6.
Ann cautiously entered the Cave of Niet'linair, as Mages had called their stronghold so long ago. There was a huge drop off almost like a cliff one hundred meters into it. Spots of white gleamed from far below, many of them probably a poor animal or even human who had run into the cave for shelter during a thunderstorm only to meet their untimely deaths. At least she could see the bottom. Last time she had crawled down a wall like this using a rope she was attacked by flesh-eating skeletons. She was forced to melt them with acid. They made a kind of screeching noise when she did so. The drop-off here was steep, but Ann felt there was enough handholds to climb down and back up again without equipment. Nevertheless, she tied a rope firmly around a stone so tall is was almost a pillar and lowered the rope until it's end touched the ground far below. She began to climb down without using the rope, enjoying the excitement she felt each time her foot slipped, or her hand grabbed only loose rocks, or she misjudged a distance between ledges. Dangerous? Only for the timid and wary, she scoffed. Nothing could stop her now: she was in her element.
The floor beneath was rocky and uneven, forcing her to feel her way more than see, even with her flashlight it remained dark. She found it easier to crawl in places than try to balance walking. The magnificent structures around the cave awed her. She had learned the named of the different rock formations back in grade school but had since forgotten. It would be fun to come back with a camera someday, she noted, amazed at how beautiful the dark cavern was. Water dripped constantly from the ceiling and gathered in pools whose surfaces had remained untouched for centuries. It didn't take long for Ann to find the path that the H'Oranidelle wizards had carved through the rocks thousands of years ago. It was rigged with dangerous and deadly traps, but Ann walked on it without concern. She had already figured out where all the traps were from the riddle, which was in the shape of a poem. From fragments of the poem in no less than six different translations, along with the faded and hardly legible original manuscript, Ann had pieced together the poem to how it had originally been written - or, as close as anyone would ever get. She pretended she was Indiana Jones (her idol!) bypassing all the traps in The Last Crusade.
_The howling winds of Niet'linair_
_Cuts through the trestles of your hair_
When she reached a spot between two rocks where the draft caused a low mournful sound she dived into a forward roll, humming music to the movie soundtrack as deadly blades swished overhead, cutting through the exact spot where her head and chest had been. They hadn't mentioned in the movie that it hurt your head to do gymnastics on hard stone, but she grinned anyway. It was getting interesting.
_The path soon will begin to slack_
_When certain death sits behind your back_
_As unprotected the traveler will be_
_It will be the last thing you see_
When the path turned straight into a wall, abruptly ending without another turn in sight, Ann only chuckled. She closed her eyes and listened for movement behind her. Taking the charmed whistle hanging from a string around her neck, she blew into it as hard as she could. Ann waited to hear the heavy thud before turning around to observe the dead basilisk behind her. The archaic Shundari word for "certain death," _ackirac eca_, was backwards in the original manuscript, which was idiomatically incorrect: _eca ackirac_. Grammatically, it still soundly meant "certain death", but Ann couldn't help but notice that said backwards it sounded shockingly similar to the old tongue's phrase for basalisk, _ekaki rahk_, literally translated to mean "the eyes of doom." Add in the heavy foreshadowing in the last line of that verse and all Ann had to do was have a friend charm her whistle to sound like a rooster's crow. Sometimes she couldn't believe that so many thousands of wizards and witches had been killed in this cave - were they all daft? As long as you know what you're doing, Ann reassured herself once more, it's really not very complicated at all. But then again, Shundari was an ancient wizarding scholars language so intricate that few could master it. Ann had spent countless hours of grueling study since she first encountered the language at the age of fifteen. The complete lack of knowledge of this language meant she was, as always, self-taught. I should certainly hope I could learn it after ten years, she thought. But some magically scholars had spent their entire lifetime studying the language with no success. Only few living today knew the language, Albus Dumbledore being one, which gave Ann a distinct edge over her competitors. Half the information she gathered came from discarded documents that no one else save herself could decipher.
Ann extracted the knife from her boot (she also had one hidden in her backpack, up her sleeve, in her pocket, and in her sports bra) and cut out one of the basilisk's deadly fangs. She fished around in her pocket to find a thimble to put on its poisoned end. It would do no use getting this far only to cut herself with a basilisk fang. She put it into her backpack - it would might come in handy, and if it didn't she liked to keep souvenirs of her trips. Even Severus had paled when she had showed him her collection of souvenirs, mostly deadly objects such as the fang she now carried.
She turned back to where the path ended and walked straight into the wall. Some people preferred to close their eyes when they passed through magical barriers but Ann liked to see what was coming. This particular barrier would keep all magic from passing through it - the few trinkets Ann kept in her pocket weren't worth it's time to repel. Technically, she could have simply walked through in the first place, but it seemed foolhardy to not take care of the basilisk first incase she was forced to retreat back out through the entrance. Once she was through she found herself in a long tunnel whose walls were full of dazzling jewels. Ann knew they were really razor-sharp spikes - one step in the wrong direction was agonizing death.
_If riches you desire then take_
_Beware though he whose sight is fake_
Again, it was merely wording: fake in Shundari is "ika" - which also happens to be a nickname for the poisoned spikes tribes had used to prevent outsiders from walking through their territory. This whole riddle thing was child's play really.
The tunnel turned opened into a large circular cave. A row of large limestone trunks lined the wall with statues places besides each. The trunks were decorated with what in the original manuscript Ann had thought was nonsense symbols. But after realizing there was a pattern to it she set out to break the code. What had first looked like random symbols was actually complex Arithmancy equations. If she could work each out, as she had done, it would tell her what lay inside each box. One would engulf whoever opened them in fire - but that was one of the nicer outcomes. Others would petrify, vivisect - the more gruesome ones would suck the life force out of whoever opened them, but slowly so that they would spend the last week of their lives trying to crawl back towards the entrance to the cave. They wouldn't make it.
The final piece of the puzzle had been linked by a friend Ann had come across years ago called Dr. Yakov, a Muggle mathematics/physics and Arithmancy expert. According to him, the trunk five down the row to the right of the door would lead to the book. So Ann instead opened the trunk to the left of the entrance. She proofed everything down to the minutest detail herself and had found a simple mistake, easily overlooked, that ruined the entire problem. But Dr. Yakov didn't make mistakes like that. Ann was capable of doing her own research: she found that Yakov had been bribed heavily by Ann's competitors and life-time enemies - Hegemony, Inc. - the most idiotic book dealers to ever live. The company was rich and successful, which could be attributed not to their cunning and brains, but overbearing manipulation. Hegemony had sent several gangs to kidnap her - the last one she had left unconscious in an alleyway in Rotterdam with permanent memory spells, thanks to the bricks she had crushed their skulls with. Ann wasted no time in compiling a report on Yakov, including some very nasty testimonies from former female students and some letters and copies of emails she had managed to secure which detailed the sabotage of a government project. She didn't care if any of it was true or not - once she handle them over to the Russian Ministry, Yakov was out of business - permanently. Lots of people would have scratched Yakov off their list of trusted advisors and let it be, but for Ann it was all or nothing. Hegemony, Inc. would no doubt be furious with her, as always, which she found amusing. She took betrayals very personally.
It did mean she would have to watch herself. If Yakov had any brains at all, which was doubtable, and had access to the original manuscript Ann had copied the Arithmancy equations from he could easily discover what she was after. It was her fault of course - she should know better than to try to rely on anyone else for something she could do herself. She wasn't scared, though, despite the danger in which this placed her - no one could stop her. Even if they followed her straight into this cave they wouldn't find her, instead likely they would be killed in the endeavor by the cave's many traps, magical or otherwise.
Sure enough, the trunk opened to expose stairs leading down, like a cellar. Just to be certain it wouldn't close after her she poured a vial of liquid onto the heavy lid and said the incantation from a good distance away. The top of the trunk exploded, flying throughout the room and covering the floor with another layer of dust. The magic was already imbued within the liquid so that even a Muggle could use it, with the proper incantation. She had several more vials made of unbreakable glass filled with the same highly illegal and hard to come by substance, which was cryptically called EXE. Severus had come across a crate full of Exe in her basement while looking for the cooking pots Ann had ditched and tried to convince her how dangerous it's ownership and storage was. She agreed and promptly moved them to the attic where he wouldn't find them.
She tied an uncuttable rope, this one magically charmed to stretch as long as needed, and tied it around one of the statues placed throughout the room, presumably of the H'Oranidelle Mages. Using so much magical equipment made her feel cheated of the true adventure. On her last trip she had packed nothing more than a small mirror, a handkerchief, and a peanut-butter sandwich. She was proud of the fact that she could usually get by with little more than common Muggle household items. She looked at her watch and found it had been over two hours already since she had entered the cave. Sometimes she timed her expedition to see how fast she could finish, the fastest yet being three hours and one minute. Today didn't look to be a record. She changed the batteries in her flashlight, just in case, and pulled out her necklace from under her shirt. Her necklace was a Nightglass that would shine light if her flashlight should fail. Only the wearer would be able to see the light, whether it was around the neck of a magical being, rodent, or even Muggle. She wore it everywhere. Severus, of course, had recognized it instantly - it was made by dark magic and had to be ordered from a shop on Knockturn Alley all the way in London. She climbed down warily - now wasn't the time to twist any ankles - with her knife out and ready in one hand, her flashlight in the other, the rope securely tied around her waist.
_The way downstairs is dark and damp_
_To see you need more than a lamp_
_The creatures there are in a fit_
_Requiring sharper things than wit_
She froze when she heard the first clicking sound. It came from behind her. Damn! One had snuck by her and she hadn't even seen it. She switched off her flashlight and switched it for another dagger, and continued walking down the stairs under the strange glow of the Nightglass. She hadn't expected to encounter the llorsks until she was out of this tunnel. It would be harder to fight them here, where they could easily surround her on all sides. Llorsks were small scaly creatures the size of a dog, but shaped almost like rodents. The gray animals burrowed magically through rock, meaning they could potentially come out from any of the walls, top or bottom, and kill their prey before it even knew what was coming. The only sound they made was a quiet clicking, which they used to communicate with each other when they found food. Little did they know the roles had been reversed: they now would be the prey. Plenty of powerful wizards had managed to fly by the magical barriers only to be overtaken in physical combat.
Poor fools, she thought to herself, slicing long slits down both arms with her daggers. The smell of blood would attract all of them to her - she didn't want to leave any around that could surprise her later. Sure enough, the walls were soon filed with clicking llorsks burrowing through the stone around her. She smiled, picturing them licking their chops in anticipation. One flew at her from the right; she dodged, quickly slashing its belly open as it went past. Suddenly they all attacked at once, making the small space she had to maneuver full of clicking grey scales. She wove in and out between them, slashing in quick, furtive movements. She only had to injure each enough to draw blood. Llorsks were nasty creatures that were attracted by blood, even the blood of their fallen comrades.
They were beating her up pretty well themselves, she thought - a small scratch here, a bite there, began to add up. The more tired she became, the faster she moved. Her instinct sharpened into focus as the minutes wore on under the seemingly endless supply of llorsks that followed each other out of the walls. The air was full of loose scales and blood flying everywhere, in her hair and into the faces of her attackers - if the situation hadn't been so serious she would have laughed. Her fighting became more and more brutal, more accurate, more deadly. She sprang up and grabbed one that was hanging on the ceiling, waiting for an opportune moment to drop down and claw out her eyes, and slit its throat. She threw it down the stairs at the same time she kicked away the body of another whose brothers were already starting to rip it apart. The llorsks were considered to be almost as intelligent as humans, but Ann knew this to be a false conclusion. Just because a large number of stupid people could together wreck havoc didn't make its individual members any less stupid, the Death Eaters thirteen years ago being a prime example. The llorsks were smart enough, however, to realize that their fallen comrades were much easier prey than the slashing human maniac, although it still took them almost forty-five minutes before they began to back off. After running that last ultra-marathon, such a short time for a workout was nothing to her.
She wanted to stop and take a break, but she consoled herself with a quick sip of water before getting back to business. Ignoring her aching muscles and skin stinging with sweat, she methodically killed each and every one of the llorsks as the ones left munched on the food she had inadvertently provided them with. Filthy scavengers, she thought as she kicked one. It lunged at her in fury and she shoved her dagger directly into it's eye before it could reach her. If even one were left alive it could do enough harm to her that it compromise her entire mission. She was determined to leave with no more injuries than she already had - heck, her foot hurt enough as it was and wasn't even an injury from inside the cave. It felt like a sharp needle was being pushed into the tender arch of her foot with each step she took. She balanced slightly on the outside of her foot as she walked. When she tried to resist the pain it only became worse. If she instead relaxed her mind and accepted the pain, she became drawn into it and it no longer bothered her. It was a special ability she had in order to endure pain - it had allowed her to walk through acid which gave her third degree burns in order to retrieve that book on summoning fire demons (what her clients wanted such a book for was of no consequence - she was paid to do a job and she did it).
It was time to move on. She grabbed a carcass and flung it over her shoulder. One never knew when a dead llorsk would come in handy. She hid the rest of the bodies out the way behind a large rock where the tunnel opened up into a larger room incase she had to go back through in a hurry - many places she had explored were rigged to self-destruct when the book was taken in attempt to bury the thief alive. It was a mind-numbing task gathering the many bodies, but a bit of foresight could easily save her life later on. Turning back on her flashlight, she continued down the large cavern. At the end there was a doorway of sorts which led to a small bedroom-sized chamber. There were five different openings, each a tunnel leading deeper into the cave, each representing one of the five mages who lead the infamous H'Oranidelle Order.
_The five founders lonely stood_
_Each watchful from beneath his hood_
_The first one, amply large and fat_
_Prowls like an ancient jungle cat_
_The second, sleek and smooth as jade_
_If for the wanderer forbade_
_The third sits smartly on his heels_
_Awaits the feet that bring him meals_
_The tranquil fourth will calmly state_
_A miserable and abysmal fate_
_But the rocky turbulence of the last_
_To the answer straight runs fast_
She walked around the cavern in a counter-clockwise circle. The tunnel directly to her left whose entrance was larger and wider than the rest, perhaps fooling some into thinking that it was a main tunnel, and therefore to be taken. The second glowed with green crystals which were probably, Ann guessed, poisoned for those foolish enough to think that a room full of gems could only lead to greater treasures. The third was short but wide and gaping like a gigantic mouth. The fourth appeared to be the nicest: old, used torches still sat decaying on the walls and the floor was smooth and well-worn from an abundance of feet walking over several centuries time. Many people had taken this path before and for a wary adventurer it might appear the safest and most obvious path. Ann shook her head and approached the last tunnel - seriously, was she the only person to ever search for this book who was actually conscious? The last tunnel was a perilous, rocky one that promised many wrong turns, broken noses, and twisted ankles. Good thing my ankles are made of rubber, she thought. They had been twisted so many different ways in her lifetime without breaking that it astounded her they were even still connected to her legs.
She sat outside the entrance to the tunnel and checked over her possessions, cleaning up the several places she had been scratched, putting an antidote to the poisonous llorsk fangs on the places she had been bitten, and making sure all her weapons and notes were in order. Out of curiosity, she slipped off her right boot and peeled her sock off her foot. The bottom of her foot was swollen and red, but the skin of the arch of her foot immediately around the gash, which before had been oozing yellow liquid, had turned bright green. It was infected.
She blew out her breath and almost cried. Now what am I going to do, she moaned silently. Common sense told her that skin didn't normally turn green for no reason and that one experiencing such a thing should probably drop whatever dangerous situation they were currently engaged in and retreat. But she had done fine so far, despite being wounded. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She should have been more careful - this entire mission would be no more dangerous than going for a swim if she proceeding with caution. Why had she gone wading on slippery rocks? Now she'd have to run away like a coward. Or did she?. . .
She had been fine so far, despite her injury. She had killed over a hundred llorsks, defeated a basilisks, even did a bit of rock climbing. It was only in her foot. She could be home by tomorrow afternoon if she went directly back home after retrieving the book, instead of taking her usual meandering course around the world before zeroing in on her destination. Severus would be able to cure it for her then - he knew every healing potion in existence.
Maybe she was just overreacting? But she knew to always trust her instincts on such things, and her instincts told her this infection was going to become very nasty. The only question now was could she retrieve the book despite it? She looked around at the small cavern in the uncanny silence of the cave and frowned. Everything up to now had gone perfectly smooth, as if it were a textbook case of such a mission. There had been no unexpected trapdoors, no fire-breathing demons, no extra riddles to be solved. This worried her.
She shook her head. She was M. A. Wyvern, and she never failed to find a book the first time around. She knew that should she fail to reach it this time she would never come back. It was all or nothing - she never repeated a mission, and today wasn't going to be the first time she did. She put back on her boot , secured her backpack in place, and entered the tunnel. She was too close to turn back now.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
(Some notes:
-Several allusions to Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow series: gangs in Rotterdam, Hegemony Inc
-Shundari = allusion to Ian Irvine's fantastic The View from the Mirror series, name of main continent is Santhenar, I just messed up the letters a bit and made it a language; also a Lorrsk (again I changed the spelling to make it llorsks) is a highly intelligent humanoid creature from the void in Irvine's novels, I borrowed the name, but not the characteristics of the creature.
-Nightglass is from Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule; it gives off light but with some not so happy consequences, thought it would nice foreshadowing for those Goodkind fans out there. . .
-All Shundari words are, to the best of my knowledge, merely nonsense syllables and don't mean anything beyond the definitions I give in the story
-Ann's record for retreating a book, three hours and one minute, is significant because it's my record for the longest distance run I've ever done.
-Thanks to everyone who reviewed: Caribel, Mysterious-backpacker, Bex the bold, alexgray, MadMonkette, missy, Lunatic, byrdgirl, and Teresa
Thanks for reading! Honk if you love Severus! Or not. . .)
Ann cautiously entered the Cave of Niet'linair, as Mages had called their stronghold so long ago. There was a huge drop off almost like a cliff one hundred meters into it. Spots of white gleamed from far below, many of them probably a poor animal or even human who had run into the cave for shelter during a thunderstorm only to meet their untimely deaths. At least she could see the bottom. Last time she had crawled down a wall like this using a rope she was attacked by flesh-eating skeletons. She was forced to melt them with acid. They made a kind of screeching noise when she did so. The drop-off here was steep, but Ann felt there was enough handholds to climb down and back up again without equipment. Nevertheless, she tied a rope firmly around a stone so tall is was almost a pillar and lowered the rope until it's end touched the ground far below. She began to climb down without using the rope, enjoying the excitement she felt each time her foot slipped, or her hand grabbed only loose rocks, or she misjudged a distance between ledges. Dangerous? Only for the timid and wary, she scoffed. Nothing could stop her now: she was in her element.
The floor beneath was rocky and uneven, forcing her to feel her way more than see, even with her flashlight it remained dark. She found it easier to crawl in places than try to balance walking. The magnificent structures around the cave awed her. She had learned the named of the different rock formations back in grade school but had since forgotten. It would be fun to come back with a camera someday, she noted, amazed at how beautiful the dark cavern was. Water dripped constantly from the ceiling and gathered in pools whose surfaces had remained untouched for centuries. It didn't take long for Ann to find the path that the H'Oranidelle wizards had carved through the rocks thousands of years ago. It was rigged with dangerous and deadly traps, but Ann walked on it without concern. She had already figured out where all the traps were from the riddle, which was in the shape of a poem. From fragments of the poem in no less than six different translations, along with the faded and hardly legible original manuscript, Ann had pieced together the poem to how it had originally been written - or, as close as anyone would ever get. She pretended she was Indiana Jones (her idol!) bypassing all the traps in The Last Crusade.
_The howling winds of Niet'linair_
_Cuts through the trestles of your hair_
When she reached a spot between two rocks where the draft caused a low mournful sound she dived into a forward roll, humming music to the movie soundtrack as deadly blades swished overhead, cutting through the exact spot where her head and chest had been. They hadn't mentioned in the movie that it hurt your head to do gymnastics on hard stone, but she grinned anyway. It was getting interesting.
_The path soon will begin to slack_
_When certain death sits behind your back_
_As unprotected the traveler will be_
_It will be the last thing you see_
When the path turned straight into a wall, abruptly ending without another turn in sight, Ann only chuckled. She closed her eyes and listened for movement behind her. Taking the charmed whistle hanging from a string around her neck, she blew into it as hard as she could. Ann waited to hear the heavy thud before turning around to observe the dead basilisk behind her. The archaic Shundari word for "certain death," _ackirac eca_, was backwards in the original manuscript, which was idiomatically incorrect: _eca ackirac_. Grammatically, it still soundly meant "certain death", but Ann couldn't help but notice that said backwards it sounded shockingly similar to the old tongue's phrase for basalisk, _ekaki rahk_, literally translated to mean "the eyes of doom." Add in the heavy foreshadowing in the last line of that verse and all Ann had to do was have a friend charm her whistle to sound like a rooster's crow. Sometimes she couldn't believe that so many thousands of wizards and witches had been killed in this cave - were they all daft? As long as you know what you're doing, Ann reassured herself once more, it's really not very complicated at all. But then again, Shundari was an ancient wizarding scholars language so intricate that few could master it. Ann had spent countless hours of grueling study since she first encountered the language at the age of fifteen. The complete lack of knowledge of this language meant she was, as always, self-taught. I should certainly hope I could learn it after ten years, she thought. But some magically scholars had spent their entire lifetime studying the language with no success. Only few living today knew the language, Albus Dumbledore being one, which gave Ann a distinct edge over her competitors. Half the information she gathered came from discarded documents that no one else save herself could decipher.
Ann extracted the knife from her boot (she also had one hidden in her backpack, up her sleeve, in her pocket, and in her sports bra) and cut out one of the basilisk's deadly fangs. She fished around in her pocket to find a thimble to put on its poisoned end. It would do no use getting this far only to cut herself with a basilisk fang. She put it into her backpack - it would might come in handy, and if it didn't she liked to keep souvenirs of her trips. Even Severus had paled when she had showed him her collection of souvenirs, mostly deadly objects such as the fang she now carried.
She turned back to where the path ended and walked straight into the wall. Some people preferred to close their eyes when they passed through magical barriers but Ann liked to see what was coming. This particular barrier would keep all magic from passing through it - the few trinkets Ann kept in her pocket weren't worth it's time to repel. Technically, she could have simply walked through in the first place, but it seemed foolhardy to not take care of the basilisk first incase she was forced to retreat back out through the entrance. Once she was through she found herself in a long tunnel whose walls were full of dazzling jewels. Ann knew they were really razor-sharp spikes - one step in the wrong direction was agonizing death.
_If riches you desire then take_
_Beware though he whose sight is fake_
Again, it was merely wording: fake in Shundari is "ika" - which also happens to be a nickname for the poisoned spikes tribes had used to prevent outsiders from walking through their territory. This whole riddle thing was child's play really.
The tunnel turned opened into a large circular cave. A row of large limestone trunks lined the wall with statues places besides each. The trunks were decorated with what in the original manuscript Ann had thought was nonsense symbols. But after realizing there was a pattern to it she set out to break the code. What had first looked like random symbols was actually complex Arithmancy equations. If she could work each out, as she had done, it would tell her what lay inside each box. One would engulf whoever opened them in fire - but that was one of the nicer outcomes. Others would petrify, vivisect - the more gruesome ones would suck the life force out of whoever opened them, but slowly so that they would spend the last week of their lives trying to crawl back towards the entrance to the cave. They wouldn't make it.
The final piece of the puzzle had been linked by a friend Ann had come across years ago called Dr. Yakov, a Muggle mathematics/physics and Arithmancy expert. According to him, the trunk five down the row to the right of the door would lead to the book. So Ann instead opened the trunk to the left of the entrance. She proofed everything down to the minutest detail herself and had found a simple mistake, easily overlooked, that ruined the entire problem. But Dr. Yakov didn't make mistakes like that. Ann was capable of doing her own research: she found that Yakov had been bribed heavily by Ann's competitors and life-time enemies - Hegemony, Inc. - the most idiotic book dealers to ever live. The company was rich and successful, which could be attributed not to their cunning and brains, but overbearing manipulation. Hegemony had sent several gangs to kidnap her - the last one she had left unconscious in an alleyway in Rotterdam with permanent memory spells, thanks to the bricks she had crushed their skulls with. Ann wasted no time in compiling a report on Yakov, including some very nasty testimonies from former female students and some letters and copies of emails she had managed to secure which detailed the sabotage of a government project. She didn't care if any of it was true or not - once she handle them over to the Russian Ministry, Yakov was out of business - permanently. Lots of people would have scratched Yakov off their list of trusted advisors and let it be, but for Ann it was all or nothing. Hegemony, Inc. would no doubt be furious with her, as always, which she found amusing. She took betrayals very personally.
It did mean she would have to watch herself. If Yakov had any brains at all, which was doubtable, and had access to the original manuscript Ann had copied the Arithmancy equations from he could easily discover what she was after. It was her fault of course - she should know better than to try to rely on anyone else for something she could do herself. She wasn't scared, though, despite the danger in which this placed her - no one could stop her. Even if they followed her straight into this cave they wouldn't find her, instead likely they would be killed in the endeavor by the cave's many traps, magical or otherwise.
Sure enough, the trunk opened to expose stairs leading down, like a cellar. Just to be certain it wouldn't close after her she poured a vial of liquid onto the heavy lid and said the incantation from a good distance away. The top of the trunk exploded, flying throughout the room and covering the floor with another layer of dust. The magic was already imbued within the liquid so that even a Muggle could use it, with the proper incantation. She had several more vials made of unbreakable glass filled with the same highly illegal and hard to come by substance, which was cryptically called EXE. Severus had come across a crate full of Exe in her basement while looking for the cooking pots Ann had ditched and tried to convince her how dangerous it's ownership and storage was. She agreed and promptly moved them to the attic where he wouldn't find them.
She tied an uncuttable rope, this one magically charmed to stretch as long as needed, and tied it around one of the statues placed throughout the room, presumably of the H'Oranidelle Mages. Using so much magical equipment made her feel cheated of the true adventure. On her last trip she had packed nothing more than a small mirror, a handkerchief, and a peanut-butter sandwich. She was proud of the fact that she could usually get by with little more than common Muggle household items. She looked at her watch and found it had been over two hours already since she had entered the cave. Sometimes she timed her expedition to see how fast she could finish, the fastest yet being three hours and one minute. Today didn't look to be a record. She changed the batteries in her flashlight, just in case, and pulled out her necklace from under her shirt. Her necklace was a Nightglass that would shine light if her flashlight should fail. Only the wearer would be able to see the light, whether it was around the neck of a magical being, rodent, or even Muggle. She wore it everywhere. Severus, of course, had recognized it instantly - it was made by dark magic and had to be ordered from a shop on Knockturn Alley all the way in London. She climbed down warily - now wasn't the time to twist any ankles - with her knife out and ready in one hand, her flashlight in the other, the rope securely tied around her waist.
_The way downstairs is dark and damp_
_To see you need more than a lamp_
_The creatures there are in a fit_
_Requiring sharper things than wit_
She froze when she heard the first clicking sound. It came from behind her. Damn! One had snuck by her and she hadn't even seen it. She switched off her flashlight and switched it for another dagger, and continued walking down the stairs under the strange glow of the Nightglass. She hadn't expected to encounter the llorsks until she was out of this tunnel. It would be harder to fight them here, where they could easily surround her on all sides. Llorsks were small scaly creatures the size of a dog, but shaped almost like rodents. The gray animals burrowed magically through rock, meaning they could potentially come out from any of the walls, top or bottom, and kill their prey before it even knew what was coming. The only sound they made was a quiet clicking, which they used to communicate with each other when they found food. Little did they know the roles had been reversed: they now would be the prey. Plenty of powerful wizards had managed to fly by the magical barriers only to be overtaken in physical combat.
Poor fools, she thought to herself, slicing long slits down both arms with her daggers. The smell of blood would attract all of them to her - she didn't want to leave any around that could surprise her later. Sure enough, the walls were soon filed with clicking llorsks burrowing through the stone around her. She smiled, picturing them licking their chops in anticipation. One flew at her from the right; she dodged, quickly slashing its belly open as it went past. Suddenly they all attacked at once, making the small space she had to maneuver full of clicking grey scales. She wove in and out between them, slashing in quick, furtive movements. She only had to injure each enough to draw blood. Llorsks were nasty creatures that were attracted by blood, even the blood of their fallen comrades.
They were beating her up pretty well themselves, she thought - a small scratch here, a bite there, began to add up. The more tired she became, the faster she moved. Her instinct sharpened into focus as the minutes wore on under the seemingly endless supply of llorsks that followed each other out of the walls. The air was full of loose scales and blood flying everywhere, in her hair and into the faces of her attackers - if the situation hadn't been so serious she would have laughed. Her fighting became more and more brutal, more accurate, more deadly. She sprang up and grabbed one that was hanging on the ceiling, waiting for an opportune moment to drop down and claw out her eyes, and slit its throat. She threw it down the stairs at the same time she kicked away the body of another whose brothers were already starting to rip it apart. The llorsks were considered to be almost as intelligent as humans, but Ann knew this to be a false conclusion. Just because a large number of stupid people could together wreck havoc didn't make its individual members any less stupid, the Death Eaters thirteen years ago being a prime example. The llorsks were smart enough, however, to realize that their fallen comrades were much easier prey than the slashing human maniac, although it still took them almost forty-five minutes before they began to back off. After running that last ultra-marathon, such a short time for a workout was nothing to her.
She wanted to stop and take a break, but she consoled herself with a quick sip of water before getting back to business. Ignoring her aching muscles and skin stinging with sweat, she methodically killed each and every one of the llorsks as the ones left munched on the food she had inadvertently provided them with. Filthy scavengers, she thought as she kicked one. It lunged at her in fury and she shoved her dagger directly into it's eye before it could reach her. If even one were left alive it could do enough harm to her that it compromise her entire mission. She was determined to leave with no more injuries than she already had - heck, her foot hurt enough as it was and wasn't even an injury from inside the cave. It felt like a sharp needle was being pushed into the tender arch of her foot with each step she took. She balanced slightly on the outside of her foot as she walked. When she tried to resist the pain it only became worse. If she instead relaxed her mind and accepted the pain, she became drawn into it and it no longer bothered her. It was a special ability she had in order to endure pain - it had allowed her to walk through acid which gave her third degree burns in order to retrieve that book on summoning fire demons (what her clients wanted such a book for was of no consequence - she was paid to do a job and she did it).
It was time to move on. She grabbed a carcass and flung it over her shoulder. One never knew when a dead llorsk would come in handy. She hid the rest of the bodies out the way behind a large rock where the tunnel opened up into a larger room incase she had to go back through in a hurry - many places she had explored were rigged to self-destruct when the book was taken in attempt to bury the thief alive. It was a mind-numbing task gathering the many bodies, but a bit of foresight could easily save her life later on. Turning back on her flashlight, she continued down the large cavern. At the end there was a doorway of sorts which led to a small bedroom-sized chamber. There were five different openings, each a tunnel leading deeper into the cave, each representing one of the five mages who lead the infamous H'Oranidelle Order.
_The five founders lonely stood_
_Each watchful from beneath his hood_
_The first one, amply large and fat_
_Prowls like an ancient jungle cat_
_The second, sleek and smooth as jade_
_If for the wanderer forbade_
_The third sits smartly on his heels_
_Awaits the feet that bring him meals_
_The tranquil fourth will calmly state_
_A miserable and abysmal fate_
_But the rocky turbulence of the last_
_To the answer straight runs fast_
She walked around the cavern in a counter-clockwise circle. The tunnel directly to her left whose entrance was larger and wider than the rest, perhaps fooling some into thinking that it was a main tunnel, and therefore to be taken. The second glowed with green crystals which were probably, Ann guessed, poisoned for those foolish enough to think that a room full of gems could only lead to greater treasures. The third was short but wide and gaping like a gigantic mouth. The fourth appeared to be the nicest: old, used torches still sat decaying on the walls and the floor was smooth and well-worn from an abundance of feet walking over several centuries time. Many people had taken this path before and for a wary adventurer it might appear the safest and most obvious path. Ann shook her head and approached the last tunnel - seriously, was she the only person to ever search for this book who was actually conscious? The last tunnel was a perilous, rocky one that promised many wrong turns, broken noses, and twisted ankles. Good thing my ankles are made of rubber, she thought. They had been twisted so many different ways in her lifetime without breaking that it astounded her they were even still connected to her legs.
She sat outside the entrance to the tunnel and checked over her possessions, cleaning up the several places she had been scratched, putting an antidote to the poisonous llorsk fangs on the places she had been bitten, and making sure all her weapons and notes were in order. Out of curiosity, she slipped off her right boot and peeled her sock off her foot. The bottom of her foot was swollen and red, but the skin of the arch of her foot immediately around the gash, which before had been oozing yellow liquid, had turned bright green. It was infected.
She blew out her breath and almost cried. Now what am I going to do, she moaned silently. Common sense told her that skin didn't normally turn green for no reason and that one experiencing such a thing should probably drop whatever dangerous situation they were currently engaged in and retreat. But she had done fine so far, despite being wounded. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She should have been more careful - this entire mission would be no more dangerous than going for a swim if she proceeding with caution. Why had she gone wading on slippery rocks? Now she'd have to run away like a coward. Or did she?. . .
She had been fine so far, despite her injury. She had killed over a hundred llorsks, defeated a basilisks, even did a bit of rock climbing. It was only in her foot. She could be home by tomorrow afternoon if she went directly back home after retrieving the book, instead of taking her usual meandering course around the world before zeroing in on her destination. Severus would be able to cure it for her then - he knew every healing potion in existence.
Maybe she was just overreacting? But she knew to always trust her instincts on such things, and her instincts told her this infection was going to become very nasty. The only question now was could she retrieve the book despite it? She looked around at the small cavern in the uncanny silence of the cave and frowned. Everything up to now had gone perfectly smooth, as if it were a textbook case of such a mission. There had been no unexpected trapdoors, no fire-breathing demons, no extra riddles to be solved. This worried her.
She shook her head. She was M. A. Wyvern, and she never failed to find a book the first time around. She knew that should she fail to reach it this time she would never come back. It was all or nothing - she never repeated a mission, and today wasn't going to be the first time she did. She put back on her boot , secured her backpack in place, and entered the tunnel. She was too close to turn back now.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
(Some notes:
-Several allusions to Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow series: gangs in Rotterdam, Hegemony Inc
-Shundari = allusion to Ian Irvine's fantastic The View from the Mirror series, name of main continent is Santhenar, I just messed up the letters a bit and made it a language; also a Lorrsk (again I changed the spelling to make it llorsks) is a highly intelligent humanoid creature from the void in Irvine's novels, I borrowed the name, but not the characteristics of the creature.
-Nightglass is from Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule; it gives off light but with some not so happy consequences, thought it would nice foreshadowing for those Goodkind fans out there. . .
-All Shundari words are, to the best of my knowledge, merely nonsense syllables and don't mean anything beyond the definitions I give in the story
-Ann's record for retreating a book, three hours and one minute, is significant because it's my record for the longest distance run I've ever done.
-Thanks to everyone who reviewed: Caribel, Mysterious-backpacker, Bex the bold, alexgray, MadMonkette, missy, Lunatic, byrdgirl, and Teresa
Thanks for reading! Honk if you love Severus! Or not. . .)