Frostborn: The Broken Mage (21 page)

Arandar clearly thought that, too. The Swordbearer’s suspicion was obvious, but so far he had not forced the issue. For once, Morigna was not taunting him, and seemed content to ignore him. Perhaps she had chosen prudence for once. 

“Neither am I,” said Jager. “I’m the expert thief. I should go in.”

Mara shrugged. “You don’t have any way to protect yourself from the basilisk’s gaze.”

“You don’t,” said Jager.

“I can travel away,” said Mara. “Morigna can shield herself in a way the basilisks won’t detect. Calliande’s magic and the power of the soulblades will rouse them. We don’t know how many basilisks are in there…”

“There were at least six,” said Irunzad, “when I lost the Key.”

“More could have come since,” said Ridmark. “Which is why we should get this over with before something else comes along. Gavin, Arandar. Keep watch over the tunnel. If the basilisks come rampaging out, you’ll be best able to defend yourselves. The rest of us will keep guard for anything else that comes out of the Deeps.”

Calliande nodded and summoned power, preparing herself to cast the ward against the basilisks’ power if needed. The others moved into position.

“Are you ready?” said Mara.

Morigna nodded. “Of course. This is no different than stealing eggs from a bird’s nest without getting caught. I have done that many times.” 

“Uglier birds this time,” said Jager. 

Morigna scowled at him. “If I fail, you can enjoy the pleasure of telling my statue that you were right.” 

“Be careful,” said Ridmark, and Morigna nodded at him, a flicker of emotion going over her face. She did love him, Calliande thought. Despite her abrasiveness and arrogance, despite her love of power, she did love Ridmark. 

Did she love him more than she loved power? 

“All right,” said Mara with placid calm. “Let’s go.”

###

Mara moved in silence down the tunnel, her short sword ready in her right hand, the tip pointed low. The floor was rocky and covered with sand, which made it a challenge to move without noise, but she managed it. Morigna followed suit, her expression hard and tight in the gloom. Clusters of glow mushrooms on the walls provided some light, at least enough for Mara to use. Morigna, with her altered vision, likely had no trouble.

Mara noted that there were no ghost mushrooms upon the floor, that many of the sandy patches bore long grooves. As if something with claws had dragged a carcass for later meals. 

The faint smell of rotting meat filling her nostrils confirmed that. 

Step by step Mara went deeper into the tunnel, her ears straining to detect any sound of movement. Morigna had said the basilisk they fought in the foundry chamber had been able to move in utter silence, but Mara supposed that would be harder in this cramped tunnel. 

The tunnel widened and opened into a larger cavern, the floor rough and uneven, the faint scent of rotten eggs coming from a pair of vents in the ground. A dozen petrified statues stood scattered throughout the chamber, deep orcs and kobolds and a few dvargir. Several rotting, half-consumed murrag carcasses lay against the wall. Mara realized that the basilisks preferred to turn living mortals into stone, and simply ate any animals they encountered. She wondered why. Perhaps the basilisks derived one form of sustenance from petrifying living mortals, and another from eating animals. 

Distantly, she realized that her father would likely have known the answer among the secrets locked in his cruel mind. 

At the moment, she had more pressing concerns.

Specifically, the three archways that led off from the chamber. 

Morigna scowled at the archways.  Mara stepped next to the taller woman, and Morigna leaned down and whispered into her ear.

“Irunzad said nothing of this,” hissed Morigna.

“No,” whispered Mara back. “It’s possible he does not remember. His sanity does not appear to be intact.”

“An understatement,” muttered Morigna. “Fine. Which way do we go?”

Mara made up her mind. “The central tunnel.”

“Why?” said Morigna.

“It slopes downward,” said Mara. “Irunzad said he was trying to go to Khald Tormen through the Deeps. We’re still inside the mountain, which is higher than the rest of the Deeps. To get to the Deeps proper and then to Khald Tormen, he would have had to go down.”

“I can think of nothing better,” said Morigna. “Very well. But we if go further than a few hundred yards and find nothing, we should return and investigate the other chambers.”

“Agreed,” said Mara, and they made for the central tunnel. It sloped down steeply, and again Mara saw the signs of the basilisks’ passage upon the walls and floor. At last the tunnel widened into another chamber, and Mara and Morigna both stopped.

It was a large, oval cavern, with a pool of water at one end. A large vent opened in the center of the floor, the air above it rippling with heat. Here and there stalactites hung from the ceiling like stone fangs. Mara noted all that, but her mind paid little attention to them.

The dozen basilisks clustered around the vent captured her attention. 

Their yellow eyes stared unblinkingly at her. For an awful moment she was sure that the creatures saw her, but then she realized that in lieu of eyelids the basilisks had hard, transparent sheaths over their eyes in the same fashion as snakes. None of the basilisks moved, and their sides rose and fell with the slow draw of their breath. 

The basilisks were all in hibernation.

To Mara’s Sight, she saw the rigid power of their petrifying gazes, waiting in their yellow eyes like a quarrel set in a crossbow.   

Something else caught her Sight, an aura of tremendous magical power gathered in one place. It was coming from behind the basilisks, between their sleeping forms and the pool. It matched the aura Mara had seen around the mighty doors of adamant steel behind the King’s throne. 

Quite likely it was the Key that opened the Vault.

A Key that was currently surrounded by a dozen hibernating basilisks. Little wonder that poor Irunzad had never been able to retrieve it. 

She beckoned to Morigna, and they moved a few feet from the tunnel, ducking behind a cluster of stalagmites. Morigna crouched behind the stone spikes, her hard black eyes fixed on the basilisks. 

“I see the Key,” whispered Mara. 

“I do not.”

“I see its aura,” said Mara. “Wait here. I’m going to get it.” 

“Can you do it without waking the basilisks?” said Morigna. 

“I suppose we’re going to find out,” said Mara. “If I do wake them…run. I can travel away, but you can’t. If they wake up, don’t wait for me, but run as fast as you can.” 

Morigna nodded, and Mara took a deep breath, settling her nerves, and stepped out from the cluster of stalagmites. 

###

Mara picked her way around the edge of the cavern without sound, and Morigna watched, her heart hammering against her ribs. She had spent years living alone in the Wilderland, her only food whatever she could hunt, and so had taught herself to move quietly. Yet Mara moved with the sort of fluid quiet that Morigna had rarely seen. Likely working for someone like the Matriarch of the Red Family was its own sort of brutal school. 

Morigna drew on a little of her power, preparing to cast a spell of the earth magic. Not that it made much difference. Morigna could shield herself from the basilisks’ gaze, and Mara could travel away, but if all twelve of the basilisks woke up…

She swallowed.

If all twelve of the basilisks woke up and attacked at once, it didn’t matter that they had two Swordbearers and a Magistria. That many basilisks would kill them all. Their only chance was to get the Key and escape without rousing the basilisks. 

Morigna started to draw in more power and stopped herself. If the basilisks could sense magic, drawing in more power might be like lighting a candle in front of a sleeping man. 

Mara reached the basilisks, moving past them with careful, slow steps. Morigna could not help but admire her friend’s nerve. Mara’s face a calm mask, her green eyes like cool disks of jade. She took another step, and then another, coming to a stop a few paces from the largest basilisk, a hulking creature with the scars of old battles on its gray-green scales, its yellow eyes staring at nothing. 

Mara stood motionless for a moment, and then stooped and picked something up, cradling it in both arms. 

It was an enormous key wrought of adamant steel. Dwarven glyphs shone with steady white light upon the key’s haft and handle, and the key’s teeth looked like an intricate maze of metal.

It was the Key to the Vault, Morigna was sure of it. Mara tucked it under her left arm, bracing it with her right, and made her slow way across the cavern floor towards the tunnel. Morigna waited, biting her lip. Just a little further, just a little more…

The biggest basilisk stirred. 

Mara froze, and then kept moving at a slow, steady pace. 

The basilisk’s claws rasped against the stone floor, its tongue flickering over its long fangs. If the basilisks sensed magic, and the Key was carved with dwarven glyphs, then it was possible the basilisk could sense when the Key was being moved. If the basilisk woke up, if it woke the others up…

There was no time. Morigna cast the spell that allowed her to control animals and focused her thoughts upon the stirring basilisk. She felt the cold, alien presence of its mind against hers. It was not fully conscious, but it would be soon. Its mind was too alien for her to dominate and control, even without dvargir glyphs driving rage into its thoughts. 

The basilisk’s mind grew more alert. 

Panic flooded Morigna, and a plan occurred to her. With her earth magic, she could not dominate the basilisk. But if she used the dark magic, she could drive the basilisk into a rage, send it to attack the others. Mara and Morigna could escape in the confusion. The dark magic welled up at the thought, responding to her fear.

She forced it back.

She couldn’t control the basilisk, but she could suggest things to it. Nothing that went against its nature, of course…but the creature had not yet become alarmed. She flooded its mind with soothing thoughts, with the notion that it could return to rest and enjoy the pleasant warmth of the hot vent.

For a moment nothing happened, and a flicker of confusion went through the basilisk’s mind. 

A drowsy lethargy went through its thoughts, and the creature settled down once more, its scales rasping against the stone. 

Mara stared at it for a moment, then turned and strode in swift silence across the chamber. She jerked her head at Morigna, and she followed the shorter woman back up the tunnel and to the chamber with the murrag carcasses. 

“I saw what you did,” said Mara in a hoarse voice. “Thank you.” She tapped the Key. “I should have realized. Their eyes are magical, and so is the Key. So when I moved the Key…”

“The basilisks must have a form of the Sight,” said Morigna. 

“You didn’t use any dark magic,” said Mara. 

“You sound surprised,” said Morigna.

“No,” said Mara. “That spell of earth magic, whatever you did. It worked.”

“I told the basilisk it could go back to sleep,” said Morigna. “We can give the credit to Jager. Given how often I had heard him speak of a warm bed, one could hardly but think of the idea…”

Mara laughed. “He’ll be glad to hear it. Let’s get out of here. The odor of rotting murrags is hardly the worst scent I’ve ever encountered, but I shall be glad to leave it behind nonetheless.” 

###

Mara and Morigna emerged from the basilisks’ lair, and Ridmark let out a long, relieved sigh. 

“Why,” said Jager, “that was positively quick.”

Mara smiled at him. “I learned from you, husband. In and out quickly, just as a master thief would do.” She gave him a quick kiss. “I could not have done it without Morigna, though. There were a dozen basilisks there, and one of them started to wake up. Fortunately, Morigna soothed it back to sleep.”

Ridmark looked at her, wondering if she had used dark magic to accomplish that feat.

“A simple spell of earth magic,” said Morigna, as if she had guessed his thought. “I cannot control basilisks as I could rats or ravens, but I can suggest things to them. I merely suggested that the basilisk go back to sleep, and it did. We are fortunate that they share Master Jager’s propensity for sloth.”

He smirked at her. “Even basilisks have some redeeming qualities.” 

“You have it,” croaked Irunzad, taking a few staggering steps towards Mara. “You…you found it. You found the Key.”

Mara stepped away from Jager, holding out a rod of red adamant steel about two feet long. The glyphs on the haft and the elaborate teeth of the key shone with the same white light as the doors to the Vault of the Kings, and the design looked more elaborate than anything Ridmark had ever seen. 

“There is tremendous arcane power bound within that key,” said Antenora, her yellow eyes narrowed as she gazed at it. “Almost certainly it is a match for the wards we saw in the chambers above.” 

“It is the Key,” said Irunzad, falling to his knees. “You have found it. Oh, thank you, thank you. I failed in my duty. I could never get it back.” He looked up at Calliande, weeping. “I can fulfill my trust to you as well, my lady Keeper. I said…I said I would conceal the key for you until you returned.”

“Take it,” said Calliande in a quiet voice. “Take it and fulfill your duty, Master of the Keys.” 

“Thank you,” said Irunzad, taking the Key with trembling hands. Mara sighed in relief as the weeping dwarf took it. Adamant steel might have been lighter and stronger than normal steel, but the massive Key still looked heavy. Irunzad lifted it without trouble, joy on his face. “Thank you, all of you. May the gods of stone and silence grant you strength and prosperity for your kindness.” 

“Let us not linger here,” said Ridmark. He looked at Calliande. “Are you ready?”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “I shall have to be.”

Chapter 12: Dragonfall

“Hasten, my noble lords and ladies,” said Irunzad as they reached the top of the stairs to the assembly chamber. “Hasten, my most noble friends! The hour is at hand! I can finally fulfill my duty.”