The Howling Delve - Jaleigh Johnson

She turned, and Dantane took a step back, disturbed—perhaps for the first time in his life—by the kindling power in the Harper's eyes. They shone red—raw, blistering wounds in a face ravaged by grief.

"Yes, Dantane. I am a fire elementalist," she said. "The best Varan Ivshar ever trained. And I intend to burn down the Shadow Thieves, even if it means suffering the fate I just described."

Behind her, bats flooded the portal room.

* * * * *

"How many are left?" asked Balram, when Aazen entered the house.

"Four that I know of," said Aazen. "There may be more. My contact said that when Kall departed for the Delve, he left behind the lady of the house and a handful of servants. She should not be mistaken for a helpless chatelaine," he added. "She is a powerful servant of Silvanus."

But Balram didn't appear to be listening. "So Kall Morel has come full circle, back to the kingdom where he almost lost his life." He looked at Aazen. "Now you see what comes from leaving tasks unfinished," he said, as if Aazen were a boy sitting for a lesson. "The thorn has grown into a dagger, pressing at our throats."

"Forgive me, Father," Aazen offered, but there was no passion in the words.

"The past is done," said Balram. "We will deal with what remains of Morel's house and then we will never have to think of him again. Take men down to the Delve," he instructed. "Kill them all." He gripped Aazen's arm when he would have walked away. "I mean all, Aazen. The Delve is due for a thorough scouring."

"What about Varan?" Aazen asked. "Without his caretakers, he will eventually starve himself, or die of sickness, if his magic fails."

"After you've killed Kall, bring the wizard to the surface," said Balram. "The portal is no longer secure. We will continue the operation above."

"You can't be serious," Aazen said. "Varan will not allow us to take him from the Delve. His magic is there. Whatever his diseased mind is planning, is there. He needs to stay in the Delve."

"Use the Harper," said Balram. "You said she knew him. Use her to get him to cooperate."

"He is mad," Aazen said clearly, trying to make his father see reason, "and the Harper is dead."

Balram's lip curled in a mocking sneer. "You don't believe that any more than I do. They must have switched bodies on us. Why else would Morel be seeking the portal, unless he had been somehow warned of our connection to the Delve? The Harper bitch is alive. The tunnel rats are hiding her, and now they'll pay the price for their betrayal. After you've secured the wizard, kill her and seal the portal. We have no more use for the Delve."

Aazen didn't know what to say. "Is this my death sentence, then?" he asked bluntly. "For betraying you as a boy and allowing Kall to come back to torment us? For that you're sending me into the Hells, hoping I won't return?"

Balram seemed genuinely taken aback, which gave Aazen a strange bit of comfort. "Never, my son," he replied. "I send you because you are the only one I can trust to see this done." He put both hands on Aazen's shoulders, as he'd so often done when Aazen was a child. The gesture had always come across as equal parts comfort and threat. "With the Shadow Thieves at our backs, we need never worry about failure, about weakness, ever again. They are our family now."

Family, Aazen thought, remembering Jubair's words. What exactly did his father mean by likening the Shadow Thieves to blood? Oh yes, Balram had power now, such as he never had before, but they weren't free to act by any stretch of the imagination. Daen oversaw all Balram's actions, approving or denying his plans as he saw fit. Whom Daen answered to, Aazen did not know, and neither did Balram.

The Shadow Thieves wove a complex web around their organization, relying on anonymity to protect their power bases. At least, when Balram had served Morel, he knew where his superior's authority began and ended. How much control could they truly have over their own lives if they didn't even know the identities of their masters?

"Do you have such strong faith in your family?" Aazen said, aware even as he asked it that the question had multiple layers.

Balram took his meaning. "I would trust them, and you, with my life," he said without hesitation.

Aazen nodded. "Then I'll see to the Delve," he said, "and to Kall."

Balram watched his son's retreating back. He said, pitching his voice low, "I've already arranged to send a second party."

Daen stepped into the room, taking a seat on one of the dusty sofas. His bulk had diminished somewhat over the years, but any rumors that the Shadow Thief's heart was in any way failing him found themselves quickly and brutally squelched. "You believe he will betray you again, after all this time?"

"Once was enough," said Balram. "I'll not be blinded to him again."

"Ah, but you can't beat the lad into submission anymore," Daen pointed out. "And if he discovers you don't truly trust him, it may send him over the edge. This course of action may come back to bite you at the heel, my friend. How can you hope to stop him if he decides to go his own way?"

"By using any number of my other sons or daughters," Balram replied. "Those I've trained for a decade and more."

"The Shadow Thieves will support you," Daen agreed, "but that one is your blood. I wonder if you can forsake him so casually?"

"We'll see," said Balram.

In truth, Daen did not care whether the father or the son prevailed in this, yet he sensed in Aazen a fascinating strength: the ability to survive, even to thrive, under the most unique and terrible strain. The boy had lived in a hole in the ground and in the countless Hells of his father's making; yet he'd come out whole, or nearly so.

Daen had recruited runaways and child-cutpurses barely surviving on the streets, but most hadn't lived long and none ever knew who held their leads. Aazen had known that murderers and thieves protected him ever since he was a boy. He was a child of the Shadow Thieves, if such a thing existed. Daen didn't know if that meant a long and prosperous career within their ranks awaited Aazen, or a quick death, but he decided it would be fascinating to find out. Through experience, Daen had learned to pay close attention to the people who fascinated him, whether they were intelligent, greedy, sane, or mad. The ability to read people, to judge their actions and worth, was what made Daen so successful at what he did. And the Kortrun family had made him a very rich man indeed.

* * * * *

Dantane trailed behind Meisha as they caught up to the others. Ahead, the passage widened into a chamber comparable in size to the portal room. The path dead-ended abruptly in a wall of loose dirt and rubble.

"This is where we came in. No need to fetch shovels," Talal said sardonically.

"Boy's right," said Morgan. "You won't be tunneling through that, not with magic on it."

"I'm not disagreeing," said Garavin. He scratched his thick sideburns as he eyed the wall. "Though he might relish the challenge."

"Who?" asked Talal.

The dwarf grinned at the boy. "Ye'll see." He handed Dantane a tightly wrapped scroll sealed in green wax and bearing the imprint of an open hand lying upon an anvil.

Kall recognized the seal of the Fallstone clan. As a boy, he'd seen it depicted on several documents in Garavin's map room.

Dantane unrolled the parchment and read for several breaths, nodding as if he'd seen similar text before.

"Clear enough?" asked Garavin.

"You're certain you can control this?" asked the wizard. "There's no time to construct a summoning circle."

"It's not a summoning in the traditional sense," said the dwarf. "More like a calling. He may answer or not, as he prefers, but he's never denied me before."

Dantane's eyes moved rapidly over the text. Finally, he let his hands fall to his sides and closed his eyes. He murmured what might have been a prayer under his breath, opened his eyes, and began to read aloud from the parchment.

This time his voice carried, booming unnaturally across the chamber. A tremor of unease went through the refugees. Kall motioned to Talal to keep them still.

The echo of Dantane's casting seemed to stick in the walls, building to a steady rumbling Kall could feel in the stone itself. The air felt thick, as if he were breathing rock dust or sand instead of air. The cavern seemed to grow smaller around them. A single rock in the center of the cavern swelled in size before his eyes, expanding to fill the chamber, forcing the refugees back against the far wall. A few of the people cried out or tried to run, but there was no room. A boy standing near the front of the crowd stumbled and went down on his knees. A foot scuffed the side of his face as he tried to stand. He fell again, harder.

"Cease!" Kall barked over the rumbling, and his voice, too, seemed eerily magnified. The crowd quieted, and Kall helped the boy to his feet.

Kall turned again to look at the rock, expecting it to have returned to its normal size as the disorientation cleared. It hadn't. It had, if possible, gotten larger, and now appeared to be breathing. Slow inhalations and exhalations like the wind through a long chimney flue were punctuated by a deep moan coming from somewhere beneath the thing.

Kall had listened to Garavin tell stories of the delvers, beasts friendly to the dwarves. The slablike tunnel dwellers were as large and as cumbersome as boulders, and this one was no exception. Moving by inches and trailing a stain of sticky fluid, the delver made its way to where Garavin stood with one boot propped on the rock pile.

The dwarf put out a hand—in greeting, Kall thought; but Garavin laid his palm gently across the ridges and slopes that might have passed for the thing's face and bowed deeply, his holy symbol falling against his nose.

The low moan came again, and Garavin nodded as if in answer to a question with no words. "A poor way to wake, to be sure," he said, in tones of sincere regret. "We would not have done so, if our need was not great, Iathantos. Dumathoin has asked, and so I must ask ye to aid us, for ye re the only one who can."

The delver fell silent. Kall looked around at the refugees, but they, too, were quiet, riveted in awe or horror at the exchange between the dwarf and the huge, living stone.

Finally, the delver shifted its great body, shuffled backward a step, and moaned again. Garavin inclined his head in response.

"My thanks." He pointed to the base of the rock pile, and the delver came forward again, engulfing the space with his bulk. There was a sharp cracking and a sloshing release of sizzling liquid. The stones turned dark with wet, and the delver began to burrow into the cavern floor.

Garavin walked back to the group, shaking his head, but he was smiling. He laid a hand on Talal's shoulder, guiding the boy to where he could see the churning as the delver took the stone into itself.

"He'll tunnel ye out, and do it gladly," the dwarf explained. "He absorbs minerals from the stone to nourish himself, and being that we're close to Keczulla, this rock is richer in them than most. That, and his loyalty to Dumathoin, made him answer our call."

"But it's not a dwarf," said Talal. "Not even a person. Why would it serve a dwarf god?"

"Because it thinks and understands like any other sentient creature," said Garavin. "It may take him longer, and he may never aspire to the intelligence of two-legged folk, but he's capable of despair and loneliness, and of needing to combat those emotions."