"Why won't the lousy shriekers drown?" Ignoring her throbbing foot, Ivy leaned over the landing to check on the location of the destrachans.
The dust and rock that had once been the winding staircase avalanched down into the chamber, becoming mud as it mixed with the water. The destrachans were trapped in the thick goop. It began to fill their ears and mouths. The waters rose over the creatures' heads. They stretched their unseeing faces upward, their ears twitching, their mouths open. Their cries continued to loosen the stones above them, but less now-a mere rain of chips that drifted down into the churning mess of water and stone dust. The soupy gray waters rose above the open mouths, filling them, then covering them. The cries of the monsters ended in gurgles.
The room was finally silent except for the last three notes of Gunderal's sweet chant, echoing above the lapping sound of the river filling the chamber below them. The wizard removed her fingers from her ears and with a pretty smile peered down into the water now steadily rising up the walls.
"I told you I could call the river," Gunderal pronounced with immense satisfaction.
"Yes, but I told you this chamber would be a good place to trap the beasts," Zuzzara said.
"But you could not have done it, sister mine, without my help," said Gunderal, her smile quavering into a lovely but distinct lower lip pout that always signaled an argument. "I'm the only one who can raise rivers."
"Of course your magic was important, but so was using it in the right place," replied Zuzzara, ready to stand still and debate with her younger sister about strategy.
"Ladies, ladies," said Mumchance, peering into what was left of the chamber below and watching the water rise faster up the wall. "We might want to discuss this later." The dwarf called for his dog, and Wiggles's bark echoed out of the tunnel opening off the landing. "Sounds like Wiggles has found a way out."
"You sisters can argue about who is the cleverest later," said Ivy, through the throbbing of her torn toes and the aching of the new bruises on her knees and shins where she had fallen heavily against the landing. "But we'd better leave before the water is over our heads."
They raced along the tunnel in the direction that Archlis had gone. They hit another branch of the tunnel where another stair led down into the tunnels below. Wiggles stood at the top of those stairs, giving out a worried whine. Grabbing the lantern from Mumchance, Ivy peered down those stairs. At the very edge of the light, she saw the glimmer of water. The floor of the tunnel below was already damp, which meant the river was beginning to fill the ruins. "I am truly sick of being wet," she said.
"That's tunnels for you," the dwarf said. "Great conduits for water!" Ivy didn't thank him for the information.
A pair of snakes, thankfully quite small, whipped up the stairs and raced away in front of them.
"Oh, dear," said Mumchance, "I had not thought of that."
"What?"
"Anything else living in these tunnels is going to need to flee too. Or be drowned."
Ivy glanced around. Nothing else appeared to shadow them. "Maybe the destrachans ate everything else living in this part of the ruins?"
"Hope so," said the dwarf, but he whistled to Wiggles, commanding the small dog to heel close to him.
Zuzzara let out a cry. Her sharp eyes had spotted a hoof-shaped footprint in the mud of the floor, overlaid by the mark of a Procampur officer's boot.
"Sanval is ahead of us. Looks like he is following the magelord and Kid."
Ivy spotted a light shining ahead of them, and sped up to the faintly illuminated doorway that opened off the ledge. She found another staircase leading down, but this one seemed dry at the bottom. At least no reflective gleam of water showed in the lantern light. On the top step, the stub of a tallow candle flickered. Ivy remembered looting the dead bugbear and pressing some of the candles into Sanval's reluctant hands. She had told him then that he would need the light. Had he used the candle to leave them a marker? Or was it one of Archlis's tricks?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The stone stairs spiraled away into the darkness. As Ivy stepped forward, her damp boots squelched even louder than before. She looked down. Water was starting to drip down the sides of the walls and cover the floor of the tunnel where they were standing. Some water began dripping down the stairs. It was just a thin film of water, but she knew that the river was pushing behind it, seeking them out just as the destrachans had hunted them through the black tunnels.
"How can the river be above us now and not below?" worried Ivy.
"It is filling up the old canals first," answered Gunderal. "And following the old wells and sewers. But it will spill over into the other tunnels soon enough."
"Don't suppose you could slow it down a little now?"
Gunderal sighed. "I wish I could, Ivy, but I have only one spell left for today. And that will make more water, not less."
"Save it then. We may need it later."
"Ivy," said Mumchance, "we don't want to go down."
"Water flows downhill," added Gunderal-an unnecessary remark in Ivy's opinion.
"This stair looks dry," Ivy said.
"There may be some solid rock between the river and that tunnel, but it won't hold back the river forever."
Ivy stared down into the blackness of the stairwell. "We have no choice. Archlis must have gone this way. We're not leaving Kid behind. We are not leaving Sanval behind either, and I know he's down there too," she said. "I'm not letting Archlis walk out of these ruins with whatever treasure is down there. I'll swim with destrachans if I have to, but we're going down."
Ivy started to draw her sword and then realized her scabbard was empty. With a shrug, she started down the staircase. For a moment, there was only silence behind her. Then she heard the tap of Gunderal's heels as she entered the spiral behind her, followed by Zuzzara's heavy footsteps and the clump of Mumchance's boots.
"Told you that she was sweet on him," hissed Zuzzara in what she imagined was a whisper.
"Hush," said Gunderal to her sister.
Ivy's shoulders dropped an inch as she relaxed her rigid back-of course, she had never doubted that they would follow her; they always followed her. But every now and then, she did wonder if she'd just been too foolish to follow. As for Zuzzara and Gunderal's whispering, which she could hear perfectly well, she decided to ignore the blush that was creeping past her cheeks and turning her ears red. She was going after Kid, because the little thief had followed her into this mess. She would rather be cursed by every god in the Realms before she let that cloven-hoofed piece of mischief be fried by some crazy magelord. Or more likely, considering where they were, drowned in a hole.
And if her friends tromping behind her thought she was going after a certain captain from the silver-roof district of Procampur, well she certainly wasn't making any comments.
Let them snicker all they want. She knew her duty just as well as Sanval did. And if the gods wanted to snatch away any of her friends, they were going to have to put up with her hanging on with both hands, pulling in the opposite direction, and screaming the whole time. So, even if she had to drag him out by the scruff of his neck, she was set upon getting a certain man safe and sound back to the tents of Procampur. She had quite enough pain going for her, from knees to shins to toes, without adding the troublesome kind of ache that was not physical at all.
Now she was twisting down into a place that would soon become a well to catch a magelord who liked to play with fire. If she were lucky, she would get Kid, Sanval, and the rest of them out of this mess before the tunnels collapsed, bringing the ruins of Tsurlagol on top of them. I am so sick of being underground, thought Ivy, but I know what I need to do.