Little bird, little bird, little bird
What do you see?
A picture perfect scene.

(…)

It's hiding something
It's trying too hard

- Little Bird by imogen Heap

Shemlen would have called it the mouth to Hell, or whatever their Maker deemed to name his dungeon of fire and punishment. Except this place was cold, dreadfully so. A stiff breeze came through the cracks of old stone and almost hid the soft skitter of too many legs.

Cerwynn whirled around, bow already strung and loosed an arrow at the approaching horde of spiders. She hid the front most squarely in one of its beady eyes and readied herself to injure the legs of the next one so Tamlen might finish them off. He came charging past her, shield and sword out, and cut into the squishy spider flesh. By the end of the quick brawl their hunting gear was sporting a spattering of spider guts and blood.

"Well," Cerwynn fingered her bow. "Still think it's a good idea to explore this place?"

Tamlen shrugged. "We've had worse, haven't we? I dare say that the wolf-plague we had last year was a great deal scarier than these critters." He nudged the body closest to him with his shoe. "At least these aren't particularly intelligent."

A shiver ran over Cerwynn's spine at the memory of glowing eyes in the dark and she breathed out shakily. "Yeah… This place still freaks me out though."

"Then let's get going. The sooner we're through, the sooner we can get back to camp." He trudged through the spider corpses towards the only door not being obstructed by debris. It came open with an almighty croak that continued through the empty hallway behind it.

It seemed grander than the halls they'd past before, with ornamental pillars and half-ruined statues lining it. They were elegant, flowing figures with spears and scepters clasped in their hands. Only one in the long line had remained somewhat intact. On impulse Cerwynn reached out to the slim statue to remove the damp moss that covered its surface. It was a woman standing proudly upright with wings spanning out from her back. I was stunned by the familiarity of the effigy.

"Is that…Mythal?" She nearly jumped when Tamlen came up behind me to study her closer up. His hand found the small of her back easily and patted it. "Seems those scavengers weren't wrong after all. These ruins are definitely elven."

I shook his hand off. "That doesn't make sense, Tam. I've never seen this kind of architecture in any of the Keeper's scrolls. There's no record of underground dwellings."

"Oh, come on, lethallan." Tamlen nudged her side teasingly. "Perhaps these were moved here after the fall of Arlathan. Even the Keeper doesn't know everything."

I huffed. "It's Tevene if anything."

"Sure." He left her side with a noncommittal shrug and stalked towards the mosaics that covered the floor further up in the hallway. They both stooped low to admire the tiny embedded stones. Even after centuries of neglect they still gleamed through the dirt and dust. Cerwynn tried hard to place the visible lines of the circular mosaic in what I'd learned from the Keeper's books.

"I can't make out the image." She sighed disappointed.

"Maybe if I clean it up a bit." Tamlen stood up and retrieved the piece of cloth that he normally used to polish his blades and shield. She watched him kneel back down and began to scrub at the darkened ridges.

Out of the dark a loud click resounded and with a freezing cloud of mist the mosaic opened up.

Instinctively, Cerwynn reached for the bow on her back and pulled it out. She stumbled blindly through the cloying mist with a sudden sick feeling in her stomach. "Tamlen?!"

"I'm here!" Her clan mate's voice came from the far right of the hallway. She could just make out a vague shimmer of metal in that direction. "I think something opened up!"

"What?" Even to her own ears, she sounded panicked and weak.

Tamlen repressed a series of coughs before he answered. "I can see some sort of light at the opposite wall. Let me go take a look…"

She heard him shuffle across the now uneven ground towards where she had pressed herself against the wall. Only by the quick touch of his hand on her arm did she notice him pass her by and go through what – in her recollection – had been a solid stone structure just moments before.

A second later his voice wafted up to her from the mist. "There's another room here. It's clear, so you can come through."

"O..Okay." I cautiously edged around the corner of the wall towards his encouraging voice. A part of the stone had indeed been broken open by some sort of pressure, and the mist did dissipate when I wormed my way into the unveiled chamber.

The room I entered was relatively small compared to the rest of the underground complex, but it had some natural light coming in through paneling on the ceiling. It illuminated tombs in every corner of the room, but I barely gave them any notice. In the middle of the room stood a great mirror which reflected the meagre light in wide arcs.

Tamlen had already climbed up the few stairs separating the lower floor with the tombs from the mirror. He stood very still, Cerwynn thought, almost as if he was scared to disturb the interplay of light and the glass surface. It was enchanting, she had to admit, in a creepy I've-been-here-forever-undisturbed kind of way.

"Lethallin, what do you see?" Cerwynn's voice sounded abnormally loud in the quiet space.

"Ceri," She heard him swallow audibly. "It's so clear, almost untouched, you know. And there's something moving…"

"Moving?" Cerwynn forced herself to move closer as she felt the dread feeling return to her stomach. "Shouldn't you stand back then?"

She reached for his elbow and half-heartedly tried to get him stand back from the mirror. Unexpectedly, he shrunk back from her touch, closer to – what she could now see – the lazily flowing currents in the glass of the mirror.

"No! It's showing me places, Cerwynn, I want to see!" Tamlen stepped forward and placed a callused hand on the glass. Tendrils of mist or smoke appeared to escape where his flesh touched it, but he gave no sign of discomfort.

"You should see it too… A city! It's underground just like this one, but there is a great blackness hovering in that place. Not like here where the light is warm." An odd sort of grin transformed the face of her childhood friend and Cerwynn involuntarily reared back from the sight.

"I..I think you should come back down, lethallin. Please?" She inched backwards even as Tamlen's smile turned from joy to terror.

"It saw me!"

The mirror's surface was akin to a tempest now. Light streaking across the room in steadily building shadow shapes. The following moment a force impacted with Cerwynn's slight frame and she became afloat as if someone had kicked her feet out from under her. She heard her collision with the wall more than she felt it by the sound of falling debris. Her eyes burned from the light and she screwed them shut in agony.

The blackness greeted her ominously, just as Tamlen had said.

It was silent, yet somehow filled with screams.