The City of Ravens (33 page)

They came to several broad halls that had collapsed into rubble, with great rockfalls spilling out onto the floor from the walls and the ceiling. At one time the rooms must have been noble and majestic, each sixty or seventy yards in length and perhaps half that in breadth, but now they were cluttered with mounds of debris. In single file Jelan and her companions picked their way between the rockfalls, slipping and clattering over the wreckage.

“Revel halls,” said Hathmar Blademark. “Take care, the Dragon Hall is close by.”

At the far end of the collapsed halls they found a broad alcove or antechamber filled by a great dark well. A set of stone stairs wound down into the pit, circling around and around.

“Dim your light,” said Jelan. “We do not want to advertise our presence to anything that might wait below.”

Yu Wei complied, masking the glowing golden ball his magic had conjured. Then they groped down through the darkness, each with his or her hand on the shoulder of the person in front, the drow leading the way with his superior dark vision.

After several hundred steps they reached the bottom of the well and filed out into a high, sharply arched hall. The Tuigan and the Nar ran out ahead, weapons ready, but no dark-lurking monster waited; the vast chamber was empty.

“The Hall of the Dragon,” Illyth whispered to Jack. “I never thought to see this place with my own eyes! It was the public meeting place of Sarbreen’s guilders and masters, the seat of the city’s government.”

“I didn’t realize you were so well versed in Sarbreen lore, dear Illyth,” Jack replied.

“Fully half of the adventurers whose careers I studied explored Sarbreen at one time or another, and a number of them died in these depths. I suppose it just stuck with me.”

Jack nodded, concealing his nervousness at the notion of people just like them meeting terrible dooms in these darkened dwarven halls, and turned his attention to the chamber itself. Dark galleries ran along the walls, providing room for hundreds of dwarves to watch the proceedings on the floor of the hall. Now nothing but a soft wind sighed through the high balconies. At the far end of the

hall, a great stone dragon was carved in bas-relief forty feet tall. Its noble features grimaced in a terrible battle challenge.

“The Stone Dragon of Sarbreen!” Illyth breathed. “Jack, this is the stuff of legend! No one has seen this place in a hundred years and returned to tell the tale.”

“That is not entirely true, my lady sage,” Jelan said, sauntering closer. Yu Wei, Amarana, Hathmar, and the others stood guard warily, watching the numerous dark tunnel mouths that opened into the great chamber. “I myself have been here three times in the last six months in attempts to reach the Wild Mythal, but this barrier—” she gestured at the massive relief on the chamber’s far wall— “has frustrated me every time. It is my hope that Jack can help me here.”

Jack glanced up at the formidable structure. “I have no great skill at digging, but if you wish, I will take pickaxe in hand and do what I can.”

“If only it were so easy,” the Warlord said. “Beyond that wall lies a rift or passageway descending into the true underdark beneath the very deepest dwarven works. Yu Wei’s divinations clearly show the way to the Wild Mythal, but to reach it we must pass through the doorway concealed in this wall. And that barrier has frustrated all the efforts of mighty wizards and priests both. It will not yield to me.”

“But you, Jack Ravenwild, are a Ravenaar born and bred, infused with the chaotic energies of the device this barrier protects,” Yu Wei intoned. “We believe you can open this passage.”

Jack sighed and followed Jelan’s gaze. He was inclined to allow the Warlord to stand frustrated before this wall until the end of time, but that was why Jelan had brought Illyth along. Clearly, this was not the time to challenge her.

“What do I have to do?” “Come here,” said Yu Wei.

The Shou wizard stood at the feet of the great image. The dragon was head-down, as if it had been frozen in the act of descending the wall. Serpentine coils and vast batlike wings shadowed the upper portions of the bas-relief, lost in the darkness high overhead, while the creature’s fierce claws gripped a great orb ten feet across at the bottom, just beneath its open mouth and noble countenance.

“This sphere in the dragon’s claws marks the doorway, but no opening spell at my command can part it, and more destructive spells are defeated outright.”

“The wall is blank stone. What do you propose?”

The Shou scowled. “If you know an opening spell, attempt it. Perhaps the stone will accept your magic where it refused mine.”

Jack shrugged and did as Yu Wei suggested. He stepped close and murmured the words to his passage spell, reaching out to caress the cold stone of the sphere-shaped surface. For a long moment he felt nothing. Then, abruptly, a streamer of emerald energy caressed him, dancing up from some wellspring far below his feet and winding left and right to stay in contact with him, no matter where he went. He gasped in shock and opened his eyes to look on the spiraling magic with his human vision. He saw nothing at first, although he could still feel it nearby. Then he realized that Yu Wei stared silently at something in front of them.

In the center of the stone sphere, beneath Jack’s hand, a blot of darkness edged in green-glowing magic had appeared. Emerald energy whirled and darted around the aperture, which rapidly widened to fill the blank stone between the dragon’s claws.

“Jack, you opened it!” said Illyth. She hugged her arms

around her shoulders, excited despite the circumstances.

“Indeed,” said Yu Wei. The wizened sorcerer turned to the Warlord. “My lady, we should make haste. The aperture may not remain open for long.”

Jack simply gaped. He hadn’t even finished the spell… or so he thought. Could he have cast a spell without even realizing it, simply by concentrating on the feel of magic from the floor beneath his feet? What else might happen if he tried to channel the power he could sense?

“Excellent!” said Myrkyssa Jelan.

She checked her arms and armor, then joined them by the doorway. The others in her party—drow swordsman, Shar priestess, Tuigan warrior, and the others—followed quickly. Jelan looked at Hathmar and inclined her head; without hesitation the drow ducked into the dark opening, scouting the path ahead. “Now we shall see what the dwarves chose to conceal.”

“So where does it go?” Jack asked.

“Down to the deeps,” Yu Wei answered. “My divinations show a—”

“Silence!” hissed Jelan. She pointed at the stairwell behind them. A flicker of yellow light danced on the walls. She doused her own light. “Everybody, through the door! Someone is following us!”

Jelan glanced at the dark doorway, then took Jack by the elbow and guided him toward a deep niche in the wall guarded by a mighty stone statue of an armored dwarf.

“Go ahead!” she told her mercenaries. “I want to see who follows, but well withdraw as soon as we know. Jack, you will stay silent or Illyth suffers.”

Yu Wei and the others ducked through the archway in the shadows beneath the dragon claws, carrying Illyth away with them. At the rear of the hall, yellow light grew brighter, closer, in the circling stairwell descending from

the halls above. A sudden clatter echoed from the antechamber, and the glimmer of light flickered and flared wildly. Jack leaned forward, watching carefully now. Footsteps clattered on the stairs above, followed by the ringing of steel and distant cries of distress. A voice cried out in pain, another shrieked words of magic, and then something inhuman roared in challenge, a deep-throated growl that echoed throughout the entire room.

Jelan snorted softly beside him. “Be ready to move when I command,” she said. “Someone is about to bring their battle into our presence, and I deem it wise to abandon the vicinity before we are caught up in an argument that isn’t ours.”

The archway in the opposite wall filled with yellow light and motion as several figures clattered down the last of the spiraling stairs in the antechamber and retreated out into the floor of the great hall. Marcus and Ashwillow, at the head of a handful of city soldiers, turned to face whatever it was that pursued them.

Out of the dark shaft in the adjoining chamber, six gray shapes suddenly dropped, with great leathery wings snapping out to break their plunge. They were about the size and shape of a man, but so heavy and powerful that the flagstones at the bottom of the shaft cracked under the impact of their descent. With roars of battle rage, the creatures surged out of the bottom of the well and assaulted the Hawk Knights and their soldiers.

Blades flashed and steel rang as the knight slashed out at his attackers. One recoiled, cradling a mangled arm and hissing in pain, but two others pummeled Marcus to the ground with blows powerful enough to powder stone. Ashwillow barked out a magical word and sent a jet of scorching blue flame into the middle of the pack. The creatures—some kind of gargoyles, Jack guessed—were driven back for a moment. Two soldiers

seized Marcus by the arms and dragged him up, retreating from their assailants.

That’s enough,” Jelan snarled. “Come on. Well leave these fools to their fate.”

Jack cringed. Marcus and Ashwillow certainly wished him no good and it might solve some problems later if they met their doom in Sarbreen today. Still he begrudged no one a chance to escape a grisly death at the claws of a flight of gargoyles.

Jack took one more look at the fight across the great room. The creatures had already recovered from Ashwillow’s fiery attack, ignoring the patches of black, cracked hide that smoked across their broad backs and massive wings. With cries of rage, they took to the air, streaking across the vast space of the dwarven greathall like catapult stones in flight. The rogue ducked into the open passage and found a long tunnel lined with cool, smooth stone that gleamed in the reflected light. Yu Wei, Illyth, and the others waited thirty yards down the tunnel.

A moment later, Jelan darted into the passage behind Jack. “Move quickly,” she called ahead. “We are pursued.”

Three of the powerful gargoyles appeared in the darkness behind them, screeching with rage. They hurled themselves forward, crowding the small passageway and scrabbling past each other to reach Jelan first. The Warlord cast one cool glance over her shoulder and picked up her pace, keeping safely ahead of the flight. Jack decided to do the same. The passageway behind the sphere ran for almost a hundred yards, as straight as an arrow, before opening up on a tall, narrow cavern cleft by a great crevasse. The Warlord’s party was trapped on a wide ledge, unable to flee any farther. Wind howled up from below, a roaring blast of air that rumbled and echoed in the cavern like the thunder of a nearby waterfall.

Illyth plucked at Jack’s sleeve and pointed. “Look!” A round stone platform floated in midair in the center of the crevasse, level with the floor on which they stood. A wooden dock or landing extended out over the abyss to meet the edge of the stone platform.

Jack moved over to peer over the edge. As far as he could see, the crevasse plummeted down into the dark. He raised an arm to shield his eyes and blinked in astonishment.

“What is this place?” he shouted.

“The road to our goal,” Jelan replied. She turned and drew her blade, preparing to defend the mouth of the passageway against the pursuing monsters. Tenghar and Hathmar joined her, forming a hedge of steel to seal the tunnel’s exit. The gargoyles were almost upon them. “Yu Wei! Bar their passage!”

The Shou sorcerer inclined his head and raised his hands, muttering words and weaving his fingers. Golden flames suddenly exploded from the stone floor to fill the tunnel behind them, creating a sheet of leaping death that sealed the tunnel mouth completely. Jack could feel a small warmth on his face and hands, no stronger than sunlight on a clear day, but the heat must have been far more intense on the opposite side of the fire barrier; the gargoyles bayed in misery and retreated, shielding their faces with their great dark wings.

“The wall will hold them for a quarter hour!” Yu Wei cried. “After that, the monsters will be free to pass!”

“Well done,” the Warlord said. “That will do for now. Turn your attention to the platform and determine how it operates. We will keep watch.”

They waited a few minutes, buffeted by the winds, the scorching heat of the wizard’s shield defending them from the gargoyles in the tunnel. Yu Wei muttered and mumbled, inspecting the floating platform.

At length he stepped back and said, “I believe I understand the device, Warlord, but it may be prudent to test it first in order to make sure that I have mastered the enchantment.”

“I trust you implicitly, and we do not have much time,” Jelan replied. She brushed by the sorcerer and jumped across to the stone platform as if she had absolute confidence in the precarious engine. It bobbed a little under her weight but remained stable. “Come on, then, everybody aboard. Jack, you stay close by me,” she said. “I want you where I can keep an eye on you.”

“I am completely trustworthy,” Jack protested.

He followed Jelan and tried not to think about just how much of a drop might wait under his feet. He gave his hand to Illyth and helped her onto the platform, then moved aside to make room for the rest of Jelan’s picked warriors.

“Nevertheless,” Jelan said. “Trouble follows you like gulls following a fisherman’s dory.” She turned to face the rest of the party. “Keep your eyes open, friends. I am very concerned about what might or might not come up behind us in the dark.”

Yu Wei stepped aboard last and carefully touched the heel of his staff to the old dwarven stone, speaking a word that Jack did not recognize. After a moment, the platform began to sink, dropping quickly and smoothly down the crevasse as the walls seemed to climb away from them.

The wind screamed like something flayed alive as they dropped into the darkness.

S

“Dungeon delving,” mused Jack, “is an occupation for those unfortunate souls who have demonstrated that

they are too stupid, I’ll-tempered, or incompetently noble to hold down any honest job.”