And last, there were his beautiful leather boots. He had never liked armored footwear, finding it impossibly clumsy; also when he had tried it, he had been rewarded with blisters. Now, as he considered ways to destroy the creature, he was doubly glad that he had chosen leather boots. Walking out of these ruins in his stockings would be less than dignified.
The monster shot out its antennae again, and Sanval dodged again, but how long could he keep this up? Furious at the unfairness of a beast that would not fight with proper weapons, the Procampur ripped off one gauntlet and tossed it into a far corner. The creature swung around, caught it with an antennae, rusted it on impact, and-like any other wild animal-hunched over the nice new addition to its meal.
With the monster busy with its lunch, Sanval pulled off a shiny leather boot. He pried a couple of fist-sized crystals out of the wall, dropped them in, and grabbed another.
The beast made a disgusting gulping noise and swung toward him. Sanval unbuckled his other elbow guard and tossed it in a high arch. The creature raised its head to watch, tracking the guard's path until it clattered into the far corner. Slither, snap, into rust, crunch, crunch.
"No sense of a fair fight, and no table manners, either," Sanval complained as he grabbed up handfuls of smaller stones and dirt dislodged by his digging of the crystals. He jammed everything into his boot. With foreboding, he pulled off his remaining gauntlet and tucked it into his belt. He had to trust that the creature went for metal before attacking flesh. But what if that were wrong?
By the time the creature had eaten his elbow guard, Sanval was ready. He had undone the remaining shoulder guard and held it in his hand. As the bug-head swung toward him, Sanval did another arched toss, and the bug-head did another follow-it-with-the-eyes turn. The guard crashed into the corner and was rust almost before it landed-a large pile of rust: a feast for the beast. The rust monster curved its humped back, crouched as close to the floor as possible, and let its wicked tail sag as it chomped away.
The back was leathery, the tail was hard-as-shell plates, which only left the head and legs. Clutching his boot closed by its cuff, Sanval leaped forward and landed on his stocking-clad foot. The silk of his stocking made his landing a little slippery, but he managed to stay upright. Sanval swung the stone-filled boot down on top of the creature's head while kicking his booted foot at a jutting joint of its back leg. The joint cracked. The monster's head swiveled so that the bug's eyes stared up at him. Sanval saw an antennae quiver, ducked, and was hit by the other one. It slapped across his banded shin guard. Rust flew. He didn't bother to watch it crumble; he could feel the weight dropping away. He stomped down on the beast's front leg with all his weight and held fast while bending over the monster to beat on its head with the stone-filled boot.
Although pinned to the floor by his weight, the creature flipped its head to glare up at Sanval. Even as he brought the boot down toward its face, an antennae slithered up, way up, straight to the brim of his beautiful helmet. That helmet had been carefully designed for him. It carried family crests as well as military insignias in its elaborate, etched ornamentation, and he loved it almost as much as he loved his sword. He did not feel the tap, but he felt the disintegration. With the helmet pressed around his ears, he could hear the rust eat through-a sound much like the monster's chomping, crunch, crunch-and the rattle of falling pieces.
Sanval thought of himself as a rational man, possessed of self-control as well as courtesy, but even as he tried to remember this he heard himself screaming, "Do you know how much my armor cost? And how long I had to wait to get a perfect fit? And how much time it takes poor Godolfin to polish each piece? And how much I have to pay him to do that?"
With each scream he beat at the monster's head, hitting its eyes until they rolled shut, smacking at the antennae until they shriveled and curled away from him, and finally catching a soft spot between the skull and the first protective plate at the top of its spine. He heard something crack, and the beast gave a horrible gurgle. Sanval continued whacking away until the rust monster slid flat to the floor, its legs stretched out, its tail twitching but unable to lift the fanned tip of spikes. The antennae collapsed, their tips touching the wall in front of the monster's head, then sliding slowly down the stones until they, too, were stretched lifeless across the floor.
"Very dramatic. You died with style," Sanval said to the carcass, trying to regain his self-control. He stepped away from the beast and looked down at it. It was not the sort of battle to go home and brag about-not like besting a dragon or a famous orc warrior. The creature might have been destructive to his gear, yes, but dead it simply looked pathetic.
Shaking his head at the pile of rusted armor under the monster, Sanval assessed his remaining equipment. He emptied the crystals and stones from his boot, pounded it to knock loose any small bits, then pulled the tail of his silk undershirt out at his waist, and used it to try to rub his boot clean. Would his boots ever be bright again? Could he even ask Godolfin to polish them? And wasn't that the way it always went-he had used the boot that was not scorched across the toe. Now it, too, was thoroughly scuffed from beating it against the monster.
At least he had been wearing a linen shirt, padded vest, and leather pants under his armor. He shuddered to think what Ivy would have said if he had been left just standing in his silk underwear. She probably would have made up some song that would never, ever die in the red-roof quarter.
Sanval pulled on his leather boot, then brushed stone dust from what little was left of his armor. He finger-combed his dark curls, brushing back damp tendrils from his forehead. He looked in dismay at his hands, now covered with stone dust and rust. Deciding that was the best he could do, he started to march on down the tunnel.
And stopped and hopped and cursed as he pulled off his boot again. He muttered words that he would never say if anyone else were present. He had missed a very sharp bit of stone when he had shaken out his boot.
With his boot and his dignity restored, Sanval paused and listened. He could not hear the bugbears arguing. Had they gotten too far ahead? As quickly and as quietly as he could, Sanval hurried down the corridor. At least he knew that his sword would work just fine against bugbears. As for Archlis, if he put up any resistance, well, Sanval would just brain him with his own Ankh. In his present murderous mood, a full-frontal attack seemed like the most sensible plan that he had ever had.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ivy emerged from the staircase and blinked as she went from the darkness of the shadowy stair into the glowing corridor.
Behind her, Mumchance let out that soft half-sigh, half-whistle that can only mean one thing coming from a dwarf-that there was a fortune in raw gems surrounding them. He set down his sputtering lantern to better examine the strange corridor where they found themselves. Obviously others had come before them, as various crystals had been pried loose from the walls and littered the floor.
"Oooh, that is so ugly!" Gunderal squealed. The dainty wizard had just tripped over a large dead creature, sprawled over a rusty pile of armor.
"We better hurry, Ivy," said Mumchance. "The ground is getting unstable here."
"How do you know that?"
The dwarf pointed at the dead monster. A number of large crystals and smaller stones were scattered around the body. "Those must have fallen out of the wall and brained the creature while it was eating," said the dwarf.
"Lucky for us. One less thing for us to fight," said Zuzzara.
"Hey, doesn't that look like Procampur armor?"
"It's too rusty," said Gunderal. "Can you imagine anyone from Procampur letting their armor get into such a state!"
"Let's move," commanded Ivy. "That creature may have had friends, and we don't need any more trouble. Let's find Kid and get out of here."
"And what about Sanval?" Gunderal hopped neatly over the pile of rusted armor and gave Ivy a teasing look.
"Oh, him too."
"So there is still treasure in the ruins of Tsurlagol
," said Mumchance, still checking the crystals studding the wall as he walked besides Ivy.
"Apparently. Funny that nobody ever looted this part."
"I think we are in the oldest bit," said Mumchance. "The most buried bit."
"What do you mean?" Ivy asked, picking her way carefully along the corridor. Besides the gems studding the walls and ceiling, more were poking up through the floor. It made the way rough, and tripping was a distinct possibility. Worse yet, there weren't enough clear flat bits to show any good tracks. Kid might have been able to see something, but Ivy didn't have his clever eyes and cleverer nose.
"Look at these tunnels, straight, narrow, and slanting down. This bit isn't some part of the city that sunk below ground. Someone chiseled this bit out of solid stone."
"Why?"
"Well, if they had bothered to take the rocks out of the walls, I would have said it was a mine shaft. But, as it is, and seeing what is in front of us, I think this is a tomb shaft," Mumchance said, halting before a pair of golden doors, emblazoned with the type of funeral scenes that they had seen earlier in the old city bath and in the ossuary. Only these scenes were much more finely wrought and studded with colored gems.
Above the funeral procession, the walls of a long-lost Tsurlagol tumbled down before a solitary figure with upraised arms. Again, the pictures showed a fantastic gem clutched in the man's hand, radiating out lines indicating some type of magical force. And above that were the runes for earth, sky, water, and emptiness that had decorated the floor of that odd trapped room. "I'd bet that this was the first time they made those pictures," said Mumchance, looking up at the doors, "and all the others in the ruins were just copies-what people remembered about these pictures."
"How about warnings?" suggested Ivy, still staring at the huge doors. She had never seen that much gold in one place. One door could probably buy an entire mansion in Procampur.
"Could be," said Mumchance, who also looked a little stunned by the sheer amount of gold that somebody had thought made an excellent door.
"Don't suppose they are just gold foil over wood," said Zuzzara, also blinking at the wealth on display. Gunderal was just tilting her head from one side to the other, seeing how her reflection looked in the polished gold panels.
"It's solid," said the dwarf, rapping the door with a heavy fist. "And too heavy for us to carry out."
At Mumchance's knock, the doors before them creaked half open, the lock neatly sprung. Wiggles jumped forward, squirming through the open doors ahead of the rest of them. "Charmed and mechanical," said Mumchance, stopping to peer at the lock in front of his nose. "But somebody went through it quick and clean. Must be Kid's work."
"That's why Archlis took him," Ivy said. "He needed Kid's talents to get through this door and any other locks he might encounter."
"Because he has no talents of his own." Gunderal sniffed. "Told you that it was all stolen magic and Kid's just another token to him."
"Still," said Ivy. "If Archlis needs Kid's talents, he should keep Kid alive until we can retrieve him." She looked back the way that they had come. Even with her human nose, she could smell river water.
"Ivy," said Gunderal, confirming her fears. "The river is coming closer. It will be in these tunnels soon."
"Then we go forward," Ivy said.
"And close the doors behind us," added Mumchance, clicking his fingers at Wiggles to bring the dog to heel. "Solid metal, dwarf-made, these should seal tight. That should keep the water out of this section for a while."
"But we can't go back." Even as Ivy voiced this objection, she realized that the doors were the least of their problems. With the river filling up the tunnels behind them, returning the way that they had taken into the treasure trove would soon be impossible.
More gems gleamed on the other side of the door. With Ivy's help, Zuzzara was able to drag the heavy golden doors closed again. With a firm click, the doors locked into place.
"So now we hope that Archlis has another way out," said Gunderal.
"I'm sure that he always did," said Ivy. "He just wanted to get here, and he couldn't with those destrachans in the way. When we drew them off, he came straight here and straight through. He is moving fast, hunting for one particular treasure, or he'd be chipping out part of these walls, wouldn't he?"
"They are good crystals," admitted Mumchance, trailing his fingers along the wall. "Useful for spells-the sort of thing most wizards would want. If it had been me, I'd have slowed down and taken a few with me. Maybe tried to shave a bit of gold off those doors."
"So he's blind to all of this, and set on getting some other treasure out of these ruins," Ivy said.
"Must be. And there's something odd about these walls. Has been since we came down those stairs."
"What?" Ivy asked.
"These crystals shouldn't be here at all. Wrong type of rock for such gems. These come from lower down probably. And they weren't set here by somebody. Not like dwarves studded the walls, if you see what I mean. More like the gems just pushed themselves out of the dirt here."
"There's more earth magic here," agreed Gunderal. "Very strong and very close now."
"I just wish I had not lost my sword back there," Ivy said, pulling the long knife from her belt. It would work for close fighting, but she most certainly regretted feeding her sword to the destrachan. The corridors still blazed with an internal light, and for the first time since she had fallen into the river, Ivy could see clearly ahead of her-no shadows, no darkness, nothing hiding in front of her. It made her exceedingly nervous. Remembering the phantom fungus, she had the queer feeling that whatever you couldn't see might turn out to be worse than what you could.
Zuzzara and Gunderal seemed equally anxious, starting at their own footfalls as they passed through the crystal-studded tunnel. Obviously, they too thought this was just too easy.
Only Mumchance seemed carefree. He was too intrigued by the gems surrounding them on all sides to notice much else. Turning slowly, his real eye gleamed with appreciation of the stones arrayed in front of him, and even the fake eye appeared to sparkle in the light of the corridor. "I'm sure that these crystals were pushed straight out of the earth, called out of it as it were. This was done by magic. Then somebody came along later and made those doors and sealed the place off. And who seals off a terrific source of wealth like this?"
"Somebody who is afraid of the magic down here," said Gunderal with a shudder. "Whatever is here is what buried Tsurlagol before."
"What was it?" Ivy asked. Whatever it was, this had to be what Archlis was hunting-an artifact so powerful that he had led Fottergrim to Tsurlagol and plunged an entire city into war just so he could roam around these ruins.
"Something was hidden here a long time ago," Gunderal said. She pushed her dark hair back from her face and closed her eyes, a small worry line marking a perfect crescent between her eyebrows. She waved both hands with palms upturned, like a seer trying to draw scented incense toward her face. Gunderal swayed twice, and Zuzzara stepped forward to steady her sister. Ivy gestured her back. Gunderal sighed and then opened her eyes. "An object of great power. A gem that calls to other gems and rules the earth beneath it."
"Is it evil?"
Gunderal shrugged. "No more than any other jewel. It is how it is used that has caused both trouble and sorrow. And fear. It was fear that caused them to build the golden doors and lock this treasure away."
"She is more sensible than she looks sometimes," said Mumchance. "Treasure is never evil. But the spending of it-that can cause great wickedness."
"Well, then," said Ivy, "it would probably be best to keep this treasure away from Archlis. Because I feel that he would be a very careless spender of wealth."
The tunnel branched in two directions ahead of them. Both ways curved off into shadows; neither showed a clear path. There were no boot prints on the gem-studded floor, and no visible archways or flickering lights beyond the branching.
Better still, Ivy noted with some reli
ef, no trail of blood or beastly fluids.
"Right or left?" queried Zuzzara.
"Don't see which way." Ivy missed Kid more than ever. "What do you hear, Zuzzara?"
The half-orc cupped her hands around her ears. "Metal striking metal. Somebody in a fight, but no yelling or screaming. Not like a normal fight."
Ivy grinned with relief. "Sounds perfectly normal for a man from Procampur who thinks it is uncivilized to insult his opponents. Which direction?"
"Left," Zuzzara said.
Ivy pivoted on her heel and started down the tunnel that Zuzzara indicated. Her fingers tightened around the handle of her dagger. "Come on, Sanval is down there," she said.
Whipping around a corner, Ivy barreled into the melee. Sanval and the magelord's two bugbears were whirling in the middle of the corridor, stuck in an odd three-way fight with each other. The bugbears were snarling softly, but Sanval, as expected, was fighting with his usual silent expertise.
Ivy was surprised to spot a new foe-two skeletal arms appeared to be floating through the air and spinning around the other fighters, wielding a rusty sword. There was nothing but empty space between the arms where a body and shoulders should have been. Still, when any of them moved, the upper arms drew slightly toward each other, the elbows shot out, and the hands tightened on the sword hilt, exactly as though the arms were attached to an invisible body. Each arm was polished white bone, from shoulder to elbow to wrist to the ivory hands that clutched the rusty sword. This was a creature created by magic, and one that the Siegebreakers knew, and there was something rather comforting and welcome about facing a danger that you understood, rather than one like the destrachans.
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