Crypt of the Moaning Diamond (8 page)

“So how far are we from present day Tsurlagol?” asked Ivy, whose interest in history had never been strong and tended to be even less when she was trapped underground and had missed her breakfast and had little hope of lunch.

“Outside the walls still,” said Mumchance. “We’ve been traveling too far to the north to be under the current city. That’s what I think, and I’m usually right.”

“Yes, and a disgusting habit that is too,” replied Ivy. She rubbed her eyes—the old ash kicked up by her passage made her itchy—and peered into the gloom. “Best way out?”

“Many ways, my dear,” said Kid, trotting back and forth like a restless racehorse. “East, west, south, north. Lots of tunnels going out of here. Bigger than the way we came. Men and dwarves have been down here since this burned and been busy, busy, busy digging away. Others have come since. Animals slithering on bellies, four-foot and two-foot and no-foot, hunting behind the humans and dwarves. Old tracks overlaying older tracks, all hunting one another.” Kid’s tongue flickered in and out of his mouth, as if he tasted all those passages in the air itself.

“At least there are not any rats,” said Zuzzara, who had a strong dislike of rodents. It was Gunderal who always had to clean out the rattraps in the barn, unless she could talk somebody else into doing it.

“Too many reptiles, my dear,” said Kid, bending over to examine a small pile of bones.

“Reptiles?” said Gunderal, who had a bigger dislike of snakes than Zuzzara had of rats. Ivy could not stand either rats or snakes, and so she killed them whenever she met any. Slicing off their little heads always made her feel better.

“Snakes, lizards, something else, my dear,” said Kid, still stirring through the skeletons on the floor. “But these bones are men and halflings and dwarves.”

“Treasure hunters,” explained Sanval. “The ruins were rumored to be laden with ancient treasures, magical artifacts, and so on. Men came, and dwarves too, and others as well, to dig through the buried cities. Tsurlagol has been many cities—each one destroyed in a siege and then rebuilt.”

“And wherever the treasure hunters go, predators follow close behind,” grumbled Mumchance.

Sanval nodded. “The ruins gained an evil reputation, and most of the entrances were sealed. Then Tsurlagol fell in another battle, and another.”

“Until they lost track of their own ruins,” Mumchance said.

“Sort of place that my mother would have loved, if it were stacked with treasure,” observed Ivy. “She probably could have sung you the city’s entire history right back to when the first stone was laid for the first wall. When she wasn’t saving the world or singing for some king, she was the most avid treasure hunter, always going underground after some artifact or other. That was one of the things that my father could never understand. He thought all jewels and gems were just

worthless sparkly rocks compared to a nice flowering bush or a flourishing oak tree.”

As they talked, they all circled slowly around the enormous hall, careful to stay within the small circle of light cast by Mumchance’s lantern. Kid ventured the farthest into the dark, reaching into the shadows to feel the walls and better assess their condition.

“Your parents sound …” Sanval hesitated. He obviously could not find a polite way to inquire about her ancestry, but he tried. “They don’t seem to have been quite the same as you.”

“Not hardly,” said Ivy with a snort. “They were heroes. When your Thultyrl finishes his great library, you can find their exploits in a dozen story scrolls. Saved the world from incredible evil a dozen times.” She always found her parents hard to explain, especially to romantic fools like Sanval who believed in honor, great deeds, and noble acts of sacrifice as much as keeping their boots shined and their armor polished. Nor would he understand that the legacy of their heroics could be a greater burden than a boon to their daughter.

Mumchance pulled Wiggles out of his pocket and dropped the dog upon the floor, letting her run loose as he continued to examine the carvings at the bases of the pillars. She pawed at one pile of ash, turning up one of the scorched skulls that Kid had mentioned. Mumchance bent down to look closer at the dog’s treasure. Several teeth had been broken out of the jaw. He shooed the dog away from the bones. He never allowed any of his dogs to chew on anything that resembled people, whether it was human, dwarf, or even ore. It made for bad feelings in a mercenary camp and, he believed, was bad for the dogs’ teeth.

“Something came down here and pried the gold teeth out of the jaws,” he speculated as he held the skull out of Wiggles’s whining reach. “This area has been pretty well looted. There’s no treasure left down here. Just ash and bones.”

Kid made a little grunt in agreement as he brushed away the ash covering a headless and armless skeleton. Unlike the other bones scattered nearby, this skeleton glowed an odd phosphorescent green.

“Blast,” said Ivy, catching sight of the shimmering green light surrounding the bones. “Kid, I told you to leave that stuff alone.”

The odd skeleton moved, a very slow tentative movement, wiggling through the ash like a worm. Kid skipped neatly out of its way, not particularly frightened but not fool enough to let the skeleton touch him.

“What is it?” asked an amazed Sanval. In Procampur, bones did not go crawling around on their own.

“Skeleton warrior or what is left of one.” Gunderal sniffed. “Badly made too. It should have a head, hands, and weapons.” The thing staggered upright and wobbled on unsteady feet toward them. The Siegebreakers circled out of its way. It tottered after Kid, as if it were playing some grotesque child’s game of hide-and-tag.

Wiggles spotted the moving skeleton and with a joyous bark started chasing after it. The little white dog wove in and around the skeleton’s ankles with little yips, obviously regarding the whole thing as one giant snack. She rose up on her hind legs, dancing like a beggar before the green glowing bones.

“Oh blast,” said Ivy seeing Mumchance’s frown at Wiggles’s actions.

Mumchance whistled one high sharp note. With drooping tail, the dog came back to his side. “It’s your fault, Ivy, that she chases after such things,” scolded the dwarf.

Ivy had taught Wiggles to catch bones when she threw them to her. “Well, she started doing that little dance for bones all on her own,” Ivy said, defending her earlier actions to Mumchance.

“She did not. You encouraged her to do that. And it’s just not dignified!”

Ivy considered that any dog bearing the unfortunate moniker of “Wiggles” already lacked dignity, but she knew better than to say it out loud. Instead, to soothe the dwarPs feelings, she asked him if he thought the skeleton warrior could be of any use to them.

“Lead us out of here, you mean? No, those things are brainless, and this one is more so than most,” observed Mumchance as he circled left to avoid the headless skeleton. “Somebody looted whatever armor and weapons these poor sods had. They just left the bones behind because they’re worthless.” The skeleton seemed to sense that Mumchance was talking about it, because it began its mad lurch toward the dwarf.

“Let’s leave before it bumps into anyone. It looks a bit moldy under that glow,” said Gunderal, pulling her skirts close with one hand to avoid any contact with the thing. “Or before it kicks up more dust!”

“Shouldn’t we kill it?” asked Sanval, still eyeing the lurching green bones with an uneasy look.

“Gunderal can knock it over with a spell,” declared Zuzzara. “Go on, show him.”

“It’s a waste of magic,” answered the wizard with a small frown of her pink lips. “Why should I do anything to it?” The skeleton was now reeling back and forth, obviously both attracted and distracted by the sound of their voices.

“It is harmless,” agreed Ivy. “And it is already dead.”

“I think we need to go east,” said Mumchance, still walking in circles to avoid the skeleton. The dwarf ducked around the columns.

“Hey,” yelled Ivy, “don’t leave us in the dark.”

Mumchance popped around the column that Gunderal had marked earlier, holding his lantern above his head to cast the

widest possible circle of light. “Kid was right. Several ways out of here. I think we have gone west of the city, so we need to find a tunnel leading east.”

“And that will lead us under the walls and then out,” Ivy concurred. “Let’s start moving. Come on!”

But Gunderal and Zuzzara were paying no attention to Ivy. They were still arguing about Gunderal’s reluctance to cast a spell.

“I am not disanimating that skeleton,” said the wizard, with the suggestion of a pout starting to form on her lower lip.

“Why not?” Zuzzara wanted to know. The half-ore’s teeth were beginning to show under her upper lip—a sure sign of annoyance.

“Just because I don’t feel like doing it,” Gunderal replied. The headless skeleton started its weaving wander toward them.

“You always put down bones when you can. You have lost your magic!” The last was shrieked by the half-ore. The skeleton made an abrupt about-turn and lurched away from them.

“Don’t be foolish! I can’t lose my magic. I’m just tired, and my arm hurts, and you keep screaming at me!” Gunderal stamped her foot, raising up a cloud of ash. “Look what you made me do. It will take me forever to clean these skirts.”

“You’re still in pain. I told you that I should carry you out of those tunnels. You have exhausted yourself,” said Zuzzara, modulating her voice into something less than an ore shout but still loud enough to make everyone else in the room wince. The skeleton picked up speed away from the half-ore, lurching rapidly toward the nearest tunnel entrance. Ivy watched it go with a mild expression of envy. Once Zuzzara and Gunderal got to the screaming stage, it was difficult to shut their mouths with anything less than an avalanche.

“I’m not a child,” Gunderal answered back, her voice going higher, like a stubborn little girl. “Besides, that tunnel was so narrow, you could barely get yourself through it.”

“But you’re all white and dizzy.”

“Because I’m wasting breath arguing with you. Leave it be, Zuzzara, I’m fine. The arm just aches. I’m not going to die from a sprained arm.”

“So why can’t you do any spells? You can always do spells.”

“Not when I’m in pain and somebody is shouting in my ear!”

The skeleton was just a faint green glow, disappearing into the black tunnel.

“Shut up!” shouted Ivy, cutting across their words with a parade ground bellow. “They can hear you all the way back to the Thultyrl’s tent. Zuzzara, if Gunderal faints or even starts to faint, sling her over your shoulder. Until then, leave her be!”

“Sorry, Ivy,” muttered Zuzzara.

“Sorry, Ivy,” echoed Gunderal.

Ivy shook her head at them, a little startled that they had actually paid attention to her. They must both be feeling exceptionally bad. “You should be sorry. Disgraceful, Zuzzara spending so much time worrying about you, Gunderal. And Gunderal, you should stand up to her more. Just because you’re such a shrimp …”

Gunderal squealed an indignant reply. Zuzzara frowned at Ivy. “She’s not a shrimp. That’s not a nice thing to say, Ivy. She can’t help being short.”

“I am not short!” yelled Gunderal. “I’m just not oversized!”

“Yes, yes,” said Zuzzara, patting Gunderal on her head. “Zuzzara!” Gunderal ducked out of reach of the half-ore’s friendly pats and checked her topknot with her good hand to

make sure that it was still straight. Her hair had slid a little to the side. Gunderal pulled a small round silver mirror out of her pouch with a sigh. The mirror, unlike her potions, had survived the fall. She handed it to Zuzzara with a sharp command of “make yourself useful, hold this for me.”

Ivy rolled her eyes. The world could be ending and Gunderal would still be combing her curls or arguing with Zuzzara. “Never, ever, go campaigning with a pair of sisters,” Ivy said to Sanval. “Just because they are related, they will drive each other crazy as well as everyone else around them.”

“They are sisters?” He nodded toward them, his eyes wide. The half-ore, with her gray-streaked braids caught in iron beads, her sharp-toothed grin, and her large-boned frame, towered above the delicate Gunderal, with her fine features, rose petal skin, violet eyes, and a cloud of blue-black hair sliding out of its enameled pins and shell combs. Ivy could see why he had not caught the family resemblance.

There were never two women more physically different than Gunderal and Zuzzara, and most of the mercenaries in the camp never even guessed that they were half-sisters— unless they came flirting after Gunderal only to meet the point of Zuzzara’s sword. Or picked a fight with the half-ore and suddenly found themselves entangled in one of Gunderal’s spells.

After a decade of living with them, Ivy sometimes forgot about the physical differences. It was something about the tone of their voices, the quickness in which they could dissolve each other into tears or laughter, or the way that they would both nag her simultaneously. She had a hard time seeing them as anything but sisters.

“How can they be so different and still be sisters?” Sanval asked.

Ivy shook her head at the Procampur’s stodginess. “Same human father, very different mothers,” she said.

“They each take after the maternal side of their family. Look, we don’t have time to discuss their family history, because it is extraordinarily complicated. Ask Mumchance some time; he knew their father.” To everyone else, she shouted, “Let’s get moving!”

“Ivy, I hear something,” Mumchance said. “Listen. Something is coming. From there.”

The dwarf pointed toward the far side of the huge hall in the direction they would have to travel. Ivy shifted her sword off her back, clipping the scabbard on to the side of her weapons belt, so it would be easier to draw. She saw that Sanval already had his blade out. It, of course, gleamed in the light of Mumchance’s lantern.

Kid pricked up his pointed little ears, swiveling them in the direction that Mumchance was pointing. “Feet. Many little feet.” Kid licked his lips with his purple tongue. “Many little scaly reptile feet running toward us.”