assign a few of your spellcasters to assist him. We may have no cause for such measures, but perhaps it would be better to deter any trouble of this sort than to find out we were wrong.'
CHAPTER 10
16 Ches, the Year of Lightning Storms
The floors above the iron golem's chamber were in dismal condition, damaged by long exposure to rain and rot. The beams supporting the wooden floors sagged noticeably, and the staircase that had once ascended the tower in a circle following the outer wall was unsafe at best, and simply missing in other places. Araevin finally resorted to casting a flying-spell on Grayth so that the heavily armored human would not have to chance a general collapse of the stairs or the floor. Grayth then helped the others ascend to the floors above, simply carrying them up through the gaping holes where the stairs had formerly climbed.
The second floor above the golem's chamber seemed to have been the personal chamber of the tower's builder. The mildewed remnants of an old canopy bed and several large chests of drawers still stood in the room.
'That's a human bed,' Ilsevele observed. 'Elves don't use anything like that for Reverie. Are you sure the telkiira is here?'
'Yes,' said Araevin. He rummaged through one of the old chests, finding nothing but a couple of mildewed blankets. 'Who was this fellow, I wonder? And how did an elven loregem come to be in his hands?'
'He might have stolen it,' Maresa said. She was searching slowly and carefully along the walls for any sign of a hidden door or compartment. 'Or maybe he bought it from someone who stole it from its true owner. For that matter, he might have just bought it from an elf or traded for it, with no duplicity or theft at all-though what's the fun of that? It's not much of a mystery, and it's one we can't solve anyway, so why bother with it?'
'She has a point,' said Grayth.
Araevin shrugged. It probably didn't matter, but it might have shed some light on how Philaerin had come into possession of the first stone.
They climbed carefully to the next level, and found it divided into two rooms: a small library full of sodden, illegible books, and a conjury with an old silver circle for the summoning of extraplanar beings inlaid in the floor. Again, wind and weather had worked slow destruction on the room's contents. The ceiling above was mostly gone, showing the interior of the pointed roof, with large holes gaping in the shakes and rafters. Broad windows allowed slanting shafts of light into the room, showing green forest outside. Whatever shutters the windows might once have had were long gone. Ilsevele leaned out and looked down.
'Brant and the horses are still there,' she said. 'He looks bored.'
'He should have fought the golem, then,' Maresa grumbled.
They fell to searching the two rooms thoroughly, looking for any sign of persistent magic or treasure caches.
Araevin pored through the remains of the bookshelves, finding book after book decayed beyond any possible perusal. A few had borne the years better, and those he flipped through with greater care, hoping that a spellbook or enchanted tome of some kind might have been left behind. He found nothing of that sort, but he did find a faded mage rune printed carefully on the frontispiece of one of the more intact tomes. It was the mark of a wizard who called himself Gerardin. Araevin pulled out his journal and recorded the shape of the rune and the name, in case he ever got a chance to compare it later with some other scholar or research it himself.
'Aha! I think I found something,' Maresa announced. The genasi knelt by one wall, peering closely at it. 'There's a secret compartment here.'
'Be careful,' Araevin said. 'We know this fellow placed at least one trap in his home. There may be more.'
Maresa lightly ran her fingers over the stonework surrounding the suspicious spot, then rocked back on her heels and pulled her leather folio from her doublet. She rummaged through the small case, and produced another packet of paper, rolled and crimped at the ends. She unfolded the packet, revealing bright blue dust, and blew the dust over the area.
'What's that?' Ilsevele asked.
'Chalk dust, dyed blue. It sometimes helps to show details that you might otherwise miss. Such as this.' Maresa pointed at the wall. 'See, here is the catch for the compartment, or so it seems. You'll see that there is a faint scoring across it. That would be a spring-loaded needle scraping across the surface of the catch. If you pushed it in with your finger or thumb, you'd get jabbed, probably with some nasty sort of poison. But up here there's a small, more well hidden catch, too. To use the main catch safely, you depress and hold in that second one, which probably prevents the needle from striking. Let's see if I'm right.'
She carefully pushed and held down the second catch with her left hand and used the pommel of her dagger to push the compartment catch. There was a small click, and a section of wall about a foot square popped open. Inside the hidden compartment were several small cloth sacks, some mildewed scrolls, a small wooden case, and a rusty wand of iron.
'Well, well,' Maresa said softly.
Two of the sacks held coinage-gold in one, platinum in the other. Another held gemstones, not magical but valuable nonetheless. The scrolls and the wand had long since decayed into uselessness, but the wooden case was scribed with delicate arcane runes. Maresa examined it carefully, and offered it to Araevin.
'Any of those sigils look dangerous to you?' the genasi asked.
Araevin examined the box and said, 'No, they're only for preservation.'
He opened it, and inside lay a black-green glittering telkiira, identical to the one he carried in the pouch at his belt. Gingerly he picked it out of its case and held it up to his eye, studying it.
'All this trouble for a single small gemstone,' Grayth muttered. 'Is that it?'
'Yes. It seems to be guarded like the other one, but I don't recognize the rune it holds. I'll have to use a spell of identifying or opening to get at it. Give me an hour or two to pre-'
The terrified whinny of a horse from outside cut him off, and an instant later, Brant shouted out a warning, unintelligible through the distance and the stamping and whinnying of the animals he guarded. Grayth happened to be closest to the tower's slitlike window. He dashed over and looked out.
'Demons!' he snarled.
Without waiting, the Lathanderite dived through the open stairwell, racing down through the tower. Maresa and Ilsevele followed him. Araevin paused long enough to secure the telkiira and its carven box in his own belt pouch, then hurried over to look out the window for himself.
In the forest clearing surrounding the tower, Brant battled furiously against three hulking vrocks, demons in the shape of vulturelike gargoyles, with gray shabby wings and long, filthy claws and talons. The monsters wheeled and screeched above the young swordsman, mocking him as they fluttered just out of reach before dashing in to claw or snap at him. A dozen more fiends of the stinking hells flapped or leaped toward the tower, from hulking insec-tile mezzoloths to blind, houndlike canoloths with long, barbed tongues and huge snapping jaws. Araevin stared in shocked amazement.
'Aillesel Seldarie', he murmured. 'Where did these come from?'
A gleam of gold caught his eye, and his breath hissed in his teeth. Several of the demon-elves, including the fellow with the eye patch whom he had seen before, drove the vile warband onward. Their swords were bared, and their golden armor gleamed in the morning light.
Araevin considered attacking the daemonfey at once, but Brant needed immediate help. His sword flashed bravely against the demons tormenting him, but each of the monsters was as tall and strong as an ogre, and they were far, far quicker. They toyed with the strapping swordsman like great cats batting at their prey.
I'll give them something else to think about, Araevin swore silently.
He found a lodestone and a pinch of dust in his bandolier, and rasped the words of a powerful spell. From his fingertip a brilliant green ray shot forth, catching one of the three vrocks between its shoulder blades. The demon arched in agony, its beak gaping as it shrieked terribly. The green glow washed over its foul body and erased the creature from existence, leaving nothing but dancing dust motes in the sunlight.
