Chapter 20 - Part 13

Their embrace lasted five minutes, before an angry cry from above made them break apart. Delegado jumped up, his fingers through the grate, and hoisted himself to where he could see what was going on. Chuckling, he dropped down.

“Well?” she asked, her sword out.

“Orphan’s shiruken took a rakshasa in the crotch,” he snickered. “No real injury, given their high resistance to weapons that aren’t blessed, but they are madder than the Fury. They’re in hot pursuit. In fifteen seconds I’ll work on the lock catch with my sword, then we’ll slip into the tower.”

“You ‘picked’ a lock like that when we were breaking into that tower near Bluevine,” she recalled.

“Yeah, I did,” he said with a smile. It was nice being with her again, working with her again. He waited, listening to the blood-curdling yells recede as they chased after the warforged. “Okay, we’re a go,” he said. He took his sword out and began sawing at the metal of the grate. The brass, or whatever it was, was tough, but not as tough as adamantine. Within a minute he’d popped it free of its mounting. He jumped up, braced himself against the interior lip of the grate portal, and pushed. The grate lifted and he slid it over.

Delegado quickly scrambled out of the sewer line and reached down to pull Ois up. They were in a wide plaza, decorated with small statuettes of gold, silver and other precious metals. The statuettes were finely detailed carvings of fiends, many with gemstones for eyes. The plaza was formed of long, semi-reflective flagstones, each the size of a horse if not bigger. In between the flagstones was a mosiac of smaller stones, each barely larger than a fish egg. The multitude of colors formed pictures of dragons dying, lesser races being enslaved, and various bloody instruments of torture. Delegado briefly wondered how long it took to make the border of gruesome scenes with the tiny stones, but then decided he didn’t want to know. The thought of a being that was able to sit and focus for that long on those themes made him ill. Also scattered about, especially near the main opening, were pedestals of worked stone holding bowls of various metals. Delegado saw blood in some of those bowls, and what he thought was tears from some large animal. Other bowls held what looked to only be water, but the half-orc was not about to trust their innocence.

“Where?” Ois asked, looking at the bowls with disgust.

“This way,” Delegado said, leading her by her free hand. They ran down the length of the plaza and under the shadow of the tower. Some fifty feet later he stopped, examining the apparently seamless surface.

“Are you sure it’s here?” Ois asked. “I don’t see any –” Delegado touched two points in rapid succession, and there was a soft click as a panel appeared, swinging inwards to show a hallway. “Your dragonmark told you how to open that?” she asked, clearly impressed.

“Yes, inside,” he said. They stepped in and Delegado shut the panel behind them.

The screams from the top of the tower could be heard, echoing in a strange fashion, but other than that, the place was as silent as a tomb. The hallway was curved, following the edge of the tower. There were no steps, but there was a curve in the floor, a perceptible ramp leading upwards.

Delegado looked around carefully, as did Ois. The walls and floor were a featureless black marble that seemed to absorb light. The illumination of Ois’ sunrod faded as it touched the wall, like it was being drained. Even Delegado’s orcsight could not pick out any texture on the wall.

“Don’t touch the wall,” Ois said softly. “It’s hungry.”

“Your paladin senses tell you that?” he asked.

“No, they just pick up a – a background evil. A desperation. I can’t explain it.”

Delegado stroked Feather’s neck to calm the bird down, and he focused his mind inward. He focused on the description of the headband that the order of the Balanced Palm had crafted centuries earlier.

His dragonmark tingled, and an awareness came to him. The headband was about fifty feet up, in the center of a tower.

“This way,” he said. She followed him up the sloping hallway.