Page 133 of Fortune's Blade

And I guessed she tried, because a nearby chunk of rock suddenly vanished, causing us to slip on the rubble that cascaded off the damaged wall.

But Marlowe recovered quickly, leaping up to the stone above her head and pushing off to the other side, before hitting the ground, rolling, and pelting headlong down the hall, only to get jerked abruptly through a door to the left by the staff.

The doorway led to a series of interlocking caves. Some were small, barely larger than an average house; some were medium sized, like the one where we’d come in; and several were huge and echoing, with stone eruptions form the floor in uniform rows that reminded me of library shelving. But instead of books they held more specimens, as did the towering walls where they were packed in alcoves five and six high depending on their size, which . . . ranged big.

Overhead in one room were great dinosaur-like creatures in the process of rotting away in the shadows. The stasis fields they were behind seemed to have some sort of preservative nature, but there was apparently a limit, and these had exceeded it. In another of the great rooms we pelted along an enormous wall with what looked like the remains of dogs or wolves, with many of them now only piles of bones and half rotted pelts, which quickly became crosses between humans and canines as we went on.

Huge crosses, I thought, seeing things that did not look much like the Weres I knew, but something far larger and more terrifying. I glimpsed elongated arms giving perhaps a twelve-foot reach; strange, hunched backs, as if the bodies couldn’t contain all the musculature of the shoulders and had piled it up there like a camel’s hump; and elongated jaws filled with teeth, more than even any wolf would ever have. And realized that I was seeing the evolution of the werewolf.

But I didn’t see it well, because Marlowe had sped up, although I didn’t think that was his idea. The staff was all but dragging him along now, and so quickly that even a master vampire was having trouble keeping up. Or a Pythia, I thought, as Cassie flashed in and grabbed for him, but he swerved around her and carried on.

He did not elude Mircea, however, who tackled him just as we hit the next cavern in line.

Just by sound alone I could tell that this one was larger even than the others. Possibly a lot larger, but it was hard to get a visual with Mircea wrestling with a positively crazed Marlowe. Who belted him upside the jaw with a crack that echoed around the huge space, and then tore loose—

Only to be tackled again before he’d gotten six yards, and sent face first against the unyielding stone.

“Get off me, you maniac!” Marlowe snarled.

“Then listen to me,” Mircea replied urgently, flipping him over and getting in his face. “You’re being controlled. The staff is doing something to you—”

“It’s doing nothing! It’s her staff, it’s taking me to her!”

“Who is ‘her’?”

But Mircea didn’t get an answer. Unless you counted a blow to the ribs followed by a sharp uppercut, and a hit well below the belt that made father curse and bought us a few seconds of freedom. And Kit used them, scrambling back to his feet and taking off, and if I thought he’d been fast before, it was nothing to this.

He almost flew across the room, giving me my first look at what was ahead in the process, and it was even more impressive than I’d expected. The huge cavern seemed to go on forever, with parts of it vanishing into adjacent caverns under forests of stalactites, and others fading into darkness but with echoes that seemingly went on forever. It didn’t help that it was part lava rock, black as pitch, and part pearly limestone, with the two meeting and washing up together on the floor where an old volcano had spewed its last.

And it must have been a very old one, because some of the overhanging stalactites were so immense that they had met and fused with the stalagmites growing up from the cave floor. And formed massive limestone columns scattered around the space that were reflected in myriad little pools of water. And in one big lake at the center, too large to be called by any other name, the black surface of which had started to bubble like a cauldron.

I could see it clearly, although this cave didn’t have any alcoves in it, or the ambient light they gave off from their wards. But it was illuminated. Only in this case, the light came from the water, beams of which were spearing upward and moving about, sending flashes radiating outward as we approached.

It was almost as if it sensed our presence, because it started to churn faster as we came closer, like someone was stirring it. Or something, I realized, as the portal underneath the water abruptly swallowed the lake that had hid it for who knew how many centuries and began spiraling outward, with clouds of whitish gasses like spectral hands. And I finally started doing what I should have before, and attempted to slow Marlowe down.

Father didn’t need much help; just a little lag and he would catch him—

“Like hell,” Marlowe hissed, sloughing off my feeble attempts at control.

“You knew I was here?” I said, and heard him laugh.

“Of course. You were in the troll before, and then jumped to me. Do you think me a fool, girl?”

No, his intelligence wasn’t in question; just his sanity, I thought, and tried throwing myself back into the void, only to be dragged back again by him and the damned handcuffs.

“Not a chance! I need you to get through the portal.”

“What? Why?”

“No idea. But the staff only started reacting when you came on board. Like you were the missing piece. So, we go together.”

“Go where?” I screamed, fighting in earnest now.

“Let’s find out.” And then we were jumping, across the limestone deposits around the lake and into the chasm it had left, straight into the center of all that light.

Chapter Forty-Two

Dory

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