Crossroads 04 - The Dragon Isles (36 page)

 
          
Trip
had disappeared entirely.

 
          
*****

 
          
Mog’s
chosen target struggled amid the tiny, swarming creatures and the tangled
weeds.

 
          
With
sharklike speed, the dragonspawn shot forward, claws extended. His talons bit
through flesh, filling the water with tasty blood. He grabbed his prey and
dragged the squirming, bleeding victim into the weeds to feast.

The Final Key

 
         
Mik
and Ula whirled in
a frenzy
, fighting back-to-back,
swinging their weapons and waving their hands, trying to ward off the thousands
of miniscule predators. The tiny crustaceans kept coming.

 
          
“I’ve
heard of the death of a thousand cuts,” Mik said, “hut I didn’t think it was
administered by crabs.”

 
          
“Where’s
Shimmer?” Ula asked. “We need Shimmer!” Mik looked around, but the entangling
weeds and the swarm of crabs obscured his vision. “I don’t see him,” he said.
“Let’s fight our way to the temple. The tunnel opens up ahead.”

 
          
“Right!
Ouch!”

 
          
“
A crab get
you?”

 
          
“No.
I stabbed my leg on this gods-forsaken coral.”

 
          
They
swam toward the glow from the temple, struggling to avoid the weeds and the
razor-sharp coral. Against the swarming, nipping crabs, they made slow
progress.

 
          
Just
as they seemed about to break through, the water around them went dark. A
swirling black cloud surrounded them. Horrible shapes lurked in the
cloud—things Mik had only glimpsed in the darkest corners of his mind: swarming
scavenger eels; black horsemen riding across the desert with scimitars raised
high; the mangled, decaying body of old Poul.

 
          
Mik
tried to swim away, but the nightmares surrounded him. Something grabbed his
wrist in the dark. A voice boomed, “Mik!”

 
          
He
tried to pull away, but the thing’s webbed fingers gripped him like iron. He
slashed down with his sword, trying to cut the arm off. “Hey! Watch it!” the
voice thundered.

 
          
A
blue fist flashed out of the darkness and clouted him on the jaw.

 
          
Stars
flashed before his eyes, and then both the horrible visions and the black cloud
vanished. Ula Drakenvaal held Mik’s wrist tightly in her blue fingers.

 
          
“It
was Shimmer,” she said, shaking him lightly. “He drove the crabs away.” She
pointed to an ethereal white cloud of crustaceans receding into the distance.

 
          
Mik
nodded, remembering what Shimmer had done to Lord Kell’s crew on the deck of
Red Wake.
Now he knew what it felt like
to be on the receiving end. Shimmer hovered nearby, rubbing his left shoulder.

 
          
“Where
are the others?” Mik asked.

 
          
Shimmer
peered into the darkness up the canyon. “They’re coming,” he said.
“All but the kender.”

 
          
A
cold hand gripped Mik’s heart. “Trip!” he called. “Where are you?”

 
          
“Here
lam!” the kender’s happy voice replied. He zipped back into view from beyond
the weedy tunnel. “I tried to get the crabs to follow me, but it didn’t work.
Sorry.”

 
          
“No
apologies necessary,” Mik said.

 
          
Kell
and his warriors returned. Karista Meinor looked very frightened, and her
diving briefs hung in tatters, but she didn’t seem much the worse for wear. The
brass lord brushed pieces of crab from his armor. Kell’s two warriors trailed
behind, tending to their armor and numerous small cuts. The woman looked badly
shaken, and the man was very pale.

 
          
“Everyone
accounted for?” Mik asked.

 
          
Kell
nodded.

 
          
“Good.
Let’s get moving before the crabs come back.” Mik turned and swam toward the
temple; the others followed.

 
          
The
thorny coral passageway opened up, and the weeds fell away on each side. Before
them, the
Temple
, in all its drowned glory, rose from the
abyssal canyon.

 
          
Billowing
towers of white steam, ghostly sentinels, surrounded the sunken edifice.
Columns of marble and crystal jutted up like broken teeth from the silty sea
bottom. Piled on top of them lay the domes of the temple, splendid even in
their decay.

 
          
Eerie,
black-bodied fish with glowing eyes populated the submerged building. Funereal
processions of shroudlike jellyfish and squid wound through the columns, slowly
chasing one another through the bubbling water.

 
          
It
was hot. Mick felt the heat even through the enchantment that protected him
from the cold pressure of the deep. People did not belong here. Rather, the
temple was a stygian landscape reserved for the lost, the cursed, and the
drowned. The huge domes and columns looked like titanic cracked eggshells
crouching atop piles of bleached bones. These strange tombstones stood in
silent procession amid a landscape of pale weeds and broken flagstones. Only
the farthest reaches of the temple, at the edge of sight, seemed to retain any
cohesion. All the rest looked ravaged, as though by an ancient, undersea war.

 
          
Mik
looked around the group, to see if anyone else shared his apprehension. Only
one of Kell’s brass warriors, standing near the back, fidgeted nervously. The
other stood in rapt attention, gazing at the wonders of the ancient structure.

 
          
“It’s
beautiful,” said Trip.

 
          
“And
deadly,” Mik added.

 
          
“Aye,”
said Ula.

           
“Why build it so deep?” Lord Kell
asked.

 
          
“Dragons
are people of the sea as well as sky,” Shimmer replied.

 
          
“It
may have sunk more since the building as well,” Mik added. “It’s certainly
suffered over the years.”

 
          
“It’s
still
beautiful,” said Trip.

 
          
They
all stood there for a long moment, drinking in the glory of the submerged
temple.

 
          
Karista
finally broke the silence. “Where do we look for the key?” she asked.

 
          
“It’s
somewhere in the temple,” Mik said.
“Probably the innermost
precincts nearest the mountain.
The
Temple
of the Sky was atop the volcano.”

 
          
“To treasure now ascend
, ”
quoted Karista.

           
They took their bearings and swam
toward the undersea slopes of the ancient volcano. Far overhead, they saw the
shadows of the thorny coral, arching over the temple and forming a cave-like
dome.

 
          
“I
think I see it,” Trip called, flashing ahead of them. “But it’s a bit of a
wreck.”

 
          
At
the base of the mountain, the temple’s blue domes lay smashed and broken like
titanic cracked eggshells amid the sturdy columns. The treasure hunters swam
swiftly toward the shattered dome at the top of the temple complex. Trip
circled the remains of the dome twice before the others arrived.

 
          
They
hovered a moment outside. Then—taking a deep breath—Mik swam forward through
the cracked dome and into the chamber beyond. Ula and the others followed.

 
          
Rubble
filled the room’s interior. Broken shards of the dome, sand, and pieces of
coral littered the floor, nearly filling the room.

 
          
“Ouch!”
said Ula.

 
          
“What?”
Mik asked.
“More coral?”

 
          
“No,”
she said. “This accursed thing just got hot.” She unlaced the bejeweled key
from the golden chains at her waist and held it in her hand. It glowed brightly.

 
          
“The
final key must be close,” Mik said.
“Maybe under the rubble.”

 
          
“You’re
right,” Trip said. “Look at my treasure finder!” The trinket was spinning so
fast that it churned the water into
a froth
.

 
          
The
others settled on the temple floor and began to dig frantically.

 
          
“You,”
Kell said, pointing to the rearmost guard, “
stand
watch. Warn us if anything approaches.”

 
          
The
guard, looking pale and vaguely unsettled behind his brass helmet, nodded and
swam back out of the opening. He took up a position near the top of the dome,
swimming in slow circles and scanning the surrounding ocean.

 
          
Silt
quickly clouded the waters of the chamber as the treasure hunters pushed aside
the detritus of centuries.

 
          
“I’ve
found it!” Mik cried, breaking caked mud off some hidden object.

 
          
The
others gathered ’round as Mik brushed away the last bits of debris.

 
          
In
his palm lay an intricate golden lacework, similar to the artifacts in Ula’s
hand. In its center rested a large, glowing ruby.

 
          
“This
is it!” Mik said.
“The final key!”

The Silver Stairway

           
 
Everyone in the room stood silently for a
moment, and all eyes fixed upon the glittering ruby.

 
          
“You
do the honors,” Ula said quietly, handing her portions of the key to Mik.

 
          
Willing
his hands not to tremble, Mik joined the final segment of the key to the first
three. As he did, the temple shuddered and the key shone with a blue-white
brilliance as intense as sunlight on a summer day.

 
          
Mik
squeezed his eyes shut against the blinding glare and, when he opened them
again, the light had died away. As his vision cleared, on the far side of the
room he saw a set of massive silver doors that had not been there before. The
portals were carved with the likenesses of sea creatures, people, and dragons.
They had no doorhandles; only a single large keyhole marred the sculptures on
their surface.

 
          
“The
doors to the
Temple
of the Sky,” he said. The others nodded, too stunned to say
anything—even Trip.
 
         
Finally,
Karista Meinor broke the silence. “Open them,” she said, rubbing her long
fingers together in anticipation.

 
          
Mik
swam across the room and inserted the key into the doors’ immense lock. As he
turned it, all of reality seemed to tremble. The room shook, and he felt
lightning coursing up his arms and into his brain. In his mind, he saw an
enormous blue-white diamond hovering in the air before him. Lights flashed
inside his eyes, and thunder roared in his ears.

 
          
Slowly
and without a sound, the giant metal doors parted.

 
          
At
first, all any of them saw beyond the doors was the ruined temple and the
craggy mountainside beyond. Then, like ice melting from a windowpane, the rocks
faded away, revealing a long silver staircase.

 
          
The
stair was wide enough for dragons, but its smooth treads were spaced on a more
human scale. The risers supporting it were carved in the same elaborate manner
as the silver doors. The stairway stretched up, out of the ocean deep to the
fiery cleft in the volcano rim above. At the top of the stair, its white
pillars looking as new as if it had been made
yesterday,
lay the
Temple
of the Sky.

 
          
“Wonders
upon wonders,” gasped Mik.

 
          
The
stairway was immensely long, but there were terraces or plazas along the
way—each one surrounded by pillars, forming a kind of miniature open temple.

 
          
“Up
we go,” Mik said. He tucked the key in his belt and swam through the silver
doors and up to the stairway.

 
          
“Don’t
forget your man outside,” Ula said to Kell, before following the sailor. Trip
darted ahead of her and reached the stairway at the same time as Mik. As the
kender headed for the stairs, though, he dived facedown onto the treads.
“Ouch!” he cried.

 
          
Mik
swam to help him, and nearly tumbled down himself. He landed on all fours, and
then stood before helping Trip up.

 
          
“There’s
an enchantment on the stairway,” Mik called to the rest. “Trying to swim over
it is like fighting your way up a waterfall.” He took a few tentative steps up
the stairway. “It seems easy enough to walk, though.”

 
          
“One
does not
swim
up a temple stairway,”
Shimmer noted.

 
          
Mik
and Trip began walking upward toward the first plaza. Ula and Shimmer followed,
then the female guard, then Karista and Kell. Finally, the pale guard who had
been stationed outside the temple brought up the rear. He walked tentatively,
glancing from side to side, peering into the deep as he came.

 
          
They
reached the first terrace, and Mik bobbed quickly across. “The spell doesn’t
affect the plazas,” he said. “We can swim normally here.”

 
          
The
group took a moment to relax and admire the decrepit splendor of the sunken
temple below. Kell’s male guard took the lead as they ascended the stairs once
more, while the female brass warrior brought up the rear.

 
          
They
passed beyond the thorny ceiling overarching the submerged temple and trench
just before they reached the next plaza. The waters around them became less
dark, and the sea life grew more numerous. Spotted dominoes swam overhead,
beyond the reach of the stair’s enchantment.

 
          
“Watch
out for predators,” Kell told his warriors. The brass-armored man and woman
nodded their understanding.

 
          
As
they reached the third platform, the surface of the sea became visible above
them. A supernatural clarity surrounded the stairs themselves—and the path to
the volcano’s rim appeared as lucid as gazing across the ocean on a cloud- free
day.

 
          
In
the area surrounding the stair, though, local conditions prevailed. The storm
brewing in the sky above churned up the water, making it translucent and
opaque. Thunderheads gathered over the mountain, though a tiny circle of blue
sky shone through above the distant temple.

 
          
Kell’s
lead guard forged ahead while the others rested. Hiking up the steps was as
tedious as it would have been on land—and the stairway was far longer than the
climb to the Dragonheights.

 
          
Mik
leaned against a pillar and caught his breath. The next plaza was above the
waves, and the weather there looked none too pleasant. Ula swam lazy circles
around the perimeter of the area, stretching her long limbs. Trip kept pace
beside her, using the ancient power of his sea serpent cloak.

 
          
Kell
and Karista Meinor stood close together, between Mik and the ascending
stairway. Shimmer sat on a coral bench opposite, rubbing his wounded shoulder.
Kell’s brass- armored woman warrior stood atop the descending steps, watching
the way they’d come.

 
          
“Let’s
keep moving,” Mik said. “We don’t have much daylight left.” He headed for the
stairs once more, and the others followed.

 
          
A
shape flashed past ahead of them, beyond the plaza’s massive columns. Mik
turned and saw the tail fin of a mangier shark angle up, over the stairway. He
wondered, briefly, why Kell’s advance guard hadn’t warned them about the
predator.

 
          
The
next instant, the brass guard shot down the stairway like a man surfing a
powerful wave. Sharks and razorfish, each with a small Turbidus leech attached
to its spine, followed him. The guard streaked across the terrace, his brass
spear pointed at Lord Kell’s back. Kell’s other guard stepped in front of her
master, and the traitor thrust his spear into the female warrior’s gut

 
          
The
woman gasped, and her weapon fell from her hand onto the coral flagstones
below. The guard cursed in a guttural voice and yanked out his spear. The woman
warrior hung limply in the water, dead.

 
          
Lord
Kell
spun,
a cry on his lips. His outrage echoed
through the brine as everyone in the plaza drew their weapons. The evil fish
swarmed down the stairs and attacked.

 
          
Kell
stood between Mik and the traitor, but a mangier shark buffeted the lord aside.
It was all Kell could do to avoid being bitten in half. The renegade guard
flashed by his master, headed straight toward Mik.

           
Mik cursed himself for not noticing
the guard’s odd demeanor earlier. He brought up his sword to defend himself.
The traitor batted Mik’s weapon aside and, on the back- swing, deftly knocked
the Key to the
Temple
of the Sky from Mik’s belt.

 
          
The
artifact spun through the water and landed near the renegade’s feet. The
traitor stabbed at Mik, and the sailor dived back. The guard stooped to
retrieve the fallen key.

 
          
Mik
lunged forward and slashed at the man’s exposed spear-arm. The scimitar found
its target, and the guard’s flesh ripped off in a long pale ribbon, revealing
the scales beneath.

 
          
Shocked
at the sight, Mik hesitated, and the imposter’s counterattack nearly impaled
him. Fortunately, XJla dove in and shoved the sailor out of the way. She thrust
her spear up into the brass warrior’s crystal faceplate. The helmet, and the
warrior’s dead face beneath, ripped off—revealing the horrifying reptilian
visage of Mog.

 
          
The
dragonspawn inside the dead warrior’s skin batted aside the shaft of Ula’s
spear and stabbed at her midsection. Ula parried the blow and aimed a counter
thrust. Before she could deliver it, though, Mik put his shoulder into Ula’s
gut and drove them both across the plaza onto the coral flagstones.

 
          
A
torpedolike redtip shark flashed harmlessly over their heads. The fish had been
aiming for Ula’s exposed back. “Thanks,” she said. Mik nodded.

 
          
Mog’s
fishy minions circled the plaza, keeping the rest of the treasure hunters busy.
Karista put her back against a pillar while Kell stood in front of her, warding
off attacks. The brass lord swung his coral lance in short arcs, slashing the
flanks of the sharks and razorfish pressing in around them.

 
          
Trip
played a deadly game of tag with the evil fish. His sea serpent cloak gave him
more speed and maneuverability, but the enchanted plaza gave him little room to
move. He bobbed and twisted, shooting between the
enemy
,
and striking them with his twin daggers.

 
          
The
predators’ teeth had little effect against Shimmer’s bronze armor. Mog had
counted on this, though, and directed the bulk of his forces to attack the
bronze knight. Enthralled fish surrounded the human-shaped dragon like a
whirlwind, battering him from all directions. Shimmer swung his sawtoothed
sword at them, killing many, but more fish swarmed in from the sides to replace
the dead.

 
          
Mog
seized the glowing key. He shrieked as the energy of the artifact ripped
through him, blowing the remnants of his hideous disguise into streamers of
crimson flesh.

 
          
Writhing
in agony, he swam to the edge of the silver stairs and began to shamble up its
wide treads.

 
          
“Give
it back!” Karista shrieked. She dodged out from behind Shimmer and flung a
thin-bladed dagger at the dragonspawn.

 
          
The
knife pierced Mog’s left hand. He howled, staggered backward, and lost his
balance on the edge of the staircase. The key dropped from his hand and tumbled
down the stairs.

 
          
“Trip!
Grab it!” Mik called, as he gutted another dragon-
enthralled shark.