“We thought you were dead,” Catchflea said. “Di An breathed life back into you.”
Riverwind’s chest ached and his arms felt like lead as he forced himself to sit up. An unmerciful throbbing pounded his temples, but he embraced Di An. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely. Her slender arms went around his neck.
The creeping death still smoldered several yards away. In a last attempt to save itself from the fire, the creature had let go of Riverwind and had oozed down the tunnel toward the distant waterfall. It had only managed to get ten paces before the fire consumed it. Once the creature was destroyed, the fire had quickly died in the wet, moldy tunnel.
“Was this the danger you tried to warn us about?” Riverwind asked. Di An cast her eyes down.
“I didn’t truly know what it was. Many of my comrades entered the wet tunnels and never came out again. We used to find only their bare bones near the entrance.”
“Why did you run away from us?”
“I—” She wiped her sweaty face. “I was too afraid to think clearly. I’m sorry.” Changing the subject quickly, she said, “You’ve lost your Amulet of True Hearing.”
Riverwind felt for the necklace. It was gone.
“Mine is lost also,” Catchflea said. “It’s a good thing you learned Common so quickly, yes.”
Riverwind tried to stand, and they supported him to his feet. “I’m all right,” he said.
From the wet tunnel they passed into a series of caves that spiraled steadily upward. They moved in darkness now, with only Di An’s acute vision to guide them. Once they found patches of the luminous moss, which Catchflea scraped off and spread on his clothes to provide some light. But when the crushed moss dried, the greenish light dissipated, and they were again in darkness.
Time lost its meaning in the silent night world of the caves. Riverwind and Catchflea stumbled along, steering by touch. Food ran short, then ran out. The caves were dry and devoid of life.
“The awful fruit of Hest would be delicious now,” Catchflea finally said. “Even the bitter water would be good.”
“Is there water soon, Di An?” Riverwind asked.
“Not so long now,” she replied. They continued on a short way, and without a word, Di An passed back her copper bottle to Riverwind. He knew she was offering him her last drops, and he couldn’t drink it. He held the bottle for a while and passed it back to her. If she’d noticed he hadn’t taken any, she didn’t say.
Strata came and went, some steaming hot and others bone-chillingly cold. At one point they skirted a zone of incandescent magma flowing in a trench, and not an hour later they crossed a subterranean glacier. There was a harrowing moment when Catchflea tried to lick a chunk of ice he broke off the glacier’s edge. The old man’s tongue stuck fast. Only with judicious applications of their last remaining water were they able to loosen the ice from Catchflea’s tongue.
“You never took the dare, I see,” Riverwind remarked.
“What dare?”
“To kiss the river. When I was very young, the boys of Que-Shu used to go to the river in winter and take dares to see who could kiss the frozen surface the longest.”
“That’s silly,” said Di An.
“The point was, the longer a boy held his lips to the ice, the harder it was to remove them.”
“I did not play much with the other boys when I was young,” Catchflea said wistfully. “I always regretted that, yes. Until now.”
On the twentieth day after leaving Vartoom, the trio was resting in a rock niche, hungry and thirsty, when they heard voices and the unmistakable sound of digging. This so galvanized them that Catchflea leaped up and banged his head on an overhanging rock. Riverwind tripped over his friend, and Di An got stepped on.
The old man and the elf girl complained loudly until Riverwind shushed them. “Quiet!” he hissed. “Who knows who these people might be?”
They lay silent for a time. Lights showed in the distance. Bobbling, weaving lanterns appeared on the other side of their cavern. The voices grew louder and more distinct.
“—to find rocks,” said one squeaky voice. “What look like?”
“You big ’spert! You ’sposed to know!” added another.
A raspier voice put in, “Mine like stew. Many things in it.”
“Gully dwarves!” Catchflea whispered. “We must be near the surface!”
“They think they’re in a mine?” Di An muttered. “They’re very stupid.”
“Aghar aren’t known as philosophers,” Riverwind said, using the formal name for the gully dwarf race. “But they’ll know a quick way out.” He leaned forward on his hands.
“What are you going to do?”
Riverwind smiled in the dark. “Introduce myself,” he said.
On hands and knees, he crossed the cave diagonally to get in front of the gully dwarves. Riverwind’s battered moccasins skidded on some loose stones. The four lanterns stopped swaying.
“You hear?”
“I hear. Got club?”
“Uh-huh. Got knife?”
“Uh-huh.”
That wasn’t reassuring to the plainsman. Gully dwarves were not much respected as fighters, but a club and knife indicated trouble. They might attack first and flee later.
A shaft of light flashed over his feet. The lantern carrier gave a hoot and swung the lantern back.
“Big feet here,” he reported. The feeble light flickered over Riverwind’s crouching form.
All four lanterns were brought to bear on the plainsman, outlining him in orange highlights. Riverwind raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare and stood up.
Four lanterns hit the cave floor simultaneously as the gully dwarves gave a concerted shriek. Four pairs of bare feet slapped the ground in headlong retreat. Riverwind never got to say a word.
He retrieved a lantern that still burned, then fetched Di An and Catchflea. At the site where the gully dwarves had panicked, they found tools and a small leather bag. Catchflea turned the bag upside down, hoping it held food. All that fell out was a lumpy red rock. Di An picked it up.
“Cinnabar,” she said.
“What is cinnabar?” asked Catchflea.
“The ore of quicksilver,” said Di An. “A difficult and dangerous mineral to mine.”
“Dangerous? How?”
“The dust is poisonous,” she said. “It invades the body. Insanity and death follow quickly.” The elf girl sniffed. “But they’ll find no cinnabar here. This is a limestone cave.”
Catchflea righted another burning lantern and opened the tin hood so that light leaped out across the cave.
“That’s where they went!” he called. A dark hole five feet high showed in the near wall. Closer examination showed it was not a natural opening.
Riverwind shone his light through the hole. The dwarves were fast on their feet, bare or not; they were long gone from the cave. “I say we follow them,” he said. “Wisdom is not their strongest virtue, but gully dwarves always know the quickest way to safety.”
The path was clearly marked with gully dwarf jetsam—rags, worn tools, and, most tantalizing, apple peelings, melon rinds, and gnawed chicken leg bones. Catchflea dawdled over the last as though they were diamonds in the rough.
“Roast chicken,” he mused. “I’d shave my beard for a whole roast chicken.”
“Be careful of oaths you make, old man,” Riverwind said. “You may have to keep them.” Di An said something he didn’t quite hear. He asked her to repeat herself.
“Water,” she said. “I smell water.”
Chapter 16
The Cursed City
They hurried toward the smell of fresh water. Around them the walls, spires, and spikes of cave architecture glistened with dew. The water sparkled like gems in the light of the torches on the walls.
There were holes in the ceiling farther along. Crude ladders with closely spaced rungs reached down through the holes to the cavern floor. Gully dwarf ladders. Their rungs looked as if they had been br
oken and patched together; all the rungs sagged noticeably. The three companions stood beneath one of the round holes, peering up.
Riverwind felt disappointment settle like lead in his empty stomach. “We are still underground,” he said dully.
They seemed to be at the bottom of another vast cavern, for they could see walls rising hundreds of feet all around.
The hole they peered through was thirty feet above them and too small for them to make out details of the upper level. But it was definitely still underground.
“I hear water,” Catchflea said. “At least there is that.”
Mingled with the blessed thunder of falling water was another very familiar sound.
“Forge hammers,” Di An said, tilting her head to hear better. “There is metalworking here.”
“Where is here?” Riverwind groaned. For all he knew, they could have passed through the center of Krynn and emerged on the far side.
A light patter of feet sounded, and the stumpy figure of a gully dwarf ran past the hole. The three stepped away from the opening. Four more Aghar scurried by.
Di An wanted to know what gully dwarves were. Catchflea tried to explain.
“First there were humans, who worshiped the god Reorx, many, many years ago. They grew wise in the making of things and soon decided they were too wise to follow Reorx on the Path of Neutrality. They made war on their neighbors, made slaves of their captives, and generally acted base and greedy.
“For this Reorx punished them. He humbled their pride by taking away their human stature, making them little people.” Here Catchflea blushed a bit, aware of Di An’s own diminutiveness. “Thus was the race of gnomes created. But the gnomes lost none of their creative talent, only the willful greed. Gnomes are tireless experimenters, and they brought down the Graygem of Gargath, a source of great magic. The Graygem altered some of the gnomes again, beginning the races of the kender and dwarves. Dwarves and gnomes sometimes married, and from their unions the Aghar, or gully dwarves, sprang.”
“These gullies are poor folk?” Di An asked.
“They usually live in squalor and are despised for it,” Catchflea said with sympathy. “A paradox of prejudice, yes? To confine a people to living in garbage heaps and ruins, and then hate them for being dirty and stupid.”
“We should be very careful entering that cavern,” Riverwind said, staring up through the hole thoughtfully.
Di An asked, “Are the gullies so dangerous? They ran from the sight of you before.”
“They were surprised. But, no, they aren’t so dangerous. What I’m worried about is what else we’ll find once we leave the shelter of the cave. Aghar seldom work for themselves; more often, they are the slaves of a more powerful race.”
Di An frowned at that.
“A race that is hoarding cinnabar,” Catchflea added thoughtfully.
“So it seems,” Riverwind replied.
Riverwind was first on the ladder. Its rungs creaked suspiciously under his weight. He was twice the size of any gully dwarf, who weren’t famous for the quality of their carpentry anyway. Riverwind took the rungs three at a time and hoped they wouldn’t snap. The ladder bowed and wobbled, but he managed to reach the top. He braced himself with his arms and peered out.
They were indeed at the bottom of another huge cavern. Riverwind was in the middle of what looked like a city street—but what a strange city! The fine stone buildings were tumbled-down ruins. The walls of the cavern were dotted with odd sights. Ledges and ridges held the remains of ancient dwellings. Here and there, light filtered out of the crumbled buildings, proof that someone occupied them.
Di An tapped his leg. “You going out?” she said.
Riverwind levered himself up and popped out of the hole. The ground around the hole was paved with worn stone blocks. This had been a busy street once, long ago. There was something familiar about this place; he tried to remember. What was the name of the city that fell into the ground during the Cataclysm? His father had told him a tale about it.
Di An, moving like a wraith, slipped out of the hole and crouched beside Riverwind. Catchflea came out at last, wheezing. Both the plainsman and the elf girl said, “Shh!”
They had come out at the intersection of three roads, all lined with burning torches, near the ruin of a large, round tower. The tower was a broken shell now, but it afforded the three a good place to take cover.
Riverwind, Catchflea, and Di An peeked through holes in the tower wall. On their right, water gushed down the walls of the cavern, pooling and flowing down the center of the road. On the other side of the street stood a large, low building, obviously constructed out of the remains of earlier houses. Smoke drifted out of crude chimneys in the roof. The door and window openings were empty.
The stream of water flowed down the center road and into a small pond. Rising behind the pond was an elegant, decayed facade with columns and a peaked roof. It was probably a palace. More solid buildings bulked beyond.
To their left was another long, low building. This one had torches on brackets along the outside.
“What do you make of it?” Riverwind asked.
“Very cozy, yes. But who lives in a ruined city besides gully dwarves? And where is everyone?” Catchflea queried. When Riverwind didn’t reply, the old man said, “I want water and food. And I can see where the water is, yes?”
He strode out of the ruined tower before Riverwind or Di An could stop him. Catchflea peered furtively down the street, then walked to the stream. He knelt and buried his face in the bubbling water.
Riverwind licked his cracked lips. So far, so good. “Seems safe enough,” he murmured. He stepped over the low, crumbling wall. “Are you coming?”
“No,” Di An replied. Where there were slaves, there had to be masters. The idea made her very nervous.
“Very well. I’ll fill a bottle for you.” Riverwind took out his copper canteen and unscrewed the stopper.
Catchflea was splashing water on his face and neck when Riverwind joined him. “It’s glorious, yes!” he said. “Finer than the finest vintage.”
Riverwind agreed by burying his head in the cool, sweet water. He and the old man drank deeply and sluiced the liquid over their sweaty bodies.
Back in her hiding place at the ruined tower, Di An could bear it no longer. The lure of the water was too strong. She stood to leap over the rubble of the tower.
And just as quickly dropped back down again. There were five horrible-looking creatures moving stealthily up on Riverwind and Catchflea! The creatures were taller than the gully dwarves and heavily built. They wore leather armor and carried short swords. The elf girl chewed her lip in desperation. If she called out, she might alert other creatures. If she didn’t call out …
One of the creatures swung his sword and knocked Riverwind into the stream. The young plainsman came out sputtering in surprise. He found himself facing five goblins. Though more than a head shorter than the tall plainsman, the goblins were armed and he was not.
“Don’t move,” growled the goblin. “Drop weapon.”
Catchflea was staring at the soldiers. He made as if to sidle away, but two of the creatures advanced on him, swords drawn. He stopped moving, a nervous smile on his face.
“Drop weapon in river, now,” said the leader more loudly.
Riverwind drew his saber out with his left hand, but instead of dropping it into the river, he tossed it in the air and caught it with his right hand. The creatures all moved back a pace, grumbling and muttering.
“You drop!” the leader shrieked poking his own weapon at the plainsman. “You drop or I call big boss!”
Riverwind considered his ability to make a run for it around these fellows. Five armed and angry goblins were more than he could handle, what with the added handicap of Catchflea. He sent his gaze toward the old man. Catchflea gave a tiny shrug. He would be of no use in battle.
“He don’t drop, Grevil,” rasped one of the goblins.
The leader growled, and
one of his followers whacked the speaker smartly on the head with the flat of his blade. The unfortunate fellow dropped like a stone and lay silent.
One down, Riverwind thought.
“Grevil!” a voice boomed out. All the goblins jumped as if they’d been struck. Grevil—the leader—yelled, “Big boss coming! Now you drop!”
Riverwind glanced to his right, and his body stiffened in shock. It was not another goblin that approached. A creature fully his own height, broad, brawny, and covered in green scales strode rapidly toward them. Yellow eyes with vertical pupils glittered in the torchlight, and a toothless beak of a mouth finished off the fearsome face. The tops of short, leathery wings rose over his head, and Riverwind was astonished to see a long, spiked tail lashing behind him. The creature wore plate armor on his chest, arms, and the fronts of his legs. Only twenty yards separated the scaled, reptilian warrior from Riverwind.
Catchflea gasped. “What in the name of Majere is that?” he hissed.
Suddenly, a rock whizzed from the tower wall and struck Grevil in the head. He whirled, and a veritable rain of stones pelted the goblins. Riverwind knew who threw stones like that. Di An.
He caught a glimpse of her short, stiff hair outlined against the white stone walls of the old tower. The goblins were yelling and slashing at the rocks with their swords. Riverwind leaped and ran, yanking Catchflea to his feet.
“Come on, Di An!” he shouted. She hopped over a low stone pile and ran like a rabbit.
“Down the hole, both of you,” Riverwind snapped. Di An reached it first. She clasped the ladder rails and gripped with her feet, sliding down the long, flimsy length in two blinks of an eye. Catchflea arrived puffing, and he was unceremoniously stuffed down after the elf girl. Riverwind had to wait his turn, but now the goblins were upon him. Behind them came the scaled warrior.
Catchflea was halfway down the ladder. Riverwind traded cuts with the goblins, who gave way as the scaled warrior arrived. He wielded a mighty cleaver of a sword. The blade of Riverwind’s saber whipped back and forth as the far heavier sword chipped deep notches in it.
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