The manacle tore open.
Stone gasped for breath, then quickly went to the remaining chain. Perhaps encouraged by his previous success, the gargoyle took only a few seconds to break the last manacle. He stepped back, clearly exhausted by his effort but pleased with the results.
Tyros rubbed his freed wrists. “Thank you. Where are we going?”
“Friends.” Stone would explain no more. He nearly dragged Tyros from the cell. “Hurry! Little time!”
To Tyros’s confusion, the gargoyle did not lead him upward, but rather down into the lower depths of the castle. The corridors they traversed were musty, cobweb-ridden, and looked as if no one had used them in centuries. He would have questioned his guide, but Stone moved with such determination that Tyros had to assume he knew where he was going.
Although a few emerald crystals in the walls illuminated the corridors, it still proved difficult to see where they were heading. Only when they entered a vast chamber and Tyros noticed the first of the massive marble platforms did he realize that Stone had led him to, of all places, the castle’s crypt.
Great marble coffins with the names of the interred chiseled on the front end lay atop several of the platforms. Two bore the symbols of the Solamnic Knighthood, the kingfisher with the crown, sword, and rose. Tyros counted six massive coffins in all, with two more open and ready for use. For all its size, this burial chamber had been little used. The rest of the room consisted of empty platforms or unfilled slots in the walls. Apparently the family history of Castle Atriun had been a short, bleak one.
Of the six coffins, the lids of three lay crooked, perhaps the result of the citadel being ripped from the earth. Tyros couldn’t resist glancing in the nearest, but saw little other than the armored form of a man, a sword on his breastplate.
Tyros silently cursed his training; wizards were only tutored in the use of daggers and staffs. If he took the weapon and tried to make use of it, he would likely end up cutting his own leg off.
At the far end of the crypt, Stone waited impatiently for him. Tyros quickly rejoined his companion, but instead of moving on, the gargoyle indicated a stone wall to the side. Only after staring close did the mage see that part of the wall was a door.
“Here.” Stone tugged on a ringed handle, with effort pulling the immense door open. A sense of dread spread over Tyros. Did Stone intend to hide him here? The mage felt a touch of claustrophobia. To be entombed alive for his own safety?
A cough from within set every nerve on edge.
“Stone?” muttered a voice.
“Yessss … with another.”
A figure emerged from the gloom, an emerald crystal in his hand illuminating him just enough to reveal his identity.
“Bakal?”
“By Corij’s sword! Tyros!”
“Tyros?” popped up a second, higher-pitched voice. Rapp pushed his way forward. “I knew Stone would find you!”
Tyros and the gargoyle joined them in the hidden chamber. Stone closed the door while Tyros finished greeting Bakal and the kender. As pleased as the wizard was with being reunited with his friends, his enthusiasm remained low. Serene was still the unwilling guest of Valkyn, and Tyros had no magic with which to rescue her. Worse, he suspected Bakal and the others, ignorant of the spell cast upon the red wizard, expected Tyros to lead them to victory.
“Bakal, before everyone raises his hopes, I have something I must tell all of you.” Without preamble, the weary spellcaster related to them the tale of his encounters with Valkyn and what had resulted from them. Although he made the story short, Tyros left out no horrific detail, especially when explaining the curse under which the citadel’s master had left him. Now and then his head throbbed some, but fortunately, because of the swiftness of his tale, never for very long.
The captain glared at Stone. “You didn’t tell me any of this!”
The gargoyle shrugged.
“By the Sea Queen! Here we need magic to fight magic, and the only one who can wield it no longer can!” Bakal eyed Tyros. “So if you can’t cast a spell, is there anything you can suggest, boy?”
Tyros had mulled over such a question himself and had come up with only one answer. “Even though I cannot cast spells or even think about magic much, I believe that if I can get back into the chamber where Valkyn’s device is located, I can do something to stop its foul work!”
“What about his curse on you?”
“I have to try, Bakal. We have no choice.”
The Ergothian officer clearly still didn’t like his answers, but had none better. “All right. So we go charging into this nightmare of a chamber-”
“No. A large party would be too noticeable. Besides, I need you to find the griffons and send warning to Gwynned in case I don’t succeed.”
“We’re not leaving, mage. We came to either capture this citadel or destroy it. I’ve just thought of something better. While you go after the heart of this infernal fortress, we’ll go after the Wind Captain’s Chair. If we seize that, it doesn’t matter what Valkyn tries. We’ll be in command of the situation!”
Tyros thought Bakal underestimated the black wizard. “Captain-”
“It’s settled. Either that or we all come with you, Tyros.”
In the wizard’s mind, that would be worse. He imagined the soldiers among the delicate yet lethal items in Valkyn’s sanctum. “All right.”
“What about Serene?” Rapp asked, “or Taggi and the others?”
Tyros drew himself up. “If I succeed, I will go after her.”
“But what if you don’t? I can go get her.”
“No!” Tyros came to a quick decision. “You will serve Serene and the rest of us best by gathering the griffons together. They will listen to you. We need them ready for escape.”
The kender still wanted to go rescue Serene, but Tyros felt that was his duty. Only he dared face Valkyn, even if bereft of power. Tyros had faced the madman twice and now believed he knew what to expect. This time, the gods willing, he would see to it that the black wizard paid for his heinous acts.
With Rapp silenced, Tyros turned to Stone. “You’ve helped us this far. There is no turning back.” When the gargoyle nodded his understanding, Tyros continued. “Of all of us, you know Atriun the best. We need to know the safest, swiftest paths to our destinations and what dangers we might come across on the way. You cannot leave out anything. Let’s start with the tower.…”
Stone nodded again and began to describe as well as he could how Bakal might best hope to reach the Wind Captain’s Chair. Tyros also listened, but his thoughts were focused mostly on his quest. Although the mage hoped to save Serene and the others, he had decided that, one way or another, the citadel had to be destroyed. No one could be permitted to reproduce Valkyn’s monstrous spellwork and arcane devices. Atriun had to fall, even if Tyros perished with it.
Even if everyone had to perish with it.
* * * * *
Valkyn watched Serene’s reflection in his goblet, reading her conflicting emotions and knowing that she found his work, and him, horrifying.
She had never truly understood the depths to which his research had taken him, and Valkyn had never bothered to explain. Their first few months together had been sweet, her visits to his lone abode in the woods a welcome interruption. As a cleric of Branchala, she had understood the need for solitude and how it allowed one to clear one’s mind and keep one’s faculties sharp.
Serene had proven useful for his research. She could read the currents of the world, the forces that bound Krynn together. The cleric had shown how this part of the forest communed with that part and how all lived in harmony unless something was done to disrupt matters. Valkyn had taken all of these concepts and molded them to fit his needs.
Serene had wondered about his disappearances but had been led to believe they had to do with official matters of his order. She had assumed that mages were much like clerics, a mistake he had never rectified. Instead of journeying to the tower to converse with the senior wizards, he had set out to test his more monstrous theories, performing the precursors to the spells she now found so abominable.