The Paladins tddts-2 Page 3

  "Please stand together on the granite platform," ordered Khelben. "There will be a few moments of disorientation, and you'll find yourselves in a rough cavern on the eastern border of Undermountain. Look for rooms that match the configuration of the map and thence find your way to the gate. Good luck, and remember your oath!"

  "Khelben, I'm not sure if you can teleport me," stammered Kern.

  "Of course I can!"

  "Of course he can!" echoed Miltiades. "Just concentrate on lowering your resistance," he quietly added.

  Khelben began his casting. His words contorted into impossible syllables, and sparks of green arose and began to circle the round, granite platform. The screen of brilliant embers grew higher, rising over their heads, until Khelben uttered a final word, which sounded like a blast of wind. The sparks flared with blinding intensity and went out.

  The group stood in the middle of Blackstaff s room.

  Kern coughed.

  "What is this?" hissed Blackstaff, incredulously.

  "Ah, sorry," said Kern, stepping down from the pedestal. "I was afraid this might happen. You see, my mother's a powerful sorceress in her own right, and that had an effect on me. Most times, magic spells don't work on me. My mother says I'm anti-magical."

  "Arafi-magical? Anti-magical? What in Waterdeep is anti-magical?"

  "As I've said, spells don't work on me, although magical things still function around me… usually."

  "That's why you have no aura!" cried Khelben, staring narrowly at the young paladin-if he was a paladin. Between the dopplegangers, the two-faced guildsmen, and the queer devices from the Utter East, which spawned solid warriors out of thin air, nothing could be trusted.

  "Well Kern, it seems your quest is at an end," said the mage. "What?"

  "If I can't teleport you down to Undermountain, then 111 have to send the others without you."

  "That's ridiculous!" cried Able.

  "Out of the question!" declared Miltiades. "Kern must go with us."

  "If he can't be enspelled, there's no way I can get him to Undermountain."

  "If Kern doesn't go, none of us goes," said Harloon.

  "Fine! Then none of you goes. I'll send Force Grey, which is what I wanted to do in the first place! I don't know you, and I don't know how you'll deal with this situation-"

  "Khelben!" called Aleena from outside the circle of warriors that closed upon Blackstaff. "Hold your temper."

  "You defy the commands of your lord, Piegeiron," Trandon accused.

  "My lord? Let's get one thing straight. Lord Paladinson is not my sovereign, he's my colleague. Don't try to use him to push me around! You know, the more I think about it, the more foolish this whole plan sounds…"

  The warriors of Tyr erupted in protest. The word honor emerged from the din. Aleena tried to intervene again but could not make herself heard. Noph stood blinking. This is just like a meeting of father's fellow lumber merchants, he thought. They're all bickering for their shares. For a moment, he wondered if heroism was just an ordinary job. The thought made him angry.

  "Hey! Hey! HEY!" he shouted, until the mighty wizards and warriors fell silent and stared indignantly at him. "Undermountain's right below our feet, isn't it? Why don't we just hoof it there?"

  Can we walk to the third level of Undermountain from here?" asked Miltiades.

  "Well… we can sail there," answered Aleena, hesitating. "But you paladins won't like it." She looked toward Khelben, who threw up his hands and looked away, thoroughly disgusted. "We'll have to pass through Skullport."

  "Skullport?" asked Jacob.

  "A city of criminals, outlaws, and… undead," said Miltiades. His voice was filled with dread, as he recalled his own existence as a death knight. He sighed heavily. "So be it. Piegeiron wanted the paladins of Tyr to lead the rescue, and Kern is one of the two. Through Skullport it is."

  Aleena's eyes met Noph's, and she smiled reassuringly, but her face fell as she turned away.

  Interlude 2

  Knowledge is power. If you destroy your teacher, it will be all yours.

  A twelve-foot stone wall surrounded the city where the bloodforge was hidden, but a thousand barriers could not bar the way of tanar'ri, were they not magically enhanced with powerful wards-as this wall was. The magnitude of its impregnability surprised the vrocks. Shaakat and Rejik circled above the habitation, carefully avoiding the invisible border, for no magic or might would allow them to enter. To the humans below, the vrocks appeared to be common vultures circling some unfortunate, fallen beast outside the city walls.

  "There," thought Shaakat to his confederate, pointing with his gaunt hand to a dome within an enclosed courtyard of a large building, near the south wall. "Smell it?"

  "Yes! A dimensional portal. A gate! In that round-topped structure surrounded by human sentinels."

  The fiends laughed at the idea of a mere human protecting anything.

  "Who knows where the gate's other side may lie?" whined Rejik.

  "The primes in that burg below, leatherhead. See those humans just emerging from the keep? Let's scrag 'em!"

  The vrocks spiraled lazily downward, waiting for the pair of riders to clear the warded walls before swooping in. As they cleared the magical barrier, the humans seemed to sense their peril, for they kicked at their steeds and broke into a gallop, making for the forest beyond. Shaakat and Rejik clucked in anticipation of sport and pulled in their wings, dipping into a dive. They leveled off and soared just over the riders' heads, parting their black beaks and piercing the air with a terrible, deafening screech, which stunned both the horses and the humans.

  With horrible screams of their own, the horses writhed in terror and tumbled to the ground, pitching their helpless riders over their heads. Shaakat and Rejik came about just as the horses regained their feet. The fiends slashed the poor beasts from shoulders to rumps as they streaked by again. Both animals wailed piteously and collapsed twitching. One of the humans, the one in metal armor, quickly rolled to her feet and drew a gleaming blade with a flourish, turning to face her adversaries. The other lay groaning upon the ground, dazed or injured by his fall.

  Shaakat and Rejik alighted before the warrior.

  "Go back to the Abyss!" she snarled and charged them.

  "Come with us!" they jeered, spreading wide their wings to expose rows of glands along their sides. With a sickening heave, the vrocks flexed their sinewy bodies, and a sticky spray shot from the glands, covering the woman in stringy mucous. Her sword sliced at them, but the fiends disappeared, blinking two steps to her side.

  The warrior spun to face them again and raised her sword… then cringed and buckled in sudden agony while spores in the mucous covering her sprouted and wormed their spiny tendrils under her skin, swiftly covering her with thick, sinuous vines. She opened her mouth to scream, and the vines quickly swarmed into her mouth, choking her cry. She crumpled to the ground and thrashed about with a gurgle, then mercifully fell still.

  Shaakat and Rejik turned toward the man, who struggled to a sitting position, cradling one arm while he gaped in shock at the heinous murder before him. They hopped, birdlike, toward him, but he made no move to escape. His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open as they approached. He began to shake violently.

  "There's a gate inside the building from which you've just come," said Shaakat's raspy voice in his head.

  "Do not deny it!" squealed Rejik's mind.

  "Where is its other side?" continued Shaakat, his arm emerging to clutch at the human's throat.

  "Undermountain," thought the man in return, unwillingly. "Undermountain, far to the west."

  "Undermountain," repeated the vrocks telepathi-cally, "far to the west."

  Rejik's pointed beak opened impossibly wide while Shaakat bent low. They spread their wings about the fallen human. And a single scream rent the morning air.

  Chapter 3

  We are exactly what we believe we are.

  "Skullport lies beneath the southern sea caves of Moun
t Waterdeep," explained Aleena as the party floated in a large flatboat along the banks of the subterranean river Sargauth. "It's a highly magical, lawless community, crawling with shady dealers and cutthroat justice." Guiding the paladins through one of the most lawless cities in the world was going to be tricky. "Remember, you promised me you wouldn't cause trouble down here, no matter what you see."

  Kern stood beside her at the bow of the vessel and nodded his head once more. "Lady Paladinstar, there'll be no trouble."

  As she sighed, their boat passed under an archway and entered the grand cavern of Skullport. To their port side ships of every size rocked at anchor, thick tethers reaching below the flat, black water of the great underground bay. In the distance beyond the gently weaving masts, the travelers could see uncountable caves riddling the ocean-carved walls, right up to the ceiling, several hundred feet above. An immense tangle of rickety catwalks strung between them sparkled with thousands of dim yellow torches and lanterns. Glowing lichen crawled along the cavern walls, illuminating the vast open space overhead, and little orbs of bright light streaked through it.

  "Look at the will o' wisps!" said Harloon. "There must be hundreds of them. Do they try to lead beings to their deaths?"

  "That and more," Aleena warned.

  "Look at those huge ones over there!" said Noph, pointing up at two gigantic spheres in the air. Great arcs of lightning shot back and forth between them.

  "Those aren't will o' wisps," whispered Trandon. "Those are beholders!"

  "Beholders?" cried the paladins, instinctively reaching for their hammers. Jacob instantly sprang to their side, sword drawn.

  "Kern! Miltiades! No!" hissed Aleena. "We've got to keep a low profile or we'll be fighting the entire population from now until Doomsday!"

  Reluctantly, the warriors squatted down and hid their weapons.

  Fortunately, no one manned the decks of the vessels around them, except a bored crewman who absently paced the deck of a huge war galleon, staring up at the battling beholders. They slipped stealthily among the darkened crafts and continued on their way.

  "So far, so good," whispered Aleena. "We're going to sail right past the city and go deeper into the cave complex by way of the Sargauth. Only a few dozen feet and we'll leave Skullport behind and be in Undermountain."

  "What are these things floating in the water?" asked Noph, grabbing a boat hook and pulling one nearer.

  "Noph, stop!" cried Aleena, a moment too late.

  An elvish skull bobbed within reach, thanks to Noph's hook. As he recognized it, the boy recoiled with a yelp. Trandon ducked underneath the swinging boat hook with a disgruntled gasp as Noph stumbled back. The boat pitched sharply, precipitating a commotion of flailing arms and startled shouts among the rest of the passengers. Noph lost his balance and reeled backward, pivoting over the side of the boat as it rolled with his shifting weight. Harloon caught his lashing arm at the last moment and yanked it downward. Noph tumbled headlong into the bottom of the boat. A wave hissed through the party, as the vessel sloshed in the water and settled to rest again.

  "Chaos child!" spat Miltiades. "Control him, wizard."

  Noph gasped.

  "Now what?" grumbled the elder paladin, turning to follow the boy's line of sight.

  The elf skull had risen out of the bay and now hovered nearby on a cluster of white sparks. Able and the paladins instinctively lifted their holy symbols, but Aleena leaped forward and pressed down their arms.

  "Don't do it! You have no idea what harm you could cause. Don't move an inch! Remember, we're trying to sail past this city."

  The skull turned lazily in the air. More white sparks flared up within its eye sockets. It drifted to within inches of Noph's face and stared at him for a long moment; he froze, wide-eyed, gaping back at it. The bony visage lingered a bit longer, then moved on to Harloon and calmly inspected each member of the party.

  At last, its scrutiny fell upon Kern. It wafted up and down his body, pausing to stare at his holy warhammer for a long time before drifting before his face.

  The pale jaw began to move, and they all heard a whispering voice. "This is a safe haven to all traders and customers," the death's-head told them. "Keep thy unwelcome weapons and thy uncivil tongues sheathed lest ye suffer my misery for all eternity."

  Kern reacted without thinking. He reached out, placed his palm over the slimy dome of the skull, and invoked his divine healing powers. "Rest ancient one," he intoned solemnly. The skull sighed with pleasure, crumbled to dust, and fluttered into the dark waters below.

  "Kern, no!" cried Aleena. Before the echo of her alarm bounced off the cavern walls, the water around them began to bubble frenetically. Hundreds of skulls boiled to the surface and surrounded the boat, just out of arm's reach. Their eyeless sockets trained upon the heroes, stared balefully, and their whispering voices spoke in unison.

  "Tis forbidden to interfere with the watchers in the waters," came the chilling tones. "Now thou shalt perform a service or pay with thy lives. Each must lend aid to a zombie of Skullport before leaving."

  "Not likely!" Harloon retorted. Able blanched.

  "Oh yes you will!" said Aleena as she moved to the tiller and steered their vessel for the docks. "You don't understand the nature of this port. If the skulls make a demand, you must obey or shadow monsters make you obey."

  "We can deal with such creatures," scoffed Kern.

  "But even if you beat them, more appear, and they keep on coming. Sooner or later, they'll get to you. And we're in hurry, remember?"

  The warriors snorted derisively, all but Trandon. Aleena looked angrily at Miltiades. "Look, this part of Faerun is my turf. I know the rules, and you promised to follow them! This is what we're going to do: We'll dock and spread out. As long as you don't make trouble, no one will bother you, and no one's going to make trouble, right?"

  The men nodded grudgingly. Harloon looked at Noph and said, "You stick with me." Noph grinned and nodded eagerly.

  "And be very careful, Noph!"

  The boy beamed and answered, "You, too, fair lady!" His voice cracked slightly. Jacob and Trandon exchanged grins.

  "This won't be tough as long as you don't make it so," continued Aleena. "There are hundreds of zombies performing menial tasks in this city. Find one and help it. If the thing is carrying something, take it and follow the zombie to its destination-whatever you need to do to be of service. Got it?"

  Miltiades grimaced at the city and nodded curtly. "It will be done." The entire group nodded reluctantly. Able looked toward the docks with profound sadness in his eyes. "So many lost souls," he murmured to himself

  "We will help as many zombies as we can, eh Able?" the plated paladin said with a grim smile.

  "Just help one and get back here as soon as possible, without causing any trouble!" snapped Aleena. "If you're not back in an hour, we'll assume that you couldn't restrain yourself and give you up for dead, and we'll move on."

  The boat hit the dock, and Noph and Harloon tied it up while the others entered the deadly depths of Skullport. As they dispersed, a group of shadowy figures trailed after them.

  Kern could have kicked himself as he stalked the dockside streets. It wasn't the requirement to serve a zombie that galled him so much as his promise not to cause any trouble. As he paced the alleys, he was amazed at the evil and horror, everywhere he looked. Pale-skinned vampires walked the streets and ordered skeletons about while octopus-headed mind flayers consorted casually with black-robed wizards! Of course, no paladin could singlehandedly destroy all of the evil, but it would have been glorious to try. For better or worse, he concluded grouchily, there was simply no time for it.

  "There's my zombie in need," he muttered, noting a group of four long-dead sailors who dragged large gray bags along the boardwalk. A juju zombie led them, waving a dark wand. The young paladin slipped ahead of the shuffling undead and hid in a blind alley. When the juju rounded the corner, the paladin slapped the wand from its desiccated hand.

>   "Aaaa, what have you done?" groaned the master zombie. The four zombies quickened their pace and stumbled into the alley, followed closely by the juju zombie. In the relative privacy of that dark cove, Kern lifted his hand in blessing. "I shall help you," he whispered. "In Tyr's name you will all become dust, and be freed from your undead suffering."

  In all Miltiades's years of existence, both as a man and a death knight, he'd never seen anything as depraved as Skullport! Undead shambled everywhere, making his skin crawl with disgust. Ghosts walked side by side with necromancers, fighters lustily offered their swords to any who would pay gold, no matter what the job, and ordinary humans walked quickly, with heads bowed and fear in their eyes. The ancient paladin followed a main street into the heart of the cave city, keeping to the plentiful shadows. In an open square, he discovered slaves for sale on massive blocks, beholders arranging to hire mercenary bands, and even a pair of baatezu fiends gathered in a dark tryst.

  He closed his eyes and prayed to Tyr for guidance, and in answer, his oath to Aleena rang in his ears. Shaking his head regretfully, he spotted a large sign that read "Zombys 4 sal." Miltiades passed through the door beside the sign and looked about in revulsion. There were dozens of undead, including women and children, dead dwarves, dead elves, and many, many dead sailors, all in various stages of decay. They stood immobile against the walls of the large room, panelled over with rotting planks of knotty pine. The ones closest to him began to slowly crumble into dust in the glow of his holy shield but they made no move. Each held a tag in hand, listing its price in gold pieces.

  "Whoa! You're a little lost, aren't you?" remarked a skeletal warrior, approaching from behind a rack filled with dark wands and coming to an abrupt halt ten feet from the holy warrior. "Would you mind stepping outside? You're dissolving the merchandise!"

  "I am here to help," offered Miltiades.

  "I said leave!" snarled the undead fighter, jerkily unsheathing a rusted sword and cocking his arm to slash at the knight. Miltiades parried the blow easily with his shield and unhooked his hammer from his belt in the same motion. As the skeleton drew back to swing again, the mallet swept upward and connected with the bony jaw, sending it spinning through the air to shatter against the wall. The monster staggered back a step and caught itself, but Miltiades followed closely and pressed his holy symbol into its chest plate, crying, "In Tyr's holy name, rest ancient warrior!"