He ran, holding the amulet in front of him, torn between running at a flat out sprint and being careful of where he stepped. He ran aimlessly, taking left and right turns with wild abandon. Things began to blur together; nothing but an endless series of corridors and hallways.
It didn't take long for him to become lost.
Marcius ran until his lungs burned, finally coming to rest against a corner. He covered the amulet as he sat down, fearful of who, or what, might see it. The apprentice wasn't sure how long he waited there, trying to gulp down breaths of air, willing every part of him to calm down, and trying to control his breathing.
There was a shift in the air, and Marcius stood, feeling foolish and blind. Still, he wasn't going to just roll over and die to whatever it was that was in the darkness.
The hand that came down across his mouth scared all sense out of him. "Hush." Selene's voice whispered harshly in his ear, overriding his protests as she clamped down even harder over his mouth, "You're too loud. I do not want it to find us again."
He nodded wildly, still thrown off by the elf's sudden appearance. She slowly removed her hand when she was sure he wouldn't make a noise, and then moved her lips close to his ear, her breath tickling him. "How did you avoid the traps?"
"Traps?" he whispered, still expecting some unseen beast to leap out at any moment.
He felt her sigh against his back. "You mean you didn't. . . ? No," she whispered to herself reproachfully, "You really wouldn't. . . humans and their sight. I forgot. Stay close to me. You've been running blind and only dumb luck has stopped you from getting yourself killed." Marcius nodded, his mouth dry at her proclamation.
"What about the thing you fought?" he managed to choke out.
"It was close, but I got lucky and accidentally tripped a trap myself," she admitted. "Avalene was with me though. The beast should be occupied for a while, but that is why we must not tarry here. It will seek me out, and it won't be happy. Now hush and take my hand. We move now."
He fumbled for her in the dark, surprised when her hand found his instead. Then they were moving, weaving slowly through the dark corridors as silent as possible. Marcius was completely blind in the pitch darkness. It was humbling to depend on someone so fully, as he had to now. Especially when one considered the possibility of traps.
By Avalene herself, it was like one of Jared's adventuring books!
Except it was real. That thing, whatever it was that Selene had battled, was undoubtedly tangible and it was their lives on the line, not some perfect hero with shining armor only outshone by his impeccable personality. He was hardly hero material anyway.
He grinned in the darkness. Trapped towers. Unexplainable monsters. Prophecies. Jared would be the happiest man on Faelon to be here right now. After a few moments, Marcius decided the blonde swordsman could have it.
His hand jerked suddenly, pulling him from his thoughts. Selene had stumbled? That was unlike her. A coppery pungent smell entered his nostrils, and it was then that he realized that his hand was wet, warm with an unknown fluid.
Was this blood?
She stumbled again and it was only her grip on his hand that kept her upright this time. Marcius could hear her labored breathing in the cool dark; a certain exhalation of one trying their hardest to compose themselves despite evidence to the contrary.
"Selene," he whispered, "are you. . . "
"I am fine," she snapped, though her voice trembled. "Let's keep going. This place will be the death of us if we can't find a way out."
Marcius was about to say that it looked like it might be the death of them if they kept going, but he held his tongue. Now wasn't the time for such comments. A nagging, terrible thought hung in the back of his head. She was in this situation because of him.
A large droplet of the liquid ran off his knuckle and he winced at the sensation. He didn't know what he'd do if he lost her. The notion surprised him, though deep down, within that tiny part of him that held the darkest of secrets, it didn't really.
He'd go to the Academy and leave this whole thing far behind. . . he'd leave her far behind. So why did it matter? Yes, she was beautiful, but Faelon was full of attractive people. Logically, it didn't make sense for him to care so much about someone he just met.
But, logic be damned, he did care.
No, she'd be okay. They'd be okay. It had to be so. Everything would be alright. But, he admitted quietly to himself, there was the distinct possibility that he was terribly wrong. In fact, that was the more likely case, given his record so far.
Heedless of his internal struggle, the elven woman continued, fighting through it all, leading the two of them through the dark like an arrow.
Occasionally they stopped or diverted their path, and Marcius suspected it was to both avoid a trap and because the elven woman seemed to barely be hanging on. He wished he could pull out the amulet so he could see what was going on or aid her in some way, instead of being led around like a child.
Then he felt it. The change was subtle. Barely more than a shifting in the air, a brief slant to the darkness His senses were wired. It might as well have been a lightning strike on a still evening night.
"There is something up ahead," he said softly, voicing his thoughts. His free hand went reflexively to the pouch. Was it something of power, like the gem?
The elf didn't respond, but there was a quickening in pace that marked that she agreed too.
They saw the light off in the distance, extending far off into the hallway like a celestial beacon, calling to them. Marcius wanted to get there quickly, out of the darkness, but Selene resisted. "There are pressure plates. A lot of them," she whispered, her hand coming up to his chest as to halt any further movement. He felt her kneel, and a few seconds passed before she stood back up, once again grabbing his hand. There was a brief sucking sound as their palms met, the warm liquid squelching. His stomach hurled and the sickening feeling of bile rose in his throat. "Follow me exactly, and stay close."
They moved with exaggerated caution, and it seemed to take forever as the light came closer and closer. Soon, with no small measure of relief, he could see the ground again, a seeming meandering of sandstone brick covered with a thick layer of dust.
Marcius set his foot down again, feeling confident now that he could see again.
"No! Not there!" Selene yelled as he felt something click beneath his heel.
The elf pulled hard and he stumbled, falling forward until he sprawled on the ground. There was a grating sound like something being pushed and then they were covered with dust as the rolling of thunder filled the air and just as rapidly disappeared, letting the dirt hang about the silence like an orange witness.
Marcius coughed as he looked back. A massive stone block had slid forth from some facet of the wall, ramming into the opposite wall. Cracks trickled forth like broken spider webs from where the block had impacted.
He looked over with grudging respect for the elf; she had just saved his life.
Again.
And she had the strangest expression on her face. Marcius fully expected to be berated, yelled at, or at least scolded for his ineptitude. Instead she burst into laughter.
He stood, stunned at her reaction. Her eyes twinkled and her laughter was musical. He had never heard her laugh so freely, and the smile she wore made him grin back, feeling completely idiotic as he did so. This of course only threw more wood on the fire and sent her back into yet another fit of gut wrenching laughter.
Marcius laughed with her, not knowing exactly what he was laughing at. Then his mind and eyes caught up to each other and he saw the dark red, almost black, stain on his hand.
Blood.
He looked up at the elf and all laughter died. Thin rivulets of blood, clotted and sticky, ran down her good hand where it occasionally dripped. It ran from somewhere along her collarbone, a horizontal cutting of fabric of her shirt giving the only clue as to where the actual wound was. The warm red liquid pooled along the steep edges of her collarbone, and the sight made Marcius sick to his stomach.
That was the wet feeling he had felt when she had held his hand. Her blood!
His expression must have been terrible, because the elf stopped laughing too. He approached her, fearful of her reaction, yet concerned enough to try anyway. "Selene, we really have to treat you. We need to stop the bleeding."
She opened her mouth to say something, but then shook her head, as if denying something internally. "Alright," she said wearily, sitting down.
It was a testament to how tired and hurt she was that she submitted to his ministrations without complaint. He wasn't exactly well versed in treating injuries, but he forced aside his aversion to blood for her sake. With her help and a strip of fabric from his shirt, they managed to clean up and bandage the nasty jagged cut that ran from her top of her shoulder down to the length of her arm. The bandage soaked with blood immediately upon application, but he hoped that it helped in some way.
When he looked at her questionably, "claws" was the only tight-lipped answer she gave. He didn't press her beyond that; preferring to block any thought of such a creature capable of making a wound like that from his mind.
He really hoped the bleeding would stop.
"So," he said with forced enthusiasm as he tightened the bandage, "What was so funny?"