Sea of Death (25 page)

That ended Leda's briefing of Gord, so now the two proceeded cautiously down the stairs. A pair of drowsy guards flanking an open doorway proved no opposition at all, and once they were inside the slave quarters Gord used his enchanted, metal-slicing dagger to quickly and quietly cleave through the locks that held the two dozen humans, half-elves, and elves in chains. Despite the poor physical condition of most of them, the slaves were alert and smart. They had enough sense to make no outcry at their deliverance, realizing they were far from safe yet, and they got rid of their chains quickly and silently when they were cut free.

After he freed them, Gord wordlessly offered the slaves the four weapons that were immediately available – the two swords from the dead guards and the pair of little blades that Gord decided they could use better than he.

Gord and Leda led the way to the lower floor, finding a roomful of about a dozen sleeping pygmies. They entered the chamber, accompanied by four members of those few among the slaves who could see in the dark and move soundlessly as well. Dividing up the quarry to two pygmies apiece, this group slaughtered all the albinos without waking a single one.

Where they had been grateful but still grim moments earlier, the slaves were now ebullient and determined. They had gleaned nearly twenty more pygmy-sized weapons from the assault just completed on the sleeping quarters, enough to virtually arm every man in the band.

After allowing them a couple of minutes for a subdued celebration of their freedom, Leda spoke to the ex-slaves solemnly, pointing out that they had much work to do if they hoped to survive and return to the world above. The dark elf told the others that they must arrange themselves to be led by those who could see in the dark and gave them all information on where the other slave barracks were nearby, how to use the upper walkways to gain these places, and where an arsenal was located across the dry river course. Then Gord and Leda bade them all good luck.

Thanks to you, man, and you too, even if you are a drow!" a lean, worn half-elf muttered as the band began to move out. "We have no sure course to escape this place, but dying free and in battle is preferable to slavery and consumption by these cursed ones. May we succeed, and may you gain success in whatever purpose you had in entering this miserable hole," he said over his shoulder. Then all of the ex-slaves were away, climbing into the floors overhead.

Gord and Leda waited a few minutes, watching outside all the while lest a wandering pygmy stumble upon the carnage of the slave barracks and sound an alarm prematurely. When they supposed the freed slaves were well on their way, the two dashed back upstairs themselves.

After they had passed through the interiors of three buildings and as many of the walkways, Leda thought it best to descend and find a place where they could gain the old riverbed, make a run across the wide way, and then get up to the other side of the city where the temple lay. The structure they were in was poised on the verge of the rocky channel, and Gord located a narrow flight of stairs that ended about twenty feet above the bottom of the old riverbed.

This is the place where we disembark, Leda. Can you manage to climb down the rest of the distance after the stairs end?"

The dark elf examined the old stone carefully. "I think so – there are places to hang on and put my feet – but what if I slip and fall?"

"I'll catch you – no fear of that," he said hastily. Then the young man was over the edge of the little landing and down. It seemed to Leda that he almost slid rather than climbed, but the descent was not quite fast enough to be a fall. Then Gord was standing on the riverbed below, looking up at her, and motioning to the girl to follow. After she got about halfway down, Leda could not find her next foothold, and she panicked briefly. The quickest way is to let go, my dear," he said. "I am right beneath you." She did as he suggested, and he had no trouble breaking her fall with his strong, outstretched arms.

"Right across the way is a ramp going up the far side of the riverbed. Let's run for it," Gord urged just after putting her down.

Leda suddenly froze. "Listen! I hear the piping note again, only this time there are quavers in it, and it is more intense. The little white things must have discovered there are slaves armed and in revolt."

Then the air was filled with a dim throbbing, a sound that even seemed to permeate the ancient stones of the place. Some monstrous iron gong was being beaten a long distance away, struck with repeated force every few seconds, so that the reverberations went in deep swells through not only the air but through the fabric of the rock beneath the city, causing the surface on which they were standing to vibrate beneath their feet.

"I think more than a slave revolt would be needed to make the pygmies resort to that sort of alarm," Gord said between tremors. That sound makes my very bones shake."

Leda was about to reply when yet another sound joined the chorus of nearly inaudible horns and iron gong. This was a brassy shrieking, a wailing series of notes blown on some larger horn than that which made the thin piping.

"That sound I have heard – or, I should say, Eclavdra has heard," said Leda. "Her memories tell me it is the rallying horn of the pygmies. I don't know the significance, but it seems to come from up the river channel."

"Yes, I think so, Leda. And the gong sounds from that way," he added, pointing the opposite way. "The pygmies are under attack from two directions, I'll wager, and their slaves are in armed revolt even as their enemies come upon them. I hope those miserable little cannibals are about to get their just deserts!"

"Never mind justice right now, Gord. Let's find that temple while the pale ones are really busy." Chuckling grimly, Gord loped along beside her as Leda took off at a brisk run for the opposite side of the depression.

THEY DASHED UP THE RAMP and stood panting in the gloom, sheltered from casual view by a portion of the building they leaned against. As they rested thus, a company of armed pygmy soldiers trotted past a short distance away, went down the ramp the two had just ascended, and were gone. Leda suggested that they find a way to enter this old mass they stood beside, saying that it matched the description of the place where too-large items were stored for trade with nonpygmy groups.

After a few minutes of searching, they found an alley door. It was locked, but Gord had no trouble opening the simple mechanism, using a bit of wire from the little pouch of tools kept on his belt for just such a need. A brief search through the welter of stuff strewn about inside the place uncovered all sorts of arms. Not one was of any great value, but finally Gord selected a light long sword, probably once the property of some woman or small man. It was longer and heavier than his old short sword, but not so different as to require hours of practice before he could use it properly. The weapon was stacked in a corner along with axes, a mace, several other swords, and a long-spiked morning star. Not wanting to waste still more time searching for a scabbard, Gord grabbed up a couple of the other weapons and hurried out. As he went, he dropped an axe just inside the door and a broadsword just outside the entry.

"What are you doing?" Leda asked.

"Leave the door wide open, girl. I hope that a band of roaming slaves – or ex-slaves, that is – will stumble upon this place. Now let's go find that bedamned temple and see what happens!"

As the two trotted out of the alley and along a street that they thought would lead to the pygmies' sacred shrine, a bright flash lit up the sky. It was followed by a fiery light that sent tawny shadows dancing along the underground thoroughfare for several beats, then died as quickly as it came. The display came from their right and was about a mile distant, Leda thought. "That was a magical sphere of fire, Gord. The others seeking the Final Key must be attacking at this moment. We must run!"

"Oh, hells! Look, Leda, to your left." As Gord spoke, pale spurts of glowing green energy zipped along a broad avenue that intersected the road they were following at a distance of about fifty yards. The darts were answered by a rolling cloud of some hellish vapors that gleamed with a grayish internal light as it boiled toward a group of albino soldiers who stood in its path. One of the pale little men in the front rank held a long wand, and from it issued more of the darting green spurts. Farther down the avenue, someone cried out; one of the wand-wielder's foes had apparently been struck by the force that came from the weapon. Then the vapors enveloped the squad of little soldiers, and only the lone, wand-using one staggered out of the cloud. He ran from the scene at a good clip, but made the mistake of heading for where Gord and Leda were hidden.

"Cut him down, Gord. We can use that wand he has."

Without hesitation, the young thief sprang out and angled so as to approach the little man from the side. The pygmy seemed disoriented, ill, and panicky, all of which made him an easy target for Gord's new blade. The long sword bit through flesh and bone before the little man even noticed Gord's presence. "Here, girl, is your toy," he said, taking the wand from the dead fingers of the pygmy and tossing it to the dark elf, who had trailed along behind him.

"Good. It shoots magical missiles, Gord. We'll need them, I think, for those who approach behind that poisonous cloud are drow – and that means Eclavdra. I felt she was near…"

"Those other fireworks must be the dwarf and his henchmen, then," Gord said as he scanned the urban landscape. "There's a white building in the distance, midway between the two forces – see it? Run as if demons are on our heels, Leda."

"There are demons after us, Gord," she said, moving swiftly to show she meant it. Together, the two dashed through the dark streets without encountering any opposition; the albino forces were all off in other locations, trying to deal with two bands of invaders and a slave revolt all at the same time. A few minutes later they were bounding up a narrow stairway leading into a white, pillared edifice trimmed with red gold. This had to be the place they sought. At last, they had come to the shrine that housed the last portion of the artifact of great darkness. Without hesitation, they entered and prepared to confront whatever awaited them inside.

Not far away, Obmi, Bolt, and a group of Yoli warriors were finishing off the remnants of a company of pygmy soldiers who had thought to oppose them. The dwarf was rumbling a happy battle-song deep in his broad chest as he sent his deadly hammer flying to crack the skull of an albino priest trying to work up a spell against him. The martel was a handy thing to have, and he was glad for its presence in his right hand, but the hammer he had owned for a longer time, and it held a special place in his dark heart. It was able to wreak horrible damage, even when thrown, and the best part was that whenever Obmi released it, the hammer would hit its target and then circle around to return to the dwarfs grasp – as it did now.

With his left hand Obmi caught the bloodied weapon that came whirling back to him, and in the same instant buried the long pick of his martel in the side of a nearby pygmy. The force of this impact drove the tiny man sideways into his fellow defenders. At the same time, the dwarf jerked the pick sideways, freeing its bill and arcing the weapon to his left, where it struck another of the pale soldiers with its toothed hammer head, destroying the albino's face.

The dwarf felt wonderful. Here was a proper perspective at last! He was fighting men over whom he towered by a foot. And the magical boots bestowed upon him especially for this mission made him quicker than any ordinary human anyway, regardless of size. The dwarf flashed through the ranks of the desperate little albinos, a whirlwind of destruction that left a trail of blood and death behind. The poisoned quarrels from the repeating arbalests that the pygmy soldiers relied upon were next to useless against Obmi and his lieutenant. Bolt the wizard was protected from ordinary missiles by an enchantment, and the dwarf was by nature virtually immune to venom. Obmi smiled as he recalled plucking a little projectile from where it had stuck in his arm and using it on the fool who had shot him with it at point-blank range. The expression on the white runt's face as he had driven the still-envenomed quarrel into the very eye that had aimed it was hilarious.

The wizard was quite useful. Bolt had cleared away much of the opposition with a forked bolt of lightning – a stroke much bigger and more deadly than the defenders had supposed was possible. It had crisped a pair of the pygmy folk's own magic-workers before they knew what had hit them. Then Bolt had used his power to fry many of the remaining pale little men with a fireball, so the avenue up which Obmi marched was clear of opposition of serious sort, and he was able to amuse himself by crushing several of the pygmies with his own weapons. After a few minutes of this close fighting, half of the ten barbarian warriors accompanying the dwarf had been lost, but one had to expect as much. It didn't matter at any rate. One guide had been kept behind in a safe place outside the city, and that was all Obmi needed to get back to real civilization once the prize was his.

As Obmi came to an intersection of two avenues and turned the corner, he first peered ahead and caught sight of a commotion taking place in the distance. "Blast!" he roared. "Could it be that the filthy drow yet survives?" Bolt, as mystified as his master was angry, wisely let the question pass. Obmi stood still, taking a few seconds to discern the path along which the distant activity was moving, then let his gaze continue to track along the same route. Suddenly he set eyes upon an imposing building a few hundred yards away. "There!" he bellowed to the remainder of his assault group. "Look, you dogs! The temple lies ahead, and we must get there first. Run over any who stand in your way, now, and move for that place!"

Gord and Leda had come into the pygmy shrine from a secondary way, one reserved for the clerics who were housed nearby. Of course, the two had no idea that this was the case, for they couldn't see the grand entrances on the other faces of the great block that was the temple building. A large vestibule with three passageways was the first thing they saw upon entering. To either hand the reddish light common in the undercity was apparent, for the temple was filled with the strange globes. Ahead, though, the corridor glowed with a golden illumination that was unique to the place.

"Straight on, Leda," Gord hissed to the dark elf. That light must come from their most precious place of veneration." The pair rah on down the passage, a ten-foot width of polished alabaster with precious gold inlaid in the mosaic tiles of its walls.

The light is mysterious to them, I think. They must make this place so bright to awe the commoners – a reminder of the time when their ancestors dwelled upon the surface," Leda panted as they hurried forward. "It gives us a great advantage, for the pygmies will be nearly blind in such conditions."

"And a drow?"

"Most will be, but not I," Leda replied. "Eclavdra was supplied with dweomered cusps that protect the eyes from radiation of most sorts – and I, as her physical duplicate, also wear a pair of them."

Before they could converse further, the two came into a huge, pillared hall. They looked out upon a curved end wall, columned side aisles, and a wide central way. Down the middle of the four broad main aisles stretched lines of displays, as if the place was a museum. Perhaps it once had been such. The displays were encased in clear material – glass, crystal, or whatever, Gord could not tell. Along the way they came, the exhibits were of priestly nature, it seemed. They dashed past ancient books and even older-looking scrolls, carved chairs, displayed vestments, ornate reliquaries and sacred offery and altar pieces, and clerical paraphernalia of gold and silver.

The central portion of the mighty chamber was domed in gold, and the floor beneath this dome was a disc of dark, polished onyx. Set around this circle was a rail of wood, inlaid with gold, and broken at only one spot, on the side from which they approached. Outside the rail were curved benches of a size suitable for the pygmy folk. Perhaps a hundred or so could be seated there. Naturally, the benches faced inward so that the greatest of the albinos' treasures could be venerated. From the apex of the dome, fully forty feet above the onyx floor, hung a massive chain of dull, greenish metal. About two-thirds of the way down from the roof on this upper chain was fastened a massive ring. Four slightly smaller chains radiated out beneath this ring, enclosing a globe of crystalline transparency. Each of these four lengths of greenish links was caught fast again below the sphere by another great ring, and this, in turn, was fastened to another stretch of thicker chain that extended down to the onyx floor, held fast by a massive staple of the same metal as itself.

"If I stretched, I think I could just about touch the lower ring," Leda said to the young thief.

"I have never seen anything quite so black," Gord said in wonderment as he stared at the transparent globe. He referred to the small object set inside the crystal, a vaguely cone-shaped thing with three protruding parts that vaguely resembled horns.

Leda tugged at his arm to break his trancelike state. "Don't stare at it – don't look directly at it at all! That thing gives onto a part of the multiverse which is the opposite of what we know. It seems so black because it devours light. Don't touch it, for it will drain your life as it withers your flesh."

"How in the hopping hells do you expect me to touch it, girl? No one can get at it!"

"We must, Gord – and stop calling me girl. I am far older than you are!"

Gord slapped the dark elf on her round posterior, chuckling as he did so to break the tension of the situation. "No, you aren't. You said yourself that you are only months old – I should call you child, not girl."

"Ass! My memories stretch back over centuries, so I am no girl. Stop this foolish behavior and get moving. We have to loose that globe, crack it somehow, and gain the Final Key while the pygmies are busy elsewhere."

What the dark elf said made sense. There should have been dozens of guards and priests in the place, yet the temple was seemingly deserted – for now, anyway, and there was no telling when the battles going on outside would carry over to within this chamber.

Gord glanced around to see if there was anything nearby that might help him in what he meant to do. His eye fell upon a nearby display case. It held a statue, a lifelike work that depicted a warrior of the ancient empire, arrayed for battle and holding an oval-shaped shield and a surprisingly modern-looking sword. The weapon fairly radiated excellence of craftsmanship to the young adventurer. It was as long as the blade he held now, and shaped very much like it, yet there were differences that struck Gord as indicating that some great artisan had fashioned the weapon in the case. The blade was not as heavy and thick as the one he held, and the guard and quillons were far better. When he took a step and looked closer, Gord saw that the sword had a dish-shaped cutting edge and a ridged spine along its length. All in all, an excellent tool.

There is my new weapon!" he said with quiet determination.

Leda's face contorted in anger. "Have you gone daft?" she scolded. "Use that vaunted dagger of yours to sever those chains. We must have the Final Key now!"

Ignoring the dark elf entirely, Gord strode up to the tall case of wood-framed glass and peered at the incredibly realistic statue of the Suel knight therein. "Sorry, paragon of lost dreams of conquest, I have greater need for that blade than you do," he said, and with that he smote the case with the sword he was carrying. Strips of wood snapped, and thick panes of glass shivered into fragments that chimed and tinkled as they split into slivers upon contact with the stone floor. At the same moment, a puff of smoke erupted within the sundered display. Gord jumped back to escape the foul-smelling emission, coughing and wiping away the tears that the stuff caused to stream from his eyes.