He held the amulet and laughed and laughed.
'This is very good,' he said, chuckling. 'He's following my lures. He has discovered the entrance in the elven tower.
'Oh, he's on his way. The Spelljammer soon will die.'
The Fool laughed. 'Who is the fool now?' he cackled. 'Who is the fool now?'
Chapter Twenty-Five
'… I have had the same dream now for seven nights. In each, I walk to the head of the Spelljammer and call out into the air. The birds are singing a pretty song, even though we have no birds. My husband appears from underneath the bow. His eyes are black. 'In my last dream, he held out a ring for me to take. I woke and found the ring on my finger. 'I am doomed. 'My husband disappeared three years ago. 'The ring will not come off…'
The illumination from the warrior band's light rods cast a warm glow upon the pale, purplish walls of the warrens. The walls felt spongy, almost warm to the touch, and Teldin understood why the warrens were sometimes called the veins, for they spread throughout the Spelljammer's body in a series of seemingly endless tunnels, twisting as though they were meant for lifeblood to course through them.
The tunnels widened once the warriors had made their way deeper into the ship, and they walked side by side, their weapons at the ready. Splotches of phosphorescent moonwort on the walls absorbed the light from their rods and glowed steadily after they had passed. Teldin, in the lead, paused occasionally at intersections, trying to peer as far as he could down the joining tunnels.
'How do you know where you're going?' Djan asked.
'I don't. I'm just trying to follow whatever trail I can find,' Teldin said. 'He's been down here a long time. I'm just looking for, well, a trail of darkness, I suppose.'
'So you're going on instinct,' CassaRoc offered.
'That's what I said.'
'Do you feel anything from your amulet?'
Teldin caught CassaRoc's gaze and looked down. The glow from the amulet had ceased once they had passed into the warrens, and Teldin could feel nothing from it, as though its powers were muted down here. 'No, nothing,' Teldin said, 'nothing at all.'
Stardawn concentrated. Magic ran through his elven veins, and he reached out with a minor spell of detection. He pointed with his sword down a tunnel. 'Farther in that direction. The taint comes from there.'
They proceeded farther down. At one intersection, Teldin caught a wisp of black smoke curling in the distance, and he led the warriors toward it. At another intersection, each connecting tunnel except one was thickly layered with phosphorescent lichen. He chose the dark tunnel.
The Fool had designed his trap very well. '
Teldin led them down the tunnel, his light rod held high. The lichen here glowed red and brown, as though diseased. The tunnel walls seemed to close in, tapering so that the warriors could walk only in single file. The light from the rods seemed to grow dimmer, as though the brightness were being absorbed by the lining of the walls, or countered with a lasting spell of darkness.
'I don't like this,' Djan said behind Teldin. 'I don't like this at all.'
'You think I-' Then Teldin clutched his chest and staggered against the wall. His mind went cold. Pinpricks of ice tingled across his chest. 'Cold,' he said weakly. 'It-it's calling me, and it can't.. sense me here in the warrens. It is searching for me, but it hurts! '
The group stopped and waited while Teldin relaxed and the pain of the Spelljammer's summons faded. Then they started forward again as Teldin regained his composure, and they trudged steadily deeper.
Teldin knew they were close when he saw a thin layer of black mist curling around his feet. He stopped the group and warned them. 'Can you feel that?' he asked. The air was chill and reeked of rotting flesh. 'We're near his lair, I'm sure. Be ready for anything.'
He stepped into the mist. It curled coldly up his legs as he led the party in, then it rose higher with every step, until it was so thick that they could not see before them.
Teldin's senses told him that they had stepped out of a tunnel and into some kind of chamber. He tensed, his ears alert. In the darkness, the light from the rods was practically insignificant, swallowed by the black mist, and he heard rustling, almost like the soft, shuffling footsteps of others, from somewhere deep in the mist around them.
He felt the rustle of a breeze on his arms, then the mist swirled and eddied around them, borne on a cold wind that sprang from some unknown source. Their light rods spread warm, yellow light upon nests of crumbling blankets and broken bones, into the narrow entrances of other tunnels, and upon weapons and chests and leather pouches heaped against the far wall. Teldin picked up a pair of discarded short swords and looked them over.
'Well, we've found something,' CassaRoc said, staring at the wooden chest. He stepped forward cautiously and kneeled. He opened a chest, and the light from his rod was reflected in a million sparkles upon his face.
'Gold,' he said softly. 'Gold.'
The chest was packed with gold and silver coins, with necklaces and amulets, brooches and bracelets. He plucked out a gold ring boasting an opaque green stone that bore a diamond-shaped carving, with angles emanating from two points. He smiled and pocketed the ring, then lifted out a dazzling necklace encrusted with rubies and emeralds. In the center, a silver disk had been engraved with symbols and jewels, and CassaRoc held it up to the light.
Teldin noticed the warrior's uncustomary frown. 'What is it?' he queried.
'I know this necklace,' CassaRoc said. 'This used to belong to a fighter of mine.'
'Damn!' Na'Shee shouted behind them. 'That's Chel's! I know her!'
CassaRoc turned. 'Knew her. She died when you arrived here, Teldin.'
Teldin said nothing.
CassaRoc gave Na'Shee the necklace, while Stardawn and Djan looked through the chest. CassaRoc waved his sword around. 'What is this place?' he asked.
'I don't know,' Teldin said. 'It looks like someone has been staying here.' He picked up one of the bones on the floor. 'I don't like their eating habits, though. This is a human bone.'
They all heard them then, closing in from the intersecting tunnels. The gold and silver and jewels were forgotten in the rush to bring weapons to bear, to arrange themselves defensively in a circle as their assailants shambled in from the tunnels around them.
'The undead,' CassaRoc announced.
The warriors were quickly surrounded by a score of the undead. Most were human; two were elves, and three were halflings. Some bore swords and daggers, ready to use them, albeit awkwardly, with a semblance of living memory. Most just stared hungrily at the intruders, ready to kill by tooth and jagged bone.
'
'This was a trap,' Na'Shee said. 'We were suckered in.' Then one shape stepped from the farthest tunnel and stood in the entrance. Its teeth gleamed wickedly in the yellow light as it hissed with sadistic laughter. Its fur was mottled with blood, with the colors of the spectrum layered in dizzying patterns across its obscene body. An intricate series of circles was painted on its forehead.
'Trapped,' the undead Coh said, snapping at them with his sharp yellow teeth. 'Compliments of the Fool.'
The zombie neogi turned then and plunged into the surrounding wall of mist.
The undead swarmed upon them.
The living sliced their way through the ranks of the undead with incredible ferocity. CassaRoc swore constantly as his sword cleaved through bone and dead flesh, severing heads and arms without conscious thought.
