by T. H. Lain
With one atrocity down, Krusk glanced back up the tunnel toward Alhandra's battle. He saw Qorrg trying without luck to spear the monster. Alhandra's blade flashed unerringly toward the monster but, in a bizarre deja vu, what should have been a lethal blow to the creature's head barely nicked the monster's shoulder. Krusk shook his head to clear it. He was certain that Alhandra's swing was good, and he couldn't comprehend how it became a glancing blow. It was as if the beast wasn't entirely there, like one of Jozan's celestial summonings that was blinking back to its home plane.
Krusk charged Alhandra's foe just as she neatly sidestepped a blow and plunged her blade into the center of the monster's body. At least, Krusk expected the blade to slice through the monster's flesh. Instead, the sword slid past the hideous thing without touching it. One of the tentacles even managed to slice the paladin's face through her face mask, even as Alhandra slashed at her foe, and missed, once again.
Krusk stepped behind the creature and plunged his axe into its back. No satisfying shudder vibrated down the handle. There was no vibration because the half-orc, too, had missed the foe by several paces. The barbarian felt that what he was seeing was completely impossible. He heard Alhandra shout something about a displacer beast and realized that all he could do was keep fighting and hope that his axe blade and the monster's obscene body would eventually occupy the same place at the same time.
Krusk sensed Jozan at his side, but wasn't surprised that the cleric's mace only passed through empty air, even when it looked like it could not miss the atrocity. Barbarian, cleric, orc, and paladin all found that their efforts were ineffective. The target was rarely where it appeared to be.
Krusk felt his axe dig solidly into flesh. Wounding the monster won its attention, and the dark creation thrust both tentacles at the barbarian. They raked across his shoulders and chest so that he bled like a criminal at the whipping post. Yet, its attack against Krusk gave Alhandra the opportunity to slice neatly through one of the tentacles.
The dismemberment of the creature's tentacle changed the momentum of the fight. When the creature turned its attention back to Alhandra, both Krusk and Jozan began landing blows more often. Finally, Krusk's blade split the skull of the monster, and it fell forward onto the tip of Alhandra's sword. The monstrosity collapsed to the stone floor and lay still.
Seeing no other foes, both Krusk and Alhandra dropped to the ground in exhaustion. Krusk looked up and saw Jozan breathing heavily and rummaging swiftly through his pack. Yddith watched the tunnel in one direction and Qorrg stood sentinel over the other. The cleric removed two vials and offered one to each of his suffering comrades. Krusk quickly downed the potion and watched his wounds knit together. A moment later Alhandra was back on her feet and speaking.
"I don't suppose we need to wonder if they're expecting us," commented the paladin. "They wouldn't have left two vicious creatures like those in the main corridor if they were only expecting a slave train."
No one debated the issue. They merely readied their weapons and moved on.
23
Calmet finished etching Gruumsh's name in the muddy transformation he had substituted for the damaged stone on the shrine's cornices. When the mud dried, the powerful god's effaced name would be artlessly restored to the inscription admonishing the strong not to spare the weak. He climbed down off the rock on which he stood and no sooner touched the floor than he saw Laud instructing a work crew to roll the boulder out of the sanctuary.
Calmet was glad to be finished with his work on the shrine. The fumes from the pots where the gold ore was melting were horrendous. He nervously watched as Fluhrn, the orc artisan, ladled molten gold into the cracks of the idol to restore the god's misshapen visage. Instinctively, he glanced up to where Laud was pulling rocks and loose sand out of a natural chimney. It was bizarre to see the archprelate standing on nothing. Laud's spell allowed him to walk on thin air, to climb up to the roof of the cavern at a sharp angle as though he walked up a low hill. When Laud first started clearing the chute, some of the larger rocks crashed down into the sanctuary and caused many of the slaves to run away in panic. The guards quickly intercepted the would-be runaways, whipping and beating them until they returned to work in the cavern. They looked up uneasily at Laud from time to time, but eventually focused on the task at hand.
With one, final tug, Laud dislodged the keystone jamming the hole in the ceiling. Rocks and debris tumbled into the chamber and rolled or bounced across the floor. When the cascade stopped, a shaft of light pierced the room, brightly outlined by the dust roiling in the air. Laud screamed at the slaves to haul away the stones and clear the floor.
Laud then moved adjacent to Fluhrn and began the process of casting a powerful spell on the idol itself. As Flurhn sculpted and Laud imbued the idol with his magic, Calmet couldn't help but notice the light from the ceiling creeping ever closer to the statue.
The archprelate finished his chanting. It seemed to Calmet that every cleft, hole, and worn spot on the statue had been made whole. It pulsed with energy.
But it's false, thought Calmet. Laud propped up his god with his own power. It was a powerful spell, too, he concluded, judging from his superior's pallor.
Laud looked at Calmet and grinned. There was no benevolence in his smile.
He pointed to the light easing across the floor of the shrine and said, "Behold, the light that shall fill the Eye of Gruumsh!"
It didn't take a prophecy to realize that Laud would summon the avatar of Gruumsh as soon as the line of light was aligned with the statue's eye.
Slaves still rolled some of the larger boulders away from the shrine and left them at the side of the tunnel to be broken apart into easily removed chunks on another day. Others carried heavy bags of dirt and gravel on their backs. All of the slaves walked nervously around the two hybrid soldiers, monsters placed by Laud in anticipation of the arrival of Jozan and his companions. The whips of the taskmasters gave even the most hesitant slaves a sense of urgency.
Calmet watched Laud's preparations with a mixture of fascination and fright. Fluhrn stirred the molten gold with his ladle. Laud was consumed with lighting candles and placing them atop various runes scribed on the floor. With every hair's breadth the line of light advanced, Laud either lit a candle next to a symbol or cut himself to spill blood into the indentations on the floor.
The preparations for the summoning ritual were disrupted by sounds of yelling and clanging from the tunnel. Five orc guards scuttled around the corner like rats being chased by a cat. The gorgonoid reacted immediately. It gored the first orc and shook the gray corpse off its horn to brace for the next attack. The other monstrosity, created with the head of a krenshar, emitted a heart-pounding scream and pulled the loose folds of skin back from its face. Two of the orcs, on seeing the Horrid visage, immediately turned around and ran back toward whatever was chasing them. Calmet winced as he heard the grunts, crunching, and muffled blows that indicated combat beyond the junction of two tunnels.
Two of the orcs remained in the temple, squared off against the soldier with the krenshar's face. Their valiant efforts to defend themselves didn't even strike the monster's armor. It clawed the face from one screaming orc and grabbed the other's axe. The vicious onslaught against their own mercenary orcs surprised Calmet, but he realized that Laud must have instructed the monstrosities to attack anyone or anything that rounded the corner from the main intersection of tunnels.
"If I'm right," mused the apostate, "my former pupil will start his advanced lessons in a moment."
Calmet was watching the tunnel when the half-orc stepped around the corner ready to swing his greataxe at anything within reach. The first target to present itself was the gorgonoid with its bloodied horn and ferocious appearance. The half-orc's eyes were red with rage. He attacked Laud's hybrid with animal ferocity. The greataxe sliced open the atrocity's scaly belly, but Calmet knew that the gorgonoid could stand up to such punishment for a long time.
Of course, the half-or
c wasn't the hero Calmet awaited. The evil priest watched the paladin rush at the soldier with the krenshar head and lunge with her long sword at the fiend. The monster sidestepped nimbly.
Calmet removed a piece of coal from his component pouch and prepared a special surprise to inflict on Jozan as soon as his former pupil came into view. He waited expectantly, but instead of Jozan, he saw a crossbow bolt hammer into the krenshar hybrid's eye. The nightmarish hybrid tottered for a brief moment on its human feet, then dropped soundlessly to lie in a motionless, lifeless heap.
That must be my former pupil, Calmet thought, firing a crossbow from around the corner.
He debated the options of unleashing his dark magic on a portion of the enemy or waiting for Jozan to appear. He waited, knowing full well that the gorgonoid alone would hold off the heroes for a bit longer.
Calmet chuckled cruelly when the gorgonoid gored the half-orc with its left horn and ripped through both chain and flesh. His amusement was stifled when the barbarian chopped viciously at the exposed back of the monster and sliced it open to its spine. Laud's masterpiece couldn't be so easily disposed of, even if such wounds eventually killed it. Calmet kept his spell in readiness.
The paladin turned her back on the few remaining orc guards and charged the gorgonoid. Calmet smiled with approval in spite of himself when she slashed at the wound just inflicted by the half-orc and flayed even more flesh off the monster's back. The evil priest was doubly delighted to see the orc guards try to bury their axes in the paladin's back. When the first axe clanged harmlessly off the woman's armor, a dagger appeared in the guard's back and it fell lifeless at the feet of its companion.
Calmet cursed quietly to himself. He'd thought that Jozan would still be reloading his crossbow, not switching to tossing daggers. The one-eyed cleric didn't realize that the dagger had been thrown by a tavern girl-anymore than she realized what a lucky throw it had been.
The gorgonoid stepped back. Calmet knew what the monster was about to do, but none of its foes understood what was happening. The gorgonoid released a noxious cloud directly at the half-orc. The cloud widened as it passed the barbarian and the paladin, encompassing the remaining orc as well. The cloud coalesced around all three figures. The barbarian merely growled and kept on swinging. The half-orc hacked a bloody channel across the gorgonoid's chest, making the monster howl loud enough to bring more rocks and dirt down around the battle zone.
As the cloud surrounded the paladin and the orc guard, however, it became a shroud. The skin of the orc turned a deeper shade of gray and the paladin assumed a dull hue beneath her armor. Both transformed into statues.
Jozan chose that moment to step around the corner with an iron rod in his hand. Seeing him, Calmet rubbed the coal over a rock he'd picked up from the tunnel floor and shouted, " Tenebrae!"
He tossed the rock toward the combatants and an unnatural darkness descended over the entire battle.
Calmet laughed. Clearly Jozan intended to use the iron rod to cast a common spell that would freeze Calmet in place. Calmet's darkness aborted Jozan's plan-he had to be able to see his target to invoke the spell.
"Interesting idea, young Jozan!" the older man mocked his pupil. "You might yet be able to hold me, if you're strong enough, and if you can get out of the darkness without being impaled by our little creation. Think of it as one, final lesson!"
The gorgonoid sniffed loudly, trying to locate its victims by smell alone. Calmet heard the half-orc grunt and knew that the monster had struck the barbarian. He couldn't know, however, that the horn had dug into the barbarian's arm and scraped through flesh to the bone.
While Calmet listened to the sounds in the darkness, Jozan eased his way across the floor. The priest of Pelor knew that Calmet would be waiting for him when he reached the edge of the darkness and he hoped to withstand whatever assault his former teacher had prepared for him. He heard Yddith and Qorrg trying to find their way in the darkness, but ordered them back.
"Don't come any farther," he warned, hoping to keep them safe from the bull man.
Calmet looked back at the archprelate. He noticed the line of light moving closer to the eye of the statue and remembered the story of the craftsman who made his own god. The apostate almost laughed aloud, then he remembered the night that Laud took his left eye.
The man of power depends on a god of strength who is actually impotent, thought Calmet. I'll believe in the avatar of Gruumsh when I see him!
"I know you can hear me," shouted Jozan. "I know you'll probably kill me before the battle is done. I just want to know why you did it. Why did you steal Pelor's gold and give it to this abomination?"
"You wouldn't understand!" sneered Calmet.
"Try me!" responded Jozan as he heard the gorgonoid slash Krusk another time. "You've taught me before."
"And you've failed to comprehend…"
Calmet's reply was interrupted by a roar and the whistling of Krusk's axe through the air, followed by a wet, crunching sound and the bellow of the gorgonoid. There was a momentary silence, then they clearly heard the massive monstrosity hit the floor, accompanied by a loud crack as one of its horns snapped off against the unyielding stone.
"Pelor refused to protect me," continued the apostate, as if the death of the gorgonoid meant nothing. "Pelor is weak. I sought power."
"Power?" questioned Jozan, continuing to feel his way through the darkness, but also feeling a slick pool of warm blood spreading beneath his hands. "Is it power to pick on the weak? I say this power you long for is its own weakness. It's the kind of power that leads you to smash a child's skull with your mace, but never makes you a warrior."
"Come forward out of your darkness, pupil, and I will teach you about power!" challenged the heretic.
"At least then," responded Jozan, deriding his former teacher, "you would have taught me something!"
Calmet was prepared when Jozan stepped from the shroud of darkness and raised the bar of iron once more. Before the priest of Pelor could invoke the intervention of the sun god, however, Calmet shouted, "Pestis!"
A greasy cloud descended on Jozan, and he instantly took on a sickly pallor. Calmet thought Jozan would retch, but his former pupil maintained control and held up the iron rod, calling aloud to Pelor. Calmet laughed at the puny effort, confident in the power of his mind to resist. His mouth locked open in that laugh, and he realized he couldn't move.
Calmet could watch, but not act. The pupil had bested the master-at least, for a time. Imprisoned in his body, the evil priest saw the half-orc step out of the darkness with blood seeping through his torn chain mail. The barbarian looked as if he couldn't withstand much more, but Jozan pulled a familiar scroll case from his belt, unrolled the scroll, and read it aloud. A golden aura caressed the barbarian's wounds even as the scroll parchment disintegrated into nothingness.
Calmet begrudgingly praised his former pupil to himself. He knew that the real test was about to begin for Jozan. Down in the sanctuary, Laud looked up from his ritual. Calmet saw the archprelate glance up the cleared chimney at the oncoming glow. Even frozen in place, Calmet could feel the tunnel shaking as the line of sunlight moved inexorably toward its alignment with the idol's eye.
Apparently, Laud was satisfied that the ritual was progressing properly. The sanctuary and the tunnel were shaking, candles were flickering in a wind that should have been impossible, and an eerie green glow was growing ever stronger within the sanctuary itself. The archprelate stood and removed a scroll case from his pouch. Calmet could see the necromanctic symbol on the case from where he stood. He knew that Laud was about to inflict pure destruction on the half-orc and Jozan. Gruumsh would triumph, yet Calmet felt strangely disappointed at the certain outcome.
As the evil priest ruminated, he realized that Jozan wasn't surrendering. Jozan pointed a finger at the archprelate and shouted, "Lux etemis!"
No one could miss the golden beam flaring out from the good priest's finger and shooting directly into the chest of the archpre
late.
Before Calmet could even consider the scorched flesh on the archprelate's chest, he saw three bodies rushing toward his master. The half-orc was the first to enter the circle and slash his greataxe across the hierarch. Calmet winced inside at the sound of the weapon sundering the mithril mail under the archprelate's robe. He knew the blade penetrated flesh because he heard Laud cry out in agony.
Even in pain, Laud was strong enough to maintain his concentration. He still had the will to read the scroll that he held open, speaking the infernal words so rapidly that a scholar would have had trouble translating the cursed words. He tapped the half-orc with a devastating touch that pulled life and soul out of the barbarian.
Calmet watched the half-orc crumple to the ground. None of the remaining heroes could stand against Laud's power. An orc who entered the chamber with them closed on the hierarch as though to prove Calmet's assessment. Qorrg stabbed at Laud from the limit of his spear's reach, but managed only to get his spearhead tangled in the broken strands of mithril armor. Laud would have killed the orc then and there had it not been for a green bolt of energy smashing into the archprelate's chest and driving him backward.
As Laud reeled and stumbled, he looked for the source of the attack. He focused on a young woman who was surrounded by a green aura. Laud arced his hand through the air, invoking an infernal spell upon her. Before he could complete it, Jozan reached the hierarch.
He swung his mace at Laud's head just as the archprelate cried out, "Calmet, save me. Dimitto magicum!"
Jozan's swing went wide of its mark. The mace glanced against Laud's shoulder as the archprelate's spell extinguished the magic that held Calmet immobile. Calmet rushed toward the far end of the chamber just in time to see the one-eyed woman hang her emerald necklace on the statue.
