Ruins of Myth Drannor (7 page)

“Or found it and left you here to rot while she kept it for herself,” Kestrel said. “How did you survive, anyway? I mean, excuse me for asking, but why didn’t you starve to death, or get killed by the creatures dwelling down here?” She noted that his jaw was not even roughened by stubble, nor his clothes frayed by sixteen years of constant wear.

“Ozama’s spell kept me safe from the ravages of time and enemies,” Jarial said. “Though I did begin to fear I would go mad. At first, of course, I pondered the riddle every waking moment. When no solution came to me, I shouted myself hoarse calling for help. That attracted the attention of some of the undercity’s more unpleasant residents, who offered no aid but found it entertaining to come in here and torment me.”

Jarial’s little-used voice sounded scratchy. The poor man was probably parched. Corran offered him some water, which the mage accepted gratefully.

“You’re a sorcerer,” Kestrel prodded. “Couldn’t you use magic to free yourself?”

“Believe me, I tried! After going through all the spells I knew, I started devising new ones.” Jarial smiled ruefully. “Though I had the satisfaction of using some of my mocking antagonists for target practice, I still couldn’t gain my freedom.” He continued kneading the muscles of his legs, trying to rub life back into them.

“After giving up on using sorcery to free myself, I spent probably another year just saying aloud every word I could possibly think of, hoping to accidentally stumble on the answer. Obviously, that strategy proved ineffective as well. Eventually, I stopped bothering to even use magic to light this room. I’d just consigned myself to spending eternity here, alone in the darkness with only my own thoughts for company.” The lonely sorcerer tried again to rise, but his legs remained too weak to support him.

“Here, drink this.” Ghleanna offered him a small vial of bluish liquid, one of the potions they had found on Athan’s band. Faeril had identified it as a healing potion made of blueglow moss, a local plant renowned for its curative properties but now in short supply. “You’ll never manage to massage away years of disuse.”

Jarial swallowed the dose and within minutes was able to walk around the chamber. When his stride had steadied, he held the foursome in his gaze. “I can’t thank you enough,” he said. “What quest brings you to these dungeons? You must let me aid you.”

Kestrel laughed humorlessly. He was welcome to take her place.

The band, now five in number, continued through the maze of passages. Jarial thought he remembered the location of a stairway that led up into the hill of the acropolis, so at his suggestion the party backtracked to a previous fork and headed down a different corridor.

A few yards down, light spilled out of a doorway. Within, they heard sounds of shuffling and sporadic muttering as if someone were talking to himself. Kestrel snuck ahead and peered inside.

Nottle the peddler bent over an open trunk, rummaging through its contents. “An’ what’s this? Ah, yes! Dwarven weapons always fetch a good price.”

Kestrel blinked. The peddler was foraging through the dungeons as casually as if he were shopping in Phlan’s marketplace. Was the little guy trying to get himself killed? She motioned to the others to join her, then entered the chamber. Engrossed in his scavenging, the halfling didn’t even notice her.

“Nottle, what are you doing here?”

“Yiaah!” The peddler jumped about a foot. The short sword he’d been holding clattered back into the chest. “Jeepers! Ye scared me!”

“Worse things than us could stroll into this room,” Kestrel said as her companions entered. “How did you get in here?”

“I saw ye folks unseal the door, and I follow’d ye in. Them elven clerics mean well an’ all, but thanks t’ them I ain’t been able to git in here fer weeks—all the good stuff’s nearly gone.”

The paladin shook his head in disbelief. “You’re telling us this whole dungeon complex has been plundered in a matter of weeks?” Corran asked. “By whom?”

“Everyone!” Nottle retrieved the short sword he’d dropped and added it to the collection of booty he evidently intended to abscond with. “Since them horrible phaerimm and alhoon have been run outta this part o’the city, all sortsa creatures come here to loot their old hoards. Why do ye think there’s so many orcs about? It’s a great time to be a scavenger!”

“Aren’t you afraid for your safety?” Ghleanna asked.

“No more’n usual.” The peddler struggled into his overstuffed pack and picked up his lantern. “A bit o’danger comes with the trade. If I wanted to play it completely safe, I’d open a borin’ little shop in Waterdeep. ‘Sides, the orcs’re some o’my best customers, so they pretty much leave me alone.”

“Orcs aren’t the only things haunting these passageways,” Jarial said. “I’ve seen zombies and—”

“Oh, I can handle a few zombies.” Nottle headed for the door. “Nice chattin’ with ye folks again. Let me know if ye need anythin’!” With that, he was gone.

All five of them stared after the peddler. “He’s going to get himself killed,” Durwyn said.

Kestrel shrugged. “Better him than us.” In a way, she envied the halfling. Were the need for stealth not so great on this misguided mission of theirs, she would have enjoyed looting these ruins right along with Nottle. But she could ill afford the noise of carrying too much plunder.

As they filed out of the room, Kestrel heard Durwyn whisper to Jarial, “What’s an alhoon?” She’d wondered the same thing herself at Nottle’s first mention of them but hadn’t wanted to admit ignorance.

“An undead mind flayer,” the mage said. “Horrible creatures with heads that look like an octopus. Between their psionic powers and wizard spells they’re deadly opponents.”

“And the phaerimm?”

“Extremely powerful magic-using creatures, nearly all teeth, claws, and tail. I saw plenty of them—and alhoon—in the time I was trapped down here, but as the peddler said, they just up and disappeared one day. It must have taken something awfully strong to drive them away.”

Kestrel didn’t want to dwell on what that “something” might be. If it was the same creature—or creatures—responsible for creating the new Pool of Radiance, their mission was even more futile than she’d thought.

They headed farther down the passage, ducking into rooms as they continued their search for a way up and out of the dungeons. Many of the rooms stood empty or littered with broken furniture, while others—probably the former lairs of the alhoon and phaerimm—held ransacked chests or similar signs of already having been visited by scavengers such as Nottle. As in the region where Jarial had been trapped, the torches along the wall of this new area became sparser, until they reached a zone where there were none at all. Though each of the explorers held a torch, the flames did little to illuminate their surroundings. A pall of preternatural darkness cloaked this sector of the dungeons.

They came upon a room that seemed to serve as an antechamber to a larger complex. Several doors in the back and side walls stood open, and the party entered one to find themselves engulfed in nearly total darkness. The flames of their torches cast little more light than candles.

“I don’t recognize this area at all,” Jarial said. “We must have made a wrong t—”

“Hush!” Kestrel interrupted him. She held her breath, concentrating on a sound she heard echoing from the stillness. Rattle. Scrape. Rattle. The noise seemed to come from a room off to their right.

Rattle rattle. Scrape scrape. Rattle rattle.

“I hear it, too,” Ghleanna whispered.

Clack. Clack. Clack clack.

Corran’s hand drifted to his sword hilt, but suddenly stopped. He sucked in his breath. “It almost sounds like—”

A white shape shuffled into view, its grinning head and gangly limbs a stark contrast to the blackness beyond. Clattering erupted as a sea of others appeared behind it.

“Skeletons!” Durwyn leapt forward, swinging his battle-axe in a wide arc that shattered the skull of the nearest foe.

“At least a dozen of them,” Corran called out as two creatures armed with swords closed in on him. He left his own sword in its sheath, reaching for the warhammer on his back instead. In a single movement, he brought it around and smashed the sternum of the first skeleton. It crumpled into a pile on the ground.

The creatures were closing in fast. There had to be more than a dozen, but in the poor light Kestrel couldn’t determine where they were coming from. She grabbed her club from her belt and snapped her wrist to extend the weapon to its full length. Her daggers would do no good against a mass of walking bones with no flesh to pierce.

A sudden flare issued from Jarial’s fingertips, sending a sheet of flames shooting toward a group of skeletons. Within seconds, the blaze consumed three of them and caused two more to fall back. Distracted by the spell, Kestrel almost didn’t hear the rattling bones approaching behind her. She spun around, automatically swinging her club. The baton struck the lone skeleton hard enough to knock it off balance. She seized the advantage and struck again, knocking its weapon out of its grasp. Her third strike bashed in its skull.

She glanced back at the others. Corran had dispatched several skeletons, but for every one that fell two more surged in. Both warriors were heavily engaged now, shielding the more physically vulnerable sorcerers. As she watched, Durwyn swung his axe in a powerful arc that sent the skulls of two creatures flying at once. Their headless remains clattered into a pile at his feet. He kicked the bones aside and pressed forward to attack another foe.

A flash of steel caught her eye, alerting her just in time to an advancing opponent. Was it the flickering torchlight, or had this collection of bones yellowed with age or decay? Its sinister grin held no teeth, and cracks appeared along its clavicle and pelvis. The creature swung its sword in a jerky motion that Kestrel easily parried. She then struck the frail hipbone with all the strength she could muster. The brittle pelvis shattered.

The skeleton, now in two halves, collapsed. The fall alone sent several ribs skidding across the floor. Its legs fell still, but the creature propped its torso up on one bony hand and swung its sword with the other, trying to cut Kestrel’s legs out from under her. She jumped to avoid the sweeping weapon and landed on the weakened collarbone. It snapped under her weight. A final blow from her club kept the creature from rising again.

She had just finished off this latest foe when she saw Corran cast aside his torch. A moment later, a flash of metal in his left hand caught her attention. His holy symbol. Did he hope to repel the skeletons as he had the zombies last night? The creatures were coming at him too fast to give him a chance.

A crazy, desperate idea entered her thoughts, and she acted before she could talk herself out of it. She dove to the ground and rolled into the skeletons. The creature nearest Corran crashed to the floor. Before it could recover its feet, she swung her club and caught another skeleton in the knees. It fell on top of the first and caused a third to trip over their sprawled bones. Kestrel scrambled out of the pile. They were down but not defeated, providing Corran with only a small window of opportunity.

It was all he needed. “By all that is holy, begone!” he cried, holding Tyr’s symbol aloft.

At the paladin’s shout the skeletons nearest him retreated. At the same time, light burst from the head of Ghleanna’s staff, at last fully illuminating the room.

Nine skeletons—those Corran had repelled—circled the room’s perimeter, keeping as much distance as possible between themselves and the paladin as they attempted to reach the exits. Two more yet advanced, while the three Kestrel had felled clumsily tried to disengage themselves from each other.

The sudden brightness startled the skeletons enough to give the explorers the initiative. Kestrel easily finished off the three fallen creatures, methodically bashing each skull. Ghleanna smashed her quarterstaff through the spinal column of one of those advancing, while Durwyn arced his axe to crush another. He and the paladin then set about picking off the retreating skeletons.

A low moan behind her caused Kestrel to spin around again—and add a groan of her own to the chant as an all-too-familiar smell greeted her nostrils. “Zombies!” she called out. Five of the creatures shuffled into the chamber from the door through which the explorers had entered. She tossed her twin daggers at the first walking corpse, then reached for the blade she’d retrieved from Loren’s body. As she threw the unfamiliar weapon, it glinted in the magical light of Ghleanna’s spell. The blade struck the creature’s heart causing it to crumple to the ground. She was out of daggers—she’d have to fight off the rest of the zombies with the club.

To her amazement however, the nondescript dagger pulled itself free of the monster and flew back into her left hand. A magical dagger! She both thrilled and cringed at the discovery. A returning dagger could prove valuable, but magical weapons had been known to hold curses.

As the sounds of the skeleton battle died behind her, Corran’s voice echoed off the chamber walls again. “Trouble us no longer!” The remaining zombies ceased their advance and attempted to escape. Kestrel threw Loren’s blade at the creatures she’d already injured. No way were they shuffling off with her twin daggers stuck in them. Thanks to the weapon’s boomerang power, she felled both foes. Corran and Durwyn took care of the last two zombies.

In the aftermath, Corran removed his helm and pushed sweat-dampened hair away from his eyes. He nodded toward the dagger that had once again found its way back to Kestrel’s hand. “A magical blade. What will you call it?”

“Call it?” She wasn’t even sure she would keep it—she would certainly use it conservatively until she knew she could trust its sorcery.

“Enchanted weapons deserve their own names.”

Kestrel shrugged. “I’ve thought of it as Loren’s blade up to now. I guess I’ll continue to do so.”

“Loren’s Blade,” Corran repeated. “A good name.”

Kestrel studied the paladin as he cleaned and secured his own weapon. He might be an arrogant know-it-all, but the man knew how to fight. That little routine he did with the holy symbol was proving useful, too.