Taking the torch in her teeth again, she started climbing down. Above, the stone slab came back down with a loud, ground-trembling thud.
The darkness grew deeper as she descended. Below was nothing but emptiness.
She rappelled a while to pick up speed, but returned to more careful climbing a hundred feet down. Her feet knocked chips of crumbling flagstone from the wall. Down and down she went, until she began to fear she'd run out of rope before she reached solid ground.
That was just what happened, but it wasn't as bad as she'd feared. She was down to her last thirty feet when the torchlight finally lit the shaft's bottom, and while it didn't quite reach, the rope's end was still within jumping reach of the floor. It would do.
Hanging from the rope with her right hand, she took her torch with her left and shone it about. She held her breath, expecting to illuminate the carven form of the Guardian, but suspicious shadows proved to be nothing when the light fell upon them. Satisfied she was alone, she turned her attention to the floor.
Over the centuries, a great deal of rubble had fallen into the pit. It covered the ground, a jagged, treacherous carpet of rock. There were a couple of archways on the walls, but they had collapsed, choking the passages beyond. There was nothing else to see from where she was.
She let go of the rope, fought a moment for her balance on the sliding rocks, then crept forward, torch held high. She kicked aside loose stones as she went, scanning the floor for some sign of the axe.
"Come on, you bastard," she muttered, her voice loud in the stillness. "Where are you?"
Nothing. She circled the chamber, looking this way and that. She had a despairing thought: What if Soulsplitter wasn't here? What if the Guardian had moved it, somewhere beyond the crumbled archways, where she couldn't get to it? What if it was beneath a stone that was too big for her to move? What if-
She stopped suddenly, squinting. She'd reached the far side of the shaft, and finally something caught her eye. She bent low, shining her torch. For a moment there was nothing but stone on stone. Then she saw it again: the glint of steel, beneath the rocks.
Stifling a whoop of joy, she wedged her torch between two large stones, then started digging in the rubble.
The rocks were heavy and hard to move. Wishing she had Trephas's strength, or her father's, she lifted them laboriously, one by one, and shoved them aside. Sweat soon coursed down her face, plastering her hair to her forehead and turning black as it trickled down her dust-caked face. Her lungs burned with every laboring breath. Her shoulders and back ached in places she'd never felt them hurt before. A new pain greeted her with every stone she prized free of the rubble. Her knuckles bled, scraped raw by the rough stones, and she swore a vile oath as her fingernails bent, tearing down to the quick. When her eyes were open, black spots swam before them; when she squeezed them shut to heave a stone, white lights exploded in the darkness. The minutes grew leaden as she dug, and she seemed to get no closer, no matter how deep she went. She refused to relent, though, pausing only long enough to gather her wind and mutter a curse before bending to lift the next stone, and the next, and the next… .
Then, suddenly, it was there. She lifted a chunk of marble, rolled it aside, and caught her breath. "There you are," she told it.
The axe disappointed her at first. From the legend Olinia had told, she'd expected it to be a thing of beauty: gilded, engraved, set with gemstones. Instead, it was simplicity itself: a black iron haft, four feet long, wrapped in dry, cracked leather and capped with a massive, double-bladed head that shone golden in the firelight. There was power in its plainness, though: it had lain here for centuries, yet bore not a single scratch, dent, or fleck of rust. She stared at it, marveling at how its head reflected her image, wondering how sharp its edges might be. Slowly, fingers trembling, she reached for it.
She'd expected it to be freezing, but it was warm, as though it had lain in the sun instead of entombed in the frigid mountains. It wasn't as heavy as she'd expected, either, and came up out of the stones with ease. She hefted it, holding it up to the light. Then, yielding to a sudden urge, she struck a large piece of granite beside her.
The crash was deafening. The stone shattered, showering sparks as Soulsplitter's head cleaved through it. When she raised it again, the axe was unmarked.
"Wow," she murmured.
"What was that noise?" called a voice from above: Caramon. "Dez, are you all right?"
She closed her eyes, sighing, then cupped her free hand to her mouth. "I'm fine! I found the axe. I'll be on my way back up in a-"
At that moment, she heard a sound that robbed her of her voice. It was low and muffled, but unmistakable: the dry scratch of stone against stone. She cast about, trying to find its source, then stiffened.
Before her, ten paces away, the rocks moved. They shifted slightly at first, then tumbled aside as something stirred beneath. Then, with a clatter, something thrust up out of the rubble: a massive, granite hand.
"Oh, shit," she gasped.
More than anything, she longed to move, to get away from the thing digging out from beneath the rocks. Her body, however, wouldn't respond. She couldn't even close her eyes as the thick gray fingers clenched into a fist, then relaxed again and started shoving rubble aside.
With a noise like a small earthquake, the Guardian sat up. It was crudely carved, in the shape of a bald, muscular man. It looked back, its malachite eyes gleaming with green light. Still paralyzed by horror, she watched it rise to stand on legs as thick as pillars. It was ten feet tall, from head to toe. It moved haltingly, like a man groggy from a long sleep, but as its joints scraped together the stiffness that afflicted them began to abate.
Run! her mind shrieked.
But where? The Guardian stood between her and the rope. It was moving now, taking a jerky step, wading knee-deep through the stones. She forced herself to move, started circling to her left, but the golem matched her movements, still blocking her way. Her torch, which she'd left behind, began to flicker and gutter.
The golem was five paces away, now four, now three. Its arms stretched out, stony fingers clutching, seeking to crush her… .
With a horrified yell, Dezra lashed out. She swung Soulsplitter wildly, striking the golem's elbow. There was another deafening smash, and the Guardian's arm came free, spinning away to crash, unmoving, on the rocky floor. The golem reeled with the force of the blow-which had come more from Soulsplitter than Dezra-and she swung again, aiming high.
The axe sheared off the left half of the Guardian's head; the glow vanished from the malachite eye as the piece fell atop the rubble. The golem swayed like a drunk, then fell back among the stones. It made one struggling attempt to stand up again, then was still.
She stood still for a long moment, her breath coming in hard, ragged gasps. The golem didn't move again.
She pulled a second torch from her pack and lit it from the first. She made a wide circuit around the golem, then paused to secure the axe to her belt. Clasping her torch in her teeth again, she reached for the rope.
Behind her, stone scraped against stone.
Fear struck her like a fist. Unable to breathe, she looked back. The Guardian was moving again.
Crunching and grinding, it tried to push itself up, but collapsed again as the stump of its arm slid out from beneath it. It lay still a moment, then tried again. It succeeded this time, shoving to its feet and turning toward her. Its remaining eye shone like a green sun.
She jumped. It was a wild leap, and she would have fallen badly if she missed, but her right hand caught the rope, then she grabbed it with her left as well. Her feet kicked beneath her, finding purchase on the wall. Below, the golem took a clattering step toward her, then another, and another.