The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1)

to the fortress quickly.”
“I understand,” I said.
He squeezed my shoulder, gray eyes peering into mine. “I’ll see you there.”
He stepped onto the edge of the pool with the others. Power emanated from the ends of their wands. As though by unspoken agreement, they dropped in at the same time, the pool swallowing them without a splash. Light flashed from the water, and then only Arianna and I remained.
“Do you have anything to give me this time?” I asked with a shaky laugh, referring to the glass vial she’d given me before my first departure.
I was cloaked now, and it seemed to take her eyes a moment to focus on mine. “Not this time, no,” she said. “The only way, Everson, is to trust you have everything you need.”
I could feel my analytical mind wanting to discount the words as empty feel-goodism, but she was right. At this point, that was the only way. I tightened my belt and adjusted my grip on my sword. Then I climbed onto the edge of the pool, my heart booming like a base drum.
I could feel Arianna behind me, watching.
“Thank you,” I said, and dropped into the water.
I experienced a stomach-dipping feeling of falling. Something rammed into my side—the ground, I realized—and I began to roll, black toadstools breaking around me. I finally came to a stop at the bottom of a hill. As my vision steadied, I stood and got my bearings.
Away to my left, the pit to Dhuul belched bile-green fumes. Marlow and the other magic-users advanced on it, bright energy flashing from their wands. Shadow creatures were emerging from the pit to meet them, inky energy spewing from their tentacled forms.
Take your staff, a voice sounded in my head—my father’s. It’s clean.
I looked around and spotted the slender wood staff several feet ahead of me. I retrieved it and then cleared an area in the toadstools. In the spongy earth, I etched a casting circle and filled it with copper filings. In the center of the circle, I placed the strands of Lazlo’s hair, aimed my staff at them, and incanted. Light swelled from the opal as it absorbed the hair’s essence.
Seconds later, the staff kicked in my hands and pulled me toward the pit, which made sense. The lion’s share of Lazlo’s soul was somewhere inside the portal, maintaining it. But by concentrating into the spell, I could feel another force splicing from the main pull. And that force was directing me to the keep on the opposite side of the pit, directing me to the glass pendant where the rest of Lazlo’s soul was being held to give Lich life.
It was here.
I glanced over at the battle. The shadow creatures had surrounded the magic-users but were keeping their distance as white magic burst from wands. Flesh-colored bats shrieked and circled above. In the collective mind, I could feel the magic-users’ straining efforts. I had to hurry.
Eyeing the plain around the pit, I chose my route. With the creatures’ attention on the magic-users, and the robe of John the Baptist to hide me, I set off, staying well away from the action. I checked myself as I went. The small sack of magical artifacts swung from my belt while my coin pendant did the same over my chest. I had my staff back, my sword now sheathed inside it.
The only way, Everson, is to trust you have everything you need.
Holding to Arianna’s words, I rounded the pit, jumping oozing rivulets that coursed from the hills and flowed toward the abyss. The battle raged like a growing storm behind me, while across the pit, the keep loomed larger and larger. It was square-shaped and forbidding, walls black with mold. A large door stood in the front, its portcullis raised like an upper set of fanged teeth.
Okay, he’s left the front door open. Overconfidence or an obvious trap?
Certainly he had to have something defending his keep. No sooner than I’d begun considering what that could be, my right leg plunged through the toadstools. I tried to throw myself backward, but my forward momentum was too strong, and I plunged the rest of the way into water.
Wonderful.
I resurfaced with a sputter and splashed for solid ground. When the toadstools rippled in a spreading wave, I realized they hid a large pool, one surrounding the keep like a moat. I struggled harder, but it was like trying to climb out of a break in the ice. More and more of the surface kept coming apart in chunks of toadstools. As the water dragged on my clothes and robe, I felt my magic fizzling. I kicked furiously to keep my head above the surface, but the water was different here, heavier. Desperate, I aimed my cane downward.
“Vigore,” I whispered, hoping for a force to propel me from the water. But my magic was waterlogged.
I stopped scrabbling and forced a pair of calming breaths. My only option was to swim for the keep. I turned and began to breaststroke, arms breaking through the floating toadstools. The pond was deep—my feet had never touched bottom—and I didn’t want to think about what might be lurking beneath me. Just have to hope the robe is keeping me veiled.
I was halfway to the keep when the water bulged ahead of me. My gut clenched. Something large had just passed beneath the surface. I slowed and peered around. The toadstools were rippling on all sides. Keep going, I counseled myself. Have to keep going. I resumed swimming, eyes fixed on the front of the keep. Something brushed my leg. Keep going. What felt like a hand wrapped my left ankle. I kicked it away. Keep going.
When my knee sank into something, I nearly shouted before realizing I’d encountered semi-solid ground. I clawed my way up the pool’s far shore, the foul water running off me. I peeked over a shoulder and wished I hadn’t. My passage had stirred the bottom of the pond, and now leeches the size