The air was so very close in the stairway, musty smelling, tinged with the scent of rocks. And an odd taste. Enough stone dust had found its way into his mouth. He didn't care for the taste. The light below was bobbing, coming up to meet him. He slowed his course and almost stopped, he was so tired. He let out a sigh of relief when the human came into view.

"Dhamon Grimwulf," Fetch huffed. "Am I so happy to find you."

Rikali was hissing at him and brushed by Dhamon, caught the kobold's throat in her hands and shook him.

Fetch sputtered, arms flailing about, lungs crying for air.

"Put him down, Riki."

"Dhamon, the little rat did somethin' and you well know it." She shook Fetch again and then dropped him on the step. The kobold gasped, more for effect than out of any real pain. He tried to get Dhamon's attention, but now the human was racing past him, feet pounding up the steps, taking the light with him, finally stopping. Several moments later, Dhamon returned with a grim expression.

"There was a cave-in," he reported. "And I think it's impossible that one little kobold could have caused it."

Rikali still glared.

Fetch coughed and pretended he was hurt, that it was difficult for him to breathe. "Was what I was trying to tell you," the kobold began. "Those trolls. You thought you'd burned them. I thought you'd burned them. They was nothin' but ashes. But that arm you threw out of the cave mouth." Fetch gestured to Rig, "It crawled back up into the cave, was growing a whole ‘nother big-as-you-please troll on the end of it. I tried to beat it with my hoopak, but it was too much for me. Then it started rummaging around in the ashes, caught fire, and I thought it would destroy itself." He paused, gulping in air, still feigning injury.

"Go on," Rig said.

The kobold could tell from Rig's expression that the mariner had bought the story. Let him think it's all his fault for throwing the arm away. Indeed, Fetch considered, it might have happened that way. The arm probably would have come back if the cavern hadn't collapsed first, and it could have happened just as he was explaining. "Well, the troll arm brushed against one of them pillars and it caught on fire. Soon they were all burning. I couldn't put them out, and I ran down here to get you- and just in time, too, I might add. The pillars must have collapsed and took the cave down with ‘em."

Dhamon looked skeptical, but said nothing. Rikali was still hissing, trundling up a few steps, peering ahead, then running back down.

"So what do we do?" the half-elf asked nervously.

"We got to go down," Rig said, signaling for the torch. Dhamon gave it to him.

"Down? Pigs, you can't be serious!"

"Too much rock up there," Dhamon said as he fell in step behind Rig. "We have to hope that we'll find a way out down below."

"And if we can't, lover?"

Dhamon didn't answer that question.

"And what about Maldred?" Rikali mused, as she slowly followed the procession.

Maldred'll be mad, Fetch thought. If he's still alive.

As Maldred felt the mountain shake, he looked up. The walls were cracking, the faces carved in them twisting into weird shapes that no longer looked dwarven. Many feet above, the torch Fiona had lodged in a sconce popped free and disappeared, its light going out.

He grabbed Fiona's hand and raced down the remainder of the steps, wincing as rocks crashed down from the ceiling and struck him.

"Are you all right?" he called to her, not slowing his pace and tugging her to get her to move faster.

"Yes!" She was having a difficult time keeping up with him.

The mountain continued to shake, spitting rocks at them and showering them with dust that filled the air and made them cough.

"Hurry!" Maldred urged. Then suddenly his feet flew out from under him as a step crumbled beneath him. He released her hand, but too late, she was falling down with him. Tumbling down the last fifty feet of stairway, their bodies pummeling each other, the torch flying from Fiona's hand, singeing her tunic and the flesh beneath, then going out amid a shower of stone and dust and plunging them into absolute darkness.

She heard the cry of bats, panicked, perhaps hundreds of them. Then that sound faded and she heard Maldred's breathing. She reached forward with her fingers, exploring, finding rocks, the edge of the stairs, feeling his chest, incredibly broad and muscular but rising and falling quickly. He moved away from her, his feet fumbling and pushing rocks away, then standing and finding a wall to lean against.

"Fiona?" he gasped.

"Here," she answered. She moved some rocks aside that had landed on her, felt her legs to make sure they weren't broken. Then she stood and groped about, connecting her fingers to his. He didn't move away this time. "Are you hurt, Maldred?"

He shook his head, then instantly realized she couldn't see him. "Sore," he answered. "That's all."

"So dark," she said as she groped behind him and felt the wall, searched with her foot and found the bottommost step. "We've got to get out of here somehow."

"Not by climbing up." He pulled her close and felt the gash on her cheek from the troll. It was bleeding again. "That way was sealed with the cave-in."

"Can you see?"

"I can sense it."

"How?"

"I just can, that's all," he said, with a slight edge to his voice.

"Rig and Dhamon!"

Maldred closed his eyes and hummed, shut out her questions and felt the wall behind him, fingers from one hand splayed over it, fingers from the other wrapping around hers to hold her in place. He was performing an enchantment, a simple one as far as he was concerned, but one of great importance to both of them. Within the span of a few heartbeats, he'd sent his senses into the stone, his mind flowing through the rock, up the rubble-strewn steps, through a thick wall of collapsed rock, and into the chamber that wasn't a chamber any longer. It was as if the top of the mountain had broken off and poured down on what was left of Reorx's temple. "No Fetch," he whispered. Then his mind was searching through the rocks, expecting to find the crushed body of the kobold. "Not here. Not here. Not dead."

Fiona was listening to his voice, realizing he had cast some spell, and surprised at his ability to do so. She had thought him merely a brigand. But she wasn't offended by this secret he'd kept, rather she was pleased-as it meant he might find a way out. She wanted to ask him about Rig and Dhamon, but waited, fearing if she interrupted him she could ruin the magic.

"Down this way," he was whispering to himself, his voice almost melodic. His mind flowed through what was left of the other archway, slipped around boulders, caressed the shattered images that had been so painstakingly carved so many centuries ago into walls now forever ruined. "Not as blocked. Light at the bottom." He focused on the torchlight as his senses moved down the passage, noting it was even deeper than the one he and Fiona had taken. There were side passages that had been concealed by the faces and figures on the wall, which were revealed by all the ruptures.

Maldred's mind flowed through a crevice and caught a glimpse of a room beyond. There was a feast hall with a great stone table and stone benches, all carved out of the very mountain and all now unreachable-a great prize destroyed before Donnag could claim it. There was another room, featureless, which he surmised had served as a barracks, with rotted planks of wood and sheets lying about. A third room contained a smaller altar, a miniature replica of the destroyed chamber above, though it lacked the same array of ornate pillars.

Maldred focused again on the light.

"Dhamon," he said finally, sighing. A measure of relief Fiona could not see crept across his face. "He lives. Rikali. Fetch." He paused, his senses trained on the kobold, on his explanation of the troll catching the pillars on fire. And he let out a clipped laugh. "Only Rig truly believes the little liar."