Jaleigh Johnson - The Howling Delve

• Название: The Howling Delve
• Автор: Jaleigh Johnson
• Жанр: Фэнтези

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The Shadow Thieves wove a complex web around their organization, relying on anonymity to protect their power bases. At least, when Balram had served Morel, he knew where his superior's authority began and ended. How much control could they truly have over their own lives if they didn't even know the identities of their masters?

"Do you have such strong faith in your family?" Aazen said, aware even as he asked it that the question had multiple layers.

Balram took his meaning. "I would trust them, and you, with my life," he said without hesitation.

Aazen nodded. "Then I'll see to the Delve," he said, "and to Kall."

Balram watched his son's retreating back. He said, pitching his voice low, "I've already arranged to send a second party."

Daen stepped into the room, taking a seat on one of the dusty sofas. His bulk had diminished somewhat over the years, but any rumors that the Shadow Thief's heart was in any way failing him found themselves quickly and brutally squelched. "You believe he will betray you again, after all this time?"

"Once was enough," said Balram. "I'll not be blinded to him again."

"Ah, but you can't beat the lad into submission anymore," Daen pointed out. "And if he discovers you don't truly trust him, it may send him over the edge. This course of action may come back to bite you at the heel, my friend. How can you hope to stop him if he decides to go his own way?"

"By using any number of my other sons or daughters," Balram replied. "Those I've trained for a decade and more."

"The Shadow Thieves will support you," Daen agreed, "but that one is your blood. I wonder if you can forsake him so casually?"

"We'll see," said Balram.

In truth, Daen did not care whether the father or the son prevailed in this, yet he sensed in Aazen a fascinating strength: the ability to survive, even to thrive, under the most unique and terrible strain. The boy had lived in a hole in the ground and in the countless Hells of his father's making; yet he'd come out whole, or nearly so.

Daen had recruited runaways and child-cutpurses barely surviving on the streets, but most hadn't lived long and none ever knew who held their leads. Aazen had known that murderers and thieves protected him ever since he was a boy. He was a child of the Shadow Thieves, if such a thing existed. Daen didn't know if that meant a long and prosperous career within their ranks awaited Aazen, or a quick death, but he decided it would be fascinating to find out. Through experience, Daen had learned to pay close attention to the people who fascinated him, whether they were intelligent, greedy, sane, or mad. The ability to read people, to judge their actions and worth, was what made Daen so successful at what he did. And the Kortrun family had made him a very rich man indeed.

* * * * *

Dantane trailed behind Meisha as they caught up to the others. Ahead, the passage widened into a chamber comparable in size to the portal room. The path dead-ended abruptly in a wall of loose dirt and rubble.

"This is where we came in. No need to fetch shovels," Talal said sardonically.

"Boy's right," said Morgan. "You won't be tunneling through that, not with magic on it."

"I'm not disagreeing," said Garavin. He scratched his thick sideburns as he eyed the wall. "Though he might relish the challenge."

"Who?" asked Talal.

The dwarf grinned at the boy. "Ye'll see." He handed Dantane a tightly wrapped scroll sealed in green wax and bearing the imprint of an open hand lying upon an anvil.

Kall recognized the seal of the Fallstone clan. As a boy, he'd seen it depicted on several documents in Garavin's map room.

Dantane unrolled the parchment and read for several breaths, nodding as if he'd seen similar text before.

"Clear enough?" asked Garavin.

"You're certain you can control this?" asked the wizard. "There's no time to construct a summoning circle."

"It's not a summoning in the traditional sense," said the dwarf. "More like a calling. He may answer or not, as he prefers, but he's never denied me before."

Dantane's eyes moved rapidly over the text. Finally, he let his hands fall to his sides and closed his eyes. He murmured what might have been a prayer under his breath, opened his eyes, and began to read aloud from the parchment.

This time his voice carried, booming unnaturally across the chamber. A tremor of unease went through the refugees. Kall motioned to Talal to keep them still.

The echo of Dantane's casting seemed to stick in the walls, building to a steady rumbling Kall could feel in the stone itself. The air felt thick, as if he were breathing rock dust or sand instead of air. The cavern seemed to grow smaller around them. A single rock in the center of the cavern swelled in size before his eyes, expanding to fill the chamber, forcing the refugees back against the far wall. A few of the people cried out or tried to run, but there was no room. A boy standing near the front of the crowd stumbled and went down on his knees. A foot scuffed the side of his face as he tried to stand. He fell again, harder.

"Cease!" Kall barked over the rumbling, and his voice, too, seemed eerily magnified. The crowd quieted, and Kall helped the boy to his feet.

Kall turned again to look at the rock, expecting it to have returned to its normal size as the disorientation cleared. It hadn't. It had, if possible, gotten larger, and now appeared to be breathing. Slow inhalations and exhalations like the wind through a long chimney flue were punctuated by a deep moan coming from somewhere beneath the thing.

Kall had listened to Garavin tell stories of the delvers, beasts friendly to the dwarves. The slablike tunnel dwellers were as large and as cumbersome as boulders, and this one was no exception. Moving by inches and trailing a stain of sticky fluid, the delver made its way to where Garavin stood with one boot propped on the rock pile.

The dwarf put out a hand—in greeting, Kall thought; but Garavin laid his palm gently across the ridges and slopes that might have passed for the thing's face and bowed deeply, his holy symbol falling against his nose.

The low moan came again, and Garavin nodded as if in answer to a question with no words. "A poor way to wake, to be sure," he said, in tones of sincere regret. "We would not have done so, if our need was not great, Iathantos. Dumathoin has asked, and so I must ask ye to aid us, for ye re the only one who can."

The delver fell silent. Kall looked around at the refugees, but they, too, were quiet, riveted in awe or horror at the exchange between the dwarf and the huge, living stone.

Finally, the delver shifted its great body, shuffled backward a step, and moaned again. Garavin inclined his head in response.

"My thanks." He pointed to the base of the rock pile, and the delver came forward again, engulfing the space with his bulk. There was a sharp cracking and a sloshing release of sizzling liquid. The stones turned dark with wet, and the delver began to burrow into the cavern floor.

Garavin walked back to the group, shaking his head, but he was smiling. He laid a hand on Talal's shoulder, guiding the boy to where he could see the churning as the delver took the stone into itself.

"He'll tunnel ye out, and do it gladly," the dwarf explained. "He absorbs minerals from the stone to nourish himself, and being that we're close to Keczulla, this rock is richer in them than most. That, and his loyalty to Dumathoin, made him answer our call."

"But it's not a dwarf," said Talal. "Not even a person. Why would it serve a dwarf god?"

"Because it thinks and understands like any other sentient creature," said Garavin. "It may take him longer, and he may never aspire to the intelligence of two-legged folk, but he's capable of despair and loneliness, and of needing to combat those emotions."

"Then why doesn't it have its own god?" Talal pressed. "Someone who understands him."

Garavin met Kall's eyes briefly, and Kall knew what he was thinking. Talal's questions were not unlike another cautiously stubborn boy's curiosity. "He might have," the dwarf allowed, "I only know he serves Dumathoin for the same reason I do: to keep the secrets of the stone, and to bring the rest into the light, whether it's gems and gold, fossils of history, or—"

"Us," Talal cut in, his expression thoughtful. "Down in the dark, where no one can see." He touched the patch of naked skin on his head. "Balram thought he could keep us a secret."

"But Dumathoin would not have it so," Garavin said. "Sooner or later, all secrets come to light, whether we want them to or not."

"Will they be safe?" Kall asked Garavin, watching the delver work.

"Yes. Iathantos will protect them. He's given his word," said Garavin. "If any Shadow Thief gets past us, they won't care for the fight they'll find waiting."

"What's he mean?" asked Talal, looking to Meisha for an explanation.

The Harper appeared torn. "We have to leave you now," she said, shaking her head when Talal opened his mouth to argue. "The Shadow Thieves will have learned about Kall's rescue party by now. They'll be coming, and we have to meet them. An all-out assault will give the creature time to tunnel deep enough to cross the boundaries of the enchantment."

"Once you're outside, head for Keczulla," said Kall. "The delver will take care of any guards outside the entrance, but I doubt there will be any. They don't expect you to escape that way. Use my name at the city gates."

"Ignore it when their visages pale and they soil themselves," said Morgan.

Kall glared him into silence. He slipped a ring off his finger and handed it to Haroun. The emerald and stone, in its gold setting, was the first symbol of his new status. Garavin had made it for him long ago using Cesira's enchanted speaking stone.

Haroun slid the ring onto her thumb. Her eyes swam with tears. "How can we thank you?"

"You saved my life," Meisha said. She looked at Talal, but the boy was shaking his head mutinously.

"I want to stay with you," he said, "for the fight."

"Ha," Meisha said. "You don't mean that, not when you're scenting freedom at last. No"—she shook him playfully by the shoulder when he tried to protest—"No more death-seeking for you, little Dirty Bones. We'll follow you out once we take care of the Shadow Thieves."

Morgan and Laerin filed back down the tunnel. Dantane and Garavin followed. Meisha took one last look at Talal and Haroun, who stood apart from the rest. Haroun had a firm hand on the boy's shoulder.

"They'll be safe," Kall said.

"I know." Meisha allowed the others to get some distance ahead of them, then she clasped Kall's wrist to slow him. "Balram's lived too long, Kall," she said fiercely, "taken too much. It's time to end him. You promised me."

"Meisha, I'm sorry about your master—"

"Don't," Meisha cut him off. "When I saw him sitting in that room . . . you can't imagine how it felt." She caught her breath and looked at him sharply. "No, that's wrong. You can imagine. You've seen it before."

He nodded grimly. "Rage blocks all reason. You'll do anything to fix things. You'll forgive him any terrible thing he's ever done." Kall touched his sword hilt. "I'll keep my word, Meisha." He pointed to the tunnel. "Let's go get Varan."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Keczulla, Amn

5 Marpenoth, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

Cesira heard the servant calling her from the foot of the stairs. Since the explosion, none of them had dared venture into Dantane's tower. While the druid appreciated having a place where her privacy was guaranteed, she'd come to the tower for a very different purpose.

The stones formerly connected to the tower's ceiling were chipped and broken, forming rough crenellations. The tower had become her battlement—Cesira perched on one cloven stone in hawk form, gripping the ruined surface with her sharp talons.

The servant had come to tell her about the party approaching the house, but Cesira's keen eyes had already spotted them on the road.

Cesira spread her wings and let out a cry, just to hear her voice echo into the twilight. She glided to the floor and transformed, standing barefoot in the center of the ruined tower as her vision gradually returned to its human limitations. She strode to the stairs and called down to the servant.

Show them in when they arrive, she said. After that, you're dismissed for the night and the day to follow. Tell the others.

"My lady?" was the man's timid, confused reply.

Lord Morel and I will not be in residence, Cesira said. Go quickly.

"Yes, my lady."

My lady, Cesira repeated to herself. Gods help her. She had to get out of Amn. The audience she was about to endure would be her last in this wretched city, she vowed.

If she survived it.

* * * * *

The screams of night hunters greeted Kall's ears as he waited outside Varan's chamber. "Hurry, Meisha," he said.

"We're coming." Meisha stepped out into the passage, guiding the old wizard by the arm. He stumbled on legs unused to walking, but Meisha steadied him, whispering to him constantly, coaxing, encouraging, as one might handle a child—or a wild beast.

"Unwelcome," Varan murmured as they walked. "Unwelcome, unwelcome you all are. You've never died before, none of you . . ." He snagged Kall's arm suddenly. "But you will," he hissed.

Gently, Meisha disengaged Varan's hand and wrapped it around her arm. "Be easy, Master. We will bring you more work, more magic."

"Broken," Varan muttered. He lowered his gaze to his feet as he shuffled forward. "I'll fix them all eventually."

The net was still draped over the end of the tunnel when Kall and Meisha arrived. Laerin and Morgan lay flat on their bellies before it, watching the battle in the portal chamber. Dantane and Garavin waited some distance behind.

"How many?" asked Kall when Morgan crawled back to them.

"Dozen and a half," said Morgan. He did not sound pleased. "They fight good."

Laerin was equally subdued. "Your friend is with them," he said. "The man from your party."

Kall nodded. He should have been prepared, but it still felt as if he'd been hit with a fist. For a moment, he found himself at a loss as to how to proceed.

"The whole room's like a bottle. Meisha and the wizard can fill the room with killing," suggested Morgan, "before we set a foot inside."

"But it gives the boy, Aazen, no time to explain himself," Garavin said.

"Some of us are more concerned with not getting murdered," said Dantane coldly. "If we act now, I can fill the room with lightning before they slay all the bats. It will buy the refugees more time as well."

"They're bound to have magical protection," Laerin pointed out. "A wizard of their own, at least."

"Dantane will single him or her out," Kall decided. "But Garavin's right. I want to talk to Aazen." Dantane cursed, but Kall ignored him, addressing Meisha instead. "That's how it's going to happen. After I'm through, you're free to fill the room with fire, just leave Varan here. He'll be safe enough."

Meisha nodded. Kall watched her guide Varan to a protected nook down the tunnel while the others gathered at the tunnel mouth. The sounds of battle were fading.