D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch (21 page)

Then he was at the cliff’s rim, staring outward. It was more than he expected, and his breath caught in his throat. The sea rolled on into infinity, its liquid surface an undulating chiaroscuro, alive with the light of moon and stars and the shadows of great rippling waves. Below, the water dashed upon jagged rocks that jutted up like the grasping claws of some giant, drowning beast, and the wind carried up the salty spray and dampened Garett’s hair and skin as he flung out his arms and tipped his head back to receive it. A small moan of pleasure issued from his lips at its chill embrace.

Gone was all thought of Greyhawk. Garett looked around for a path that would take him down to the narrow strip of beach below and found a steep, thin trail. With boots or sandals, he would not have hesitated, and even barefooted he lingered only for a moment before starting his descent. It surprised him that the trail was so well marked. He didn’t need a torch or lantern to make his way as long as the moon was overhead. Still, he went carefully,

for the sea spray had slicked the stones.

Once down, he stood upon the white sand shore and stared outward again. The mist and spray quickly soaked his hail. Great waves broke right before him on the piles of massive rocks that rose out of the water no more than a hundred feet from the beach. Now the waves had a greenish cast, as well as a black and silvery one, and the sea rocked with much more violence than it had appeared to from above.

A seashell gleamed white on the ground at his feet. He picked it up, brushed the sand away with a finger, and peered at it. He didn’t know what kind it was. Someone else might have kept the shell and made an ornament out of it, a necklace, perhaps, or a bracelet, or something more useful, like a button or even a needle. Garett drew back and flung it with all his might. It sailed into the moonlight and struck the water, skipping upon the waves three times before it sank. Garett smiled.

Then he spied something from the upper corner of his eye. He turned and gazed upward. His descent along the trail had taken him up the beach a bit as it angled down the cliff face. At least that was why he told himself he must not have seen the tower that loomed high atop the cliff before. Or perhaps he had seen it but mistaken it for one of the mountain peaks. Or perhaps the peaks themselves had formed a backdrop that camouflaged it from his vision.

Down here, on the beach, though, he saw it, and its shadow spread out upon the ocean. Suddenly, Garett remembered why he had come. The moonlight that touched the tower had an almost violet glow.

He knew with an inner certainty that it was his ultimate destination. There was nothing to be gained by reticence. He started back up the narrow path, making the steep climb, not at a rush or with hesitation, but with a calming deliberateness of motion. He leaned forward, using his hands to steady himself on the slippery rocks, but always he looked up, keeping his gaze on the tower.

Near the top of the cliff, he paused long enough to tear one fist-sized rock from its earthen bed. He tested its weight on his palm before he finished his climb. It wasn’t much of a weapon, a mere rock, but he felt better with something. He reached the top of the trail and started off toward the tower. By some trick of light, it had seemed closer when he stood below on the beach than it did now.

Oerth’s second moon, Raenei, almost full, a round topaz jewel in the night sky, had risen just above the horizon in pursuit of its brighter companion. Though still in their waxing stages, the combined light of both moons was enough to show him the way safely. Garett’s twin shadows floated over the ground as he went along, briefly eclipsing the brilliantly sparkling dewdrops in the plush grass.

The air had turned crisp. Or perhaps it was just the beads and droplets of sea spray evaporating on his skin that chilled the captain so. In any case, he wished that he was not naked. He gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering and increased his pace, hoping to warm himself as he followed the edge of the cliff. The tower simply couldn’t be that far away. He could see it clearly, limned by a sourceless radiance, and he doubled again his pace.

A flight of dark little gnats surrounded Garett suddenly, then was gone, leaving only the few he unwittingly managed to snag in his mouth and nose. He sputtered and spit, doing his best to rid himself of an unpleasant taste, and still he kept his gaze on the tower for fear that it would vanish if he looked away. The slick, wet grass and the tiny stones, pieces of twigs, and myriad unseen things it hid, began to take a toll on his bare feet. He could feel the bruises forming on his heels and the strain in his toes. Nevertheless, he pushed on, refusing to slow or rest.

Both moons rode high in the night by the time he reached the outer edge of an ancient, ruined estate. Garett didn’t understand how it could have taken him so long to reach it, but he didn’t question. Magic, by its nature, was impervious to any assault by logic. He just gripped his rock

in a tighter fist and let his senses and instincts take over.

A triple row of once-grand marble columns surrounded the solitary tower. Though spotted with the black stone-rot of age, still they glittered in the moonlight. A few, here and there, had toppled off their pedestals and lay in shattered sections on the grass. A few others still stood, but with great, dark cracks running like captured lightning bolts upon their surfaces. Garett thought he might only brush them with a hand and send them crashing down. He restrained himself, however, out of respect for something so old and once graceful.

Between the innermost circle of columns and the tower, he found three pathlike rings upon the ground. The rings were made of smooth white pebbles that he fancied had somehow been reclaimed from the ocean, for only its constant tides could have worn away the roughness. Two men could have walked upon them side by side in idle conversation, so wide was each of the rings. As far as he could tell, like the columns, they encircled the dark tower.

Garett clutched his rock as he stepped over the innermost ring and started across an expanse of ground toward what he perceived in the tower’s strange glow was the entrance. Before going far, he walked into a single line of spider’s web, invisible in the darkness. It draped lazily around his face. Utterly repulsed, he wiped at it furiously with his free hand, trying to rid himself of the sticky strand. With a shudder, he continued ahead. Only a few paces on, he blundered into a second line. It wafted over his nose and cheeks, and this time he gave a soft, involuntary cry at the silken touch, and dropped his rock, so desperate was he to wipe it away with both hands.

It embarrassed him to behave so squeamishly, and he was grateful there was no one to see. No one, he reminded himself, except that unseen watcher whose patient gaze had never left him, the one who had brought him here. Garett picked up his rock, swelled out his chest as he lifted his chin, and determined not to react so poorly when he encountered the third web that he knew would certainly be there, and because he looked very carefully, he managed to catch just a glint of moonlight on that final thread. He drew his hand through it, severing it. At least it was only his hand that suffered its contact and not his face. He shuddered anyway.

The entrance was a pair of huge iron-banded doors made of rare but weather-scarred roanwood. Great rings of twisted iron hung upon each door as well. The hinges and bolts were also of iron. Garett gazed at the doors, each twice his height, and up at the tower itself. Immense squares of some dark stone, unknown to Garett, made its walls. The mortar between some of those blocks had crumbled away, and moss and lichen filled the niches. There were no windows that he could see, nor any crenellations at all. It was more than a fortress, he thought. It was a vault. But to keep someone out, or to keep something in?

He reached out, intending to grasp one of the iron rings and try his strength upon the doors, but no sooner did he move his arm than both doors swung slowly and silently open of their own accord. Garett stood at the threshold with his rock in his hand, staring into the torchlit interior. Suddenly, his stone seemed a pitiful weapon indeed. He relaxed his grip and let it fall to the ground. Then he passed between those great doors and went inside. It did not surprise him at all when the doors closed again without ever making the slightest creak or sound.

A ring of ten torches burned in sconces at equal intervals around the room. Garett counted them, noting their regularity, before he glanced up. If he had expected several levels within this tower, he was disappointed. The only ceiling appeared to be the roof itself, in the gloom far above his head. And that was where he knew he must go, the tower’s roof, for the interior was quite empty of anything except the torches and a narrow wooden staircase that twined concentrically up the walls to that high place.

Garett took a torch from one of the sconces and moved toward the stairs. His footsteps left perfect prints in the thick carpet of gray dust on the old stone floor. He wondered how the torches had been lit, for there were no other prints at all, not even around the sconces. Plainly, no one had been here for a very long time. But then he reminded himself of the shortcomings of logic. He had no doubt that someone was at home. He could feel them watching.

He set his foot on the first step. The old wood groaned under his weight. The wooden railing was damp under his palm, slick with wood mold. He moved cautiously up. Two steps. Ten steps. Twenty-five steps. The entire staircase vibrated and shook. The railing trembled like something alive. The higher he went, the greater the danger became. A treacherous groaning and creaking filled the air. The stairs began to buck and sway violently, as if trying to hurl him off. Garett dropped to his knees and clung to one of the steps with his free hand. Pieces of wood came away under his fingers, but he found new purchase and clung on, holding his torch like a shield of light, gritting his teeth and staring at the floor a dizzying distance below, doing his best to keep perfectly still.

Finally the shaking slowed and ceased, and Garret rose from his crouched position. At his smallest movement, the vibration began again, the merest causing shivers deep in the old wood. He sucked his lower lip and lifted himself as gently as possible onto the next step and felt it crack under his weight. He skipped to the next one as quickly as possible, and the shaking began again.

Garett’s heart hammered in his chest. Feeling as desperate as a trapped animal, he shot a glance groundward and another toward the gloom above his head, where the top of the stairs disappeared. With one hand on the railing and the other on the wall for balance, he rose up the steps. The wood under his feet grew soft and spongy. The heavy iron bolts that supported the stairs sawed back and forth in the stone walls and hurled a fine powder downward. The structure’s groaning became a cacophony that fed on its own

echo until its shrieking filled his ears.

Wood snapped suddenly, and Garett’s foot crashed through the next step. With a fearful cry, he snatched at the railing, and his torch went tumbling over the side with a hiss and flutter of flame while the nails of his other hand raked the wall, seeking purchase. For an instant, he seemed to hang over empty space, and the world reeled around him. Then he had his balance again and was racing up the stairs as fast as he could run, uncaring of the danger or the darkness, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his eyes locked steadfastly on the roof, his destination.

The stairs ended on a small, narrow landing. Without even pausing for breath, Garett smashed his hands against what had to be a trapdoor. To his immense relief, a door did indeed fling open, and it crashed backward with a resounding slam. Three more swift steps, and Garett rose into the cool air of the night. A breeze brushed against him, chilling him. For the first time, he noticed how thickly he was sweating.

The roof was not quite what he had expected. It was not precisely even the roof. Another ring of slender white columns, each twice as tall as a man, rose around the top of the tower, supporting the true roof, a shallow, smoothsided dome full of gloom that began to glow with a soft golden color as the captain gazed up at it.

With a start, Garett realized that a tall, heat-blackened brazier near his left side had taken fire. The smell of hot coals and incense wafted into the air. Four more such braziers, placed strategically around the strange, open-aired chamber also began to burn. It was the light they shed that filled the dome above his head.

Quietly he bent and lowered the trapdoor back into place. Then he began to move about. The floor was covered with thick old carpets, woven with odd designs, some of which Garett believed to be magical. They had that look about them. In the center of the chamber was a small table draped with velvet. A crystal ball rested in its center. It refleeted his own face when he leaned down and peered into it. There was another table nearby, littered with glass beakers and tubes. Some were half full of strangely colored liquids. One, in particular, caught his attention. Unstoppered, it gave off a thin wisp of smoke, though there was no source of heat, and the beaker, when he touched it gingerly with a fingertip, proved cool. He sniffed. There was no odor to the smoke it exuded.

He moved to the edge of the roof between a pair of columns and leaned upon the low encircling wall. Far below, the sea waves curled and crashed upon the rocks, but the sound of it was no more than a gentle, distant rush, and the whitecaps might have been small white doves, drowning on the water.

He moved again and found a table against another part of the wall. His fingers brushed over an old astrolabe and sextant. Garett gazed up at the sky. The stars glimmered warmly in the night. Once, when he was younger, he had known all the constellations by name.

Garett turned away from the wall and moved back toward the center of the room. There was a soft couch and a plush, stuffed chair with a footstool, and between them a low, round table. A gold goblet shimmered in the firelight from the braziers, and a bottle of red wine stood beside it, casting a ruby reflection.