started for the door.
'Where do you think you're going?' Kyana demanded.
“To help my friends,' he declared fiercely.
'And what do you propose we do with them?' she asked quietly, nodding her head toward the prisoners gathered in the antechamber. 'Return them to their cells?'
Tyveris glared at her. Then his shoulders slumped. Again, the thief was right. He couldn't turn his back on the prisoners. No, he had to trust that Man, Caledan, and the others could take care of themselves. He had his own job to do now.
'All right,' he said gruffly. 'We'll go on as planned, without Mari. But I'm not much of a warrior nowadays, Kyana. You're going to have to take charge.'
'Oh, no, you don't,' Kyana said slyly. 'They're looking to you, monk, not me.' All faces turned expectantly toward Tyveris.
He swallowed hard. I will lead them, but I will not kill, he vowed inwardly. I gave you my promise, Tali, my sister. I promised you there would be no more killing.
'All right, then,' he growled. 'Let's go.'
Despite the weeks and even months each of them had spent laboring beneath the Tor, the cityfolk moved with a speed and energy that amazed Tyveris. With Kyana and Talim scouting ahead, they made their way past the slime-covered walls of the corridor, toward the heart of the dungeon. They moved as stealthily as they could, with the brave, though pale and haggard, faces of people determined to win their freedom or die.
The group came to a corridor leading off to a block of cells, and Talim and Kyana swiftly picked the locks on the iron doors. Tyveris quickly explained to the newly-freed prisoners what they intended to do. 'If you do not wish, you do not have to come with us,' the loremaster said. When they left the block, however, not a prisoner chose to remain behind.
It was at the next block of cells that they encountered several guards, three dungeon warders, gambling with dice of polished bone. The first two died before they realized what was transpiring, one with Kyana's saber in his heart, the other with Talim's dagger in his back. The third tried to shout an alarm as he scrambled for his sword, but his cry was strangled into silence as a trio of crossbow bolts buried themselves in his throat and chest.
Tyveris whirled in surprise to see three of the cityfolk reloading their crossbows. He reminded himself not to underestimate these courageous people.
One of the guards had a ring of keys at his belt, and these made the task of freeing the prisoners quicker. The thieves of the Purple Masks Guild had hidden several caches of weapons in lesser-used parts of the dungeon, and one of these was nearby. Soon Tyveris found he had over a hundred cityfolk crowding the corridor behind him, each with a weapon in
One of the prisoners, an older woman with steel-gray hair and eyes to match, said something when Tyveris helped her from her cell that seemed to speak for all the cityfolk. 'The wheel is turning,' she said in her worn voice. 'The captors become the captives, and the prisoners fly free once again. If one soul perishes in the wheel's turning, such is the way of things. The wheel cannot be stopped. We must shed our tears, and then go on.'
And go on they did.
'We need to be even more careful now,' Kyana said to Tyveris as once again they started down the corridor. 'The dungeon's central chamber is not far ahead. That's where there are likely to be the most Zhentarim.'
''How many?' Tyveris asked gravely.
'According to Ferret's reports, at least a score of them,' Kyana said. 'The numbers are on our side.'
They encountered another pair of guards as they approached the central chamber, but the cityfolk dispatched them swiftly and silently. Tyveris motioned for the prisoners to hang back while he, Kyana, and Talim crept forward toward the glow of torches.
From Ferret's reports, they knew that most of the cell blocks were arranged around the dungeon's central chamber almost like the spokes of a wheel. Tyveris and the two thieves moved silently as they approached the open doorway. Beyond was a walkway with a stone balustrade. Staying close to the floor, the three eased forward until they could peer down toward the large, circular chamber below them. Tyveris barely managed to stifle an oath.
The stone-walled room was filled with guards.
There was not a score of them, but rather five times that number. And all of them were armed. Tyveris could see the stairwell leading up to the tower no more than fifty feet away, but it might as well have been a hundred miles for the sea of guards blocking their way. He looked at Kyana in desperation. The thief shook her head.
'It appears we were expected,' was all she said.
Caledan was not certain how far beneath the Old City they had descended, but he knew they must be deep within the heart of the Tor.
Ravendas moved through the rough-hewn tunnel at a swift pace, Snake following subserviently on her heels. Caledan, Estah, Ferret, and Man stumbled along after Ravendas. Their hands were bound tightly behind their backs with leather thongs; their ankles had been hobbled with heavy rope so that they could not run. A dozen cruel-faced Zhentarim warriors trod behind the four, pushing them roughly onward each time one of them hesitated. Behind the warriors walked Morhion, his face as cold as granite.
Without warning the rocky passageway widened, and the odd party of friends and enemies came to an abrupt halt. They stood in a sort of antechamber, a roughly square room perhaps two dozen paces in width. Acrid, smoking torches lined the walls of dark, jagged stone, and piles of rubble littered the corners. However, Caledan barely saw any of this, for instantly his attention was fixed on the door. The portal dominated the far wall of the antechamber. It was a slab of perfect, unblemished onyx, as tall as two men and as wide as six abreast.
“The crypt of the Shadowking,' Caledan whispered in awe.
'Indeed,' Ravendas purred. 'My greatest triumph lies within.' She tossed aside her dark robe and stood before the door resplendent in a silken gown as deep and rich in hue as dried blood. 'The time has come.'
She clapped her hands, and two Zhentarim stepped from a dim alcove Caledan had not noticed. By their deep purple robes and the disturbing, misshapen symbols that hung about their necks, Caledan guessed these Zhents were priests of some sort. Between them stood a small figure clad in a velvet tunic. It was the boy, Kellen.
Caledan felt his throat tighten. The boy looked up at him with his wide, dark-lashed eyes. He knows! Caledan thought suddenly. He was certain of it. For a moment he saw a look of pleading in the boy's deep green eyes. Then Ravendas approached her son and brushed his pale cheek with a solitary finger.
'Your time draws near, my son,' Ravendas said in her crystalline voice. Kellen nodded slowly but said nothing. He clutched a set of polished reed pipes tightly in his hands. Mari, Estah, and Ferret regarded the boy with surprise. None of them had known Ravendas had a son. But they still don't know the full truth, Caledan thought bitterly. 'There is one last thing,' Ravendas said. She stepped forward and reached inside Caledan's leather jerkin, drawing out the set of pipes that he had concealed in an inner pocket. 'I know you still have not discovered the secret of the shadow song, but then, I do not care to take unnecessary chances.' She dropped the pipes on the stone floor and ground them under her heel until they were nothing more than splinters.
Caledan could not help but wince. That was the first set of pipes he had ever made, and the truest. He had brought them along as a last-ditch hope, in the event he somehow managed to discover the secret of the shadow song.
'You're a fool, Ravendas,' Caledan said harshly. 'You've always been a fool. You'll do anything for power. But it's a desire that blinds you.' He nodded his head toward Snake. 'So how do you intend to kill her, Snake?' he asked in a cutting voice. 'I suppose you don't need her or the Zhentarim any longer, now that the crypt has been found. Ravendas would just stand in the way of your ultimate plans, wouldn't she? Why don't you just kill her now and get it over with?'
'I am afraid you are quite mistaken,' Snake replied in his sibilant voice. His eyes were flat, his face emotionless.
'Stop this idiocy!' Ravendas snapped. 'I will hear it no longer. All my servants obey my will and my will alone, Caldorien. As will you.' A blotch of color touched each of her pale cheeks.
She is uncertain, Caledan thought. He had planted the seeds of doubt in her heart, and they had taken
