“So what was the fucking point?” Gork muttered angrily.
Cræosh shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it was a fuck passage.”
The kobold blinked. “What?”
“For trysts,” Katim explained. “Male goes to one…room to change, female…to the other, and they…meet in the middle.”
“The druids would never do such a thing!” Josiah huffed.
“Yeah,” Cræosh, Gork, and Katim all said as one. “Right.” Disappointed at their lack of progress, they moved on up the corridor.
And with a single exception, that was the most interesting thing that happened for the next hour. They encountered said exception about a hundred yards into the cave, when Jhurpess stuck his head through a sizable crevice in the rock. Coming running in response to his startled—and avaricious—yelp, the others found gold. Once made up of an array of smaller ingots, it had been smelted into a single gargantuan block: a near-perfect cube, in fact, and just about a yard across! Had it been the source of the ancient sect's funding? A holy relic? An emergency stash?
The squad didn't know, and they didn't care. They just knew it was theirs now…Or it would have been, if they could only have taken it with them.
But alas, try as they might, they couldn't find a way to make it happen. Not even Belrotha could haul around a slab of gold that size, and they lacked both time and tools to carve it up. Finally, though it practically broke their hearts—and required them to literally drag Gork from the crevice, kicking and screaming—they left it behind.
More weary trudging through more darkened cave. Cræosh was giving real thought to grabbing the acolyte and literally tossing him ahead to see how much farther the passageway ran when they heard echoes from up ahead. Not the pathetic little reverberations that had played upon their voices and their footsteps to this point, no. These could only indicate an enormous cavern. Heartened, the goblins quickened the pace.
They became somewhat less heartened when the corridor came to a sudden end. Oh, it was a large cavern all right; the meager light they carried couldn't even begin to reach the far walls. What they hadn't counted on was the lake. The corridor simply halted, forming a small lip jutting out into the water. And from there, there was simply no place to go. They stood, exposed and uncertain, all but the furriest of them shivering in the damp chill.
Cræosh felt a growl congealing in his throat. He snagged Josiah by the front of his robe and yanked him around so they stood face-to-face. “As a guide,” he said, his breath bringing tears to the acolyte's face, “you make a pretty good rock.”
“There were supposed to be stepping-stones,” Josiah whispered, his gaze flitting constantly between the orc and the sloshing waters. “That—that's how the druids of old crossed to their main altar. Stepping-stones.”
“Maybe once,” Katim said from the edge, staring out over the lake as best she could, “but…not anymore. I see nothing except…water.”
“Fuck,” Cræosh informed them. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, and maybe even fuck. What do we do now?”
“Well,” Josiah began, “if you're willing to risk—”
The orc jerked the acolyte off his feet and held him dangling over the dark depths. “Listen, you little daisy-plucking candy-ass! If you even suggest swimming, you're the first one in the water—headfirst, with two broken arms. Even assuming we all knew how to swim, that water's colder than a vampire's tit! Plus, I don't have a clue what's taken up residence in there since this place was used last, and I’m not willing to trust that you do either.” Slowly, he lowered Josiah back to the ledge. “Now. Did you have a suggestion?”
“No,” the druid said, brushing himself off and straightening his wrinkled robe. “Not really.”
“I’m so glad. Anyone else?”
For once, he didn't get the complete silence he expected. “Actually,” Gork said, “I might.”
You wouldn't think that you could hear the rolling of eyes, but that was the sound that followed, from several different angles. “And what would that be, oh wise one?” Fezeill asked.
“We just need another raft.”
Cræosh's fist clenched. “And just where are we supposed to get that, you insipid little turd? Snap our fingers, tap our heels, and hope the cheerful fairies decide to help us out?”
“Not really,” the kobold replied, “although it might be fun to watch.” Then, as the twisting of the orc's face suggested that it might be time to get to the point, he continued, “But wood floats. Especially flat wood. And between the bathing chamber and the changing rooms, we've got over half a dozen doors that nobody's using.”
“What?” Josiah asked weakly. They ignored him.
“I don't know,” Cræosh said after a moment. “You don't think those doors might be pretty rotted through by now?”
But now it was Katim shaking her head. “They all appeared to be in…fairly decent shape when we…were examining them. I imagine the…druids used some of their…magic, or perhaps some…herbs and salves, to preserve their…furnishings.” She shrugged. “It certainly couldn't…hurt to find out.”
Fezeill snorted. “Funny how that sentence is invariably followed by copious quantities of pain.”
“What ‘copious’ mean?” Jhurpess asked.
“It mean you copy something,” Belrotha explained. “Dumb bugbear.”
As they had no better ideas, and as neither the druid's protests nor the ogre's grammar lessons were worth listening to, they trudged all the way back and examined the doors more thoroughly. Sure enough, they were in surprisingly good shape, all things considered. Some rotten spots, some speckles of mold, but by and large they remained quite solid. If they could be secured together, they might indeed make a serviceable raft. Like a procession of ants, they toted the doors back to the ledge and began unwinding several lengths of rope.
“See, Fezeill?” Gimmol taunted. “You were wrong, back in Jureb Nahl. It is as easy as simply tying some logs together.”
Again the doppelganger snorted. “You're not just an idiot, you're a stupid idiot. A guppy could capsize this thing. It wouldn't have lasted twenty yards in the swamp.”
“Maybe,” Cræosh said, digging a hole in the wood with a dagger so he could thread the rope through. “But the water here's pretty calm, and we'll be going really damn slow, and you're gonna shut the fuck up as of right now unless you got a better idea.”
“I can turn into something that can swim here,” the doppelganger said smugly.
“Yeah? If it's a mermaid, make sure she's stacked.”
Fezeill lapsed into silence, quite possibly overcome with revulsion at the thought of becoming an object of orc lust.
But he did, much as Cræosh hated to admit, have a point. When all was said and done, their “raft” looked none too solid. They would have to lie on their stomachs, try to spread out the weight, attain some measure of stability. They'd have to make the crossing in multiple groups. And there was simply no way at all the rickety thing would support Belrotha's massive frame. They tried to make her feel better about staying behind—”The rearguard is the most important position,” Gimmol told her—but even she wasn't that stupid. There was, however, not a damn thing to be done about it.
Leaving behind half the squad and a sulking ogre, the first group carefully boarded the raft and set out for the center of the lake, where, according to Josiah, their destination waited. They paddled in brief, unpleasant bursts as one or the other dipped a hand into the frigid water just long enough to provide some slight momentum.
The cavern was even colder than the corridors had been, and the icy spray sloshing over the sides of the makeshift vessel didn't help matters. Even the troll and bugbear found themselves shivering. Sporadic ripples nearby suggested the presence of something moving beneath the surface. It was, Josiah assured them, nothing more threatening than cave fish, and while they didn't precisely trust him on that, nothing came close enough to bother them.
Damp but determined, uncomfortable but unharmed, they arrived. K
atim, Jhurpess, and Gork disembarked, while Josiah took the skiff back for the others. One hand resting idly on the haft of her axe, Katim began exploring the tiny islet.
It wasn't really anything more than the tip of a rock that either rested on, or protruded from, the cavern floor. Vaguely hexagonal in shape, it rose only a few inches above the surrounding waters; one good wave would have swamped it, had the lake actually produced any waves.
In the island's center, safe from whatever tiny tides the placid lake might generate, was a low-slung table. About as long as Cræosh was tall, it was carved from black marble and fused with the rock of the island itself. Definitely magic, for what Katim had first taken to be expert craftsmanship revealed itself, upon closer inspection, to be a true and seamless melding of the two types of stone. Etchings ran the length of the marble, nearly invisible in the feeble light. They appeared to be more primitive versions of the patterns in the wood upstairs.
And then, having deliberately examined everything else first, the troll turned to the islet's most prominent feature. Behind the table, or altar, or whatever it was, rose a ponderous statue of the same black marble. It was carved to resemble a human (or at least a humanoid), clad in robes not dissimilar to those worn by Josiah and the other acolytes. The face within the hood was a flat expanse of stone, reminding Katim of Rupert, Queen Anne's seneschal.
In only one way did it deviate from the human norm, in that it had three arms: two on the right, one on the left. The two “proper” arms pointed out and downward, while the third was held out before the statue, index finger pointing up. On its chest, beside that extra arm, were over a dozen lines of shallow scratches that might or might not have been deliberate.
As Katim could find no clue to aid her in deciphering whatever meaning or symbolism the statue was meant to convey, she quickly grew bored. And more bored still, when Josiah returned with the others, since Cræosh, Gimmol, and Fezeill insisted on repeating the examination she'd just concluded.
“And?” Cræosh asked when he was done. “What the fuck now?”
“Obey the statue,” the acolyte said.
“What? Boy, if you don't start making some sort of sense…”
Josiah shook his head. “Hey, I've never been down here either, okay? I’m trying to piece this all together from ancient writings.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Even back then,” he said more softly, “the druids had enemies. The members of this sect constructed a hidden chamber in which they stored their holiest items, their most powerful magics, and a library that was said to equal, if not surpass, that of King Sabryen himself. If Emmet figured out how to get down to it, that's most likely where he'd be hiding.”
“Great,” Fezeill said, his patience obviously running as thin as the orc's. “How helpful. So how do we find it?”
“As I said, obey the statue. Sect writings say only that the statue points the way.”
“Yeah,” the doppelganger countered, “but it's pointing three different directions!”
Josiah shrugged. “I don't know, dammit!”
It was Katim's turn to grab Josiah by what was at this point becoming a very rumpled collar. “What about these?” she asked, practically shoving his nose into the markings she'd noticed. “Did the druidic sects not…have their own script?”
“I don't believe it!” Josiah whispered. “I haven't seen the ancient script anywhere except our oldest books!” Then, “Ah, give me a minute, if you please. It's been some time since I've had to translate this sort of writing.”
Katim stepped away, allowing the young druid to go about his work. Somewhat impressed despite himself, Cræosh appeared at her shoulder.
“Nice thinking, Dog-breath. I thought those were just random scratches. The damage of years, maybe.”
“One of the…many advantages of possessing…a brain,” she said, choosing not to mention that she'd initially thought the same. “Perhaps you should…give some thought to acquiring one…the next time we're in town.”
“I've got it!” Josiah announced, saving the orc the trouble of responding. “But, um, I don't know that it helps us. It's just a few random passages from our holy books.”
“Great,” Cræosh said. “Fucking nutcases, the whole lot of you. This is what worshipping gods does to a person.…”
“Read them to us,” Gimmol suggested.
Josiah did just that, and yep, they sounded like the standard doggerel to be found in any of the human faiths. For a long while, the goblins and the druid milled about in silence.
“Well,” the gremlin said finally, “it starts with a passage about your sect being the ‘one chosen’ to speak for the World-Mother, right? And that extra finger could mean one, too.”
“One, two?” Jhurpess asked.
“No, not ‘one, two.’ One, too.”
“Three, four,” the bugbear continued, puzzled.
Gimmol shook his head.
“So…What?” Fezeill asked. “One of what?”
“Two other hands,” Cræosh said. “We're supposed to pick one, maybe?”
Katim scowled. “This is awfully…convoluted.”
“I'd have said stupid,” Gork corrected.
But Josiah was shaking his head. “No, it makes sense. Instructions that nobody outside the order could puzzle out.” He frowned. “There are two different references to the forces of evil as ‘the right hand of darkness.’”
“Something to be avoided, then?” Cræosh asked.
“I'd think so, yes.”
“Anything about left hands in there? Or left anything?“
“Not a mention.”
“Good!” Jhurpess said, clearly having gotten tired of waiting around. “Then Jhurpess will go left!” Before anyone could react, the bugbear vaulted over to the left side of the altar and begun fiddling with the arm. With an ominous click, the pointing finger twisted in his hands.
The altar and the stone to which it was fastened slid aside on brilliantly concealed tracks, as smoothly as if they'd been oiled just yesterday. And that was followed immediately after by a deafening roar and a torrent of flame that towered all the way to the cavern's ceiling.
The smell of charred flesh and burnt dust assailed their nostrils; embers rained down upon the entire squad, singing skin and setting clothes and fur alight. Jhurpess avoided roasting into shriveled jerky only because the blast sent him staggering back into the lake, where his flaming fur was quenched with a loud hiss.
Katim followed with a quick dip of her own, putting out her own smoldering hair, though she kept a tight grip on the island's edge. The others hopped around the isle, beating the sporadic flames from their clothes.
The tower of flame died, and the altar slid back into place of its own accord.
“Of course,” Josiah said, absently fingering a singed hole in his sleeve, “it might have meant the statue's left, not ours.”
Cræosh, who had a truly impressive welt running down the right side of his face, stomped over and placed his nose less than six inches from Josiah's own. “I really,” he informed the druid, “really, really want to kill you.”
Behind him, a sequence of wet splats and some sniffling whimpers announced the return of the sodden bugbear to solid ground.
“So,” Gimmol said with a feeble grin, “what now?”
What now, indeed? The missive on the statue had told them to make but one choice, and apparently it was going to hold them to that. A frantic check confirmed that the finger on the other hand refused to move, no matter how hard they twisted at it.
“Okay,” Cræosh muttered. “Fine. So we do it the hard way.”
“It would be a great…deal easier if we could have…brought Belrotha with us,” Katim said.
“Yeah, it would be, but she ain't here. That's why it's the hard way. You up for this, troll?”
Katim's snout rumpled in a sarcastic grin. “Lead the way.”
Since the fire had emerged from beneath the altar, the only possible location left for the real hidden passage was beneat
h the statue itself. It took them over an hour, with Cræosh, Katim, Jhurpess (singed and whining), and Fezeill (still in bugbear form) taking turns, but eventually they succeeded in reducing the sculpture into chunks so tiny that they'd have had to work out to become smithereens. One final blow from Cræosh and the heavy portal concealed beneath finally swung inward, dangling uselessly from broken hinges.
Of course, they weren't about to dull their blades against the stone. No, the tools they'd chosen were the arms of the statue itself, broken loose with the aid of Jhurpess's club. Josiah remained seated beside the altar, limbs sprawled, gazing in horror at the ruined sculpture.
The hanging trapdoor revealed only a series of metal rungs descending infinitely into the darkness. With a few more choice curses directed at the druids, at Gnarlroot, even at Queen Anne, they began to climb.
Fezeill went first, carefully testing each rung with his prehensile feet. He had descended well over thirty yards into growing darkness, the others following carefully behind (and, in some instances, panting with the exertion), when he suddenly halted.
“I’m not taking another step,” he announced, “until we do something about the light.”
“What light?” Cræosh asked from directly above.
“My very point.”
“Heh. And just what exactly do you propose we do?”
“I don't care. Just do something.”
Gork yanked a torch from Katim's pack, lit it, and let it drop. The flame flickered dramatically, but it didn't go out, and the plummeting brand halted not twenty feet below the doppelganger's toes, illuminating a rough stone floor. That, apparently, was enough to alleviate Fezeill's doubts, and the faux-bugbear quickly shimmied down the rest of the way, moving the torch and stepping aside so his companions might follow.
Cræosh was next off the ladder, his boots echoing against the stone. He lit a torch of his own off Fezeill's, but even the pair of them struggled to penetrate the gathered gloom. The orc cursed once, vilely even for him.
“All right! Everybody—and I mean everybody—grab a torch. I wanna see just what the fuck we've gotten ourselves into. That means you too, druid.”