'Noph?' cried Trandon. 'Noph!' He dropped to his knees and searched the ground with his hands, refusing to believe his eyes. 'Noph!'
At the sound of approaching footsteps, he looked up. The rest of the party stormed into the corridor and skidded to a halt.
'What's happened?' demanded Miltiades. 'Where are Able and Freeman Kastonoph?'
'Dead,' said Trandon.
'What happened?'
'We came upon fiends-tanar'ri, bar-lgura in a room with some sort of magical mirror in it. They caught Noph, but Able-'
Trandon's eyes brimmed and spilled over. 'Able called upon Tyr, and it was glorious! I've never seen such power! He saved us, but they got him, and then they got Noph. I killed the last ones, but it was too late, too late!' He bowed his head and wept. Tve never seen anything like it!' he insisted through his sobs.
Kern and Miltiades looked at one another; the latter smiled with brimming eyes. 'May Able be sitting by Tyr's side even as we speak,' he intoned. 'I knew he'd make it.'
Somewhere in the distant complex, a fearsome cry went up. The screams of a hundred evil things filled the corridors, followed by the sound of a stampede.
'Whatever it is, it's coming this way!' shouted Jacob.
'Tyr's blessings on us all!' declared Miltiades.
Interlude 5
No one succeeds without a little bit of good fortune, and the luckier you are, the smarter your stupid plans look.
Kastonoph lay on his side before the gate to the Utter East. His wrists were bound to his ankles behind him, and his body was racked with agony from arching backward so sharply. So much for his service to Khelben and Piegeiron. So much for his heroism. Shaakat and Rejik had trussed him up and tossed him upon the platform and were laboring to reestablish control over the remaining manes and bar-lgura around them. When the wailing of the troops finally subsided, the vrocks turned their attention to their human captive, helpless and useless.
'How is this gate activated?' boomed Shaakat's voice within Noph's head.
'Get out of my mind, fiend! I won't tell you!' snarled the young man.
'Then you do know,' said Rejik, aloud. 'Open your mind, human. Open it to us…'
A wave of bitter magic washed over Noph, scrambling his mind, obliterating thoughts of his predicament. Through the nauseating jumble in his mind, it occurred to him that he should cooperate with the fiends and tell them what they wanted to know.
'Bid the gate to open in the name of the past and present Lords of Waterdeep,' he told them. 'That will activate it.'
'Well done, slave,' thought Shaakat to the magically charmed prisoner. 'Now tell us, what manner of creatures are your friends in shining armor who vexed us?'
'Paladins of Tyr.'
'Tyr!' shrieked both fiends as though they'd been slapped.
'A greater power of Mount Celestial' squealed Rejik.
'They seek this gate as well,' offered Noph. 'They'll be here soon, too. Perhaps we can all work together.'
The vrocks looked down at Noph, then up at each other, and burst into fits of laughter. Around them, the manes chittered and slapped at each other playfully, and the bar-lgura shifted to the walls of the chamber. Using their chameleonlike ability, they blended with their surroundings.
'Here's the plan,' thought Shaakat to Rejik. 'We'll lay down a warding circle against creatures of law and goodness. You maintain it while the troops attack and I cast deadly magic until they're all dead!'
'Agreed, agreed! They can't survive that!'
In hedonistic anticipation of slaughter, they bent their wills upon the lesser tanar'ri once more and began to organize them for the ambush.
Chapter 6
'Khelben was right when he said there was a great force of evil at work here,' whispered Miltiades.
The group lurked down the hall from the gate chamber, listening to the riot of fiends within. Miltiades handed Khelben's map to Aleena, who tucked it into a pocket. 'The gate to the Utter East is just ahead, and it sounds as if the fiends are massing there. They must be involved in the kidnapping plot. They've probably been stationed there to intercept us!'
'So much the better,' hissed Kern, hefting his hammer and gazing toward the noise with a glint in his eye. 'Save a princess and destroy fiends! Tyr blesses us this day!'
“For the last time, she's not a princess!' moaned Aleena, rolling her eyes and shaking her head in exasperation.
'Whatever.'
'We can't simply rush in there and start swinging,' protested Trandon. 'We have no idea of how many fiends we're up against.'
Kern frowned at the warrior. 'We know they stand between us and our quest, and we know the longer we wait, the more of them there will be to destroy. What more does a champion of Tyr need to know?'
'Nothing,' agreed Jacob.
'All right,' said Miltiades, ending the discussion with the tone of his voice. 'The enemy is before us and our course is clear. Prepare for battle.'
'Wait!' Aleena cried in a hushed voice. 'Trandon's got a point. That sounds like an army of fiends in there.'
Kern and Jacob groaned impatiently. Miltiades looked at her with an expression that reminded her that he used to be undead.
'Stop!' she hissed. 'Look here. I've got a spell that'll let me look in that room and see what we're up against.'
'I don't want to know the odds,' whispered Kern.
'But intelligence can help us win the battle, or at least win it more quickly, with less casualties! That helps secure our mission. Remember? To save the princess?' She spat the last word with scorn.
'Shh!' cautioned Miltiades. 'We waste time. Aleena cast your spell quickly and conduct your espionage. The rest of you prepare for the charge.'
'And,' added Kern, 'she's not a princess.'
Aleena took a deep breath to quell her rising irritation. As she released the air from her lungs, she reached into a narrow pocket at her hip and withdrew a bit of bat fur, which she ripped in half and placed into each palm. She rolled back her eyes and shut them, clenched her fists and touched the knuckles of her thumbs together, then pressed them against her full lips. She bowed her head and whispered into her closed hands. They began to glow red from the inside, as though each held a brilliantly illuminated pearl.
Without opening her eyes, Aleena looked down the corridor, toward the gate chamber. She briefly glanced down at her companions, who gazed at her face intently, unaware that she now looked upon them from above, with an invisible magical eye. Her sight turned back toward the rough, slightly curving corridor ahead and moved that way.
Aleena's eye paused at the entrance of the room, as she mentally gasped. The area would be dark but for the kaleidoscopic glow of the gate itself, at the far end of the chamber, which threw eerie light upon a room filled to the corners with fiends. She looked over a stormy sea of mindless, murderous manes. They crowded within the confines of the chamber, pushing, shoving and biting. Curiously, the manes refused to spill into the corridor, though no door
