Read Online Easy Betrayals by Richard Baker - Free Book Online Page B

had inhabited this particular tomb for long years. “Why do you say that?”
    “Netheril’s archmages ruled that land. Knowing that the time of their natural deaths were upon them, maybe they arranged for the construction of tombs that would keep out looters and defilers and hide them from their living rivals but allow them to leave when they so chose.”
    “The Netherese were in the habit of deifying their rulers,” Belgin said. “It would make sense. The desert temple was the center of a cult of death priests who watched over their lords’ sleep and awaited the day of their undead resurrection. I wonder how many of these places still exist?”
    “Does it matter?” Miltiades asked. “You’re not thinking of using the portals to rummage through Netherese crypts, are you?”
    Belgin thought of the cold emerald fire dancing in the eyes of the desert temple’s dead warriors and the horrifying determination of the creature that guarded the place against intrusion. There are easier ways to make a living, he said to himself. Like hunting down doppelgangers.
    “It might be handy to know where all those portals go, but I don’t think I want to cross any more liches than I have to. I’ll leave their tombs in peace from now on.”
    He laughed at his own remark, but the thick dust and rot in the chamber got into his lungs, and he coughed until it felt like someone had stabbed him between the ribs. Gasping for air, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and tried not to notice the dark bloody smear on his glove.
    Miltiades waited, frowning. “Can you continue?”
    “I’ll live—for now, anyway. Lead the way.”
    The paladin grimaced and clapped one mailed hand to the sharper’s shoulder, then turned and picked his way from the wreckage of the crypt. The ancient doors had stood at the end of a long corridor much like the one under Aetheric’s palace, and a faint set of tracks marred the dust on the stone flagstones.
    “No hard decisions yet,” Miltiades observed, advancing down the hall. “She must have gone this way.”
    The passageway led several hundred feet before opening high in a dank and lightless cavern whose sides stretched away into the darkness. A cold, foul wind sighed through the chamber, hinting at vast gulfs and trackless mazes in the endless night. What kind of place is this? It must go on forever, Belgin thought. I can feel eyes in the darkness. Beneath them, a narrow ledge circled the upper portion of the cavern, with a steep scramble through a forest of stalagmites to the cavern floor. They dropped lightly from the mouth of the finished passage to the shelf of natural stone, peering down at the yawning darkness below. “How big is this place?” Belgin muttered.
    “No one knows of a larger or more dangerous maze,” Miltiades said. “Undermountain stretches for miles beneath the city and Mount Waterdeep. You wouldn’t believe some of the things that inhabit Haalvar’s dungeons, Belgin; keep your eyes open and watch your back down here.”
    “I really wish you’d kept that to yourself.” The sharper glanced left and right, then slid down the slope to the cavern floor. He could sense water nearby, a lot of it; the wind was cold and damp, and the sound of the air seemed to indicate an immense cavern. At the bottom, a shelf of gray stone held a couple of muddy footprints. Carefully, he knelt to examine them. A few grains of wet sand remained in the tracks. “Stay toward the right,” he said quietly. “I think she’s following that wall.”
    “All right,” agreed the paladin. He moved off into the darkness, keeping the dank cavern wall close by his right hand. Ahead, the sound of water grew louder, and Belgin became aware of a strong salty reek to the air. After a lifetime of piracy on the open main, he knew the smell of the sea. They followed the cavern wall until it met a dark, lapping arm of water a hundred yards or so from the passageway they’d come from. “Where did she go from