In the pair's favor, the thick, drifting mist from the sea enabled the gnome and derro to make an escape without fear of being followed. The kuo-toa, still stunned from the earthquake and sea wave, were also not inclined to pursue, hurling only two or three badly aimed harpoons before subsiding in confusion.
In time, Wykar saw a faint reddish-purple glow far ahead as he rounded a bend in the wall to his left. He knew immediately that the journey was almost over. The glow illuminated a region where the rocky shore swung inland away from the sea, perhaps two hundred yards or more, to end in a high wall marked by several vertical rifts from floor to ceiling. The Red Shore, the drow had called it.
Wykar stopped, signaled Geppo to take cover behind a fallen rock, and began scouting the area before them. Nothing registered as important-but that was exactly what the drow slave masters had thought as well, eleven sleepings ago. They had missed a critical thing and had died for their omission,
The red-purple glow came from a large colony of wall fungus, many yards square, that coated both sides of a broad, wet fissure large enough for a group of drow to gather inside. An underground stream leaking down from above kept the area moist.
Memories came to Wykar at once. Eleven sleepings ago, a group of drow had chosen a spot deep within the vertical fissure to bury the large chest that they and their two slaves had brought with them. They had handed Wykar and Geppo each a small pick and told them to dig. The smirking drow then stood around the ragged pair and prodded them with boot tips and sword points, urging them on with their work while describing their individual ideas on how each slave should die when the job was finished. The drow had been perfectly serious, they intended for no one to reveal the hiding place later on. After time-consuming tortures and a slow execution, the derro and gnome would be animated by magic as undead guardians, to be buried with the chest and its egg for eternity-or until the drow elected to move the chest to another spot.
Wykar rubbed his eyes and pushed the memory aside. After a few moments, he reconsidered and deliberately brought the memory of those last moments back to the surface, focusing on its details with all the detachment he could summon. He had to think his way through what had happened next, break it down and study every piece, if he was to finish the task he had set for himself.
Silently, Geppo crouched down a short distance from the deep gnome and also surveyed the land ahead. The two had not spoken for many hours, but the earlier argument was already pushed aside. It was not the time and place for quarreling now.
"I was trying to remember what happened before the moaning sound started," murmured Wykar, frowning. "They were making jokes about opening the chest and spitting on the egg and locking us inside with it, and I didn't understand why that was so funny to them-the spitting part." He glanced at Geppo, who said nothing.
Wykar shrugged and looked back at the reddish-purple glow. "Then that sound started, that loud, piercing groan that went on and on and on, and it dug right down into my gut. I saw the drow clap their hands over their ears and shout at each other, and one or two drew swords, but they dropped them. I couldn't see what was making the noise. I was sick to my stomach to be listening to it. My hands shook so much that I dropped the pick, and I was terrified the drow would kill me for dropping it. But I couldn't help it. My stomach was cramped up like I was going to vomit. I covered my ears, but that didn't help me, either."
He paused and swallowed before continuing. "A male drow, I think it was Deriander the wizard, fell down over me, screaming like a banshee. We were all screaming by then. I got up again and saw that Deriander had gone rigid and was shaking. His muscles were like iron ropes, hard as rocks. They all looked like that, all six of the drow. But I could still move. I couldn't figure it out." Wykar turned to his companion. "That was when you hit Sarlaena with your pick. You hit her in the legs several times before she fell down, and I had this strange thought that she couldn't feel a thing you were doing. I thought she was screaming from something else." He looked back at the unearthly glow. "I fell over the lesser priestess and was getting up to escape when the cloakers got us."
The gnome's hands trembled at the memory. "I saw one of the cloakers fall from somewhere up on the ceiling. It looked like a white square. I knew what it was from stories that my people used to tell, but I had never seen one before. I knew then that cloakers were making the moaning noise that we heard, paralyzing and trapping the drow. Then I saw a large mouth open in the middle of the cloaker where nothing had been, a mouth with teeth, and two glassy eyes opened above it. It landed on Xerzanein's back and wrapped around him while he was still standing up, screaming and holding his ears. It was like a living cape, black as jet, squeezing Xerzanein so tightly I could see each of his fingers trying to claw through. Xerzanein had his mouth open, but I couldn't hear him through the cloaker cries all around."
The gnome swallowed again, his voice even quieter. "I could see the cloaker's mouth on Xerzanein's back, biting into his shoulders and neck. Every drow had a cloaker then. Sarlaena had one wrapped around her that was biting through her gut, chewing at her as she kicked and kicked, trying to scream. She flopped and twisted on the ground like a fish. Then something touched me on the back-" Wykar shivered violently and rubbed his shoulders, looking down at the ground.
Distant thunder rolled over the Sea of Ghosts.
"It's strange," he said, "but I don't really remember running away. I remember talking with you afterward, a bit of it anyway. I had it in mind even then that we had to go back and destroy the egg. If the drow thought it was so valuable and wanted to hide it, then it was too important to leave alone. They would have broken any egg that would hatch something good. I knew we had to destroy it, but I had no idea how we were going to go about it. I didn't want it to sit there for some other drow to find. But I didn't want to talk about things then, I just wanted you to meet me later when we could talk about it. I just wanted to get away and run and run."
"You ran to your people," said Geppo after a pause.
Wykar slowly shook his head, mildly surprised he would admit to this. "No. I didn't go back. I lied about that. I stayed away and hid by myself. My people are miles and miles off. I hid by myself and raided some caches of weapons, armor, food, and clothes I'd made for myself long ago. I just hid. I don't know what I was thinking for a while." He flashed an empty smile. "I just wanted to be by myself, to get myself back together again. I was never very close to anyone. I'm an orphan. I always kept to myself and did what I wanted to do. I explored places, and that was enough for me. Exploring and being alone."
He looked back at the red-purple glow. "That was how the drow caught me, you know. I was exploring, and they ambushed me with nets and clubs. Beat me until I was almost broken, dragged me back like a food lizard to their commune. You probably remember what I looked like then. You were already there." He chewed on his lower lip, squinting at the glow, then suddenly turned to Geppo. "How did they ever catch you?" he asked.
The derro blinked, then looked away. He covered his mouth with one hand, stroking his scraggly mustache. Wykar looked away at the glow again.
"My… my people sold me," Geppo said suddenly. He started to say more, but stopped. He didn't look at Wykar.