Aoth gestured with his spear to indicate the skins. “These are funny, Master.”
The dead mage cocked his head, and his neck creaked. “You can read the epitaphs?”
“I know enough words to understand the joke.”
“Hm.” The mummy turned and proceeded down the hallway.
Orgurth waited until he judged that the undead had shambled out of earshot. Then he whispered, “I take it the skins won’t help us.”
“No.”
“Then why waste time on them?”
“The writing could have been spells, like on a scroll. I couldn’t know until I checked. Now we can move on.”
When they did, their explorations proved as nerve-wracking and frustrating as before. They kept running into Red Wizards and their underlings. So far, everyone had either ignored them or given them a casual nod, but it might only take one busybody asking which particular mage they served to reveal they were intruders.
Meanwhile, they were often unable to search the most promising chambers. A well-stocked library was a case in point. Aoth was all but certain that if he only could spend sufficient time perusing the volumes on the shelves, he’d find a solution to his problem. But that was out of the question so long as a red-clad, shaven-headed man and woman were busy reading and scratching notes.
Another chamber, this one considerably smaller than the library, contained a faceless mannequin standing on a pedestal. The figure wore faded vermillion garments that might once have belonged to some eminent Conjuror. A harness of crossed belts secured folded silvery, batlike wings to its back.
Wings. But only a single set. Not intending for Orgurth to notice, Aoth gave him a wry sidelong glance.
“What?” whispered the orc.
“Nothing. Come on.” He led the way out of the memorial and toward a staircase.
“Is this a good idea?” Orgurth murmured.
Aoth shrugged. “That depends on what you mean by ‘good.’ We’ve searched all the promising-looking parts of the ground floor that we can get at. But we can hope one of the Reds left magic that will help us in his room. If someone catches us rummaging around, though, we likely won’t be able to bluff our way out of it.”
“Maybe we should just grab a mage, put a blade to his throat, and force him to help us.”
Aoth smiled. “I thought of that. But not every wizard knows the secret of instantaneous travel. Otherwise, I’d know, and we wouldn’t be in this fix. So if we’re reduced to making that move, pray we guess correctly.”
He felt exposed climbing the stairs. But he’d previously noted various sorts of folk, not just Red Wizards, ascending them, and he and Orgurth did the same without anybody accosting them.
On the second floor as on the first, hallways lined with doors ran away from the central staircase in four directions. But unlike the ground floor, no one was in sight, and only a few pearly, fist-sized orbs in sconces glowed to relieve the gloom. As far as Aoth was concerned, both changes were improvements. The dimness was no hindrance to his fire-kissed eyes and shouldn’t bother an orc either. But it might keep a Red Wizard or servant from spotting the interlopers at a distance.
He picked a hallway at random, and he and Orgurth prowled along, testing doors. About half were locked, and some of the unlocked ones granted admittance to rooms that were manifestly vacant. But other open chambers contained signs of occupancy such as trunks; rumpled bedclothes; or a naked, unconscious slave sprawled on the floor with puckered fang marks on her neck. Perhaps the wizards in residence were making the declaration that no thief would be foolish enough to pilfer from them.
Aoth hoped to prove them mistaken. But he left stray coins and baubles where they lay and noted with approval that Orgurth did the same, although the runaway slave did guzzle the last mouthfuls of wine from any dirty goblets he came across.
In one room, the searchers discovered a wooden sarcophagus inlaid with gold that looked ancient enough to date back to the days when the Mulhorandi had ruled Thay. Aoth’s truesight immediately spotted a hidden drawer built into the base.
He slid it out to reveal a book bound in musty-smelling purple leather. His pulse quickened, and he whispered a spell of comprehension and riffled through the pages.
Then he scowled. Because the volume was the grimoire he’d anticipated but didn’t contain the magic he needed. He dropped it back in the drawer and resisted an urge to slam the compartment shut.
“Don’t wizards usually carry all their really good magic on their persons?” Orgurth asked.
Aoth likewise reined in the impulse to answer sharply. “Sometimes. Not always. Don’t give up hope yet.”
They finished investigating the open rooms in that hallway and proceeded to the next. Midway down, they found ironbound double doors with the words KEEP OUT scratched on them in sloppy characters and a sigil made of linked triangles inscribed with more exactitude underneath. To Aoth’s eyes, the figure glimmered green with the power it held.
“Interesting,” he said. “Everything else in the house is as handsomely and carefully made as one would expect. But someone in a hurry both sealed and defaced this door, and no one since has seen fit either to breach the seal or even repair the damage to the finish. I wonder why.”
Orgurth grunted. “Break in and find out. At least it’ll make a change from ransacking bedchambers.”
Aoth recited his spell of opening. The glow of the ward didn’t so much as flicker, and when he pushed on the doors, they didn’t budge.
Footsteps thumped and voices echoed up the stairwell. When the folk ascending reached the second floor, they could easily glance down the hallway and see two figures lurking in front of a forbidden room where humble soldiers had no business.
The prudent course might be to hide and come back later. But Aoth suspected he might finally be on the brink of gaining access to something useful, and he was reluctant to turn away.
For after all, even hiding was no guarantee of safety. The chapterhouse was crawling with enemies who could stumble across him and Orgurth at any moment, no matter where they went to ground.
He jammed the point of his spear into the crack between the doors and, with a muttered word of command, charged the weapon with raw, destructive force. Then, using the spear like a pry bar, he threw his weight against the shaft.
Overwhelmed by the opposing power, the glow in the carved ward winked out of existence, and the doors lurched apart. Unfortunately, they did so with a cracking sound.
Aoth and Orgurth scrambled through, pulled the doors shut after them, and stood with weapons ready to attack anyone who followed them in. But nobody did, nor did Aoth detect voices raised in alarm. If the folk on the staircase had even heard the doors snap open, they must not have thought anything about it.
When he was satisfied such was the case, he turned to see what was behind him. His eyes widened.
Inlaid in the center of the floor was a detailed map of Faerun surrounded by a complex circular design. Their maker had no doubt fashioned each precisely, but later on, the floor had rippled and flowed, stretching, bending, and breaking the shapes and lines.
By the looks of it, the distorting effect had originated in the center of the map and spread outward. It hadn’t quite reached the painted text on the left wall or the stained-glass window in the back one. Dull with night, the latter depicted a Red Wizard flying with the aid of silver wings.
“Do you know what we’re looking at?” Orgurth asked.
“I think so,” Aoth replied. “In its day, the discipline of conjuration encompassed shifting oneself through space, and the Conjurors who occupied this chapterhouse created a portal for the purpose. But when the Spellplague struck, Blue Fire must have erupted through this gate, as it did so many-I recognize the warping effect-and someone sealed the room for safety’s sake. Later, folk saw the hurried warning he scratched as a piece of history, and that’s why-”