That is why I am a wizard and you are a dungeon rat!" Melthis hissed acidly. He clutched his robes up around his ankles to keep them out of the foul muck of the alley. "Recall your manners, Melthis," Darien chided as the two came to a halt. "Ar'talen is our Mend in this, after all."
Artek shot the handsome nobleman a black look. Friend was hardly the word he would have chosen. Darien only smiled his smooth, arrogant smile.
Melthis approached the stone wall and began to mumble under his breath. After a moment the wizard tapped the back wall of the alley with his staff. Like ripples on a pond, concentric rings of crimson magic spread outward on the wall, radiating from the point where the staff had struck. The circles flickered and vanished, but one of the stones continued to glow with dim scarlet light. Melthis pushed lightly on the stone. There was a grinding sound, followed by a hiss of fetid air. A low opening appeared in the wall. The wizard shot Artek a smug look.
"You'll forgive me if I hold my applause," Artek said in annoyance.
Darien gestured to the dark opening. "All you need do is follow the passageway beyond, Ar'talen. It leads to one place only: the upper halls of Undermountain."
The transport device I gave you will return you to this place," Melthis added. "We will be waiting for you."
Darien smoothed his elegant velvet coat. "Remember, Ar'talen, you have only two days to return with Lord Corin Silvertor. And if you fail to find him," he said, green eyes flashing sharply, "don't bother to return at all."
Artek tried to swallow the bitter taste of rage in his mouth. "How do I know that when I do return you'll really have Melthis remove the tattoo?" he demanded.
"You don't," Darien replied flatly. "Yet what choice do you have but to (rust me?"
Clenching his hands into fists, Artek resisted the orcish urge to tear the nobleman to shreds. He glanced down at the tattoo on his arm. Slowly, inexorably, the wheel continued to spin around the grinning skull. The sun had completely passed the arrow now. Less than two days to find the missing noble. Less than two days to live.
"Be here," was all he said.
Crouching, he passed through the opening in the wall into a cramped tunnel beyond. Behind him, Melthis uttered a word of magic. The secret doorway shut with a foreboding boom, sealing Artek in tomb-like blackness.
For a long moment he stared into the thick darkness. Gradually his eyes began to adjust. Rough walls, loose stones, and scurrying insects appeared before him in subtle shades of red. He sighed in the dank air. During those long months locked in his cell, he had thought his ability to «ее in the dark lost forever, for his eyes had glimpsed nothing but impenetrable blackness. Now he knew that this had indeed been due to some enchantment bound in the stones of that cell. Like his thieving skills, his dark-vision was a gift from his half-ore father. And one for which he was now grateful.
In a hunched position, he began moving down the low tunnel. Countless times it bent and twisted, until he lost almost all sense of direction. Yet some deep instinct told him that he was steadily heading westward-in the direction of Mount Waterdeep. At several points he was forced to crawl on his belly over heaps of rubble where the tunnel had caved in. The foul air was oppressive, and he breathed it in shallow gasps through his open mouth.
Abruptly he came to a halt. The passageway, which had been level up to this point, suddenly plunged down before him at a steep angle. He eyed the slope critically. It would require some caution, but he could do it. Keeping his center of balance low to the floor, he inched his way over the edge of the incline.
His boot skidded on a layer of slime.
Artek's hands shot out, but it was no use. The walls and floor of the tunnel were both dripping with slick slime. The ichor was the same temperature as the cool stones, and so his heat-sensitive eyes had failed to detect it. His boots and fingers scrabbled furiously against the slimy surface. He nearly made it back up to the edge of the incline, but then he lost his grip and careened headlong down the steep slope.
His curses rang off the walls of the tunnel as he slid rapidly downward. In vain he fought to slow his descent, wondering if at any moment he would strike a blank wall or some other obstacle with bone-crushing force. Out of control, he slid faster and faster.
As suddenly as it had begun, the slope ended, leveling into a flat passageway once more. With a surge of dread, he saw that his fear of a trap was all too prophetic. Just ahead, the tunnel dead-ended in a wall bristling with pointed iron spikes. Despite the level floor, he was so covered with slime that he continued to skid, hurtling with fatal speed face first toward the spikes.
With a yell, he reached back and fumbled for the saber belted at his hip. At the last moment he drew the blade and thrust his arms out before him, clenching his eyes against the coming impact. There was a deafening clang of metal on metal, accompanied by a spray of hot sparks. A brutal shock raced up his arms, jarring his shoulders painfully, as he came to a sudden halt. After a moment he opened his eyes. He looked up to see the tip of a spike a hairsbreadth from his hands. The sword was longer than the spikes, its tip striking the wall just before he struck the points.
Pulling his aching arms back, he slowly sat up and slipped the saber back into its scabbard.
"I guess that was the quick way down," he said weakly. He let out a nervous laugh of relief. Stiffly, he started to climb to his feet.
That was when the floor dropped out from beneath him.
Artek swore as he plunged downward. He had become stupid as well as rusty during his long imprisonment. Of course the spikes hadn't been the real trap. They were far too obvious. Their only purpose had been to distract him from the true trick-a weight-sensitive trapdoor. And it had worked perfectly. He flailed as he plummeted through cold air, wondering how many heartbeats he had until he struck bottom.
Out of the corner of his eye, a large shape loomed beneath him. Instinct took command. Like a cat in midfall, he snapped his body around and reached out. His fingers brushed across hard stone, slipped- then caught in a sharp crevice. His descent abruptly halted. Once again pain flared in his shoulders, but somehow he managed to keep his grip on the crack. Searching blindly with his boots, he found a toehold and took the pressure off his throbbing arms. He leaned his cheek against the cool stone, breathing hard. That had been close. Too close.
"How in the Abyss did I do this blasted thieving stuff for so long?" he groaned to himself.
He didn't know. But he only had to do this one last job, and then he could give it up forever.
Shaking the vertigo from his head, he gazed around, his darkvision piercing the gloom. He was in the center of a large circular chamber, clinging to the side of some sort of irregular stone pillar. Had he not managed to catch himself, he would now be lying on the floor over forty feet below, gruesomely wounded or-more likely-dead. Craning his neck, he gazed upward. He could just make out the trapdoor through which he had fallen, perhaps twenty feet above. It was still open, but utterly out of reach. Not that it mattered. His goal lay in the opposite direction-deeper into Undermountain.
A peculiar odor hung in the air, sharp and metallic, like the scent of the air before a storm. The smell troubled him, though he was not certain why. The hair on the back of his neck prickled uncomfortably. However, there was nothing to do but start climbing. He glimpsed two stone doors on opposite sides of the chamber, both closed. Hoping that one of them might lead to his quarry, he felt for crevices and protrusions and started inching his way down the pillar.