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It was the kuo-toan Wykar had stabbed only a few moments before. The creature sucked in a great lungful of air, its gills slapping wetly against the sides of its goggle-eyed head. One of the huge eyes rolled in Wykar's direction and fixed on him. The kuo-toan hissed again, louder and sharper. Its mouth opened as it turned, it was so close that Wykar could see the individual needle teeth in its lower jaw.
The kuo-toan lurched at the gnome, mouth opened to bite. Wykar threw himself to the side at the last moment and swung his right fist at the kuo-toan's head in a roundhouse punch. He hit it squarely in its huge left eye.
With a loud gasp, the fish-creature jumped back, one long webbed hand clutching at its injured eye. It lunged forward to grab the gnome, but by then Wykar had seized the handle of the derro's long blade and pulled it free. He swung for the monster's thin-boned arm and co
With another gasping scream, the kuo-toan jerked back, waving the stump of its severed right arm. Wykar swiftly got to his feet. The derro's knife was incredibly sharp. He knew he would have to kill the stupid fish-man now, though. He bit his lower lip and steeled himself, then moved in to finish the job.
Fast as the gnome was, he had not even touched the kuo-toan when the creature shuddered violently, its back arched in a spasm and its head reared back to give the ceiling a pop-eyed stare. It wheezed out a long, final sigh as it fell backward. As it did, Geppo adroitly stepped out of its way. His left fist was clenched around the hilt of Wykar's blood-covered blade.
Geppo was panting and bleeding profusely from a scalp wound, but seemed unharmed otherwise. His blood was warmer than the kuo-toan's, so he was much brighter, his face shone like a lantern. Wykar lowered his weapon and looked around. A rumbling ran through the great corridor in the distance, the cave floor vibrated slightly through the sand. Aftershock, thought Wykar. It would be best to leave the open cave quickly.
The deep gnome produced a second hotstone from his belt pouch and held it aloft. He and Geppo paused to survey the damage to the main passageway. The floor was littered with split rocks and boulders torn from the cave walls. The dust had settled, the air smelled of shattered stone and stirred earth. Going back the way they'd come would be hard, indeed. Wykar hoped the trip hadn't now become one-way. He then looked down and saw only an arm and a foot were left of the first kuo-toan they had fought, the rest of the creature messily flattened to the thickness of a mica flake beneath a thick stone slab.
Wykar checked the narrow passage toward the Sea of Ghosts. It seemed solid even now, though the floor was a foot deep in debris and most of the tiny ceiling formations were broken off. He could see only a half-dozen yards into the narrow passage before it curved around a bend. Surprises were certain to lie beyond.
He muttered a dark curse. The only other tu
If the vast, arched roof over the sea had held-and there was good reason to think it had, since the sound of its falling would have been quite noticeable through the tu
He tapped the derro's battered weapon against his bare leg, then thought better of it and stopped before he cut himself badly. Everything was quiet now. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to just take a peek and see what was going on, for curiosity's sake. He motioned to the derro, who had finished cleaning his blade, and with great care and many looks at the ceiling, they stepped into the side tu
The tu
A few yards past that point, only a bend away from the opening to the great chamber of the sea, Wykar felt a cool breeze against his face. He stopped short, taken aback. No wind had ever stirred the Sea of Ghosts, as far as he knew, but now he was certain he could feel one. A rumbling noise in the distance that Wykar had ignored was now louder, too. It might be a short aftershock, but the ground was not trembling. Something else was going on. Wykar suspected he was in great danger. He felt it by instinct rather than by reason, but the sense was too powerful to shake off. He looked back at the derro, who merely frowned and stared back in puzzlement.
Wykar couldn't think of anything to say that would make sense. He turned again and took a few steps toward the tu
The sharp crack of breaking rock sounded through the entire tu
Wykar saw a kuo-toan with a harpoon at the tu
Thunder and gusts of wind now flew all across the sea from every direction. A chorus of goggler cries arose downslope at the water's edge, barely fifteen yards from the tu
Wykar recalled that the tu
The gnome ran low to the ground, so hunched over he seemed bent in half. Hurrying up the slope and almost panting now, he saw a familiar rock that marked part of the high trail. He looked back just long enough to see Geppo stamping up rapidly behind him, only four yards back. The gnome then fled off along the path.
Visibility was only fair. The ever-present fog on the Sea of Ghosts usually clung to the surface of the black underground lake, rarely traveling inland. However, green tendrils of the mist now whirled in the fungus-lit air ahead of the gnome. Wykar had heard tales that the thick mist came from a broad silo in the ceiling over the center of the sea, perhaps a mile away. A river or lake far above apparently drained into the silo, perhaps as far up as the world's true surface. The vast quantities of water turned into a heavy spray over the long fall. The kuo-toa were said to enjoy the cool fog there, and sometimes things from above fell into the sea and were swiftly taken as treasure or food.