The door led down a long hallway which travelled one direction for about a hundred feet before turning at ninety degrees to the right and travelling another hundred feet. There was a large hole in the corner, covered by a thin veneer of stone plate. A being as light as the pixie skipped happily across, but I would have plunged straight through. Attar might have managed, but there was no need to test it. My ring caught the outline, and my caution allowed me the time to pay it due notice.

  “Mind you hug the inside wall here,” I told Attar, doing so myself, “The stone is set to give way.”

  Pitfalls still lay in our path, but we had the tools to avoid them. Along with Tom’s parting words, the whole thing was feeling very symbolic. This was not surprising. Life was a metaphor for life. Actions in one realm stirred and rippled in all others, transcending both time and space. Danger was ahead, but I’d finally broken free from the warlocks’ cell, and finally paid the price for doing so. Whatever came next was still on my head, but it was on the head of a free man.

  The corridor made a second right angle turn at the end of the second stretch. Then it continued on for thirty or so feet before ending in a series of steps descending into the floor.

  We’d finally found the stairs.

  The pixie moved aside to bid us farewell, “Remember my friends, four favours more that I owe you. Name them, and they are yours.”

  “You’ve done well,” Pixies did not respond poorly to thanks, but neither did they appreciate it, as it was too close to a blessing, and too close to a bargain. They were the fold neither banned nor blessed, and they wanted none in their debt. But acknowledgement of a job well done was appreciated by all when given and received sincerely.

  Attar murmured his assent.

  “With Attar’s leave,” I continued, “I would ask two more favours immediately, with another already chosen for when they are complete.”

  “You have it. Though I as well would ask a favour,” said Attar, “Though it is a strange one, I believe it necessary.”

  I was surprised, but still the thought pleased me. Pixies granted gifts after all. They did not cut and measure tools to a mechanical task. Let us have some joy to celebrate the end of this leg of our journey.

  “I ask for armour,” I said, “A suit for myself, and a suit for Attar. Something which does not restrict us, which cannot be lost, which will protect us from surprise more than anything, for that is our greatest weakness.”

  The pixie shook his head sadly, “I cannot grant that. I grant a single such suit, or a pair of suits which perform one of those tasks admirably, but not all tasks together. It is beyond my power and knowledge.”

  My first instinct was to protect Attar. My second was to remember that we needed each other. Isolation was no companion, and though I might survive alone in the depths, he would not. He was a stranger to these lands, and young even though he was powerful. It was no mercy to condemn yourself to suffering that your companions must bear.

  “Something which provides warning then, if you can do that.”

  The pixie smiled and reached behind himself, drawing forth two amulets.

  “These will grow warm when mortal danger threatens. You will have two heartbeats before the time is at hand.”

  It was enough. Attar would be spared from the gnomes and I—

  “Will this warn me of traps?”

  “Traps and monsters alike, you will not wander blindly into peril.”

  Pixies were of the fold neither banned nor blest, and neither could they ban nor bless, but they were a blessing all the same. Mortals needed to roll the die, but pixie could tip them in their favour. Attar and I took the amulets.

  “And you sir? How may I serve?”

  “I seek love.”

  “For whom?”

  There were tears in Attar’s eyes. Subtle enough to ignore, but my light sparkled at the brims of his eyes, “For Oswic. He is strong, but I’ve heard his tales of Attart. Of myself before I was freed. I can see the way his face lights up, the way his voice turns fond. There is the wonderful pain of a wound rightfully earned in each and every of his words. Oswic freed me. Please, grant him this gift.”

  “He shall have it.”

  The pixie smiled.

  And then he was gone.

  ***

  The air grew darker as we descended. Heavier. Twisted. My light did not waver, but pressure crashed down all around me, tore at my spirit. But I’d found a broad oak under which to weather the storm. I would descend into the deepest depths. The darker they grew, the brighter my light would shine. What was the saying? If you want to find a candle, shutter the windows.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  These stairs were shorter than the others. It was to be expected. A mere hundred or so feet as judged by the rope I’d used to descend the well. It was ten minutes to the bottom.

  A short hallway was our landing, then a door on the right hand wall where the hall ended suddenly.

  My spells were gone, as was the pixie to find the traps for us. We had his amulet, but not all traps presented mortal danger. Many I’d encountered on the first floor had been designed to incapacitate, not kill. Theft and destruction of the amulet was also a concern. They would save us, ideally, but we couldn’t rely on them. Wherever our own senses could prevail, they must.

  We retreated back up the stairs.

  Sword, Scorch, Scintillation

  I had weaker swords I’d miss less, but it was better to risk one spell than two, provided the door was strong enough and this door was stone.

  *Wham*

  The door held.

  Only fools proclaimed the torrent from a single drop of rain, so I struck again with the sword, and again, but the door did not budge.

  Finally, I was forced to approach it. Ten minutes of careful study revealed no traps under my eye, ring, or mystic senses, but they did reveal the door was unlatched.

  Gingerly, I grabbed the door handle, and pulled.

  The door swung easily open.

  I eased into the room, inching forward with my ring sight. It was well I did. Though my ring did not grow warm I detected some sort of channel in the floor. An iron rod, which thrummed like lightning to the ring-touch.

  Metal still stuck to my hand from the previous experience, and I had no desire to relive it.

  “Once I open the portcullis, stick to the walls. The centre of the room is electric. Move slowly, be ready with your amulet.”

  My sword flew out and easily lifted the iron gate on the far left hand side of the room, about 30 feet out from our position.

  The centre of the room, from one diagonal to another, contained a stream of oil which we would have to step over en-route. I’d seen trees catch fire in a storm of lightning, I had no doubt the oil would quickly become a conflagration if we set off the trap at its centre.

  Or, it turned out, the trap in the portcullis itself.

  I had just enough time to pull the stone door shut before a blossom of flame expanded into the room and set the floor on fire. The rush of heat and air slammed the door into its frame ahead of my fingers, pushing me back. Attar had stayed well clear of the door, meaning there was no one to catch me when I stumbled back from the explosion.

  I landed poorly; on my rear on the left side. Were I older I might have broken something. The dwarf goddess’s gift protected me. My skin was not just as hard as leather, it also cushioned blow in the same manner.

  The door bucked and rocked in its frame under the force of the swirling inferno.

  “Back to the stairs!” I cried.

  Attar was already a dozen paces up them. I spun about and crawled to my knees, then half crawled half ran, until I could get my weight under my pack enough to stand.

  I pointed up the stairs with my chin, “We’ll head back to the second floor while we wait for that mess to cool down. There is a map there.”

  “Why not visit it sooner?”

  “I’d forgotten. Or who I was no longer knew. My mind has been assaulted so often in the past few weeks I know only who I am, I no longer know what I know. By the time I remembered, we’d discovered the teleporters on the fifth floor and the map was useless. I’m only comfortable returning now because the end of the stairs signalled the assurance of the pixie’s guidance.”

  It was early in the morning still. By the time we returned to the comparatively lighter air of the fourth floor only a few hours had slipped past the dawn.

  Tom was gone when we returned to the last room of the fourth floor. That was as it should be.

  The treasure which had lain at his feet was also gone. This was also as it should be. Tom was still a hob, for all Attart’s magic had changed his soul, and hobs were covetous by nature.

  The path the pixie had laid open before us remained open. The traps unsprung remained in our path, so travel was as slow as ever, but with the assurance we knew the way. Smashing every door between myself and our knew goal might have been my preference, but the danger of attracting attention or angering one of the less hostile inhabitants was greater than that of traps whose location was already know.

  It was half an hour back to the room with the gnomes. Half an hour more to the place where the strange creature had tried to crush us from the ceiling.

  Half an hour more led us back to the strange black emerald sphere outside Tom’s mother’s house.

  It was there the whispers found me.

  A gentle suggestion, a question ask in all innocence, became a barb which wormed itself into my soul. I could barely focus on the danger offered by the sphere, so consumed was I by the voice in my head. I could recognize the dark magic, the desire acting even as it happened, yet could do little to stop the black creeper growing in my heart. Worse still was the lack of aggression on the voice’s part. Kindness was offered a thousand times for every accidental slight, yet my focus was on the slights alone, ones which could be dismissed without anger if I only raised the slightest protestation.

  Transmuting Shadow

  And then it was silent. Forgotten. A thousand worries which never came to fruition.

  I blinked clear my head

  There was no level of preparedness I’d yet found, wherein I couldn’t be blindsided by the most mundane foibles.

  Still, the secret was to know myself, not question the why of my mind. I would calm and clear in a few days time. A few hours under stress.

  “Are you alright?”

  And I had Attar at my side. I smiled.

  “I will be. Dark magic.”

  He sighed and shook his head, “Nasty stuff.”

  “It is.”