Sea of Death (18 page)

"Of course I will," Gord told the half-elven girl. He kissed her back, tenderly at first, and then with a hint of growing passion. He pulled his face slightly away from hers and met her eyes with his own as he continued, "For whatever reasons fate has decreed, you and I are following the same path. We'll be side by side when we enter the City Out of Mind," he assured her with all sincerity. "You and I are comrades, and friends too."

Then let's become lovers as well," Leda said, using her little hands to stroke the sides of his face and his shoulders as she brought her lips to his again in a lingering kiss. Soon passion ruled both of them, and they made love to each other for a long and wonderful time.

As they lay together afterward, Gord felt Leda's body shudder. Then the girl began to cry. "What's wrong, dearest love?" he said with deep concern. "If I have somehow-"

"Don't be foolish, Gord," Leda said. Then, forcing herself to stop sobbing, she tried to explain. "It is because of me that I weep! What am I to do? Each day something grows within me. I have terrible evil inside me – I feel it! I fight against it, but as little memories come back unbidden, the malign thing inside my head becomes more powerful too. You are all that is keeping me from becoming lost in the darkness of what lurks inside, Gord. Help me!"

The young man didn't know exactly what to say, but he tried to console her. "I see you every day, Leda, and you are no more wicked than any other person – human, elf, or whatever – would normally be. In fact, you are more generous and kind and brave than most I have known."

"But that is because I fight and fight to be that way. You see what is happening to me, Gord. You yourself commented on how my skin grows dark. I am a drow – or at least part dark elf, anyway. Who and what I am is still hidden, but there is badness inside – the evil of the worst of elvenkind and who knows what else besides."

Leda started to sob again, and Gord held her close. "You and I will fight it together," he said. "I have seen that you are good, so if there is other than that within, we will drive It away together so that the better can rule. I too have my malign side,

Leda, and it often tries to come to the fore. Sometimes the evil part of me succeeds, and then I must work especially hard thereafter to push it down and bind it. If this is happening within you, then it is something that can be dealt with. Love will help, too! It must be a part of your memory returning, the bad resurfacing before the good does."

"Yes, Gord," the half-elven girl said weakly. "Perhaps that is it. Please love me still, though, no matter what."

"You may count on me, love. My word on that." Leda calmed down at this point, and the two soon fell asleep in each other's arms.

The following days were filled with heat and danger, the nights with passion and reassurance. The party reached an area of low hills, some actually showing stony clay, with deep drifts of ash and dust between. They swung south, for the Grandsuel Peaks thrust down into the barren wastes ahead. The hills and powder-filled valleys between continued. By staying on hill and ridgetop, they made good time. Then they turned slightly to the east again, and in a half-day of hard trekking came to the second oasis. It was very much like the first one they had encountered, and it became apparent that the life forms that managed to exist along the edge of the desert were all pretty much the same.

That was one pattern, and Gord could see that the nomads were exhibiting another. Whenever they reached a waterhole, it seemed, their resolve to travel farther grew weaker. Gord observed a couple of the men pointing surreptitiously toward the east and witnessed a hushed conversation involving all four of them during the early part of their stay at the oasis. Later, Achulka approached Gord and Leda where they sat, trying to seem casual but failing to keep his self-consciousness from showing. "Shall we go on eastward now, Farzeel?" he asked in an artificially friendly tone. "The ruined city is but a few days' travel that way. Let us go there and return soon – sound, and rich men!"

Because of what he had seen and sensed, this sort of talk did not take Gord by surprise at all, and he was prepared for it – determined to exert his own influence fully this time and not let Leda carry the burden for him. "Achulka, you amaze me," he replied with obvious contempt. "I thought you were a warrior whose word was a bond. Instead, I hear the mutterings of an old man, lazy and afraid. One fit only to tend children and campfires should certainty turn away from man's undertakings. Go!"

This time, Gord's insults worked – ultimately. After a brief exchange of breast-beating, argument, and threats, all four of the Thuffi warriors agreed that they would continue on with Gord and Leda as planned, but as recompense Gord had to start giving over the Arroden bangles. If Gord did not believe that their apprehension was real, he would have accused the Thuffi of taking advantage of him. Achulka wore the first bracelet proudly. One more was to be handed over every other day, until each of the nomads had one. Gord would retain the necklace and the remaining pair of bracelets for the duration of their quest, the tribesmen receiving those items when the party returned to the Grandsuels.

With the matter resolved – at least for the moment, Gord said to himself pessimistically – the group headed south instead of east. On the second day afterward they ran into a terrible dust storm, and only their being in the rocky terrain of the worn hills saved them from its full fury. In fact, they didn't even have to resort to using the tent-bags and breathing poles, for there was sufficient shelter to be found behind the stony ridges they traveled across. The hills disappeared four days later, and the band was reduced to shuffling across the dusty terrain on their webbed shoes once again.

At this juncture, Gord turned the group southwest. They traveled in a line abreast, each member of the party about a hundred yards away from the next. This way it was hoped they would be able to spot any sign of water. They had at least another week of water still, if it was carefully rationed, but very soon the risk of thirst would become serious.

Leda discovered the ruins. She was on the far right of the line and thought at first that she had come across a natural stone outcropping that could mean water a short distance beneath the surface. She called out and waved, and one by one all of them lumbered over to see what she had discovered. They carefully dug away the ash and dust from around the up thrusting stone, and it soon became apparent that the stone was not a natural formation. What they found were broken towers and the remains of walls.

The nomads were excited. "Dig deeper!" one of them said. "We must search here for treasure!" exclaimed another.

Leda agreed that they should search the area, but for a different reason. "Gord, there could have been no city here unless there was a supply of water to support its citizens. Let us see if we can get into this building below us and try to locate a spring or an old cistern," she suggested.

Gord consented to this, and the six of them renewed their efforts to dig away the dusty covering. In a certain spot, just three feet beneath the ash and powder, was a solid surface that turned out to be an intact roof. When they had cleared away a fair portion of this area, Gord noticed a rectangle of wood that was separate from the rest of the roof. He pried at the seam with his dagger and discovered it to be the edge of a hatch. Two of the nomads laid hands on the side opposite the hinge and lifted. A moment later, the hatch came open with a creak, causing a bit of ash and dust to cascade down into a three-foot-square hole that opened the way to the darkness below.

It was not hard for Gord to hang on the edge of the hole and drop to the floor below. He was a little nervous about the wooden planks being rotten and giving way when he struck the surface about twenty feet beneath the roof, but he managed the incursion with no problem. The rest could have used a rope to climb down, but Gord found a ladder nearby, its wood perfectly preserved in the arid place. Soon Leda, Achulka,' and the other three nomad warriors were standing beside him. They left the hatch about halfway open, resting on the end of the ladder, so that shifting dust wouldn't bury the exitway and trap them Inside. They all took off their backpacks and set aside other nonessential equipment such as their poles and dust-walkers. Gord and the nomads kept their weapons, but Leda left her sword and bow with the rest of her gear.

There is a flight of steps descending over there," Gord said, pointing to a corner. "Shall we begin exploring?"

"How will we see in the dark?" Achulka asked.

Leda's elven vision and Gord's enchanted sight made the issue no problem for them, but the nomads had no such advantages. Once they were out of the slight illumination provided from above by the open hatch, they would not be able to function.

Gord glanced around the room and saw nothing suitable. "Wait here," he told Achulka. There must be some means of illumination within this place." Then he went below and returned a few minutes later with a pewter pricket and a rushlight. This thing is so old that the grease has become hard as wood," he told the four steppemen, "but it will shed enough light for you to see – at least until we can find some torch or lamp that will serve better."

They went down through five stories before getting to the ground floor. The charts and wall hangings he saw along the way led Gord to assume that the square tower had been used for stargazing and astrological calculations. All of the equipment and maps, books and scrolls, were stored in the floors beneath the upper level, dusty but otherwise intact.

The priests of this place must have left without commotion," Leda said as they walked through the great, echoing temple they found below. "It is good that they did, for otherwise the windows would have been unshuttered, and the weight of all the dust and ash from above would have filled this chamber with powder long before now."

Little ramps of dust had sifted in over the centuries through the seams around the windows, so that an inch of the stuff lay on the floor in most places. The sediment puffed up around their feet as they walked, but was undisturbed elsewhere. "Enough of the desert has entered," Gord observed, "to tell us none has been here for long years before us."

"This is perfect!" Achulka exclaimed. "Priests always extort money from the faithful, and those who were so careful to secure their place of worship before leaving it must have been exacting in their demands for wealth. Let's find the coffers of those clerics, for none can claim their gold but us now!"

"The treasury is certainly hidden below," Gord said. They all began searching for a means of going into the cellars, and a stairway was quickly located. Gord was thinking about water more than gems, but he didn't mention that to the nomads. Let them hunt for loot while he sought more precious stuff. "Come on, let's see what the ancients who ruled this place hid below," he said. "Leda and I will form one team, and you four split into two others. Call out as soon as you locate anything worthwhile."

After they began descending, Gord took Leda's arm and spoke to her sternly. "I did not want to bring this up in front of the others," he said, "but I noticed a short time ago that you are not armed, and I am dismayed that you saw fit to leave your weapons in the chamber above. What will you do if we run into a problem down here?"

"I am sure we will encounter no problem that you cannot solve," she said with a tender smile, trying to make light of the matter. When she saw that this response did not satisfy him, she frowned slightly and spoke further. "I can give no real reason, except that I simply wished to be free of the weapons for a while, because they cramp my movement and make me feel heavy. Also, something in my head tells me that I have weapons other than those that are held in the hand. I am not worried right now, dear, and I beg you not to worry either."

Gord didn't know exactly what to make of her cryptic remarks, but decided to let the issue pass. In truth, he did not feel that their lives would be endangered while they searched this abandoned place, so perhaps the whole thing was not worth thinking about. "As you say, my love," he told her. "Now, let us see what we can see."

Minutes later, Leda discovered a low tunnel that led to a downward-spiraling stair hewn from solid rock. "Look over here," she called. "This building is like a fortress, and such places always have their own source of water in case of siege. I think I've found it, for there is a damp smell rising."

Not bothering to call the others, Gord and the girl went down the narrow, slippery steps. They twisted and wound into the ground about thirty or forty feet, then opened into a place whose ceiling indicated that at least a portion of it was a natural cave. Marks on the walls showed that at one time water had filled it about halfway, a depth of seven or eight feet. But now the water was gone, and the floor was covered with nothing but dried mud.

"Damn it, the conditions above must have dried out the source of supply," Gord muttered.

"No, Gord, look yonder. There seems to be a dark patch over there, as if there is wet mud on the floor, and there is an opening in the wall just at the place where the floor meets it. Let's look more closely." They walked across the chamber to the place she had indicated.

"Wet is right, you sharp-eyed vixen!" Gord said, giving the silvery-haired girl a pat on her round little bottom as he said it. Crouched on his hands and knees, the young adventurer peered down the narrow passage that had allowed the water to escape. "Not only mud, lass, but a big pool of fresh water beyond! I can smell it and hear drops hitting the sur- Ouch!" Gord whirled around and raised himself to a kneeling position to find out what had struck him so sharply.

Take that, you molesting swine!" Leda had taken the choice opportunity offered to revenge herself for his earlier attack on her posterior.

"You drow are creatures of great evil," he laughed, trying to grab and kiss her. Leda backed away with an expression of anger on her face.

"One day you might learn the truth of that, you pale pig! Until then, don't joke about dark elves."