Realms of the Underdark - J. Robert King [14]
Zak let out a whoop of victory. He rose, balancing on the web and gripping his prize. The cocoon was dark now. Even as he watched, the slit he had made in it grew and the tangled threads began to snap and unwind. Yellowed bones fell out of the cocoon, dropping into the chasm. So this had been a tomb, the final resting place of Menzoberra.
A sudden sound, like the cracking of a whip, echoed off the stone walls. At the same moment the strand beneath Zak's feet shuddered, nearly sending him tumbling into the depths below. The web was unraveling. Nearby, another of the ropy strands parted. Like a giant's whip, one of the broken ends hissed past Zak, tracing a line of fire across his cheek. Blood trickled from the wound. An inch nearer, and it would have struck his head from his shoulders. The entire web shuddered as more strands snapped and unraveled.
Thrusting the Dagger into his belt, Zak ran down an undulating thread, somehow managing to keep his balance. A high-pitched groan gave him a moment's warning. He leapt from the thread a heartbeat before it broke. Landing on another strand, he kept moving, toward the thread that passed near the base of the stairway. Three more times he was forced to jump from a thread just as it parted beneath his feet. Clumps of web were dropping into the chasm now. But he was almost there.
Zak paused on the strand, tensing his legs, ready to jump to the stairs. He was too slow. Before he could move, the cord snapped beneath him. Zak tried to leap to another strand, but there were none left. The last remnants of the vast weaving unraveled. Together, web and weapons master plunged into the darkness below.
Instinct summoned his levitation ability, and this time, power flooded through him. Zak rose through the air as the falling web vanished below. He laughed at his own foolishness. Of course! The aura of unmagic had come from the web. When the web had broken, so had the aura, and his magical powers had returned.
Zak landed on the bottom step of the stairs, then started climbing. He had ascended some distance before he heard, faintly but clearly in his sensitive ears, a voice.
"Midnight approaches. The moment has come. Let the fires be lit."
Zak froze. The voice could only belong to one: the archmage. Zak had climbed to the base of Narbondel. By some trick of cracks and crevices, the archmage's words had reached the interior of the column, and their meaning renewed Zak's dread.
Let the fires be lit…
Filtering through the stone, faint words of magic drifted on the air. A spell. Zak did not wait to hear the end of it. With redoubled urgency, he hurled himself up the staircase. He had gone no more than three twists of the stairwell when he heard the roar of fire. Orange light burst up from below, along with a blast of scorching air. Midnight had come. The archmage had cast his spell. The fires of Narbondel were rising.
Zak kept climbing. The parched air burned his lungs and nostrils, and tears streamed down his face. The orange glow brightened beneath him. It would take hours for the magical heat to spread throughout the pillar's stones, but in the meantime the spiral stairwell in the center of the column acted like a chimney. Enchanted flames coursed upward with the terrible speed of dragon's breath.
Zak was faster still. Choking for air, he reached the top of the stairwell. A circle of cool darkness appeared above him. The trapdoorway. He reached for the edge of the opening. The