Depths of Madness (3 page)

“Pounce on me?”

She winked. “Keep up!”

Then she was gone.

Liet fumbled after her, groping his way into the darkness. “Wait!”

Twilight abandoned the youth in the dank cell and returned to where she’d left the gigantic key ring in front of the door opposite her own. She knelt beside it and tested the twenty-second of the thirty or so keys. The cell was completely silent, though a small form huddled on the pallet across from her, watching her activities keenly.

After a time, a gasp came from behind her, and Twilight glanced back. Liet was standing there, hand on his chest. ” ‘Tis merely me.” Twilight tried another key. It fit, but wouldn’t turn. “Though I’m never ‘merely,’ as you shall discover.”

“I’ll take your word.” He scurried to her side and knelt down. “Wh-where…?”

“Asleep at the end of the hall,” Twilight said. When Liet sucked in a breath, she rolled her eyes. “Easy—I’ve secured him.”

“Secured him?”

“That’s what I said.” She tried the twenty-fourth key. No good. It might have been faster to pick this lock. “At least a candle’s life, I think, before he comes after us.”

“Then what?”

“I imagine we’d do well to escape by then, eh?” The padlock

clicked open finally, and the door shivered. She wondered why this prisoner was kept in silence.

Then a small form struck her in a flying tackle. “Oh, thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!” the prisoner said in a girlish voice. She squeezed Twilight as though to choke the air from her lungs. “Oh gods, it was dreadful! Dreadful! But now I’m free! Thank you, most divine mistress! Oh, thank Yondalla for you!

“Well… met,” Twilight managed, her words stifled. “I’m… Twilight…”

“Well met!” cried the prisoner, ignoring Liet entirely. “I’m Billfora Brightbrows, but my friends call me Slip, and you can, too, as it pleases you, Mistress Twilight!”

Liet chuckled—for which Twilight vowed to knee him again.

“Yes… just…” she choked. “Get… off.”

Slip was off her with a bound, and blessed—albeit stagnant and putrid—air returned. “Yes, Mistress!” she said. “Thank the Mother! Thank all her daughters! They kept me in that silence for so long, but you freed me! Oh, what a great, joyous day!” She looked around. “Where are we?”

“That’s Liet,” Twilight said, pointing at the youth hesitantly, but the little woman was gazing all around, completely oblivious, her mouth running at fifty leagues a candle. Now Twilight understood why she’d been given the silent treatment.

“You’re a halfling?” Liet asked.

“Halfling?” Slip asked without looking. “Half-human? Half-elf? Dwarf? Troll?”

“Ah,” Liet said. “You know… like a… halfling. The wee folk.”

“Oh.” Slip finally looked at him, and blinked. She stared at him for a long time, as though struggling to recognize him—or his words. She shrugged. “Well, yes.”

Now it was Twilight’s turn to grin. “Do you know anything about picking locks?”

“Yes, yes!” Slip laughed. “Back in Crimel, I was the best lockpicker of the whole lockpicking bunch. We had contests!

Though…” She looked at the tattered robe she wore. “Usually I had my tools.”

“I see.” Twilight stuck her head in the cell and all sound vanished. She leaned into another universe, where only the spaces between objects existed. Unnerving.

She straightened and sound returned. “Anyone else in there?”

“Nope!” Slip said. “Just me!”

“Very well,” Twilight said. “Come with us. We’re organizing an escape. But quietly—our guard may be a light sleeper.”

“Yes, Mistress!” Slip shouted. When the elf gave her an icy look, she lowered her voice. “Yes, Mistress. Whatever you command, I obey. My life and body are yours.”

Liet reddened and Twilight rolled her eyes. What a child. “Good.”

She handed Slip the key ring. “Open the other cells and gather all the prisoners. That”—she pointed down the main corridor, away from Tlork’s chamber, toward a wide room that might once have been a guard station—”will do quite well.”

The halfling gave her the widest of grins and scampered off.

“Just like that?” Liet blinked. “Why trust her?”

Twilight shrugged. “Why nor trust her?” she asked. “After all, I own her life and body, as you noted in such manly fashion.”

“N-nay.” Liet’s face went red. “I didn’t—I meant, why’d you give her the keys?”

Twilight plucked up her shard of iron. “The Hells I’m going through that again.”

In wonder, Liet watched the black-haired elf work.

Eyes closed, she knelt before a heavy lock, fingers twisting and prying with the shard of iron. Every so often, she laid her fingers gently upon the lock’s surface and paused. Then she would press her ear against the door, peering up at the lock from below.

He realized he hadn’t looked at the elf closely, up until this moment. It was not necessarily a beautiful face, but a certain edge caught his mind as he looked upon her and her image

bounced back and forth in his mind, unwilling to leave. She had skin like alabaster and features delicate as porcelain, and her hair seemed so black as to be almost blue. He found that he couldn’t identify the color of her eyes—gray, blue, green… it depended upon the light.

She appeared calm—peaceful. If Liet hadn’t breathed the stagnant air, felt the freezing stone under his feet, and heard the great snores filtering down the corridor, he would have forgotten where he was entirely. “Ah, Twilight? I—”

“Silence, please,” she said.

“But you let that Slip talk as much as she wanted—about nothing.”

“That was Slip.” Twilight adjusted the iron, wedging it against something unseen in the lock. “You can be silent.” “But why?”

“Three reasons,” Twilight said. “One, so you don’t wake up the troll. Two, because this isn’t a silent cell, like Slip’s was.” She focused on the lock.

After a pause, Liet coughed nervously. “And the third?”

“Because I hate you,” she said brightly.

The lock clicked open. Twilight shifted and stood without using her arms, then put her hand to the oddly curved handle. She hesitated.

“On second thought,” she said. “You do it.”

“Me?” Liet put his hand on it without thought, brushing hers. “Why?” he asked.

Twilight merely smiled, stepped behind him, and allowed him to open the door.

An upright palm emerged and struck him full in the chin. He staggered, and his attacker followed, dashing him to the ground. A yellow knee settled on his throat, and green eyes with golden spots burned down at him. Liet gasped and squirmed.

An iron shard slipped around his attacker’s throat. “Ah-ah,” Twilight said. The eyes widened at its sound. “That one’s mine.”

Then Twilight hissed and wrenched herself aside just before a shaft of wood could fall on her skull. It merely clipped her

temple as she rolled. She kicked out and knocked her attacker to the ground. He gasped raggedly.

“Asson!” The weight vanished from atop Liet, leaving him sputtering, and the woman—for so she was, a lithe, golden-skinned woman—leaped to her companion’s side. The human man was old and weak, and he coughed as he settled into her protective arms.

“We…” Liet coughed into the floor. “We aren’t your enemies…”

The golden woman looked at Twilight, who stared as though startled by her golden hair or perhaps just dazed. The features were different but just as delicate. An elf, Liet realized as he gazed, fascinated.

“We thought you were our captors, come to torture us.” She narrowed her eyes, as though still uncertain, then glanced at the old man, concern in her eyes.

This broke her hold over them both.

Twilight got to her knees. Her fingers probed gently at the blood trickling down her cheek. “We’re here to release you… unless you’d prefer torture.” Liet’s jaw dropped, until he saw her smile.

“We owe you amends, then,” the golden elf said. “I am Taslin, and this is my husband, Asson.” The old man waved weakly. “I am a priestess of Corellon Larethian, though my prayers could not reach him in that place.” She gestured at the cell. “Asson is very sick. I would use my remaining strength to heal him rather than your wounds.”

Liet stood stunned. Twilight merely waved with acceptance. “As you will.” She pointed down the corridor. “We shall meet in that chamber, when you can.”

The golden elf nodded and turned her eyes on Liet, where he sat, dumb. The youth mumbled something he hoped was agreement. Taslin began chanting tenderly.

Something nudged Liet in the ribs. There was Twilight, eyeing him in something like exasperation. He rose with the aid of her hand. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

Twilight just rolled her eyes and pulled him away.

Liet knew he’d never understand yet always admire two things: elves and women.

“How goes it, little one?”

In response, the lock clicked under Slip’s delicate touch and the door to the fourth cell swung open. The halfling turned. “I don’t like it here,” she said. “It’s dark.”

“Yes,” Twilight said. Her aching head was muddy. “You and Liet go…” She frowjfted at the boy. “Well, take Liet and go free the others.”

“What?” Liet’s face went ashen.

“Yes, Mistress!” Slip nodded, didn’t look at Liet, and scampered toward the last door, the one farthest from Twilight’s original cell.

“Wait,” Twilight said. She bent her face to the door and inhaled a familiar scent. Through the small window, the darkness in the cell was impenetrable, and she sensed nothing within. It blocked her magical sight. Somehow, though, she sensed eyes—eyes that stared at her from a hair’s breadth distant. Not pleasant.

She looked back. Liet was massaging his neck and Slip was staring up at him, as though trying to place him. Twilight shrugged that oddness away—the halfling did not seem exactly normal for her kind.

“No—you collect this one.” She lifted the ring of keys. “I’ll go free the last.”

The halfling looked at her for a long breath, then silently pulled the door open.

“Come,” Twilight said, pulling Liet across the corridor. She took out the shard.

“The last?” Liet asked.

“Six, including you, but not me. Choose one.” She extended the keys.

Liet tapped one at random, dully. Twilight put it in the lock.

“You know of this place?” Liet pressed.

“No.” The lock clicked open. “What an amazing guess.”

Liet opened his mouth but Twilight grinned and slipped into the cell.

Twilight could see with greater acuity than any human when light was lacking, as it certainly was in the cell. Unlike others of her kind, however, she could see as well in the dark as any dwarf or ore. And what she saw took her by surprise.

A huge form huddling in the corner did not look up. At first glance, it might have been a massive man, towering seven feet in height, but the skin was leathery and thick. She could see no color, but did not expect that it would ma|ch any human shade. Tattered sackcloth covered its body. The chamber was silent, but not from any spell.

“Hail, good sir,” she said aloud. Liet sucked in a breath at her side, surprised at the sudden noise. Twilight had forgotten—of course, the human couldn’t see.

No response came from the creature. It might have been dead for all Twilight saw of it, but she could sense faint breath stirring its lips.

“A giant of some—” she started, but a viselike grip cut off the flow of air that powered her words. She tried to breathe or think, but couldn’t manage either.

The creature had closed the distance between them faster than she had seen it move, and seized her up. Now Twilight’s feet dangled six hands off the ground.

In the blackness, she could see it only too well. Its flesh was a mottled gray and its arms rippled with muscles. Red patches lay patterned across its skin, and bumps and protrusions like small pebbles spotted its flesh. Most of all, though, Twilight saw the creature’s green eyes—pupilless orbs that drank her in even as its muscular body crushed the life from her.

“Let go of her!” Liet shouted from somewhere in the darkness.

He leaped upon the creature’s left arm. It slapped him aside as easily as one swats a nagging insect. Liet crashed against the wall and slumped to the floor.

The attempt had given Twilight the distraction she needed. She swung her legs up to lock around the thick arm—one under,

one over—so as to gain leverage, and twisted herself to the right, sliding the creature’s rough hand off her throat and onto the back of her neck. As she had expected, the creature turned its attention back to her. She scissor-kicked it in the face as she leaped down.

The elf fell lightly onto her fingers, pushed off, and rolled away. As she went, Twilight whipped out her jagged shard of metal and made ready to slash.

The creature did not follow. It towered in the center of the room, facing Liet, wŁo blinked dazedly at the behemoth. The giant rumbled something in a harsh but somehow musical tongue. The words were deeper than any human or dwarf could utter, low and strong like stones breaking upon one another. Then he spoke a word she understood.

“Quick,” he said.

“Indeed,” Twilight replied with a nod. “And you?” “Strong.”

She had to grin at that. “I am called Fox-at-Twilight,” she said. She put a hand on her breast. Then she beckoned to him. “And you are called?”

The giant stepped into the light from the corridor. His skin was gray like stone, and tiny swells rose like warts along thick muscles. A design in red, like a birthmark or tattoo, spanned the creature’s mostly bare chest and belly, covered only by a tattered tunic. Twilight stiffened and had to stop her fingers from straying to her lower back.

“Gargan Vathkelke Kaugathal,” he said. “No… giant.”

A keen intellect shone in the creature’s emerald eyes—eyes that flickered with something like recognition. This creature was not simple-minded. More than that, an eerie wisdom burned there—an uncanny intuition. He seemed more than capable of understanding what was said, likely from body language and inflection. A rare talent.

Suddenly afraid, she forced a peaceable grin.

“If not a giant, then what,” asked Liet, climbing to his feet shakily, “are you?”

The stone-skinned creature regarded him flatly, his eyes