Keeping a wary eye on the glowing dagger, the creature stumbled to its feet. It crouched again, preparing for another go at Artus.
“Just so long as my friend’s none the worse for it, we can call this over right now,” Artus said. “If the statue’s yours, we’ll gladly leave it here.” He hoped to see the glimmer of intellect in any of the sixteen eyes squinting at him. He didn’t.
They circled each other now. Arms outstretched, claws and dagger raised, they looked for all the world like two young hoodlums dueling in a back alley in Suzail or Waterdeep or any other large city in Faerûn. Artus gave up hope that the creature might be intelligent enough to reason with when it started repeating the words “none the worse for it” using his own voice. It was most unsettling.
Artus edged toward the door, hoping to catch another glimpse of his friend. He kept the dagger held before him in much the same way a good priest presents a holy symbol to the forces of darkness.
This ploy was too much for the creature. To its limited intellect, it was obvious that the meal with the glowing weapon was going to pilfer its food. Desperate at losing both victims, it let its hunger override its fear. The cry the beast made as it lunged possessed no fragment of mimicked human speech, only bestial outrage and fury.
Artus, too, made an inhuman noise as he choked back a shout of surprise. When the beast charged forward, he planted one hand atop its head, breaking its momentum. With the other he planted his dagger up to the hilt in the creature’s chest. The force of the blow lifted the beast off the ground. Artus expected it to shriek in pain or, perhaps, topple over. It did neither. It remained stock-still for an instant and looked at the weapon embedded in its flesh, almost as if it, too, was surprised that the attack had done little except spill some bluish gray blood.
Weaponless, Artus backed away, wishing he had struck at its stomach. The creature knew now it had little to fear, and it grabbed one of Artus’s arms with its long fingers. Dirt-encrusted claws tore five holes in the explorer’s thick winter coat and five bloody gouges in the skin below. With the flat of his palm, Artus struck the beast in the forehead. Far from being blinded by the attack, the creature growled in anger. Its eyes seemed as immune to damage as its chest. Teeth dripping with saliva, it opened its mouth-wide, wider—and moved toward Artus.
“See here, you damned nuisance,” Pontifax mumbled from the doorway. A glowing ball of light appeared near the ceiling, illuminating the entire room.
The creature turned its head just in time to see an azure bolt flash from the mage’s stubby fingers. The blast of arcane energy did not strike the beast and paralyze it, as Pontifax had intended. No, the bolt swerved violently around its target and struck Artus in the chest. But it did not paralyze him either.
With a shudder, Artus began to grow.
In moments, he was twice his normal six feet. In an instant more, three times that height. He had to drop to his side to avoid the roof, and still he continued to grow.
Needless to say, the creature was suitably flustered. Its viselike grip broken by Artus’s rapid change in size, the beast tried to clamp its jaws down on him. All it got for the attempt was a mouthful of wool-lined leather. Gagging, for Artus’s clothing also continued to expand, the creature rolled about the floor. At last it spit out the shredded garment. Without pause, it clambered over Artus’s legs and dashed past Pontifax. The magical dagger, dislodged by the creature’s haste, clattered to the floor.
“Make me stop before I bring the roof down,” Artus shouted, his voice rumbling through the room. His head was propped uncomfortably against one wall, his feet just short of the other. He stopped growing just before his heels touched stone.
“Thanks,” the explorer murmured. “Now, can you see about getting me down to normal height before that thing comes back with its friends and family?”
“I didn’t stop your growth, Artus, just as I didn’t cause it. The spell I cast was aimed at the beastie, not you, and it should have frozen him in his tracks. This shouldn’t have happened.” Pontifax rubbed his chin, a frown on his jowl-heavy face. “Let me come around and take a look at you.”
The mage squeezed through the space between Artus’s feet and the wall. His frown was matched by the one on the younger man’s face, though Artus’s was four times larger. Hydel walked slowly from one end of the room to the other, studying the unfortunate giant. “Ah, there’s the culprit, I would imagine.”
He pointed at the gaping hole in the front of Artus’s coat, where the creature had bitten through. There, dangling on a fine silver chain, was a medallion emblazoned with the image of a bald, four-armed man. The silver disk gave off a wan white radiance, even in the direct glare of Pontifax’s conjured globe of light. “You touched that Mulhorandi statue, didn’t you?”
“Oh no!” Artus opened the collar of his coat and tried to remove the chain. It wouldn’t budge.
“Leave it alone, Artus.”
“But we can’t leave me—”
“I need to think about this for a moment,” the mage said. “Now, be a good soldier and stand down.” His command had a biting edge, one gained from years in the Cormyrian army. Though the young man’s frown deepened, he did as he was told.
Pontifax nodded and studied the medallion for a time. “Does it burn where it touches your skin?”
“No.”
“Tingle?”
“No.”
“Hmmmm.” The mage steepled his fingers and stared at the silver disk. Then he stepped forward, murmured a few words of magic, and grabbed the medallion’s edge. Nothing happened.
That experiment complete, Pontifax dusted a patch of floor and sat down. “The statue itself is gone, so it must have transformed somehow. I don’t think it’s got a curse on it, so the chain probably won’t constrict until it strangles you or some such grisly thing. Still, the enchantment’s not altogether friendly. It must have warped my spell somehow, just to make you grow.”
Artus examined the medallion. “At least that little stunt frightened away the creature.”
Pontifax nodded. “As I said, I don’t think the thing’s cursed. Still, it would be best if we found a wizard more familiar with Mulhorandi magic before we try to remove it.”
“And my size?”
“Will probably be back to normal in a little while, so be a good soldier and wait it out.” He paused, considering his next question carefully before asking it. “Has the possibility crossed your mind that there might be another curse at work here?”
“The Curse of the Ring is a myth, Pontifax,” Artus snapped. His brown eyes narrowed and darkened, taking on the color of a hard-packed earthen road. “You should know that by now. We’ve been hunting for the Ring of Winter for almost ten years. If rumors of the curse were true, you’d think it would have caught up to us by now.”
Silence hung heavy in the chamber. Ostensibly they had come to the ruined keep, set in the rough foothills of northwestern Cormyr known as the Stonelands, to recover artifacts. Whatever ancient coins or jewelry, vases or artwork they found would then be sold to King Azoun IV for a sizeable profit. Yet the driving motivation for Artus’s trek to the desolate and dangerous ruins was the Ring of Winter. Over the past decade, the search for that almost mythical band of metal had become the motivation for the young man’s entire life.
All that was known for certain of the ring had been gleaned from ancient histories. It had been forged by a mage of staggering power at a time when the countries that now make up the continent of Faerûn were little more than scattered villages. Throughout the ages, men and women had hunted it, for it was rumored to grant unbelievable powers to the person wielding it. Exactly what those powers were varied from legend to legend, but every account agreed upon two things: the Ring of Winter contained the magical might to bring an age of ice down upon Faerûn, and the ring granted immortality to anyone who wore it.