The walls here were almost totally smooth, but for the cracks where time had shifted them and stresses had forced them open. This was no natural cave, and yet it did not carry the tool marks that would be so evident had it been manually dug. Machines had made this place, Jossua knew. Perhaps those of the Mages—the thought of them walking this corridor, taking up the same space as he, made him feel sick—or perhaps they had been formed many generations ago, for whatever original reason the keep had been built. There were no true records of when or why the place had been constructed, nor by whom, although over the decades the Monks had discovered several distinct layers in the structure. The deeper they went, the older the period of the building’s birth, until the basement held its origins in the dim mists of prehistory. A place of worship some said, although to which god or demon they could not say. A retreat, others claimed, a castle and keep wherein safety could be found from outside aggressors. The Mages had thought that to be the case and yet even they, with all their twisted power, had been driven out.

Nobody knew why, how or by whom. Jossua had his suspicions.

Soon, he thought. I’ll see it soon.

The incline of the tunnel floor suddenly steepened, and Jossua tried to hold on to the wall. Water ran by beside his feet, echoing down into the dark before him. He passed a place where water spewed from the tunnel wall, shoved through by the pressure of Lake Denyah itself, and visions of flooding came to him.

Something moved farther along the tunnel. He felt the breath of displaced air caress him, and with it came a smell. Rich and fresh, the stench of a living thing down in this darkened, dead place.

No animals down here, he thought. Nothing to eat. Nothing to hunt. That must be the Nax.

The shadows suddenly closed in. The reach of the torchlight lessened, the deep darkness drew near, and he glanced up at the flame in confusion. It was burning as brightly as ever. Breath caught in his throat as the air around him constricted, threatening to crush him. He thrust the torch forward, defying the night and willing it back, but a section of the dark reached out and closed around the flame.

It squeezed, and the flame changed color . . . yellow . . . white . . . blue. And then it snuffed out into nothing.

Jossua gasped. A memory of the torch remained in his eyes for a few moments, casting a ghost of itself wherever he turned his head. He closed his eyes and the ghost was still there, so he opened them again. The echo faded away. He could hear only his breath, smell the old fear on himself, the mustiness of his great age clashing with the fresh tang of the thing down here with him.