"Which of you worms," shouted the verbeeg, "is going to give me this damned pendant?"
"Why do you want it?" came Sonja's voice. Whether because of the strange acoustic properties of the room or druidic magic, the verbeeg could not pin down the source of the sound.
"It will earn me a place in the cold ones' new order-and the chance to crack a few human skulls."
The verbeeg pried Regdar's greatsword from its club and threw it through the open door into the oven room behind it, where it skidded across the floor with a metallic clash.
"If we could get on the other side of it," Hennet whispered to Regdar, "I could catch it in a web and trap it."
"Why not do it from here?" asked Regdar.
Hennet shook his head. "We'd be trapped along with it."
The verbeeg scanned the damage it had caused, looking for whoever might be hiding in the ruins of the treasure room. Cautious and clever, it had no intention of plunging headlong into a room full of hidden enemies.
In the corner of his eye, Regdar saw Lidda peek out from beneath a collapsed suit of armor and slither across the floor. He gaped as she slipped unnoticed between the verbeeg's legs. The halfling crouched behind the giant, then with a spring, she gripped its chain armor and climbed its back like a monkey ascending a thick tree.
The verbeeg snarled in surprise and dropped its shield to the floor with a clank. Its arms flailed right and left, high and low, as it groped for whatever was crawling on its back. Before it could get hold of the halfling perched precariously on its verbeeg's shoulders, Lidda drew her short sword and spiked it against the side of the giant's head. The blade gashed the monster's ear and scalp, drawing a torrent of blood, but the blade bounced off the thick bone. The verbeeg slapped its free hand against the gushing wound and let out a mighty roar that shook the whole room, then slammed its shoulders backward against the wall.
Lidda had already shifted position, and when the verbeeg hit the wall, she sprang forward off its shoulders into a graceful, two-point landing on a nearby treasure chest. The verbeeg slashed its club aimlessly in her direction, but she had already vanished amid the broken cabinets and fallen treasures.
"We need to draw it farther into the room," Hennet yelled as he rose above the cabinet where he was sheltering. Another magic missile slammed into the verbeeg's upper body but did little to injure or even distract the giant from its slashed scalp.
Regdar emerged as well. Without his greatsword, he grabbed the giant's fallen shield and shrank behind it against the remains of a shattered cabinet. The verbeeg strode uneasily toward the center of the room then threw caution away. Its club swung indiscriminately, tearing apart whatever it struck.
"Now! Move!" shouted Hennet.
At last Sonja emerged from her corner, leaped up into the verbeeg's face, and launched a brilliant flash before its eyes. The giant instinctively brought both its hands up to its face to shield itself from the dazzling light, dropping its club as it did so.
Seizing the opportunity, three humans and a halfling dashed past the dazed giant. Lidda snatched the torch on her way out. Ducking under a flailing elbow, Regdar saw that the far doorway leading out of the oven room was still open. Recalling the tendency of these doors to close on their own, he shouted a warning to Hennet, who again slid his short spear into the doorway just in case. Regdar scooped up his greatsword from the center of the room as he passed. Panting and battered, they turned back to look at the verbeeg, still smashing its way through the treasure room.
"Back here, ugly!" Hennet yelled at the verbeeg, readying his spell.
The verbeeg started, finally realizing that it was alone in the room. With awkward steps it made its way forward, through the shattered doorway and into the oven room. Lidda's gash still ran with blood. As Hennet let his spell fly, a large, intricate, gossamer web unfolded in the air and attached its corners to each wall and the ceiling with the verbeeg at its center. The giant struggled against the constraining silk, but as it did it only become more entangled. It screamed until the web tightened around its face and silenced it completely.
For a minute they watched the verbeeg laboring vainly against Hennet's spell. There was something pathetic about it, and Regdar stepped forward with his greatsword to end the monster's misery.
"I wouldn't do that," cautioned Hennet. "You might not be able to get the sword back."
"Then how do we kill it?" asked Sonja. "Your spell won't last forever."
"I don't know. Right now, though, I don't want to risk cutting the web or accidentally dispelling it with another effect."
Without warning, the door to the treasure room stirred, rose up from the floor, and wedged itself back into the ruined jamb. Four pairs of eyes turned and looked back at the other door, but it still stood wide open, with Hennet's spear lying in the opening. All of them thought the same thing. If the room would heat up again, that would surely kill the verbeeg.
"Will the heat melt the web and free the verbeeg?" asked Regdar.
"It probably will," Hennet said. "But I don't think it has enough strength left to force the door."
"We could probably kill it with arrows," Regdar said, "but we probably would empty our quivers in the process. Lidda, you're our leader down here. What do you think?"
The halfling walked closer to the enwebbed monster and gave it a hard look. "It's not moving. It could be dead already." She turned back to the others. "We roast it."
"What about the Pendant?" asked Regdar. "If we leave it in here, even if it survives the heat the mephits will have a really hard time retrieving it."
"Will they?" asked Sonja. "They sent the verbeeg. They sent us. I think it's safest in our possession."
The other three nodded in reluctant agreement. When they left the room, the door swung shut behind them. Within minutes, they could feel the heat through the wall.
"How long do you suppose it's been since the Frozen Pendant has been taken out of that room?" asked Lidda.
"Not nearly long enough," said Sonja.
13
As they marched back through the long hallway, Regdar pulled open his bulging pocket and looked at the Frozen Pendant. Its chill threatened to bore a hole in his side. The artifact shone white as a star, and its imperfect dimensions gave it the rough grace of an uncut gemstone. For an awful moment he fancied he could hear it whispering to him, and he thought that as he stared at it, it stared at back at him. An unwelcome shiver shot down his spine, and he found that he couldn't stand the sight of the thing. He closed his pocket tightly, silently acknowledging that the destruction of this awful object was more important than any of their lives.
They reached the base of the hallway with ease and swiftly climbed the spiral stair back to the large, underground hall above them. The old, familiar chill returned as they left the magical warmth behind, but with memories of the oven room threatening to cook them alive still fresh in their minds, the cold felt like an old friend. Sonja in particular was glad to be free of the narrow passages.
Faced with the ebony door in the side of the cylinder, they silently drew their weapons and wondered what waited for them on the other side. Regdar took the lead, as the strongest and best-armored of the party. The door creaked as he eased it open.
With his greatsword in one hand and the torch in the other, Regdar strode forward, casting his eyes over the sprawling mall that underlay the wizards' city. The torches that illuminated the hall when they'd first entered were all gone or extinguished. In the less-than-adequate light from the lone torch in Regdar's hand, he could see a dozen monstrous eyes staring at him from the icy murals encircling the cylinders that formed the foundations of the towers above. He wondered if any of those glittering orbs were set in mephit sockets or if they were all icy crystals on the walls.