Realms of the Underdark a-4

by Mark Anthony

  The gnome's hands trembled at the memory. "I saw one of the cloakers fall from somewhere up on the ceiling. It looked like a white square. I knew what it was from stories that my people used to tell, but I had never seen one before. I knew then that cloakers were making the moaning noise that we heard, paralyzing and trapping the drow. Then I saw a large mouth open in the middle of the cloaker where nothing had been, a mouth with teeth, and two glassy eyes opened above it. It landed on Xerzanein's back and wrapped around him while he was still standing up, screaming and holding his ears. It was like a living cape, black as jet, squeezing Xerzanein so tightly I could see each of his fingers trying to claw through. Xerzanein had his mouth open, but I couldn't hear him through the cloaker cries all around."

  The gnome swallowed again, his voice even quieter. "I could see the cloaker's mouth on Xerzanein's back, biting into his shoulders and neck. Every drow had a cloaker then. Sarlaena had one wrapped around her that was biting through her gut, chewing at her as she kicked and kicked, trying to scream. She flopped and twisted on the ground like a fish. Then something touched me on the back-" Wykar shivered violently and rubbed his shoulders, looking down at the ground.

  Distant thunder rolled over the Sea of Ghosts.

  "It's strange," he said, "but I don't really remember running away. I remember talking with you afterward, a bit of it anyway. I had it in mind even then that we had to go back and destroy the egg. If the drow thought it was so valuable and wanted to hide it, then it was too important to leave alone. They would have broken any egg that would hatch something good. I knew we had to destroy it, but I had no idea how we were going to go about it. I didn't want it to sit there for some other drow to find. But I didn't want to talk about things then, I just wanted you to meet me later when we could talk about it. I just wanted to get away and run and run."

  "You ran to your people," said Geppo after a pause.

  Wykar slowly shook his head, mildly surprised he would admit to this. "No. I didn't go back. I lied about that. I stayed away and hid by myself. My people are miles and miles off. I hid by myself and raided some caches of weapons, armor, food, and clothes I'd made for myself long ago. I just hid. I don't know what I was thinking for a while." He flashed an empty smile. "I just wanted to be by myself, to get myself back together again. I was never very close to anyone. I'm an orphan. I always kept to myself and did what I wanted to do. I explored places, and that was enough for me. Exploring and being alone."

  He looked back at the red-purple glow. "That was how the drow caught me, you know. I was exploring, and they ambushed me with nets and clubs. Beat me until I was almost broken, dragged me back like a food lizard to their commune. You probably remember what I looked like then. You were already there." He chewed on his lower lip, squinting at the glow, then suddenly turned to Geppo. "How did they ever catch you?" he asked.

  The derro blinked, then looked away. He covered his mouth with one hand, stroking his scraggly mustache. Wykar looked away at the glow again.

  "My… my people sold me," Geppo said suddenly. He started to say more, but stopped. He didn't look at Wykar.

  "Sold you?" Wykar said, stunned. "Sold you to the drow?"

  Geppo stroked his mustache and nodded. The heat from his face increased visibly. He made an odd brush-away gesture with his hand, then kept toying with his mustache.

  "Why?" Wykar asked.

  Geppo's face seemed to sag like melting wax. He bowed his head and blew out heavily. He smiled as if the news were of no consequence and spoke slowly. "Geppo not… Geppo have no… no magic like True-Masters-what you say derro. No magic in Geppo, all empty. Lose magic when born, maybe. Geppo, True-Masters not know why. Geppo not know how make magic go from hands, go from head. True-Masters, they have magic, magic for conquer, kill, but…" He shrugged and spread his hands. "Empty," he said.

  Wykar swallowed. "Your clan sold you for that? Didn't your father stop-" The truth dawned. He bit off his words, too late.

  Geppo coughed, then held his thin hands up to his eyes, surveying his fingers and palms as if they were keepsakes of no value. "Father," he said, smiling again. "Father very angry. He say, Geppo shame upon all clan for have no magic. Father say, Geppo slave now. Geppo talk like slave. Geppo tell truth like slave. Geppo work, be slave, then Father angry more and say, out! He sell Geppo. Drow slave." He shrugged, his voice a monotone. His eyes glistened as he looked at the ground. "True-Masters, drow, all gone now. Geppo have no magic, but Geppo here, all good, hey." He sighed, all the wind going out of him. "Get golds now," he said, his voice tired. "Tell me now how we get golds and egg. Tell secret plan now. Talk too much."

  Wykar looked away, the sound of the Sea of Ghosts in his ears. "Well," he said at last, "I thought we would just walk into that crack in the wall there and take them."

  The derro stared at Wykar and snorted in disbelief, his face heating with anger once more. Before Geppo could say a word, however, Wykar reached back and dug his fingers into a slit on the inside of the back of his belt. The rings were still there, the rings he had taken from the body of a long-dead svirfneblin. He fished them out. The derro was a terrible looter, if that was what he had been doing earlier.

  Wykar handed one ring to the derro. As he did, a sudden heat arose in Wykar's face and stung his eyes. He fought against it, refusing to acknowledge it at all. He almost took back the ring. His fingers trembled as if they knew what they were about to do.

  "Don't put this on yet," said Wykar, struggling to keep his voice as steady as before. He did not dare look Geppo in the face. "These rings will make us invisible. The cloakers won't see us at all. Whatever we pick up will disappear, too, so we can carry things off, right out from under them. If the cloakers come after us, just run back here. They won't be able to see you, but you have to move carefully over loose stones, or they can find you that way. They can still hear you even if you are invisible. Do you understand?"

  He dared to look at the derro's face. White eyes huge, Geppo stared down at the plain golden band in his thin fingers. Something was going on in his mind, though. Wykar could see that clearly.

  Even through the fires of his shame.

  Geppo's hand closed over the ring. He looked up, eyes avoiding Wykar's, then he looked down at his fist again.

  "Yes," whispered Geppo. Then: "Thank you."

  No, don't say that, Wykar thought in horror. No. Think of the egg. This is the only way. It is the only way.

  Wykar held out his right hand, fingers spread. His hand shook as if it were cold, but he pretended not to see it. "I'm going to put my ring on," he said hoarsely. "Your people are like mine, a little, because we are resistant to magic more than other folk. Sometimes these rings work for us, sometimes they don't. We have to keep trying until they do." With that, Wykar slid his ring on the middle finger of his left hand.

  And he vanished. Invisible. He shivered when it happened. He would never get used to that. Geppo flinched and, with what looked like open fear, watched the spot where Wykar had been. It was fear of abandonment, Wykar instinctively knew, not fear of magic.

  "It's okay," said Wykar softly. "I'm still here. I'm invisible. You must have seen magic like this before somewhere. This is our magic now. Okay, now, you put your ring on."

  Geppo looked around for the source of the bodiless voice, as if he thought Wykar were going to reappear. When that didn't happen, he looked down at his own ring, then carefully put it on.

  Wykar continued watching the derro, who examined his still-visible hand in confusion. "Try it again," said Wykar, gaining his nerve by talking. "That's your natural magic resistance. Take the ring off, put it down on the ground, then pick it up and try again."

  Geppo did as he was told. As he put the ring on the second time, he gasped aloud in amazement, mouth open wide. He turned his hands over in front of his face, marveling at the sight of them, then looked at the rest of his body and possessions. His face radiated purest awe.

  Wykar watched invisibly, face burning and che
st tight. The derro was just as clearly visible to Wykar now as he had been before the ring was put on.

  But that was not surprising, given the sort of magical ring that Geppo wore, a wondrous ring that fulfilled the wearer's most secret and desired wish.

  A cursed ring of mental delusions.

  "Excellent," said Wykar shakily. "It worked that time. Don't wander off. I… I can't see you, and we have to go. Stay within hearing of my voice, though. When we get close enough, just move in on your own. Get whatever gold you want, then come back here. Don't take your ring off until then. The cloakers will never see us."

  Geppo nodded. A new expression filled his ravaged face. It was beatific joy. Wykar knew he had done something terribly wrong. He was no fool when it came to the gods. They saw everything, even this. Maybe they would forgive all of this because of the egg. The egg was the evil thing, not Wykar. He told himself this over and over, but somehow he did not believe it anymore.

  He shook it off. He was tricking a derro, not a child or a god's holy avatar.

  If I am to be damned, then let us get on with it, Wykar thought angrily. "Let's go," he said, getting to his feet.

  Keeping the derro in the corner of his vision, Wykar began to walk toward the red-violet glow from the distant wall, still shrouded by blowing fog from the rumbling Sea of Ghosts. Geppo walked along carefully beside him, grinning like a big fool who could not get enough out of trying to see his hands. Wykar looked away from that black-toothed grin.

  The deep gnome felt inside his open vest for his final weapon and his final defense. Both were safely there, strapped into a deep, crude pocket. He removed them and gritted his teeth. He had thought long and hard about what was coming next. It would hurt terribly, but sometimes there was no other way out but through, the svirfneblin often said. No way out but through.

  The two had marched to within two hundred feet of the glowing rift when Wykar whispered, "Stop." Geppo halted, looking around in mild confusion. Wykar leaned closer, but was careful to be out of the way in case Geppo drew his weapon. "Listen to me," he said. "We're going in there together. Move very slowly. If you pick something up, do it slowly and make no sound. These rings don't hide the noise you make, so be careful." Why am I saying this? Why am I saying this?

  "Thank you," whispered Geppo, nodding. He set off for the glowing rift, walking in silence.

  Wykar stood for a moment, staring after the derro with an empty expression. Then he took a deep breath and put a corner of his vest between his teeth, filling his mouth with the vile, fishy-tasting fur. He ground his jaws together tightly, readying himself for what came next.

  He carefully lifted his final defense, unable to see it but feeling it roll between his fingers. It was a long, bronze needle.

  He put the needle in his left ear, then pushed it in. Boiling pain exploded deep in his ear, pain a thousand times worse than anything the drow had given him. His head felt as if it would burst. Quickly, before he could think better of it, he transferred the needle to his other hand and jammed it into his right eardrum, destroying it as well. He dropped the needle after that and doubled over in mindless agony. He felt his teeth almost close together through the thick fur in his mouth. Hot blood ran from his ears and down the sides of his bare cheeks.

  He lifted his head, eyes streaming tears. Geppo was halfway to the rift. Wykar had to go after him, to destroy the egg. It was all for that egg. He heard nothing but an endless scream from his ruined ears. But his eardrums would heal in time. There had been no other way to block the cloakers' moaning, no way to keep them from claiming him. His ears would heal, and he would be a hero and have his revenge on the drow.

  Wykar saw Geppo stop and look back in puzzlement. The gnome realized he was running and probably making a lot of noise. He forced himself to stop and concentrate through his pain, then walk more carefully and quietly. Geppo relaxed at that, then went on toward the glowing rift.

  The air turned bad. Wykar now smelled dead things, rotting things. The ground was covered with bits of stinking algae, like everywhere else, but a dark lump that looked like a body was just ahead. It was a drow, most of its flesh and muscle eaten away, one leg was missing. It lay in a peculiar, loose-limbed position, untouchably foul. Its filthy bones were draped with algae and ripped, soaked clothing.

  The face and long hair were still recognizable. It was Sarlaena, who had once owned him.

  Wykar averted his streaming eyes. He tried not to inhale the air. He was close to throwing up again, he bit down harder on the fur. More long, thin, dark bodies lay ahead, scattered around like forgotten dolls. The wave, Wykar remembered. The first wave must have come up all the way to flood the split in the wall. Something about that bothered him, something bad. He shook off the feeling and trudged on. The pain burned bright as a lighthouse beacon in his head, sending its agony out to the world.

  Geppo, now only twenty paces ahead, was cautiously peering into the rift. The sight and stench from the wet, rotting bodies did not seem to affect him. Geppo looked over the bodies carefully, then looked up, saw no threat, and continued on into the rift.

  The final weapon was in Wykar's hands. The black wand would have to work the first time. There would be no chance for a second time. He spit out the corner of his vest and some loose fur fibers with it. He had control of himself now, in these final moments.

  Geppo was in the rift. He kicked aside a severed limb, perhaps a drow's arm. He looked down at the ground now. He toed something, a sack or piece of clothing. He bent down to pick it up.

  Then he straightened up fast, and his bony hands clamped tight over his ears. He seemed to be screaming, his eyes shut. It was the moaning attack of the cloakers.

  Something white fell from the cavern ceiling high above the derro.

  Wykar raised the black wand and said the three words that would make it work. He never heard the words he spoke. He only felt them vibrate his chest. Moving his jaw tore the wounds in his ears open again, and he almost forgot the words. The pain was horrific.

  White light burst out, filled the world in a flash. Wykar saw afterimages of the entire cave imprinted on his retinas like a gigantic, detail-perfect painting. A white arm of sunlight, over a hundred feet long, perfectly connected his wand tip to the falling cloaker. The cloaker was in flames, dying the instant the burning light struck it. The wand of sunfire, taken from an ambushed drow wizard and hidden away among the deep gnome's caches long ago, worked perfectly. Wykar ran forward. There would be more, at least five more. But he was half blind, and his feet caught something, and he fell.

  He dropped the black wand of sunfire. He kicked at the thing holding his legs, looking back and blinking at the afterimages.

  A dead drow lay at Wykar's feet, his boots entangled in its blood-darkened arm bones and clothing.

  Wykar kicked and screamed. Each scream renewed the bolts of agony in his deafened ears. The limp arms lost their grip on him and fell away, unmoving and dead. Wykar crawled away from the drow, limbs shaking with fear. He saw the wand, grabbed for it, looked up again.

  Another white thing was falling from the ceiling. Geppo was below it, clutching his head. The cloakers were singing to him as they had sung to the drow.

  Wykar raised the wand and shouted out the three words.

  Nothing happened.

  Your people are like mine, a little, because we are resistant to magic more than other folk.

  "NO!" Wykar screamed. He threw down the wand, then snatched it up and aimed.

  The cloaker had Geppo in its folds.

  "NO!" Wykar got up and ran, waving the invisible wand like a sword. "NO! NO!"

  Geppo was trying to get out. Wykar could see his thin fingers pushing out against the black folds. The derro's narrow mouth was open and screaming and making absolutely no sound. Wykar screamed as he ran. He pulled off his ring, his invisibility ring, and threw it at the cloaker entrapping Geppo. "Look at me," he screamed. "Look at me."

  Something white fell from the ceiling. He s
aw it just before it got him.

  The wand went up, aimed, the three words said.

  A staggering white spear of light set the cloaker ablaze, it curled up and fell to the side. Wykar saw in the great flash that a dozen dark things hung from the ceiling above him. A nest of monsters. They pulled loose when he saw them, a dozen white sheets falling at him with huge mouths and glassy eyes and fangs. Wykar screamed three words, wand out, and shut his eyes. He screamed them again and again and again, over and over, white flames roaring now from the wand and heat searing his hands, a litany of fire in the darkness.

  Something caught him by the foot and pulled. Wykar lost his balance and fell, unable to see anything through the maze of afterimages and agony in his head. He struck blindly with the wand at the thing that had grabbed him, but the thing only tightened its grip. It didn't feel like a hand.

  Wykar swiftly rubbed his eyes on his short sleeve. In the red-violet light of the rift, he then saw what gripped his foot, even through the afterimages in his eyes and the fire in his ears and the bodies of flaming cloakers scattered across the rift floor. He saw it clearly.

  The egg in the chest had hatched. It held his foot in one of its thick, dark tentacles.

  Wykar screamed and heard himself scream even with no eardrums. The sea wave had hatched it, of course. Wykar realized that even in his madness, as he screamed out the three words and pointed the wand at the three liquid-black eyes only a yard away. He knew why the drow thought it was so funny, the idea of spitting on the egg, which they did not dare do. Water would hatch the egg and set the baby free. Not even a drow would want that.