"Fflarast Blackriver, of Pelaeron's Mace." He cleared his throat and added, "I'm alone. Pelaeron and most of his swords lie under stone beside me. We've struck two traps already."
"It seems a contagious habit," the voice responded dryly. "Stay where you are. I'm going to throw you a torch."
A moment later, fire whup-whup-whupped end over end through the darkness, trailing sparks, and fell amid rubble, showing Fflar a row of archways on one side of the passage, and doors or fallen walls on the side he'd come in by. A boot-still twitching feebly-could be seen in the fall of rubble beside him. Fflarast swallowed and turned his back on it, looking through the nearest arch.
"What can you see, soldier?" the voice asked.
"A huge chamber-probably a great hall," Fflarast answered. "It has balconies around its inside walls, and the roof's gone somewhere. There's moonlight at one end."
"Off to your left-my right?"
"Aye," Fflarast called. "It looks open-big empty stretches."
Voices murmured down the corridor. The officer called, "Can you get to the torch?"
Fflarast struggled over rubble for a few sweating moments, half-expecting the ceiling to fall on him, but reached the guttering torch safely. "I have it," he called, and swung it nigh.
"Good. We're going to throw you another. Pitch it out into this large hall of yours and tell us what you see."
Fflarast did so. The chamber rivalled the main hall of the Black Altar back in Zhentil Keep. He'd stood honor guard in that dark temple more than once, and knew this hall was fully as large. He told them so.
"Can you say anything of interest?"
"No… broken tiles… heaved and stained flooring, but open. The torchlight doesn't show it all. Nothing moving or alive that I can see."
"Good man. Stay where you are. We're coming to join you."
Fflarast sighed heavily and stood as still as he could, watching the slow and cautious advance of a long file of black-armored men.
It seemed half the Sword of the South was in the passage. Someone had cut a long, bent sapling and lashed a torch to it, and was lighting the high ceiling as they came, finding holes and old rockfalls. There were also two shafts that presumably let light and air down into the keep, but as the soldiers of Zhentil Keep cautiously passed beneath them, nothing swooped down or fell from above. Soon the Zhentilar reached Fflarast, and a swordcaptain-another officious one-curtly ordered him to stand aside.
A torch was tossed on down the passage. Its flickering light revealed that the corridor was blocked completely not far beyond where Fflarast had entered it. An entire room seemed to have fallen from the floor above, pouring a high mound of broken stone across the passage from wall to wall, and almost to the ceiling. Fflar looked at it and shuddered.
"This great hall it is, then," the swordcaptain ordered, turning away. The man at his elbow-the swordcaptain who'd thrown the torch to Fflarast-peered into the vast chamber and murmured, "I have a bad feeling about this room."
"I think we all do!" the other officer snarled, fear lacing his blustering voice. "So let's just get on with it! Men-out swords and advance, the first dozen of you! Stop and report if you see anything of import-especially moving bones! I want to get that mage in here fast… and then maybe we'll all get some sleep!"
Men moved reluctantly into the chamber. Fflarast stood silent, glad he wasn't among them, expecting to hear another heavy crash at any moment.
Minutes passed, and the men standing still and tense in the passage could hear each other breathing, hoarse and fast. But no cries or falls of stone came, and soon a man whose armor bore the red shoulder emblem of a sword came back to the archway and reported crisply, "No danger, sir. Molds and rubbish down one end, where a lot of water's come in, but there's nothing else in the place except two stairs up to the floor above and a high seat-of bare stone, nothing in it-on a raised bit at the far end. The place is huge; there's room for a good two thousand blades to bunk down, though I'd not want to be close in under some of the balconies; they look none too safe."
"Well done, sword. Set men to guard all doors and archways into the place; we'll move in. Swordcaptain Aezel, go out and tell the swordlord. Request that the spellmaster be brought in, forthwith-and if the wizard objects, request it again."
There were a few dry chuckles in the safe anonymity of the gloom, and then men were on the move. Fflarast Blackriver came to a sudden decision. He handed his torch to a passing armsman and took up the straight, back-to-the-wall stance of a man on guard duty. He wasn't going into that great hall unless directly ordered to.
Thankfully, the officious swordcaptain passed on into the great hall, and the bulk of the soldiery followed, leaving a few wary veterans standing in the passage with Fflarast. "Neatly done, lad," one of them hissed, and grinned. Fflarast gave him a grin back, and they waited in the darkness together until a bright blaze of torches and the shuffling of many booted feet told them the main body of the Sword had arrived.
Men in black armor seemed to file past forever, until at last the black battle robes of the spellmaster could be seen sweeping majestically down the passage. He was escorted by two swordcaptains and the swordlord himself.
The supreme commander of the Sword of the South halted close enough to Fflarast to touch him, and said to the wizard, "The men want you to look around and set them at their ease that there's no magic or hidden, lurking things about. Do that, but we haven't time for you to send them haring down every passage in the place in hopes of finding magic treasure that was likely taken away long ago. I'll be outside, supervising the perimeter watch; send Swordcaptain Tschender here out to me if you want anything."
The spellmaster nodded impatiently, seeming eager to get into the room, and the swordlord stepped back, rolled his eyes behind the wizard's back, and strode off back down the corridor, leaving behind at least six veterans struggling not to chuckle as the Zhentarim stepped grandly through the nearest arch.
By unspoken, common accord the men in the passage all moved to stand where they could look through archways, and watch what befell in the great hall. Wizards of the Black Network were not loved-but they were always a source of entertainment, if one could keep safely out of the way.
Spellmaster Thuldoum strode grandly across the vast chamber, head high, looking slowly from left to right and back again. When he caught sight of the throne, he bent forward in eagerness, and his pace quickened.
"Gods spit down on 'im," one of the soldiers muttered. "He's going to sit on the throne!"
For a moment it appeared that the wizard was going to do just that-but prudence came to him at the last moment, and they saw him ordering a reluctant armsman into the seat instead.
Gingerly the soldier sat down-and from the ceiling above, a ring of boulders on chains crashed down, smashing the vainly leaping man to bloody ruin on the stones. One stone, rebounding from the impact on its chain, nearly beheaded the startled wizard, who staggered backward, arms flailing, as armsmen watched in horror. The soldier who'd been a shade too slow in vacating the throne lay where he had fallen, a broken figure in a pool of blood.
"What did I tell ye?" a soldier said, who hadn't in fact spoken before, all that long night. "Stupid buttocks-brain."
It seemed the wizard wasn't done. He'd caught sight of something behind or beyond the throne that only he could see, and was casting a spell. With all eyes upon him, he made a show of it, gesturing dramatically as he brought the invocation to a ringing climax-and a door slowly appeared in the blank wall behind the high seat. Magical radiance shone blue and silver, brightening to a soft white glow, and spread slowly along an arched frame to outline a large door.