"Hey, don't forget me!" a dry voice called out. As4 the deck listed, an off-white shape rolled toward them. It was Muragh. Guss snatched up the skull. There was a sound like thunder as the schooner's foremast cracked and fell flaming toward the deck.
"Now!" Artek shouted.
Guss flew into the air, and the others dove off the side of the flaming ship, into the frigid waters of the river below.
The Hunt
Artek was the first to the shore.
Dripping, he pulled himself out of the chill river and onto the sandy bank. He grimaced as he stood, immediately hunching over to clutch his injured side. The cutlass wound was not deep, but the gash burned as if someone had poured molten lead into it. Behind him, Beckla stumbled onto the shore, followed by a bedraggled Conn.
"In the name of Mystra, what is this place?" the wizard gasped in an awed voice.
"Are we dreaming?" the nobleman wondered, gazing around them.
Artek frowned at their curious words. What were they talking about? Clenching his jaw against the searing pain, he lifted his head, and his oath of astonishment was added to theirs.
They stood on the edge of an enormous cavern. At least, it seemed like a cavern-high walls of rough stone rose all around them. Yet there was no rocky ceiling arching overhead, no dim cavern roof dripping with stalactites. Instead, there was a smooth azure dome, tinged by a faint yellowish haze. In the center of the dome hung a blazing orb of fire that filled the cavern with a warm golden light.
"Why, if s the sun," Corin breathed in astonishment.
Artek took a staggering step away from the river, toward the edge of a dense forest that filled the cavern. Tall trees danced under the touch of a soft zephyr. Of course, he realized. The blue dome was the sky, and the white puffs were clouds. Familiar as it was, the sight was so unexpected that he had not even recognized it.
"But this can't be," he murmured, shaking his head in confusion. The River Sargauth keeps flowing from here. We haven't made it to the ocean yet. And that means we're still underground, beneath Mount Waterdeep." He shot an uncertain look at Beckla. "Aren't we?»
The wizard nodded slowly. "I think so. There's no ocean in sight. And I would have noticed if we had passed through another gate." She gazed thoughtfully at the verdant forest. "Besides, this doesn't look like any place near Waterdeep that I know."
There was a whirring of wings as a dark form swooped down from the sky. Guss landed on the pebbly bank of the river, Muragh in hand. The gargoyle staggered dizzily and dropped the skull.
"Hey!" Muragh cried indignantly. "Try to be a little more gentle next time. These old bones are very delicate, you know."
Guss paid no heed to the skull's complaints. He lifted a clawed hand, rubbing his skull.
"What's going on, Guss?" Artek asked. Pain made him limp as he approached the gargoyle, and Artek was frustrated. The cutlass wound in his side was shallow. It shouldn't be hurting so much.
"I bumped my head," Guss said in a groggy voice.
"You did what?" Artek demanded incredulously.
Guss swayed on his sharp-taloned feet. "When I saw all that space, I became terribly excited," the gargoyle explained. "I wanted to fly up into it, but when I got as high as the cavern's walls, I cracked my skull on something. I couldn't see it, but believe me, it was hard as stone." The gargoyle groaned, and still gripping his head, sat down hard on his tail.
Curiosity flashed in Beckla's brown eyes. She opened her mouth to ask a question but was interrupted by a loud cracking sound. They all turned around. On the river, the hull of The Black Dart had broken in twain. The burning halves of the ship sank swiftly into the water, hissing as they submerged. In moments the old pirate schooner vanished from sight beneath the dark surface of the river, sunk at last to its watery grave.
Artek wanted to ask Guss more about the sky, but a wave of nausea suddenly crashed over him, and he too sat hard on the ground. Both he and Guss moaned in pain. The gargoyle let go of his head and clutched the oozing wound on his arm. Concerned, Beckla knelt beside them.
"Both of you are burning up," the wizard gasped as she felt their foreheads.
Muragh rolled toward them, coming to a halt on a small heap of gravel. "It's the zombie wounds," the skull said grimly. "It's begun."
"What's begun?" Corin asked.
"The transformation," Muragh replied, his mandible working. "A wound tainted with the filth of a zombie will fester. Gradually, the victim's body will start to die. But he won't stop moving. Instead, the victim will become a zombie himself."
The others stared at Muragh in horror. Artek shook his head weakly. All his life, he had been part monster. He had resigned himself to that fact. But to become a zombie was a fate he could not bear. "Kill me," he begged hoarsely. "Kill me before it's too late."
At last Beckla regained her senses. "Not so fast, Ar'talen," she said crisply. "I'm not going to give you two up for dead… er, undead just yet. Where's that vial of healing potion-the one you used to cure me of the wraith spider venom?"
Artek tried to move, but he was too weak. His skin was burning as if on fire. Sweat poured down his face, but he felt terribly cold. "It's… it's in my pocket."
"I don't usually do this sort of thing until I've known a gent for a while, but…" The wizard reached into the pocket of Artek's black leather breeches, and pulled out the glass vial. It was empty except for a few purple drops at the bottom. "Corin, do you have another one of these?" she asked the nobleman.
He shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid that was the only one I had."
Beckla tilted the vial, eyeing the residue critically. "I guess well just have to hope this is enough."
The wizard unstopped the vial and poured a drop of the precious fluid on the angry scratch on Guss's arm. She spread the potion over the wound with a finger, then turned to Artek. With Corin’s help, she managed to pull off Artek's leather jerkin.
"Are you wearing a fur undershirt, or does all that belong to you?" she asked dryly.
"Very funny," Artek growled. "You'd be hirsute yourself if you had ore blood in you. And let me say that I think it looks a lot better on me than it would on you."
"I won't argue with you there."
Perhaps because his flesh had been forged from stone, Guss's wound had only begun to fester. Artek's looked far worse. The shallow cut ran along his left side onto his muscular chest. The center of the wound was bright red, but the edges were disturbingly dark and gray-the color of a corpse's skin. Three drops remained in the vial, and Beckla used them all on Artek, spreading them carefully to cover the entire wound.
"Now what?" Artek gasped.
"We wait," Beckla replied gravely. "If it's going to work, it shouldn't take long."
Even as she said this, Guss let out a grunt of surprise. Though still open and bleeding, the wound on his upper arm no longer oozed ichor, and the signs of festering had vanished. It appeared no more than a normal scrape.
"I think something's happening," Artek said.
A violet radiance glowed around the wound on his side, then abruptly vanished. Like Guss's injury, the scratch was not healed, and still bled freely, but the alarming grayness was gone. Artek breathed a sigh of relief. His sweating ceased, and the preternatural chill left his bones. He shrugged his jerkin back on over his broad shoulders and stood.
Corin clapped his hands together. "I'm so terribly glad that you two aren't going to become zombies," he exclaimed happily. "I believe I received my fill of battling undead on the pirate ship."