Lady of Poison_ The Priests - Bruce R. Cordell [84]
"I said, wait," said Elowen, at his shoulder, pulling him back. "We have to watch for traps."
Marrec shrugged, irritable. "Eschar went this way. Beyond lies the Sighing Vault."
"Not precisely true," intoned Ususi from further back, who had moved the opposite direction of Elowen when Marrec tried the door. "If there is a vault, we may have to run a gauntlet of protections to get to its center."
Marrec's face reddened. He could not justify his unthinking action, pulling on the door so recklessly, so he said nothing.
Gunggari finally noted, "This door, at least, appears to be free of defenses, but it is stuck."
"Give me a hand here, Gunny," requested Marrec. He and the Oslander both heaved on the metal door. It didn't even creak, though both men groaned with the effort.
Something cold and odiferous shouldered him out of the way. Gunggari, similarly jostled, danced back and grasped his dizheri; the ice demon had slid up silently while their attention was on the door. Ususi had managed to free it from its compulsion of inaction.
Their icy chaperone reared back, its paw-like hands balled into great fists. With a grand release, the fists swung and smashed square into the center of the iron door. The door blew off its hinges with a screech of metal, a shower of sparks, and a clamorous crash of metal on stone. The sound continued to echo up and down the corridor for several seconds before dying away.
Marrec said, "Our guide may prove more useful than I had supposed."
The creature leered and giggled at Marrec.
"No doubt about it," agreed Elowen.
Marrec felt his attitudes shifting slightly. "We can't keep calling you 'creature;' what is your name?" Marrec asked the queen's envoy.
The beast considered then rasped, "The Victorious Slayer of Compassion."
"We'll call you Victorious for short," responded Marrec without losing a beat.
The creature didn't react to the cleric's simplification of its name, except to cough up a phlegm-coated chunk of stained ice, but it did that sometimes.
Marrec shoved his spear through the opening of the mouth of the great bust. The eldritch glow on the spear's tip illuminated the chamber beyond.
The square space revealed was covered in gray, peeling plaster. Across the width of the room was an unlit exit, but in between, the plaster that had not crumbled was covered in paintings strangely bright and vivid. Scenes, figures, and glyphs adorned the room in no apparent order. The visual jumble covered the walls but also the floor and ceiling, creating a disquieting mosaic of disturbing images: a dragon eating a virginal maiden, a plague of worms infesting a screaming man, a seascape where a great tentacled monstrosity pulled down a ship, a giant roasting bound prisoners on a spit…
Marrec looked away, disgusted. He studied the room, trying not to focus on the painted scenes. Nothing moved, and nothing stirred in the empty exit. Crumbling plaster lay in clumps and drifts across the floor, thankfully obscuring some of the images.
"This way," said the cleric. He didn't like the look of the preternaturally bright images. He said, "Try to step only on the crumbled plaster." He followed his own advice, treading carefully, sometimes jumping from one island of powdery gray dust to the next.
Victoricus followed Marrec. The demon surprised the cleric by following his direction, instead of sliding across the room as Marrec had expected. Perhaps the demon was bound to serve him? More likely, it knew something about the images in the plaster that it hadn't divulged.
Gunggari followed, then Ususi, and last Elowen. As Gunggari reached the bare stone hallway where Marrec and the demon waited, Ususi reached the center of the chamber. The mage paused.
"That's interesting," said Ususi, looking at a collection of arcane sigils that painted the floor near her feet. "These are Nar characters, but the alphabet is strangely reminiscent of Imaskari letters."
"Interesting, but not important now," opined Elowen, right behind the mage,