CHAPTER TWENTY
Ivy emerged from the staircase and blinked as she went from the darkness of the shadowy stair into the glowing corridor.
Behind her, Mumchance let out that soft half-sigh, half-whistle that can only mean one thing coming from a dwarf-that there was a fortune in raw gems surrounding them. He set down his sputtering lantern to better examine the strange corridor where they found themselves. Obviously others had come before them, as various crystals had been pried loose from the walls and littered the floor.
"Oooh, that is so ugly!" Gunderal squealed. The dainty wizard had just tripped over a large dead creature, sprawled over a rusty pile of armor.
"We better hurry, Ivy," said Mumchance. "The ground is getting unstable here."
"How do you know that?"
The dwarf pointed at the dead monster. A number of large crystals and smaller stones were scattered around the body. "Those must have fallen out of the wall and brained the creature while it was eating," said the dwarf.
"Lucky for us. One less thing for us to fight," said Zuzzara.
"Hey, doesn't that look like Procampur armor?"
"It's too rusty," said Gunderal. "Can you imagine anyone from Procampur letting their armor get into such a state!"
"Let's move," commanded Ivy. "That creature may have had friends, and we don't need any more trouble. Let's find Kid and get out of here."
"And what about Sanval?" Gunderal hopped neatly over the pile of rusted armor and gave Ivy a teasing look.
"Oh, him too."
"So there is still treasure in the ruins of Tsurlagol," said Mumchance, still checking the crystals studding the wall as he walked besides Ivy.
"Apparently. Funny that nobody ever looted this part."
"I think we are in the oldest bit," said Mumchance. "The most buried bit."
"What do you mean?" Ivy asked, picking her way carefully along the corridor. Besides the gems studding the walls and ceiling, more were poking up through the floor. It made the way rough, and tripping was a distinct possibility. Worse yet, there weren't enough clear flat bits to show any good tracks. Kid might have been able to see something, but Ivy didn't have his clever eyes and cleverer nose.
"Look at these tunnels, straight, narrow, and slanting down. This bit isn't some part of the city that sunk below ground. Someone chiseled this bit out of solid stone."
"Why?"
"Well, if they had bothered to take the rocks out of the walls, I would have said it was a mine shaft. But, as it is, and seeing what is in front of us, I think this is a tomb shaft," Mumchance said, halting before a pair of golden doors, emblazoned with the type of funeral scenes that they had seen earlier in the old city bath and in the ossuary. Only these scenes were much more finely wrought and studded with colored gems.
Above the funeral procession, the walls of a long-lost Tsurlagol tumbled down before a solitary figure with upraised arms. Again, the pictures showed a fantastic gem clutched in the man's hand, radiating out lines indicating some type of magical force. And above that were the runes for earth, sky, water, and emptiness that had decorated the floor of that odd trapped room. "I'd bet that this was the first time they made those pictures," said Mumchance, looking up at the doors, "and all the others in the ruins were just copies-what people remembered about these pictures."
"How about warnings?" suggested Ivy, still staring at the huge doors. She had never seen that much gold in one place. One door could probably buy an entire mansion in Procampur.
"Could be," said Mumchance, who also looked a little stunned by the sheer amount of gold that somebody had thought made an excellent door.
"Don't suppose they are just gold foil over wood," said Zuzzara, also blinking at the wealth on display. Gunderal was just tilting her head from one side to the other, seeing how her reflection looked in the polished gold panels.
"It's solid," said the dwarf, rapping the door with a heavy fist. "And too heavy for us to carry out."
At Mumchance's knock, the doors before them creaked half open, the lock neatly sprung. Wiggles jumped forward, squirming through the open doors ahead of the rest of them. "Charmed and mechanical," said Mumchance, stopping to peer at the lock in front of his nose. "But somebody went through it quick and clean. Must be Kid's work."
"That's why Archlis took him," Ivy said. "He needed Kid's talents to get through this door and any other locks he might encounter."
"Because he has no talents of his own." Gunderal sniffed. "Told you that it was all stolen magic and Kid's just another token to him."
"Still," said Ivy. "If Archlis needs Kid's talents, he should keep Kid alive until we can retrieve him." She looked back the way that they had come. Even with her human nose, she could smell river water.
"Ivy," said Gunderal, confirming her fears. "The river is coming closer. It will be in these tunnels soon."
"Then we go forward," Ivy said.
"And close the doors behind us," added Mumchance, clicking his fingers at Wiggles to bring the dog to heel. "Solid metal, dwarf-made, these should seal tight. That should keep the water out of this section for a while."
"But we can't go back." Even as Ivy voiced this objection, she realized that the doors were the least of their problems. With the river filling up the tunnels behind them, returning the way that they had taken into the treasure trove would soon be impossible.
More gems gleamed on the other side of the door. With Ivy's help, Zuzzara was able to drag the heavy golden doors closed again. With a firm click, the doors locked into place.
"So now we hope that Archlis has another way out," said Gunderal.
"I'm sure that he always did," said Ivy. "He just wanted to get here, and he couldn't with those destrachans in the way. When we drew them off, he came straight here and straight through. He is moving fast, hunting for one particular treasure, or he'd be chipping out part of these walls, wouldn't he?"
"They are good crystals," admitted Mumchance, trailing his fingers along the wall. "Useful for spells-the sort of thing most wizards would want. If it had been me, I'd have slowed down and taken a few with me. Maybe tried to shave a bit of gold off those doors."
"So he's blind to all of this, and set on getting some other treasure out of these ruins," Ivy said.
"Must be. And there's something odd about these walls. Has been since we came down those stairs."
"What?" Ivy asked.
"These crystals shouldn't be here at all. Wrong type of rock for such gems. These come from lower down probably. And they weren't set here by somebody. Not like dwarves studded the walls, if you see what I mean. More like the gems just pushed themselves out of the dirt here."
"There's more earth magic here," agreed Gunderal. "Very strong and very close now."
"I just wish I had not lost my sword back there," Ivy said, pulling the long knife from her belt. It would work for close fighting, but she most certainly regretted feeding her sword to the destrachan. The corridors still blazed with an internal light, and for the first time since she had fallen into the river, Ivy could see clearly ahead of her-no shadows, no darkness, nothing hiding in front of her. It made her exceedingly nervous. Remembering the phantom fungus, she had the queer feeling that whatever you couldn't see might turn out to be worse than what you could.
Zuzzara and Gunderal seemed equally anxious, starting at their own footfalls as they passed through the crystal-studded tunnel. Obviously, they too thought this was just too easy.
Only Mumchance seemed carefree. He was too intrigued by the gems surrounding them on all sides to notice much else. Turning slowly, his real eye gleamed with appreciation of the stones arrayed in front of him, and even the fake eye appeared to sparkle in the light of the corridor. "I'm sure that these crystals were pushed straight out of the earth, called out of it as it were. This was done by magic. Then somebody came along later and made those doors and sealed the place off. And who seals off a terrific source of wealth like this?"