Their angry shouts abruptly transformed into shrieks of fear and barking commands, followed by screaming and the flash of a spell.
“Well, that worked out,” Alexander said without slowing his pace.
Another hour brought them face-to-face with a stone statue of a man in plate armor-a sentinel. It stood in the middle of the corridor, still and silent. A few dozen feet behind it, the corridor was partially blocked by an enormous stone door. The door looked to have been built to completely block the corridor, yet it had been blasted asunder, cracked down the middle by some magic beyond Alexander’s understanding. This door could have repelled any army, stopped an onrushing flood, protected against any siege, yet magic had undone it, fracturing it right down the middle, opening a crack wide enough for a man to pass through.
When Alexander came within a dozen feet of the sentinel, its eyes began to glow a soft red and it brought its spear and shield up into a defensive stance.
“You shall not pass,” a distant voice said.
“We’ve come to revive the Linkershim,” Alexander said. “We are not enemies.”
“You shall not pass.”
“Who commands you?”
“You shall not pass.”
“Not a terribly responsive fellow,” Jack said.
“How about some light, Jack?” Alexander said, opening the door to his Wizard’s Den and setting Luminessence just inside. Jack held up his night-wisp dust, replacing the soft, warm, life-affirming light of Alexander’s staff with a harsher, more glaring light.
“Perhaps you should allow me,” Jataan said.
“No, I don’t think so, Jataan,” Alexander said. “I’ve fought one of these before, and my sword didn’t even put a mark on it. But I suspect this will do the trick nicely.” He drew the Thinblade.
“As you wish, Lord Reishi.”
Alexander advanced slowly, stretching out into the coming moments with his mind. The sentinel moved quickly, thrusting hard with its spear over the top of its large round shield. Alexander turned sideways, letting the tip go past him before bringing the Thinblade up through the haft. Three feet of the sentinel’s spear fell away, turning to ash and leaving little more than a line of grey powder where it hit the floor.
The sentinel didn’t hesitate, dropping its damaged spear and drawing its sword before pressing the attack, raising its shield high and thrusting low, targeting the inside of Alexander’s leg. He slipped aside, cut the blade of the sentinel’s sword, then swept up through its shield and forearm. The sentinel froze for a fraction of a moment, then turned to ash and fell to the floor in a grey cloud.
There was a moment of silence before the whole world seemed to vibrate. The enormous door started to grind and move.
“Run!” Alexander shouted. “We have to make it through!”
He darted ahead, racing through the narrow passage while the block of stone creaked and complained, coming to life for the first time in centuries. He wasn’t sure what had happened, but he was certain that he didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the door when it closed. They reached the other side, racing into a room so big that Alexander couldn’t see the far wall with his all around sight. A forest filled the room, created in perfect detail down to the texture of the bark and the haphazard ground cover, all made entirely of stone and metal.
The world seemed to rumble as some ancient mechanism struggled to move the broken door, then there was a jolt and the fissure in the enormous door slammed shut with a deafening crack that echoed throughout the forest room.
“I guess we won’t be going back that way,” Jack said.
“Probably not,” Alexander agreed, retrieving Luminessence from his Wizard’s Den and filling the immediate area with light.
The detail was breathtaking. Leaves made of copper adorned stone replicas of a wide variety of deciduous trees, while giant firs reached up to the ceiling several hundred feet overhead, acting as support pillars for the cavernous chamber.
“How big do you think this room is?” Anja asked.
“Huge,” Alexander said. “I can’t see the far wall.”
Jack whistled, shaking his head in wonder.
“I never imagined a place like this even existed,” Lita whispered.
“I know what you mean,” Alexander said.
A noise filtered through the stone forest-voices in the distance.
“Sounds like overseers,” Jack said.
“They certainly had time to get ahead of us while I healed,” Alexander said. “They’re probably crawling all over the underdark by now.”
“So where to now?” Anja asked.
“Let’s see if we can find another passage that runs along the chasm wall.”
They stayed near the wall of the forest room on their way toward the chasm. As much as Alexander wanted to explore, there was nothing to be gained. And since the room was so big, they could easily get turned around within the maze of stone trees and lose valuable time. The wall offered a point of reference that Alexander hoped would lead them straight to the chasm.
And it did, opening onto a balcony running for a full league along the chasm wall, the entire length of the forest room. Stone trees stood at the edge of the balcony, holding up the ceiling three hundred feet overhead.
“Looks like you’re right,” Jack said, pointing out into the darkness.
They could see clusters of light in the distance, both back toward the entrance and across the chasm, but the thing that caught Alexander’s attention was the giant pillar in the middle of the chasm that was encrusted with glowing crystals.
“Did any of you see that when we first entered the underdark?”
“No,” they said in unison.
“In this darkness, it should have been visible … provided it was glowing when we came in.”
“What are you thinking?” Jack asked.
“When I killed the sentinel, the underdark seemed to take notice. I’m just wondering if I triggered something.”
“You think you woke up some ancient security apparatus?” Jack asked.
“Possibly,” Alexander said. “That sentinel wouldn’t have been there, and that enormous stone door wouldn’t have been there, if someone or something didn’t want to secure this part of the underdark.” He pointed to the edge of the balcony. “There’s no corridor running along the chasm wall that joins the previous part of the underdark with this one. Seems we’ve entered a more secure part of the city.”
“Maybe that means we won’t run into any more bugs,” Anja said.
“We can hope,” Jack said.
They set out along the balcony, keeping a close eye on the artificial forest filling the cavernous space to their right. A bridge arced away from the balcony to the glowing pillar in the middle of the chasm. It was wide, easily broad enough to drive a horse-drawn cart across, and the railings on each side looked like perfect rows of oversized tulips, three feet high. A few were broken, but most were intact and flawless.
“Should we try the bridge?” Jack asked.
“Let’s see if there’s a corridor along the chasm wall leading from the other side of the balcony first,” Alexander said. “A lot of those bridges don’t look entirely stable, so I’d rather avoid them if we can.”
Muffled voices filtered out of the stone forest. Alexander reached out with his all around sight, sweeping through the artificial trees until he found the platoon of men. Most were Lancers, but without their force lances. They were led by an Acuna wizard who’d brought along a few overseers for good measure.
“Seems they ran out of overseers and started sending in Lancers.”
“This entire place is probably crawling with them by now,” Jack said.
“Let’s keep moving,” Alexander said, continuing along the balcony, staying close to the railing. The sheer size of the forest room was impressive but it only served to underscore the vastness of the underdark-as big as any city in the world and bigger than most. He couldn’t help wondering anew about those who had lived here so long ago.