The questers leaned against each other in exhaustion as they made their way back into the side room where the others were waiting. "By the Gods!" gasped Shaun, pressing his hand against a cut in his arm to try to stop the bleeding. Drake helped him tie a bandage around it. "That's not like hunting goblins in the Overgreen Forest!"

     “Are you okay?” Thomas asked Lirenna, who was sitting with her back to the wall, one of her hands held by Diana who was still whispering prayers under her breath.

     “Fine,” she said, smiling bravely. “It looks worse than it is.”

     “I doubt that. How is she, Di?”

     “I'll need a couple of hours to get the arrow out. Once that’s done, she should heal nicely. She'll be as good as new in no time. She shouldn't be moved until then, though.”

     “We can't leave the two of you alone while we search the rest of the castle,” pointed out Shaun. “We all need to stay together. There are still a lot of Shads around somewhere.”

     Drake nodded. “Can you get the arrow out now?” he asked the cleric.

     “It needs to be done carefully,” Diana replied. “You know better than I do how much damage an arrow can do coming out backwards.”

     “But no matter how much damage it does, you can heal it, right?” He looked around, concern on his face. The remaining enemies could turn up at any moment!

     Diana gave a sad little smile. “I think you're confusing me with one of your veteran army chaplains. I was accepted by Caroli just a few months ago. My body can only handle a small amount of Her power going through me right now. Just healing Matthew has left me pretty much spent.” She looked across at her brother. The only remaining sign of his injury was the tear in his clothing.

     “I'm afraid the rest of you will have to wait,” she said to the others. “I can't do anything for you right now.”

     “No worries,” replied Jerry. “We've only got a few scratches. Right?” He looked around at the humans. Drake was helping Petronax apply some bandages and they both nodded their agreement. The priest had already prayed to his own God for help with his own injuries.

     “Over the years I'll grow stronger,” added Diana. “I'll grow in faith, but right now… I don’t dare do Lirenna any more injury than I absolutely have to.”

     “Right!” said Thomas adamantly. “She takes the time. Does it properly.”

     “But we can't take the time!” protested Petronax. “The others have to be down in the Orb room, that's the only reason they didn’t hear the battle and come to join in. They could be on their way back up at any time, though! If we take them by surprise we have a chance, but if they take us by surprise…”

     “We take the time!” insisted Thomas. He turned to Diana. “If you get started now…”

     “We can't take the time!” replied Petronax. “The two of them can wait here. The cleric can tend to the shae girl while the rest of us…”

     “No!” said Thomas, moving to stand in front of the soldier. He glared into his face. “We can't leave them alone, undefended! We all stay together.”

     “I can come with you,” said Lirenna, struggling to stand.

     “No!” cried Diana, putting her hands on the demi shae’s shoulders to try to stop her. “Every movement you make… That arrowhead could be right up against a nerve or a blood vessel.”

     “I'm pretty sure there aren't any major blood vessels around there,” said Drake, though, leaning forward to examine the injury. “Priests of Samnos are well schooled in anatomy.”

     “That makes you better killers, right?” said Diana acidly.

     “Correct,” replied the priest, either ignoring or not noticing her tone of voice. “That arrowhead's embedded in muscle. She can probably move without doing herself any further injury, if she's up to it.”

     “I'm fine,” said Lirenna. She pushed Diana's hands away and climbed carefully back to her feet, helped by Thomas. “I feel okay.”

     “That's because you're numbed by the power of Caroli,” said the cleric. “Without it, you'd be in agony.”

     “Good for Caroli, then. I'm fine. So if we're going, let's go. This way is it?”

     She led the way back to the staircase, the cleric close beside her and Thomas right behind. “Just be careful for to bump it against anything, then!” she advised unhappily. “And keep to the back!” She grasped Lirenna's elbow and held her back so that the fighting men passed her, to lead the way.

     "So the worst is still to come," said Petronax grimly. "and the wizard is worst of all. Defeating him won't be easy. He's powerful enough to wipe us all out all by himself."

     "So we've got to take him by surprise, overpower him before he can cast any spells," said Shaun. "Like the way we overpowered the Mad Woman in Andor a few months back."

     "You can hardly compare the Mad Woman with this wizard," warned the soldier, though. "This is a warrior wizard, not a half senile old woman. We're going to have a real problem on our hands dealing with him."

     "And I'm the only wizard with any magic left," added Jerry.

     "He'll slaughter us," protested Matthew. "We won't stand a chance."

     "The Gods are with us," said Drake reassuringly. "Have faith and fear not." He then led the way up the stairs to the keep's first floor.

     Luck was with them. They might have spent days or weeks searching for the secret door that they knew must exist somewhere in the keep, they might never have found it, so well hidden was it, so precise the workmanship with which it had been built, so that it fitted the wall so perfectly that the crack around it's edges was barely visible in the surrounding stonework. Lirenna might have spotted it with her half shayen eyesight, and Jerry might have deduced its existence with his intimate knowledge of stonework and architecture, but Thomas was willing to bet that he would have walked right past it while swearing that the wall was as solid and ordinary as any other in the keep. One thing gave it away, however. One thing betrayed its exact location so obviously that even the human wizard gave a cry and pointed from his first glimpse of it ten yards away. The door was standing ajar.

     Drake put a finger to his lips, indicating to the others to keep silent as he crept slowly and carefully up to it. The door wasn't door shaped, but consisted of a block of about a dozen blocks of stone that swung out in one piece, so that when it was closed there would be no telltale rectangular outline in the wall, and the priest had nothing but admiration for whoever it was who had spotted it. Whispering to the others to stay where they were, he crept up for a closer look.

     A ten foot long rusty metal railing ran above the door, where presumably a tapestry had once hung, helping to conceal it even further. Drake ignored this, however, and put his ear to the six inch opening, listening intently for any sound of movement from below. If the remaining Shadowsoldiers were still down there, he reasoned, he ought to be able to hear them, but despite concentrating intently for several minutes, there was nothing. Not a single scrape or whisper. It was as quiet as a grave.

     Frowning in puzzlement, he beckoned the others forward to join him. "It's strange," he whispered. "I can't hear a single thing down there."

     "Maybe they're not down there," whispered back Shaun. "Maybe they're somewhere else in the castle."

      "They'd have heard the fighting just now and come running,” pointed out Matthew. “They have to be down there. There's nowhere else they can be.”

     “Well, the only way to find out is to go down and look,” said Drake. “I'll go, and you, Jerry, can come with me, since you've still got some magic left. The rest of you wait here, in case they show up here."

     He pulled gently at the door, opening it slowly and carefully in case it squeaked or rasped against the floor, but it opened easily and silently with only a slight grinding noise as it trapped a five century thick layer of dust between it and the floor tiles. Behind it, a flight of stone steps led down into the darkness, passing through the narrow secret room they'd discovered on the ground floor. A thin layer of dust on each step had been disturbed by the Shadowsoldiers' footprints, and Drake noticed that every single footprint led downwards. Not a single one led back up again.

     "Either there's another way out, or they're still down there," he whispered, looking gloomily down into the darkness. "We'll need torches, and we didn't bring any. Just as well, light would give us away. We'll have to do it by feel."

     "Wait a minute," whispered Diana. She searched around in her backpack and produced her glowbottle, and Lirenna handed over the phial containing her small remaining supply of activating fluid. "If you find it's safe to use some light, this will glow for about an hour."

     "Thanks," said Drake, accepting it. "Okay Jerry, let's go."

     As Thomas helped Lirenna carefully lower herself to sit on the stone floor, her back to the wall, the huge priest and the tiny nome went through the doorway and started down the stairs. They descended slowly, taking care to make as little noise as possible, and continued to listen intently for the slightest noise that would betray the presence of the enemy. They heard nothing, but as they crept slowly downwards Drake gradually became aware of a familiar smell. The smell of blood.

     For the first time, he began to feel a slight apprehension about what lay ahead. Someone had died recently down there. Who? And what had killed him? Shadowsoldiers? Or something else, something that had already been down there, waiting for them?

     Drake found himself puzzling over the fact that the Orb had been left behind when the Agglemonians pulled out. Obviously, they'd been intending to come back one day, but what had made them think that the Orb would be safe, all alone in a deserted castle? Surely they wouldn't have trusted to secrecy alone. You simply don't leave an artifact as important as that unguarded.

     Drake pulled up with a sudden start. The Orb's guarded! he realised with alarm. They left something to guard it! No wonder it's so quiet down here! He now had a fairly good idea what had happened, and he stood in indecision, wondering whether it was safe to go on.

     "What's the matter?" whispered Jerry behind him. "Why've we stopped?"

     "There's danger ahead," whispered back the priest. "Great danger."

     "We already know that," whispered Jerry impatiently. "Are we going to stand here all day, or go back, or what?"

     "Yes, you're right," agreed the priest. "We knew there'd be danger. We've got a job to do, and we've got to get on with it. Be alert, though, and be ready to cast your spells at the first thing that moves. Ready?"

     "As I'll ever be," whispered back the tiny nome. Drake drew his shortsword, the oiled blade making no sound as it left its sheath, and he held it out ahead of him as they continued down the stairs.