by Jeff Crook
Too late. The knob turned, the door banged open. A man huge as an ogre shouldered into the room, followed by what was surely his twin, in size and ugliness if not in blood. They grinned broadly with their yellow teeth. Behind them strode on lithe legs a woman closely dressed in velvet green, with velvet hood and cloak. A lavender veil obscured the lower half of her face, but it did not hide her dark, angry eyes.
Cael dove for the window.
“I wouldn’t do that!” the woman shouted. The note in her voice brought him up short, and he glared over his shoulder at her. “…if I were you,” she finished. “There is a crossbowman on yonder roof who can pierce the eye of a sparrow in the dark.”
“Mistress Alynthia,” Cael said with a grim smile. “Quite a coincidence, running into you so often.”
“Captain Alynthia, elf!” the uglier (if that were possible) of the two thugs growled.
“The same,” the woman answered as she removed her veil. The second hulk closed the door behind her and put his back against it. She pushed back her cowl, freeing a mass of dark curls, which spilled onto her slim shoulders. She returned his smile, but there was no friendliness in it. Her eyes spoke daggers.
“We’ll take it now,” she said.
“Tea? Surely. Just let me set a kettle to boil,” Cael said.
“No, you fool,” Alynthia snapped. “Stop trying to delay. You’ve cost us enough. We want it now.”
“Mistress, all I have is yours for the asking,” Cael said. “Only tell me what it is, and it shall be delivered.”
“You know very well, Cael Ironstaff, for you lifted it from my person last night,” she spat.
“How well my unworthy hands remember the occasion,” Cael answered.
Both bodyguards growled dangerously. “Let me break his head, Captain,” one said as he cracked his knuckles.
Alynthia’s dark eyes narrowed, her moist lips pursed. “The pollen of the dragonflower is the most valuable spice on Krynn,” she said. “It grows only in the Dragon Isles. Three days past, a shipment arrived aboard the Star of Ansalon, Gaeord uth Wotan’s flagship. I planned a daring theft and would have absconded with it from his private stores if you hadn’t interfered. Your vile fingers lifted it from my bodice, defiling my flesh in the process.”
“You speak like a novel,” Cael commented.
“You speak like a man about to die!” she snapped.
“Let me break his head,” the thug urged.
“My ankle pains me. May I sit?” Cael asked as he hobbled to the bed and eased himself onto it.
“Do what you like, only do not delay. I will not be trifled with.”
“Of course you won’t, Mistress Alynthia,” Cael smiled, his green eyes flashing merrily. While one hand clasped his black staff, he gripped the rail of the bed with the other. Moving faster than imaginable, he suddenly heaved the bed onto its side and dived behind it. A quarrel thick as a man’s finger thudded into the wall by his head.
With a roar of delight, the thugs rushed in. One snatched aside the bed as though it was a toy, the other sprang with clawing hands at the elf. But he was gone.
Chapter Eight
Cael listened with glee to the tumult in the room above him. A trapdoor had opened into a crawl space beneath the floor. Although there was hardly room fora cat, he managed to wriggle and writhe his way through the darkness while still gripping his staff.
Light flooded the passage as the thieves finally found the trapdoor and shoved a hastily lit candle into the hole. Dozens of rats scurried away from the light, jumping over Cael’s body. One thug stuck his head through the trapdoor, looked at Cael, and got a boot in the nose for his trouble. He roared in pain and rage, but there wasn’t enough room for him to follow. Cael heard Alynthia bark an order, then feet pounded out of the room and away down the hall. Cael quickened his crawl.
After knocking open another trapdoor, the elf dropped lightly to the floor of the ground floor hall. The two thugs tumbled into view from a stairwell not twenty feet away. They roared at sight of their quarry. Cael spun and dashed the other way.
No twisted foot slowed him now. He ran lightly, his feet hardly seeming to touch the floor, his cloak fluttering behind him. He skidded around a corner, toppling a pail of rinds and garbage to foil pursuit, but the thugs came on, slamming into the wall.
The storm rumbled and poured sheets of rain. Ahead, the front door of the building stood open, filled with a wan light A shout from one of the thugs summoned two shadowy figures from the street. They blocked the door, lead-weighted leather jacks dangling from their fists. Cael slid to a stop. As the thugs closed on him, he kicked open a small door and leaped inside, spun, slammed it shut, and shot its tiny bolt just as the first thug crashed into it. Wood splintered from the doorframe, but the bolt held.
The chamber was a privy, barely large enough for the elf to turn around. At its back stood a wooden bench, through which had been cut a hole. Pressing his black staff against the wall, Cael spoke one word in a soft voice: “Conceal.” The staff shimmered, then melted into the wall, vanishing from sight. For a moment, a reddish glow marked its outline on the stone, but the glow quickly faded. The door was shaking under the onslaught. As Cael leaped atop the bench and dropped through the hole, the door burst open, and the privy filled with large sweaty cursing men and broken splinters of wood.
The fall was longer than he had expected. The metal rungs of some old ladder, rusty and corroded, flashed by, but twisting around he could only see darkness. A rushing noise grew deafening. He struck black water hard as stone, feet first, and shot quickly to the bottom. The sewer, swollen with the storm’s rain, gushed and churned. Cael felt the cold current drag at his legs, pulling him under and bumping him along the bottom with the other refuse of the city. The tight bag of coins at his belt dragged along the bottom of the sewer. He kicked, fought the pull of the water while jerking at his purse. Finally, the leather cord broke. Flashing coins burst from the purse like a school of silver fish and vanished in a dark swirl of water. With an effort, Cael broke the surface, gasping for air.
A net splashed into the water beside him, then another, and then a hook at the end of along wooden pole. Here the sewer ran long and straight like a dwarf road. Men stood along its side, crowding the access walk, with lanterns and weighted nets and gaffs in hand. “There he is!” one shouted as he cast his net. Cael ducked under the surface just as the net splashed around his head. He kicked for the far side of the fuming channel, hearing the muffled shouts and splashes as the thieves cast their weapons into the water.
He felt a sharp jerk at his leg. A gaff had caught him just behind the knee. He was dragged backward through the water. He fought, but the hook had snagged the leg of his trousers. Water gushed up his nose, choking him. He felt the hook digging into his flesh, ready to pierce and rend at his slightest resistance. He tried to undo it, but he couldn’t twist around. He was yanked upward. His hands thrashed the surface.
Finally, his back bumped against stone. He grasped the pole and pulled himself up, filled his lungs with a gasp. Mocking laughter greeted him as his captors gathered on the walk above.
“Give him another dunk, Brem!” one shouted to the Ergothian thief holding the gaff.
Brem shoved the elf beneath the surface once more. Water flooded his ears. They dragged him up. He coughed, retching black sewer water, while they roared insults and urged another dunking. Down he went again, but now he was able to grab firm hold of the gaff. He dislodged the hook from his trousers, planted his feet against the stone wall of the sewer channel, and heaved. He heard a cry, followed by a tremendous splash.
Cael bobbed to the surface and watched as his captor was swept away by the storm-swollen sewer. Other thieves chased after the man, lowering poles, which he grasped, then lost. But the elf had no time to relish the sight. A net splashed around him, and before he could swim away, the weighted strands had tangled around his legs, trapping him. This time he was swiftly dragged to the shore and hauled from the water. He was dr
opped cruelly on the stones, and someone kicked him in the back.
Downstream, the thieves had finally caught their companion and were laughingly dragging him ashore. Between retches, the one named Brem swore revenge against the elf. Then, without warning, he vanished with a scream in a swirl of black water. A great spined tail, thick as a man’s waist, thrashed the surface. for a moment and was gone. One thief on the shore stood gawking at his gaff. The hook and three feet of pole had been bitten off, the end splintered into matchsticks. With a look of horror frozen on his face, he dropped the stick into the water and fled. Other thieves quickly followed him. Brem was abandoned, forgotten. They scurried up ladders, some vanishing into holes or side tunnels. Lanterns were doused or thrown hissing into the water.
A pole was quickly threaded through Cael’s net and he was lifted by two men at either end of the pole and hurried away. “What was that?” he asked his captors as he jounced along. Only a few moments had passed, but already the scores of thieves participating in his capture had been reduced to a half dozen in number: the two carrying him, and two who walked in front with lanterns, two behind with daggers drawn.
“Sewer monster,” the one in front snarled over his shoulder. “You’re lucky we don’t feed you to him. Brem was as good a mate as I ever had. But Captain Alynthia says to bring you back alive, and I daren’t cross her, not for any money.” Cael suddenly recognized the man as Hook-nose, whom he had bested at thievery the night before.
“Ah, all in a day’s work, I suppose,” Hook-nose said with an abrupt laugh. “Brem knew the risks, same as anyone. Was a time when the Guild kept the sewers clean, for its own purposes of course, and they say it was one reason the city never bent its back to heave us out. But since the Night of Black Hammers, things have begun to creep back to life in the sewers, some of them same as before, some worse.”
Whatever their origin, down these subterranean avenues had swept the refuse of almost twenty-five centuries. Yet for all their wonder, few citizens of Palanthas had ever seen them or, for that matter, wanted to. The sewers were home to the dregs of humanity, and worse. Rats and gully dwarves were but the scum on the surface of a hidden world of forgotten chambers and passages, which nowadays housed, it was said, creatures born out of the nightmare of Chaos. True Palanthians believed in the sewer monsters and visited their privies in the dark of night with some reluctance, but the Dark Knights and Senate went to great lengths to discount these rumors.
Although Cael had a professional familiarity with these underground passages, his captors were taking a circuitous route and he couldn’t be certain in what direction they were headed. After a long time, the thieves finally came to a halt at the end of a small passage hardly large enough for the men to stand. A trickle of water spattered through a grate above their heads, and a wan light illuminated their faces.
They set Cael under the dripping water, just for the fun of it, it seemed. All was suddenly quiet. Hook-nose enjoined the other two thieves to silence, and when one of them tried to light a pipe to pass the time, the ranking thief slapped it from his hand.
They waited now, waited while the light overhead grew stronger as the storm waned, drifting off to drench the hills and farms east of Palanthas, and the moon set behind the Vingaard Mountains. Cael’s muscles ached, and he shivered violently with the cold and wet. Finally, as the light tinted to dawn’s crimson, there came a noise of stone grating against stone. The thieves rose, knocking Cael around painfully as they hauled him in their net. Behind them, a section of the sewer wall slid back, and a warm yellow glow spilled out.
“Bring him in,” a voice whispered.
Quickly, they stepped through the opening, dragging Cael across the threshold. They seemed to relish causing him additional pain and bruises. Every joint ached, the wets ropes rubbed his flesh raw. They dropped him in a heap just within, letting the pole fall ringingly on his skull.
A figure stood over him, a torch raised in its hand. Cael blinked in the smoky light. The door ground shut behind them.
“Where is his staff?” the figure asked angrily. As Cael’s eyes adjusted to the light, he was able to make out the slim curves of the torchbearer.
“He bore no staff, Captain,” Hook-nose said.
“I dropped it in the sewers, Mistress Alynthia,” Cael said.
There was a hiss from the figure. “That I somehow doubt.” The torch fluttered and crackled. “Free him,” she growled.
The bearers extracted Cael from the net while Hook-nose voiced his concerns. “Slippery as an New Sea eel, this elf. A magician, I say he is. Tossed Brem in the water, nearly escaped, and Brem eaten by a sewer monster! Best to keep him bound, or kill him now.”
“You know the law,” Alynthia barked. “He must go before the Eighth Circle. Bind his arms if you like. Bind them lightly. It makes no difference to me.” She turned to the captive elf. “Death lies before you as well as behind, Cael Ironstaff. There is no escape from this place.”
Chapter Nine
The bearers lifted Cael to his feet and wrapped him in tight cords, binding his arms sbut leaving his legs free. Alynthia turned, and holding her torch aloft, stalked into the darkness. Cael followed, prodded along by Hook-nose. The two bearers vanished into the gloom, leaving the three of them alone with their charge. The echoes of their footsteps gathered around them, and rank water dripped unseen in the shadows. A deep mist hovered above the floor, obscuring the ground, but Mistress Alynthia led onward, her back erect.
They passed a heap of bones, and then from the darkness a crypt loomed. It was carved with leering faces and scenes of a tortured afterlife. A pillar of stone, marked with skulls, rose next to it. Overhead, the roof was arched and supported by numerous pillars of brick and dank stone. The party’s feet kicked up objects they could not see, sending them bounding along the wet stone floor. They stepped in cold puddles, loosing a fetid stench. Rats scurried from the light of their torch only to stop just outside its circle and peer back over their brown furred backs with gleaming red eyes.
After a time, a wall rose before them and blocked their path. In its center, they found a door bound with rusty iron, with a grate and a sturdy hinge set into the stone. Alynthia rapped upon the door with the butt of her torch, showering sparks on the floor. Immediately, the grate slid back and a voice asked, “Who goes?”
“Travelers from afar,” Alynthia answered.
A bang echoed through the catacomb as the door’s bolt was slid back. The ancient iron portal creaked open. The door warden, an ancient man with a voice as rusty and grinding as the hinges of the door he guarded, greeted them as they entered. A loop of keys and a garrote hung from his belt. He nodded to Alynthia, cackled at Hook-nose, and shot Cael a venomous glance with his rheumy yellow eyes.
Beyond the door, a narrow stair rose into darkness. Without pause, Alynthia mounted the stair, her torch fluttering ahead of her. Hook-nose prodded Cael upward. The stair was not long, and at its top a tripod and a flaming brazier illuminated a wide landing. Alynthia opened the door into hall that stretched into darkness on either hand.
They passed many doors, most closed tight and looking as if they hadn’t been opened in centuries. Others opened onto gaping darkness, filled with the echoes of their footsteps.
Cael could not restrain his curiosity. “The house is empty. Where are all the children?” he asked.
“There is no one on this level,” she said levelly. “This is but one house of many. It is how we protect ourselves. No one knows every house and stronghold, so no one can betray us all.”
They walked on a while longer, turning right, climbing a stair, and turning right again. Now the hall seemed less deserted. They passed a room where a candle burned atop a long table beside a book and a battered silver cup.
“Where are we heading, may I ask?” Cael ventured.
Without turning, Alynthia answered, “You are to be judged by Mulciber, our master.”
“What does that mean, to be judged by Mulciber?” Cael ask
ed.
“You will die, or you will live.”
They entered a room filled with the scent of sandalwood. Incense burned on low tables that surrounded a huge silver platter set on the floor. The platter still contained the remnants of a meal. Currants and grains of white rice littered the rug surrounding it.
They passed through a larger shadowy chamber. Here columns of gray marble stood in endless ranks that vanished into darkness in all directions. However, a wide way led down their middle toward a set of tall double doors, black, bound in jeweled gold.
Alynthia led the way down the marble colonnade toward the doors. Cael noticed that Hook-nose had slipped away somewhere in the darkness. He was alone with Alynthia now. Yet even if he could escape, where would he go? With an inward shrug, he trudged after her.
“I can’t believe you would prefer for me to die—”
A gloved fist struck him across his beardless jaw. He staggered into a column. The female thief threw her body against him, crushing him against the cold stone pillar. Her fingers twisted painfully in his long hair. Then a knee rose up and caught him in the midriff, driving the air from his lungs.
Cael collapsed to the floor. A little blood trickled from his lip. Alynthia scrubbed her lips with the back of her gloved hand, then twisted her fist into the collar of the elf’s shirt and jerked him to his feet. “Believe it, elf. I doubt you’ll survive this day, but if you do, it won’t be because I prefer that you live, do you understand?”
Before an appropriate witticism could reach his bloodied lips, she threw him into the doors. They burst open, and he fell into the room beyond. Alynthia drew a poniard from her belt and followed.
He found himself sprawled on alabaster tiles in the midst of a great hall. To the left, the first light of the rising sun filtered through tall windows. To the right, the hall ended in a wide staircase descending into darkness. The walls all around were decorated with rich paneling interspersed by doors gilded with gold. Above, fine frescoes covered every inch of the ceiling. The frescoes depicted various scenes of Palanthian commerce, from city docksides to markets to religious and educational institutions. In these frescoes from another age, the Tower of High Sorcery still stood, guarded by its fearsome grove, and Astinus sat within the Great Library recording the history of Krynn in his chronicles of time. They were scenes from a past that seemed dusty and ancient.
