by Jim C. Hines
Halfway to the whirlpool, something cold touched the back of Jig’s neck. He turned to protect himself, but saw only Riana. He stared, suspicious, until it happened again. This time the water dripped onto the top of his head and rolled down the side of his face.
He looked up and caught a third drop in his left eye.
“Stupid lake.”
As he walked, he wondered if the entire lake was nothing but water droplets that had collected over the years. Had this all begun as a few puddles? How long would it take for a few scattered drops to become a lake this size? Trying to comprehend time on that scale made his head hurt.
At the whirlpool, Ryslind stopped. The water wasn’t as violent as before. Jig wondered if the ice went deep enough to blunt the whirlpool’s power. He still had no desire to leap into that funnel of death. The water splashed them all as it passed Ryslind’s path of ice, and Jig shivered. Whether because of the ice, or because the water itself was colder here, the air carried a bitter chill. Jig longed for something more than his old loincloth.
“There is something below,” Ryslind said, his voice tight. “I sense a buildup of power beneath us, and none of the creatures have come near this place.”
Of course not, Jig thought. Lizard-fish might be stupid, but no monster was that stupid. Except, perhaps, for the occasional goblin. And adventurers, naturally.
“Hold your breath. As you pass, I will cast a charm to strengthen your lungs, but you must fight the urge to breathe. Water is a powerful element, and it will throw all its power against you. If you fail, you will die.”
With that pronouncement, he rested his fingertips on Darnak’s shoulder. The dwarf waited for the wizard to finish. Shooting a dark look toward the roof of the cavern, he shouted, “Earthmaker watch over me.” In a slightly lower tone, he added, “But if you had told me what I’d have to endure to keep these two safe, I’d have told you to send a bloody merman in my place.”
He checked to be certain his club was lashed to his belt, tightened the straps of his pack, and leaped into the water. Jig tried to follow his progress. Several times, he saw the dwarf bob past, hair flattened to his head, arms waving madly. Once a pair of booted feet rushed by. Then the water dragged him down, and Jig saw nothing.
Barius went next, followed by a reluctant Riana. When Jig’s turn arrived, he couldn’t help looking back at the shore. He wished now that he had seized the chance to escape last night. Maybe he could have snuck past the hobgoblins. If he made it back to the lair, he could have figured something out to explain Porak’s death. There had to be a way. Why hadn’t he run when he had the chance?
His heart was racing, and Jig realized he was terrified. His heart was pounding, and he was on the verge of soiling his loincloth. When Ryslind’s fingers brushed his forehead, he yelped in fright.
The wizard’s touch was cold, almost skeletal. Jig’s skin crawled, and his head felt stuffy. Between one breath and the next, it was as though he had come down with the worst head cold of his life. His eyes watered.
“Remember to hold your breath,” Ryslind said.
Jig stared at the whirlpool. The ice actually extended a few inches past its edge, so he would fall several feet into the freezing water. All he had to do was jump. The others had done it.
Another look back told him he had no choice. He could see unbroken waves behind them. The bridge of ice had begun to melt. He couldn’t go back.
But he couldn’t go forward, either. Not into that. The whirlpool was a giant mouth, waiting to devour him. The lake had swallowed the others in seconds. He had seen Riana’s face, white with fear as she flailed about, trying to keep her head above water. None of her struggles had made the slightest difference to the lake. As Ryslind had said, water was a powerful element. Why should Jig be sacrificed to the lake’s hunger?
Tears slipped down his cheeks. He wiped them on his shoulder. Jig had expected to die since he first saw the adventurers. But death by sword was one thing. This was fear on an entirely different scale. At least in combat, you didn’t have time to watch death approach. The whirlpool watched Jig in return. It taunted him. In the center of the cone, the water’s surface was glassy and clear, and only the whitecaps at the edge hinted at the pool’s true might.
At that point, Jig’s frightened thoughts were interrupted by the foot that kicked him headfirst into the whirlpool. He barely remembered to hold his breath.
The whirlpool jerked him sideways and plunged him deeper into the water. Jig reached out for the surface, but which way was it? He spun faster and faster, and finally he gave up on reaching the surface. He clutched his knees to his chest, closed his eyes, and waited for the lake to decide whether he would live or die.
Without warning, when he was spinning so fast he thought his stomach would explode, the water spat Jig out like a quarrel from a crossbow. He flew through the air and collided with something hard.
As the world flashed white, he had time to realize that Smudge was still tucked into his belt pouch. He hoped the fire-spider had survived.
He hoped that he survived as well.
CHAPTER 6
More Needling
Jig hurt. His head felt like one enormous bruise, his muscles ached, and his waterlogged loincloth gave him a chill he couldn’t ignore. But to squeeze out the excess water would require him to move, which didn’t seem like a good idea yet. Not to mention that modesty prevented him from stripping down in front of the adventurers.
While he waited for the throbbing in his head to die down, he cracked his eyes and took his first look at the Necromancer’s territory.
As Ryslind had predicted, the whirlpool flowed through a large crack in the ceiling and into this room. The spinning cylinder of water stood like a pillar as wide as Jig’s outstretched arms. The surface was smooth as glass, and only the bubbles rushing around in quick circles broke the illusion. Jig wondered how he had passed through the barrier that kept the water in place. Was it a part of Ryslind’s spell, or the nature of the pillar itself? Neither answer brought much comfort. Especially given the force of the water trapped behind that invisible barrier.
I fell through that. As if I didn’t have enough fodder for my nightmares.
Everyone else had made it through more or less intact. Ryslind was checking on the dwarf, who looked as though he was still unconscious. Riana bled from a cut on her head, and her cheek sported an angry bruise. Barius slumped against a far wall, barely awake. All of them, Jig noticed, sat in the center of large puddles. At least he wasn’t alone in his discomfort.
Moving slowly so as not to aggravate his headache, Jig fumbled with the wet ties on his belt pouch. Eventually he managed to undo the knot so he could check on Smudge.
A blast of steam caught him in the face like a miniature geyser. Smudge leaped a good foot into the air, trailing steam beneath him. He turned to run away from Jig, spotted the tail of the whirlpool, and raced right back to the goblin’s side. Jig searched the room for something to feed the battered fire-spider. A few bugs, an old rat, anything would do. Smudge had been through a lot, and he deserved some reward. But the room was as clean as any he had seen.
The walls were black marble, polished to reflect the lantern light. Someone must have relit the lamp, since Jig doubted the flame could have survived the trip. The floor was the same black marble, and up close, Jig could see that red lines ran jaggedly through the marble like tiny veins. As for the ceiling . . . Jig stared. Before when he glanced at the crack in the ceiling, his mind hadn’t registered the glass tiles and swirls of color. This was another mosaic, the same as in the shiny room up above.
The same style, but not identical. The colors were brighter. Perhaps the maker had used different types of glass, or perhaps the Necromancer’s minions weren’t as dirty as the goblins and hobgoblins. The column of water interrupted the image. Rather, the picture had been created around the pillar. Whorls of color came together around the column, where flecks of blue glass gave the impression of splashing water.
“Ach.” Darnak spat weakly into the puddle that surrounded him. “Feels like I took a nap on Earthmaker’s anvil and woke up with his hammer pounding my bones.” He reached back and pulled off his pack. His movements showed the same stiffness Jig felt. The dwarf grumbled a bit more as he sorted through his belongings, eventually pulling out a large blue wineskin. A few long swallows, and he sat back again.
“Much better,” he said contentedly. “Nothing like dwarven ale to take the edge off a bad day.” He took another drink before glancing around. “Everyone got a bit banged up, it seems.”
He used his club to push himself up. With a nod of thanks to Ryslind, who had cleaned a cut on Darnak’s scalp, he hobbled over to check on Barius.
“I’ll get him fixed up, and then we can see about paying a visit to this Necromancer of yours.”
“Um, Darnak?” Jig searched the room again, hoping his poor eyes had betrayed him.
“What is it?”
“How are we going to find the Necromancer?” When the dwarf didn’t appear to understand, Jig said, “There are no doors. How are we supposed to get out of the room?”
Darnak stared at the walls. “Damn me.” He took another long drink from his wineskin. “Check around for hidden doors. I won’t believe I let myself be flushed through that for nothing. As I’m not looking to go back through anytime soon, there must be another way out.”
Leaving Jig to cock his head at the questionable logic, Darnak knelt next to Barius and took the prince’s head in his hands. He studied Barius’s eyes for several minutes before reaching inside his armor and pulling out a small silver hammer on a chain. He clasped both hands around the hammer, as if to pray.
“Go on then,” Darnak snapped. “Get the elf to help search.”
Jig pushed himself to his feet. Riana joined him, limping slightly. One hand pressed a large, raw scrape on her elbow.
“I feel like I swallowed half that lake on the way down,” she complained.
Jig didn’t answer. He studied the walls closely, wondering how he should go about searching for hidden doors. Dwarf logic aside, what made Darnak think there was a door here? Wouldn’t it make more sense to drop adventurers through the whirlpool into a room with no way out? Let them starve. That way the intruders died without a struggle. It would be easier and more effective than sending wave after wave of monsters to fight and die each time someone snuck through the lake.
The marble was smooth and cold to the touch. Jig shivered and wished for a fire to dry himself. Even Smudge’s warmth would have helped, but for once the fire-spider was uncooperatively cool, having steamed any trace of water from his small body.
Already he hated this place. He distrusted the magic that kept the lake from pouring in on them. If Jig and the others could pass through that barrier, how long before the lake broke free? The room itself was equally disorienting. At home the walls flowed into the floor, like liquid rock frozen in place. Which, if he were to believe Darnak’s crazy explanation, was exactly the case. The sharp corners of this room were alien, and they emphasized Jig’s sense that he didn’t belong.
Jig saw Riana rap her knuckles against the wall. She was listening for hollow areas, he realized. Knocking on a door would produce a different sound than knocking on a wall. How clever of her.
Jig followed the wall in the opposite direction, tapping and running his hands over the marble as he walked. He heard nothing unusual, and his knuckles swiftly began to complain. He took out his new sword and used the pommel to tap the wall instead. Still nothing.
By the time he ran into Riana on the opposite side of the room, Barius was up and pacing impatiently. Darnak’s prayers had apparently done wonders for the prince. Jig wished he could have seen exactly how this magic healing worked, but the dwarf had already pulled out fresh parchment to begin his new map.
“Have you found nothing?” Barius demanded.
Neither Jig nor Riana bothered to answer. The least you could do is help us search. But Jig knew enough to keep that thought to himself.
“The fool goblin has led us to a dead-end.” Barius glared at Jig, ignoring the fact that the fool goblin was just as trapped as the rest of them.
He was like Porak in that way. If things went wrong, he searched for a scapegoat. He had to first find someone to blame before he could try to solve the problem. Porak used to beat up the younger goblins every time he lost at Rakachak. Jig wondered if this was something all leaders did.
“Brother, use your art to find a way out of this trap.”
Ryslind’s face was as cold as the marble walls, but his eyes burned brighter than Jig had ever seen. On Jig’s shoulder, Smudge grew warmer, echoing his unease. Jig tried to move Smudge back into the pouch, but the spider would have none of it. He wriggled free and ran back up Jig’s arm. After what they had gone through, Jig couldn’t really blame him. He simply didn’t want to burn his other shoulder. Besides, tucking Smudge into the pouch would put the spider’s heat closer to Jig’s dripping loincloth, and if he didn’t get dry soon, he would start to chafe.
But he couldn’t pay attention to Smudge, not without taking his eyes off of Ryslind. Jig knew Smudge well enough to heed his warnings, and at that moment, Smudge thought the wizard was dangerous.
“Yes,” Ryslind said softly. “Let me use my art once more. As if it were no more than a tool to be used at your convenience.”
Nobody missed the fury in Ryslind’s normally calm voice. Even Darnak froze, his quill leaking black ink onto his thumb and fingers.
“Easy lad,” Darnak said. “Barius meant nothing by it.” Jig wondered if anyone else saw the warning glare the dwarf shot at Barius.
“No need to apologize,” Ryslind said. “Indeed, without my power, we could spend the rest of our lives in this room.”
“Without your brother, we wouldn’t have come after the rod in the first place,” Darnak pointed out. “Without the elf, we’d have had a rough time getting through that first gate. And without me, you two would have killed one another before we ever made it to the mountain. We’re all needed here, and nobody’s questioning your importance.”
Jig didn’t find that reassuring. Nor did Smudge, if the waves of heat on his shoulder were any indication. He also noted that Darnak’s argument had ignored anything the goblin might have done for the group. Not that this came as a surprise.
Jig watched closely as Ryslind strode to one wall and raised his head. He studied the unbroken marble and frowned, as though insulted by its presence. The green tattoos on his hands began to glow. Once Jig thought he saw them move, like luminescent worms crawling beneath white skin.
Hands still at his side, Ryslind began to circle the room. Jig hurriedly got out of the way. So did the others, though Barius tried hard to make the move appear casual.
A few paces past Riana, the wizard stopped. “Here.” He raised one hand and pointed. Green light spread out from his finger to form a rectangle on the wall. His hand closed into a fist.
Nothing changed. Ryslind squinted at the door. “Ah.” Another beam of light struck the center of the door, revealing a narrow keyhole.
“This is the elf’s responsibility, I believe. Will there be anything more, my brother?” The light died as Ryslind walked away, but the door remained visible behind him.
Jig’s eyes widened, and his ears flattened against his head as he realized why he was suddenly so afraid of Ryslind. Ever since they came through the whirlpool, the wizard’s voice had been different. The difference was so subtle Jig hadn’t noticed at first, and he doubted any of the others could hear it at all. But each time Ryslind spoke, it was as though a second voice spoke the same words along with him.
He stroked Smudge’s head and body, trying to calm the agitated spider. Was he imagining things? Slamming into the ground on the way out of the whirlpool could have affected his hearing. Yet if that were the case, why wasn’t he hearing the same distortion when the others spoke?
Besides, he wasn’t the only one af
raid of Ryslind. Even Barius regarded his brother with wary eyes, and one hand rested on his belt, close to the hilt of his sword. Whether they heard the change or not, they knew enough to be watchful.
“I will be fine,” Ryslind said wearily. “I have simply . . . overexerted myself. By the time you open the lock, I shall be myself again.”
Nobody relaxed, but Barius did wave Riana toward the door. She rolled her eyes and pulled several thin metal tools from a pack at her belt. She grabbed the lantern in passing, leaving the rest of them in shadows.
Jig heard her curse as she dried her tools. The scratch of metal against metal told him she had begun to work on the lock. But he didn’t watch. He couldn’t look away from Ryslind’s struggle.
For the human was obviously at war within himself. His fists clenched into knots, and his neck had tightened to the point where the muscles formed raised lines of skin between the neck and shoulders. Each deep, ragged breath sounded like that of a dying man.
Barius had gone to watch Riana work on the lock, but Darnak remained close by the wizard. He kept saying Ryslind’s name over and over. One hand went to the small hammer around his neck. His other reached toward Ryslind.
Ryslind’s fist shot out, and the dwarf caught it in his free hand. Between the darkness and his own poor vision, Jig couldn’t be certain, but he thought he saw the dwarf flinch. What kind of strength did it take to do that to Darnak? He decided he would rather not find out.
“I am . . . all right,” Ryslind whispered.
“Almost lost it there, did you?”
Ryslind didn’t answer. He turned around, and his eyes narrowed when he saw Jig watching.
Jig tried to swallow, but fear stuck in his throat like an oversize chunk of meat. He couldn’t apologize for watching. He couldn’t even break away from Ryslind’s angry gaze. The faint red lights of those eyes seemed to call to him. Even blinking had become difficult, and his eyes began to water. This was something beyond fear. His body was no longer under his control. What was Ryslind doing to him? His eyes grew dry. He could barely breathe. Was this his punishment for daring to see Ryslind’s moment of weakness?