Pool of Radiance_ Ruins of Myth Drannor - Carrie Bebris [33]
The reptilian leader of one band hissed. Hatred rimmed his red eyes. “Orogs full of swamp gas!” he cried, drawing himself up to his seven-foot height. His insult drew the attention of every orog in the vicinity. He shook his spear at them. “Orog clods! Shashiki!” The rest of the lizard men raised their spears as well. “Shashiki!”
“Lizard heads water-logged!” one of the orogs shouted in response. He strode forward, clawed toenails clacking on the stone floor, until he stood mere feet away from the lizard leader. Breath issued from his snout in angry bursts. The orog forces lifted their weapons. “Gagh-hai!” he cried, “Grabesh!”
“Graaabesh!” echoed the orogs.
“Shashiki! Kripp-kripp!”
The two races rushed toward one another, each determined to exterminate the other. In the confusion of battle, no one noticed the five visible-and one invisible-adventurers passing through.
With Emmeric to guide them, they moved swiftly toward the entrance to the House of Gems. They slowed, however, as they passed an ice-covered doorway.
“Hey, that’s just like the room we saw below.” Durwyn ran his hand over the frosty surface. “With the frozen floating ball inside.”
“There’s a similar sphere in this room,” Emmeric said. “We examined three such rooms-one on each level we explored. We never did figure out their significance.”
They wound their way through the corridors until Emmeric stopped before a huge seal inscribed on the stone floor. Two small concentric circles lay within a larger one, with two arcs connecting the inner circles to the circumference. “From the description given us by the elven clerics at the tree shelter, we believed this is the Circle of Mythanthor,” Emmeric said. “If so, the glyph protects a hidden door to the city surface.”
“The one the Ring of Calling will enable us to access?” Corran’s disembodied voice made Kestrel jump. Though she knew he was among them and her sensitive ears could hear his sounds of movement as they traveled, the paladin’s continued invisibility unnerved her. She preferred to keep her antagonists, and her allies for that matter, where she could see them. Unfortunately, Jarial said the spell would remain in place for twenty-four hours, unless Corran attacked someone first.
“Yes, that door, but we never found the ring’s enabling word,” Emmeric said. “I don’t know how it might be learned.”
“What do you mean?” Ghleanna asked. “It wasn’t in the Room of Words?”
Emmeric shook his head. “We searched thoroughly, but without success. When the cultists attacked us, we were on our way to visit the elven clerics to see if they could suggest another place we might look. Of course, during my captivity I never revealed that the command couldn’t be found in the Room of Words-I wanted the cult sorcerers to waste as much time as possible conducting their own futile search.”
Kestrel rolled her eyes. Could this quest become any more hopeless? “So let me get this straight-the cultists have both the Gauntlets of Moander and the Ring of Calling. Even if we can get the ring back we don’t have the password. And if by some miracle we do somehow get to the city surface, we still don’t know where the new Pool of Radiance is, or what this cult plans to do with it. Does that about sum it up?”
Ghleanna and Durwyn exchanged glances but did not speak. Emmeric appeared bewildered, but then he didn’t know she’d never wanted to join this fool’s errand in the first place.
The silence only provoked Kestrel further. “When are you people going to face reality? We can’t beat these odds. If we keep this up, we’re going to die trying.”
Corran’s voice penetrated the stillness. “I’d sooner die an honorable death than a cowardly one.” She was glad the paladin remained invisible so she couldn’t see the holier-than-thou look on his face. Self-righteousness dripped heavily enough from his voice.
“I’d rather not die at all, thank you.”
“You have always been free to leave us, Kestrel.”
Free to die alone trying to get back to civilization, he meant. It was not a true choice, and the