"I think I'll find the handsomest cleric, with the most delightfully smooth and strong healing hands," she muttered to herself. "And then add that bill to the long list of payments that I intend to collect from the Thultyrl."
A muffled snort of laughter reminded her that she was not alone in the dark. She heard the scratch of Kid's hooves as he climbed across the rubble toward her.
"Kid," Ivy called. "Are you all right? Where are you?"
"Here, my dear," his soft voice was right under her ear, causing her to startle like a young colt. Then she felt the exceptional warmth of his hard little hand as he patted her cheek in reassurance. "I apologize that I am not a handsome cleric."
His hearing was far too sharp at times. Ivy ignored his comment and asked, "Where are we, do you think?"
She could hear the rustling of clothing near her that meant he was searching through one of his many hidden pockets. "How can you manage to fit so many pockets into that tunic?" Ivy grumbled, impatient for him to find his candles.
"I once apprenticed to a tailor, before he objected to my stealing his needles. I do have the candles," Kid said, then added, "but my flint is missing."
"Some day, one of us is going to have to learn fire spells." Ivy sighed and handed over her own tinderbox before standing up. She could hear Kid's nails scratching against the lid.
Stretching her arms above her head, Ivy could feel the cool, smooth stone of the ceiling. She groped along the ceiling, trying to find some crack or seam that would indicate the location of the trapdoor. Her left hand bumped against something that moved-a handle or rope pull she hoped. She traced a long knobby object under her groping fingers, something that felt like an old tree branch or dried-out root. It kept shifting in her grasp and was attached in a smooth curve to another part, covered with stiff material that crackled like old linen. Ivy continued to walk her hands along the floating object until she felt an unmistakable triangular bump. She grasped it firmly between her left forefinger and thumb. It wiggled slightly with a ripping sound.
As she stood up, a familiar odor hit her-the type of moldering stench one found too often underground. Ivy screwed up her face and tried to keep her breathing shallow.
"Kid," said Ivy very calmly and slowly. "Could you hurry with that light?"
"Coming, my dear." There was a spark, and the sudden illumination of the candle made Ivy blink.
Ivy kept her left arm stretched up and her grasp firm on her captured prize as she stared into Kid's startled eyes. She was going to have to turn and look, but for now all the confirmation she needed was in the dumbfounded look on Kid's face. "So," she said pleasantly to him. "Am I holding a floating corpse by its nose?"
Kid nodded. His brown eyes were wide and round under his curls, giving him the look of a startled deer. It took a lot to disconcert Kid, who would cheerfully loot through the newly dead and the decomposing dead alike.
"Rotting, is it?"
"I think it is past that, my dear. Some time ago."
"How do you think he got up there? And what is keeping him there?"
"I am not sure, my dear. Magic most certainly, and very old magic at that, as old as that flameskull that attacked us."
"Maybe it is one of that creature's friends."
"He did say that they were all dead," Kid mused.
Ivy tightened her grip and felt her gloved fingers slide through the rotted flesh of the nose into the open curve of the skull. She paused, tightened her jaw, and kept her gaze on Kid. She was in no hurry to look upward. Kid shrugged, then reached up also and caught hold of the decayed robe that hung loosely around the corpse. Together they pulled downward, Kid holding cloth, Ivy clutching bone.
The corpse resisted their efforts to drag it down to the ground. Every time they grabbed it and tugged, it drifted down, seemingly weightless, but then bobbed up again as soon as they let go. Ivy finally looked at the figure to better determine how to handle it. The man, whose flesh was so sunken and dried upon the skeletal frame that gender was not easy to determine, was dressed in some type of hooded linen robes. Thankfully, the hood had flopped forward and hidden the ruined features of his face. Ivy felt particularly bad about breaking off his long nose in her early attempts to pull him off the ceiling.
"Well, it is not his body that flies," Ivy decided. "The bits that fell off don't go floating away on their own."
Kid was standing directly under the body, his head tilted all the way back as he contemplated the corpse floating just out of his reach. "No amulets, no rings on his fingers," said Kid, reciting an inventory that made some type of sense to him. "The robe is rotting, so it cannot be that. It must be the belt, my dear."
A long thin belt of scarlet leather encircled the man's waist. The belt buckle was a large elaborate affair of chased silver, styled as a winged serpent eating its own tail. The serpent's wings fit over and under the circle, locking the belt into place. "The belt," repeated Kid firmly.
"Shall I cut it off him?" Ivy slid her sword out of its scabbard.
"No, no, my dear." Kid grasped her arm and pulled the blade back. "You might damage the magic if you cut it. Unlock the buckle, instead. The wings should move."
Ivy had to stand on tiptoe to get a firm grip on the belt buckle. She waggled the wings left and then right.
"Gently, gently, my dear." Kid was hopping from one hoof to the other, sending little pebbles rolling down the rubble pile with his fidgeting.
"I'm trying," Ivy grunted. The smell of dust, moid, and rot filled her nose, much more noticeable now that they had been hauling on the corpse. With her nose that much closer to the body, Ivy could easily smell the must of a corpse long, long past its prime. The belt buckle was uncommonly stiff and seemed permanently locked in position. She stretched up her left hand, candlelight winking on the harper's token on her glove, and twisted the whole serpent while she hung onto its wings with her right hand. With a snap, the two wings folded back. The belt and the corpse came crashing down on top of her, knocking her back on the pile of rubble.
Kid dragged the body off her and helped her to sit up. Ivy gasped a few times until her breath came back. She was not afraid of dead things, not in her line of work, but still. There was something extremely unpleasant about being felled by a rotting corpse.
"He was heavier than he looked," she finally gasped, hunching forward to ease the pressure on her thrice-bruised belly.
The belt hung limply in her grasp. Ivy shook it. The belt still hung straight down. "So, you figured how to get it down. Do you know how to make it go up again?"
"I think so, my dear." Kid ran his clever little fingers round and round the buckle. "This was wrought in imitation of the belts that the ancient ones used to fly to their floating cities. This man must have been one like Toram, who sought to imitate the great wizards of Netheril. Or perhaps he hoped to fly to one of the lost cities and plunder it. But such ambitions are treacherous."