"What's this talk about thievery?" scoffed Tas. "Just because we let ourselves in?"
"It does not lower us!" agreed Selana, her nose wrinkling. "He stole something that did not belong to him. We're simply retrieving what is rightfully ours."
Tanis held up his hands in mock defense, then waved everyone ahead of him. "Lead the way, Tas."
Tasslehoff stepped brightly out of the pump house's shade, then paused with his hands on his hips, studying the keep. Flint fidgeted next to him, nervously clutching the head of his axe and glancing over his shoulder. Selana and Tanis stood nearby. Within seconds, Tas spotted what he wanted and was hiking briskly toward the keep with his friends bustling behind.
At the spot Tas had chosen, a smaller building abutted the keep. Where the two structures met, a deeply recessed doorway led into the tower. The kender strode straight into it and nearly disappeared in its shadows. The door was set back six or seven feet from the keep's outer wall, so all four travelers could easily crowd into its space.
Selana watched in fascination as Tas pulled an oilcloth bundle from his pouch. He extracted a bent wire and a handleless knife blade with deep notches filed into it. Within moments, a solid "thunk" told everyone that the lock was open.
"After you," said Tas, pushing the door open and stepping aside. The three others filed past into a narrow corridor temporarily lit by sunlight, then Tas gently closed the door.
After several moments of waiting for his eyes to adjust, Tas spoke up. "I can't see a blasted thing in here."
"We dare not strike a light," whispered Tanis, and Selana and Flint mumbled soft agreement.
"Sure, you dwarves and elves can see in the dark. What about me? It's pitch black in here."
"You'll just have to do the best you can," said Tanis. "Just hang on to the person ahead of you. I'll lead, then Selana, Tas, and Flint in the rear. What do you make of this place, Flint?"
The dwarf was peering ahead into the darkness, tuning his innate ability to see outlines in the dark. "I don't have much of an answer, Tanis. It looks like a blind passage: no doors or connecting hallways in sight, though what's farther ahead than about twenty feet I can't say. The whole thing seems to curve to the left, and it's mighty narrow."
Tanis agreed. "The only way to go is forward until we cross an intersection."
They moved slowly along the corridor, footsteps echoing softly in the damp air. Tas hobbled along with one hand on the rough stone wall, the other clutching a corner of Selana's scarf.
"Where should we look first?" whispered Tas to no one in particular. "Say, come to think of it, why don't you just cast that spell again, Selana? You know, the one that tells you where the bracelet is."
"It's not like a divining rod, Tasslehoff," the sea elf explained. "It gives me only vague directions, though they can be narrowed down by asking the right questions. But I can cast that spell only once a day, and I've already done my quota for today."
Bringing up the rear, Flint cleared his throat softly. "The old fellow at the gate said the knight's son had been kidnapped from his bedchambers. I say we look there. If Delbridge is responsible for the abduction, he may have dropped the bracelet in his haste to leave."
"The only problem with that suggestion," whispered Tanis, "is that this hallway seems to be spiraling sharply down, not up, and if we turn around we'll only end up back at the dead-end door we came in."
Flint, trying desperately to clomp quietly over the stone-block floor in his heavy leather, hobnailed boots, gave Tasslehoff's shoulder a shove. "Nice job, doorknob. You probably picked the only entrance in this castle that didn't lead up into the keep. Instead, we're tromping to gods know where down this endless corkscrew hall. Haven't even seen one doorway yet."
"We're inside, aren't we?" Tas shot back. "Besides, I didn't see you-"
Tanis clapped his hands over his pointed ears. "Enough!" he hissed, whirling on them. Selana skittered to the side. "Your bickering could make a half-elf's head split in two, not to mention alerting anyone within a hundred yards of our presence."
Dwarf and kender fell into a sheepish silence.
"Is that a door, ahead on the left?" asked Selana, pointing around the half-elf's shoulder.
Tanis squinted and saw a vague outline about twenty feet down the spiraling hallway. Taking a half-dozen quick steps, he reached out a hand to touch the wooden surface. He groped around the left side for a knob.
"Wait!" whispered Tasslehoff, elbowing his way past Selana to Tanis's side. "You never just walk up and rattle a strange door, especially not in a place like this. It could be trapped or rigged with an alarm or all kinds of things." The kender rifled through a pouch and quickly found what he needed, then set about the delicate task of searching for springs, wires, latches, balance points, and a host of other hazards his companions could barely guess at.
Tanis was glad for the darkness, because he was blushing with embarrassment. He had been so anxious to get somewhere, anywhere, that he'd forgotten his common sense. Only a rank amateur charged through a door under such foreboding circumstances.
"I think it's clean," pronounced Tas at last, "but it was locked. You never can be too careful. Why, once my mother's eldest brother's eldest boy, Old Uncle Latchlifter-actually, that would make him my cousin, wouldn't it? Why do you suppose we called him uncle, then? Anyway, Old Uncle Latchlifter-not Uncle Trapspringer, who's far too clever about such things-Uncle Latchlifter got careless picking a lock. Kablooey! Of course, you only have to do that sort of thing once, don't you?"
"Open the door, Tas," Tanis ordered in a monotone.
"Certainly." Tas pushed it open and stepped through. "Before he died, Old Uncle Latchlifter was a great one for giving advice. 'Never hit your mother with a shovel,' he used to tell me. 'It leaves a big impression on her mind.' " Moved by the memory, Tasslehoff shook his topknot. "Poor Uncle Latchlifter. He was as crazy as a bugbear, you know."
Beyond the doorway was a small room, not more than ten feet by fifteen, with a ceiling so low as to make even the dwarf feel he should duck his head. Another, smaller door was set into the far wall. The room was very nearly empty, with only several large urns and some scrap lumber piled neatly in one corner and a crudely built, closed box the size of a very large trunk on the floor in the corner near the other door.
Selana wrinkled her nose in distaste. "It smells like something died in here."
"Probably rats," said Tanis, his breath lingering before him in moist, white wisps.
Selena unconsciously moved a bit closer to the half-elf. "Bes schedal," she whispered, and a dim glow, its source undetectable, immediately filled the room with amber fog. The sea elf shivered under her thin cloak as she scanned the floor for movement. "We must be quite far underground."
Flint shuddered as well, though not from the cold or the thought of rodents. "This place gives me the willies," he confessed. "The bracelet's obviously not down here, so let's-"
"Great Reorx!"
Tanis, Flint, and Selana all jumped at Tasslehoff's curse. Spinning about, they saw him at the wooden box, his hand on the now half-opened lid.
"This is where that awful stench is coming from." Throwing his shoulder into the task, the kender was working at prying the lid the rest of the way off.
"Wait, Tas-" Tanis began, but his warning came too late.
Grunting with exertion, Tasslehoff flung the wooden cover back and looked into the box. His eyes went wide with wonder, then watered up from the smell, until he had to blink back tears to see.