“You may choose whichever one you wish.”
“What happens then?”
“You walk it. What happens next is up to you. I can only tell you that you must face three challenges. It is said that each member of the Triumvirate created part of the challenges, although no challenge represents one god, just as a man is the sum of his parts, not separate qualities that exist independent of one another.”
Huma studied each of the corridors for a long time. If he was to proceed, he would have to trust in Paladine and hope to make the right choice.
He took a step toward his choice, but Gwyneth caught his arm. “Wait.”
She kissed him lightly. “May Paladine watch over you. I do not want you to fail.”
He could think of nothing adequate to say, so Huma quickly turned away and moved toward the corridor he had chosen. He knew that if he looked back and she was still there, he might be tempted to stay. He also knew that if he stayed, he would never be able to live with himself.
The corridor he picked was like a natural cave. In spots, the passage constricted, forcing him to duck or move sideways. It was also very, very long, and nearly plunged in blackness.
Soon the passage began to glow with a light of its own, a light that came from the very walls. Huma paused to study this phenomenon. He had heard tales of this sort of light.
The walls’ glow gave Huma an idea. He knocked a piece of rock loose with the hilt of his sword and put it, still glowing, in his belt pouch.
An ear-splitting, earth-shaking cry tossed him to the ground. Rock fragments covered him.
It was the same cry Huma had heard in the pass. He now knew its source—straight ahead. And straight ahead was the only way left to Huma, for, as the trail had done, the corridor behind him revealed nothing but a stone wall.
Sword and shield ready, he crept down the tunnel toward the sound.
He stepped from that corridor—into yet another. This one broke off into three directions, any of which the thing might occupy. Huma straightened in nervous annoyance. The cry was echoing through the cavern system; the creature might be anywhere. It might be hours away in some deeper chamber. It might even be right behind him.
That thought on his mind, he shifted his feet—and did not meet solid ground. With a metal-rattling clang, Huma went down.
Huma cleared his head with a shake and looked at the thin pool of dark liquid that had made him slip. He put a finger in it and brought the sample close in order to study it better. For such a small puddle, it stank terribly. To his horror, Huma noticed the substance was eating into his metal glove. He wiped the foul stuff on the rock, which seemed much more resistant to the liquid.
“Heeeehhh.”
It seemed like laughter, evil laughter, at first. Huma clambered to his feet, but he still could not tell from which of the three tunnels the noise had come. And as it repeated, he knew the sound was not laughter.
It was breathing.
Something incredibly large, unless the chambers amplified sound, lurked nearby.
While it might prove safer to remain anchored in this one location, Huma had no desire to do so. He chose the center corridor and hurried down it.
Physically, it was identical to the last one. Huma wondered how such an obviously large creature could make its way through some of these narrow confines. Even Huma had his difficulties.
This tunnel led him to another tunnel, which looked exactly like the two before it. The caverns made up a maze, with Huma as both contestant and prize in some subterranean game of peril.
As he walked, he noticed the dark liquid that flowed under his feet and the heat that emanated from several corridors. There was a sulfurous smell to the heat, which, Huma believed, pointed to a conduit to the mountain’s fiery heart. Huma had heard of mountains such as this and prayed that this one would not erupt while he was within it.
“Hhhhheeeeehhhh.”
Huma flattened himself around a corner. Echo or not, he knew now that he and the other were mere minutes apart. The other also apparently knew, for he chuckled madly—most definitely madly. When the laughter died, the other spoke in slow, deep tones.
“Manling. I smell you, manling. I smell the warmth of your body, the bitter chill of your metal armor. I smell your fears.”
Huma said nothing, but he fell back silently to the corridor from which he had entered. He did not want to face something as large as this tunnel-dweller unless he could find a place, where he could maneuver.
“Come to Wyrmfather, manling. Let me show you my strength.”
Wyrmfather’s hearing was obviously quite extraordinary, for the beast hissed loudly whenever Huma moved and the knight could hear the scraping of a large form against the sides of a tunnel.
Huma moved down an open corridor, circling Wyrmfather—he hoped. The hissing seemed to come from all around him. The corridors appeared endless.
The hissing abruptly halted, and Huma froze. There was silence for several minutes, save for the maddening beat of the knight’s heart. Then the scraping sound echoed again as Wyrmfather seemed to move away from Huma.
He realized that the relative smoothness of the tunnel walls was the result of continual wearing away by the body of his pursuer.
The coarse, scraping sound died away while Huma pondered. Quietly, he made his way farther along the tunnel. If he could only find his way out of this maze—
Wild laughter—and the passageway exploded into flame!
Huma had no choice now but to run. Wyrmfather knew where he was. Huma abandoned stealth and simply fled in the direction of the nearest corridor.
Another burst of fire sent him scurrying out of that passage. How could Wyrmfather move so swiftly? What was Wyrmfather?
He would not count how many passageways he ran through or how many times the laughter of the tunnel dweller warned him just before more searing flame licked at his mustache.
Running frantically, Huma did not at first notice the wide opening to his left. It was not until he had passed it that the knight realized he had come across something other than a corridor. Huma came to an immediate halt and froze.
The malevolent hiss of Wyrmfather was far away for the moment, although Huma knew that could easily change at any second. Cautiously, the knight edged back to the side passage and then leaned forward enough so that he could peer into it.
It was a very short corridor, ending in what appeared to be more of a cavern. Huma stepped around into the new passageway and walked slowly down it.
The cavern loomed large. It appeared to have been honed the same way as the corridors—by the constant wear of some huge form against the rock itself.
But where was the leviathan itself? Where was Wyrmfather? Huma glanced around the cavern. Tunnel entrances dotted it on various levels. The knight’s sharp gaze followed the contours of the floor. It was smooth enough to walk on, although the slopes became steep in a few places, especially where it suddenly rose—
Huma mentally cursed his predicament and stepped back into the corridor.
What he had seen, what he wished desperately to deny, was a massive serpentlike form that rose through the bottom of the cavern, like some cursed tree, and turned abruptly to the side, continuing on through one of the farther tunnels.
Here at last he beheld a portion of Wyrmfather.
The malevolent creature pulsated with life as it stretched from that gaping chasm in the center. All that was visible was a trunk whose reptilian diameter was twice Huma’s height. Its otherwise dull-gray body was covered with splotches of green and blue, as if it were infected.
The trunk suddenly descended into the chasm. The terrible head of Wyrmfather emerged from the other passage, shocking Huma with a startling revelation.
Wyrmfather was a dragon.
The leviathan dwarfed all dragons that Huma had ever seen or heard of. Wyrmfather’s maw could easily have snapped up a team of horses in two bites, a single man in much less. The long, wide teeth stretched nearly as high as Huma and the sinewy, forked tongue that flickered in and out of Wyrmfather’s jaws could easily envelope him.