Lady of Poison_ The Priests - Bruce R. Cordell [75]
Perhaps, but what's done is done, mused the cleric.
One good thing had come of his meeting with the formless blot caught in the ice. By comparison with the queen's monstrosity, he wondered if his own heritage was so terrible. The queen was to evil like ice was to cold, inevitable. Marrec knew himself well enough to determine that he had very little in common with that creature.
They traveled down a path of tumbled pillars, undifferentiated rubble, dark side passages, and gloomy chambers, some empty, others filled with silhouettes of alarming clutter. Strange sounds sometimes blew in from these darkened alcoves, causing the group to pause.
On a few occasions wooden doors, improbably sound and hardly rotted, proved to be barriers to forward progress, but only until their frigid guide once again moved forward to apply its hell-born brawn. Each such crash echoed away into the maze-like tunnels; sometimes the last, faintest echoes seemed to return, as if shaped into words or cries like a beast, or even screams. No one commented on that unsettling aspect of Under-Tharos, though Gunggari and Marrec exchanged worried glances with each occurrence. Neither was imagining the phenomena.
They broke out into a larger chamber. Stone obelisks poked up through shattered flooring in random collections, like clumps of grass in a garden. Marrec could detect no pattern to their arrangement. It seemed, indeed, that they had grown from the earth, though they were unmoving. Each obelisk was inscribed with cramped symbols, visible even from a distance, because a faint luminescence clung to the chisel marks.
Their demonic guide passed among the stones without a glance. They followed, walking the winding route chosen by their escort. Ususi threatened to loiter, her brows wrinkled as she studied an obelisk, but Elowen cupped the mage's elbow and urged her on. A dozen doors, all stone, broke off the chamber to the right and left. Some were cracked, others completely fallen and crumbling on the floor, opening on lightless obscurity.
The chamber turned out to be more of a hall. The stone obelisks grew fewer, but in their place were great iron blades, rusted and crumbling. Like the earlier stones, their arrangement seemed to follow no pattern the cleric could discern. Some of the blades reached up, grazing the high stone ceiling just visible in their light.
The hall finally reached its terminus at an arched opening. Stone valves lay broken and crumbled around the dark mouth. The demon skated past the fallen doors and through the arch without a pause, and those he led followed after.
Beyond was another hallway carved and dressed, but damaged by time. The smooth walls of the original tunnel were tumbled and breached. Strewn about the floor was loose rubble of the dilapidated hallway, bones, loose teeth, and patches of hide. A low susurrus of blended clicks, moans, and gurgles echoed from somewhere ahead. The sounds, or perhaps the evidence on the floor of recent habitation, gave the ice demon pause.
"What is it?" Marrec asked the demon, whispering.
The icy monster shrugged and said, "Never gone here before. Know the way, not the terrain, not the impediments."
"Are we even close?"
"Close. Maybe," responded the demon, before giggling.
"After you, then," urged Marrec, motioning the demon ahead with his illuminated spear.
The demon giggled again then slid ahead. The thick rubble was enough to cause it to raise its paws, pushing off walls, and step over boulders. It was moving almost like a natural quadruped. Almost.
A shape stepped out of the darkness directly into the path of the demon. It was a misshapen humanoid with a single horn upon its head. Great claws hung from its ungainly hands like infestations. Saliva ran from its tusks, whetting its leathery hide.
The ice demon made to side-step the sudden obstacle, but the newcomer, exploiting the demon's lack of response, jumped onto the icy creature's back with an ear-piercing howl of glee.
Answering