VII.
THEY HAD LOST two men in the tunnels during the night. Two men suspiciously close to the chamber where Lord D"Farany and the blue devil worked to decipher the monsters" secrets. Two men too many as far as Orril D"Marr was concerned. There was something special about the chamber, something other than the obvious, and he was the only one who suspected the truth. D"Marr was certain that the deaths had to do with a pa.s.sage that was not there . . . at least not now.
It did not help that he was certain the beasts he held prisoner were laughing at him. Even when he questioned them, put them to the scepter, they seemed to be laughing. There was some great riddle that only they knew the answer to and they were not talking. He had come close to killing one, but for some reason the almost eager look in the beast"s eyes had made him draw back.
Lord D"Farany would not hear his suspicions and the d.a.m.ned blue man merely gave him a smug smile each time. If there was a problem, Lord D"Farany had said, then it was up to D"Marr to deal with it. That was his function, after all.
I will deal with it, oh, yes . . . Each time his master descended into the tunnel, the Quel seemed to grow expectant. Each time he returned, they grew morose. The young officer had first thought that they were expecting an attack on the leader of their enemies, but then he saw that his a.s.sumption was wrong. The armored beasts wanted him to go to the chamber . . . but why?
To discover that reason, he had decided to drag one of the overgrown armadillos to the chamber and try a few tests.
Neither Lord D"Farany nor the northerner was in the chamber. That was as he had planned it. The only ones that D"Marr wanted here were the few men he needed to keep the Quel under control. This was his moment.
"Bring him forward so that he can see what I do."
The soldiers dragged the wary beast toward the center of the room. D"Marr removed the scepter from his belt and walked slowly over to his captive. Some of the wariness in those inhuman eyes faded. The Quel had almost become used to the magical rod. It was an enemy that the prisoners understood.
The young officer touched the tip of the scepter against the underside of the Quel"s snout. As he had expected, the creature flinched. D"Marr smiled ever so briefly at the puzzlement he could read in the other"s eyes. There had been no pain. D"Marr had not activated his toy.
"I know you can understand me, so listen well. There are two things you should note, my ugly beastie." He kept the tip of the scepter no more than a few inches from the Quel"s eyes, now and then swinging it back and forth so as to keep the prisoner off-guard. "The first is that you should never think of me as predictable." He tapped the rod against the Quel"s snout, this time giving him but the least of the pain levels.
He had the creature"s attention now. D"Marr backed up and began to walk about the chamber. He continued to talk as he played at studying its interior. "The second item you should be aware of is that I have not bothered with the speech stone this time. Your answers would only be repet.i.tive. Also, what I need to know from you now does not require words or images."
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the look of cautious curiosity that had spread across that monstrous visage. D"Marr put a hand on the crystalline device. He sensed the Quel flinch almost as much as when he had put the scepter to the subterranean"s head.
The Aramite officer brought the weapon dangerously close to the crystals aligned on the top of the alien creation. Then, as if unaware of both what he had nearly done and the Quel"s reaction, D"Marr stepped away. He walked to the far end of the chamber and started pacing the outer edge, occasionally tapping the wall with his staff as he went. The Quel"s eyes never left him.
"There are things you are hiding from us, beast." Tap. "I have been trying to be reasonable about this." Tap. "You must understand, my lord"s becoming impatient." Tap. "And now your fellow monsters have taken two of our men." Orril D"Marr stopped and turned to face the captive. "Two men very near to this place. Two men, who might have seen . . . what?"
Still facing the Quel, he snapped his arm back and struck the wall beside him soundly with the top of the scepter.
The armored leviathan gave a m.u.f.fled hoot and tried to leap forward despite being bound. His guards dragged him back, although it took some effort to do so. D"Marr allowed himself a rare full, satisfied smile as he watched the Quel"s unsuccessful struggle. Noticing his tormentor"s own reaction, a look that might have been equivalent to human consternation crossed the inhuman features.
"Thank you." The wolf raider glanced at the mace. Despite its somewhat fragile appearance, it was very st.u.r.dy. The head was not at all chipped. When his predecessor had had it created, he had wanted a weapon that could be used in combat as well. D"Marr was thankful for his forethought. It would take much to even scar the scepter.
He turned to inspect the area that he had struck. It was the same region where, on the first day, he had thought that he had seen another chamber or tunnel. That day, D"Marr had inspected the area and found only solid wall, but he had been nagged ever since by doubt. He was not one to imagine such things. Now, thanks to the Quel"s violent and unthinking response, D"Marr was certain that there was indeed a chamber or pa.s.sage hidden behind the glittering facade.
Even had the Quel not responded as he had expected, there would have been proof of a sort to back his suspicions. Each time he had brought the baton against the glittering wall, he had left a tiny trail of cracked crystal and rock behind him. Yet, despite utilizing the full strength of his arm, his last strike had not left so much as a single scratch in the surface of this section of the wall. It might be that he had happened to strike an area of exceptionally resilient crystal, but D"Marr doubted that. No, there was something special about this particular bit of wall.
The raider officer turned away from the others and ran his hand over the suspect area, as he had done the first day. There was no sign of a break. There was nothing that might betray the falseness of the wall. "Nonetheless," he whispered, "I shall have to tear you down. Stone by stone, if necessary."
"To do that, Orril, would be a most distressing thing to me."
He spun around. "My lord?"
As the officer fell to his knees, the Pack Leader slowly entered the chamber. He was accompanied by the blue man and his personal guard. Standing in the tunnel, just beyond the entrance, was what appeared to be a full squadron. Lord D"Farany looked about the chamber, his expression that of a man who is home at last. "You know nothing of the work of sorcery, Orril. Of the intricate matrices that must sometimes be arranged. Of the nuances of concentration, so simple in theory but perplexing in practice." D"Farany stroked the side edge of the Quel artifact. His eyes fixed on a location above D"Marr"s head. "Of the care one must take. . . . If you understood such things, you would certainly realize what permanently damaging the integrity of this room might do to my prize."
The young officer had not considered that. He recalled the minute but very real damage he had already caused the wall. Would that be sufficient to upset the balance of the magical array? If so, then he had handed his own head to the blue man.
"Forgive me, my lord. I had our interests at heart. I"m certain that there"s a hidden chamber behind the portion of the wall I was inspecting. The beasts know it; I"ve watched them. I tricked this one into betraying himself. There may be something, some threat to us, hidden there."
"And so trusting of the Quel, who would seek to trick, you would destroy all this, yes?" interjected D"Rance. The two men locked gazes. The northerner was enjoying this.
"There will be . . . none of that." The Pack Leader actually shuddered, as if the mere thought of any damage to this place physically pained him. He pointed in the direction of D"Marr. "The wall, Kanaan . . ."
"My lord." Bowing, the blue man stalked across the chamber. As he neared his rival, he smirked. D"Marr"s grip on his scepter tightened. Given the least of excuses, he would have been willing to strike down the blue devil right there and then.
D"Rance ran both hands over the questionable section. His eyes were half-closed in concentration; he almost seemed in a trance. At last, he turned back to his master and said, "This wall feels like the others, my lord, yes, but I am only a simple soldier." After a moment"s hesitation, he slyly added, "He does not seem to have damaged it yet, either."
"There will be no breaking down of walls." To Lord D"Farany, that was evidently the final word on the subject. He turned his attention to the Quel device. D"Marr exhaled quietly. He would find other ways to pursue the matter . . . and take the blue man to task while he was at it.
D"Rance was not finished with him, however. The northerner stepped past the Aramite and studied the floor. D"Marr grew still. After a brief inspection, the blue man looked up. "My lord, I fear that there may be damage to the chamber after all. There are several places where the crystal face has been chipped, perhaps by a blunt weapon, yes."
Perhaps I should chip your face with this blunt weapon . . . He readied himself for punishment. There would surely be no escaping it this time.
Lord D"Farany leaned over the crystalline device. He was silent for nearly a minute. Then, "We shall see what will happen, Kanaan. I do not like to execute a man for no reason."
Familiar with his master"s ways, D"Marr was not at all comforted by the comment.
"Now come, Kanaan. I can wait no longer."
That there were not only more than a dozen soldiers present but also a Quel as well did not appear to disturb the Pack Leader in the slightest. He only had eyes for the crystalline magic of the chamber. His gauntlets put aside, he carefully inspected each and every major facet of the peculiar artifact.
The blue man, on the other hand, was not at all pleased with the crowd. As he joined the Aramite commander, he asked, "My lord, would it not be better if those unnecessary would depart, yes? They could cause distraction and perhaps also unknown harm. It would be best, yes, if they retreated back to the previous pa.s.sage even."
"Do what you will," D"Farany responded rather distractedly, his response accompanied by a curt wave of his hand.
Kanaan D"Rance dismissed everyone, including even the guards that D"Marr had brought with him. The sentries urged the Quel to his feet, but as they were dragging him toward the tunnel leading to the surface, the Pack Leader turned his ambiguous gaze in their direction. "Leave it. Orril, the thing is your responsibility."
"Yes, my lord," responded the short raider. He rose quickly to his feet and took control of the prisoner. At his command, the Quel knelt again. Two guards remained long enough to bind the beastman"s legs together, then, saluting, they hurried after their comrades.
"Would it not be wiser to-"
"It shall watch, Kanaan. I want it to watch."
There was no argument. One did not argue with the Pack Leader . . . at least not often if one wanted to keep one"s head.
The raider leader touched several crystals. D"Marr felt a tingle, but it pa.s.sed away. The Quel was leaning forward, his dark eyes narrowed. You don"t like what you see, do you, beastie? Did you underestimate my lord simply because his world is not always ours? What were you expecting? I wonder. He observed with care the way the captive followed each and every gesture made by Lord D"Farany. There was growing apprehension in the monster"s ugly countenance. This was more than what the Quel had expected, he thought. He uses your toy like an adept, doesn"t he? You expected less of him, didn"t you?
It was then that the chamber . . . twinkled. That was the only word that D"Marr thought appropriate. Even though they were well into the depths of the earth, stars now shone bright above them. A thousand points of light sparkled, almost a dizzying effect. Colors from one end of the spectrum to the other danced about like fairies wild and gay. There was a low, almost inaudible hum that seemed to course through the mind. The young Aramite gritted his teeth. The others were either unaware of it or affected in a different manner. D"Marr only knew that it set him on edge, made him want to flee the area. He could not, of course, do any such thing.
"Kanaan . . . I will take the box now." Perhaps it was some trick of his addled perceptions, but D"Marr thought it seemed as if it were a different Lord D"Farany who stood there. This one was almost sane in speech and manner. The eyes were nearly focused on what he was doing. His words did not come out in sometimes random phrases, but rather as complete and, for the most part, coherent statements.
Somehow, it only made him that much more frightening.
The blue man removed a small black box and turned it quickly over to the Pack Leader. Orril D"Marr squinted. He knew what was in the box, but could not fathom what purpose the Pack Leader had in mind for the contents. The thing within was dead, powerless. The Pack Leader had drained it during the initial a.s.sault against the Quel. It was nothing more than a memento of the past now . . . wasn"t it?
Lord D"Farany opened the box and removed from it the Aramite talisman that he had used to silence the Quel"s power.
A m.u.f.fled hoot made D"Marr glance down at the captive. The Quel had evidently fathomed the raider leader"s intentions. He squirmed anew, trying to free himself from bonds designed to hold creatures much stronger than he. D"Marr increased the intensity of his scepter and jolted the Quel back into submission. He would have liked to have asked the beastman what concerned him so, but he had neither the time nor the means to do so. We will know soon enough . . .
The former keeper inspected the curved artifact. "There can be no flaw," he explained to no one in particular. "All of my calculations of the past days demand that. Any flaw would mean disaster."
It was no comfort at all to the young raider that D"Rance was just as dismayed by the comment as he was. The blue man took an involuntary step backward and, if anything, was a much paler blue than he had been seconds before.
D"Farany looked up from his work. He gazed at the Quel as if seeing him for the first time. "This device is recent, isn"t it? I thought as much. It lacks the care and design of so much else here, yet it holds so much more potential. Why did you build it?"
The Quel, of course, could not and would not answer. This was apparently unimportant to Lord D"Farany. He shrugged and returned his concern to the Aramite talisman and the peculiar creation of the armored underdwellers.
"It is incomplete. I shall complete it for y-for me."
With his free hand he rearranged the central pattern, plucking gemstones from their chosen locations and replacing them with others from the array. The Quel started to shake and twist, but still to no avail. D"Marr gave his captive another touch of the rod, but even then the ma.s.sive figure continued to shift.
Satisfied with his alterations, the Pack Leader added the talisman to the arrangement.
The room crackled . . . and from each point of light a bolt of blue darted toward the Quel creation.
D"Marr covered his eyes and ducked down. The blue man pressed himself against the wall nearest to the entrance to the chamber and simply stared. Beside D"Marr, the underdweller rocked back and forth as if expecting the end of everything.
The wolf raider was almost inclined to agree with him.
Tenuous, frantic strands of light, the blue bolts struck the crystalline device, bathing it in brilliant color. D"Marr felt his hair stand of its own accord and saw that the others suffered the same effect. Only Lord D"Farany, standing within the bright cobalt glow, was untouched . . . at least on the surface.
He was smiling. Smiling as a lover might while in the tender embrace of his desire. It was perhaps a very apt description, the officer realized, for to the former keeper the power that bathed him was both his love and desire. The loss of it had killed most of his kind and sent him into madness.
Orril D"Marr was too young to really recall the keepers when they had been at the apex of their glory. He only knew the stories and the few survivors he had seen. He knew that without the will of the Ravager and the work of his most trusted servants, the keepers, the empire had begun to crumble. Part of him had always wondered at the speed of that decay. Why had the great armies so depended on a tiny minority in their ranks?
Seeing D"Farany, he thought he understood. A keeper at the peak of his power was an army unto himself.
The Pack Leader still smiled. His eyes stared upward at the spiderweb of energy pouring into the crystalline artifact. Blue sparks drifted from his fingers whenever he moved his hands. His eyes gleamed blue.
With each pa.s.sing second, the glow surrounding both the Pack Leader and his newfound toy became less bearable. D"Marr turned away, but found himself facing the blinding glow in a thousand reflections. He turned farther, seeking some respite, something that did not reflect the light.
What the raider found instead was the very pa.s.sage he had been searching for.
A gaping mouth, it was so blatant a sight he could not understand how it had taken him even this long to notice it. He took a step toward it, but then something caught him by the foot, nearly sending him crashing to the harsh floor. The Aramite regained his balance and glanced over his shoulder. He saw the desperate Quel, the inhuman eyes wide, struggling to roll over to him and somehow stop the raider"s advance. D"Marr smiled briefly at the pathetic sight, but a sudden change in the Quel"s eyes, a change from fear to burgeoning hope, shattered the smile and sent the raider"s attention flying back to the secret entranceway.
It was already fading. The same crystal-encrusted wall was slowly re-forming, growing more solid with each pa.s.sing breath. The Quel suddenly forgotten, D"Marr raced toward the vanishing pa.s.sage. The wall was still transparent, but that was rapidly changing. Reaching out in desperation, he slammed a hand against it, but his efforts only rewarded him with pain. It was too late to cross through. The split-second delay caused by his gloating had lost him his opportunity.
Still, he had a moment, but only a short one, in which to glimpse what secret lay behind the cursed wall. It was a harried glimpse, made the worse by the lessening transparency of the stone and crystal. Nonetheless, he was able to make out shapes, hundreds of shapes, in a cavern that must have been nearly as immense as the one in which the city lay.
D"Marr saw no more than that. The wall became completely opaque, the stone and crystal completely innocent in appearance.
He slowly turned back to the others and was not at all surprised to find that Lord D"Farany had just completed his work. The tentacles of energy had withdrawn; if not for the blue glow about the top of the Quel device, the chamber would have looked exactly as it had before they had entered.
"Not the same . . ." the Pack Leader was muttering. Despite his words, however, a smile had crept across his scarred visage. "Not the same, but so very close . . . I will just have to accept that."
His eyes were still focused.
"My lord, I shall remove the tooth, yes?" D"Rance looked exceptionally eager. D"Marr momentarily put his discovery aside and started to mouth a protest. He knew, through careful observance, that the northerner had some trace of power. Was it possible that he had more? Did he have the will and ability to control the keeper talisman? That would take more skill than the Aramite had suspected him of having.
His words of protest never left his lips, for Lord D"Farany was quicker to respond. His eyes bore down on the blue man and D"Marr had the distinct pleasure of watching his rival cringe under the intensity of those suddenly alive orbs. "Your readiness to a.s.sist me in all is commendable, Kanaan, but you may leave it where it is. There is no more secure place for it now than where it presently stands."
D"Rance a.s.sumed a more servile position. "Yes, my lord. I meant nothing by it, my lord."
The Pack Leader had already dismissed him from his attention. Now those eyes focused on the peculiar scene of the Quel lying on his side far from where he had been earlier positioned and Orril D"Marr standing near the wall, much too far away from the prisoner that he had been charged with guarding. "And you, Orril?"
The raider wondered how he was to convince Lord D"Farany of what he had seen. An entire cavern lay hidden from the invasion force, yet only he believed-knew, rather-that it was there. The Pack Leader and the blue devil had been so engrossed in the spectacle above them that they had missed the unveiling of the Quel"s secret.
"Forgive me also, Lord D"Farany. Sorcery is not my realm. I admit to having been somewhat . . . overwhelmed . . . by the results. I"ve seen things I"d never expected to see."
"Wonderful things . . . and there will be so much more . . ." The Pack Leader gazed down at the Quel creation, his eyes filled with great fondness. "We shall do so much together, the two of us . . ."
The eyes were losing focus.
With a last gentle touch, the Pack Leader separated himself from his prized possession and, to neither subordinate"s surprise, departed without a word. Kanaan D"Rance remained behind only long enough to look from the device to his rival before he disappeared into the tunnel after the Aramite commander.
D"Marr stared thoughtfully at the wall that had, so far, beaten his efforts to unmask it for what it was. He would have to find another way in than this place, that was all. Perhaps there was another chamber that also shared a wall with the hidden cavern. It would be a simple matter of exploration, of hunting. He excelled in hunting, no matter what the prey. Then, with the aid of his explosive toys, he would create for himself a new and permanent way inside. There would be no magic to stop him then.
From the mouth of the tunnel, a wave of black armor flowed into the room. It was the guard contingent Lord D"Farany had brought with him. The ranks split as each man entered, one line moving to the left side of the chamber and the other to the right. D"Marr signaled two of the soldiers to take custody of the Quel. The captive departed without protest, but inhuman eyes watched the young officer until the depths of the tunnel swallowed the creature. The other guards shifted their ranks to make up for the slight loss to their number.
I will have to make measurements, D"Marr thought, returning with antic.i.p.ation to the project ahead. Too much powder and the explosive would bring down not only the wall but the rest of the cavern as well. Best to find the proper spot first. Then I can judge how much will be needed.
There were already men mapping the complex system of caverns and tunnels that made up the Quel domain. While far from complete, he was certain that their charts already revealed enough for his present concerns. With so much importance placed on this particular section of the underground world, it had only been logical to map it first.
He had much work ahead of him, but Orril D"Marr was pleased. He was on the verge of shattering the last hope of the beastmen and discovering what great secret lay in that cavern behind the wall.
The guards came to even greater attention as he pa.s.sed them on his way out of the chamber, but the raider officer paid their fear of him no mind this time. His only thought was on the coming success of his project and the look on the blue man"s face when D"Marr revealed to Lord D"Farany the most closely guarded of the underdwellers" mysteries . . . whatever it was.
THEY DID NOT know how close they had come.
The Crystal Dragon stirred himself from the self-imposed stupor. Trust the wolf raiders to be both predictable and unpredictable. He had been certain that they would somehow seize control of the Quel"s domain. He had been fairly certain that they would have some success with the subterraneans" mechanisms. What he had not been prepared for was the level of that success. The invaders already had a grasp of the abilities of Quel might. Given just a little more time, they would grow adept. A little more . . . and they would dare to confront him.
He should strike before they grew too strong. He should risk himself, for delaying the inevitable only made the later consequences worse.
How? How do I sssstrike? It mussst be effective but taking the least effort and concentration possible! There cannot be too much risssk. That might lead to . . . If only there had been time to rest. That would have changed everything. They would have been insects to crush beneath his huge paws.
The glittering leviathan twisted his neck around and sought among the treasures he had acc.u.mulated over time. Some were there because of simple value, some because of purpose. Carefully he scoured the vast pile. There were times when he had thought of organizing it again, storing it anew in the lower cavern chambers, but that would mean leaving the protection of his sanctum and doing so might prove the final, fatal blow.
Sssomething . . .
Then, to one side of the pile, almost separate from it, the Dragon King sighted the answer to his plea. It was not what he had wanted, not in the least, but the longer he stared at it the more the dread monarch knew it was his only choice. Ma.s.sive, daggerlike talons gently picked up a small crystalline sphere in which it seemed a tiny, reddish green cloud floated. There was something unhealthy about the cloud, for the colors did not speak of life, but long and lingering decay. The sphere was no larger than a human head, which made it tiny indeed for one such as he, but he had learned care in using this gargantuan form, for even shifting to the manlike image his counterparts preferred was dangerous now. Each transformation distracted him, made him more vulnerable to . . . to the danger of losing himself. Now especially he dared not transform. It might be just enough, combined with his lack of rest, to defeat his long efforts.
He was careful for another reason. What the cloud represented could not be accidentally released full-fledged upon the world, not even for as short as a single blink of an eye.