Chapter Thirty-Seven Elvine
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Elvine
The air felt thicker the deeper Elvine proceeded into the tunnel, although the chill remained as potent as ever.
They had lit torches but they were hardly needed.
Light contrived to permeate the ice to fill the passage with a dim, blue glow.
The great weight of frozen water above also had an irksome tendency to assail the ear with cracks and groans of ominous volume, stirring worries that the roof might collapse at any moment.
Nevertheless, Elvine insisted on leading the way with the spear, holding it in readiness for the danger the spirit assured her was very close now.
She found one of Ilvar’s menda fifty paces in, recognising him from that first voyage from Olversahl to Skar Magnol.
A stocky man with a bulbous nose, he lay slumped against the tunnel wall.
At first she thought him sitting in wait for her, which seemed odd.
As she drew closer she saw the limp, pale hands that had slipped from the haft of his axe.
His face quickly captured the bulk of her attention.
Unlike the murdered slaves and the two warriors who had died by their own hand outside, his features were not held in a death rictus by the freezing air.
Instead, they were moulded into as stark and pure an expression of terror as Elvine had ever seen; his eyes wide and mouth opened in mid-shriek.
“No blood,” Varnyr said, peering at the ice beneath the corpse. Prodding a finger to the dead man’s cheek, he grunted, “Not frozen either.”
“If the cold didn’t kill him,” Colvyn said, “what did?”
“Fear,” Elvine said, still captured by the warrior’s terrorised death mask. “I would guess he died of a fear so deep it stopped his heart.”
“Fear of you?” Colvyn squinted in doubt before speaking on in Ishtan, “Formidable as you are, esteemed sister, I don’t believe the mere prospect of facing you in combat could do this.
” He turned from the body to peer deeper into the tunnel.
It opened out a dozen yards on, broadening into a cavern where the glow was dimmer.
“There’s more down here than just ice,” Colvyn said.
“Of course there is, esteemed brother,” Elvine replied, resuming her progress. “Why else would she come here?”
More bodies awaited them in the cavern, six in all with the same uniform pitch of fear showing on their faces. Two Nihlvarians were among them, Varnyr recognising them as former comrades in the Vortigurn’s Fist.
“Lohkyn,” he said, crouching at the side of a beardless young man with a narrow band of scarlet tattoos tracing down the centre of his face.
“Never once did I see this man afraid, and we faced much danger together.” Leaning closer, he sniffed and grimaced.
“Scared enough to shit himself too. If fear hadn’t claimed him, then shame surely would.
” Straightening, he frowned in grim contemplation.
“These were the last of the Vortigurn’s Fist. A bad end, but I’ll not pretend we deserved any better. ”
Moving on, they found the cavern narrowed to form another tunnel.
Here, the glow was barely noticeable, making Elvine grateful for her torch.
They had gone only a few steps when the surrounding walls of ice thrummed, birthing a series of cracking sounds.
The vibration continued for several seconds with the entire party halted in place, eyes gleaming in the torchlight as they scanned the tunnel for signs of a collapse.
Elvine’s heart lurched at the sight of movement within the crystalline structure.
It was only a flicker, gone in an instant.
She tried to reassure herself it must have been a shift in the light caused by the cracked blocks of frozen water grinding together.
However, the spirit in the spear was quick to disabuse her of any comforting delusions.
Something lives here, child, she warned. Something ancient that means us ill. Have no doubt of that.
They moved on when the thrum faded, Elvine’s sense of an oppressive weight to the air growing more palpable with each step.
Soon she noticed an intensification in the glow of the passage ahead, accompanied by a stiff, cutting breeze.
The tunnel ended some thirty paces on, Elvine stepping out into a chasm of ice.
High above, she could see a sliver of blue sky.
She stood upon a narrow ledge, the drop beyond an unfathomable abyss.
Spanning the gap to the mouth of another tunnel was a narrow bridge of ice, and standing in its centre was Ilvar.
The former Vellihr of Lore to the Sister Queens snarled upon catching sight of Elvine.
It was a sound more fitting to the throat of a beast rather than a man.
Ilvar’s face, hollow cheeked beneath a beard that had greyed since her last sight of him, was marked with frostbite and twitched continually.
She might have ascribed it to the cold, for he wore only a jerkin and trews, but for the same pitch of fear she saw in his expression.
It was near identical to that of his fallen comrades.
“You saw what they saw,” Elvine called to him, her voice echoing long in the chasm. “Those misguided fools who followed you and Lore to their end. It killed them but not you. Why not?”
By way of answer he let out his animalistic snarl once again, making Elvine wonder if he had lost the ability to speak. “What did you see here?” she persisted. “What was it that destroyed the minds of your warriors?”
“Lies!” Ilvar hissed. He clutched a sword in his trembling hands and raised the blade to her. “Filthy lies conjured by the enemies of the Altvar.” His voice was the high-pitched rasp of a soul driven beyond the reach of reason.
“No,” Elvine told him. “I think whatever you saw here was the truth. A truth you and the rest of your fanatics could not bear. And the only enemy of the Altvar here is you.” She shifted her gaze to the dark maw of the ice tunnel behind him. “Where is she? What does she do in this place?”
“You will not stop her!” Ilvar’s scream rebounded from the tall ice cliffs of the chasm as he rushed towards her.
Varnyr stepped forward to meet him but Elvine waved him back.
The spear’s blessing took hold when Ilvar came within its reach, slowing time and allowing her to sidestep the downward swing of his sword and slam the haft of her weapon into the side of his head.
As he tumbled into the abyss, she watched his expression change from unreasoning fury to dull-eyed incomprehension.
Time resumed its normal course once he had fallen clear of the bridge, his flailing form quickly swallowed by its absolute gloom.
“Too merciful an end,” Elvine muttered, though the spear would not allow her the leisure for regret. Hurry! the spirit urged, dragging Elvine’s gaze to the tunnel on the far side of the bridge. It’s almost within her grasp. You must stop her, child!
As she hurried across, the ice thrummed again, this time with far more violence.
Losing her footing, Elvine sprawled, coming close to sliding off the edge of the span.
Her torch spun away into the depths as she lay flat, the tremor continuing to shake the bridge which was now emitting an increasingly loud series of cracks.
Hearing Colvyn call her name, she looked back to see her companions still on the ledge, all thrown from their feet.
Her brother crawled towards the bridge, holding out his hand but too far for her to reach.
Another crack caused the ice to shudder beneath her, birthing an instant of panic that made her scramble towards Colvyn’s outstretched hand only to be brought to an abrupt halt by the spirit’s stern, implacable command: You cannot go back! Not now!
She’s never played me false, Elvine recalled, staring into Colvyn’s desperate imploring gaze before she sprang to her feet and sprinted in the opposite direction.
She felt the bridge begin to give as she ran, leaping the last few feet an instant before it collapsed.
Thunderous booms echoed through the chasm as fissures snaked along its walls.
Sword-length shards fell away to plummet all around, forcing Elvine into the shelter of the tunnel.
“Elvine!” Colvyn’s forlorn cry dragged her gaze back to the far ledge, but she could barely glimpse him through the falling curtain of shattered ice.
Run, child! the spirit commanded, her warning given stark clarity by the deep crack that appeared in the tunnel’s roof.
Elvine fled into the gloomy depths of the passage, the continuing tremors sending her into repeated collision with the walls.
A near constant cascade of powdered ice made her plight all too clear, adding frantic speed to her stumbling progress until, at last, she emerged from the shadows, coming to a halt at the sight of the huge, cathedral-like chamber before her.
The glow here was the brightest she had yet encountered, illuminating a space as strange as it was vast. It resembled a great upended bowl, smooth walls like polished green-blue glass curving up to form a seamless ceiling.
Fortunately, Elvine’s arrival coincided with a sudden end to the tremors and the ice above her head appeared free of flaws.
The oddest feature of the cavern was its floor.
Smooth at the edges, like the walls, it took on an increasing irregularity as Elvine’s eye tracked across it.
Minor distortions grew in size, contorting into similar, bone-like shapes forming a spiral towards the chamber’s centre where, standing in serene repose among the circle of tall, ice monoliths was Lore.