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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 1670237" data-attributes="member: 63">Episode Two: The Song of the Deep, Pt. II, Section III“Do you think we’re gonna get paid for this?” Babb asked.Allar shook his head.  “Keep quiet.  I thought I heard rumbling.”“Whatever you say.”  Babb turned to the others and held up a hand for them to stop.  They were strung out in a narrow tunnel with rough sides and a smooth walkway, sloping sharply uphill.  Allar was poised on a lip of stone, listening with his ear to the rock while he still held a climbing spike in one hand.The tunnel thrummed around them, a deep sound shaking up through the ground.  Allar pulled his head away and rubbed his ear, then looked down to Tri’ni, twenty feet beneath him in the middle of the group.  “Is this place about to cave in?”“No.”  The dark Elf shook her head while the charm around her neck translated her words into Lyceian.  “That’s an air tremor.  A cave in, you’d either not hear it at all, or you’d hear the sounds of cracking.  Can you feel the pressure dropping a bit now?”“What?”  Allar glared at her, then shook his head.  “What are you saying it is?”Tri’ni shrugged, then scrambled up the chute-like tunnel to stand beside Allar.  The handholds were limited, forcing her and Allar to stand less than a foot apart.  She held out a hand for the climbing spike.  Beneath them, Babb said, “Damn, you climb fast.  Allar, let her lead.”Allar leaned back nervously away from the dark-skinned woman, then pressed the spike and a small hammer into her hand.  She tucked them away in her vest, then reached for the coil of rope Allar had been stringing out for the others to follow.  The cave rumbled again, and Allar could actually hear it more in the air than in his feet and hands.“You don’t know what’s making that sound?” Allar asked.  “Not at all,” she whispered, her expression nervous.  “It sounds a little like a lava geyser, but we’re too high up for that.  Well, we’ll see in a few minutes, regardless.”She crawled away up the nearly vertical passage, trailing the rope behind her.  The air continued to growl ominously, but through the noise, Allar could make out the sound of a hammer tapping a spike into place.  Then, somewhere subtle beneath that sound, he thought he heard a voice, singing, echoing up from beneath him.“It’s sturdy!” Tri’ni called down.  “Climb on up.”Allar glanced up, then back down, uneasy.  He waved for Babb to go up past him, and he moved to the side of the tunnel, descending awkwardly, first past Babb, then down to David and Lacy.“Get up,” he said.  “Hurry.”They looked at him with concern, but obeyed, climbing as quickly as they could while Allar slid down the rope, over a hundred feet.  When he reached relatively flat ground, he crouched and listened.  The sound of the cavern rumbling still filled the air, but he could hear it more clearly now, that same voice singing as from in the tomb.  With the strange echoes of the caves, it could be coming from thirty feet away or half a mile.  Hesitantly, Allar drew out his small lantern and lit it.The song, if it had ever been there, stopped.  Allar flashed the lantern light into the darkness of the cave, high-ceilinged, with a precarious rift just feet away from him, the floor really more a pile of rubble than anything nature might carve over centuries.  The dim light of the lantern revealed the entirety of the small chamber, so Allar fixed his gaze at the only entrance large enough for a man, twenty feet away, set into a wall of cracked stone.“Who’s there?” Allar called.From above him, Babb shouted something, but the echoes muddled his words so Allar couldn’t understand.  Allar hesitated, trying to force himself to see something in the darkness, hear something above the dull rumble of the caverns above, but there was nothing.  He shivered, then turned back to climb the rope, laughing quietly at himself for his nervousness.The climb back up seemed to take several minutes, passing slowly and unwillingly, held up by Allar’s thoughts on the course he had taken to get this far.  He’d been saved by many lucky escapes, survived monsters, traps, and the wilds of a land he had barely believed in, but he still did not feel he had won anything.  The only purpose he could see lay somewhere with the dark Elf.  That thought weighed heavily upon him, and he struggled the last few feet to the top of the tunnel, not wanting to see her again.Tri’ni was no where in sight, however, and it was Babb who pulled him up, a wide grin on his face.  “You afraid of a little thunder?”“What do you mean?”  Allar cautiously untied the rope and began to roll it up, just in case someone was following.  He looked around, seeing he was alone with Babb and a small lantern.  “Where’s everyone else?”“Follow me,” Babb laughed.  “You hear that rumbling?”Allar nodded as they walked through this new section of cave, wide, rough, and jagged, sloping upward and ahead of them.  The others came into view, standing inside the entrance to a huge chamber, the three of them looking up at the ceiling.  They were somehow illuminated by faint light from above.  The air thrummed again, less distorted now.“Does it sound a bit more familiar now,” Babb continued, “now that there’s no cave in the way?  Look up.”They came out of the narrow tunnel, and Allar turned his gaze upward.  Far, far overhead, beyond the rocky walls that stretched high and away all around them, there was something massive and gray, reflecting a faint golden light.  Then it flashed, and Allar gasped.  With a sudden crackle of thunder, a stroke of lightning illuminated the stormclouds overhead in the sky.“My god,” Allar said, relieved.  He leaned against the wall, and realized it was green and soft from a damp carpet of moss.  “We’re out.”“Sh*t yeah,” Babb shouted.Allar cried out in joy and hugged Lacy, then Babb, slapping the Geidon on his back.  David grinned and reached up to shake his head, and Lacy nudged Babb in his side with her elbow.  Next to them, Tri’ni stood alone, staring up at the foreign sight of the sky, darkened by stormclouds but still sparking with light.“Where are we?” Allar asked eagerly, trying to get his bearings.David pointed upward in a circle.  “We’re in the bottom of some kind of sinkhole, at least a few hundred feet deep.  If that’s a storm, we’d better get to higher ground before it starts raining.”“I think I see some trees up a little higher,” Allar said.  “That’ll be some cover at least.  How big is this place?”Allar, finally able to see again in the dim light of the storm, turned to take in the vast sinkhole bottom.  The sinkhole’s lowest level, several hundred feet across, was strewn with rock debris and chasms rent from the stone, all coated with pockets of moss and bits of leafy brush.  At the far opposite side, a twenty-foot wide waterfall cut its way from the top of the inside wall of the sinkhole, then down into a deeper rift.  Though a few ledges jutted from the walls, the opening at the top of the sinkhole was narrower than the bottom, so climbing out in the rain would be nearly impossible.Another sheet of lightning flashed overhead, and a reflective glint caught Allar’s eye from the middle of the floor, three hundred feet away amid a pile of white stones.  He shined his lantern high, and saw the gleam of dark metal, but he could not make out any more.  Curiosity pulled him toward it, and he called over his shoulder for the others to follow.David and Lacy slowly started to walk after him, discussing how to get out of the sinkhole.  Babb waited at the exit from the tunnel, the massive Geidon gently pulling Tri’ni to follow, drawing her out of her fascination with the sky.  Allar smiled despite himself, and glanced skyward, just as the first drops of rains began to fall.“Stupid dark Elf,” he laughed, amused at how stunned she had looked.He turned to look back at the pile of white stones where the metal lay, and he felt a breeze rush past his face.She will not leave here. Allar felt the words in his mind, a voice without sound.  Something drew his gaze toward the stones again, and before he realized he had moved, he was standing amid them.  They were not stones, but the scattered skeleton of a mighty beast, fifty feet long or more.Someone called his name, and he turned numbly to see them approaching.  Through the cacophony of thunder and rain, he heard the dark Elf woman’s voice.  “This is the Great Above?” she said, walking in a circle, looking upward into the storm.  “It’s . . . it’s so-”She taints it, the voice again crawled into his mind, and though he could hear no emotion, he felt his own anger surge.  She is death, and you want her to feel pain. Allar nodded to himself.  Twenty feet away, Tri’ni suddenly looked down from the sky, toward him, staring at him with frightened green eyes.  Recognition flashed across her face in the glare of lightning, but she could not open her mouth to speak.  The others were still too busy celebrating to notice as Allar and Tri’ni stared at each other.You want her to feel pain.  The tool to harm her lies at your feet. He looked down.  His left foot stood upon the splayed ribcage of a human figure, his right on the wrist bones of a hand that had died clutching a charcoal black scimitar, its edge gleaming with white diamonds.Tri’ni had come closer now, and she was looking down at where Allar stood.  Allar, compelled but not resisting, bent down and picked up the skull.  He held it palm up before Tri’ni’s face.  She tried to look away, but he grabbed her shoulder and forced her to look.  Tears lined her eyes, and she tried to form a word, but her lips quivered.Allar stepped back, then tossed the skull into the nearest rift, never pulling his eyes away from the dark Elf before him.“Whose was that?” he asked, calmly, seething with anger.She killed him. “You killed him.  Didn’t you?”Tri’ni snapped her head up.  “What?  N- no.  I didn’t, couldn’t –”She can never leave here.  She will betray you. “I won’t let you leave with us.  You betrayed him, and your father died as punishment!”Tri’ni tried to back away, nearly tripping, but then her eyes widened in shock.   “A Trillith.Babb, Lacy, help! There’s a Trillith here!”She turned to run, but Allar grabbed her arm.  She shouted for help, but now all sound drowned away, and all he saw were images of fire and ice, houses burning, shadowed figures cutting their way through his village, tearing through his home, slashing his mother.  All you could do then was cower, but you can take vengeance now. Reaching for his own scimitar, numb fingers clasping the hilt, Allar felt cold.  Before him struggled a dark Elf, and he could see in the man’s crimson eyes reflections of all the pain Allar had ever seen or imagined, all the tales of cruelty he had been told their evil kind had committed.  He knew that in a few moments he would plunge his knife into the man’s chest, hear his scream, feel his blood flow out as a stain, onto the cavern floor and onto him.  The voice urged him on.  His hand closed over a throat.  The man screamed, and time gave way to the singular moment of exultation in revenge.Lightning flashed overhead, shining green off the woman’s eyes, and the illusion fell away.  His fingers were digging into Tri’ni’s neck, and his other hand tried to bring the blade of his sword down on her as she struggled to hold him at bay.  Suddenly, she lifted her legs and fell back, and the two of them fell to the ground.  She rolled away, gasping and shouting, but her words came out in Taranesti.  Allar felt the necklace’s strands in his hand, and he tossed it away, then lunged to grab the woman’s leg.He saw the others running toward him to stop him, and his grip weakened.  He knew something was in his mind, trying to compel him, and he tried to fight it.  The shadows grew long around him, and he heard the rattling of bones.You can resist me, yes, but you do not want to.  They know I am here, know you are controlled.  You can resist me, yes, but they do not know it.  Act, on your own, and they will not know. Growling, Allar kicked forward and fell upon the girl’s back, pinning her to the ground.  The thing, the Trillith, crept into his memories and showed him his mother dying again, his father fleeing into the death that was the night, faces and friends he had forgotten he had known, all lying in blood-stained snow.  His desire for revenge mixed with panic and terror, and he felt a heavy weight on him.  His mother’s dead body, he thought, but then he felt something grab his arms and pull him, and he saw the roaring face of Babb, mute and furious.  David stood beyond him, but he could not hear the Jispin’s voice.The Trillith’s words swept over him like a tide, blinding him to the present, dragging him into the darkness of his fears.  But when he looked down to take revenge on those who had killed his family, he saw the beaten body of one of their two Taranesti prisoners.  The icy cave was tight around him, and Telleas was busy tying up their other captive.  They had caught them by surprise, and Allar’s mind recoiled as he felt himself smile at the fear on the dark Elf man’s face.The hunt had been successful, and they had found two Taranesti that the group would be able to interrogate.  Weeks of training and encouragement from the Tundanesti hunters had prepared him for this delve into the shallow tunnels of the Tunda mountains, and he and Telleas had managed to outmaneuver the pocket of Taranesti, luring off two.  It had only taken moments, and the two were down.  For the first time in years, Allar was face to face with the thing he hated.“Murdering bastard, you’re scared of me now, aren’t you?”  Allar clenched his fist and beat the dark skinned man in his cheek.  The Taranesti glared at Allar, shouted something, then spat at his face.  Allar scowled and punched him again in the jaw, then slammed his fist down on the man’s nose.  The Taranesti reached out a hand toward Telleas and shouted desperately.  “Shut up!” Allar yelled.  “I won’t let you kill anyone.”The Taranesti froze.  He breathed in shallowly, looking into Allar’s eyes, then exhaled.  A whisper passed his lips, and then he darted to grab the dagger in Allar’s belt.  Allar grabbed the man’s hand, and they struggled for control of the weapon.  The dark Elf was shouting angrily, helplessly, and then he screamed.  Allar wrenched the blade from the Taranesti’s hand and out of his belly, and he screamed as well as he slammed the dagger into the man’s chest, trying to make him stop shouting.The others had told him he would have a chance to kill one of the Taranesti, and he had been afraid, but they had helped him train and grow strong, taught him to always keep the memories of his parents in his mind when he fought.  They would be proud of him, proud that he was defending his people.  He felt whole.When he finally stopped, he had to catch his breath.  The man beneath him was unrecognizable.  When he tried to stand, it was not guilt but exhaustion that caused him to stumble, his grip on the dagger weak.  He heard the other Taranesti approaching, but he knew he had done a glorious thing.  Only later, when he saw the shame on the face of his old friend David, did he begin to doubt.In the years since Allar had left the group of hunters, David had never let him forget that day, but he had tricked himself into remembering himself shocked and guilt-stricken immediately.  But he remembered now, the pleasure of revenge.Then, like the tide, the Trillith’s control swept away from him, and he was free.Allar stopped struggling, and Babb wrenched the scimitar from his hand, then pulled him off of Tri’ni.“What the hell are you doing?” Babb shouted, twisting Allar’s arms behind his back, shoving him to the ground.  Lacy was trying to keep Babb from harming him, and Tri’ni shouted something incomprehensible in Taranesti.“Wait!” David yelled.  “Something’s wrong.”Thunder crackled overhead and David shouted again.  Babb stopped, still pressing his weight down on Allar’s back.  His face forced into the wet rock of the sinkhole floor, Allar was just able to twist to see Tri’ni, clinging to Lacy and pointing at Allar, yelling, but no one could understand her.  Allar tried to speak, but he could barely breathe, and it came out in a wheeze.Babb leaned closer, stretching Allar’s arms near to dislocating.  “What are you saying, you son of a bitch?”“Trillith,” Allar coughed out.  “She’s saying there’s-”You have failed me.  You have failed vengeance. Allar’s body shook as he tried to force the thing out of his mind.  He did not feel joy now, just guilt and fear, and the voice was unable to overwhelm him.“David,” Babb was yelling, “Allar’s saying something about that Trillith thing Trin was talking about.  What’s he talking about?”Suddenly, Tri’ni screamed, and Babb let go.  Allar rolled onto his back and tried to shake the strain out of his arms, but then he saw movement beside him.  The pile of bones had begun to move, giant limbs drawing together, shadows detaching from the surfaces around them and coalescing into tenebrous muscles and flesh.Babb drew his sword and backed away, and Allar weakly pushed himself to his feet.  “I was trying to tell you, dammit.  It was trying to control my mind.”Babb pointed his sword toward the rising mass of bones and shadows.  “I think it figured out something a little more dangerous to take control of.”Allar looked about futilely for his sword, then shook his head.  “Take cover!  Back in the tunnel!”Allar sprinted away first, hearing a heavy, wet breathing fill the air of the sinkhole.  Behind him, Lacy grabbed Tri’ni and dragged her along after Allar.  He heard David shout something, and the cavern suddenly lit with a burst of flame from a fireball.  Allar looked over his shoulder just in time to see the smoke part, and a massive, snarling black creature roll across the floor like midnight mist.  The mist spiralled upward and flared into a massive winged cloud, intangible but alive.  Babb and David broke and ran.Over the Trillith’s roar came a high-pitched keen, and Allar spun to look back at the exit passage.  The stone walls around the passage began to crack from the piercing sound, and debris started to fall, blocking the exit.  Beyond the falling stones, just inside the exit tunnel, Allar saw the figure of a man standing, arms raised, singing in joy.  His flesh was wilted and gray, his eyes wide and crazed, and from the back of his tattered burial robe, cracked silvery wings like a dragonfly’s spread to the walls and ceiling.Allar ran as fast as he could, but the wall over the exit collapsed, and the burst of debris forced him back.  Peals of fey laughter filtered through the cracks in the stone.  “You did this!” Allar shouted back through the avalanche.  “Send your monster away!”The voice from the tomb sang back, “True dead, you see, I cannot be, / nor beast I send away. / Though mine it seems, you face a dream, / on which I hold no sway.”“Let us in!” Lacy cried.  “Why are you trying to kill us?  I’ll kill you!”Allar glanced at Lacy in confusion, then up at the shadowy Trillith floating overhead.  Thunder filled the cave, and the creature seemed to seep away, reforming with the shadows of the walls, bones and all.  He looked back to Lacy, and saw her trying to blink away the anger on her face.  Your pain and fear will flee when the Elfwoman falls.  I wait here, and can be trusted.  I will free you if you heed your desires. Allar leaned close to Lacy.  “Don’t listen to it.”You have betrayed each other.  Pain must echo pain. Babb came up then, pulling his half-buried shield from the debris.  “Don’t listen to what?  I want to kill this bastard too.  You hear that, you undead sack of sh*t?”Babb stepped onto the pile of rocks and tried to peer through a crack to see the strange singing creature.  Overhead, a few pieces of rock were still cracking, ready to fall, and David shouted for Babb to come down.Babb waved him away, then peered into the hole.  “Where are you at?”A thin arm lashed out through the hole, and its hand grabbed Babb’s cheek.  Babb roared in pain and fell away, clutching his cheek.  On Babb’s face, Allar could see the handprint of the creature traced in pustules and decaying flesh.  As the arm drew away back into the stone, he could see that the skin was flush with a lively complexion.“To my homeland I return, as an undying song, / and unbeing shall come to this world’s all. / You freed me, and shall be spared dream’s vengeful call, / so my gift is death of sunless flesh / my gift is death of jagged maw.”The stone overhead cracked, and they leapt away in time to avoid being crushed.  As the rocks settled, David muttered, “How generous of him.”“What impresses me,” Babb said, “is that, even with, you know, magic and all, he’s still able to make that rhyme in every language.”“Quiet,” Allar ordered.  “I think I hear it again.”Each of the five looked up, around the walls of the cave, and at the rockslide behind them, trying to locate the source of the song.  It seemed to fill the sinkhole from everywhere, the same song as from in the tomb, but with a dozen voices, singing of grief and of the failure of dreams.  In words none of them could understand, the song told of exile and darkness, of an endless journey, and a rest that could never come.  A song of vigil to the ages.The song reached its peak, and the shadows of the wall nearby burst.  Like it had been expelled from the womb of the stone, the massive Trillith fell to the ground, covered with dust and stone, coating its now-solid black scales.  The bones were still slightly visible through its inky flesh, and the beast screamed, sinuous umbral flesh twisting in the pain of being corporeal.  It pressed itself to its full height, fifty feet long, wings twice as wide and trailing darkness, four limbs of rending ebony claws, a whipping, bladed tail, and a powerful, serpentine neck, hunched low, lowering the long black maw of the beast to eye level with its victims.  The shadowed flesh rolled away from its eyesockets, revealing pale white bone beneath, glaring and vengeful.“Dragon,” Allar shouted.  “Everyone, scatter!”The beast reared back its head, drawing in a breath that shook the cavern walls.  As the group split and ran, the dragon Trillith forced its jaws open to a wide gape, and a roiling cloud of deathly vapors spewed forth, striking the ground near Allar.  He clutched his hands over his mouth and nose and sprinted through it, feeling the mist try to seep into his blood and soul.  But he leapt free, jumping high to a narrow ledge, and weaponless, he sprinted for the cover of a nearby rift in the stone.The dragon beat its barely-tangible wings, and it swept up into the air, spinning and diving for Lacy and Tri’ni as they made for a pile of boulders to hide.  Lacy shouted and shoved Tri’ni to the ground, and the great beast swept past, grasping Lacy in its foreclaws.  She screamed, and through the darkness across the vastness of the room, Allar saw blood spread across her as the dragon’s claws tore through flesh.On the open floor, David stood defiantly and held out a talisman.  A spout of fire burst upward from the cracks in the ground around him, spraying into the air like bubbling lava.  The flames sizzled in the intense rainfall, surrounding the Jispin mage with a shield of steam.  He raised his arms and clenched his fists, and the fire leapt into the sky and struck the dragon’s side, scorching its flesh.  The creature roared and twisted in the air, aiming for David.  The Jispin man scrambled and leapt as the dragon swept in, dodging its claws but not its lashing tail.  He was hurled across the sinkhole floor, landing and bouncing through rough piles of stone, coming to a stop just beside the deep rift the waterfall fed into.The dragon snapped its wings and spun again, angling to the opposite side of the cavern wall, where a thirty-foot high spur of stone provided it cover from spells.  It landed and planted a foreclaw on Lacy, driving her to the ground.  It was only halfway across the room from Allar, so he moved from his hiding place and broke into a run, hoping he could get there in time before Lacy’s screams stopped.  The dragon was content now to have the woman pinned, and it spoke, its voice cracking and enraged.“You are not my concern.  The Elfwoman killed one of my kind.  This dead beast whose form I wear already slew another of the murderers, his bones twisting within me inside this enforced flesh.”Lacy screamed, and Allar noticed Babb running parallel to him, in the same direction.  Allar held up a hand, and Babb quickly pulled out a spare short sword, tossing it across the chasm between them.  Allar snatched it up, and together they hit the sinkhole wall, leaping and climbing for the beast’s perch.Above them, it spun, still pinning Lacy, but now leering out from behind the rock spur, its spread wings suddenly cutting off the drenching rainfall.  It planted a foreclaw upon the wall, ready to pounce down at them, and snarled.“My last offer: abandon the Elf girl, and this one lives.”Allar growled back up at the dragon, not stopping as he scrambled up the cliff face, but he saw Babb slowing.“Al,” he shouted, “she’s my sister.  I can’t. . . .”He didn’t turn to look down at the Geidon.  Still climbing, he declared, “I’m not letting you make that choice.”The dragon lashed out with its claw, and Allar leapt to the side, grabbing desperately at a loose ledge as the one he’d just been standing on shattered under the beast’s blow.  He twisted his body enough to get a good footing on the wall, and then he kicked upward and away, back toward the claw.  Before the dragon could pull back, Allar landed on the claw, grabbing onto a knuckle with one hand, driving his sword between scale and bone with the other.  The dragon hissed and tried to shake Allar free, but he clung tenaciously, his limbs and stomach lurching as he was swung out over fifty feet of empty space.Then he heard Babb roar into battle, and the Geidon’s sword drove into the leg that was pinning Lacy.  Distracted in two directions, the dragon let go of Lacy and kicked Babb away, then bent its neck to bite him, and instead of trying to fling Allar free, the Trillith simply planted its claw back on solid stone, nearly snapping Allar’s legs from the weight.  Allar let go and began to weakly crawl for Lacy, trying to ignore the thrashing and clamping sounds of the dragon devouring Babb.He tried to reach for Lacy to pull her to safety, but she held out a hand to ward him.  Clutching at her bleeding chest and stomach, she wheezed out an incantation, then suddenly moved her hands away.  A spark of light flashed between her palms, and she sighed in relief.  She moved her hands back to her wounds and recited the same chant, and she began to heal.“Too many Elves and monsters touching me,” she said weakly.  “The auras disrupted my spell.”“My leg’s broke,” Allar said.Still bleeding slightly, Lacy stood up and glanced to where the dragon and Babb were struggling.  She nodded quickly and began to cast a spell to heal Allar, and Allar could only watch as he waited for his strength to return.The dragon towered over Babb, swatting at him with its claws, first from the side, then from above, trying to knock him away or pin him to the ground.  His hooves digging into the unsteady rock face, Babb held his huge shield high to block most of the blows, but some swung past his guard and crashed into his armor, knocking him back.  The top corner of his shield had been ripped away, leaving the jagged pattern of the dragon’s teeth marked in it.  Babb chopped with his sword whenever a claw drew near, but the Trillith was keeping its head high.  Allar could see a great gash torn through the shadow flesh of its jaw, revealing bare bone beneath, the result of the dragon’s attempt to bite through Babb’s armored defenses.His short sword was still imbedded in the monster’s claw, so Allar pulled his last resort dagger from its sheath and stood, taking a measure of how he could do anything against this huge beast.  Lacy came up beside him, holding her slender sword, useful against human foes but not something as large as the dragon.  They stood immobile for several moments, daunted, but then Allar spied movement at the bottom of the sinkhole, fifty feet below.Tri’ni was shouting, flailing her arms in the air at the Trillith, no doubt using untranslated obscenities.  The black dragon paused for a moment to glare at her, and Babb rushed in under its claws, driving his sword up into the beast’s chest.  It snarled and leapt into the air, buffeting Babb with its wings as it drew back from the blow.  Allar and Lacy charged at it from behind, and Babb swiped at one of its hind legs, but the creature lifted into the air and dove away, toward Tri’ni.  Allar nearly stumbled from the ledge as his foe flew away, and he watched it beat its huge black wings, angling for the dark Elf woman.Just as it was about to grasp her, she dropped to the ground and rolled into one of the many cracks in the floor, taking cover.  The dragon landed beside the rift and skidded in the slick of rainfall, but dug its claws in and roared down into the narrow rift, too small for it to reach into.At the high ledge, Lacy and Allar ran up next to Babb, but he shook his head and slumped against the wall.  Lacy started to reach for his wounds, but he pointed down at the dragon.  “Just give me a breather,” he said.  “I ain’t banged up too bad.”Lacy hesitated, seeing the cracks and rents in his armor, but she broke away and began to clamber down the cliff side.“Babb,” Allar said, “give me your sword.”“What, this one?”  The Geidon held up his sword and squinted at him dubiously.  The last foot of the sword was missing, snapped off in the dragon’s ribs.  “Anyway, I already gave you a sword.  Dammit, start pulling your weight around here.  And get the rest of my sword back.”Allar cursed and started down the rough cliff toward the dragon, armed only with a dagger.At the rift into which Tri’ni had ducked, the Trillith dragon drew in a heavy breath and exhaled downward, black choking vapors spreading into the rift.  The beast waited, as if expecting its prey to run, but Lacy reached it and thrust her sword into its thigh.  The dragon merely shrugged, pulling the sword from Lacy’s grasp, and then it snapped its tail across her, sending her to the ground.  It moved away from the life-drinking mist and began to circle Lacy, swatting at her with a claw whenever she moved.Shifting direction to come in from behind the beast, Allar jumped over a narrow rift and came in quickly.  The dragon cocked its head to the side, hearing him approach, and it spun to pounce on him, but Allar leapt into a forward dive and tumbled under the strike, coming to his feet between the dragon’s legs.  It kicked blindly at him, and he spun to the side to dodge, slashing ineffectually at the hind claw.  Confused, the giant creature tried to move to get a clear swing at him, but he weaved between its legs, using its own body as cover against it.  He was about to break and run for Lacy when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and felt claws rake him on his arm.  The blow staggered him, and he fell helplessly to the ground.David’s voice sounded from not far away, “Burn, fiend!”The black mist parted forcefully, revealing the battered mage channeling through his talismans.  He glowed briefly, and then an incandescent seed of red flame flew from his hand.  Allar rolled to hide his face, but when the seed struck the dragon and burst into a rolling sphere of fire, the beast’s body shielded Allar from the explosion.The dragon roared and lashed its wings to drive away the flames, but no sooner were the flames extinguished when another ball of fire exploded across the beast’s flank, melting away flesh, revealing the eerily animated skeleton beneath.  The dragon stomped once spitefully at Allar, narrowly missing, then leapt into the air, making for the waterfall and cover.David sent a barrage of black bolts through the air after the dragon, and Allar and Lacy both ran for the rift.  The black smoke had cleared, but Tri’ni had been caught in it for nearly a minute.“Toss down a rope,” Allar said.  “I’m getting her out.”Climbing down the inside of the rift was difficult because of the rainfall on the stones, and he had to fight to remain focused when he heard thunder and wasn’t sure if it was the storm or the dragon swooping overhead.  But Lacy soon dropped a line beside him, and he was able to slide the last fifteen feet to the bottom of the rift.  His feet splashed into thigh-high water, and he felt something soft where the ground should be.  Then it moved, and he gasped, reaching down to help pull Tri’ni free from the water.She came up choking and gasping, her arms scraped, and her skin bruised all across her body, more a purple-black than her normal dark grey.  Though the water had shielded her from most of the vapors, evidently it hadn’t been enough.  She said something in Taranesti, smiled weakly, and held up two fingers.“Whatever you say,” Allar agreed.  He gestured for the rope, then pointed up.  Tri’ni nodded, and started to climb, weakly.  Allar moved up beside her and lent an arm for support.“Allar,” Lacy shouted from above, “it’s moving again.”Allar looked up and could see the opening of the sinkhole, high overhead.  Lightning flashed, silhouetting the dragon in flight, and then it spun in mid-air, swooping past the the lip of the sinkhole.  Red light flashed in the air as another of David’s spells flew for the dragon, and just as Allar and Tri’ni cleared the top of the rift, the dragon flew through the explosion of flame and released something.David cried out in shock as a massive tree, torn from the top of the sinkhole, crashed across the ground.  He tried to dive away, but the branches swept across him, and the tree bounced past him toward Lacy.  Allar grabbed Tri’ni and shoved her back down into the rift just in time for the tree to miss them, but when they came back up, David was sprawled unconscious twenty feet away, and Lacy was pinned by the tree at the edge of the ravine.  Overhead, the dragon roared in laughter and began to circle for another pass.Allar and Tri’ni raced to beside Lacy and began to pull her free from the pinning tree.  She cried out in dismay and went limp in their arms.Allar shook her and shouted, “Don’t give up.  Never surrender.  You have magic.  Do something!”She shook her head and tried to look away in fear, and Allar cursed.  The dragon was lining up to strafe them, so he jumped and climbed to the top of the fallen tree.  Clenching his dagger, he prepared to jump when the dragon moved past them.Below him, Lacy sagged and cried, and Tri’ni knelt next to her, hugging her, whispering soothingly but forcefully.  Lacy looked up at Tri’ni, then past her to Allar, just as the dragon flew in.It snapped its teeth at Allar as he jumped at it, with the unintended effect of catching Allar’s free hand in its jaw and lifting him away.  Its tail slashed across the ground, and Tri’ni shoved herself and Lacy away just in time.  The tail crashed into the tree and cut it nearly in two, sending a spray of wood shards into the air.  When the cloud of splinters cleared, the dragon was circling high, Allar’s one arm pinned in its mouth, his other slashing for the creature’s throat with the dagger.The dragon pressed its jaws together, digging into his flesh, snapping bone.  Allar screamed, but kept stabbing, driving his dagger into the dark scales beneath the bone white eye.  Wheeling in the air, the dragon dove through the waterfall and flailed its head, driving Allar into the wall.  It opened its jaws and let go of its hold, and for a moment, Allar knew he would fly free and shatter his body on the sinkhole wall, but his grip on the dagger held, and he spun around the beast’s head, falling away just enough to dangle beside the monster’s serpentine neck.  He felt something jab into his ribs, and he looked down to see a man’s skeleton encased in the black flesh beneath him, missing its skull.  In the skeleton’s hand lay a black scimitar, and the blade was half-emerged from the dragon’s flesh.  Even from just lightly touching it, it had cut through his shirt and armor, and was slashing into his body.  His left arm mangled, his body bruised and slashed, he had no way to reach the blade without letting go and falling hundreds of feet.Then below him, something flared with light.  Beside the tree, the dark Elf and Lacy were standing, glowing strangely.  For an instant, light flashed around him, and he felt intense heat and a dull pounding deafness in his ears.  Then the dragon went limp and began to plummet.  A booming crackle of thunder echoed through the cavern, and Allar realized the dragon had been struck by a lightning bolt.  The beast went into freefall, and Allar with it.Releasing his hold, Allar forced his hand through the barely-solid flesh of the dragon, and he wrenched the scimitar from the skeleton’s grasp.  The hilt’s leather pressed soothingly into his palm, and he pulled the blade free from the dragon’s neck.  A moment passed when he felt he knew the memories of many people, and the song of the fey whispered through the cave, and then everything around him dissolved into shadow. “Who was he?” Lacy asked.Water lashed his face, and thunder filled his ears, but these were too constant to wake him.  What woke him was the voice of the dark Elf.“He was Dentalles.  That was his sword.  He must have died fighting that great reptile, when. . . ,” she paused and her voice broke.  “I hope the others escaped.”“Ug,” Allar said.  He opened his eyes, and then squinted as rain sprayed him.“Thank God you’re alright,” David whispered to him.  “You sure do like falling.”Allar rolled onto his side, but Lacy pressed him back onto his back.  He felt pain everywhere.“You saved our lives,” Lacy said.“No,” Babb said.  “He nearly fell to his death again.  That freak lightning bolt saved our lives.”“That lightning bolt was aimed for me,” Lacy said.  “I tried to cast the only offensive spell I could, and Allar and Tri’ni’s Elf auras disrupted the whole thing.  We were just lucky the dragon was in the way.”Tri’ni laughed.  “You all saved our lives.  Well, saved my life is more like it.  Thank you.”There was a moment of silence, and Allar weakly sat up, braced on his one good arm.  They were at the trailing edge of the thunderstorm, the rain and lightning fading slowly, and the sky was clear in one direction, the direction everyone was facing.  The sun sat on the horizon, flanked by two mountains, shimmering in red, purple, and orange.“Sunrise?” Allar asked.“It’s setting,” David said.  “I’m guessing we’re in the western Otdar Mountains.”“Sun set,” Tri’ni said.  She squinted at the dim light of the fading sun, the golden glow gleaming on her dark skin, glinting off the drops of rain.  A new translation charm lay on her neck, and she held it in her fingers absently as she pondered the descending sunset.Allar looked down, pained.  He had almost hoped to die against the monster.  It would have been easier than remembering what he had felt, how easily it had driven him to vengeance.A hand touched him on the shoulder, and he turned to see Tri’ni sitting close.  Her emerald eyes held his, and she smiled, gently and intentionally.“One of those things made my own father try to kill me.  I won’t say this wasn’t frightening, but I’ve had worse.”She grinned.  “And you fought off its control, too.  You did save my life, Allar.”He breathed in slowly.  “I’m sorry.”She chuckled.  “You are a lot like Dentalles.  He was too sad and guilty all the time, and it probably killed him.”She paused.  Allar looked down at the black scimitar, wrapped in a drenched white cloth, laying between them.“Dentalles was a friend,” she said.  “I know he would have given his life to save mine.  He probably would’ve done it to save anyone, honestly.  But I wish he hadn’t.  I had never had friends before, and now I know that one of them is gone.She grinned at him, then stood and walked back to watch the sunset.  “Don’t go dying any time soon, alright?”Allar sighed, feeling one less pain now.  He almost smiled.  Then Babb came up next to him and kicked him lightly in the leg.  Allar looked up, shielding his eyes from the rain with his hand.  Babb glared down at him disapprovingly.Allar sighed in exasperation.  “Yeah, Babb?”“You’re not going to throw a fit about having a dark Elf around, are you?”“Did you not just see me jump onto a dragon?  You didn’t think I was doing that to save your hairy neck, did you?”Babb scratched his neck nervously.  “Actually, I was kinda passed out at that point.  I’m just glad you’re being more rational now.”Allar laughed and shook his head.  “I’ll be fine.”“You think we’re gonna get paid for this?”“The dragon didn’t have any treasure?”Babb snorted derisively.  “Wasn’t even a dragon, really.  Just a big lizard.  Those wings weren’t even real.  The bones are worthless.  Damn thing impaled itself on that tree and shattered into a jillion pieces.  I don’t know how the hell you survived.  This ‘adventure’ was a bust.”Allar looked away from Babb to consider the dark Elf woman.  She was leaning back, looking to the sky as the last flickers of lightning flashed.  Slowly, the woman held up one hand, stretched out a finger, and spun it.  An arc of lightning skittered down her finger, then died out.  She smiled and looked around to see if anyone had noticed.Allar nodded to her, then sighed.  To Babb he said, “I’m sure she’ll be worth something.  If nothing else, I’m sure some idiot noble’s going to pay for us to go back down there.”Taking in a breath of clear, surface air, Allar closed his eyes and let the storm blow across the mountains.</blockquote>

Verification