Aldwyn's Academy by Nathan Meyer

Author:Nathan Meyer [Meyer, Nathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7869-5763-7
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2010-11-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Dorian came through the hole and danced down off the wall onto the floor.

His ankles and the muscles of his calves ached from the strain of bearing his bodyweight on the vertical surface, and his legs needed a rest.

The passage ran cramped and twisted, spiraling down into dark, the stone slick under his feet.

He moved quickly, pushing himself forward and deeper into the earth.

Despite his ploy to render his trackers unconscious, he wasn’t taking the chance they would catch up to him in such claustrophobic surroundings. The bugbears’ night vision would be far, far superior to his own.

He hurried, hunched over to avoid striking his head on the low ceiling, trying desperately to catch up to Helene. The words of warning uttered by the ghost in the maze haunted his thoughts.

Lowadar’s offhand comment about the age and geographical makeup of the plateau upon which Aldwyns rested also played havoc with his nerves. Images of buried and ruined castle keeps and the bones of long dead dragons entombed in granite and soil filled his imagination.

“Helene, are you there?” he whispered to himself in frustration.

Dorian wanted light.

He was effectively blind without it, but was at the same time afraid of casting a glow that would lead denizens of the underworld directly to him.

The floor under his feet abruptly leveled out and he came to rest on a stretch of even rock.

Sweat poured down his face despite the cool temperature. His breath came in short, sharp gasps.

All around him the natural rock formations echoed his panting back at him, as if mocking his fear.

Enough is enough, he thought.

Even if illumination served as a beacon to every creature in these tunnels, he needed light, and at least he’d be able to see them coming.

After making sure he could hear nothing charging after him down the chute-path stretching out above and behind him, he squatted and quickly loosened the straps to his Heward’s Handy Haversack, searching for a handful of Glitter Stones.

Other than their potential as nuisance factors, Dorian hadn’t really understood why the little charms were banned, as they weren’t exactly Necklaces of Endless Laughter or Stench Stones.

Still, he was glad to have them. The smooth marbles came easily into his hand when he reached into the magical backpack. He chose only a single stone.

He tossed the sphere down and instantly, a fountain of rainbow-colored light spilled out of the orb. The cavern around him glowed in a prismatic spray of illumination showing him a Y-shaped junction of worn rock at the foot of the steep tunnel he had used to infiltrate the deeper caverns.

Dorian felt his stomach drop.

There, directly at his feet and clearly visible in the throbbing strobe of the Glitter Stone, lay a Heward’s Handy Haversack identical to the one he held in his hand.

This was bad.

With a shaking hand he reached out and grabbed the smooth, tooled leather of the carryall.

Helene would never have dropped the little rucksack if she weren’t in the direst of trouble.

His fingers fumbled with the clasps as he opened the straps.

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