Lillandra

Shell led them to the other side of the cavern and into a long, narrow passageway. There were no lights here, but Lillandra had the Candle of Hours, which she brought to life. Its light totally illuminated the corridor, surprising Shell.

"You really are a witch," she breathed.

"I told you that she was," Arai said. "Didn't you believe me?"

"What else can you do?" she asked eagerly. "Can you fly? Can you turn yourself into a wolf or a wyrm?"

"With enough time, and the right materials," Lillandra informed her, "I can do just about anything."

Something about that statement made Arai uneasy. Was Lillandra really so powerful? Did her magic make her the equal of a god? He didn't like to think about it.

But Shell had many more questions: "Where did you say you were from?"

"Velon," Arai answered. "It's a small kingdom in the far west, beyond the Scarred Lands."

"The Scarred Lands?"

"I think the Addish call it Tarnak."

"You're from the other side of the Tarnak? How is it that you speak such good Addish?"

"Magic," Arai said, and left it at that.

Shell stopped and looked at both of them in turn. "So what are you two doing together? Are you married or something?"

"No," Arai said, annoyed by the question. "As a matter of fact we're mortal enemies."

"Really? Then why are you working together?"

Arai threw a glance at Lillandra, who glared at him in return. "It's complicated," he said.

They continued on, making their way through any number of dark corridors, tube-like tunnels, and open galleries. Some of the corridors were so narrow that they were forced to walk through them single file, with Shell in the lead and Arai and Lillandra following behind. There were grave niches built into many of the walls, and almost all of them contained one or two skeletons.

"The people of Kingsaile have been burying their dead down here for centuries," Shell remarked, unbothered by the morbid scenery. "They're getting ahead of themselves now, though. They've started burying the living down here, too."

"What do you mean?" Lillandra asked.

"All those people in the gallery," she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. "The rich people don't like to see beggars and street rats like me on the streets, so the guards sweep 'em up and run 'em into the Dwellmer every chance they get. Out of sight, out of mind...just like the dead."

"You're not suggesting those people back there were prisoners," Arai said.

"Not prisoners, exactly. They're free to leave, but most of them have nowhere to go anyway, and if the guards them see wandering around Northwall or the Main Avenues they'll just dump them back in the Dwellmer."

"That seems rather harsh," Arai said.

She shrugged. "It's life. We're turning left up here."

They descended deeper and deeper into the Dwellmer, through dark ossuaries and wet, dripping tunnels. As they went deeper, however, the passageways gave way to natural caverns, with stalactites on the ceiling and stalagmites on the floor, and often containing underground lakes and rivers. Arai was fascinated by the strange scenery, but was unable to enjoy it; he was too tense. This salamander-thing, after all, could be anywhere. "How much farther?" he asked Shell.

"We're getting close," she said, her voice echoing through the cavernous hollows. "This stream we've been following leads to a large lake -- Dwellmer's Bottom, we call it. That's probably where the salamander is making its lair. The monsters down here like the water."

"There's an awful lot of magia in these caves," Lillandra commented. "It's no wonder you're getting monsters."

Arai, who had kept his sword in its scabbard up to now, finally drew it; he wanted to be ready for anything. Shell gave the blade a doubtful look. "Do you really plan on fighting this salamander all by yourself?"

"Yes."

"You're brave," she snorted. It did not sound like a compliment.

They continued to walk along the edge of the stream, which grew wider and wider the deeper they went. It soon became a true underground river, at least fifteen feet wide and rushing rapidly; the sound of the water rolling through the cave became so loud that they had to raise their voices to speak over it. The air smelled strange, like moss and dead reptiles.

"So what's Velon like?" Shell asked.

"Cold," Arai said. "Much colder than Addis. The sea freezes off the coast. There's forests in the south and high mountains in the north -- the Frozen Mountains, we call them. That's where the Al'mud live."

"The Al'mud?" She had some trouble pronouncing this foreign word.

"Mountain people," he explained. "Barbarians. They come out of the north sometimes to make war upon the peasants living in the foothills."

"Are there elves in Velon?"

"No. We had never seen elves until we came to Addis."

"Really? That's interesting."

"Oh, and one more thing -- until recently the whole of Velon was ruled over by a tyrannical, evil witch, who used her dragon to incinerate anyone who opposed her."

Lillandra's eyes narrowed at this dig, but she did not otherwise respond to it.

"Is that why you came to Addis? To flee this witch?"

Arai started to answer, but then frowned, because he had just seen something, a flash of silver, flitting through the underground river, just below the surface of the water. But it disappeared instantly, which made him wonder if he actually seen it. "Are there fish in this river?" he asked Shell.

"Probably," she said, shrugging. "I've never actually seen--"

But before she could even finish the sentence, something suddenly exploded out of the river, blasting upwards through a frothing column of water and landing, with a heavy, wet thump, on the shore -- directly in front of Shell. Startled, and blinded by water droplets, Arai staggered back a step, trying to get a look at whatever it was that had just jumped out of the water. It was big, whatever it was, and it glinted like silver in the light of Lillandra's magical candle.

Shell screamed. Arai immediately leapt forward, seizing the hood of the elf girl's cloak and yanking her away from the beast just as it swung its tail at her. The creature whirled completely around, and it was then that Arai finally got a good look at it. It was a weird, amphibian creature, with silver scales and a white belly, but it was shaped like a man, and it had the head of a fish. A row of spines ran down its back and to the tip of its tail, which was long and whiplike, and with which it had nearly slashed Shell's face off. Its arms were big and muscular, and its fingers were webbed.

The creature hissed at Arai and attacked him, trying to rake him with its claws. It was coming at him too quickly for him to perform any fancy sword tricks, so he acted instinctively, bringing his sword up just in time to cut one of its hands off.

Severing its hand ought to have released a geyser of blood, but no blood emerged -- instead, a strange starlike iridescence spilled out of the fish-man's wound. Arai realized then that this creature wasn't a man or an animal, but a monster, brought to life by the magia in these caverns. Was it the salamander? But no, it couldn't be; everyone they had spoken with had described the salamander as a huge creature, as big as an elephant.

Well, it was obviously a threat, whatever it was. Arai slashed at the fish-man a second time, across the chest, which caused even more of that sparkly essence to emerge; he then drove his sword all the way through the monster's white belly. It hissed at him one more time, right in his face -- Arai could smell its rancid fish-breath -- and then fell apart, evaporating like mist, and leaving behind only a couple of slivers of crystalline maginite.

Shell was in shock. "What...what was it?"

"Some kind of monster," Arai said. "Obviously not the one we're looking for."

"You saved me," she managed, her breathing ragged. "If not for you, I would've been--"

"It was nothing," he said, helping her to her feet. "Lillandra? Are you all right?"

But Lillandra wasn't looking at him; she was looking at the river. "I think we're in trouble," she said.

Arai followed her gaze. Several more silvery shapes were flitting through the water, just below the surface. "Uh-oh."

No sooner had he said these words than half a dozen fish-men exploded out of the water -- one landing next to Lillandra, another landing next to Arai. Arai immediately swung his sword, one-handed, decapitating the monster, which evaporated as the first one had, but two more quickly replaced it, leaping out of the water and spitting and hissing like mad.

Arai could handle a couple of these things, but six of them? Seven? Eight? And soon there was a small army of them, ten or twelve at least. Some of them jumped out of the river; some of them, more fishlike than manlike, wriggled onto the shore, snapping at them with their jaws.

"I think we're in trouble," Arai agreed. "Run!"

They couldn't go back the way they had came; the fish-men had blocked off that route. So, with Shell in the lead, Lillandra following, and Arai covering their retreat, they ran deeper into the caverns, following the now-raging river.

Arai grimaced. How the hell were they going to get out of this one? "Shell!" he shouted. "Do you know where you're going?" He was afraid she was going to lead them into a dead end; these caverns couldn't go on forever, after all.

"The salamander!" she shouted back. "It's our only chance!"

Arai didn't know what she was talking about, but he followed her anyway, while the fish-men continued to chase them through the caves. The floor was slippery, and even with Lillandra carrying the Candle of Hours, the lighting was poor. At one point Lillandra slipped and fell, falling backwards; fortunately Arai was there to catch her by the waist. Though he had spent more than a month in very close proximity to her, this was the first time he had ever actually touched Lillandra, and this sudden contact startled them both. He quickly released her, placing her back on her feet and shouting at her to keep going, but that feeling of his arm around her waist, and that look of surprise he found in her dark eyes...these weren't easily forgotten.

They ran and ran, struggling to stay ahead of the fish-men. The monsters were right behind them -- some of them spitting, some of them making strange gurgling sounds. Arai was not easily frightened, but being chased by these bizarre creatures, through these dark, forbidding passageways, hundreds of feet below the surface of the earth, was enough to unnerve even him. And what's worse, the monsters were gaining.

Following the river, they finally emerged into another huge, cavernous gallery. The river ended here, bleeding into an enormous underground lake. The lake was so large that Arai couldn't see the other side of it; it must have been better than a mile across. The ceiling, prickled with stalactites, was very high.

Unfortunately this seemed to be the dead end that Arai had worried about; he didn't see an another way out. And who knew how many more fish-men might be lurking in that inky-black lake?

"Try to hold them off for a minute!" Shell shouted. She went to the shore and began picking up stones.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"The salamander!" she cried. "I told you, it's our only chance!" And she began throwing the stones into the lake.

Lillandra, at least, understood. She, too, began throwing stones into the lake, while Arai, grimly, turned to face the fish-men. There were dozens of them, in a variety of different shapes and configurations -- most of them were silver, but some were green, and some were mottled green and black. Some had scales, while others were smooth-skinned, like frogs. Some looked like catfish, with long whiskers; others resembled sharks.

It was one of the shark-faced creatures who reached him first. He waited for it to come forward, than sidestepped it and slashed it across the waist; the blow was deep enough, and devastating enough, that it dissolved almost instantly. Scrambling back, he struck another on the arm and another across the face, causing several of its teeth to evaporate, and then these two faded away as well.

Silus was very effective at dispatching monsters. Under ordinary circumstances a monster could only be destroyed by damaging its physical body beyond a certain point, which caused it to decohere, but it was very difficult to do this with ordinary weapons -- monsters were notoriously resilient; it usually took a dozen sword-strikes or fire-spells to diminish them. The Radiant Blade, however, was an anathema to magic, and monsters, and it only took a few slashes here and there to reduce them to maginite.

But there were dozens of these creatures, and he couldn't hold them off all by himself...at least, not for long. Didn't Lillandra have any spells that she could use? He knew that she was almost totally reliant on her zemi, but he had a hard time believing that the notorious Night Queen, the sorceress who had conquered Velon and ruled it for a hundred years, could really be so helpless. Was she hiding her true strength?

But there wasn't time to think about it; more fish-men were appearing all the time. Arai cut, slashed, and stabbed his way through their ranks, but they were surrounding him, and it was all he could do now to hold them off. One of them finally managed to tackle him, throwing him to the ground. He smashed its head with the pommel of his sword, then swung the blade around and sliced its neck, vaporizing it, but he was slow getting to his feet and already more of the fish-men were swarming him. One of them used its claws to slash his upper arm, drawing blood; another whipped its tail around and cracked him in the chest, the impact of it staggering him. If he hadn't been wearing his breastplate, the blow probably would have killed him.

Meanwhile Shell and Lillandra were still throwing stones into the lake. This seemed ridiculous under the circumstances, and he was just about to ask them what the hell they were doing, when the ground suddenly shook and something suddenly began to rise out of the water -- something huge, and black, and terrifying. The fish-men immediately stopped their assault on Arai, turning to face this new threat, and began croaking excitedly amongst themselves.

Arai gathered himself and backed away from both the fish-men and the huge, blob-like monster, which was now making its way up to the shore. It was one of the biggest creatures Arai had ever seen -- almost as big as the gigantic Ice Wyrm he had befriended in the Frozen Mountains. Water poured off its back as it rose to its full height, and a pair of eyes opened -- big, black, bulbous eyes, which protruded from its skull and caught the reflection of Lillandra's Candle of Hours. A pair of feathered gills extended out from either side of its enormous head.

Arai rejoined Shell and Lillandra, who had backed away from the water and were now watching the monster drag itself up the shore.

"The salamander," Shell noted. "I told you it was big."

Arai nodded, too tired from all the running and fighting to respond.

The croaking of the fish-men grew louder and louder, and some of them began posturing and pumping their arms, working themselves up into a fury. When the salamander finally reached the shore, hauling its massive bulk halfway out of the water, the fish-men roared and attacked it. Some clawed at it; others tried climbing on its back. Enraged, the salamander flung them off, and if any got too close to its mouth, it crushed them within its massive jaws.

"They're attacking it," Arai said stupidly. "Why?"

"They're monsters," Shell said, as if that explained everything.

Though there were dozens of fish-men, they were unable to inflict any serious harm on the salamander, which was simply too big. A few of the fish-men retreated, but most of them fought to the death, or until their disintegration at least; Arai wasn't sure whether these monsters could really be classified as living things at all. The fish-men were, however, doing a very good job of distracting the salamander, and Arai realized, abruptly, that the monsters were providing him with an opportunity.

"This is our chance," he said, raising his sword.

Lillandra stared. "What? What are you--?"

But Arai was already rushing into the melee. He cut down two fish-men on his way to the salamander, then waded into the water and stabbed it with Silus, burying the sword up to the hilt. The monster bellowed and reared up, and immediately turned its attention to him, trying to swat at him with one of its stubby forelegs. Arai was able to dodge the leg; however, the near-miss sprayed him with cold water, drenching him, and obscuring his vision for just a moment. Blinking the water out of his eyes, he looked up just in time to avoid another swing.

It was no use attacking the monster head-on, he decided; that enormous mouth, and those thick, stubby legs, were too dangerous. So while the salamander was momentarily distracted by one of the fish-men -- one of the only ones left -- he waded deeper into the frothing, churning water and started hacking into the monster's side. Then, seeing another opportunity, he managed to throw himself onto the salamander's heavy, wriggling tail and climb up its back. Crawling up to its neck, he stabbed it in the spine, once again burying the sword to the hilt, and when he pulled it out, he was blasted in the face with sparkling magia-particles.

The salamander continued to struggle, and finally succeeded in throwing Arai off its back -- fortunately he landed in the water -- but the damage was done; Silus had inflicted a mortal wound. Slowly but surely, pieces of the salamander began to break off and disintegrate -- arms, legs, tail, and finally head -- and in a sudden burst of magical potentiality, it exploded, lighting up the entire cavern with a sparkling mist. A huge piece of misshapen maginite, the biggest Arai had ever seen, dropped into the water...rather anticlimactically.

It wasn't over, though -- two fish-men still remained, and they were now menacing Lillandra and Shell. Arai surged out of the water, yelling out a battle cry. The monsters turned to face him, and though his limbs felt like lead, and though the cold of the water had nearly frozen him solid, he still had enough strength to cut both monsters down. With that done, and with the threats seemingly neutralized, he sheathed his sword and sat down heavily on the floor.

Lillandra gave him a disdainful look. "That was stupid."

"I know," he said, panting. "But I killed it, didn't I?"

"You did," Shell whispered, staring at him open-mouthed. "You really did."

He smiled at the little elf girl. "Thanks to you. Provoking the salamander into attacking the fish-men...that was smart."

"We didn't have much choice," she said, smiling back. But then she looked around nervously. "We should get out of here. There could be more of them down here."

"Don't forget the maginite," Lillandra reminded them.

It took them several minutes to find the maginite in the water. It was an oblong chunk of shiny black-and-red stone, reminiscent of obsidian, and it must have weighed at least sixteen pounds. Shell could barely lift it.

Having collected their prize, they left the cavern and returned to the surface. They encountered no more fish-men, nor any other monsters, and before long the lights of the large gallery came into view. "We made it," Arai said, desperate to leave this dark underworld. He was cold, shivering, and bleeding from several minor wounds. "Now let's go get paid."

"Priorities," Shell said happily, nodding.