Pool of Radiance Page 5

  "Why did Athan's band need the ring to reach the Heights?" Durwyn asked. "Couldn't they just walk there?"

  "The wars that brought down Myth Drannor left the city's surface in such ruin that many sections are cut off from one another by huge piles of rubble from collapsed buildings and walls," Faeril said. "We are now in a section called the Northern Ruins; the Heights holds the Specu­lum, Castle Cormanthor, and other important buildings. The only way to move between the districts is through the undercity created by the elves and dwarves over the cen­turies. The Ring of Calling can unseal a door inside the dwarven dungeons that leads to the Heights."

  "It sounds like our first step is visiting this Room of Words," Corran said. "If we're lucky, we'll find the band's killers there searching for the ring's enabling word and we can get the ring back from them."

  No, if we're lucky, they will be long gone and we'll have to abandon this futile quest and go home, Kestrel wanted to say. Luck, however, didn't seem to be on her side these past few days.

  "How do we get to the House of Gems?" Ghleanna asked.

  "Through the dwarven dungeons," Beriand responded. "They connect to an isolated tower in the House of Gems. The tower is sealed from the outside, so the dungeons are the only way in. I must warn you, though—the undercity corridors are filled with orcs and undead. In fact, so many of the creatures were using the dungeons as a highway to this part of the city that I sealed the entrance. Rest here for the night to refresh your strength before challenging their numbers."

  "In the morning, we will direct you to the doors," said Faeril. "Beriand sealed them with the Glyph of Mystra. Before you leave, study the book lying open on the altar. It contains the Word of Mystra, a command so powerful that it can be learned only through study, not by simply hear­ing it. Knowing the Word of Mystra will grant you entry through any portal marked with the goddess's symbol. Doors marked with other glyphs, however, require different words of opening."

  Words of opening. The Mythal. Magical gates. The Ring of Calling. As Kestrel lay on her cot that night, her head swam with it all. This morning, her sole thought had been leaving Phlan. Well, she'd left it all right—and now only hoped to get back alive. How had everything spun out of her control so quickly?

  Damn Nat's firewine!

  CHAPTER THREE

  At sunrise, supplied with directions and rations from the clerics, the foursome left the elven shel­ter and hiked to the entrance of the dwarven undercity. Dawn proved a good time to travel the city's surface—the sunlight chased away undead wanderers, while the hour was too early for much activity on the part of humanoids. The few orcs they did spot en route were easily avoided.

  The daylight, however, did little to lift the pall that lay over the ruined city. An aura of tarnished greatness hung about Myth Drannor, its former dignity reduced to rubble along with its struc­tures. Everywhere Kestrel looked, flawed beauty met her gaze: crumbling arches, cracked columns, decapitated statues, dead or dying trees. The tales she'd heard of the fallen elven capital had described treasure there for the taking by anyone brave enough to face its new denizens. However, even to her rogue's sensibilities, looting this city seemed less like rob­bing from the rich than stealing from a cripple.

  The party spotted the double doors inscribed with Mystra's star symbol. They approached slowly, this time anticipating the thunderous Word of Opening rending the air.

  "Aodhfionn!"

  The command, as yesterday spoken by the mysterious otherworldly voice, roared like the surf pounding on the shore. Kestrel started at the force as vibrations echoed in the air. Hinges too long in need of oil protested strenu­ously. The doors to the undercity swung open to reveal a dark corridor.

  Smooth, perfectly planed rock walls lined the ten-foot-wide opening. Within, narrower passages broke off in three directions. Lit torches punctuated the walls at fixed intervals, confirming that some sort of humanoid occu­pants passed through regularly. When she'd heard these dungeons were of dwarven construction, Kestrel had feared she and the others would have to stoop to move through them. Fortunately, the ceiling was at least six and a half feet high. Durwyn might have to duck in places to keep his helmet from scraping the roof, but otherwise it appeared that the foursome would find their movement generally unhindered.

  Kestrel waited for someone else to enter first. She might have agreed to accompany these misguided do-gooders on their suicide mission, but she had no plans to stick her neck out an inch further than she had to. She'd do what she could to keep the party alive and intact—thus improving her own chances of survival—but her commit­ment ended there.

  "Go ahead, Corran," she prompted. The holy knight seemed to have appointed himself the leader of their little group anyway. "I'll be right behind you."

  "I assume that's supposed to reassure me," he said, "but I can't help wondering if I'll feel a knife in my back."

  Don't tempt me, she thought. Aloud she said, "Only if you keep us standing here much longer. The sooner we go in, the sooner we get this over with."

  "Let us enter, then." Sword in hand, Corran strode for­ward into the flickering torchlight "May Tyr guide our steps—and our hearts."

  "Whatever."

  The two women entered after the paladin, with Durwyn bringing up the rear. Corran chose the path that broke off to the right Kestrel thought they should have paused at the fork and listened for clues to what lay ahead in each direction, but she didn't care enough to speak up, and she didn't feel like arguing with him this early in the morning. If he wanted to believe that his god guided his steps, that was fine with her—she just wished he and Durwyn would make less noise clanking around the stone corridor in their armor. They must have alerted the entire undercity population to their presence already.

  When they reached the third fork, she couldn't hold her tongue anymore. "Do you have any idea where you're going?" she asked.

  He stopped, turning to face her. "Do you?"

  "No, but it might help to listen ahead instead of just parading through." No sooner had she spoken than she thought she heard a voice murmuring in the passage to their right.

  He opened his mouth to respond, but she covered it with her hand. "Hush!" She cocked her head, trying to make out the words.

  "What do you hear?" Ghleanna whispered.

  It was a low, guttural voice. An orc? Probably, but she wanted to find out for sure. "Wait here." At the mage's raised brows, she added, "I won't go far."

  She crept down the right passageway, moving sound­lessly and keeping to the shadows created by the flickering torchlight. After a few dozen yards, she still couldn't see the speakers—she'd determined there were two of them— but she could hear them clearly, and the low rumble of many voices still further down the corridor.

  "Ugly wizard need more guards. Blood Spear Tribe come today. Meet here later."

  "Broken Skull Tribe show who boss."

  "No! Ugly wizard say no fight each other."

  They were orcs, all right. Either that, or the stupidest-sounding humans she'd ever overheard. She padded back to the fork, then trod about thirty yards down the other passage. She held her breath and listened closely but heard nothing but the crackle of torches. She returned to the group.

  "A couple tribes of orcs are gathering in the right pas­sage," she said, deliberately leaving out the mention of the "ugly wizard"—one of the scarred mages they'd heard about? Knowing Corran, he would want to confront the spellcaster immediately. "I vote we go to the left."

  The others concurred. They headed down the left cor­ridor, passing several solidly built wooden doors inscribed with glyphs—all of them different, none of them recogniz­able to anyone in the party. Kestrel tried to pick the locks of the first two doors, but discovered them magically, not mechanically, sealed.

  "They must require those other Words of Opening the clerics talked about," Durwyn said.

  "You think?" Kestrel retorted. Leave it to Durwyn to state the obvious.

  Several hundred yards far
ther, they came upon a door­way that glittered in the torchlight as they approached, as if it held a door of glass. When they reached it, they dis­covered the surface thick with frost and crystals.

  Ghleanna extended her hand to touch the surface. "It's ice. A solid sheet of ice."

  "Strange," Kestrel said. "I wonder what's inside?"

  Durwyn hefted his axe. "Let's find out." Before Kestrel could stop him, he swung the axe so hard it created an ear-splitting crash that echoed throughout the passageway. A huge web of cracks spread across the ice from the center of his strike. A second blow sent large chunks of ice flying into the room beyond.

  Kestrel grabbed his arm before he could swing again. She fought to keep her voice muted. "What in the Abyss are you doing?" she hissed. "Every orc in this dungeon will hear you!"

  Confusion spread across Durwyn's features. "I thought you wanted to—"

  "He might as well finish now," Corran said. "One more blow, and we'll be able to get through."

  Durwyn looked to Kestrel as if for permission. Corran was right—if breaking through was going to attract atten­tion from the orcs, the alarm had already sounded. She supposed it was even possible that they were far enough away that the orcs wouldn't be able to determine the ori­gin of the noise. Besides, for all they knew, the path to the House of Gems might lie beyond this frozen doorway. She shrugged her reluctant assent.

  The warrior struck a third time, shattering enough of the door to create a man-sized hole. They kicked aside hunks and shards of ice, then grabbed a torch from one of the wall sconces. Corran thrust it through the opening and peered in.

  "It's a small room," he said. "Maybe ten or twelve feet square. Looks like there's no one inside." He crawled through, followed by the others.

  Once inside, Kestrel shivered with cold. In the center of the room—taking up most of the room, in fact—was a large circular rune inscribed on the stone floor. Its intricate knot-work pattern was outlined in white frost. In the center, about waist-high, floated a golden sphere encrusted with icicles.

  She crossed to the levitating sphere, withdrew one of her daggers, and prodded it. The sphere did not move. She tapped harder, but her effort yielded only the clank of steel against ice. Finally, she put the dagger away and pushed against the sphere with all her strength. It felt as icy as it looked, but it would not budge.

  "Let me help," Durwyn offered. The big warrior threw all of his weight against the floating object, but it remained just as firmly in place.

  "I give up," Kestrel said. She glanced at their other companions. Ghleanna knelt at the edge of the rune, closely examining it. Corran stood facing one of the walls, his back to the group.

  "Ghleanna, what do you suppose this is?" the paladin asked.

  The mage approached, as did Kestrel and Durwyn. The wall held an engraved formation of four diamond shapes arranged in a column, with a vertical line bisecting them. A ruby was embedded in the lowest point of the bottom diamond.

  "I've never seen its like before," Ghleanna said.

  Corran traced the edge of the ruby with his index fin­ger. "I tried removing the gem, but it's wedged in there pretty tight."

  "Not exactly your area of expertise, I imagine," said Kestrel. "Let me try." She removed a pointed metal file from one of her belt pouches and tried to insert it between the gem and the wall to pry out the ruby. Despite her best efforts, the stone remained firmly in place—now sur­rounded by scratch marks.

  "Apparently not your area of expertise either," Corran remarked.

  She shot him a dirty look. The failure of her thieving skills bothered her enough—she didn't need Sir Self-Righteous rubbing it in. "It must be magically frozen in place, like everything else in this room," she said stiffly. "Otherwise I would have had no problem removing it."

  Ghleanna offered to use sorcery in hopes of learning more about the room, but all agreed her spells were bet­ter saved for whatever lay ahead than to merely satisfy curiosity. "I'm sure this room isn't the only mysterious thing we'll encounter in Myth Drannor," Corran said.

  Kestrel hoped the others proved this benign.

  After a while, the party entered an area of the dungeons that appeared less frequented by the orcs. Fewer torches lined these walls, and many of them had sputtered out or been extinguished. The light became dim enough that Corran removed one of the unlit torches from its sconce, lighted it off the next burning torch they came upon, and carried it with them. Soon, the passageway's illumination grew so bad that the others followed suit.

  As they neared a chamber with an open doorway, a sud­den voice from within startled them. "Light? Oh—whoever you are, I beseech you! Please bring your light this way!"

  They exchanged glances, knowing that their torches would reveal them to the speaker well before they could see him.

  "A trap?" Kestrel mouthed.

  "I don't think so," Corran responded softly. "If he means to ambush us, why alert us to his presence?" More loudly, he called out, "We're on our way."

  Corran entered the chamber first. "Oh!"

  "What?" Kestrel darted in after him. "Oh!" she echoed. "Well, I'll be damned..."

  In the corner of the room stood a man—or at least, half a man. He looked ordinary enough from the torso up, with a medium build, long brown hair, and penetrating dark eyes. From the waist down, the unfortunate fellow was embedded in an enormous boulder. His body appeared to simply end, consumed by the rock.

  Behind her, Kestrel heard Durwyn and Ghleanna enter. The warrior gasped. "What happened to you?"

  "If you can believe it, a lovers' quarrel," the man responded. "I was exploring these dungeons with my fiancee, a fellow sorcerer, when we fell into an argument. The subject was so trivial that I can't even remember what the fight was about, but in the heat of the moment I renounced my love for Ozama. She flew into a rage and cast a spell that sealed me in this boulder until I solved a riddle:

  A quest of love

  Ends with me,

  Yet I am made

  Endlessly.

  If I drop,

  I say my name,

  If I touch rock,

  Freedom gain."

  Kestrel nearly snorted. "That old thing? Your sweet­heart changed the ending, but the first half of it must have circulated through half the taverns between here and Waterdeep last year."

  "And all the courts the year before," Corran added.

  The man's face lit up, his eyes darting from one party member to the next. "Do you really know the answer?"

  "A ring," Durwyn said.

  Kestrel crossed the room and tapped her silver ring against the rock. A mighty crack! rent the air as the boul­der broke into pieces. The long-trapped wizard immedi­ately fell to his knees, his legs unused to supporting his weight.

  "A ring," he murmured, rubbing the atrophied muscles of his calves through the fabric of his purple robes. "So much lost time over such a simple answer." He remained absorbed in his own thoughts, an expression of regret set­tling onto his angular face. His musings, however, lasted but a few moments before he left the mournful thoughts behind and addressed the foursome. "My name is Jarial. Words aren't enough to thank you for releasing me."

  Corran introduced the party, then asked how long Jar­ial had been trapped in the boulder.

  "Since the Year of the Arch—1353 by the Dale calen­dar," he said. "What year is it now? There's no way to tell time in here."

  "The Year of the Gauntlet. 1369." Kestrel soberly stud­ied him. Even though Jarial was a sorcerer, she felt sorry for him wasting so much of his life trapped alone in the darkness. He appeared only twenty or so, but he had to be much older. And the riddle that had imprisoned him had become so common while he endured endless isolation—even Durwyn had known the answer! "You mean this Ozama woman just left you down here for sixteen years and never came back?"

  "I believe she meant to return," Jarial said. "Something must have happened to her. She was angry but not vindic­tive enough to leave me here forever. We came here
in the first place seeking a magical item called the Wizard's Torc, said to lie in the lair of a dark naga somewhere in these dungeons. I fear she continued looking for it alone and met with misfortune."

  "Or found it and left you here to rot while she kept it for herself," Kestrel said. "How did you survive, anyway? I mean, excuse me for asking, but why didn't you starve to death, or get killed by the creatures dwelling down here?" She noted that his jaw was not even roughened by stubble, nor his clothes frayed by sixteen years of con­stant wear.

  "Ozama's spell kept me safe from the ravages of time and enemies," Jarial said. "Though I did begin to fear I would go mad. At first, of course, I pondered the riddle every waking moment. When no solution came to me, I shouted myself hoarse calling for help. That attracted the attention of some of the undercity's more unpleasant resi­dents, who offered no aid but found it entertaining to come in here and torment me."

  Jarial's little-used voice sounded scratchy. The poor man was probably parched. Corran offered him some water, which the mage accepted gratefully.

  "You're a sorcerer," Kestrel prodded. "Couldn't you use magic to free yourself?"

  "Believe me, I tried! After going through all the spells I knew, I started devising new ones." Jarial smiled ruefully. "Though I had the satisfaction of using some of my mock­ing antagonists for target practice, I still couldn't gain my freedom." He continued kneading the muscles of his legs, trying to rub life back into them.

  "After giving up on using sorcery to free myself, I spent probably another year just saying aloud every word I could possibly think of, hoping to accidentally stumble on the answer. Obviously, that strategy proved ineffective as well. Eventually, I stopped bothering to even use magic to light this room. I'd just consigned myself to spending eter­nity here, alone in the darkness with only my own thoughts for company." The lonely sorcerer tried again to rise, but his legs remained too weak to support him.

  "Here, drink this." Ghleanna offered him a small vial of bluish liquid, one of the potions they had found on Athan's band. Faeril had identified it as a healing potion made of blueglow moss, a local plant renowned for its curative properties but now in short supply. "You'll never manage to massage away years of disuse."