Black Wizards (13 page)

Dim rays of sunlight filtered down the long shaft, which opened into the ceiling of the chamber. The ceiling was a dome made of rough-hewn stone all the way to the water, where it surrounded the prisoners.

For the twentieth time, Daryth took a breath and dove. The prince watched his companion’s feet drive him down, and Tristan floated anxiously, counting the seconds. Surely no man could hold his breath for that long.

But the Calishite eventually returned to the surface with an explosive splash, floating on his back for a moment as he recovered his breath. A feeble shake of his head answered Tristan’s question.

“Nothing,” he finally gasped. “It’s solid rock all the way around and deeper than I can dive.”

“Save your strength,” said the prince, acutely aware of the ebbing of his own endurance. The great dog, Canthus, swam in circles, and Tristan knew that the moorhound could not remain afloat for long.

“Get over to the side,” suggested Daryth, propelling himself to the stone wall with easy strokes. “If you can find something to hold onto, you won’t get quite so tired.”

Numbly, Tristan did as he was told, finding a few rough niches in the rock wall that were sufficient to give him fingertip holds. At least he could keep his head out of the water without exerting himself.

“We can’t die here!” Daryth suddenly swore.

“We won’t,” said Tristan. Suddenly, his foot slipped into a hole in the wall, and he felt a tug of current clamp around it. Forcefully, he pushed himself away, breaking free to gasp several lungfuls of air.

“There’s a hole in the wall,” he finally managed to choke out. “I felt a current pulling my foot in.”

The Calishite shot past Tristan, swimming like a seal, and instantly dove to investigate the spot. He remained submerged for a full minute before slipping to the surface.

“It’s an outlet!” he said, grinning weakly. “I’ve widened it some. In a few more minutes we’ll have a way out.”

Daryth rested against the wall for a moment, while Canthus swam between them, seeming to sense their hope.

“Where does the outlet go?” Tristan asked. “It could be way under the surface.”

“No. The water flows from this room into that area, so the water level in there must be lower than it is in here.”

“What if it’s a water-filled pipe?” challenged Tristan.

“Then we’ll all drown, and no one will ever know what happened to us,” said the Calishite simply.

Daryth dove once again, and this time Tristan counted the seconds, stopping only after he reached one hundred. Still his companion didn’t surface. The prince moved closer, certain that the Calishite was in serious trouble.

Finally, Daryth splashed to the surface, drawing in large gulps of air. “It’s ready,” he said. “I couldn’t see any light on the far side, but I could hear splashing. That probably means there’s an airspace. Should we try it?”

“Naturally,” Tristan said. “I’ll go first.”

“Good,” said the Calishite. “I’ll send Canthus through after you. Try to keep track of him if you can.”

“See you on the other side,” said the prince. Wishing he had spent more time learning to swim, he dove toward the hole, surprised at how large it had grown. The water-saturated stone must have been
considerably eroded, for Daryth had kicked a large amount of it away.

The current swept Tristan through, and only his hands, held out before him, deflected his head from a solid stone wall. The current swept him down through a narrow bottleneck and into a chute that was full of foaming water.

He slid downward, but the sides of the chute were gentle, and he quickly scrambled out of the water, coming to a stop upon a sloping slab of rock. The water rushed by a few feet down the slope. The prince barely had time to notice the dim illumination in this tunnel—it seemed to come from above him—before he saw Canthus bobbing madly.

“Here, dog!” he cried, slipping into the water to seize the panicked moorhound by his broad neck. Twisting desperately against the force of the current, he wrestled the dog onto shore a dozen feet farther down the chute from his original stopping place.

Daryth soon burst from the tight underground passage and crawled nimbly from the water to sit beside them. Somehow he had managed to carry the trident with him through the twisting tunnel.

“Not bad,” he remarked. “Now where to from here?”

“Up,” said the prince. He pointed to the shaft he had examined in the last few minutes. It was the source of the light that seeped into the tunnel, and sloped upward at a relatively shallow angle. “I’ll bet that leads to the keep.”

“Indeed,” nodded the Calishite. “And the water from our trap is not the whole source of this stream. See how the water flows from farther into the castle?” Daryth gestured beyond the passageway they had emerged from, and Tristan saw the underground stream merging far into the subterranean darkness.

“Hsst!” Daryth whispered, quickly gesturing up the slope of the chute.

They stared downstream, and gradually Tristan saw movement against the water. A column of creatures was slowly moving upstream. The band drew closer, and Tristan recognized the sahuagin. They moved menacingly upstream in the shallow chute, arcing through the water like salmon returning to the spawning pools.

Several of the sea creatures stood before the rest, keenly peering
about the tunnel while the others swam past. Then another group would take up the guard, farther upstream, while the last dove into the water and splashed ahead.

The creatures—Tristan counted at least two dozen—slid past them about forty feet away. The light from the tunnel was at its most intense against the water nearest them, so they hoped that the sahuagin lookouts would be blinded to their presence in the shadows.

One of the leering fish-men took up the watch at the very foot of the slope where they hid. Its bulbous eyes seemed to see into every niche and cranny as it slowly pivoted its broad head. Its gaze passed the trio and then swung back. For a long moment, they peered into the darkness around them. Then the eyes passed to the front of the column, and the sahuagin leaped in with its fellows. Soon the band of monsters had moved out of sight.

“Let’s go,” the prince finally whispered, and they crawled from their hiding hole. Crouching, they moved along the slope toward the mouth of the shaft leading upward.

“I’ll go first,” whispered Tristan. Daryth was by far the better climber, and the Calishite, at the rear, would have a better chance of catching the prince or the hound if either should slip.

Tristan leaned forward into the shaft, which was about four feet in diameter and seemed to climb at an angle halfway between horizontal and vertical. The rock inside was slick but rough, and he was able to pull himself along using awkward handholds. Bracing his knees, he forced his torso upward and found higher handholds.

He neared the top after several minutes, his knees bruised and his fingernails cracked. Suddenly, his hand slipped from a wet knob of rock, and he started to slide back down the pipe. He arched his back instinctively and wedged himself to a stop with his back against the top of the shaft and his hands and knees against the bottom. The rough rocks slashed his skin, and salt stung his wounds, but he did not lose much of his hard-earned height. Pausing a moment to regain his breath, he inched his way upward again and finally crawled out the top of the shaft.

Tristan lay perfectly still upon the floor of a corridor. Solid iron doors lined one wall, and the surfaces of the walls were rough-hewn. The corridor was well-lighted, for high above him were several narrow
windows.

In another minute Canthus lunged from the shaft, closely followed by Daryth. They all rested briefly, while the two men looked for possible avenues of escape.

“That way?” suggested the Calishite, looking to the right.

“It seems to go up,” agreed Tristan.

They got to their feet and slowly moved up the corridor. The iron doors stood in the left wall, spaced about thirty feet apart. No sound came from any of the rooms. Draped in seaweed, the first door was pocked with rust.

“Let me test that,” suggested the prince. He stepped forward and selected a pair of bars that seemed the most corroded. Gripping one in each hand, he flexed the muscles of his broad shoulders, clenching his teeth with the effort. Slowly, the two bars spread apart until one of them broke off at its base. The resulting opening was just wide enough for them to squeeze through.

“Nice work,” Daryth whispered. With his trident extended before him, he stepped over to the door to the outside and looked through one of the cracks. He blinked in pain as the bright light assaulted his eyes, but soon he could make out enough detail to see where they were.

“That’s the courtyard,” he said softly. “We’re not far from the doors we were trying to open when we fell into the trap. That door”—he pointed to the other exit from the guardroom, “seems to lead into the rest of the keep.”

The Calishite led the way again, this time with Canthus at his side, and they squeezed through the narrow entrance without pushing the door farther open. “It’ll squeak for sure,” he explained.

They entered a chamber that was illuminated by sunlight streaming in through narrow windows set high in the wall. Tall columns lined the vast room, supporting heavy wooden beams that seemed, somehow, to have escaped the corrosive effects of their long submergence. A wide hallway opened into the far side of the room, leading into the depths of the castle, while a smaller opening branched to the left.

“This must have been a grand ballroom or receiving hall,” said Tristan, unconsciously whispering. Never in his life had he seen such an awesome sight.

“Should we check on Pontswain?” asked Daryth, suddenly remembering their unconscious companion.

Tristan shrugged. “He’s as safe as we are.”

Suddenly, the floor rumbled slightly beneath them, and the prince’s heart leaped. Was the castle about to sink? But the rumbling ceased, and the castle did not seem to be moving.

“We’ve got to get out of here soon!” said Tristan.

“I haven’t seen anything we could use as a boat—or even a raft,” said Daryth.

“There’s a lot more to this castle, it seems. Maybe we can find something in here.”

Tristan started across the vast hall, peering around the heavy columns that lined two of the walls. Canthus accompanied him while Daryth checked the other side, toward the wide hallway. The prince approached the narrow corridor to the left.

“There’s a stairway over here,” called Daryth—his loud whisper carrying easily through the hall. “See anything?”

“Not yet.” Tristan paused before the narrow corridor. He could hardly keep himself from entering it immediately. He was vaguely aware of Daryth, investigating the stairway.

And then Tristan was in the hallway, walking away from the great hall. He had not consciously decided to do so, yet he knew that he was going the right direction. Daryth was suddenly forgotten as he picked up his pace, hurrying toward his unknown but beckoning destination.

He stepped under a narrow stone arch and walked down another short corridor. Canthus followed, silently vigilant. Before him stood a similar arch, and beyond that was a well-illuminated room. The light seemed softer than the sunlight that streamed into the windows of the castle, however.

Intrigued, Tristan passed under the second arch to find himself in a round room. Its ceiling was a dome inlaid with gold, and its walls bore carvings of startling complexity depicting woodland scenes and pastoral farmlands. The detailed etchings had remained clean and sharp, even after centuries underwater.

But the dominant feature of the room was in its center, where a long glass case rested upon a solid, almost altarlike base. Cool white light emerged from the top of the case. Its sides were masked by plush
purple curtains that hung inside the glass.

Tristan moved forward, all danger forgotten. Stumbling slightly at the nearly hypnotic sight, he reached the side of the case and looked in …

 … and almost cried out in sadness.

The case itself seemed to glow with a soft, unearthly radiance. Tristan saw a young, frail woman. Her delicate face was impossibly beautiful, and long golden tresses spread from her head, cushioning her. She was dressed in a plain gown, embroidered very faintly with gold thread.

Her skin was so light as to be translucent. Her eyes were closed, and she lay perfectly still, as she must have lain for centuries. So beautiful, thought Tristan, and so long dead.

Then she moved.

Daryth sprang up a long flight of stairs. A feeling of urgency gripped him, but nowhere did he see anything that would serve them as a raft. He knew Tristan still searched the great hall, but he didn’t dare risk calling to his friend.

The stairs ended in a long balcony, with hallways running into the distance to either side. He saw several open doorways that led to the balcony, and he looked quickly into each room as he jogged toward the right-hand hallway. This upper floor was well illuminated by narrow windows, though the interiors of the rooms were rather dark.

Still, he saw nothing but wreckage in each chamber. The doors had apparently long since rotted away, and likewise any furniture that they had contained was now nothing but damp rot.