It starts:
'I passed a furtive Elf after sun's peak, travelling seaward.'
'What of it?'
'He had not the garb of a Wood Elf, nor the bearing of a High Elf. I have not seen his like before.'
'Did you hail him?'
'Not I; he was certain engrossed in some fell errand.'
'This Elf was neither High nor Wood you say; that only leaves Elves of an altogether Darker shade.'
'You cannot think..?!'
'You said he was on a fell errand...'
'There is only one of that breed who would dare stray to the Ravines.'
'You cannot mean Black Maw – '
'No! Don't speak it.'
'The Dark is come again!'
* * * * *
Pela
'Ghasts!' gasped Pela as she flew into the clearing and flopped dramatically onto a branch between the others.
Her gossamer wings rippled with phosphorescent blue pulses, an outward manifestation of her inner fears. In her most feverish nightfrits wind-ghasts pursued her, matching her turn-for-turn, their talons grasping and snatching and – just before she woke – closing around her tiny form.
She had ended her vigil as two of the creatures had swooped into the cavern entrance at the first hint of dusk, and she raced back to report this threat to the elf. 'They have ghasts!'
'I heard,' the elf did not raise his eyes from the maps of the nearby caverns that Pela and the piskie had stolen to his orders. 'What else?'
What else was of little matter thought Pela, but she listed her other sightings, 'Spriggans and sprowlers as you expected, but wind-ghasts as you most truly did not!'
'Were there sprigs?' His head was still roaming the caves and passages laid out on the papers before him.
'No. Of this I am sure; none ventured out and I would have noted their yaps and howls had they been inside.' This was welcome news; sprigs would quickly pick up any trail after the raid. 'There was another, though, in the cavern, taller and leaner than the spriggans. It was a long-snouted creature with horns stretching up high.'
The elf's head jerked up, flint eyes gripping her gaze from under his stormy tumble of jet-black hair. 'Was it a pooka?'
She shook her head uncertainly; she had never seen a pooka and thought them long gone from the world. 'I know not, but this creature had one broken horn.'
The elf nodded slowly and grimly while Pela tore her eyes away to appeal to the piskie, who had been listening to their discussion. She knew both their names but they had been Piskie, Elf and Nymph since they had joined together for this raid.
'We cannot now continue.' She flitted down onto the chart, which the elf had spread out upon a flat rock, determined to stress her case. 'You have no weapons and I cannot out-fly wind-ghasts.'
The piskie's eyes flicked to her but it was the elf who spoke, 'No, you cannot.' He tapped at the chart beneath her tiny feet, 'but the ghasts are here, at the entrance, the Elling lies here, and we will make a back way in here, using the caster.'
* * * * *
A little later the raiders stood in a stony passage at the spot his finger had indicated. They were now four. The stone-caster had been awaiting them in the first cave. It was a kind of small golem Pela supposed. The elf had dismissed her question about it with a disinterested, 'some Fire Rune weirdling.'
She had not seen or heard of such a creature before. In the light of the piskie's torch it appeared craggy and shapeless at rest, but moved swiftly over rock with a sinuous gait like that of a miniver or stoat. Perversely, this creature alone had a name that they all used; the piskie had adopted the jagged creature and named it 'Rocky'.
Caves were its home. It was sentient and understood commands but had not the means to speak. She had thought it as immune to weapons as the boulders it resembled, but the piskie had somehow gleaned that it was vulnerable to harm should a blade or arrow-tip pierce the many fissures and crevices that travelled its body.
The elf gestured to a stretch of passage wall, like any other, and the piskie held his torch up to it.
'Now, my rugged friend, do your casting, make us a door to the caverns beyond,' the elf pointed towards the solid rock.
'Take care, Rocky,' the piskie added, patting the creature where he assumed its head might be.
The creature scrambled up to the passage wall, pushed itself against it and seamlessly became part of it, swiftly merging into it, so that nothing of the caster remained in the passage.
Moments later the process repeated in reverse. Rocky reappeared as a flowing mass, shook itself free of the wall and the foremost part of it turned towards them. Two circular pits melted in its 'head' from the bottom of which pale yellow gleams shone dolefully out – its eyes. Only rarely did it show them. Part of it shook slowly.
'Nothing,' interpreted the piskie, 'only rock.'
The elf cursed, consulted his chart in the flickering light and they moved on a few paces more.
At the fourth attempt, Rocky melded with the stone of the wall but this time it did not return in the same spot. Instead, the stone to one side and above the elf's head reddened to Rocky's hue and fissures appeared in it. As the piskie held the torch aloft, the rock hollowed and spread back leaving a central hole wide enough for even the elf to pull himself through. Pela gasped at the gap in astonishment and received a pat on her tiny rear from the elf, encouraging her to fly through.
'This is not the Elling's cavern,' he warned her, 'but should connect with it. There may be guards. Do not reveal us, Nymph.' This last was said with a thread of iron.
He pushed away the piskie, who was more than a head shorter than he, 'No torchlight yet, fool.'
Pela flew up. The passage slanted and emerged as a hole in a vertical wall of rock. It was utter darkness but the nervous blue radiance of her wings and her keen eyes, revealed any immediate hazard. As her eyes ranged deeper into the dark, she caught a faint gleam from a distant passage way and sped towards it.
The long cave was twice the height of the elf and curved away slightly. She passed another passage on the way. She could just make it out in the low glimmer, leading off to the right. It looked in poorer repair. These were old brownie or knocker mines, she realised, noting odd groups of runes carved into the walls.
At the narrowing end of the cave flickering light tumbled through an entrance. Reaching it Pela saw a much larger oval cavern, lit by many torches, beyond. Paths ran around both edges of the chamber at floor level with almost sheer walls, rising from them. There were four other passage openings at the far end, one of which was also well lit.
The main cavern floor, circled by the paths, was filled by a wide pool of pale pulsing mush. It glowed ominously. Corpse mould, she realised with disgust! The loathsome fungi earned its name by its capacity for swift digestion of corpses. It fuelled its foul reputation by not bothering to check if they were dead first. It was an oversight quickly remedied for its touch was death. The mould lay in billowing drifts and climbed menacingly a short way up the inner sides of the yawning chamber, lapping nearly onto the paths.
This was undoubtedly the Elling's Chamber. Endless tendril roots threaded through the mould, breaking its surface in ten thousand places, all converging on a slender central plinth that rose clear of the surrounding mould. It was topped by a dish, the size and shape of a scallop shell. That was where their prize waited, in the midst of a lake of death.
Even at this distance, Pela fancied she could hear the thrum of the roots as they stretched towards the Elling. It commanded the chamber; every scrap of light and sound somehow inclined towards it; she likewise.
The Elling represented power beyond her mind's ability to digest. She raced back to tell the others.
Joined by the elf and piskie in the shadows beyond the Elling's cavern, Pela's courage grew. The three raiders studied the chamber.
The elf refused to bring weapons because, he said, they could never prevail in any fight; their only hope lay in guile and stealth. Nymphs were small and puny, with no weapon ability. Piskies were always in the shadows of any wars or battles but were the very stuff of stealth; furtive hypersensitive and vigilant.
Piskie eyes were inky dark with no trace of white and their eyesight was akin to a hawk's. Pela knew that their ears were phenomenally sharp. They had not the bulk of an elf and travelled noiselessly through almost anything. It was said a piskie could walk across a pool at night and not disturb the moon's reflection. An exaggeration, of course, but it caught the essence of their race; their talents were impressive, yet they rarely left any impression.
The piskie was nervous, scanning the chamber intently.
'See aught, Piskie?' murmured the elf.
'I see no guards,' the piskie shook his head but there was no confidence to be found in his expression.
'If even your sharp gaze sees no danger, then we go. Come, Nymph.' The elf made to stand, 'you can fly over the corpse mould. Piskie, stay here; it may yet be guarded.'
'The front entrance is guarded,' whispered Pela, delighted that their prize would be taken so much more easily than she had imagined. 'They need no guard in here for the passages are dead-ends and the Elling is surrounded by corpse mould.'
The piskie's hand caught on the elf's rising shoulder.
'Wait,' he said. 'Something breathes.'