The Howling Delve - Jaleigh Johnson [102]
Meisha suddenly realized they weren't alone. She looked up at the shortest pedestal, where a child stood. She was bald but for a dark fuzz beginning to sprout from the top of her head. She waved her arms in the motions of a spell. Below her, a man in well-kept robes watched her casting with a critical eye.
Varan-but not the mad wizard trapped in the Delve. This Varan was whole, and appeared much younger. For Meisha, seeing the little girl was like seeing a ghost.
"We're in a testing chamber," she said, for Dantane's benefit. "Varan designated one for each apprentice, arranged like the points of a star. When I was here, these caves could only be reached through Varan. He teleported us down."
"You didn't know the portal led down here?" asked Dantane.
"No. I didn't know Varan knew of the portal," she admitted. "The markings on it don't match his sigils. Perhaps that was how he discovered the secret tunnels," she murmured, half to herself, "through the portal."
"There are more caverns?" Dantane prompted. "Do you know where?"
"Varan said they adjoined the testing chambers somehow. We looked, as apprentices, but the entrance was magically concealed. I suppose it's possible, now his othet magics are breaking down, that the connecting passage has been revealed."
"So we'll have to explote each chambet," Dantane said. "Our companions might be there, or in the other tunnels." He looked at het. "Do you know what they contained?"
Meisha laughed humorlessly. "Whatever.great Art the Howlings saw fit to stote. You were deposited in the wrong place, Dantane, if you seek treasure down here."
The wizard grimaced. "Such seems to be the course of my life," he said.
Meisha stood up, her eyes drawn back to the phantom image atop the pedestal. She watched, fascinated, as the air in front of her double seemed to split in two. Out of the breach came the head of a being that only vaguely resembled a human. Hairless, outlined in white flame, it stared at its summoner curiously. Though she felt no heat, Meisha recalled well how the air around the creature rippled with burning. It was the first time she'd ever interacted with a fire elemental.
The scene blurred and faded, leaving them alone in the chamber.
"What was that?" asked Dantane.
"A memory," answered Meisha, "from soon after I came to the Delve. I was a Wraith-half-feral-in Keczulla, when Varan found me. He took me on as an apprentice because he sensed my talent. I remember when he brought me down here to converse with the fire elemental. I could feel it burning, just like I burned inside. It's part of every savant's training, to recognize how their spirit matches the element they've chosen. With proper training, eventually, the spirit melds with that force and becomes part of it," Meisha said, her voice oddly hushed.
"Is that what you aspire to?" Dantane asked, "to join with the fire and become as an elemental crearure?"
She glanced at him. "It's what every savanr wants." "But do you?"
Without answering, Meisha stood up, her eyes scanning the floor where the phantom images had been. "There." She bent down, lifting a small piece of glittering crystal from the floor. "The source of the memories," she explained.
"Your master's work," Dantane said, impressed. "He has great power."
"Obviously, not enough," Meisha said, "01 he failed to follow his own teachings."
Had Varan recorded all his past sessions with his apprentices? she wondered, and if so, how many crystals, how much Art would be required for such a task?
"Why do you despise him so much?" Dantane asked. "He awoke the power in you. Without it, you might have died a Wraith."
"I know," Meisha said. "He cared about me, as much as he was capable of such feelings. He offered me magic and a place in his world, but I couldn't accept it."
"Why not?"
"Because if I hadn't possessed that power and if Varan hadn't sensed it, he would have passed me by on that stteet without looking twice. It was the power that fascinated him most, not any of us. And yet, I still wanted to love him."
"Then why did you