“Mind your head,” Zarfensis said, ducking into a low fissure in the rock. This tunnel was shorter than any they had encountered so far and the High Priest knew they were nearing the end of their travel. It took them quite a long time to reach the end, where another crack in the rock let them out into a small circular cavern.
Zarfensis dropped lightly to the floor of the subterranean chamber, taking most of the impact on his new leg. The novelty hadn’t yet worn off and he was wondering if it ever would. He turned to see the Warleader drop to the floor behind him and heard the sudden intake of breath.
“It’s cold!” Xenir’s exclamation was accompanied by a puff of condensation from his breath. The High Priest nodded. The difference in temperature between the room and the tunnel beyond was staggering. It was easily as cold here as in the northern reaches of the Frozen Frontier.
“I told you that you’d soon relish the heat.” Zarfensis motioned to a simple shaft of rock in the center of the chamber where a pale green light bobbed to and fro. Its light flickered dimly, throwing shadows upon the wall that weren’t, Zarfensis realized with a shudder, the shadows of anything that existed in the room.
Xenir growled, his claws slipping from their sheaths. Zarfensis turned toward the pillar and saw that the light had vanished. It was replaced by the translucent form of a human female whose shape and endowments would be the envy of many vermin. The High Priest felt a wave of rutting passion wash over him and he struggled to fight against the powerful magic being used against him. The Warleader’s aspect had entirely changed. Gone was any pretense of threat, he bounded toward the image as he would toward a bitch in heat.
As Xenir reached the illusion, there was a blinding flash of light and a howl of pain. His vision was a mass of purple, but Zarfensis heard the heavy thud of Xenir’s body hitting the wall beside him. Closing his eyes, Zarfensis slipped into the Quintessential Sphere. In that magical realm, just beyond the physical world, he could see clearly. He saw the pillar and the writhing mass of blackness there, the Deep Oracle’s true form exposed. Black tendrils shot forward, a thousand snakes intent on devouring his very essence.
With an extended claw, Zarfensis traced runes in the air, speaking the ancient words of power. Words so old that their true meanings had been forgotten. Words that, nonetheless, shackled the Oracle to its pillar as surely as the heaviest chain. The tendrils receded with a roar of frustration that the High Priest felt in his bones. He heard a groan, as if across a great distance, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Xenir was still alive then. Zarfensis was as concerned for his friend, but more worried about what the Oracle could, or would, do with the power of a life forcefully taken.
Withdrawing from the sphere, he knelt and felt for the pulse at Xenir’s throat. It was there, strong and steady. The Warleader seemed no worse for his ill-advised adventure.
“Speak,” the voice came not in sound, but within his head. It was thick and sultry and oozed a sensuality not to be denied. “Speak your desires so that we may bargain and my need be fulfilled.”
Zarfensis struggled against the physical urges that were surging through him. He opened his belt pouch and withdrew a vial of faintly glowing runedust.
“This is what will sate your needs, Oracle.” Zarfensis waved the vial. “You will not sate yourself on the urges of the flesh.”
“You may not be willing…but the other…”
Zarfensis waved at the still unconscious form of the Warleader. “The other is outside your control. You will bargain with me, or bargain not at all.”
There was another rumbling roar and Zarfensis focused all his thoughts on the idea of slipping the vial back into his pouch and returning to the Warrens. The rutting urges vanished as quickly as they had appeared and were replaced with the intense feeling of a whelp’s sulking.
“I will bargain with you,” the Oracle agreed sullenly. “Or not at all.”
Zarfensis unstopped the vial of runedust and poured some of the fine crystals into his palm. Stepping toward the pillar, but being careful to keep a safe distance, he puffed and blew a cloud of the crystals toward the Oracle. The powder was consumed in a shower of sparks and the Oracle’s orb glowed a bit brighter.
The sound of claws on rock from behind him alerted Zarfensis that Xenir had regained consciousness. The High Priest turned and watched as the Warleader slowly got to his feet, shaking his head. His eyes met Zarfensis’s and then slid away. The embarrassment would serve him well, Zarfensis thought. He’d be more on his guard next time. If there was a next time.
“More!” the Oracle demanded imperiously.
“Tell me what I wish to know,” Zarfensis countered, twisting the vial between his fingers. “Then you shall have the rest.”
“We need it,” the Oracle whined. “Please!”
“Tell me what I wish to know,” the High Priest demanded, reinforcing his words with the mental image of the vial of runedust shattered on the floor beyond the Oracle’s reach.
In the pause that followed, Zarfensis idly considered abandoning this foolhardy meeting and returning to the Warrens. Surely he and Xenir were resourceful enough to find the relic on their own.
“The relic you seek sleeps far to the north, buried in the ice of ages past,” the Oracle’s voice was strong and clear. “It lies within your grasp if you can find it and wake it, but beware, the Chosen are not the only suitors the relic seeks. There are others, climbing, sneaking, and burrowing through forgotten tunnels to find that which you seek.”
“The vermin?” Zarfensis asked, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a feral snarl.
“Among others,” the Oracle laughed. “More, now!”
Zarfensis poured the remainder of the runedust into his palm and blew it toward the pillar. In a fluid motion, he had jumped to the lip of the tunnel, beckoning for Xenir to follow. They navigated the tunnel as quickly as the low ceiling would allow, finally emerging at the junction that had seemed unbearably hot not long before.
“My vision-” Xenir began.
“The relic exists, but we must hurry. There are others who seek its power as well.”
“How do we proceed?”
“We take back control of the council. We lead the Chosen to victory and exterminate the vermin, once and for all.”
Taking strength from the confirmation of Xenir’s vision, they started the long trip back toward the Warrens to put their plans in motion.
* * *
Tiadaria sat at a worn table in the common room of the Elvish Harlot. On the table in front of her a tankard of cider sat, barely touched. The search for Faxon’s apprentice had not gone well.
She had spent the morning searching library after library. It wasn’t until she had been turned out of the fourth library that she realized how many quints there were in Ethergate. She was realizing with no small sense of chagrin that there was probably a good reason that Faxon had wanted to accompany her. Most of the people she had talked to here were far too involved in their own affairs to give much concern to the apprentice of another Master, especially one from Blackbeach. That was the other thing she found odd, the seemingly high amount of animosity that existed between the quintessentialists here and those outside the capital.