Sword Play

Chapter 16

Sunbright waved his free hand and sword.

"This is still the Nine Hells! I was trapped in here before! These tunnels change as soon as you turn your back! There's no escape this way!"

"Hush, fool!" Sysquemalyn was up, though shaky-legged, and she pulled at Candlemas's sleeve to rouse him. The podgy mage rolled clumsily, as if drunk. "This is as far as I could gate us!"

"What's wrong with him?" Greenwillow gave up wiping blood from her wounds and helped. Her clothes were more red than green and black.

"He suffers from conjuring in a foreign land," the red-haired mage snapped. She looked tired and wretched, her eyes sunken and encircled, her proud red hair lank and lifeless. "We're too far from the reservoir of dweomer amassed by our patron, Lady Polaris." It was a sign of her desperation that she eschewed any insults for the lady. "We're drawing magic from afar. The local magic is corrupt, the wrong color… Never mind! Why explain to ignorant groundlings? Help me move this bucket of lard."

Groaning, the halt helping the lame, human and elf got Candlemas to his feet. The bedraggled raven, its tail feathers charred along the ends, limped and hopped along, as exhausted as its master. Sunbright levered his shoulder under the mage's arm. Sysquemalyn left them to it, then snapped fire on her fingers to better light their way. "Follow me. I think I can get us out. I built this place, after all."

"No, dear, you didn't." Candlemas was awake and coherent. Despite his fatigue, he argued with his old rival. "The pit fiend said no, and it ought to know. You simply plagiarized-"

"Belt up, Candy-Ass!" snapped the mage. "All right, if I didn't exactly build it, at least I know what I stole and where it leads!"

But waving her flaming hand around, she hesitated, searching both ways. In one direction the tunnel curved up to a hump, then probably dropped. The other direction curved, so she led that way. But when they'd plodded a hundred feet, the dirt floor dropped away abruptly.

Looking backward, they saw that the tunnel now curved up as steep as a chimney. Greenwillow sighed. "I was in a place that shifted every minute too."

Sunbright still propped a sagging Candlemas on his shoulder. "Perhaps we should rest here," the barbarian suggested.

"Aye," groaned the mage. And collapsed.

All together, like four children frightened in the woods, they huddled against one cold wall of the tunnel, feet stretched straight out in front of them. Sunbright propped Harvester across his lap, ready to fight if need be, but he had to fight his own urge to nod off. To keep busy, he dug a whetstone from a pouch and honed his blade. The edge was as dull as a butter knife from chopping bodies as if they were cordwood. Too, he straightened his clothing and tackle as best he could, but everything was so crusted and stiff with dried blood it was like one great mass. Oddly, he still wore his bearskin vest, and his body stank sharply within it, but despite the heat he couldn't divest himself of it, for he needed its scant protection as armor.

Greenwillow tested her sword's edge, found it to be as sharp as ever, so she only scrubbed the blood and ichor from it. She croaked, "Can either of you mighty mages conjure us some water?" The very word made Sunbright's throat constrict as if he'd swallowed desert sand. He'd had a waterskin once, long ago, but had lost it somewhere.

"One definition of hell is eternal thirst," groaned Candlemas. "But I'll see if I can locate any."

Holding his head in both hands, the tired mage muttered under his breath. Sunbright heard the name "Zahn" repeated. But nothing happened, and after a while Candlemas sat back against the wall. "There's none to be found. I'll have to transmute some."

"That'll cost us dearly," put in Sysquemalyn.

"If we're to squabble, we'll need wet tongues." Even tired, the bearded man could joke about their foolish rivalry. "Now… Mistress Elf, if I might borrow your breastplate?"

Wondering, Greenwillow loosened the straps to shuck her black boiled-leather armor. The act brought a whiff of her natural fragrance to Sunbright. Like himself, he knew she was sweaty and rank as a hard-ridden mare, but he drank in her scent as if she smelled of wild flowers.

Candlemas laid the breastplate facedown, scraped sand and dust from the tunnel floor and trickled it into a pile, like a child playing in a sandbox. He muttered half to himself, "Funny, at home I could conjure an ice storm with one hand. But let's see if Proctiv's the archmage he was rumored to be."

And laying his hands on the sandpile, he whispered a rhyming enchantment that went on and on. Sweat came to his dirty brow, and his head began to swing a slow circle. When his revolving had made him dizzy, he made a.final call, bent his head swiftly, and spat on the sand.

It turned into water.

Greenwillow gave a chirp of delight, Sunbright whooped, and even Sysquemalyn snorted approval. One by one, careful not to spill, they put their lips to the water and slurped. Conjured in hell with impure magic, it was brackish and bitter and scanty, but never had Sunbright tasted anything better, not from all the rushing waterfalls in the highlands. Even the raven croaked in appreciation as it pecked up the last drops with a knobby purple tongue.

"So magic's good for something." Greenwillow rubbed her dry face and tried to smooth her filthy hair. "I wish we had a barrel of it to wash in."

"You're lovely even when dirty," quipped Sunbright. Then he was acutely embarrassed by the blush that overcame him and the elf-maid.

With a sigh, Candlemas changed the topic. "Magic's done us more harm than good lately. If I hadn't agreed to this foolish wager with Sys, none of this would have happened."

"It was my fault," replied the red-haired mage. "I kept trying to top you-and the Whiny White Weasel, may I someday peel her putrid face from her skull-and things got out of hand. There are wards I could have set, protections I should have triggered to warn me, but I didn't bother. And you've all suffered for it."

"The world suffers for it," Candlemas corrected. "You forget that up above-or outside or wherever- all of Toril and the Netherese Empire is beset by the vile spawn of these Nine Hells. I reckon that pit fiend could conjure a thousand times that number of creatures to beset us, except most are currently running amok through field and forest. Perhaps this twisted tunnel is the safest place to be these days. Who knows but the world and empire are doomed."

"Everyone makes mistakes."

Three people turned to stare at the fourth: Sunbright, who'd made the strange pronouncement. The barbarian was surprised himself.

"I should think you would be the most enraged," replied Candlemas.

"Aye," added Sysquemalyn in a low voice. "You've been deceived frightfully. I've… many of us have…"

She didn't need to finish, for they all knew. Sunbright had been tricked into a dragon's lair, lured with lust and love by the false Ruellana, confronted by a lich, and cast into hell. But he dismissed it all with a shrug.

"It's just simple truth. People questing for something higher, whether greater magic or just to be a shaman, make mistakes along the way. Sometimes the gods smile and excuse them. Other times, they pay dearly. Certainly I've made my share of blunders on this adventure. If I'm forgiven, then I need to forgive others their errors. And so far our mistakes haven't killed us."

Sysquemalyn raked at her dust-clotted hair. "I've certainly learned a lot about mud men. I judged you wrong, manling. Very wrong."

The barbarian only nodded. "Apology accepted."

Greenwillow's eyes were suspiciously bright. "You're wise beyond your years, Sunbright. You will return to your people someday and be a wise and mighty shaman."

The barbarian didn't know how to answer that, so he only leaned over and kissed her dirty cheek.

"I'll say one thing," Sysquemalyn added. "I'm done with wagering. I've learned my lesson."

"Good enough. Now if we can survive this one to not collect." Groaning, Candlemas pushed to his feet. "I don't reckon any yard of hell can be safe for long, so I suggest we move on. If this plane has been torn open, and maggots and hellfire and vampire bats can invade the world, then sooner or later we'll find a crack to slide through."

Refreshed and with a glimmer of hope, the party clambered to their feet. Sysquemalyn snapped her fingers alight, and they pressed on, for the tunnels had again shifted, and a flat stretch presented itself.

But for all Sysquemalyn's bravado, they didn't get far. Sunbright glimpsed a shimmer in the corridor ahead, a rippling of the dirt walls. The tunnel suddenly looked much longer, as if it extended for hundreds of feet.

Candlemas grunted. Greenwillow gasped. Sunbright swore.

The far end of the tunnel was blocked by a single giant eye. An eye as wet as shiny slate. As the eye blinked at them, they saw the massive eyelid bore patchy red skin.

"Watch out!" yelled Sysquemalyn. "The tunnel's 'witched! Run… Ow!"

In the lead, Sysquemalyn had bumped her head where only seconds before they'd had plenty of room. Rocked by the blow, she halted and grabbed at the low ceiling.

Sunbright's heavy, scarred boots suddenly tilted under him. The floor was sloping toward the giant eye at the far end.

"The other way!" shouted Candlemas. Climbing uphill, he shoved past Sunbright and Greenwillow.

Lurching, clinging to crumbling dirt walls, the party turned. But now another giant eye blocked that path. And the floor tilted in that direction as well.

"This makes no sense!" Sunbright cursed. "You can't fall two ways at once!"

No one heard. Sysquemalyn shrilled a spell. Greenwillow grabbed Sunbright's shoulder for support. Candlemas called for his raven to fly.

Then the tunnel upended as if they were mice trapped in a box.

Floor and ceiling became walls as the party plummeted straight down. Reaching for a handhold of any kind, careful to keep tight hold of Harvester, Sunbright only ticked his fingernails on dirt. All four howled as they dropped toward the great black eye at the bottom.

Falling from the mouth of the tunnel, they passed through open, smoggy air, then landed hard on a stone floor that rattled their teeth. Cradling Harvester, Sunbright banged his left shoulder frightfully before rolling against a jumble of rocks.

No, not rocks. Through spinning smoke he beheld the ugly leer of the pit fiend, still on the bluff above the lava pit. Above them. It was the creature's rock-hard splayed toes Sunbright had fetched up against. All around them gibbered ghouls and ghasts and imps, hideous monsters of every type.

The pit fiend squinted with eyes like wet slate, opened a mouth that drooled acid from yellow tusks.

"Welcome back. Now, where were we? Ah, yes! Hordes, attack!"

Moments later, Sunbright was glad he'd honed his sword to a fine edge, for he killed a dozen fiends in as many minutes, until they were heaped around him like a makeshift barricade, until they had to clamber over their own dead to reach him. He was spattered with blood and pus and gore from topknot to boots, and scorched besides, for the anvil-headed genies snorted blue fire. Yet he fought on, and still the monsters charged.

He didn't battle alone, but as part of a team of four who stood back to back in an impenetrable square. Sysquemalyn waved her hands and spouted arcane curses at his right elbow, Candlemas at his left. The mages hurled every spell they knew, and they were powerful, for this chamberlain and steward to Lady Polaris were not far from being archmages themselves. He heard the name Anglin, and a searing wall of hissing, multihued light drove back a clot of fiends. The name Valdick was invoked, and a section of the stone floor dropped away, carrying a dozen clattering skeleton warriors with it. At the name Xanad and some unspoken howl, three imps were slapped back so hard their limbs became disjointed. Primidon was called on, and a burning cloud like a miniature thunderhead scorched lemures and sent up a sickening stench like charred garbage.

Too, Sunbright heard Greenwillow challenge the fiends, heard her cry out in exultation each time her elven blade struck home and dropped a foe. And he had the incongruous thought that such a fine, beautiful woman, so sleek and lovely, could be so hard and deadly in combat, like a tooled and tempered blade herself.

Even the raven above them fought, flapping and pecking and clawing, and Sunbright wondered how Candlemas could control it and blend spells at the same time.

Yet there was some sphere of protection over or around them, for many of their enemies couldn't crowd close, or seemed to struggle to cross an invisible barrier. And too, when the mages had touched their shoulders with hot hands, he and Greenwillow had been lent superhuman strength and endurance, or else they would have collapsed long ago. In some ways Sunbright hoped they would, for it seemed all his previous life had been a dream, and this nightmare was the only reality, one that would endure forever, as if he'd already died and were being punished in Hell.

But they couldn't fight much longer, for they were being steadily beaten down. Mighty as the mages were, they'd been born in the material world, and this was Hell. Even Sunbright, who knew nothing of magic, sensed their magical energies running low. Their spells took longer to pronounce and had a smaller effect each time. The living party was succumbing to death here in the land of the undead, their strength melted away like a snowball dropped into a bonfire.

Too, their foes never diminished, but increased. The pit fiend had shuffled back, wings flapping uselessly, to watch its minions battle. Perhaps the fiend enjoyed the show. Howsoever, it would raise a broken-clawed hand and wave it toward them, and from fissures and caves and even the boiling lava itself came taller, more fearsome creatures. These, Sunbright suspected, were so fearsome even their leader couldn't completely control them. From a pit climbed bone monsters with scorpion tails and blinding-white limbs that made others shrink away. Barbed creatures ridged with spines wore burning skin that ignited lesser fiends. And tall brutes with dead-white skin and blind eyes simply tore with long clawed hands into anything that moved. Sunbright heard Candlemas ask what the last were, and Sysquemalyn gasped, "… amassed… ongoing war… rivals the tanar'ri of the Abyss!" Hints of horrors the barbarian didn't even want to ponder.

It was as the blind giants wreaked havoc that the party took their first casualty. The raven, fluttering madly, must have broken through whatever protection served them, for suddenly a rearing anvil-headed genie puffed flat cheeks. Blue fire, blinding even to see, seared the raven in midair so not even a feather tip remained, only a jot of smoke and a dusty stink.

Sunbright heard a groan and risked a glance. With the bird's death, some part of Candlemas had died also. The mage went pale, his eyes bleary, his hands trembling.

With Candlemas's affliction, their well of protection crumpled. Sysquemalyn shrieked and shot both hands in the air as the fiends redoubled their attack. Sunbright stepped over Candlemas to straddle him, while Greenwillow tumbled back against his shoulder.

A roar sounded above the clash and howl of the monsters. The pit fiend, impatient, bellowed, "Hurry and die!" Raising a huge foot, it stamped stamped stamped on the stone floor of the huge cavern.

Within seconds, cracks radiated from the stamped spot to splinter the stone floor in all directions. When the cracks reached the lip of the great lava pit, they fractured ten times as wide, then wider. Sunbright saw an edge crumble and disappear, taking a handful of the scorpion-tailed bone creatures with it and flinging a gout of red-hot lava almost to the ceiling. As the earthquake shocks reached the walls, stone rained down on the horde, crushing scores to yellow and gray and red pulp. The barbarian couldn't comprehend the senseless violence of it. The pit fiend had no compassion whatsoever for those it commanded. But perhaps that was hell too, to be toyed with by unknowable monsters.

Then Sunbright was busy watching his own feet, for the cracks under him widened. Deep inside, they glimmered with lava and fire.

Hanging on to Candlemas and Harvester, he scuffed his boots first this way, then that to avoid gaps that could easily swallow him. Heat rose around him; he felt it under his long shirt and on his face. Frantic, he was holding the mage, fending off fiends, minding he didn't bump Sysquemalyn or Greenwillow into a crack, and worrying. If the gaps widened…

They did. As if made of glass, the floor continued to splinter, fragment, fracture. Soon Sunbright had only a cracked patch as big as a tabletop to stand on. He clutched Harvester and Candlemas in the same hand so he could hang on to the collar of Greenwillow's shirt with the other. Fiends no longer beset them, for many were fighting to keep their own footing. To his right, an imp tried to bound clear only to bang into a fellow and disappear down a jagged slot. One of the blind giants charged until its big feet sheared off an edge. The monster dropped to its waist in a gap, screaming in agony as its feet were seared by white-hot flames. It lashed out with long-clawed hands for support, rending lemures to yellow putty. Then the crack split anew, and the giant sank into the fire.

"Greenwillow! We need a place to stand…What?"

He gave a shout as Candlemas rose in the air. At first he thought the mage had been seized by the erinyes. But nothing held him aloft save magic. Sysquemalyn, lank red hair like dead snakes rattling around her head, had levitated herself and her comrade off the floor. She hung, tilted, a dozen feet up, crooking her fingers to bring Candlemas to her. But Sunbright clung to the man's rope belt and wouldn't let go.

"Release him!" Sysquemalyn shrilled over the noise of grinding earth and shrieking fiends. "I need him!"

"I need him too!" shouted the warrior. "Levitate us all!"

"I can't! I've not enough dweomer! I'm using 'Mas's to levitate him. Let go! We'll call for help!"

"You lie!" Sunbright was enraged but fought to control his temper at the thought of more treachery. Perhaps she spoke true. Certainly the two mages looked as wrung out as rag dolls. "Forget me and just levitate Greenwillow then! She's light!"

"I… can't!" And clenching both fists, Sysquemalyn hoicked Candlemas into the air so hard he was wrenched from Sunbright's grip. "Fight on! Help is coming!"

Sunbright glimpsed Candlemas stir as Sysquemalyn slapped his face hard three times. She shook him violently and shouted in his ear. The podgy mage nodded groggily, but Sunbright couldn't hear their scheming, and had to turn his attention back to his own situation.

The tabletop they'd occupied had shrunk to the size of a chair, and Greenwillow and Sunbright teetered on it precariously, as if balanced atop a stone column. With the elf pressed to his chest, her dark hair tickling his nose, the barbarian cast about for a direction in which to jump. The light was more hellish than ever, yellow flames splitting the floors and spilling black smoke. The chasm below them glowed red some distance down: twenty feet or a hundred, there was no way of telling. Not far off, perhaps six feet, was a shaky-looking promontory, with staggering lemures beyond. Sunbright made a fast decision.

"I'm closest. I'll leap across, turn around, and lie flat to catch you when you jump. If I don't make it, you'll know it's not safe."

But the elf wasn't listening. She wrapped both arms around his chest and hugged him tight. Almost as tall as he was, she pressed her head against his ravaged neck. Despite the heat and smoke, he felt her wet tears spill down his skin, tickling his chest under his bearskin vest and shirt.

"Sunbright, I…" Greenwillow hesitated, afraid to say the words that were in her heart.

"I know," Clumsily, the barbarian cradled her slim back and patted her dark hair. "I feel the same, but there isn't time now. We must go."

Giving him a final hug, then tearing free, Greenwillow stuck her sword in her belt-it was too crusted with filth to fit in her scabbard-and pointed. "Yes, go. I'll follow."

But Sunbright couldn't just run off, not if both of them were to die then and there. Grabbing her slim chin, he planted his salt-crusted lips on hers, found them as cool and delicious as a draught of springwater. Then he shoved Harvester in his belt and turned.

The promontory beckoned from six feet off, barely his own length, a moderate jump given full strength and a running start. He had neither. Making do, he squatted low on his toes, poised, sucked wind, and leaped into space.

In the short time he was airborne, he had the thought he'd never make it, that he was falling short. But something gave an added boost to his rump and heels, and he crashed to his knees on solid stone, only his ankles and heavy boots dangling over the edge of the fearsome pit. Harvester ground into his side, dead weight he probably should have discarded.

Greenwillow, he thought. She'd shoved him with all her strength to carry him across. Without her help, exhausted as he was, he'd have surely fallen in. He had to get her across quickly.

Spinning about on bleeding knees, he flopped on his belly and stuck his arms over the edge to catch her. Peering through smoke and flame, he shouted, "Come on, Green-"

She was gone.

Stupefied, horror-struck, Sunbright at first wouldn't believe it.

No, he thought. It couldn't be true. She couldn't have…

Down he stared into the fiery caldron that raged in the gaps. If Greenwillow had fallen…

Then it hit him.

She'd sacrificed herself to save his life. She'd known he couldn't jump the whole distance, had hunkered low and shoved him off. That's why she hadn't attended his instructions, because she'd known she'd never make the jump. Heaving his weight had cost her the precarious perch, and she'd toppled off, fallen to her…

… death.

"Noooooo!"

Blind with rage and horror and sorrow, Sunbright came to all fours. Harvester dragged on stone, and in fury he ripped the sword from his belt, prepared to throw it down into the burning chasm and himself after it. If he hadn't worn his heavy sword, perhaps she needn't have pushed him. If he'd thrown it first… If she'd only told him, he could have hurled her first.

If only, the death of dreams.

Frantic, he scrambled to the very edge, leaning out and craning his neck to see. But roaring heat seared his eyeballs and curled his sweat-damp hair. If only she'd landed on some outcropping. If only…

Something tugged at his boot, and he spun in place. Blind rage was creeping up on him, an urge to kill and smash and destroy. It was a curse of his people, he knew, the berserker's rage that made a man or woman charge into battle and kill and kill until he or she was cut down and hacked to ribbons.

And the one who'd tugged his boot was Sysquemalyn, the source of all this trouble.

Howling like a banshee, the barbarian locked both hands on the mage's throat, raised her in the air, and shook her so savagely her teeth rattled and her neck almost snapped. He screamed, "You! You did this! You killed her! Your scheming and plotting and desire for power…"

Hoisted as high as a chicken at slaughter, Sysquemalyn struggled, kicked, raked the back of his hands with chipped red nails. Only her personal shield kept her alive, for the barbarian's strength was awe-inspiring. This man could snap her neck like a straw.

Hammering and drumming on his arms and chest, she still tried reason. "Yes, it's my fault! But don't kill me, or you'll never get out of here alive! You still need magic-"

"I don't care if I die!" Spittle flew from Sunbright's lips. His face was a gargoyle's leer, his mouth dragged down and distorted, his eyes flaming red. For the first time, Sysquemalyn was truly frightened of him. This "mud man" was suddenly the most dangerous being in this corner of hell. "I'll see you dead first!"

"Greenwillow… wouldn't… want that!" the mage gasped. Despite her shield, her throat was constricted, and she gagged on a snarl. "Don't waste her sacrifice, fool. She kept you alive to live and fight. Help is on the way. Now fight! For her!"

The command to attack penetrated Sunbright's grief-stricken mind and he snatched up his sword. Running across the cracked floor, the first thing he encountered was one of the blind giants, presently mauling an imp with both fists. The human roared and attacked both. Flinging Harvester behind him with no attempt to parry or shield, he swung so hard he cut clean through the imp's horned head and deep into the thigh of the giant. When it turned, as dead-white as a rotten fish, as strong as an oak tree, he slung the sword directly overhead. The bending giant felt the sword strike it square between its eyes, smack in the forehead, and the awesome blow stunned even this insensate thing. It collapsed full out, but by then Sunbright had attacked elsewhere.

Right, left, whirling behind him, the berserker lashed out at everything that moved, as mindless and hostile as the blind giants themselves. He saw nothing but a red haze and moving shapes, and he struck, again and again. From far off he heard voices: the pit fiend's howl, Candlemas calling his name, Sysquemalyn screaming spells. But nothing penetrated, except the fact that Greenwillow was dead and had died to save his worthless hide. So on and on he fought, intent on killing until he was killed.

But gradually, the red haze gave way to white. Bright whiteness, brighter than that of the bone creatures, brighter than sun on snow or the biggest star. The white light pulsed and flared, flooding the dark chamber with brightness never seen in these depths before. Even Sunbright, berserk and raging, couldn't face the white light, and he had to turn away, looking for more enemies.

But there were none to be found. They'd retreated, hundreds of them. Gibbering in dismay, whole rivers of fiends jumped gaps and chasms in the floor to race for fissures and caves and other exits. Leaning from the white light high above the lava pool, the pit fiend roared at them, even kicked and crushed its followers to stop them. But it couldn't stem the retreating tide any more than it could extinguish that blinding light.

Finally, bathed in fearsome light, Sunbright let Harvester's bloodied nose fall. Candlemas and Sysquemalyn waited, all the embattled humans squinting, unable to stare at the light.

But the two mages wore expressions of dead weariness blended with relief. Candlemas breathed, "Thank all the gods we know and those we don't. It worked."

Then the white light spoke.