Crypt of the Moaning Diamond d-4

by Rosemary Jones

  "The ones that fight because they like it," said Ivy. "And before you ask, we are the good kind of mercenary. The ones who care most for gold."

  Sanval did not look reassured.

  "So why do you fight?" she asked.

  "Because I am a noble of Procampur, pledged to the service of the Thultyrl. And he is a good king, the wisest we have had for some time. But even if he were the worst of tyrants, I would still answer his call. My family has always served the Thultyrl."

  "What sort of family do you have?"

  Sanval frowned. "None now, but I come from people who do their duty. My parents did as their families asked. They were betrothed in their cradles and married at the most auspicious time determined by their parents."

  "And were they happy?"

  "I do not know," admitted Sanval. "I never saw them except at formal gatherings. We send our children to the schools for those of our district, to be raised together by approved tutors. Like most boys, I seldom left my dormitory until I came of age, and by then my parents had perished from the same fever that killed the old Thultyrl."

  Ivy grinned at him. "Bet you never thought your path would drop you underground with a bunch of mercenaries unsuccessfully trying to break through a door." The last sentence was made directly to the dwarf still kicking the door in front of her.

  "Maybe a counterweight, above the door," speculated Mumchance, ignoring Ivy. "Hey, Zuzzara, give me a boost up.

  Zuzzara grabbed the dwarf around the waist and lifted him to her shoulders. His head rapped smartly on the stone ceiling. "Sorry," said Zuzzara with a grunt as she adjusted the dwarf's feet on her shoulders.

  "No," said Mumchance feeling along the lintel. "Nothing here. Let me down. Gently! Gently!"

  Zuzzara caught him as he flipped off her shoulders and just prevented him from landing headfirst on the floor. Kid snickered, and even Gunderal looked a little less depressed.

  After several more attempts to get the door to open, they declared themselves defeated. Mumchance admitted that without the exact knowledge of how the door locked and unlocked, they could not open it.

  Gunderal, in particular, was very upset by her failure after having such recent improvement with the phantom fungus. Zuzzara told her sister not to worry, that her spells would come back soon.

  "Like you would know anything about magic," said Gunderal with a tearful sniff. She fumbled a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed her eyes.

  "I know nothing about magic," admitted Zuzzara with one of her deep chuckles and a pat on the back that caused Gunderal to stumble. Ever since Gunderal had managed at least the frost spell against the animated fungus, Zuzzara had cheered up. She no longer suggested carrying her little sister or whispered to Ivy about the possibilities of blood poisoning developing from a sprained arm. "But I know you, little sister. You may be pretty, but you are not dumb."

  It was the start of an old family joke, and Gunderal giggled. "And big and ugly doesn't mean you're stupid."

  "Unless you fall down on the way to the outhouse." Zuzzara added the obscure punchline that Ivy had never understood.

  Gunderal started laughing so hard that she had to stop to mop the streaming tears out of her eyes.

  "Sisters," moaned Ivy. "I will never, ever, campaign with sisters again!"

  "You say that every time," said Mumchance. "Hurry up, you two. No point standing around here now."

  As he turned, he bumped into Ivy, who stumbled and thrust out her left hand to catch herself. As she fell against the wall, she felt a stone shift beneath her gloved hand. A grating sound came from the floor beneath them, and the entire room shook.

  "Earthquake?" asked Sanval in a calm but resigned tone, as he kept his balance on the shifting stone.

  "Wizard work," shouted Mumchance over the crunch of rock sliding over rock. The whole room lurched to the left and bumped to a stop. A new door opened in front of them, with a black corridor running before them. The stone door behind them and the entrance to the ossuary before them had disappeared.

  "Shifting passage," grumbled Mumchance. "Sort of stupid thing that wizards put in for short cuts."

  "Well," said Ivy, still determined to be optimistic, "perhaps this leads straight outside."

  "Did you suspect such a possibility?" Sanval asked Mumchance.

  "I suspect everything, but that never finds the key to a shifting passage. Only a truly lucky or miserably unlucky accident does that," the dwarf complained and stamped ahead of them through the opening.

  "And which kind of accident is this, my dear?" speculated Kid with a soft laugh at the dwarf's grumbling.

  "Won't know until we get there," said Mumchance over his shoulder. "Come on, Wiggles, hurry up." The little dog was lagging behind and seemed reluctant to enter the room. The dwarf whistled. Wiggles tucked her tail firmly between her legs and slunk into the passage behind him.

  In the darkness far ahead of the Siegebreakers, the magelord hissed and stopped. He had felt something, like a cold draft across his spell-laden shoulders. The charms attached to his robe murmured to him, giving him advance warning of a new danger. Magic… Somebody or something had woken up an old magic in these tunnels.

  "Fools." He peered back into the blackness outside the yellow light cast by the torches. Fottergrim had set trackers on his trail. He had known that the big orc would do that. Who knew what those idiots had stirred up? If only that foolish orc had done what he had told him to and stayed outside the walls of Tsurlagol, letting him explore these tunnels in peace. No, no, the big stupid oaf had to smash his way into the city and start a war!

  The bugbears surrounding him shuffled their broad feet and voiced their complaints. They had been growing more obnoxious in their objections since they had had to abandon that one female bugbear. As if such a creature mattered to him! A quick snap of the fingers, and a quicker flash of fire lit up the tunnel, turning the bugbears' complaints to sullen but subdued snarls.

  "We are being followed," he informed them. After all, it was the bugbears' job to guard him while he went about his business. He had already paid them a half-horse worth of nearly fresh meat that morning. And promised them more in the evening. "Be alert!"

  But he decided not to rely on the bugbears alone-they were stupid creatures whose big muscles gave them their only worth in his estimation. Something else slithered through the ruins of buried Tsurlagol, something large and scaled and hungry.

  With a few muttered words, and at the cost of only one charm, the magelord called the creature to him. At his feet was the big hole that they had just climbed out of. It was another dead end for his treasure hunt, but a perfect trap for anyone foolish enough to follow him.

  The new tunnel led the Siegebreakers into another broad room, wider than the first. Like the ossuary, it contained bones-only these were strewn across the floor as well as piled into niches. At the sight and smell of the bones, Wiggles's ears went up. The little dog tentatively wagged her tail. Mumchance snatched at her collar to keep her from grabbing the nearest bone. While hauling Wiggles away, the dwarf noticed that there was one peculiarity about all the skeletons scattered across the floor.

  "There are no heads," Mumchance said. "Where have all the skulls gone?"

  "Burial rite?" guessed Ivy.

  Kid advanced into the center of the room. He glanced at Ivy, waiting for her to tell him not to touch. When she said nothing, he stretched out one little hoof and stirred the bones. An odd grin of amusement spread across his face. "Perhaps someone took away the skulls for a collection, my dears, or to roll them through the ruins for their pleasure."

  "There's something evil here," said Gunderal with a shiver at the little thief's suggestions. "I can feel it." She passed Kid, going into the center of the room and looking right and left. "There's something hiding here. I know it."

  Gunderal peered into the shadowy niches lining the walls, with Zuzzara following directly behind her.

  "Let's just get out of here," suggested Ivy.

&nbs
p; "No," Gunderal almost snapped at her. "We have to find it first. If we try to pass before we find it, we'll end up like those skeletons."

  "How can you be certain?"

  "Because I am a wizard," said Gunderal with more force than normal. "Evil was done here."

  "Come on, Gunderal," said her sister. "You are just nervous. It has been a bad day."

  The wizard heaved a sigh. "Don't tell me what I'm feeling. This is what I am good at, sensing magic, just as you are good at hitting things." Gunderal moved back to the center of the room. Rather than skipping lightly around the bones on the floor, as she would normally do, she kicked her way through a rib cage, sending bits rolling off to one side. "Show yourself. I know you are there," she said.

  Everyone looked at Gunderal, then looked around the room, not asking to whom she spoke. She was a wizard, and they respected that. Still, they had never seen her talk to a pile of bones before. When a thin, strange voice answered her, they all became motionless. Ivy liked to think that standing frozen like a statue in the marketplace was a sign of alertness on her part, never fear. She glanced at Sanval. As always when faced with danger, his face was as frozen as the farm pond in midwinter. But he did give the tiniest shrug of inquiry. Ivy raised her eyebrows and shook her head when he started to move forward. She trusted Gunderal's instincts. The little genasi had gotten them out of more than one magical trap. Besides, from the way that Kid's ears were swiveling back and forth in nervous agitation, she was sure that he felt something peculiar in the room too.

  A voice said, "The wizard is clever. Very clever. But is the wizard clever enough to best me?"

  In an unnoticed niche, a soft green glow began to brighten. As it floated out into the room, they saw the light was a human skull surrounded by a jagged green flame that ringed it much like a lion's head is ringed by its mane. Its eyes glittered, points of green fire. The light increased and reflected off the walls, turning the room into a flickering green grotto.

  "All heads belong to me," said the flameskull, apparently untroubled by its lack of a body. The thing had no lips, no flesh at all, just clean jawbones clacking away. Unfortunately, it did have a few teeth-brown and half-rotted-that wobbled in a disgusting manner when it spoke. "They told me that when they left me here."

  "And who would they be?" Gunderal sounded as if she were making pleasant conversation in her own parlor, but she waved her uninjured hand frantically behind her back, gesturing to the others to gather closer to her.

  "My two friends, my two fond friends, my two cherished dead friends," said the flameskull, floating effortlessly in front of Gunderal. "We had heard that Tsurlagol had fallen and all its treasures were buried in its ruins. So we came to dig them out again. We were wizards too-not insignificant spellcasters or mountebanks, but masters of magnificent magic. We came looking for the glittering gems and the great diamond buried with them."

  "Any luck?" Ivy could not resist asking even as Gunderal made shushing motions.

  For a creature with no face, it was amazingly clear that the flameskull had settled into a sulk. Ivy guessed it had something to do with how the flames writhed in the eyesockets and the tone of voice issuing from its mouth. "They left me behind," it said with a distinct snarl. "They left me behind and told me to take the skulls of any who followed us. But I cursed them both even as they chopped off my head and arms and hid my body in the ruins."

  "There's nothing worse than an argument among thieves, my dear," said Kid in a tone laden with bitter experience. "Especially when they are magical thieves."

  "They left me behind," the skull repeated. The flames around the bony head died down a little, as if depression dampened the creature's fire.

  "Obviously not the best of friends," said Ivy, hoping to keep the skull talking, because she could see that Gunderal was about to cast some type of spell. "I wouldn't do what they told me to do. Especially if they cut off my head before they told me."

  "Huh! As if I have a choice," snapped the skull with a click of its rotted teeth. His flames brightened to a wide halo of green fire around his head. "They have been dead and gone for a generation or more! I am still here! And all have to pay toll to me. Pay me in skulls! Or rot as they rotted!" The creature's voice rose in anger, its fiery halo brightened, and two bolts of flame shot from its eyesockets.

  Before the fire could touch anyone, Gunderal raised a wall of water between the Siegebreakers and the flameskull. The flames licked out in pointed flickers, tossing a spray of green sparks. They hit the water wall and hissed, spat, and sizzled. The wall shimmered green, and then the flames extinguished themselves in the water.

  "Well done, wizard," said the flameskull. "Quite well done. But what will you do now? Remember, whoever collects the most heads wins. And that is always me, me, me!"

  "Cheeky thing for a dead head," said Mumchance.

  "Does your game have rules?" Ivy shouted at the flameskull, hoping to keep it talking and distract it from flinging more flame spells at them. Gunderal's wall of water looked very wobbly, and Ivy suspected the spell was not too stable.

  "You've got to smash it," Gunderal muttered to Ivy, confirming her worst fears. "Quickly. The wall won't hold."

  "It moves pretty fast," Ivy said. The flameskull was zipping back and forth, trying to find a way around the wall, but it was also keeping away from the water. It appeared to not want to get wet.

  "I can hit it," said Sanval, sliding his sword out of his scabbard. "Should I jump through the wall?"

  "No!" they all yelled. "That will just make the wall disappear!" All the Siegebreakers knew the basic mechanics of Gunderal's spell. They had used the wall of water many times before to shelter from some flame or other, even from fires that they had started themselves.

  "I can make you faster," said Gunderal to Sanval, "but I need to drop the water wall. I can't do two spells at the same time." Already the wall was becoming misty around the edges as the water started to fade away. The flameskull bobbed closer, obviously trying to listen to their conversation. It tilted its bony head, and odd sparks shot from its eye sockets.

  Zuzzara shifted so she was nearer to her sister. "I'll protect you while you're casting your spell," she said to Gunderal, "but be quick, little sister, be quick."

  "Drop the wall, Gunderal," commanded Ivy. "We'll scatter and try to divert its attack. Sanval, you'd better crush that thing on the first try!"

  The wall vanished, and Ivy flung herself directly under the skull, sliding on her stomach through the bones on the floor. As she had intended, the flameskull spun in place, turning itself upside down as it tried to track her movements. A bolt of energy from the skull's mouth whizzed by her ear and extinguished itself in the floor beside her.

  Zuzzara swung with her shovel at the back of the flameskull at the same time that Ivy flung herself under the floating flaming head. The half-orc missed, the flameskull shooting up toward the ceiling too quickly for her to connect with. The flameskull twisted around, trying to hit her with blasts of energy. The mane of flame whipped around the skull, long green tendrils hissing through the air. Again, with a howl of frustration, the skull's energy bolt undershot its target as Zuzzara grabbed her sister around the waist and leaped out of the way.

  Gunderal let out a little squeak as the two of them rolled across the floor, outside the flameskull's range. "Let me down. Sanval, get over here," the wizard called.

  "Missed, missed, missed with your missile," yelled Kid, cartwheeling around the skull, which had zipped lower again in an attempt to hit Ivy with a whip of fire. His hooves clicked on the floor, then spun in the air close to the skull as he went into a handstand. The flameskull blasted upward with a whistling screech, dived in a wide arc over Kid's flailing hooves, and aimed itself again at Ivy. In desperation, Ivy grabbed an old shinbone off the floor and lobbed it with her left hand at the skull. One end knocked against the flameskull's bony pate. The skull hit the floor with a thud and rolled to a dazed stop, then slowly drifted upward. Ivy heard a sharp bark an
d a "No!" from Mumchance. Wiggles raced past her, barking wildly and dancing on her back paws, trying to catch the skull floating above her.

  "Crazy dog!" yelled Ivy, grabbing for Wiggles's collar.

  "That's a bad, old bone. You don't want that." She scooped the little dog up and tossed Wiggles to Mumchance. The dwarf caught Wiggles and dropped her behind him.

  "Stay!" said Mumchance sternly in Dwarvish. Wiggles folded her ears back and dropped to a crouch. She kept giving out eager little whines as she watched the flameskull bounce and dip around the room. The little dog started to crawl forward on her front legs, rump high in the air and fluffy tail wagging madly.

  "No!" said Mumchance again in Dwarvish. "Bad dog! Settle!" He picked up a collarbone from the floor and chucked it with a big overhand throw at the flameskull. The undead head bounced out of the way with a jeer.

  "Can't hit me!" yelled the flameskull and spat another ball of sparks at the dwarf. Mumchance skipped to one side with the lightness of a dwarf half his age, Wiggles dancing at his heels.

  Kid spun around the flameskull, flipping and cartwheeling to confuse the creature. With one big spin, he managed to clip it with the edge of one hoof, shoving it back against the stone wall. "You cannot catch us. We are too quick for an old cracked head like you!" he said.

  A spray of green sparks zoomed past Kid. Several settled on the toe of one of Sanval's boots. The smell of burnt polish and leather filled the air. Glaring at the boot, Sanval rubbed the damaged toe against the back of the opposite shin, then glared again as he stamped down his foot. A large scorch mark marred the shiny polished surface of the toe.

  "That does it," he muttered. "Get me there, wizard!"

  Sanval slid into place next to Gunderal. With a quickly whispered spell, she slapped Sanval hard between the shoulders, shouting, "Go, go!"

  Screaming, the skull dived after Kid, spreading a trail of green fire and ignoring Sanval, who charged after it. With magically enhanced speed, Sanval swung his sword down on the skull. The brittle bone shattered, scattering pieces around the room.