Black Wizards

by Douglas Niles

  Alexei held the torch as Daryth and Tristan wrestled the heavy tabletop into position. At one point, they dipped a corner of it onto the surface of the floor. It met no more resistance than if it had touched water, and sent a cloud of fine dust into the air.

  Daryth took the torch and carefully walked to the chest. He knelt and examined the mechanism of the lock for several minutes, Tristan was acutely conscious of the torch burning lower, but he didn’t dare say anything to break his friend’s concentration.

  Slowly, the Calishite drew the narrowest of the wire probes from his glove. Clenching his jaws in concentration, he stuck it into the keyhole, holding it at a sharp angle instead of pushing straight in.

  The tiny click was barely audible to Tristan, but in the torchlight he saw a gleaming silver needle stick suddenly forth from the lock. It stopped, less than an inch from Daryth’s hand. Even at this distance, the prince could see a greenish substance smeared on the end of the needle.

  Daryth bent over the lock again, and it was only a matter of moments before the clasp released and he threw back the lid of the chest.

  “These are supposed to save our lives?” he asked, incredulous. He pulled forth three tubes of rolled parchment, wrapped in smooth leather cases. Puzzled, he brought them to Alexei.

  “Yes!” the mage said. “I am no longer powerless! Though my hands prevent me from casting spells, there is nothing wrong with my eyes! I have but to read a spell from one of these scrolls, and it will be as if I had cast it myself.”

  “How did you know they were there?” asked the Calishite.

  “Cyndre told me. They were supposed to be for an emergency.” His gaunt face twisted into a cold smile. “I would call this an emergency.”

  “Now, we should move on,” urged the prince. “We don’t have a lot of light left. Besides, if Cyndre remembers that you know about this place, we might have some unwelcome company before long.”

  “You are very right,” agreed Alexei. “Come—this way!”

  The mage, obviously filled with fresh confidence, led them from the chamber back to the original cavern. Here they continued to descend, moving much more rapidly than before. But the torch had burned to a tiny stub, and soon even that would be consumed.

  “It’s going to get dark soon,” said the prince, indicating the fading brand.

  “Perhaps I can take care of that,” said the mage, unwrapping one of the scrolls. He looked it over quickly, setting it aside to reach for another. He apparently found what he wanted, for he began to read to himself, whispering strange words. As he read, a small portion of the scroll in his hands appeared to burst into flames. The bluish fire flickered across the page, burning the letters of each word as it was read, though the parchment itself was unaffected. When he finished, one section of the scroll was blank.

  But the stub of the torch glowed with a cool, white light that was far more brilliant than the fading names had been.

  “That’s nice, for a start,” admitted the Calishite.

  Alexei nodded and tucked the scrolls under his arm. They started down the cave, and their progress improved even more, since now they had adequate illumination for the path.

  But still they went down. Several times they even had to scale small cliffs as the cave began to drop even more steeply. Tristan grew more and more concerned about their distance from the surface; they had to be a half-mile below Caer Callidyrr, not to mention a similar distance under the surrounding sea. Was there any safe way out?

  Only when his companions stopped in amazement did Tristan notice that they had entered a large chamber. He could not suppress a low whistle of surprise.

  This vast cavern dwarfed the room with the chest. The rays of illumination from the light spell could not hope to reach the far corners.

  But they didn’t have to, for this chamber was filled with its own source of illumination. The floor of the area was covered with huge mushrooms, some towering higher than Tristan’s head. Several of these fungi shed a pale green luminescence. Close to the men, it was almost invisible, but across the chamber the area was lit in a ghostly green glow.

  A mist of water hung in the air, and they could hear—and faintly see—the plume of a cataract spilling into the cavern. It fell hundreds of feet, splashing down the far wall from an unseen source to an invisible destination. Mosses and molds lined much of the cavern walls, giving the place the look of a dark jungle.

  “This is amazing,” said Daryth, awestruck.

  “I can’t believe all these plants can live this far underground,” added the prince. “With no sunlight.”

  Alexei turned to them, concerned. “This was not here, years ago, when I last saw this place. I do not believe a lush garden such as this could have sprung into being without some kind of help.”

  “You mean gardeners?” asked Tristan.

  “Precisely. And we would do well to avoid them. They must be here with Cyndre’s knowledge and approval.”

  They found wide avenues laid, as if by plan, among the huge fungi. They followed the straightest of these across the center of the chamber, moving as silently as possible. The eerie green glow began to seem sinister, but that was their only illumination now, as Alexei had quickly stuck the glowing brand under his robe.

  The ground was spongy underfoot, and they realized that the floor of the cavern was lined with thick loam and covered with moss. Someone had put a lot of work into creating this wealth of underground plantlife.

  They were near the center of the cavern when they saw them: a dozen small, dark-skinned figures that swaggered into the path before them. Each was about four feet tall with a scraggly beard and evil, glittering eyes. They looked much like ordinary dwarves, except for their dark skin and wide, staring eyes.

  As the companions stopped suddenly, another band of the creatures moved from among the mushrooms to block their route to the rear. They were surrounded, since their size made passage among the fungi impossible.

  Tristan stepped forward, taking care to make no overt gesture. “Hello,” he said. “We were … admiring your garden.”

  One of the dark dwarves spit onto the ground and pulled a sturdy axe from his belt. The others, he saw, all held weapons ranging from hammers and shortswords to a number of hefty axes. The creatures moved in, muttering in a tongue the prince didn’t understand.

  Still, Tristan was reluctant to draw his sword. For one thing, they were badly outnumbered.

  The decision was taken out of his hands, however, when one of the dwarves threw his axe, aiming for the prince’s head. Tristan ducked quickly, and the weapon sailed harmlessly by. But the rest of the band howled in rage, and charged—a furious mass of little people, brandishing their weapons with bloodthirsty intent.

  The prince whipped the Sword of Cymrych Hugh from its scabbard, and the dwarves paused, momentarily dazzled by the gleaming weapon. And then he heard Alexei.

  “Sorax, Frigius Newll—Ariith!”

  He felt a blast of something to his left, and the air grew suddenly frigid. A dull blue light flashed in the cavern. It was not bright, but it etched expressions of terror into the faces of the dark dwarves. Most of the dwarves before him gasped or shrieked for a split second, and then collapsed, stiff as icicles. Their flesh turned a pale blue, and frost instantly began to condense on their exposed skin and the metal fittings of their weapons and clothes. A cone-shaped explosion of magic had frozen everything in its path, clearing the way for the men’s escape.

  Tristan heard howls of anger behind him, followed by the clash of steel—Daryth was protecting the rear of the party. Several of the dwarves before him had avoided the effect of the spell, and instead of running in terror at the awesome display, they charged with even greater intensity.

  Tristan’s sword split the first one nearly in two, as the prince danced to the side to avoid a hammer blow aimed at his kneecap. He whirled to stab the hammer-wielder in the throat, continuing his motion through a full circle. The whistling arc of his sword lifted the he
ad of a third dark dwarf, and the path before them lay open.

  “Run!” he cried, urging Alexei forward as he ran to Daryth’s side. The mage hesitated, and then did as he was told while the two men with sword and scimitar slashed and stabbed at the angry attackers.

  “Let’s go,” grunted Tristan as the dwarves fell back to regroup. The two men turned and sprinted after Alexei as the howling mob of their enemies burst into pursuit.

  “There’s gotta be a hundred of ’em back there now!” panted Daryth as they caught up to Alexei. The three men soon reached the far side of the cavern where, true to the mage’s memory, the cave continued on.

  “There’s a bridge a little way up here,” gasped the wizard, slowing slightly. “If we can cross it, I have a spell that might be able to knock it down.”

  “Good,” grunted the prince, turning to look behind. Their pursuers were not in sight; their stumpy legs had left them far behind the running humans.

  “Here,” said the mage, stopping to wheeze for breath as the tunnel widened into a broad ledge. A deep canyon blocked their path, and they could hear the thunder of racing water far below. The ceiling still pressed above, and an occasional fungus growing from the walls shed the familiar green light.

  It was not bright, but even so they saw the end of the bridge. But that was all that they saw, for the rest of the span was gone. From the looks of the decayed anchor posts, the bridge had simply rotted away.

  They were trapped on the narrow ledge, as a hundred bloodthirsty dwarves came charging down the cavern behind them.

  “I sure wish you could talk!” exclaimed Newt. “This is boring. How much farther do we have to fly, anyway? Are you sure you know where we’re going? I’m getting tired!”

  In truth, Robyn too wished that she could talk—if only for the purpose of telling Newt to shut up.

  She, too, was growing very tired. The gray waters of the Strait of Alaron rolled beneath her. It had been below them for many hours—exactly how long, she did not know. The steady tailwind had helped them, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep flying.

  “There! I see something!” Newt shrieked, suddenly. “Is that it? It has to be it! Oh, please be it!”

  Her eyes—the eyes of an eagle—saw it too. Now it was merely a brown smudge in the northeast, lying at the very limits of her vision. Yet the smudge grew more distinct—she saw regions of forest, and hills, and fields. Soon they would be over it.

  Alaron.

  Green water pressed heavily against the seabottom. Giant things lay here. The splintered hulls of doomed ships littered the sandy seabed, like skeletons of impossibly huge creatures. Other, living things lay upon the bottom, or burrowed into its sand—squids, blue whales, and darker creatures that never ventured into waters tainted by sun.

  A sound came softly into these black waters. It originated in Kressilacc as a slow, pulsating vibration—a deep thrumming that fell far below human hearing, but could be felt though the sea as a heavy command. Sharks and barracuda darted nervously away from the sound. Whales and porpoises clung to the surface, desperately splashing toward shallow water.

  For the Deepsong had begun.

  Sythissall began the song, seated in his vast throne made from the hull of a Northman longship. His wide gills, two-foot-long gashes in the side of his blunt head, flexed rhythmically in and out. His concubines and priestesses took up the call, and soon all of the sahuagin of the city sat or floated, motionless except for the flexing of their gills.

  The pulsations traveled through the water, along the bottom of the canyon and across its rim, traveling through the darkest, deepest reaches of the sea with growing intensity.

  From these enshrouded regions, and from everywhere under the sea, the sahuagin answered the call. The message thrummed deeply through the earth itself, summoning the claws of the deep.

  Their powerfully muscled legs and wide, webbed feet propelled the sahuagin toward Kressilacc as fast as any fish. Tridents and spears thrust before them, hooked nets trailing from their silver belts, the warriors hastened to answer their king’s command.

  Each sahuagin was affected by the ancient cadence. Their white, flat eyes grew wider, and the bristling spines on the males stood tall and menacing. Slowly, the sahuagin drove themselves into a frenzy. Sythissall and Ysalla were pleased.

  And Bhaal was pleased.

  he mob of dark dwarves howled toward them. Tristan looked into the chasm at his feet—it was easily a thousand feet deep and several hundred across. The ledge they stood upon ended abruptly to either side of them. It was about ten feet wide, and twenty long. The whole area was outlined in the milky green glow of the ubiquitous fungi.

  “Damn!” he cursed, turning to look up the tunnel. Daryth stood watchfully in the mouth, which was only eight feet wide. It seemed as good a place as any to meet the onrushing horde. Even if each of them killed a score of the enemy, though, Tristan knew they would still be overwhelmed.

  “Hold them for a minute, if you can,” said Alexei, unrolling one of his scrolls. He seemed remarkably unconcerned by their situation.

  “We’ll do that,” said the prince wryly. “I don’t suppose you have a spell in there that can build us a bridge?”

  “I might have something better,” said the mage.

  Before Tristan could ask what he meant, the first dwarves came into sight, racing down the cave. Their eyes glared wildly, and their shrill battle cries echoed through the chamber maddeningly. The prince stepped to Daryth’s side, and they brandished their blades. Apparently remembering the deaths of their comrades back in the fungi garden, the dark dwarves slowed the pace of their advance, allowing their numbers to swell until the entire cavern mouth teemed with them.

  Several of the larger ones pushed their way to the front of the mob. Flourishing their broad axes, these few advanced cautiously toward the pair. Because of the narrow confines, only three dwarves could attack at once.

  “Dwithus Soarax, Alti!”

  Tristan heard the chant behind him. He even saw, out of the corner of his eye, the telltale blue flicker that showed Alexei was reading a spell from the scroll.

  The three dwarves paused. But nothing happened.

  “Dwithus Soarax, Alti!”

  Again came the chant, the blue flicker. And again, Tristan could see no noticeable effect. Daryth whirled lightly backward, suddenly leaving Tristan to hold the tunnel alone. The dwarves raised their axes and charged.

  “Dwithus Soarax, Alti!”

  Once again came the casting. Tristan swung the Sword of Cymrych Hugh, temporarily halting the rush of the attackers. The force of his swing took him through a complete circle, and suddenly he was hanging in the air, struggling to regain his footing.

  He felt a jerk upon his collar, and he was pulled up and away from the dwarves. He almost dropped his sword in astonishment.

  Now he looked down and saw the white water, foaming in the canyon below. The ledge fell away, thirty or forty feet below him, and the dwarves rushed out of the tunnel, their cries of rage amplified a hundredfold. Slowly, Tristan realized what had happened.

  He was flying!

  He twisted awkwardly to look behind him, and the ceiling seemed to tumble toward his feet. He found himself diving into the canyon, but he lifted his head and swooped upward, narrowly missing the jagged face of the gorge. His flight took him past the dark dwarves, and he twisted and turned as several axes flew at him. In another second he was out of range, and he turned to watch the missiles tumble slowly into the depths of the canyon.

  The prince tried to stop, and he rolled through several complete spins before he regained control of his movements. Daryth and Alexei were slightly above and ahead of him. The Calishite moved with the same tentativeness that characterized the prince’s flight. Alexei, on the other hand, glided with certainty in a circle above them.

  Tristan looked up, holding his hands to either side to help him keep his balance. He rose slowly. By moving his hands, he found that he could
alter the direction of his flight. He drifted easily to the side and carefully rose to hover beside the mage and the Calishite.

  “The flying spell!” said Alexei. “A wonderful escape mechanism. There happened to be several of them on one scroll. I used them all to get us up here—one for each of us.” He did not mention that, had there been less than three spells, he would have left his rescuers behind.

  The three of them turned away from the frenzied and frustrated dwarves.

  The din the dwarves raised faded against the thundering of the rapids as the distance between the pursuers and their quarry increased. In a minute, the men hovered over the entrance to the cavern on the far side.

  “I like this,” Daryth exclaimed, pulling to a sudden stop beside his companions. Like Tristan, he was quickly learning how to control his movements.

  “The spell will last for a limited time,” explained the mage, as they hung effortlessly in the air. “So I suggest we make as much progress as we can.”

  “It beats walking,” agreed Tristan.

  Alexei dove further into the cavern, followed by the prince and the Calishite. They soared easily over the rough ground. The cave ceiling was high enough that even Tristan and Daryth, who could not completely control their flights, could sail quickly through the cavern without endangering themselves.

  They raced through a mazelike network of caves and caverns. Splashing rivulets of clear water ran through many of the caves, while others were filled with pillars of moist stone that stuck up like teeth from the floor or hung like poised daggers from the ceilings. In some places, the teeth and the daggers had joined to form thick columns, more ornate than anything built by man or magic.

  The luminescent fungi were common, so that much of the path was illuminated enough to allow them to travel safely. In those caverns where darkness reigned, Alexei simply pulled the glowing piece of wood from beneath his robe, and they carried their own light with them. In those instances, however, they had to slow somewhat—at full flying speed, they did not have time to avoid obstacles as they fell within the circle of light.