Azzudonna and Ayeeda led the procession down the tunnel—or at least, they were the leading members of the band from Callidae. Floating in the air before them, some twenty feet ahead, was a conjured spectral hand carrying a flaming torch, the work of Allefaero, who remained a few ranks back with Nvisi and Avernil.
The journey had been uneventful since Allefaero, with Nvisi’s guidance, had put them in a tunnel below the dwarven stronghold of Gauntlgrym, with no signs at all of either enemies or allies anywhere about.
The two wizards chatted easily, watching their steps, but no longer fully on their guard, and so they were taken by surprise when the torch ahead simply vanished, along with Allefaero’s magical floating hand.
“Hold!” Azzudonna, Ayeeda, and Allefaero said together, the wizard pushing his way up front to look down the now darkened corridor.
“Where is your mage hand?” Avernil asked, coming up behind Allefaero.
“The spell is dismissed. I know not why.”
“Would that take the torch with it?” asked a concerned Azzudonna, for the torch was no magical construct, although Allefaero had used a cantrip to light it.
“No.”
Allefaero called forth a second mage hand, then motioned to Ayeeda, who presented a second torch for the hand to grasp.
The wizard lit it with a spell, then instructed the hand to move down the corridor. He stopped it some ten feet ahead, noting a rope lying among the stones and mounds of the uneven floor, one coming from the left-hand wall and angled toward the middle of the corridor.
Allefaero sent the mage hand to the left-hand wall, the group noting where the rope had been secured. Then back to the middle of the tunnel went the torch, and slowly ahead. A dozen feet, fifteen feet . . .
They noted that the rope stopped. Allefaero moved the torch toward the end point and left it there, hovering above the rope for a few moments, all of them peering intently, trying to figure out the riddle.
Azzudonna and Ayeeda drew their weapons and started ahead, the wizard and the priest right behind.
As they neared, Allefaero moved the mage hand away, just a bit, but enough so that it blinked away as the first had done.
Not too surprised, the wizard cast a light spell, filling the area.
“There is tension on that rope,” Azzudonna noted. “That’s not the end of it.”
“A portal,” Allefaero said.
“Do not,” came a voice from the side, weak, but recognizable to the group.
Azzudonna sprinted to a jag in the wall, finding it to be concealing a small side alcove. And there, she found Galathae, struggling to sit up.
He wasn’t sure if he had passed out or not, wasn’t sure if he had struck the floating skull creature or not, wasn’t even sure where Soliardis might be, or his other blade.
All that Zak knew was pain. His ribs ached and one leg was bent horribly to the side, in a manner that it should not be. He could only open one eye for some reason.
He figured it was caked blood holding the other one closed, but he couldn’t be sure.
I’m not dead, he thought, but didn’t have the strength to say aloud.
Yet.
He tried to roll but could not, for the movement sent fires of pain shooting up from his obviously broken leg. He couldn’t even turn his head without pain, but he did manage to look up at the wall from which he had leaped, the wall that held the secret portal, and beyond it, Galathae. It was beyond his feet—or at least the one foot of the leg that wasn’t bent out to the side—looming above him. Teasing him.
He had to get back to her, but wasn’t sure it was possible.
Perhaps she would regain her sensibilities and use her healing powers to bolster herself and come for him. He thought back to her last words and wondered if she even knew he was in here.
He thought himself very foolish as he considered that—and did his best to ignore that he was practically praying to Galathae’s goddess himself—and began wondering about his next move when a torch appeared up high on the wall, likely coming in through the portal. For a moment, Zak’s heart leaped, thinking it Galathae. But no, it was held by a spectral hand, which blinked away.
The torch tumbled down, bouncing off jags in the stone, landing right beside Zak’s leg and immediately beginning to light his pants on fire.
He couldn’t reach it with his hand, so he drove the unbroken leg out to the side, ignoring the pain of the violent movement and the sting of the torch, pushing the flaming brand away.
He had to reach down and pat at his leg, so he did, again lighting internal fires of pain as he tried to make sure he didn’t begin to actually burn.
It took him some time to pat out the sparks, and longer still to settle back and catch his breath, forcing down the agony the many movements had brought.
Another torch held by another spectral hand appeared high above him.
“What madness is this?” he whispered helplessly.
The hand winked away and the torch bounced and flipped along the uneven wall, careening outward off one jag and falling free right for the prostrated man once more . . .
The healing spells of a dozen clerics washed over Galathae, strengthening her and sealing her wounds. She stood up with no trembling and stretched and shook her head to clear the last of her sleep. She came out of it with a short-lived smile before asking seriously, “Where is Zaknafein?”
“Yes, where?” Azzudonna volleyed back to the paladin.
Galathae wore a confused look, as if it had only then struck her that these other Callidaeans should not be in this place. “The mona allowed you to leave?”
“A tale for another time,” Azzudonna insisted, growing impatient. “Where is Zak?”
“I . . . we came out.”
“The portal,” Allefaero interjected.
“Do not go in there!” Galathae said as some of the others moved back toward the rope lying in the corridor.
Many gazes turned her way.
“It is the lair of a strange and powerful monster,” she explained. “An undead . . . a floating skull with a singular, huge eye. Magical powers, rays of energy . . .”
“A death tyrant,” said Allefaero, Callidae’s resident sage of all enemies monstrous. “An undead beholder. Formidable indeed from all that I have read.”
“Do not go in there,” Galathae repeated.
“Is Zak in there?” Azzudonna demanded.
Galathae stuttered for an answer, her head turning this way and that as if she was trying to remember all that had happened. In the end, she could only shrug
Azzudonna rushed for the rope and took it up.
“Nvisi!” Allefaero called. “Weal or woe?”
The diviner began muttering and tossed his rainbow gemstones. Before they could finish their dance in the air before him, Azzudonna half disappeared, leaning out of the corridor and into the extra-dimensional space beyond.
Nvisi’s cry of “Weal!” was barely heard, for Azzudonna’s head came back into view, the woman yelling for Avernil. “Hurry, priest!”
Then she was gone, turning about as she went into the extra-dimensional chamber, rappelling down the wall with the same agility and skills she had perfected in her years of patrolling the glacial walls housing the canyons that formed her homeland.
She felt the rope jostle a bit as someone took it up behind her, then heard a gasp and looked up to see the upper half of High Priest Avernil, the man on his belly, half in the hallway above, and half within this magical chamber.
Several light sources showed in the chamber, far below: that of Soliardis, muted as it was, stabbed through the solid bone of a giant skull; a few tiny beads of red glow, floating about the monstrosity; and the two torches below, one to the side of Zak, the other between his splayed legs, burning him, as he tried to maneuver his clearly broken form to be rid of it.
Azzudonna dropped the rest of the way to the floor and rushed for her lover.
Before she arrived, a heavy rain pelted down, a sudden, magical rush of water that quickly dimmed and extinguished the fires, leaving her in only the light of the magical sword and those curious floating beads. She dropped to her knees and crawled for Zak, quickly crouching beside him. “We’re here,” she whispered, her hands about his face, her eyes growing wet with tears. “We’re here, my love.”
A magical light filled the area, revealing the extent of the carnage: the destroyed skeletons and zombies, the destroyed death tyrant.
Avernil came down and nudged her away, beginning his healing spells.
Galathae was next. She fell over this man who had saved her life in the previous fight and lay her hand upon him, calling forth the greatest gift of her goddess, her most powerful blessing of healing.
Others fanned out about them, Allefaero going straight to the death tyrant and pulling forth his quill and book to begin making sketches and taking notes. He even managed to snatch a couple of the floating red orbs, and placed them away in a small and secure coffer that magically sealed.
More magical lights appeared about the chamber, the Callidaeans fanning out to defensive positions behind the stalagmites, weapons drawn, spells ready.
“What is this place?” someone asked.
“A lair,” Allefaero answered. “The lair of a death tyrant. Someone, I would presume our enemies from Menzoberranzan, placed an entry portal in the hallway to trap any coming from above to do battle against Lolth.”
“Might Jarlaxle and Drizzt be in here?” a very concerned Ayeeda asked.
“Unlikely,” Zaknafein said, sitting up, his voice strong once more. He shifted his leg back in from the side with only a minor grimace of pain, then stood, accepting help from Azzudonna. “If Jarlaxle and his band had fallen into this place, that monster would have been long destroyed, and the trap more clearly marked.”
“We tumbled in before we even realized it was here,” Galathae said.
“Then let us be away,” offered Avernil.
“No, not yet,” Zak said. “It’s a lair. You know what lairs have?”
“What?”
“Treasure.”
“We have a duty before us,” Avernil protested.
“And there might well be items in here that will aid in that duty, even if it is only coin that will bribe the unaffiliated drow of Menzoberranzan’s Stenchstreets to fight on our side. This is a practical matter, high priest, and not a matter of greed. The lair will unlikely be very large.”
“But there may be more monsters,” Galathae cautioned.
“Not for long,” said Zak, and he stepped over and tugged Soliardis from the skull and led the way toward the rear of the main chamber. “Set guards in the corridor above, and drop more ropes and a litter, if you can construct one. Let us clear this place quickly and be back on our way.”