Erich's Plea: Book One of the Witchcraft Wars

by Tracey Alley

been some strange rumors going around…” Lara paused briefly, “something about some new species. I really don’t know anything for certain. I just wouldn’t be surprised by anything we might see down there or here, everything is way too quiet.”

  “Great,” Darzan said sarcastically, “Let’s just expect the worst shall we?”

  “An excellent suggestion,” Tares answered her, ignoring the sarcasm.

  Taking up his massive mace and shield, Tares indicated that Lara should lead the way. Darzan stood for a moment watching them, before unsheathing her saber. As she prepared to follow them, she muttered to herself, “I better get well paid for this.” Tares chose to ignore the comment, although he did hear it.

  Lara led them out of the storage room via a door to the east, which opened into a tiny alcove, little more than a closet. In this room were two sets of tall shelves, one of which contained more rolls of parchment, the other had pouches upon pouches of spell component bags. Almost without thinking Lara automatically reached out to take some of the carefully arranged pouches and was stopped by Tares, who merely shook his massive bovine head. Lara instructed Tares to move the shelf containing the parchment scrolls. Once it was out of the way they could see the stone trap door, with its massive ring pull, set in the floor.

  “That’s it, down there,” she whispered, “even though this way’s not well known I'd guess that it’ll be guarded at the bottom, so if you open it then I’ll go first. I’ve got my trusty blowgun” she continued holding up the small instrument, a wooden pipe, loaded with darts tipped with a deadly poison. Lara had once been a very successful thief and assassin, a member of The Silent Hand, one of The Kingdoms most powerful guilds. Now, thanks to the intervention of the Grand Knight, Lord Michael, Lara had left the guild forever. She was working with Tares, as a form of reparation, on behalf of the Tears of Belenus, Lord Michael’s group of paladins, knights and clerics.

  Pulling up the heavy stone, Tares stood back and allowed Lara to go ahead of him down the ladder. Looking down Tares saw that it was pitch black with not even the barest glimmer of light. After lighting their small lantern he indicated Darzan should precede him. Once he reached the foot of the ladder the minotaur saw that they were in another small storage room; similar to the one on the upper level they had just come from.

  Lara was already at the door leading out of the room, picking the lock. Where, Tares wondered, were all the guards? Surely, the prison was better guarded than this, even on a festival day? He was more certain than ever that they were walking into a trap, but how exactly had that trap been designed?

  “Hey, Tares, stop dreaming…” Lara whispered, “I’m done. Off you go.” Lara moved back to let the big minotaur through the door first. Tares stepped out into a long corridor lit by torches at periodic intervals. The light was sufficient for them to dispense with the lantern and the minotaur carefully packed it away. Directly opposite was a wooden door, closed and probably locked. From the length of the corridor, it was obvious that the lower level was larger than the upper level, probably extending well under the courtyard above.

  To their left, the corridor ended only a few feet away in a T-junction. On the right it extended into darkness. Motioning the two women to follow him Tares turned right and moved down the corridor as silently as possible. Their footsteps seemed unnaturally loud to Tares in the echoing subterranean silence.

  The corridor they had been following came to an end, emptying into yet another long narrow corridor, empty and silent, lit with the periodic torches. Lara ran her little hands over the stone wall and announced that it was an outer wall, representing the limits of the underground section of the prison.

  “Better let me go first, Tares, I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she whispered. Tares merely nodded, he too had a bad feeling about this. Darzan followed closely after Lara, letting Tares take the more dangerous rear position. They continued down the corridor for roughly thirty feet, until Lara suddenly stopped them at an open doorway.

  Lying dead in the doorway was one of the prison guards; it looked as if his neck had been broken. Next to the dead guard, partially blocking the corridor was another creature with a long thin body, a head like an octopus and wearing what looked like elaborately embroidered wizards’ robes. The three looked at each other, the question obvious on their faces.

  “What is that thing?” Tares’ whispered, his astonishment plain to hear, “Belenus have mercy, that creature’s not natural.”

  “I guess that’s what they were talking about in the guild,” Lara said slowly, bending down to examine the strange creature. Lara continued, “we weren’t told much, only that the prison had these new guards. They’re supposed to have some kind of special brain magic, something new that no one’s ever seen before. No one seemed to know where they come from, but apparently The Dark One brought these creatures here as some kind of experiment.”

  “What do you mean ‘brain magic’?” Darzan asked.

  “I don’t know. In the guild, they never tell you more than you need to know. This is all just rumors I heard, not information from the guild leaders,” Lara answered. Darzan shuddered in undisguised fear. The dead creature lying at their feet was bad enough to look at; the idea that it possessed some kind of brain magic, something that would damage or interfere with your mind, was utterly horrific. The pirate woman did not want to encounter one of these creatures while it was alive.

  “Wait a minute,” Darzan said, “if this,” she paused, searching for the right word and settled for nudging the creature with her foot, “thing was employed or recruited or whatever for the prison and it’s dead and the guard is dead…then obviously there really was a riot?”

  Lara’s small face screwed up in profound skepticism, “I suppose so but I don’t really understand. After all, The Dark One’s very, you know, he doesn’t let mistakes happen,” Lara said quietly.

  “Efficient Lara, The Dark One is very efficient,” Tares supplied Lara with the word she had been struggling to find.

  “There may well have been a riot, I suppose it is possible and someone evidently killed these guards” he continued, “but I’m still certain that this is a trap of some kind. I believe that someone knows we’re in here and why. They may even have known that a riot would occur. The behavior of the gate guards, even allowing a riot to occur, it all seems highly unusual given that this is undoubtedly the toughest prison in The Kingdoms. Let’s just keep moving, and hopefully we’ll find out what’s really going on soon enough.”

  Leaving the two women to keep watch at the door Tares stepped carefully over the guards’ body into the room, which was obviously one of the many infamous torture chambers. The long rectangular room had four low tables to lay out unfortunate victims and an archway directly opposite the open door. Moving carefully between the tables the minotaur walked to the archway and peered into the adjoining room. One small torch illuminated the room showing a single closed door in the back wall. Walking as silently as possible Tares moved closer to the closed door and listened carefully, very faintly he could just make out muffled voices coming from the other side.

  Tares stood for moment thinking; it was highly likely that the owners of those voices were the same people who had dispatched the guard and the strange creature. That would make them potential allies. On the other hand the voices behind the door could belong to whatever guards, or creatures, that had escaped the obvious battle. In either case he decided, it would be best to keep the element of surprise on their side. Tares signaled the two women to prepare and then quickly threw the door open, brandishing his heavy mace.

  The room was apparently used by someone as an office. At the back of the room was a long wide desk of polished obsidian and a tall shelf filled with rolls of parchment stood beside it. In one corner was a large wooden chest, easily three feet across and close to four feet deep. Sitting on the floor beside the chest was a bizarre creature that looked like a cro
ss between a troll and an ogre, if such were possible. Beside the creature, rummaging through the open chest was a dark haired man with the bulging muscles of a warrior. Another man, with brown shaggy hair stood at the shelves, examining the rolls of parchment carefully.

  Seated at the desk, however, were two people the minotaur had never expected to see in Diablis, or together for that matter. Nikolai, the necromancer of Bhaal who Tares had encountered while on duty in The Northern Badlands and sitting right beside him was Prince Einreich of Saxenburg. Tares had not known that either of them was incarcerated in Diablis prison and he could not begin to understand what they were doing sitting together so calmly.

  “Right on time,” Nikolai drawled mockingly, “I was almost starting to doubt you Tares but I knew Belenus would guide you here.”

  Tares growled but he lowered his weapon. The necromancer, a devotee of the blood god Bhaal, was an offence to everything the minotaur held dear but he knew that Lord Michael held Nikolai in very high esteem. Although what reason Lord Michael had for his high opinion of the mage Tares could not begin to imagine.

  “How dare you? The name of the Crying God is nothing but a blasphemy on your lips