A loud thrum sounded from the stairwell, and a chorus of Shadovar voices cried out in astonishment. The first pair of legs buckled, then Parth's limp body tumbled into view. It was followed by Carlig's, Elar's, and four more, all that remained of the reconnaissance patrol.
Vala slipped over to the wall beneath the stairwell and pressed her back to the stone, darksword ready to lop off the next foot that came within reach. When none did, she hazarded a glance at the bodies at the base of the stairs. All seven Shadovar were dead, their faces, necks, and other areas of unarmored flesh flecked with tiny, cone-shaped darts. She waited a moment longer, then peered up into the spiraling stairwell itself. The steps were littered with spent darts, and the walls were flecked with the tiny holes from which they had come.
A voice at the top of the stairs, a voice so wispy that it seemed barely a hiss, called, 'Eltargrim.'
Vala ducked back out of sight, her heart pounding so hard that she could barely hear the darts clattering down the stairs as the newcomer kicked them out of the way. She wanted nothing more than to flee down the corridor as fast as her legs would carry her, but that would have been the worst thing she could do. The stranger knew she was there-had in fact whispered the password that kept her from meeting the same fate as the Shadovar- and whoever it was, he obviously knew the Irithlium far better than did Vala.
A chill came over Vala again. She raised her sword toward her helmet, wondering if Escanor would arrive quickly enough to save her if she touched the blade to one of the horns. Probably not-but maybe he would avenge her death or die himself at the hands of whatever was coming. Either way was fine, as far as Vala was concerned.
A bare foot appeared on the stair above Vala's head. Small and fine boned, it reminded her of an elf's foot, except that the flesh was so thin and white she could see the bone beneath, as well as the tendons and ligaments that made it move. The foot's mate appeared, also small and pale, with long broken nails hanging off the ends of the toes. Above the ankles hung the ragged cuffs of a pair of long-rotted trousers.
Vala grew so cold her flesh broke into goose bumps. Whatever this was, it could not be good. She took a deep breath and spun away from the wall, then brought her darksword around to strike the feet off at the ankles- and barely stopped her blade in time to keep it from burying itself in the stone steps. The feet were gone. But the cold was not.
Vala stepped away from the wall and found a small figure with alabaster skin and a willowy build watching her from the base of the stairs. Clothed in the tattered remains of what had once been a fine cowled robe, the stranger's features were sunken and shriveled, his eyes glowing orbs of pure white.
He pointed at Vala's sword, then wagged a bony finger and said, 'You do not seem very fond of elves.'
CHAPTER TEN
19 Mirtul, the Year of Wild Magic
The white elf turned his back to Vala and the dead Shadovar and started down the murky corridor. 'Come.'
Vala stood where she was and didn't move. She didn't even lower her sword.
'Come?' she gasped. 'After you killed Parth and everyone else?'
'I did not kill them, woman. I saved you.' The elf continued away, but his head turned to face her, his neck giving a mushy crackle as it traveled the last few inches to sit backward on his shoulders. 'From what I saw, I will be of more use to you than they were.' 'Doing what?' Vala asked, starting after him. 'Surviving.'
The elf rotated his head forward again. Deciding there was truth in what he said, Vala lowered her guard and moved to within four paces of him, where his chill aura grew so uncomfortable she began to shiver. She had seen enough undead in the past six months to recognize him as some sort of lich, but his presence did not engender the same sense of fear and corruption she had experienced back in Karsus when she and Galaeron and their companions had fought the lich Wulgreth. What she wouldn't have given to have Galaeron at her side, with his Tomb Guard's knowledge of all things unliving-but the old Galaeron before he fell victim to the corrupting influence of the Shadow Weave. Gods, how she missed that one, the Galaeron who had been so steady and earnest and noble.
The lich-elf turned down a smaller side corridor- still so wide three Vaasans could have stood abreast- and sent a spider the size of a pony skittering along the wall. Hanging in its web overhead were several silk-wrapped packages, some with clawed feet or beastly snouts poking out. From one dangled a halfling-sized boot, the toe still twitching. As she passed beneath this cocoon, Vala slowed and raised her sword to cut the halfling free. 'Leave him.'
Vala looked up to find the lich-elf's head turned backward on his shoulders again, watching her.
'He is a relic thief and has met a relic thief's end,' the lich-elf said.
Vala lowered her sword. She knew firsthand how elves felt about treasure thieves, and the last thing she needed was an angry lich… of any sort. She mouthed a silent apology to the halfling and followed her guide a hundred paces down the corridor to an iron door, which he opened by means of an ancient bronze key and a word of passing. They descended a long iron staircase filled with dog-sized rats and knee-high centipedes, all of which fled before the chill aura of the white elf.
'I'll say this, you make this place a lot safer,' Vala observed. The elf didn't respond.
The staircase descended into a natural cavern filled with limestone formations. The place stank so foully of offal and mold that Vala had to cover her mouth and nose to keep from retching. When they stepped onto the floor of the chamber, she recognized a strange regularity to many of the largest formations, where the stalactites and stalagmites met to form a wall of cage like columns. Peering out from between many sets of bars were glowing red eyes of various shapes and sizes, some the size of Vala's fist, some no larger than pinheads. One of the nearest cages had no eyes, only a mold-covered skull with six ebony fangs propped against the bars with the tip of one dark horn poking out to touch the ground.
A chorus of low groans and rasps arose from the nearest cages, gradually mounting toward a din of bestial growling and rumblings. Though Vala was holding the hilt of her darksword, she could see nothing beyond the stone bars but red eyes.
'Mind the prisoners,' the lich-elf warned. 'They'll be hungry.'
Vala eased away from the cage she had been peering into, only to hear a wet plop as something struck her armored thigh. The lich-elf cursed in some ancient language she did not understand, then spun toward the source of the saliva and loosed a flight of golden energy-darts. When the bolts passed through the bars and exploded into her attacker, Vala glimpsed a bristly muzzle with long curved tusks, a pair of fan-shaped ears, and a set of folded wings rising up behind its shoulders. The creature roared and tore at the inside of its cage with four huge claws. When the energy bolts faded, it vanished back into the darkness inside its prison.
The lich-elf pointed at a glob of green mucus bubbling on the surface of Vala's armor. 'Wipe that off before it takes root,' he said. 'The last thing I want is you spreading devil spawn through my Irithlium.'
'Your Irithlium?' Vala tore a strip from the hem of her undertunic and wrapped it over the back of her dark-sword, then scraped the stuff off and flung the cloth into the creature's cage. 'Who were you?' The lich-elf's eyes brightened. 'Were?'
'No offense meant,' Vala said. 'It's just that I'm not friends with many undead.'
Nor was she friends with this one, as the lich-elf made clear when he turned and continued through the chamber without speaking. Taking care to avoid the occasional glob of mucus that came flying her way, Vala followed as closely behind as her tolerance for cold allowed. They passed through the strange prison and wandered the dark caverns beneath the Irithlium until her legs grew weary with exhaustion. Periodically, she would try to learn more about her guide by engaging the lich-elf in conversation, but he only spoke to utter a word of passing or warn her about some deadly hazard into which she had nearly stumbled. Twice they were ambushed by spell-flinging dark nagas, one of which actually succeeded in wrapping the lich-elf in a web spell before Vala diced it into six three-yard pieces. Before continuing on, her guide was grateful enough to inform her that his name was Corineus Drannaeken.
Finally, they ascended a vertical shaft into the sub-basement levels, emerging in what had once been the central fountain in an elaborate two-story complex of work chambers. Clambering past a giant constrictor snake that had been immobilized by Corineus's aura of cold, they slipped out of the basin and sneaked down a narrow
