The Temple of Yellow Skulls

by Don Bassingthwaite

  At one time, the voice of the Elder Elemental Eye had spoken to Nu Alin in his dreams, providing him with guidance and instruction. Now Nu Alin did the same to Rooga, though he let the gnoll believe the ideas were his own. Nu Alin had listened to the barking that assaulted him. Gerar’s band wasn’t the only pack of gnolls in the labyrinth, nor was it the most powerful. Even a strong leader like Gerar knew when to bend his neck.

  Maldrick Scarmaker, favored of the gnolls’ demon lord, Yeenoghu, sought artifacts of the ancient minotaur city that Thunderspire Labyrinth had once been. Rumor among Gerar’s gnolls told of stores of such artifacts in an old underground palace not too far from their den. That none of the gnolls had considered the possibility of raiding those ruins to please Maldrick and advance themselves was another sign of their stupidity.

  And perhaps their general cowardice. Gerar chewed another bite of dwarf flesh, then added, “The ruins of Zaamdul are haunted by demons and undead. Minotaurs go there looking for the treasure of their ancestors, too.”

  Nu Alin was ready for him. He’d prepared Rooga for this. “So we avoid the demons and the undead, and find a minotaur,” the gnoll said in a wheedling whine. “One minotaur against Gerar’s pack. What treasure he has gathered from the ruins will be ours for the taking.”

  Gerar’s eyes drifted half shut as the simple argument sank slowly into his feeble mind. Nu Alin watched him closely. He had left simple wealth behind long, long ago. Gold, ancient secrets—what did he care about those? The treasure he sought was a minotaur’s body. A body more powerful than any gnoll. A body that would allow him to escape Thunderspire and continue his journey in pursuit of the Voidharrow. He couldn’t simply march Rooga up to a minotaur and pass from one body to the next, though. Even his feeble host would have balked at that.

  But as part of a pack in the frenzy of battle …

  Finally the bloody muzzle curled into a toothy grin. Gerar drew back his arm and hurled the half-devoured leg across the den. “We will hunt in Zaamdul!” he howled, and the voices of the other gnolls rose in barking excitement. Rooga bared his teeth and folded back his ears, joining in his pack leader’s exaltation.

  For once, the din was almost sweet, even to Nu Alin.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Albanon surveyed the sitting room of the Glowing Tower from the doorstep. The moon’s glow fell through the open door, providing more than enough light for his eladrin eyes. Nothing moved. He listened and heard nothing, but the thick stone of the walls dampened sound at the best of times. There was one sound that he should have heard, though. He considered the wisdom of calling out for a moment, then whispered, “Splendid?”

  There was no response from the little pseudodragon that had been something between Moorin’s pet and his companion and who now considered herself Albanon’s guardian and moral guide. Splendid didn’t like taverns. When Albanon or the others stepped out to the Blue Moon, she was inevitably there to greet them with barbed comments on their return. That she hadn’t already made an appearance was a bad sign, but Albanon didn’t dare call out any louder.

  The pseudodragon could hide as effectively as any rogue, though. She might still be all right. Leaving the door open behind him, Albanon crossed the room as quietly as he could and glanced briefly into the kitchen, then put his head cautiously into the tower’s central stairwell.

  He was just in time to see light wink out in the door to the library that occupied the second floor. His stomach flipped and he ducked back, struggling to keep his breathing soft. Someone was definitely in the tower—and it seemed they knew he was here, too.

  Or did they? There was no further sound from above. Whoever was up there, Albanon guessed, they were waiting, just like him. If he left now, he could summon help, but the intruder would have the opportunity to get away.

  For once, he wished Uldane was there to slip up the stairs and peek into the library. No Uldane, though. No Shara to occupy the intruder while he held back to cast spells, either. But he had to know who the intruder was. Cursing the decision to leave his staff leaning in the corner of his bedchamber while he went out, he gathered his robes close and stepped cautiously on to the stairs. They were stone and wouldn’t give him away with creaking, but he still paused briefly on every step, listening carefully. There was still nothing. As he approached the library door, he flattened himself against the wall and waited once again. A slow count to ten, then to twenty. Then he stuck his head around the corner and peered into the library.

  “Kerath-Ald!”

  Albanon didn’t recognize the word that the figure standing before book-filled shelves shouted—he just ducked as a ray of brilliant light blasted overhead. The intensity of it seared an afterimage into his vision. When he looked again, splotches of radiance danced before his eyes. The figure in the library was just another bright blur, one that seemed to grow even brighter as it moved toward him swinging a long-hafted morningstar. The weapon left a glowing streak with each whistling passage.

  He blinked rapidly, trying in vain to clear his vision, and thrust himself back to his feet. A new sense of anger rose alongside his fear. This was his home! After Moorin had died here, Albanon wasn’t going to let himself be driven out. Spells rose in his mind like sprites clamoring for attention. He chose one and spat the arcane words at the bright shape. A misty blue pellet seemed to condense out of the air and streak toward the intruder. The morningstar altered its trajectory as if to swat it away, but the instant the pellet struck the weapon it burst. A cloud glittering with frost exploded around the shining figure. Albanon could feel the chill of the magic from across the room.

  The figure didn’t even pause in its advance. Albanon blinked again. The shining figure resolved itself into a man dressed in traveling gear. The wizard’s eyes were still too dazzled to make out further details, but he could see brighter streaks crawling through the light—symbols of protection dancing across the man’s garb. He was shielded from cold. Albanon cursed and tried to think of another spell that would stop him without damaging the precious books of the library.

  The man raised his voice again. “Step forth!”

  The words resonated with the power of command. Albanon tried to resist but couldn’t. He stumbled forward as if drawn by some unseen force. Blinking and shaking his head, he tried to recover his wits as the shining man raised his morningstar. He wasn’t going to let it end like this! Clenching his teeth, he focused his will and stabbed a hand at the intruder.

  A silvery bolt leaped across the short distance between the two men and punched into the intruder’s stomach. The other man stumbled back with a grunt, the morningstar dropping down short of Albanon. He wasn’t finished, though. His head came up and Albanon saw that the light in his face was more than just an afterimage. His visage was truly glowing. The man’s gaze met Albanon’s and flared with a terrible brilliance.

  The intensity of it stabbed into Albanon’s eyes and the library vanished in a haze of white light. Albanon cried out and stumbled back. He scrubbed at his eyes with one hand, but the light wouldn’t fade. Baring his teeth, he lashed out in the direction of the intruder. Bare hands wouldn’t stop the morningstar, but he wanted at least to hurt the man who was about to kill him.

  His punches found nothing but air—but neither was there the sickening shock of the morningstar’s impact. Albanon froze.

  “He has spirit,” said the intruder.

  A delicate snort answered the comment. “He’s stubborn,” said a voice like a kettle coming to the boil, “and too pigheaded to know when he’s outmatched. I told you he’d attack with cold first. I wish all the people who think of eladrin as elegant could meet this one.”

  Albanon twisted in the direction of the second voice. “Splendid?”

  Leathery wings rustled as the pseudodragon launched herself into the air, then landed with a quiet thump on some new perch. “Apprentice,” she said by way of greeting. “You reek of ale. Did you fall into the barrel?”

  Normally he would have exchanged
insults with the haughty little creature or tried to appeal to her oversized vanity. Not this time. “What’s going on?” He spun back to where he thought the intruder was. “Who are you?”

  “Demanding,” sighed Splendid.

  “Reasonable questions,” the intruder said, much closer than Albanon had expected. He flinched and stumbled. A hand caught his arm and steadied him. “Here. Close your eyes and hold still.” The hand left his arm. “I said, close your eyes.”

  The other man’s voice had a curious clipped accent, but it was firm, even a little imperious. Albanon hesitated.

  “If you don’t close them,” said the intruder, “you’ll get my thumbs in them.”

  Albanon shut his eyes. A moment later, he felt the pressure of thumbs against his eyelids. “All-Knowing Mistress, lift the veil from his sight,” the intruder murmured.

  A prayer, Albanon realized as the blinding glow behind his eyelids faded into darkness. The thumbs lifted away and he opened his eyes.

  He nearly flinched again as he got his first look at the opponent who had so thoroughly bested him. The intruder was human, which made no difference, but he was also old. Close-cropped white hair made a pale, bristling cap above a dark-tanned face as deeply lined as a piece of crumpled parchment. His frame seemed thin beneath his traveling clothes, but Albanon remembered the ease with which he had swung the morningstar—there had to be wiry muscles on those old bones.

  A narrow crimson stole hung over his shoulders, dangling almost to his waist. Stitched in gold thread on each end was the symbol of a stylized eye with a vertical line beneath. The same symbol formed the golden pendant around his neck.

  “Ioun,” he said. “You’re a cleric of the God of Knowledge.”

  “My light shines in Her name.” The intruder touched a finger to his forehead in a ritual gesture. “Kri Redshal,” he said, and added as if it explained everything, “I’m an old friend of Moorin’s. I know you from his letters, Albanon.”

  Albanon’s eyebrows rose and he waited for something more—an apology, perhaps—but none was forthcoming. Kri retrieved his morningstar from where it leaned against the library’s big desk. “We need to talk,” was all he said before heading back down the stairs.

  Albanon looked to Splendid, also perched on the desk. The pseudodragon just shook out her wings. “It’s true,” she said. “I’ve met him before. A fine man. All these years later and he remembered my fondness for honeybark.”

  “But what’s he doing here? What does he want?”

  Kri’s voice came up the stairs. “Albanon!”

  “Perhaps he’s looking for an apprentice,” said Splendid. She thrust herself into the air, flapped her wings twice, then glided for the stairs. “You could certainly use another master.”

  Cursing under his breath, Albanon followed her.

  “I’ve known Moorin for close to thirty years,” said Kri. His face tightened briefly and he corrected himself. “I knew Moorin for close to thirty years, though we hadn’t seen each other in person for a good number of those. I was supposed to come visit him here in Fallcrest several months ago. I was, unfortunately, delayed. I heard about his death only a couple of days ago on the boat coming to Fallcrest. I regret his loss.”

  “We’ll take you to his grave in the morning,” Splendid told him. “Pitiful thing that it is. Hardly worthy of a wizard of Moorin’s stature.” She threw Albanon a disparaging glance.

  He flushed. “I was in the dungeon of Moonstone Keep under suspicion of his murder when they buried him. I didn’t exactly have much influence on the matter.”

  Splendid’s expression made it clear that she considered that his fault as well. He ground his teeth together and gulped at his cup of wine.

  They’d seated themselves—or rather Kri had seated himself, leaving Albanon to run around in search of wine and whatever food he could scrounge in the pantry to serve his guest—in the chairs around the fireplace in the sitting room of the tower. Kri had at least gotten a roaring fire going and its cheerful light made the cleric seem less … Albanon had to search for a word. Harsh? Mysterious? Dire?

  “If you arrived on the river tonight,” he said to fill the silence, “were you on the same boat as a man named Hakken Raid?”

  “I might have been,” said Kri. “I kept to myself. I’d seen enough of other travelers well before I boarded that boat. The end of a long journey will do that to you. It’s the same reason I chose to enter the tower rather than wait for your return. Moorin had entrusted me with the key to his wards.”

  “And when I did return, you chose to attack me why?”

  The first smile he had seen from Kri creased the old man’s face. “To test you, of course. What better time would there be to catch you off guard?”

  Albanon could only stare at him. Kri chuckled, a dry sound like bare branches in the wind, and sat back in his chair. “You were never in any real danger. Not unless you did something stupid. The way Splendid described you was different than how Moorin had. I wanted to know which Albanon I was dealing with. I’m pleased that Moorin’s description was more accurate.”

  Albanon switched his gaze to Splendid. The pseudodragon was busy grooming herself like a scaly cat, apparently ignoring everything else in the room. Albanon knew better: Splendid seldom missed anything. Indeed, as if she could sense his anger, she looked and blinked at him indifferently. Albanon scowled at her and turned back to Kri. “How far have you traveled?” he asked.

  “I make my home in Abermare.”

  That explained the cleric’s accent, but Kri didn’t volunteer any other information. Albanon had read about Abermare, far to the south of the Nentir Vale. “The Sweet City, they call it,” he said hopefully.

  “I could call Nera the city of emperors, but that wouldn’t bring back the imperial line,” said Kri. He sat forward. “Splendid told me something of the circumstances surrounding Moorin’s death.”

  Old pain twisted Albanon’s gut. “Do you need me to tell you more?”

  “Why would he need that?” Splendid tossed back her head. “I’ve told him everything. I was there, if you’ll recall.”

  “Pseudodragons are loyal beyond death,” Kri said. The fingers of his free hand dipped into a pouch on his belt and extracted a strip of what looked like gnarled, glittering leather. Albanon might have mistaken it for some kind of jerky, but Splendid’s enthusiastic response when Kri flipped it in her direction made him guess it was the honeybark she’d mentioned. As the little creature attacked the strip, Kri added, “But their perception tends to be one-sided. I’m not entirely interested in Moorin’s death so much as the events surrounding it. Splendid said an artifact belonging to him was stolen?”

  “A talisman of dead glass, yes,” said Albanon. “A crystal of black kelonite in a gold pendant. But it wasn’t stolen by Moorin’s killer—there were two intruders in the tower that night.”

  Kri waved the information away. “Was anything else taken?” Albanon blinked at the question and Kri sat even further forward. “Was anything else taken?” he repeated.

  “I don’t … I don’t think so. I’m not sure.”

  “You need to be sure!” Kri said, slapping his hand against the arm of his chair. Wine splashed out of his cup. Albanon flinched back and Splendid looked up from worrying her honeybark. Kri took a slow breath, calming himself.

  “You should know,” he said after a long moment, “that the reason I knew Moorin, the reason I was coming to Fallcrest, in fact, is because we both belonged to the ancient Order of Vigilance.”

  “The ‘Order of Vigilance?’ “Albanon asked doubtfully. “What are you vigilant against?”

  “The name came before we did,” said Kri, “but what we call ourselves isn’t important. What is important is that the Order gave something very valuable into Moorin’s keeping many years ago. I need to make certain that it’s safe.”

  “Not the dead glass talisman?”

  “Fortunately not.” Kri held out his forefingers, indicating an object
about half a hand span long. “A glass vial capped in gold at either end and partially filled with a silvery red liquid that catches the light like fluid crystal.”

  Albanon’s breath caught in his throat. He recognized the description of the vial—but also of the strange liquid. A connection between the captured liquid and something he had seen on his adventure with Shara, Uldane, and the others. A similarity he had half seen before but hadn’t fully grasped and that his mind, strangely, didn’t want to focus on now. “I know the vial,” he said. “I’ve seen it.”

  Kri looked at him sharply, eyes glittering. “And …?” he prompted

  The old cleric was perceptive. Unease at the thought that had flooded his head made Albanon shiver. “And it’s upstairs,” he said, rising. “Let’s go get it.” He deliberately put his back to Kri as he headed for the stairs.

  When he’d first seen the strange ooze that was Nu Alin’s form bubbling from beneath the broken skin of a possessed body, Albanon had thought it looked familiar. Crimson shot through with streaks of bloody silver, a flowing molten crystal. Exactly like the substance in Moorin’s gold-sealed vial.

  The third floor of the tower had been Moorin’s private sanctum. Through the years of his apprenticeship, Albanon had seldom entered it alone and never lightly. Even with Moorin’s death, going there made him uncomfortable, and not just because it had been the scene of his master’s grisly end. The high chamber held magical secrets and items of power that Moorin had forbidden him to touch without his permission and supervision. As much as Albanon considered himself a full wizard, in the darkest, most doubting part of his soul, he still had suspicions of his abilities. Confronted with the secrets Moorin had wielded, he still felt like an apprentice.

  And Moorin had been murdered in the room.

  Albanon opened the door at the top of the stairs and stepped through. A murmured word brought light to the polished crystal that hung in the center of the ceiling, then he moved aside so Kri could enter.