Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [39]
"I never!"
"Ye did! 'Our good fortune,' I heard ye say in a slighting tone. Now hold this healing potion; he'll be able to drink it after this." There was much murmuring, and through the watery red haze before his eyes Narm saw a flash of radiance. Then sweet coolness spread slowly through his limbs, banishing the shrieking pain. He fainted.
They descended the crumbling stairs for eight or more turns around the inner wall of the tower, and then the stonework gave way to natural stone scarred with tool marks. "What is this place?" Shandril asked wearily, but the mage behind her made no reply. She dared not ask again, as the rough tunnel about them opened suddenly. It joined other passageways in a small, slope-ceilinged cavern.
Symgharyl Maruel pushed her firmly toward the largest opening, which led steeply downward into darkness. Shandril came to a stop. "I can't see!" she protested. The Shadowsil chuckled softly behind her.
"You do nothing in your life, little one, that you cannot first see where it may lead?" She laughed again, gently, and said, "Very well." She did something unseen in the darkness, and light appeared.
Four small globes of pearl-white, pale radiance grew from nothing before Shandril's eyes and then drifted apart in midair in stately silence. One moved to hang at her shoulder. Another drifted well ahead, dimly outlining the rough ceiling of the tunnel, which descended sharply from where she stood. The other globes moved behind her for Symgharyl Maruel’s benefit. Shandril stood motionless and peered about.
There was stone all around and cool air wafting toward her. Suddenly, something struck her bottom hard, and she fell to her knees.
The Shadowsil had kicked her.
"Up and on," came the cold voice. "My patience grows short." Shandril struggled to her feet in the tight coils of the magical rope, in angry silence.
Up and on. Under her feet as she descended, the uneven ramp became broad stairs cut out of the solid rock, and the air grew cooler. There was some sort of dim, scattered light ahead, beyond the pale globes.
Shandril turned to find the left wall and descend with it, but Symgharyl Maruel twitched the rope that bound her sharply, and she turned back to her original course with an inward sigh. The twinkling lights were farther away than they appeared and were all about when the stair ended.
A great open cavern lay before them. Its walls were studded with the fist-sized, sea-green gems which Shandril recognized as the fabled beljurils, for at odd intervals one or more would gI’ve forth a silent burst of light just as the storytellers had said. Shandril could tell by their light that the cavern stretched away to her right, but of its true size she had no idea.
It was big, she knew-and suddenly she shI’vered in the twinkling darkness. Would the mage slay her here, leave her in a cage to be tortured later, or killed or deformed by magic in some experiment or other?
Or did something lair here? Shandril could hear only the soft sounds of the mage behind her and the noise of her own passage as she descended into that winking display of lights. Where in the Realms was she?
"Halt, little one, and kneel." Shandril did as that quiet voice bade her; the rope was already tightening about her knees to reinforce the order. The pale globes winked out. Behind her, Shandril heard The Shadowsil chant something softly, and then there was light all about, and Shandril could see clearly the rough walls of the huge cavern around her.
The floor descended in front of her, and its lowest reaches were heaped with things that gleamed and sparkled in the light. There were gems, and coins beyond number, and here and there statuettes of ivory and of jade. The gleam of gold also caught her eye, and there were many other dazzling things beyond Shandril's knowledge.
Then a great voice boomed and echoed around them, freezing Shandril in terror. It spoke deeply and slowly in the common tongue of humans, and to Shandril the voice seemed old and patient and amused-and dangerous.
"Who comes?" it