“Absolutely not!” came the old man’s reply. “Go!” The half-elf started down the stairs, guiding Agis by the hand. Ktandeo followed a step behind, his cane quietly tapping each stair before he stepped on it. As they descended, the silky filaments of the cobwebs slipped over Sadira’s bare shoulders like a gossamer shawl, sending shivers of trepidation down her spine. Several times, imagining that something had crawled beneath her chemise, she had to stifle the urge to slap at her back.
Worse than the cobwebs was the thick layer of dust covering the stairs. With each step, small puffs billowed up to tickle her nose and throat, vexing her with the urge to sneeze and cough. The dust was so deep that the edges of the stairs were slick and treacherous. Several times, Sadira slipped. Only the strong grip of Agis’s warm hand prevented her from tumbling into the murkiness.
After many moments of hurried descent, they reached the bottom of the stairwell. Then the passage changed into a corridor, which ended almost immediately at a stone wall. Sadira turned around, conscious of a musty smell and the refreshing coolness of subterranean air.
“We’re at the bottom,” she whispered. A loud clunk echoed from the upper end of the stairs. Far above, a narrow shaft of light poured into the stairwell. A black-robed templar appeared at the entrance.
“Go on,” Agis whispered.
“It’s a dead end,” Sadira replied.
“Wrong,” Ktandeo hissed. “Be quiet while I take care of our friends.”
The old man calmly waited as the templars lit torches and began descending the stairs. The heat of the small flames overpowered Sadira’s elven vision with painful white light, but her eyes quickly adjusted back to normal.
As the first templar reached the halfway point, a crooked smile crossed Ktandeo’s lips. “Cover your ears.”
The old man pointed the tip of his cane up the stairwell and uttered a single word, “Nok.” A deep red light blossomed in the heart of the glassy pommel.
Sadira gasped as a strange tingle stirred deep inside her belly. The half-elf clasped her hands over her ears just as Ktandeo whispered, “Ghostfire.”
A tremendous blast slammed through the corridor. Dust and stone chips showered down on the trio, and the air itself beat against them. A geyser of nebulous light shot up the stairwell. At first it merely washed over the men on the stairs, illuminating their frightened faces in a roiling, ruby-hued stream. For more than a second, the astonished templars remained motionless inside the crimson ray, their mouths gaping open and their hands clutching their short swords.
The spell began to fade. The skin of those caught within its beam grew ashen and flaky. Flesh poured off their bodies in a fine powder, and screams filled the stairwell. Some men tried to flee up the stairs, and others charged downward. Their efforts did little good, for as the light grew dimmer, their hair, eyes, and even their entrails turned to ash. By the time the stairwell returned to darkness and Sadira was once again relying on her elven vision, all that remained of the templars was a mass of charred bones clattering down the steps.
“The cane drew its energy through us!” Agis gasped.
“What kind of magic is that?” Sadira demanded. Ktandeo had never told her it was possible to draw magical energy from animal life.
Ktandeo let out a fatigued gasp. He reached out for Agis’s shoulder, but could not find it in the darkness. Sadira stepped past the noble and slipped her shoulder under the old man’s arm. To her eyes, the color of his body had faded from deep red to pink. Ktandeo’s magic had apparently drawn most of its energy from the old man himself.
Supporting himself on Sadira’s shoulder, the sorcerer staggered to the end of the corridor and tapped his cane against a stone. “Push there,” he gasped.
With her free arm, Sadira guided Agis forward, and he gave the stone a shove. A door-sized slab pivoted open in front of them as more templars stepped into the top of the stairwell. The king’s men descended rapidly, cursing and kicking at the bones of their dead fellows.
“Take them alive!” yelled a commanding voice.
Sadira prodded Agis through the door. “We should have killed Caro when we had the chance.”
“This only proves it wasn’t him,” objected Agis. “He doesn’t know where we are.
“Quiet!” Ktandeo gasped, pushing Sadira through the doors. Once they were clear, Sadira quickly inspected their dark surroundings while Agis closed the door. Ahead lay a silent cavern smelling of mildew and decay. It was filled with the round, cool-blue shapes of rocky pillars rising more than ten feet ovehead to disappear into a yellowish mass of gauzy filament that hung from the ceiling.
“Nok,” Ktandeo said again, speaking the word that activated his cane, then named the spell he wished to use. “Forestlight.”
The pommel of his cane began to glow. Sadira blinked, and then she saw that the obsidian ball was surrounded by a small circle of eerie violet light. She felt a faint tingle in her gut as the cane drew energy from her.
Muffled voices began to sound through the stone slab at their backs. Ktandeo led them away, moving at a painfully slow pace. Sadira knew he would never be able to outrun the templars. Fortunately, the trio had already traveled many yards into the pillar forest by the time the hidden door behind them began to scrape open.
The old sorcerer ran the palm of his hand over his cane’s pommel, and the violet light faded away. Behind them, the torchlit forms of templars began to pour into the cavern.
“You’re our eyes now,” Ktandeo whispered, pulling Sadira to the front of the party. “I’ll hold your hand. Agis, you hold my cane. Keep an eye on what’s happening behind us.”
Sadira glanced over her shoulder and saw that the number of templars gathering outside the door had risen to more than a dozen. “Where are we going?”
Grasping her by the shoulders, Ktandeo oriented her so that she faced exactly the same direction as him. “Straight ahead. Count fifty pillars and stop.”
The half-elf took her master’s hand and started walking at the fastest pace she judged Ktandeo could endure.
A templar’s strident voice echoed through the quiet cavern. “They went this way! Ten silver for every man here if we catch them alive. Ten lashes if they escape!”
“Agis?” Sadira asked, continuing forward. She did not look back, for she did not want her elven vision washed out by the heat of the templars’ torches.
“They’re following our path,” he reported.
“Run!” Ktandeo hissed.
“But-”
“Do it!” he ordered.
Holding Ktandeo’s hand, Sadira set off at a jog, her steps falling silently on the cold stone floor. Behind her, the old sorcerer stumbIed and scraped along, his breath coming in unsteady, rasping wheezes. Agis brought up the rear, his footfalls muffled and steady. Though their passage could hardly be called hushed, the half-elf did not worry. Their pursuers were making so much noise that she and her friends could have spoken aloud without concern.
After Sadira passed the correct number of pillars, she stopped. “This is it,” she said. “How close are they, Agis?”
“Three city blocks. Maybe less,” he answered. “It’s hard to tell.”
“How are they following us?” Sadira asked. “Cilops?”
“I don’t see any sign of handlers or animals,” Agis said, scraping his foot along the rocky floor.
The old sorcerer hefted his walking stick. “Let’s see if I can’t slow them down a bit.”
Fearing Ktandeo was too weak to use the cane again, Sadira pushed it down. “Allow me.”
Kneeling at the base of the pillar, the sorceress fetched a piece of charcoal from the shoulder satchel that held her spellbook, then traced a series of flame-shaped runes at the bottom of the column.
“We’d better hurry. They’re running hard,” Agis advised. “I can almost see their faces. They must be only a block or two back by now.”
Sadira pointed at the ceiling and summoned the energy she needed for the spell. To her surprise, a large circle of the gauzy filament overhead shriveled up and turned black. The filament had to be some sort of strange plant. Thankful that Ktandeo could not see what she had done, Sadira spoke her incantation and rose.