Quest of the Elf Lord

 By David Wright

                                                                                                                        

The ground was thick with bones, some so old they'd petrified into the bedrock, some so fresh the rotting flesh of their former owners still clung to them. There were little bones of rodents, birds, lizards, and bats, and big bones, giant bones of creatures the arch-mage could not even imagine, despite the countless, evil ages of his very long life. And of course, there were elfin bones as well.

What kind of a monster killed in such an indiscriminate fashion, sparing neither small nor great, wise nor strong?

Crannock did not know, but he did know where the ancient, ravenous creature dwelled -- a black hole burrowed into solid rock, an endless, lightless cave that whispered with ghosts and stank of death. And he did know something else as well. An hour ago, a foolish, young glaive lord had entered that pit of certain death on some fool errand, and not returned. Nor would he ever return. This much the arch-mage had seen in the smoke of his necromancy.

“Forward!” he commanded, cutting the foul air with a wave of his ancient, bony hand and a gust of ether that lit seventeen torches in a single burst of blue flame. His minions gasped as one, hesitating only a heartbeat before descending into the dank hole. 

Crannock knew they would obey him without question, for he had chosen each by hand, snatched from the carnage of distant battles, the fighting pits of savage lands, murder alleys, and the executioner’s blade, right at the moment of their deaths, transported and quickened by dark magic older than time itself. While their hearts beat as strong as ever, their souls belonged to Crannock. And no monster, no matter how hideous, could challenge the power of his magic, let alone a single, foolish elfling.

 

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            Mithrain gingerly examined the egg sacks. They were about the size of grapes and covered in white silk -- not sticky or hard like the vast network of lethal webbing that radiated throughout the central chamber of this subterranean labyrinth, but soft and pliable and utterly worthless. Why the master had tasked him with the quest of retrieving them, Mithrain could not imagine. Probably just another one of his ludicrous tests. 

The master was always testing, always pushing, always nagging. The three impossibilities, Mithrain called them. One cannot fight what one cannot see? It was a statement his master had once turned back on him as a question. 

"No, you can't," Mithrain had responded adamantly. The answer appeared simple enough, but nothing was ever simple with Ikiwake, the four-foot glaive master, ancient as the ivory towers of Xristhana and yet banished from them long ago.

"I suppose you can't. One can only do what one believes can be done."

And with that enigmatic explanation, the master promptly proved Mithrain wrong, dodging his well-aimed arrow from only twenty paces, blindfolded. 

But this was only the first of his miracles. When challenged by two opponents, Mithrain complained, "One elf cannot face an army." This too was turned back on him.

"One elf cannot face an army?" Master Ikiwake queried as if the answer could be anything but the obvious. What followed were weeks of sparring, first two-on-one with the brothers against the master, and then three-on-one with his battle-trained father joining in, and then four-on-one, five-on-one, ten-on-one, twenty-on-one. There seemed to be no limit to his master's skill with glaives. 

Did Mithrain learn anything from these matches, anything but pain and defeat?

No wonder his brother had given up on his lessons. He didn’t need them anyways. As the eldest son, he would inherit father’s glaive lands. Soon he would command troops of his own, receive honors and accolades, and even have a house in the sacred city of Xristhana, albeit on the outskirts.

            Mithrain was not so lucky. As the second son, he must earn his own glory by the strength of his hand and the speed of his glaive. And so, he endured alone -- the pain, the humiliation, the bewilderment under the irascible tutelage of this diminutive, baffling, banished glaive master.

            The third of these questions was formulated just this morning as the sun first broke the horizon, although its inception had surely been a thousand generations in the making. A glaive cannot defeat magic? Now Mithrain was sure the master had gone too far. His latent bitterness at having been exiled from the great, magical city of Xristhana, with its levitating gardens and ancient, royal houses, had driven him mad. 

Every elf knew the answer to this question. So much so that the question was never even asked. Of course, a glaive cannot defeat magic.

With its spear-like shaft and sword-length blade, the glaive combined all the advantages of sword, spear, and battle ax. And while most glaive lords fought with a single glaive, Ikiwake had trained Mithrain to double-wield two glaives, a skill mastered by only the very few. Mithrain had heard of distant nations that dueled with sword and spear, but Mithrain knew from first-hand experience -- and a thousand generations of martial tradition -- that on the battlefield, the glaive reigned supreme.

But against magic? Perish the thought. That was like saying a flea could defeat a mountain, a dry leaf the raging fire, or a tossed stone the eternal sky. It was ludicrous, senile, madness. Magic, as every elf knew, was omnipotent. Whereas the glaive was just a glaive.

Mithrain did not say all these things, but his silence said them. And for perhaps the first time since their lessons began, Mithrain experienced Ikiwake's wrath. It was not filled with fire like his father's, or bile like his brother's, but an icy wind like the bitter blows of the northern mountains, where giants still roamed and the ice dragons dug deep into the glacial earth.

"Today's lesson is a simple one, young lord," the diminutive glaive master pronounced. "You will retrieve the spawn of the banshee. In this, perhaps, you will gain wisdom, for from me, it seems, you can gain none."    

And so, his quest began, deep into the lair of the banshee to retrieve a worthless egg the size of a grape. Not an impossible mission, as Ikiwake had led him through the labyrinth once before, but surely a dangerous one, as well as completely pointless.

With a sigh, he pried two eggs from the nest by their long, gossamer threads and placed them gingerly in his leather pouch. 

 A whisper tickled the little hairs on his neck just below the jawline. He turned just in time to see a red-feathered projectile bury its glinting steel tip deep into thick, glowing ichor. The arrow had missed his life-pumping artery by the breadth of his little finger. More importantly, it had missed the stiff webbing that surrounded him. Hitting the first target would have meant his death, but hitting the second was a fate far worse, for it would awaken the mother of this cursed brood, a great demon too terrible to behold.

Before the unseen assassin could nock another arrow, Mithrain plunged headlong into the labyrinth. He preferred not to take this perilous path, with a thousand dead ends and more denizens of darkness than hell itself. But arrows would be useless here, and he could not risk waking the demon of the web.

Who was this archer assassin who cared so little for his own soul that he would follow Mithrain into the banshee's lair? Did he not know what awaited him here?

Ten steps into the darkness and Mithrain's worst fear was realized. Something roared behind him like the crack of thunder. He glanced back to see nothing but smoke. And then he heard the terrified scream of a male elf. More arrows striking ichor, volleys of arrows and shouts of alarm. So, the assassin was not alone. Others were with him, battling fiends they could never vanquish, not with an entire army.

The smoke dissipated just enough for Mithrain to see the lithe form of a solitary elf struggling against the webbing, shaking it. He must not do that, Mithrain thought. He would only draw more upon him. The impulse to aid his enemy, while baffling, was almost overwhelming. Before Mithrain could yield to it, however, the demon descended with its flowing mane of wild, white hair; surrounded its victim with four hairy limbs the length of spears; and pierced through the elf's chainmail with fangs like steel needles. 

In a moment, the struggling ceased, but Mithrain knew the elf assassin was not yet dead, only drugged into a deep sleep from which he would never awaken. Mithrain knew very well the fate of this evil soul and shuddered. 

There was no time to ponder such emotions. Where there was one demon, there would be more. He must find his way to the surface, assassins be damned.

With redoubled energy, he pushed his way through slime and rot back out into the larger chamber. He was immediately struck blind by light that should not be there. While the glowing ichor did provide a dim, ambient light throughout the labyrinth, it was nothing like this. Torches. They had brought torches with them, Mithrain thought, and knew immediately their doom was sealed. 

More arrows flew by him, arrows he could not see, but only hear and feel as feathered whispers all too close to the naked flesh of his arms and face. One cannot fight what one cannot see? The impossible question came back to him unbidden. Too bad his master had never actually shared the secret to this trick, Mithrain brooded, for he could surely use it now. 

He ducked back into the labyrinth just as another volley of arrows peppered the very mound of bones on which he had been standing. The ground shook beneath his leather-bound feet, a sure portent of an approaching threat far greater than arrows. He could deliberate no longer. He would have to move somewhere, either back or forward. He couldn't stay here.

"There ye be, little elfling," an orc-faced elf taunted as he drove his long spear into the hole before him. "Why don't you come out and play?" It was a powerful thrust, but slow. Mithrain didn't bother to parry, choosing rather to step inside his opponent's reach and drive a glaive up under the ugly elf's hairy chin. The look of wide-eyed surprise was unsettling as the thin blade passed directly through the ugly elf's throat and brain and out the top of his hairy head. 

Mithrain had no time to reflect that this was his first sentient kill. The volleys of arrows ceased, but now the torch-bearing assassins were swarming up the mound towards the hole. The second elf to enter was not as foolish as his comrade, but not as strong either. He wore light, leather armor and wielded a thin pike in either hand. 

Feinting and striking with either weapon, he seemed to take great delight in the game of murder, his eyes dancing, his black tongue ululating. All that showmanship came to an abrupt end as Mithrain spun the two glaives around his body, allowing the shaft to slide down his hands for maximum range and leverage. The dancing elf's two short blades were no match for such an attack, clattering onto the cave floor a fraction of a second before his head was parted from his shoulders.

Another elf appeared in the hole's entrance, wielding a heavy sword, but stymied momentarily by the darkness of the hole. He did not have long to ponder his disadvantage as Mithrain's right glaive drove deep into his armored foot and his left found the seam in his neckplate. Eruptions from both locations created grotesque, synchronized fountains of thick, black blood. The large elf struggled in vain to stem the flow with his armored gauntlets, dropping his heavy sword and falling to one knee. The mounting bodies blocked the hole's entrance, hindering the next attackers, at least for the moment.

One elf cannot face an army? 

And yet, in the space of ten heartbeats, Mithrain had slaughtered three seasoned warriors like lambs in the jaws of a wolf.

Was this what Ikiwake was trying to teach him? Was this how he fought an army? In his mind's eye, Mithrain saw the tapestry of their countless battles from Ikiwake's point of view. No matter how his opponents moved, where they dodged, when their glaives met, Ikiwake was always facing them one-on-one and eye-to-eye. Even twenty-to-one was still just one-on-one. And no one elf could defeat Ikiwake in single combat. 

Mithrain had a glimmer of hope that he might just survive this night.

Just then, the ground erupted beneath him. He fell head over heels backwards into the passage, managing just barely to hang on to his glaives. If the banshee came for him now, he would be helpless. But they did not. They had more imminent quarry.

Banshee fear two things. No, fear is not the right word. They hate. They hate water because they are filthy creatures that live for dirt and decay. And they hate fire because it is the only thing that can destroy their otherwise impervious webbing and silky, gossamer nests. Or so Ikiwake told Mithrain on their previous journey through this god-forsaken warren of death.

And so, Mithrain surmised, fire was the element that attracted the furious banshee to the multitude of assassins over the solitary elfling, for they bore torches into the banshee's home, into the mother's nest. With wails of fury, they burst out upon the bewildered warriors, clawing, biting, tearing limb from limb, oblivious to wounds from sword, spear, arrow, or battle ax. Where one hell maiden fell, there were ten more to take her place.

Surely, the carnage would have continued until the bones of every last assassin had been stripped clean, if it hadn't been for the wizard's fire that burst forth like the violent eruption from the great fire mountains of ancient lore. Dazzling explosions of blue and red and violet, which killed banshee and assassin alike, filled the cavern with light that gleamed off hidden gems and intricate networks of massive webbing that stretched endlessly in all directions in the limitless cavern.

Mithrain gazed upon the impressive display of forbidden magic with equal parts terror and wonder. Magic, he knew, ran in bloodlines, and as a glaive lord from a long line of glaive lords before him, he was by definition a magicless elf. No amount of study or training or deep meditation would ever change this. His soul could not touch the mysterious ether, nor would it ever until it left his body and returned to the eternal plane. As a glaive lord, he was only good for one thing, and that was battle.

And now, his battle instincts told him that it was time to move. He would use the wizard's magic as a distraction.

Plunging back into the labyrinth, he wound his way through endless twists and turns, creeping over putrid, rotting flesh and mounds of desiccated bones. His gorge rose, threatening to choke him. He fought back the sensation, forcing his brain to concentrate on the mental map of the banshee's lair that Ikiwake had forced him to memorize. And most importantly, the exit that was his final, wistful goal. All the while, the magical battle with the banshee raged on in the grand chamber above him.

But Mithrain would soon learn he was not the only elf to seek refuge in these dark, subterranean passages. For as he turned another bend in the tunnel, a projectile flew past him to strike the cave wall with a sharp thud. Up ahead, he saw the last embers of a dying torch on the ground, and above it a lone archer frantically hurrying to nock another arrow. Before he could complete his task, however, Mithrain dodged back behind the bend.

Mithrain glanced down at his glaives in the dim light of the glowing ichor. Perhaps if the archer were to pursue him around this bend, he could impale him before he got off another shot. But no, that would not happen, Mithrain knew. The archer had the advantage on the ground where he stood. He would not leave it. Mithrain also knew that this was the only way out of the banshee's lair. Even if he circled all the way around the grand chamber, he would still have to pass through this tunnel.

In his mind's eye, he saw his master shaking his ludicrous, bald head, with his long, pointed ears and perpetual grin. One cannot fight what one cannot see? 

Mithrain stepped willfully around the corner -- his glaives drawn and pointed – and charged. It was pride more than anything that drove him. He knew he could not reach the archer before he unleashed his steel-tipped arrow. Assuming he had any training at all, he would surely hit his mark. And even if he missed, he would have more than enough time to nock a second arrow, perhaps even a third.

Time slowed as Mithrain counted his rapid heartbeats. One … Two … The arrow would come now. He knew it, as certain as he knew the sun would rise and the rain fall.

He dodged to the right just as the projectile grazed his left shoulder. He was aiming for the heart. So not a marksman. He did not risk a headshot, but aimed for the central mass.

Mithrain continued his charge, picking up momentum with every stride. Three … Four … The archer was nocking a second arrow. Mithrain could not see the action in the dying light, but he could sense it. Five … Six … And dodge to the left. 

In the uneven earth, he almost lost his footing and was forced to drop a glaive to keep upright. Perhaps this was a good thing, Mithrain couldn't tell, but the steel-tipped arrow clanged off his one remaining glaive like it was ringing a bell. Seven … Eight … He would not make it. The arrow would find his heart. 

In the last few paces, he saw the archer clearly, saw him nock his last arrow and aim. But he would never fire. With one last effort, Mithrain lunged, driving his lethal glaive deep into the archer's unprotected stomach. The assassin gasped, dropping his bow and falling backwards into the dirt.

Mithrain picked himself up off of the cave floor and dusted his skinned knees. It was a small price to pay to live another day. He glanced down at the warrior elf, who was not much older than he was, and withdrew his glaive with a sickening crunch. Stomach wounds were painful and could take hours to usher in the harbinger of doom. Better a quick death, Ikiwake had told him more than once, for so will your end be one day.

With deliberate swiftness, he drove the sharp blade back through the assassin's chest. There was a loud expulsion of air, and the dark, youthful eyes closed forever.

Mithrain felt immediately nauseous. This kill had bothered him more than the other three. Perhaps it was the elf's age or … He didn't know what it was. This wasn't a reflex, honed by years of training. It was a deliberate act. He actually had time to think about it. But not too much time. Behind him he could hear the growing cacophony of banshee wails. Had they killed the wizard? He didn't think that was possible. Nothing could kill a wizard, except perhaps a stronger wizard. 

Whatever the case, they were coming. So, unless he wanted to meet this young assassin's evil soul in the nether plane in the next few heartbeats, he had better find the exit to this cursed maze. Retrieving his two glaives, he once again began running down the tunnel to where he remembered it branching in two directions. One of those branches led to life and freedom, if only he could make it there in time. 

 

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Crannock watched with some satisfaction as the demon horde scraped and clawed in vain against the invisible magic barrier he'd erected over the tunnel entrance. He might have killed them all in his rage if not for the mother banshee. She was an entity of another sort -- half monster, half hell spirit. He could not defeat her, at least not without depleting his entire store of necromantic ether. As it was, it would take years to replenish what he had lost already. 

And as for his legion of assassins …

Soldiers were as plentiful as the grains of Ilios, it was true. Any elf from an inferior bloodline bereft of magic would fight for duty or glory or a full belly, it would seem, but these were not just any elves. To kill monsters, men, women, suckling babes with skill and yet without fear, guilt, or remorse; this was an uncommon talent. It might be decades before he found their like again, if ever. And all on account of a measly elfling, the lesser son of a lesser glaive lord. 

What a waste!

And yet, he needed to fulfill this quest for the royal house of Etoca, if ever he wished to join the ranks of the most powerful mages in Ilios. Why they desired the lordling's death, he did not know, nor did he care. If he did, he could surely find out by the powers of his necromancy. Only what they offered him mattered. A royal house in the heavenly city. Long had he dreamed of this chance, even as the ages passed on his distant isle, as his knowledge and power grew and grew. He belonged among the royal houses of Xristhana. No, he would rule them.

But first he needed to finish what he'd started.

Reaching beneath his tunic, he removed the firestone necklace that was the source of all his powers and his nation's most treasured possession, passed down through the centuries from arch-mage to arch-mage for a thousand generations. As the most powerful mage in his clan, Crannock had gained this honor many years ago, and promptly used it to murder all the competing mages in his coven, any elf from a magical bloodline, and all else who opposed him. The magicless elves he left alive to till the fields and keep his house until he returned.

To Crannock, the firestone was the source of his power, but soon it became the very longing of his heart's desire. He gazed into the deep scarlet fractals, summoning the necromantic ether from the depths of hell. As the energy reached its peak, he whispered the prayer of second sight along with the name of his prey, "Mithrain."

The red ether left the stone, swirling in intricate, glowing murmuration until it became a person. The elfling was still alive, engaged in mortal combat with the archer assassin known as Spavion. Crannock had seen Spavion kill a hundred elves, despite his youth. Surely Mithrain would be the hundred and first.

Crannock watched the contest with some interest, whistling with surprise at the unforeseen climax. Clearly, he had underestimated this elfling's potential, a mistake he would not make a second time. With a wave of his finger, he drew back the image to locate the elfling's position in the banshee labyrinth. He was heading back to the entrance. But he would not make it there. Crannock had foreseen this already. And now he knew how the tale would end. 

With a wave of his hand, the picture vanished, and the arch-mage along with it.

 

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Mithrain's heart was pounding as he reached the junction in the tunnel -- the place where three paths met. He was battered, bruised, and nearing exhaustion, but relieved nonetheless. The banshee, although he could still hear their wails echoing through the cavernous tunnels, did not appear to be getting any closer, and the assassins, he was quite sure, were all dead. As to the location of the wizard, or his motive for attempting this fool quest, Mithrain no longer cared, as long as he wasn't here. 

Ironically, it was at this exact moment that the wizard appeared, cloaked in a swirling, red cloud of dazzling magical energy. He was a tall elf, made taller still by the brim of his majestic, double-pointed hat. His scarlet, gold-embroidered robes were oddly out-of-place for cave crawling, as were the multitude of jewel-encrusted rings gilding his ancient, bony fingers.

Mithrain gasped involuntarily. This was as close as he'd ever been to a real wizard, and despite the years of training, he found himself paralyzed by a deep, primal fear he was powerless to overcome. The wizard's magic permeated the cavern, filling the tunnel behind him with a thick cloud of scarlet energy. What spell this denoted, Mithrain could only imagine. All he knew for certain was that this was the only way out. If he wanted to leave this cursed crypt, he would have to pass through that tunnel or stay here forever.

As the red cloud slowly dissipated, so grew Mithrain's desperation. On impulse, he shot forward with the last of his energy, hoping beyond hope that surprise would win the day as it did with the young archer. Alas, his hope was in vain.

"Askelakan!" the wizard exclaimed, and with that single utterance and wave of his long, bony finger, froze Mithrain in mid-charge, a mere glaive's length from his formidable prey. He struggled vainly against his invisible bonds, summoning the last seed of his strength, but to no avail. For all of his training, his countless drills and lessons, in the face of true magic, Mithrain was impotent, just as he always knew he would be. 

A glaive cannot defeat magic? No, it can't! Mithrain thought to himself for the final time. Ikiwake was wrong.

In bitter silence, he waited for his end, but it did not come. The wizard, whoever he was, seemed content to prolong his misery, for whatever reason. 

"You have cost me much, youngling. And for that you will pay." His voice was dark and sinister, but heavy with fatigue. Evidently his battle with the banshee had wearied even him. So wizards weren't completely omnipotent after all. The ancient wizard wiped grime and sweat from a wrinkled brow with his left hand and heaved a heavy sigh, pregnant surely with the weight of countless evil ages. All the while, his right hand remained still, his bony finger frozen in an upright position as if to solidify a single, eternal argument.

"But before I cast your youthful soul into the fires of oblivion and leave your lifeless carcass to feed these malevolent creatures, I must know what brought you to this place. Did Master Ikiwake send you here to die for no reason? Surely such a quest reeks of his madness."

So the wizard knew the master. Perhaps they had shared a history sometime in the distant past. Surely not friends, but perhaps ancient enemies. Was this what brought him here? Did he seek revenge on Ikiwake by killing his student? Mithrain's speculations could not be confirmed or rejected unless he spoke. He attempted to do so, only to find that his jaw had been immobilized along with the rest of his body. Only his eyes and internal organs seemed to be working, which was a good thing, or else he would be dead already.

He grunted, his eyes darting from side to side.

By the grin on the wizard's long, gray-bearded face, Mithrain surmised that he was enjoying his struggles. But then he crooked his finger ever so slightly, and Mithrain felt his mouth open. He gasped in relief and then coughed up spittle.

"So then, youngling, before you die, please tell me what fool quest brought you here. Your death can either be short and painless or long and excruciating. The choice is yours."

"An egg," Mithrain mumbled.

"A what? An egg?" the wizard queried.

"It's easier if I show you. I have it in my pouch down there." Mithrain attempted to direct the wizard's gaze down to the leather pouch using his eyes alone. "If you would just release my arm a little bit …"

The wizard contemplated this request for a heartbeat, raised an eyebrow, and then crooked his finger just a little bit more. Mithrain felt invisible manacles on his right arm release and the pain diminish. One arm was free. At least there was that. But what could he do with one arm?

Reaching into his leather pouch, he withdrew one of the small banshee eggs and dangled it from its long string of soft, white webbing.

The wizard cocked his head, examining the unfamiliar object with his black, beady eyes, and then snorted loudly. "Truly Ikiwake is a fool!" he exclaimed as if the words had been simmering in his evil heart for a thousand years. The laugh echoed down the dark passage and into the grand chamber where the mother banshee and her demons wailed, clawed, and scraped, but did not pursue. 

Mithrain laughed as well despite himself, spinning the egg around and around like a child's toy until it was a single wheel of white gossamer. The wizard seemed even more amused by this absurdity and guffawed again, long and loud. But then his face darkened and the laughter ceased.

"You have made me jocund, young elf lord, something I have not been in a very long time, and for that I am grateful. But you were a fool to follow your master Ikiwake, and now you must -- "

The sentence was never completed, nor the spell that surely would have ended the elf lord's young life. For just in that moment, Mithrain released his grasp on the string of gossamer, allowing the banshee egg, as small and harmless as it was, to fly directly toward the wizard's face. The wizard, however, was much too wily for such a simple trick. A small ray of blue lightning shot from his bony finger, striking the egg a fraction of a heartbeat before it could reach its target.

And that was when it happened.

 

### 

 

The egg exploded -- a crack of thunder that deafened the ears. An eruption of black smoke followed that blinded the eyes and filled the nostrils with the stench of death. 

To his credit, the arch-mage recovered quickly, raising his bony hand and opening his mouth to utter a final death curse on the impudent elfling. But only a gurgle came forth. Something was preventing the sacred words from reaching his tongue and the necromantic ethers from departing the magical plane. 

Crannock glanced downwards to see what it could be, only to behold protruding from his chest the long blade, black blood cascading over its glimmering steel, and the great scarlet ruby, the source-stone of all his powers, shattered into a thousand tiny shards. Three paces away stood the elf lord, his right arm fully outstretched, his long glaive fully extended to reach its distant target. 

He realized, to his chagrin, that he had underestimated the range of this strange weapon, as well as the guile of this young elf. For in that moment when the egg exploded, he lost his connection to the ether, breaking, for only a heartbeat, the power of his necromancy. But a single heartbeat was enough to seal his doom.

This could not be. To see the end of his ages, the amassing of his great wealth and wisdom, all due to a foolish encounter with a solitary, magicless elfling. The shame. The utter humiliation. In his final moments, as his life energy teetered on the knife edge of oblivion, he made a solemn vow to the evil gods of the nether plane. He would return from the fires of hell. He would hunt down his nemesis, the belligerent Ikiwake, and he would exact such horrible and pitiless revenge that all the realms, below and above, would tremble at the mention of his name. 

But as for this elfling, he was dead already.

"You will never leave this hole," Crannock croaked hoarsely through gouts of blood. "I have foreseen it." He tried to laugh bitterly, but only coughed. 

And then the world went dark.

            The wizard's eyes closed, and Mithrain felt the last of the magical hold upon his body release. He sighed with relief. He could hardly believe it. He had done the impossible -- defeated magic with a lowly glaive. So Master Ikiwake was right after all. Did he know this was going to happen? Did he know about the assassins and the wizard? It hardly seemed possible, and yet …

            Mithrain reached into his leather pouch and withdrew the second egg. He must have known the banshee spawn was explosive and could be used to disrupt a wizard's spell. Why else would he send him to retrieve it? It was a dangerous lesson, but one he would never forget.

Mithrain heard the wails of the banshee grow loud behind him. Whatever obstacle had delayed their passage, it was there no longer. Now they would flood the labyrinth seeking vengeance upon anything left alive.

Mithrain cast a furtive glance down the path of his escape, now free of obstruction, but still glowing red with magical energy despite the wizard's demise. Mithrain pondered. Was it safe to travel? There was only one way to find out. Retrieving his glaives, he ventured forward only to be blown off his feet in the next instant by a terrific explosion that buried him in shattered bones and rocky debris.

When he finally regained his senses, he beheld with despair the utter hopelessness of his situation. The exit tunnel had completely collapsed. So, the evil wizard had his last laugh. To make matters worse, the noise of the explosion had drawn the attention of the banshee. From the volume of their wails, they would be here in an instant. He was trapped.

He had heard of soldiers in the past who had chosen to take their own lives rather than face torture at the hands of their conquerors. He could never do that. He would fight to the end, no matter the odds. He picked up his glaives, readying himself for battle. But then he remembered the third passage. 

He didn't know where it led, probably just back into the labyrinth. He would only be delaying the inevitable. Eventually, they would find him, and then his end would not be swift. After wrapping his envenomed body in unbreakable webbing, they would drain his blood for weeks to feed their larval offspring until the very last drop was gone. And then they would devour his flesh, leaving only his polished bones to pave their cavern floor.

But what else was there to do?

Turning on his heel, he ran down the dark tunnel, lit less and less by the glowing ichor that illuminated the rest of the banshee labyrinth. Soon the way became steep and uneven. He could not see where to place his leathered feet as each footfall became more rapid and precarious, nor could he slow his descent into the darkness. 

In his fatigue, he stumbled, dropping his glaives and tumbling head over heels. Over and over he went, an endless, spinning wheel of battered and bruised elfin flesh, until the ground vanished completely and dhe was falling through infinite darkness. At last, his body impacted a putrid body of fast-flowing water, a subterranean river that was no doubt the natural run-off for the banshee's mountain lair.

Fighting his way to the surface, his hands grasped at a slippery mass that reeked of decay, perhaps a broken root of some deep-growing plant, or an elf corpse that had filled with the gas of decay. Whatever it was, Mithrain clung to it now with the last of his strength. If the banshee came for him, he would be powerless to defend himself. He listened for his doom, but all he could hear was the roar of the subterranean slough.

And then it occurred to him. They wouldn't come this way because banshee hated water. There was a glow ahead where the river left the cave mouth. It was dawn. The long night had finally ended. He was going to make it. 

But what of his quest?

Sparing a hand from his make-shift raft, he reached down to the leather pouch on his belt. With all of his violent tumbles, the banshee egg was still intact. For some reason, the thought made him laugh, and although it hurt to do so, he laughed loud and long.

The End