Azure bonds - Kate Novak [102]
The ugliness of the walls seemed to go on forever and, with each twisting and widening of the passageway, the scenes grew larger as well as more obscene and gory.
Alias felt a growing revulsion which turned her stomach sour and tightened her throat. She kept her eyes forward and tried not to look at the walls anymore.
The passage widened further one last time before ending abruptly in a wall twenty feet ahead. This wall was completely different from the disturbingly carved stone passages Alias had come through. Constructed of blue glazed brick, it was bound together with a red-tinged mortar. Down the center of the mortar work were great gouges, as if a giant claw had been scratching at it. At the base of the Wall lay the crumbled figure of Dragonbait.
The swordswoman rushed forward and knelt at the lizard's head, laying the finder's stone on the ground.
"Dragonbait' Are you all right?" she asked. She'd whispered the words, but the corridor caught and amplified them so that her echo boomed back at her.
As Alias knelt beside him, the lizard turned his head tu look up at her. The change in him was horrifying. He was completely emaciated. His scaly flesh hung about his frame as if his muscles had been eaten away by months of starvation. Wear and exhaustion were etched deep into the lines of his face. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth, and he panted heavily in the dusty air. His eyes, normally a dead, yellow color, now looked even worse-their clear sparkle had turned to a murky gray.
A deep, violet perfume rose from his body, something Alias had never noticed before. Forgetting he could not really answer, she asked, "What happened to you?"
The lizard pointed his finger back down the way they'd both come, and he tried to push her away from him in that direction, but his shove was far too feeble to budge her. A low snarl escaped his lipless mouth.
Alias stood up. "All right, I'm going," she agreed, understanding his signals perfectly. "But not without you. Come on, I'll help you up."
Dragonbait pulled heavily on her arm and rose to his feet. His legs looked too spindly to support his weight. He leaned on his sword like an old man with a cane.
What could have done this to him? Alias wondered. She felt reluctant to leave without exploring this place, but she was too frightened by the lizard's condition to delay getting help for him. Maybe, she thought, I can find a cleric to heal him in one of the army camps.
Then she noticed that many of the backward-curved teeth at the end of his sword were damaged-chipped off or curled askew. Realizing the sword had caused the scratches in the brick wall, she joked, "If you wanted a slegehammer for a weapon, you should have asked back in Shadowdale."
Dragonbait tugged on her arm, anxious to hurry away.
Alias had never seen him frightened before, but she had no wish to meet whatever had done this to him either. She stooped to retrieve the finder's stone.
As she stood up with the goatherd's gift, Alias felt a throbbing curiosity about the blue and red wall. She reached out to stroke the blue-glazed bricks with her fingertips.
The wall glowed. For a single pulse of a human heart, the bricks shimmered and then became translucent. From behind the wall, a bright blue light shone, silhouetting the lines of red mortar and turning the passage where Alias stood an eerie aqua. Then the bricks returned to normal and the light faded.
Alias stood, staring at the wall in amazement. It was some moments before she became aware of the writhing sensation on her arm. The sigils were wriggling and twisting like maggots nesting in her flesh, and the unholy sign of Moander seemed the most vibrant. The fingers of the hand appeared to clench and flex, while the mouth in the palm snapped its fanged teeth open and closed.
Fascinated, Alias reached out to stroke the wall again. Dragonbait's hand snatched at her wrist and pulled her back. Then some pain forced him to release her and clutch at his chest. He fell forward, his sword