Crypt of the Moaning Diamond (24 page)

“At least my magic comes from me,” snapped Gunderal. “It isn’t stolen charms and looted trinkets.”

Eyes narrowing at the insult, Archlis began to raise the Ankh. Ivy stepped between them. Chin out, gaze steady, she challenged Archlis, “Hurt her, and we turn back. You can play games with the destrachans on your own.”

“An idle threat,” returned the magelord, but he lowered the Ankh. “You have no hope of finding the way out. The tunnels will be flooded within the day. Help me, and you help yourselves. Once you have distracted the beasts, return to this chamber. I will come for you here.”

“Go, my dears, go,” said Kid, wiggling in the magelord’s cruel grip. “I will see you again.”

“Course you will, stupid,” said Zuzzara, climbing shakily to her feet. A trickle of blood ran down her forehead, and she brushed it impatiently aside.

“If you hurt him, I will find a way around your charms. I promise,” said Ivy. She could not bear to look at Kid. Stay together—that was the rule of her group, the most basic bond that bound them together, no matter how many tricks that fate

played on them. For the last ten years, she had begun every day ‘ at the farm hearing the muffled sounds of her friends’ voices echoing in her ears—all the little arguments and senseless jokes that old friends told each other. More recently, the click of Kid’s hooves had been part of that. She did not know how she could return home and fall asleep each night without the comfort of knowing that they were all safely under one roof.

Whatever Archlis was going to reply was interrupted by a howl from Norimgic. The big bugbear was yelling something in Orcish at Archlis.

“What do you mean he’s gone?” snapped the magelord. He glared at the two bugbears. Osteroric was now wearing Sanval’s breastplate and sporting a “who me?” expression. “I was just trying it on,” said Osteroric about his new armor. “And when I looked up, he wasn’t here anymore!”

“So he did not dare stay and face the beasts.” Archlis snorted. “You were right. He is not like the other nobles of Procampur. But he is also doomed. There is no way out of these ruins without my help. And to secure that, you must lead those creatures away from here.”

Ivy hoped Sanval had a better plan than she did. Right now, the only thing that she could think about was running faster than those destrachans. And losing the big guy in armor was not going to make her life easier, especially if what she suspected were true. But no need to make Archlis nervous. Show a brave face—that was her mother’s constant advice. Keep quiet and think—that was her father. Time to remember both those lessons.

“Let’s go, then,” said Ivy to the others. She plunged through the invisible wall that Archlis had raised between them and the destrachans’ sensitive ears. She felt a magical prickle on her skin and then just nothing. The wall was gone. She looked back but could see nothing but the burning of the bugbears’

torches behind her. Archlis stood watching, one hand gripping the Ankh tightly, the other hard on Kids shoulder.

Standing directly under the hole created in the ceiling by the destrachans, Ivy could hear nothing. She could see nothing. But she knew that the monsters were out there, just waiting for them.

“Come on,” she said, much quieter than she normally would. “Let’s run!”

Ivy doubted that Sanval had fled blindly into the dark. Silly, stupid man—she was sure that he was intent on some plan involving some great heroic deed that would get himself killed but save everyone else in the world. He was that sort. She’d known too many like him. Besides, hadn’t he said something earlier about attacking Archlis on his own?

But, she was fairly certain that it just was not in his well-polished, honorable soul to do anything so ignoble as leave them defenseless. He must have thought that she could save the others by herself. He had obviously picked what he decided was the more dangerous target—Archlis—and decided to go it alone. Yes, that would be a Procampur type of reasoning. Ivy’s own self-confidence bubbled up when she realized that Sanval’s Procampur sense of protocol would not have let him abandon the Siegebreakers if he had thought they needed his protection. In a strange sort of way, he had just paid her a compliment. Now, if only she could pay it back—preferably by finding him later and shaking his head until she tattled some sense into his skull.

Mumchance trotted up beside her, breaking into her thoughts about the future by worrying her about their present

situation. The dwarf pointed at the sidewalls of the tunnel. “Narrow. Maybe not wide enough for those monsters? Slow down a moment.”

Was it possible that the sightless destrachans would enter a tunnel too narrow for their enormous bodies and wedge themselves into immobility? If Archlis had lied about going in the other direction and actually planned to leave through this tunnel once she had killed the beasts, it was satisfying to think of him stuck behind those monsters, staring at their huge flailing tails, unable to get past them. Then Ivy remembered the way the destrachans had crumbled the ceiling of the chamber with their weird vibration cry. Nice idea, but it was not going to happen that way, she knew.

“I don’t think that they can get stuck,” she said out loud and then wondered if something besides her own group had heard her. How loud was too loud? “Is there anyway that we can hear them before they hear us?”

Mumchance shrugged. “Maybe. They are big and pretty noisy.” He placed his hand against the ground.

“Mumchance,” said Ivy to her friend, “do you remember why we got into this business?”

Zuzzara answered, because the dwarf had dropped to his knees and then stretched flat on the ground, still trying to hear the approach of the destrachans. He pulled Wiggles out of his pocket and set the little dog down beside him. Wiggles looked ready to take a quick nap, her pointed chin resting on the dwarf s rump. It had been a long day for a small dog—a long day for all of them.

“We got into siegebreaking because we needed money,” said Zuzzara, rubbing the bump left on her head by the shovel. “Especially after we flooded out our last rainmaking customer.”

“Besides that,” Ivy prompted.

“Because we are good at what we do,” said Gunderal, looking like a defiant flower as she stepped up to her sister and fingered the bump on Zuzzara’s head with gentle hands. “Ivy, I can hold the river back. I could twist my water-calling spell to keep these tunnels from flooding for a while longer. I’m sure of it.”

“No,” said Ivy very slowly, because she had just had a new idea, but she was not sure how everyone would react. “We don’t want to hold the river back. We want to let the river in. Archlis was right. These tunnels are low and going lower. If we let the water in…”

“We all drown,” pronounced Mumchance standing up and dusting off his knees. Wiggles was staying close by his heels, very quiet, as if the little dog sensed danger was close.

“Unless…”

“We get out first.”

“But what about the destrachans?” asked Gunderal. “We hope that they can’t swim.”

“But what about Kid?” Gunderal asked. “Oh, Ivy, you are not going to leave Kid behind?”

“Of course not. Eveiyone gets out. Everyone except Archlis. Don’t much care about him, do we?”

Zuzzara giggled—one of those deep ore giggles that made people nervous. “Are we going after Archlis, Ivy?”

“That magelord is just another tower waiting to be toppled,” said Ivy. “Let’s bury him down here and take down the walls of Tsurlagol!” She delivered this rousing speech in a low-pitched tone to avoid attracting destrachans, but it got the same reaction as all of her rousing speeches. Everyone looked like they wanted to disagree—Mumchance even opened his mouth and then closed it—and then everyone gave a reluctant nod. If Ivy was crazy enough to think it might work, then they might be crazy enough to go along with it.

“For once, that idea actually sounds like a plan,” said Mumchance finally. “One that isn’t completely different from what we discussed before.”

“Don’t look so surprised.”

“No, think about it. The tunnels may be a bit deeper than we intended to dig,” said the dwarf, “but we can use them just the same. They all run toward the current city as far as I can tell, or the current city was built up on a corner of these ruins, which is more likely. We have been twisting around a lot, following that magelord, but I think we are pretty close to that southwest corner. If Gunderal could force the water toward the city, we could just wash the walls away. Or”—as Mumchance became more enthusiastic about the idea, he also became a stickler for precise details describing underhanded ways of engineering destruction—”we can at least take down that weak corner that we found earlier. The spot where you told the Thultyrl that the wall would fall down.”

“That would be good,” agreed Ivy as they continued to explore the current tunnel. “Make us look like we know what we are doing. That is so rare.”

“I’m serious, Ivy,” The dwarf stuck out his lower lip and blew a heavy breath. Ivy recognized his don’t-sidetrack-me-when-I-am-thinking sigh. “Look at the cracks running through the walls,” said Mumchance, pointing left and right. “I bet those shrieking beasts did that. If they hunt here often, the ground will already be weak above us as well as below. Tsurlagol could end up with a pretty lake on its west side.”

“That leaves the problem of how we avoid being crushed,” said Ivy. “Or drowned. Or eaten.”

“You will figure something out,” said Mumchance. “You always do.”

“I do, don’t I?” said Ivy with just a little more bounce in her step as she walked down the tunnel. “Well then, let’s speed

up the water coming into these tunnels, and let us hope those creatures can’t float or swim.”

Gunderal spread out her pale fingers and made a gesture resembling raindrops falling down. Drops of water trickled off her fingers and spattered into the dust at het feet. “I’m feeling much better,” she said.

“Knew you could do it,” said Zuzzara, “but don’t push your magic too hard. What if you can’t do what you want when you want to?”

“Sister, I do not even understand that last sentence,” giggled Gunderal. A small smile brightened her delicate features. A few long ringlets had come loose from her topknot, and she looped one long strand around her finger very slowly. “Stopping a river is rather boring, but calling one! So much more fun.”

“Do you think you can?” her sister asked.

Gunderal’s violet eyes gleamed in a way that would be called a glare in a less beautiful woman. “You nevei think I can do anything.”

“I am only asking.”

“Zuzzara, I may not be as strong as you or as clever as Mimeri, but I can cast spells!” “I only said …”

Gunderal stood in the shadow of her half-ore sister and stared up at her. “Well, don’t, Zuzzara. Don’t say another word! I know a thing or two about water magic.”

“Unless you know how to kill destrachans, keep your voices down,” Ivy finally intervened. “We need to think of some place that we could ambush the creatures.”

“Those creatures hunt by sound more than anything else,” Zuzzara said, peering through one archway into the chamber beyond.

“According to Archlis, they are blind,” Ivy agreed. “And you saw the size of those ears.”

“So what if we make a lot of noise and draw them into a narrow place like this,” Zuzzara suggested. “Someplace where we could get above them. That might help.”

They followed Zuzzara into a circular chamber with stairs running in spirals along the walls to higher openings. In the center of the room stood a small fountain with a trickle of water coming out of its cracked marble spouts. The water was very cold to the touch.

“There’s our river,” said Gunderal with satisfaction. “Or a branch of it at least.”

“Forcing its way in through the old pipes first,” said Mumchance. “The dwarves built well when they built this city, every time that they built this city.”

“Strange place,” said Ivy, looking around the tower of ancient Tsurlagol.

Gunderal ran up a few stairs and rested her hand against the wall. “It is some kind of watchtower, sunk by that weird earth magic that I’ve been feeling throughout the ruins. Remember the mosaic back in the bathhouse?”

“Odd or not, Zuzzara is right,” said Mumchance. “It’s a good place for a trap.”

Zuzzara shrugged. “I may be ugly, but I’m not dumb.”

The old joke made them all laugh a little, and then glance uneasily over their shoulders as the laughs bounced around the room.

Mumchance climbed up the stairs after Gunderal, peering here and there through the openings, swinging his lantern before him. Wiggles stopped before one doorway and let out one small sharp bark. Mumchance took a look and then called back down the stairs. “There’s another tunnel. Looks like it runs straight back the way that we came, just higher up.”

“Higher is good,” said Ivy, watching the ancient fountain that bubbled in the center of the room.

“Now we need to attract the destrachans lower down,” said Mumchance. “So the water covers them before it covers us.”

“That was what I was thinking,” Ivy said.

“Do you want me to use my eye?” The dwarf fingered his fake eye as if he were going to pop it out of his head. “An explosion should bring the beasts quick enough.”

“Save that eye. We may need it later. I have a bettet idea,” said Ivy with a wicked grin. “Everyone needs to get to higher ground first. Gunderal, go up to that platform where Mumchance is. Get as close to the exit as you can; you may need to run quickly.”

Gunderal climbed to the ledge where Mumchance stood.

“Maybe you should call from inside that tunnel,” Ivy suggested. The sound carried perfectly up to Gunderal on the ledge, but she shook her head.

“I need to see the water, Ivy, just to keep my spell anchored in this room.”

“All right. Zuzzara, do you have that rope we found earlier?”

“Wound around my waist,” the half-ore affirmed. “Do you need it?”

“Tie one end to my belt and get ready to haul me up when I yell. Now I am going to wait for the beasts to get here.” Ivy cut off their anticipated arguments. “No, I stay on the floor here. I’m the bait. I’m going to keep them down here, and Gunderal is going to get that river to rise faster, so it’s over their heads before they know what is happening.”