Sea of Death (21 page)

All of the nomads were injured from the most recent combat, but they had cleaned and bound their wounds with skill born of long practice. Each of them had drunk as much of the contents of his waterskin as he could hold. "Show us to the water now, Farzeel, so we can fill our skins and set off!" Achulka said heartily.

"Come with me," Gord told the warriors. "I'll lead you to the pool." While they went off, Leda busied herself by rummaging through the coffers, picking up some odd items that she thought might be useful later.

By the time Gord and the nomads returned, the young thief was totally resigned to what was about to happen, and he decided to make the best of matters by being friendly and thoughtful. "Shall we lay Nizamee in one of the stone chests?" he suggested to Achulka. "I think he would appreciate resting on more wealth than most men see in a lifetime."

"Agreed, Farzeel. A hero's tomb for a brave warrior of the Thuffi!" the nomad leader said. Then, after seeing to this task, Achulka grinned and pointed to the door. "Let us all now get above to see the sun and feel the air of the real world – even that of this stinking desert!"

Leda was surprised to hear talk of this sort; apparently Gord had not yet informed the nomads of their final decision. "You go alone, warriors," she told them. "Gord and I will rest here a little time, and then set forth again for the City Out of Mind."

"You cannot mean that, warrior-woman! Is this true, Farzeel…?"

"She speaks the truth, Achulka." With no further words, all five retraced their path and ascended back to the room through which they had entered the building.

"Here," said Gord as the nomads were organizing and packing their equipment and treasure. "Take our waterskins with you. Our rations, too. We will not need them, for we know places to gain both as necessary."

"I could not trust such a statement," said Achulka, "if it came from anyone but you, Farzeel. You are not bent on dying – I know this, for otherwise, you would now be lying on the floor in the cellars below us. So, you must believe the truth of what you say, and if you believe it, then I do too." He accepted the provisions, and the three nomads bowed deeply to Gord and Leda in a sign of great respect. The two of them helped transport dust-walkers, poles, and other gear up the ladder, and then they said their final farewells to Achulka and his comrades.

Gord and Leda took what little of their equipment they would need and returned, at her suggestion, to the treasure chamber below. He wanted to move out immediately, to be free of this forbidding place, but she actually seemed relaxed in the same environment. "Let me rest a bit first," she told him, "and then I will be able to heal your burns and the wounds you still have before we set out."

"You can do that so easily? Why, then, did you not tend to Achulka and his fellows?"

Her expression turned abruptly cold. "They deserted us," she said disdainfully. "Let time care for them." Gord was a bit bewildered by this sudden change in her attitude, but attributed it to the fact that she really did need to rest.

"Now, let me sleep and regain my powers," she said tersely. "I'll have to use them to see to our food and drink too, probably, so stand guard while I rest and recover."

"As you wish," the young thief replied in an equally curt manner, but if Leda noticed his tone, she chose not to react to it. By the time he had put the bar in place across the door, she was prone and well on her way to sleep. He soon forgot about her cool demeanor and had a fine time for the next few hours browsing through the great piles of treasure that remained in the stone coffers. He knew he could not take any of it with him, but for the time being, at least, it was all his. What more, he thought to himself wryly, could a thief ask?

THEY HAD BEEN FOLLOWING an old passage leading away from the pool for only a few hundred yards when a pile of broken rock loomed before them – a cave-in that, at first glance, seemed to keep them from going farther. Then Leda saw a small opening in the ceiling just in front of the heap of stones and rubble. "Look, Gord," she said, pointing to the hole. "That is how the apes and pygmies come and go."

Gord scrambled swiftly up the pile of rock and hoisted himself up into the vertical passageway. It was a very snug fit, but that actually enabled him to climb better because he could exert constant pressure on the sides of the tunnel. He disappeared from Leda's sight for a couple of minutes, then came down feet first and dropped lithely back into the chamber where she stood. "There is a maze of passages above," he reported. The hole in the ceiling seems to be an escape tunnel, Leda. Above it are what were sewers, subcellars, and who knows what else. Some of the work is newer than the rest, so the pygmies must have made them. Those places are only about four feet high, and narrow too."

"Do any of the routes go in the direction we want?" the dark elf asked.

"Yes, but only one of the little ones, and it heads upward, too."

"Then let's see if we can clear away the debris here and move onward in this tunnel."

"What makes you think we can do that, girl?

Those white midgets would have done so long ago if it was possible."

"Why would they bother if they had their own egress from the area? Just be still, and watch while I use a little trick to discover if there is a way," Leda told him.

She knelt and, using a sharp stone, scratched a strange symbol on the tunnel floor. It was composed of three swords, two pointing downward at angles and one perpendicular, point upward, to form a starlike symbol. The girl began to chant under her breath, and then from within her robe she produced a tiny bead of quicksilver. As she intoned her chant, she worked the stuff into a bit of clay she had picked up from the temple's cistern. Then she smoothed the mixture out onto a large piece of the fallen rock, sang out a strange series of syllables, and stepped back. Gord was about to ask her what she thought to accomplish with her actions of the last several minutes when Leda spoke – but she did not address him.

"Tell me, stone, what lies beyond you?"

A hollow, toneless voice, barely audible, replied, "More of the passage you stand in."

"Between it and you – how much more stone?"

"Ten times the length of your arm."

"Everywhere?"

"No."

"Where is there less?"

"Above."

"Where above?"

This question-and-answer routine went on. The very rocks would speak, it seemed, to those clerics able to employ the correct power to enable or compel them to do so. Finally the weird voice related that in the far corner near the roof of the passage, only an arm's length of fallen rock was between them and the continuing tunnel.

"But is there more loose stone above that place, which might come down if we clear away what lies there?"

A long pause. "Yes," the slab of rock finally admitted.

"What of the corner on the opposite side?"

"But little more, and above there the roof is solid," the hollow voice told her. Gord sensed a grudging tone in the sound. At this, Leda turned away; the communication was apparently ended.

"How can a stone speak?" he asked as she motioned him toward the place where they could clear a way.

"The stuff is of the plane of earth. The spell awakens an elemental who can read impressions within the rock as you or I would read a book," the dark elf explained impatiently. "Let's get on with clearing the stones away now."

Leda stood well away as Gord accomplished the work. It wasn't too difficult once he freed the first couple of chunks. The remainder were loose, and then it was only a matter of working them free and tumbling them down, first on this side, then shoving them away to fall into the passage beyond the pile. "Whew!" Gord said after about ten minutes of work as he contemplated the small space he had made. "That was heavy going, but there's a hole big enough for us to use now. Shall I give you a hand?"

"No," Leda said. "I can manage myself." She suited action to word by climbing nimbly up the heap of rocks to a place just behind him. "Go through, and I'll pass you our gear. As soon as you have it all, go on down the other side, and I'll follow."

The corridor continued for another hundred or so paces beyond the cave-in, then it divided in a rough T-shape. One branch seemed to head almost due west, so they took that one in preference to the route that veered to the east. This tunnel slanted upward, and in a short time they had moved aside a concealed stone and were gazing down on a circular pipe cut through the sandstone that prevailed here.

"It is an underground aqueduct, Gord. See there. A trickle of water still flows along it."

"That seems to be what we've found, all right," he agreed. The flow goes back toward the temple and whatever urban complex was around it. Even though this conduit leads southward, Leda, I think we should take it. Going back and heading east is certainly no better."

"Agreed. If this brought water to the town and temple, it will take us a long way. We'll have water, too, as we go."

"How in the Nine Hells could the Ancient Suloise have managed something like this? This tunnel is almost twenty feet across and, if we are correct, it must run for miles!"

Leda laughed at Gord's wonderment. "Any kingdom so powerful as to make a fertile plain into a place of arid devastation, and to get in retaliation a burying coat of dust upon them, could do something like this as easily as you and I walk along it now. Think of the powers they possessed! Had I but a trifling of those old ones' strength, I would be queen of… Oh, no matter."

"Right, love. We had better save our breath for what comes, for by any calculation there are a hundred leagues and more between us and the City Out of Mind."

The next day they encountered their first slug. It was by no means a giant among its kind, only about six feet thick, and it wasn't the variety that expectorated its poisonous saliva, either. The thing was basking in the streamlet that flowed along the pipe. It had sensed their coming, however, probably by picking up vibrations borne by the water. As they came close it surged suddenly, sliding forward on its slimy track, feelers waving and a sharp-tipped tube outthrust.

Gord, in the lead at the moment, was nearly taken by the unexpected lunge made by the seemingly slow and senseless monster. Instinctively, he jumped back and batted with his left hand, the one holding his dagger, for the barbed tube was coming at that side of his body. Even though the slug's hide was tough, the keen-edged blade sliced the stabbing member cleanly off, and a jet of vile-smelling stuff shot forth as the severed tip fell away. The liquid hit Gord's leg, and the pain was so intense that he screamed refiexively. Then his nerves shut off, and he remembered no more, until…

"How are you now, love?"

Leda's dark and lovely face swam into view before his eyes. Then Gord recalled what had happened. "My leg is still a little tender," he answered after a little thought and a flexing of his limbs, "but otherwise that stuff it squirted on me seems to be pretty harmless – other than the searing pain it causes."

"Searing is right," Leda said with a shake of her platinum tresses. That thing's poison seared you almost to death, and that's the truth. I had to use a spell to detoxify you, then heal you after. You've been unconscious for half a day!"

As soon as he felt strong enough, Gord pulled the dark elf to him. Despite the conditions, they found kissing and making love was as healing and restoring as any magic. "Now, my dear drow queen," he said to her, "we are even. I have saved your life, and you mine. Whatever occurs from now on is on a clean slate, as the scholars are wont to say."

When they went on, both were more alert for danger. It was a good thing, too. The farther they proceeded along the conduit line, the more dangerous were the things they encountered. A tannish agglomeration was seen, a pudding of awful sort that scavenged and hunted as well. There were several sorts of amoeboid creatures, slimy bundles or ribbons that lurked in the water or on the curved ceiling. There were more slugs of various sorts, too. Only some of these latter monsters were unavoidable, since they lurked directly in Gord's and Leda's path and, as Gord had found out the hard way, they were capable of quick, rapid movements over a short distance. They took care of all the small slugs they could not go around – but then, as they rounded a bend in the tunnel, they came upon a monstrous one that nearly filled the entire tunnel with its bulk, and it was crawling toward them.

"What do we do now?" Gord asked as they retreated from the advancing horror. "That mindless blob will probably pursue us all the way back to where we entered this tube."

Gord might be helpless in this situation, but Leda was not. "Hit it with your sling stones if you can," she said. "Try to make it stop, or at least come on more slowly. I'll go back and bring up something that even this thing will not like."

Gord waited for a few minutes while the thing moved inexorably forward. Then, when he thought the slug might be in range of his weapon, he tried his best. Unfortunately, because of the height of the tunnel, he had to send the stone on a flat trajectory, and it did not travel as far as he had wanted. It hit the creature on the bounce and did not hurt it, but evoked a glob of spittle from the slug. The shot of liquid fell short, just as his stone had, but Gord got the message. If he was able to send stones to strike the creature with any effect, the slug would be in range to retaliate with its juices, and one dose of that stuff could kill him. He loaded and spun his sling a second time, loosed one more heavy stone just for the sake of doing so, and then ran back to where Leda was standing just as she finished making a series of passes in the air.

"I love your legs in that modishly short robe you're wearing, Gord!"

"Not very funny, Leda," he snapped. His burnous had been eaten away by the first stinging slug's poison, so she had cut it off to make a tuniclike garment. "That son of a bitch is coming, you know."

"Not for long he isn't. I managed to work up what is needed. Let's watch."

The gigantic slug moved along toward them for another minute or so. Then suddenly it stopped, its feelers waving wildly, and its bloated, grayish form began to heave and writhe. A strange piping sound came from the monster, a sound Gord had never heard from any of the slugs they had avoided or killed prior to this encounter.

"Look at that bag of slime now, dearest one. See how the visitors I have called get its attention?"

"What is happening?"

"I have summoned insects to attack that thing. Even down here there are many to answer the calling I sent forth, and arachnids will obey too, sometimes. It will take a time – we had better get back from here now. Eventually the little ones will do their work, and the bites and stings will finish the slug. The beetles and bugs will feast on that slime-coated flesh, and we will go on thereafter."

Gord shuddered at the thought. Even a ghastly thing like that deserved a cleaner death. Still, when it came down to it, it was a matter of their death or the slug's. Leda was more practical than he, no two ways about it. "You have saved us, girl," he said with calm admiration. "Nice work… but couldn't you have managed it some other way?"

Leda shrugged. "I don't think so, but what's the difference? The swarm of insects came to me, and the summoning has worked. We will go on, and the matter is closed. Do you really concern yourself with that slug?"

"Stupid of me, isn't it?" he replied with a tone of self-disgust. "That bastard would suck me up for lunch without thought, but it is a nasty way to die, that," he said, turning away from the thrashing thing and walking back a short distance with Leda to wait for the insects to finish their work.

After a time they proceeded forward again, stepping gingerly around the area where the bugs were still feasting on the slug's remains. "One thing is apparent now," Gord mused as they walked. "The number of life forms we have encountered lately spells it out clearly for us."

"What's that?"

"Somewhere pretty close ahead is a place where this tunnel gives way to the desert above. All these monsters and other things don't come from inside this aqueduct."

A few minutes later, Leda spoke. "You were right, Gord. There it is ahead, see?" She pointed to a wall of rock and soil about a hundred or so feet farther on up the tunnel, in front of which was a sliver of light that leaked down from the surface above. "Another barrier," she added with disgust as they approached the site.

"It would have been handy to take this tube all the way to our target, and it did seem to be heading southwest, too. Maybe there's a way past this blockage like there was before," said Gord hopefully.

A minor earthquake must have caused the collapse of the tunnel. The fall had totally blocked passage along the aqueduct, although a trickle of water issued from the broken stones and fell to the floor of the corridor. However, Gord and Leda found that they were not without alternatives. There were several dark openings in the sides and floor of the aqueduct at this point. All they needed to do was choose one of the several tunnels they could fit into.

"Now we venture into more interesting places," Leda said to the young adventurer. "This kind of thing makes me feel right at home."

"Do you remember your home, Leda?"

"No… I have no personal memory of that. Still, we drow live in such conditions, I hear – don't you? What more natural, then, than to go traipsing off under an Ashen Desert?"

Gord made a wry face but began checking out the options available. Eventually he narrowed their alternatives to two. "We can try the big hole here," he said to the girl, pointing to the place a slug must have made as a means of entering the aqueduct, "or we can follow the smaller one on the side there. It goes in our general direction, but the large one seems to turn that way also. Your choice."