she started to pull off her cloak. Soon Pryce held both clasps in his hand.
“I saw a grating of some sort a couple of feet down the entry tube,” Pryce explained. “It had specific markings on it, like a rune or a code of some sort.” He turned the clasps this way and that in his palm. “Looking directly at it, it seemed to be four esoterically designed letters, one on top of the other: U, V, 0, and W.”
“Use Virtue Open Wall?” Dearlyn said immediately. Both men stared at her. Then they looked at the wall in anticipation. Nothing happened.
“We could play that game all day,” Gheevy commented. “Useless Violence Obscures Wonder. Ultimate Victory Or Woe. Untold Victims Obviously Worried”
Pryce interrupted, making it clear that this game was at an end. “I think it’s some kind of a special lock that needs an aligning key.” He took Dearlyn’s clasp, which had her initials outlined in flower petals, and turned it sideways to the left. The A was now on top, and when it was tipped slightly, an extra flower petal seemed to lengthen the Crosshatch of the A. The D looked like a J7with a line across the top.
“You-vee,” Gheevy formed the sound. “But what about the W?”
“I’ll give you the ‘ow’ in a second if you don’t keep quiet,” Pryce warned, the tension beginning to make him giddy. He held up Darlington Blade’s clasp, turned it sideways and to the left, then all the way around. The D and B created from the thorns became a half oval and a rounded W. “Put them both together” which he did”and they spell” “You-vow,” Gheevy said admiringly.
Dearlyn nodded proudly. “Of course my father would want us to work together. It’s just like him!”
Pryce looked at her with concern before continuing. “Now to put my theory to the test.” He stepped toward the wall, then stopped and turned back. “No one with a thinner arm, I suppose, would be interested?… No, I had better do this myself.”
He put the two clasps side by side in his hand, surprised by how naturally they seemed to fit together. The flower petals and the thorns seemed to link together in position, maintaining the oddly designed U-V-O-W’m place. With his other hand, Pryce gripped the lip of the hole he knew was there and started to pull himself up. “Gheevy,” he grunted. “I need a solid surface to stand on to position the clasps just right.”
The halfling rolled his eyes. It had been an eventful night already, and he was weary… not to mention irritable. “And I suppose you want my back as that solid surface?”
Dearlyn looked down at him with reproach. “Don’t be petty,” she admonished. “If you won’t do it, I will!” She was already on one knee when the halfling stopped her.
“All right, all right. I’ll do it. Just wait a moment, would you?” Gheevy got down on all fours and placed his side against the rock wall. “Very well, Blade. Go ahead.”
Pryce grabbed the upper rock protrusion, then stepped on Wotfirr’s back. “All right?” he inquired, to which the halfling grunted in the affirmative. Covington found himself gritting his teeth. If he was wrong, there was no predicting what might happen. At the very least, he could probably say good-bye to his arm. So, under his breath, he did. Then he cautiously put that selfsame arm down the tube, holding the clasps out before him.
Pryce grimaced, then winked as sweat rolled into his eyes. Soon his arm was completely inside the rock, his muscles straining. “Anything?” Gheevy asked.
“Not… yet,” Pryce grunted, but then the top of the clasps touched the grating and were sucked from Covington’s fingers with an audible clanking sound.
Pryce leapt down from the wall as if the tube had ejected his arm. As he hit the opposite wall, they all heard a hum, then a grinding of gears.
Pryce rose to his feet, holding on to the opposite wall for support. They all watched, amazed, as a section of the cave wall swung out like a vault door.
The edge of the swinging partition just flicked the end of Pryce’s nose, but it swept the kneeling halfling along like a broom sweeping up a particularly annoying dust ball. “Darling-ton!” Gheevy cried in fear. Pryce was grateful that, even in what could have been his last seconds on Toril, the halfling hadn’t revealed his true identity.
Just as it seemed that Wotfirr would be crushed against the rock wall, the partition ground to a stop.
The halfling rolled one way and the illumination orb he had been holding rolled another. Dearlyn ran forward to gather Gheevy up in her arms, while Pryce nimbly caught the orb and slipped it into his pocket. Then his eyes widened and he caught his breath. He remained stock still, standing before the opening, taking in the room that was revealed beyond.
Within moments, all three stopped moving, talking, or even breathing as they got their first look at the secret workshop of Geerling Ambersong.
It was a room dug out of the very earth beyond the cave wall, a section of which served as the door. All the furniture was made of stone, the chairs made comfortable with thick, comfortable-looking, ornately decorated pillows. There were stone tables and stone shelves, some attached to the wall and supported by stone legs and braces, while others seemed to float of their own accord. There was a modicum of solid and liquid refreshmenteven some barrels from Schredersbut mostly every surface was covered with spellbooks and magical items. It was what Dearlyn Ambersong had dreamt of all her life. She looked as if she were about to faint.
Large roughly bound volumes featured the engraved A of the Ambersong family on their covers. They were all crammed with different-colored parchment, detailing spells and conjuring not yet imagined. There were models of an Ambersong skyship, hovering in the air near the stone ceiling like heavenly stars. There was even a girdle of priestly might, glowing with unknown power, standing of its own accord on a rock shelf.
There were beakers, bottles and tubes of every color, shape, size, and consistencysome made of glass, some of gems, some of wood, and some of steel. Inside were powders, liquids, beads, and flakes of every imaginable magical necessity. It was all so amazing and impressive that it took several seconds before the three explorers noticed something incongruous on the floor.
Lying on its face, in the middle of the room, was a motionless human body.
CHAPTER TEN
Six eyes settled on the body at the same time. Two mouths below four of the eyes spoke not a word, but Dearlyn broke the stony silence.
“Father?”
No answer.
When the wall had opened, illumination spells had been activated, and a comforting glow bathed everything, including the unmoving figure, in soft light. The figure on the floor was swathed in thick, rich crimson and jade clothing, complete with a full cape, high boots, and a furlined cowl. The three onlookers hesitated to enter the workshop for individual reasons. Pryce, for one, couldn’t help wondering what magical defenses might lie beyond the open partition.
Then, as if on cue, the cloak clasps popped out of the grate in the wall. Gheevy let out a little cry of surprise as they heard the clasps disconnect and start to roll the rest of the way through the tube. Without thinking, Pryce stepped forward to catch them as they slipped out of a little round hole in the other side of the open partition.
Dearlyn looked at Pryce anxiously. By way of answering, Pryce tossed one clasp over to her and quickly started to reattach Blade’s clasp to his cloak. Dearlyn caught hers in one hand. Gheevy just stood there, nonplussed.
Pryce looked at Gheevy. Gheevy looked at Dearlyn. They all looked back at the body. Then they all took their first tentative steps toward the prone form together.
Only when they were all huddled around the form was there another tentative pause. The woman and the halfling looked directly at Covingtonthe former with hope and the latter with dread.
Pryce felt compelled to say something, but his brain warned him to keep quiet. There was no way anything he said would have a positive effect… not until he knew whose body this was. Carefully Pryce placed his hand beneath the figure’s shoulder and, with a certainty of purpose, pulled.
To his embarrassment, Pryce could hardly move the figure. If this was Dearlyn’s father, he had been eating and drinking way too much. Pryce braced himself by laying his other hand flat on the floor then used all his strength
