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36: Knives and Claws

The two didn't dare utter a word as they trekked through the emptiness. With the wards down, Caval was eventually able to see the terrain for what it truly was - a barren area of desolation. The air was dry and arid - completely at odds with the humid warmth that Blayre had come to detest so much in the forest that was still visible from where they stood.

Blayre wanted the two mage-men a good distance ahead to avoid detection. She wasn't sure how favorably they would react to finding out they were being followed. It was easy enough for her to walk straight through the wards, but it was less work for Caval if he didn't have to disarm the magical trips and traps and could allow the strange men to do the heavy lifting. The seeker and the sorcerer would use the unexpected company to whatever advantage they could - until they became a disadvantage.

The ancient magic that Blayre could Sense grew stronger and stronger, and she soon realized that the mages ahead of them were so focused on dismantling the wards that they were not taking the most direct route. Well, they couldn't know how indirect of a route they were taking. She only knew by the ebb and flow of ancient power that assaulted her senses, a lure line cast to pull her toward some massive and powerful ship.

"We can get there ahead of them," She murmured softly to Caval, "But you will have to follow very carefully behind me to avoid the wards. Do you think you can dismantle them?"

"I suspect I can," Caval said rather haughtily. "At least, that had been my original plan. I had better be able to if I don't want to be burnt to a crisp."

"Is that what the wards will do?" Blayre asked softly.

Caval shrugged and grinned crookedly, "Not sure, but that's just what I've imagined since they're guarding a dragon fossil yard."

    And so they continued on, Blayre taking them around whatever wards she could, and Caval using incantations from the old book that had the maps, to nullify the wards and enabling him to pass. It looked like a lot of effort, from what Blayre could see of the sweat that dotted his brow. And Caval was a very powerful sorcerer. The other two must be powerful magic wielders as well, and Blayre wondered if they were taking turns. Either way, she suspected they would be rather weakened by the time they reached the caverns.

    The area was so dry that Blayre's previously grimy complexion was turning cracked and dust-covered. The stone and loose dirt all around them had a slight lavender hue, like a cloud just before sunrise. She was standing, waiting for Caval to finish dismantling a ward and absentmindedly wondering what type of rock it was when he stood, took one step and then began to fall over a precipice that she hadn't noticed until just then. "You idiot!!!" She screeched at him, rushing toward him.

She reached him falling to her stomach as his fingers scrabbling for purchase on the rocks and dirt, and tried grabbing his hands. She realized too late how stupid a decision that was as she began sliding forward, their hands clasped together, pulled by his weight and the momentum of her sliding forward. The dusty surface provided little traction to stay up and the toes of her boots skittered along the ground like a carriage rolling down a hill. Caval was much heavier than her, and they were both going to tumble over the edge of the bluff.

And tumble they did, Blayre didn't even have the wherewithal to scream as she felt Caval push off with his feet so that he began to fall back-first into the dark maw of nothingness that awaited them. She dimly felt him wrap his arms around her waist and pull her against him. Moon and Sun, he was going to take the full force of the fall.

"Nooooooo!" She managed to yell as they plummeted. Caval roared with effort and she suddenly felt his magic shudder into activation. Instead of an abrupt and violent landing, it felt as though they had landed atop one of the soft and cloud-like palace mattresses, with a groan Caval slowly reigned in his magic, and they fell ever so slowly to the ground which Blayre determined to be perfectly flat and smooth, and hard a granite. A layer of dirt or dust came off on her fingers as she slid a hand across it.