At the mouth of the tube, Lord Bight tossed aside his used torch and faced Linsha with a feral grin of anticipation. “You won’t need your torch here.”
Linsha followed suit, trying to ignore the nervousness that gnawed in her belly. When she climbed into the tube behind Lord Bight, she peered past his shoulder and saw why the torches weren’t necessary. At the opposite end, the opening of the tube glowed with a pulsing reddish glare that flickered with tongues of yellow. The rumbling she had heard for so long thundered down the tube to pound at her ears. Linsha’s mouth went dry; her face shone with sweat. She crawled rapidly after Lord Bight, ignoring the sharp flakes of rock that cut her hands and gouged her knees. The light intensified, and the heat beat at her face like an opened kiln.
The governor looked back once to see if she was still following. When his gaze found hers, he nodded once and pushed on without a word.
All too soon for Linsha, they reached the end of the tube and crawled out onto a wide ledge in the largest cavern Linsha had ever seen. It was immense, a vast chamber beneath the mountain, where the liquid lava rose from the depths through an unseen chasm. The molten rock gathered at the bottom of the cave in a seething, bubbling river that filled the chamber with lurid light and heat.
Fumes, acrid and bitter, burned Linsha’s throat and brought tears to her eyes. She reeled back in shock from the fiery heat. Swiftly she tore a strip from her tunic, doused it in water from the bag, and tied it across her mouth and nose. Lord Bight did the same.
Gesturing to her to follow, he made his way carefully to the right along the path that followed a narrow shelflike ledge. Rough and uneven, the ledge tenaciously clung to the upper wall of the great cavern for its entire length, snaking above the slow-moving river of lava until the stream cascaded down again out of sight into another chasm beyond sight and knowledge.
Linsha clamped her hand over her mask and moved after the governor. She kept her eyes on the ledge in front of her feet and tried to disregard the dizzying drop only a step away from her path. The intense heat made her feel sluggish and slow, but she crept on, knowing that to stop meant certain death. She thought she knew now what it felt like to be a fly trapped in a fireplace.
They were nearly three quarters of the way along the length of the cave when Linsha finally saw a narrow, dark opening at the end of the trail. She wiped her sleeve across her streaming eyes to look again and knocked her mask askew. It had dried in the intense heat, so she fumbled at its knot to untie it and drench it with water again. A wave of dizziness engulfed her, causing her to stumble into the wall. Her elbow crashed into a sharp projection, and pain lanced through her arm. Half-blind, choked with fumes, and dizzy with heat and pain, she tried to right herself, only to lean too far in the other direction. Her boot came down heavily on a cracked edge of the stone, and before she could regain her balance, the crack gave way and her left leg plunged over the edge of the shelf.
Frantically she threw her body forward to hug the ledge. The impact of her fall knocked the air from her lungs, and the pack on her back slipped over to her side, tipping her weight even more off-balance. Her fingers scrabbled on the crumbling verge, but her arms were too weak to stop the momentum of her fall. Her right leg and hips rolled over the edge and her grip failed.
“Help!” she cried to Lord Bight. In her desperate struggle to retain her place, she couldn’t see him, and in her mind she was alone as her upper body slid completely off the shelf and her arms slid inexorably toward the brink.
A hand clamped on her wrist and brought her fall to a wrenching stop.
“Hold still,” Lord Bight hissed as he grabbed for her other arm.
Linsha’s slide downward abruptly stopped, and, lifting her head, she stared upward into his golden eyes. “Don’t drop me,” she begged. “Please don’t let me go.”
A strange emotion flitted across his face, but her eyes were still too blurred to see it. He shook his head, as if to rid himself of an irritant, and said in mock severity, “Squires. You just can’t take them anywhere.”
Bracing his feet against the solid stone, he gave a tremendous heave and hauled her body up and over the edge and onto the shelf. Without giving her time to recover, he pulled her to her feet, lifted her arms across his shoulders, and took her weight on his back.
“Come on. A little farther and you can rest where the heat is not so great.”
Linsha didn’t answer. She closed her eyes and put her trust completely in the man who had saved her. She didn’t really have the strength to do anything else, but surely if he had meant for her to die, he wouldn’t have bothered rescuing her from the lava.
With a slow, cautious tread, Lord Bight carried her along the last length of the ledge to a wide crack in the cavern’s wall. Below them, the fiery river of lava curved away and vanished into the bowels of the mountain. Blessed coolness flowed over Linsha’s face and filled her grateful lungs. The air was still hot and acrid, but after the deadly atmosphere of the cavern, the air of the stone passage was a relief. He carried her through the crevice into another, much smaller, cave that wound on, dark and still, beyond the fire and thunder of the lava hall.
When he reached several large chunks of fallen rock, he loosened his hold and let her slide down to a sitting position on the stone. She tore off her mask, leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, and tried to regain her breath. Lord Bight, to her disgust, hardly looked weary.
He sat down beside her and untied the water bag for her. “Let’s rest here for a while. It’s very late, and we both could use some sleep.”
“I’ll keep watch,” Linsha said automatically, fumbling with the pack. The fumes in the cave had given her a ferocious headache. She doubted she could sleep even if she wanted to.
The governor grunted and lay back on the flat rock, his head resting on his hands. “Suit yourself. I don’t think that’s necessary here. I need you fresh in the morning, so get some sleep if you can.” His eyes closed.
Linsha tried to stay awake. For a while she was able to concentrate on the pounding in her head and on the faint red illumination still visible from the distant crack. Lord Bight looked content on his rocky bed, and all was peaceful. As time passed, the pain in her head mercifully loosened to a dull throb. Her eyes grew heavy. She leaned back against the rock wall, feeling as weary as a storm-tossed swimmer. Listening to the subdued thunder of the lava, she hummed some tunes to herself that seemed to blend with the steady rumble in the background. Eventually the words were forgotten and only the music played softly in her mind like a shepherd’s pipe on a windblown hillside.
Linsha’s eyes drifted closed. Her hand slumped away from her sword. The music played on in gentle, lulling melodies until at last it faded away altogether, and Linsha slept.
Lord Bight opened his eyes cautiously, took note of her soft breathing and relaxed posture, and then swung his legs around and moved to sit beside her. He studied her closely for a minute. Gently, almost like a caress, his hand brushed those crazy curls off her forehead and came to rest lightly on her skin. He concentrated on her sleeping face and deftly extended his power around her to examine the nature of her aura.
A satisfied smile curved his full lips. Almost reluctantly he withdrew his hand and allowed the mystic power to recede back into his being. Pleased, he returned to his position on the rock, and soon he, too, was asleep.
Chapter Thirteen
Perhaps two hours later, Linsha woke with a start. Although they were still entombed by stone and darkness, her internal clock told her it was close to morning in the world outside. She sat up, stiff, sore and disgusted with herself for failing in her duty. She had fallen asleep on watch, a punishable crime in many orders, and certainly in the elite corps of Lord Bight’s bodyguards.