“It gets worse. Take care what you step in.”
This proved to be good advice. Some of the leavings were more disgusting than others, and more than once they skirted the rotting carcass of some poor critter who’d been ambushed and half eaten.
They walked for hours without talking, listening intently to the sounds of the tunnel—the hollow, echoing sound of their footsteps, the dripping of water, the squeak of rats and the distant roars of prowling monsters. In time the faint clamor of a settlement edged into the tunnels.
“Almost there,” Bronwyn murmured.
Ebenezer nodded and lifted one hand to cover his nose. The unmistakable stench of a seaport filled the air They turned down another passage and came out into a huge cavern, the floor of which was scattered with low, dark buildings
They made their way through a squalid marketplace crowded with more beings, hailing from more races than Ebenezer had ever seen in one place. It was almost a relief when Bronwyn veered off into a narrow side tunnel.
The tunnel ended abruptly, opening into a small cavern glowing with faint, flickering blue light. At the entrance stood two of the largest illithids Ebenezer had ever seen. They were hideous brutes—man-sized, bipedal creatures whose misshapen bodies were not recognizable as either male or female. Large, bald heads of a sickiy lavender hue rose above robes the color of dried blood. Their faces were utterly without expression—at least, none that the dwarf could read. fllithid eyes were large, white, and blank, and the lower half of their face comprised four writhing lavender tentacles. The guards clutched spears in their three-fingered purple hands, but their real weapon lay behind those impassive eyes.
“I need to talk to Istire,” Bronwyn told the guards, jerking her head toward Ebenezer “Got a dwarf for sale.” In response, the guards stepped aside, and a third illithid emerged from the shadows, beckoning them to follow.
Ebenezer threw his friend a derisive glare, which he kept firmly in place as he followed the woman into the cavern. The way he saw it, a scowl would look well matched with the swagger he threw into his walk. Maybe these purple critters could look into his mind and know what he thought of all this, but he’d be damned as a duergar if he’d look scared!
“Not a bad plan, I guess, but you couldn’t have warned me about it ahead of time?” complained Ebenezer in a low whisper as he and Bronwyn fell into step behind their guide.
“Hard to do, considering that I’m making this up as we go,” she countered.
“Hmmph! Just see that you don’t go selling me off to some two-legged squid,” the dwarf returned with more bravado than he felt.
When they emerged into another small cavern, their guide disappeared back into the thick shadows and yet another illithid, this one draped in expensive-looking silks and fine gold jewelry, glided forward. Apparently, the message had been relayed through the mysterious mind-speak the creatures employed. Since there was little point in lying to a creature who could pluck thoughts from another being’s mind, Bronwyn sensibly got right to the point. “Istire,” she said, nodding a greeting. “We’re trying to locate a shipment of dwarf slaves. I want the whole lot of them.”
That is not the message the guard relayed, responded the illithid Istire, its unearthly “voice” sounding in Ebenezer’s mind.
“I want an Arbiter,” Bronwyn said calmly, ignoring her own lie. ‘We are entitled to one, by Skullport’s laws of trade.”
A touch of emotion—irritation, frustration, and perhaps respect—emanated from the illithid. This way, it. said grudgingly.
The creature led them deeper into the cavern. As they went, the bluish glow intensified, until the gleam forced Ebenezer to shade his eyes. He just barely made out the source of the light—and promptly wished he hadn’t bothered.
A strange, malformed illithid sat on a pedestal on a square dais with steps leading up on all sides. Instead of four short tentacles, this one had nine or ten extremely long ones that branched out from all sides of an enormous, glowing head. These tentacles undulated softly through the air like a cave octopus feeling about for prey.
“An Arbiter,” Bronwyn explained softly. “You need to hold the tip of one of those tentacles. As long as you do, we’re all equal. The illithid can’t influence us, any more than we can control it.”
Ebenezer eyed the writhing tentacles with dismay. “When we find the rest of my clan, those dwarves are going to owe me big for this,” he muttered.
Istire took up one of the tentacles, nodding at Bronwyn and Ebenezer to do the same.
The experience was every bit as unpleasant as the dwarf feared. Immediately Ebenezer was enveloped by a cloud of strange sensations. He’d never much thought about evil—other than the natural impulse to pull out his axe and get to work whenever a critter bent on such mischief got in his way—and he’d had no idea that evil had a sound and shape and stench all its own. Linking thoughts with an illithid convinced him of that beyond debate. Even worse was the hunger—the dark, grasping, endless hunger that was the illithid’s power
Fortunately, Bronwyn seemed better able to twist her thinking to the illithid way of doing business. After some brisk bartering, Istire answered Bronwyn’s questions readily enough. Who had dwarf slaves, where they were being kept, what ship they were going out on? Ebenezer suspected that the discussion cost Bronwyn, though, far more than the ridiculous price she’d agreed to pay. Glad though he was for the information the creature sold them, he would rather crawl into a dragon’s gullet than ever again willingly enter an illithid’s head.
On his way out, Ebenezer didn’t bother trying for bravado. Speed seemed more sensible. He practically dragged Bronwyn out of the blue-glowing cavern and into the relative darkness and purity of the tunnels beyond.
“A pouch of silver and a long rope of black pearls,” Ebenezer muttered, marveling at the cost Bronwyn had paid for the information, but not wanting their guide to hear his words. Since it was easier to think ahead, to the settling up of scores and debts, than to ponder the grim reality before them, he added, “The clan will be hard pressed to pay you back the price of that ransom, but we’re good for it. Just might take a little time, is all.”
She cut him off with a scowl. “We’ll talk about that later Right now we’re nowhere close to discussing reimbursement.”
“Yeah,” he admitted with a sigh. “What’s this place we’re bound to, then?”
“The Burning Troll. It’s a tavern frequented by pirates and smugglers. It’s one step up from a midden, but we should be able to get the information we need.”
* * * * *
About an hour later, Ebenezer sat slumped on a high, rickety stool, getting the elbows of his jacket sticky on the unwashed bar in front of him. He sipped gloomily at his ale, too downcast to care overmuch that it had been desecrated by the addition of water
The ship had already sailed. The ship that carried his kin away to slavery had sailed just that day, and they had missed it. No tunnel could reach where they’d gone. Even the cold comfort of vengeance was denied Ebenezer The murderous, thieving humans who had done this were beyond the reach of his avenging axe.
Ebenezer let out another curse and signaled for a third mug.
“Game o’ dice?” suggested a coarse, grating voice beside him.
Ebenezer swiveled on the stool to find himself nearly nose to snout with the ugliest excuse for an orc he’d ever seen. The critter was not much bigger than a dwarf though it was as broad and powerful as most of its kind. It struck Ebenezer that some god with time on his hands and a twisted sense of humor had placed the orc lengthwise between his palms and compacted the critter like a snowball. In Ebenezer’s opinion, the god in question should have kept squlshing until the task was done.
Ebenezer pointed to his chest. “You talking to me?”
“Why not?” The sawed-off orc bared his fangs in a drunken grin and swatted Ebenezer companionably on the shoulder
A satisfying, cleansing flood of dwarven ire swept through Ebenezer. Earlier, he had pitched a kobold through the window of the tavern—not first bothering to unlatch the shutters—for taunting him about his lack of a mustache. That really hadn’t taken the edge off, though. But a friendly orc, now, that was enough to raise a considerable froth.
“Since you asked,” the dwarf growled, “I’ll show you why not.”
His hand flashed out and seized the offered dice from the ore’s palm. He slapped them down on the table and pulled the hammer from his belt. The orc’s roar of protest rattled the mugs on the bar as he understood Ebenezer’s intent. He grabbed for his dice—just in time to get one finger smashed under the descending hammer.
Several patrons, most of them just as ugly as the ore, came over to investigate the disturbance, their faces made memorable by scars and fangs and the uniform expression of menace that they currently wore. Ebenezer acknowledged their approach with a nod.
“Lookit,” he said grimly, pointing to the shattered dice. A small, iridescent blue beetle, sort of a pretty thing that looked like a sapphire with legs, scuttled frantically away. Smart little critters, they could be trained to throw their weight against the colored side of their tiny prison.
A low, angry murmur rose from the cluster of men, orcs, and worse that surrounded Ebenezer and his orcish challenger Using loaded dice didn’t win many friends, Ebenezer noted with satisfaction, not even in a place like this.
The ore’s howl of pain and outrage died suddenly as be realized how the tide of opinion had turned. He backed away a few steps, his piggish eyes wary and his shattered finger clutched close against his chest. Then he turn and ran with the whole pack of his former dice-mates roiling after him. Ebenezer raised his mug in mock salute, then turned back to the bar and his intended goal of waking up to find himself facedown on the bar after a few hours of hard-won oblivion.
An hour or so later, Bronwyn found the dwarf still at the bar. Ebenezer looked so defeated that her own shaky resolve firmed. She had found a solution—one that terrified her, but it was the best she could do. And it was the only chance the dwarf’s lost family had.
She strode over to the bar, slapping away a few grasping hands on the way, and seized the dwarf’s arm as he lifted his mug. Ale splashed over the bar and dampened the dwarf’s beard. He turned a dispirited face to her. “Now why’d you go doing that?”
“I’ve got us a ship,” she said urgently.
His eyes narrowed. “A ship?”
“And a crew. Smugglers waiting for cargo. It’s been delayed, and the captain is losing too many men while he waits. He’s eager for a job and will work cheap.”
“Now hold on there. You’re saying we should go out on the sea?” the dwarf asked. “In a ship?”