Easy Betrayals tddts-8 Page 2

  "She's got a half-hour lead on us, at least," Jacob grumbled. "How can you catch something that can grow wings, or fins, or extra legs anytime she feels like it?"

  "Perseverance," Miltiades replied. Drawn and haggard, bloodied by a dozen small wounds, it seemed that nothing but determination kept the paladin on his feet. "She'll give up before we will."

  "Pray we catch up to her before she finds her way out of these crypts," said Belgin. "If she gets to the city above, perseverance won't matter."

  "Well see." Miltiades shrugged sparely and returned his attention to the hall before them. The dismal sconces of the mage-king's dungeons were far behind them, and with a muttered prayer the paladin halted to conjure a shining white light on the head of his warhammer, illuminating the corridor. It was long and straight, faced with a faded and peeling plaster that bore hints of ancient murals. Dust lay thick on the floor, but scuffling paw prints showed where Eidola had passed.

  With a silent exchange of glances, the four men pressed farther into the crypt. Belgin coughed in the musty air, holding a handkerchief to his face. "What kind of maze is this place?" he muttered into the darkness.

  "Old work, old human work," Rings replied softly. The dwarf ran his gnarled hand along the rotten plaster of the wall. "It's not the same construction as the rest of Aetheric's halls."

  "Ancient Mar stonework?"

  "It might be. It looks like the Mar ruins I've seen scattered around the Five Kingdoms." The dwarf tugged on an earring. "This feels like a funeral chamber of some kind."

  "Great. A crypt," Jacob remarked over his shoulder.

  "If you're right, Rings, we might not have a long chase on our hands after all," Belgin said thoughtfully. "Eidola might have fled into a dead end-er, so to speak."

  They traveled several hundred yards before the passageway ended in a great double door of stone. One valve stood ajar. Belgin knelt by the floor, examining the tracks. The four-footed paw marks had vanished, replaced by the slim outline of a woman's boots. "She took human form again here," he advised the others, rising and dusting his hands against his trousers.

  "You seem to have a knack for reading tracks," Jacob observed. "I thought you were a sea dog, not a highwayman."

  "I've a few tricks up my sleeve," the sharper answered. Miltiades moved up, turned his broad shoulders sideways, and slipped into the chamber beyond. Jacob followed, then Rings. Belgin paused a moment, studying the towering door. He was fairly certain he couldn't have moved it an inch. If you cross swords with her, Belgin my lad, remember that she's much stronger than she looks, he told himself. He straightened his tailored jacket and wriggled past the rough stone, shielding his eyes against the glare of the paladin's magical light.

  The room beyond was magnificent, flanked by great statues of ancient warriors in long headdresses. A series of false arches carved in basrelief along the walls flanked the room, which was cluttered with mildewed banners, broken urns stained with redolent residue, old bronze weapons green with verdigris, and dozens of small casks and statuaries. In the center of the room stood a long, low pedestal supporting a stone sarcophagus, elaborately carved in the likeness of a handsome young man. Dust lay thick over the entire chamber.

  Belgin searched the room with his eyes, alert for any threat or sign of Eidola's path. There was no other exit from the chamber.

  "We have her," Miltiades said quietly. "Jacob, guard the door. Let nothing pass." The curly-haired fighter scowled at the paladin's order, but he grimaced and took up a watchful post by the door, sword poised like a toll pike. With the patience of a stalking cat, Miltiades advanced into the room, his eyes flicking from place to place as he searched. He circled to the left of the sarcophagus.

  Rings watched Miltiades for a moment, then circled around the pedestal to the right, his short axe hanging from his fingertips. Belgin trailed Rings, choosing to cover his friend's back. He'd seen Miltiades fight, and besides, the Sharkers had to watch out for each other more now than ever. The room fell silent, the quiet broken only by the slow scuffle of leather on stone and the soft jingling of the paladin's mail and plate. Nervous sweat trickled down the pirate's brow as the hunt lengthened. "Careful, Rings," he whispered. "She might have changed her form again."

  "Could she be a piece of furniture?" the dwarf asked over his shoulder. "A big vase, or maybe a wall hanging?"

  "I've heard it said that doppelgangers are limited in how much they can change their shape. Look for something more or less human-sized… but don't turn your back on anything."

  "That doesn't help," Rings growled in reply. "Belgin, you-"

  "Silence, both of you!" barked Miltiades. Belgin shot a resentful glare at the paladin, but Miltiades wasn't looking at the pirates; he stood before a tall funereal statue. It was the image of an ancient warrior much like the others that stood guard over the sarcophagus, with a broad bare chest, a knee-length kilt, sandals, and a high headdress framing its stern face. Its hands gripped an oblong shield and a curving sword. "How many of these stone warriors stand against your wall, Rings?" asked Miltiades, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  "Seven," the dwarf answered.

  "There are eight over here," Miltiades said. He raised his hammer to shatter the image before him.

  With preternatural swiftness the stone warrior sprang from its pedestal, lashing out with its heavy blade. Miltiades caught the blow on his shield with a great ringing parry and was driven backward. With mechanical ruthlessness Eidola hammered at the paladin's guard. Rings dashed forward, rounding the central sarcophagus to come to Miltiades's aid. In the corner of his eye, Belgin saw Jacob take three steps from his post by the door, moving up to join the fight. "No, Jacob!" he barked. "Guard the door! We can't let her out of this room!"

  The fighter paused, meeting Belgin's face with contemptuous anger. 'Then help him!" he roared, pointing at the fight. Miltiades slipped and went down to one knee. Eidola screeched in triumph and raised her stone blade to strike-but the paladin shattered one knee with a low swing of his silver hammer. Eidola toppled to the floor just as Rings appeared. The dwarf seized one brawny arm in his left hand and hacked viciously with his axe, breaching the doppelganger's stony hide in a spray of dark blood and flakes of rock-like flesh. Eidola shrieked and convulsed with startling power, hurling the dwarf aside and slamming Miltiades to the floor.

  Now! Belgin saw his chance. Nimbly he leaped to the top of the sarcophagus, lashing out with his cutlass to gouge a deep cut across Eidola's forehead as she struggled to stand. The doppelganger fell back, then changed her shape, collapsing into a boneless cuttlefish with razor-sharp hooks serrating its flailing tentacles. Miltiades floundered under the serpentlike strikes of three of the creature's tentacles, then Rings had his axe wrenched from his hand by another. Light and shadow danced chaotically in the tomb as the paladin's glowing hammer whirled and fell. Atop the tomb, Belgin tried to find a place to strike-and then he felt a cold, strong pressure circle his ankle. He stooped to sever the tentacle that gripped his foot, but with inhuman strength Eidola jerked his limb from beneath him, tripping him heavily on top of the sepulchre. The sharper struck his head on the stone face. His eyes flooded with white, and the screaming, clattering, hissing cacophony of the fight faded into nothingness in his ear.

  Vision swimming with pain, Belgin at first didn't believe his senses when he felt the stone slab under him begin to grow warm. He rolled to one elbow, trying to regain his bearings, although his movements seemed slow and heavy. Rings and Miltiades still fought Eidola, while Jacob had moved up behind the dwarf, sword raised as he awaited his opportunity to join the fray.

  Something black and spidery flitted before Belgin's face. He glanced down in surprise, only to find that glowing magical runes now circled the sarcophagus lid. Above and behind him, the blank wall that stood opposite the chamber's only door seemed to grow a tracery of mystical runes, like ivy climbing a stone wall in the space of only heartbeats. Some kind of enchantment on the sarcophagus? Belgin wondered absentl
y. A tomb-trap triggered by our fighting, or when I fell on the lid? His alertness returning, he rolled off the sepulchre and recovered his sword. "Something's happening!" he called out, warning his companions.

  Above the sounds of the fighting, a powerful voice pronounced some horrible doom in a language older than mankind. The great stone door at the tomb's entrance slammed shut with a tremendous boom, bringing a soft rain of dust from the ceiling overhead. Jacob whirled and attacked the doors with all his strength, but they were sealed with sorcery. "We're trapped!" the fighter called.

  "Finish the doppelganger!" Miltiades answered, crushing a tentacle to red pulp with one blow of his hammer. "Well worry about escape once she's dead! For Tyr and justice!" He resumed the attack, striking blow after blow with his hammer while Rings ripped great slashes in the thing with his ancestors' axe. Pieces of cuttlefish lay strewn about the chamber, but still the beast fought on, warping its shape from moment to moment to create new limbs and minimize the effect of its foes' weapons.

  Belgin moved in to join the fight again as Jacob did the same, but at that moment the glyphs on the far wall- now an arcane, circular design-flashed with a crackle of energy and a peal of thunder. Where a blank stone wall had stood, a dark portal yawned. Wind howled forth, thick with the scent of dust and strange incense. What in the Five Kingdoms? he thought, raising an arm to shield his eyes. A magical doorway? Here? "Look out! We might have company coming!"

  Eidola recognized the archway, too. Slithering away from the paladin, she seemed to suddenly contract and rise, standing on two legs as the human woman they'd seen before. Deftly she vaulted the stone tomb, parrying Belgin's attack, and leaped headlong into the portal. Belgin dove for the lasso trailing her waist, but the cord brushed his fingertips and disappeared into the darkness. "She's getting away!" he cried unnecessarily.

  'Tyr damn it! We had her!" Miltiades shouted. "Quick, after her!"

  "Wait!" Jacob shouted against the roaring wind. "We don't know where the portal leads!"

  "Jacob's right," Belgin said. "What if it leads to the heart of a volcano? Or to a dragon's den? She might be dead already."

  "Then I'm going to go make sure," Miltiades stated. Blood streamed from a vicious cut on the side of his head, but the paladin seemed tireless. He took three running steps and threw himself into the black portal, shield raised high.

  "I'm with the paladin," Rings said. He was ripped and scored in a dozen places from Eidola's tentacles, but a fierce light blazed in his eyes. "Besides, why would the old builders of this place install a portal to nowhere?" He trotted forward and stepped through.

  "Maybe they wanted to arrange something special for anyone who despoiled this tomb," Belgin answered, speaking to the blackness. "Maybe-oh, to hell with it." With a lamning start, the dandy leaped into the doorway, roaring an improvised battle cry.

  Behind him, Jacob stood in the darkness of the wrecked crypt, glaring at the portal. "Damn, damn, damn," he muttered, pounding his fist against his palm. "It's not supposed to be like this." Jaw set, he picked up his great war blade and followed the others into the darkness.

  Chapter 2

  Down to the Crossroads

  Cold beyond cold, darkness seared Belgin's flesh, and then he was through the gate. His bold battle cry faltered in the teeth of a bitter, stinging wind that scoured him with dust and sand. He raised a hand to shield his eyes and blundered forward. Crumbling old stone walls surrounded him, and overhead a brown sky billowed and seethed with the weight of wind-borne dust. No sun pierced the sandy veil, but something in the quality of the light hinted at late afternoon, maybe sunset. Where on Toril are we? he thought. Grimacing, he laughed bitterly. I've said that all my life and never really meant it before.

  "Belgin! Over here!" A stout, dark shape materialized in the murk as Rings appeared. He looked past the sharper. "Where's the swordsman?"

  "Right here," said Jacob, emerging from the portal behind them. A rune-carved arch marked the gate's location, twin to the one they'd left behind in the dungeons beneath Aetheric's palace. The fighter's golden mane whipped around his head in the relentless wind. "Not a volcano, not a dragon's den," he remarked. "I guess this could have been worse."

  "That depends on how you look at it," Belgin said. "Eidola's out of our cage now." He turned his back on Jacob and Rings, moving forward to examine their surroundings. The ground was broken and rugged, heaps of uneven stone piled at random all around him. The walls seemed to form a large courtyard with rows of broken columns rising from drifts and skeletal fingers clawing up through the hissing, shifting sands. Beyond the old walls he gained glimpses of the dark bulk of neighboring structures, revealed and then hidden by the dust. No, not a courtyard, he decided. It's a great building, long since collapsed. I'm standing on the rubble of the roof. He scanned the wreckage again, still trying to absorb his surroundings. He'd seen blood and horror and death aplenty in the last few days, but as he gazed on the ruins, he felt as if he were a ghost moving in a sad and silent phantom world. He'd left his capacity for wonder too far behind.

  Rings scrambled up to stand beside him, Jacob following a step behind. The three stood together a moment, the wind howling mournfully around them. "What is this place?" Rings asked softly.

  "Who cares? It's long dead," said Jacob. "Faerun is choked with ruins such as these."

  Belgin scratched at the two-day stubble on his round jaw, narrowing his eyes against the dust and sand. "A temple, I think," he said, ignoring Jacob. "The portal we came through opened when the tomb was disturbed. Guarding the places of the dead is traditionally a role for priests or those who might serve them."

  "They haven't been very attentive of late, have they?" Jacob laughed.

  "Don't be so sure, Jacob. A thousand years is a long time to wait, but some guardians might have the patience for the vigil." Belgin turned in a slow circle, studying the maze of rubble around them. Perhaps it was only the melancholy sighing of the wind in the old stone that unsettled him… or maybe something else, something more sentient and aware. He knew enough about places such as this to feel a distinct chill at the wind's soulless moaning.

  "Miltiades comes," announced Rings. The dwarf's brass and gold piercings gleamed in the fading sunlight. From the swirling murk that marked the temple's ancient gate the paladin wearily strode, a tall shape gleaming with silver.

  "See Eidola?" Miltiades asked without preamble.

  "No," said Jacob. "I take it you didn't, either. What happened to you?"

  "She was only a few steps ahead when we emerged from the portal, but she outran me, and I lost sight of her," Miltiades admitted. "She's hiding somewhere in the ruins. Come on, let's get moving. We can't let her get too far ahead of us." He turned away and set out toward the gate, hammer resting over his shoulder.

  "Miltiades, wait," Belgin called. "We have to talk." He glanced at Rings standing beside him.

  The paladin paused, looking back over his shoulder. "We don't have time to talk, pirate. Keep up or turn back, but don't stay the course of Tyr's justice."

  "Justice?" Belgin asked. "Look at yourself, man. You left your reason at the door when we set off on this little expedition. What were you thinking, running off alone after a creature like Eidola? What if she'd doubled back on you? She could have killed you alone in the ruins, while we stood here wondering where you'd gone."

  "For that matter, how do we know that you're not Eidola in Miltiades's shape?" Rings asked suspiciously. He leaped down the stone pile, rock skittering under his feet. "Eh? Can you prove that you're not? You've been out of sight of all of us for a good ten minutes now."

  "I'm not a doppelganger," Miltiades growled. "Now, come on! We don't have time for this. I need your help to find her."

  "Make the time," Rings stated flatly. He slowly drew his axe from his belt. "I've had all I can stomach of shapechangers."

  "How in Tyr's name can I prove that I'm not a doppelganger?" Miltiades roared. "Stand here and not change my shape?"

 
"Work a magic of Tyr," Jacob suggested. The lean fighter circled wide, moving to leave himself plenty of room to wield his man-high great sword. Belgin noticed that the fighter had his eyes on the rogues as well as the paladin. "What of you two? Can you show that you're not shapeshifters?"

  "Good," Belgin said. "Don't trust any of us. I'll make a point of not trusting any of you, and we'll all get on famously." He turned back to Miltiades. "I don't think we'll need you to work a miracle, Miltiades. Just answer me this question: Where did we first meet?"

  "Doegan, of course," the paladin answered.

  "Better than that, Miltiades. Exactly where and when?"

  With an annoyed look, Miltiades deliberately said, "We met in battle in the court of the fountain, two days ago. I fought Entreri until Noph interfered, lassoing us with his magical lariat."

  "Good enough for me," Belgin replied slowly. He took his hand from the hilt of his sword. "I don't think Eidola could have known that. Now, what do you want to do, paladin?"

  "Wait a minute," Rings said. "So we believe Miltiades is Miltiades. How does he know he can trust us?"

  "Tyr guides me," the paladin answered bluntly. One by one, he studied Rings, Belgin, then Jacob. To his surprise, Belgin felt uneasy beneath Miltiades's unblinking gaze, as if his darkest secrets were laid bare for the paladin to see. The tall warrior allowed his eyes to rest on

  Jacob a moment longer and then stated, "I see no evil in your hearts. You're all who you say you are."

  "Fine, fine, so everyone's what they seem," Jacob said. "Now what?"

  "We search the city for Eidola, house by house if we have to," Miltiades replied. He sighed and leaned his warhammer against one wall, sitting on a windswept stone. "But first, I think we need to rest a short time. I thank you, Belgin-I've allowed anger to rule me for too long."

  "Think nothing of it." Belgin shrugged his satchel from his hip and collapsed to the ground, while his companions followed suit. He allowed himself a sparse drink of water and gnawed at a piece of dried sausage from his stores. Exhausted, he leaned his head against the cold stone. I hope she's as tired as I am, he thought. Tyr knows it would only be fair. He laughed weakly at the unspoken prayer to a god he didn't venerate, but the cloying sand caught in his throat. The vicious coughing fit left him helpless for several minutes, his chest aching abominably. Gasping for breath, Belgin tried to pretend he couldn't feel the rasp in his lungs.