"Why do you live here then?" Meisha asked. With no chair in the room, she settled on the cold floor. "If the Delve is so old, aren't you afraid one day it will collapse?"

Varan chuckled. "From what I've been able to discern, the Delve has withstood far more than an old wizard's spells and come out intact. Now it is my sanctuary. The walls will hold." The wizard shrugged into a thick robe and plucked up a crooked staff as he spoke. "But we haven't solved your problem; you need sleep."

He ushered her out into the hall, spell-locking the door behind them. "When I can't find calm, I work until I'm weary, and I still have a task to finish before I seek my bed tonight. This task will weary both of us, if you'd care to join me?"

Meisha nodded eagerly. Anything would be preferable to returning to her boxlike room in the dark, even with the flame burning all night. The weight of the Delve still pressed down on her, but in Varan's presence the feeling seemed to diminish.

She followed the wizard down a side passage typically forbidden to the apprentices. Meisha recognized the boundary of Varan's wards inscribed on the tunnel wall. They walked right past the sigil, led by the glow from Varan's staff.

They entered a wide-mouthed, bell-shaped chamber that Meisha saw was entirely submerged in water. The cavern's ceiling reflected unbroken across the clear surface of the water, making it impossible to tell where the bottom lay.

Varan released his staff, causing it to hover over the center of the calm pool. "Fresh water source," he said. "Something we're always in need of down here. Close, too, so I'm considering extending the wards."

"So other creatures won't intrude on the watering hole," Meisha surmised.

"Correct—ordinarily—but I've observed this particular watering hole is rarely used by wandering creatures," Varan told her. "Can you guess why?"

Meisha looked at him sharply, at the same time taking a step back. "What dwells in the water?"

"Very good," Varan said, "and to answer your question, something big."

"So I'm to be your bait?" Meisha asked sullenly. She'd thought Varan would let her attack the thing.

Varan laughed. "Hardly, little one. I am not an ogre, or a Red Wizard, with apprentices to squander—and a waste it would be, for the creature that lives beneath the surface would rend you unrecognizable. Besides," his eyes glinted, "I do not require bait."

"How, then?" Meisha asked, intrigued. The wizard's enthusiasm infected her. She trailed his steps around the rim of the pool.

"First, I'll need your aid." Varan twirled a finger, and his staff inverted, shining the light close to the water's surface. "For all its might, the creature is shy and comes to ground only to hunt. It will need an inducement to reveal itself."

He waited, and Meisha realized he proposed a test. Varan wanted to see how she would solve the problem.

Meisha squatted next to the pool and placed her hands above the water. The words came to her haltingly. She envisioned the words dredged up from the bottom of the pool like so many buried coins, humming with power and warmth. She spoke faster, and the power turned to heat. She felt the glaze of it along her palm, a blown-glass ball she shaped using only her mind.

A bubble popped on the pool's surface. Next to her, a small, blind fish with twisted horns floated to the surface on its side. Another followed, and still Meisha let the heat build. Her calves ached from holding the same crouched position, but she dared not move or risk breaking the spell. Steam brushed her face. She heard another loud pop, and the water churned. Meisha thought it was the spell, but suddenly a fleshy mouth broke the surface of the water, followed by twin webbed claws.

Meisha threw up her hand in automatic defense, realizing she might lose the appendage in her foolishness. Spiky teeth closed around her wrist, but Meisha felt no pressure, no severing of bone or tissue.

With a hissing cry of pain, the creature released her and thrust back, churning water in its wake.

Meisha realized her hand was smoking. She'd burned the creature with her touch.

Varan stepped in from of her when the creature came around to attack again. Filmy eyes dominated the ripples of flesh that made up the creature's head. Below them, the mouth gaped from a nest of four tentacles. The creature's body tapered from a humanoid trunk to that of a serpent or an eel. Meisha couldn't tell from above the water.

Varan's hands traced the air in a scythe-cut. Slashes of light streaked across the chamber, cutting into the monster's flesh. Black ichor shed into the still-boiling pool.

Meisha crawled to a safe corner to watch the grim spectacle play out. She had no doubt Varan would win the battle. He stood so confidently; Meisha wondered if he'd ever lost a duel, with a creature or another wizard. The power he expended seemed immense. Her own spell had drained her completely. The heat she'd created in the chamber, blending with the flashing light, mesmerized Meisha. Her last sight of the mysterious creature was bathed in that light, sharp against the black blood. Her vision dimmed, and she passed out.