By degrees, the tunnels and the chambers they connected became more and more rough and irregular, and showed fewer and fewer signs of use, until the intruders were essentially traversing natural cavern. Zyl stopped in front of an opening as broad as Aoth s hand that ran up from the floor to as high as the human s knee.
This, said the rat, is the tunnel I use to spy on the mistress of the house. Don t worry, it s big enough for humans on the other side of the hole.
Maybe, said Vandar. But can we break through the wall without making enough noise to bring every cyclops in the place down on top of us?
The fire spirit can, Zyl replied.
Frowning, Jhesrhi said, That s true. Just give me room to work.
Everyone else stood back while she positioned herself in front of the appropriate section of wall. She recited words of power in one of the tongues of the earth elementals, her high clear voice managing the hard consonants and rasping inhuman sounds without a fumble. For a moment, the folds of her patched, stained cloak and the strands of her golden hair stirred as though a jealous wind was tugging at them in a plea for her attention.
The wall split from the small hole upward, grinding and crunching. Beyond it, an entirely natural tunnel twisted away. The floor humped up and down. In some places, the walls pinched inward, and in others, the ceiling dipped low enough so that a human would have to stoop to pass beneath it.
Does it get anymore cramped than this? Aoth asked.
Some, Zyl replied. But I promise, you can all squirm through if you try.
It turned out he was right, although at one point, the way narrowed into such a tight bottleneck that Aoth wondered if anyone but Jhesrhi would be able to wriggle through without leaving armor behind. Then it occurred to him to conjure a coating of grease into being on the surface of the stone, to make it easier to worm one s way through the tight spot, and when Aoth, with his wide shoulders and barrel chest, succeeded, he knew that his companions could, too.
To his relief, the way widened out after that. Not long after, they reached a spot where a small fissure in the wall about four feet up made a natural peephole. A trace of light leaked through from the other side.
Zyl leaped up onto a bulge in the stone just beneath the crack. He rose onto his hind legs, peered through, and then motioned for his companions to do the same. Crouching, Aoth obliged him.
The vault on the other side was a sort of garden of stone, where sculpted trees and flowers, in many cases adorned with leaves, fruit, and blossoms of gold, silver, and some green metal or alloy, rose from the floor. Water splashed in fountains and ran through channels spanned by arching bridges. To human eyes, the bridges seemed anomalously broad and massive. But of course they needed to be to accommodate creatures as big as cyclopes, let alone the mistress to whom they owed their fealty.
Lady Grontaix was lounging in a sort of gazebo, oversized like the bridges, in the center of the vault. Twice as large as any of the five male cyclopes attending her, she had a hairless hide the ugly mottled purple of a bruise, a hunchback, and one eye bigger than the other. The larger one was all amber except for a slit pupil, while the smaller one had a brown iris, a white sclera, and a round pupil.
Aoth had never encountered such a creature before. Choschax had told him she was a fomorian, and as he looked at her, he experienced a sort of division of perception. He considered her one of the most grotesque creatures he d ever seen. But the Feywild invested even her deformity with its own kind of glamour.
Still, if Grontaix herself didn t seem entirely grotesque, Aoth couldn t say the same for her current pastime. Though the cyclops males looked like children in comparison to their enormous lady, their attitude was that of the eager suitors Aoth had watched paying court to some celebrated beauty in places where extravagant gallantry was in vogue. One sat sketching the fomorian in charcoal, another was feeding her mushroom caps, and a third was declaiming what Aoth, though he didn t know the language, assumed to be cyclops love poetry. The poet punctuated the particularly passionate phrases by striking notes from the dulcimer in his lap.
Aoth motioned for his companions to take a look. When it was her turn, Cera whispered, You must be joking.
Ridiculous as it looks, Aoth replied just as softly, don t let it distract you from the fact that those creatures are dangerous. Now, Lady Luck has favored us. Grontaix is right there. We don t have to roam through her apartments hunting her. We re going to make the most of our good fortune by hitting hard and fast. He told his comrades what he wanted them to do.
What about me? asked Zyl.
Aoth had no idea what, if anything, the rat could do to help, and he didn t feel like investing the time to find out. Just make yourself useful however you can, he said.
They all took deep breaths and shifted their grips on their weapons. Cera murmured a prayer that made Aoth and everyone else, presumably feel refreshed and clearheaded. With a thought, Jhesrhi cloaked herself in fire, then she spoke to the wall. She wanted the stone to open fast, not quietly, and it split with a deafening crack.
Startled, Grontaix and her consorts jerked around. Aoth scrambled through the breach, leveled his spear, snapped a word of command, and so cast one of the spells stored inside the weapon. A cloud of greenish vapor burst into existence to envelop the gazebo. Aoth could smell its putrid stench even at a distance, and inside the billowing mist, someone started retching.
The poet cyclops reeled out of the cloud with his dulcimer still in hand. His gaze stabbed at Aoth, who felt a twinge of headache, but with Cera s blessing fortifying him, he felt nothing worse. He hurled darts of azure light from the head of his spear, and they plunged into the cyclops s torso.
The brute staggered but didn t go down. He hurled the oversized zither, and it flew at Aoth like a stone from a catapult.
Caught by surprise, Aoth just barely managed to jump aside. The dulcimer slammed into the wall behind him with a crash of wood and a jangle of strings.
The cyclops drew his blade and advanced. Aoth poised his spear to defend, but Vandar screeched like a griffon and raced past him to engage the giant. Aoth wondered if the berserker was actually following the plan or just charging headlong at the first foe to present himself. Either way, it freed Aoth up to look for Lady Grontaix.
As he cast about, he glimpsed Cera chanting and swinging her mace over her head. A shaft of searing light blazed from the head of the weapon and struck the cyclops who d fed his lady the mushroom caps squarely in the face. He cried out and clapped his hand over his eye.
Meanwhile, Jhesrhi chanted at Aoth s back. Other than the breach she d just created, there were two ways into the vault, and her next task was to seal them before other cyclopes came rushing in. Masses of stone banged, crunched, and shifted as her power pulled them shut like curtains. Shaken loose, chunks of rock fell from the ceiling.
Grontaix blundered out of Aoth s conjured fog. She had mushroom-and-red-wine vomit spattered down the front of her silken gown.
You want me! Aoth shouted, advancing a couple paces. I made the mist!
She responded by closing her small eye and glaring with the large one. Though he d never encountered a fomorian before, Aoth had heard that, like their cyclops vassals, they possessed the power of the evil eye. He twisted his head so as to not meet her gaze directly.