David Cook: Uneasy Alliances

Left in the dungeon, Kern and Entreri stared at one another with naked distrust. Kern was the first to speak.

"Very well, assassin," he observed coldly. I will accept your leadership only because I must-since you and your followers outnumber me. But when we're safely out of danger, your true peril will only have just begun. I'll challenge you in the sight of Holy Тут to fair com-"

"Yes, yes, yes," interrupted the other impatiently. "But for the time being, do what I say without making a speech about it. Now, into the tunnel!"

The golden paladin seemed about to say something more, but thought better of it and followed the others. Entreri did likewise. As he left the room, holding the last remaining torch from the cell, he removed an object from his pocket and tossed it at the door, which was now rapidly splintering under the fiendish assault. There was a flash and a rumble of falling stone. In the narrow confines of the tunnel, the escape. es halted a moment.

"What in the name of justice was that?" muttered Kern.

"Smokepowder," replied Entreri laconically. "I collapsed the ceiling of the cell. No one will be following us for a while."

The thought that if the passage they were in had no outlet, that the assassin had just sealed them in a tomb, may have occurred to some in the party, but none gave voice to it. Instead, they struggled along what seemed an endless distance but was in reality probably no more than fifty yards.

Ingrar, in the lead, halted so abruptly that Trandon bumped into him. There was a muttered colloquy between the pirate and the fighter, while the others waited impatiently.

"Gives a whole new meaning to the blind leading the blind," muttered Shar wryly to Kern just behind her. In the enclosed space, the paladin was uncomfortably aware of her closeness, her scent a mingling of sweat and a perfume he could not identify.

The party heard Trandon grunt with effort for a moment; then there was a sudden rending of wood. Trandon opened a pair of double doors, and pale light spilled down the passage. The others, grimy-faced and grim, emerged slowly from the cupboard into which the tunnel had emptied.

They found themselves in a vaulted stone hall, clearly outside the prison complex of the palace. The din of fiendish battle had vanished entirely, but there was a dull, low rumble that time and again shook the floor, as of some vast engine far underground. Their torches illuminated only a small part of the hallway; on both sides of them, it stretched on into unknowable blackness.

The escapees clustered around Noph, who, lying on his board, coughed and spat a gobbet of blood onto the floor of the corridor. Entreri glanced at Kern.

"Can't you heal him? I thought all paladins could lay hands on wounded."

Kern shook his head. "My magical abilities for the day are nearly exhausted. I'll have to rest before curing him. I can try it now, but I doubt it'll do him any good."

"Try," said Entreri.

Kern stretched out his hands, placing them on Noph's forehead, bending his own head in prayer to Tyr. A faint glow came from his hands, and Noph's breathing eased somewhat, but nothing more occurred. Kern fell back, sweat dripping from his brow. "It's no good. I can't do anything more for now."

Entreri grunted grudging assent and turned to Trandon. "What about you?"

The older fighter looked up, startled. "What about me?"

"Can you heal him?"

Trandon shook his head. "I haven't the ability. I'm not yet a true paladin."

Artemis turned away abruptly. Shar moved to speak to him, but the little man turned his back on her, motioning for Kern to join him instead. Shar glared furiously at the assassin, then moved to join Trandon and Ingrar in cautiously exploring their new surroundings. The hall was lined on both sides with dark wooden furniture. Some distance down the passage, on the opposite side from the cabinet, was a niche in which a bas-relief had been carved into the wall at about eye level. It depicted a man's face, startling in its beauty. Shar thought she recognized the features of the mage-king she had so briefly glimpsed before he'd shattered his glass tank to escape the impact of Entreri's magical pills.

Ingrar came back and sat down next to Noph. His hand sought the young man's.

"Ingrar," whispered Noph. "Am… am I going to die?" Tears ran down his face, streaking the bloodstains on his cheeks. "I don't want to die here. I don't want to die at all. There are so many things I've never done, so many things I've never seen…"

His voice faded.

Ingrar squeezed his hand. "You won't die. We won't let you. I won't let you." His blind eyes narrowed, and his brow furrowed. "There's something odd about that fellow."

"Who? Kern?" Noph's eyes opened. "He's really not so bad. Not as stuck up and pompous as Miltiades. In fact-"

"No, no," Ingrar interrupted. "The other one."

"Trandon? What's wrong with him?"

"I'm not sure. But he knows more than he tells. And he could have cured you. I heard it in his voice. He could have, but he didn't want to."

Noph heard Ingrar's words through a haze of pain and nausea. The events of the past few days ran together in a confused stream: the fight by the fountain; his infatuation with Sharessa; Artemis's disastrous attack on the mage-king; and, above all, the horrifying revelation that Lady Eidola, whom he'd come to the Utter East to rescue from her kidnappers, was nothing less than a doppleganger, a shapeshifter whose crocodilian teeth and claws had so nearly cost him his life.

"Trandon," he whispered, more to himself than to Ingrar. "Can Trandon be a traitor? It's wrong… wrong…" His voice faded again, but the sharp-eared Ingrar caught one last phrase: "Something is wrong…"

Noph stirred and started suddenly awake. His mind poised, swooped, and remembered: the fight with the doppleganger, the struggle in the dark cell as the water rose higher around him, his rescue, and the journey through the dark tunnel to this place, wherever this place was. His heart was pounding as if it would beat its way through his chest. His chest… He glanced down, puzzled that he seemed to feel no pain from his wounds.

"Easy, lad. lie easy." Trandon pushed him down gently. "You lost a lot of blood."

Noph looked up at the silver-haired warrior, trying to find the courage to formulate his suspicions. Then, with a sigh, he gave up and sank back against something soft, warm, gently rounded. Long silky hair tickled his ear, and moist, gentle lips brushed enticingly against his cheek.

"Sharessa!" Noph half-turned, meeting the dark, dancing eyes of the she-pirate.

"Well, Noph, how do you feel?"

Noph considered a moment. "The pain is gone." He looked down at his chest, his ragged shirt revealing the flesh beneath clean and unbroken. Tm healed!"

"Aye. He did it." Shar gestured toward the golden figure of Kern, who stood across the hallway deep in conversation with Entreri. Turning his head, Noph saw Ingrar, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, gazing with unseeing eyes down the passage into the blackness beyond the torches.

Shar continued. "We rested here. You've been asleep half a day. That much rest was enough for the paladin to cure your wounds. But you must still be careful. Trandon's right; you're too weak to do much." Her eyes sparkled wickedly. "You'll have some lovely scars. Fm sure girls will want to examine them very closely."

Noph relaxed and let his head rest against Shar's ample bosom. Despite the strangeness of their surroundings, he felt an odd sense of peace and fulfillment, as if some raging conflict within him had been stilled. Shar stroked his head, humming an old song of sailors and the sea in his ear. He could feel her heart softly beating.