Decisions, decisions.
Luke stirred slightly upon my shoulder. I hoped he wasn’t about to come around, as I didn’t have time to mess with a sleep-spell and I wasn’t really in a good position to slug him again. That pretty much left Frakir.
But if he were borderline, then choking might serve to rouse him rather than send him back-and I did want him in decent shape. He knew too many things I didn’t, things I now needed.
We passed through a slightly brighter area, and I was able to distinguish the walls of the shaft for the first time and to note that they were covered with graffiti in a language that I did not understand. I was reminded of a strange short story by Jamaica Kincaid, but it bore me no clues for deliverance. Immediately following our passage through that band of illumination, I distinguished a small spot of light far below. At almost the same moment’ I heard the wail once again, this time very near.
I looked up in time to behold the Fire Angel passing through the glow.
But there was another shape close behind it, and it wore a vest and burbled. The Jabberwock was also on the way down, and it seemed to be making the best time of any of us. The question of its purpose was immediately prominent; as it gained, the circle of light grew and Luke stirred again. This question was quickly answered; however, as it caught up with the Fire Angel and attacked.
The whiffling, the wailing, and the burbling suddenly echoed down the shaft, along with hissing, scraping, and occasional snarls. The two beasts came together and tore at each other, eyes like dying suns, claws like bayonets, forming a hellish mandala in the pale light which now reached them from below. While this produced a round of activity too near at hand for me to feel entirely at ease, it did serve to slow them to the point where I felt I need not risk an ill-suited spell and an awkward maneuver to emerge from the tunnel in one piece.
“Argh!” Luke remarked, turning suddenly within my grasp.
“I agree,” I said. “But lie still, will you? We’re about to crash-“
“-and burn,” he stated, twisting his head upward to regard the combatant monsters, then downward when he realized that we were falling, too. “What kind of trip is this?”
“A bad one,” I answered, and then it hit me: That was exactly what it was.
The opening was even larger now, and our velocity sufficient for a bearable landing. Our reaction to the spell that I called the Giant’s Slap would probably slow us to a standstill or even propel us backward. Better to collect a few bruises than become a traffic obstruction at this point.
A bad trip indeed. I was thinking of Random’s words as we passed through the opening at a crazy angle, hit dirt, and rolled.
We had come to rest within a cave, near to its mouth. Tunnels ran off to the right and the left. The cave mouth was at my back. A quick glance showed it as opening upon a bright, possibly lush, and more than a little out of focus valley. Luke was sprawled unmoving beside me. I got to my feet immediately and caught hold of him beneath the armpits. I began dragging him back away from the dark opening from which we had just emerged. The sounds of the monstrous conflict were very near now.
Good that Luke seemed unconscious again. His condition was bad enough for any Amberite, if my guess were correct. But for one of sorcerous ability it represented a highly dangerous wild card of a sort I’d never encountered before. I wasn’t at all certain how I should deal with it.
I dragged him toward the righthand tunnel because it was the smaller of the two and would theoretically be a bit easier to defend. We had barely achieved its shelter when the two beasts fell through the opening, clutching and tearing at each other. They commenced rolling about the floor of the cave, claws clicking, uttering hisses and whistles as they tore at each other. They seemed to have forgotten us entirely; and I continued our retreat until we were well back in the tunnel.