Jataan worked his way through the overseers quickly but methodically, cutting here, stabbing there, killing each man he engaged with seemingly causal ease.
Anja howled like a banshee, wading into the startled men with her broadsword, cutting three down before the rest could respond.
Alexander regained his feet and immediately took five shards of magical force right in the center of his chest, each hitting with sufficient energy to knock him backward a foot or two, delivering punishing blows but not penetrating his dragon-scale armor. The wizard looked at him incredulously when Alexander stumbled backward and fell, badly battered and bruised but still alive.
Jataan threw his bloody knife at the wizard but it bounced off his shield. The battle mage darted across the room, quickly recovering his knife before moving around behind the wizard.
As he raised his dagger, it abruptly transformed into a war hammer. He set himself, got a firm grip, and smashed the shield with as much force as he could bring to bear. His strike rebounded, knocking him off the pedestal, but the wizard’s shield failed with a pop.
The Acuna wizard looked around in a panic before throwing a black pellet to the ground. A ball of grey smoke quickly engulfed him, obscuring his position for a moment before fading away and revealing that he’d vanished. A small ember trailing black smoke floated through the passage that Alexander had cut around the shield and down the tunnel.
Chapter 30
“Everyone all right?” Alexander asked, wincing in pain as he got to his feet.
“You, least of all,” Lita said. “Let me take a look at your wounds.”
“I’ll be fine,” Alexander said.
“Nonsense,” she said, putting her hand lightly on his chest and muttering the words of a spell under her breath. She smiled serenely, her eyes closed while she nodded to herself as if she were receiving instructions.
“You’re badly bruised, but nothing is broken or bleeding,” she said. “You’ll heal, but it will be painful. When we stop, I can accelerate the process but not until you have time to sleep for the night.”
“Perhaps we should be on our way,” Jack said, looking through the red-tinged shield at the tunnel filled with approaching overseers. They were still a few hundred feet away, but there were a lot of them.
“Let’s go,” Alexander said, sheathing the Thinblade and hobbling toward the giant entry hall to the underdark. He hurt all over. The force shards had hit harder than he would have imagined-easily hard enough to cut straight through a man wearing normal plate armor.
“I see Mage Gamaliel made you a weapon,” Alexander said to Jataan.
The General Commander of the Reishi Protectorate actually smiled. “Yes, Lord Reishi. The Guild Mage presented me with a most wonderful gift. He calls it a Weaponere’s Stone.” Jataan held up a smooth lump of dull grey metal that looked more like a piece of slag than a weapon … until it transformed into a dagger. “With only a thought, I can make it into any weapon I wish. That by itself is potent, but it was also crafted to magnify the magic that is naturally imbued upon weapons that I wield, making it ideally suited to my needs.”
“Sometimes I think Mage Gamaliel has contributed more to this war effort than any other person,” Alexander said, climbing up into the entry hall, marveling again at the giant stone fir trees that served as pillars holding up the ceiling hundreds of feet overhead.
Jack stopped a few steps inside the hall, looking around and whistling to himself. “I could take notes on this place for an hour.”
“Probably not the best day for that,” Alexander said.
“Right … pity, though.”
They hurried across the enormous hall to the corridor entrance on the opposite wall. Alexander opened his Wizard’s Den midstride, snatching Luminessence from just inside the door, and lighting their way with his staff, illuminating the artistry of the corridor-a forest road covered over by branches of trees grown together, yet done completely in stone. He raised the light considerably once they reached the balcony overlooking the great chasm at the heart of the underdark.
Although most of the bridges across the chasm appeared to be broken, a few in the distance still looked intact, and the remnants were enough to demonstrate great power at work. A variety of stone buildings and balconies were set into the walls above and below stretching out as far as Alexander’s light could reach.
“And I thought the entryway was impressive,” Jack whispered. “Please tell me I can write about this place.”
“Most of it,” Alexander said.
McGinty seemed to ooze up out of the floor right in front of Alexander and take form: a three-foot-tall humanoid made out of mud, yet with reasonably lifelike features.
Jataan started to move, but Alexander stopped him with a gesture.
“You brought other fleshlings,” McGinty said.
“Yes, these are my friends.”
He seemed confused for a moment. Then he asked, “What is their purpose?”
“To help me navigate the underdark,” Alexander said.
Jack leaned forward a bit, giving him a sidelong look.
McGinty paused again.
“I take it you two have met before,” Jack said.
“In a manner of speaking,” Alexander said.
“I sensed the memory, but only briefly,” McGinty said.
“Yes.”
“Bring it quickly. Come to the well alone,” McGinty said, oozing back into the stone floor, completely vanishing into the cracks.
“The memory?” Jack said.
Alexander shook his head very deliberately.
Jack nodded reluctantly.
“We’re going to the other end of the chasm,” Alexander said. “The cliff walls on each side are riddled with passages and chambers; some are passable, while others are caved in. Also, there are things living down there.”
“What kind of things?” Anja asked, grimacing.
“Let’s just do our best to avoid them,” Alexander said. “Now, that staircase looks like the most promising way in.”
There were several staircases leading up and down along the walls on each side of the balcony, as well as a number of bridges arcing away, then ending abruptly, broken a few dozen feet over the black of the chasm.
Most of the stairways were also crumbling, but the one Alexander chose was solid, though worn by time. It led down a hundred feet along the right side of the underdark, then transformed into a corridor with a four-foot railing made of stone but fashioned to look like a row of cornstalks separating the pathway from the dark of the chasm. Pillars that looked like tree trunks interrupted the railing every hundred feet or so, joining the outside edge of the corridor floor with the overhanging ceiling ten feet above.
Jack stopped to inspect the railing, smiling in wonder. “This is really remarkable. I’ve never seen such intricate work. The buildings in the city have the same grace but nowhere near the detail.”
The voices of overseers shouting from the balcony above filtered down to them.
“Right … best be going,” Jack said.
Alexander dimmed his light and led the way, passing a number of doorways, ignoring them all. Most of the doors were closed and secure, made from stone and perfectly set into their frames. From the footprints on the floor, it was apparent that others, probably agents of the Babachenko, had recently been down here, no doubt looking for more Linkershim to power the forges.
A few footprints turned through a door that had been broken in half. Alexander peered inside the room, but saw no signs of life so he pressed on, sticking to the path cut into the chasm wall. As far as he was concerned, the less time he needed to spend wandering around the myriad passages riddling the massive underground cliffs that defined the chasm, the quicker he could finish his work here and go get Isabel.