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Aiko began to climb again, and Egil set the problem aside and followed after, the rest now ascending as well.

Finally Aiko reached the level of the windows atop. She began to sidle toward the western aperture, moving toward a place where she would be exposed should any warder look up. Egil climbed to the same level and then followed her, Burel coming after. Slowly Aiko moved out from the darkest shadows and into dim torchlight, and she paused and set her fingers, then leaned out slightly to scan beyond the girth of the tower and down at the length of the western banquette. Satisfied that no sentry was looking, she edged on toward the window.

In a step or two she reached the side of the dark gape. Now she listened carefully and finally risked a glance. At last she drew a sword and then stepped across and onto the sill and then disappeared within.

Egil followed, and without hesitating at the window he stepped in after her.

Aiko had lit her hooded lantern, and a thin slit of light shone dimly in the circular chamber, though not enough to glow outside. Egil found her closing the drapes on the other windows as planned, and he joined her as Burel squeezed through the gap. Then Delon entered, followed by Arin and finally Ferret.

Delon unsnapped the rope between himself and Arin, then quickly closed the last drape across the window they had entered, and now all were covered. Aiko and Burel with weapons in hand took a stand beside the stairwell door, and Egil opened the shutter of the lantern a bit wider to look for the chest, quickly finding it.

Then Egil and Delon drew their weapons and moved to join Aiko and Burel, while Ferret, with Arin at hand, squatted beside the ironbound box with its three locks. Using her lantern, Ferret carefully examined the whole of the chest without touching it, seeking traps and trips and alarms. Finding none, Ferret glanced up at Arin. "Dara, use your special sight and see if this is charmed."

Arin nodded and gazed at the chest and attempted to ‹see›. "A faint aura surrounds the box, Ferai."

"What does it mean?"

"I do not know."

Ferret drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Well, alarm or not, trap or not, we've got to get inside. Watch it closely for any change."

Ferret then looked at the three locks, scrupulously investigating them as well. Finally she unrolled a leather-wrapped set of lockpicks, and selecting one, she looked at Arin and then touched the rightmost latch.

"No change."

Now Ferret inserted the lockpick within, and again there was no shift in the aura.

Ferret began probing within the keyhole.

Time eked by.

click!

Ferret glanced at Arin. The Dylvana shook her head.

Ferret set the shackle aside, then moved to the leftmost lock, this time selecting a different pick.

Once more time crept, and the only sounds to be heard were the soft susurration of breathing and the tiny scritching of brass within steel.

click!

Again Arin shook her head.

Now Ferret moved to the center lock and peered long at the peculiar keyhole. Finally she sighed softly and selected two picks, inserting both within.

Time passed and time more, and in the distance they heard a call and the tramp of feet, the sounds muted by the heavy drapes. Egil looked at Aiko and murmured, "The change of guard?"

"Perhaps," she replied.

"What does your tiger say?"

"She is greatly agitated, and has been so ever since the fortress came into view, though the closer we got, the more disturbed she became. Right now she is yowling that peril is at hand."

Egil took a deep breath and then let it out. "Even so, Aiko, we can do nothing but wait."

Still time eked past. Finally Ferret took up a third pick and prodded it into the clasp past the other two. She hissed through her teeth, as if in great effort, and muttered nearly inaudibly to herself.

click!

Releasing a gust of air, Ferret looked up at Arin. The Dylvana murmured, "No." Ferret set the third lock to the floor, then ran her hands about the lid of the chest, and cautiously, carefully, she raised it a crack.

Arin gasped. "The aura shifted color."

"A trap? An alarm?"

"I do not know."

They listened carefully, but no alarum sounded without.

Finally, holding her breath, Ferret raised the lid an inch and then stopped.

"No change," said Arin.

Then Ferret raised the lid steadily, until at last the chest stood gaping.

She waited.

Nothing happened.

Peering inside, she said, "Merde! Nothing but papers."

Now Arin moved forward. "Vada! They all glow."

With Ferret's help, Arin began examining the scrolls within. One by one they unwrapped them; some they cast aside immediately, others they paused to read. And those Ferret could not cipher she gave over to Arin. The floor about the two became littered with parchment. Of a sudden, Arin hissed, "Listen to this:

"Here I have hidden the green stone, a jadelike talisman of power, now chained by the Kraken Pool in a chest of Dwarven-made silver. The pool itself lies deep inside the rock of Dragons' Roost, with but two ways in. One entrance leading down to the chest stands on the great ledge, a shelf the Dragons jealously guard, for it is their crossing point to the Dragonworld of Kelgor. Straight down the sheer stone from the ledge the other entrance lies, just under the churning surface of the Boreal Sea. Underwater a crevasse splits deeply down a mile or more, a great crack cleaving back into the mountain stone, and through this chasm and outward hurtles a powerful current, a flow so strong no swimmer can brave, driven, I deem, by the Great Maelstrom spinning in the distance nearby. From this underwater entrance a pathway leads a furlong or so back to the Kraken Pool where the chest of the Dragonstone is chained; at high tide, the path is submerged nearly the full of its length, but at low tide only the outermost hundred feet lies underwater, though none can swim in against the current."

Arin looked up from the parchment. "This is the one!"

In that moment soft laughter sounded, and a voice said, "I wondered what brought you here."

Glass shattered.

An odor filled the room.

As Egil's mind spun down toward darkness, light filled the chamber, and stepping forth from an impenetrable cast of arcane shade at the side of one of the tall cabinets, a dark-robed Mage emerged.

"Ordrune, you bastard," choked Egil, and he feebly raised his axe, but it fell from his numbing fingers to clank upon the floor, to Egil's ears the sound deafening, clanging like a great bell of doom in the absolute blackness that engulfed him whole.

CHAPTER 64

Egil's own pulse hammered through his skull with thunderous pain. He was lying in something damp and a sour odor filled his nostrils and he came near to gagging. Groaning, he rolled onto his back, a dank squash accompanying his movement. He opened his eyes to flickering torchlight. Dark stone met his sight. He raised a trembling hand to his head, pounding with the aftereffects of whatever vapor the Mage had used. Wincing, he levered himself to a sitting position and looked about, his gaze falling on stone walls, stone ceiling, stone floors, stone pillars, and iron bars embedded in stone. He was in a cell, and ranging to the left and right were adjacent cells, with another row across the way. At one end of the corridor stood an iron-clad door with an iron grille over a small warder window. He sat on damp, rotting straw, and just beyond the bars of his cage stood a rope-handled bucket, while just inside sat a wooden bowl with a wooden spoon, both crusted with long-dried porridge. He did not need to ask where he was, for he had been here before, long past: these were Ordrune's foul mews.