“Chane, no!” Wynn shouted. “Sau’ilahk is here, and he’s gone to find the orb. Don’t let him take it. Nothing else matters!”
Shade lunged in, snapping at the creature’s face. But the massive reptile only lifted its head out of reach. Chane didn’t stop at Wynn’s plea, and he came at the beast from behind.
The creature merely lashed its tail.
Chane ducked under, rolling to the tunnel’s other side. The tail’s barb shattered the wall where he’d stood, scattering chunks of rock everywhere.
“Chane, listen to me!” Wynn cried.
The creature fixed its eyes on her.
Chane regained his feet, still within reach of its tail. He held both his dwarven blade and the old, shortened one. His pale face was twisted like an animal’s about to snarl. She’d seen this before. He was lost in fury and a hungered drive to get to her.
How could she make him listen?
“Nothing matters but the orb!” Wynn shouted at him, and then ripped the cover off the sun crystal.
Chuillyon saw the reptilian monstrosity coming at full charge, and he bolted to the left. If he could gain its attention, he might draw it away from Shâodh and Hannâschi.
It came at him rapidly in a mass of scales, jaws, and thrashing wings. He ran between two of the huge coffins, but when he glanced back, it was not coming after him.
The monster swung its long head around, fixing on Shâodh, who stood between it and Hannâschi’s prone form.
“Keep moving!” Chuillyon shouted. “Give it two targets.”
With a quick blink, Shâodh appeared to understand, and he ran for the hall’s other side.
The creature swung its head toward him, fluid dripping from its mouth. A singular thought pounded in Chuillyon’s mind.
Someone had to survive.
He had not told anyone else of this journey. Even if they did not catch Wynn, one of them had to tell the guild of this place, about the proof found here, and that she’d come seeking something more.
Chuillyon glanced at Hannâschi on the floor, barely breathing, her long hair in a tangle across her face. Even at the cost of leaving her, one of them had to escape.
The creature followed his gaze. Its huge, dark eyes focused on Hannâschi’s prone form. It opened its jaws wider, as if about to spit.
Before Chuillyon could act, he heard Shâodh cry out, “No!”
Shâodh ran toward the creature, waving his arms. “Here! Over here!”
The creature pivoted at his noise, spitting, and its jaws clacked.
Chuillyon’s cry drowned under the flame’s roar.
Shâodh’s face filled with horror and his mouth gaped for an inhale. His scream never came out, and Chuillyon cringed back between two basalt coffins as the air ignited.
Flames erupted from the creature’s maw, lighting the whole hall in an orange-yellow glare. Amid fire, the barest shadow of Shâodh crumpled like cinders burning too quickly in a forge.
Everything happened too fast for Ghassan to react. He saw the young elf waving his arms and shouting to draw the creature away from the girl.
Ghassan dashed out to do something—anything—to help. Then fire burst from the creature’s maw, engulfing and incinerating the young elf.
The floor was covered in flickering, small flames, as if some ignitable fluid had been sprayed across the stone.
Ghassan’s mind raced. What could he do—what could anyone do—against such a monster? In desperation, he began drawing shapes and sigils in his mind’s eye, chanting quickly but softly as he focused on the creature. Perhaps he could befuddle its mind.
His thoughts hit a wall, and then a backlash struck him.
Ghassan reeled against the base of one basalt statue as the whole chamber dimmed before his eyes. He forced his eyes to stay open, and the blackness faded. He never had a chance to ponder what had gone wrong.
The creature swung its head again, this time looking at him.
Chuillyon watched as the creature looked toward the hall’s entrance. He silently crept forward between the immense basalt statues, following its gaze.
There was Ghassan il’Sänke. Still in shock, Chuillyon could not comprehend how the Suman sage could be here.
Il’Sänke pushed off the base of the basalt coffin, wavering as if injured or ill.
Chuillyon looked numbly at the flames still writhing from blackened stone around the lump of Shâodh’s charred remains. He could see no way to reach the hall’s portal, and the nearest breach held some trap that had struck down Hannâschi. Shâodh was gone, and Hannâschi appeared barely alive. And what could one Suman metaologer do against this thing that had come out of the other breach?
Again, someone had to survive to tell of this place. No matter Wynn’s reason for coming here, or what she sought, the guild had to know of the seatt’s existence and of a monster in its depths.
Something had to come from all that this had cost.
The creature’s head whipped back toward Chuillyon, and he peered around the coffin’s base. Its maw opened once again, spittle dripping from its jaws to the floor.
Ghassan gained his feet and took a stumbling step as he began to chant.
“No!” Chuillyon shouted.
Ghassan froze in silence.
“Go!” Chuillyon shouted. “Tell our own of this place. Go ... now!”
Ghassan’s brow furrowed as either anger or frustration passed across his caramel features. But Ghassan was so close to the open portal. He could escape this hall.
“Get ready to run!” Chuillyon called. “I’ll distract it.”
He steeled himself, hoping that when he died, it would be quick, if not painless. But he saw no choice. Ghassan was the only sage here with a chance.
Before Chuillyon could move, Ghassan bolted.
Chuillyon saw the Suman run straight for the wide breach from which the creature had emerged—and not for the exit out of this place. Chuillyon was stricken cold as he watched Ghassan launch himself into that opening and fall from sight down the shaft.
Chuillyon could not breathe. His mind went numb as any frail hope withered, thinking that all this would die with him. Why would Ghassan kill himself in such a futile manner? Did he fear the creature would pursue him, and he preferred another death?
Chuillyon was alone as he heard claws upon the hall’s floor.
The creature rushed him, and all he could do was retreat to the wall between the coffins. The reptile came too rapidly for him to dart along the wall, and its head thrust in at him only an arm’s length away.
A sadness like no other crushed everything inside of Chuillyon.
Ghassan’s self-destructive act, Hannâschi’s helplessness, and Shâodh’s burned bones overwhelmed all other thoughts as he looked in the creature’s black glistening eyes.
He could not bear any more sadness and loss. All he had left was a moment to pray.
Chârmun ... fill me with your absolute nature ... in my sorrow of failure.
“Nothing matters but the orb!”
Chane heard Wynn’s shout on the edge of his awareness, but it brought only a ripping sense of denial. Hunger, fury, and his love for this woman tangled, becoming one and the same. Then he heard her chanting softly and saw her thrust out the staff’s uncovered crystal.
Chane lashed out at the winged creature’s tail with both blades, trying to make it turn on him.
“Chane, don’t!” Wynn cried. “Go!”
No searing light filled the tunnel.
He halted, looking to her. Why had the sun crystal not ignited? Wynn raised her shocked eyes to the end of the staff. Something had gone wrong. Chane would have screamed if he had a true voice.
But the creature did not spit fire again.