Chapter 4 Part 30

Following the underground stream had been relatively easy and uneventful. Keeneye had hoped to follow the waterway out of the mountain on the western side, but as if fate was playing a cruel joke, the cheerfully flowing brook suddenly came to an end as it emptied into an underground lake.

The water stretched out of sight in all directions, causing a depression among the quartet. Keeneye suggested that the lake may be no larger than the limit of their vision. Norwind invalidated that theory by hurling a fist-sized rock as hard as he could out into the darkness. It produced a distant plop.

"Could we levitate over?" Samson asked Ultrecht.

"That is a relatively short duration spell," the mage replied. "If this lake has any serious size to it at all, the spell could time out and drop us into the water."

"Could we climb the walls and spider across the ceiling?" Norwind asked as he tested the wall for grip. He found the wall far too slippery. "I guess not," he decided.

"I don't suppose anyone brought a raft with them." Keeneye said trying to keep spirits up with a bit of humor.

Norwind stuck a testing toe into the murky liquid. "Eeeyyiii, that is cold!"

"Really," Ultrecht asked. He had an idea and joined the monk. Bending down he too tested the temperature of the water. He did not leave his finger in the water for long. Standing, he quickly took off his backpack and started rummaging through it.

"You got a spell up your sleeve?" Keeneye asked. "No, but there is one in this wand." Ultrecht said as he pulled out a foot long cylinder. Opening the top revealed a smooth black stick with a light blue tip.

"Uh," Samson started, "do you want us to stand back while you are waving that thing?" The others were starting to put a little distance between the mage and themselves. Too often mechanical magic had been known to backfire or have a booby trap on it somewhere.

"That is not necessary, "Ultrecht assured them. "I made this one myself. It doesn't have any surprises." He turned to face the water. Raising his arms he waved the wand in a wide square then pointed it at the shore. "Galashia," he commanded. In response, the wand spit out a blue glittering stream which formed a small cloud in front of him. The cloud expanded and assumed a roughly cubical shape. Thirty seconds later, the cloud coagulated into a huge block of ice.

"Cool," Norwind commented.

Keeneye and Samson groaned. "Did you have to say that?"

"Well at least we won't get hot," Keeneye observed. "What is it for?"

"Elementary, good sir," Ultrecht explained, "ice floats."

"And ice melts," Samson warned.

"Believe me as cold as that water is any melting will be quite slow," Norwind said with a shiver.

"Well, all right," Samson exclaimed excitedly let's get going." With a heavy push, he toppled the monolithic block of frozen water, It landed in the lake with a loud splash.

"We just announced ourselves," Keeneye advised as he looked all around for signs of anything unusual coming out of the shadows.

Ultrecht and Samson were already on the ice float. There was a good four to five inches above the water and almost two yards below water. "She should be fairly stable," Samson said as he bounced up and down and shifted from side to side.

Norwind threw a blanket on the raft and sat down atop it. Keeneye boarded last giving the makeshift raft a shove off from shore before he jumped aboard.

Samson carved two flat meter-long slabs of ice out of the leading edge, then he and Keeneye proceeded to paddle the boat slowly onto the lake. "Which way do we go?" he asked.

"I recommend we hug the wall on the right until we find a passage that shows promise, or an outflowing river," Keeneye said. No one objected.

After two hours they had gone beyond their ability to keep track of distances with no sign of the hoped for path or outflowing current, everyone had taken a turn at rowing and the cold of their raft was seeping into their lower extremities. The motion was slow and the darkness closed in around them menacingly.

The cavern was not silent. There were the constant sounds of drops of water dripping and of sloshing ripples. Norwind even claimed to hear a fish jump out of the water not far away.

Keeneye was seriously beginning to get worried. The lake appeared to be much wider than he had expected. There had to be an exit, he reminded himself. Water flows downhill and collects in low places. There had to be an upward leading waterway somewhere. He refused to accept that the lake was the sole product of the tiny little stream they had followed.

Keeneye's thoughts were interrupted by a fish that had jumped out of the water onto the raft. It flopped several times before he reached out and picked it up. It looked at him with its big glassy eyes as if as curious about him as he was about it. Smiling, Keeneye tossed the creature back into the water.

Eyes, he told himself. If the fish had eyes, then there was a way out. If this lake was fed only by the shallow underground stream, the creatures would have evolved in a form that either emitted their own light or would have lost the use of their eyes and gone blind.

After two more hours, a shoreline came into view. Norwind lightly hopped ashore and bounced around on his cold numbed feet. Keeneye followed immediately leaving Ultrecht and Samson to deal with the raft.

"This water is very deep," Ultrecht commented. "The ice is still over a meter deep into the water and strangely this close to shore it is not touching the bottom."

"Well tie it up or something," Samson advised. "We still haven't determined if this path is what we want."

"Well I think we should take a break to defrost if you don't mind," Norwind said as he rubbed the soles of his feet.

"You should try wearing shoes once in a while," Samson suggested playfully. It was just a jest. Everyone knew that Norwind hated shoes.

"Try defrosting your piggies by walking," Keeneye said as he returned from the pathway. He had scouted up ahead to determine the chances that this passage lead to the surface. "This passage leads uphill and show some signs of periodic drainage."

"But that doesn't mean it leads out." Samson said doubtfully.

"No, but it is leading in the right direction and some wash debris show surface origins."

"What?" Samson asked confused.

"Old twigs, bits of rotting leaves, things washed from the surface are, jammed in cracks and tangled in moss."

"So this does lead to the surface?" Norwind asked.

"I am almost certain that it does," Keeneye affirmed. "If not, we can always continue around the lake."

Eagerly, they shouldered their packs and followed the promising path towards what they hoped would be the surface. This time, Keeneye assured himself, they were on the right track.