Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [48]
They moved forward. The odor of rotting fish grew stronger. The smell finally succeeded in blotting out the fecal oppression of the sewer flow, though that was hardly a relief.
Chant raised his hand and pointed at a faint glimmer of light ahead.
“That’s it,” whispered the shop owner. Demascus nodded and put his hand on his sword hilt.
They entered a sizeable chamber sporting one, two, three … a total of seven exits. One of which was sealed with a rusted iron valve on the ceiling.
The misted air was humid with fish stink. Light emanated from a coating of fungi on the walls and ceiling. A series of overlapping tidemarks on the wall made it clear the cavern periodically flooded. Even then, water pooled in low spots on the floor. A few contained desperately darting fish, indicating the last influx must have been very recent.
A woman in black leather lay limp and unmoving near a side wall. Not far from her was a smaller body, stretched out so that it lay partly submerged in a pool.
“That’s her!” said Demascus. Chant grabbed at his arm, but he twisted loose and splashed across the Sepulcher. If this was some kind of elaborate ambush, he was ready.
Demascus crouched at the thief’s side and … she did not have the scarf. He wanted to scream and shake the body. He mastered that impulse and instead felt for a pulse along her neck.
A regular but faint throb was his reward.
“She’s alive.”
Chant joined him, but his gaze swung around the cavern in anxious arcs.
“Can you wake her?” said Demascus. “We need to find out what she did with my scarf.”
The human pursed his lips as if weighing options. He finally pulled a glass vial of healing elixir from his belt.
Demascus had used such potions hundreds of times. Thousands maybe … He blinked, momentarily overcome with a cavalcade of images and sensations of treating bleeding stomach cuts, head wounds, broken legs, stabbings, beatings … He rubbed his eyes to clear the montage.
Chant was supporting the woman’s head as he poured the curative balm down her throat. In the span of a heartbeat, color returned to the genasi’s pale skin. She choked, and her eyes shuttered open.
She blinked. Her regard switched from Demascus to Chant and back. She was confused.
Demascus cleared his throat.
Riltana’s eyes widened and she said, “You!”
“Yes, me,” said Demascus. “Where’s my scarf?”
The thief raised a shaky hand to her head. The cloud-colored crystal strands of her hair were pulled back in a braid.
“Pus-faced goblin ambushed me, hit me on the head. I don’t know …”
Demascus gaped at the other form lying half beneath the surface of a pool just a few paces from Riltana. He leaned over, grabbed it by the filthy rags that served as its footwear, and pulled it out of the water.
It was a goblin. Its eyes bulged. The goblin’s hands were locked with rigor mortis at its throat, trying to claw away the pale scarf that wound around its neck so tightly the creature had strangled.
“Merciful gods!” said Demascus. It was his scarf. But … his hand caught midway in the act of reaching for it. The goblin had died, just like the priest in his memory, struggling for breath. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Which meant the fabric was an enchanted instrument of death; not a scarf at all, but a garrote!
Maybe losing it, and knowledge of his past self, had been a blessing. Maybe it was something he’d even arranged to occur. Yet here he was, on the brink of retrieving it, and maybe a life he’d wanted to run from.
“Is that it then?” said Chant.
“Yes. But, I don’t …” The layered wrap of the scarf, the way it snugged so tight to the dead creature’s neck … he felt sick. An echoing, roaring sound clogged his brain, getting louder.
Wait. The roaring was real.
Chant and Riltana both glanced at the tunnel where they’d entered as an even louder roar reverberated across the damp chamber.
A monster crouched there. Its cat-slit red crystal eyes were fastened in hungry anticipation on Demascus.
“Pig-straddler!” cursed Riltana. Then, “Why didn’t you leave me unconscious? I can’t handle any