Wizard of the Grove (51 page)

“Yes,” Crystal answered.

“Oh.” It looked concerned and withdrew.

“Crystal?” Raulin's face was smudged with black and his mustache was caked with blood. “Can I do anything?'”

She shook her head, carefully. “Just let me lie here for a moment and tell me what happened.”

“The creature blew up.”

One eyebrow rose slowly. “Just like that?”

Raulin grinned. “Pretty much.”

“Is Jago all right?”

“I'm not sure the solution wasn't worse than the problem,” Jago answered, off to one side, “but yeah, I'm fine.”

“Jago was closest to the center of the blast,” Raulin explained, smiling strangely “and the whole thing was kind of . . . messy.”

“Oh, I see.” She didn't, but Jago
sounded
all right. “If you'll help, I think I can sit up now.”

He slid one arm behind her shoulders and lifted gently until her back rested against his chest.

The corridor—walls, ceiling, and floor—was awash with black ichor and fist-sized bits of steaming flesh. She noted with disgust that Jago—especially Jago—Raulin and herself were covered with the stuff. Surprisingly—fortunately—it smelled no worse than it had when alive. The demon she'd freed from Aryalan's cave sat cross-legged in midair, about the only place it could sit and stay clean. Its resemblance to the larger creature was illuminating.

“One of yours?” she asked, prodding at a misshapen lump with the toe of one boot.

“Was,” the demon agreed. “Warned you not to come here. Told you it was dangerous.” It looked down at her, as close to a serious expression on its face as its features were capable of. “No more debt between us,” it said. “All debts are paid.”

Crystal nodded. “All debts are paid,” she repeated.

The demon nodded as well, a motion that set it bobbing in the air. It spun about once, and vanished.

Jago pulled a sodden sleeve out from his arm and summed up the situation with an emphatic, “Blech!”

“Could be worse,” Raulin reminded him. “You could be dead.”

“I think I'd prefer it,” Jago muttered, flipping a braid back and wincing when the movement jarred his shoulder. Using the wall for support, he stood and stripped off jacket, shirt, and undershirt. Where his torso wasn't black with ichor, purple bruises were already beginning to show.

Crystal pushed power across their link and left it to sort out what needed healing. Then she turned to Raulin and drew her finger along
the shallow gash that ran the length of his thigh. Behind the finger's path, only a fine white scar remained. “Anything else,” she asked.

“Well, I've got a lump the size of an apple on the back of my head, but I can live with that.” He brushed her hair back off her face. Not a single drop of ichor clung to the silver strands. “Save your power for when you need it.”

“It's not as bad as that,” Crystal protested. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of crumbled horse-cake, wishing she'd landed on her other side when she'd fallen. “Sokoji planned for this; I'll eat and I'll be fine.”

“Fine,” Raulin repeated. “When you're not putting yourself at risk, you can heal whatever you want but now you've got to be close to drawing on the barriers.”

Crystal stared at him in astonishment. “How did you know?”

He pinched her chin. “I'm smarter than I look.”

He'd have to be,
Zarsheiy snarled.

“In the meantime,” he continued, unaware of Zarsheiy's remark, “let's get out of this mess.” He took a step and had to windmill both arms to keep his balance.

“Careful,” Jago pointed out mildly, “It's slippery.”

Raulin glared at his brother, then turned his attention to the doors. As Crystal had mentioned earlier, they were identical; which one then to open first? Ready to slam it shut at the first sign of danger, he broached the door on the left.

Nothing.

He picked up Jago's discarded jacket and slapped it over the threshold, both breaking the line of the door and spraying the room beyond with black.

Nothing.

He peered into the room and blinked at the red and black checkerboard on walls and floor and ceiling. Both side walls and the one opposite held archways but from where he stood he couldn't tell if the openings led to rooms or corridors. Turning his head, he could see the backs of the other two doors. He examined the floor carefully.

Nothing.

Moving next to the central door and then to the right he repeated the process with the same results.

“Okay,” he said at last. “It seems safe. Shall we go on?”

“Which door?” Jago asked.

Raulin shrugged. “Why not all of them? I don't like the idea of one of us being in there while the other two are still out here; those doors are too narrow if someone gets into trouble. If we go through at the same time, at least we'll be together. Are you going to get dressed?”

Jago clawed congealing ichor out of his beard. “No,” he growled, “I'm not.” Even his undershirt had been soaked through and he didn't want it touching his skin.

“Good thing your legs didn't get hit,” Raulin muttered shaking his head, “or you'd be wandering around bare-assed.”

Jago ignored him and turned to Crystal. “Your decision,” he said graciously.

Crystal hid a smile. “We'll go through together like Raulin suggested.” She waved Jago to the right and Raulin to the left while she took the center.

“All right.” She drew a deep breath. “On three, open the door and step through. Freeze on the other side until we're sure of what to do next. Ready?”

Jago gave her a thumbs-up and Raulin blew her a kiss.

“One, two, three!”

In unison, they pulled the doors open, turned sideways, and stepped through.

Crystal found herself alone in a room with an open archway cutting through the checkerboard wall opposite her.

She spun around.

No door.

“RAULIN! JAGO!”

No answer.

“C
RYSTAL! JAGO!”

The answering silence seemed to mock him and Raulin lost his temper.

“Chaos' balls and the Mother's tits!” he screamed and threw himself against the wall that should've held a door but didn't. He kicked it, he pounded on it, and he slammed his shoulder into it all along its length. When he finally calmed down, he had a sore foot, aching hands, and a bruised shoulder but no better idea of what had become of his companions.

“This can't be happening,” he muttered, and slumped against the offending wall. Drumming his fingers on his thighs, he reviewed everything he'd done to check for traps. His memory held no clue to what had happened.

He'd seen a room with three archways and three doors.

He stood in a room with an archway in the left wall and no door.

The red and black checkerboard pattern was the same, and so was the size as near as he could tell. The remaining archway had neither moved nor changed.

He hoped Crystal and Jago were together, but he very much doubted it.

“Okay,” he said to the silence, “I have two options. I can stay where I am and maybe Crystal or Jago will find me. Or I can go looking for them myself.” He picked at the torn hide where the demon's talon had ripped through his heavy pants, then, squaring his shoulders, pushed
himself off the wall. “Right I go looking.” Every second that he delayed increased the chance he would arrive too late to help either lover or brother or both survive.

Of the sixteen red and black tiles in the floor, he'd already effectively tested four by his mad race up and down the wall. Hugging the walls, therefore, seemed the least hazardous path to take as it gave him only one more tile to risk. This proved out as he reached the arch safely and sighed in relief at seeing the plain gray stone beyond the opening. The red and black motif was apparently at an end.

Giving the single stone of the threshold a quick inspection, he stepped completely over it. The fine crack surrounding it might have been the result of ancient mortar crumbling away to dust, but he didn't think so.

The hall he now stood in had a high vaulted ceiling and about half the width and twice the length of the room he'd just left. A clear white light banished shadows from even the farthest corners. An archway, identical to the one behind him, cut through the far wall. At equal intervals along each side of a central aisle, were statues of strange and impossible creatures.

“Well, maybe not so impossible,” Raulin muttered, staring up at the first, “considering what else is wandering around down here.” He scraped a bit of caked ichor off his sleeve. The statue appeared to be a demented combination of snake and bear. He peered closer. Each scale had been intricately carved. He lifted a hand to touch the stone; and stopped, suddenly remembering nursery tales of carvings coming to life.

Hands shoved deep into his pockets, he headed toward the exit, carefully keeping his eyes straight ahead.

Just on the edge of his vision, he thought he saw a giant cat with too many heads twitch slightly. He walked faster.

“. . . thirteen, fourteen,” he counted as he reached the arch, teeth clenched from the effort of not breaking into a run, “and each one uglier than the last. Interesting taste this Aryalan had.”

Although the hall behind him sent icy chills up and down his spine
and he wanted nothing more than to be out and gone, he bent and examined this second threshold. The same fine crack ran around it. Satisfied, he straightened and lifted a leg to step over.

The first tile on the other side protruded slightly higher than the others.

Raulin jerked his stride short and brought his foot solidly down on the stone of the threshold. It settled and he felt, rather than heard, the mechanism it controlled click into place.

The first tile now lay level with the rest of the floor and Raulin advanced into one end of a long corridor leading off to his right. Opposite him was a large, wooden, brass-bound door.
Just the sort of door you'd expect to find in a wizard's tower,
he thought,
not like those little lacquer things.
Looking to his right he counted twelve more doors, as far as he could tell, all exact copies.

The door he faced led father away from Jago and Crystal, so Raulin ignored it. He turned and walked to the first in the right-hand wall. His only plan was to circle back until he passed the checkerboard chamber. If the trap that got them into this followed any sort of logical pattern when it split them apart, his chamber would've been the farthest left. Using their initial orientation, he had to go right.

The lock on the door was huge and ornate and had, he saw, a keyhole large enough to look through.

So he looked.

Something looked back. Its eye was large and yellow and bore no resemblance to the eyes of either of the two Raulin searched for—or for that matter, to anything Raulin had ever heard of.

“Jago can't be in there, he hasn't had time to get this far.” But a small, illogical part of him kept insisting he go back and check as he walked away; kept supplying him with visions of his brother lying wounded and helpless in the creature's den.

Nothing looked back through a second, similar keyhole but the line of sight was too limited for Raulin to see much of the room beyond.

“It's going in the right direction,” he muttered, sliding out a lock-pick. “Good enough.”

A few moments of careful examination identified the trap and a few moments more was all he needed to spring it. When the dart flew out of the frame, his hand was nowhere near its path. Satisfied, he pulled open the door.

“Empty,” he grunted. “Good.” Through an archway directly opposite, he could see another small room. It appeared empty as well but he decided he'd better check. The door that led back to his brother might be just out of sight.

He stepped into the room and paused. Both side walls had peculiar scratches running diagonally from the near corner to the ceiling. Under normal circumstances, Raulin preferred to stay near the walls, but those scratches didn't look like normal circumstances so he started across the middle of the room.

About three-quarters to the other side, the entire floor tipped suddenly down like an unbalanced teeter-totter, dropping Raulin with it.

Raulin threw himself at the archway.

The threshold hit him in mid-chest. He clawed at the stone, feet scrabbling against the wall below, and managed to stop his fall.

Then he remembered to breathe.

Bracing his elbows, he levered himself up and flopped the top half of his body over into the second room.

The floor moved.

He jerked away, almost overbalanced, and spent the next few seconds stabilizing again.

The side walls of this room bore scratches as well, running diagonally from the far corner to the ceiling.

“Chaos. Chaos! CHAOS!” Raulin swore, blinking sweat from his eyes. His dangling lower body had never felt so exposed and vulnerable. He could feel his balls drawing up into safer territory. He didn't blame them.

He risked a glance back over his shoulder.

All he could see was a gray stone wall, slightly angled away from him.

“Wonderful,” he muttered, steeled himself, and looked down.

The bottom appeared to be no more than two body lengths away.

He snapped his head back and tried to calm the pounding of his heart. It wasn't very far. Next to no distance at all if he lowered himself on his arms before he dropped. He swallowed and wet his lips. His chest hurt where he'd slammed it into the stone. His choices seemed to have narrowed to staying where he was or taking a chance down below.

Slowly he began to inch back, taking his weight on his forearms and then on his hands alone.

Kicking out a little from the wall, he let go.

One leg twisted under him when he landed. He fell heavily, then lay for a moment while he writhed in time to the waves of pain pulsating out from the injured joint. When the demon had slashed his leg during the battle, the blow had wrenched his knee as well, a minor ache in the wake of the other and until this moment he'd forgotten about it. He had a feeling he wouldn't forget about it again for a while.

Finally, the pain began to ebb. He straightened his arms, pushing his body into a sitting position, and dragged himself around until the floor/wall supported his back. Yanking his waterskin forward, he managed to remove the stopper. Although the water had the slightly brackish taste of melted snow, the action of getting the drink helped to calm him.

“What I wouldn't give,” he sighed, taking another mouthful, “for even a mediocre brandy.” He looked up. “'Course, it could be worse. If I'd followed the wall like I usually do, I'd have been near nothing I could grab, would've fallen the whole distance, probably broken my leg, at the very least, and lain here until I rotted. Which raises the question,” keeping much of his weight on the wall at his back, he stood, “how in Chaos do I get out?”

The area he found himself in was about twelve feet long, about twelve feet wide, and about twice that high. He bent, ignoring as well as he could the protest from his bruised ribs, and prodded at the bottom of the floor/wall. Although there wasn't much space, he found he could grip it with his fingertips. To his surprise, the massive block of stone rose easily when he tugged at it. When it reached his shoulder
height, he ducked beneath the rising edge and shoved it hard enough to level it out.

The wizard-light stayed with him, he was happy to discover. He'd half anticipated exploring this lower level in the dark. Looking up, he could see the pivot mechanism and the ledge that supported the one end of the floor; supported it until some Chaos-born fool walked too far.

The new room had the same dimensions as the one above and had a single door in the long wall to Raulin's right.

“Right angles to the way I should be going. Still,” Raulin sucked on his mustache, “I haven't much of a choice.”

He limped to the door exercising more than his usual caution. The lock was untrapped and, even allowing for the painful distraction from his knee, it gave him no trouble. He stepped into the middle of a long corridor, a T-junction at each end with nothing to choose between them except his need to find Jago and Crystal. He turned to the right and began walking. At the corner he hesitated, his way no longer clear.

He shifted his weight off his bad leg and sighed, his chin sinking down on his chest. Then he blinked. In the wall in front of him was the faint but unmistakable outline of a door. He raised his head. It vanished. He lowered his head. It reappeared. With his chin tucked in, he ran his dagger around the edge, found the catch, and freed it. A rectangular section of the wall swung silently outward.

“Now this has got to be an illusion.” He closed his eyes, disbelieved as hard as he could, and opened them again. “Still there.” Stepping forward, pushing a gem encrusted goblet away with his foot, Raulin stared at more wealth than he'd ever suspected existed. Gold and silver coins, jewels, both loose and in ornate settings, ropes of pearls, beautiful and gleaming things he couldn't identify; all of it heaped and piled and thrown about the room.

“We could live like kings on this.” He bumped into a chest and the lid snapped shut on the bolts of silk and cloth of gold. Bemused, he sat down, his eyes wide with trying to take in the glittering display.

He scooped up a handful of coin and poured it from one palm to the other . . .

 . . . from one palm to the other . . .

The clinking of the metal sounded almost like music . . .

 . . . almost like music . . .

He'd never noticed before that gold had a texture. That pearls felt like satin. That diamonds could never be mistaken for anything but what they were. That weapons could be beautiful.

He stroked a dagger, its hilt set with emeralds, and thought how well the stones would match Crystal's eyes.

Crystal.

The dagger fell from lax fingers.

Crystal. And Jago.

He had to find them. Suddenly the glitter was only that, and unimportant. He stood and the pain in his knee drove the last thoughts of the treasure from his mind.

“Why in Chaos couldn't they gild a walking stick?” he grumbled, limping out the door.

*   *   *

“RAULIN! CRYSTAL!”

Jago called until he was hoarse and then slumped against the wall in despair. The tiles were warm against his bare back, perversely comforting as those tiles should've been the door he'd entered through. He glanced at the archway to his right, now the only way of exiting the room, and wondered if he should use it. Raulin, he knew, would not sit quietly waiting for rescue. Raulin had never been very good at waiting for anything.

The logical thing to do was to stay right where he was, assume Crystal would find both Raulin and himself, and then the three of them would go on together.

But there was nothing to say that Crystal would even be able to look for them. That Raulin wasn't lying hurt or confined or both. Nothing to say that he, Jago, wasn't the only one able to move about and find the other two.

Logic argued against it, but logic had no proof and logic was no
comfort and Jago found himself standing at the archway almost before he'd consciously decided to leave.

The cool, gray stone of the adjoining room soothed his raw nerves and he bent to examine the threshold in a less frantic frame of mind. Nothing, so he straightened and looked up. Not quite touching it, he ran his finger along the crack that split the lintel and continued halfway down the supports on both sides. He couldn't identify it as a trap, but that, he knew, didn't mean a Chaos-inspired thing.

Preferring embarrassment to dismemberment, he squatted and waddled through the opening, careful to keep his head lower than the bottom edge of the crack.

The hall he entered stretched long and narrow to an identical archway at the opposite end. Tapestries, brilliantly colored and glittering with gold, hung at equal intervals along each wall.