"Gord, do something! It's going to grab me in a second!"

Gord moved to his right and let himself drop to the ledge below. By using the stone, he slowed his fall easily, and what shock there was to the drop he absorbed with flexed legs. As he turned to face the girl, Leda saw that she could move sideways a couple of feet to where he had been but a moment before and did so. The tentacle lengthened too, nearly reaching her with its searching tip. Then it did touch her, and with an involuntary cry, Leda jerked away from it, lost her hold, and fell – about two feet down into Gord's waiting arms.

"Let's move along," he suggested to her as he put her down on the two-foot-wide shelf of limestone. "Who knows what that thing can do?" With that, Gord began walking casually along the ledge. Leda followed, facing inward and doing a rapid side shuffle to keep up. After about two hundred feet there was a gap of six or seven feet before the shelf resumed on the other side, a bit lower than the elevation they presently occupied. Some fall from above had apparently carried part of the ledge away.

That thing is still after us," Leda hissed.

"No time to waste," Gord observed. An amorphous glob with several waving stalks that pointed in their direction was oozing its way methodically along the ledge about fifty feet behind them. A little work, and Gord had a single handhold about two feet out along the sheer surface. Grabbing that with his left hand, the young adventurer swung his body like a pendulum, arcing over to the far portion of the ledge and landing nimbly on his feet.

"Leda, go back a couple of steps, run, and jump. I'll be here to catch you." The monster was now only about ten feet away from her, so the dark elf nodded and immediately did just that.

"Now move on past me," Gord continued. "Let's see if that lump of dung can follow us across that space." Leda went forward a few steps and then turned to watch what he was doing. Gord stayed at the edge of their new pathway, watching the blob. One of its tentacle-pseudopods waved out toward him, as the mass of the monster hesitated where the ledge ended. Gord moved away from it a bit. The member snaked around, then down. It contacted the new ledge and appeared to fasten itself there. Then it began to thicken, and the blob on the far side seemed to dwindle at the same time. "I'll be damned!" Gord said in wonder and disgust

"Do something!"

Even as Leda urged him on, Gord was drawing his short sword. "That I am, girl!" he muttered. With an oath, Gord struck downward, hitting the black band of stuff just in front of the arriving swell. The blade sliced keenly, and a rush of vile, dark stuff washed over the steel. There was a keening sound, and in the next instant the mess fell from sight. Then Gord heard a faint sizzling sound coming from his weapon, and as he looked down he could barely believe his eyes – the ichor of the monster was dissolving the metal of his sword!

"Now I'm screwed!"

"There are other swords, love," Leda said and squeezed his arm. "We are safe now, and alive. That, not your sword, is what matters."

"Until it comes time to fight again," Gord retorted. There was nothing to do about it, though. He finally dropped the hilt and scabbard down after the dead horror, shrugged, and resumed his position in the lead along the narrow walkway of stone. "At least I retain my trusty dag," he finally said.

"Of course, Gord, and I still have my sword. Let us be bold!"

He didn't feel very bold just now, but at least the dark elf was now recovered from her fright at the near plunge into the abyssal subterranean rift they'd chanced upon. Let her handle the next problem with her spells and her weapon. Right now, Gord simply wanted to get out of this underworld and see the sun again – even if it meant plodding through the Ashen Desert once more.

The ledge slanted downward and grew broken, much as if the natural forces that created the place desired long, sloping steps, and it also broadened. So, it was actually very easy to travel along, as long as they didn't encounter a wide stretch where it was missing altogether. Eventually the ledge came to within ten feet of the floor of the rift, and they were able to jump down. They moved into the middle of the cavern to Investigate it. The ceiling was higher than they could see, and the place had to be nearly three hundred yards from side to side.

There is no dust or ash in this place," Gord said wonderingly.

"Some great magic still lingers over this rift, Gord. I thought so when we first encountered the place, for so strange a gap underground does not exist without powerful spells protecting it."

They went back to where they had descended from the ledge and began to follow it again, now heading gradually upward. The place they were traveling in narrowed in all dimensions, until finally the ledge became an actual floor and the cavern had tapered down to the size of a large tunnel. "We have gone for miles now, sloping up all the while," Gord observed some time later. "We should be amidst the powdery waste of the desert by now, Leda, and still we are underground. This wide ledge seems almost as if it were a roadway, too. What do you think?"

"That we should rest a moment," she said. As they both reclined on the ledge, Leda started to speak a legitimate answer to his question. "I am familiar with subterranean living. It is apparent to me that this area was fashioned by someone's hand – probably those who commanded the lost Suel empire. Perhaps that vast place we visited earlier was meant to shelter them until they managed to recover from the Invisible Firestorm and restore their lands." She paused and was lost in thought for several minutes. "I feel somehow that there is a city back there. Empty, deserted. A place never really used as its builders conceived it would be."

"What makes you think that?"

"Just a sensing of things, I guess. Consider those albino pygmies, too, Gord. I think that those are the descendants of the masters of the Great Empire of Suel, their degenerate aristocracy. And the apes are the less fortunate survivors of that unhappy race."

Gord had propped himself up on one elbow and stared hard at Leda as she spoke. She was a drow, but regardless of that, had he ever seen a more beautiful girl – no, woman? Even though he used only half of his mind to ponder the thought, Gord knew the answer quickly. Leda was certainly the most lovely female he could think of…

"Gord, are you listening?"

"Oh, yes. You seem to be thinking and remembering a lot, Leda. Do you recall who you are now?"

Now it was her turn to stare at Gord. He was looking at her with an open, assessing gaze, and when Leda smiled a little smile, he returned it with interest. Leda answered as truthfully as she could. "I know who I am not Gord. I know what I am, when I came to be, and what I must do."

"That is confusing as hell, woman."

Ignoring his use of the human appellation, Leda sat up and said urgently, "I do not want to confuse you. I need to tell you and have you accept me. Will you, Gord? Can I count on you?"

Making a wry face, the young man sat up too. "All of this deep, dark mystery – tut! I don't know who I am, really, you know, Leda, for I was orphaned… no matter. Go ahead and say your say. You and I are closer than any, so how can you doubt me?"

"We shall see. I was born only months ago. That's right, months! I am a clone – a special one, somehow nurtured to develop fully in a very short time, and one given something a clone is not supposed to have… Gord, I am the duplicate of the most evil and degenerate drow ever – the one who calls herself Eclavdra Eilserv."

"Never heard of her," Gord told Leda with a grin. "And somehow you don't fit the description of your twin – or should I say parent? – either. Aren't ones grown from the flesh of another supposed to be exact replicas? But you are by no means evil and degenerate, as you put it."