Read The Well of Eternity for Free Online Page B

corridor. Half a dozen men could walk side-by-side through it without feeling constricted, but a dragon attempting to enter would have barely been able to get its head in, much less its gargantuan body. The high, steep sides also created even thicker shadows, making Rhonin wonder if the two might need to create some sort of illumination along the way.
    Krasus pressed on without hesitation, certain of their path. He moved faster and faster, almost as if possessed.
    The wind howled even harder through the natural corridor, its intensity building as they journeyed. Only human, Rhonin had to struggle to keep pace with his former patron.
    “Are we almost there?” he finally called.
    “Soon. It lies only—” Krasus paused.
    “What is it?”
    The dragon mage focused inwardly, frowning. “It is not—it is not exactly where it should be anymore.”
    “It moved?”
    “That would be my assumption.”
    “Is it supposed to do that?” the fiery-haired wizard asked, squinting down the dark path ahead.
    “You are under the misconception that I know perfectly what to expect, Rhonin. I understand little more than you.”
    That did not at all please the human. “So what do you suggest we do?”
    The eyes of the inhuman mage literally flared as he contemplated the question. “We go on. That is all we can do.”
    But only a short distance ahead, they came across a new obstacle of sorts, one that Krasus had been unable to foresee from high up in the air. The passage split off in two directions and while it was possible that they merged further on, the pair could not assume that.
    Krasus eyed both paths. “They each run near to our goal, but I cannot sense which lies closer. We need to investigate both.”
    “Do we separate?”
    “I would prefer not to, but we must. We will each journey five hundred paces in, then turn back and meet here. Hopefully we will then have a better sense of which to take.”
    Taking the corridor to the left, Rhonin followed Krasus’s instructions. As he rapidly counted off paces, he soon determined that his choice had potential. Not only did it greatly widen ahead, but the wizard thought he sensed the disturbance better than ever. While Krasus’s abilities were more acute than his, even a novice could sense the wrongness that now pervaded the region beyond.
    But despite his confidence in his choice, Rhonin did not yet turn around. Curiosity drove him on. Surely a few steps more would hardly matter—
    He had barely taken more than one, however, when he sensed something new, something quite disturbing. Rhonin paused, trying to detect what felt different about the anomaly.
    It was moving, but there was more to his anxiety than that alone.
    It was moving toward him …and rapidly.
    He felt it before he saw it, felt as if all time compressed, then stretched, then compressed again. Rhonin felt old, young, and every moment of life in between. Overwhelmed, the wizard hesitated.
    And the darkness before him gave way to a myriad flaring of colors, some of which he had never seen before. A continual explosion of elemental energy filled both empty air and solid rock, rising to fantastic heights. Rhonin’s limited mind saw it best as a looming, fiery flower that bloomed, burnt away, and bloomed again…and with each blooming grew more and more imposing.
    As it neared, he finally came to his senses. Whirling, the mage ran.
    Sounds assailed his ears. Voices, music, thunder, birds, water… everything.
    Despite his fears that it would overtake him, the phenomenal display fell behind. Rhonin did not stop running, fearing that at any moment it would surge forward and envelop him.
    Krasus surely had to have sensed the latest shift. He had to be hurrying to meet Rhonin. Together, they would devise some way in which to—
    A terrible howl echoed through the pass.
    A massive, eight-legged lupine form dropped down on him.
    Had he been other than what he was, the wizard would have perished there, the meal of a savage,