“Must be more,” answered Ivy. “A bugbear like this wouldn’t come down on its own.”
“Maybe they were countermining us,” said Mumchance.
“Countermining?” asked Sanval.
“Digging under where they think we are digging,” Ivy explained, “to collapse our tunnel. Except we did such a very good job of collapsing it ourselves and saved them the trouble. Mumchance, they are pretty far off the line if they were looking for our tunnel. And the bugbear doesn’t have any shovel or pick.”
“Maybe the others took the tools with them,” suggested the dwarf.
“And left the weapons and the torches?”
“No, my dears, they did not stop to take anything. When this one was killed, the others kept their distance,” said Kid, who was circling back and forth, peering at the tracks on the tiled floor. “They started forward, stamp, stamp, stamp, not running, just walking, but then they stopped very quick, shuffle, shuffle back and to the side. Two of the big ones tried to turn back again, but the other one, the one with man-sized feet, drove them away.”
Silence fell on the group, as they realized what Kid meant.
“They moved out of range and let whatever it was chew on the poor bastard. Or their officer ordered them not to attempt a rescue,” said Zuzzara, voicing all their thoughts. “Remind me not to fight for Fottergrim’s pay, if that’s the way that they treat their mercenaries.”
“A wise decision,” said Sanval with that little quirk of the lips that indicated he was amused.
“Especially since we’re fighting for Procampur,” emphasized Ivy with a quick kick at Zuzzara’s ankles. She missed her target; Zuzzara could move fast when she chose.
“Why are they here then, Ivy?” said Gunderal to cover up her sister’s mistake and Ivy’s embarrassment.
“A little quick treasure hunting?” guessed Mumchance.
“In the middle of a siege?” said Ivy. “Well, it can be boring sitting on the walls waiting for someone to attack.”
“Because of this,” said Mumchance, who had moved from the bugbear’s looted corpse. Before him gaped a black square. He swung the lantern forward to reveal an ancient city bath, with marvelous mosaic pictures covering the bottom of what was once a large pool.
With the use of Mumchance’s lantern, they could make out footprints trailing through the dry and dust-filled bath. Kid jumped in the pool and began tracking the tracks, his nose almost brushing the floor.
“Here a big two-foot knelt,” sang out Kid. “Here his four companions waited, jog, jog, jog from one foot to the other. They were impatient. Scared too, most certainly frightened. They kept turning to peer behind them. Why, my dears, why?”
“They heard a noise, or thought they heard one,” speculated Ivy. “They were expecting an attack. Then they came out of there and were attacked.”
“Five at the bottom of the pool?” asked Sanval.
“Oh, five, definitely five,” said Kid. “Five walked down here, and five went out. But only four ran away from this room.”
“Leaving one dead companion behind them,” said Ivy. “They were right to be nervous. Something was hunting around here.”
“Then why wait for someone to look at pictures in the bottom of a dried out pool?” asked Gunderal.
“There are armor scrapes against these tiles. From where the one with man-sized feet knelt,” said Kid, peering even closer. “Here’s a line a little ways back. Sword, scabbard maybe, brushed the dust behind him?”
“Officer then. They had to wait for him,” said Ivy, sitting down cross-legged on the edge of the bath. When Kid went tracking, he could grow a bit obsessed. From past experience, she had learned to make herself comfortable until he was done. Sanval remained standing, straight as always, shifting slightly from one foot to the other. Ivy reached up with her fist curled and rapped his armored knee. “Rest now and stand at attention later,” she said.
Sanval nodded and knelt on one knee beside her to watch Kid. Well, sometimes the man displayed sense, thought Ivy.
“Look at the picture, Ivy, that’s a wizard in the center of that picture,” said Gunderal. “Zuzzara, can you bring the light closer?”
Zuzzara nodded and jumped down into the bath. She swung her lit torch over the pattern that Gunderal had pointed out.
The dust had been carefully swept away from the center of the bath, displaying a series of mosaic pictures. The first picture showed a wizard, with runes woven in his azure cloak, standing before a tall tower with flames sprouting from it. More flames played along the walls behind the tower, and behind the walls a hint of rooftops, also engulfed in flames. Men and women ran along the tops of the walls, arms outstretched as if pleading with the wizard to save them. A great jewel, portrayed in tiny crystal tiles, glittered in the wizard’s hand.
A trail of more runes, picked out in silver and gold tiles, circled away from the picture and led to a second one. The burning tower was leaning forward, and men fell from its crenellated top to lie on the ground before the wizard. Black lines zigzagged away from the wizard’s feet and led to a final picture, which showed men carrying the supine wizard away on a bier, the gleaming gem resting on the center of his chest and portrayed as twice the size of any man’s head.
“And down go the walls of Tsurlagol,” said Ivy, waving a hand at the center picture. “Which siege do you suppose that was?”
“Long ago,” guessed Gunderal. “Look at the runes on his cloak.”
“Two or three generations before they built this bath, and the tile work is old to begin with,” guessed Mumchance. The dwarf dropped over the rim of the bath and stalked toward the picture to examine it more closely.
“What do you mean? Why two or three?” asked Sanval.
“Takes that long for humans to turn something horrible into art,” said Mumchance with all the authority of a dwarf who had already celebrated his three hundredth birthday. “Mighty big shock for the folk like me—leave a town with all the humans swearing that they will never forget this or that, come back in ninety years, and it’s all a fairy tale to those humans’ grandchildren. Or a decoration for their city bath. Why if half the heroes in the world were as tall as their statues …”
“They’d all be giants,” chorused Zuzzara and Gunderal. This was an old, old complaint of Mumchance, and they’d heard it almost as often as his tale of having to earn his first mining tools by shoveling away snow higher than his ears from the mountain entrances of his family’s diggings.
“And dwarves don’t do that?” asked Sanval, and Zuzzara and Gunderal groaned.
“You shouldn’t encourage him,” translated Ivy when Sanval glanced at the sisters. “Let’s hope this is one of his shorter lectures.”
“It takes dwarves longer to lie to themselves,” admitted Mumchance, ignoring Ivy’s comment. “And we don’t do pretty just for pretty’s sake. Well, not in pictures. Armor and jewelry—that’s metalwork and another story. Elves, now, they have the longest memories. When they make a picture like this, it’s to remind other folk, and they hate it when you question what’s real and what’s not. Everything is real to an elf.”
“Some of them just have a finer sense of humor about it than others,” added Ivy, who got along better with elves than the rest of the Siegebreakers. She appreciated their efforts to seek out her father in Ardeep when he disappeared during his last journey into the forest. It wasn’t the elves’ fault that he had not wanted to be found after her mother’s death. Ivy suspected that he was probably one of the murmuring oaks shading the path there. He had always talked about the simplicity of life as a tree—trees, after all, did not have hearts that could break, or even crack a little.
“So, is this a real event or not?” asked Zuzzara, who never could stand much philosophizing and disliked talk about elves because of some bad experiences with one of her stepmothers.
“Well, it’s not an elf-made picture, which makes it a bit tricky to tell,” started Mumchance.
“Somebod
y came down here in the dust and gloom, not to mention risking kobolds and whatever chewed that bugbear, and stopped to look at it,” said Ivy.
“Maybe we should discover who that person was,” suggested Sanval.
“Or maybe we should look for a way out that keeps us out of their path,” Ivy said loudly.
Nobody was listening to her. They were all carefully puzzling over the picture on the floor. There were times when kobolds were more sensible than her friends. At least kobolds concentrated on the basics like finding food and left mystical patterns written in the floor tiles alone.
“I don’t think that they were just looking at the pictures. I think they stopped to read the runes,” added Gunderal. “Look how the dust is cleaned away so carefully.”
“Can you read them?” asked Ivy, because it was obvious that nobody was going to do anything until they had solved this little mystery.
Gunderal shook her head. “Too old. Four hundred years or more, if I had to guess. And it’s only a guess.” She looked at Mumchance where he was bent over the runes, tracing the edges of each shape with a stubby finger.
“I’m old,” snorted the dwarf. “But I’m not that old. Runes change, meanings change. But these … These might be corruptions of old Netherese symbols.”
“That is not possible,” said Sanval.
“Even I know that empire was dust long before the first Tsurlagol was built,” added Ivy, just to stay in the conversation.
“The empire disappeared long before Tsurlagol was built,” agreed Mumchance. “But that doesn’t mean all their magic disappeared overnight. Dig deep enough and you run into strange things in the Vast—artifacts, toys, bits of spellbooks that those mad sorcerers left behind. They were human, after all—that meant they bred like rabbits and ran like deer when the disaster finally overtook them.”
“Mumchance,” said Ivy in gentle reproof. “Both Sanval and I would like to think our race has a few redeeming qualities.”
“Many and many,” said the dwarf. “You humans are usually nice to dogs and other small furry creatures. But the best of all is that you know when to run to survive. Dwarves can be too stubborn sometimes.” He fingered the old scars on his face and shook his head at memories of the mine fire that had destroyed his family. He shrugged and continued the discussion of Netheril, because ancient history was always more pleasant than his own memories. “When the shining cities fell, not everyone died. Some carried mighty magic into exile. There have always been rumors about a fantastic treasure buried beneath Tsurlagol. The story goes that the first time Tsurlagol fell into dust and ruin, it was because of a great magic that men could not control. That sounds like Netheril to me. Then later they started that mad fire that they had to bury under the earth. That was fairly recent history for a dwarf, not much before my grandfather’s father’s time. And they used some fancy artifact to bury the city, something like what would have come out of Netheril.”
“But is there information here that can help us?” said Ivy, glancing around the shadowed bath.
“The dwarf is right, my dears. These symbols are not well made, but they do bear great resemblance to those used by Netheril and its sorcerers,” said Kid, circling back to peer over Mumchance’s shoulder. He pursed his lips. “These are copies of copies, made by men who could only draw what they saw, but could not read.”
“And how do you know that, young thief?” asked Mumchance.
“Because I had a master once,” said Kid, very softly. Ivy, who had only paid mild attention to Mumchance’s lecture on ancient history, was caught by Kid’s depressed tone. He never spoke of his past, and this was the first time that she had heard him mention a master. “He was not a good man. But he was fond of old things, very old magic. Spellbooks with runes like these and worse.”
“Worse?” asked Ivy. Kid ignored her and trotted away, his nose down to examine the footprints in the dust.
“So when fire consumed the city, they used a magic jewel to bury it,” said Gunderal, still discussing the mosaic with Mumchance, pointing at the burning walls before the cloaked wizard.
“Just one wizard with a fancy gem? Doesn’t seem likely,” said Ivy.
Sanval wrinkled his brow. “I was never that fond of history lessons, but I always heard that it was an earthquake sent by the gods in answer to the people’s prayers.”
“I doubt it was the gods. That wizard must have caused the earthquake with a spell, maybe something stored in that jewel that he is holding, like we store Dry Boots in our ring,” said Gunderal, on her knees at the edge of the bath, still staring at the mosaic. “Why show a spellcaster with a gem if you don’t have a gem in the tale? It must have been a wonderful spell. I told you that I could still feel echoes of weird old magic in that hall.”
“Fascinating, all of it, but we are not here to go treasure hunting. In fact, if someone is looking for that magic rock, I would rather avoid them,” said Ivy. “Kid, which way did they go? Our party of five less one?”
“They came from the east, my dear,” said Kid, trotting to the edge of the bath and flipping himself easily to a handstand on the rim, giving a quick click of his hooves at the top of his handstand, and then somersaulting to a dark archway across the room. “And they left to the north, through that wide arch there.”
“Is he always like this?” asked Sanval.
“No,” said Ivy. “He’s tired, or he would have done a couple of extra cartwheels. We’ve thought about selling him to a faire once or twice.” But Kid’s actions disturbed her. In more recent years, Kid only did such extravagant show-off gestures when he was in one of his black moods.
“But we’ve never found a faire,” grunted Mumchance. “Come on, girl, give the short guy a hand up.” The last was said over his shoulder to Zuzzara, who grabbed his belt with one hand and easily lifted him over the edge. Zuzzara followed with a little hop. She wandered back over to where the bugbear lay, to pick up the extra torch left by the body.
“So we go east,” Ivy decided. “That group came from Tsurlagol. I’m sure of it.”
“If we go north, we will learn why they came here,” said Sanval in polite disagreement, obviously deciding that now was not the time to defer to her status as Captain of the Siegebreakers.
Ivy sighed. She knew being in charge without opposition would not last that long—it never did with her friends, and why should Sanval be any different—but she was willing to try. “Do we care why they are here? They’re deserters or treasure hunters or lost fools,” said Ivy.
“What if they are planning an ambush?” Sanval asked.
“Well, jolly good luck to the Thultyrl, then,” said Ivy, “but I’m not his bodyguard. I’m here to bring down a wall, and to do that we need to go east, not north.” Sanval still looked troubled. “That sounded a bit crude. Most assuredly, we wish the Thultyrl a long life and much happiness,” Ivy added.
“Until we get paid,” muttered Mumchance and winced when Ivy’s elbow connected with his ear.
Zuzzara gave a shout. She’d been poking around the bugbear’s body, muttering about the smell of moss getting stronger. Suddenly, the half-orc yelped with pain. She spun around, flailing at the air. “Something is here,” she screamed. “It bit me!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Zuzzara stumbled back toward them, one leg angled oddly out in the air, shouting that she could not shake her attacker off her leg. The only problem was that nobody could see anything.
Gunderal told Zuzzara to stop playing stupid jokes.
Zuzzara screamed, “Half-orcs never play practical jokes!”
She slammed her shovel down on the space near her leg. The shovel hit something with a sickening thud. The smell of rotting mushrooms filled the room. Zuzzara and her invisible attacker tumbled into the empty bath.
“Look at that!” said Mumchance, pointing at the dusty tiles of the bath.
The group could clearly see the signs of four big round feet being dragged after Zuzzara as the half-orc stumbled in circles an
d continued to beat down with her shovel. Each stroke of the shovel thwacked into something solid that stopped it at the level of Zuzzara’s knee. Each stroke also released more fungal stench into the air, so that even Kid was choking a little and covering his nose with one ruddy hand. But Zuzzara’s efforts seemed to have no effect on her attacker.
Ivy and Sanval leaped into the bath. Both swung their swords at the same time, cutting through the air near Zuzzara. Ivy felt her blade hit something solid and sticky. When she pulled back on the stroke, she could see a gelatinous shimmer drip down her blade.
Closer to Zuzzara, the stench was overpowering and reminiscent of the strange mossy smell that had clung to the dead bugbear’s corpse. Ivy gagged and staggered back. She concentrated on breathing through her mouth and sawing away at whatever was attacking Zuzzara.
Kid’s two stilettos went whistling past Ivy, and thankfully missed Zuzzara. One struck and seemed to stick in whatever was attached to the half-orc’s leg. The little stiletto bobbing in the air gave them another reference point for their attacks.
Beside Ivy, Sanval swallowed grimly against the stink and slashed at the invisible creature. Like Ivy, he had trouble with his sword sticking in whatever he struck. His blade was almost wrenched out of his hand, and he overbalanced, dragged to one knee as he wrested the sword free. Sanval rolled to one side to avoid Ivy’s next awkward stroke and jumped straight into the air. As he launched himself forward, he brought his blade point down with a two-handed stroke into the space nearest to Zuzzara’s ankle, trying to skewer whatever was attacking her. He missed. The sword buried itself into the mosaic floor with a sickening thud. Even Mumchance winced as the big fighter’s shoulders and arms took the shock of the misdirected stroke. Sanval simply grimaced, pulled his sword free, and immediately swung around to assault the invisible foe again.
Zuzzara’s attacker dragged her in a circle. She was pivoting on her right leg with her left leg almost straight out in the air. Ivy danced around her, trying to figure out from the angle of Zuzzara’s leg where her attacker was. She slashed down just as Zuzzara pivoted farther right. Ivy stopped the stroke in midair, nearly knocking herself off balance, but she managed to avoid slicing into Zuzzara’s knee.
Crypt of the Moaning Diamond Page 9
