Magnus Frostbeard's Arc

Chapter 8 of 15

The blue glow faded as they rode lower. The bright vegetation thinned, then stopped. The walls went dark. Magnus reined in his mare and lifted the relic, but its warm light reached only a few feet. He could not see the floor ahead. He could not see where the passage turned or fell. "Stop," he said. "All of you. Stop the horses." Greta pulled up beside him. "What is it?" "I can't see the ground." Magnus swung down and crouched. He pressed his palm to the ice and found nothing but slick dark. "One more step could drop us into a chasm. I can't chart a path I can't see." Winterchase slid off her horse and knelt. She laid both hands flat on the ice and went still. "There's a hole ahead," she said. "Wide. Ten paces on. I can feel the hollow under it." Magnus marked it on his chart by touch. But his hand shook. Feeling one hole at a time would not carry them down. They needed light. "We can't map blind," he said. "Not all the way down." Thornpaw sniffed the air and pointed one claw at the wall. Magnus followed the gesture. Low against the stone grew a carpet of soft moss. It shimmered with a pale, living glow, faint but real. He pressed his fingers into it. Cool. Bright enough to see his own hand. "It grows on the rock," Winterchase said. "On solid rock. Not on the hollow." Magnus understood. He scraped a handful of the glowing moss free and pressed it into a crack near the drop Winterchase had found. The light marked the edge. He scraped more and set clumps along the safe stone, one by one, building a lit trail his eyes could follow. The moss only grew where the ground held. Where it grew, they could step. He and Greta and Thornpaw worked down the passage, planting the glow ahead of the horses. Winterchase read the ice and called the hollows. Magnus charted each safe stone as the light revealed it. The moss ran out where the passage steepened. The dark opened below them. Then Magnus saw a red flicker far down the slope. It crackled and moved. A small beast padded up toward them, its body split with veins of molten fire. Heat rolled off it in waves. It lit the whole passage the color of a forge. Greta raised her axe. Magnus caught her arm. "Look," he said. The creature's light showed the floor clearly now, every crack and drop. It also showed the passage did not fall away. It ran down, whole and solid, toward a red glow far below. "That's the heat. That's the source." He lifted the relic. It burned hot in his hand, brighter than ever. Magnus marked the path on his chart and mounted his mare. The blind stretch was charted. The way down lay open, and something warm waited at its end.