Chapter 452 - Blindsight
Darius rode out first once he changed into Millie’s disguise, while she and Simon waited in the shadows. He rode at a slow trot until he was over the drawbridge, and only picked up speed once he was out of sight. Simon waited there, ready to trace a word of light or set fire to the barn at the first sign he’d been noticed, but this early in the morning, no one seemed to be paying attention. Still, he gave the man a slow count of five minutes before he turned to Millie and explained the plan as he stripped off his armor.
“The drawbridge will lead to a cave for us?” she asked when he was done. “Why, no, how could it lead us anywhere different than where it led Darius? He rode away just fine, didn’t he?”
“He did,” Simon agreed. “But the same magic that led us here… It’s going to lead us away again.”
“Underground, though?” she asked, squirming. “Why not another castle? Will it be dangerous?”
“Almost certainly,” Simon answered. His tone was confident, but he was anything but. “Until we escape the grip of this dark magic, I expect that everything will be dangerous, but I’ll protect you.”
That much she obviously believed, and responded with a hug. “Thank you, Simon,” she whispered as she clung to him like a drowning victim. “What would I do without you?”
Be safe in bed, he thought. He’d never say that aloud, but it was certainly true. The most frustrating part, though, was that he might not have found the portal without her accidental assistance.
After ten minutes, when no alarm had sounded, they finally walked toward the gate. When they reached the dark they were swallowed by it, unnoticed. It was only when the portal faded behind him that he summoned a tiny blue mote to float out ahead of him.
The gesture was a simple one that he’d studied quite a bit, and so he didn’t need to try again. What he did notice, though, since he was as deep in his sight as he was ever likely to be, was the way he fingerpainted with the colors of creation on the darkness. He might touch the magic, and it was certainly powered by him, but it was the air itself that was the canvas. In that way, it wasn’t so different from the violent healing words he’d used on the last level.
The gesture isn’t exactly like tracing the shape in thin air, he realized as the afterimage of his magic faded. It was similar, though. At least, it was similar enough to merit further study.
The light he created with that gesture was no larger than a candle flame, and not much brighter, but it was more than Simon needed. Just the circulating flow of his own aura, and Millie’s, let him see the shape of the rock walls around them, but he wasn’t going to make the woman walk through the dark with him without even that much to guide her.
𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
“Magic,” she breathed. She almost certainly would have made a warding gesture if her hands were free, but she was terrified of letting go of Simon and clung to his left hand with both of hers. Her pulse was racing so fast that he could feel it throb through her cool skin. Despite her terror, she said nothing, just like he’d instructed her. Her grip was tight, but he didn’t imagine he’d have any trouble shaking her loose.
Once the light illuminated the dank cavern they were in, he drew his sword and started forward with slow, measured steps, guiding his terrified charge around obstacles she’d never see coming.
Even with his vision helping him and his light, he had trouble seeing more than a few feet in front of him. Still, he wasn’t tempted to make a brighter light. He had no idea what that would reveal, but he knew it would be little different than ringing a dinner bell, and there was no way that Simon could fight a hundred goblins simultaneously once they discovered their next meal.
For a time, he followed the left wall, looking out into the dark as much as his footing would allow, looking for any signs of life. He found none, though, only the distant sound of trickling water and smooth basalt on his left.
Despite the moisture, he felt like he was in a lava tube, and saw no stalagmites or stalactites. Instead, he avoided rocky debris that might have been washed down this far in flash floods.
Or carried here by the inhabitants, he reflected darkly.
Simon tried to look on the bright side. A lava tube was likely to be less of a maze than a warren of limestone caves. Surely, that meant they’d find their way out quickly, or at least their way to what the Goddess wanted him to fight. That was true enough, and after a few minutes, their cramped space opened up into a wider cavern.
At first, Simon thought very little of that. Then he noticed broken bricks mixed in amidst the stony rubble they’d picked through so far. This must be the place, he thought, tempted once again to make the light brighter.
Then he froze. Up until now, he’d heard only the sounds of their own passage and the distant water, but then he heard a shifting, scraping sound that seemed organic to him. It was too soft to be shifting stone or a cave-in.
“Whatever it is we’re supposed to find, it’s here,” he whispered, freeing his hand from Millie’s and moving his sword to his left. While Simon wasn’t very good at fighting with his offhand, he couldn’t use magic with it at all, so it was a needful compromise.
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“But—” she managed to get a single word out before he brought his hand to her mouth in the dark.
“Be silent and follow the light,” he whispered. “It is a blessing that moves where I do. I will not abandon you.”
That didn’t calm Millie down at all, but then, he hadn’t expected it to. He just needed space to swing a weapon without worrying about slicing her by accident. He certainly had all the space in the world now, because the cavern was obviously vast.
He didn’t realize how vast the cavern was, though, until he saw something moving. From that distance, it was a fuzzy blob of light, but as they kept moving forward, it moved toward them, and its dim aura gained definition. Eventually, it took on the shape of a crude, ugly man, and Simon feared the worst.
Another ogre, he thought, willing himself not to panic.
Those were hardy beasts, and hard to kill, even while shouting words of power. It didn’t get much better when it got closer, and he decided that it was actually a troll. That was both better and worse. Better in that they were easy to defeat, but worse in that they were harder to keep dead.
Still, at least it was alone; trolls were invariably solitary hunters, and according to the Whitecloaks, they bred by losing a piece of themselves in a fight that went on to grow a whole new troll.
I guess there’s only one choice of weapon here, he thought as he continued to walk evenly, observing the thing as it tried to move to one side to ambush them. Those efforts did little but give Simon the chance to study their environment by using its form as a sort of spotlight.
Its aura might be dim, but it was brighter than anything else in the abyssal place, and as it moved, Simon was able to pick out the remains of buildings that it moved through. That intrigued him, though for now he couldn’t let himself get too distracted by those details.
The troll wasn’t particularly stealthy, but it tried to sneak, at least until Millie squeaked in fear and gave away their knowledge that it was there. After that, it roared and charged them.
As the troll galloped toward them on all fours with large, loping strides, Simon held his position, focused on what was to come. The timing would be tricky. He lacked the distant word, but he still needed to strike at this monster from as far away as possible.
Too far, and the spell will flare pointlessly and do little but scare it off, he told himself. Too close, and we’ll be crushed by its burning bulk.
He waited until the last possible second, visualizing what was to come, and then he unleashed his magic with a liquid flourish that wasn’t so different from tossing a lit match. Simon wasn’t tossing a lit match at this menace, though; he was tossing a wad of sticky napalm that wasn’t much bigger than his fist when it flew out.
The mere appearance of fire was enough to make the giant troll slide to a halt in its tracks, just out of reach of Simon’s sword. Neither that maneuver nor its attempt to jump to one side was enough to save it from the burning that followed.
Simon’s spell exploded like a firework, turning the upper half of the slimy green monster’s body into an oil slick. It reared back then and screamed, but it didn’t try to lash out at Simon. It probably couldn’t, because the fire covered its face, and its eyes were almost certainly burned out of its ugly head.
Simon could see, though. For a brief moment, he could see everything by the light of their monstrous bonfire, and what he saw was a city, more or less. In fact, for a moment, he thought he’d wandered into the spider level, before he reminded himself that the geology was completely off, and the architecture didn’t look quite right.
While he looked out at the strange cavern city, the troll rolled around until it partially extinguished. Then, it ran.
Simon braced for a moment, ready to cast the spell again, but he didn’t have to, because it bolted in the opposite direction, toward the lake he’d seen at the edge of the firelight. Still, as the burning monster retreated, its remaining flames gave off lurid shadows and illuminated more details. It was remarkably well preserved, to the point that all Simon wanted to do was pause and study some of the walls.
I'd give almost anything to go back and search those spider ruins again, he told himself as he observed the troll’s frantic retreat.
He’d always regretted not finding them again, and while he’d thought this might be the same place at first glance, it was clear now that it wasn’t. What was also clear, in the wake of the troll, was how much better shape this place was in, which made it ideal for a little archaeology on a future visit.
That made Simon want to kill the troll even less. If anything, as he watched the howling brute escape, he wanted to gather supplies and make an expedition of it. Still, it was hard to mentally plan that when Millie was screaming in his ear so loudly that he thought she was about to have a seizure.
“Easy, easy,” he told her again and again, dragging her forward. “It’s gone now. I’ve got you.”
Those reassurances did little for her, and ultimately, he was forced to sheathe his sword to shake her bodily. “Millie,” he half-shouted her name, and it echoed in the shocked silence her panic left behind. “Do you want to live? Do you?”
She didn’t answer, but she nodded vigorously, so he continued. “Then calm down, and stay close, and we’ll get out of this.”
After that, she shuddered every time the monster roared from somewhere in the dark, but when he scooped her up and started to jog in the direction he guessed led out, she ceased freaking out and only sobbed quietly in his arms.
It’s not like you’re truly hiding from it, nor it from you, Simon told himself as he considered how he might quiet her further. A little wisp of light followed him everywhere, and even after the magic he’d used, Simon could see the monster’s aura from halfway across the cavern. At least, he could before. It had vanished for the moment, in what looked to be a lake, but it would doubtlessly return when it had fully extinguished itself.
His concern wasn’t the troll. Trolls and their insatiable hunger were predictable. They avoided fire and the sun, and devoured everything else that crossed their path. Simon could try to escape, but as long as it could smell them, that was unlikely.
So, as he continued through the underground ruins, he looked for any indication of a portal or an exit. However, as he did so, he always, always kept an eye out for the next monster that might decide to make them a meal.