Amber and Blood - Margaret Weis [33]
Three feet tall and not very wide, the door was made of myriad pearls that shimmered with a purple luster. A single rune carved out of a large emerald glowed in the center.
Mina motioned to Rhys, and as he swam awkwardly near her, pushing the staff ahead of him. She gestured at the sand castle and eagerly nodded.
“The Hall of Sacrilege,” she mouthed.
Rhys stared in astonishment.
The infamous Hall of Sacrilege—a child’s sand castle. Rhys shook his head. Mina frowned at him and, reaching out, she grabbed hold of his staff and pulled him through the water. She pointed to the emerald rune embedded in the door. Rhys swam closer and caught a watery breath in awe. Carved into the rune was a figure 8 turned on its side, a symbol with no ending and no beginning, the symbol of eternity.
Rhys propelled himself backward. Mina regarded him, puzzled. She pointed at the door.
“Open it!” she commanded in a flurry of bubbles.
Rhys shook his head. This was the Solio Febalas, repository of some of the most holy artifacts ever created by gods and man, and the door was shut and the door was sealed. He was not meant to enter. No mortal was meant to enter. Perhaps not even the gods themselves were meant to enter this sacred place.
Mina tugged at him, urging him. Rhys shook his head emphatically, and drew back. He wished he could explain to her, but he could not. He turned and started to swim off.
She swam after him and grabbed hold of him again. Childlike, she was determined to have her way. Rhys had the feeling that if they’d been on dry land, she would have stamped her foot.
Rhys would have continued to refuse, but at that moment, the decision was taken away from him.
Even deep below the sea, he could hear the one single word dreaded throughout Krynn by anyone traveling with a kender.
“Oops!”
“Hey!” Caele cried, alarmed. “Where did they go?”
The two Black Robes, intent on killing each other, had been muttering arcane words and fumbling about in their pouches for spell components when they realized they were alone. Kender, kid, dog, and monk had disappeared.
“Damn their eyeballs!” Caele swore, seething. “They’ve found a way inside!”
The half-elf dashed down the stairs, skidding to a halt when he reached the bottom. The shards of broken glass were still there, sticking up out of the sand.
“If you hadn’t been so eager to slit my throat, we’d be in there helping ourselves to the riches.” Basalt shook his fist at the half-elf.
“You’re right, of course, Basalt,” said Caele with sudden meekness. “You’re always right. Give the Master my regards.”
The half-elf raised his hand in a flourish and vanished.
“Huh?” Basalt blinked. “What—”
The dwarf suddenly understood. He sucked in a huge breath and let it out in a roar. “He’s gone after them!”
Basalt did a quick mental run-through of his spell catalog and began a feverish rummage through his pouches of spell components to see what he had on hand. He’d come prepared to do battle, not for traveling to an unknown destination across a sea bottom covered with broken glass. He wondered what magic Caele had used, decided most likely the half-elf had cast a spell known as Dimension Door, a favorite of Caele’s, for it required only spoken words, no spell components. Caele disliked casting spells that used components, mainly because he was too lazy to gather them.
Basalt was familiar with the Dimension Door spell himself, but it had one drawback. In order to cast the spell, the wizard had to know where he was going, for he had to visualize the location. Basalt had no idea where the Hall of Sacrilege was or what it looked like. He had never been inside the water-filled globe that protected it.
Caele, on the other hand, had been inside the globe. He had been sent—under duress—to the dragon, Midori, to collect a small amount of her blood which Nuitari had used in the Dragon-sight bowl, allowing him