Temple Hill (32 page)

Several hundred yards into the well-lit, perfectly symmetrical tunnel Azlar’s magic had formed, Fendel came to a stop, wheezing and bending over to brace his hands on his knees as he struggled to catch a second wind. Lhasha pulled up beside him, her own breath

Fendel motioned with his hand, urging the other two to clear a path from the center of the passage. Panting, the trio pressed themselves up against a wall, trying to stay out of the way of the small groups of terrified soldiers still streaming past every few seconds. The panicked cultists, intent only on escaping the terror of the main cavern, paid no heed to the three figures huddled off to the side of the passage.

The gnome, despite his age, was the first to recover enough to speak. “We should be safe here. For a while.”

From back down the passage the chilling screams of those trapped in the main cavern could still be heard.

“What… the Abyss … happened?” Corin managed between gulps of air.

“Beholder. Big one. Came up through the trapdoor in the floor and started killing everything in the room. Even turned the medusa into a pile of dust.”

“Xiliath?” Corin asked.

Fendel nodded. That’d be my guess. Probably been hiding out in these tunnels for the last few years, working through front men to keep his existence a secret. We have to get out of here so we can warn the authorities. They won’t want him floating around loose under the streets.”

“Wait a minute!” Lhasha protested, more than slightly annoyed. “How come you wanted to take care of the medusa yourself, but you’re willing to dump the beholder off on someone else? Don’t tell me you’ve got some kind of double standard working here.”

“Don’t scold me like a child,” Fendel replied, without any real malice in his voice. “My actions made perfect sense, if you think about it. A medusa can hide in a crowd. With her hood up, she looks like any ordinary citizen. If I didn’t do something about her when I had the chance, the Maces would never have found her until after Yanseldara had been turned into a statue. By then it would have been too late.

“But a beholder won’t be sneaking up on anyone. As soon as the city guard finds out what Xiliath really is, they’ll have patrols scouring the tunnels to hunt him down.”

“Won’t the patrols just get slaughtered?” Lhasha countered, a hint of accusation in her words.

“Not if they’re properly prepared,” Corin interjected, coming to Fendel’s defense. “Get a squadron of well-trained soldiers, arm them with crossbows and other ranged weapons, throw in a few battle mages to cast protective magics over them, and the patrol will be able to deal with just about anything. Even an eye tyrant.”

Lhasha chewed thoughtfully on her hp for a few seconds. “I guess it makes sense,” she reluctantly admitted. Then, after a few seconds she added, Tm sorry Fendel. I don’t know what came over me. I just… I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

The old gnome leaned over and gave her a long, reassuring hug. Think nothing of it, Lhasha. Anyone who’s been through what you have is entitled to be a little out of sorts.”

“Besides,” he added, giving her a grin and tweaking her small nose to try to cheer her up. Til be the first to admit I was running scared. With my glasses to keep me from turning to stone, I knew I could face the medusa. But a beholder’s a little more than I can handle. When I saw that thing hovering over the battle, I just wanted to get out before one of those eyes turned in our direction.” He concluded with a laugh. “I just got you back, Lhasha. I wasn’t about to risk losing you again.”

With a shake of her head and a warm smile Lhasha replied, “Oh, Fendel! Always looking out for your poor little girl.” She returned his hug with one of her own.

Corin shifted uncomfortably at the sentimental display between Lhasha and her mentor. “We still need to get out of here,” he noted, trying to shift the conversation back to their immediate situation. “Hugs won’t get us back to the surface.”

“Of course, of course,” the gnome said hastily, gently pushing Lhasha away. Lhasha gave Corin a sour glare, her eyes chastising him for the embarrassment he had caused the old gnome with his tactless comment. Corin ignored her angry stare.

“Sooner or later,” Fendel said, moving on to the topic Corin had not-so-subtly suggested, “this passage has to link up with the original tunnel system. We won’t be able to get into the sub-tunnels from up here. I only knew about the one way in. All the other doors connecting to the network below are one way, just like the one back in Xiliath’s vault. You can come up from below, but not down from above. We’ll have to find our way to the surface through the smugglers’ main tunnels.”

“You told me traveling those tunnels was suicide,” Corin reminded him.

“Virtually suicide,” Fendel clarified. “But it’s not like we really have a choice, is it?”

From his bag Fendel produced the staff he had used when he and Corin had come through the sub-tunnel. The end still glimmered with a magical glow.

“Lhasha and I will check for traps—you guard our backs. Even if the cultists or Xiliath’s men don’t decide to try to chase us down, there might be other predators in these caverns tracking us.”

They set off, and it didn’t take long until Fendel was proved right yet again. “Here,” Fendel said, “you can see where the wizard started blasting his own path through the earth.”

They had come to a T intersection. Unlike the perfectly symmetrical passage they were currently in, both of the branches before them were irregular and uneven, the walls and floor roughly hewn from the surrounding rock.

“So which way do you think the cultists came in from?” Lhasha asked, trying to peer down each direction for some clue.

“I couldn’t even begin to guess,” Fendel admitted, “but it doesn’t really matter. Both ways will lead us back to the surface. Eventually.”

“Left,” Corin said with sudden certainty.

“How do you know?” Lhasha demanded.

“Just a gut feeling.”

With a shrug, Fendel said “Then left it is. Lhasha, stay close and take your time looking for those traps. We’ve had enough nasty surprises for one night.”

Their progress was, if possible, even slower than the pace Fendel and Corin had set through the sub-tunnel. This time, however, Corin wasn’t bothered by their overly

cautious advance. Lhasha was back with him, for one thing. And he now had some firsthand experience with the potential dangers awaiting the reckless traveler beneath Elversult’s streets.

As if to reaffirm Corin’s newfound concern for safety, the sounds of far-distant screams could be heard periodically—cultists falling victim to the horrors of the smugglers’ labyrinth as they blundered through the tunnels, trying to find their way back to the surface.

The trio encountered numerous side passages and branches on their slow journey. Fendel never hesitated in his choices, though to Corin there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to his decisions. The one-armed warrior could only hope the gnome’s sense of direction wasn’t as disoriented as his own. Maybe Fendel was drawing on long-buried memories to lead them out. Or maybe he was just guessing.

For his own part, Corin kept casting glances back over his shoulder. He could feel creatures watching them, malevolent eyes in the darkness. The faint whisper of scuttling feet just beyond the illuminated range of Fendel’s staff was so frequent Corin had ceased to even notice it.

Whatever was following them, stalking them, was scared enough to keep its distance—for now. However, not all the creatures in the darkness knew such restraint. The bloodcurdling screams of dying soldiers and the feral sounds of monsters feasting on fresh meat could occasionally be heard emanating from far-off corridors. Corin knew few, if any, of those who had escaped Xiliath’s wrath would ever see the surface.

Every so often Lhasha or Fendel would hold up a hand in warning, and they would all stop. The two thieves would confer briefly over the trap that had been discovered. If the snare was simple, such as a trip wire,

they would disarm it. With some of the devices they used Fendel’s walking stick to set them off from a safe distance. For larger traps, such as hidden pits, they would come back and explain to Corin the proper path to take to avoid the danger.

These were the worst for the warrior. He did his best to follow precisely in the exact footsteps of his smaller companions, carefully avoiding stepping on the areas they had identified as pressure triggers, though he could see no distinguishing features on the uneven floor as he crossed.

At these times—his weight awkwardly balanced, his eyes focused on his feet, everything about him vulnerable—Corin could feel the unseen eyes surrounding them move in closer, waiting eagerly for the single misstep that would set off the trap and give the hidden predators their chance to strike. Corin was careful to insure that chance never came.

But Tymora cares little for care or caution.

“There’s another trap just ahead,” Lhasha explained to her burly friend after yet another lengthy consultation with Fendel. “A real nasty one. A crusher, Fendel thinks. We’re pretty sure we’ve got it figured out, though. Fendel’s going first. Once he gets safely to the other side, hell give us the all clear and I’ll lead you across. Until then, we’ll wait here. That way, if anything happens to Fendel…” She couldn’t finish.

Corin nodded to show he understood, though the name “crusher” meant nothing to him, other than conjuring up a series of gruesome mental images of mangled limbs and bodies. The warrior sheathed the sword in his left hand so he could hold the glowing staff Fendel offered him.

“Hang on to this for a minute. I won’t need it, and I don’t want to leave you here in the dark while I go across.”

“Good luck,” Corin whispered.

The gnome soon disappeared into the shadows, vanishing as soon as he was beyond the range of the glowing pole. “Is he all right?” Corin asked anxiously after several seconds of agonizing silence.

With the advantage of her heat-sensitive vision, Lhasha could still see Fendel’s form in the blackness. “He’s just taking his time. He wants to be sure he doesn’t hit a trigger. Even one wrong step could be fatal.”

They could do nothing but stand and wait. Corin didn’t know which was worse: the helpless feeling of sitting idly by while the gnome risked bis life to find them a safe route, or the anticipatory dread that came with the knowledge that he, too, would have to cross the trapped area.

A sharp whistle from the blackness signaled that it was time for Lhasha and Corin to cross.

“All right, follow me,” Lhasha urged. “Stay close—step only where I step. Exactly where I step.”

The instructions were the same at every trap they had crossed so far, yet for some reason Lhasha’s voice seemed more urgent this time. The pit of Corin’s stomach rumbled ominously.

The warrior’s fate was in Lhasha’s hands now. Or rather, her feet and her eyes. Corin simply had to trust that the half-elf had watched and memorized every careful step Fendel had taken through the trigger area, and he had to assume Lhasha could duplicate that path without error.

Only several months ago, putting his own life so completely into someone else’s care would have been unthinkable. If there was anyone he was willing to trust, it was Lhasha.

Ahead of him, the half-elf paused momentarily, uncertain of her next move. Corin glanced back over bis

shoulder, his attention drawn by the sound of something rushing at them out of the darkness. He didn’t dare move his boots from their spot, but he did pivot on the balls of his feet to face the noise, and flexed his knees to brace against a surprise attack from the shadows.

The illumination from the staff’s tip couldn’t fully pierce the black veil behind them. Whatever was charging at them would remain unseen until the last possible second. Behind him, Corin heard the soft rustle of Lhasha’s silks as she continued her path, so intently focused on choosing the safe route that she hadn’t noticed Corin was no longer at her hip until they were separated by several yards.

Only then did she turn around to see what was holding up her companion. Even as she was about to ask what was wrong, the creature from the darkness exploded into view.

It was a man, nothing more. One of the soldiers from the battle, bleeding from his many wounds, his eyes glowing with crazy fire. His face was frozen in a rictus of insane fear, his eyes nothing but pupils, dilated to their full size by the man’s reckless charge through the pitch-black tunnels.

He didn’t even seem to notice Corin, didn’t react at all to Lhasha’s shouted warnings to stop. He came straight forward, stumbling along, arms flailing wildly as he scrambled to escape whatever unseen demons he imagined still pursued him.

He barreled right into Corin, knocking the warrior off balance, causing the one-armed man to lose his footing. The crazed soldier tripped over Corin’s knee, and was sent sprawling across the floor—triggering the trap.

Even Corin’s untrained ears could make out the unmistakable sound of gears grinding and high tension steel springs releasing. Corin’s reflexes and instinct for

survival were the only thing that saved him. He dived forward at the sound, tucked into a ball, and rolled out of harm’s way—back down the part of the tunnel they had already come from.

From behind him he heard a booming crash, the sound of thunder or an earthquake. He hopped to his feet and spun around to see the consequences of the trap.

The crusher was aptly named. Two huge chunks of granite had slammed together, sealing the cavern and instantly pulverizing anything that happened to be caught in between the tons of solid rock. A trickle of blood seeped out from the barely visible seam where the two colossal blocks of stone met, and a single foot of the crazed runner jutted out from the side Corin was on, twitching for a brief second before going still and limp.

Lhasha was nowhere to be seen. Corin ran up to the stones, yelling out her name. “Lhasha! Lhasha! Are you all right!”

“I’m all right,” she called back, much to his relief. “I’m on the other side. Fendel’s here, too. Are you hurt?” Her voice was somewhat muffled by the wall of granite between them.