Book 5.7 Thawed Out

18 Esterealan, Beneath the city of Istur


Well, I must say, that was an unpleasant experience. I dislike being cold to begin with and that…. Perhaps I should do this in order; organize my thoughts, as Donar would say. Let’s see, where was I? Oh, right – the rope trick.

In the morning, Canliss studied while Jven, Aaron and I said our prayers. He returned my notes, and I put them back in my pack.
“By the way,” I said casually, “we really need to get you a new blanket. Yours is much too coarse.”
“Well, it’s warm.”
“But it’s not very soft.”
When Canliss was done studying, I shifted into mouse form. Much to my chagrin, Ester picked me up and scratched my ears.
“Want some cheese? Want some cheese?” She pushed a hunk of cheddar the size of my whole body in front of my nose.
“Ester, stop that.”
Jven’s mouth twitched. Most of the others laughed out loud.
“But you’re so cute in mouse form,” said Ester, who’d given up and eaten the cheese herself.
“Honestly, Ester. Let’s have some dignity.”
Jven did laugh out loud then. It’s hard for a girl to get any respect when she’s in mouse form.
Aaron was quick to smooth things over when Gore awoke. “I apologize for erringly striking you during the battle.”
“I didn’t know you had come to aid us.”
“I understand.”
“I apologize for attacking you,” said Gore. He sounded quite sincere about it, too. I stared at the barbarian in astonishment. Where had all this polite behavior come from? Had Aaron cast some sort of spell on the barbarian when we weren’t looking?
“So how did you come to be here?” Gore asked Aaron.
“The city is overrun with these creatures. I knew you were here and figured you needed assistance.”
“Do you know Nikita?”
“I’ve seen her around.” Well, that didn’t mean much. For all I knew he could have been a regular at the Port o’ Call.
Aaron looked around. “I’ve seen Ester. I’ve seen Canliss around. He’s quite a celebrity.”
“You’ve seen me?” Canliss asked with some concern.
“Oh, come on, Canliss. The winged man doesn’t exactly blend in with the locals.”
“You’re almost famous,” Aaron told him. “I’ve seen your parlor tricks.”
“Oh, those,” Canliss said dismissively. It was the robbing of parlors that he’d been worried about Aaron witnessing. I don’t know why Canliss would care. Everyone in Strand’s Shadows knows he’s a thief.
“You haven’t met Jven?” I asked.
“No, no I haven’t.”
Jven frowned. “You weren’t at the ceremony? The one where Rhavin got his horse.”
“Oh, that Rhavin fellow,” Aaron said in a manner I found somewhat offensive. “Heck, no, I didn’t go to that.”
“It was a very nice ceremony,” I informed him. “The music was beautiful.”
“How did you get out of it?” Jven asked jealously.
“If you speak to the right people, you can get out of these things,” Aaron said. Frankly, I thought he was being rather arrogant. The rest of us priests had to go to that ceremony whether we wanted to or not. (I wanted to, of course.) What made Aaron so special? He wore armor and carried forbidden weapons. He wore the ceremonial robes outside of the temple. Why was he allowed to break so many rules?
“So, you have to know the right people, eh?” said Val. “Isn’t that always the way?”
“So tell me, are you a warrior?” Gore looked confused. For once, I couldn’t blame him.
Aaron patted his war hammer with typical masculine pride in a large weapon. “I am more of a warrior.”
“A Torodinite warrior?” Jven said skeptically. She and I exchanged a puzzled look.
“But I saw you do things that were magical,” said Gore.
“I do dabble a bit.” He ‘dabbles’ in being a priest? That doesn’t imply much commitment to the faith.
“Normally, we aren’t permitted to carry war hammers.”
Aaron shrugged. “You can if you know the right people.”
“Maybe we can get one for you, Nikita?” Ester said with unwarranted enthusiasm.
I shrugged. “Actually, I’m planning to ask for a different exception to the rules on my behalf.” If Aaron can flout half a dozen rules, then surely we can allow one little wedding.
“You mean like armor?”
“No, Ester.”
“Can I see your war hammer?” Gore and Aaron spend several minutes comparing the length and width of their weapons. Well, it was nice to see them bonding, I suppose. Gore even proposed trading weapons, but Aaron wasn’t interested.
“So,” said Canliss, “are we go ready to leave and fight the ice creatures?”
“Perhaps we should share our plan with Aaron?”
“It’s really slippy,” said Ester.
I found that I was rather embarrassed about explaining our plan to Aaron. I hoped he didn’t think it was my idea. “You see, we were planning to --“
“I was going to commit suicide,” Canliss rudely interrupted.
I glared at him. “Canliss, dear, I was speaking.”
“Sorry, please continue.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t interrupt him,” said Gore. “Go ahead, Canliss.”
I glared at the stupid barbarian. “How dare you speak to me like that?”
“Canliss was reiterating the plan.”
“Nikita is far more eloquent than I am,” Canliss said hastily. “Go ahead, Nikita.”
“We don’t need interruptions from people who are afraid of pegs, thank you very much.” I thought I saw Aaron’s mask twitch, but I couldn’t be sure.
I explained our plan to reach the Soul of Ice to Aaron. “The ice bridge is very slippery. Canliss has offered to fly over to the Soul of Ice and smack it with a stick.”
“I thought he wanted to throw a rock at it,” said Haquia.
“I’m going to smack it with a stick if the rocks don’t work,” Canliss explained. He didn’t even have the grace to look ashamed.
“Even Gore thinks that’s a stupid idea, Canliss.”
Gore nodded. “A hammer would work better.”
“I already smashed the stern child of loving mother unborn,” Ester told Aaron.
“You smashed a child?”
“No,” Jven intervened hastily. “It’s a long story. Apparently we smashed the prototype for the Soul of Ice.”
“They took my baby! They took my baby!” Ester screamed in imitation of Madeleine the shrieking ghost. Gore, Val and Haquia looked unnerved by her sudden and rather strange outburst, but Aaron nodded.
“Ah, Madeleine.”
“How do you know that story?” I asked.
“I know someone named Madeleine.” He lied. Ester hadn’t yet mentioned Madeleine’s name. How had this “Aaron” learned so much about us? Yet we knew nothing about him. It wasn’t fair.
“How could you forget Madeleine?” said Ester.
“Do you have any suggestions?” Val asked Aaron.
“Your plan as it is will fail,” he said.
We all stared at him. Honestly. I knew it wasn’t a very good plan, but I thought it was rude of Aaron to put it so bluntly.
“Yes, that’s obvious,” Val conceded.
“We can not all possibly get across the bridge to reach the Soul of Ice.”
“I volunteer to stay here,” said Jven.
“Why do you think our plan will fail?” Gore asked.
“Some of us are bound to fall into the lava.”
“Yes, but some of us will make it.”
We all stared at Gore. There was only one person in the group we’d all be happy to see fall into the lava, and we were looking at him.
“I think we should look for a back door,” said Val. “There must be another way to get there.”
“We should investigate further,” Aaron agreed.
Everyone agreed to this, and we climbed down from the rope trick. The hot, mineral baths understandably excited Jven and we lost Ester’s attention for a while in the kitchen.
There was a small corridor behind the kitchen. It was dark ahead, so Aaron stopped and lit a torch from his pack.
“Don’t you guys have light sources?”
“Nope,” said Canliss.
“I got my head lamp,” said Ester.
“Hmm,” said Aaron. Our only light source was Ester’s tacky headlamp. Now this was embarrassing.
Gore dug through his pack. “I’ve got a torch.” The barbarian was more prepared than the rest of us. Now this was truly humiliating.
We found a round room with crates and barrels stacked along the walls. A well stood in the center of the room. The stones forming the top were silver and engraved with arcane runes. We all walked up to the well and peered at it curiously.
Aaron stopped and cast a spell on the well. “Hmm. It didn’t work.”
“I was going to try comprehend languages,” I said.
“Good idea.”
While I was casting my spell, Gore dipped his water skin into the water before anyone could stop him.
“Gore, no!” Ester yelled.
“Don’t break my spell, Gore,” Aaron yelled.
Oblivious, Gore took a sip of the water. “Mmmm. It’s nice and cold.”
“Ah!” Ester yelped as the sloshing water splashed on her legs. She glared at Gore, who sadly was showing no ill effects from drinking the water.
My spell did not allow me to read the runes on the well, so I asked Canliss to try reading the magic. He cast the spell while Aaron took Gore aside, presumably for a lecture about the dangers of disturbing magical runes. I didn’t try to dissuade Aaron; he’ll lose patience with Gore soon enough.
“The well is some sort of Gateway,” Canliss explained. “It goes to some unmapped lake in the mountains near Tonn.”
“So, it’s a fancy well,” said Haquia.
Canliss nodded. “Or it’s an escape route.”
“If you can breathe water,” said Val.
“I can,” Canliss said proudly. “And so can Jven.”
“That doesn’t really help the rest of us, does it dear?” I wasn’t entirely confident that Canliss wouldn’t abandon the rest of us to save himself, but I had more faith in Jven.
“This may mean that the Brotherhood is active in Tonn as well,” I said.
Val shrugged. “Or they just knew where the good water was. I mean, not everything is a conspiracy.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
Much to everyone’s surprise. Jven stuck her head in the water. After a few minutes, she came back up looking wet and happy. “The well is forty feet deep before you reach the portal.”
“Why did you do that?” asked Val.
Jven shrugged. “Just curious.”
“Wait a minute. If the portal is forty feet under water, the Brotherhood must have some way to breathe under water. Or they couldn’t use this portal.”
Knowing that there was an escape route, however odd, was some comfort to us. Who knew what would happen to these caverns once the Soul of Ice was destroyed? We refilled our water skins and moved across the rope bridge beyond the kitchen, but not before Aaron cast ‘endure elements’ on Gore and himself.
Jven gave me a curious look.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Some Torodinites can cast that.”
Ester muttered complaints against Gore the whole way across the bridge. “I can’t believe you just reached across magical writing without asking Nikita or Canliss if it was okay. We are not gonna be roomies any more when we get back.”
Jven an I exchanged surprised looks. We’d no idea that Ester’s relationship with Gore had gone that far.
“Whatever you do,” Jven whispered, “don’t picture it.”
“Well, thanks a lot. Now I can’t help it.” Some images are far more disturbing than skeletal budgies.
The corridor beyond the rope bridge opened up into a wider area that was blocked by a floor-to-ceiling red velvet curtain. This was strange enough to unnerve all of us, so I sent a creeping shadow under the curtain. Several pillars supported the immense room beyond. The pillars were undulating in a flame motif that was really rather tacky.
I made a cursory examination of the room with the creeping shadow. A large dining table made of polished dark wood was set with fine china. The chairs sported bright, orange cushions – positively hideous. Beyond that was a trio of plush red sofas with a table sporting a crystal decanter and glasses filled with an amber colored liquid. There was also a sitting area with several bookshelves, and a large desk, which I recognized at the one from which the Brotherhood mage wrote the threatening letter to the city of Istur. A short flight of stairs led to a bathtub big enough for four people that was surrounded by mirrors on three sides. The bathtub was empty and there was no obvious way to fill it with water. Two thirds of the way through the room, I could see large, bloody foot prints that led from and disappeared into exits blocked by tacky, red curtains on either side of the room.
I described my findings. “The bath tub looked very nice. If only Rhavin were here.”
“But it’s an evil bath tub,” said Ester.
“Ester, bath tubs are never evil.”
“Just decadent,” Canliss said longingly.
“Those Esterealans,” Aaron said disapprovingly. “They’re so stuffy.” I can only assume he was referring to my remark about Rhavin.
“Not all of them,” I informed him.
“Yes. All of them.”
“No, they’re not. You’ve obviously never known any.” Our conversation ended with stony silence on both sides. Clearly, I’m going to have to have the same talk with Aaron as I did with Dante, Seregil, Salvador, and Nysander. Brother priests or no, I won’t tolerate disparaging remarks about my beloved.
For now, I chose to ignore Aaron and joined Canliss and Jven, who were staring longingly at the bathtub.
“Look at it,” I said in wonder. “It’s big enough for four. Although, really, more than two is a crowd.”
Jven shrugged. “If you say so.”
Canliss laughed. I chose not to comment.
The book shelves were disappointing. They seemed to be an eclectic mix of books that were pilfered randomly from the homes of the wealthy. For reasons no one cared to question, Gore took a book of poetry, then mauled the curtains on the canopy bed. Aaron did find a piece of parchment on the desk, but it was blank.
Frustrated by the lack of information to be gleaned from this room, I found myself eavesdropping on Canliss and Jven, who were happily lounging in the ugly, red sofas and sipping brandy.
“Want to come back here later?” Canliss asked Jven.
She scowled. “To the books? No. To the bathtub?...Let me have a little more brandy while I think about it.”
Canliss chuckled. “Come back to the books??? Are you crazy? I was talking about the steaming bathtub!! With some more brandy!
Jven smiled. “Canliss, we may have found some common ground. Want a hit? Or are you going to get your own decanter?” She pocketed the decanter in question. “Obviously, I need to return this to its rightful owner.”
Hmmm. Those two have gotten awfully chummy of late. I’m starting to wonder what really happened when they got stuck in that rope trick all alone together. I’ll bet I can pry the truth out of Canliss.
While the rest of us were amusing ourselves and/or searching for clues, Aaron studied the bloody footprints. He declared them to be significantly larger than Gore/Ester size. Realizing we needed to get moving and find out where these footprints were heading, I tried to round everyone up. Typically, Gore and Ester were goofing around.
“Hey, there’s no heat coming from these pillars,” said Gore, as if we hadn’t noticed this by now.
Deciding to test this obvious fact, the two warriors skewered Ester’s ham and cheese sandwich on Gore’s sword and stuck it in the flames; it did not toast.
“It’s not real flame,” Ester said. “Gore, give me my sandwich back.”
“Come along you two,” I told them. “We’re leaving now.” Honestly, we need to get a little discipline in this group.
Val and Haquia, who were less distracted than the rest of the group were the first to follow the footprints. The blood was smeared, as if something bloody were being dragged along the ground. Val peeked through the red curtain. The glow of lava lit the room beyond. It once was an elegant library, but it was now sacked. Bookcases were toppled over and smashed. Books and padded chairs were shredded. What would do such a thing to a library? It was appalling.
“Hey, I hear something over there,” Haquia warns Val sotto voce. “Could be what made these foot prints.”
“Right.” Val closed the curtain and whispered to the rest of us as we gathered around. Ester changed Hilt to a blade of steel.
Val reopened the curtain and stepped cautiously through. They saw a creature in a room just beyond the library, throwing some metal-bound book into the lava pit. It roared in frustration.
“I think it’s a big frozen one,” Val whispered.
We began moving carefully through the chaotic library. It was hard to get around all the broken shelves and debris. I cast Dispel Evil, thinking to banish the creature – anything that would ransack a library clearly belonged in the abyss. Aaron leaped over a bookshelf into the room where the creature stood, only to land flat on his face. He wasn’t exactly making the church of Torodin look good.
Ester rushed into the room with Hilt held high. She shivered as she swung at the creature. Her blade bounced harmlessly off its icy skin.
“Creepy cold! Creepy cold!” Ester cried out in warning. “It’s an evil corpsicle.”
Gore rushed into the room, leaped over a toppled bookshelf, and fell on his ass right beside Aaron. I suppose it was preferable to landing on top of him.
“This is so undignified,” I complained. You would never see Rhavin behaving like that.
Magic missiles, courtesy of Canliss, zipped into the room to strike the creature in its shoulder. It roared in pain. I heard Haquia gasp behind me; I didn’t turn around to see her lift her bow, only to fall to the ground, covered with ice. Jven examined her. Haquia was frozen solid and didn’t appear to be breathing.
Val, up near the front of the group, leaped nimbly over a fallen bookshelf, launched off Gore and landed beside the creature. She stabbed it and sprang backward. I was relieved to see that someone in our group could fight with style.
The creature roared and swung its massive fists at Ester, who ducked both blows. It was time to end this. I Nikita stepped over Aaron, into the room and reached toward the creature. The last thing I knew was terrible pain.
The rest of the battle I can only piece together from the others’ recollections. I’m told that I gasped and fell to the ground, frozen solid just like Haquia. Aaron made a strangled cry of rage, got to his feet and cast his magic knife-like things at the creature (this time they were black instead of white) – both blades hit. Ester, shuddering, swung again and missed. Ester screamed in frustration. Gore got to his feet, went into a rage, and rushed up beside Ester. Canliss tried to cast a second magic missile and became frozen. Jven cast dispel magic on Canliss, to no effect. Meanwhile, Val leaped forward with her customary flashiness and stabbed the creature, which responded by clubbing both Gore and Ester with its ham-like fists. Finally, Aaron hit the creature with two of his weird daggers and it fell to the ground dead.
“Noooo, “ Ester cried. “I never got to hit it.”
They examined the creature’s corpse. It was humanoid, hairless and sexless with a narrow, elongated head. There was no blood on the creature’s feet – no one knew where the bloody footprints came from. Nobody was willing to touch the nasty creature. Ester and Jven kicked the body aside so they could look over the precipice for the book they’d seen the creature throw into the lava. They saw it about forty-five feet down, stuck on some rocks at the edge of the lava. It was glowing hot.
After Jven cast some protective spells, they lowered Ester down the precipice, with Gore and Val and holding the rope. Jven quenched the area when the rope starts to smolder. Ester successfully retrieved the book, which is entirely made of metal. She dropped it, screeching , “Hot! Hot! Hot!” as she reached the top. She shook off her metal gauntlet, which melted on her hand. Jven healed her. Ester was pleased with her find, but no one could read the book. No one conscious, that is.
When dispel magic yielded no appreciable change, the group decided to soak Canliss, Haquia and myself in the hot mineral baths. They waited for hours, hoping for some change in our strange condition. Sadly, whatever fiendish power had felled us appeared to be more than a match for a hot bath. Our condition did not improve.
My companions felt they had no choice but to take the three of us to Our Lady of the Dove for healing. There, I am ashamed to report, Ester and Gor caused an incident that left a dozen city guards unconscious and caused a few Soltanites to get all huffy. Ester wasn’t the slightest bit contrite about the incident. I had to withhold healing just to get a promise to apologize. I’m so horrified. What has happened to the gentle, sweet Ester I used to know? Obviously, Gor is having a terrible influence on her. I’m going to have to do something about that barbarian. First thing will be to make sure he’s never let inside Strand’s Shadows again – Torodin only knows what sort of chaos he would cause. The big oaf has no respect for the Church.
Luckily for us, Aren (He has corrected me regarding the spelling of his name; I guess I’m going to have to keep a closer eye on my journal.) extricated our overly robust companions from any legal difficulties. We lost no time on our mission, since Canliss, Haquia and I required a full day to recover. That was not a pleasant process. I was horrified when I awoke and found they’d dressed us in pink smocks made of some cheap material, attended by some dim-witted novitiate whose ministrations I was too weak to resist.
Jven rescued us from that rose-tinted hell and took us all to Strand’s Shadows. I believe she explained things to Donar. My memory is a little fuzzy – I was quite ill. Fortunately, we all woke up this morning fully recovered, and we regrouped back here in the lava pits. (Well, I know they’re not really pits, but they’re not exactly cheerful.)
Jven, Canliss and I all enjoyed the hot mineral baths while I used a spell to decipher the metal book Ester had recovered from the lava. It turned out to be the private journal of a man calling himself Huhueotl, which loosely translates from the Ignan to mean “Flame Lord.” (Not terribly original.)
Huhueotl, whatever his real name was, is evidently an extremely arrogant man. His journal bragged at great length about opening up a permanent portal to the elemental plane of Fire. Before long he began recruiting minions in his efforts to burn down buildings, allowing him to plunder the city and fund more magical experiments. Eventually, his purpose evolved into a megalomaniacal plan to take over Istur. This quest for power gained him more recruits, presumably men and women who were as misguided and overconfident as their leader.
The Flame Lord’s research eventually led him to discover the true names of five chitons, which I recall from Donar’s library are a type of demon. This foolish mage learned how to bind these demons to our plane of existence, but he hadn’t yet learned how to control them. This would lead us to the conclusion that the demons haven’t yet been summoned, if proof of Huhueotl’s foolish behavior hadn’t been rising from the lava all around us.
Once the Great Storm hit, this maniac decided that he was going to save Istur. (The man’s arrogance is truly astonishing.) He discovered something he called the Frozen Soul – how he discovered it or why he decided to call it that are not clear from the journal. The man’s writing is terribly murky. He brought the Soul of Ice to his sanctum, planning to destroy it. He failed in this, but he was able to conduct a ritual binding the five devils and use them to contain the Soul of Ice, so that its freezing effects would not extend beyond a radius of fifty feet.
I found one passage of particular interest which I will quote here: Imagine my surprise to find that the Frozen Soul is not a magical item, but is in fact a single mote of ice that exists both in this plane and in some frozen dimension. This leaves open a troubling possibility that if one were to chip away all of the outer item and expose it, one could melt the inner part with just the touch of a fingertip. This is a weakness I must consider before executing my plan.
Armed with this knowledge, we dried off, got dressed, and made our way to library where so many of us had recently been felled. Finding nothing of interest there, we followed the frozen creature’s bloody footprints to toward their point of origin. We all hesitated outside the closed door. What if there were more of those creatures? Were we truly prepared for what awaited us on the other side?