They seemed to be in a cavern, the dimensions of which were not entirely clear. Stones from above had crashed through the roof and blocked access to some areas. The company searched where they could, but without success. Then, out of the dark, Shar gave a sudden exclamation. Before them, dim in the torchlight, was the figure of the blind mercenary.
He was standing, facing away from them, apparently uninjured but not responding to their calls. Only when they came up to him did he reply.
'Are you all right?' asked Trandon while Kern ran a hasty eye over the young man's form, searching for injuries.
'I'm fine.' Ingrar seemed no more disconcerted by their present surroundings than he'd been by anything since they first entered the labyrinth of the bloodforge. He gestured forward. 'This way out, I think. I can smell fresh air through there.'
The others saw he was pointing to a dark tunnel at one side of the cave.
'How does he do that?' Noph muttered uneasily to Sharessa. 'This is getting very strange.'
The pirate nodded thoughtfully. 'I know. I don't understand. Ever since we started looking for the bloodforge, he's acted like he's possessed.' She shrugged her shapely shoulders. 'Well, not much choice now but to follow him.'
With Entreri and his torch leading the way, they entered the dark opening followed a tunnel that slanted steadily upward. After walking for several hundred yards, they came to a broad flight of steps leading farther up.
'Wait a minute.' Noph sank down to rest at the foot of the stairs. 'I'm sorry, but I've got to rest a minute. I don't think I'm over what happened back there.'
The others sank down beside him. Entreri bit his lip and stared impatiently at them but finally sat on the lowest step, from time to time glancing up the staircase.
Kern turned to Trandon. 'Now that we're all here,' he said, his voice cold, 'perhaps you can explain what you've been playing at.'
'Yes,' added Shar. 'I thought we had only one magic-user in this group.' She jerked a thumb at Kern. 'So what were all those fireworks back at the altar?'
Trandon drummed his fingers for a moment in thought. His staff, which he'd evidently clutched when he fell, lay beside him.
'All right,' he sighed. 'I was sent on this expedition by the Council of War Wizards of Cormyr.'
'What?' exploded Kern. 'What in the name of Tyr did the War Wizards want with this business? And furthermore,' he growled before the fighter could answer, 'since when have you been working for the War Wizards? You told us you worked with the Hammers of Tyr recruiting paladins.'
Trandon rubbed his chin in evident embarrassment. 'To answer your second question first, I don't work for the War Wizards; I'm a member of the Council of War Wizards and have been for a number of years. Given the circumstances of Lady Eidola's kidnapping, that wasn't information I was anxious to spread about. I was at Piergeiron's wedding purely as a social courtesy, but as soon as his bride was stolen, I contacted other members of the council, and they agreed I should join the expedition to find her.
'The council became concerned when Khelben determined that the kidnappers came from the Utter East and that a bloodforge was somehow involved. We had heard of these artifacts and their tremendous power, though no one on the council had ever seen one. Vangerdahast didn't want someone wielding that kind of power about Faerun without anyone keeping track of it.' He paused and glared at Artemis, who looked back coolly without speaking.
'Just a minute,' interrupted Sharessa. 'What are you both talking about? Where's Cormyr, and what's this council? And who's Peergarion?'
'Cormyr's a kingdom in Faerun,' supplied Noph. 'Piergeiron is the ruler of the city of Waterdeep, where I come from. My father's a lumber merchant there,' he added, rather unnecessarily.
'Don't your rulers have bloodforges?' asked Sharessa.
'Of course not,' replied Trandon. 'As I understand it, they're peculiar to the Utter East-the Five Kingdoms, if you prefer that term. But if a ruler in Faerun were to acquire one, or to form an alliance with a realm that possessed one…'
'… the donkey dung would be in the fire,' finished Noph.
'Exactly. No one could stop a power that could create armies out of thin air.'
Shar shook her head impatiently. 'What about the cost? The cost of using the bloodforge, I mean. You may have heard how these things affect the rulers who use them. I've heard stories about the mage-kings of Doegan since I was a baby, but I never believed them until now.'
Trandon shrugged. 'Take my word for it, there are plenty of rulers, or would-be rulers, in Faerun who'd gladly pay such a price.'
'Okay, but who are the War Wizards?'
Kern made a noise between a grunt and a hiccup. 'The War Wizards are a lot of busybodies who think that because they're wizards, they have the right to poke their snouts into everything that passes under the sun.'
'Well,' observed Trandon pacifically, 'let's just say we felt we had a legitimate interest in the outcome of this affair.'
'We might be a lot better off if you'd told us you were a wizard,' Noph half shouted. 'Couldn't you have used wizardry back in Undermountain? Maybe you could have saved Harloon…' His voice choked as he remembered his dead friend.
Trandon sighed and placed a hand on Noph's shoulder. 'Believe me, Kastonoph, I did everything I thought I could. Maybe I could have done more. Harloon and Abie's deaths are something I have to live with now. But I didn't want to tip my hand. And you must agree that when I did use my powers, it was at a time we really needed it.'
'And the result,' observed Entreri, speaking for the first time in the debate, 'is that we're here.' He stood and stepped a pace nearer the now-revealed wizard. 'I don't like surprises. And I don't much like wizards,' he said flatly. 'Is there anything else that anybody's keeping secret?' His eyes swept the party. When no one spoke, his lips creased in what might have been taken as a smile. 'All right. The Fallen Temple has the bloodforge.
But if we hurry, we may be able to get it back.'
'Get it back? Are you insane?' Shar was on her feet, pointing to Artemis's injured arm. 'Have you forgotten what that thing did to you?'
Entreri turned his back on her and went up the stairs. In a moment, the rest of the party followed.
The stairway rose in a steady line for perhaps a hundred feet, then leveled off in a broad landing. Three doors opened onto it, and Ingrar, without the slightest hesitation, entered the right-hand one. Entreri, apparently equally confident, followed him, with the rest of the adventurers trailing behind him.
This tunnel rose in a steady spiral, the slope gentle but wearing on pirate and paladin alike, suffering as they still were from the stiffness and aches from their fall. Nonetheless, their spirits rose as they sensed they were coming closer to the surface.
'We must be almost there,' gasped Shar. As she spoke, a flicker of red light flared against the side of the tunnel before them, and a wind blew down the passage, carrying with it the smell of something burning.
A moment later, the companions found themselves standing in a doorway whose great wooden doors had been wrenched asunder. Trandon and Kern stepped forward and pushed the wreckage aside, and the group stepped through. They were in the interior of a temple; that much was clear from the great altar with its now-familiar image of the mage-king. The doors on the opposite side of the building stood open, and Noph, longing for a glimpse of the sky, ran to them. His strangled cry brought the others behind him. In awe, they stared out upon the scene.
Eldrinpar was burning. From the temple doors, standing atop a vast pyramid, they gazed out at the doomed city. Flames lit the dawn and flickered against the horizon. Spirals of smoke wafted upward, tendrils of black that seemed to reach into the greater darkness of the early morning sky. From time to time, a new building, ignited by the great heat of the fires, burst spontaneously into flame. The companions could hear a confused din of cries, screams, and shouts borne on the hot breeze.
From their vantage point above the city, they could see crowds of citizens fleeing through the streets. Pursuing them were bands of fiends, who ensnared them with paw and claw, sometimes slaying, sometimes capturing the unfortunate Doeganers and bearing them off to an unthinkable destination.
