by Paul S. Kemp
All eyes followed Skullport’s enigmatic guardians. Duergar, man, and troll visibly cowered under the inscrutable gaze of the Skulls. Finished with their flyover, the Skulls positioned themselves around the combatants, fencing most of them in. A nervous rustle ran through the chamber. Some of the casters and crossbowmen outside of the ring of Skulls began to back away down the side tunnels.
Cale and his companions were outside the circle. Cale sensed the power in the room, as did Weaveshear, to judge from its hungry vibrations. With six of the Skulls present in the chamber, and presuming that five or six of them were still lurking about in Skullport, as Cale thought typical, most all of the guardians were accounted for.
It was then that it hit him.
“Dark and empty,” he whispered.
Azriim and the slaadi had arranged the battle for one purpose: to draw the Skulls away from the city, or away from something else. But what?
Again the booming voice: “Warfare in a main thoroughfare of the city of Skullport jeopardizes trade and is in direct contravention to our standing edict! Also, rat scales offer unique numerary opportunities! Most foul! Most foul, indeed!”
The Skull then went on for several more heartbeats in a language that Cale could not understand, though the tone was unmistakably hostile.
The combatants shared confused looks, but none dared move.
The Skull reverted back to Common, saying, “For all of the foregoing reasons, Ssarmn and the Xanathar shall be individually disciplined and each of you shall be exterminated.”
It seemed to take a moment for the import of the pronouncement to settle in. When it did, the duergar and humans tentatively raised their weapons. The trolls snarled defiance.
And the Skulls began to kill.
As one, the six Skulls unleashed their awesome magical power. Arcane energies slammed indiscriminately into the encircled forces—fire, ice, lightning, and a hail of stones. Waves of warping magical force ran amok among the duergar. Bolts of amber energy pierced shield, armor, and finally flesh. Men screamed, twisted into shapeless forms, burned, froze, and died.
The mages and crossbowmen poured out of the side tunnels in a panic, like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Two Skulls pursued them. Somehow the city’s guardians had ambushed the would-be ambushers. Cale finally counted a total of eight Skulls in the chamber.
In the smoke and flashing lights, Cale could no longer see Azriim and the other slaad.
“Mags?” Cale asked.
Riven grabbed Cale’s cloak and said, “We need to get out of here, Cale. Now! No one is going to leave here alive.”
Cale heard the urgency in Riven’s voice but shook him off.
He looked at Magadon and asked, “Mags?”
“I’ve got him still,” replied the guide. “He’s taking out his teleportation rod.”
Cale said, “Wherever they go, get a look and give it to me. I’m taking us after them.”
Magadon nodded.
“We’re leaving, Riven,” said Cale. “Well enough?”
The assassin backed off and gave a soft nod, his single eye wide and staring at the Skulls.
In the cavern below, the combatants appeared to have put aside their differences and fought together to survive. Warhammers flew toward the Skulls, crossbow bolts, beams of energy, lightning bolts, and fireballs. The impact of weapons and spells jolted Skullport’s guardians, but seemed to do little actual damage, until one of the Skulls fluttered in the air like a wounded bird and sank to the cavern floor. A duergar smashed it with his hammer. A cheer went up.
The duergar standing over the slain Skull took a yellow beam in his chest, screamed, and turned inside out, spraying gore.
The remaining Skulls, unperturbed by their fallen brother, floated across the cavern, unleashing power and death wherever they moved. Duergar, trolls, and humans formed groups and rushed the Skulls. Duergar and Xanathar mages fired everything they had at the Skulls—wand and spell. Huge stalactites broke from the ceiling and crashed on the cavern’s floor. One of them crushed a second Skull and buried a group of duergar.
“That’s it!” Magadon said. “They’ve moved. All three of them. They’re in a smooth walled tunnel, still in the Underdark but not in Skullport. Something is wrong with one of them.” The guide held out a hand. “Here. I can show it to you.”
Cale reached out and clasped Magadon’s arm.
“Cover!” Riven shouted.
Before Cale could respond, an explosion of fire rocked the ledge. An inferno of heat and light engulfed the entire face of the wall and he lost his grip on Magadon. Vaguely, he heard Jak, Riven, and the guide scream, then he heard the dull thud of flesh slamming into rock. The force from the blast flattened Cale against the ledge, stealing his breath. Only mildly stunned, he looked up a moment later to find his clothes smoking but his flesh unharmed. Weaveshear, sheathed in shadows, vibrated in his hand.
Magadon and Jak lay near him, off to the side, their flesh charred, their clothes aflame. But both of them were blinking, both of them were conscious. They were looking past Cale, wide-eyed. Jak tried to say something but no sound emerged. Cale turned his head to find himself face to face with the glowing visage of a Skull.
Azriim materialized in the tunnel to the sound of screams—Dolgan’s screams. The big slaad’s hind claw had materialized up to the ankle in the stone of the cavern’s floor. It looked as if stone jaws had clamped shut on his broodmate’s foot.
Azriim pocketed his teleportation rod and shook his head in irritation—not because he was concerned with Dolgan’s pain, but because time was of the essence and Dolgan’s plight would slow them down. He had known an errant teleport to be a possibility of using the rods in the Underdark, but had decided to run the risk. In truth, he’d had no choice. He needed to get to the provenience while the Skulls were distracted with the battle in the north tunnels. He did not have a lot of time.
Still wailing, Dolgan pulled at his extremity as though he might jerk it from the stone. His claws dug bloody grooves in the flesh of his exposed calf, but the stone did not release its grip.
Azriim knew the effort to be futile. The hind claw could not be pulled free. The substance of his broodmate’s foot had melded with the stone. There was only one way to get him loose.
“Silence, fool,” Azriim commanded, concerned that his broodmate’s wails might be heard by any remaining Skulls.
When Dolgan showed no sign of having understood, Azriim willed a globe of silence to surround them, and all sound died.
Serrin, standing beside Dolgan and eyeing the big slaad’s extremity with emotionless gray eyes, projected, Transform yourself into a smaller shape.
Dolgan looked up sharply and grinned through his pain. Drool ran from the corners of his mouth. He closed his eyes for a moment and began to change, his large human form shrinking down into that of a gnome.
As Azriim had known, the transformation did not free his foot.
It did not work, Dolgan said through clenched teeth.
Azriim could not tell if the big slaad was smiling with pleasure or grimacing with pain.
We can see that, Serrin answered.
Dolgan’s eyes watered with the agony.
It is painful, he said. Azriim sighed.
Of course it is, he replied. They had to move, so to Serrin he projected, Chop it off.
Dolgan’s eyes went wide.
What? Do not!
Serrin did not show surprise, though his eyes narrowed. He hefted his falchion.
It is the only way, Azriim said to Dolgan. Be grateful that Serrin carries a blade, else you would have to chew your way through your own leg.
But—
Otherwise, Azriim continued, we will have to leave you behind to starve.
Dolgan stared at Azriim for a moment before his expression dropped. The big slaad looked to Serrin, then the falchion, and Azriim saw acceptance in his eyes.
Do it, then, Dolgan projected.
Serrin didn’t hesitate. He raised h
is blade high. Dolgan, still in gnome form, held up a small, gnarled hand.
Don’t do it all in one swing, he projected, warming to events. And make certain it’s painful.
Cale climbed to his feet, Weaveshear in hand.
The Skull pronounced something in a tongue that Cale did not understand, though the ominous tone was clear.
Cale said, “I don’t understand” and began to back off toward Jak and Magadon.
The Skull moved with him and spoke sharply in the same tongue. Before Cale could utter another reply, the Skull’s eyes flared and a green ray fired from the sockets. Cale, trying but failing to sidestep the beam, instinctively brandished Weaveshear before him.
To his shock, the shadows around the sword swallowed the beam. The blade grew hot in his hand and began to shake. He felt the power contained within it, sensed its desire to be released. With nothing else for it, he pointed Weaveshear’s tip at the Skull.
The green beam, interspersed with hair-fine threads of shadowstuff, blazed forth. It hit the surprised Skull between its eyes, and for a moment the creature shook violently, as if it was about to blow apart.
But it did not, and instead the Skull cocked itself curiously to the side and eyed the blade. It spoke a long string of phrases, each in a different language. Cale understood almost nothing, catching only one word that he knew: coluk, a Turmish verb meaning, “to absorb.”
Behind the Skull, the battle raged on. Fire and lightning lit the cavern. The stone was awash in magical energy and blood. The Skull before Cale uttered a piercing, keening wail. A second Skull engaged in the battle turned sharply at the sound. It turned from the battle and veered toward the ledge.
Cale’s heart hammered in his chest. He could not manage two Skulls.
Still holding Weaveshear between himself and the Skull, he moved nearer to Jak and Magadon, knelt, and grabbed the halfling by the cloak.
“Get up, Jak,” he hissed. “Mags … up. Now.”
With Cale’s help, his two stunned companions climbed to their feet, still smoking and dazed from the fireball. The second Skull was nearly to the ledge. The first kept its impassive gaze fixed squarely on Cale.
“Riven!” Cale called, not seeing the assassin.
“Here,” Riven’s voice called from behind them and to their right.
Cale glanced over his shoulder to see Riven crouched against the wall, his one eye fixed on the Skull. He held throwing daggers in each hand—paltry weapons against so formidable a foe. His clothes were blackened, but he looked generally unharmed by the fireball.
“We’re leaving,” Cale said, speaking as much to the Skull as to his comrades. “We’re leaving,” he said again, but in Turmish, hoping the Skull would understand.
The Skull softly muttered something in reply. The second Skull was nearly there.
Pulling Magadon and Jak along, Cale backed toward Riven.
Mags, he projected, show me where the slaadi went.
The Skull began to mouth arcane words. The second Skull fell in beside it and joined its incantation. Cale feared that Weaveshear would not be able to absorb whatever was coming next.
Put your hand on me, Riven! Cale projected. Mags, now!
Riven grabbed a fistful of Cale’s cloak as a mental image formed in Cale’s brain: a smooth walled cavern with a formation of stalagmites on the right and a shallow pool. While Cale knew that teleporting in the Underdark presented danger, he had no choice. He drew the shadows around him as quickly as he could and willed them to move to the cavern—willed them to move that instant.
The Skulls’ dead eyes stared holes into Cale. Their power gathered, and Cale summoned power of his own.
With alarming suddenness, a wave of incredible magical force exploded outward from the Skulls.
Cale closed his eyes against the impact. He felt a flutter in his gut, and everything went black.
SOWING
Cale materialized in a ready crouch, Weaveshear in hand. He took a quick scan of the tunnel. It extended in both directions to the limits of his darkvision. Clusters of stalagmites stood at intervals on the uneven floor, and stalactites hung from the ceiling like drips of stone. A still pool was along the wall to the right, its dark water smeared with a gray fungal growth that floated on top. Cale had no sense of how far they were from either Skullport of the battle they’d just fled. He found the feeling disorienting, isolating.
The tunnel was silent but for their breathing. The slaadi were nowhere in sight.
“Where are we?” Jak asked.
“Somewhere in the Underdark,” Cale replied. “Light, little man. Mags, find them.”
Beside Cale, Jak struck a sunrod on the rocky ground. The thin shaft of alchemically treated metal rang softly off the stone and began to glow more brightly than a torch. It would last an hour or so. Jak held it aloft, illuminating the tunnel for all of them. Though Cale had not needed the sunrod to see, he welcomed its dim luminescence for the shadows it cast.
Magadon’s knucklebone eyes took in the surroundings, and scoured the floor.
“Blood,” the guide said.
He moved to a splotch of dark matter on the floor. Cale followed the guide’s gaze and saw a large smear of black blood, intermixed with chunks of flesh and a shard of bone. The stone floor near the remains looked malformed, as though it might have melted and been reformed.
Magadon put his fingers to the blood, studied it. He rubbed the flesh between two fingers.
“Slaadi,” he said. “And still damp. One of them was wounded here.”
He wiped his fingers clean on his trousers.
“Which way, Mags?” Cale asked, trying to keep his voice calm.
He knew they had only moments to stop the slaadi, and they could ill afford to get the direction wrong.
Magadon studied the floor near the blood while Cale silently implored him to hurry. The guide brushed his fingers along the stone as if communing with it. He moved across the stone, stopping here and there to examine the floor more carefully.
“What is it?” Jak asked.
Magadon replied, “Scratches from their hind claws. Very faint. They must have transformed back to their natural forms.” He stood and nodded down the tunnel. “They went that way.”
Cale exhaled and thumped him on the shoulder.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They sped down the tunnel. Magadon ran at Cale’s side, while Jak and Riven brought up the rear. Weaveshear still vibrated in Cale’s hand and continued leaking shadows.
Not more than two hundred paces later they found a wide corridor that opened off the tunnel. Unlike the rough, natural walls of the cave, the corridor had a finished floor lined with marble. It looked like a road, or some kind of processional. It curved after a short distance, and from around the curve emanated a soft orange glow.
Weapons and holy symbols ready, Cale led them forward.
The corridor went on for only a short time after the curve before it ended, as though cut off with a knife, and opened onto a breathtaking panorama.
“Trickster’s hairy toes,” Jak oathed.
Cale could only agree.
They stood at the edge of the corridor, in an opening halfway up a sheer cavern wall that was easily as tall as three bowshots. A great circular cavern stretched before and below them, nearly as large as the one that contained Skullport. Within the cavern lay ruins. Toppled buildings of gray granite, impossibly thin towers of stone carved from stalactites, and collapsed temples of white marble littered the cavern’s floor in a chaotic jumble. Their stone skeletons obscured the otherwise mathematically precise web of wide roads and broad avenues that once had connected the districts of the city. The ruins reminded Cale of Elgrin Fau, but instead of a necropolis of intact tombs, only one structure remained whole.
In the center of the cavern, glowing orange with power, towered an immense spire of rough gray stone like the finger of a god. It appeared unworked but for a covered cupola of metal that capped its top. Open archways yawned
in the cupola, one on each of the four sides of the spire, and all of them leaking orange light. It was impossible to see within.
Tumors of clear crystal bulged here and there from the stone of the spire. A thin strip of protruding crystal, like wire around a sword hilt, wound a path from the base of the tower to a platform before the near archway in the cupola. It took Cale a moment to realize that the crystalline spiral was either a stairway or a ramp.
A beam of orange light as thick around as an ogre emanated from the tower through a hole in the top of the cupola. The orange beam shot toward the ceiling and cast the entire cavern in soft orange luminescence. The light caused Cale to squint with minor discomfort but didn’t burn like the sun, steal his powers like daylight, or take his hand as a tithe.
When the beam reached the ceiling, it spread out and dispersed into ten thinner beams that wove amongst the stalactites like veins. In turn, each of those separated into ten still thinner beams, and so on until the threads became so tiny as to be invisible. The entire chamber was roofed by a lattice of power, and Cale had no doubt that the lattice extended its invisible grasp into Skullport’s chamber, buttressing the stone, preventing it from collapsing of its own weight. They must have been nearer to Skullport than he’d thought.
“That tower is the hidden chamber where the Skulls lair,” Cale said, realizing the truth even as the words passed his lips. “It must be the source of their power. Azriim has lured the Skulls away from their secret chamber and the source lays exposed. He wants to use the Weave Tap to somehow drain the tower and the web of energy … perhaps even destroy it.”
Jak let out a long, low whistle. Riven and Magadon remained silent.
Cale realized that if Azriim was successful, it would result in a catastrophe for Skullport—a catastrophe for Varra.
“We can’t let it happen,” he said.
“The rock must have shifted over the years,” Magadon observed. “This tunnel must once have been at ground level.”
Cale nodded and said, “Or it could be just as likely that this corridor was once attached to the upper levels of a soaring tower.”