25th Day of Goodmonth, 565 CY

The Dungeons of the Slave Lords

The Aerie, The Pomarj

The earth was moving again.

Once more, the rumbling deep below Elrohir's head and the pebbles and dust falling from below awoke the ranger, but there were significant distances this time.

For one, opening his eyes didn't help. It was completely and utterly black.

Secondly, the rumbling wasn't only coming from beneath him. Elrohir could hear the subterranean growling from all sides and even from above, where it was accompanied by the erratic but alarming sound of stone cracking.

And finally, as the sounds of the tremor faded away, they was replaced by other sounds. The moaning and groaning of other people regaining consciousness.

They sounded like they were very close.

"Argo?"

There was the sound of coughing and moaning, but then the reassuring voice of Elrohir's fellow ranger answered him.

"Hey, Elrohir. For a moment I thought you weren't going to join the party."

"Wouldn't miss it," the group leader muttered as he slowly raised himself into a sitting position. Although he was heavily fatigued, as well as both parched and starving, Elrohir noticed that he didn't seem to be sporting the bruises he had upon his last awakening.

"Who else is here?" he asked.

A cacophony of voices answered him at once.

"Hold it! Hold it!" Elrohir cut in with as close to a shout as he could manage, holding up his hand for silence before belatedly realizing no one could see it. "I'm going to do a role call. Answer when you hear your name. Aslan."

"I'm here, Elrohir, but before you go on, I think I should let you know we've got a problem."

"Damn- and everything was going so well!"

"Stitch it closed, Argo!"

"What is it, Aslan?" Elrohir asked.

There was a pause.

"My Talent is full; but I can't use it. I can't use it at all."

Everyone went quiet..

"There's some kind of metal collar around my neck," the paladin's voice continued. "I presume it's suppressing my Talent somehow, but there's no seam in it that I can feel."

Elrohir sighed. "All right, Aslan. We'll take a look at it once we get a light going." The ranger's voice trembled slightly before uttering the next name. "Talass."

"I'm here, dearest."

Her husband couldn't repress his sigh of relief.

"Are you," Elrohir swallowed hard, "all right?"

"Fairly, considering that I expected to wake up dead," the priestess commented. "However, they're taken my holy symbol along with everything else. I have a light orison, but it's useless if I can't focus on the prayer."

"Same situation here, Elrohir." Cygnus' voice cut through the darkness and the mumbling of other voices. "They stripped me down to the bone. I can't use my light cantrip either."

"Understood, Cygnus. I know you're here.- Zantac, how about you?"

"Present and sorry to be so."

"You and me both, Zantac. Nesco, how about you?"

He waited.

Just as he was about to call out her name again, Elrohir heard Lady Cynewine's reply, but it came weakly and in spurts, through sobs.

"I… I'm here."

Elrohir furrowed his brow. "Nesco, are you all right?"

He thought he caught the word "Yes" amongst his fellow ranger's tears, but clearly Nesco wasn't all right. Elrohir clenched his fists in frustration, but he had to account for everyone else first. He was still the leader here, and everyone needed his help. He had to continue the role call.

"Tojo?"

There was no reply.

"Tojo?"

Elrohir's blood slowly began to chill.

"Elrohir."

This was the voice of Sir Menn. "I've already accounted for Sitdale and Unru. Don't samurai have some sort of code against being taken alive at all costs?"

Elrohir couldn't hear anything else now over the sound of his own labored breathing.

If Tojo woke up at any point during his captivity like I did, would he have immediately tried to kill himself, or been killed by his captors after he attacked them in a fury? Please let me be wrong. Please.

The ranger suddenly realized he didn't even know to whom he was praying.

"Elrohir, this is Arwald. Hengist and Thorimund are here and all right, but we've also been completely stripped. Is there anyone here who still has any of their possessions?"

Several seconds produced the series of negative replies that Elrohir had been expecting.

"Well, Elrohir," Arwald continued. "Are you up to leading us out of here, or do you want me to assume command?"

The ranger stiffened at the harshness just below the fighter's words.

"I'm still in charge here until we find Wainold, Arwald," he snapped. "And I suggest you don't forget that."

"So what's our first move?" Sir Menn asked.

"If I may," Thorimund cut in. "I only need a tiny piece of phosphorescent moss for my light cantrip. I assume we're in the dungeons of the Slave Lords-"

"Natural caverns, more like," came the voice of Sitdale. "Judging by the echoes of our voices I'm hearing and the rough feel of this floor."

"My thought exactly," responded Thorimund. "That kind of moss isn't all that uncommon underground. If we start moving, we might encounter some."

There were mumbled agreements from the other mages present.

Elrohir thought hard, trying to regain the mantle of leadership that seemed in his mind to be sliding away from him. "All right, Thorimund. That's a good idea but let me ask Talass something first. Dearest, if we rested up here for a while, could you regain some prayers that you could still cast even without your holy symbol?"

His wife seemed to hesitate before replying.

"Yes, but I don't think we have that kind of time."

Elrohir frowned in the dark. "Why not?"

"The Earth Dragon."

Silence covered the blackness again.

"Your vision, Talass?" asked Aslan.

"Yes." The cleric's voice was softer now. "He's going to make the volcano erupt- and soon."

"That'd collapse these caverns," Sitdale's voice couldn't hide the half-elf's gloominess. "or at the least fill them with molten lava."

"That doesn't make sense," Zantac cut in. "A volcanic eruption would destroy this whole island, wouldn't it? Why would any god wipe out his own worshippers like that?"

"I don't know, Zantac." Talass sounded too tired to argue. "I only know what I saw."

Elrohir took a deep breath. "All right then, people. Here's what we're going-"

"Hey," interrupted Unru. "There's something by my foot."

Nesco Cynewine sat with her arms clutched tightly around her knees, rocking back and forth.

There were two reasons for her grief. The first was her sadness and anger at her absolute uselessness during the battle that had led to their imprisonment. She had been hit, one-two, by spells that took her right out of the fight. Nesco didn't know what had transpired after that, but she was sure she could have made a difference. True, she was still alive, but that was through no effort of her own. She could have just as easily been dead.

Again. Useless. Again.

But as bad as all that was, it was the second reason that was hurting Nesco even more at this moment. She knew that at some point, the group would be able to obtain some kind of light source, and then they would be able to see.

See that aside from a torn and dirty loincloth that didn't feel like it was going to last that long anyway, Lady Cynewine was completely naked.

She didn't want Aslan to see her like that. Not here. Not now. And no matter how childish she told herself she was being, Nesco couldn't push that thought out of her mind. She couldn't stop her tears- and that made her all the angrier for it. She felt like just staying here. Maybe the others wouldn't realize she had-

"Nesco-sama?"

Nesco jerked her head up.

It hadn't been any more than a whisper. The others had all crowded around Unru and whatever the object was that the illusionist had discovered- Nesco couldn't decipher all the voices talking at once.

Stifling her sobs, the ranger scooted towards the direction where she thought the voice had come from.

"Tojo?"

Incredibly, she heard the sound of the samurai choking back tears of his own- if such a thing was possible.

"Are you injured, Nesco-sama?"

"No, Tojo," Nesco whispered back. "I'm just-" she hesitated- "I guess I'm just being foolish, is all. But what about you?"

The samurai was quiet, but Nesco could hear his heavy breathing beside her. She could imagine his violet eyes dancing around uselessly in the blackness.

"My daisho- gone," Tojo eventually whispered, his voice threatening to crack. "I have been defeated, dishonored, captured. My honor- is rost forever."

Lady Cynewine took another deep breath to clear her head. Somehow, it felt better to focus on other people's worries than her own.

"No, Tojo. It's not. We will escape from here, and we will find the Slave Lords, and we will kill them, and you will get your swords back. Would that not restore your honor?"

"We both know that wirr not happen, Nesco-sama," Tojo replied quietly. "Even if we can escape and Asran-sama can regain use of his Tarent, you know what he wirr say. He wirr wish to tereport home to requip and then return."

Nesco could imagine the samurai shaking his head in the dark.

"That wood not be honoraber course for me to take," Tojo continued. "My honor not restored even if I die in attempt to regain daisho- but I have no other choice."

Tojo paused for a moment.

"If I not recover daisho and kirr Srave Rords, I cannot reave this isrand."

"But if the volcano erupts-"

"Then I die here, Nesco-sama," the samurai finished.

They were both silent.

Lady Cynewine began to think about Yanigasawa Tojo.

She remembered how exotic he had looked and seemed when she had first seen him in the throne room of King Belvor. She remembered his uncanny skill and bravery in the battles of Highport.

She certainly couldn't forget his unexpected rage when she had innocently asked about his dastana. Watching his duel with Icar had been an unforgettable experience; as was the first hints of the dishonor that weighed on his soul every day and night.

And she remembered him taking hold of her hand when it looked like all was lost.

His confession. Her revelation.

Her kissing him on the cheek. Her falling off the roof of the stockade at the sheer shock of him moving to do the same, even if it was only a tactical diversion.

She wished she had been there for him during whatever had occurred to convince the samurai to go on living; if only for now.

Fighting side-by-side with him when they returned to the stockade.

His loyalty. His honor. His weaknesses.

Nesco Cynewine decided. There was something more important than a selfish, romantic dream that was never going to come true anyway.

She leaned forward, her hands outstretched- and caught one of Tojo's hands in her own.

The samurai, startled, tried to jerk away, but Nesco held fast.

And gave him the only words of comfort she thought would work.

"Then I will die beside you, Tojo-sama."

She knew his face was turning towards her.

"Nesco," the samurai said softly. "You do not-"

"I am not Nesco," she replied. "I am Nesco-sama, remember?"

Tojo said nothing.

"Tell me, Tojo-sama," she whispered as close to his face as she dared. "You have given me the greatest honor imaginable. Do not samurai stand together until the very end?"

Tojo tried to speak, but only an odd gasp came from his chest.

He squeezed her hand.

"Elrohir, Tojo's here!"

The others whirled around at Nesco's voice.

It did sound to the team leader like two figures were walking up to them.

"Tojo!" Elrohir snapped. "Why didn't you-"

"Tojo's fine, Elrohir!" Lady Cynewine interrupted, no trace of her earlier tears evident in her voice now. Nesco was all business again. "He just needed some time to collect his thoughts, that's all. What was it you found, anyway?"

Elrohir considered. He was glad that Tojo was with them; he couldn't deny that, and it didn't take a great leap of logic to guess that his earlier silence had to do with the fresh dishonors the samurai had recently undergone. He wanted to hear his friend's voice though, before he dropped the matter.

"Tojo," he asked. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, Errorhir-sama," came the quick reply. "I ready to stand and fight by your side."

"It's a cloth tube of some kind," Unru put in, perhaps in an attempt to divert anyone else from continuing this subject, "with wooden rings on each side. There are papers inside, but of course we can't tell what they are yet."

"I wonder what it's doing here," Nesco mused. "Unless it's just more boastings from The Nine about our inevitable doom."

"Nothing inevitable about it, Nesco," Elrohir responded. "Miracles are my specialty, remember? We're going to-"

Sitdale suddenly interrupted.

"There's a light down that way."

It took a moment for the crowd to maneuver themselves into a position where they could see what the half-elf's keen eyes had first spotted, but it was there, all right.

At an indeterminate distance away, a small globe of light hung in the air. It might be from a lantern, Elrohir thought. It was being held at about the right height and was slowly bobbing about. It wasn't constant in intensity, dimming and brightening slightly.

"Was that there before?" Cygnus asked.

"No," Sitdale replied. "It just appeared now."

"Well, if no one else is going to," Argo said quietly, followed by a loud "Hellloooo!"

There was no response.

"I don't think that was very wise, Argo," Sir Menn muttered.

"I'm sure whoever it is already knows we're here. You'd be surprised at the racket fourteen people can make, even without armor," the big ranger replied easily. "Well, what now, fearless leader?"

Elrohir could feel all eyes turning towards him.

"Everyone assemble in the same positions we had in the catacombs," he announced. "We're heading towards that light."