Lithoniel

The first thing Lithoniel could feel was cold. A cold that seeped deep through her bones, dulling her perception, making her slower and cautious. A pity it couldn't remove the fear. That fear was something she had started to know as a child, repeated by her teacher during their lessons, like one the few taboos, the things an elf should never do. And yet, it was exactly what she was doing. She was venturing into the Hollows, alone.

It was bad enough as it was, but the fact she was doing it in the dark and with just one good hand, transformed this endeavor from something reckless to suicide. The only thing she could say in her defense was, she had no choice. She was already dead, like a fresh corpse which had yet to rot. She had been from the moment Liara disappeared. That's why she pretended to follow Rolim's advice - wait for the sunlight before searching for Liara - but slipped out as soon as the others fell asleep.

She didn't want Rolim, or anyone else, to follow her. One corpse was bad enough, the elves didn't need two. Not after what they went through. The wind howled, screeching like a furious beast as she followed the trail Liara left behind. The small elf wasn't hard to follow, far from it. She was traveling in a straight line without stopping or backtracking, her small feet embedded in the ground like footprints on sand. She had the thick layer of ashes to thank for that.

Yet, she still couldn't have done it before, not without the moon. It was high and clear in the sky, showing her the right path, or the perfect bait to trap her for good. Because Lithoniel knew where Liara was headed, though she had no idea why. She was going north-east, toward the Hollows inner layer and that big abyss in the middle of it. Liara's pace was brisk but Lithoniel proceded much more slowly, one step at the time like she was walking on a tightrope. Climbing up looked easy, the soft hills far from the steep slopes of the Asp Ridge, but she was well aware that one mistake could be her last.

She could see those deep, dark holes surrounding her everywhere. Liara was walking right into it, choosing the worst path possible, the points where every step could mean her doom. Yet, the footprints kept on going forever, like Liara knew exactly where to walk. Like someone was leading her.

Lithoniel shivered, wiping the cold sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. She remembered the old tales, whispered by the old elves in the few occasions of merrymaking when they loosened up after a drink or two. Tales of soulless creatures crawling in the darkness, deep in the bowels of the earth, seeking the only thing they couldn't have. In all the stories those creatures always used the weak, clouding their minds to lead the strong into a trap.

But in these tales, the elves were always on the sidelines, bystanders for something which involved another race, one they hated. Humans. For some reason, that notion didn't reassure her. She kept retracing Liara's steps until she arrived somewhere the elves never reached, not in the last one thousand years at least.

The top of the hills. The breath caught in her throat as she laid her eyes on something she never saw but just heard; a pitch black void which seemed to go down forever, reaching the center of the world or even beyond that. Its size was bigger than she expected, extending for two, maybe three leagues in every direction. But what really surprised her was what laid at the edges.

Ruins.

They were everywhere, scattered alongside the chasm border, upside down and destroyed, jumbled together in one tangle of stone and rock, like a vortex or a stairwell going down to oblivion. Of course, that's where Liara had gone. Down. Lithoniel felt like she was underwater, her mouth wide open, just to drown as she swallowed seawater. But at the end she calmed down as she realized that salty liquid in her mouth was just sweat, pouring down from the side of her head.

Besides, she didn't have to conjure some imaginary nightmare of her childhood when the most probable outcome was to slip and fall. A much better way to die than others, and surely faster. With that in mind, she secured the grappling hook on a solid boulder, at least as solid as something in the Hollows could be, and started to drop down. It was hard to do so with one hand, especially when the wind started to blow and the rope to shake like a leaf in the storm.

But she made it. Lithoniel sighed with relief when her foot touched the ground. She was standing over the ruin of something it must have been a big building at its time.

Maybe a tower. Lithoniel couldn't tell. It didn't really matter.

The important thing was Liara had gone there, her footprints running over the tower before turning close to a big hole at its side. Lithoniel followed her trail, the building screeching as she walked over it. It was like a long whimper, the tower's stone grating on the rock below. The entire building laid at the edge of the chasm, more than half of it suspended in the void.

Better to move. Lithoniel thought as entered inside. She didn't want to stay a second more than necessary, the entire building could fall at any moment.

But her plan was fated to fail from the start. There were no more footprints. The trail stopped there. Lithoniel cursed in her mind. There were no indications Liara had left the tower. She had to be somewhere nearby.

Lithoniel bit her lips and went forward, walking on her tiptoes. She was like a snail, stopping everytime her foot touched the stone's floor, the noise getting worse as she grown close to the edge of the wall. Then she saw it. A bracelet.

Lithoniel gasped. She recognized those crimson leaves intertwined around a single root of ebonwood. It belonged to Liara.

She took a step forward to pick it up, but when she did, the building moved, the floor crumbling under her foot. She tried to hold on to something, anything, as she went down, but there was nothing to grab, just empty air. She went into panic, tossing the only thing she had at hand. The grappling hook.

The distance was great, her position worse and even the wind seemed to work against her but she made it, against all odds she succeeded. Her descent stopped with a jerk when the steel tip plunged inside a big rock. Her good arm, the one holding the rope, hurt like hell because of the backlash, but she was still breathing. She was still sighing with relief when she heard something, like a crack, coming from above her.

The hook?

Another crack followed the first one, then another and another.

"No" She whispered in horror as she realized what it was.

The rock was breaking, shattering around the hook like dry clay. Lithoniel tried to swing across on the rope, push herself away from the center of the chasm. She was more than halfway, coming closer and closer to solid ground when the rock broke for good. The hook fell bringing her with it, a little black dot in the vastness of the chasm, screaming into the void.