me.”
“It is a wise man who knows his friends and enemies,” Linsha quoted pontifically from a long-dead philosopher whose name she could never remember. She heard another low laugh that reminded her of the rumbling of a lion about to charge.
“Which will you prove to be when the time comes to decide?”
Linsha felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the air. She opened her mouth to protest, only to feel him place a finger on her lips.
“Words prove nothing,” he admonished. “It is your deeds I will watch.”
He turned on his heel as abruptly as before and strode off, leaving Linsha mentally gasping. Doubtfully, she trailed after him while her mind replayed that brief confrontation again and again. By the powers of Paladine, she thought, what did he mean by that? Was he trying to catch her off guard, or did he know more about her than he was telling? Had she revealed more than she intended?
Lord Bight gave her not a glance but continued walking rapidly across the great cavern. At the far end, he ducked through another opening into a tunnel similar to the last. Beyond the shadowhall, though, the single tunnel broke off into a labyrinth of tunnels, passages, and halls. To the left and right, arched doorways opened into tunnels going in every direction. Half-seen stairways dropped away into gaping blackness, and countless turns and junctions left Linsha totally bewildered. It was good she had a guide who seemed to know where he was going, and she hoped in the back of her mind that he wouldn’t leave her down there to rot. She had no doubt she could never find her way back by herself.
The air was cool and damp in the tunnels, and sometimes they passed deep chambers that smelled strongly of mushrooms. Several times they crossed over shallow streams where blind fish swam in the crystal clear waters. Although they didn’t see another denizen of the shadowpeople’s realm, Linsha sensed the creatures were close by. She had an eerie impression of watchfulness, and once in a while she would hear faint voices growl in the gloom or the distant scratch of claw on stone.
They had walked for nearly two hours through the maze of tunnels before Lord Bight broke the silence. “We are under what is left of the Temple of Duerghast. From here the going becomes more difficult.”
To Linsha’s embarrassment, her stomach chose that moment to rumble a loud protest at her lack of supper.
Lord Bight shook his head. “I suppose we’d better rest so you can eat. I’d hate to have my bodyguard faint from hunger.” He jammed the end of his torch into a crack in the wall and sat on the stone floor, the box between his knees.
Still dubious of his intentions, Linsha sat out of arm’s reach. Her own torch guttered a few times and went out, leaving them in the feeble light of just one torch. Hurriedly she lit another one, then delved into the pack for food. Lord Bight sat wordlessly and watched her, his eyes half amused, half knowing.
She managed to eat a slab of bread and cheese and some figs before she lost her patience. “Why are you staring at me?” she demanded.
“You’re prettier than the stone wall,” he replied reasonably.
She snapped a few waterfront oaths, then lapsed into silence. There was no arguing with him. He was as good as Ian Durne at keeping her off-balance. What was it about these two men that made her act like a tongue-tied maid? She downed a mouthful of water, shoved everything back in the pack, and jumped to her feet in one fluid, angry motion. He followed more slowly, looking amused, and took the lead once again.
The passage they were in ran due south, then curved to the east under the flanks of Mount Ashkir. Other junctions and tunnel openings dwindled in number until the path ran on alone and gradually left the Shadowrealm behind. The feeling of watchfulness faded from Linsha’s awareness, and the echoes of voices vanished into the dark depths of the earth. The only sounds left were the dull thud of the travelers’ footfalls and the subdued swish of their clothing. The tunnel itself degraded from a smooth path to a rough opening that was barely more than a wide crack in the mountain. The walls pressed closer, and the floor became uneven and more difficult to cross. Rockfalls and boulders lay on the trail. Fissures opened up before them, some smoking with sulfurous steam. The air grew noticeably warmer. When Linsha put her hand on the walls, she could feel a quiver in the rock like a distant tremble that shook the bowels of the volcano.
Mount Ashkir was still an active volcano, and years after its primary eruption, it still belched steam and ash and an occasional stream of lava. But its main force had been dissipated, and the lava river that once threatened to engulf the south side of Sanction had disappeared, largely due—at least, so they said in Sanction—to Lord Bight’s magic. All that remained on the surface of Ashkir’s slope was a narrow flow on the eastern side that fed into the defensive dikes that protected the city from invasion from the East Pass.
Linsha tried to keep all of that in mind as the path worked deeper and deeper into the interior of the peak. Lord Bight was with her and he could handle a recalcitrant volcano, but Mount Ashkir was quiet these days; there was nothing to worry about. It didn’t matter that the air had become uncomfortably hot and heavy, and the quivering had strengthened to a continuous low-pitched rumble that Linsha could feel through her boots with every step. Everything would be all right.
She wished she could remove her tunic again, but Lord Bight didn’t stop or slow down, and Linsha kept doggedly at his heels. Soon the path entered a long, narrow cavern that sloped upward on a steep incline. The rumbling was louder still, echoing through the passage with a dull roar like distant thunder.
They scrambled up the black slope, using both hands and feet to fight for balance on the broken rubble. At the top, the trail plunged into another opening that Linsha recognized was an old lava tube. Although old beyond measure, the tube was still passable enough to crawl through, and it bore straight and true for several hundred feet.