A/N: Damn FFN gave me a weird error when I tried to post this chapter. Luckily, saving the document in a different format seemed to be a get-around, so you still get to enjoy this lovely chapter. Happy reading. =)

Chapter Ten

Enakhra was annoyed. After Zemouregal and Sliske's exchange, she now had two unsolved mysteries nagging at her. She was still intensely curious about Azzanadra's sudden change in personality, and now she was wondering what had happened to Sliske to make him react like he had.

"Why can't I ever be curious about people I like?" she grumbled to herself. "Damn interesting Zarosians."

"What was that?" Zemouregal asked, coming up behind her. "Have you taken up talking to yourself now, too?"

She glared at him. "Following someone around just to irritate them seems like it would be a waste of time."

"On the contrary," he said, "it's the only real interesting thing to do in this drab hole we're stuck in. But you do realize it's your own fault that I'm annoying, right?"

That was a new one. "I'm afraid I fail to understand your logic. How exactly is your personality my fault?"

"Oh, that's not your fault," he said. "What is your fault is that I've been forced to treat you the way I treat everyone else. We could be on so much better terms with each other, but you remain infuriatingly stubborn."

Enakhra sighed. "I could say the same. Doesn't it get old, going after the same thing over and over again without any results?"

"Like banging my head against a stone wall," he said cheerfully. "Fortunately, I've broken stone walls with my head before, so I'm not out of hope just yet."

"You are the most incorrigible, unrepentant bastard I've ever had the displeasure to associate with," she said. "I hope you have an absolutely horrendous headache from that stone wall."

He just smirked at her. "I think I might be making progress, actually."

Repressing the urge to throw her hands in the air and scream at him, she sped up and hoped that he wasn't feeling persistent enough to follow her. It seemed as though he wasn't.

It was then that she noticed that Sliske didn't seem to be with the rest of the group anymore.

In fact, he seemed to have disappeared entirely.

The tunnels may have been relatively well-lit as far as tunnels went, but Sliske had been a master of shadows for longer than the majority of Gielinor's most ancient inhabitants had been alive. He knew how to manipulate the slightest little dark spots and make himself practically invisible, and that was just what he had done, because sometimes he didn't feel like being seen.

He knew that the others would take any sign of weakness and file it away for later use against him. Hell, anything he gave them now would probably just be a mark against him when they got back to Ghorrock and started in on the pre-Ritual politics again. Despite anything he may have wished over the years, he didn't really want to die. All of the Mahjarrat had deeply ingrained senses of self-preservation, and he was no exception.

That was why, the moment he began to feel that he was anything less than perfectly stable, he got out of sight in any way available to him. And he planned to stay out of sight until he could get himself under complete control.

Unfortunately, he was having trouble controlling his own mind. Trying not to think about something had a tendency to make you think about it, and he couldn't stop a single name from rising to the front of his mind. Feeling barraged by memories, he repressed the sounds that his throat seemed determined to let out. His cloak of shadows wouldn't prevent anyone from hearing him.

Damn you, Zemouregal, he thought bitterly. Damn your prying. It had been centuries since he'd been in a lucid enough state of mind to have this problem, but now he was, and it had taken just two flippant sentences from Zemouregal to bring up memories that Sliske had gone insane trying to forget.

Shadows formed by lack of light may obey his every command, but the shadows of the past were another matter entirely; they held him in a tenacious stranglehold, constricting him as only guilt and misery could.

"Is this it?" Zemouregal asked, eyeing the solid wall of rock that they had come to.

"That depends," Bilrach replied, "on what you think 'it' is. No, this isn't the Rift."

Zemouregal rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I gathered that from the fact that no one knows for sure if it even exists. I meant, is this where we're supposed to start digging or whatever it is we're going to be doing."

"This is merely where I stopped before leaving for Ghorrock," Bilrach said. "If we were to begin digging, I suppose we would probably do it here. However, I've been thinking about this, and it seems to me that we should go about this a different way."

"But how elthe are we going to find the Rift?" Lucien asked. "I thought you thaid that we have to dig it out."

"Well, yes," Bilrach said. "But do you know how long I've been down here already? Centuries. And I haven't found it yet. So if we want to find it in a reasonable amount of time, I think we should use a different method to locate it."

"So what is this 'different method'?" Enakhra asked. "And why haven't you used it before now?"

"Because I don't actually have a different method," Bilrach said. "I was simply saying that we should attempt to come up with one to speed the process up. The less time I have to spend with you all, the happier I'll be."

"The feeling is mutual, I assure you," Zemouregal said. "But honestly, what are you expecting us to do? Hold hands and chant like monks until part of the rock miraculously starts to glow?"

I wish I had arms right now, Azzanadra thought. Someone really needs to punch him in the face.

If you greatly wish to see your fist meet his face, I could no doubt accomplish that.

As tempting as that was, Azzanadra knew that starting a brawl would only delay things further. But he could at least keep himself entertained with mental images of what would have happened.

"If we could make the Rift glow," Bilrach said, "I would say hold hands and chant until your head falls off. Unfortunately, I doubt it would actually do anything. And what did I say about disparaging remarks? Is your memory so pathetic that you've already forgotten what you agreed to?"

"I only make it a point to remember things that I think will be useful to me," Zemouregal said. "That didn't make the list."

"Ugh," Enakhra said, rolling her eyes. "How long is this going to continue? I didn't sign up for a century-long irritation fest. Strange as it may sound, I like results."

"There must be something we can do," Zaros said. "The Rift is, if it exists, a significant magical force. We are also a significant magical force, with our powers combined. It seems that there must be some solution to this perplexing problem."

"We're not magical magnets," Zemouregal said. "We can't just…attract the Rift."

"I never suggested that to be the case."

"We could thimply catht our magic around, couldn't we?" Lucien asked. "It would eventually catch thomething, right?"

"NO!" Bilrach thundered. "If you so much as cast one blast in my tunnels, you'll face the full extent of my fury!"

Which is honestly terrifying, Azzanadra thought wryly.

"Oh, will the lot of you just shut up?" a voice asked wearily.

Everyone looked toward the source, and watched Sliske step out of the shadows.

"Where the hell did you come from?" Zemouregal asked, looking a bit bemused. "I thought you'd disappeared."

Sliske ignored him. "Since you all seem somewhat challenged in the intelligence department, it leaves me to do the thinking for you all. Who wants to hear my idea?"

A/N: So now you pestering people can get off my back about updating this. Though I'm sure you'll just start pestering for the next chapter. I suppose I don't mind; it certainly motivates me. =)