"A moment... this spear might come loose with a bit of effort," Tymythy said, as he saw Dounia creeping closer to the dark tunnel. "It seems of high quality... it might be of use." With Zahra joining him, the two got to either side of the spear, combining their strengths to try and work the weapon free from the mechanism that had launched it upwards.
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Dounia held up the key and a smattering of applause went out. If anything, the crowd seemed too amazed at her work to start an uproar. The laughter at Hallwn's table stopped. Iolanthe was standing near the edge of the eastern castle and had a shrewd look in her eye that said, 'foiled me again, but I'll get you before the party is over.'
Tymythy grabbed the spear with both hands and worried it upwards. With a little additional help from Zahra the one inch thick iron rod came free quickly.
Dounia took a careful look at the room and was confident that the space itself was safe to walk through. The tube at the other end of the room, however, felt suspicious. On closer examination, the passage didn't seem to be trapped but a seam at the front end of the tunnel implied that the passage moved independently of the room somehow. The seam was so fine she'd nearly missed it. No trigger was obvious. Perhaps it was weight activated?
One thing was certain. The spiral of runes in the tunnel were a continuation of those in the room.
Zahra took a closer look at the runes around the circumference of the floor. It was clearly an anti-magic field, a field not to destroy magic but suppress it.
She held the handkerchief in her hand for a moment and then had an idea but needed to ask. She shifted her hand towards Cairee and asked, "It may win us some style points if Ousel flew the handkerchief and dropped it in the stands. Someone may want it as a remembrance of Dounia's skill. Or would that be too dangerous?"
The handkerchief probably weighed as much as the small Thrush, though see suspected her feathered companion was stronger than she looked. "Ousel, can you lift it? See if you can take it just there, to that group of youngsters who cheered when when Dounia bowed." She nodded to the nearby stands.
Ousel plucked the handkerchief out of Zahra's hands with her tiny talons. The extra weight and drag made flying more difficult and Cairee could tell Ousel was struggling to stay in the air. She flapped her wings with extra force and sputtered her way over to the group, making it a mear 7 or 8 inches above their heads before dropping it unceremoniously and zooming back to Cairee's shoulder.
Dounia frowned at the simple room. "No magic? Is that it?" "
"No magic means no healing.'
Cairee turned her attention to the runes within the marble room. Was there any way to break the anti-magic field? Could they disturb or destroy the runes?
The runes had a quality of not being quite real. Light from a window hitting the floor would have the same quality. If they could change one rune, just one, they might disrupt the anti-magic field. But the incorporeal writing was beyond reach, and if they altered the wrong rune it could create a disastrous result.
Ousel flew over the crowd and dropped the handkerchief towards the young attendants. It floated down gently and a proud Ousel returned to their guardian, Cairee. The children had their hands out grasping as the overdressed Viscount Vertbatton reached over their heads and snatched it in the air.
Boos cascaded through the audience as the entire scene was enlarged in the lake.
Ousel flew over the crowd and dropped the handkerchief towards the young attendants. It floated down gently and a proud Ousel returned to their guardian, Cairee. The children had their hands out grasping as the overdressed Viscount Vertbatton reached over their heads and snatched at it but missed. It was finally caught by a young man of about squiring age.
The Boos Vertbatton's crassness had produced watered down the gesture somewhat.
A bit deflated by the lack-luster applause, Dounia moved into the room as she decided it was safe. That tube....that was weird. It seemed disconnected. "This is weird. See this seam, it's like the tube is just touching the floor here, not actually connected. Maybe the room will rotate away? Or the tube will move away? Or start to spin! Ooh, maybe we'll be tossed around. But I think we should all step in or jump in together, in case it's pressure activated. It might whisk one of us away if we go in one at a time. Though...if it spins we'll just end up banging into each other. Ugh, I don't know. What do you think?"
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In the dark, while the Black Bird's were fighting for their lives.
Voice one, "We have so little time left."
Voice two, "You've broken our promise not to talk about it. It's hopeless. We can't change our future. All we have is now and if I think of what happens when this is all over I …"
Voice one, "Shhh, you're right. We have one more night." A heavy pause. "We'll make it count."
Voice two, "I'm worried. I don't know if we can manage it tomorrow night. He's already risked too much and it almost got him killed last time. He'd do it … if we asked."
Voice one, "He loves you, you know."
Voice two, "I know and I love him, so much, just not in the way he loves me. It shames me every time I ask him for help. He knows why I ask. I know he knows. I ask him anyway and he does it anyway."
Voice one, "This may be the last time you have to ask."
Voice two, "There's still a chance. We could pull this off. We've done it before - three times now. We can do it again."
Voice one, "It feels different this time. The, I don't know, the air feels different. If we can't then right now may be all we have. We 'll leave. We'll forget everything. We'll hate each other from across the Groszah'Saal." A long quiet. "Big spoon."
Shifting in the dark.
Voice one, "There's still one promise that hasn't been broken. Promise me again."
Voice two, "I promise you!
"I won't die."
"But I think we should all step in or jump in together, in case it's pressure activated. It might whisk one of us away if we go in one at a time. Though...if it spins we'll just end up banging into each other. Ugh, I don't know. What do you think?"
"Seconded," Tymythy said, recalling him and Dounia getting individually trapped by the turning room in the mirror maze. They had already tried that once, he'd take a bit of getting knocked by each other's elbows and knees over a repeat.
In the dark, while the Black Bird's were fighting for their lives in the Baths.
Zahra hefted the spear once it was free and kept it in hand as they entered the room.
Her stomach twisted when she realized that the runes to suppress magic were everywhere. It made her clutch the spear tighter.
"No magic means no healing.'
Zahra was reluctant to look in her bag and voiced what she was thinking, "No magic also means we can't access anything that was in my bag."
But I think we should all step in or jump in together, in case it's pressure activated...
Zahra was pretty sure that the trap in the mirror challenge was on everyone's mind. Yet, if they had all been together then they would have all suffocated together. "I agree with you and Tymythy. Even though we could all land in danger, I'd rather be in danger with all of you rather than by myself."
There wasn't much Cairee could do for her friends without her connection to Saiph. She nodded and huddled close. "Let's hold hands and cross over together."
She peered down the tunnel, looking for any signs of traps or movement ahead.
Dounia nodded. She grabbed Zahra and Cairee's hands, waited for Zahra to grab Tymythy, and they moved across together.
The four joined hands and took a big step into the smooth walled tube. Standing together was difficult. The passage was nine feet in diameter but their was no flat bottom and the surface was a polished and hardened sandstone.
It only took the length of three heartbeats but the tunnel began to spin.
Then the far end of the tunnel began to tip forward. Everyone began sliding in smooth arcs around and down with the tilt and the spinning.
People began sliding faster … and FASTER … and
It was hard to tell how long this passage was but within a few seconds the tube shot everyone out into dead space. They landed in a new section that wasn't spinning, but it began to curve right and down and left and up. For a moment people were airborne again but still inside a 9' passage.
Coming towards you was a sharp ridge that divided the path into two tubes. The runes were gone. Cairee could feel Ousel. Zahra could feel the slightly frosty protection that surrounded her.
As you get closer to the split new runes carved into the sandstone whip by. They aren't like the first. They aren't wizard's marks but pictoglyphs. Some look like circles surrounded by wavy lines. Others look like circles inside of a square. A questions comes to your mind, intrudes in the chaos. It feels like you are asking yourself this question …
'I have four stones I keep in my pocket. Are they the bright stones I found in an old box, or, are they stones I pulled from the rush of a river?'
And subconsciously, out of instinct perhaps, you've answered it.
Dounia heard the click, and even with that warning, wasn't able to keep her feet as the room started spinning. Holding hands was throwing off her balance, and she hit the ground hard. Before she could try to find her feet, the end started to tilt and they were sliding.
Dounia abandoned attempting to hold hands, and tried to get on her hands and knees. But the grade was too steep, more than 45 degrees, and she was helpless before it. Then without warning, they were airborn! Dounia let out a scream, which ended in a whoof when she landed. The new slide had been built by a demon, and curved in every direction, sometimes at the same time. Dounia desperately tried to halt her slide, to get in a position to climb, and for a moment she came close. But there was simply no resisting it. She turned her body so she could at least see what was coming.
The pictographs caught her attention, in spite of herself. She had a lightning-fast image of the Mas'darum in flood, the treacherous crossing, the thrill of the white water. And it seemed that was a choice, and she felt herself heading towards the tube with the wavy lines.
Zahra was feeling secure grasping the hands of her friends, until the floor began to shift. Trying to also balance a spear was just enough of an unfamiliar weight that the sorceress was unable to keep her feet under her and she fell, sprawling on the floor.
If Zahra wasn't aware of how dangerous these challenges could be, she may have actually enjoyed the ride as the tube angled downwards and gravity took hold. It reminded her of sliding when she was a child but this was much more intense. She had no idea what she was sliding towards and the speed was almost too fast. There was no smiling parent waiting to catch her at the bottom.
There may not be a mother or father but there was some comfort when Zahra could feel her magic was no longer suppressed. For a moment, she had wished she had learned how to make things sticky rather than greasy during her studies but it was quite possible that trying to stop yourself suddenly while going this fast would probably rip clothing or skin.
With magic back, Zahra realized that she'd be able to retrieve something from her back now and so she pulled out the rope. As soon as anyone got close to her, she hoped she'd be able to throw them an end.
The sorceress took notice when the runes changed and tried to decipher them even though she was whizzing by them at incredible speed.
It formed a question in her mind which she seemed to answer before she could actually process what the question was asking. She frantically looked for the others even as she slid.
A few heartbeats after the foursome stepped into the strange tunnel Tymyhty could hear a faint click as if from some lock or machinery hidden from sight, but there was no time to point it out or wonder what it might entail before the tunnel started spinning like a coin rolling downhill. Surprised as he was, the hunter managed to stay on his feet – well, upright and in control of his orientation at any least, although when Zahra spilled and stumbled away he could not maintain his grip on her hand.
Not that it mattered much, as the tunnel itself began moving, the far end dropping down to send the Ravens tumbling down into darkness, barely sliding rather than falling as the angle tilting to dangerous degree. As he slit down Tymythy did his best to keep his feet pointing down and, his hand freed from trying to hold onto Zahra’s, pushed Kizu'gina against the tube’s walls, the counterweight at the shaft’s end on the floor ahead of him, the blade of the magical weapon scraping against the ceiling, in an effort to slow his headlong flight, or at least steer himself if they were to run into obstacles in the so-far empty tunnel they sped down along.
He didn’t intend to waste much of his attention on the runes on the walls – the first set hadn’t meant anything to him, and he now had more pressing concerns – yet it almost seemed like the runes read him rather than the other way around when his eyes but passed over them. A question popped into his mind, and despite himself, and answering thought followed.
’River stone.’
Cairee clasped Dounia's hand and stepped into the tunnel. She heard a faint clicking and the tunnel began to spin. Her feet were pulled out from under her and she was on her backside, slipping down down down down. "Careful!" she yelled uselessly, as she could see Dounia and Zahra tumbling along with her. Only Tymythy had managed to keep his footing, doing a quick shuffly dance to stay upright as he trotted after them.
They shot into a tunnel that thankfully wasn't spinning, but twisted up and down and from side to side. Cairee could see her staff and Zahra's new spear just behind them, chasing them down the tunnel. She stretched her arms, reaching for the staff. Her fingers grazed the shaft but she was able to claw it forward just enough to clasp it in her hands. She pulled it forward, hugging it to her body. As least now it wasn't an additional danger.
The runes changed and all of a sudden Cairee could feel Saiph in her heart and Ousel in her mind. Thank goddess! She barely had time to look at the new runes before a question filled her head. 'I have four stones I keep in my pocket. Are they the bright stones I found in an old box, or, are they stones I pulled from the rush of a river?'
"River" she whispered.
Tymythy fought against the forces of the slide. He could see Zahra about nine feet behind him. He hit a straight section of tunnel and there was Dounia another ten or twelve feet behind her. He could only assume Cairee was following. He tried to control his slide enough to lay back and brace either side of his weapon on the curved sections of the tube. It slowed him down enough to see Zahra come a little closer.
Zahra watched her spear sliding after her. She grabbed for it and caught it just past the spear end. Smiling, she looked down. Tymythy was eight feet - no seven and a half - no, four. Tymythy began to reach out to her. Suddenly she shot down a separate tunnel.
She was alone. She was still sliding.
Dounia's back hurt from her first fall and now she was sliding on the hurt. She watched Zahra shoot away to the left. Before she could do anything about it she was off to the right, Tymythy was nearly fifteen feet ahead.
She looked back and ten feet behind she could see Cairee rolling back and forth, trying to match her movements with her staff. Finally, she caught it and followed right, where Dounia and Tymythy went before her.
Zahra watched as new glyphs began to appear. One was a question mark with a long upright line. The other was a short line with a teardrop next to one end.
In a different tunnel Tymythy, Dounia and Cairee could see similar marks as they traveled a horse's length from each other.
'I have a strong ash shaft in my right hand. Is it the crook I used to guard the flock, or, a torch I hold high to show the road before me?