Downfall

"Rig is alive?"

Maldred's senses travelled farther, past them and down the last of the steps, to an ironbound door partially blocked by rubble. "They're near a door. Some digging and they can reach it," he continued to himself. He wanted to talk to Dhamon to tell him to pass through that door, there was certainly another way out somewhere behind it. The dwarves who carved this place would not have allowed themselves to be trapped with only one entrance and exit. But his magic couldn't let him break inside Dhamon's thoughts-at least not without actually being face-to-face with him.

So then he pulled his mind back away, leaving Dhamon and Rikali and flowing back through the rock toward himself and Fiona, discovering other hidden chambers as he went, nearly all destroyed. He was bolstered by the fact that his good friend was brave and resourceful. "Dhamon will find a way out," he whispered.

Then he sagged against the wall, let out a deep breath, smiled broadly, and released Fiona's hand. "Dhamon, Rikali, Fetch. They are all right. Rig, too. A little beaten down by the rocks, but their passageway did not suffer so much damage as ours."

"Your magic," Fiona began, her tone indicating she was impressed as well as surprised. "I didn't know that you're a sorcerer, that you could…"

"I am far from a sorcerer, Lady Knight," he said with a chuckle. "I am a thief. Who occasionally dabbles in magic. And I just happened to know a simple enchantment that lets me peer through rock. I've found us a way out. It'll take us a while, but the way looks clear."

Fiona wished she could see him, see anything but this blackness. "How can we get to them?"

She was reaching out with her hands again, and he took both and pulled her face close to his. Despite the rain and the stone dust, the faint trace of sweat, she had a fragrance about her. He inhaled deeply. Then, bending, his lips brushed hers.

"Lady Knight, we can't get to them."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Reflections Of Truths

"Pigs, but I'm not go

Dhamon shot her a withering look. The mariner's eyes narrowed and he studied Dhamon, his expression souring. "Well, you ain't got nothin' now, lover. Do

Desecrating a temple to a dead god. Pigs to it all! Never thought much of the gods, anyway."

Fetch started to say something, but the half-elf cut him off with snarl. He shrugged his small shoulders and decided keeping quiet was wiser.

"There's a door down here!" Rikali yelled. "But the damn thing's rusted shut."

Dhamon brought the torch down to her, Rig and Fetch following. There wasn't much left of the torch, a half an hour of firelight at best.

"It better lead outta here," Rikali continued to grumble, giving the door a good kick. "Better be a back door at the bottom of this mountain. Huh?" She put her ear to the door and listened, furrowing her brow in concentration. "I hear somethin'. Maybe the wind whistlin' through some trees. By my breath, that's a good sign." Then she was fumbling in her belt, pulling small metal picks from behind her jeweled buckle. "Prefer to use my fingers," she said more to herself than to Dhamon. "But my nails haven't grown back yet. Pigs on my luck. That light, put it down closer. Hey, not so close it burns me!"

Dhamon crouched next to her and watched in fascination as she moved the picks in and out of the rusted lock with a skill he wasn't close to mastering, turning them first one way and then the other, putting her ear to the lock, making clicking sounds with her tongue against her teeth as she finally left two picks in and retrieved a third.

"It's an old lock," she said to explain why it took so long. "Things are rusted inside. Don't want to move."

"Could just break it down," Rig suggested, his eyes on the waning torch.

"Barbarian," Rikali whispered. "No genius to kickin'. No skill and thinkin'." Louder, she said. "I'll have it in a minute, just hold on and… there!" With a self-satisfied nod of her head, she pulled the picks out and replaced them in her buckle and wriggled the latch, gri

Dhamon did just that, listening to Rig grumble that he could have had it open with a single kick and that she had better hurry because there wasn't much left of the torch. Fetch suggested they pull some of the wood planks out of the door, and he'd be happy to make another torch from them, but everyone ignored him.

"I know I can get it!" she hissed between her teeth. "Just a little more. See, it's comin'. Just a…"

It came open with a roar as water rushed into the stairwell, sweeping Rikali behind the door and pi

Rikali was sputtering and splashing, jammed between the door and the wall. Rig sloshed down the steps and threw his weight against the door, budging it just enough for the half-elf to slip out. She struggled against him for a moment, then relaxed and gulped in some air. The water came up to her shoulders.

"Suppose I should thank you," she managed.

The mariner felt claws against his back, and he instinctively thrust his hand to his waist for a dagger, stopping just as his fingers closed on the pommel and he realized the source. The kobold had climbed up and wrapped his scaly arms around Rig's neck, coughing up water and cursing in a language the mariner couldn't understand.

"Dhamon!" Rig called.

The faint light from above became brighter-but only a little-as Dhamon climbed down the stairs and joined them, holding high what was left of the torch. His face was impassive, as if their predicament didn't in the least bit concern him. His eyes hinted at other thoughts working furiously and they were fixed on the way ahead. A minute later he was past them, sloshing through the doorway and into the chamber beyond.

"What do you think you're doing?" Fetch hollered at him. "Where're you going?"

"Hey, you stinking kobold!" the mariner cut in. "If you're going to hitch a ride, don't scream in my ear. I'll drown you like a rat so fast you're…"

"Dhamon!" Rikali hissed.