The Temple of Yellow Skulls Read online

  “And Vestapalk?” Albanon asked.

  Shara’s face hardened. She reached over her shoulder and slapped the hilt of the greatsword that rode across her back.

  Albanon clenched his teeth, pushed back the fear in his belly, and reminded himself that he had wanted this. For the first day after they rode out of Fallcrest, he’d been twitchy with a guilty excitement; their hunt to find Vestapalk and whatever remained of the shattered vial of Voidharrow might be deadly serious, but it felt good to be setting out on another adventure. On the second day, guilty excitement had turned to nervous anticipation. By the third day, as they turned off of the King’s Road and plunged into wilderness, he’d started twitching for entirely different reasons. As he’d kept watch beside their campfire the night before, he’d jumped at every flickering shadow and every snap of burning wood.

  The first time they’d come here, they hadn’t known what they would find. There was no turning back now. Albanon took a deep breath and let it out, forcing himself to calm down. “So how are we going to get down?” he asked.

  Perched on his shoulder, Splendid extended her wings so that they flashed in the sunlight. “If you could only fly—”

  “Well, we can’t.” Albanon looked to Kri. “Last time I used a spell to let Shara float down. I could do that again, but it will only support one person. What’s your magic?”

  “The next best thing to flying, I think,” said Kri. “Save your spell.” He started rummaging through his pack. Curiosity flickered in Albanon and he leaned over. The pack that Kri carried was small, but before they’d set out from Fallcrest, he’d produced from it a suit of curiously fine chain, the polished links flashing with a faint golden sheen. Albanon couldn’t help wondering what else the old cleric had in there. As if feeling the eladrin’s eyes on him, Kri scowled and bent over the pack, shielding its interior. Splendid snorted and nipped at Albanon’s long ear.

  Albanon yelped and twisted his head to glare at her. The pseudodragon tossed her own head back. “Rude!” she said.

  By the time Albanon looked back, Kri had already produced a battered book, a pouch, and several vials. Motioning for Albanon and Shara to stand clear, he opened the pouch and drew out a handful of fine silvery dust. When he began trickling it out on to the ground, Albanon felt as if a hand had closed on his throat. He wheezed loudly and had to look away.

  Kri scowled again but didn’t look up from the circle—about three paces across—that he was tracing. Shara glanced at Albanon. “What is that stuff?”

  “Residuum,” said Albanon. “Extracted from enchanted objects. It’s worth … well, that handful could probably buy half of Fallcrest. The good half.”

  “It’s worth any price to find out what happened to the Voidharrow,” commented Kri. “Now hush and let me work.” The cleric finished the circle and stepped into it. With colored powders from the vials, he drew several large symbols around himself. Some of the symbols Albanon recognized; others he didn’t. He was fairly certain, though, that the symbols were more like those used by wizards than any holy writing he’d ever seen in the hands of priests. His tongue itched with the urge to ask questions, but he held them back. At least until Kri was done with his work.

  When the symbols were traced, Kri opened the book with the confidence of long familiarity. Stretching out his free hand, he began a low chant and started to turn in place. Where the shadow of his arm passed, the powdery symbols began to shift and blur. Albanon stared as if he could commit the complex ritual to memory.

  With the sixth slow turn, the symbols had blurred so much they were unrecognizable. The colored powders gave a light tint to the whole space within the residuum circle. Kri’s voice rose, his arm coming up as well. The colored circle shimmered in time to his words, then, as they reached a peak, gave a kind of … jump. Albanon blinked. Kri’s voice trailed away. He closed the book.

  “Join me,” he said. “Bring my pack.”

  Albanon scooped it up and together he and Shara stepped carefully over the border of the circle. The colored powders, along with the residuum, now spread out around Kri in a thin, shimmering disk. He looked at the cleric.

  The corners of Kri’s mouth twitched into a faint smile and he made a small lifting gesture with his fingers.

  Smooth as silk over glass, the shimmering disk rose very slightly, no more than a hand span. Shara gasped in surprise and stared down at her feet. “It can hold us all?” she asked. “But it’s so thin!”

  “It doesn’t need to be thick. If I’d made it larger, it could have held our horses, too.”

  Kri seemed quite pleased with himself. Albanon ventured a question. “That seemed more like the ritual of a wizard than of a priest.”

  “A ritual is neither spell nor prayer,” said Kri. “Anyone with the proper knowledge can work one—and I serve the god of both knowledge and magic.” He pushed his hand outward and the disk slid forward with them on top of it. It moved no faster than Albanon could have walked, but the motion was smooth. The disk tilted slightly as the ground rose, following the contour of the hill.

  The gaping hole was just ahead of them and coming closer. Albanon had a sudden terrifying vision of the disk sliding up to the edge of it, then tipping right over. His stomach clenched. “Kri.…”

  “Don’t worry.” The cleric turned his hand palm upward as the disk approached the hole. It slowed to a crawl and nosed over the edge like a drunk man feeling his way through a dark room, then slid out over the hole. Without solid ground beneath it, the thin disk seemed even less substantial. Albanon held his breath as more of the disk crept into empty space.

  The spell that would allow him to float like a feather came unbidden into his mind. He let it stay there and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.

  When he opened them again, the disk hovered stationary over the hole. Shara looked at him in amusement. Kri just shook his head. “Have some faith, Albanon,” he said. “Trust me.” He turned his hand and pressed down. The disk began to descend into the cavern below.

  “I climbed down on ropes before,” Albanon protested. “I’m not scared.”

  “Then look over the edge,” said Shara.

  Albanon leaned a little way and glanced down. Sunlight fell in a bright shaft through the hole above, turning the darkness to dusk. The tilted and broken remains of the necropolis that lay across the distant floor of the cavern seemed to lurch and reel before his eyes. He stood tall and faced Shara. “I don’t think I will. I don’t need to prove myself.”

  “Fine, then.” Shara bent over the edge and scanned the cavern. Splendid leaped from Albanon’s shoulder, gliding to the warrior’s and peering over with her. “There,” Shara said. She pointed to a chasm that ripped through the shattered tombs. “That’s where Vestapalk fell. Take us there.”

  Kri shook his head. “The disc follows the ground. It can move up or down, but I can’t take it through the air. We’ll need to go on foot once we reach the cavern floor.”

  Shara grimaced. “Scared?” Albanon asked.

  “We’ll waste time crossing the ruins,” she grumbled. She looked around the great cavern again and added, “I wish I knew what happened here.”

  “Me, too,” said Albanon. As the disk sank lower he could see more of the cavern without getting close to the edge. The tombs of the necropolis, though ancient and broken, were at least upright. Clusters of them rested on wide shelves of stone. Others stood as solidly as if they’d been constructed down here. “If the ground had given way beneath the tombs and they’d fallen, they’d be more jumbled. It’s almost as if the cavern gave way under the whole place all at the same time.”

  “Or as if a vast hand reached up and pulled it all underground,” said Kri. Albanon and Shara both looked over at him. The cleric gazed around as if they were passing through some beautifully decorated palace rather than descending into an undead-haunted necropolis. “You said one of your friends called this Andok Sur?”

  “Erak,” said Shara. “He was a … servant of the
Raven Queen. Sometimes his god put knowledge into his mind with no explanation of what it meant.”

  “The ways of the gods are not the ways of mortals.” Kri glanced at Albanon. “Did Moorin have you study the writings of Kelsom Farwanderer?”

  Albanon wracked his memory. “A little. He was a traveling scholar.”

  “There’s a great deal we know about the world because Kelsom Farwanderer—may Ioun remember him—chose to copy it from older, more fragile texts. Including Andok Sur.” Kri swept an arm around them. “In the days when this stood above ground, Bael Turath was still in its infancy. This area was part of the territory of the warrior tribes of the Western Plain. They didn’t live here. It was strictly a ceremonial center.”

  “They brought their dead to the tombs here?”

  Kri’s mouth twitched into a smile again. “They brought their enemies here—and entombed them alive.”

  “But there are so many tombs,” said Shara, staring around the cavern. “If all of the undead we fought before were buried alive …” She shuddered. “That’s monstrous!”

  “If you were born in the Nentir Vale, those monsters are likely among your ancestors,” Kri said mildly. “But yes, those left to die here did not pass gently into the Raven Queen’s realm. Andok Sur was dedicated to Orcus, Demon Prince of the Undead. Even demon princes are ultimately creatures of destruction, though. Legends say that Orcus was angered by some slight and plunged all of Andok Sur beneath the ground in retribution.”

  Splendid’s small face wrinkled. “Why would anyone follow a demon prince? Demons are nasty things.”

  “Hatred. Self-loathing. Insanity. Some people think they can command demons or tap into their power, but such efforts never last. Demons don’t care about anything except destruction—it’s a rare demon that exhibits anything like subtlety. They’re born out of the Abyss and belong to the Elemental Chaos in the same way that eladrin belong to the Feywild.” Kri nodded at Albanon. “But the Feywild is the vibrant and magical reflection of the world we know. The Elemental Chaos is nothing like our world and the Abyss is a corruption of the Elemental Chaos. The undead of Andok Sur are more like us than demons are.”

  Shara grimaced. “I fought off zombies, skeletons, and wights down here that were doing their best to eat me. I didn’t exactly feel kinship with them.”

  “Zombies, skeletons, and wights were alive once, just like us,” said Albanon. “A demon has never been anything other than a demon.”

  Kri nodded approvingly. “Exactly. It’s good to see Moorin didn’t completely waste his time with you.” The cleric looked to Shara. “The point is that you can’t trust a demon. They don’t understand mercy or fear. They only exist to destroy.”

  “I suppose we’re lucky it’s not easy for them to get out of the Abyss, then,” Shara said. “Dragons loose in the world are bad enough—”

  The disk gave a sudden lurch, interrupting her. Albanon’s stomach shot into his mouth and he grabbed onto Shara for support. “Nothing to worry about,” said Kri. “We’re almost at the bottom—something about the ruins and slope of the walls must be affecting the disk. Just let me concentrate until we’re down.”

  The cleric’s words might have been calm, but Albanon could see that his face was pale and tight with more than just concentration. They weren’t so close to the floor of the cavern that they’d survive a fall without injury. He untangled himself from Shara. “Let’s figure out the best away across to the chasm while we still have some height.”

  The warrior nodded. Splendid, however, spread her wings and pushed herself off from Shara’s shoulder.

  “If you don’t mind,” said the pseudodragon, “I think I’ll just fly the rest of the way on my own.”

  Albanon couldn’t say he blamed her.

  They came to rest in a relatively clear space among the broken tombs. Albanon wasted no time in stepping off the shimmering disk on to solid ground. Climbing down into the cavern on long, swaying ropes had been nerve-wracking, but somehow sinking slowly on the disk had been worse.

  Kri made a gesture and the disk seemed to give a little bump and dip, then the old man stepped off it as well. “It will remain until we return. We can ride it back to the surface again.”

  “What about the chasm?” asked Shara. “We’ll need to get down it as well.”

  “We have ropes,” said Albanon.

  “And the way through the ruins will be uneven and, I suspect, tight,” said Kri. “The disk would have difficulty passing.”

  Shara just grunted and shouldered her pack. “It looks like we’re on our own, then.”

  The way across the cavern floor was indeed awkwardly uneven and, where it passed between tombs built close together, uncomfortably narrow. Shara and Albanon had picked out their route and a few key landmarks from above, though, so at least they were able to find their way quickly. Kri’s prediction that the undead of Andok Sur would remain quiet in their tombs seemed accurate as well. There was an eerie silence in the twilight of the cavern and nothing moved that shouldn’t have, but Albanon couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched. The atmosphere of the place was eerie; every hair on the nape of his neck felt as if it was standing on end like an animal’s. The first time they’d been here, they’d been too busy fighting either Vestapalk or a horde of undead to really notice. It was almost enough to make Albanon look back fondly on those desperate moments of combat.

  They were at the chasm soon enough, though. Evidence of their battle stood out. Chunks of flesh and bone hewed from the bodies of undead attackers littered the ground, untouched by scavengers but slowly rotting under the attention of unhealthy looking fungi. Stones bore the scars of Vestapalk’s clawed feet or the stain left by his poisonous breath. A long scorch mark showed where Albanon had burned up three skeletons in a burst of fiery magic. He shivered and turned away.

  “Here,” said Shara. “This is where I stood and watched Vestapalk fall.”

  There was something strange in her voice, a little like regret, a lot like anger barely restrained. Regret, Albanon guessed at not making sure Vestapalk was dead the first time. Anger that the dragon should have had even the chance to survive. Albanon joined her at the edge and looked over. The shaft of sunlight that gave illumination to the cavern didn’t touch the chasm’s depths. With a flick of his fingers, Albanon conjured a glowing spark and sent it falling down the chasm. It fell about a dozen paces before it winked out. Its light didn’t reveal the bottom.

  “We’d better get out the rope,” Albanon said quietly.

  “We may not need, too,” said Kri. The cleric poked a toe at something a little further along the edge. “Someone has been down already. Albanon, another light.”

  Albanon flicked his fingers again. The stark light flashed on Kri—and cast into sharp shadow the rope at his feet. It was coarse and light, one end knotted around a stake wedged into the rock, the other vanishing over the edge of the chasm. And it wasn’t the only one. At least half a dozen more also ran down into the darkness.

  “That can’t be good,” said the wizard.

  Shara knelt and examined the rope. “This isn’t strong enough to hold one of us. Whoever is using them must be smaller.”

  “Vestapalk had a kobold wyrmpriest with him. Maybe he has more kobold followers now.”

  “It’s possible.” Shara frowned, eyes focused on something dark on the stones alongside the rope. Albanon watched her rub her fingers over it, then give them a sniff. “Blood,” she said. “Still sticky, but it would dry slowly down here. I’d say it’s a day, maybe two, old.”

  “Dragon blood,” suggested Albanon. “Maybe Vestapalk is dead and they’re carving him up for meat.”

  “A kobold would never do that.” Kri’s eyes narrowed. “Splendid, we need you to scout for us.”

  The pseudodragon, perched on top of Albanon’s pack, flinched. “Down there?”

  “There might be an ambush waiting for us. If we climb down we’ll be vulnerable,” Kri said. “You�
��re a fast flier. Just glide down, then come back up and tell us what you see.”

  Splendid looked unconvinced. “I have more honeybark,” Kri added. Splendid’s head and tail rose together. “And we’d be in your debt.”

  Splendid flapped her wings and rose into the air. “If I don’t make it back, I expect you to come find me,” she said. “But when I do come back, have that honeybark ready.” She flew a short distance from them, then banked and began slow, silent descent into the chasm.

  As soon as she was out of sight, Kri turned to Albanon and Shara. “Start getting our rope ready. We’ll be going down.”

  Albanon blinked. “What if Splendid finds something?”

  “Then we’ll know to be cautious at the bottom.” Kri gave him a long look. “We’re going down no matter what Splendid finds, Albanon. Discovering what happened to Vestapalk and the Voidharrow is too important not to go.”

  Albanon looked to Shara, but she was already digging rope out of her pack. Her face was hard and he knew she wasn’t thinking of the Voidharrow so much as of Vestapalk. The eladrin pressed his lips together, swung his pack off his shoulders, and started searching for his own length of rope.

  Splendid was back, however, before they were able to do more than tie the first rope to a convenient anchor. The pseudodragon came flapping up out of the chasm with a worried look on her small face. She settled on to a broken column close to Kri. “Something was camped down there,” she reported. “It’s abandoned now, though. The camp has been destroyed. Everything is scattered.”

  “And Vestapalk?” asked Shara.

  “No sign of him,” Splendid said. “But there’s a cave opening off the floor of the cavern.” She fluttered her wings and added defensively, “You didn’t ask me to go in any caves. It’s away from here, though. If anything is going to ambush you from there, you’ll have time to defend yourselves.”

  Albanon, Kri, and Shara exchanged glances, then Kri produced another dry strip of honeybark and tossed it to Splendid. “Well done.”