Ceres looked up from the pit, to the ring of half-dead sorcerers who surrounded it, and she tried to hide her fear. She managed to summon defiance as she watched them gather, clutching the hilts of her twin swords, waiting for them. She would not let them see her scared down here.
"You could have freed us," their leader said in a voice like old paper.
"Freed you to destroy things," Ceres called back. "Never."
"Then we'll take your blood, and be what we were for a while at least."
Ceres stood there, waiting for them. Which of them would attack first? Would they just fire their magic down into the pit and destroy her? No, they couldn't, could they? Not when they needed her blood. An idea came to her then. A way she might actually get out of this pit. It would be dangerous though. Very dangerous.
"Do you think I'm scared of you?" Ceres demanded. "I've fought in pits before. Come on, all of you."
This wouldn't work unless they all came at her. Even so, it was terrifying as they dropped in silence, landing on the hard stone of the pit and hurrying forward to attack her.
Ceres cut and moved. There was so little room in the pit to fight that the danger was that she would be swarmed. She cut off a hand that grabbed at her, ducked under the swipe of claws aimed at her throat. She felt the scrape of a hand on her side and kicked out, knocking one of the sorcerers back.
They weren't as strong as they had been. Ceres guessed that they'd used more power than they wanted, throwing magic after her. She kept cutting, kept dodging within the pit while she waited for the moment when some of them would line up the way she wanted.
Ceres saw it, and she didn't hesitate. She might not have the superior strength and speed that came from her blood, but she was still fast and strong enough for this. She cut one down to its knees in front of her, threw her swords out of the pit, and then used the sorcerer's back as a springboard as it was still recovering. She leapt up onto the shoulders of the next enemy and then jumped with all she had for the lip of the pit. If she got this wrong, she had just thrown away the only weapons she had to protect herself.
She slammed against the rock of the pit's wall, her hands catching on the lip as she struggled to pull herself up. Ceres felt something grabbing at her leg, and kicked back on instinct, feeling the crunch of bone as she connected with a sorcerer's skull. That push was all she needed to set her climbing, and quickly, Ceres pulled herself up over the rim of the pit she'd fallen into.
She snatched up her blades and stood as the sorcerers shrieked their anger.
"We will follow!" they promised.
One roared in anger then, throwing magic her way. Ceres dodged aside, but it was as if that was the signal for the others to strike as well. Flames and lightning followed her as she ran from the room that contained the pit, and around her, Ceres heard the walls rumbling. Small rocks started to fall, then bigger ones.
Ceres ran on desperately, while rocks fell around her, ricocheting as they struck the floor and rolling in the case of the bigger pieces. She flung herself forward, and stood to find that the tunnel behind her was now blocked.
Would it stop the former sorcerers? Probably not forever. If they couldn't die, then they would eventually be able to break through, but that wasn't the same thing as being able to chase after Ceres now. For now, at least, she was safe.
She continued through the tunnels, not knowing which way to go, but trusting to instinct in the soft glow of the cave light. Ahead, Ceres could see it opening out into a broader cavern with stalactites hanging down from the ceiling. There was also the sound of water there, and Ceres was surprised to see a broad stream running through the middle of it.
More than that, there was a small landing post with a flat-bottomed boat tied to it. Ceres guessed that the boat had been there for more years than she wanted to think about, but somehow it still looked strong. Downstream, Ceres could see a light that wasn't present in the rest of the caves, and somehow she knew it would be what she needed to head toward.
She got in the boat, untying it and letting the current carry it along. The water lapped at the side of the small vessel, and Ceres could feel anticipation building in her as it went forward. On another occasion, she might have been worried by a current such as this one, thinking that it might lead to a weir, or worse, to a waterfall. Now, however, it felt as though the current was a deliberate thing, designed to carry her to her goal.
The boat passed through a tunnel narrow enough that Ceres could have touched the walls on either side. There was light ahead, bright after the half-light of the caves. The tunnel gave way to a space that was not rock, not stone. Instead, in a space where there should have been just another cavern, Ceres found herself floating through a patch of idyllic countryside.
Ceres recognized the work of the Ancient Ones instantly. Only they might have done something like this. Perhaps the sorcerers might have found the power for an illusion, but this felt real; it even smelled of fresh grass and dew drops. The boat bumped against the bank and Ceres saw a wide meadow ahead, filled with wildflowers whose scent was sweet and delicate. Some of them seemed to move with her as she passed, and Ceres felt the brush of thorns against her leg, drawing blood in a sharp sting of pain.
They pulled back after that, though. Apparently, whatever defenses were there, they weren't meant to keep her out.
It took Ceres a moment to realize that there were two strange things about the place she was walking through. Well, stranger than a patch of countryside in the middle of a cavern complex was in the first place.
One strange thing was the way the visions of the past seemed to have stopped. In the caverns above, they had flickered in and out of existence, showing the final attack by the Ancient Ones on the sorcerers' home. Here, the world didn't seem to be caught halfway between two points. Here, it was as peaceful as it was fixed, without the constant shifts that the rest of the place experienced.
The second strange thing was the dome of light that rose up in the heart of it all, shining golden against the greenery of the rest of it. It was the size of a large house, or the tent of some nomad lord, yet it seemed to be composed almost entirely of energy. Looking at it, she thought at first the dome might have been a shield or a wall, but somehow Ceres knew it was more than that. It was a living place, a home.
It was also, she guessed, the place where whatever she sought might be found. For almost the first time since she'd set foot in the sorcerers' home, Ceres dared to feel a flicker of hope. Perhaps this was the place where she would recover her powers.
Perhaps she would be able to help save Haylon after all.
