Uneasy Alliances tddts-7

by David Cook

  "Well, it's a secret, you know." Althgar suddenly grinned conspiratorially at Noph. "But 111 bet I've figured it out. See, I've watched where the priests go, and I've listened to the stories that get told around the palace. The others don't pay any attention, but I do."

  "So where is it?" demanded Entreri impatiently.

  Althgar looked at him doubtfully. "It's all right," said Noph soothingly. "You can tell us."

  "Okay. It's-" Suddenly he clutched his head with both hands and bent almost double.

  "What's wrong with him? Is he sick?" asked Entreri coldly.

  The guard moaned softly. "He's always there now. I can feel him behind my eyes. He wants to look. He wants to see. He wants to see everything." His voice rose to a shriek of despair. "No! No! Get out of my head!" He shook violently and collapsed, groaning, to the floor.

  Noph stared at the writhing figure in horror. "What's wrong with him?" he asked Trandon.

  The fighter made no reply but bent closer to the guard. Suddenly he started and drew back with an oath. "By Holy Tempus! Look at his eyes!"

  The boy's eyes, blue when they'd first seen them, had rolled up into his head. Now they came down again and slowly focused on the faces before him.

  They were golden, with deep, dark pupils and no white showing round them at all. Noph stared into their depths, his breath coming in fast, thick pants.

  The eyes of the mage-king.

  The mad eyes of Aetheric III.

  In a swift motion, Entreri drew a dagger from his belt and slashed it across the guard's throat. A spray of blood splashed his clothing in red, and the boy's eyes went blank and fluttered closed. Noph could have sworn that just before they did so, he saw the pupils turn a deep blue again and that Althgar looked at him with a questioning stare. Noph turned away from the group and was violently ill.

  Entreri calmly wiped his dagger on the boy's sleeve. "The mage-king must be psychically linked to his guards, or at least to some of them. Probably makes it easier to keep track of what's going on in the palace. And now he knows for certain that we're here, and he knows what we're after. We'll have to hurry."

  "You bastard!" Noph stared at the little assassin. "You cold-blooded bastard!"

  Trandon put an arm on the youth's shoulder. "Come on, Noph. It's-"

  Noph shook him off furiously. "Don't do that! I'm the only one of you who cares!" He glared at Entreri and raised his fists. "Come on, you son of a-"

  Entreri cuffed him across the mouth, knocking the youth to his knees. He looked calmly at Noph and spoke to him with no appearance of anger.

  "We have no time for this. Behave yourself." He turned away.

  Noph rose. His stomach ached and his breath smelled sour. He badly wanted a drink of water. His face ached where Entreri had hit him, and he felt a trickle of blood down his chin. Trandon and Kern stared pointedly away from him.

  Noph looked at the stiffening body of the guard, then at Sharessa, hoping for comfort and sympathy. She, too, was gazing at the body, but Noph saw, to his surprise and dismay, that she showed no emotion. She turned away and slapped Ingrar's shoulder in a comradely gesture.

  Noph found Kern at his side. The paladin looked at him and then, catching Noph's eye, looked awkwardly away again.

  "Are you all right?" he asked.

  Noph nodded. "I… I guess so. It's just that when we killed before, it was us against the fiends. The only humans I've seen die were Anvil and… Harloon."

  Kern nodded slowly. "I know. It's never easy to see men die, even those whom you don't know."

  "He was so cold about it." Noph stared at Entreri. The little man was now exploring the far end of the room with Ingrar and Sharessa. "He didn't pause for a minute. He just…" He shut his eyes, as if trying to squeeze out the memory. Then he opened them wide. "And Shar. She could have killed Artemis back there when we were fighting that shadow-thing."

  Trandon, coming up behind Kern, snorted and lowered his voice. "Not a bad job if she had. That'd be one less problem in our way."

  Noph turned on him hotly. "Don't say that! Haven't you seen enough death?" His eyes filled with tears. "I thought being an adventurer was supposed to be glorious and exciting, not dirty… and…" His voice faded as he looked at the body of the guard.

  Kern shrugged his broad shoulders. "Noph, adventuring is about duty-about doing your duty and keeping an eye on what needs to be done. It's about doing what's best in the eyes of your god." He looked contemptuously at Entreri and the pirates. "For a pack like that, the only thing that counts is profit. And if that means betraying your friends and companions, so be it. Master Entreri would kill anyone or anything if he were paid for it."

  He turned away from Noph and said over his shoulder in a voice that carried throughout the room, "And don't lose any sleep over trying to keep in the good graces of Master Entreri. When you were wounded, he was ready enough to slit your throat and leave your carcass to the fiends."

  Noph started and stared at Artemis, who looked at him stolidly and said nothing. Shar moved toward the young man. "Noph-"

  "No, Shar." Noph turned away from the beautiful mercenary. "I'm sorry. I guess I just don't have what it takes to be a real pirate. You see, I care about other people."

  He walked away from her. Shar stood motionless, her dark hair framing a face drained of blood.

  Another low rumble came from beyond the room, and the floor shook. In the distance came the sound of faint screams and a shrill, ululating shriek. Trandon stepped to another door set in the chamber's west wall and listened intently.

  "Fiends! Coming this way!" He drew his sword. Kern and Shar ranged themselves alongside him. Noph pulled a dagger from its sheath and stood behind them, feeling lost and very alone.

  "Any suggestions?" Kern barked at Artemis over his shoulder.

  Entreri, busy with Ingrar probing the eastern wall of the room, half turned. "You could go shout the name of Tyr at them. Or perhaps read them one of his holy books. It might bore them to death."

  Kern's face turned red, and his mouth opened to make a powerful reply when Ingrar said quietly, "Here." He stood next to a tapestry on the north wall, his blind face laid against it.

  "What?" Entreri joined him, moving swiftly and as silently as a cat.

  "It's this way. The bloodforge." Ingrar gestured to the tapestry.

  Kern quickly stepped to the wall and pulled back a corner of the hanging. "How do you know? I can't see a thing."

  Ingrar shook his head. "I–I'm not sure. I just… know! " Не pressed his fingers against the wall, tapping and listening.

  "Are you-" Kern started to ask.

  Ingrar gestured imperiously. "Quiet!" Such was the force of his confidence that the paladin lapsed into silence.

  There was a sudden snap, a click, and a grinding sound, and the outlines of a hidden door were revealed. Kern pushed it open and cautiously stepped through.

  "There's been a partial cave-in," he called back to the others. "We'll have to go carefully."

  The rest of the party left their posts near the far door and crowded after Kern. Noph lingered, looking back at the body of Althgar.

  "Are you just going to leave him for the fiends?" he asked Artemis bitterly.

  The little man stared at him a moment, as if surprised at his depth of feeling. "Yes. If I could give him a decent burial, I would. But sentiment and survival have nothing to do with each other. Now go on." He thrust Noph through the hidden door, then stepped through himself, pulling the panel shut behind him.

  Chapter 3

  Forged in Fire

  The passage was sufficiently large that under ordinary circumstances no one would have felt trapped. However, as Kern had warned them, large blocks of stone had fallen from the ceiling, making their way cramped and difficult. Noph had to assist Entreri in several places, since the little man's arm was still injured from the attack of the shadeling.

  The way ran straight for perhaps twenty yards, then bent left and began to descend in a series of s
weeping curves. The humid air grew stifling.

  Noph could see the glow of Kern's torch flickering on the moldy walls as he descended endlessly down a flight of circular stone steps. Here the effects of Aetheric's rage were much less, but the explorers were disturbed to see several large cracks in the walls, whose ragged edges showed them to be of very recent origins.

  "There's a room of some kind ahead," called Kern in a muted voice. The echoes reverberated tantalizingly up the stairway.

  The companions reached the bottom of the stairs and stood looking at a black, empty space before them.

  No, not quite black, for somewhere ahead of him, Noph thought he could see a faint pulsing glow. The ceiling stretched to an unknowable height and was supported by a forest of stone pillars, intricately carved, that marched into the blackness in ordered rows. The path between them was an elaborate tiled mosaic, scuffed with the tread of many feet.

  "Listen," whispered Ingrar. Somewhere out in the darkness, water lapped against stone.

  They went forward toward the glow in the dark. Kern led the way now, with Entreri at the rear. Noph thought he detected a faint keening sound above the shuffle of their footsteps and the wash of the waves, which sounded louder now. He also noticed that Ingrar, walking next to Kern, apparently no longer needed the paladin's touch to guide him through the dark.

  As if to confirm Noph's thoughts, Shar whispered in his ear. "Ingrar hears the bloodforge." Her voice quavered unexpectedly, and Noph realized with a shock that she was afraid.

  Ingrar came to a sudden halt. They were still too far from the glow to see clearly what was causing it. The water and the sound Noph had detected earlier were the only noises in the darkness.

  "Can you feel it?" whispered the blind pirate.

  Although Noph could see very little, there was an odd tangible quality to the air, almost as if it had grown thicker and was distorting what little vision he had. His skin felt dry to the touch, although sweat dribbled down his brow.

  "Hang on!"

  Kern's voice spoke behind Noph, the echoes resounding off hidden walls. The paladin was turning from side to side, peering into the darkness.

  "Where's Entreri?"

  The others gathered in a circle, cautiously exploring by the light of the torches. The little man was nowhere to be seen.

  "Curse him in the name of Tyr!" Kern's sword was out and at guard as he stared into the concealing blackness that surrounded them. "Could he have gone back?"

  Shar shook her head. "Never. If you think he'd retreat this close to the bloodforge, you don't know him."

  Kern stood uneasily for a moment, shifting from one foot to the other while the others waited.

  "Well," he said finally, "we'll go on. If something got him, we can't help him, and if he left on his own, I don't want him." He took up a position beside Ingrar and pointed with his sword.

  "Let's go."

  Ingrar stretched out his hands before him and gestured, almost as if pushing the heavy atmosphere aside, then started forward. Noph could hear Kern, beside the young man, softly chanting a prayer to Tyr beneath his breath.

  The rows of pillars suddenly parted and stretched in a great semicircle round a high stone altar. Where the pillars ended, light revealed the wavelets of an underground lake that stretched up to the very foot of the altar. The torches that Kern and Entreri carried flared brightly, then flickered and went out. But they needed no light to see clearly what lay before them.

  It lay atop a carved stone pillar before the altar, pulsing with its own internal glow that spread dancing shadows about the pillars and across the water. From it came the high-pitched humming that Noph had detected earlier.

  In form, it was a round stone, no more than a foot in diameter. The colors that came from within it mirrored the entire spectrum, a luminous display that shone brightly but without warmth.

  Round the altar were carved bas-reliefs. Noph recognized with a shock the same squidlike figure he'd seen in the fountain where he first met the mercenaries, a figure he now knew to be the mage-king.

  As the party stared in silence at the bloodforge, a slender shadow slipped from behind the altar. In the unnatural light cast by the forge, they could see the cold, composed countenance of the master assassin, their erstwhile leader.

  Entreri's thin face was lit by the glowing bloodforge, its shifting colors casting sharp shadows along the contours of his visage. His eyes matched the glow of the stone as he moved toward it, hand delicately outstretched.

  "No you don't." Trandon stepped cautiously to the stone pillar supporting the bloodforge. At the same time, Entreri carefully circled behind the artifact. Trandon stared in fascination at the changing hues and patterns on the surface of the stone.

  "How does it work?" he muttered.

  "Never mind that." Kern had taken his warhammer from his belt and raised it over his head. "In the name of the true god, I destroy this engine of evil-"

  "Kern, no!" Trandon stepped between the paladin and the bloodforge. "We don't know what this thing is. We don't know how to destroy it, or if we should destroy it."

  A dry chuckle turned both men about. Entreri stood unmoving, an angry sneer on his lips. Tour concern is unimportant," he snapped. He moved suddenly, and there was a silver flash as a dagger sped from his hand at Kern.

  Trandon's staff came up to block it. The dagger struck the wood and stuck there, quivering. "Stop, you idiot! This thing isn't a toy. We must find out how it works!"

  Entreri laughed aloud and drew his sword. The stone turned a deep red, and the little assassin's lips seemed to drip blood as he spoke. "It creates armies. Out of thin air." He gestured to the carvings on the altar. "If you're looking for an instruction manual, old man, you've got one right behind you. But I found it first, while you were all groping about in the dark back there. Now you won't last long enough to use it."

  Trandon matched Entreri's maneuvering, his eyes flickering in the direction of the carvings that ringed the altar. He paused suddenly, his gaze narrowing. "So that's it. That's what shows you how to use it."

  Entreri lifted his sword, the blade gleaming scarlet. He reached up and suddenly grasped the naked blade with his free hand, jerking the sword across it in a hard, sharp motion. He extended his hand, fist clenched tightly, over the stone.

  "It's called the bloodforge. It needs blood. It feeds on blood."

  There was a hiss as the assassin's blood, squeezed from his slashed hand, dropped onto the stone's surface. To Noph's eyes, aching from the glow, the blood seemed to spread across the entire surface of the forge, shimmering, separating, and recombining in a series of ever more complex patterns. The humming that filled the cavern increased in volume, and from the forge stepped a man.

  Yet only half a man. His limbs were twisted and hideously distorted, his neck bent as if broken. One leg was shorter than the other, one arm a tiny withered appendage, while the other ended in a massive knotted fist.

  The creature moaned in pain and lunged at Trandon, lifting its good arm against the paladin. Trandon's staff countered the blow, but he was driven back, and the forged creature followed after him, hacking furiously at his opponent with fist and feet.

  Kern's warhammer rose again, only to be turned aside, this time by Sharessa's blade. "No, paladin. A fair fight. Let them continue." She grinned impishly at him. "Unless you think you can go through me-in a fight or in a bed. You're welcome to try either."

  Noph had drawn a dagger at the first sign of trouble, but now he stood silently looking at the developing conflict, unable to choose a side. Ingrar stood near the bloodforge, his arms dangling. His voice rose in an urgent shout. "Stop this! Stop it at once! There's danger coming! Terrible danger!"

  The combatants ignored him. Trandon and the golem were hard at one another; the fighter tried to maneuver his opponent back toward the water, evidently hoping to push him in. Kern and Sharessa were still sparring with one another, only half-seriously but prepared to escalate the fight if need be.
/>   "In Tyr's name!" shouted Kern.

  "In Tyr's name," came a mocking echo from the blackness, but not in Kern's voice. There was the sound of running feet along the pillared way they'd come. Kern and Sharessa lowered their weapons and turned to face the noise. Trandon, with a vicious thrust of his iron-shod staff, laid low the forge golem and kicked its body into the underground lake. He joined Noph, who slowly backed up to put himself next to Sharessa.

  The glow of the forge showed a group of hooded figures, perhaps a dozen of them. They held swords in their hands, but their faces were in shadow. The foremost one, evidently the leader, stepped forward and addressed the company.

  "In the name of the temple of Tyr, I claim the bloodforge. Stand aside."

  "Now, wait just a minute…" began Sharessa.

  At her side, Kern suddenly lifted his warhammer. "There is no temple of Holy Tyr in this land," he said sternly. "You must be false worshipers to claim his name."

  The hooded figure hesitated, then spoke. "We are the true temple of Tyr. The bloodforge is ours by right, with the fall of the despicable Aetheric, who suppressed our temple. We claim it, and we shall take it by force if necessary."

  Kern's voice grew in power. "You are false worshipers," he repeated. "You are the Fallen Temple, whose foundations I have sworn to destroy. Begone, or suffer the consequences."

  The hooded figures circled slowly around the party, who stood with their backs to the bloodforge, save Artemis, who stared intently at the carvings on the altar. The leader of the cultists raised his blade, tinted red in the glow from the forge. "Let all perish who-"

  Artemis stepped forward. His outstretched hand, stained with blood, came down squarely on top of the forge. The keening of the bloodforge rose in pitch until it was almost deafening. Its light waxed brilliant, blinding, surrounding the figure of the assassin in a halo. In the sudden blaze of light, Noph could see beneath the cowls of the cultists. He could see their tattooed faces, their slavering mouths, their bloodshot eyes, desperate for a new sacrifice to their false god.