Black Wizards (44 page)

“I sure wish you could talk!” exclaimed Newt. “This is boring. How much farther do we have to fly, anyway? Are you sure you know where we’re going? I’m getting tired!”

In truth, Robyn too wished that she could talk—if only for the purpose of telling Newt to shut up.

She, too, was growing very tired. The gray waters of the Strait of Alaron rolled beneath her. It had been below them for many hours—exactly how long, she did not know. The steady tailwind had helped them, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep flying.

“There! I see something!” Newt shrieked, suddenly. “Is that it? It has to be it! Oh, please be it!”

Her eyes—the eyes of an eagle—saw it too. Now it was merely a brown smudge in the northeast, lying at the very limits of her vision. Yet the smudge grew more distinct—she saw regions of forest, and hills, and fields. Soon they would be over it.

Alaron.

Green water pressed heavily against the seabottom. Giant things lay here. The splintered hulls of doomed ships littered the sandy seabed, like skeletons of impossibly huge creatures. Other, living things lay upon the bottom, or burrowed into its sand—squids, blue whales, and darker creatures that never ventured into waters tainted by sun
.

A sound came softly into these black waters. It originated in Kressilacc as a slow, pulsating vibration—a deep thrumming that fell far below human hearing, but could be felt though the sea as a heavy command. Sharks and barracuda darted nervously away from the sound. Whales and porpoises clung to the surface, desperately splashing toward shallow water
.

For the Deepsong had begun
.

Sythissall began the song, seated in his vast throne made from the hull of a Northman longship. His wide gills, two-foot-long gashes in the side of his blunt head, flexed rhythmically in and out. His concubines and priestesses took up the call, and soon all of the sahuagin of the city sat or floated, motionless except for the flexing of their gills
.

The pulsations traveled through the water, along the bottom of the canyon and across its rim, traveling through the darkest, deepest reaches of the sea with growing intensity
.

From these enshrouded regions, and from everywhere under the sea, the sahuagin answered the call. The message thrummed deeply through the earth itself, summoning the claws of the deep
.

Their powerfully muscled legs and wide, webbed feet propelled the sahuagin toward Kressilacc as fast as any fish. Tridents and spears thrust before them, hooked nets trailing
from their silver belts, the warriors hastened to answer their king’s command
.

Each sahuagin was affected by the ancient cadence. Their white, flat eyes grew wider, and the bristling spines on the males stood tall and menacing. Slowly, the sahuagin drove themselves into a frenzy. Sythissall and Ysalla were pleased
.

And Bhaal was pleased
.

he mob of dark dwarves howled toward them. Tristan looked into the chasm at his feet—it was easily a thousand feet deep and several hundred across. The ledge they stood upon ended abruptly to either side of them. It was about ten feet wide, and twenty long. The whole area was outlined in the milky green glow of the ubiquitous fungi.

“Damn!” he cursed, turning to look up the tunnel. Daryth stood watchfully in the mouth, which was only eight feet wide. It seemed as good a place as any to meet the onrushing horde. Even if each of them killed a score of the enemy, though, Tristan knew they would still be overwhelmed.

“Hold them for a minute, if you can,” said Alexei, unrolling one of his scrolls. He seemed remarkably unconcerned by their situation.

“We’ll do that,” said the prince wryly. “I don’t suppose you have a spell in there that can build us a bridge?”

“I might have something better,” said the mage.

Before Tristan could ask what he meant, the first dwarves came into sight, racing down the cave. Their eyes glared wildly, and their shrill battle cries echoed through the chamber maddeningly. The prince stepped to Daryth’s side, and they brandished their blades. Apparently remembering the deaths of their comrades back in the fungi garden, the dark dwarves slowed the pace of their advance, allowing their numbers to swell until the entire cavern mouth teemed with them.

Several of the larger ones pushed their way to the front of the mob. Flourishing their broad axes, these few advanced cautiously toward the pair. Because of the narrow confines, only three dwarves could attack at once.

“Dwithus Soarax, Alti!”

Tristan heard the chant behind him. He even saw, out of the corner of his eye, the telltale blue flicker that showed Alexei was reading a spell from the scroll.

The three dwarves paused. But nothing happened.

“Dwithus Soarax, Alti!”

Again came the chant, the blue flicker. And again, Tristan could see no noticeable effect. Daryth whirled lightly backward, suddenly leaving Tristan to hold the tunnel alone. The dwarves raised their axes and charged.

“Dwithus Soarax, Alti!”

Once again came the casting. Tristan swung the Sword of Cymrych Hugh, temporarily halting the rush of the attackers. The force of his swing took him through a complete circle, and suddenly he was hanging in the air, struggling to regain his footing.

He felt a jerk upon his collar, and he was pulled up and away from the dwarves. He almost dropped his sword in astonishment.

Now he looked down and saw the white water, foaming in the canyon below. The ledge fell away, thirty or forty feet below him, and the dwarves rushed out of the tunnel, their cries of rage amplified a hundredfold. Slowly, Tristan realized what had happened.

He was flying!

He twisted awkwardly to look behind him, and the ceiling seemed to tumble toward his feet. He found himself diving into the canyon, but he lifted his head and swooped upward, narrowly missing the jagged face of the gorge. His flight took him past the dark dwarves, and he twisted and turned as several axes flew at him. In another second he was out of range, and he turned to watch the missiles tumble slowly into the depths of the canyon.

The prince tried to stop, and he rolled through several complete spins before he regained control of his movements. Daryth and Alexei were slightly above and ahead of him. The Calishite moved with the same tentativeness that characterized the prince’s flight. Alexei, on
the other hand, glided with certainty in a circle above them.

Tristan looked up, holding his hands to either side to help him keep his balance. He rose slowly. By moving his hands, he found that he could alter the direction of his flight. He drifted easily to the side and carefully rose to hover beside the mage and the Calishite.

“The flying spell!” said Alexei. “A wonderful escape mechanism. There happened to be several of them on one scroll. I used them all to get us up here—one for each of us.” He did not mention that, had there been less than three spells, he would have left his rescuers behind.

The three of them turned away from the frenzied and frustrated dwarves.

The din the dwarves raised faded against the thundering of the rapids as the distance between the pursuers and their quarry increased. In a minute, the men hovered over the entrance to the cavern on the far side.

“I like this,” Daryth exclaimed, pulling to a sudden stop beside his companions. Like Tristan, he was quickly learning how to control his movements.

“The spell will last for a limited time,” explained the mage, as they hung effortlessly in the air. “So I suggest we make as much progress as we can.”

“It beats walking,” agreed Tristan.

Alexei dove further into the cavern, followed by the prince and the Calishite. They soared easily over the rough ground. The cave ceiling was high enough that even Tristan and Daryth, who could not completely control their flights, could sail quickly through the cavern without endangering themselves.

They raced through a mazelike network of caves and caverns. Splashing rivulets of clear water ran through many of the caves, while others were filled with pillars of moist stone that stuck up like teeth from the floor or hung like poised daggers from the ceilings. In some places, the teeth and the daggers had joined to form thick columns, more ornate than anything built by man or magic.

The luminescent fungi were common, so that much of the path was illuminated enough to allow them to travel safely. In those caverns where darkness reigned, Alexei simply pulled the glowing piece of wood from beneath his robe, and they carried their own light with
them. In those instances, however, they had to slow somewhat—at full flying speed, they did not have time to avoid obstacles as they fell within the circle of light.

Tristan began to thoroughly enjoy the sensation of flight. He felt a freedom of movement he had never known before.

Sure enough, Alexei soon pulled up to hover before them. “We don’t have much more time. The spell will only last for a few more minutes—I’d like to find the passage up before we’re grounded!”

“Maybe we should land now to be safe,” suggested Tristan.

But Alexei suddenly cried out in glee. “There—that’s what I was looking for!”

He dove through a narrow portion of cave, brandishing his light before him. Tristan and Daryth followed, pausing at the base of a long shaft. They might have been in the bottom of a gigantic well.

“Hurry!” urged Alexei. The mage immediately started to fly straight up.

Tristan and Daryth followed. They ascended a smooth-sided shaft, perhaps fifty feet in diameter. The cave that had given them access to the base of the shaft seemed, thus far, to be the only entrance. There was not even a ledge they could have landed on along the cylindrical sides.

If the spell wore off while they were here, there was nothing to prevent them from falling many hundreds of feet to the rocks below. Tristan hoped that Alexei knew what he was doing.

On the other hand, they climbed rapidly—far faster than they could have done on foot, and every inch they ascended took them closer to the world of sunlight.

“Here—we’re nearing the top,” said the mage. In a moment, he swerved to the side of the shaft and came to rest upon a broad shelf of smooth stone. The edge of the shelf was marked by hanging columns of stones; they looked like icicles, or, in a more sinister vein, like the drooling fangs of a supernatural beast.

Daryth and Tristan quickly came to rest beside Alexei.

“We made it just in time,” explained Alexei. “The spell could not have lasted much longer.”

“Where are we?” asked Tristan.

“Some distance outside the walls of Callidyrr, I should say,” ventured
the wizard. “Though I don’t know exactly where. These caves up here should allow us to emerge somewhere in the countryside of Alaron.”

“We have a companion in Callidyrr!” objected Tristan. “We can’t leave him there!”

“I’m sorry,” responded Alexei, unmoved. “My objective was to get away from the city.”

“Pawldo will be all right,” said Daryth, apparently realizing there was no safe way back into the city.

Tristan was not convinced.