Damn it, Lavim!
Not only a ghost, Lavim thought sourly, but a testy ghost who’s as bad as Stanach and Tyorl ever were about letting him finish a sentence. Aye, testy! When you start a sentence that makes sense, then maybe you’ll get to—
The scream shivered through the darkness, a hollow, forlorn echo of pain. Like what a ghost should sound like, Lavim thought. All hope of finding bandit treasure fled as the kender suddenly remembered why he was here.
“Stanach?” he whispered. Up ahead he heard Kelida’s gasp and a low, murmured word from Tyorl.
Aye, Stanach. Lavim, stay back a minute.
“But you just said to catch up with them. Piper, how am I supposed to figure out what you want me to do if you don’t even know?”
Stay! Wait here.
“Yes, but-”
Take out my flute.
Lavim grinned. Aye, that he’d be happy to do! Though he thought it a little odd to be playing music now when Stanach needed his help, he dug into his pocket, pulled out the flute, and raised it to his lips. No! Piper bellowed. Not yet! Put it down and listen to me very carefully.
Reluctantly, Lavim lowered the flute.
Aye, now do exactly as I say, Lavim. The gods know I must be half-mad, but if you listen—very carefully!—and do just what I say, exactly the way I tell you—
A second scream, like horrible laughter, tore through the cave. Listen, now. The flute knows I’m near—no, don’t start asking questions! It senses my mind—my spirit, I guess is a good word, eh? It will lend its magic to my needs. Take a deep breath—no, deeper than that. Aye, that’s it. The flute will play the tune, and the tune is the magic, but you have to supply the air and the intent.
Aye, Lavim thought (because he couldn’t very well speak while holding his breath), and what do I intend? Can I summon monsters? Am I going to be invisible? Can I turn all Tyorl’s arrows into fire?
None of that, now, Lavim. Piper said sternly. This is what you intend—and only this.
Lavim felt Piper smile and, because the mage seemed to be in such a good humor, he quickly decided to try a little idea of his own. The low-roofed, narrow-walled tunnel connecting the woodland cave to the one opening onto the river held the echo of the scream for many moments. Tyorl shuddered and glanced over his shoulder at Kelida. She stood where he’d told her to, in the webbing of shadows and darkness where the tunnel bent left and back in the direction they had come. Her eyes bright in the darkness, her mouth a hard, determined line, Kelida grasped her dagger in a firm and steady hand the way Lavim had taught her.
The tunnel stank of musty earth, and rank, stagnant water pooled in the center of the floor. The litter of rubble and mud lay mostly undisturbed but for a footprint or two. If the Theiwar had explored this corridor at all, or the cave beyond, they’d likely been turned back by the seemingly impassable wall at the back of the woods cave. Tyorl wondered fleetingly how Lavim had found an entrance.
Aye, but a kender will find his way into a miser’s purse if he wants to. No reason why solid rock should stop him.
The half-rotted carcasses of beached fish, washed into the tunnel from a high tide swollen by storm rains, shimmered with the strange, evil light of putrification. His back to the wall, Tyorl edged around the water careful not to cause even the faintest whisper of a splash.
A second scream, a deep-throated and terrible roar, made the muscles in Tyorl’s belly wrench sickeningly. Under cover of the echo, the elf inched forward until he reached the entrance to the river cave. Narrow, barely wide enough for Tyorl to get through sideways, the entrance was blocked by a cloaked and hooded dwarf who stood with his back to the ranger.
The dwarf shifted his stance, moved aside and forward, and Tyorl closed his eyes. He hadn’t seen much, just an arm and a hand. Tyorl trembled with a cold rage. Each finger of the hand had been twisted and broken. His own fingers tightened around the hilt of his dagger. The hooded dwarf stood within striking distance, and Tyorl knew he’d smile to feel his dagger’s blade slide between this one’s ribs. Before he could move, the sound of a flute’s voice, hollow and chased by its own echoes, floated through the tunnel. From behind.
No! Gods, no! The kender has the mage’s flute!
The Theiwar turned sharply. One eye, he had, filled with hatred and the love of death. He snarled a curse when he saw Tyorl. His hands groped at the cold, damp air of the river cave, and took sudden flight in magic’s winged dance. Tyorl barely had time to see the Theiwar’s hands falter, like arrow-shot birds, before his own knees went weak and watery. Back in the tunnel, Kelida cried out, her cry torn by gagging and choking.
The music, a perversely light and merry air, drifted toward the elf on currents of the vilest odor he’d ever smelled. The stench of middens years uncleaned, eggs rotting, dead rats under a tavern’s floor, and vegetation moldering and turning to thick, greasy slime, filled the tunnel. Tyorl dropped to his knees, helpless to do anything but wrap his arms tightly around his belly, and clamp his back teeth against the overwhelming urge to vomit.
From within the river cave, and more distantly from without, came gagging and the sounds of wrenching pain. A voice, one that could only have been Lavim’s, echoed from behind the elf in deep, booming laughter. Small hands pounded at the elf’s back and pulled at his arms.
“Tyorl! Doesn’t this smell awful! Everyone’s just about throwing up everything they’ve eaten in the last week! Isn’t it great? Hey, Tyorl! Get up, would you? Tyorl! You ought to run in there and rescue Stanach and get rid of those wad-dayacall’ems while they’re all—uh, Tyorl?”
“Kender,” Tyorl gasped weakly, “I swear by every god there is I’m going to—” Caught by a stabbing belly cramp, he doubled over and knew very suddenly that trying to speak had been the wrong thing to do. He finished his threat in groans and gagging. When he was able to look up again, Tyorl was alone.
I am going to kill him, he thought as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He staggered to his feet, braced his back against the wall, and tried not to breathe. I am going to lay that damned kender open from neck to gut and kill him!
A hand, shaking from the sudden and violent attack of nausea, gripped Tyorl’s arm. Kelida, dazed and weak-kneed, leaned against the elf. Shuddering, she whispered, “Are you all right?”
“Aye.” Tyorl lifted her chin. Then, surprised by his own gesture, he dropped his hand and held her gently away. “You?”
She shrugged and managed a wan smile. The noxious odors were beginning to drift in the direction of the river, dragged reluctantly away by damp, cold breezes. “Tyorl, what happened? What is this horrible smell?”
“The damned kender has the mage’s flute! Did you see where he went?”
Kelida looked quickly around then shook her head. “Those screams—”
Her face was white. “Stanach.”
Within the river cave, the hard, bitter noises of retching and choking had fallen still. Lavim’s laughter rose and then stopped with ominous suddenness. Tyorl stepped into the cave, Kelida right behind him. The freshening night wind cleared away the last of Lavim’s malodorous spell. Tyorl took a tentative breath and then another. The aching nausea left him. He looked around the cave and saw Stanach lying in the shadows against the wall. Kelida slipped past him and ran to the dwarf.
Realgar’s assassins lay on the stony floor and did not rise again. The skulls of two were crushed and the rock that killed them lay near Tyorl’s foot, smeared with blood and brains. The third was dead of a dagger in the ribs. Tyorl quickly checked outside and saw a dwarf lying far down the river, sprawled half in the water, half out.