carving at the entry portals. The walls and high ceilings of several chambers of the mines were covered with inscriptions, portraits, and scenes from forgotten epics, many of them painted. One goblin, on seeing a remarkable likeness of a red dragon that incorporated the natural contours of the rock beneath its paint, dropped his spear and raced back to the light.
'Wait until they see the Beast Lord,' Rozt'a mused bitterly.
For the moment, the Beast Lord was the least of their problems. Last night's torrential rains had penetrated the mines. Sheemzher complained that the smells were different-fainter-than they had been, but more worrisome were the puddles and the water seeping through the walls. Dru knelt and examined a damp line a handspan above the floor.
'This tunnel flooded last night,' he decided.
'We had more water pooled around our feet in the rocks,' Tiep joked.
'And that water's still flowing through this mountain,' Dru countered, then added, 'We're out of our minds. Only fools would walk into a mountain after a rain.'
Rozt'a was unimpressed. 'Then we're fools. The Beast Lord lives in this mountain and so do its slaves. If they can survive, so can we.'
The passages were unfamiliar at first, but soon enough Druhallen recognized intersections by their Dethek runes. He began to relax about water and worry, instead, that they might encounter a beefed-up swordswinger patrol. Dru listened for voices, boots, and the clank of metal; what he heard was different.
'There's water ahead, Sheemzher,' he told the goblin. 'A lot of water.'
'Much water, good sir,' Sheemzher agreed. 'No danger. Egg smell strong.'
Perhaps it was. Dru had stood in front of the athanor without noticing any scent emanating from it, but before they'd gone a hundred feet into the next tunnel even a human nose was aware of a damp, stony tang in the air and the breeze that carried it toward them. They followed the wind to the next intersection.
Sheemzher forged straight ahead. 'This way before, good sir,' he said when Dru hesitated. 'This way now, yes?'
The goblin was retracing their steps, but he was also leading them toward water. Against his better judgment, Dru let himself be led down a corridor past the point where damp became wet. Yesterday, he'd nearly succumbed to panic when he'd felt the mountain bearing down on him. Today, knowing there was a storm's worth of water working its way through the tangled passages, the pressure was worse. Druhallen knew there was danger and knew no way to avoid it, except by leaving the mines.
'We've got to turn around,' he announced. 'There's no telling where the water's been or where it's going. This tunnel could flood in an instant.'
They argued with him, Rozt'a and Tiep included, until water seeped through the seams of their boots and covered their toes. Backtracking to the previous intersection, Sheemzher declared that he'd made a mistake 'Egg smell strongest this way!' He pointed down the right-side path, a down-sloping path where the stone was dry and the air was still. 'Come. Come, good sir,' Sheemzher tugged on Druhallen's sleeve. 'Be brave, good sir. Trust Sheemzher. Sheemzher follow nose now, not memory.'
Dru backed away and found himself face-to-face with Rozt'a.
'What have we got to lose?' she challenged. 'Maybe the water's already drowned the alhoon.'
He returned the challenge. 'Can you drown the undead?'
He followed her down a corridor that ended over a seemingly dry hole in the floor. The hole was about as wide as Dru's arm was long. A free-spinning stone ring had been carved out of the granite beside it.
'Down now, good sir. Egg smell very strong, good sir.'
Dru insisted they drop something down the shaft. Pointing at the ring, Tiep suggested tying off one end of the rope they carried. When completely uncoiled, the thirty-foot rope struck neither water nor bottom. Druhallen produced a handful of agate pebbles from his folding box and dropped them down the shaft. He'd counted to three before the pebbles clattered against stone.
'Egg smell very strong, good sir,' Sheemzher repeated himself.
'Look at the ring, Dru.' Again Rozt'a supported the goblin. 'It's obviously meant to anchor a rope.'
Two of Ghistpok's goblin's were already shinnying down the rope.
'Get proof, good sir. Get scroll. Get friend.'
Dwarves had hollowed the shaft out of the granite mountain. They could have easily clambered through it, with or without a rope. If anything, the chimney shaft was easier for goblins and not terribly difficult for a wiry youth or a slender woman. Druhallen conceded it was wider than the hole where they'd begun yesterday's exploration, but not by much. He prayed, as he'd seldom prayed before, that he didn't have climb up in a hurry.
The light spell revealed that they'd come to the oldest part of Dekanter-the twisting tunnels dwarf miners had made as they chipped out veins of metal and gems. The tunnel beneath the shaft stretched in two directions. Sheemzher sniffed the still air and swore the egg smell was stronger in one direction. He led the way.
Goblins could stand tall in a dwarf-cut tunnel, but humans had to scrunch their necks and shoulders if they wished to see where they were going. They hadn't gone far before Dru's muscles were aching. He was thinking about pain and futility and not paying particularly close attention to anything when his eyes caught a flicker of reddish light in the passage ahead of Sheemzher. He seized the goblin's neck and inhaled his light spell.
'See anything?' he asked.
'See dark, good sir. See stone.' Sheemzher replied anxiously.
'Anything else?'
'Only stone, all same stone. See anything, good sir?'
By feel and memory, Dru pinched a bit of enchanted beeswax from a candle-stub in his folding box. He exhaled a spell across the wax then flicked forward. Around him, humans and goblins uttered their favorite oaths as a spider-web ward popped into view a mere ten feet ahead.
'Boundary wards,' Dru concluded after a moment's study
The Beast Lord's enemies weren't in the quarry, they were deep in the mountain. The first explanation they'd heard in Parnast was that the Dawn Pass Trail had moved because the Beast Lord was at war with the Underdark, that shadowy realm beneath Faerun's surface. The Underdark was real, of course, but many of the catastrophes rumored to have their roots there had much simpler explanations-Zhentarim, Red Wizards, earthquakes, or plagues. Druhallen had dismissed the Parnast rumors when he first heard them and had discounted them ever since, especially when Amarandaris's conversation had focused on the Red Wizards, not the drow.
Even when he'd laid eyes on the Beast Lord and learned what it was, he'd resisted the rumors. Mind flayers were part of the Underdark world, but alhoons were exiles from mind flayer communities. What better place for an alhoon to establish itself than in an old mine that was underground but not Underdark? Finding wards here, far below the quarry, supported the idea that the Beast Lord, at least, believed it was not completely isolated from its former haunts.
'Can we get through it?' Tiep asked.
Druhallen replied, 'Not without breaking it. If the Beast Lord's paying attention, it'll know something's loose down here.' He turned to Sheemzher. 'You've done your best, but this isn't going to work. We've got to turn back and wait until that passage we used yesterday is dry.'
'No proof, Ghistpok not believe. Ghistpok not believe, no tomorrow. Go forward, good sir. Go forward, find proof-'
'No tomorrow?' Tiep broke in. 'What's this 'no tomorrow' nonsense? Did you forget to tell us something, dog- face?'
Sheemzher hung his head. 'Egg smell strong, good sir. Very strong.'
Rozt'a added her thought, 'Are you sure you can't take it down quietly? If we can get Ghistpok's goblins to the egg chamber, Sheemzher says we'll have our proof. Once we've got that, we can wait until that other passage is dry.'
'Ask him what he means by 'no tomorrow,'' Tiep pressed. 'And make some more light so we can see his lying face when he answers.'
Druhallen said nothing to Sheemzher, but he did cast another light spell and held it at a single candle's brightness. He drew the sword he'd taken from yesterday's swordswingers and approached the shimmering ward.
Rozt'a reminded him, 'A goblin spear is longer.'
