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said
triumphantly in the darkness, "Ha! Got you! Thought you c "
"Ilzazu!" hissed a second voice, and there was a blue-white flash and a
crackling, sizzling sound, followed by a horrible, dying moan.
This was just about enough, Shandril decided, and fainted again.
When she knew the world around her again, the light overhead was much
brighter.
Shandril found herself lying at the edge of the pile of coins, feet up on the
slithering riches, head down and aching. She felt weak and dizzy; it seemed
like
days since she fled from that gargoyle.
She got up and looked around. The coins thousands of them, rusty-brown with
age
and damp looked to be all copper. Sigh. Above her, atop the heap, lay two
bodies
on
EL> GREENWOOD
their backs, feet entangled, both human. One wore armor, much blackened;
about
him there still clung a faint reek of burned flesh. The other wore robes, and
clutched the crumbled fragments of a stick of wood. A sword protruded from
his
rib cage, and a small shoulder bag lay half-crumpled beneath him. Shandril
clambered up the mound of coins again. Food? Perhaps one carried water, or
wine?
The armored corpse was cooked black; Shandril avoided it. The other had a
dagger, which she took quickly, boots too large, but her feet had bled
enough
for her to take any boots over no boots a skin of water, which she drained
thirstily, and the shoulder bag. She tugged it free of the body and
exaiiiined
the scraps of wood curiously. The thickest piece, from the butt end of the
stick, bore the word 'Hza-zu,' but nothing happened when Shandril cautiously
said it aloud. She scrambled down the heap again.
The bag proved to contain hard, dark bread, a wheel of cheese sealed in wax,
another half-eaten wheel speckled with mold (Shandril ate it anyway, saving
the
other for later), and a small book. Shandril opened it cautiously, saw
crawling
runes and glyphs, and slammed it again. There was also a hopelessly smashed
hand
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lamp, a flint, and a metal vial of lamp oil. She put everything but the flint
and oil back into the bag and slung it on her shoulder. She crawled back to
the
dead magic-user again and tore off what she could of the man's robe, doused
it
in oil, and wearily struck the flint against coin after coin, and finally
upon
the scorched armor of the other corpse to strike sparks onto the soaked
cloth,
until at last it began to smolder. Then she gingerly borrowed the blackened
sword from the fallen warrior and lifted the bundle on its point. It flared
up,
and she clambered hastily down the heap of coins, looking for a door or
stairs
or anything that might lead out of here.
Above her was a stone rack that ran along the ceiling, supported by arches
between the squat pillars that held up the ceiling itself. Upon the rack lay
three huge barrels. From each hung a dusty, cobwebbed chain. With a shiver,
Shandril realized that a fourth barrel had hung over the heap of coins;
looking
back, she saw the shattered wooden ribs of the fallen barrel. And at the base
of
the heap on this side,
where she had not ventured before, the rusty end of the chain projected out
of
the heap beside a pair of skeletal legs. Trembling, Shandril opened her mouth
to
scream and then shut it again. Soon the cloth would all have burned, and she
would be unable to see in the full darkness away from the hole again.
She hurried on, through a chamber as vast as the hall that must be above it.
She
had come far enough, Shandril realized, to be well beneath that vast hall.
She
knew there were no stairs nor door in the top level she had arrived in except
perhaps down at the end she had not investigated, where the stirges had come
from. She turned in that direction, the daylight growing dim behind her.
The flickering, feeble light of her flame revealed a stone stair spiraling up
from the floor, without railing or ornament. It looked impossibly thin and
graceful to bear her weight. Shandril hesitated, looking around and then the
cloth burned through and fell from her blade in a small shower of glowing
shreds. Larger scraps flickered on the floor, but proved too small to balance
on
her blade. Shandril sighed and shrugged. In the last of the light she slid
the
blade through her belt and grimly started to climb the stairs on hands and
knees.
When she reached the floor above, she was in complete darkness. This should
be
the ground floor, she reasoned, and if there were a door, it would probably
be
over in that direction, somewhere. That is, if the floor doesn't give way and
dump me into the basement again, she thought grimly. Holding the sword out
crosswise before her to fend off any obstacles, she advanced forward
gingerly. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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