lips together and shook his head. 'Not good,' he murmured, eyeing the gnome. Then, to Wykar's surprise, he shrugged as if the matter were of no consequence. 'Geppo go. Geppo get golds, you get egg-if golds and egg not gone, you say. We… look out for each other, hey.' He gave his twisted smile again and clapped his hands softly together as if sealing the agreement. 'We do.'
Wykar blinked. He hadn't expected the derro to capitulate so quickly and with so little trouble. Wykar had been prepared to argue, plead, bluff, threaten, swear oaths, and even offer Geppo a little treasure up front, giving up a few tiny rubies he had hidden within his vest and belt. Geppo's agreeability was almost breathtaking. Derro were so befouled with greed and ambition that no one expected anything good from them.
Then again, Wykar had been imprisoned with Geppo for over two hundred sleepings, not long in a deep gnome's life but long enough to become familiar with most of the derro's personal quirks. Geppo's quirks hinted that he was not a normal derro.
For one thing, Geppo never lied. He exaggerated a bit at times, but he never lied. Geppo was also rather talkative, even after the drow youth tried to garrote him, going on about how hungry he was, what his father would have done with these drow, or his beliefs about the personal habits of the drow priestess who owned both Wykar and Geppo. Most strangely for a derro, Geppo had never threatened Wykar with anything more than words when they grabbed at the rotting scraps tossed into their cramped stone prison by their priestess-owner. Geppo had reserved violence only until the moment their escape was within reach, even then, it was directed only at his captors.
Wykar had become puzzled by Geppo's basically mild behavior, given that every other derro displayed far worse. The only reason he had impulsively asked the derro to meet with him and join him on this mission was that the gnome had a gut feeling Geppo would be pliable enough to go along with the strangest demands. Maybe Geppo was stringing Wykar along, pretending to be a partner while plotting betrayal, but Wykar didn't think so.
Every hero needs a fool, went a saving in the Underdark. How very true.
Wykar took a deep breath. There was only one thing more to do. It guaranteed nothing, but Wykar had always been a firm believer in having a contract. Sometimes you even found someone who would actually stick to it.
Wykar reached down and pulled his long blade free of its sheath. He did it slowly, noting Geppo's startled movement for his own blade. The polished metal of the gnome's weapon was stained red with protective oils and gleamed even in fungi-light. The blade had been forged by the gold dwarves, many sleepings ago and far away. Its handle was a yellow foot bone from a minotaur lizard, set on either side with a small but flawless ruby. Wykar took the long, heavy dagger by the tip of its blade, fingers away from its edge, and set it on the ground, its handle pointing toward the derro. Geppo looked down as he gripped the hilt of his own blade.
'We must trade weapons,' Wykar said. 'So long as we have each other's blade, we are sworn not to kill or harm each other. You and I both must swear to this by all the gods. Then we will go together and do our work.'
Geppo stared at Wykar's weapon, lips parted in mild surprise. He looked up at the deep gnome several times, bit his upper lip, then slowly made a decision. He pulled his long dagger free of its poor sheath and gently tossed the blade so that it landed on the stony ground next to Wykar's dagger, its hilt aimed in the gnome's direction. In the glowfans' light, Wykar saw that the derro's weapon was old and had been much used-recently scavenged from a body in the Underdark, no doubt. Dark flakes clung to the steel blade, which showed signs of rust and corrosion. The handle once had an elaborate inlay, now fallen out, and the very tip of the blade was broken off. But the notched edge was keen and bright-sharper, likely, than Wykar's own blade. The derro knew his way around a whetstone.
The derro waited in anxious uncertainty. Wykar noticed that the pale dwarf kept one hand close to the crossbow butt at his side. Well, that was to be expected. This was new for them both. The deep gnome touched his forehead, nose, right ear, and heart, then carefully named a host of five deities and their spheres of interest in gnomish life. Not a one of them was real, but a derro wouldn't know that. It was then his turn to wait.
Licking his lips, Geppo mumbled his way through a short litany in a deep, guttural tongue. All the while, he stared down at the blades. Wykar knew a smattering of Underdark tongues, the derro tongue among them, but he recognized only a few words: bapda for father, gorin for oath. The derro stopped when he was through, uncertainty still crossing his face, and looked up at Wykar. The gnome nodded as if well satisfied, concealing his real thoughts on the matter. For all he knew, the derro had just taken a blood oath to kill the gnome like a rat. It was irrelevant. The act bought a little time of peace between them, and that was the real heart of the issue.
At a nod from Wykar, the derro and the gnome reached down and took each other's weapon. As they did, Wykar conjured up a complete mental picture of how he could snatch his own knife first and cut through the muscles of the derro's white arm in less than an eye blink, then he would thrust the weapon forward into his opponent's face and end the life of this miserable creature. The picture was perfect and clear, and Wykar instinctively believed the derro was thinking the very same thing.
But this was Geppo, the odd one, Geppo, who never lied-not a real derro foe. Wykar easily thrust all thought of treachery aside. There was still much left to do, and he desperately needed the derro. If there was to be treachery, he was content to let the derro make the first move-at least for now.
A thin white hand and a small but thick gray one quietly lifted each other's weapon from the ground. Each creature looked over his partner's blade, then carefully sheathed it and checked the fit. The deed was done, for whatever it was worth.
'We must leave now,' said Wykar.
Seventeen years and a hundred twelve days passed under the golden lights of Raurogh's Hall, far above the gnome and derro, and peace was at an end. A fisher dwarf mending a net by the riverside heard the first crack of rock shifting and splitting.
She froze in her work, startled, then dropped her net and lay flat, placing her ear to the ground as she held her breath. Even through the roaring of the falls and the tremor the cascade sent through the earth, random clicks and pops could be heard in the stone. And the air above the rock had a new smell, a broken-stone and lightning odor that the fisher dwarf had never before sensed but had often heard tell of in old legends of horror. She clumsily got to her feet and ran to seize an iron-headed gaff beside a metal pot.
The other dwarves of Raurogh's Hall had ceased their work to look about uncertainly for the source of the sharp crack they heard come from all directions around them. A moment later, a high, rhythmic clanging of metal against metal was heard. Some dwarves recognized the ancient signal and shouted the alarm. The others heard and as one flung down their tools in rising panic, quickly awakening those who were still abed. Without delay, the hundred dwarves packed themselves into sheltered corners or beneath narrow doorways, their backs pressed tight to the stone and teeth clenched in preparation. The broken-rock odor was everywhere now, disaster was certain. The dwarves' lips moved in prayer to their ancient gods. Mere seconds later, the earthquake struck.
The garden of glowing fungi had come to Wykar's mind when he had asked Geppo to meet with him later, after their unexpected escape from the drow. The fungus garden was reasonably close to the Sea of Ghosts, where the gold, the egg, and their former masters now lay, and the garden could be reached only through a high narrow tunnel that could not be seen from the main cavern passage known as the Old River Path. Wykar grimaced as he remembered that he had been captured only a mile down the great corridor while on his way to see the garden again, which he had discovered in his youth. The silent dark elves had then taken him to a small drow enclave about three sleepings away by fast march. It was unlikely the drow had known of the garden, they had never mentioned it.
Wykar now descended the rough cave wall down from the tunnel to the garden, rappeling quickly by rope. When he again set foot on the sandy floor of the Old River Path, Wykar stepped back and scanned his surroundings for danger. No new smells, sounds, or sights-excellent. Luminescent fungi on the ceiling cast a faint green light over all. The wide hall had held a river many thousands of sleepings ago, but some race had rechanneled the water miles back to form the Sea of Ghosts. Many kingdoms, wars, and slaughters later, someone else had channeled the water away from the great sea, and the sea had slowly drained ever since then through cracks in its bed or walls. At some point many sleepings in the future, the Sea of Ghosts would itself be a ghost, a monstrous dry chamber miles and miles across, where albino fish and uglier things had stirred its black surface. It would be interesting then to see how many bones-and whose- the sea had hidden over the long years.
Once the derro had descended from the fungus garden and the rope was flipped loose and put away, Wykar took the lead toward their destination. Geppo agreeably followed a dozen paces behind, saying nothing and
