The City of Ravens (19 page)

Zandria turned and began pacing straight toward Jack, her expression fixed in concentration. She counted ten paces and then halted, very near the entrance to the chamber. She referred to her notes again.

“Now, I speak the words kharaz-urzu.”

As soon as the dwarven words left her lips, a bright silver light softly grew in the chamber. High above, shining orbs hidden among stone carved to resemble the boughs of trees began to glow magically, overpowering the adventurers’ own spells of light. The swordsmen shifted nervously, vigilant for any sign of impending attack, but instead of heralding the arrival of some ancient guardian, the light simply cast a glimmering field of slanting silver beams throughout the room as each ray bounced and rebounded from hidden, polished surfaces.

“What’s happening?” called out the priestess of Tempus. She whirled from side to side, her battle-axe poised to strike. “Zandria?”

“Hold a moment. Nothing threatens us,” the wizardess replied.

She turned slowly, studying the patterns formed by the argent beams. Six rays gleamed in the chamber from six silver apples hidden in the stony leaves at the apex of the room; each reflected four times from smooth, glossy spaces cunningly hidden in the carving that surrounded the room, creating a cage of light that spiraled down to meet at one common point in the center of the chamber—

a large seven-sided stone that stood perhaps an inch higher than the rest of the floor.

“The seven stone,” Zandria breathed. “Brunn! Kale! Crowbars, quickly! Raise the stone in the center!”

The swordsman, Brunn, abandoned his post at the entrance to the rotunda and shrugged off his pack. The slender half-elf in gray joined him. Both men rummaged through their backpacks and came up with short iron crowbars. Then, silhouetted by the silver light, they worked the tools under one edge of the stone and slowly levered it up. The stone was about six or seven inches thick, and almost four feet in diameter.

“There’s a staircase hidden under here!” called the half-elf.

“The Guilder’s Tomb,” Zandria whispered. She glanced around. Thieron and Durevin, stay up here and guard our exit. Kale, you take the lead. Be wary of traps; Sarbreen’s full of them. Brunn, you follow Kale, and I will follow you. Maressa, you bring up the rear. Any questions?”

“It’s dangerous to split up,” said the priest of Tyr. “What if you have need of Durevin and me when you get to the other end of the passageway below?”

“Well call for you to join us if it looks like we might lose contact, Thieron,” Zandria said. “All right, then, let’s get to it.”

The scout—Kale—nodded once and dropped quickly into the stairwell, alert and cautious. Brunn, the big swordsman, came after the thief, jingling in a mail shirt that hung to his knees. Zandria followed and then the priestess of Tempus. Jack debated returning to where his friends hid and then decided that the opportunity was simply too good. He glided forward between the Tyr priest and the other swordsman, who stood watching warily in all directions, and followed Maressa down into the staircase.

The stairwell opened out into a long, low hall, leading into darkness. They advanced a long way, passing entirely beneath the rotunda by Jack’s reckoning, and then began to climb back up another flight of stairs.

“We’re right behind that damned memorial stone,” observed Kale from the front of the party. “All this time wasted solving the riddle, when we could have tunneled or blasted our way through with magic!”

“I am not certain that would have been the case, Kale,” said Zandria. “The master stonewrights of Sarbreen had secret ways of strengthening stone, reinforcing against magical attack. It wouldn’t surprise me if they had guarded the vaults behind the rotunda with these techniques.”

“Door ahead,” the thief said by way of reply. A great valve of shining silver stood at the top of the stairs at the end of the secret passage, only six feet in height but almost as wide. The likeness of a dignified elder dwarf was embossed in the center of the portal.

“Cedrizarun himself, I believe,” Zandria said. “Search for a means to open it, Kale, but be careful. There may be a trap.”

The lockpick nodded and moved closer to inspect the door. The rest of the group fell silent as they allowed Kale to do his work. “Ah,” said the thief. “Avoid the handle, here. It triggers some kind of mechanism—a pit trap beneath this staircase, I believe. Instead, all we need to do is simply slide the door aside. It’s on a very well concealed track.”

“You mean it doesn’t open? You just shove it aside like a decorative screen?” Brunn laughed. “Not very secure, is it?”

“That’s not all. Some magical force prevents the door from moving. I suspect that we need a password of some kind, as we did above.”

Zandria nodded. “Kharaz-urzu!” she stated. Nothing happened. The others waited, shifting nervously, but no silver light appeared, and the door remained immovable. “Damn, I’d hoped it was the same word. Very well, then. Stand back, I’ll work a spell of opening.”

The other retreated back down the stairs a few steps as Zandria raised her staff and struck once on the silver barrier, muttering old magical words. The silver surface glimmered and then began to roll aside. As it opened, an arc of darkness appeared at one corner and then twisted up and around, replacing the silver wall—the door was wheel-shaped, rolling aside in its seamless stone groove. Zandria waited for the door to move aside and then thrust her staff into the space revealed, conjuring a brilliant burst of magical light to illuminate the space beyond.

Gold glittered and sparkled in the darkness. Jack blinked in amazement; the vault was full! Dwarven arms and weapons gleamed in the light, tall banners from a dozen battles lined the walls, and everywhere he looked great painted vessels and gilt coffers bulged with gold and jewels. A single share of this loot might be worth thousands upon thousands of gold crowns!

“Oh, my,” said Kale. The lockpick took one tentative step toward the waiting riches and licked his lips. “Oh, my.”

Zandria barred his way with her staff. “We will examine the treasure carefully and completely before we begin to remove it from the vault. Remember, the first thing we want is the Orb. Anything after that is merely a pleasant bonus, and for Azuth’s sake, exercise caution! Who knows what traps the Sarbreen dwarves might have planted within the vault itself?”

The Orb? Jack thought to himself. What in Faerűn is Zandria looking for that all this wealth barely impresses her? He carefully trailed the adventurers into the vault, noting with some appreciation that Brunn and Maressa

were engaged in wedging an iron spike under the rim of the door-wheel so that the heavy silver circle would not roll back into place and trap them all inside. The vault was arranged in a simple cross shape, with a small round room at the intersection of three short arms; the entrance was at the base of a somewhat longer arm. In the center of the round room stood a great stone sarcophagus.

Zandria and Kale split up, wandering through the vault without disturbing anything large, although Kale quietly pocketed a few interesting baubles when Zandria was not looking. Jack smiled and indulged his own larcenous impulses when neither the mage nor the lockpick was looking his way, filling his pockets as quickly as he could. He filched a fine-looking dagger of strange dark steel, a ring evidently carved from a single piece of onyx, and a dusty bottle that might or might not have sloshed with some small amount of Cedrizarun’s legendary brandy.

“Ontrodes will bless me until his dying day.” Jack smiled. Now for the real trick, he wondered: How do we separate this much wealth from the Company of the Red Falcon without a fight?

There was a vertical lift of over sixty feet on the way back to the surface, he recalled. Jack could post himself in the middle of the shaft, armed with a knife, then, when Zandria’s companions hoisted up bags of loot, Jack could cut the line and drop the loot to the bottom of the shaft, where Anders and Tharzon waited to make off with the booty.

That would fetch us only a fraction of the take,” he muttered. “One or two bags at the most before they became suspicious.”

Maybe he could substitute bags full of rocks for the gold, quietly switching the treasure one sack at a time as

they hauled it past him, but he’d have to count on no one opening a sack at the top until all the sacks were up, and Jack couldn’t imagine how he could encourage Zandria’s friends to leave the sacks alone that long. Unless… unless there was someone up there when the sacks arrived, a passerby who innocently engaged Zandria and her allies in conversation. Of course the Red Falcons wouldn’t inspect their sacks if Tharzon and Anders happened by, engaged in a routine exploration of Sarbreen’s upper levels. Zandria might order the two killed in order to protect their secrecy, but Jack doubted that she was made of such ruthless stuff. She’d probably chase them off after a few minutes. In the meantime, Jack would keep hauling up loot as if there were nothing wrong up above. He grinned widely. There was a plan worth putting into action!

“Come here!” Zandria stood by the sarcophagus, gazing at the stone carving on the lid. The top of the sarcophagus was worked into a likeness of Cedizarun, reposed on his back, a noble bottle clasped to his breast. “Brunn, Maressa—the sarcophagus holds a secret compartment!”

Jack looked over at the adventurers, now clustered around the dwarven tomb. Zandria carefully removed the stone bottle from the statue’s grasp, a perfect piece of stonework that no doubt had taken years to carve. The stone grated coldly as the mage carefully pulled the stone bottle apart into two pieces. Inside, a brilliant white orb of pearly luminescence glimmered.

“The Orb of Khundrukar! Hidden in Cedrizarun’s grasp, literally!”

“Is it magical?” asked Brunn.

“Very much so,” Zandria replied, “although I am unsure of its properties.” She took the Orb, wrapped it in a soft silk cloth, and tucked it into a pouch at her waist. “Help yourselves to the rest of the hoard, then. I have my prize.”

Jack took that as his cue to slip out the door. It would take them some time to sort through all that treasure, enough time for he, Anders, and Tharzon to set up a careful pilferage of the treasure as the Red Falcons transported it back to the surface. Of course, he would have loved to get his hands on the Orb, but he’d settle for a king’s ransom in gold and jewels. He was just setting up the operation in his mind when he heard shouts of alarm and the clash of arms from the other end of the passageway.

“Anders must have decided to rush the sentries,” he realized. Quickly he dashed ahead to take the priest and the warrior from the rear, hoping to silence the fight before it spoiled his plans. Jack reached the staircase leading up into the outer rotunda and started to climb up, when suddenly Anders and Tharzon appeared at the head of the stair, leaping down in utter flight.

“Seal the door! Seal the door!” Tharzon bellowed.

An instant later, the priest Thieron followed the Northman and the dwarf. “Who in Tyr’s seven hells are you?” he bellowed after them. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Out of the way, you idiot!” Anders yelled. He reached up and started to haul at the great stone slab that covered the hidden stairway.

The priest gaped in indecision, and then something outside made a kind of long, wheezing grunt and slithered close. Jack couldn’t see it, not with Tharzon and Anders and the priest tangled up at the head of the stairway, but Thieron could.

“Tyr’s hammer! A dragon of the deep! Durevin, flee!”

From outside Jack heard hissing and the soft scrape of scales on stone. Suddenly a great roar sounded, and a man screamed high and horribly. A sword dropped down the staircase, ringing as it clattered from step to step to land at Jack’s feet. Half the length of the blade was

gone, leaving a charred, corroded fragment that smoked and sizzled. He looked up again, just in time to see Anders, Tharzon, and Thieron the priest come down the stairs in a bouncing, swearing knot of limbs and weapons. He tried to scramble out of the way but was caught and knocked flat by Tharzon as the dwarf rolled down the steps. A hard-driven elbow knocked the wind out of him, and the collision spoiled his spell of invisibility. Jack saw stars.

When his vision cleared, he found himself looking up the now-empty staircase at a great crocodile-like snout and gleaming yellow fangs. The dragon was a small one, as these things go, probably not much bigger than four or five draft horses lined up nose to tail, but its head was as big as a sixty-gallon urn and its eyes gleamed with intelligence and malice.

“More rats in the hidey-hole,” the creature hissed. “Don’t worry. I’LL be down in just a moment.”

Jack scrambled backward on his hams about ten feet, staggered to his feet, and ran for his life. He risked one quick look over his shoulder and saw the monster gliding down the staircase. It was very snakelike in build, with no limbs to interfere with its passage and a pair of great black gleaming wings that folded back along its length. He picked up the pace and passed Tharzon and then the priest Thieron, joining Anders as he raced up the stair at the other end of the passageway that led up to the vault.

The three thieves and the Red Falcon piled into the treasure room in an explosion of armor and oaths. Brunn and Maressa drew weapons and leaped forward to defend their find against the invasion of strangers, but Anders and Tharzon ignored them, instantly turning to the wheellike door and kicking out the spike in order to roll it closed. The great valve boomed shut just as the slithering dragon-snake appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

“Come out, come out!” the creature laughed. “I think you have locked yourselves in, little mice. I shall be most cross if I have to come in after you!”

Jack, Anders, and Tharzon turned away from the door only to find the Red Falcons lined up against them. Zandria stepped forward, her face livid.

“What in the hell is going on here?” she demanded.

Jack started to answer, but Thieron spoke first. “Durevin and I were standing watch, when all of the sudden the dwarf and the big one came running up the outer passage, screaming ‘Dragon! dragon!’ At first I thought it some kind of ruse or ambush, but they ran right by us into the hidden staircase. When I looked up again, I saw what they were running from—a deep dragon, as fast as a racehorse and as big as a coach.” The priest’s voice faltered. “Durevin tried to check its advance. He had time for two, maybe three swings, and then the creature dissolved him with its breath. He’s dead.”