“It’s a lot better than being caught by the dark knights,” Tas observed, tying a handkerchief (one of Palin’s) around his nose and mouth. “And I think there’s three knights coming this way.”
Palin turned in alarm. Several figures—moonlight gleaming off black armor—were visible at the end of the alley. He hastily doused the light of the staff. Usha, another bar rag tied over her mouth, had already entered the sewer opening, was climbing down an iron-runged ladder. Tas followed. Palin adjusted the rag around his nose and mouth. Taking a deep breath, trying to hold it, he crouched at the edge of the opening.
His fingers wrapped around the Staff of Magius. He whispered words of magic, and the next moment he was floating through the darkness. His feet touched the bottom of the sewer at about the same time Usha dropped off the end of the ladder.
Palin caught her, steadied her to keep her from falling into the muck. She looked at him in astonishment. “How did—”
“Magic,” he said.
Tas clattered and rattled down the iron stairs.
“I don’t think the knights will come into the alley, but if they do, they’ll find the grate off the sewer. They’ll know someone’s down here,” Tas reported.
“We have to get away from here,” said Usha. “This way.”
Holding Palin’s hand, she drew him onward into the darkness. Tas, hitting bottom, adjusted his pouches and hurried after them.
“Shirak,” said Palin and stared around in amazement.
No one quite knew how the labyrinthine sewer system of Palanthas had come into existence. Some said that the sewers had been designed by the original builders of Old City and were constructed along with the city itself. But other stories persisted, claiming that the sewer system had been here longer than Palanthas, that it had been constructed as a city itself, built by a nation of dwarves long since forgotten. Some versions of the tale had it that the dwarves were routed from their underground tunnels by humans, who—recognizing the enormous potential of the location—planned to develop the city on top of them.
Certainly, as Palin noted to his astonishment, the sewer system resembled a small city far below ground. The walls were made of stone and were shored up with stone archways. The floor was smooth-paved, ran straight and level. There were even old iron sconces on the wall, which—by the charring on the stone around them—had once held torches.
The ceilings were low; only Tas could walk upright. Palin and Usha were forced to bend almost double. The footing was uncertain, the pavement beneath their feet wet and slimy and occasionally littered with piles of rotting garbage. Rats skittered away at their approach. The three walked carefully; none of them wanted to slip and fall. The light of the staff guided them; the crystal seeming to gleam more brightly the darker its surroundings.
The tunnel into which they’d descended ran directly underneath the alley. They might be walking beneath the very feet of the knights. As long as Palin kept moving in a straight line, he had some idea where he was in relation to the city above. But then the tunnel made a series of serpentine turns and opened into an intersection of three other tunnels, all branching off into different directions. He had no idea which to take.
“This is hopeless!” Palin said. His back hurt from walking bent over, and the smell and the knowledge of what was causing it was making him nauseous. He had never considered the air of Palanthas all that fresh, but now he would have given anything for a breath of it. “How can we tell where we are?”
“Did you hear something?” Tas asked, peering behind them. “I thought I heard something.”
“Gully dwarves,” Usha said, her voice muffled by the bar rag. “Shine the light over there,” she instructed Palin, pointing at the upper wall of one of the bisecting tunnels.
Markings—two different types—decorated the wall. One set of marks was obviously incredibly old. The letters had been made out of multicolored tiles, forming a mosaic. Many of the tiles were now missing, leaving gaping holes in the pattern; others were covered with mold and mildew. The characters looked to be of dwarven make.
Beneath the ancient mosaics were more recent markings. These were nothing more than pictures, crudely scrawled on the walls with some sharp instrument, perhaps a knife blade. They looked like a child’s drawings of blocks and circles, with arrows underneath.
Usha studied these intently.
“I still say I heard something,” Tas insisted. “Footsteps … and maybe voices.”
“Mice. This way,” Usha said, and turned to the central tunnel that branched off slightly to the left.
“How can you tell?” Palin asked, hesitating. He, too, thought he had heard something. He peered over his shoulder, into the noisome darkness.
“That mark.” Usha put her finger on one of the drawings on the wall. “That’s the Great Library.”
Palin turned back, stared. All he saw was a triangle with a series of lines drawn beneath it. He shook his head.
“That’s the roof,” Usha said, indicating the triangle, “and these lines are the columns. What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?”
She snatched her hand from his. Palin attempted to recapture the hand, but Usha was now keeping it to herself.
“Of course I trust you. It’s just … so strange,” he admitted. “Who or what made these pictures?”
Usha refused to answer.
“Thieves, I’ll bet!” said Tas excitedly, studying the scrawls. “They put these drawings here so they can find their way around. Look, that’s the lord’s house—with its five gables. And that big, tall rectangle with the little triangle on top—I’ll bet that’s the Tower of High Sorcery. And the round dome with the five pointy things—the Temple of Paladine. This is fun! And the arrows show which way to go. Are there more, Usha?”
“You’ll find them at every intersection. Are you coming?” she added, with a haughty glance at Palin. “You were the one in such a hurry.”
“I’ll lead!” Tas announced. “Maybe I’ll find some more pictures.”
He forged ahead. Usha, after readjusting the rag over her mouth, started to follow him.
Palin caught hold of her, refused to let go.
Usha stirred against him, then tilted her head back, looked up at him earnestly, as if again about to tell him something, yet unwilling, uncertain.
“Usha,” Palin said, “what is it?”
Her eyes, above the bar rag, glimmered. She pulled down the handkerchief. “Palin, I—”
“Where are you two?” Tasslehoff sang out, his voice echoing eerily in the tunnel. “I—” The echo suddenly changed, became a screech. “Run, Palin! Run—Ulp!”
And then the echo was silent.
8
A frightening encounter.
The rescue. Usha’s friends.
as?” Palin called out.
He heard what sounded like a scuffle, a man’s deep voice cursing. Palin started forward.
Something darker than the darkness sprang out at him, grabbed him around the throat.
“Stop his mouth! He’s a mage,” came a gruff voice, and a callused hand clapped over Palin’s mouth.
He managed to keep firm hold on the staff in his struggle, and its light went out. But the men who had accosted him apparently carried some type of light. A shaft of yellow stabbed forth into the darkness, only to be immediately doused, by command of the gruff voice.
“Quit this! All of you!” called out Usha. “Jack Nine-fingers, don’t you know me?”
A sound of scraping iron and the light of a stubby candle glowed. The yellow light flared once again, struck Usha full in the face. Her arms were pinioned to her sides; a shadowy figure had hold of her.
“By Hiddukel, it’s Dougan’s girl,” the gruff voice growled. “Let her go. What have you got there, Allen Scar?”
“A kender,” replied the man grimly. “He knifed me,” he added, aggrieved, showing off a hand that was cut and bleeding.
The light illuminated a large man, his face disfigured by a
long scar. He carried a wriggling, kicking Tasslehoff under one huge arm. The man had stuffed a handkerchief in Tas’s mouth, but the gag wasn’t stopping the kender from commenting freely, if somewhat incoherently, on his captor’s features, parentage, and body odor.
Chuckles came from out of the darkness, echoing up and down the tunnels.
“Kender! Pah! What next?” Jack Nine-fingers spit into the muck. “I can’t stand the little thieves.”
“He’s a friend of mine,” Usha protested. “So is the mage. You let me loose, Sally Dale!”
Usha twisted deftly out of the hands of her captor—a middle-aged woman clad in a short red tunic worn over leather pants. The woman looked to Jack Nine-fingers for orders.
He nodded and waved, and the woman backed off.
“Let my friends go, too,” Usha urged.
Jack eyed Palin warily. “Release the scroll-speaker. But take his staff and his pouches. And, you, Mage, keep your hands in plain sight and your mouth shut. Sally Dale, listen to him. If he so much as squeals a word of magic, web him.”
The woman nodded silently and kept her eyes on Palin. A white-bearded dwarf held the lantern—a kind known as a “dark” lantern, for it had an iron panel that, when closed, permitted no light to escape. He flashed the light straight into Palin’s eyes, half-blinding him.
“What are you doing down here, Girl?” Jack Nine-fingers demanded, frowning. He was a short man of slender build, nimble and lithe, clad all in black leather. The absence of his ring finger on his left hand gave him his name. He had long black hair, a black beard. His skin was dark, swarthy. “You’ve no thieving business on tonight, at least none that you’ve cleared with the guild.” He said the last in an ominous tone. “You’re not thinking of going independent, are you, Girl?”
“I’m not on ‘business,’ Jack Nine-fingers,” Usha answered him with a blushing sidelong glance at Palin. “My friend the mage must reach the Great Library by midnight. As you can see, he’s a White Robe. He carries no papers.”
“Don’t say any more, Usha,” Palin cautioned. “They’ll probably turn us over to the dark knights, especially if they get paid for their trouble!”
“No, they won’t, Sir Mage,” came a voice from the darkness.
The speaker stepped into the light. She was young, her face partially hidden by a shawl she had draped over her head. She wore the black dress of a widow and carried a baby in her arms.
“They will not give you up to the knights,” she said softly. “They have rescued us from them, my child and me. My husband was a Knight of Solamnia. He died in the High Clerist’s tower.”
The child in her arms slept fitfully. She hugged the baby close. “The dark knights came to my door yesterday and told me to be ready to leave this day, that they would accompany me to a ‘place of relocation.’ I was frightened. I’ve heard rumors of such places. I had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. And then he came in the night”—she nodded her head toward Nine-fingers—“and offered to take me someplace where we would be safe. I care nothing for myself anymore,” the young woman added, her tears dripping onto the baby’s gown. “My life ended with my husband’s death. But my child …”
She hid her face in the baby’s blanket. Sally Dale put her arms around the young woman, comforted the mother as the mother comforted her child. Tasslehoff had ceased his incoherent imprecations, was now sniffing, as was the large man holding on to the kender.
Palin turned to Nine-fingers. “Is that true? Are you taking her somewhere where she will be safe?”
“It’s no concern of yours what we’re doing,” Jack growled. His face split into a grin. “Let’s say this—it will be a fine joke when those black-armored devils show up at the lady’s door this day and find the bird flown.”
“Perhaps I’ve misjudged you,” Palin said stiffly. “If so, I’m sorry.”
Nine-fingers laughed, leaned near him. “Don’t think too well of us, now, Mage. If I was to meet you in an alley in the dark, you with a fat purse hanging from your belt, I’d just as soon slit your throat for your money, as not. What we do we do for love of no man. We do it to thwart those black-plated bastards who have ruined our livelihood, what with their patrols and their curfews. We plan to do everything we can to make their lives miserable, so long as they are in our city. Those who survive.”
Nine-fingers winked, leered, and drew his finger across his throat. Then, eyeing the three, he scowled. “As it is, I’m wondering whether or not it would be well to make certain you spread no word of our ways. It was wrong of the girl to bring you down here, show you our secrets.”
“Whatever you do, you best be doing it, Jack,” said Sally Dale crisply. “The boat that’s to carry my lady here will be wanting to sail with the tide. If you’re going to silence this lot, do it quick and we’ll be gone.”
“Let us go our way in peace, Jack,” Usha begged. “I can answer for my friends. They won’t say a word.”
“My brothers were Solamnic Knights,” Palin added. “I swear on their graves that I would do nothing to endanger this lady.”
Jack continued to eye Palin. “A White Robe. Well, he’ll keep his word. They’ve a weakness in that area. Be gone with you then. Mind you follow the symbols, Girl. Those who get lost down here end up as rat fodder.”
He waved his hand. The large man with the scar dropped Tasslehoff face first into the muck. The dwarf with the lantern led the way. Sally Dale drew the woman and the child into the darkness. The others trooped after her and, within several heartbeats, the thieves were gone as swiftly and silently as they had appeared.
Palin remained standing in the darkness, to calm his fast-beating heart, regain his composure. He was very confused; his view of a neat, well-balanced world had been turned inside out. He recalled his father saying that some people applauded the dark knights for bringing law and order to a troubled land. And he remembered—as if in a dream—the god Paladine saying bitterly, “the peace of the prison house.”
“It’s safe to have light again,” Usha said softly.
“Shirak,” he said, and the staff’s light gleamed. He looked at Usha, troubled. “You seem to know these people well. And they know you.”
Usha’s face was pale, her lips set tightly. “Yes, I do know them. They were helpful to me. I’ve already explained this to you. Am I on trial?”
Palin sighed. Once more, it seemed, he was the one at fault. He decided to change the subject. “You started to tell me something earlier. What was it?”
Usha refused to look at him. “It wasn’t important.” Turning away from him, she bent down to help pick up Tas.
“Are you all right?” she asked solicitously.
The kender, coughing and spitting, stood up, wiped muck from his face.
“Did you hear what that man called me, Usha? “Little thief!” Tas was spluttering with indignation. “How dare he? And he took my knife. Only it wasn’t my knife, it was your knife, I noticed, Palin. And now that thief is missing his knife, too. I’ve got it right here. Funny, he must have dropped it …”
9
The great library.
Bertrem is shocked.
Astinus of palanthas.
e’re here,” Usha reported in a soft voice. She stood beside a ladder leading upward. The light of the staff illuminated a grate above their heads.
“Where does this come out?” Palin asked.
“Right in the middle of the street, unfortunately, directly across from the library,” Usha said. “Needless to say, this exit isn’t used a lot.” Her voice cool, she spoke to Palin as she might have talked to a stranger.
“I’ll go look,” Tasslehoff offered. He climbed nimbly up the ladder, shoved on the grate, and lifted it a crack. Peering out, he dropped the grate with a clunk loud enough to be heard in Northern Ergoth.
“Patrol!” he warned, tumbling down the ladder.
“Dulak!” Palin stifled the staff’s light.
The sound of booted feet rang above them, one knight step
ping right on the grate. At that dread sound, Usha moved near Palin. Her hand found his, and their fingers twined tightly together.
The knights marched past, and everyone let out a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry,” she began. Both stopped talking, smiled.
“I’ll go back up.” Tas was prepared to climb when Palin stopped him.
Standing beneath the ladder, he stared up at the metal grate that covered the sewer entrance. This grate was not hidden like the one in the alley. This grate was in a well-traveled street in the center of town. The grate would have to be replaced, or the knights might get suspicious and start searching the sewers. They wouldn’t find Palin, but they might find Jack Nine-fingers and the woman he was helping to safety.
“We have to hurry!” Usha reminded him. She was standing very near him, pressing against him in the darkness. “The patrols make their rounds every quarter of the hour.”
“I’m trying,” Palin said, finding it difficult to think rationally with her so near, the touch of her hand on his. The words to the spell he needed flitted in and right back out of his mind. “This isn’t working. Stand over here.”
Taking Usha by the shoulders, he positioned her directly beneath the ladder. “Tas, you stay near Usha. When I call, you start climbing.”
“What are you going to do?” Tas asked excitedly. “You’re going to work magic! Can I come with you and watch?”
“You stay here,” Palin repeated, having enough distractions.
Fumbling with the staff, he climbed awkwardly up the ladder. He lifted the grate a fraction, peeped out.
Solinari was high in the sky; its silver light made all objects stand out in sharp relief against a black background. The street was empty.
Removing a leather bracelet he wore around his right wrist, he brought the words of the spell to mind. He needed to enunciate each word properly while performing the correct hand motion, using the spell component in the prescribed manner. He could hear Usha and Tas whispering below him, tried to block their voices out.
Dragons of Summer Flame Page 51
