Chapter Nine
The bearers lifted Cael to his feet and wrapped him in tight cords, binding his arms sbut leaving his legs free. Alynthia turned, and holding her torch aloft, stalked into the darkness. Cael followed, prodded along by Hook-nose. The two bearers vanished into the gloom, leaving the three of them alone with their charge. The echoes of their footsteps gathered around them, and rank water dripped unseen in the shadows. A deep mist hovered above the floor, obscuring the ground, but Mistress Alynthia led onward, her back erect.
They passed a heap of bones, and then from the darkness a crypt loomed. It was carved with leering faces and scenes of a tortured afterlife. A pillar of stone, marked with skulls, rose next to it. Overhead, the roof was arched and supported by numerous pillars of brick and dank stone. The party’s feet kicked up objects they could not see, sending them bounding along the wet stone floor. They stepped in cold puddles, loosing a fetid stench. Rats scurried from the light of their torch only to stop just outside its circle and peer back over their brown furred backs with gleaming red eyes.
After a time, a wall rose before them and blocked their path. In its center, they found a door bound with rusty iron, with a grate and a sturdy hinge set into the stone. Alynthia rapped upon the door with the butt of her torch, showering sparks on the floor. Immediately, the grate slid back and a voice asked, “Who goes?”
“Travelers from afar,” Alynthia answered.
A bang echoed through the catacomb as the door’s bolt was slid back. The ancient iron portal creaked open. The door warden, an ancient man with a voice as rusty and grinding as the hinges of the door he guarded, greeted them as they entered. A loop of keys and a garrote hung from his belt. He nodded to Alynthia, cackled at Hook-nose, and shot Cael a venomous glance with his rheumy yellow eyes.
Beyond the door, a narrow stair rose into darkness. Without pause, Alynthia mounted the stair, her torch fluttering ahead of her. Hook-nose prodded Cael upward. The stair was not long, and at its top a tripod and a flaming brazier illuminated a wide landing. Alynthia opened the door into hall that stretched into darkness on either hand.
They passed many doors, most closed tight and looking as if they hadn’t been opened in centuries. Others opened onto gaping darkness, filled with the echoes of their footsteps.
Cael could not restrain his curiosity. “The house is empty. Where are all the children?” he asked.
“There is no one on this level,” she said levelly. “This is but one house of many. It is how we protect ourselves. No one knows every house and stronghold, so no one can betray us all.”
They walked on a while longer, turning right, climbing a stair, and turning right again. Now the hall seemed less deserted. They passed a room where a candle burned atop a long table beside a book and a battered silver cup.
“Where are we heading, may I ask?” Cael ventured.
Without turning, Alynthia answered, “You are to be judged by Mulciber, our master.”
“What does that mean, to be judged by Mulciber?” Cael asked.
“You will die, or you will live.”
They entered a room filled with the scent of sandalwood. Incense burned on low tables that surrounded a huge silver platter set on the floor. The platter still contained the remnants of a meal. Currants and grains of white rice littered the rug surrounding it.
They passed through a larger shadowy chamber. Here columns of gray marble stood in endless ranks that vanished into darkness in all directions. However, a wide way led down their middle toward a set of tall double doors, black, bound in jeweled gold.
Alynthia led the way down the marble colonnade toward the doors. Cael noticed that Hook-nose had slipped away somewhere in the darkness. He was alone with Alynthia now. Yet even if he could escape, where would he go? With an inward shrug, he trudged after her.
“I can’t believe you would prefer for me to die-”
A gloved fist struck him across his beardless jaw. He staggered into a column. The female thief threw her body against him, crushing him against the cold stone pillar. Her fingers twisted painfully in his long hair. Then a knee rose up and caught him in the midriff, driving the air from his lungs.
Cael collapsed to the floor. A little blood trickled from his lip. Alynthia scrubbed her lips with the back of her gloved hand, then twisted her fist into the collar of the elf’s shirt and jerked him to his feet. “Believe it, elf. I doubt you’ll survive this day, but if you do, it won’t be because I prefer that you live, do you understand?”
Before an appropriate witticism could reach his bloodied lips, she threw him into the doors. They burst open, and he fell into the room beyond. Alynthia drew a poniard from her belt and followed.
He found himself sprawled on alabaster tiles in the midst of a great hall. To the left, the first light of the rising sun filtered through tall windows. To the right, the hall ended in a wide staircase descending into darkness. The walls all around were decorated with rich paneling interspersed by doors gilded with gold. Above, fine frescoes covered every inch of the ceiling. The frescoes depicted various scenes of Palanthian commerce, from city docksides to markets to religious and educational institutions. In these frescoes from another age, the Tower of High Sorcery still stood, guarded by its fearsome grove, and Astinus sat within the Great Library recording the history of Krynn in his chronicles of time. They were scenes from a past that seemed dusty and ancient.
Lining the shadowy paneled wall were eight chairs. Rich with velvet of red or forest green, polished and carved with care, they could have been the thrones of kings. One was greater than rest. Its back was wrought in the likeness of a dragon with wings outspread and head craned up at the sky. Its legs rested atop claws gripping balls of gleaming crystal. In this chair sat a massive figure dressed in darkest blue. Brass gleamed from his breast, and his cuffs were worked with gold braid. A golden bowl atop a small marble pedestal stood near his elbow, filled with cool grapes and dark succulent berries. The massive figure sat with his chin on his fist, amusement sparkling in his dark eyes. It was Captain Oros uth Jakar, who laughed aloud as Cael struggled to his feet.
To Oros’s right and left, each chair was occupied by a figure cloaked in black. Each had his or her hood thrown back, revealing a group of faces representing a complex variety of the cultures and races of Krynn. A swarthy-faced man from Tarsis sat beside a woman from the plains of Abanasinia. There lounged a bearded Kalamanite and beside him a man who looked enough like the bearded Kalamanite to be his twin brother. Next to them a scowling, pale-eyed native of Sancrist. However, the chair to the guildmaster’s right remained empty. To his left a dark alcove hinted at a waiting figure hidden within.
Alynthia crossed the room and took her seat in the empty chair beside Oros. Cael looked around and saw no guards but no obvious way out of the place either. He faced the gathered leaders of the Guild, acutely conscious of the blood staining his lips and the sewage drying on his tattered clothes. Any hopes for escape were drying just as fast.
When Alynthia had sunk into her seat, a bell sounded from the shadows of the hall. The room, though quiet before, grew hushed. A voice then spoke from the dark, empty alcove, “Is this the freelance thief known as Cael Ironstaff, Cael Elbernarian, the elf?”
It was a voice to chill the stoutest heart. Growling, full of menace, like the voice of a child of the elder dark before the Age of Dreams, weary as though burdened by countless ages. Whether it was that of a male or a female, human, elf, or dwarf, Cael could not discern.