The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [136]
Only Daluth stood empty-handed, his hands raised to deliver a quenching spell should one of the reckless younger Dreadspells unleash something that could doom them all.
Elryn darted glances in all directions, saw nothing moving by itself and no doors or other ways out of the stone-walled room, and asked quietly, "Oh most diligent Dreadspells, has anyone spared a thought for how we'll be able to leave this place?"
"Karsus," Hrelgrath said clearly, the gorget clutched triumphantly in his hands.
Nothing happened, but Vaelam was already pointing into the farthest, dimmest corner of the chamber. "Another 'K' in a clear spot of floor yonder," he reported. "That'll be it."
"Aye, but to take us back out…or in deeper, to somewhere else unknown?" Daluth asked.
"Moreover, if I was intending to slay thieves who found their way hence uninvited, the way out is where I'd place guards of one sort or another," Elryn added, then…having not moved a pace from where he'd appeared…said, "Karsus" carefully. No whirling before his eyes occurred again, but he was unsurprised.
Slithering metallic sounds heralded Vaelam's continued digging…and as Elryn watched, he saw Femter slip something into his robes, his fingers working at a hitherto-hidden underarm pouch.
"Take nothing you cannot carry," the senior Dread-spell warned, "and be fully prepared to surrender unto the Darklady every last item of magic we bear out of this place, no matter how trifling. We are not unobserved, now and always."
Femter's head snapped up, and he blushed as he found Elryn's eyes upon him. He opened his mouth to say something, but Daluth forestalled him by asking the room at large, "Has anyone found something whose powers are obvious?"
He was answered by shaken heads and frowns.
Elryn used the toe of his boot to open a small black coffer, lifted his eyebrows to the ceiling when he saw the row of rings it contained, snapped it shut again, then blinked at what had lain next to it.
"Daluth," he asked quietly, inclining his head toward the heap of gleaming mysteries by his boot, "that circlet…hasn't that symbol been used to mean healing?"
Daluth pounced on the diadem. It was of plain but massy gold over some more durable metal, and it bore the device of a gleaming sun cupped in two stylized hands. "Yes," he said excitedly. He held it up to show the others and snapped, "Find more of these. Leave off looking at other things for now."
The lesser Dreadspells did as they were bid, digging and tossing aside treasures, and rising, from time to time, with cries of satisfaction. Daluth took the items they proffered…four circlets and a bracer…and Elryn snapped, "Enough. All of you, take only so much as what you can wear or carry, and leave swords and helms and suchlike behind. We dare not try to awaken anything here. Gird yourselves as if for battle, I don't want to see anyone staggering under an armload of loose items."
He reached down and plucked up a number of scepters from among a litter of metal-bound tomes, platters and smaller boxes. Then, as if in afterthought, he casually picked up the black coffer, its dozen rings riding safely hidden inside it.
A few moments of work with the long thongs that always rode in his belt pouch, and the scepters were riding ready at his hip, the coffer hidden down the front of his breeches. Elryn was ready. He said briskly, "Vaelam, the honor is yours, I believe. Take us from this place."
The youngest Dreadspell looked at the clear space at the back of the crypt, waiting in silence for him, swallowed, and said, "You said there might be guards…"
Elryn nodded. "I have every confidence