Sentinelspire (33 page)

The sprinkle of rain increased, falling down the mountain like a shroud drawn over a man’s last glimpse of life. Berun couldn’t stop his hands from shaking.

Lurom didn’t like the outer tunnels during thunderstorms. The thunder itself wasn’t so bad. But the roar of the rain and the howl of the wind amplified through the stone passageways so that the caverns seemed to hum a malevolent tune. He turned to Ferluk, his fellow guard. “You think we should check on Janas?”

Ferluk didn’t move from where he leaned against the stone wall. Beside him at chest level, the one oil lamp they were allowed sat in a niche carved into the stone in ages past. “Just a storm,” he said. “Man’s got his cloak. Besides, he’s a Nar. Spring rain like this probably is warm to him.”

Thunder boomed outside, and Lurom could feel the stone beneath his feet shaking. They were too far inside the entranceway to catch the flicker of the lightning, but by the force of the thunder, Lurom guessed it had been a close strike.

“We should look on Janas,” said Lurom.

Ferluk scowled. “Look on him if you want. But leave the lamp.”

“You expect me to walk in the dark?” Lurom looked down the passageway. It was narrow—scarcely larger than one of the servants’ halls in the tower where he had his rooms. The light from their lamp reflected off the stone a good twenty feet in either direction. A few feet beyond that was only dim shadow. Beyond that lay utter darkness and the heavy drone of the storm.

“I don’t expect you to take an open flame into the rain,” said Ferluk. “Besides, you know the way. And if you’re going out, you’ll want your eyes adjusted to the dark. Janas won’t have a light.”

Lurom looked into the darkness. “Maybe if the storm lets up. Then we—what’s that?”

He pointed and Ferluk looked.

“Just a lizard,” said Ferluk. “Probably came in to get out of the rain.”

“Animals don’t come in here,” said Lurom. “Even bats won’t. You know that.”

But it was a lizard. Not a very big one, all mottled brown and still glistening from being out in the rain. It cocked its head at them and blinked.

“So chase it off,” said Ferluk.

Lurom took a few steps toward it. The little lizard stood on its haunches and hissed at him. Lurom stopped, not taking his eyes off the little creature, and said, “You think it might be poisonous?”

Ferluk rolled his eyes and pushed himself away from the wall. He drew his short sword as he passed Lurom. “Won’t matter if I have this,” he said.

He raised the sword and approached at a careful crouch so that a strike from his blade would reach ground level. “Go on!” he said, and swiped the sword at the lizard.

It hissed back at him and flexed its front claws. They were small but looked sharp.

“Brave little thing,” said Lurom, and forced a laugh.

“Not for long,” said Ferluk, and he lunged, swinging at the lizard.

It shot away, but rather than retreating down the passage, it ran around Ferluk, skirting the wall. Lurom leaped back, not wanting to be anywhere near the thing’s teeth and claws if it were poisonous. But the lizard ran past him, not even slowing. For a moment Lurom thought it would keep going, but it skittered up the wall, its claws finding enough grip that it scampered up like a spider.

“The lamp!” Ferluk shouted, but it was too late.

The lizard blundered into the niche, knocking the lamp
out, then leaped away. The brass lamp hit the floor with a clang, oil spilling onto the stone. The flame guttered, and for one moment Lurom feared it would die and he’d be left in the blackness of the passageway that still seemed to hum to the rhythm of the storm. But then the flame caught in the spilled oil and flared. It burned low and blue in a pool along the floor, giving off only a fraction of the light the lamp had.

“Pick it up before all the oil spills!” Ferluk shouted.

The darkness moved behind Ferluk, coming for him.

Too shocked to form a coherent warning, Lurom screamed.

Too late.

An arm of shadow whipped out, the meager light glinting off something pale, like bone. Ferluk had begun to turn when the pale shard passed through his throat. Blood sprayed the wall, and over the sound of the shadow’s approaching footsteps, Lurom heard a hundred tiny droplets patter to the stone like rain. Ferluk’s blade clattered to the ground only an instant before his body.

Lurom reached for his own blade and drew in a breath to scream, but it died in his throat.

Berun shambled through the passageway. Hunched over inside his cloak, the tiny light of the starstone shedding a deep green light before him, and dragging a dead man behind him, he looked like some herald of Kelemvor, dragging the latest doomed soul to the City of Judgment.

The weight of the guard’s corpse slowed Berun, but there was no helping it. He needed the man’s key to pass through the Gallery of Stone Faces, and the key might have been anything—a ring, a medallion, a coin, a pin, or even an arcane symbol etched into the man’s skin. Berun had no way to know and no time to bargain with the man for his life. So he
dragged the guard’s corpse behind him through the twisting tunnels. It had been years since he’d last walked this path, and it disturbed him how familiar it all seemed. His starstone lit the way before him, but he thought he might have been able to walk the way with his eyes closed. It was not a comforting thought.

In his heart, he prayed that there would be no more guards before he reached the Gallery of Stone Faces. The weight of the dead man was nothing compared to the weight on his soul. He tried to remember how many men he had killed since Sauk had come back into his life. It frightened him that he couldn’t remember. In that moment, only the thought of Lewan and Chereth, both ahead of him on the far side of these dark tunnels, kept him going.

“What is that?” Galban whispered.

“Where?” said Bennig. “What is what?”

The two assassins had been assigned to watch the main passageway just outside the Gallery of Stone Faces. Bored and more than a little bothered by the oppressive dark, Galban hadn’t taken his eyes off the main passage. Not too long ago, he’d thought he’d heard something skittering down the corridor, like a large insect or small lizard. That had raised his hackles, since the only things that moved in these tunnels were in the Gallery of Stone Faces—and you didn’t want to see them moving. He’d never seen the source of the noise, but he’d been watching the main passage since. Bennig had been either lightly dozing or deeply snoring since they first settled in.

“Keep your voice down!” Galban rasped. “I just saw a green light down the main passageway. Damn me if I didn’t.”

“Then damn you,” said Bennig. “But I see nothing. You must’ve dozed off and dreamed it.”

“I wasn’t the one sleeping. A faint glow. Greenish. It crossed our path. We need to have a look.”

“You have a look,” said Bennig. “Don’t wake me when you get back.”

“If Sauk finds out you were sleeping, he’ll have your ears for a necklace.”

“He won’t find out unless someone tells him. Will he?”

“There!”

This time, Bennig saw it too. A faint green glow crossing their tunnel, only this time it was headed back toward the Gallery of Stone Faces. He thought he might have caught a glimpse of a large form near the light, then it was gone.

Galban heard Bennig push himself to his feet and the whisper of his dagger coming out of his scabbard. Galban drew his own blade.

“Let’s have that look,” said Bennig. “Nice and quiet.”

“Light?” said Galban. He had a sunrod tucked under his belt.

“It’ll give us away,” said Bennig. “Just stay close.”

The two assassins made their way back to the main passageway, the soft soles of their shoes silent on the smooth stone of what had probably once been a lava tube. Just as they were coming to where the tunnels crossed, Galban saw light glowing on the stone walls. But it was coming from their left. They had seen the green glow going down and right, toward the Gallery. Both men stopped and waited, their steel held ready.

But it was only three of their own men coming up the tunnel. Jerumillis, a cutthroat from the Sword Coast, led them. He held a saber in one hand and a glowing sunrod in the other.

“Douse that light, you fool!” said Galban.

Jerumillis scowled. “You care to choose your words again?”

Galban looked at the saber in Jerumillis’s hand, then glanced at the two men behind him. Neither seemed particularly interested in the conflict. One was eyeing Jerumillis
and looked as if he were preparing to leap aside. The other was looking past them where the light from the sunrod failed and the passage continued into the dark.

Galban sighed and said, “You care to put your light away so you don’t let anyone and everyone know where we are?”

Jerumillis’s scowl eased, and he slid all but the last bit of the sunrod into his sleeve. He closed his fist over the rest, plunging them into the dark. “You saw it too?”

“The green glow?” said Galban. “Yes. Bennig saw it first, then we both saw it again, headed back toward the Gallery.”

“What was it?” asked one of the men behind Jerumillis.

“You tell me and we’ll both know. A green light. That’s all I saw.”

“It scarcely seemed brighter than a firefly.”

“You ever see a greenlit firefly?”

“Enough talk,” said Galban. “Jerumillis, you have the saber. I suggest you go first. Everyone else fan out and follow.”

“Narrow tunnels like this,” said Jerumillis, “a dagger should go first. I say you go first, Galban.”

There was a tense moment of silence, then Galban said, “Fine. But if I go first,
you
go last.”

The five assassins spread out and began a careful, quiet walk toward the Gallery of Stone Faces. It was not a long walk, but it seemed a great distance in the dark.

Bennig felt the thunder before he heard it—a slight rhythmic hum to the air. But as they proceeded he could hear it quite clearly, and as they rounded a bend in the tunnel, he saw the flicker of lightning. Not light, really, not yet, but more of a lighter shimmer on the walls against the impenetrable dark.

They rounded the last bend in the tunnel—the gallery was no more than a few dozen paces ahead—and when they did, they saw the green glow ahead of them. Bennig was right behind Galban, and he could see the man profiled in the light. Galban stopped a moment, then continued on, his blade held behind him to keep the light from glinting off
it—and to be ready to strike. Bennig followed, so close that he could have reached out and touched the tip of Gal’s blade. Ahead of them, he could hear rain dripping through crevices in the gallery’s ceiling.

As they entered the Gallery of Stone Faces, Bennig was able to make out more details around the green light. A statue, a crouched demonlike figure with a horned head and wide, leering lips. Its stone tail curved around, its forked tip dangling over the lip of the pedestal. Hanging from the lower fork was a necklace. Nothing lovely, it looked like no more than braided leather or perhaps a rough thong, but the small stone on the end of it gave off a faint green glow.

Lightning flashed outside, sending down a few shafts of bright white light that disappeared as quickly as they’d come. Thunder shook the gallery, a great explosion that faded into a rumble down the mountain.