Tanis squinted and saw a vague outline about twenty feet down the spiraling hallway. Taking a half-dozen quick steps, he reached out a hand to touch the wooden surface. He groped around the left side for a knob.
"Wait!" whispered Tasslehoff, elbowing his way past Selana to Tanis's side. "You never just walk up and rattle a strange door, especially not in a place like this. It could be trapped or rigged with an alarm or all kinds of things." The kender rifled through a pouch and quickly found what he needed, then set about the delicate task of searching for springs, wires, latches, balance points, and a host of other hazards his companions could barely guess at.
Tanis was glad for the darkness, because he was blushing with embarrassment. He had been so anxious to get somewhere, anywhere, that he'd forgotten his common sense. Only a rank amateur charged through a door under such foreboding circumstances.
"I think it's clean," pronounced Tas at last, "but it was locked. You never can be too careful. Why, once my mother's eldest brother's eldest boy, Old Uncle Latchlifter—actually, that would make him my cousin, wouldn't it? Why do you suppose we called him uncle, then? Anyway, Old Uncle Latchlifter—not Uncle Trapspringer, who's far too clever about such things—Uncle Latchlifter got careless picking a lock. Kablooey! Of course, you only have to do that sort of thing once, don't you?"
"Open the door, Tas," Tanis ordered in a monotone.
"Certainly." Tas pushed it open and stepped through. "Before he died, Old Uncle Latchlifter was a great one for giving advice. 'Never hit your mother with a shovel,' he used to tell me. 'It leaves a big impression on her mind.' " Moved by the memory, Tasslehoff shook his topknot. "Poor Uncle Latchlifter. He was as crazy as a bugbear, you know."
Beyond the doorway was a small room, not more than ten feet by fifteen, with a ceiling so low as to make even the dwarf feel he should duck his head. Another, smaller door was set into the far wall. The room was very nearly empty, with only several large urns and some scrap lumber piled neatly in one corner and a crudely built, closed box the size of a very large trunk on the floor in the corner near the other door.
Selana wrinkled her nose in distaste. "It smells like something died in here."
"Probably rats," said Tanis, his breath lingering before him in moist, white wisps.
Selena unconsciously moved a bit closer to the half-elf. "Bes schedal," she whispered, and a dim glow, its source undetectable, immediately filled the room with amber fog. The sea elf shivered under her thin cloak as she scanned the floor for movement. "We must be quite far underground."
Flint shuddered as well, though not from the cold or the thought of rodents. "This place gives me the willies," he confessed. "The bracelet's obviously not down here, so let's—"
"Great Reorx!"
Tanis, Flint, and Selana all jumped at Tasslehoff's curse. Spinning about, they saw him at the wooden box, his hand on the now half-opened lid.
"This is where that awful stench is coming from." Throwing his shoulder into the task, the kender was working at prying the lid the rest of the way off.
"Wait, Tas—" Tanis began, but his warning came too late.
Grunting with exertion, Tasslehoff flung the wooden cover back and looked into the box. His eyes went wide with wonder, then watered up from the smell, until he had to blink back tears to see.
"A body!" he coughed. "Boy, is it disgusting, all blue and puffy-looking. Come and take a look."
Flint and Tanis both glanced at Selana, who was holding her stomach and looking more pale than usual.
"Tas, shut the lid. We're getting out of here now" the half elf ordered, taking Selana by the arm and steering her back to the door.
Tas was peering intently at the body inside the box. "Something about this guy seems very familiar, Tanis," he muttered. "Short, fat, pug-nosed—"
Flint, who was about to severely chastise the kender, recognized the description, too. Taking a deep breath and holding it, he stepped to within three feet of the stinking box, looked in, and nodded firmly. "I'd bet my favorite axe that he's our man."
Despite her revulsion, Selena's ears perked up. "Someone check for the bracelet!"
Tas leaned into the box eagerly.
"Oh, no you don't," warned Flint in a low voice. He took the kender by the arm and escorted him back to the door through which they had entered the room. "You're not going to touch that bracelet again, if I have anything to say about it. And I do. You stay out of trouble here and stand watch with Selana." He gulped before adding, "Tanis and I will check out the stiff."
Flint and Tanis approached the box warily. They converged on opposite sides, both looking down distastefully.
"I'd been expecting all along that it would be us giving him a rough time when we finally met up, but he's turned the tables on us, eh, Tanis?"
Tanis smirked at his friend's dark humor. "He might not see it that way. Let's get this over with." Tanis crouched down on one knee and reached into the box, then withdrew his hand and wiped it furtively on his leather legging. Irritated, he stared at the hand as if it had betrayed him and reached again, this time grasping the shirt sleeve on the dead man's left arm. He tugged, but the hand was twisted and pinned under the body. He tugged harder and pulled it free. The arm bent forward stiffly at the shoulder. Using both hands, he slid the sleeve back from the wrist, but found nothing but puffy ashen flesh.
Flint, working on the right arm, had similar luck. "What do you suppose our boy died from?" he wondered. "No wounds on the body that I can see."
Flint's comments were cut off by a gasp from Tanis. He looked across the box and his blood nearly stopped in his veins.
The
