Temple Hill - Drew Karpyshyn [110]
With a shake of her head and a warm smile Lhasha replied, "Oh, Fendel! Always looking out for your poor little girl." She returned his hug with one of her own.
Corin shifted uncomfortably at the sentimental display between Lhasha and her mentor. "We still need to get out of here," he noted, trying to shift the conversation back to their immediate situation. "Hugs won't get us back to the surface."
"Of course, of course," the gnome said hastily, gently pushing Lhasha away. Lhasha gave Corin a sour glare, her eyes chastising him for the embarrassment he had caused the old gnome with his tactless comment. Corin ignored her angry stare.
"Sooner or later," Fendel said, moving on to the topic Corin had not-so-subtly suggested, "this passage has to link up with the original tunnel system. We won't be able to get into the sub-tunnels from up here. I only knew about the one way in. All the other doors connecting to the network below are one way, just like the one back in Xiliath's vault. You can come up from below, but not down from above. We'll have to find our way to the surface through the smugglers' main tunnels."
"You told me traveling those tunnels was suicide," Corin reminded him.
"Virtually suicide," Fendel clarified. "But it's not like we really have a choice, is it?"
From his bag Fendel produced the staff he had used when he and Corin had come through the sub-tunnel. The end still glimmered with a magical glow.
"Lhasha and I will check for traps-you guard our backs. Even if the cultists or Xiliath's men don't decide to try to chase us down, there might be other predators in these caverns tracking us."
They set off, and it didn't take long until Fendel was proved right yet again. "Here," Fendel said, "you can see where the wizard started blasting his own path through the earth."
They had come to a T intersection. Unlike the perfectly symmetrical passage they were currently in, both of the branches before them were irregular and uneven, the walls and floor roughly hewn from the surrounding rock.
"So which way do you think the cultists came in from?" Lhasha asked, trying to peer down each direction for some clue.
"I couldn't even begin to guess," Fendel admitted, "but it doesn't really matter. Both ways will lead us back to the surface. Eventually."
"Left," Corin said with sudden certainty.
"How do you know?" Lhasha demanded.
"Just a gut feeling."
With a shrug, Fendel said "Then left it is. Lhasha, stay close and take your time looking for those traps. We've had enough nasty surprises for one night."
Their progress was, if possible, even slower than the pace Fendel and Corin had set through the sub-tunnel. This time, however, Corin wasn't bothered by their overly cautious advance. Lhasha was back with him, for one thing. And he now had some firsthand experience with the potential dangers awaiting the reckless traveler beneath Elversult's streets.
As if to reaffirm Corin's newfound concern for safety, the sounds of far-distant screams could be heard periodically-cultists falling victim to the horrors of the smugglers' labyrinth as they blundered through the tunnels, trying to find their way back to the surface.
The trio encountered numerous side passages and branches on their slow journey. Fendel never hesitated in his choices, though to Corin there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to his decisions. The one-armed warrior could only hope the gnome's sense of direction wasn't as disoriented as his own. Maybe Fendel was drawing on long-buried memories to lead them out. Or maybe he was just guessing.
For his own part, Corin kept casting glances back over his shoulder. He could feel creatures watching them, malevolent eyes in the darkness. The faint whisper of scuttling feet just beyond the illuminated range of Fendel's staff was so frequent Corin had ceased to even notice it.
Whatever was following them, stalking them, was scared enough to keep its distance-for now. However, not all the creatures