Betrayal

Chapter Fourteen River of Mud

The full moon made it easy to see the enchanted map Maldred was unrolling. He laid his greatsword across the northern edge to keep it from curling, and across the southern he placed the Solamnic long sword Dhamon had taken from the spawn village. The Solamnic blade gleamed in the moonlight, revealing a rose that had been deeply engraved in the steel near the hilt and three or four initials that were so scratched as to be illegible.

“ ’Tis not so fine a sword as the one you lost to the Ergothian wench,” Maldred mused. “This blade is not as strong or straight.”

“Ha! The one your father sold me was worthless,” Dhamon said with a snort, “and though this one’s not magical, it worked well enough to kill abominations and spiders. It will serve until I find something better.”

“Perhaps we’ll find you a keen-edged cutlass in the pirate horde.” Maldred’s eyes gleamed in anticipation of the treasure.

“Aye,” Dhamon agreed quietly, “but I’m hoping we find far more than ancient weapons—else I’ll not have enough to pay this mysterious healer of yours. Provided she exists.”

Maldred’s gaze dropped to Dhamon’s thigh, where trousers hid the large dragon scale and the few dozen smaller ones that had sprouted around it. He had tried to ask Dhamon about it on a few occasions since they’d left the spawn village, but the others were too nearby or Dhamon was too distracted or too quick to cut him off. He decided now would be a good time—with Riki and Varek sound asleep several yards away and the sivak resting with his back propped up against a tree.

“Past time indeed to discuss it.” He gestured to Dhamon’s leg. “Those scales, my friend. Are they…?”

“My concern only,” Dhamon answered quickly and a little more brusquely than he had intended. He pointedly avoided meeting his friend’s stare, instead making a show of studying the map.

“Dhamon.”

“Look, Mal, I hope every last one of the scales’ll be a bad memory if this healer exists and—”

“She exists.”

“And if this treasure exists so I can pay her.”

“I have every confidence it exists.”

“I wish I did.”

Maldred rubbed at his chin. “The map seems to validate all the tales. I can show you again if—”

“If the map is reliable.”

“It led us to Riki in the spawn village.”

In an effort to change the subject, Dhamon stabbed a finger at the south section of the map showing an ancient river that emptied into the sea.

“Dhamon, how long have you had them?” Maldred asked. “The scales.”

“I said they were my concern.” Dhamon’s eyes were daggers when he raised them from the parchment, and he waved his hand as if to bat away a bug.

“You can shut everyone else out,” Maldred said, his soft voice terse. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the half-elf and Varek were still sound asleep, then locked eyes with Dhamon. “You can ignore Riki when you want, pretend Varek doesn’t exist for whatever reason. I’m not so easy to dismiss.”

Dhamon’s face became an unreadable mask.

“Dammit! I’m your friend, Dhamon,” Maldred persisted. “I feel as close to you as I would to a brother. We’ve risked death together, saved each other’s lives.” A sharp intake of breath. “How long have you had all those scales?”

The silence was tense, neither man blinking nor looking away. The breeze brought the scent of the tall grass and damp earth and the blacksmith’s odor that surrounded the sivak. From somewhere in the distance an owl hooted softly and repeatedly. Rikali murmured something in her sleep.

“What’s happening to you, Dhamon?”

“Nothing, Mal.”

“Dhamon.”

“By the Dark Queen’s heads, Mal, leave it.”

The big man shook his head.

“By the Dark Queen’s… oh damn it all.” Finally Dhamon relented with an exasperated sigh. “The scales started growing a month ago, maybe more. Time’s been a blur to me. Who knows what they’re doing to me?” Killing me, probably, he added to himself.

“Nura Bint-Drax couldn’t have—”

“No, it wasn’t her doing. Though she gave me a few more to worry over.”

“Malys then.”

Dhamon shook his head. “The overlord’s presence is long gone. I don’t know what’s causing it.”

After a moment he added, “I don’t care what’s causing it. I just want to be rid of the things.”

There was another stretch of silence before Maldred said, “Maybe it’s a disease. A magical one.”

“Maybe, but my dwelling on it—and you talking about it—won’t make them disappear.” Dhamon shrugged and returned his attention to the map. “Let’s just hope this pirate treasure exists and that your healer exists too.”

“They do.” Maldred’s voice seemed more hopeful then certain. “She’ll get rid of the scales.”

Dhamon let out a grim chuckle. “If not, perhaps you’ll have two draconians in your midst. Now, about finding this treasure.”

“As I said before, it’s supposed to lie just beyond the Screaming Valley.” Maldred gave a shudder that Dhamon didn’t notice. “The valley is around here.” He pointed to a faded swirl of ink at the edge of the ancient river.

The map showed the land centuries ago, before the Cataclysm, when it was a tundra: barren, flat, and cold. There were a scattering of cities and towns indicated, ones Dhamon knew were now long buried and with names lost to history. The ancient Plains of Dust looked smaller than the land was today, perhaps only three or four hundred miles from north to south, and there was no hint of the glacier, only a deep blue sea.

“Tarsis,” Dhamon said, eyes locking onto a coastal city.

“Tarsis indeed.” Maldred had come up directly behind him. “If I remember my history, Tarsis was quite a port, all big and bustling and with deep water docks to rival any place in this half of the world. Of course, that was many lifetimes ago.”

“Aye,” Dhamon agreed. Tarsis was now a good distance inland, more than one hundred miles from the sea. The Cataclysm had changed this part of the world considerably.

“Tarsis, before the Cataclysm, was thriving,” Maldred said. “That was also before the Kingpriest of Istar tried to become a god. Tales say the gods were angered at his affront and dragged Istar to the bottom of the sea. The world was reshaped over the next few hundred years, and the Plains were caught in that.”

“The Shadow Years they were called,” Dhamon added, his fingers rubbing at the uneven beard he was growing. “They say mountains fell, new mountains sprang up from flat land, famine and plague swept across the world. A lovely time. Probably just about as lovely as this time we’re enjoying with the dragon overlords.”

Maldred angled a finger at the sea. “This water receded, leaving Tarsis and other ports inland. Ships were stranded overnight. Terrible quakes rocked the Plains. Cities and ships were swallowed by the earth—ships with bellies brimming with treasure. We’ll find them. I have every confidence. Then we’ll find your healer.” He rocked back on his heels and looked up at the moon. “I read a book once that claimed there were four hundred earthquakes on the Plains during those Shadow Years. The quakes were strongest along the coast, near Tarsis and…”

He looked to Dhamon and then nodded toward a trio of small port towns shown in the eastern part of the map. Not even a trace of faded ink hinted at their names. “…and were strongest near here. These three towns this old map shows, and the tales, are why I believe my father’s map is genuine.”

Dhamon raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“It was said that the one town in the center was a pirate port, established by a group of powerful Ergothians who found the pickings better here than around their homeland.” Maldred’s voice quickened. “It’s not listed on most of the old maps you’ll find in libraries. Indeed, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a map this old.” His finger drew a line in the air up from the port. “See this faint mark over here? It’s a river, one that doesn’t exist today. It was just wide and deep enough for the few skilled pirate captains who knew how to navigate it. Legend says those who foolishly chased the pirates up that river ran aground, and the pirates turned back to pillage them, in each case leaving only one survivor to recount the gruesome incident.”

Dhamon whistled softly. “It’s because of the survivors that people found out about the pirate city and the vanished river?”

Maldred absently nodded. “Some of the pirates would take their ships up the river, well past this port and store their booty in heavily guarded caves, not trusting their fellow pirates back in the city. The caves are, I believe, just beyond the Screaming Valley.”

“Map, show us the land as it is now,” Dhamon urged.

In the blink of an eye the map changed, mirroring the current geography—much larger and temperate, with grassy plains reaching to a horizon where low rolling hills were dotted with a variety of trees.

Dhamon ran his fingers over the map. He swore he could feel jagged edges of stone where the mountains were sketched to the west. According to this view, the Plains of Dust was nearly three hundred miles across at its widest point, running about two hundred miles from north to south at the center. Only a scattering of towns were marked around the borders of the interior. In the west Tarsis and Rigitt, in the south Zeriak, and in the northwest Dontol, Willik, and Stone Rose. Polagnar was a little to the northeast of Graelor’s End. Due north at the edge of the map was the City of Morning Dew, along with a few other smaller places that were named after long-dead explorers. At the southern edge of the map the Plains were bordered by the inhospitable Icewall Glacier. The map marked it by irregular lines meant to look like mountains, but instead resembling icicles. Dhamon leaned close and felt a chill wind coming up from the parchment.

“Amazing,” he breathed.

Though mountains were indicated on the west part of the map—what most considered dwarven lands—overall there were few marks to represent hills. Dhamon knew just by traveling this far that there were plenty of rolling hills and woods. There was no sign of the unnamed ancient river the pirates traveled, just the River Toranth, which originated in Sable’s swamp and cut through the Plains’ heart, breaking into tributaries and spreading like the fingers of an outstretched hand. There were a few villages along a Toranth tributary to the west, beyond a jagged line that Maldred said was the Screaming Valley.

“We could get a wagon here,” Maldred suggested, pointing to a village just north of the valley.

“In… Wheatland, it’s called. A couple of horses. We’ll need something to haul all the treasure in.”

Dhamon cleared his throat. “Map, are there Legion of Steel Knights in the area? In Wheatland?”

Before he could take another breath, glowing motes looking like plump fireflies appeared in various places across the map—including over the town Maldred had pointed to.

“No way to tell how many Knights are in each spot,” Dhamon mused. “Maybe one. Maybe one hundred.”

Maldred shook his head. “It’s not worth taking a chance to find out.”

“So we find the treasure first, then we’ll worry about a wagon.”

“And we’ve your sivak along, my friend, to carry a good amount.”

* * * * *

They’d been traveling for nearly three hours, the morning sun climbing well into the sky when the landscape changed dramatically from gently rolling grassy plains to ground so cracked and barren that it looked like the wrinkles on an old sailor’s face. For a while they could still see the grassland, to the west and behind them, and they could faintly smell the sweetness of the last of the early fall’s wild-flowers. But when the plains disappeared entirely from view, the air became acrid and laced with sulphur, as if something was burning nearby. Their eyes stung and watered, but there was no trace of flames or smoke.

Maldred was in the lead, lost in thought and picking his way down a long-dry streambed. The draconian was a few yards behind him at Dhamon’s side, eyes darting from left to right and nose constantly quivering.

“What bothers you?” Dhamon asked.

The sivak didn’t answer. Instead, he pointed a clawed finger towards the south and narrowed his eyes as if trying to focus on something.

“What, Ragh?” Dhamon persisted. He followed the sivak’s gaze, but saw nothing.

“Somethin’ there?” This from the half-elf. “All I see is ugly, flat, smelly ground and your wingless back.” She padded up behind the draconian, tugging Varek along. “Whaddya see, beastie?”

A growl escaped the sivak’s throat. “Nothing,” he said after a moment. “I thought I saw movement ahead. Something large. But…”

“Mal? You see anything?” Dhamon asked.

Maldred shook his head.

“My imagination,” the sivak decided. “My eyes are tired.”

“All of me is tired,” the half-elf grumbled.

“We’ll rest for a few minutes.” Maldred stopped and reached for the map. He opened it carefully, studying features he’d already committed to memory. “The valley,” he stated. “How far are we from the valley?”

A spot on the parchment glowed softly in response.

“Practically on top of it,” he said to himself. He replaced the map and folded his arms across his chest. “We’re practically on top of it, but it’s nowhere to be seen. I don’t understand.”

“I do.” Dhamon’s face took on a troubled look. “We got that map from your . . . from Donnag. Perhaps it’s as worthless as the sword.”

Maldred frowned and continued to study the landscape. “The map showed us the way to the spawn village, didn’t it? Come. We’ll find the valley.”

After another few miles Maldred stopped again.

“There’s still no valley,” Dhamon said.

“Nothin’ but ugly, flat land,” the half-elf added.

“It has to be here.” Maldred stepped away from them, consulting the map again, then scanning the horizon. “Somewhere. Where?”

The sivak cocked his head, nose still quivering. He curled his upper lip back in a snarl.

“What, beastie?” Rikali poked Ragh in the arm to get his attention. “You see somethin’ again?”

“I hear something,” Ragh said.

“Your raspy breathin’s all I hear,” the half-elf shot back. “In fact—”

Dhamon drew a finger to his lips to silence her. “I hear something, too,” he whispered. “Someone crying. Faint. They can’t be close.”

“Someone screaming,” Maldred corrected, “and I think it’s very…” His words trailed off as the ground beneath him gave way. The big man dropped from sight.

Dhamon raced forward, stopping just short of the hole but not short enough. The ground cracked beneath his feet. “Run!” he shouted to the others. His feet flailed in the air, and he fell. Riki, Varek, and Ragh fell with him.

The air whipped around them and was filled with a keening wail. The noise only grew louder when they struck bottom nearly fifty feet below, where a river of oozing mud cushioned their fall. Maldred was the first one out, standing on a rocky bank, hands over his ears, eyes trained on the slowly flowing sludge. Rikali sputtered up next, arms pumping through the muck to pull herself to the opposite bank. She climbed out and lay panting. Varek and Dhamon trailed her—all of them looking like mud men—every inch of them drenched, and all of them holding their ears in an effort to shut out the bone-numbing wail.

They blinked the mud from their eyes, as Varek fussed over Rikali. “The babe?” he shouted over the noise.

She nodded and touched her stomach. “I—I think it’s all right. The fall didn’t hurt none. Felt like jumpin’ into puddin’. Pigs, but I’m covered with this stuff. Get it off me, Varek.”

Dhamon tried to scrape the muck from his face, as he held his hands over his ears. He spied Maldred on the other side doing the same.

“The sivak?” Dhamon yelled.

Maldred shook his head—he couldn’t hear Dhamon. The screaming grew louder still. The sound reverberated off cavern walls that rose at straight angles, so steep as to be unclimbable without gear. The noise was high-pitched one moment, then low and moaning the next. It took on the aspect of several voices, a chorus of screams that they could do nothing to shut out.

“We’ve found your damned valley,” Dhamon shouted at Maldred. “Should’ve found another way around this!”

His eyes were drawn to the mud river, and to a mud-covered hand that shot out of it.. A second hand followed, clutching a quarterstaff.

“My staff!” Varek called. “I dropped it in the fall.”

Moments later the sivak climbed out on the bank and dropped the weapon at Varek’s feet. The creature’s face looked pained, his acute hearing pounded by the wailing.

“Let’s get out of here!” Dhamon shouted. The sivak saw his gesture and struck out along the bank to the south at Dhamon’s shoulder. Neither bothered to see if Varek and Riki were stumbling after them.

On the other side of the river Maldred followed suit. He bumped against the canyon wall, teeth gritted as he shallowly sucked in one breath after the next.

“This is madness,” Dhamon said to himself. The wailing seemed to grow in volume, it was digging in like a knife. He gasped as his knees threatened to buckle. The sivak nudged him forward. The farther they traveled the darker it became, as the light spilling in through the crack in the ground above them angled into a sliver.

Shadows scampered across the rock walls, making it look like the visages of old men staring down at them—mouths open and sightless eyes fixed.

The screams continued, the echoes growing ever-louder. The ground vibrated gently beneath their feet in response to the constant noise, and bits of rock and grit filtered down from high along the walls and from the thin stone ceiling.

They tried to talk to each other but were reduced to gestures and lip-reading. Dhamon strove to quicken the pace, to escape before they succumbed to the hateful sound. He remembered Maldred telling him weeks ago the-valley was dangerous, rumored to drive men mad. They had decided then that the route was worth risking for the treasure and the hope of finding the healer-sage. He hadn’t dreamed it would be like this.

Was he going mad? He could have sworn a stony face was watching him, mouth opening and closing, eyes blinking.

“Mal!” he called, but his friend had no hope of hearing. The sound seemed to change in pitch, then, higher, louder, consuming them. Dhamon watched Maldred stumble along the opposite bank, then hesitate as that bank ended where a canyon wall reached into the river. Maldred looked about, eyes large and white set against his muddy countenance. He caught sight of Dhamon and mouthed something to him, then plunged into the mud-thick water and began to awkwardly lurch his way across.

Dhamon pushed Riki and Varek ahead, gesturing for them to continue. Ragh followed, prodding the couple and looking back over his scaly shoulder to keep an eye on Dhamon. It was several minutes before Maldred reached Dhamon’s side, and minutes more for him to fight his way to his feet, vomiting mud and slamming the heels of his hands against his ears.

“You’ve got earth magic,” Dhamon shouted. “Why not try some?”

Maldred shook his head. “Too loud,” he mouthed back. “Can’t concentrate.”

It might have been hours or minutes they traveled. Time meant nothing amid the agonizing noise. The landscape did not change. The sluggish river of mud went on forever, bordered by walls of marble and limestone stretching above them.

Dhamon stopped, and Maldred nearly slammed into him.

“Mad,” he mouthed. “I am mad.”

Dhamon again saw a huge face high above and across the river, mouth moving, pebbles spewing forth. There were other faces near it.

“I’ve lost my mind.” Dhamon fell to his knees and stared at the faces. They seemed to gaze directly at him.

Maldred watched the faces, too, with a growing realization. He kicked at Dhamon to get his attention. “Move!” he mouthed. Another kick and Dhamon was on his feet. “Hurry!”

They ran again, Dhamon not sure of anything but the noise, which continued to envelop him. It didn’t seem painful any longer. It had become comforting in a way, a dear companion.

“Stay,” the wail seemed to say. “Stay with us forever.”

Once more he stopped and regarded several different visages lining this part of the darkening canyon. Maldred tried to push him along, and this time he resisted.

“Mad,” Dhamon mouthed.

Maldred shook his head and shouted something Dhamon couldn’t understand. “Move!” he tried. Dhamon refused to budge.

Maldred thrust his fingers in his ears and stumbled to the canyon wall, leaning against it and drawing breath deep into his lungs. He concentrated on his heart, feeling it beating. He desperately searched for the spark within him.

“It’s too loud,” he told himself. “Can’t…”

Dhamon was lost to the voices. Riki, Varek, and Ragh had dropped out of sight—lost to the screams, too. Maldred watched as Dhamon shuffled toward the muddy river.

“Stay with us forever,” Maldred faintly heard through the wails. “Breathe the river. Stay with us forever.”

“No!” Maldred shouted. He threw all his effort into finding the spark, coaxing it to glow. “So hard,” he muttered. “Can’t think.” Somehow he managed, his mind wrapping around the magical essence inside him, blowing on it as a man would blow on a small flame, pleading with it, willing it to grow.

“Must think.”

Maldred felt the warmth and focused on it, shoving the screaming to the back of his mind. He thrust his hands at the canyon wall and felt the energy rise from his chest and into his arms, pass down and into his fingers and into the wall. The canyon wall rumbled, and the vibrations increased in the stony ground.

“Stop!” Maldred bellowed. He heard the word above the wails, felt his energy pound into the canyon wall. Cracks appeared around his fingers. He concentrated and forced more energy into the stone. The cracks widened. “Stop! Or I will slay all of you!”

Instantly the wails ceased. The only sound was Maldred’s labored breathing and the soft whistling of the wind that whipped across the walls.

“Stop, and allow us to pass.”

“What?” Dhamon shook his head, mud flying from his hair. “Madness.” He stared across the river to see the faces. All of them now had their mouths closed. Their eyes, narrowed in anger, were dark crevices.

“Not madness,” Maldred gasped. “You’re not mad, Dhamon. They are.”

Dhamon shuffled next to Maldred. The big man’s fingers were dug into the stone, and hairline cracks sprouted around them. Dhamon looked up. There were more faces on this side, above him.

“Galeb duhr,” Maldred said. “Creatures of stone, as old as Krynn perhaps. They predate the Cataclysm for certain. They’re the mad ones.”

“They tried to lure me into the river.”

Maldred nodded. “Maybe they did the same to Riki and the others. Go back. See to them, I’ll follow shortly.”

Dhamon didn’t hesitate, turning back to look. His head was still muddled, pounding, his ears ringing with the remembered sound of the screams. The canyon curved, and he hurried as fast as he could along the wall, finding the others at the edge of the muddy river. Varek was in it up to his waist. Rikali was shaking her head, mud flying from her hair, and tugging at Varek. The sivak leaned forward, clawed hands on its knees, great shoulders hunched, head bent into its chest.

“Move!” Dhamon bellowed as he neared. The word sounded like a whisper. He gestured to the far end of the cavern, where he saw an opening.

“Follow him,” Ragh gasped. The sivak saw the opening, too, a narrow gap next to a near vertical spire, and followed Dhamon, heavy feet pounding across the stone floor of the Screaming Valley.

* * * * *

It was nearly sunset by the time they found a stream. All of them sank down next to it and cleaned the muck from their aching bodies.

They hadn’t talked much since emerging from the valley, mostly because they had a hard time hearing anything. Their ears were still ringing.

“I threatened to bring the valley down,” Maldred told Dhamon later that night, “threatened to kill them all. I couldn’t have done it, of course.”

“They didn’t know that,” Dhamon supplied.

Maldred nodded. “Fortunately for me they were mad.” After a moment, he added: “Pity. Galeb duhr are impressive creatures, and most of them are reasonably benevolent.”

“If they’re as ancient as you say, my friend, perhaps living through the Cataclysm drove them mad.”

Maldred leaned back on his elbows.

“Maybe we’re mad, too, after all,” Dhamon continued. “Slogging through mud rivers to look for long-buried treasure. Me thinking there’s a cure for my scales.”

“The treasure and the cure exist,” Maldred said. He lay on his back and was instantly asleep.