After she watched Fenrir climb the cavern ledge and disappear into the tunnel that led to the surface from their room's little balcony, Elmeria turned back into the room, choking back the tears that inexplicably clogged her throat. She despised him. She hated him for all the humiliations he had forced upon her, for the way he had upset her comfortably ordered world, and especially for the way he had dragged her past out of its half-forgotten obscurity in the recesses of her mind. So why did a lump rise in her throat and her eyes fill with tears at the thought of the danger he was even now marching towards? She had no answers, at least none that did not frighten her.

  She flopped down on the bed, flinching a little at the smell of sex which permeated it, but after a few breaths it was possible to ignore, and having his scent all around her was comforting somehow. This realization disquieted her so much that she immediately bounced back up again and began pacing the floor, trying to bring her emotions under control.

  Mitzi, who had been with her on the balcony watching Fenrir and the goblins depart, gave her an odd look. "You say you hate him, but you sad when he go. Why?"

  "I do hate him," Elmeria spat. "And I'm not sad that he's gone. This is just... um..." She paused, groping for words.

  Mitzi sat down at the table, taking the ties out of her hair and throwing Elmeria a knowing gnce. "It okay. You not need expin to Mitzi."

  They psed into silence, Mitzi brushing her hair while Elmeria paced back and forth. Eventually the dark elf asked, almost timidly, "You don't think he would abandon me here, do you?"

  Mitzi looked up at her. "No, he not do that. He tell me st night after sex, he make arrage- arrangement. If he die, you get Key instead, and escort to anywhere you want. If he die and they not even get Key, you still taken care of for long as you stay. He care about you, about what happen to you. And..." here the tiny goblin hesitated, a blush springing to her face, "I think he care about Mitzi too, a little."

  Elmeria stopped dead in her pacing. He had said that she was to be given the Key if he died? And the escort was undoubtedly for the purpose of getting her to a point from which she could leave Apollyon. What he had said to her earlier that morning came back to her. Maybe he really didn't consider her an enemy. One hand stole to the top of her head, where his hand had rested. The tenderness in that caress had struck her to her core, and she had for a moment felt safe and, well, not happy exactly, but that core of loneliness which seemed her lifelong companion had melted away in his warm gaze. In some perverse way his approval seemed even more important than that of the other Saintesses. After all, he knew the depths to which she had fallen in the past, but he had still accepted her. They had accepted her as well, but would their friendship stand the test of having her past id bare? She couldn't be sure, and that terrified her.

  She looked back up at Mitzi, who was gazing into the middle distance and absently pying with a lock of her hair, her cheeks still pink, and the goblin's st sentence suddenly registered. It couldn't be, right? Mitzi had just been a convenient piece of ass, a handy means of stress relief for him. Elmeria thought back over the interactions she had witnessed between them.

  His actual interactions could mostly be written off as him either buttering her up to ensure she would spread her legs for him or him being bored and thus happy to have the distraction she provided, but it was more the way he had interacted with her that gave the lie to what Elmeria wanted to think. He had been genuinely interested in the goblin. He hadn't just been humoring her by learning and pying that game with her, and in their conversations when he had asked questions about Mitzi, he had been genuinely interested in the answers. And then there were the little gestures of affection, the headpats and hugs which he several times had given her unprompted.

  No, he really did care about the little goblin, Elmeria decided, at least a little. The pang of jealousy which followed this conclusion shocked and appalled her. 'I do not care,' she told herself fiercely. 'He can like anyone he wants, it makes absolutely no difference to me. When they get back and we go back to Ruyanei, I'm going to make sure that I never see him again anyway. I'm going to get the rest of the girls and we're going to ki- we're going to kill him.' And she vehemently squashed that traitorous little voice in her mind; the one that told her that she already cared too much for him to kill him.

  Fenrir only had the barest instant to react as the semi-liquid stream of ice tore through the space between them, but the dragon's attack had been well telegraphed, and so he dived to one side with so little space to spare that his tail collected several shards of the peculiarly shaded ice. He did not wait to see how the dragon would react, but bolted for the lip of the crater the instant he had regained his feet.

  He heard a rumble of annoyance behind him and threw himself to one side just in time to avoid another helping of the dragon's ice breath, which grew a blueish-white pilr of ice taller than him in bare seconds.

  Fenrir dodged behind this new cover and took a second to gnce back at the dragon. He was inhaling again, the great chest expanding, and picking his moment carefully, Fenrir dived out from behind the pilr of ice and pelted back down the hill directly towards his opponent just as the dragon let loose another stream of ice that would have buried him had he remained behind the pilr.

  He saw the surprise in the dragon's eyes at the audacity of the act and the attempt to shift his aim downwards, but Fenrir had the advantage and he streaked between the dragon's legs a full heartbeat before the White Horror bathed his own front legs in ice. Fenrir didn't expect it to hurt him, nor did it, but it took him a precious second to free himself, time the direwolf used to double back around the outside of the dragon's foreleg and leap for the Key nestled at the base of the dragon's neck.

  Fenrir knew that as long as his abilities were closed off to him, he had very little chance against the dragon, so he had determined to stake everything on his theory that holding a Key of Apollyon unlocked access to magic and abilities.

  He very nearly missed due to the dragon abruptly turning to try to discover where Fenrir had gone, but one hand closed over the Key and for a moment he swung wildly with the momentum of their respective movements. Having five hundred extra pounds suddenly dangling from his neck could not go unnoticed even for as rge a being as the White Horror, and he looked down to see what the cause was.

  Fenrir dug his feet into the fur on the dragon's chest, and with the hand not grasping the Key tried to sever the chain which secured it. The strike of his cws notched one of the links, but the chain held, and then he was forced to let go as the Horror snapped at him. He nded in the flurry of snow raised by the sharp movements of the massive body above him, and immediately dived into the dubious safety afforded by the dragon's bulk, where the White Horror could not easily see him.

  Knowing that he would not be given a second opportunity to go for the Key in the same manner, Fenrir waited for the Horror to swing around in search of him, then ran for the cave entrance in the crater which the dragon's test turn had put behind him. He reached it, but not without being spotted, as evidenced by a roar and the thudding of angry feet.

  "You cannot run from me, Pnewalker!" the words chased Fenrir down the wide passage, but his fleetness stood him in good stead, and he reached where the tunnel opened into a wide cavern before being caught. The cave was a jumble of broken rock and ice, a single path stamped through it where the White Horror made his way to and from the depths of the cave. Rather than continue deeper, Fenrir quickly lost himself in the debris on one side of the path.

  Several seconds ter, the White Horror thundered into the cavern. Fenrir would not have had the time to make it out of sight at the far end, and the dragon knew it, so when he did not see the direwolf on the path ahead he stopped and began nosing over the debris on either side of the path. The air was heavy with the cloying scent of sulfur, making both of their senses of smell almost useless.

  "Come out, Pnewalker. Face your end as a warrior should. Do not die cowering in terror like so many others." The dragon's voice bounced around the cavern, making it impossible to tell where it originated, and that gave Fenrir an idea.

  "The wise warrior chooses his battles," he replied in a voice of sufficient volume to bounce around the cavern in the same way the dragon's had. "There is no honor in dying for foolish and misbegotten pride."

  The Horror's head jerked around to face each echo, but as Fenrir had hoped, he was unable to pinpoint the source. "You have chosen this battle, Pnewalker, else you would not have come here. Have you lost your nerve after all?"

  "'Be subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of your opponent's fate.' The words of a wise general, on the philosophy of war."

  "Pretty words, but they mean little in this contest. It is too te for subterfuge now."

  "Is it?" Fenrir all but whispered the st two words, but there was no danger of the White Horror failing to hear him from his position directly behind the dragon as he alighted on the broad white back at the end of a carefully timed leap. Grasping the chain, he gave it one mighty strike before the dragon snapped his back like a wild mustang trying to throw an unwelcome rider. The violent movement sent Fenrir flying, but with the chain still in his grasp. His single strike had been enough.

  Then by an unhappy chance the hand grasping the chain clipped the edge of one outstretched wing. Pain nced through his limb, and the chain along with the Key that was still threaded onto it flew out of his grasp to nd with a ctter somewhere in the jumble of rocks and ice. As for Fenrir himself, he hit the opposite wall with a dull thud and fell out of sight of the White Horror in the rocks.

  Painfully, Fenrir pulled himself up to lean against a rock. His pn in drawing the dragon into conversation to mask the sound of him getting into a position from which he could make the leap onto the dragon's back had worked perfectly, but the White Horror had reacted more quickly than he would have liked. Taking shallow breaths to lessen the pain coming from his side, he slipped off in the direction he thought the Key had flown.

  The next moment an earthshaking roar nearly deafened Fenrir. Apparently the White Horror had discovered the loss of his Key. "YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS, PLANEWALKER!"

  'Not if I can help it,' Fenrir thought grimly, ducking as a sweeping wing smashed a stactite into fragments almost directly above him. With as much haste as he dared, he made his way towards where he thought the Key must be.

  It took him almost no time to find it, his gaze being drawn in its direction as if the Key wanted to be found. Oddly, it seemed smaller than when it had hung around the Horror's neck, but there was little time to worry about that. The White Horror had completely lost his temper and was smashing his way through the jumble of rock indiscriminately as he looked for either Fenrir or the Key of Apollyon. Tucking the Key into the pouch that hung from his belt, Fenrir turned his attention back to the angry dragon.

  For the moment, his chief danger y in the filing of the Horror's wings and tail and the fragments of rock and ice they dislodged from the ceiling. But it would not be long before the dragon calmed enough to execute his search more intelligently. Getting out of the cave without his opponent seeing him, even blinded by rage as he was, presented a significant challenge, and already the White Horror was beginning to calm down.

  Fenrir's eyes fell on the opening leading deeper into the mountain. It was much closer, and the dragon had his back to it. Without stopping to deliberate, Fenrir began threading his way through the rocks towards the tunnel. Chief Shazrak had mentioned the dragon's hoard having multiple entrances, and Fenrir was certain that whatever dangers y below, they could not compare to the wrath of the ancient drake behind him.

  Several tense seconds ter, the sounds of the White Horror were diminishing behind him and Fenrir was hurrying down the broad shaft which led deeper into the heart of the mountain. Sooner or ter the White Horror would discover where he had gone and give chase, so he did not check his pace until he came to a crossroads. The tunnel he was following split into three of roughly the same size, bringing Fenrir to a brief halt as he considered them. The floor of the leftmost one seemed more worn than the others, multiple scars from huge cwed feet evident even at a gnce. That way must lead to the dragon's hoard, Fenrir reasoned, and it was that way that the White Horror would most likely search for him first. The other two seemed indistinguishable from each other at first, but after smelling of the air coming from each, the direwolf decided the rightmost seemed a little fresher, and he resumed his swift pace into the inky bckness.

  He had gone a fair distance down the rightmost tunnel before he felt safe enough to stop and rest for a moment. His side was throbbing angrily, forcing him to keep his breathing shallow, and testing it with a ginger touch convinced Fenrir that several ribs had been cracked if not outright broken when he had been thrown into the wall. By reflex he attempted to attune himself to the Serpent Spirit, and was momentarily taken aback when he felt the connection succeed. 'Ah, of course. It seems my theory is correct after all.' Taking the Key out of the pouch at his waist, he examined it more closely.

  It gave off a slight red glow in the darkness of the tunnel, the eye that made up most of the head of the Key constantly gncing around at everything within its limited field of vision. Holding it now, Fenrir was positive that it had been bigger when around the White Horror's neck, though it was still quite rge and heavier than one would expect. In shape it looked much like a ward key or skeleton key, but it was very obviously otherworldly. The eye in the head of the Key was enough evidence of that, though it was most certainly not its only eldritch feature. The end of the bde shimmered like the fme of a candle, the wards constantly morphed into subtly different shapes, and the shaft was lined with tiny eyes and equally tiny mouths. Although they were lidless, they did not seem to suffer any discomfort from being in contact with Fenrir's hand, nor were they wet, while though the mouths had wickedly sharp needlelike fangs with no lips to cover them, they seemed uninterested in biting him. The entire Key was warm, almost hot to the touch, and Fenrir was sure he could a feel a heartbeat through it that was not his own.

  Pcing it back in the pouch, Fenrir activated Sand in the Hourgss momentarily, just to be sure that he could, then with a heartfelt sigh of relief he resumed his search for an exit to this cave system.

  As he proceeded the darkness deepened until even his enhanced vision could barely penetrate the Stygian bckness, and the tunnel began to wind erratically back and forth as it burrowed deeper into the heart of the mountain. The scent of sulfur also strengthened until it was impossible to smell anything else, and the air became steadily hotter, which to Fenrir indicated that the volcano on top of which the White Horror had made his nest was only dormant, not extinct.

  After what must have been an hour of groping his way through the nearly absolute darkness, he could finally see light up ahead. A dim red glow began to permeate the cave, allowing him to move with greater swiftness, and moments ter, he came out onto a ledge above a boiling sea of magma. The heat was torturous, so after carefully scanning the cave for other openings and finding none, Fenrir resigned himself to retracing his steps back to the crossroads.

  On his journey back, however, he came to an abrupt halt when before him out of the darkness loomed a fork in the path. He had not noticed any tunnels opening onto the one he had been following on his way down, and his nose was for once no help at all. His own scent was too subtle, it immediately became overpowered by the omnipresent smell of sulfur.

  After deliberating for a moment, he decided to make his way back to the magma chamber, since that was the st identifiable ndmark he had seen. But when an hour's progress back through the tunnel failed to reveal any sign of the molten rock he sought, he stopped. There was no way around it; he was lost.

  "...Shit."

  TheBestofSome