Depths of Madness - Erik Scott De Bie [101]
They stood in a crude tunnel sloping up from where they stood, down from the dungeon. Gone was the fine, if eccentric, carving and stonework of Negarath. The air was musty, and a faint, foul odor wafted through the tunnel. Rough steps led up.
"Gestal should be somewhere up there-or down…" Twilight could not help feeling a touch disoriented, but she did her best to dismiss it. "Up. Definitely up, if Negarath is upside down, below us." Twilight's head ached.
She noticed Gargan kneeling by the trapdoor, hand out, and narrowed her eyes. "What are you about?"
He drew his hand back and she saw that he had placed a stone in the air. It dipped back toward the dungeon, then up toward them, then merely floated, caught in that space where gravity pulled both ways. At the innocent fascination the goliath showed in the phenomenon, Twilight smiled despite herself. "Come."
Gargan-ever a man of few words-nodded and went with her.
They had not gone ten paces up the tunnel when they heard a scuttling from behind, as of a rock falling to the floor. Something had disturbed Gargan's floating stone.
The goliath was already charging back by the time Twilight had her weapon out and was pursuing him. Though her reflexes might have been the faster, he had keener ears. With the boots from the sharn, she ran as fast as he did. They fell upon their pursuer at almost the same instant.
There it was, five steps from the trapdoor. The shadow yelped and danced back, startled. Gargan's black sword swept aside a hastily raised mace, even as his other hand shot out and shoved its wielder over. Even as the intruder fell, Twilight lunged the intervening four paces-she loved these boots already-and rode it to earth, Betrayal at its throat.
The shadowy figure froze and put its hands up. "Stop! Stop!" she screamed. " 'Tis me! 'Tis me!" Twilight almost drove her blade in anyway, but Gargan caught her arm and saved Billfora Brightbrows's life.
"Slip?" Twilight asked, brow furrowing. "What are you doing here? Didn't they capture you? How did you escape?"
The halfling stared with terror-stricken eyes. "I-I-I…" she tried, but couldn't speak with the elf pressing her lungs, and a blade lying a thumb's breadth from her jugular.
Twilight straddled the little woman and bent low, keeping the blade still and putting her free hand on the halfling's shoulder. It would take hardly any force to push it through Slip's unarmored neck-in case it wasn't really the halfling, but a trick.
"Speak," she commanded, and Slip did.
"I-I got away," she said. "When those bee-things came, one o' them knocked me cold. When I woke up, I was under a toadstool. It must have broke my fall, and I was…"
"You weren't a prisoner?" Twilight asked, her heart suddenly racing. That would mean only Davoren and Liet were Ruuk's prisoners, and that meant…
"Uh," said Slip. Twilight heard her only distantly. "No. No, I wasn't."
"Did you see anyone else?" Twilight asked. "Where's Liet?" Slip shook het head. "I didn't…"
"Why so quick?"Gargan asked, his voice dark. There was no pain in his words, only suspicion about the one who had been his friend.
It struck her that the earring was not translating his words to Elvish, as it must have for Taslin. Somehow, Twilight had become less than an elf-but she accepted that.
Slip blinked at the goliath and she smiled widely. "Eh?"
"Why are you here?" Twilight asked, clarifying. "How could you get here so fast? The sharn teleported us. What of you?"
The joy went out of Slip's face. "Well, I… I…" Gargan was staring at her, and her lip shook. "I've been coming this way for a day. I didn't… know where you were, so I came this way, because…" She blinked. "I'm afraid of bees."
No matter how heavy the moment or how deathly serious the look that had passed between Slip and Gargan, Twilight could not help but grin at that.
"Very well," she said, and got off the halfling. "My apologies. We reacted as we had to." She sheathed Betrayal and started up the stairs.
The halfling got to her knees, rubbing her temples. "Ah, r-right," Slip said, smiling