Black wizards - Douglas Niles [33]
"Good," said the Calishite. "I'll send Canthus through after you. Try to keep track of him if you can."
"See you on the other side," said the prince. Wishing he had spent more time learning to swim, he dove toward the hole, surprised at how large it had grown. The water-saturated stone must have been considerably eroded, for Daryth had kicked a large amount of it away.
The current swept Tristan through, and only his hands, held out before him, deflected his head from a solid stone wall. The current swept him down through a narrow bottleneck and into a chute that was full of foaming water.
He slid downward, but the sides of the chute were gentle, and he quickly scrambled out of the water, coming to a stop upon a sloping slab of rock. The water rushed by a few feet down the slope. The prince barely had time to notice the dim illumination in this tunnel – it seemed to come from above him – before he saw Canthus bobbing madly.
"Here, dog!" he cried, slipping into the water to seize the panicked moorhound by his broad neck. Twisting desperately against the force of the current, he wrestled the dog onto shore a dozen feet farther down the chute from his original stopping place.
Daryth soon burst from the tight underground passage and crawled nimbly from the water to sit beside them. Somehow he had managed to carry the trident with him through the twisting tunnel.
"Not bad," he remarked. "Now where to from here?"
"Up," said the prince. He pointed to the shaft he had examined in the last few minutes. It was the source of the light that seeped into the tunnel, and sloped upward at a relatively shallow angle. "I'll bet that leads to the keep."
"Indeed," nodded the Calishite. "And the water from our trap is not the whole source of this stream. See how the water flows from farther into the castle?" Daryth gestured beyond the passageway they had emerged from, and Tristan saw the underground stream merging far into the subterranean darkness.
"Hsst!" Daryth whispered, quickly gesturing up the slope of the chute.
They stared downstream, and gradually Tristan saw movement against the water. A column of creatures was slowly moving upstream. The band drew closer, and Tristan recognized the sahuagin. They moved menacingly upstream in the shallow chute, arcing through the water like salmon returning to the spawning pools.
Several of the sea creatures stood before the rest, keenly peering about the tunnel while the others swam past. Then another group would take up the guard, farther upstream, while the last dove into the water and splashed ahead.
The creatures – Tristan counted at least two dozen – slid past them about forty feet away. The light from the tunnel was at its most intense against the water nearest them, so they hoped that the sahuagin lookouts would be blinded to their presence in the shadows.
One of the leering fish-men took up the watch at the very foot of the slope where they hid. Its bulbous eyes seemed to see into every niche and cranny as it slowly pivoted its broad head. Its gaze passed the trio and then swung back. For a long moment, they peered into the darkness around them. Then the eyes passed to the front of the column, and the sahuagin leaped in with its fellows. Soon the band of monsters had moved out of sight.
"Let's go," the prince finally whispered, and they crawled from their hiding hole. Crouching, they moved along the slope toward the mouth of the shaft leading upward.
"I'll go first," whispered Tristan. Daryth was by far the better climber, and the Calishite, at the rear, would have a better chance of catching the prince or the hound if either should slip.
Tristan leaned forward into the shaft, which was about four feet in diameter and seemed to climb at an angle halfway between horizontal and vertical. The rock inside was slick but rough, and he was able to pull himself along using awkward handholds. Bracing his knees, he forced his torso upward and found higher handholds.
He neared the top after several minutes, his knees bruised and his fingernails cracked. Suddenly, his hand slipped