Page 93 of Shield of Fire

We finally reached the “roller coaster” portion of the tunnel. After pausing for a drink, we continued on, our pace necessarily slower. The peaks and troughs in the ground were often so sharp we had to help each other up the incline before moving on. It was just as well we weren’t coming back this way, because if trouble struck, getting out in any sort of hurry would be nigh on impossible.

Things didn’t really improve all that much when the jagged rises in the ground gave way to a steady downhill slant. The air became thicker, staler, and an odd sense of weightiness now came from up ahead.

The thing in the water was awake and aware.

I shivered. While there was no immediate sense of threat, I knew well enough that could change in a heartbeat.

It certainly had in the past.

“We’re close to the lake,” Cynwrig said. “I can feel its weight on the stone.”

“Is there any other sort of weight, though?” Mathi asked. There was no sign of discomfort in his voice, let alone fear. Anyone who didn’t know him would think this was little more than a walk in the park for him. “Anything that might indicate what Beth saw in her vision?”

Cynwrig once again brushed his fingers against the wall. “No, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. If it’s supernatural or even some sort of godling, it might not have weight to press against stone.”

“What about magic?” Lugh asked. “Beth, you sensing anything?”

“No,” I said, “and the knives aren’t reacting.”

But then, would they if we were indeed dealing with another godling?

We continued on, our pace slowing as the tunnel grew ever tighter, forcing me to press my hands against my boobs and squash them flatter in several places in order to get through a bit easier. Which, of course, resulted in my hands getting scratched and my coat torn.

Lugh had it far worse, though—in one section, he was forced to slither through snake-like on his left side, because there was no way a man of his height would have gotten through the narrow, almost diamond-shaped section otherwise.

Just as the tunnel began to widen again, the darkness swamped us, swallowing the light of the headlamps and leaving us in utter blackness.

“This,” Lugh said heavily, “reminds me an awful lot of the impregnable darkness we encountered just before we found the forge.”

“It can hardly be called impregnable, given you did get through it and found the forge,” Mathi said somewhat blandly.

“Well, impregnable to anyone not armed with Beth’s magic knives.”

“And let’s just hope,” I said, “that its exit counterpart doesn’t transfer us to an undisclosed, out of the way, and totally inconvenient location like that one did.”

Cynwrig glanced at me, though I couldn’t see his expression thanks to the headlamp’s light being little more than a pale-yellow puddle that didn’t illuminate any part of his face.

“If there’d been any magical transfer events,” he said, “I would have been told of them.”

“Unless, of course,” Lugh said, “they’re transported somewhere inhospitable to life, and are simply listed as missing.”

“You can always rely on my brother to come up with the most cheerful possibilities,” I said wryly.

“Hey, I’m the only experienced relic hunter in this outfit, so trust me, it’s always better to believe the worse than hope for the best.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that.” Though there was part of me that definitely wanted to—no doubt the same part that was desperately trying to ignore the growing sense of danger.

“It might be best if we’re roped together,” Cynwrig said. “This darkness might not be designed to stop us, but it’s possible it could separate us.”

Lugh immediately got one of the ropes out of his pack and, within minutes, we were all lashed on. Only then did we cautiously move forward.

Not being able to see anything made for slow, almost torturous progress forward. The darkness seemed relentless, and the deeper we stepped into it, the more the grief of the dead—who’d been strangely silent up until this point—began to wrap around us, until it became a shroud so fierce and cloying it made breathing difficult.

The sense of danger sharpened abruptly.

“Cynwrig, stop, there’s something happening ahead.”

He immediately halted, something I knew by the sudden lack of tension in the rope. “I’m not sensing anything through the stone.”

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