Depths of Madness

CHAPTER SIX

Twilight awoke in a groggy murk. Sometime during the night, she had slipped once again into the sleep of humans. In that unnatural chaos, she had experienced dreams as humans do-uncontrolled, nonsensical visions that would have frightened her to wakefulness had she not been used to them. Most of the dreams had been nightmares-as usual. She had wanted desperately to awaken, but as always, she had not. And some dreams, even stranger, had been the kind she hadn't wanted to wake from.

Many of those visions had centered on the young Liet Sagrin, of all folk.

She sniffed and rolled her eyes. Barbaric. Enjoyable, but simply barbaric.

Twilight dismissed the dreams as more of the unpleasantness she encountered with greater frequency than others in her profession. Most elves, she well knew, never slept more than twice or thrice in as many centuries, but Twilight was not like most elves.

Like most, though, she desired to eat at sunup-and, of course, to relieve herself.

As she made her careful way into a chamber removed from the huddled band in order to do just that, Twilight met Slip coming from the other direction. The little thief, wearing her mace and a dagger that she had apparently found somewhere, smiled when she saw the elf.

"Good morrow!" the halfling said brightly.

"Yes," Twilight managed. The halfling wandered alone? "What are you doing?"

"Oh, just a morning walk." Slip's smile didn't fade.

Twilight's suspicion did not fade either. "A morning walk," she repeated.

"Absolutely!" said Slip. "Nothing gets the vim and vigor flowing like a good jaunt around the meadow"-she looked around-"er, crypt. Anyway, we take them all the time back in Crimel. Gets the body ready for the day, and makes breakfast at the Tumbling Troll taste even better!"

"Crimel," said Twilight. "The village in Luiren?"

Slip blinked. "You've been there?"

Twilight's suspicion deepened. "I've heard of it," she said, truthfully. "I've passed through the Shining South."

Slip nodded. "Have you heard of Arvor Brightbrows?" she asked gleefully.

"No," said Twilight. "A relation?"

"He's me da-the march warden of Crimel," said Slip brightly. "And Denrin Lightstep Brightbrows? Revered Nurturer Hubin Sharpears?"

Twilight shrugged.

"Me brother, silly!" she exclaimed. "An' me second cousin, thrice removed! He's a priest o' the Matriarch."

Finally. Someone Twilight knew, of the divine variety. Yondalla, mother of the halflings. Slip's mistress.

"How about Nola Treestump?"

"Your mother?" Twilight guessed.

"The quirky druid who's spent too long in the woods!" Her eyes rolled and Slip scoffed. "Obviously."

"Obviously," Twilight said.

Something flickered across Slip's face. "Have you heard of Reeman Lightspinner?" she asked softly. "Though his full name would be Reethelmanath Ballufguts Bumper Lightspinner the twenty-sixth."

"Ah, no," said Twilight. "I've not." She raised a brow. "A halfling? With such a name?"

"A gnome," Slip said wistfully. "From Lantan. A magician- well, illusionist-brilliant. He and I were handfasted." Her face turned up at the ceiling and softened.

That caught Twilight by surprise-a halfling, bound to a gnome? She had heard of humans and elves mating-experienced it on more than one occasion, in fact-but the little folk? Curious.

"I see," said Twilight. "You 'were' handfasted?"

A cloud passed over Slip's eyes then. "It didn't work out."

"Oh." She ached suddenly for Lilten-his companionship, his wonderfully smothering embrace-and she shook her head to clear it.

Twilight realized Slip was still staring at her. She wondered if the little one could read her thoughts, so intently did she…

"Well, good morrow!" Slip said brightly.

With that, the halfling was off, scurrying toward the companions' camp as though she had never stopped. There was a story there, and Twilight's instincts told her it was important. She touched the Shroud about her neck, briefly.

Twilight watched, then went on her way, finding a good shadowed place and thanking providence she carried thareea cloths wrapped in her boot tops. Small comforts. From her belt of thieving supplies, she pulled out her hand mirror and looked at her face. Her eyes strained to hold up dark sacks and her features seemed shrunken-shallow.

She saw a smudge. A smear of blood across her cheek.

She looked closer, and there were two curls, almost like two snakes wrapped around each other.

Suppressing a shiver, Twilight wiped it away roughly.

The others were ready to go by the time Twilight returned. They ate a simple meal of white cheese and acorn wafers, along with a wine-colored jelly of mixed berries. When a spell of Taslin's filled up a set of waterskins, even Davoren grudgingly admitted the cleric's usefulness. Quietly.

The seven quickly found an exit. A set of stairs behind a half-collapsed wall led up to another level. Twilight wasn't sure why she hadn't noticed it earlier-perhaps she had just been distracted. As before, with caution, they crept up, Twilight and Slip in front, Gargan at the rear, the others in the middle. Asson hobbled, coughing. He made surprisingly little sound for one his age with such injuries, and Twilight respected that.

She could not dismiss a feeling of trepidation, as though they were being stalked. Something wriggled in the back of her mind: a frightening suspicion.

Halfling and elf passed through a half-open grate into a large, round chamber with corridors leading in six directions. Eerie light came from phosphorescent fungus that grew along the walls and ceiling. For a moment, she might have thought they were in the Underdark, but these tunnels were of human make.

Mad human, more like it. The room's architecture curved, dipped, and swayed. In its center and leading down the six corridors, the floor formed a trough that might once have held water but had long since gone dry. The channels' walls and gutters were stained brown and green, and not from paint.

"Sewers," Twilight said.

"Really old sewers," Slip corrected. "Even the stink's gone. Well"-she sniffed the air and coughed-"the stink of the living."

Indeed, a faint odor of old musk-more dust than rot- adulterated the stale air.

"True enough." Seeing no ambush or traps, Twilight waved up the others.

If these passages were truly sewers, then no one had used them for scores, if not hundreds of years. Mottled brownish stains striped the walls, as though a great battle had splashed up a river of putrescence. The ceiling was caked with stains as well. All liquid was gone, leaving no traces but the stains. The dust showed disturbances, as if someone had walked the rooms not long ago.

Twilight pursed her lips in thought, trying to derive clues as to the nature of their prison. Either they had found an abandoned sector of sewers, cut off from the main system for a long period, or they had found imprisonment in a long abandoned city. A ghost city? But what manner of necropolis included a magically altered, yet very much alive troll guardian?

Taslin and the others examined the hexagonal layout. Six corridors branched from the room, one leading from each corner. Most of the tunnels were blocked by rubble, leaving only two remotely passable. The tunnels were more or less straight, compared to the curving architecture.

Gargan pointed and spoke a word in his deep-throated language.

"What is it?" Twilight asked.

"He means, I believe," said Taslin. "To point us north."

Twilight eyed her suspiciously. "How did you-?"

Davoren misinterpreted her question. "What difference does it make which direction is which?" he asked. "Or do you know which way to go, leader?"

"I never said I did," Twilight replied. "We go east." She gestured and headed in her chosen direction, moving quickly away from any possible protest.

"Why east?" Liet asked as she strode toward that tunnel.

"Ever onward," Twilight murmured. "Ever away."

The others followed, keeping guard. No horrors like the wights lunged from the shadows, but Twilight kept the band on the lookout for ambushes and roving dangers. They reached a second chamber where more tunnels branched out, continuing the bizarre layout of the sewers. Twilight split the group, taking Davoren and Slip while she sent the others under Taslin. Though Twilight was reluctant to show favoritism toward the priestess over the warlock, Taslin was the only one she trusted-and then only halfway.

Working together, stalking cautiously but quickly through the rooms in their immediate vicinity, the adventurers got more of a sense of their surroundings.

It took the entire day.

The sewer system seemed to stretch forever in all directions, and nowhere could they find a way up or out. Many times, a black disk of metal like a hatch was seen in the ceiling, but they saw no way through. Even Gargan, empowered with flight by Asson's spell, could not push open the strange panels. The one in the dungeon was likely loose and weak, as though it had been used many times before. Twilight did not doubt that somewhere in these sewers was a ladder to a trapdoor above, or an entrance to stairs, but that seemed less than comforting considering the size of the complex.

In a few places, they found claw and nail marks on the floor and walls, giving evidence that others had occupied this sewer before the seven companions. Twilight redoubled her wariness.

Further complicating matters, Twilight discovered a network of unfinished tunnels that wove in and out of the sewer system. The rough-hewn burrows, over forty hands in diameter, looked like a maze carved by some manner of insects-giant insects.

"Glory be! You could fit ten of me under this!" said Slip, looking up at the ceiling. Then she smiled at Gargan. "And four of him, even!"

"Only half as many," said Twilight. She winked at Slip. "Of both."

When the adventurers assembled again in the second main chamber, Twilight assigned Davoren to explain the situation while she lingered at the westernmost tunnel. The warlock enjoyed being in a position of superior knowledge so much that he didn't seem to notice Twilight was instructing him.

As she leaned against the wall, arms crossed, Liet came up behind her. She noticed that his boots gave a little squeak when he walked.

"Trying to surprise me again," she said without looking at him.

"I didn't try the first time-just looking for the pleasure of your company."

"My company." Twilight looked at him with her eyes slit. "Is that all?"

"Rule four," said Liet.

Twilight couldn't help but roll her eyes at that.

"So what's the matter, 'Light?" asked Liet. "Worried about Davoren and Taslin? You handled them quite well, I think-I didn't think either of them could avoid biting each other for more than five breaths."

"Maybe something's watching us," Twilight said.

Liet's brow furrowed. "Watching?" He wiggled his fingers. "By magic, aye?"

Twilight shook her head. She twirled her amulet on its chain. "Not through this," she said. The sapphire on its silver chain glittered in the torchlight. "With this trinket, I don't exist. Not here, not in the Realms, not anywhere."

"Fascinating," Liet whispered.

Something in his tone made the hairs perk up along Twilight's spine. There was more to this boy than met the eye. Once again, she wondered how he had frightened that wight. Did Liet have an untapped aptitude for the Weave, or something more?

"Regardless, it seems possible we're being watched," said Twilight. "Something or someone has set us up, as though we're being tested."

"Set us up?" Liet scrunched his face in confusion.

"Our weapons and equipment, kept in stockpile, behind a simple lock," said Twilight. "A perfectly balanced group-Davoren and Asson to sling spells, Gargan and you to swing steel, Taslin and Slip to mend wounds, and Slip and myself to scout and open locks. None of us alike, all of us necessary. We overcame the troll without difficulty. Even our escape was too easy. We're being set up."

"Aye," said Liet. "And I suppose the wights were waiting for us as well?"

Twilight nodded and traced her fingers through the dust on the wall. "I am no stranger to running a maze set by someone greater than myself."

Without realizing it, she had drawn a star on the wall. When she noticed it, she brushed it away.

"And this feels the same. Except." She touched the amulet again. "Except no wizard can be tracking us."

"So there must be-" Liet said.

Twilight laid a finger across his lips, silencing him. Her pale eyes flicked back and forth, making sure none of the others were watching or listening.

"Maybe," said Twilight, "maybe."

The elf needn't have worried about the others. The warlock's muttering and the priestess's conjured food kept them more than occupied.

Rather, creatures not at all akin to the adventurers were listening, though they were not watching, exactly.

Had the pair looked up, elf and man might have been lucky enough to spot a pair of gray-skinned creatures pressed against the stone. They hung upside down, ears turned to listen to the conversation. Though they couldn't understand the words, they carefully memorized the sounds-a simple matter, since even their whispers sounded like obnoxious shouts. They recorded inflections of voice, scent, patterns of breathing, even the shape and texture of clothing from the movement of air, all from high above.

The creatures didn't note faces, not having eyes with which to do so.

The scouts memorized the characteristics of the things until the intruders continued into another series of sewer chambers. The seven had not yet invaded the sacred tunnels, but they had come close.

The sentries waited until the sounds stopped, then scurried back to report.

The Voice of the Great Slitherer would want to hear about this.

The discussion yielded three resolutions. First, they would avoid the rough-hewn tunnels diligently. Second, Gargan would take Twilight's place at point-the goliath seemed to have a sharp eye. Twilight was not happy about giving up the lead, but she could stomach it if need be. And third, they would search the sewers again. Perhaps they had missed something.

As they marched through the sewers, following Gargan's lead, Twilight hung back. Eyes closed, torch shadows dancing about her like amorous flames, she padded along in silence and distraction. Had Taslin or one of the wiser adventurers looked upon her, they might have thought Twilight was praying reverently to a dark deity.

And they would have been wrong.

Damn you, Uncle Nemesis, she thought to him. What is your game this time?

As always, her patron did not answer. She figured he didn't care even to listen.

I do not know how you found me, or how you have managed all this, she continued mentally. But I tire of it. Can you not give me a moment's peace, that I might live on my own without you watching over my shoulder? Did we part on terms that were the least bit ambiguous?

Twilight thought she heard, somewhere in the back of her mind, a snicker.

Very well, you bastard, thought Twilight. Have it your way.

A sound came-a scoff-but this one turned out to be real.

Davoren scowled and gestured at the empty air. The others avoided his hideously scarred face. "Time passes, and we find nothing. Why don't we go down the corridor?"

"If you wish it so, go first," Taslin snapped. "We shall follow at a safe distance."

Weakly, Asson coughed and retched. It seemed he had not yet recovered from the wight's attack. Twilight felt a twinge of sympathy, which surprised her.

"What corridor?" Twilight asked.

In one of the sewer tunnels, they had stopped near a section of wall that had partly collapsed, revealing a tunnel that must have been added to the sewers after their creation. It was small, just too short for Gargan's twenty-three hands of height. The yawning darkness looked none too inviting.

Twilight froze. They were in a section of the tunnels she had searched, and she had no memory of this corridor. It wasn't hidden-how had she overlooked it?

The others seemed oblivious to her pause.

"My reasoning," Davoren said, "says that the one who built this passage wouldn't have wanted to wander through these wretched sewers, so there must be a way out nearby." He sniffed. "And we've found nothing on this side, so we should search the other end. Besides"-he plucked the edge of his cloak from the ground-"I cannot abide another moment in this filth."

Twilight shrugged. "Sounds reasonable," she said. "Why the argument?"

"More traps than I could disarm at my best," said Slip. Her fingers shook. "And even more I couldn't find without my magic. Mostly pressure plates and trip wires, but wards, too. Traps within traps, meant to spring when you try to disarm one or the other. Resetting traps, as well-spring them once and they aren't done."

"So try harder," Davoren said, his voice dripping.

Slip shivered and hid behind Gargan, who looked from her to Davoren. The warlock fell silent. "Besides," Slip continued. "I… I don't think we're supposed to go that way. Maybe someone or other's meant to be kept in. On the other side, aye?"

"Whoever built that tunnel really, really didn't want us going down it," said Liet.

"All the more reason to go," Twilight said. When the others balked, she flashed a sly smile. "I've never been fond of doing another's will."

The irony in her voice caused more than one of the others to eye her suspiciously, Taslin in particular. "Your decision then," the priestess said. "Slip's skills are insufficient. I hope you know a few things about traps yourself."

Twilight's lips twitched up at the left side and she drew her blade. She knelt and studied the darkness for a hundred heartbeats.

"Come now," growled the warlock. "Are we going to wait in this stinking sewer all the day while you think about it? Just disarm them like a good sneakthief."

" 'Twould take two candles," said Twilight. "To be safe."

Davoren threw his hands in the air. "Wonderful," he said. "Waiting for two candles to burn down. We'd be a meal sitting here for some beast that comes along-like that troll-while our fearless leader takes her time for the sake of safety."

"What have I told you about insults?" Twilight said.

"It's an insult to call you 'fearless?' " Davoren feigned shock.

Twilight shook her head. "Very well," she said. "Follow and move as I do. But wait. A four-count should be right."

Brows furrowed. "Four?" Slip asked. "Why not five?"

"Why not six?" snapped Davoren.

Twilight shrugged. "Chameleon, I hope you're enjoying this," she murmured.

No response, as always.

The shadows coalesced around her. Then she ran.

A veritable firestorm of metal shards, swinging blades, and crossbow bolts filled the tunnel. Twilight lunged, danced, and dodged. She rolled under a blade that would have taken her head from her shoulders, sprang to the side between two chopping axes, and stopped short just in time to avoid a pair of darts shooting from either side.

Slip and Liet looked at one another, then charged after her. It took the others another breathless moment before they, too, followed the elf. They ran past as each trap reset itself.

Twilight ran, snaked, and dipped. Here she went low under darts, there she snapped a trip wire with Betrayal. Where she pulled up short, the others froze, and where she ran, the others dashed. More bolts fired out, and she twisted around them. Writing flared along the wall, and a fringe of flames shot out. She dived under the flames and rolled, scant feet from the end of the passage.

A sword swung down from the ceiling. Twilight dodged and hopped, but she sensed an attack from behind. Like a perfect pendulum, the blade scythed for her back.

Unlike a perfect pendulum, however, it wove from side to side. Then it veered to the right-directly at Twilight.

She managed to leap to the left, but not before the trap tore a gouge across her shoulder. She went down hard on her backside, and looked up to see the weapon streaking for her forehead. It would split her neatly in two-at least halfway. The sword probably didn't reach all the way to the floor.

Twilight found it amusing that she'd made it all the way through the corridor by sheer luck, only to fall to the last trap of all-and the most obvious.

"You're a bitch, Misfortune," Twilight cursed.

Then a ray of flame shot over her head and cut the sword blade from its swinging mechanism. The trap swung toward Twilight, but the blade's weight drove it into the stone floor a hair's breadth from her midsection.

"I take it back," she said.

Twilight was up with a start, taking Liet's hand. Carried by Gargan, Asson wiggled his fingers at Twilight, to show that he had fired the flame that had saved her.

Trailing smoke and dust, the seven emerged from the tunnel, leaving behind a wake of triggered traps and bolts studding the walls like porcupine quills.

Aside from sweat, hard breathing, and anxiety, none of the seven carried any marks to show for the experience, except Twilight's single shoulder wound.

"Let me see to that for you," Taslin offered.

Twilight flinched. " 'Tis nothing."

"It could fester," the priestess pressed. "That trap was very old."

Twilight was tempted to point out that lockjaw from old metal was a myth, or at least an incomplete notion, but instead she conceded and turned her head aside. The priestess cast the healing, and Twilight's torn shoulder knit itself without argument.

"Aye," said Slip. "I'm not sure we should've gone this way."

Twilight looked around at her surroundings for the first time and agreed.

They could see that the sewer did not extend far beyond the trapped corridor. Five paces from the tunnel, the carved floor gave way to natural stone. Beyond were two cave entrances, tunnels just large enough to admit the goliath if he stooped.

To complicate the scene, a five-pace diameter tunnel of stone also cut through the chamber, its smooth walls assuring Twilight that it came from the same source as the other perfect tunnels they had found.

"I don't know," Davoren said. "I find the change of scenery rather refreshing. Anything but more dismal, filthy tunnels."

"Everything's 'dismal,' 'wretched,' or 'filthy' with you, aye?" Slip asked. "Do you only know three adjectives?"

The warlock's burning eyes flicked to her. "I would advise silence, little one, before I think up a fourth-just for you."

The halfling shivered but held her tongue.