Free The Firehills by Steve Alten

she
concentrated on the shape and feel of the bird. Nothing.
    Feeling rather ridiculous—and more than a little dizzy—Charly sat back down on the grass. She pulled her
braid from behind her neck and fiddled with the band of elasticized fabric that
held the auburn hair in check. Then she jumped to her feet again.
    “Got it!” she exclaimed, out loud, and set off down
the slope.
    Taking up position in the center of the biggest crop
circle, she held her arms out once more and felt the faint, leftover prickle of
power radiating from the fallen stems. She began to spin, and moments later, a
swift flicked its long wings and with a scream headed eastward.

    ‡

    It took a while for Sam’s eyes to grow accustomed to the
dark. As he lay there in the black void, he thought, This
is it. She’s going to kill me. There’s no way she’s ever going to forgive me for this one. He sighed. Why
couldn’t Charly have just kept up? She made everything so complicated,
typical girl. Oh, well. He was almost certainly better off without her. But he
was going to be in so much trouble when he saw her again.
    Sam scrambled to his feet and looked around. The darkness
was not complete. Here and there, small cracks in the ceiling and walls let in
narrow beams of light, swirling with dust motes. His night vision had been
unnaturally good since his encounter with the Green Man, and he found that he
could see quite well. He was in a long chamber with an arched roof, presumably
corresponding to the interior of Windover Hill. He turned to his left, hoping
that this would take him roughly back in the direction of Hastings, though Mrs. P.
had given him the impression that directions inside the Hollow Hills didn’t
necessarily match those outside. Still, he had to go one way or the other, and
left would do. The floor was dust-dry and chalky; clouds of white powder kicked
up around his feet in the occasional shafts of daylight. The chamber gradually
narrowed, the walls drew closer together, and the roof crept lower, until Sam
found himself at a dark archway. From here, rough steps led downward in a tight
spiral. Sam walked with the tips of his fingers trailing along one wall. The
light was too faint even for his eyes. When he reached the bottom, the floor
took him by surprise, and he stumbled. Opening his eyes, he found that he had
emerged into a vast tunnel that disappeared into gloom in either direction.
    The spiral staircase had taken away his sense of direction
completely, so Sam chose left once more. Close to the foot of the stairs, the
floor was uneven and rocky, but as he moved out into the huge chamber, it
became smooth and well-worn, as if by the passage of many feet. Keeping to the
center, where the floor was smoothest, Sam made good progress. After half an
hour, he was sweaty and covered in dust, but he felt as if he had put some
distance behind him. The chamber twisted and snaked, so that the farther
reaches were always out of sight, around a bend or lost in darkness. Otherwise,
his surroundings seemed to change very little. In fact, Sam’s progress was so
monotonous that the sound must have been audible for several minutes before he
noticed it. He heard a dull rumble, made indistinct by the echo of the high
roof but drawing nearer. Sam stopped and looked around, but there was nothing to see in
the gloom.
    The light in the chamber was faint, rare shafts lancing
down from the recesses of the roof far above, fading long before they reached
the ground. Away from the central path was a jumbled chaos of boulders and
slabs, a fragmented landscape of shadows and harsh angles. Sam could feel the
vibration now through the soles of his feet and looked around for a hiding
place.
    At that moment, he saw motion to his right. Out of the
darkness came figures on horseback, five or six of them riding in close
formation. Horsemen of the Sidhe, black hair streaming out behind them. Their
horses’ hooves thundered on the hard-packed earth of the cavern floor,