The Howling Delve - Jaleigh Johnson [52]
So was his fathet, though the man would never admit it. He should be afraid, Aazen thought. Any rational person would be.
"I'll take care of it, Fathet," he said. "There is another issue."
"What is it?"
"When we retrieved the items, we encountered a woman in the Delve-a Harper."
Balram's lip curled. "They turn up in the most inconvenient places. Did you deal with her?"
"I left het to bleed out, but perhaps I shouldn't have. She knew the wizatd. She may have been his apprentice. If so, we could have used her."
Balram shook his head. "Too risky. Secrecy is our best advantage in this, and it's possible she knows another way out. Your only mistake was in not making sure she was dead. We'll take care of that tomorrow."
Aazen nodded. If he had had his way, they would never have returned to the Delve at all. The memories it held for him were not pleasant ones. He still felt it-the distant menace, the sensation of being trapped-whenever he went down there. "What if more apprentices unexpectedly turn up?" he asked.
"As with the woman, they'll find the Delve a place much changed from what it was before," Balram said.
CHAPTER 16
The Howling Delve 3 Marpenoth, the
Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)
Meisha opened her eyes to a blurry world of smoke and stink-the full, cloying smell of sweat and unwashed bodies, broken only by the pungent odor of some kind of herb.
She was still underground, lying on a pallet of blankets. She could make out the uneven rock ceiling by the light of a torch suspended on the wall above her head. Smoke from the brand drifted languidly in the ait until it reached the ceiling, then it was swept away like river water to a darkened corner of the room. If Varan's magics still functioned, he must be nearby, Meisha thought.
She tried to sit up and felt pain lance through her lower back. The stab wound was still fresh. She should be dead. Someone must have found her and treated the wound-Varan?
Meisha felt a stiff bandage encasing her abdomen, which seemed to be the source of the herb scent. But she could tell at least some of the bones in her wrist had reknit while she slept. Whoever had treated her had done so with some magical aid, but not much.
She examined her surroundings. The chamber around her was wide, with a low ceiling that dipped almost to the ground in some corners and fluted upward sharply in others. This place Meisha recognized. She'd made her pact to become Varan's apprentice here, over a pit of flames.
As an apprentice, she'd taken meals here or used the space for study that did not involve casting. Despite the cold and damp of the underground environment, Varan had had the chamber richly appointed. Placed in the center of the room was a round, cherry wood table-with thicker legs than her own- surrounded by soft, wingback armchairs. Two couches with tasseled silk pillows had flanked a bookcase wedged along the wall. All of it had huddled around small fire pits, with Vatan's ventilation magic handy to carry the smoke away through one of the carved flues in the ceiling.
But now the chamber was stripped of all furnishing. A sagging length of rope hung around her pallet and held a stained sheet for privacy. Meisha could make out dozens more of the boxed-off areas around the chamber. Distorted shapes moved within them like a complex shadow play. People, Meisha thought-a fair number, at that.
She could hear theit voices, sometimes whispering in low tones, other times pitched loudly to catry across the chamber.
"I'm tellin' ye, pick one day for butchering, and we won't have that awful stink to wake to."
"Five toys just today-that's got it, my time's coming up. Always does when yer five times as likely to lose an eye."
"Where's Iadra? Somebody'd best tell her to be puttin' the mark up."
Footfalls tramped on the other side of her sheet. Meisha tensed, but the male voice that drifted over the thin cloth was somehow familiar.
"Tymora's best odds, all I'm saying. Tymora's best odds she don't live through the night."
"You said as much last night," an overly patient female voice answered