Realms of the Underdark - J. Robert King [101]
Wykar rubbed his eyes and pushed the memory aside. After a few moments, he reconsidered and deliberately brought the memory of those last moments back to the surface, focusing on its details with all the detachment he could summon. He had to think his way through what had happened next, break it down and study every piece, if he was to finish the task he had set for himself.
Silently, Geppo crouched down a short distance from the deep gnome and also surveyed the land ahead. The two had not spoken for many hours, but the earlier argument was already pushed aside. It was not the time and place for quarreling now.
"I was trying to remember what happened before the moaning sound started," murmured Wykar, frowning. "They were making jokes about opening the chest and spitting on the egg and locking us inside with it, and I didn't understand why that was so funny to them-the spitting part." He glanced at Geppo, who said nothing.
Wykar shrugged and looked back at the reddish-purple glow. "Then that sound started, that loud, piercing groan that went on and on and on, and it dug right down into my gut. I saw the drow clap their hands over their ears and shout at each other, and one or two drew swords, but they dropped them. I couldn't see what was making the noise. I was sick to my stomach to be listening to it. My hands shook so much that I dropped the pick, and I was terrified the drow would kill me for dropping it. But I couldn't help it. My stomach was cramped up like I was going to vomit. I covered my ears, but that didn't help me, either."
He paused and swallowed before continuing. "A male drow, I think it was Deriander the wizard, fell down over me, screaming like a banshee. We were all screaming by then. I got up again and saw that Deriander had gone rigid and was shaking. His muscles were like iron ropes, hard as rocks. They all looked like that, all six of the drow. But I could still move. I couldn't figure it out." Wykar turned to his companion. "That was when you hit Sarlaena with your pick. You hit her in the legs several times before she fell down, and I had this strange thought that she couldn't feel a thing you were doing. I thought she was screaming from something else." He looked back at the unearthly glow. "I fell over the lesser priestess and was getting up to escape when the cloakers got us."
The gnome's hands trembled at the memory. "I saw one of the cloakers fall from somewhere up on the ceiling. It looked like a white square. I knew what it was from stories that my people used to tell, but I had never seen one before. I knew then that cloakers were making the moaning noise that we heard, paralyzing and trapping the drow. Then I saw a large mouth open in the middle of the cloaker where nothing had been, a mouth with teeth, and two glassy eyes opened above it. It landed on Xerzanein's back and wrapped around him while he was still standing up, screaming and holding his ears. It was like a living cape, black as jet, squeezing Xerzanein so tightly I could see each of his fingers trying to claw through. Xerzanein had his mouth open, but I couldn't hear him through the cloaker cries all around."
The gnome swallowed again, his voice even quieter. "I could see the cloaker's mouth on Xerzanein's back,