25th Day of Goodmonth, 565 CY

The Dungeons of the Slave Lords

The Aerie, The Pomarj

Zantac let go of the rope with one hand and desperately twisted his body to the side, trying to avoid the giant projectile, but in the space of a second it filled his entire field of vision and then-

-and then with a mighty whoosh whose backdraft threatened to tear his remaining grip from the filament, the stalactite passed by as the filament rope was suddenly yanked about a foot away from the missile's path, pulling the mage with it.

Zantac's gaze followed the giant stone cone as it vanished into the darkness below. A second later, the sound of the stalactite smashing into pieces filtered up from below.

The wizard glanced back towards the other side of the cave.

Nesco Cynewine, sprawled flat on her stomach next to the pit's edge, had leaned over, grasped the rope and jerked it to one side. For just a moment, their eyes met.

Thank you, Zantac mouthed to her, and then concentrated on making it the remaining distance to the far side.

Yanigasawa Tojo was contorting his body, trying to raise his torso to the point where he could grab the edge of the chasm with one hand, but the still-shifting ground made that impossible.

Zantac had almost reached him when the dark cloud of a thousand bats enveloped him.

The earthquake wasn't affecting Elrohir or Talass as much as it was the others.

However, they did stop rising.

Elrohir's mind was whirling now, trying to ascertain a likely scenario even as he continued to build up a little bit more momentum with each swing.

His best guess at this point was that there was someone; or more likely several individuals, above who were pulling the two of them upwards. The ranger could just now make out a ledge projecting about twelve feet out from the cave wall at a forty-foot height above the chasm.

That was where he and his wife were heading.

Elrohir doubted whoever standing on it was human; he could see no light source. Perhaps they were the "mushroom folk" that they had seen one of earlier, and they used these tendrils as a type of subterranean fishing line.

As the swarm of bats surrounded Elrohir along with everyone else, he saw one of them collide with the filament and stick fast to it. This further reinforced his theory.

He wondered if humans like Talass and himself were heavier than the usual prey these unknown creatures usually collected.

And if that was the case, when would they decide these two humans were simply too big- and toss them back?

Elrohir closed his eyes as tried to ignore the bats slamming into him as he swung back and forth.

He wasn't there, yet.

Zantac was only three feet away from Tojo when through the cloud of bats he saw the samurai's foot begin to slide out from behind the stalagmite.

Tojo was twisting frantically, nearly bent double, but he still couldn't grasp the edge of the chasm. His fingers touched, but the trembling ground made it impossible for him to get a handhold.

And then, something made Zantac flash back to their expedition to Highport. All those long months ago.

He remembered fighting the doppelganger.

And just as Tojo began to fall, Zantac swung his legs forward in an arc, planting his feet into Tojo's chest and pushing the samurai up.

Yanigasawa Tojo instinctively went with the maneuver and rolled up and out onto the cavern floor.

An instant later the samurai had spun around and grabbed one of Zantac's feet with his hands and started pulling.

Zantac held onto the rope, but let the slippery filament just slide through his fingers until suddenly he was in Tojo's arms, both of them gasping for breath on a still-shifting stony surface.

They stared into each other's eyes, breathing hard.

Zantac smiled.

"The kumquat… does not always fall… on the right side of the tree," the wizard panted.

Tojo raised his eyebrows, puzzled.

"Not understand you, Zantac-sama."

"How does it feel?" the wizard shouted.

"Good work, Lady Cynewine!" Argo yelled through the black haze of bats that had descended upon them. The big ranger was still flat on his back.

Nesco was still trying to regain her feet herself. The tremor was abating, but it wasn't disappearing.

"I had to do something," was all she could manage.

"I don't mean just in saving Zantac, Lady Cynewine; you've given me a brilliant idea!"

"Why does that not comfort me?" Aslan shouted, trying vainly to stand up while beating back the bats all around him.

"I am next in line, aren't I, Aslan?"

"Yes," responded the paladin, who had at least managed to rise up on one knee now. "But what is-"

But Bigfellow was already shouting across the chasm.

"Hey! If you two are finished hugging, we need help! One of you lean over and push the rope down as far as you can!"

Got it!

Elrohir's feet touched the cavern wall, and his toes dug into a small recess, holding him there momentarily.

The wall wasn't climbable in the traditional sense; not with one of Elrohir's hands entangled and the other clutching the bone club and the flint.

But Elrohir had his own idea.

The ranger straightened out his body as much as possible, putting all the weight he could on his feet so he almost "standing" on the wall at a severe angle.

Using his right arm, Elrohir wrapped a length of the tendril over the length that already covered his right hand.

As he had expected, it didn't stick to itself.

He wrapped another length around it.

This shortened the filament a little further, tightening it up.

Elrohir moved one foot upwards to a small projection.

It snapped off from the still-shaking wall.

Elrohir cursed as the ranger tried to hang on by the toes of one foot. His other foot scrambled frantically for a purchase until it found one. The ranger could see the blood already dripping; he'd torn the quick under a toenail, but that didn't matter.

What mattered was making time.

Slowly, wrapping a bit more of the tendril around his hand and cautiously moving his feet upwards, Elrohir began to rappel up the cavern wall.

The bats thinned out.

Aslan could see that the majority of them were now heading out the exit at the far side of the cave.

That worried him.

But what worried the paladin more was that even as the tremor faded into a low, constant shaking, there was another sound he had heard earlier from within the rock.

The storm.

He could hear it all around them now.

And he had a terrible feeling that he knew what it meant.

From the tunnel behind them, a hot wind began to blow.

"That's not a good sign, is it, Aslan?" Arwald asked from nearby, also looking back towards where they had come.

Aslan frowned.

"If it was any less good, Arwald, I'd be able to detect it."

Elrohir couldn't go any further.

The ranger looked back. He was perhaps fifteen feet below the ledge now, and the line he was attached was bending at a severe angle over the ledge's edge.

They were being pulled up again, but Talass; a good sixty pounds lighter than her husband, was being yanked up more quickly. Elrohir had closed some of the gap, but he couldn't do anything else.

He was going to have to let go of the wall.

But I'm not close enough yet!

The ranger lookedback at his wife again and calculated. Seeking where in the realm of impossibility lay the slimmest chance of possibility.

Maybe. Just maybe.

And with as strong a push as he could manage, Elrohir shoved off from the wall.

"So what's this great idea of yours, Argo?" Cygnus asked, gaining his feet by holding onto the back cavern wall.

Bigfellow watched the last of the bats fly away.

Then he looked over the pit and saw Zantac pushing the rope down as he had requested.

Then the big ranger turned back to the wizard with a big, pained smile.

"Just because we're all going to die doesn't mean we can't have some fun while we're at it!"

And with that, Argo staggered across the floor to the pit's edge and dove head-first overboard.

Nesco suddenly realized what Bigfellow was doing, but she couldn't help but shriek until she saw Argo's hands grasp the slimy filament in his hands. Then, just as she guessed, Argo's forward momentum from the dive and the angle created by Zantac's pushing the rope downwards did the rest.

In the space of perhaps six seconds, Argo Bigfellow Junior slid all the way across the chasm.

Elrohir swung towards his wife.

She was still above him, but as the ranger reached the far point of his swing, he swung the bone club above his head and yelled.

"Talass! Catch it with your foot!"

The priestess, who had been watching him this whole time, swung her foot towards the club as it came near, but it was no use; she was too entangled to stretch out far enough

Her toes missed the club by several feet.

Elrohir mentally screamed with frustration as he was carried back away from Talass.

He could do nothing but look on as his wife turned her gaze back upwards; and the terror returned to it.

Zantac's dark expression was in marked contrast to Argo's smile as Bigfellow arrived.

"Argo," the Willip wizard growled as he helped the ranger onto the far bank. "You keep the line pushed down. I've got work to do."

With that, the magic-user rose to his feet, still a little unsteady on the rumbling surface beneath his feet, stepped back a few feet from the edge and peered up and back out over the chasm.

He cursed the gods as Elrohir's desperate attempt to make contact with Talass failed.

The ranger's glowing piece of flint was the only light source up there, and with him swinging as he was, it made it hard for Zantac to see who was on top of the shelf.

Then Elrohir swung back; not as far as he had previously, but close enough for his light to illuminate the ledge.

And what Zantac saw made his breath catch in his throat.

Talass was only about five feet from the lip of the ledge now. The cleric was struggling even more frantically in her bonds, but she was held fast.

Elrohir came around again. His momentum almost spent; he could do nothing now but wait to be hauled up as well.

His only weapons were several feet of filament now coiled around his right hand, and the femur of some unlucky humanoid.

As unlucky as they might all well be.

Elrohir looked straight up again.

Now he could see something.

And for all the terrible scenarios he had imagined about who might be on top of this ledge, Elrohir now saw that the reality was much, much worse.

Ten feet above him, Elrohir saw two snouts sticking out over the ledge.

They were a sickly white, similar to the giant crawfish. A long but narrow jaw jutted out just beneath each one.

And each of the lines that held Elrohir and Talass protruded from one of those snouts.

Even before Elrohir consciously noticed the giant pincers that were waving around in anticipation, the ranger's mind flashed back nearly two weeks ago. To another cave, and a conversation he'd been having with Aslan.

"Cave fisher," the ranger said.

On an inch-wide projection on the stone wall in front of them, a small, bone-white insect sat. Six segmented legs jutted from its thorax, seemingly cementing the bug's position on its ledge. The creature's snout reminded Aslan of an anteater- a similarity enforced by the nearly-invisible foot-long filament currently extending from inside its snout and ending stuck to an unfortunate nearby black beetle that had been climbing up the wall.

As the two men, watched, the filament was swiftly reeled in. One of the fisher's two front lobster-like claws caught the beetle and came together, cutting the smaller bug in two.

As best as Elrohir could guess from what he was seeing, these creatures had to be at least ten feet in length, if not more.

And there were two of them.

And as Elrohir began to shout and scream from sheer helplessness and despair, he saw his beloved Talass hauled up to the ledge.

One of the pincers immediately grabbed the cleric by her left arm, and then the cave fisher must have retreated, because Elrohir saw his wife pulled out of view.

But as in a time once long ago, he had no trouble at all in hearing her scream.