The Crimson Gold r-3

by Voronica Whitney-Robinson

  But even as she considered it, Tazi tossed the idea aside. Naglatha could have some magical means here to send out a message or even gain access to a gate to take her or those two fat slaves of hers to Selgaunt. And she twisted her head to look at Justikar.

  He so desperately wants to find his kin, she considered a little sadly. I know how important blood is, and I'd like to help him, too.

  She shook her head to free her mind and caught up to Justikar, who peered into the banquet hall from the entryway.

  "All clear," h^ whispered. She wondered for a moment why he didn't use his thoughts more to communicate, but she figured it was probably a taxing feat and one that he saved for extreme emergencies. Or he might have been trying to reach his brother; she wasn't sure which, but she didn't know and he hadn't told her. That exact situation reminded her once more that she and the duergar had only the most tenuous of alliances. She still wondered if he would be there to cover her if her back was truly against the wall.

  They moved past the deserted table, now bare of its finery, and found the corridor opposite it, precisely where Naglatha said it would be. Surprisingly, there was no trap on the door, and Tazi suspected there might be some magical ward on it. But her quick investigation revealed none, and the dwarf agreed with her. Tazi was surprised, given how powerful Szass Tam was supposed to be. Not for the first time, she debated if the absence of magic here meant he had his energies focused elsewhere. There was a faint light farther down, and the uneven flicker made Tazi think there were some torches at least partially illuminating the passageway. She knew she wouldn't need the dwarf's darkvision, at least for the moment, so she drew her new sword. Tazi shifted it in her grip once and noticed the balance was very good for a weapon not made specifically for her. It wasn't as finely crafted as the dagger, but she knew the steel, if it was indeed made from steel, would be more than accurate. She took the lead.

  The passageway started out as many of the others had within the Citadel, finely carved and resembling a typical hallway, albeit one that steadily sloped downward. But as they passed farther into the depths, the passageway slowly lost its finished look. The decorated and covered walls became sparser until finally only the bare rock was visible. Even the stone lost its smoothness, and as the passageway curved to the right, the walls had returned to their natural, unfinished state. Tazi nodded to the dwarf that they were on the right course. She saw how closely he regarded their surroundings, scanning from one side to the other.

  Tazi was tensed, straining to hear anything that sounded amiss, realizing she couldn't be sure of her surroundings. As they descended, she expected to come across some sort of guardians and was surprised they hadn't seen any. When the tunnel took a sharp turn to the right again, she turned back to ask Justikar a question. But the dwarf had stopped to study something in the rock wall that had caught his attention.

  "What is it?" she asked him.

  "That zulkir that everyone fears must come down here a lot," he replied.

  "Why do you say that?"

  The duergar grabbed Tazi's free hand and guided it over to the wall. He pulled her gauntlet off and laid her bare fingers on the surface.

  "Do you feel those?" he asked.

  Under her fingertips, Tazi could feel cold, hard lumps no bigger than her thumb. But in the fading light of the nearest torch some feet behind her, she could barely see the white twinkle that had so fascinated Justikar.

  "Some people call them 'lich weepings,' but most know them as Kings' Tears," he explained. "There's a fortune in this wall alone," he finished, and Tazi could hear a touch of avarice in his voice.

  "Maybe another time," she told him and replaced her glove and gauntlet. "I think I need you to take the lead now. The torches have all but run out," she told him. "There's a slight, greenish glow ahead, but it's very faint. I think I'd trust your vision better." She wiped her forearm across her brow, suddenly very aware of the growing heat.

  Justikar padded past her and looked at the walls that cast the emerald glow. He shook his head at what he found.

  "Ormu," he told Tazi.

  She had run across the moss before, but never in such large quantities. But, while there was still a healthy portion that lived, much of it had dried to a crisp brown and died.

  "This looks like it has been burned," she told the dwarf.

  He nodded in agreement. "And recently, too. I think there must be something graver to the tremors those Red Wizards kept harping on." He moved in front of Tazi, and together they continued down the narrow pass.

  Steam hissed out from several fissures in the rocks, and Tazi became increasingly aware of the danger all around them. She blinked hard as her sweat stung her eyes and didn't see the nearby threat. She was nearly scalded by a geyser of boiling water, but the duergar yanked her out of the way right before it blew.

  "How did you know?" she asked him, breathing hard.

  "You have to listen for it. I can't explain it better than that."

  "I'm glad you're here," she admitted gratefully.

  "I'm not," he groused, and Tazi smiled at him. At least he's consistent, she laughed to herself.

  They were continuously on guard but came across no signs of anything living. In a relatively low tunnel, wide enough for them to walk abreast, Tazi spotted a small pile of what looked like white sticks. But she recognized them for what they were: bones. She raised her weapon higher, though she knew they were not fresh remains. Tazi reached down for one of them, but the dwarf knocked her hand away. She was about to snap at him when the realization dawned on her that they might be the bones of his brother. Her face softened some.

  Justikar bent down and gingerly lifted one bone close to his eyes. He turned it around thoroughly and sniffed it. His nose crinkled up, and he threw the skeletal remains to the ground.

  "Stinks," he told her. "Trog bones." She nodded and knew he was both relieved and frustrated that they were not his brother's.

  "Judging by those teeth marks," she added, "something feasted on these creatures not too long ago. But where are they?" v

  "Maybe the heat has something to do with it," Justikar replied. "Drove them away or something."

  "Maybe," Tazi responded, less certain.

  They walked farther and came to a split in the tunnel. "Any ideas?" Tazi asked the dwarf.

  Unexpectedly, he pulled at the shoulder of his tunic and ripped his right sleeve off, tucking the torn cloth in his belt. Tazi could see that a series of black marks covered his arm. He held it up and consulted the designs. "We go left," he told her.

  "What kind of map is that?" she asked.

  "My brother's," he replied curtly. "Just before he left, he had this map tattooed onto his arm, figuring it was the best place to keep it."

  "So did you," Tazi pointed out the obvious. "I thought you said it was your brother who was the dreamer."

  "He is," Justikar answered her seriously. "I'm the one who has to clean things up."

  "I'm sorry," she apologized, not exactly sure why she should suddenly feel so sad for him.

  He shrugged, and they went farther into the depths, certain that Szass Tarn's cache of arcane knowledge would be along the same route his brother had taken, the only viable path through the depths below. Perhaps because they had come across no obvious threat as yet, Tazi and Justikar became sloppy. Perhaps the growing heat and steam obscured their vision and other senses. For whatever reason, neither of them realized just what they were literally walking into.

  "Justikar," Tazi began.

  The duergar turned back toward Tazi just as a tremor shook the tunnel. Before he could respond to her, though, the walls appeared to suddenly collapse around him and immediately obscured the dwarf from her sight. Tazi herself was knocked flat.

  "Justikar!" she cried. As she struggled to regain her balance and blink the dust from her eyes, she couldn't comprehend how a portion of the passageway had closed over him so quickly. There appeared to be only a few stones between them, but Tazi couldn't make out
any large boulders that could have trapped him so completely.

  "Tazi!" she heard him cry in a muffled voice. She crawled over on her knees toward him. When she reached the large pile where she had heard his voice emanate from, she tried to move the debris away to free him. But even as she searched with her hands, she couldn't get a good purchase on any of it. She pulled off her gauntlets, and Tazi was startled to feel something that was not quite rock under her hands. The lump shifted at her touch, and Tazi heard the duergar scream in pain.

  "Hold on," she called to him and drew her rapier. Acting on a hunch, Tazi slashed at the mass and was not really surprised when a strange, viscous fluid oozed from the gash she had inflicted. She did not expect, however, to hear Justikar cry out as though he had been cut, too.

  She raised her arm back and prepared to slash at what must've been a monster, but never got the chance. A tentacle, thicker than her own forearm, encircled her waist with lightning speed. Before Tazi could counter the attack, she was lifted bodily and felt herself slammed into the tunnel wall. Dazed, she could see that the lump that covered the duergar had begun to ripple slowly, and she suspected that the creature, whatever it must be, was beginning to digest him.

  "Hold on," she called out again. Though the tentacle had encircled her waist, and it held fast, her arms were still free. Tazi had not released her hold on her rapier even when the creature had smashed her into the passageway. She managed to raise her weapon, point down, with both her hands high into the air. With a deep grunt, she slammed the weapon down and stabbed the tentacle close to where it joined the main body. The blow was so strong that the rapier actually impaled the tentacle to the tunnel floor. Tazi was able to pull away the wounded appendage from her waist and free herself from its limp grasp. She scrambled over to where she thought Justikar was still trapped. She called out his name but received no response, and she began to dread that she might be too late.

  As she turned back to retrieve her rapier, Tazi saw a portion of the war axe the dwarf had stolen from the halls above suddenly pierce its way through the center of the creature's body. Tazi grabbed a flap of flesh and began to pull. She groaned with the strain as she pulled. The dwarf popped his head out, and Tazi could see that he looked mostly none the worse for wear. Between the two of them, they managed to tear a wide enough opening for Justikar to extricate himself. He tumbled to the passage floor in a messy heap, and they both lay panting quietly for a few moments.

  The ruined mess of a creature simply lay there, and Justikar shoved at it with his foot. All of a sudden, though Tazi wouldVe thought it was impossible, the creature disappeared down the passageway as though something larger had yanked it from the opposite side. Tazi sprang to her feet and grabbed her rapier, but Justikar waved for her to settle down.

  "Rock worm," was all he said by way of an explanation.

  "What?" Tazi asked.

  The dwarf brushed at himself and sighed. "The thing's known as a rock worm. I should've noticed it, but I guess I was distracted. They simply expand and adhere to the sides of tunnels and wait for prey to stumble in."

  "Like we did," Tazi interrupted.

  "Hmph," Justikar grunted. "They lure their prey in and crush them in their stomachs. They've got two tentacles, one on each end," he explained.

  "So that thing yanked itself away from us by using its other tentacle," Tazi surmised.

  "So rather than wait around and see if it's got a mate," the dwarf added, "we should probably keep moving."

  Tazi nodded, and the two of them maneuvered along their knees through a very low side tunnel. Suddenly, Justikar ripped the sleeve he had tucked into his belt into two wide bands.

  "Here," he said to^Tazi and passed one of them back to her. "Use it to cover your nose and mouth. The smell is going to get worse from here."

  "Worse than how we smell now?" she joked. The dwarf snorted.

  When the tunnel widened into a larger vault, Tazi was aghast. She didn't need the dwarf to point out the features to her. They had moved from the cook pit right into the fire. The room was aglow with a flickering red light. And she hastily donned the makeshift mask before the smell of sulfur overwhelmed her and seared her lungs. The entire chamber was filled with pools of bubbling magma, each one nearly as wide as Tazi was tall.

  "I think this is why we haven't seen much besides that worm," she told the dwarf, pointing to the boiling earth. "What could live down here?"

  "Remember those bones," he reminded her. "Something does live down here," he added. "Something does."

  "Over there, see that opening?" Tazi asked him after scanning the vault.

  He nodded, and she said, "Looks like it's more intentional than just a random fissure, don't you think?"

  "Good eyes," he complimented her. "Now let's see if we can get there without burning." And the dwarf, completely recovered from the creature's attack, hopped like a rabbit along the narrow bits of rock that separated the pools. Tazi sheathed her sword and held her arms out for balance. She could feel the heat against their undersides and knew they would burn if she stayed down here too long. Sweat poured down her back and the crease of her chest under her leather vest. Her hair was lank with sweat and hung in stands plastered to her scalp and neck.

  She watched as Justikar jumped the last few feet over to the relative safety of the opening Tazi had spotted. The ground crumbled a little and she watched, horror struck, as Justikar pin wheeled his arms frantically to regain his footing. To make matters worse, a quake rocked the chamber at that exact moment. Tazi had to dodge a splash of lava that nearly engulfed her foot and couldn't help the duergar in time. Justikar righted himself, though, and Tazi joined him soon enough on the ledge.

  "Let's get this thing," Tazi shouted over the noise of the quake, "and get out of here."

  Sure enough, Tazi was right. The opening was not a natural occurrence, but had been hewn from the cave wall. She drew her sword again, and Justikar pulled his axe free, holding it high in front of him with both hands. He nodded to Tazi, and they moved into the room in unison. The place was lit only by the flickering of the lava pools from the other chamber. The glow revealed something had been in there recently before them. Tazi could see that torches were knocked askew, and a small dais had been overturned. There were papers thrown about everywhere, and there was an overwhelming stench, even stronger than the sulfur. She shook her head in bewilderment, not anticipating the chamber to look as it did.

  "Did someone beat us to it?" Justikar asked.

  "I don't think so," Tazi replied. "It looks too random, like someone or something just ransacked the place because it was here. And the smell," she paused and reached for something to steady herself, "is overwhelming even with this rag on."

  "I don't understand, though," the duergar said. "Na-glatha made this out to be so much of a challenge, and other than a few pitfalls, this has been too easy."

  "You're right," Tazi agreed. "If she had truly known how simple this was, she wouldn't have risked bringing someone else into her confidence." Tazi paused and looked around. "I think whatever is happening down here is more serious than any of those Red Wizards suspects. I think what's happening down here might be killing everything in its path."

  Before she could say more, the ground started to rumble again, only stronger than the last tremor. Tazi was tossed onto a bookcase that had tipped over, while the duergar braced himself in the entryway until the quake subsided.

  Tazi struggled to her feet and said, "Grab as many of the parchments and scrolls as you can, and let's get out of here before we get trapped down here."

  Together they raced around, stuffing papers and scrolls into their belts. Many of the pages had been ruined, and Tazi wondered again what had done this and where had they gone. She sorted through some papers when another quake struck.

  "Move!" the dwarf yelled at her.

  "But I think there's more under the bookcase. If you give me a hand, we can-"

  "There's no time. Trust me."

  Taz
i looked at him and nodded once. She staggered over to the entryway, while the ground moved and shifted under her. It was like trying to run while drunk, she thought to herself. She left the chamber with the duergar immediately in front of her. No sooner had they fled the chamber when a rending sound issued from the ceiling, and several large chunks of rocks tumbled down and sealed off the room with a deafening crash.

  "Let's go back!" Tazi yelled, but the dwarf ignored her. He stormed past the now-sealed room to another passageway farther to the left. Tazi was confused by his actions as they had what they had come for, and the tunnel the dwarf was nearing looked like it continued farther underground. She raced over to him, dodging bits of the ceiling that continued to tumble free. When she finally caught up to him a short distance into the tunnel, a blast of heat stopped them both in their tracks. The dwarf moved slowly around the bend in the passageway and froze, his body as rigid as stone itself. Tazi peered around the corner and was forced to throw her hand in front of her eyes as a shield from the heat. Even still, she could not look away and was mesmerized by the sight in front of her.

  The tunnel had probably continued down much farther at one time, but there was no way it was possible to pass any longer. The path had been transected by what could only be described as a river-a river composed entirely df molten earth. It ran with surprising speed, bubbling and gurgling like some cheerful meadow stream. Colors of gold and crimson and near-white blended together hypnotically, twisting and turning, reshaping everything in its path. It was an unstoppable force.

  When Tazi was finally able to tear her eyes away from the amazing sight, she saw the dwarf continued to stare past the fiery death to what was no longer visible. His shoulders sagged as if in defeat, and Tazi cursed herself for not remembering that he was only here to find his brother and there was no chance of that now. In fact, she realized that their entire time down there, he must have been straining and hoping to find some sign of his kin, living or dead, to know his fate. She placed a hand on his shoulder and shared a moment of silence with him.