"More or less," Karag admitted. "I can command the household workers, but have no authority over the guards."

The conversation was cut off by the arrival of Deriams retainers. He sent one to fetch food and drink, another to bring the keys to the cellars, and the third and last to take a polite greeting to the Overlord and tell him that his faithful Deriam had returned but was resting from the journey and not to be disturbed.

The three vanished without comment on their various errands, and the four wizards settled down to await the promised meal. "We shouldn't take the time;" Shandiph said, "but I'm hungry."

"Yes, and cold and thirsty as well," Thetheru added.

While waiting, the newcomers looked over Deriam's parlor. It was lush to the point of ostentation, with thick patterned carpets overlapping to cover every inch of floor, rich tapestries covering every wall, and ornate carved frames around every door and window. The furnishings included a myriad of cushions of silk and velvet and an a.s.sortment of tables, chairs, pedestals, statuettes, display shelves, bric-a-brac, and general clutter, every item made of costly materials and showing elaborate workmanship. A few of the cushions had old stains on them, and one carving of a handsome young couple was chipped through the woman's arm.

When the servant he had sent for the keys delivered them, Deriam sent the youth after as many lanterns and torches as could be found-in the house.

"We'll need light in the crypts," he explained, "and there's no sense in wasting magic."The food, when it arrived, consisted of a plate of fruit, nuts, and cakes; the drink was a decanter of yellow wine and a steaming pitcher of a brownish liquid Karag and Thetheru did not recognize.

"A discovery of my own," Deriam explained with an air of patently false modesty. "It's an infusion of herbs and spices in boiling water and it's really quite invigorating. Try it."

Karag refused the unfamiliar brew and confined himself to cakes and wine; Thetheru took a cup of the steaming concoction and an a.s.sortment of fruit and p.r.o.nounced both to be good.

Both wine and herbal brew were warming and felt so good to the weary travelers that they made no effort to silence Deriam when he began a long description of the history of the crypts.

"They aren't exactly crypts in the usual sense of burial vaults or areas for underground storage," he said. "They're actually another city that used to stand on this same site. Ur-Dormulk, you see, is the most ancient city in all the world and has stood here for longer than any records have existed. It was once called Stur-dar-Malik, which means 'City of the Old Ones' in the language of the time. Even then it was old. The most learned scholars in the city, who are of course the wisest and most learned in the world, say that there must once have been a great catastrophe that destroyed much of the city, and the survivors built the new city upon the ruins without bothering to excavate them. The old cellars and pa.s.sages were forgotten for centuries, until finally someone broke into them while digging a new wine cellar. That was, I have heard, in the Eleventh Age, about four thousand years ago. Since then they have been explored and extended and elaborated, until now they are so complex that no man living knows them all-and I personally doubt that anyone ever did.

They reach under every corner of the city and extend out beyond the walls for miles in every direction, as well as continuing quite deeply down into the earth. There are said to be many strange and wondrous things in them, and there are tales of men and women who have become lost down there only to be preserved by the unnatural powers that lurk in the darkness, to wander about forever."

"That's a cheering thought," Thetheru said.

"Oh, it's just a legend," Shandiph replied.

"We thought that the great old magicks were just a legend," Thetheru returned.

"If the crypts are so extensive, how can we hope to find these magicks we seek?" Karag asked.

"There are signs," Shandiph replied.

"Signs? You mean that these carefully hidden things, too dangerous to leave where they might be misused, can be found by following signposts?"

"Not exactly. The signs can only be read by means of an enchanted gla.s.s."

"Where do we find this gla.s.s, then?"

Shandiph reached down to a pouch on his belt. "It's right here," he answered.

"Let me see it," Karag asked.

"Not yet," Shandiph replied.

Karag started to protest, then caught sight of Thetheru's smile and thought better of it.

They finished their repast in silence. As Deriam drank the last of the wine, his servant reappeared with a double armful of prepared torches and with four lanterns.

The torches were distributed evenly among the four wizards. Karag suggested that Deriam's servants accompany them, but Deriam overruled the notion immediately. "That is beyond their duties," he explained.

"Besides, we want to keep the whole thing secret," Shandiph added.

Accordingly, the servants stayed where they were, while the wizards made their way through Deriam's kitchen and down the stairs into his wine cellars.

From there they descended another flight into a fruit cellar, where a trapdoor opened to reveal a ladder leading down into utter darkness. The light of the lanterns did not reach the bottom.

With the torches bundled on their backs, the four descended, Karag first, followed by Deriam, Shandiph, and Thetheru. The ladder swayed beneath their weight but did not break or fall. After what seemed an incredibly long time, they finally came in sight of the bottom.

When they stepped from the ladder, they found themselves on a flagstone floor buried in a thick layer of dust. At Shandiph's suggestion they lit one torch apiece to provide additional light.

They were in an immense chamber of stone; their footsteps echoed from the bare walls, which even the light of torches and lanterns combined revealed only as vague and distant patches amid the all-encompa.s.sing darkness. Three of the four stared about in uneasy surprise at the room's extent; Deriam remarked casually, "I haven't been down here in a long, long time; I'd forgotten just how big it is."

"Where's the door to the crypts?" Karag asked.

"We are in the crypts, Karag," Deriam replied. "This chamber has a dozen doors opening on various rooms and pa.s.sages."

"Which way do we go?" Thetheru asked.

"I haven't any idea," Deriam answered.

Shandiph carefully placed his torch and lantern on the stone floor and fumbled with the pouch on his belt. He brought out a small sphere of yellow gla.s.s and held it up to his eye.

After a long moment he said, "I see nothing."

"What do we do now?" Thetheru asked.

"Pick a direction at random," Karag suggested.

Deriam shrugged, and led the party to the wall of the room, choosing his route by walking forward in the direction he happened to be facing.

The wall was bare stone and faintly dusty.

"Now," Deriam said, "I propose that we walk along the wall until we find one of the signs Shandiph mentioned."

No one objected, and the foursome moved along the wall.

Almost immediately, they came to an open doorway; Deriam looked at Shandiph, who shook his head. They moved on.

A second doorway was pa.s.sed, and a corner of the room. At the third doorway Shandiph asked, "Does the pentacle above the door mean anything?"

"What pentacle?" Thetheru asked, holding up his lantern. The stone lintel was blank.

"I think we've found it," Karag replied.

Shandiph lowered the gla.s.s from his eye and stared at the lintel in puzzlement. "I still see the pentacle, though," he said. "Don't you see it?"

"There is nothing there, Shandiph," Karag replied.

"We see nothing but bare stone," Deriam added.

Shandiph looked at the gla.s.s, then back at the stone. "I thought I had to look through it," he said. "It appears I was wrong." With a shrug, he led the way through the door and into the pa.s.sage beyond.

The pa.s.sage was more of the dull gray stone, huge blocks of it stacked together without mortar, forming a corridor ten feet wide and twelve feet high. It sloped downward for a hundred yards or so and then ended in a T-shaped intersection. Karag had moved into the lead and now stopped, unsure which way to turn.

"The pentagram is on the left," Shandiph said as he came up. Karag immediately turned left, and the party advanced.

Following Shandiph's directions, the foursome made their way deeper and deeper into the crypts, through corridors and rooms that ranged from mere cubicles to vast caverns, up and down ramps and stairs, across bridges that spanned seemingly bottomless chasms, and past doors of wood, iron, and bra.s.s that stood ajar or were tightly sealed, with no discernable pattern. The first torches burned down to uselessness and were discarded, and the lanterns dimmed and died as they wound onward. There was no light save what they carried, andthe only sounds were their own footsteps, their own breath, and occasionally the distant dripping of water. In one room they found a spot where drops of water fell and saw that it ran from the tip of a five-inch stalact.i.te clinging to the low ceiling, to land with the smallest of splashes on a stubby projection from the floor. The chamber they were in was not a natural cave, but man-made; the water came through a crack between the stones of the ceiling.

The second set of torches died, and the third was lit; Deriam began complaining of the stupidity Shandiph had displayed in not bringing food and drink. Karag came to the Chairman's defense, pointing out that he had no way of knowing how long the search would take, while Thetheru remained silent.

When Deriam demanded that the Amagite choose a side, he ended the argument by saying, "I'm too busy trying to remember our route."

"I hadn't thought of that," Deriam said after a moment of silence.

"I've been too busy finding our way forward," Shandiph said.

"Can you lead us back out?" Karag asked.

"I'm not sure," Thetheru admitted.

"Maybe we should turn back. Do we even know what we're looking for?"

Deriam asked. "How will we know these wonders when we find them? Have they really survived for three hundred years in this damp darkness?"

"Darkness wouldn't hurt anything," Karag retorted.

"But we don't even know what we're looking for," Thetheru said.

"I a.s.sume that we'll find a few chests somewhere," Shandiph said, "and perhaps a shelf of books."

"I hope so," Deriam answered.

They were discarding the last of the fourth set of torches when Shandiph, who had moved on ahead while Karag lit the new torch from the stub of his old one, called out, "I've found something."

"What is it?" Karag called.

"This door has the pentagram sign on it, and another pentagram inside the first."

"Is it open?"

"No. It's locked."

The other three came up to join him and found that the Chairman was standing before a large oaken door bound in rusty iron; he was pulling and pushing at the great iron handle. The door did not move.

"Whatever we're looking for must be in there," Karag said.

"How do we get in?" Deriam asked.

"Break it down," Karag suggested.

Shandiph and Deriam looked at each other; Deriam shrugged, "Let him try; he's the strongest of us."

The other three stepped back, and Karag took a short run toward the door, slamming his shoulder against it.

Immediately, he was flung back against the far wall of the corridor in a shower of pure white sparks.

He lay stunned on the dusty stone. Thetheru said unnecessarily, "It must have a warding spell on it."

"I never saw a ward like that," Deriam replied. He was blinking, trying to help his eyes readjust to the dim yellow torchlight after the vivid brilliance of the sparks.

Shandiph looked at the door for a moment and then said, "I suppose they wanted to be sure that no one who just happened along could get in. We are the rightful heirs, though, so there must be some way we can annuli the wards."

"There was no mention of this in your directions?"

"No. You have to understand, I know very little more than you do. When I became Chairman I was given the seal of office and a box of charms, and taught a spell that would tell me what each charm was for when the need arose; that spell told me that the yellow gla.s.s would show me the way through the crypts, but it said nothing of this door."

"Did you bring the other charms?""No. That shouldn't matter, though; I know what almost all of them do.

Besides, if one was needed here, the spell should have told me before I left Kholis."

"Perhaps the spell has become muddled over the years."

"Aal and Amera, I hope not!"

"Is there some hidden instruction in the pentacle, perhaps?" Thetheru asked.

Karag was climbing to his feet once again. He said nothing, but stood unsteadily, staring at the door.

"Did you bring any magic besides the yellow gla.s.s?" Deriam asked Shandiph.

Before the Chairman could answer, Karag said, "I can see the pentagram now."

"What?" The others turned toward him in surprise.

"I can see the pentagram. But you said there was another pentagram within it, Shandiph, and it's not a pentagram, it's the Council seal."

"It is?" Shandiph also stared at the door; to him it still appeared to be a pentacle inside a pentacle. A possibility occurred to him, and he reached inside the neck of his tunic to pull forth the golden medallion that he as Chairman of the Council of the Most High, wore at all times. He placed it against the center of the pentagram and announced, "I am Shandiph, heir to Hemmaron, Chairman of the Council of the Most High, chief among the wise and first among equals!"

Nothing happened.

In desperation, Shandiph reached out and pushed once more at the iron handle. The door swung open.

The chamber beyond was utterly black, and the light of the torches did not penetrate. The four wizards stared into it for a long moment, none daring to step into the unnatural darkness.

"I think that magic is called for," Deriam said at last.

Shandiph nodded. "Hoi, khiri! I'a angarosye t'aryo ansuyen, o mi alekye i zhure Leuk!" he called. "Hear me, spirits! I am an agent of the lords of demons, and with this talisman I invoke Leuk!"