I'm sorry!!! I know it's been like forever sence I updated but bare w/ me I wrote a loooooog chappy as a "please forgive me and finish my story" and her it is!
"What do you mean there's no site of them?!" Chi-Cura exclaimed, she rose to her feet and glared down at the pirates that were bowing at her feet.
"Many apologies my Ladyship, but we've seen neither head or tail of the two mages you require."
"And the other two? What of them?"
"We think they're in the Temples with the rest of the slime from Emelan."
"Good, keep them there until we find the other two mages they can't have vanished, they are somewhere and we are going to find them even if we must turn the countryside upside-down and back again!"
Briar woke up to the smell or roasting meat and the sun shining in his eyes. Groggily he sat up, rubbed his eyes and looked around trying to remember where he had fallen asleep.
"Good morning sleepy head!" Came a very cheerful voice from in front of him. "Sandry where are we?"
Sandry's hands jolted and she almost flipped half the ham instead of all of it. "Briar my name's Lace remember?" She remained him telepathically. 'Crap!' He thought, not so that Sandry could hear it.
'That's ok Briar, I don't think they heard.'
He let out a breath and looked over at what she was doing.
"So what cooking?"
Sandry smiled widely at him with her mouth closed. "I'm making breakfast, Kally taught me."
At that moment Kally came back into the room with a big bag or things, which she put down beside her as she sat down beside Sandry.
"Hah sure did, what kind of servant doesn't know how to cook ham? It's a good thing you're going to find her mom or she'd not know nothin' about anything."
Briar chuckled and nibbled on the piece of ham that Sandry had put down on a big leaf for him.
"We'll if anything she's good with thread."
"I'll take that as a complement."
"So what's in the bag Kally?" Briar asked, it was a good thing Sandry told him her name or he would have forgotten that too.
"Stuff for you're trip of course, water food, blankets, some bandages Lace made from just some just some reeds, and some other stuff. Oh and Yashin made a map for ya."
Briar finished off the last of his breakfast and laughed. "How long was I asleep?"
"Long enough for me to make breakfast twice in one day." Sandry answered, pointed her thumb at the two empty and used leafs next to he fire pit.
"Well you know when you travel at night it's hard to keep up regular sleeping habits."
"I hear you brother." Came Yashin's voice from the next room, he apparently had been looking for something and when he couldn't find it decided to come back.
A few hours later Yashin and Kally were walking Sandry and Briar through the tunnels turning this way and that until they got to an opening where it branched off in the three places.
"Now you wanna take the tunnel on the far right, that will lead you to the entrance of the Forbidden Passageway. Just look a the map, it should help it's what's left of a map my father made a long time ago, it should tell you which ways are dangerous and which aren't. The line going through it right there."
He pointed to a long black line that stretched from one side of the old ruff edge of the paper to the other.
"Is the 'three fourths of the way' mark, that there is clean fresh drinkin' water. Refill you're canteens there and you'll make it to the Castle."
Kally nodded to Sandry and Briar a custom goodbye, "If you two survive this, you'll be the second ones to do it."
"Good luck, I hope ya make it." Yashin finished, shaking Briar's hand, then Sandry's.
"I wish you two luck as well, may the Gods keep you Safe." Kally made the god circle for a god that Sandry was not familiar but Briar seemed to know, because he drew the same upon his chest.
"Goodbye Kally, and Yashin thank you for everything." Sandry said, smiled at her new friends.
"Yeah, it's been good seeing an old face again." Briar commented.
The four parted, two going north and two south. Sandry stopped when she saw the big black door in front of them, and she hesitated for a moment as far as she could see into that unknown tunnel it was nothing but black.
Then she felt a warm hand on her shoulder, she looked up and saw Briar looking down on her a comforting smile on his face. Sandry returned his smile, and grasping his hand they walked into that black abyss.
Truthfully it was only that way for a few seconds, Briar struck a match a lit the torch that they carried with them.
"We're going to have to limit the use of this, we only have so much oil." Sandry nodded, acknowledging that she understood.
They tunnel wasn't flat but had a very ragged floor. Rocks stuck up everywhere, and since the flame was a small one it didn't always shine light on the desired places and many times they had to steady one another.
There were also a few drop offs that they had to climb down but not too bad.
A few hours later Briar had stopped to look at the map to confirm their course. "Hm...this is odd..."
"What?" Sandry asked, she was sitting beside him on a smaller rock.
"This says that there should be a water fall up ahead....just a few turns around the bend...."
"I don't hear anything though..."
"That's what I'm wondering about, maybe the water is all dried up."
"It wouldn't have been much help to us anyway, Yashin specifically said not to drink any water until we got to the big river, and that we would have we would have heard by now."
"I guess we should just keep going and see what we see. As long as we follow this map we should be ok."
They had been walking for about another mile before they stopped again, this time not to luck at a map but because there was no more path. They were looking down on what indeed was a water fall, but unlike most waterfalls this waterfall was not pleasant to look at, it was black and gooky, filled with who knows what.
"What are we doing to do? It doesn't look there is any bridge."
"If there was it's gone now." Briar added, moving the torch this way and that trying to find a way they could cross.
"Oh look Briar! Over there it's a bridge! " Sandry pointed to a place where the land wasn't but a ten yards apart, as oppose to the possible mile that the one in front of them was, and there was a small bride strung across it.
She was going to walk over to the place she had discovered but Briar stopped her.
"It's a narrow passage way, let me go first to make sure it's safe."
Sandry was about to argue but thought better of it, they had no time to waste arguing over simple matters.
Briar walked face to the wall along the narrow ledge, all was going relatively well he inched along once step at a time and was just a few feet from his destination when the ground under his left foot crumbled, and some of it feel into the water below.
"Wow!" Briar exclaimed as he regained his footing, he looked back at Sandry who was clasping her hands together tightly as one does when their praying and he smiled a little.
He made it to the wider part of the ledge and near the edge saw that it was in fact just about a five yard distance.
"You can look now Sandry." He called back.
Sandry looked up from her current position and defensively said, "I wasn't afraid." After hearing the chuckles that escaped him.
A few minutes later Sandry was on the other side with Briar, and now they had another task. Should they dare try and cross this rickety bridge, which was missing so many planks? The answer had to be yes because unless they suddenly sprouted wings there was no way of getting across.
"I think this time I should go first, I know you're going to object but just listen ok?"
Briar crossed his arms in front of his chest and put on a "I don't care what you say you're not going to change my mind so you might as well try anyway." Look signaling for her to continue.
"I weigh a lot less then you do right?"
"Right."
"So if I go first it's less stress on the bridge and a better chance of you making it too."
Briar though for a few seconds then he said, "Fine...I would feel a lot better about this if there were any plants around though...particularly vines...then they could catch you if you fell."
Sandry smiled. "Don't worry Briar, I promise I'll be careful. And just to be sure I'll send some magic through the rope. It's very old so I don't know how well it will obey me but I'm going to try."
With that she focused her magical talent on the old, broken and worn lengths of rope that held the feeble bridge together. The fibers started to move on their own, trying to get out of Sandry's grasp, not being used to magic they were reluctant to submit to her will.
But a few minutes of rustling and fighting and the rope finally gave up and let Sandry strengthen it's old weary body.
Sandry took a deep breath and stepped onto the first plank, it creaked but held out under her small weight. She took another step and then another until she was halfway out, then she came to a spot where there weren't any planks for a few steps. She would have to walk along the rope or jump...
Briar who had been pacing back and forth on the ledge where they had started stopped and held the torch as far as he could so that she could see.
Sandry, taking another breathe and sending another serge of magic through the rope stepped onto the thin rope and inched her way to the other end.
Briar held his breath as she neared the next plank, hoping and praying with his whole being that it would not give way.
'If it does...I'll be ready to plumage in right after her, we're in this together.'
Sandry put first one foot down on the wooden step, then the other and then released the rope, but when she stepped onto the plank after it her foot fell through.
"Ah!" She yelled as a majority of her torso disappeared under the bridge, just her head, shoulders and arms were visible above it. She grabbed onto the nearest piece of rope and clung to if for dear life.
"Sandry!" Briar exclaimed as he ran towards the bridge. "Hold on I'm coming!"
"Briar wait, don't run on the planks! I'm sure I can pull myself up..."
And she pulled on that rope and kicked with her legs but her arms weren't strong enough to lift enough of her body over the planks beside her.
"Sandry you're going to hurt yourself, just hold on and try not to move." Briar began to walk the planks as fast as he could to get to her.
Finally too came to the part of the journey where you had to walk the tightrope, putting the small torch in the cock of his arm he inched his way towards her.
In her fright Sandry had lost concentration on her magical control over the ropes and they weakened.
Briar put down the torch so that it stood erect and holding the handle of the bridge with one hand he reached for Sandry's.
"Grab my hand."
Sandry wasn't sure which hand to release from it's safe place on the rope and hesitated still after choosing her right.
"I promise I won't let you fall, trust me." Briar stretched his hand further and Sandry grabbed it. Briar pulled and Sandry pushed with her left and soon she was back on top of that unsteady bridge.
Sandry looked up at Briar, the fear still lingering in her eyes. Something in Briar's heart made it beat louder and he prayed that she didn't hear it too. He cupped her face with his hand and tried to rub out the coldness from them.
It was then that they heard the small and deadly sounds, snap snap snap! They looked and saw that the rope was started to tare and break way from the posts that were driven into the ground to keep in there.
In a moment of panic Briar snatched up the torch and he and Sandry ran as fast as they could to the other side.
"We're not going to make it!"
"Yes we are, we're just going to have to jump!"
And jump they did, but they didn't reach the edge, they had to grab onto the bride ropes and after a quick fall they slammed into the wall of the cliff, the impact extinguished the torch and they were in the dark.
"B-Briar....now what do we do?" Sandry asked.
"Just before the light went out I saw that there's a beach close at the right. If we jump that way and aim our whole bodies to the right we should make it."
"Alright...I trust you." And Sandry being the nearest to the right jumped first, and indeed she landed on cold hard sand.
"You were right Briar!" She exclaimed happily as she heard him crunch down beside her.
Then she thought she heard something move and begged for Briar to relight the torch.
But as soon as that small flame cast light upon the walls of the tunnel Sandry wished for it to go away again. She shrieked in terror at what lay before her and she clutched Briar's arm, burring her head in his sleeve.
On the floor lay bodies, bones and other horrible remains.
"Kally wasn't kidding when she said that many people didn't make it...."
Briar wrapped the arm that wasn't holding the burring stick that they used for light and wrapped it around Sandry's shoulders. "They probably just drowned is all..."
'I'm not going to tell her what really happened to them...but I have to get the both of us back up to that ledge as soon as possible!'
He looked at the map and found that there was a steep path back up along the cliff.
A few hours later they were settling down for bed, feeling that they couldn't go another step without sleep or food they had stopped eaten the rest of that day's ration and were now laying out the blankets that Kally had packed for them.
Sandry shivered a little as she spread out the bottom blanket that separated them from the cold hard ground.
She blushed when she noticed that there was only one set of blankets. "I guess she thought because we told her we were engaged...she only packed one bed setting.
Briar blushed too, hopping that the light from Sandry's crystal hadn't given away the red tints in his checks. (they had put out the torch to save oil and were using Sandry's crystal))
"I'll sleep on top of the blankets if you want Sandry, it's not too cold."
Sandry shook her head and climbing under the covers patted he spot next to her. "No way, you're going to freeze to death."
"Alright..." Briar uneasily climbed into the substitute bed and lay beside Sandry who turned over on her side to make more room for him.
She had already closed her eyes and was drifting to sleep. "Goodnight Briar..." She whispered, nudged her head closer to him un-knowingly.
"Night." Briar answered, as he felt his own eyelids become heavy, but he still felt that sleep was not an option although it was necessary.
'Lets hope that whatever ate those men....is only a water inhabitant...'
And through all these thoughts of what would happen if they were eaten in their sleep he drifted into a light slumber, waking up at the slightest noise.