Azure bonds - Kate Novak [101]
Alias could now discern pungent, all-too-human smells. The pit was used as a midden. The stench grew more powerful the deeper she went. The steps grew damp and slick, and pockets of muck and slime collected in the depressions worn into the stairs by a millennium of visitors. Bits of green goo dripped from one step to the next.
A stone bounced down from above, followed by a shower of small rocks. Alias looked up, expecting to see someone tossing a bucket of something foul over the rim of the pit, but only the dark sky hung over the darker hole.
A stray soldier idly investigating the city, Alias guessed, and continued her descent until she came to a wide, stone. work platform ringed with rubble. The staircase ended. though the pit continued down. The finder's stone was unable to light the bottom of the stinking darkness. Alias doubted if even the moon could do so were it to shine directly in. There was no trace of Moander s sigil.
Alias studied Dragonbait's tracks. The three-toed imprint wandered about the muck-covered platform, to the begin ning of the blocked stairs, to the edge of the platform, to the wall of the pit, but there was no trace of them after that.
He wouldn't have jumped over the edge, Alias puzzled She lifted the finder's stone and investigated the slime. encrusted walls. There was a faint vertical shadow from a line of moss buckled against more moss. The line continued above her head, running horizontally and then back down. It was a door, recently opened and closed.
Reluctantly, Alias ran her fingers along the slimy moss and lichen, feeling for a catch to push, pull, or slide. In the center of the door, at waist level, she discovered a hole Mindful of finger guillotine traps set against intruders, she poked her smallest finger into the hole.
No blade sliced at her digit, but a stinging charge of energy ran up her arm. Her runes writhed and danced, but caused her no pain. From behind the stone wall came the clattering of lock mechanisms tumbling and falling.
When the azure sigils were still again, though still glowing, Alias withdrew her finger and stepped back. The hidden door swung out silently. A foot thick, it pivoted on an unseen post.
Beyond the doorway, the smell of fresh waste and muck gave way to the older decay of ancient paper and bones. Warm, dry air blew from the passage. The walls were carved with tiny, intricate, flowing designs. They reminded Alias more of the tree sculptures grown and shaped by elves than of something wrought of dead stone.
Then she saw the three-toed footprints on the dusty floor. The curiosity that had beckoned her this far now tried to drive her forward like a fire forcing wild animals through the woods. She was sure that not only Dragonbait, but the answers to all her questions lay at the end of the mysterious passage before her.
She wanted to rush right in, but her adventurer's sense of caution asserted itself just in time. Stepping back on the platform, Alias grabbed a large, wedge-shaped rock from the pile of rubble and slipped its smaller edge beneath the door. She found several others like it and shoved them beneath the door as well. Then she shifted a pile of rocks to the edge of the door frame.
Satisfied with her precautions, she entered the passage. About six paces down the corridor, she felt a stone beneath her foot shift nearly an imperceptible amount. Behind her, the door jerked a hand's span but was held fast by the rocks. Something mechanical whined a high-pitched plea. The whining grew louder as though the trap were crying out desperately to fulfill its only purpose in life. Within a minute, the whine dropped in pitch and then was silent. The door was still. Smiling to herself and feeling smug, Alias continued down the corridor.
Her mood was soon quelled by the walls around her. They were carved with horrible bas reliefs interspersed with lines and lines of engravings of archaic runes. The carved figures depicted heroes suffering deadly tortures at the hands of leering humanoids, torn apart by chaotic beasts, and fried, frozen, dissolved,