Mourngrym had lent Narm the mount that now snorted and grumbled beneath him. He had also suggested that if Narm were so tired of living he ride back to the ruined city in the company of two Knights of Myth Drannor leaving for a patrol there. Narm, somewhat overwhelmed by a magnificent feast and a comfortable canopied bed in the Tower of Ashaba the night before, as if he were visiting nobility and not a penniless ex-apprentice, had accepted. Several times since, he had questioned the wisdom of that decision.
Torm’s thin moustache quirked in a smile. “Lost in thought, good Narm? No time for that, now, not once you’re an adventurer! Philosophers think and do nothing. Adventurers rush in to be killed without a thought. A single thought as to what they’re facing would no doubt have them fleeing just as quickly!”
“Not so,” Rathan rumbled, wagging that finger again. “If ye worship the Lady Luck, Tymora the True, luck will cloak thee and walk with thee, and such thoughts but mar thy daring.”
“Yes, if you worship Tymora,” Torm returned. “We are both more prudent men, eh, Narm?”
“Ye worship Mask and Mystra between ye and speak to me of prudence?” Rathan chuckled. “Truly, the world rears strangeness anew with each passing day.” He leaned forward suddenly to point into the dimness. “Look ye, loose-tongues! Is that not a devil in the trees?”
Narm froze in his saddle. His hands suddenly felt like ice. He tried not to tremble. Torm had turned his mount, slim longsword out. “Do they wander so far, now? We may not be able to wait for Elminster’s or Dove’s return before we raise all against them, if they are grown so bold!”
“It’s but the one, oh bravest of thieves,” Rathan said dryly, standing in his stirrups to get a better look. “And there’s something awry… see how its flame scorches not and it passes through brush without disturbance, without so much as a leaf crunching or a twig cracking? Nay, ‘tis an illusion!” He swung about to fix Narm with a stern eye, the silver disc of Tymora shining in his hand. “This would not be your work, Narm Not-Apprentice, would it now?”
“No,” Narm said, spreading honest hands. Indeed, the knights could see he was white with fear. Both turned back to peer at the woods around suspiciously.
“Why an illusion, but to draw us away?” Rathan said in a low voice.
“Yes,” Torm replied softly, “but into a trap, or to get us off the trail and away from someone who wants to pass without meeting us?”
“Hmmph,” Rathan said and rose in his saddle again, holding his holy symbol aloft. His hands traced empty air around the disc, following its curves. First he used one hand, while the other held the disc, and then he switching hands, all the while chanting gently, “Tymora! Tymora! Tymora! Tymora!” The disc began to glow, faintly at first, and then gradually more brightly, until at last it shone with a bright silver radiance. Torm scanned the woods ceaselessly, blade ready. Abruptly Rathan released his hold upon the glowing disc. It did not fall, but hung silently in midair. Rathan said to it:
“By Tymora’s power and Tymora’s grace, Be revealed now wherever I face, All lives and things that evil be Unveiled truly now before me!”
The cleric took hold of the disc as his words ended; the disc flared with silvery light, and then the radiance slowly faded away. Rathan, holding the disc before him, was already peering ahead down the path, eyes keen. “Aha!” he said, almost immediately. “Six creatures on the trail, moving this way!” He dragged a long, heavy mace from his belt and whacked his armored knee lightly, swinging his arm to limber up his shoulder. “Ready, Torm?” he asked. “Narm, watch the rear, will ye?”
“Six?” Narm asked. “What if they’re devils?”
Rathan Thentraver stared at him blankly for the space of a breath and then shrugged. “I do worship the Lady of Luck,” he replied, as if to an idiot child. “Torm?”
The slim thief slipped back into his saddle, and grinned. “It’s your head, oh smeller-of-evil. The mules are hobbled.”
Rathan nodded briefly and jerked his horse’s reins. His mount reared, pawing the air. The cleric clipped the disc onto his shield with practiced ease, mace held in the crook of his arm. When the horse came down, the mace was in his hand and he leaned forward, bellowing, “For Tymora and victory! The Knights of Myth Drannor are upon ye! Die!”
Narm gulped as the horse and the roaring man atop it tore away through the trees at full gallop. Torm was right at Hainan’s heels, waving his longsword in circles. Far ahead he heard yells echoing in the forest and then the slash and skirl of steel upon steel. There was a short shriek, quickly cut off, much thudding of hooves, more steel, and then a few scattered yells.
Narm wondered uncomfortably what he should do with the mules if the two were slain. He had no wish to be thought of as an enemy of Shadowdale, or a thief, but…
He heard crashing on the trail ahead, nearer than the sounds of battle, and he nervously drew his dagger.
“Ho, Narm!” Torm’s voice came floating through the trees cheerfully. “Haven’t the mules eaten all the leaves on that stretch yet?” The thief rode into view with a cherry wave, eyed the dagger Narm was sheathing without comment, and swung lightly down from the saddle to see to the mules. “Adventurers out of Zhentil Keep-priests of Bane, and a worker-of-illusions out to make a name for himself/’ he explained briefly.
“Dead?” Narm asked.
Torm nodded. “They weren’t willing to surrender or flee,” he said mildly, holding the reins of the mules firmly as he thrust the hobble-ropes through his belt and swung up into his saddle again. Narm shook his head. “Eh? Why so?” Torn asked, eyeing him. Narm grinned weakly.
“Just the two of you,” the ex-apprentice said, “and Rathan bellowing war cries… and three breaths later you come back and tell me they’re dead.”
Torm nodded. “It’s what usually happens,” he said, deadpan.
Narm shook his head again as they walked their horses forward. “No, no,” he said. “Mistake me not… How can you just ride forward like that, knowing you face six foes, and at least one a master of art?”
“The war cries and all? Well, if you’re risking death, why not have fun?” Torm replied. “If I wanted to risk death without having fun, I’d be a tax collector, not a thief. Come on-if we’re much longer, Rathan’ll have finished all the food and wine, and we’re not even there yet!”
Where was she? The smell of earth and old, dank stone hung around her in the darkness. Shandril lay still on something hard and uneven and collected her wits. Her mouth was dry, her head ached, and her back and shoulder throbbed. Oh, yes… she had fallen into this… while crawling away from a well. She was in a large ruin in a forest, inhabited by devils and other fearsome monsters. It was probably Myth Drannor, and she would probably neither get out nor survive. Shandril rolled over; metal slithered and shifted under her. Oh, yes. Coins! She clutched one in her hand and rolled onto her knees. It was too dark to make out what sort of coin it was. Overhead, faint light could be seen through the gap where the stones above had collapsed. She could not reach the opening.
Tymora spit upon all! If this was adventure, perhaps it was worth Korvan and unending drudgery at The Rising Moon, after all! Shandril looked about her helplessly. It was too dark to see anything. She would have to blunder around in the dark, feeling for a way out… if there was a way out. Shandril sighed. The Lady of Luck smiled indeed…
Then, above her, she heard a shout. Running feet, screams. More shouting, and the clang of weapons. A horrible groan, more running feet, and then, suddenly, someone hurtled down from above Shandril in a shower of dirt and paving stones. Shandril slid down the heap of coins desperately. A stone fell on her foot, already half-sunk in coins, and another glanced numbingly off one elbow. There was a great crashing and slithering among the coins, and a rough male voice said triumphantly in the darkness, “Ha! Got you! Thought you c-”
“Ilzazu!” hissed a second voice, and there was a blue-white flash and a crackling, sizzling sound, followed by a horrible, dying moan.
This was just about enough, Shandril decided, and fainted again.
When she knew the world around her again, the light overhead was much brighter. Shandril found herself lying at the edge of the pile of coins, feet up on the slithering riches, head down and aching. She felt weak and dizzy; it seemed like days since she fled from that gargoyle.
She got up and looked around. The coins-thousands of them, rusty-brown with age and damp-looked to be all copper. Sigh. Above her, atop the heap, lay two bodies on their backs, feet entangled, both human. One wore armor, much blackened; about him there still clung a faint reek of burned flesh. The other wore robes, and clutched the crumbled fragments of a stick of wood. A sword protruded from his rib cage, and a small shoulder bag lay half-crumpled beneath him. Shandril clambered up the mound of coins again. Food? Perhaps one carried water, or wine?
The armored corpse was cooked black; Shandril avoided it. The other had a dagger, which she took quickly, boots- too large, but her feet had bled enough for her to take any boots over no boots-a skin of water, which she drained thirstily, and the shoulder bag. She tugged it free of the body and examined the scraps of wood curiously. The thickest piece, from the butt end of the stick, bore the word ‘Hza-zu,’ but nothing happened when Shandril cautiously said it aloud. She scrambled down the heap again.
The bag proved to contain hard, dark bread, a wheel of cheese sealed in wax, another half-eaten wheel speckled with mold (Shandril ate it anyway, saving the other for later), and a small book. Shandril opened it cautiously, saw crawling runes and glyphs, and slammed it again. There was also a hopelessly smashed hand lamp, a flint, and a metal vial of lamp oil. She put everything but the flint and oil back into the bag and slung it on her shoulder. She crawled back to the dead magic-user again and tore off what she could of the man’s robe, doused it in oil, and wearily struck the flint against coin after coin, and finally upon the scorched armor of the other corpse to strike sparks onto the soaked cloth, until at last it began to smolder. Then she gingerly borrowed the blackened sword from the fallen warrior and lifted the bundle on its point. It flared up, and she clambered hastily down the heap of coins, looking for a door or stairs or anything that might lead out of here.
Above her was a stone rack that ran along the ceiling, supported by arches between the squat pillars that held up the ceiling itself. Upon the rack lay three huge barrels. From each hung a dusty, cobwebbed chain. With a shiver, Shandril realized that a fourth barrel had hung over the heap of coins; looking back, she saw the shattered wooden ribs of the fallen barrel. And at the base of the heap on this side, where she had not ventured before, the rusty end of the chain projected out of the heap beside a pair of skeletal legs. Trembling, Shandril opened her mouth to scream and then shut it again. Soon the cloth would all have burned, and she would be unable to see in the full darkness away from the hole again.
She hurried on, through a chamber as vast as the hall that must be above it. She had come far enough, Shandril realized, to be well beneath that vast hall. She knew there were no stairs nor door in the top level she had arrived in except perhaps down at the end she had not investigated, where the stirges had come from. She turned in that direction, the daylight growing dim behind her.
The flickering, feeble light of her flame revealed a stone stair spiraling up from the floor, without railing or ornament. It looked impossibly thin and graceful to bear her weight. Shandril hesitated, looking around-and then the cloth burned through and fell from her blade in a small shower of glowing shreds. Larger scraps flickered on the floor, but proved too small to balance on her blade. Shandril sighed and shrugged. In the last of the light she slid the blade through her belt and grimly started to climb the stairs on hands and knees.
When she reached the floor above, she was in complete darkness. This should be the ground floor, she reasoned, and if there were a door, it would probably be over in that direction, somewhere. That is, if the floor doesn’t give way and dump me into the basement again, she thought grimly. Holding the sword out crosswise before her to fend off any obstacles, she advanced forward gingerly. Slowly, slowly she went, lifting her feet gently and quietly, listening tensely for any unusual sounds. Nothing.
On into the dark she went until her blade scraped on stone. She probed, carefully, and then felt her way around the stone. A pillar. She drew breath and went on.
Once she heard dry bones crackling underfoot, and another time she stubbed her toes on a large block of stone that had fallen from above. Carefully she went on, until her blade found a wall, a wall that ran on in both directions for at least six paces. Left, she decided arbitrarily, scraping the wall and feeling it barehanded a foot or so behind her probing blade until she found a corner.
Having mapped out that section of wall in her mind, she retraced her steps. Quite soon she found a wooden door, intricately caved, from the feel of it. She felt for a pull-ring, but found none. Feeling desperate, she stepped back and ran full tilt at the door, driving her shoulder into the wood as she had done before.
There was a dull thud, much pain, and Shandril found herself on the floor. “Tymora damn me!” she said exasperated almost to tears. Would nothing go her way? Was this the gods’ way of telling her she should have stayed dutifully at The Rising Moon? Growling a little in her throat, Shandril got up and pushed and pulled at the door. Solid as stone and as unmoving. She felt for catches, knobs, latches, and keyholes, both high and low. Nothing.
To the right, she decided abruptly. Look for another door.
She found one right away and, surprisingly, it opened on the first try, leaving her blinking foolishly, but happily. It made no sound, this door, and swung as if it had no weight. She peered at it curiously, and then growled at herself for being a fool and stepped quickly through, into sunlight.
Another mistake. Not two hundred paces away across the tilted stones and crumbling pillars of Myth Drannor, six warriors were fighting a losing battle against three more of the winged she-devils. Shandril stepped back into the doorway again, and then changed her mind and slipped out, sword drawn. She ran across the tumbled stones to the nearest trees. Crawling under a thorny bush, she peered out to look across the courtyard where the well lay, deceptively placid, and watched the men fighting for their lives.
The battle was eerily silent. The flapping and beating of wings, the grunts of warriors taking blows on their shields or swinging a heavy sword two-handed, the scrape of shuffling feet, and the occasional metallic ring of dagger on blade was all that could be heard. There had been two more adventurers, she saw; both lay motionless a short distance behind the fight. The men were trying to keep moving and find cover.
Even as she watched, one of the men ran a few steps, abandoning his protective crouch, and one of the winged devils swooped. Shandril caught her breath, but the run was a ruse. The warrior turned and swung his blade with two hands, beheading the devil with a triumphant grunt. Shandril saw the black, smoking blood run down the edges of the warrior’s silver blade as he turned and cut the body apart. The body began to smolder, greasy black smoke curling up in snaky wisps.