Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol II - By Richard A. Knaak Page 0,384

the underworld of the Quel and guided your hands when the critical moment came. I urged you forward when you might have slipped back and failed. Yessss… I am your savior more than thrice over.

The voice in his mind, with its impelling, hypnotic tone, could not be denied this time. It was not a remnant from the legions of the whisperers, whose tale he still did not understand, nor was it his overtaxed imagination. No, this was someone who spoke to his innermost self, who sought to offer guidance that he only now realized he needed in order to preserve himself.

If you would have these things I offer you, then follow my path downward.

“Path?” he asked, though it was a certainty that his newfound companion hardly needed to hear him to know his mind.

My path… the invisible being said.

A cavern passage that Gerrod could not recall seeing earlier stood before him—no more than fifty feet from him, in fact. The tunnel was illuminated, but not by gemstones in the wall or ceiling, as the Quel had designed them, but from a narrow path in the very center of the passage floor. The warlock peered down the cavern tunnel and saw that it continued on out of sight… but not before the passage itself sank downward.

“What about Sharissa? What about the one I came for?”

All will be yours… if you follow my path…

Was there a hint of childlike eagerness in the voice’s tone? Gerrod found he did not care. The offer was too inviting, too perfect in its timing, for him to resist very much. He stepped toward the tunnel.

Extinguish the light.

“The light?” He glanced at the blue flame floating before him. “My light?” Your light… yesss… only then… yesss, that is the way of things… only then can you follow my path.

It seemed such a small, insignificant thing to ask that Gerrod merely shrugged acquiescence and closed his hand into a fist. The blue light winked away.

Now… follow.

He did, not noticing the time as he moved deeper and deeper into the depths of the cavern system. The path was always there before him, glowing with willingness to guide him. Sharissa always remained in his mind, but as something he more and more came to believe he could only achieve with the aid of that which awaited him at the end of his journey. That the notion grew the more he listened to the smooth words of the voice did not occur to him.

Time at last seemed to pull at him, slow him down. Gerrod had lost track of how many turns he had made and whether they had been to the left or the right. That he was ever descending was the only certainty he knew.

A little more… just a little more.

He came at last to the mouth of a cavern. The glimmering path faded to nothing just beyond. From where Gerrod paused, no more than five paces from that maw, he could see nothing but darkness. Pure darkness, as if light had no place being here.

You came across such darkness before, the voice, so very confident now, reminded him. Beyond that darkness was the light of the chamber that brought your release from your captors. You recall that, don’t you?

The parallels between this cavern and the crystal one were not lost upon Gerrod. Steeling himself, he walked the last few steps and passed through into the cavern.

It was still as black as Darkhorse’s body—and almost as unnerving.

“Where are you?”

Here.

Ahead of him, the warlock caught a glimmer of something moving, something that glowed in flashes, as if not all there. It had a vague shape, somewhat animalistic in nature, but which animal Gerrod found it impossible to say. More than one, perhaps.

“Who… what are you?”

I am… your guidance.

Not quite the answer that the Tezerenee was looking for, but he certainly could not argue with his peculiar benefactor, especially whenever the comforting tones of the creature washed away his uncertainties.

As they were now. Your kin will not find you here. Their senses will not reach. You are safe.

“Shar—”

She is well. They are confused. I have played a game with them. Your friend has been very useful in that, for the ideas come from her memories.

Again, there was shifting in the darkness. Two burning coals that might have been eyes flared at the cloaked and hooded human, then vanished again.

“This would be the time to strike, to—”

Soon. Things have not yet been played to their completion. Very soon, now, however.

Gerrod hoped so.