"Why don't you help?"
"I am helping." The door shuddered under a heavy impact. "I'll have this locked up tight in no time." As Tas inserted a piece of bent wire into the lock, a second smash shook the door. He pulled the wire out and scowled, then reshaped it gently with his fingers. "Can't you hold it any stiller than that?"
"I can barely hold it at all!"
Cursing under his breath, Flint pushed past Tas to put his good shoulder against the door. Tasslehoff waited until after the next slam, then slipped the wire back into the lock. Several seconds of probing were followed by the satisfying thunk of the bolt. The golems continued hammering on the door and each blow knocked loose another nail or rivet, but the door held and would continue to hold for several minutes, at least.
"Now let's have a look around. There's no place as interesting as a wizard's lab," said Tas.
"We still don't have time to browse," Tanis reprimanded the kender. "We can't waste time before finding Selana and Balcombe."
"Give me one minute, Tanis, and I guarantee it will be worthwhile."
Tanis looked inquiringly to Hoto, who nodded.
Tasslehoff dove into his work with glee. He scurried along the shelves, reading labels and scanning contents as he went: eye of crow, smoky quartz dust, heretic's ashes, fingernail of hanged man, mercury, hemp, powdered whelk shell, giant's wail—that one caught his eye—and so on down the line. Occasionally he snatched a bottle and stuffed it into his pocket.
Finally, his minute long expired, he grabbed a tall stool and ran back to the locked door. He set the stool a few inches in front of the door and placed four vials on top of it. Turning to Tanis, he announced, "I'm set. This should let us know when the varicose twins get through the door, and give them a little surprise, too," he finished, patting his vest pocket.
"Then let's see where that other door takes us," said Flint. Tanis had bandaged the dwarf's shoulder, which slowed the bleeding considerably, while Nanda had seen to Hoto's injuries.
They assembled in front of the side door. Flint held his axe ready and Tanis nocked an arrow, then Nanda pulled the door open—revealing another dark, polished hall.
Tanis lowered his bow. "Lead the way, Tas, and remember, we're working against time."
The kender set off at a slow trot, scanning the floor and walls as carefully as he could at that pace. After a few dozen yards, the corridor turned slightly, and Tas could see a play of light along the outside wall that told him the way ahead was lit by torches. He paused just short of the bend and listened, detecting one voice for sure, with pauses where another, softer voice might have filled in, but Tas could not tell for sure.
Crouching near the floor, Tasslehoff slowly poked his head around the corner. Only a few yards ahead, the corridor spilled into a cavern. Torchlight danced along pink granite walls. A spiral pillar blocked most of his view through the door. He could not discern the extent of the cavern, but he guessed it was larger than anything they had seen so far, judging from the timbre and echoes of the drifting voice.
Stretched out on his hands and knees, Tas crept toward the opening. The closer he got, the more he could see, and the more he became convinced that this was what they sought. He heard the second voice, filling in the gaps between the first. He had heard it before and it was unmistakable: the voice of Hiddukel, speaking through Balcombe's coin!
Tas turned back and motioned Tanis forward. Soon the group had assembled just short of the doorway, sheltered from view by the pillar. Again Tasslehoff crept forward, into the chamber this time. Relying on the irregular spiraling of the pillar to camouflage his shape, he slowly peeked around the column.
At the far end of the chamber stood Balcombe, just as Tas expected. The mage's back was to the chamber. He was standing before a stone table or altar, blocking Tas's view of what was on the table. Moonlight streaming down from a portal in the ceiling bathed the mage and the altar. To Balcombe's left stood a beautiful white-haired woman dressed in a sea-blue gown. Her wrists were tied and her cheeks glistened with tears, but she held her head up regally. Tasslehoff realized in dismay that the woman was Selana.
He quickly ducked back and related in whispers what he had seen. Flint spoke to Tanis. "Here's your chance, lad—end it all with one shot. From behind that pillar you can put an arrow right between his shoulder blades."
Grim-faced, Tanis stood and nocked an arrow. The others prepared themselves to rush the altar and finish the job if necessary. Tanis leaned around the pillar, aimed carefully, and fired.
The arrow traveled true to its target. It struck Balcombe solidly in the upper back and buried itself to the fletchings. Tanis closed his eyes and held his breath, waiting for the thump of the collapsing body. Instead, he heard laughter and Selana's warning shout, "It's a trick!"
Opening his eyes, Tanis saw Balcombe still standing at the altar, frozen as he was before. Then he saw Balcombe step from behind a pillar to the side, laughing. The Balcombe in front of the altar shimmered, grew translucent, and disappeared, and Tanis's arrow clattered to the stone floor.
"Certainly you didn't think it would be that easy? You insult me!" Balcombe's laughing face grew dark and angry. "Have you forgotten so soon what it is you're after? A bracelet that foretells the future! I've known for hours that you were coming, perhaps even before you knew it."
Tasslehoff slapped himself in the head as Flint rolled his eyes, but Hoto acted. Igniting his wings, he screamed a phaethon war cry and streaked across the chamber. Balcombe stood his ground, unflinching. Acting on the signal, the three phaethons stationed atop the stone chute also ignited their wings and swooped into the cavern, closing directly on the wizard.
When they were nearly on top of him, Balcombe drew a pouch of fine sand from his gown and scattered it in a sweeping arc through the air, simultaneously moving his thumbless right hand in an arc across the phaethons' path while shouting, "Ast tasarak sinuralan krynawi."
The wings of all four attackers disappeared and they tumbled roughly to the ground, unconscious. Hoto's momentum carried his body across the floor to skid to a stop at Balcombe's feet, where he was greeted with derisive laughter.
Balcombe, mindful of the danger he was in, gloated for only a moment. Tanis was nocking a second arrow and Flint preparing to charge when Balcombe pointed a small, straight piece of iron at them. He murmured "Patcia et matahant!"
Suddenly Tanis, Flint, and Nanda found themselves unable to move. They could hear and see as before, but their bodies were frozen in place. Tanis stared down the length of his drawn shaft, pointed directly at Balcombe's throat, but could not release it. Flint and Nanda stood ready to charge, but their movement was suspended.
From behind the pillar, Tasslehoff sat with eyes closed, licking the last bits of a potion from his lips. It was one he'd lifted from Balcombe's lab only minutes before, labeled "Free Action." He had no idea what it did, but it sounded useful and now seemed as good a time as any to give it a try. Glancing to the side, he saw his friends halted in midaction. Not bad, he thought as he looked back to the vial, but there's not enough to go around. He tucked the empty vial back into his pouch.
Now what? He listened for a moment as Balcombe's laughter died away. Was the mage still looking this way? Only one way to find out. Tas poked his head around the pillar. Reveling in victory, Balcombe strolled through the crumpled phaethon bodies scattered around his altar.
The voice of Hiddukel interrupted the mage's musings. "You missed one, mage." Only then did Tasslehoff spot the two-faced coin, propped on the altar between two impressive rubies. At the same time, Balcombe looked up and noticed the kender. His expression darkened considerably.
"So, you did return with your friends. You may as well come out where I can see you. That pillar won't protect you if I decide you should be harmed."
Tas scrambled to his feet and stepped into the open. His right hand was in his pouch. He knew that, among other things, he had taken from the lab at least one vial labeled "Big Boom."
Balcombe tilted his head slightly. "So you're the other mouse. I don't like that hand in your pouch, little mouse. Place your hands where I can see them."
With his fingers still debating between the three vials he had left, Tasslehoff shook his head. "No, thanks, I'd rather not."
"As you wish," replied Balcombe. Again he drew something from his gown, stretched it between his fingers, and mumbled words Tas could not hear. Instantly an enormous web wove itself between the two pillars flanking the kender, including him in its intricate pattern.
Tas recognized that this was the same spell Balcombe had used against them in the zombie chamber at the castle, and he remembered the horrid stickiness of the web. But now when he tried to move, he discovered that the web slid off him easily. Assuming that this, too, was a result of the potion, he quickly stepped forward and out of the strands.
Overcoming his momentary surprise at the kender's escape, Balcombe felt his patience was exhausted. The time for the transfer was nearly upon him and he could not afford any more distractions. He raised his hands, preparing a lightning spell to kill the kender.
Tasslehoff needed no more urging. He yanked a vial from his pouch and hurled it toward the altar, where it struck the stone and shattered. A deafening screech of pain and anguish reverberated through the chamber, echoing between the pillars, fanning the torch flames. It died, then rose again in great sobs, louder and more terrifying than anything Tas had ever heard. Balcombe, standing only feet from the sound's source, writhed against the wall with his hands clamped across his ears.
Suddenly Tasslehoff remembered—the giant's wail, which he thought he had left on the stool in front of the locked door in Balcombe's lab. For a moment he wondered, which spell did I leave on the stool?
Then the world shook under a massive impact. Tas stumbled across the floor as chunks of the ceiling crashed down around him. A few moments of silence followed, then another tremendous crash brought down one of the pillars near the altar. A third crash caused the wall of the chamber across from where Tas stumbled to collapse into the chamber.
Through the dust and rubble of the wall charged a massive hulk. It moved clear of the debris, and Tas recognized a hill giant dressed in rags, coated in filth, and with hands torn and bloodied from smashing through the stone wall.
Mouth wide in shock, Balcombe raised his hands defensively and commanded, "Turn back, Blu!"
Blu spotted Balcombe instantly and rushed the altar. "Blacome trick Blu!" the lumbering giant roared, kicking boulders from his path as if they were tiny stones. He hesitated suddenly, seeing Selana chained to the wall nearby.
In the moment's reprieve, Balcombe loosed the lightning spell he had begun for Tas before Blu's appearance. The bolt of raw white energy slammed into the giant's immense chest, leaving the smell of singed flesh in the air.
"Blu!" Selana cried, straining against her bonds.
Howling in pain, Blu stumbled but did not fall. He crashed into the altar, sending the rubies and Hiddukel's coin bouncing to the floor. Rostrevor's gem shattered, releasing the stunned prince.
The tow-headed lad with the thin blond mustache looked around, trying to get his bearings. He took in the unconscious phaethons, the frozen dwarf and half-elf across the chamber, the kender near them, and the lavishly dressed white-haired elf tied to the wall.
His sight settled on his father's deformed mage. "Balcombe?" he asked of the only person he knew in the chamber. "What's happening? Why am I here?"
"He trapped you in the gem!" screamed Tas.
Selana saw the squire size up the kender dubiously. "It's true, Rostrevor. Help us!"
"They're lying, Rostrevor," said the mage in his oily voice.
But Rostrevor Curston had never liked or trusted his father's mage. He snatched up a jagged piece of the shattered wall and hurled it at Balcombe.
Dodging Rostrevor's rock, Balcombe did not see the wounded giant swing his great, hairy fist, then collapse to the floor. The blow knocked Balcombe against the wall, breathless and only semiconscious. He recovered quickly, but the lapse was enough to release Tanis, Flint, and Nanda from the grip of his spell.
In one motion Tanis realigned his arrow and released it. It arced across the room, as before, and struck the sagging wizard below the ribs. This time the real Balcombe shrieked, more in anger than pain, and stared with disbelief at the tuft of feathers protruding from his side. His right hand reached behind himself and found the arrowhead, wet with blood. With a mighty tug, he yanked the shaft cleanly through, then defiantly snapped it in half.
The wizard's body, though, was not as strong as his will, and he collapsed to one knee. Tanis nocked another arrow and took aim. Balcombe spied the soul gem he had prepared for the sea elf, miraculously still intact and ready to accept a person's essence. Perhaps he could still escape into the gem. . . .
As Tanis fired, Balcombe dived toward the gem. The arrow passed through the wizard's shoulder above the bone, then struck the wall beyond.
Shafts of red light lanced out of Balcombe's body, filling the chamber with a brilliant glow. Everyone turned away from the dazzling display, shielding their eyes. Within moments, the radiance faded away. When they looked back, Balcombe was gone.
"Where'd he go?" asked Tas, blinking. Cautiously, Tasslehoff, Flint, and Tanis approached the altar area. Tas searched right and left, forward and back, looking for the corrupt mage. Aside from bloodstains and two broken arrows, there was no sign of Balcombe.
"It looks like we failed, and the fiend got away," snarled Flint angrily. "I would have enjoyed sending him to meet his vile god."
"I think we've done well to get this many of us out alive," said Tanis. Flint grudgingly agreed with a nod as he cut Selana loose.
The sea elf knelt next to the giant's scorched body, but Blu was dead, slain by the wizard's lightning bolt. Wiping away a salty tear, she touched it to his forehead in a traditional Dargonesti tribute to fallen warriors. Near his body she noticed the copper bracelet made for her brother and slipped it on her wrist.
Meanwhile, Tas had awakened the phaethons. As everyone prepared to leave, Tas poked through the scattered debris around the altar. He picked up the two-faced coin, now quiet. Then he hefted the ruby, one of the largest he'd ever seen; he almost thought he could see something inside its multifaceted surface. . . .
Selana directed them to the chamber's main entrance, which bypassed Balcombe's lab and the stone minotaurs. Everyone else was filing out of the chamber when Flint looked over his shoulder and saw the kender absorbed in something at the altar. The dwarf hollered, "Leave those things alone, you fool! Do you want to get killed?"
"Relax," called Tas. "What's the harm?"
"They're evil, you doorknob!"
"Oh, right. Good point," agreed Tas. He quickly set the ruby into its niche on the altar and turned to go, just as a shaft of moonlight touched the gem.
Tasslehoff thought he heard a faint scream, followed by distant, wicked laughter. Looking around he saw nothing and shrugged, chalking it up to the recent battle.
Minutes later, they were outside the cavern, watching the gathering glow on the eastern horizon. Suddenly the hillside trembled from an underground explosion and smoke billowed out of the cave mouth.
Tas smiled, remembering the missing vial. "I think, those golems finally got through that locked door."
Epilogue
The four companions stood on a sandy stretch of beach on Newsea's western shore, the setting sun at their backs. Standing at the waterline, Tanis idly skipped flat stones across the smooth expanse of water, stained pink and orange by the setting sun. Tasslehoff, his leggings rolled up to the knees, chased squawking sea gulls, stopping now and then to pick up interesting-looking seashells and place them in his pouch for later inspection.
A safe distance from the water, Flint sat next to Selana on a large section of gray driftwood, boots uncharacteristically off, thick, hairy toes buried in the moist white sand. His wounded shoulder, tightly bound in clean
muslin under his loose blue tunic, throbbed only slightly now, thanks to an herbal poultice from the phaethons. In one hand was his carving knife; the other held a length of soft driftwood, which he was fashioning into the likeness of a gull.
Only two days had passed since the fateful battle with the mage. Tas, Flint, Tanis, Rostrevor, and Selana had returned with the surviving phaethons to their spire village. There, the winged creatures had cremated their dead warriors in the traditional twilight ceremony, their brave souls offered to the setting sun. After a night's rest, and with many rounds of thanks, they had left to escort Rostrevor back to town and Selana to the sea.
"Red sky at night, sailor's delight," mused the dwarf now, commenting on the reflection of the sky in the water. "'Means tomorrow will be a beautiful day. Haven't seen it miss yet."
The sea elf watched her new friends. "I'm almost sorry I won't be seeing it," she said, her finger tracing the outline of the gems on the copper bracelet at her wrist. She thought of her brother, Semunel, and the joy she would bring to her family when she returned with the bracelet. There would be much to tell them. "Almost," she repeated.
"I must go soon," she said softly. "The tides and all . . ."
Flint stopped whittling. "Yes, I suppose you must." He held the driftwood seagull up for inspection. The dwarf flicked a loose shaving off and handed the piece to Selana.
"It's not much—not my best work by far—but I'd like you to have it, to remind you—" He stopped, thinking she might not like to remember the past days' events.
Smiling, Selana held the fragile little bird up in her palm. "I would be honored to have a genuine Fireforge of my own. I won't be keeping the bracelet myself, you know."
"Thank you, lass, for not—"
"No, thank you. You have taught me much in a short time." Selana further silenced the dwarf's apology of sorts for losing the bracelet with a kiss to his ruddy, whiskered cheek.
Sighing heavily, the sea elf pushed herself up from their makeshift bench and untied the too-short, coarse-spun cloak the phaethons had given her to replace Balcombe's flimsy gown, and let it drop to the ground. She tied the carving to the drawstring of her tunic.
[Meetings 02] - Wanderlust Page 27
