Voyage of the Fox Rider (63 page)
On inward the boats fared, the channel some eighty feet wide down at the water’s edge. The angled ceiling of the cavern rose and dipped, coming down as low as fifty feet in places. And Jatu whispered, “If Durlok’s ship has a tall mast, he must step it to bring the craft in.”
“Step it?”
“Aye, Lady Jinnarin. Step it up and out from its footing and take it down.”
“Oh.”
On inward they went, their shadows preceding them down the strait, daylight receding behind, the hollow sound of surge echoing from the gloom ahead, rhythmic, like some great creature breathing. Of a sudden the channel came to a broad lagoon, some hundred and fifty feet across to the opposite shore, with perhaps twice the breadth, the ends left and right cloaked in dimness.
And
lo!
the walls all about sparkled like diamonds.
“Kwarc,”
breathed Brekka, pointing with his crossbow.
“Crystal!” hissed Jinnarin. “Oh, Jatu, could this be
the crystal castle? Alamar says that images in dreams are at times nought but misleading shadows of truth.”
“Perhaps so, Lady Jinnarin,” responded Jatu, his voice low. “Perhaps this glittering cavern is indeed the gleaming manse of your dream.”
While crystalline walls danced in the light reflected from the undulant waves, across the understone lagoon they fared, the cavern sighing and breathing with the surge. Aylis angled the file of boats left and toward a landing clutched in the shadows on the far side of the grotto, there where stood a long stone quay.
As they passed above the dark, heaving waters, again Jinnarin looked over the side. All below was clutched in a blackness so impenetrable that a thousand hideous creatures of the deeps could dwell therein unseen; and remembering Aravan’s words about Hèlarms, Jinnarin envisioned great ropy tentacles rushing up from the abyss to lash out and clutch the boats and drag them all to their doom, and she gasped and drew back from the wale.
The first boat came to the quay and drew alongside, warriors quietly clambering up and out, the sound of their landing lost under the echoing swash in the cavern. As one warrior paused to secure the boat, the others spread wide, crouching down along a defensive perimeter, crossbows at the ready, flinty eyes scanning the shadows as the other boats came to the stone dock. As each crew landed, more Dwarves joined the ringing guard.
Jinnarin’s craft came to the quay, and at a whispered command from her, Rux leapt up and out, the Pysk on his back—but it was a cluster of shadow that landed on the stone and darted to the perimeter ring.
Alamar’s boat docked at the very end of the quay, where stone steps led up from the water. Dwarves helped the eld Mage out and up the treads.
Soon all had gathered on the pier. “’Ware, my amulet is chill,” murmured Aravan above the rolling echo of waves washing against stone. Quickly the warning was passed throughout the warband.
A single corridor led away from the landing, a rough-hewn tunnel some thirty feet wide and half again as high. In the distance down the curving hall glowed a faint light, its unknown source beyond a far turn. Gesturing
silently, Bokar formed up his warriors into two columns and down this broad way they went, shields ready, weapons in hand, twenty Dwarves loosely spread along each wall, those in the fore with crossbows cocked. Brekka and Dokan stepped out in the lead, though a tiny cluster of shadow went with them. Bokar and Aravan fared near the head of the column, Bokar bearing a double-bitted axe, Aravan with an unsheathed sword in his right, a long-knife in his left. With Dwarves before and after, near the midpoints of the columns walked Alamar on the left and Aylis on the right, Mage and Lady Mage unarmed. Bringing up the rear came the Men, cutlasses and cudgels in hand, two bearing hooded Dwarven lanterns, each metal cover slightly raised to show but a tiny thread of light, the sight of the Humans not as keen as those of the others. Jatu came last, the giant black Man bearing his great warbar.
Walking softly, down the corridor they fared, the walls about them layered with crystal, Aravan’s stone amulet growing more chill with every step. And a faint stench seemed to overhang the air. Steadily they advanced, the passageway gradually curving leftward as they moved toward the dim light ahead. Now some distance in the lead, cloaked in shadow trotted Rux, his mistress on his back, the fox chary for he did not like the smell of the place. Nevertheless, ahead they went, Jinnarin pressing Rux forward. They came to a junction and stopped, waiting for Brekka and Dokan to arrive. A small tunnel split off to the left, while the main channel ran on, curving gently to the right. Faint light seeped from the narrow, left-hand way, its floor a gradual slope upward, the tunnel no more than three feet wide and just tall enough to admit passage of a Man.
The two Dwarven scouts stepped to where the shadow waited, though she had to move to let them know she was at hand. Brekka cautiously peered down the passage to the left, while Dokan took a few steps ahead and looked down the main corridor. Nought but gloom and silence greeted them both.
Bokar and Aravan and the main column came to the junction, Bokar hand-signalling a halt, swiftly passed back down chain. His wary eyes glancing at the choices before them, at last Bokar signalled Brekka and Dokan
to scout the left-hand passage, while the main body waited at the junction.
Before they could move, the shadow dropped away from Jinnarin and Rux, and she vigorously signalled that Brekka and Dokan should remain here while she and Rux explored the dimly lit passage. Without awaiting an answer, again darkness clotted about her, and the tiny cluster of shadow slunk off up the narrow way.
Bokar reached out as if to stop her, but Aravan grasped the armsmaster by the shoulder and held him back, murmuring. “She is right, Bokar. None are better suited to the task.”
Grinding his teeth, Bokar turned to Brekka and Dokan and signalled them to go down the main passage ahead. The remainder of the force stood fast, flinty eyes searching the darkness, seeking foe, while a Pysk and a fox slipped down a dimly lit fissure toward the source of light.
The floor of the cleft gradually rose as Jinnarin and Rux went onward, the light ahead slowly brightening as they neared the source. Quietly Rux moved, and Jinnarin held her bow in readiness, a tiny arrow nocked. The walls crookedly shifted this way and that, but mainly they hewed to a south-bearing course, back toward the rim of the isle, or so Jinnarin judged. The passage itself remained narrow, shrinking to a width of two feet in places, expanding out to no more than five feet at others. A faint sprinkling of dust covered the floor, and she looked for tracks, finding none, although from the scuff marks here and there it was clear that the route was used.
They had travelled some four hundred feet, when Jinnarin murmured, “I smell the sea, Rux,” and on they went, coming at last to the end of the passage, where a narrow vertical slit a foot or so wide and some three feet high opened to the outside and daylight shone in. A scattering of debris lay on the floor. Jinnarin dismounted and glanced at it—fish scales and bones, a moldered fragment of bread, dried fruit peelings, the cracked bone of something not a fish, and other such—remains of meals eaten weeks past, or so she thought. Jinnarin stepped to the slit and clambered upon the sill and peered out. She could see the ocean to the horizon,
entrapped hulks jutting up through the drifting weed here and there. Some ninety feet straight down the rough face of the sheer bluff the ocean boomed against the rock wall of the isle. But two hundred feet to the left at the base of the wall the waves rolled through the stone.
That has to be the illusion covering the entrance to the cavern
. She looked up, and just overhead a ledge jutted out.
Yes, I am back on the outer perimeter of the isle. This must be a lookout post
. She turned to remount Rux, and daylight sparkled off the crystalline walls of the passage, and she gasped.
Is this where I stand during the dream?
Her heart thudding, Jinnarin whirled and looked once more across the waters, but no black ship or giant spider came hurtling over the waves. Quelling her fears, Jinnarin leapt upon Rux and back down the narrow crevice they ran.
When Pysk and fox returned to the junction, Jinnarin discovered that the column had moved somewhat forward, for now Aylis and Alamar stood nearby. As the shadow came flitting from the crevice, the seeress whispered something to a Dwarf and then squatted down, intercepting fox and Pysk.
“Where are Bokar and Aravan?” Jinnarin asked.
“I have sent for them.”
“Oh, Aylis, perhaps I have discovered the place where we stand in the dream and look out over the sea.”
“It is there?” asked Aylis, gesturing at the slot.
“Not as it is in the dream—”
In that moment, Aravan and Bokar stepped to the pair.
“Bokar, Aravan,” said Jinnarin softly, “the cleft leads to a sentry post, a narrow slot just under the ledge, above and to the left—to the west—of the entrance.”
“Do any other passages split off?” asked Bokar.
“No.”
“Jinnarin,” whispered Aylis, “next time, before darting off, wait until I have done a casting.”
“A casting?”
“Yes. When I focus, I can detect the presence of
“But Aravan’s blue stone—”
Alamar hissed, “It detects Foul Folk for the most part, Pysk. Some foe it does not sense at all.”
“Neither does it tell direction,” added Aravan, “only near or far.”
Bokar tugged on his red beard. “Even so, Lady Aylis, I do not want you to be in the vanguard, nor Mage Alamar—”
“Bah, Dwarf,” growled Alamar. “We can take care of ourselves.”
Aylis laid a hand on her father’s arm to quell him. “Father, Bokar is right—the vanguard is a place for warriors.” She turned to the armsmaster. “Even so, Bokar, when we come to passages, let me do a casting before you send scouts in.”
Bokar gave a short sharp nod, then said, “Just ahead, Lady Aylis, Brekka and Dokan have discovered another passage splitting off to the right.”
“I’ll be right back, Father,” murmured Aylis, stepping swiftly away before he could volunteer to go with her. Jinnarin on Rux followed on her heels, with Aravan and Bokar coming after.
They trod along the curve, and some fifty feet down the passageway they came to the juncture, a wide corridor sheering off at a right angle to the main artery. Here Rux snorted, trying in vain to clear his nostrils of the stench emanating from this cavern way.
“’Ware,” hissed Jinnarin, “Rux likes this not.”
Bokar signalled Dwarves with crossbows to stand ready. Then he turned to Aylis and whispered, “My Lady, from the echoes, to the Châkka it resounds as would a single chamber a distance within.” Aylis nodded and prepared to step before the dark opening.
With crossbows warding her, Aylis murmured,
“Patefac vitam patibilem,”
and peered down the hallway, her brow furrowed in concentration. After a moment she relaxed and stepped back. “Nothing,” she whispered.
“Ha!” hissed Alamar. Jinnarin whirled about. The eld Mage had come up behind them. “No
“I know that, Mage,” sissed Bokar. “Brekka, Dokan…” the armsmaster paused, looking down at the cluster of shadow that was Jinnarin and Rux. Finally he added, “…and Lady Jinnarin. You three make a quick trip in
and back. Be wary, for it is as Mage Alamar says, there yet may be life within.”
Into the passage the scouts went, Jinnarin in the lead, Rux reluctantly forging into the stench. The passage curved slightly to the left and then back to the right, and at this second curve, Brekka and Dokan each unshuttered a Dwarven lantern, the phosphorescent glow pressing back a darkness too deep for even their Châkka eyes, though Jinnarin and Rux could yet see.
They came into a large chamber filled with a stench that Pysk and Dwarf alike nearly gagged upon. And scattered across the floor were huge pallets. “Trolls!” hissed Brekka, his face grim in the gleam of the lantern. “This is a Troll sleeping chamber.”
Jinnarin shuddered. She had never seen a Troll, but she had heard of them. Farrix said that they were huge—twelve to fourteen feet tall—with enormous strength and endless endurance. Like monstrous goblins they were, but dull-witted. They had pointed teeth and bat-wing ears and glaring red eyes, and stonelike hides, greenish and scaled. And some people called them Ogrus while others called them—
“Count the beds,” sissed Dokan, breaking into Jinnarin’s thoughts. “We need know the threat.”
Rapidly they circled the room. “I add up twenty-eight,” gritted Dokan, Brekka and Jinnarin agreeing.
Brekka’s gaze swept the chamber. “I see no other entrances and exits.”
“Just the passage we came down,” concurred Dokan.
“Let’s go,” urged Jinnarin. “Rux would leave now.”
Swiftly, they made their way back to the main corridor.
“It is a vacant Troll chamber,” growled Dokan. “It sleeps twenty-eight.”
“Elwydd!” exclaimed Bokar. “Twenty-eight?” The armsmaster looked in alarm at Aravan. “We cannot hope to take on such foe, Captain. We would be hard-pressed to defeat just one.”
Aravan’s hand strayed to the chill amulet at his throat. “Let us hope that we do not meet even one, Bokar. Yet Troll or no, we must press on, for now I am certain that we stride through Durlok’s very own strongholt, and
somewhere herein lies the heart of an evil that we must seek out and destroy.”
A small cluster of shadow added, “The key to finding Farrix must lie within as well.”
A grim look came into Bokar’s eye. Turning to Brekka and Dokan…and Jinnarin, “Let us go forward then,” he gritted, signing for the scouts to take the point.
Another hundred feet they went, the passage sloping upward and continuing to curve gently to the right, and they came to a passageway angling sharply leftward. Again Aylis cast a spell, and once more found no
