Robert Asprin - Aftermath

The staff clattered and lost its phosphorescence as it fell. Samlor snatched it before it came to rest on the stone. He handed it back to his male companion. "Let's take a look, shall we?" he said, nodding to the ladder. "Guess I'll go first."

"No, I think I should lead," said Khamwas. "I-"

He met the caravan master's eyes. "Master Samlor, I apologize. It'll be safer for me to go first, and I'll spend my efforts on making it safe."

The multicolored jellyfish made the reception room look as if it were illuminated through stained glass. The sea urchin trundled its way for- ward to the opening in the middle of the floor, then continued downward at the same staccato pace as if the plane on which its spines rested lay in a universe in which sideways was up.

That might be the case.

The two men walked to the opening and looked down while Star hugged herself in silence.

The room beneath the floor was a cube or something near it, ten feet in each dimension. Mauve light filled the volume surprisingly well, though the simulated urchin did not itself seem bright enough to do so. The floor shone with a sullen lambency.

The furnishings were simple. A metal reading stand, high enough for use by a standing man and empty now, waited near the center of the room.

To its right stood an elaborate bronze firebox on four clawed legs, a censer rather than a heating device. The flat sides of the box were covered by columns of incised swirls, more likely a script unknown to the caravan master than mere decoration. The top was smooth except for a trio of depressions-an inch, three inches, and six inches in diameter. Aromatics could be placed there to be released by the heat of charcoal burning in the firebox beneath.

At each corner of the top was a decorative casting. They were minia- ture beasts of the sort which in larger scale could have modeled the censer's terrible clawed legs. The creatures had catlike heads, the bodies of toads with triangular plates rising along the spine for protection, and the forelegs of birds of prey. Serpent tails curled up behind them, sug- gesting the creatures were intended as handles for the censer; but anyone who attempted to put them to that purpose would have his hands pierced by the hair-thin spikes with which the tails ended.

There was no other furniture in the room, but a pentacle several feet in diameter was painted or inlaid on the concrete floor to the reading stand's left. It was empty. The floor and white-stuccoed walls were other- wise unmarked.

Khamwas's lips pursed.

"Go ahead," said Samlor with a shrug. "Maybe your stone's on the ceiling where we can't see it."

"Yes," said the Napatan, though there was doubt rather than hope in his tone.

Khamwas thrust his staff as far into the mauve light as it would go while his hand on the tip remained above floor level.

Nothing happened, but Samlor was not foo! enough to think it had been a pointless exercise. His companion was doing what he had prom- ised, concentrating his talents-better, his knowledge-on the task at hand.

Still holding the staff out in his direction of travel, Khamwas backed awkwardly down the ladder. The ferule banged accidentally on the cen- ser as he turned. It made Khamwas jump back but did not concern Samlor, who saw what was about to happen.

But the crash and shattering glass from upstairs spun the caravan master, his teeth bared and his left hand groping for the throwing knife in his boot sheath.

"The wind," murmured Star, the first words she had spoken since the three of them left the study upstairs. She wasn't looking at her uncle or at anything in particular.

But she was right. A door banged shut, muting a further tinkle of glass. One of the window sashes had not been secured properly. A gust had slammed it fiercely enough to shatter the glass.

"Are you all right?"called Khamwas.

The question impressed Samlor, for it sounded sincere-and in similar circumstances, he himself would have been worried more about his own situation than that of his companions.

"We're going to get drenched when we leave here," the caravan master said. "Leaving'll still feel good. Any luck yourself?"

The Napatan grimaced. "The room's empty," he said. "The brazier's as clean as if it was never used. I'm not sure it's here at all."

"Do not ask advice of a god and then ignore what he says," snapped Tjainufi, who was rubbing his tiny face on his shoulder like a bird preen- ing.

"Step back," said Samlor. "I'm coming down."

He turned to his niece and said, "Star, dearest7 Honey? Will you be all right for a minute9"

She nodded, though nothing in her face suggested that she was listen- ing

The quicker they found what Khamwas needed, the quicker they- Samlor-could sort out his niece's problem He jumped into the cubical room without touching the ladder

Samlor landed in perfect balance, feet spread and his left hand ex- tended slightly farther than the right so that leverage matched the weight of his long dagger Despite Samlor's care, his hobnails skidded and might have let him fall if Khamwas hadn't clutched the Ordonun's shoulder The floor was dusted with sparkly stuff, almost as slick as a coat of oil

Jumping might not have been the brightest notion, but the caravan master hadn't liked the idea of doing exactly what an intruder was ex- pected to do.

The concealed room had an underwater ambiance which wasn't wholly an effect of the glowing sea urchin trundling across an invisible bottom at waist height The mauve light had ripples in it, but neither the furniture nor the two men cast distinct shadows on the walls.

"What does your"-Samlor said, making a left-handed gesture to indi- cate either Khamwas's staff or nothing at all-"your fnend say about what you're looking for9"

"That I've found it," Khamwas replied, turning his head to view sur- roundings which were no less void on this perusal than on earlier ones.

Samlor stamped his foot. Sparkling dust quivered, but the concrete was as solid as the bedrock on which it was probably laid. Then he kicked the nearest wall

Stucco blasted away from the hobnails as they raked four short, paral- lel paths and squealed on the stone beneath.

"Well, I think we know where t' look," said the Cirdonian in satisfac- tion.

The stucco his boot had scraped was covering two distinct blocks of stone-a slab of polished red granite, and another of marble shadowed with faint streaks of gray. Both stones were inscribed, though on the softer marble the markings had been weathered and were further defaced by Samlor's boot

He brushed at the stucco with his left hand, flaking away a patch his kick had loosened The writing on the granite slab was Rankan but of a form so old that the doubled consonants and vanant orthography made all but a few words unintelligible to the caravan master

"Why, this is wonderful, my friend," said the Napatan with a smile brighter than the mauve glow as he bent over the cleared patch.

Tjainufi beamed and added, "There is no good deed save a good deed done for one who has need of it."

"We're not outta the woods yet," said Samlor with a dour glance at the walls around them If they had to clear all the stucco-or even half, if their luck were average-which it probably wouldn't be-it was going to take a lot longer than the caravan master wanted to spend in this place

"No, that's all right," explained the Napatan with the uneasy hint of mindreadmg which he had displayed before. "I'll use a spell of release and the covering will come away at once He must use the ancient writ- ings because they focus the power with which the years have imbued them."

Maybe that was what Setios used to do with them, Samlor thought as his companion knelt before his upright staff again, but he'd bet Setios hadn't much use for them or anything else in the world just now.