“What is it, Dad?” she gasped. “You look as though you’d seen a ghost.”
“I have—or bloody nearly.” In his distress, Vannor seemed to have forgotten that he was talking to his daughter. He sheathed his sword, and rubbed a shaking hand across his eyes. “I just don’t believe it!” He shook his head. “What the blazes is that bastard playing at?”
“Who?” Zanna demanded.
“The Archmage,” Vannor said angrily. Suddenly his eyes focused on Zanna, and he seemed to collect himself. “Sorry, love,” he sighed. “It was just—well, it was such a shock. I was forgetting you didn’t know…”
“Know what?” Zanna almost shrieked at him, “Dad, what’s going on? What did you see in there?”
“You’d better take a look.” Taking her hand, Vannor led her forward. “Don’t be scared, now—the poor beggar can’t hurt you…”
The rest of his words were drowned by Zanna’s cry of horror. In the niche a tall figure stood, stiff and lifeless as a statue—but unmistakably a man.
“It’s all right, lass.” The firm clasp of Vannor’s hand was a comfort, though the strained tone of his voice belied his words.
“Who is—who was he?” Zanna whispered. She saw what shock had driven from her mind the first time she saw him: that the strange man was surrounded by a faint, thin numbus of shimmering silver-blue that could only be a spell. Strands of brighter blue, like tiny tongues of lightning, crawled in a fiery network across his body and long mane of silver-shot brown hair. Zanna looked at that face, twisted in its hideous rictus of terror, and thought that she could discern, in the finely carved bone structure and the brilliance of the glazed, blue-gray eyes, a look of the Magefolk about him.
“It’s Finbarr. Poor Finbarr. Of course—you never met him, did you? It was always a standing joke with Aurian that we could never pry him out of his archives.” Her father’s voice was choked with what sounded suspiciously like tears, though when Zanna stole a glance at him, his eyes were still dry. “He saved our lives when the Wraiths attacked, and gave us time to flee, but”—he frowned in puzzlement—“Aurian said he was killed—she felt him die. So why would Miathan waste magic to preserve his body like this? It would only make sense if Aurian was somehow wrong, and he isn’t dead—”
Abruptly, he turned to Zanna. “Well, whatever the explanation is, there’s nothing we can do about it. But the Lady Aurian should know about this, as soon as may be.”
“Do you want me to try to contact her again?” Zanna fished in her pocket for the precious crystal.
“Not now, love. We’ve delayed here long enough. I think we’d best get out of these tunnels while I still have the strength to manage it.” He groaned. “Oh, for a warm bed, a blazing fire, and a flask of good wine…”
Zanna took his arm. “You’ll have them all, Dad, I promise—once we get you out of here.”
“Supposing I ever get out of here,” Vannor muttered grimly, under his breath. The words sent a chill through Zanna, and mixed with the sinking fear she felt for him was a flash of scalding anger for frightening her so. It made her all the more determined to succeed. Damn it—she had rescued her dad against all the odds and brought him this far! Zanna gritted her teeth. I’ll find a way out of here, supposing it’s the last thing I do, she thought fiercely. But she knew he had never meant her to hear his words, and so for his sake, she pretended she had not.
Sadly, they said a last, silent farewell to Finbarr. Though she had never known him—and had no idea, even, whether the archivist was alive or dead beyond the fetters of the spell—it wrenched Zanna’s heart to leave him. It seemed wrong, somehow, to abandon the Mage to the lonely darkness once more.
Hours later, Zanna had no sympathy to spare for anyone save her father and herself. Famished, footsore and exhausted as she was, it had begun to feel as though she had spent her entire life blundering around in these cold, damp, endless catacombs—and that she would be doomed to continue until she died. As for her father, he had long ago reached the limits of his endurance and was somehow keeping himself going only through sheer stubbornness and strength of will. For a long time now she had been tortured by the painful rasp of Vannor’s ragged breathing, and the hesitant, scuffing sound of his dragging, stumbling footsteps. Zanna looked up at him, trying to hide her anxiety. How much longer would it be before Dad succumbed entirely to pain and exhaustion?
What would happen to them both if he did? At long last, Zanna’s courage began to falter.
Vannor tried to gather his failing strength, though his injured hand throbbed now in a screaming mass of agony, and the dizzy faintness from shock and loss of blood were hard to fight. Zanna had been so brave so far, but he could see now that her confidence was beginning to waver, and knew that it wasn’t only weariness and hunger that were the cause. From the determinedly cheerful expression that she turned on him time after time—an expression that was belied by the faint line, like a pen stroke, drawn down between her brows—he knew that her courage was being eaten away by worry over his own condition. Poor child, it wasn’t fair. She had gone through so much for him—had shown more courage and grit than he would have expected even from a son. From what he had seen outside his prison in the Mages’ Tower, she had even killed for him—and she little more than a child, and a cosseted girl-child at that. He had to keep going, if only to repay her bravery and loyalty.
The candle in Zanna’s hand had burned down to a soft and guttering stub, scalding her fingers with hot wax. He saw her flinch, and flick the hardening drops away, but she bit her lip and said nothing. Earlier, he had been half-amused, half-shocked, by her futile attempts to curb her language, but it worried him more, now, that she was too weary to waste energy on a curse. “Just a minute, Dad.” Putting down her basket, which by this time was ominously light, she rummaged quickly inside for another candle by the waning glow of the one she held. She turned to him, her eyes wide with dismay. “We’re down to the last one…”
Suddenly Vannor was overcome by a dreadful Vision of himself and his daughter wandering lost in the smothering darkness until these accursed tunnels became their tomb. Zanna had clearly been thinking along similar lines. Her voice broke on a sob of frustration. “Oh, gods,” she wailed, “we’re never going to find our way out of here…”
“Here, Zanna, give it to me.” Quickly Vannor took the stub of candle from her unresisting fingers before it went out completely. “Now, lass—just hold the new one. I can’t manage with just one hand…” Zanna, bless her, had so far shown a toughness that amazed him, and he knew that having something to do would help her gain control of her impending hysteria. He was right. By the time Vannor had kindled a flame on the new wick she had managed to calm herself and swallow her tears, though she was still shivering with suppressed fear.
Vannor stuck the candle on a narrow projection in the rough-hewn wall of the passage and put his arms around her. “Don’t lose heart, love. Look how rough these tunnels are. We’ve been going downward for hours—we must be in the oldest part of the catacombs by now. Come on, now—let’s try to go on a little longer. Surely this must be the last lap now.”
Sighing, Zanna scrambled awkwardly to her feet, but her tired legs would barely support her and she stumbled, catching herself against a jutting spur in the tunnel wall to stop herself from falling. She paused there, just to catch her breath—and found herself coughing and gasping. From a narrow crack in the shadow of the spur came a cold and noisome draft. “Dad?” Zanna’s voice shook with excitement. “Dad—come here and look at this!” After hours of searching, they had finally found the narrow crack in the wall of the catacombs that led down into the sewers.