The Halfling

Chapter 6

The water had burst through the small exit and, like a waterfall, cascaded and cascaded. The interconnected chambers had fallen in or, at least, had been degenerated and broken.

"The hounds will have left it by now," Amos said. They had been resting for the whole day, what with the two being unconscious; they had only come to during the evening. "Even though they will travel the mountain passes, we should make haste and travel by nightfall. For the phantom, the creature, seems to be circling us, speculating when it shall make its move."

The two, shivering in cloaks of fur, looked grim.

"Do not lose hope," the wizard said. "We left the cave alive. And I don't think luck will stop smiling on us now."

"If anything's lucky," the boy said, sniffing, "it's that you found us, even in the depths of that filthy place."

"Ah, yes, quite." They pestered him about it. "Very well, I shall tell it to you as we trek through the rest of this land."

They got to plodding, the wizard leading with his staff like a silver will-o-the-wisp yet not flitting, not drifting around bushes and over branches. It was a constant light, a comfortable presence that exuded warmth.

There was no moon now, the sky just an empty cobalt-blue, fretted with frenetically rushing stars, all aglow, all fiery, all whirling in the heavenly spheres. The leaves crunched under their feet, shadows shifting about.

"Well," said the wizard as they crossed a hushing stream, a snakelike blue, "I should start with the time I lost you. When the ceiling fell down, when the snow started pelting us and the hounds, I found it to my advantage to send lightning down. I did; it had the effect I wished for. But you two were gone, snatched."

They wove through lindens that stirred, the critters' muffled voices resounding. Cicadas clacked continuously, rhythmic beats to the shrill cries of the nightbirds. Around them, the forest lived.

"I went after you through the tunnels the hounds had dug. Finding you nowhere no matter how deeper I searched, I decided to ask the walls." And after saying this, he looked at the princess. "And you mentioned something about those walls talking to you, didn't you, dear princess?"

"Yes," said she. A briar dug into her skin; she removed it. "The voices guided us through the tunnels, as far as I was concerned. We managed to escape the hounds because of them. However, we did stumble into the recess where the phantom lived. A horrid beast if there ever was one!"

Twigs snapped. Bushes rustled. Whispers hushed.

"I don't think," the wizard said, "that you should trust so much in random voices like those. They told me where you were, of course, for I could pry that much from strange souls like those. But they sneered and cackled when they sensed me heading for it. I don't think those voices and the phantom work against each other—on the contrary, dear, I think they are one and the same."

The princess bowed her head. "I didn't know what else to do. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be," the boy said. He sprung over a moss-licked log. "You saved us."

Amos' neck snapped backwards. He chuckled. "I thought I heard the trill of a songbird. Ah, quite right you are there, boy. And of course, you protected the princess as well, against that filthy creature, the phantom." There was a stirring somewhere around them. "That, too, deserves praise."

The boy hid his head. But he felt something like the welling-up of pride within him. He had started protecting something. It was new to him. And quite challenging. But it certainly felt meaningful.

For a few moments, they continued their talk. How the wizard skidded through the tunnels, rushing; how his fingers groped the jagged walls, with only his staff as a source of light; how acrid the smell of the place was; how he found the exit guarded by some hounds; how he turned them into streaks of dust on the walls; and how he found them from there.