Bronwyn knelt and pulled open an eyelid. Mikey did not stir. She looked up at Bal-Simba. “An empty shell, Lord. There is nothing left here at all.”
“When did this happen?”
“Sometime in the last two days. He sat in a corner all that time, but that was not unusual for him. The guards were becoming worried because he had not eaten.” She rose and looked down at him. “Before, he had the mind of a child. Now he has—nothing.”
Bal-Simba frowned “Did he still have his knowledge? Before this happened, I mean.”
Bronwyn shrugged. “Since we never knew just what was wrong with him I cannot tell you. Certainly he did not have the mind to use it. But as to the knowledge itself…” She shrugged again.
“I think we can assume he still had at least some of it.” Bal-Simba rubbed his chin.
“And now we can assume the Enemy has that knowledge,” Arianne added.
Bal-Simba nodded and looked down at the not-quite-human thing at his feet. “Come, Lady, we have work to do.”
“And him?” Arianne asked.
“I will make him comfortable,” Bronwyn said grimly. “He will not last long like that.”
Malkin stopped and touched Wiz’s arm. “It’s getting light up ahead again,” she whispered.
Wiz strained to see beyond the magic light’s glow. “More bugs?”
The thief shook her head. “The light’s not as blue and the shadows are sharper.”
Now what? Wiz thought. He looked over at Danny. The younger programmer checked his magic detector. “A lot of magic, but it’s not immediately dangerous.”
It wasn’t the most reassuring report Wiz had ever heard but he motioned the group on and they crept down the tunnel.
Ahead of them the tunnel grew brighter and the air around them grew warmer. Suddenly they turned the corner and found themselves staring into the mouth of Hell.
The very walls of the tunnel glowed incandescent. Orange and red, yellow and white, churned and roiled on every side. Instinctively the party flinched back as if from a blast furnace and retreated around the corner.
“No heat,” Wiz said wonderingly as soon as they were back around the corner. He stuck his hand around to make sure. “There’s no heat.”
“It’s magically blocked,” Danny said, checking his magic detector. “That tunnel must run right through the heart of the volcano, but magic keeps the heat away.” He looked at the magic detector again. “Tunnels, I mean. There’s a whole pile of them out there.”
“Another maze.”
“A hotter-than-hell maze,” Danny agreed.
“Well, we’ve got an answer to that,” Wiz said as he fished in his pouch. “I have here the granddaddy of all maze solvers.” He held up a demon that looked remarkably like a white rat.
“Put that away,” Malkin said firmly.
Wiz frowned. Malkin had her faults, including kleptomania, but squeamishness wasn’t one of them.
“It’s not a real rat,” he explained, “it just looks that way because…”
“I know what it is,” the tall thief said. There is a trap here and that thing may trigger it.”
“What kind of trap?”
“Magical. Beyond that…” She shrugged.
“How do you know?” Danny asked.
“Because I know. It is my business to know and this is not the place for magic.”
Wiz looked at the rat demon, which twitched its whiskers. He put it back in his pouch. “Okay, let’s take a break while Danny and I see what we can learn.”
Hall an hour later a grim-faced Wiz and Danny called the others to gather around them.
“This is the cutest thing yet,” Wiz told them. “All these tunnels are kept open by magic, very carefully balanced magic. Too much additional magic will upset the spell and they’ll collapse.”
Even Glandurg looked uneasily at the glowing red magma beyond. “Better it were that we use no magic then.”
“We won’t, mostly. Danny and I have a spell running to strengthen the tunnels, so it’s not quite the trap it was when we came in, but any large expenditure of magical energy is still likely to bring the place down.”
“So we feel our way through magicless,” Malkin said.
“Not exactly. With the tunnels reinforced Danny and I can use a real low-power spell to narrow our choices.”