Pool of Twilight - James M. Ward [117]
The second dragon-rage was over before it had begun.
* * * * *
The seven adventurers stood before the gaping entrance of the cave.
"Be ready," Evaine warned.
"For what?" Listle asked with a gulp.
"Anything," the sorceress replied.
Listle sighed. "I was afraid that was what you were going to say."
Kern led the way into the dark tunnel, the others following close behind. There was no hope of catching Sirana by surprise. The attack of the shadow trees showed that she was all too aware of their presence. Their only hope was to distract her long enough so that Evaine could cast her spell to destroy the pool. How exactly they were going to do that, no one could say.
Kern held the Hammer of Tyr aloft before him. The weapon gave off a faint blue light, but the darkness seemed to smother the illumination. He could see no more than a few scant feet before him.
The tunnel wound down into the pitch darkness. The air grew stuffier. Soon Kern was sweating inside his armor. It was growing difficult to breathe.
There was no warning when the floor suddenly yawned beneath them.
Kern screamed as he plummeted through jet blackness. He heard the cries of the others around him, heard their voices echoing off stone, but he could no longer see them. Dank air whipped wildly past him. The cries of the others were cut short. Kern felt himself become tangled in a mass of something sticky and rubbery.
Then he hit the ground.
He lay stunned for long minutes. Then, dizzily, he pulled himself to his feet. A dim gray light sprang to life around him. He could see that his armor was covered with sticky blue cobwebs. That meant someone had tried to use…
His head snapped up. He stood at the edge of a dull, metallic-looking pool of water in the center of a vast cavern. He gasped when he saw his companions suspended in the air twenty feet above the pool, struggling futilely against invisible bonds that gripped them.
A form stood on a rock in the center of the pool, holding a gleaming staff. At first, the being's outline was obscured by the bright sparks of twilight that swirled within its flesh.
Then, with a surge of fury, Kern recognized the being.
"Yes, Kern, it is I," Sirana's voice sneered. "Welcome to the pool of twilight."
19
Twilight Falls
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, paladin," Sirana's voice leered as Kern raised the Hammer of Tyr.
He hesitated.
Sirana's wings fluttered. She waved her silvery staff, and Kern's friends danced in the air above the pool like puppets on strings. Daile was thrashing like a caged animal, while Trooper muttered a stream of curses. Miltiades and Gamaliel were having no better luck than the venerable paladin. The magical trap was too strong, even for those two most powerful warriors. Unable to use their hands, neither Evaine nor Listle could cast any spell. But the invisible bonds did not prevent Listle from tossing a few choice insults down at Sirana. The half-fiend ignored the elf's imaginative taunts.
"Strike me with that precious hammer of yours, Kern, and you're going to ruin this useful staff as well. If you destroy the Staff of Twilight your beloved friends will plunge into my pool."
The steely waters sucked and gurgled hungrily about the rock in the pool's center.
"And when they do, paladin, they'll be fused with zombie corpses that wait in the pool's depths, ready to help your friends turn into creatures of darkness." Sirana raised her gnarled arms exultantly. "Now that would be a sight worth seeing. The lovely sorceress Evaine, sprouting from the back of a decomposing troll, recruited into my zombie army!" Sirana's eyes flashed. "Or perhaps you'd rather see what creatures I have ready to burrow into the flesh of the pretty little elf…"
She flicked the staff, and Listle screamed as she dropped a few inches, dangling closer to the perilous surface of the pool.
With