Darkwell - Douglas Niles [83]
He felt a sudden jolt against the hull and feared for a moment that he had struck a rock, but that was impossible. They were in the middle of the Sea of Moonshae, with no shoals for a hundred miles. Again the little boat lurched, and he heard the unmistakable scraping of stone against wood.
Suddenly the Starling heeled violently to the side, and he saw her frail timbers cave in under the force of a violent collision. Instinctively he lunged forward, grabbing Gwen as she rolled to the side, and then they both tumbled into the frothing sea.
His shoulder crashed against something hard and unforgiving, unmistakably stone, and then he found himself sprawled on a flat surface, holding the unconscious maiden to his chest. The water drained away around them, and he looked up in astonishment and awe to see four towering spires rising above him, looming on each of the points of the compass.
The wreck of the Starling was carried away by the rushing waves, but he remained in place, sitting upon a surface of flagstones. Too stunned to speak, he stared at the four high walls of a great castle that had somehow appeared around him.
It had risen from the sea! His boat, he realized, had smashed itself into the crenellated parapet of the castle wall, dumping them into the courtyard as it foundered. Now he sat upon the floor of the courtyard, looking at a few dozen fish that flopped helplessly as the rest of the water drained away.
Gwen opened her eyes and looked around in a daze. "Where are we?" she asked weakly. "Is this a dream? Are we dead?"
"We're not dead, and this is no dream. I don't know what this is or where we are, but this place has saved us!"
She sighed and leaned against him with a frail smile. "That's nice," she whispered and closed her eyes again. He noticed with grief that her lips were blue and her breathing shallow. Once again he looked up and saw a wide stairway leading to a massive pair of doors in the castle wall.
He wrapped the shawl more tightly around Gwen and lifted her in his arms, surprised at how little she weighed. Still not sure he believed this whole thing, he started up the stairs. Perhaps there was something in the castle that could help them. In any event, he was determined to take every advantage of this unexpected chance to remain alive.
* * * * *
Pawldo slipped silently down the darkened passage. He paused every few steps to listen but heard no sound from any of the labyrinthine passages. His eyes, far more keen than their human counterparts, penetrated the blackness enough to show him where a side corridor joined the one he was in or to warn him, as now, of a gaping pit that suddenly yawned at his feet.
He stepped around the pit, which had apparently been created when the stronghold had collapsed, and continued deeper into the maze.
His destination was a chamber etched firmly in his memory, but its location had become more problematical. The halfiing chose his route partially from memory, partially from an intuitive sense, and often because pieces of the collapsed structure blocked corridors he would have chosen to follow.
Often he scrambled over piles of broken granite or spilled earth. Once he was forced to squirm underneath a broken, charred beam.
But he pressed on with singleminded determination, motivated by the one great love of his life: treasure. He remembered the room they had discovered upon first entering this stronghold, the gold and silver coins piled in great heaps, the gems scattered among them, gleaming with all the colors of the rainbow.
He felt certain that the treasure room lay very close now. A sharp jog in the corridor looked very familiar, and then his pulse pounded as he saw a dead-end passage leading to a heavy oaken door. This was it!
Nothing disturbed the stillness of the labyrinth. Musty beams, jagged pieces of rock, and a heavy coat of dust filled the passage. Pawldo saw that the heavy door stood firm, unaffected by the force of the