'You're not the only one,' Artek gulped.
Beckla looked around in the dim light. 'So what happened to the lump? I mean, the lord?'
Artek glanced about. 'Silvertor let go of my hand as we passed through the gate,' he said. 'The fool could have landed anywhere nearby.'
Suddenly, a cry of fear emanated from one of the shadowed corners of the chamber.
'Help! Help!' a voice wailed piteously. 'I've been caught by a terrible monster! It's going to eat me! Please, somebody-help!'
Artek and Beckla exchanged looks of alarm, then dashed toward the corner. Artek's hand dropped to the hilt of his saber, while Beckla gripped her staff tightly. Artek swore inwardly. That foppish young lord was his one ticket to freedom-and to continued life. If the fool had managed to get into trouble already, Artek was going to… well, he wasn't going to kill Silvertor-he needed the lord alive-but he would come up with something extremely unpleasant.
Artek and Beckla reached the opposite corner of the chamber. The wizard's magelight pierced the gloom to reveal Lord Corin Silvertor, flailing wildly in midair, hanging by his coat from the jaws of a huge beast. His pale face was agape with terror. In the shadows behind him loomed a terrifying, evil shape that looked like a cross between a lizard and a wolf. For a frozen second, Artek stared in horror. Then laughter rumbled in his chest. Next to him, Beckla burst into peals of mirth.
'What's wrong with you two?' Corin cried fearfully. 'Can't you see that the dastardly monster has got me! So far I've been able to hold the foul beast at bay with my bare hands, but I don't think that I can stave it off much longer! You've got to help me. Please!'
This was too much for Artek and Beckla. They leaned against each other, shoulders shaking, howling with laughter. Corin gaped at them in terror and confusion. Then, aided by Beckla's glowing blue magelight, realization gradually dawned on him.
The monster was made of stone. In the soft light emanating from Beckla's staff, the thing was clearly revealed to be a statue. Cracks covered its dusty shape, and one of its gnarled legs had been snapped off and lay nearby. The collar of Corin's velvet coat had snagged on a sharp tooth in the statue's gaping lower jaw, suspending the nobleman in midair. Apparently it had caught him when he tumbled out of the gate.
'Well, isn't this awkward,' Corin said sheepishly.
'For you, at least,' Beckla snorted.
The nobleman gave her a wounded look but said nothing.
Artek scrambled up the basalt statue and perched on its flat skull. He drew a dagger from his boot and cut the fold of blue velvet that had snagged the stone tooth. With a yelp, Corin fell to the floor, and Beckla helped the stunned lord to his feet. The nobleman did his best to arrange his expensive clothes, but they were torn and smeared with dark slime. He brushed his long, pale hair away from his high forehead.
'You could have warned me before you cut my coat, you know,' he said indignantly as Artek lightly hopped down from the statue.
'I know,' Artek said amiably, slipping the dagger back into his boot.
Corin’s blue eyes grew large at this impertinence. He stared at Artek and Beckla, then swallowed hard. 'You two aren't dangerous, are you?'
Beckla smiled nastily. 'As a matter of fact, we are.'
Fear blanched Corin’s boyishly handsome face.
Artek shot Beckla an annoyed look, then turned back toward the nobleman. 'Don't worry, Silvertor. We may be dangerous, but we came here to rescue you. This is Beckla Shadesar. You can tell she's a wizard by her peculiar notion of humor. She's on the run from her old master, who she turned into a green slime. And I'm-' He licked his lips nervously. Why didn't this ever get any easier? 'I’m Artek Ar'talen.'
A strangled sound of fear and surprise escaped Corin’s throat, and he hastily backed away. 'You're Artek the Knife?'
'Oh, get over it,' Artek growled.
Apparently this was easier said than done. Corin shrank against a wall, hand to his mouth, staring at his rescuers in turn, as if trying to decide of which he should be the more afraid. Artek turned his back on the nobleman; they had other matters to worry about.
'So where do you think we are?' he asked Beckla. ''The gate could have transported us anywhere on the continent of Faerun.'
She shook her head. 'I'm not certain. But I have an idea. And I don’t much care for it.'
'What is it?'
“I’ll show you.'
The wizard bent down and picked up a loose pebble from the crumbling floor. Laying it on her outstretched palm, she murmured an incantation. A pale white aura flickered around the pebble. Beckla drew in a deep breath, then blew on the stone. The aura vanished. The pebble was dark and ordinary once again.
'I was afraid of that,' Beckla sighed.
'Am I supposed to be impressed?' Artek asked dubiously.
She scowled at him. 'As a matter of fact, you are. I just cast a spell of teleportation on the pebble.'
'But it's still here.'
'Exactly. That's because the walls of this place are imbued with an enchantment to prevent anything from magically transporting in or out.'
'Wait a minute,' Artek protested in confusion. 'The walls of what place?'
Beckla spoke a single grim word.
'Undermountain.'
Artek swore an oath. Instinctively, he knew the wizard was right. This place had the same oppressive feel as the rest of Undermountain. No, it was even stronger.
'The enchantment is Halaster's doing,' Beckla went on. 'The mad wizard wanted to make certain no one found an easy way out of his maze.'
'So how deep are we?' Artek asked hoarsely.
'Let's find out,' Beckla replied without relish.
She whispered another incantation over the pebble, and it began to glow again. With a final word of magic, she cast the pebble into the air. It did not fall, but floated high above them.
'The ceiling represents the surface world, and the floor the very bottom of Undermountain,' Beckla explained. The pebble will tell us where we are now.'
The wizard made an intricate gesture with her hand. The pebble began to descend. It continued to sink slowly as they watched in growing alarm. At last it came to a halt halfway between floor and ceiling.
'Is that very deep?' Artek asked nervously.
Beckla nodded. 'If we were still in the halls where we met, the pebble would be no more than a foot below the ceiling.' A haunted look crept into her brown eyes. 'I don't think anyone has ever been this deep in Undermountain before. At least, not any who lived to tell about it.'
Cold dread filled Artek's stomach. 'But that's impossible,'' he said emphatically. 'You said that we couldn't teleport out of the maze. You didn't say that a gate would fail as well!'
'A gate is different from a teleport spell, Artek.' Beckla fixed him with a piercing look. 'It should have worked. What did you do?'
'It wasn't me!' he said defensively.
'Well, somebody did something.'
At this Artek nodded, scratching his chin. 'You're right. And there's only one person who might be able to help us understand exactly what happened.'
As one, Artek and Beckla turned to glare at Conn.
'What?' the lord gasped in shock, clutching a hand to his chest. 'You can't possibly believe that I had anything to do with this.'
'No, I don't,' Artek replied gruffly. 'But I think it's time we heard your story all the same.'
Corin mopped his face with the ruffled cuff of his coat. The effort did little besides smear around the grime, but the nobleman was oblivious to this fact.
'Let's see,' Corin began. 'It all started when Lord Darien Thai invited me on a hunt into Undermountain. I had
