“Meaning?” Danny studied that section of the listing-
“Meaning I think these things operate independently. If I had to guess, and that’s pretty much what it is at this point, I’d say this part here is a magic detector and they home in on magic. What’s more, magic seems to rouse them to a rage. You’ll notice Malkin wasn’t the focus of an attack and they didn’t go after Glandurg until he got Bund Fury into action.”
“Kinda like leaving hives of killer bees around as guards,” Danny said. “Cute.”
“Ugly,” Wiz corrected. “Especially since the same principle could be applied to other critters. Nastier ones.”
Danny nodded. “Let’s get out of here then. There may be more on the way and I’m not sure I’d want to face a horde of maddened dragons.”
“And no more magic,” Wiz admonished. “Not if it attracts these things.”
“Our steel and our courage alone shall carry us henceforth,” said Glandurg.
“Well,” Wiz amended, eyeing Blind Fury, “we don’t have to swear off magic completely.”
TEN – ENTER THE LOBSTER
“Moira,” the wind moaned. “Moira, Moira, Moira, Moira.”
It keened around the towers. Frigid fingers clutched at the banners and tugged at the windows. It could not find purchase against the wizards’ spells, but it kept on.
Moira went to the window and tried to look out, but a dark formless thing beat upon the pane, as if to strike her, and she turned away.
“Is it getting worse?” she asked Bal-Simba.
“It gets no better. That in itself means it will get worse. Like a starfish on an oyster. It pulls and pulls and eventually the oyster weakens.”
The dragon hesitated. Then perhaps I should go out there,” Moira said.
“And give our enemy the advantage he seeks? An unwise move, My Lady.”
“Then what shall we do?”
“Work Wait. Perfect the spells to drive this thing from our door.”
The dragon did not turn its head. “I wish Wiz was here.”
Bal-Simba sighed. “So do I, My Lady. So do I.”
Their first warning was the way sounds changed. Careless footsteps or dislodged pebbles rang sharper and more hollowly. Wiz was still trying to puzzle out the difference when they came around a bend in the tunnel and stepped out into a new world.
The cavern was immense. Stalactites and sheets of flow stone rippled from ceiling to floor in pastel pinks and yellows. They made weirdly distorted shadows in the light from Wiz’s glow globe. In spite of the steady illumination the shadows seemed to flicker and dance in eerie motion. The air was heavy with damp and utterly still. Occasionally a foot would dislodge a pebble and the sound would ring through the emptiness.
They picked their way along for perhaps two hundred paces and then, suddenly, there was no floor before ‘ them.
It took a minute for Wiz to make a coherent picture out of the sense impressions, like staring at an optical illusion. Finally the elements snapped into focus and he realized they were standing at the edge of a cliff thickly coated with onyx flowstone. By directing the magic light out over the darkness he could see that the face was a steep cascade of the same orange, pink and white material as the surface they were standing on. He could not see the other side and the light did not show him the bottom, but his magic detector pointed straight out across the emptiness.
“It looks like we’re going to have to climb down,” he said to the others.”
Tine,” Malkin said, shedding her pack and unhooking a coil of rope from it “I’ll go first.”
Wiz wasn’t exactly overjoyed at the prospect of climbing down a slippery cuff in the dark, but he felt he had to assert himself as leader. “Why you?”
Malkin looked up at him. “Because you’re a klutz. Now help me find a rock to tie off on.”
That was true enough that Wiz didn’t argue. But he was a little surprised she knew the word.
Malkin selected a convenient boulder, looped the rope around it and secured it with a particularly complicated looking knot. Keeping the rope taut in one hand she stepped back and admired her handiwork.