Since there was drink involved, Khouryn didn’t mind the attention all that much. He suspected it bothered Medrash more, but the Daardendrien’s natural courtesy masked it.
Eventually they managed to make their escape. They found a twisting staircase and descended into the Catacombs.
Balasar stepped from a shadowy niche in the wall. “It took you long enough,” he said.
“Your fellow maniacs are dancing all over the Market Floor,” Medrash said. “It ties up traffic.” He and his clan brother clasped hands.
Khouryn peered down the corridor with its dim, infrequent lights. “You’re sure you weren’t followed?” he asked.
Medrash smiled slightly. “He wasn’t. If there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s sneak. He learned it breaking curfew and the rest of our elders’ rules.”
“Fair enough.” Khouryn raised his hand to his chin, then made himself lower it again. He’d never considered himself vain, at least not about his appearance, but since the venom had burned his beard he’d acquired the unconscious impulse to cover the sad remains. “So, why did you want to meet us?”
“Did someone look at the bag?” Balasar asked.
Medrash nodded. “The wizard couldn’t tell a thing.”
“I swear,” Balasar said, “the talisman that interfered with the horses was in there.”
“We believe you,” Khouryn said. “Why else did the riders regain control as soon as you stole it? Why, if the contents weren’t incriminating, did they turn to dust as soon as a hand other than Nala’s untied the cord? But we can’t prove anything.”
“So the Platinum Cadre are marvels,” said Medrash, “winning new converts by the day. They’ll march with the rest of us when we head back onto Black Ash Plain to break the tribal alliance once and for all. Where, for all we know, Nala will betray us again.”
Balasar grinned one of the fang-bearing grins so often unsettling to folk unaccustomed to dragonborn. “Maybe not.”
Medrash’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning what?”
“I haven’t reported everything I’ve done as a spy. It’s dangerous to write very much, and impossible to hide a big sheet of parchment behind a stone. So you don’t know about the glassblower and her sand.”
He proceeded to tell how he’d followed said glassblower and two other cultists into the Catacombs, where he’d run afoul of a flying creature and a group of reanimated corpses.
“Later,” he concluded, “I made my way back to the spot where the winged thing ambushed me. There was no sign of it, so maybe I actually did kill it. But when I pressed on, I couldn’t find where Raiann and the others had gone, or anyplace interesting.”
“Still,” Khouryn said, “I think you were close.” He reached to stroke his chin, then lowered his hand again. “I’ve never actually run into a creature like the one you met, but I think I know what it is-a portal drake. The kind of watchdog a dragon priestess might use to guard the approach to something important.”
“Which means Torm has given us one more chance to unmask Nala before the army marches,” Medrash said. He always stood tall, but now seemed to draw himself up straighter still. “Lead on, kinsman.”
Khouryn’s nerves felt taut as they prowled along. It had nothing to do with the darkness or the stone overhead and all around. To a dwarf, such an environment was arguably more congenial than clear skies and green fields. Nor was he worried about the portal drake. Even if it was still alive, the three of them could handle it.
He was concerned because by then, Nala almost certainly knew someone had fought the reptile and survived. She didn’t know it was Balasar, or she would have tried to murder the Daardendrien as, Khouryn suspected, she’d sent the devil on the balcony to dispose of him. But she’d likely emplaced something worse than a portal drake and zombies to keep her secrets safe.
“I can’t believe Patrin knows,” Medrash said abruptly. “It’s difficult to imagine how he could not know, being a champion of the dragon god and Nala’s lover too, but I can’t believe he understands the vileness.”
Khouryn grunted. “I think it’s the same with most of the cultists, like the ones who wanted us to join their revels. They’re just misguided. At least until Nala has enough time to really twist their heads around.”
“That’s true,” Medrash said. “We’re fighting to save them as much as anyone else.”
“A noble sentiment,” Balasar said. “But it won’t mean a fish’s toenail if we can’t figure out how to win. We’re coming up on the corner where the portal drake attacked me. I’ll give the signal Raiann gave. If the wretched beast is still alive, that may convince it to leave us alone.” He whistled three ascending notes, the sounds reverberating off the walls.
Afterward, they stalked around the right-angle bend without incident. The tunnel beyond looked no different than the dark, lonely ones they’d just traversed.
“Can one of you find the way from here?” Balasar asked.
“I can ask the Loyal Fury for a sign,” Medrash said.
“And I can be a dwarf,” said Khouryn. “Maybe Lady Luck will smile on one of us.” He pulled off one of his leather and steel gauntlets and ran his fingertips along the right wall as they moved ahead. The granite was smooth and cool to the touch.
He wasn’t as attuned to rock or as adept at stonework as the master quarrymen, miners, and builders of his people. From childhood it had been clear that the Soul Forger had created him for war, and he’d pursued his calling gladly. Yet even so, he fancied he had a fair chance at finding something that even a dragonborn as clever as Balasar had missed.
Behind him, Medrash murmured a prayer. The holy Power he was drawing down warmed the air and made Khouryn feel vibrantly healthy and alert. But it didn’t produce a disembodied hand with an outstretched finger, or any other supernatural signpost to point the way.
Fortunately, it didn’t need to.
Though Khouryn was currently running his hand along the right wall, he suddenly sensed something different about the left one. When he looked straight at it, he spotted the minute cracks that outlined a hidden door. Maybe he’d unconsciously noticed them before, or else some subtler instinct was at work.
“Here,” he said, pointing. “A door of sorts. I think it turns on a central pivot.” He pushed on the wall, but there wasn’t any give at all. “Or at least it should.”
“You mean it’s latched or locked,” Balasar said. He ran his hands over the surface. “I don’t feel a catch, a keyhole, or anything like that.”
“It could be magic,” Khouryn said. “We might need a talisman, or to speak a password.”
Balasar whistled the same three notes that had supposedly calmed the portal drake. They didn’t open the wall. “I guess we could bring a mage down here.”
“That may not be necessary,” said Medrash. He planted his hands on the door and chanted somewhat louder than he had before. Khouryn had a sense of fierce but beneficent Power gathering. Then, grunting, Medrash pushed with all his might. And for that one moment he evidently possessed a giant’s strength, because something crunched and then the section of wall scraped partway open.
If it had opened fully, the space would have been just large enough for a donkey cart to squeeze through. On the other side were stone sarcophagi like Balasar had described, though Khouryn judged that this was a larger and even more opulent tomb. Tapers burned in five-branched candelabra, the flames variously red, blue, white, green, or teardrops of shadow. The statue of a five-headed dragon reared in the gloom.
As they crept inside, Balasar murmured, “I wonder why the family thought they needed a secret way in and out of their crypt. Or do you think the builders installed the door on the sly, so they could rob the dead?”
“I don’t know,” Khouryn said. “But I’ll tell you something I have figured out. Nala doesn’t really worship Bahamut. This is a shrine-”