Black Wizards

by Douglas Niles

  It wore only an oiled belt, and several silver bracelets lined its arms. Carrying a spearlike weapon, it moved haltingly, as if unaccustomed to movement outside of the sea.

  A second monster moved forward on the heels of its companion, but Canthus lunged at this one and carried it to the floor. Clawed, webbed hands sank into the moorhound’s flanks, but Canthus’s white fangs drove toward the throat of the thing.

  The first attacker whirled around, turning suddenly to strike at Tristan with a long trident. The three-pronged fork nearly cut the prince’s chest, but at the last moment Pontswain darted forward. The trident caught the lord on the temple, and Pontswain crashed like a stone to the ground. Tristan stared into the monster’s face, the least human aspect of its appearance. It was a fish-face; the blank eyes and gaping maw belonged upon no other animal.

  Canthus yelped as his opponent succeeded in pushing the dog to the side, but then the moorhound growled and lunged into the attack. The pair rolled several times across the wet stones, neither gaining a clear advantage. The monster attacking the two men darted forward aggressively, flicking its trident first at one, then the other. His weariness forgotten, the prince crouched to face the monster. “We’ll do it same as we got the Northmen!” he panted to Daryth.

  The Calishite remembered that battle well. “Ready!” he answered quickly.

  Tristan darted to the side, and the trident followed him. At the same time Daryth dove and rolled. The creature swung his weapon back, but it passed cleanly over the Calishite, who came out of his roll to smash his head into the creature’s midriff.

  Tristan dashed at the monster, and now both of its opponents were closer than the dangerous end of the weapon. The prince seized the wooden haft and wrested the trident from the creature’s grip as Daryth tackled it.

  Daryth lay across the monster’s abdomen, as its claws dug into his back. Tristan dropped his knees upon the thing’s chest and then brought the heft of the trident down heavily upon its neck. He heard the cracking of bone. The monster’s eyes bulged briefly outward before it stiffened and died.

  The prince leaped to his feet, ready to run to the aid of his dog, but Canthus arose from the body of the other fish-man and shook himself. His wounds did not look too deep.

  “Pontswain?” Tristan asked, kneeling beside the motionless lord. He saw that the man was breathing, but his eyes were closed. A deep purple bruise spread across his temple and cheek.

  “What happened?” Daryth asked, joining Tristan.

  “He saved my life—at least, he took a blow intended for me. Perhaps I underestimated him.”

  “More likely he didn’t think it through before he acted,” suggested the Calishite.

  “What were those things?” Tristan asked, after determining that Daryth was not hurt seriously either.

  “I’ve never seen them before, but I’ve heard about creatures like them called sahuagin. They’re supposed to live underwater. Sometimes they come out to raid ships or land. They’re very bloodthirsty.”

  “You won’t get any argument out of me. Though the fight had drained him physically, Tristan began to feel more confident than he had since they had taken to the water.

  “At least we’re armed now,” mused Daryth, picking up the trident of the second sahuagin. They gently moved Pontswain into a small alcove in the wall of the keep, out of sight from the main courtyard. They could do no more for him at the moment,

  “The keep, then,” the prince suggested.

  They stepped forward, and each grasped one of the huge bronze rings hanging from the doors. To their amazement, each of the heavy portals swung smoothly open. Before them they saw a long hall with scattered pools of water on the stone floor and several pairs of doors along either wall.

  Then they fell.

  With the first shock, Tristan thought that the castle had begun to sink again, but he quickly saw that only he, Daryth, and Canthus were falling—not the entire castle. They plummeted down a wide shaft, a trap that had been triggered when they opened the doors to the keep, Tristan realized.

  Abruptly, they smashed into a pool of cold water, hitting the surface with stunning force. Tristan felt the trident slip from his hands as he struggled to reach the surface. Daryth and Canthus quickly surfaced beside him, Daryth still holding his trident. Gasping and choking, it was all Tristan could do to simply stay afloat.

  “That was stupid,” coughed the Calishite. “I should have seen that from a mile away. Damn my carelessness!”

  “Let’s find a way out of here,” said the prince. “And don’t blame yourself—I didn’t notice anything either.”

  They were in a small cavern, about thirty feet across. The smooth walls were far too steep to climb, and offered no doors or other passages.

  “I’d say we’ve been caught,” growled the Calishite.

  Far from Gehenna, there existed a region of peace and healing, a land where the god grows mightier from acts of virtue and kindness, not murder. This deity, like Bhaal, had worshippers throughout the Realms and all the other planes of the universe as well. Her name was Chauntea, goddess of agriculture and growth. She was the patron of all things whole and healthy.

  Chauntea had great concentrations of power in many lands, places where her clerics preached the doctrine of her faith to all. These lands, without exception, benefited from her benign nature. And in other places, where Chauntea was not all-powerful or even universally known, she sent her missionaries to bring the words and acts of her faith.

  One of these places was the Moonshaes.

  he black water seemed to penetrate Tristan’s flesh with freezing numbness. His arms grew leaden from the constant motion of treading water. He knew that he would die in this castle, for there seemed to be no way out of the trap.

  Dim rays of sunlight filtered down the long shaft, which opened into the ceiling of the chamber. The ceiling was a dome made of rough-hewn stone all the way to the water, where it surrounded the prisoners.

  For the twentieth time, Daryth took a breath and dove. The prince watched his companion’s feet drive him down, and Tristan floated anxiously, counting the seconds. Surely no man could hold his breath for that long.

  But the Calishite eventually returned to the surface with an explosive splash, floating on his back for a moment as he recovered his breath. A feeble shake of his head answered Tristan’s question.

  “Nothing,” he finally gasped. “It’s solid rock all the way around and deeper than I can dive.”

  “Save your strength,” said the prince, acutely aware of the ebbing of his own endurance. The great dog, Canthus, swam in circles, and Tristan knew that the moorhound could not remain afloat for long.

  “Get over to the side,” suggested Daryth, propelling himself to the stone wall with easy strokes. “If you can find something to hold onto, you won’t get quite so tired.”

  Numbly, Tristan did as he was told, finding a few rough niches in the rock wall that were sufficient to give him fingertip holds. At least he could keep his head out of the water without exerting himself.

  “We can’t die here!” Daryth suddenly swore.

  “We won’t,” said Tristan. Suddenly, his foot slipped into a hole in the wall, and he felt a tug of current clamp around it. Forcefully, he pushed himself away, breaking free to gasp several lungfuls of air.

  “There’s a hole in the wall,” he finally managed to choke out. “I felt a current pulling my foot in.”

  The Calishite shot past Tristan, swimming like a seal, and instantly dove to investigate the spot. He remained submerged for a full minute before slipping to the surface.

  “It’s an outlet!” he said, grinning weakly. “I’ve widened it some. In a few more minutes we’ll have a way out.”

  Daryth rested against the wall for a moment, while Canthus swam between them, seeming to sense their hope.

  “Where does the outlet go?” Tristan asked. “It could be way under the surface.”

  “No. The water flows from this room i
nto that area, so the water level in there must be lower than it is in here.”

  “What if it’s a water-filled pipe?” challenged Tristan.

  “Then we’ll all drown, and no one will ever know what happened to us,” said the Calishite simply.

  Daryth dove once again, and this time Tristan counted the seconds, stopping only after he reached one hundred. Still his companion didn’t surface. The prince moved closer, certain that the Calishite was in serious trouble.

  Finally, Daryth splashed to the surface, drawing in large gulps of air. “It’s ready,” he said. “I couldn’t see any light on the far side, but I could hear splashing. That probably means there’s an airspace. Should we try it?”

  “Naturally,” Tristan said. “I’ll go first.”

  “Good,” said the Calishite. “I’ll send Canthus through after you. Try to keep track of him if you can.”

  “See you on the other side,” said the prince. Wishing he had spent more time learning to swim, he dove toward the hole, surprised at how large it had grown. The water-saturated stone must have been considerably eroded, for Daryth had kicked a large amount of it away.

  The current swept Tristan through, and only his hands, held out before him, deflected his head from a solid stone wall. The current swept him down through a narrow bottleneck and into a chute that was full of foaming water.

  He slid downward, but the sides of the chute were gentle, and he quickly scrambled out of the water, coming to a stop upon a sloping slab of rock. The water rushed by a few feet down the slope. The prince barely had time to notice the dim illumination in this tunnel—it seemed to come from above him—before he saw Canthus bobbing madly.

  “Here, dog!” he cried, slipping into the water to seize the panicked moorhound by his broad neck. Twisting desperately against the force of the current, he wrestled the dog onto shore a dozen feet farther down the chute from his original stopping place.

  Daryth soon burst from the tight underground passage and crawled nimbly from the water to sit beside them. Somehow he had managed to carry the trident with him through the twisting tunnel.

  “Not bad,” he remarked. “Now where to from here?”

  “Up,” said the prince. He pointed to the shaft he had examined in the last few minutes. It was the source of the light that seeped into the tunnel, and sloped upward at a relatively shallow angle. “I’ll bet that leads to the keep.”

  “Indeed,” nodded the Calishite. “And the water from our trap is not the whole source of this stream. See how the water flows from farther into the castle?” Daryth gestured beyond the passageway they had emerged from, and Tristan saw the underground stream merging far into the subterranean darkness.

  “Hsst!” Daryth whispered, quickly gesturing up the slope of the chute.

  They stared downstream, and gradually Tristan saw movement against the water. A column of creatures was slowly moving upstream. The band drew closer, and Tristan recognized the sahuagin. They moved menacingly upstream in the shallow chute, arcing through the water like salmon returning to the spawning pools.

  Several of the sea creatures stood before the rest, keenly peering about the tunnel while the others swam past. Then another group would take up the guard, farther upstream, while the last dove into the water and splashed ahead.

  The creatures—Tristan counted at least two dozen—slid past them about forty feet away. The light from the tunnel was at its most intense against the water nearest them, so they hoped that the sahuagin lookouts would be blinded to their presence in the shadows.

  One of the leering fish-men took up the watch at the very foot of the slope where they hid. Its bulbous eyes seemed to see into every niche and cranny as it slowly pivoted its broad head. Its gaze passed the trio and then swung back. For a long moment, they peered into the darkness around them. Then the eyes passed to the front of the column, and the sahuagin leaped in with its fellows. Soon the band of monsters had moved out of sight.

  “Let’s go,” the prince finally whispered, and they crawled from their hiding hole. Crouching, they moved along the slope toward the mouth of the shaft leading upward.

  “I’ll go first,” whispered Tristan. Daryth was by far the better climber, and the Calishite, at the rear, would have a better chance of catching the prince or the hound if either should slip.

  Tristan leaned forward into the shaft, which was about four feet in diameter and seemed to climb at an angle halfway between horizontal and vertical. The rock inside was slick but rough, and he was able to pull himself along using awkward handholds. Bracing his knees, he forced his torso upward and found higher handholds.

  He neared the top after several minutes, his knees bruised and his fingernails cracked. Suddenly, his hand slipped from a wet knob of rock, and he started to slide back down the pipe. He arched his back instinctively and wedged himself to a stop with his back against the top of the shaft and his hands and knees against the bottom. The rough rocks slashed his skin, and salt stung his wounds, but he did not lose much of his hard-earned height. Pausing a moment to regain his breath, he inched his way upward again and finally crawled out the top of the shaft.

  Tristan lay perfectly still upon the floor of a corridor. Solid iron doors lined one wall, and the surfaces of the walls were rough-hewn. The corridor was well-lighted, for high above him were several narrow windows.

  In another minute Canthus lunged from the shaft, closely followed by Daryth. They all rested briefly, while the two men looked for possible avenues of escape.

  “That way?” suggested the Calishite, looking to the right.

  “It seems to go up,” agreed Tristan.

  They got to their feet and slowly moved up the corridor. The iron doors stood in the left wall, spaced about thirty feet apart. No sound came from any of the rooms. Draped in seaweed, the first door was pocked with rust.

  “Let me test that,” suggested the prince. He stepped forward and selected a pair of bars that seemed the most corroded. Gripping one in each hand, he flexed the muscles of his broad shoulders, clenching his teeth with the effort. Slowly, the two bars spread apart until one of them broke off at its base. The resulting opening was just wide enough for them to squeeze through.

  “Nice work,” Daryth whispered. With his trident extended before him, he stepped over to the door to the outside and looked through one of the cracks. He blinked in pain as the bright light assaulted his eyes, but soon he could make out enough detail to see where they were.

  “That’s the courtyard,” he said softly. “We’re not far from the doors we were trying to open when we fell into the trap. That door”—he pointed to the other exit from the guardroom, “seems to lead into the rest of the keep.”

  The Calishite led the way again, this time with Canthus at his side, and they squeezed through the narrow entrance without pushing the door farther open. “It’ll squeak for sure,” he explained.

  They entered a chamber that was illuminated by sunlight streaming in through narrow windows set high in the wall. Tall columns lined the vast room, supporting heavy wooden beams that seemed, somehow, to have escaped the corrosive effects of their long submergence. A wide hallway opened into the far side of the room, leading into the depths of the castle, while a smaller opening branched to the left.

  “This must have been a grand ballroom or receiving hall,” said Tristan, unconsciously whispering. Never in his life had he seen such an awesome sight.

  “Should we check on Pontswain?” asked Daryth, suddenly remembering their unconscious companion.

  Tristan shrugged. “He’s as safe as we are.”

  Suddenly, the floor rumbled slightly beneath them, and the prince’s heart leaped. Was the castle about to sink? But the rumbling ceased, and the castle did not seem to be moving.

  “We’ve got to get out of here soon!” said Tristan.

  “I haven’t seen anything we could use as a boat—or even a raft,” said Daryth.

  “There’s a lot more to this castle, it seems. Maybe we c
an find something in here.”

  Tristan started across the vast hall, peering around the heavy columns that lined two of the walls. Canthus accompanied him while Daryth checked the other side, toward the wide hallway. The prince approached the narrow corridor to the left.

  “There’s a stairway over here,” called Daryth—his loud whisper carrying easily through the hall. “See anything?”

  “Not yet.” Tristan paused before the narrow corridor. He could hardly keep himself from entering it immediately. He was vaguely aware of Daryth, investigating the stairway.

  And then Tristan was in the hallway, walking away from the great hall. He had not consciously decided to do so, yet he knew that he was going the right direction. Daryth was suddenly forgotten as he picked up his pace, hurrying toward his unknown but beckoning destination.

  He stepped under a narrow stone arch and walked down another short corridor. Canthus followed, silently vigilant. Before him stood a similar arch, and beyond that was a well-illuminated room. The light seemed softer than the sunlight that streamed into the windows of the castle, however.

  Intrigued, Tristan passed under the second arch to find himself in a round room. Its ceiling was a dome inlaid with gold, and its walls bore carvings of startling complexity depicting woodland scenes and pastoral farmlands. The detailed etchings had remained clean and sharp, even after centuries underwater.

  But the dominant feature of the room was in its center, where a long glass case rested upon a solid, almost altarlike base. Cool white light emerged from the top of the case. Its sides were masked by plush purple curtains that hung inside the glass.