Silver Shadows fr-13

by Elaine Cunnighham

  The dungeon's silence was broken by distant footsteps that echoed though the marble corridors like large hailstones on a slate roof. Behind the labored tread was the scrape and clatter of some large, heavy object being dragged along. Soon the sound of a disgruntled male voice joined in the general racket. Arilyn got the gist of the situation from the muttered complaints and the occasional resonant clang that occurred whenever the servant stopped and kicked what she surmised to be a water-filled cleaning bucket.

  The Harper crouched behind the fountain and waited. This was precisely the type of opportunity for which she had hoped.

  Her optimism wavered for a moment when the servant entered the room, a mop over one shoulder and the bucket dragging behind him. He was a male dwarf, with a form that resembled nothing so much as a squat, two-legged mushroom and a face that brought to mind an image of storm clouds over a craggy mountain. The dwarf was young by the measure of his people-seventy or eighty, judging from the length of his dun-colored beard-and not more than four feet tall. Yet the Harper, for all her skill with the sword, was hesitant to tangle with the obviously ill-tempered little man.

  On the other hand, what choice did she have?

  Arilyn watched as the dwarf dipped and wrung the mop, then turned away and fell to scrubbing the marble floor, muttering imprecations all the while. She rose and silently came up behind him, her sword in hand. A well-placed kick overturned the bucket and sent a tide of soapy water racing toward the dwarf. He spun to face the sound, saw the battle-ready elf, and instinctively kicked into a running charge.

  The dwarfs booted feet shot out from under bom before he'd taken three steps. After a brief, airborne moment, he landed flat on his back. His shaggy head hit the marble with a thud so resonant that Arilyn could feel it in her bones and teeth. While the dwarf was still trying to uncross his eyes, she strode forward and plunged the tip of her sword through his beard until it pressed hard against his throat.

  "Take me to the treasure room," she demanded.

  "Rooms," the dwarf corrected her in a deep rumble. Arilyn noted that the gravel-filled voice had more in common with rain felling on a kettledrum than with human speech. "More'n one room, there be. Lots of 'em. But they're guarded by armed men the size of me mother-in-law's temper, and locked up tighter'n a gnome's navel. Don't have a key. Ain't none of the servants got keys."

  "I don't need keys," Arilyn asserted, "and I've never met a man whose sword could match mine."

  Since the sword in question was still pressed against his throat, the dwarf had opportunity to consider this claim and the fighter who made it. His gaze slid thoughtfully up the shining length of the blade and stopped at the Harper's resolute face.

  "You got a lotta brass fer an elf woman," he admitted at last. "Might it be that you also got a way outta here?"

  "Same way I got in,"

  A light kindled in the dwarfs eyes. "I'm a good hand at fighting, if you'd care t' pass over one of them knives you carry. Take me with you when you go, and Fll do fer you what I can. By Morodin's beard," he swore fervently, “For the chance to get outta this place, I'd be tempted to help you loot me own ancestors' burial chambers!"

  Arilyn hesitated only a moment; it was not in her to leave any intelligent creature in slavery. She slid her moonblade out of the thicket of light-brown beard and backed off a few steps. The dwarf scrambled to his feet. She tossed him a dagger, which he nimbly caught. He took off down one of the corridors, beckoning her to follow. Arilyn noted with relief that he could walk silently when he chose to do so.

  True to his word, the dwarf led her to a massive locked door, before which stood three enormous men, all of whom were armed with wickedly curved scimitars. Also true to his word, fighting was something the dwarf could do well. In record time, the unlikely pair of conspirators stood over the downed guards.

  The dwarf ran the back of one hand across his damp forehead and then regarded it, his bearded face twisted with disgust. "Sad state of affairs," he muttered. "Must be gittin' soft-shouldn't a broke a sweat on those three!"

  Arilyn suppressed a smile. She and the dwarf dragged the guards to the well and tossed them in, then returned to the treasure rooms. With the dwarf looking on, the half-elf went to work. From her waterproof bag she took a small wooden box-unwittingly provided by her new "employer," Madame Penelope-and tossed a bit of the yellow powder at the door. There was no telltale blue light-no magic at work. Motioning the dwarf to stand back, she bent to examine the lock. It was trapped, of course, not once but thrice over, and it took her the better part of two hours' work to disable the lethal devices.

  At last the door swung open on noiseless hinges. Arilyn edged into the first room, the dwarf following on her heels like a squat shadow.

  The treasure rooms were utterly silent and darker than a moonless night, but both the dwarf and the half-elf possessed eyes that were keenly sensitive to heat and neither felt the need of torch or candle. As they passed from one room to another, the dwarfs eyes widened into avaricious circles, his mouth fixed in a permanent "ooh!" of wonder. His awe was not misplaced, for this was beyond doubt the most unusual collection Arilyn had ever seen. Many of the items were priceless; most were extremely valuable; some were merely odd.

  There were rare musical instruments, including, a six-foot harp with a soundboard that had been carved into the shape of a woman whose gilded fingers were poised over the strings. Magical, Arilyn surmised- awaiting a command to set it playing. Paintings, sculpture, and carvings from many lands filled several chambers. The art of taxidermy was also represented: rare beasts, some of which had not been seen alive for several generations, filled an entire room. There were piles of coins from every land Arilyn had ever heard named, and enough rare books to satisfy a dozen voracious scholars. There was an entire shelf of brilliantly colored vases, fashioned by fire salamanders from melted semiprecious gems. There were jewel-encrusted swords, crowns of long-dead monarchs, court gowns embroidered with silk thread and seed pearls, and a golden scepter inscribed with the runes of some far-eastern lands. Among these treasures of gems and gold Arilyn finally found the item she sought: a delicate, filigreed tiara set with a multitude of pale purple amethysts.

  The Harper carefully wrapped the crown in a soft cloth and tucked it into her bag. Time to go," she said, turning to her dwarven shadow.

  "That's it? That's all we're taking outta here?" the dwarf demanded. When Arilyn nodded, he immediately began to snatch up small items and stuff them into his pockets. "Back wages," he said in a defensive tone. "Been working here for more'n ten years. Fm owed."

  Arilyn didn't begrudge the dwarf his due, but gold was heavy, and she worried about the weight ha was adding to his already considerable bulk. "We're swimming out," she cautioned him.

  The dwarf abruptly ceased his looting and stared at her, his face growing pale above his beard. "Not the well spring?"

  When the Harper nodded, he groaned and then shrugged. "Ah, well. Always knowed I'd be a-goin' out that way sooner or later-suppose it's better to go it alive! But tell me this: what's waiting fer us in there?"

  Arilyn told him. The dwarf pursed his lips and considered, then he emptied some of the booty from his pockets and selected a curved, jewel-encrusted dagger as his principal treasure.

  They retraced their steps to the exit. The door to the first chamber was in sight when one of the treasures- a long case pushed up against the far wall-caught Arilyn's eye. The case was covered by a low, rounded dome of dusty glass, and through the film she glimpsed something that looked suspiciously like a woman's form. Curious, the Harper walked over and used the sleeve of her shirt to wipe clean a small circular window. She bent and peered in.

  Within the case was the body of a beautiful elven female, not alive, but not exactly what Arilyn understood as dead, either. The elf looked-empty. There was no other word for it. The essence of the elf woman was gone, leaving her body behind in some form of deep stasis. How long she had stayed so Arilyn could not say, but the elf's
ornaments were of ancient design, and the chain mail that draped her slender form was finer and older than any Arilyn had ever seen.

  The elf was also disturbingly familiar. A single thick braid the color of spun sapphires lay over one shoulder. It was the rarest hair color among moon elves, a color Arilyn associated with her long-dead mother. The elf s face was also somehow familiar, although in truth she resembled no one whom Arilyn could name or remember.

  The Harper's troubled gaze roved downward and stopped abruptly. Resting on the elf s thighs was a small shield emblazoned with a strange elven sigil: a curving design made of mirror images reaching out to each other, but not quite touching.

  Arilyn's heart missed a beat. She knew that mark. An icy fist seemed to clutch her gut as she slowly pulled her sword from its sheath. Nine runes were cut into the ancient blade; one of them matched exactly the mark on the elf woman's shield.

  "Well, 111 be a one-headed ettin," the dwarf murmured, his eyes round as he peered into the case. "A sounder sleep than any I've ever had, and that's a feet! I heard tell o' such a thing. Didn't believe the stories fer a minute, though."

  Arilyn didn't know which story he referred to, but it hardly mattered. She herself had heard many such bedtime tales-of sleeping princesses or heroes who lay hidden in deathlike slumber until a time of crisis brought them forth-and never had she given any of them a speck of credence. There was something about this slumbering elf, however, that made all the old legends seem possible. For once Arilyn rued her lack of knowledge of elven ways, and her near-ignorance of the sword she carried.

  "You go ahead to the well," she urged the dwarf. "There're several openings leading out. The dry tunnel is due east and marked with a knife, ni be along in a bit."

  The dwarf grinned, and a spark of battle lust set his red eyes aflame. "Put the pot on f boil and start chopping up horseradish fer the relish-there'll be plenty o' shrimp fer dinner tonight!" he proclaimed gleefully as he took off for the exit at a brisk clip. Arilyn heard his gusty intake of breath, then a mighty splash as he dove into the water.

  Left alone, the Harper turned back to the macabre coffin. Acting on impulse, she touched the moonblade to the glass. A flare of magical power welled up within the sword, like lightning that could not find release. Because Arilyn and the sword were linked in ways she did not understand, she felt the moment of recognition as the almost-sentient sword acknowledged its former master. There was no doubt in the half-elf s mind: she was looking upon one of her ancestors, one of the elves who had once wielded the sword in her hand. But how could this be, and how had this elven warrior come to such a fate?

  Arilyn knew little of her sword's history, beyond the names of the elves who'd wielded it and the powers with which they'd imbued it. Her mother had died before telling Arilyn of her heritage, and her mentor-the traitorous gold elf Kymil Nimesin-had been more interested in exploiting his young charge than educating her. As the half-elf pondered the sleeping elf woman, the vague dread she had always felt for her moonblade- but could never explain-enveloped her like a suffocating miasma.

  She got a firm grip on her emotions and quickly reviewed what little she did know of the moonblade. Nine people, including herself, had wielded the moon-blade since its forging in ancient Myth Drannor, and each had added a magical power to the sword. Although Arilyn knew what these powers were, she could not match each one to a rune, or each rune to the elf with whom it had originated. She did not know the name of the elf woman who slept here, but perhaps the answer to this could be found in the glass that entombed her.

  Most humans did not realize that glass was not a solid object, but rather an extremely viscous liquid. Its flow was too slow to be measured, much less noticed, in a human's lifetime. After many years, a pane of glass thickened near the base as the slowly flowing substance settled at the lowest point. Elves knew that in time, all windows would open-from the top. The problem was how to measure this flow without actually breaking the glass. This Arilyn did not wish to do, for fear of disturbing the elf woman's unnatural slumber.

  But as she examined the coffin, she realized that this was not a concern. The glass lid was not sealed, but rather hinged on one side. And a long, meandering crack had already begun working its way downward from the top of the low-rising dome. Arilyn pulled a knife from her sash and rapped the hilt sharply along the crack, then again not far away. A second fissure rippled through the glass, and a curved shard fell onto the sleeping elf. Arilyn carefully lifted the lid and picked up the shard. She measured it with a bit of twine, then broke off a piece from each end. These she wrapped securely and tucked into her bag. Tinkersdam could probably estimate the age of the glass with a quick glance. That done, she turned one last searching gaze upon her ancestor.

  The elf was much smaller than Arilyn, with finer features and more delicate bones. Her long-fingered hands lay at her sides, palms facing up. The Harper noted that the elf had the deeply callused fingers and palm of a swordmaster-but only on the left hand. This told her the elf had likely been an early wielder, before the moonblade had acquired the speed- and power-enhanced strike that demanded a two-handed grip.

  Outrage, cold and deep, filled the Harper as she slowly lowered the glass lid. It was not right for the noble elf woman to be part of some rich man's "collection," displayed as if she were just one more curious and beautiful object!

  It would not always be so, Arilyn vowed as she slipped from the treasure rooms. She would return, and she would take the moonblade's unknown wielder away to a more fitting rest. But tiiis was not something she could do now, or alone.

  Setting her jaw in a grim line, the Harper made her way back to the well and dove in.

  The dwarf, it seemed, had been busy. The split and emptied shells of two giant crustaceans swirled through the churning water, and the contents had been hacked into bits the size of finger food. The surviving creatures were hi a feeding frenzy and, by the look of things, would continue to eat well for days to come.

  A glow of lingering heat drew Arilyn's eye toward the bottom of the pool. There, its translucent carapace bulging and heaving with some internal conflict, was the largest-shelled monster Arilyn had yet seen, one large enough-and stupid enough-to swallow a live dwarf. The creature would have already died for its mistake had the dwarf not dropped his new dagger in the struggle. The Harper caught a glimpse of the jeweled weapon, which skittered about like a frantic squirrel as the crustacean's many feet kicked it this way and that.

  Arilyn pulled her knife from her sash and dove deeper. The monster did not notice her approach, for it was well and truly distracted by what was certainly the worse case of indigestion it had ever suffered. The giant crustacean whirled and twisted, occasionally toppling over and then scrambling upright again. Although the dwarf couldn't last much longer without air, he was still putting up Nine Hells of a fight.

  Arilyn drove the knife deep between two plates of the monster's shell. Straddling the creature and gripping its shell with her knees, she began hacking her way through to the dwarf. As soon as she'd cut through the surprisingly tough and elastic stomach lining, he exploded upward.

  Stubby legs and arms churning, the dwarf instinctively headed for air. Arilyn followed, quickly passing the much-slower swimmer and darting into the marked portal. She turned, seized a handful of beard and dragged the dwarf into the opening.

  They shot up through the water-filled tunnel and bobbed to the surface. The dwarf grabbed a handhold on the blessedly dry rocks that littered the tunnel floor, and dragged in several long, ragged breaths. Arilyn crawled past him and rolled onto the rocky ground. For several moments she was content merely to lie there and wait for her pounding heart to resume its usual pace.

  At length she noticed that the dwarf, who was still half submerged in the water, was regarding her with a baleful stare. "You pulled me beard," he pointed out. "You shouldn't ought to do that."

  "You're welcome," Arilyn returned pleasantly.

  "That too," he muttered. "Name's
Jill, by the way. -.

  It was more thanks than the half-elf had expected, even without the introduction. Dwarves often declined to give any name, even one as abbreviated and obviously spurious as tins. Arilyn rose to her feet and extended a hand to help drag her new friend out of the water.

  "Jill?" she repeated in an incredulous tone.

  "That's right. Gotta problem with itr

  "Well, no. I was expecting something a bit… longer, I suppose. More earthy. And possibly masculine."

  " Twas me mother's name," the dwarf proclaimed in a reverent tone that left very little room for discussion.

  There was one more thing on Arilyn's mind, however. "Now that youVe seen the treasure, I suppose youTl be back for it?" It was a logical question, considering that dwarven people generally rivaled dragons in their love for hoarding treasure. Arilyn wanted to return to the treasure hold someday, and while the loss of a single tiara and one dwarven servant might go unremarked, the ravages caused by a band of dwarven looters would almost certainly ensure that her hard-won entrance to Assante's palace would be ascertained and secured against future incursion.

  But Jill merely huffed. "Been in that pink prison fer ten years. Don't plan on going back, not ever. Ifn there's anything you want in there, elf, yer welcome to it. Just don't git yerself caught. There ain't nothing in there worth that."

  As he spoke, his eyes roved toward the east-and to the Starspire Mountains that were bis home. Arilyn was inclined to believe him.

  As they scrambled up the steep hill, she told him, briefly, what awaited them at the other side of the tunnel. The rapt expression on Jill's face as he contemplated these wonders far outshone his treasure-inspired greed.

  "I thought you were eager to be back under the Starspires," Arilyn said. Even as she spoke, however, she slipped Jill a handful of silver coins. It would not do to have him pay Mistress Penelope's girls with coins taken from Assante's treasure trove.