The Temple of Yellow Skulls

by Don Bassingthwaite

  “We know the region!” Uldane stood up on his chair and stretched out a hand to Raid. “I’m Uldane. That’s Albanon. Where you’re going—is it dangerous? Because we live for danger.”

  Albanon wasn’t so sure he would have gone that far, but he was willing to let the halfling’s enthusiasm take over for the moment. Excitement brewed like a storm in his chest. This was the opportunity they’d been trying to find for two weeks!

  Shara pushed down Uldane’s hand. “Easy,” she said. She didn’t take her eyes off Raid. “I think I’d like to know a little more before jumping into danger with you, Hakken.”

  The big man’s smile faltered just a little. “Call me Raid,” he said again. “And as I told you, my reason for coming to Fallcrest is a secret I’d rather keep to myself. I’m willing to discuss conditions, but you’ll have to take my word that it will be worth your time.”

  “I wasn’t asking about your business in Fallcrest.” Shara sat back. “I want to know about you. You’re a wanderer. You’ve heard stories of my father. Where have you been? Would I have heard stories of you?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Then tell me some.”

  Raid’s eyes narrowed as he studied the red-haired warrior. The storm in Albanon’s chest turned into a tickle. He started to open his mouth to say something, but Shara gave him a glance so hard he closed his teeth on his words. For once, even Uldane was silent.

  Raid lifted his head. “Ask me what I am,” he said, “and I’ll tell you that I’m a hunter. That’s how I started. Name a creature and chances are I’ve tracked it. I’ve probably even killed it. With that kind of wandering, I think it was only natural I’d turn to an adventuring life. I practically fell into it. Between hunting and adventuring, I’ve probably been everywhere. The Dragon Coast and the Two Rivers Gulf. The ruins of Bael Turath. The cities of the south and the lands of the far west. Jungles, deserts, mountains. I had companions.” His gaze swept the table. “Until they were killed. Sole survivor, that’s me. After that, I left off adventuring—until now. One last adventure. One last mystery that I’ve spent years unraveling. It all comes down to this.”

  Uldane looked like he might burst if he had to hold his curiosity in much longer. Questions buzzed in Albanon’s head, too, but Shara and Raid still held control of the table between them. Shara’s expression hadn’t changed. “You’re avoiding the question,” she said.

  Raid drew a hard breath. “Maybe I don’t feel the need to open up to people I only know by reputation.”

  “But you want us to do the same.” Shara tilted her head. “One question. Answer it square. Are you after treasure, secrets, or revenge?”

  He hesitated for a moment, then said, “Treasure.”

  “How much treasure?” Uldane asked. The words came out in an eager gasp. They brought a smile back to Raid’s face.

  “Enough to get you out of Fallcrest and anywhere you want to go,” he said. “Enough to live like a noble when you get there.” He looked around at them again, then his eyes settled on Shara. “What do you say?”

  She looked back at him. “No,” she said.

  The storm inside Albanon dropped straight into his gut. He stared at Shara. So did Uldane, a little whine creeping up out of his throat. Shara, however, had her eyes solely on Raid.

  The man with the twin axes sat perfectly still for a moment before repeating, “No?”

  “No. We’re not the ones you want. Go try the Lucky Gnome Taphouse. It’s right off the Market Green.”

  A dark look of anger flashed across Raid’s face. Before Albanon could say anything, he was on his feet. “I’m not used to having my offers denied,” he said.

  “You didn’t offer us anything,” said Shara. “Consider it a frank assessment.”

  Raid’s jaw tightened. “Then I thank you for your honesty. May your gods keep you.”

  He turned and stalked off, sliding with angry grace through the crowd of patrons. Shara let out a long breath. Albanon rounded on her. “What are you doing?” he yelped. “That was what we wanted, wasn’t it?”

  Eyes still on the crowd where Raid had disappeared, Shara shook her head. “No,” she said, “it wasn’t. I don’t think I’d go around the corner with Hakken Raid.”

  “Are you insane?” demanded Uldane. “This was perfect!”

  Shara’s lips pressed tight and a flush crept into her cheeks. “There was something about him I didn’t like,” she said. “He wouldn’t tell us where he wanted us to go.”

  “You hardly gave him a chance to,” said Albanon.

  “He traveled alone.”

  Uldane slumped down his chair and crossed his arms. “Right now I can see why he’d want to.”

  Shara looked between them. “Were you two that taken in? How much have you had to drink?”

  “Not that much,” Albanon said hotly. “Maybe he didn’t want to tell a bunch of strangers all of his secrets straight out. What’s wrong with that? Why shouldn’t we have taken a chance with him?”

  “For one thing, what would you have done if you’d agreed to help him, then didn’t like what he told you? Would you have walked away? Maybe keeping your word doesn’t matter that much to you, but it does to me.”

  Her words stung. Albanon felt his cheeks flush. “I keep my word!” he protested, but Shara didn’t stop.

  “He didn’t give us one piece of information of any significance. He dodged all of my questions, even when I gave him opportunities to answer openly. So he’s been a hunter and an adventurer. So he’s been to a lot of different places. He didn’t give us any specifics.”

  “He said that he’d come to Fallcrest looking for treasure,” Uldane pointed out.

  “And that’s all he said.” Shara looked straight at the halfling. “You should know that question, Uldane. It was one of my father’s favorites. Anyone who wanted to hire us, he’d ask that question. The answer doesn’t matter so much as what comes after it. Raid didn’t say anything about the treasure or why he wanted to find it—he just told us how rich it would make us.”

  “Uldane asked how much treasure,” said Albanon. “Raid was just answering him!”

  “What about how he reacted when I turned him down? He took it like a personal insult, as if I’d laughed in his face.”

  “He came all this way looking for us and you said no. I’d be disappointed, too.”

  “Would you be angry like he was?”

  “Probably.” Albanon felt more than a little angry already.

  “Trust me,” Shara said. “We’re better off staying right here.”

  Albanon inhaled slowly and tried to call up the discipline that had kept him calm with Kossley Varn’s face shouting in his face. This time, however, it eluded him. A hot sense of disappointment burned in his belly. The feeling of isolation and displacement he’d managed to overcome only a short time before came crashing back over him. He looked back up at Shara.

  “I don’t think we are,” he told her. “I think we need to get out of Fallcrest, but there’s nothing else to do unless we want to strike out on our own. You’ve just scared off our best chance at an ally.”

  Shara scowled. “I don’t trust him,” she said curtly.

  “Well, I liked him,” muttered Uldane. “I think Borojon would have felt the same. So would Jarren.”

  Shara sucked air through her teeth and whirled on him. “You don’t know what my father or Jarren would have felt,” she said harshly. “You like everybody!”

  Uldane flinched as if she’d struck him, but Shara had already turned to glare at Albanon. “And what do you know? You think being a wizard’s apprentice then falling in with a bunch of adventurers by chance makes you a good judge of anything? I know what I’m doing.” Shara thumped her chest. “My father taught me more than just how to swing a sword. He taught me what to look for when I’m choosing my allies.”

  The declaration was too much. Albanon’s face burned hot. “I wish he’d taught me, then,” he said, “because I’ve clearly made
a mistake in choosing mine.”

  He stood up, his chair scraping across the floor. Shara finally winced in recognition of her harsh words, but it was too late. “Albanon, no—that’s not what I meant.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t know. I’m not a good judge.” He turned away from her and from Uldane, curled down in his chair and watching them in sullen silence.

  “Stop acting like a child!”

  Albanon stiffened and looked back at her. A wide swath of the alehouse had gone quiet again, listening in on their argument. Shara’s face was taut and hard. Albanon raised his chin.

  “Don’t bother coming back to the tower tonight,” he said. “I’m raising the wards behind me when I go in.”

  He walked out through the staring crowd with his head held high and his heart beating like a running dog.

  A steep bluff cut through the middle of Fallcrest, dividing the upper town from the lower and creating the high cascade in the Nentir River that gave the town its name. The Blue Moon was in the lower town; the tower that had been Moorin’s was in the upper. Many times over the years of his apprenticeship, Albanon had used the climb up the crooked road along the bluff’s face as an opportunity to sober up after an evening at the alehouse.

  Sometimes sobriety and second thoughts came whether he wanted them or not. By the time he was halfway up the bluff, his anger was already ebbing.

  By the time he’d reached the top, regret was a gnawing hollow in his gut.

  Albanon paused at the brow of the bluff and leaned against the well-worn rail that had been set there long ago for just that purpose. Fallcrest spread out below him, a few windows still lit here and there by late-night candles, but most of the town’s buildings were dark and quiet shapes under the moonlight. The Nentir River made a shining ribbon that rolled past the town wall and on into the shadowed countryside beyond.

  There were adventures to be had out there—did it matter if the Lord Warden assigned them a task or Hakken Raid had some crazy secret plan? He and Shara and Uldane were a team. They’d find something for themselves. They’d beaten Vestapalk together. And maybe Shara was right. What did he really know of judging people? He’d gone straight from his father’s estate in the Feywild to Moorin’s tower. And in the wake of his master’s murder, he’d joined forces with Tempest, Roghar, and the others almost by accident. Shara had experience, even if she didn’t have tact. She knew what she was doing. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so eager to listen to Raid.

  He screwed up his face, though, wrinkling his nose at his own weakness. Just because Shara was right didn’t mean he had to let her insult him. Let her spend the night somewhere else. Maybe even outside. It wasn’t going to hurt her. They could apologize to each other in the morning. Albanon turned away from the sight of the lower town. Farther along the brow of the bluff, the reflected brilliance of moonlight on white stone showed how the Glowing Tower had come by its name. Albanon tried to put Shara out of his mind as he walked, but it was hard not to dream of the morning; Shara, damp with dew and sleep-deprived, stinking of some cowshed where she’d taken shelter. It was almost a pity that the night was cloudless. A light shower of rain to add to the warrior-woman’s discomfort would have—

  Albanon’s hand was on the handle of the tower’s door before he noticed something was wrong. He turned sharply and squinted into the moonshadows, searching for the subtle traces of magic. There were none.

  But there should have been. Moorin had woven arcane wards around the tower long ago. Albanon took care to speak the ritual words that raised them whenever he went out.

  The last time he’d come home and found the wards unexpectedly dispelled had been the night Moorin had been killed.

  He hesitated before pushing the door open silently. Whatever had brought down the wards was probably inside. Only one suspect came to his mind: Moorin’s killer, the creature Nu Alin. Granted, they’d beaten it—him, if Tempest was to be believed—back deep in the tunnels of Thunderspire Mountain, but what if he had lived and managed to make his way back to Fallcrest?

  On the other hand, what if there was no one in the tower? What if he had simply forgotten to raise the wards tonight? Or what if they’d only lasted so long without Moorin’s influence to maintain them? He hadn’t considered that possibility before. Either way, if he raised an alarm that turned out to be for nothing, his already damaged reputation would be completely shattered. He’d be laughed out of town.

  Just a quick look, he promised himself. Just a quick look to be sure there really is someone. Then I’ll go get help.

  He stepped inside.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The barking speech of gnolls assaulted Nu Alin’s ears. The only time the savage creatures closed their hyena-like muzzles was when they were stalking prey—and there was little enough of that to keep them happy. Yips, yaps, and growls accompanied every action. Coupled with matching cackles from the actual hyenas that the gnolls kept as pets, the din made Nu Alin want to puncture his host’s eardrums for silence. The only thing worse was the stink that rolled off both gnolls and hyenas to saturate the den they’d claimed in the labyrinth beneath Thunderspire Mountain.

  No, Nu Alin knew that wasn’t true. There was something worse than the noise and the stink. Until he recovered his strength and found a new host, he was a gnoll.

  When I am free, he promised those around him silently, I will return and slaughter you all.

  “Rooga!” called Gerar. “Bring meat!”

  But he wasn’t free yet. Do it, he prompted his host.

  And as if it was his own thought, Rooga rose from a crouch, snatched the leg of a dwarf out of the fire, and carried it through the den to where the tribe’s leader sprawled. Eyes and jealous whines followed him. Servitude among the gnolls was a strange thing, Nu Alin had discovered. The weaker served the stronger because they were forced to, yet being singled out to serve the strongest gnoll in the den was a mark of status.

  He should have been able to tear Gerar limb from limb while wearing the body of a gnoll pup. Instead it had taken him a month—as near as he could reckon in the underground labyrinth—to force his foul host up the hierarchy of the tribe. If only he had his full strength.…

  The tiefling, Tempest, had been a strong host. Her efforts to resist his control had been sweet to him. But interference, an error, had left Tempest trapped under fallen stone and Nu Alin’s hold on her weak. When her companions—that dragonborn, that eladrin, those others—had caught up to them, she’d been able to beg for release. To his shock, her friends had given it to her. A sword had pierced her chest.

  For all of the power that the Voidharrow had granted to him centuries before, Nu Alin depended on a living host to sustain his own life. He’d left the tiefling’s dying body in an attempt to seize a new host only to discover that he’d been tricked. While one of Tempest’s companions healed her, the others assaulted his flowing form. They’d discovered a weakness, and Nu Alin had been faced with a harsh decision: fight and die or flee and seek out a new, less-resisting host.

  He’d fled. He was the Herald, exarch of the Voidharrow. It called to him, a summons he could not deny, and he’d been so close to recovering it when Tempest had become trapped. He had to live to recover it, but to live he needed a new host. Unfortunately, he discovered, the dark tunnels of the labyrinth were like a desert. There was life there but little of it and isolated in oases. A new host was not so easy to find.

  Nu Alin didn’t know how long or far he’d wandered, his already damaged liquid shape slowly losing cohesiveness. The Voidharrow itself was the only thing that had saved him, exploding across his consciousness like a sudden dawn. Somehow it had been freed from its prison!

  Even as he’d felt the surge of the Voidharrow ebb back, that knowledge had given him the strength to go just a little further. With the last of his energy, he’d found the lone gnoll guard. Rooga had seemed strong and fit, an ideal host. Nu Alin hadn’t hesitated for an instant.

  Only after he was safely within Roo
ga’s body had he realized how weak he’d grown. His host’s body should have been a tool for him to use, but it was all he could do to prod Rooga into action. Until he recovered his strength, his host was his prison, barely even aware of the presence lurking within. And Rooga was a particularly pathetic prison—lowest among the low, the gnoll had stood guard alone in the dangerous labyrinth because he’d been given no choice in the matter. Nu Alin would have abandoned him in favor of a new host if he’d had the strength.

  But he didn’t. The distant call of the Voidharrow was a constant mockery.

  Fortunately, unlike the gnolls, strength was not all he had to rely on while he recovered.

  “I bring meat,” Rooga said, presenting the dwarf leg to Gerar. From behind his host’s eyes, Nu Alin watched the big gnoll grab it from him and tear into the bloody flesh. Such a horrid feast might have disturbed a lesser being, but Nu Alin consumed bodies in his own way. Rooga was fortunate that he was weak. The rigors that Nu Alin typically forced on his host bodies wore them out quickly. Rooga was still intact. Mostly. The flesh around his eyes was cracking and Nu Alin’s substance was peeking through. Among the gnolls, with their penchant for scarring and decorating their bodies, the change had gone unnoticed.

  Nu Alin would need to move to a new form soon, though. His strength had almost returned. A few more days and he would be ready. He’d considered taking Gerar’s body. The gnoll was strong and agile. His body would be a good host. But he was still a gnoll, and the thought of dwelling in such a creature longer than he had to was nauseating. There were other creatures in Thunderspire Labyrinth, though.

  Gerar looked at Rooga over his meat, black eyes flashing, then lifted his gory muzzle. “I like what you told me,” he said. “Treasure would make Maldrick Scarmaker happy.”

  Answer, Nu Alin urged, and Rooga practically vomited in his eagerness to please Gerar. “If Maldrick is happy, Gerar will be happy, too. The ruins of Zaamdul hold what Maldrick craves!”