Stalactites and stalagmites damply shimmered in the wizard light cast from the end of Anson’s staff. Rick and Anson walked down roughly hewn stairs cut out of the rock walls of a great vertical shaft. The faint dripping of water echoed off the walls, masking any footsteps they made. Anson wore his wizard’s robes, while Rick still preferred his well-used battledress uniform. They had passed through numerous passages and chambers, descending ever deeper down, before coming to this vertical shaft with its descending stair.

  They were in the depths of the Caverns of Csarogath, a cave system where magi-stones, used in magic items and jewelry, were mined for centuries. These caves in the Ziemian Alps formed an area rich in magic energy, similar to a Confluence but without interdimensional rifting. Long played out, the abandoned mine now teemed with subterranean life, often insects, that occupied the natural tunnels and caverns along with the chiselled passages and chambers created by humans.

  Anson propped his staff in the crook of his arm, which showed some muscle along with the rest of his body since he began following Rick around. He was still thin but no longer a scrawny teenager. Magister Lindolf had assigned him to be Rick’s guide after the Battle of the Tower to help him search for Magister Anya. It took weeks to find the renowned mystic healer who frequently travelled the five lands to research the healing arts. She arrested the progress of Rick’s cancer but needed rare opal flowers to complete the cure. One of the places the magical plant grew was in the caverns they were in.

  “We’re almost down to the levels with the largest magi-stone seams,” Anson said. “We’ll turn left when we see two large columns together. That will take us down a tunnel to the closest seam of magi-stones. The first area should be the Chamber of Chimes. The opal flowers should grow around there.”

  “I sure hope it’s there. This will be the fourth chamber we’ve searched. All we’ve found are bugs and mushrooms. Killing death beetles or those red jelly things was no fun either.”

  “Still, it was fairly easy to get to this point. Others may have picked those other areas clean.”

  “Yeah. I wondered about that myself.”

  “But…” Anson looked at the map again. “This is where the lairs of the glass spiders begin.”

  “Damn.” Rick looked pensive and then seemed to make up his mind. “It’s going to get more dangerous then. Are you sure you want to continue? Only I have to.”

  Anson noted Rick’s laboured breathing, and his shoulders were drooped more than normal. His friend’s energy level was flagging. Going downhill wasn’t supposed to be a workout, but the air was dense in the caves and sometimes stale. He knew the big, bearded man hid his constant fatigue, a side effect of Magister Anya’s treatment, from him as much as possible to keep his spirits up.

  “Of course,” Anson answered without hesitation. “We need to cure you.”

  “That means a lot. Thanks for sticking by me, man.” Rick patted Anson on the shoulder. “Let’s take a short breather before continuing.”

  The two sat down on the pathway, breaking out some travel biscuits and water. Rick looked over the edge of the path, which took them deeper into the caverns. The beam from his headlamp disappeared into the darkness below.

  “That is one steep drop. But then this place is full of steep drops. The place needs more guardrails.”

  “You’re being funny,” Anson dryly replied. “I know you’re tired, so am I, but I’m sure we’ll find the flower there.”

  “I love an optimist. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll power through.” Rick took a drink from his canteen. “I miss coffee. It’s a shame you guys only have tea, but at least the ale is good.”

  “I miss that cola drink,” Anson said.

  He knew Rick eased stress this way. He really respected the big soldier who never faltered and enjoyed his company. In his world, not many soldiers were as well educated. He was surprised to learn that all JSOF members were required to have a post-secondary education. It was no wonder that Magister Anya took a liking to Rick with his knowledge and somewhat brash personality.

  “Lady Anya is waiting for you to return, Rick,” Anson said encouragingly.

  Rick’s facial expression was a little wistful. “She is a remarkable woman. Healing me was extremely strenuous. I’m not surprised about her reluctance at first.”

  “Yes,” Anson teased, “she must have thought highly of the Oni Slayer, Hero of Ziemia.”

  The comment didn’t change Rick’s expression. “You know she’s not like that. She’s practical, intelligent, and attractive. But do you think she could be serious about a guy like me?”

  Anson sighed deeply, shaking his head slightly. “You’ve laid with her, haven’t you? All those nights.”

  “You knew about that?”

  “Both her apprentices knew…”

  “Geez. We tried to keep that low-key.”

  “Lady Anya is one of the greatest mystic healers in the kingdom. She would only treat you this way if she favoured you. The full body healing she performed is very special.”

  “You think we could be together after all this is settled?”

  “I think you being from the other world interests her. Who knows how long it will last?” Anson rolled his eyes. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I don’t have much experience with these things.”

  Rick nodded. “You’re right. I should live in the moment, but you’re one to talk.” A big grin crossed his face. “I noticed you and that blonde-haired apprentice, Gwen.”

  “We’re just friends,” Anson’s face flushed slightly

  “Don’t worry. I think she likes you too.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Ask her out after this.”

  That put a happy expression on Anson’s face while he rolled up the map again to put it back in its tube.

  *****

  They continued descending the path, eventually taking the tunnel branching off to the left where the two pillars were. Rick continued on point, using his headlamp to light the way, with Anson providing more light from behind. He felt tired but, at the same time, excited. It felt like he was in a fantasy role-playing game he played in high school. Heck, he thought, he had fought ogres and goblins and was even on a quest in a dungeon at the moment. Rick was just glad he had his rifle instead of a sword and a wizard at his back. He really owed Yuriko and Travis big time for giving him this chance.

  Finding this flower was Rick’s last hope. Anya had exhausted herself several times to arrest the cancer in him, and he couldn’t keep doing that to her. She had never seen anything quite like it and called it an insidious, festering consumption that gnawed at the very essence of life. Her abilities somehow boosted his immune system to fight the cancer cells, but it was temporary. To make it permanent, an elixir from the opal flowers was needed, something she didn’t have.

  Rick knew they cared for each other, but he could not tell how long it would last. She was actually a much older woman, almost 80, but she had arrested her aging at a much younger age. They looked about the same age, but she was wiser than him, with different views. Still, their attraction was mutual. If Anson was correct, maybe they did have a chance together.

  With the dangerous spiders ahead, Rick switched from his headlamp to his night vision goggles. The light from any phosphorescence or Anson’s staff would clearly light the environment for him. The side tunnel wound around many stalagmites and was mostly natural, with miners having levelled the floor in many places in the past. Chiselled holes in the wall indicated where magi-stones had been excavated. In a nook, there were even rusted, abandoned hand tools and an empty chest that had partially rotted away.

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  “Be careful of those mushrooms.” Anson pointed to these bulbous, ball-like fungi that were red with white spots. “Those look like puff adders. They burst to spread poison spores.”

  “Nice,” Rick replied. “Let’s steer clear of those. No mushroom soup today.”

  They walked on, having to squeeze through several tighter spots. Rick halted once, letting a centipede the length of his arm pass in front. The insect ignored them, and the intent was mutual. There was no point engaging in unnecessary fights. He had already seen oversized insects and lizards in the cave, and Anson confirmed his suspicions that magic in the cave system affected the ecology of the place.

  A faint tinkling sound came to his ears, but in the silence of the caverns, it was louder than it seemed and carried far. Continuing toward the source of the sound, Rick brushed some cobwebs out of the way with his rifle barrel. There had been few webs before, but there were definitely more here. Shortly afterwards, Rick noticed a faint glow ahead of them, and it became bright enough that he flipped his goggles up to use his headlamp instead. The chiming noises were now clear, with various tones filling the air at a low conversational level.

  Rick entered the Chamber of Chimes at a narrow end. It was about 30 or 50 metres across, depending on where you measured the roughly oval chamber. A few great columns seemed to prop up the high ceiling with its stalactites. Strangely enough, thin crystals hung like mobiles from the bottom of most of the stalactites, bumping together in the slightest breeze to make the sounds they were hearing.

  Different white and yellow mosses that glowed covered much of the floor, with larger glowing purple mushrooms with wide-brims growing in clumps, some of which were taller than a man. Low-grade magi-stones of different colours added their low glow from the walls of the chamber. This ambient light reflected off the many suspended crystals to bathe the room with a gentle wavering light that shimmered off the walls, making it seem like they were within a giant geode. Rick thought the place had a peaceful and ethereal feel from the crystalline light and the gentle chimes of the crystals. When he saw the large webs stretched from floor to ceiling, like room dividers in several places, the illusion was shattered. It was a beautiful yet dangerous garden.

  “It is quite a sight,” Anson said. “The spiders make those crystal chimes. Some scholars have speculated they help attract prey with the sound.”

  “It’s pretty, and we’re the prey,” Rick said tersely. “So keep your eyes open.”

  He scanned the cavern, looking for the glass spiders. He knew they were the size of large dogs with venomous fangs. Worst of all, they were translucent unless they had fed, giving them their name. The uneven chamber floor had large stalagmites, clumps of mushrooms, and even tall stone anemones with their waving tendrils in the air. The anemones were harmless if you avoided their sticky and stinging tendrils, and if they felt threatened, they retreated into their rocky tubes.

  Rick counted the number of webs. “There’s probably four spiders in this area if each one of them has a web. ”We’ll work our way around the outside of the room, from left to right. We’ll take it in quarters.”

  “Maybe they’ll leave us alone.“ Anson anxiously looked around, hand raised to cast a spell.

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” Rick advanced into the room, rifle at his shoulder, his laser sight on. “Follow and cover me like we practiced. When an area’s clear, I’ll cover, and you can examine the area for Opal Flowers.”

  He picked a path that kept him in the open as he scanned for the spiders, knowing they were ambush predators. This environment, with the wavering light, made it harder to spot the spiders as they blended in with their background even more. Anson followed, watching their rear and putting extra eyes on their flanks.

  Rick spotted no motion on the ground or at the ceiling. After picking his way through the first portion of the chamber, he picked a spot with slightly better sight lines to do a final check.

  “Looks clear here. Have a look, Anson.”

  Anson nodded. The wizard looked around clumps of mushrooms, behind rocks, over moss beds, in cracks, and in the recesses left behind by the excavation of magi-stones. The Opal Flower was a delicate plant with white leaves that resembled a drooping orchid with black petals that shone with an oily pearlescence to them under light. Many minutes of searching went by, with Rick shifting his position to cover the apprentice as he progressed.

  “There’s nothing here,” Anson said disappointedly.

  “You gave it a careful search. Let’s try the next area.”

  Rick shifted the grip on his rifle and began edging around one of the big webs stretched from ceiling to floor. There were spiders here, but why hadn’t he seen one yet, he wondered. How well could these things hide? He wished he had thermal sights, but his eyeballs would have to do.

  While he walked, he saw a flash of motion out of the corner of his eye. Something leapt from a clump of mushrooms. All he saw was a blurry outline, a distortion in the air against the background. His rifle tracked the target, not sure where to shoot, but he instantly squeezed the trigger when he saw a pattern of black beady dots, the eyes. His long burst of rounds struck the spider’s head, tearing through its body and a spray of fluids out the back. The body of the spider hit the ground hard in front of him.

  Immediately, Rick spun to make sure nothing else was attacking. The attacking spider looked dead on the ground. Its carapace was dully translucent, and he could see the outlines of internal organs inside. The impact of the bullets distorted the head, but he could see its long fangs that oozed some kind of poison from the tips.

  “That’s good shooting, Rick,” Anson said. He had never seen one of these before either and looked it over with interest.

  “That’s one down,” Rick replied. The sounds of his rifle fire had echoed loudly in the cavern, and he hoped it wouldn’t attract even more attention or cause anything to fall from the ceiling. “They’re definitely hard to spot, but at least I know what to expect now.”

  Rick continued walking ahead, scanning the next part of the cavern. This area had another of the webs, many stalagmites, some large boulders, and several big clumps of mushrooms. There were plenty of places to hide. He checked the mushrooms even more carefully this time but kept an eye out elsewhere.

  The skeletal remains of some kind of giant lizard were on the ground here, the bones within the remnants of a cocoon. The area had many bones of smaller animals or empty beetle carapaces scattered about. Ominously, there was a rusty sword and a mostly skeletonized person cocooned by a large boulder.

  “This looks bad. Anson. Time for back-to-back.”

  The apprentice put his back against Rick’s back, and the two continued forward. Anson flared his wizard light, making their section of the cavern shimmer brightly. Disturbed by the light, the spiders attacked. It almost seemed coordinated. A spider, larger than the first one, lunged from behind a group of stalagmites, while from behind, another swung down from the ceiling on a line spun out of its rear.

  Rick opened fire at the giant insect. It was hard to see, fast, and low to the ground. The first burst passed just about the spider, knocking rock chips up from the ground. A second burst caught the spider on the right side, shooting one of its forelimbs off. It barely slowed the creature down before it was on Rick. Behind him, Anson cast a fire bolt at the second spider. The bolt struck the arachnid in mid-swing, burning it deeply and setting it ablaze. It sailed overhead like a burning torch into a web, setting it ablaze. High-pitched squeals signalled its demise as its limbs flailed and stopped moving.

  Rick backpedalled, knocking Anson over while he tried to evade the incoming spider. It landed on him, its fangs clicking together as it tried to bite him. He pushed back with his rifle, the fangs dripping poison over his gun as they tried to bite into his face. Managing to free one hand, he pulled his pistol free from his holster and fired four times at point blank into the spider’s face. Spider blood sprayed over him, but the spider stopped moving, and he threw it off him. Spitting to clear his mouth of the vaguely salty spider fluids, he readied his rifle. Sure enough, he saw movement from across the room as another spider came racing forward. This time, he put it down with a couple of well-placed bursts at a good distance.

  “You okay, Anson?” Rick searched for more spiders around them.

  Anson was on all fours by a hollow in the ground where pick marks indicated a magi-stone had been excavated long ago. “Rick! I’ve found some!”

  “No shit!” Rick turned and crouched down next to Anson.

  In the hollow, growing out of a crack, was a cluster of plants. Anson lifted a small flower head; its stubby black petals shimmered in the light cast upon them. “There’s more than enough here to make the elixir.”

  “Mother-lode!” Rick exclaimed. “You pick them, and then we’re getting out of Dodge.” He then wiped some more spider blood from his face with his sleeve while keeping an eye out.

  Anson nodded, not quite understanding Rick’s expressions, but he got the gist.

  Somewhere, deeper inside the cave system, from a tunnel at the other end of the cavern, there was a low roar. The sounds of gunfire had aroused something. Anson paused briefly before he finished packing the flowers carefully in his bag.

  “It’s time to get out,” Rick said.

  “Definitely,” Anson replied.

  The two headed back the way they came, keeping a rapid pace. They heard no other roars, and when they reached the shaft, there was still no sign of pursuit. Relieved, they began the long trek back to the surface. It would be a good four hours before they made it out of the caves.

  When they exited the caverns, it was mid-morning. They had been underground for almost two days.

  “I’m so happy we found the flowers. Lady Anya will be pleased.” Anson stretched his arms out, basking in the sunlight.

  “She’s not the only one,” Rick smiled. The sun felt good on his skin. “I have some real hope now for the first time in over a year.”

  Despite his happiness, he remembered a thought he had tucked away before entering the caverns. “Remember those knights we met on the way here? They said they had barely routed an oni raiding party that had powerful sorcerers in black aiding them. I have a gut feeling I should check to see what’s really with those new sorcerers.”

  “Maybe,” Anson replied. “But I think the first priority is to heal you. Korzaka Crossing is a half day out of our way in the wrong direction. It’s already a day back to the village where Lady Anya is.”

  Rick sighed. “You’re right. I should be putting myself first. Anya would probably chew me out for delaying, too.”

  “That’s right.” Anson gave his friend a push in the right direction. “Let’s get going. It’s a long walk.”