Jasper willed a trickle of flames to run down his fingers and raised his hand, trying to banish the inky darkness that pooled around the stairs. The light should have been enough to unveil the landing, but the darkness only retreated slightly, revealing nothing beyond a few more crumbling steps.

  The orb brushed past them, bobbing down the steps until the blackness swallowed it up, leaving them alone. Jasper was hesitant to follow, but as he glanced at the sleeping bodies around them, he knew he might not have a choice. “They still won’t wake?” he asked Ihra.

  She bent down, and picking the nearest durgu by the nape, shook him like a rag doll, but he didn’t even stir. “Nope.”

  “Damn it.” His stomach churned restlessly as he eyed the pool of darkness awaiting them. He wasn’t sure if the blue orb was a friend or foe, but he was fairly certain it was leading them to something dangerous. Why does it always have to be a sunless pit? Couldn’t a dungeon be in a meadow for once?

  He willed a bit more essence into the flames billowing around his hand and took a step down. “I guess we’re off to see the wizard.”

  The way the darkness pressed around them as they descended was unnatural. The flames should have lit a sizable area around them, but instead, the light extended no further than three steps ahead. Worse too, was the rapidly plummeting temperatures. The barn had already been barely above freezing, even with the massive fires the durgu? had stoked, but the basement, by all rights, should have been warmer. Instead, by the time they’d descended fifteen steps, Jasper guessed the temperature had dropped well into the negatives and, while the cold didn’t bother him anymore, Ihra was another matter. “Let me know if you need me to warm you,” he grunted softly, as they continued down the stairs.

  By the time they’d reached the thirtieth stair, Jasper began to suspect they weren’t headed to a basement at all. He paused, and a feeling of dread washed over him as he turned around and realized he could no longer see the exit. Impenetrable darkness, a gloom so thick that their whole world was reduced to a handful of crumbling stone steps. It’s just like Nah?as?s?innu…but at least there aren’t dead gods here…probably.

  Thirty steps stretched in sixty, and the sixty was doubled in turn. Jasper had long stopped counting by the time the stairs leveled off into a rough landing where a familiar blue orb waited. Better yet, as he stepped off the last step, the bitter cold and darkness finally gave away, allowing him to see their surroundings.

  Unsurprisingly, they had exited into a cave. The chamber was fairly large, with a ceiling that stretched a good twenty or thirty feet above them, and a width of perhaps a hundred feet or more. There was very little floor space, though. A stagnant pond occupied the entire left half of the chamber, its surface covered in a thick layer of green and white scum everywhere except for a corner in the back, where Jasper suspected the water had a hidden exit.

  The rest of the chamber was equally claustrophobic, with a sea of stalactites and stalagmites covering nearly every inch of the floor that wasn’t underwater. Did we come all this way for a dead end?

  The blue orb started moving again, its light bouncing off the pale pillars like a disco ball, and Jasper followed it, he realized he’d been wrong. He likely wouldn’t have spotted it without the orb’s aid, but a trail barely more than eight inches wide had been carved through the calcite masses.

  It was a difficult hike; though the trail gave an even place to set his foot, its builders had either done a poor job of clearing out the stalagmites, or they had regrown since the path was made. In more than one place, his progress slowed to crawl as he struggled to squeeze through the narrow passage, while the orb blinked impatiently, but eventually they reached the far side of the chamber and the shore of the stagnant pond. There was still no sign of an exit, though, and Jasper frowned. Where is he taking us…oh, crap!

  Without missing a beat, the orb danced across the white scum, angling toward the sole corner of open water. Surely it’s not expecting us to follow. While Jasper had no qualms about a little spelunking (well, maybe a few - the Nutty Putty incident was enough to unsettle any man), cave diving was another matter altogether. “Come on, you can’t really expect us to follow you there,” he muttered to himself.

  Predictably the orb didn’t respond, continuing on its path until it reached the open patch of water, and sank toward the surface. A burst of light filled the cave as the orb’s rays pierced the water, and a ripple of blue flame rapidly spread across the scum. For a few seconds, the cave’s perpetual night was turned to day, and Jasper blinked rapidly as the fires died down, his eyes struggling to readjust to the return of the darkness.

  “Well, at least it’s clear now.” A splash filled his ears as Ihra spoke, and when the black spots dancing across his vision finally evaporated, he saw her floating in the pond. The fire had devoured the scum completely, leaving the water as clear as crystal - though aside from the small area that was lit up by the orb's radiant light, the pond's depths remained shrouded in absolute darkness. “Come on, let’s get this over with - it’s freezing in here,” she called out.

  “Maybe we should go back,” Jasper glanced back toward where the stairs had been, though they were now hidden from sight by the thick calcite columns. “There must be some other way to wake them - maybe one of Aphora’s rituals can do it,” he suggested.

  “There probably is,” Ihra agreed, “But who knows how long it could take us to figure it out? They might starve before we find a way to wake them up, and we're two days away from Gis?-Izum.” She waved her hand at the blue orb, “This thing hasn’t tried to hurt us yet; let’s at least see what it wants and maybe it will release them.”

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  Jasper eyed the depths distrustfully; while she was right that the orb hadn’t acted aggressively toward them, a part of him feared that it was luring them to their deaths. And yet, as he had no other method to wake the others, what could he do but move forward?

  He hit the water with a splash and paddled over to her. “Fine, but for the record, I still don’t like this,” he groused.

  “And I do?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “At least you don’t suffer from the cold. Speaking of which, can you warm me up?”

  They paused long enough for him to inject some essence into her body, chasing the bitter cold away, and then swam toward the glittering light. As they neared the orb, Jasper saw his fear had been correct. A large tunnel loomed just a few feet below the water's surface, a cavernous black hole that set his spine a-tingling. Damn it.

  Reluctantly, he started to follow the orb as it dove toward the tunnel, but Ihra grabbed his hand. “Wait up.”

  Confused, he pulled back and began treading water. “Did you change your mind?”

  “What’s your endurance,” she asked.

  “I don’t know? I think it might have been around hundred the last time I checked.”

  Ihra's eyes glazed over as she counted something on her hands. “So you’ve got about five minutes of air,” she said a moment later. “I’ve got a bit above eight, and if I use the Still Pond, I could probably make it to ten.”

  “Stay here while I follow the orb; if I don’t reach the end of the tunnel in five minutes, I’ll turn around.”

  “That’s cutting it too close,” Jasper objected. “What if you get snagged on something or get turned around? Make it three."

  “Four,” she compromised. “Wait here,” and before he could press his objections, her head dipped beneath the surface.

  Jasper watched uneasily as she disappeared into the darkness. The sense of dread that sat in the pit of his stomach grew rapidly into a certainty that something bad was about to happen. He tried to dismiss it as nothing more than paranoia, knowing that there was a good chance that entering the dark tunnels without even the orb to guide him was a death sentence, but he didn't know what else to do and, with growing anxiety, began to paddle toward the flooded passage.

  You could always pray.

  Jasper’s heart stopped beating as the voice spoke in his head. It was not his own. No, the voice was far too feminine, and infused with an indescribable heaviness that filled his mind with images of moonlight nights and tempestuous seas. Selene?

  Jasper licked his lips nervously as only silence greeted his query. The mere idea of praying felt a bit stupid. It had never done him much good back home but, then again, he had never met a god on earth either. I guess it couldn’t hurt to pray, he decided reluctantly.

  “I’m not sure if that was you, Selene. Maybe I was just hallucinating,” he added with a nervous chuckle, “but I wouldn’t turn down any help you could give me. I’m worried about Ihra.” A dozen voices filled the cavern as he spoke, echoing his words back to him. He knew it was just a trick of the acoustics, but it still spooked him, and he hesitated, unsure how to continue.

  Before he could decide, the waters around him trembled. He splashed backward, his eyes scanning the depths frantically as he half-expected some sort of mutant cave shark to emerge from the inky black below. Instead, he stilled as a pale light coalesced near the top of the cavern.

  It descended slowly, a small blob of cheery yellow light that vaguely resembled the orb they’d been following. But while there had been something disquieting about the blue orb, this one radiated a sense of calm. He didn’t even flinch as it approached his hand and began to sink into his flesh.

  The fire wreathing his hand was replaced by a pale glow as the orb dissipated, and the voice spoke again in his head. If you wish to rescue her, you must go now.

  Sucking in a final gasp of air, he dove for the tunnel, paddling with fast, frantic movements. Calm down; you are only wasting air, the voice chided him, and again the feeling of calm infused his mind. His strokes slowed down but his speed picked up as he executed the moves with the precision of an experienced swimmer.

  As he swam, his eyes searched the darkness for any sign of Ihra. Unlike the cave above, the tunnel's walls were too smooth and regular to be a natural occurrence, and judging from the occasional smidgens of paint and a rotting door he passed, it hadn’t always been submerged. But that was a mystery for another time; Jasper’s eyes glossed over the ancient artifacts as he peered into the darkness ahead, straining to catch a glimpse of Ihra.

  Left. He followed the voice as he reached a fork in the tunnel, and swam a dozen more feet before it told him to turn right.

  There, the tunnel opened up into what had once been a large chamber, but unlike the smaller passage, the room was not fully flooded. Blue light trickled down from the distant surface, lighting the gloomy passage and allowing him to see Ihra - and the plant strangling her.

  It looked like a giant kelp, with long stringy leaves that had wrapped tightly around her and, despite the lack of any current in the water, the kelp’s strands writhed vigorously as Ihra struggled against their hold. But her struggle was a vain one. Suspended in the water, there was nothing she could hold onto for leverage, and Jasper spied a gleam of silver at the bottom of the chamber where her misericorde had fallen.

  Get the weapon, the voice commanded him, and Jasper dove. As he struggled toward the bottom, the pale light broke free and floated upward, leaving him to retrieve the misericorde.

  His hand burned as he snatched it, but he ignored the pain and, bracing his feet against the bottom, looked up in time to see the yellow light reach Ihra. As it had done to him, the light sank into her. The plant released her immediately as bright rays poured from her body, withering all that it touched. But though she was now free, Ihra didn’t immediately begin to rise toward the surface. She flailed wildly, spinning around in circles, before heading downward, and Jasper realized she was disoriented. Damn it. Tucking the burning knife into his waist, he shot up, intercepting her halfway down.

  She fought him as he wrapped his arms around her, and the two began to sink. But then the pale light flared again, and her struggles ceased as its unnatural calm settled over her. Holding her tight, Jasper swam toward the light overhead, his lungs burning as he reached the limits of his air. Just a little farther.