The Paladins - James M. Ward [17]
*****
"I ran into a bit of trouble," Jacob admitted when he joined the party, back at the boat. "But no one noticed and I handled it quickly."
"How did you help your zombie?" Kern lightly asked Aleena as they cast off and headed back into the bay.
"I opened a door for one."
"That's good enough?"
"That was good enough for me."
"These creatures understand law," observed Miltiades, "but they know nothing of its spirit."
They rowed to the mouth of the cave that led upstream along the Sargauth, and as the grand cavern of Skullport curved down to meet them, the skulls once against boiled up from the deep. "Hast thou performed thy service as commanded?" they whispered. "We shall know if thou lie'st."
"Oh, we helped them, all right," answered Kern.
Aleena seized his arm and squeezed hard, silencing him. "We have done as thou ordered, Watchers," she declared solemnly.
Silence closed over them. The gentle lapping of water against the boat filled the air. "Then pass," whispered the voices, and the skull sank into the depths once more.
The paladins dug in deep with paddles and began to force their way against the Sargauth's deep, slow current. Behind, the dim light of Skullport faded completely, as Aleena pulled a magically lit beacon from her pack and placed it at the bow.
"Don't they even want to know what we did for their precious zombies?" asked Kern, looking back.
"No!" snapped the wizardess, "and neither do I!"
Somewhere deep in the void beyond, a crazed voice erupted into fits of laughter. The hilarity escalated to hysterics and then faded away.
"Who was that, Aleena?" asked Noph, unnerved.
"Halaster, the mad mage. This is his territory." She sighed dejectedly. "I really hate Undermountain."
Interlude 3
Don't worry about your debts if you've got friends, because a friend in need deserves what he gets!
"This is it!" thought Shaakat to his fiendish accomplice. "This is the gate! The scent of its magic is the same as the gate in the city of the bloodforge."
The vrocks stood at the base of a short, pyramid-shaped platform, upon which two massive ivory tusks of some prime creature sprouted and curved together, forming an arch. The uprights were deeply grooved along their lengths and inlaid with some magical metal shimmering and changing color like liquid chaos.
"Thank hideous Juiblex!" spat Rejik as he squatted down to rest upon the lowest of the glossy, crimson stone steps leading up to the gate. "This cage is a horrible death trap! I don't think we even scratched the surface of this-this Undermountain, but we've already killed a slithermorph, six ibrandlin, those two illithids with the nasty staves, a score of undead, three groups of heavily armed primes, and a sodding herd of beholders, not to mention those ill-tempered reflections of us, that came out of that mirror back there!"
"Yes, we must develop a place like this on the Abyss," agreed Shaakat.
"Let's go home and tell General Raachaak we've found the way into the city of the bloodforge!"
"Or-perhaps we should take the bloodforge for our own," returned Shaakat.
Rejik's beady eyes narrowed. "You would suffer Mor-baat's fate, addle-cove?"
"Raachaak isn't here, stinkfeathers. Besides, if we capture the bloodforge, we can destroy him and ascend."
"We?" sneered Rejik.
"We… for now," growled Shaakat.
Rejik squinted up at the gate and clicked his beak pensively. "If we fail, we'll be turned into lowly larvae and left for the chasme on the Plane of Infinite Portals."
"We are true tanar'ri!" howled Shaakat. "Or I am, at least! You disgust me, baatezu's bastard!"
Rejik stood up and thrust his narrow face toward the other fiend. "I'm tired from all the killing, today, but I still have the energy to throttle you,