The Enemy of My Enemy
The wall could not be seen.
That did not make it less solid.
Kaylor pressed one hand against the empty air. The invisible barrier refused him with the certainty of stone.
Behind him, the remains of the bone collective covered the circular chamber. Fragments of skeletons lay among scorched stones, broken blades, and the coins they had decided were too heavy to carry.
Ahead, somewhere beyond the barrier, waited the passage beneath Joraya Prison.
And somewhere above that waited Mayhem.
Less than a day remained before his execution.
Gygax returned from another attempt to find the barrier’s edge.
The mouse climbed into Nethnarel’s hand, damp earth clinging to her paws.
“She went down?” Fendor asked.
Nethnarel nodded.
“And sideways?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“The wall continues.”
Isamu examined the empty passage.
“So it is an invisible wall extending beneath the floor and into both sides of the cavern.”
“Yes.”
“That seems excessive.”
“Prisons often are.”
Grazim stepped forward.
“Move back.”
Everyone did.
Divine power gathered around the war-priest’s hand. He spoke a prayer, then pushed the magic into the unseen obstruction.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then blue light raced across the barrier.
The invisible wall revealed itself in a web of glowing fractures. Cracks spread from floor to ceiling, crossed one another, and multiplied until a vast pane of light stood before them.
It shattered.
Fragments fell like glass but vanished before touching the ground.
The way forward opened.
Isamu looked at Grazim.
“That was effective.”
Grazim lowered his hand.
“Yes.”
“Do you have more of those?”
“No.”
“Less effective.”
Isamu drew his rapier and entered the passage.
The torture-room whip remained coiled at his side.
Hexen noticed.
“You kept it.”
“It is temporary.”
“You now have two weapons.”
“One of them is temporary.”
“Of course.”
The corridor widened into a cavern that had existed before anyone built the catacombs beneath Joraya. The ceiling rose more than thirty feet above them. Stonework reinforced parts of the walls, but much of the chamber remained rough and natural.
Moisture gleamed overhead.
Isamu moved quietly.
He had gone perhaps twenty paces when part of the ceiling moved.
The black substance clinging there had appeared to be shadow.
Now it flowed.
Isamu looked up.
The mass released itself.
He moved before it landed.
The ooze struck the floor where he had been standing and spread outward in a thick, acidic wave. Isamu slashed it with the rapier as he passed, then followed with a bare-handed strike.
His fist entered the creature.
Pain answered immediately.
Acid clung to his skin and began eating into it.
Isamu ripped his hand free.
“That was a mistake.”
The black mass rose after him.
More movement came from the ceiling.
A second ooze dropped.
Then a third.
One was almost transparent against the damp stone. Another was dark enough to swallow the light around it.
“Kaylor!” Isamu shouted.
The dragonborn entered the cavern at a run.
His Dancing Sword left his hand and cut into the first ooze. Kaylor followed with his axe, then opened his jaws and breathed frost across the black mass.
Ice spread through the slime.
The creature slowed.
It did not stop.
Fendor’s arrows struck from the corridor.
One disappeared entirely into the dark body.
Another tore a channel through it.
Nethnarel raised one hand.
Fire gathered.
The bolt struck an ooze clinging to the ceiling and burned through enough of it that the creature lost its grip. It landed between Kaylor and Grazim.
Grazim’s warhammer came down.
The impact scattered burning pieces across the stone.
They immediately began crawling toward one another.
“I dislike these,” Grazim said.
Hexen sent an Ice Knife into the largest mass.
The blade struck and exploded.
Frozen shards tore through two of the creatures at once.
Isamu circled behind another, struck it with the rapier, then retreated before its acid could reach him again.
Gavasani remained near the entrance with his bow drawn.
The escaped thief had spent most of their journey describing his daring flight through these tunnels.
Now he fired from behind everyone else.
His arrow struck one of the oozes.
Isamu glanced back.
“You are very brave from there.”
“I survived this place once.”
“By running.”
“I survived while running.”
Kaylor cut through the transparent creature.
Grazim brought the Warhammer of Disruption into the black mass beside him. The magic of the weapon had been intended for undead, but the force of the blow was enough.
The ooze collapsed.
Fendor’s final arrow split the last creature.
The remaining slime trembled, spread thinly across the floor, and stopped moving.
Silence returned.
Isamu looked at his burned hand.
Hexen looked at the dead oozes.
“Did you punch one?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to know what would happen.”
Nethnarel glanced at him.
“That philosophy used to belong to Leonidas.”
No one answered.
Leonidas was gone.
The Demon Dice were gone.
Pete was gone.
And the Bag of Holding that would have made carrying treasure through these tunnels considerably easier had vanished with them.
They searched the cavern.
The oozes had dissolved almost everything they consumed, but several objects had survived in a protected hollow near the wall.
Kaylor found a pair of engraved bone dice.
Isamu saw them in his hand.
“Those seem familiar.”
“They are ordinary.”
“That is what Leonidas would have said.”
Kaylor placed them with the other valuables.
They found a jeweled brooch worth perhaps one hundred fifty gold pieces and a carefully folded square of black cloth.
Inside the cloth rested a pair of gloves.
Nethnarel studied them.
“Magic.”
“What kind?” Kaylor asked.
She turned one over in her hands.
“They assist with climbing and swimming. Considerably.”
Hexen looked at them.
“I can become something that climbs.”
“And something that swims,” Nethnarel said.
“Yes.”
Isamu flexed his burned hand.
“I climb well enough.”
Fendor shook his head.
Kaylor accepted the gloves.
He was most often the first into danger and the most likely to be asked to cross something impossible while wearing enough armor to drown an ordinary soldier.
The gloves made sense.
They continued upward.
The rough cavern narrowed and then opened into a chamber built around a complicated water mechanism.
Two enormous iron doors blocked the passages beyond it.
They did not swing.
Chains ran from their upper edges into the ceiling, allowing them to rise like portcullises.
Between them stood a broad stone basin divided into several levels. A circular stone weight occupied its center. A lever waited near the northern wall.
Gavasani stopped.
“I came through the southern door.”
“Was it open?” Fendor asked.
“Yes.”
“What opened it?”
“I did not stop to ask.”
Isamu examined him.
“You continue to be extremely helpful.”
“I brought you here.”
“And you have done very well.”
Gavasani could not determine whether the monk was mocking him.
That seemed to trouble him more than open contempt would have.
Nethnarel used the Wand of Secrets.
The rod remained still.
“No traps.”
“None it recognizes,” Kaylor said.
Fendor followed the chains with his eyes.
“The doors are counterweighted.”
Hexen looked at the basin.
“With water.”
Isamu walked to the lever.
Kaylor raised one hand.
“Wait.”
Isamu stopped.
Everyone prepared.
Fendor drew the Oathbow.
Kaylor called the Dancing Sword to hover beside him.
Grazim raised his shield.
Nethnarel climbed onto a low section of the stone basin where she could see both doors.
Hexen drew the Spear of Life and the Spear of Death.
Isamu pulled the lever.
The northern gate began to rise.
Water poured into the upper basin.
The level climbed slowly, filling one channel and then another. The weight at the center sank beneath the growing pressure.
Both iron doors lifted.
Something moved inside the water.
Isamu saw a face rise beneath the surface.
A humanoid creature erupted from the basin and drove a trident toward him.
Isamu twisted aside.
The first thrust missed.
The second would have pierced his chest, but he struck it aside with one of his bracers.
Another water warrior emerged beside Hexen.
Its body was formed from flowing liquid around a denser central shape. It attacked with a weapon made from ice and water.
Hexen raised one hand.
Life withered beneath his magic.
Blight struck the creature.
Its watery form darkened and collapsed inward as though the spell had drained part of the force holding it together.
Kaylor attacked another.
The Dancing Sword cut from one side.
His axe came from the other.
A larger mass of water rose behind Nethnarel.
It did not possess a weapon.
It did not need one.
The elemental slammed into her with the weight of a breaking wave.
Nethnarel struck the stone hard.
Before she could rise, the creature hit her again.
Pain spread through her body.
For one heartbeat, she could not breathe.
Then hellfire answered.
Nethnarel’s eyes opened.
Flame raced across the water elemental’s body, turning part of it into steam.
The creature recoiled.
Nethnarel dragged herself upright.
“I remain alive.”
“Good,” Fendor said.
He released two arrows into the creature.
Grazim climbed onto the edge of the fountain and swung his hammer at another elemental.
The weapon passed through its body with almost no resistance.
Grazim swung again.
The second blow was no more effective.
Isamu saw him.
“Have you considered hitting it?”
Grazim looked at him.
“I am standing in water fighting water.”
“That is fair.”
The basin continued filling.
The doors continued rising.
Another creature emerged.
Then another.
The chamber became water, weapons, magic, and the grinding of chains.
Hexen attacked with both spears.
The Spear of Death struck first.
The Spear of Life followed.
The magic connecting the weapons returned some of the strength the water creatures had taken from him.
Kaylor drove one enemy backward.
Fendor kept firing from the dry edge of the chamber.
Isamu fought inside the basin itself, using the rapier when distance allowed and his hands when it did not.
Nethnarel sent fire through the water.
Steam filled the chamber.
Gavasani moved along the outer wall, looking for an angle with his bow.
One of the great elementals turned.
The water rose.
Gavasani had just enough time to see it.
The wave struck him.
He disappeared beneath it.
“Gavasani!” Nethnarel shouted.
The thief surfaced once.
His hand reached above the water.
Then the elemental drove him into the stone basin.
When the water withdrew, he did not move.
There was no time to reach him.
Another water warrior attacked Kaylor.
A trident cut between the plates of his armor. Ice formed inside the wound.
Kaylor answered with divine force.
Light exploded through the creature.
Its body scattered across the fountain.
Grazim called the sound of death into another.
The unseen bell tolled.
The water shuddered.
Then collapsed.
Fendor’s arrows finished one of the remaining warriors.
Hexen trapped another between his spears.
Isamu struck the last elemental again and again until its shape could no longer hold itself together.
The chamber became still.
Water continued flowing into the basin.
The iron gates had risen almost completely.
Nethnarel went to Gavasani.
She knelt beside him.
The aasimar thief was dead.
Grazim joined her.
He examined the body.
“He has been gone too long for ordinary healing.”
“You brought Krill back,” Nethnarel said.
“Yes.”
Grazim looked at the gates.
Then at the water.
Then toward the prison above them.
“That prayer requires power I may need before this is finished.”
Kaylor stood over them.
They had less than a day before Mayhem’s execution.
They had entered the catacombs to free a criminal.
Their guide was dead because he had brought them here.
Kaylor looked away.
“We take him with us when we leave.”
No one said what they were all thinking.
That assumed they left.
They searched Gavasani’s possessions.
His dagger carried a strong enchantment. Isamu accepted it and added it to the weapons at his belt.
The thief’s shortbow was magical as well.
Hexen took it.
“You use bows?” Isamu asked.
“I can.”
“Have you ever?”
“No.”
“Good.”
A collection of scrolls had survived inside the upper basin.
Nethnarel dried them as carefully as possible.
One contained spells for charming a person, creating illusory duplicates, and resisting elemental energy.
Another carried a spell allowing its reader to speak with animals, along with a necromantic prayer designed to inflict wounds.
Hexen took the second scroll.
Then he looked at Gygax.
Nethnarel immediately understood.
“No.”
Hexen had already begun reading.
The writing vanished from the page.
Magic settled over him.
Gygax sat on Nethnarel’s shoulder.
Hexen crouched until his face was level with the mouse.
“Hello.”
Gygax stared at him.
Then answered.
The voice did not come through the air in the ordinary way. Hexen understood it as meaning, intention, and words translated by the spell.
You already know I am not what I appear to be.
Hexen looked at Nethnarel.
“She says she is not a mouse.”
“I knew that.”
“You did?”
“I strongly suspected.”
Gygax’s whiskers twitched.
My true nature is not yet for you to see.
Hexen considered this.
“What are you?”
The mouse cleaned one paw.
Not yet.
“Why not?”
You are not ready.
Hexen looked mildly offended.
Gygax continued.
But you interest me.
The spell ended.
Gygax returned to being an apparently ordinary mouse sitting on the shoulder of a tiefling sorcerer who had awakened without memories on the summit of a mountain.
Hexen stood.
“Well.”
Nethnarel folded her arms.
“What did she say?”
“That I am interesting.”
“Anything useful?”
“No.”
“That sounds like Gygax.”
The southern gate stood open.
Beyond it, the catacombs divided.
The heroes moved cautiously.
They had no guide now.
Gavasani had been the only person known to escape Joraya through these passages, and his knowledge ended with his death beside the basin.
Fendor ranged ahead.
One corridor descended toward a crypt filled with stone coffins. Another curved around the water chamber and joined it from the opposite side.
The others remained behind for only a few moments, dividing the scrolls and recovering from the fight.
That was long enough.
A coffin opened beside Fendor.
A dead warrior rose from it.
Its flesh had dried tight across its face. A longsword remained in one hand. Darkness clung to the blade.
A second coffin opened behind him.
Fendor raised the Oathbow.
The first undead creature’s face changed.
Its features stretched into something impossible, a vision of death and terror meant to freeze the living in place.
Fendor did not freeze.
He fired.
The first arrow struck the creature’s chest.
The second carried an explosive enchantment. Force burst through the undead warrior and tore into the second creature beside it.
Both remained standing.
One reached Fendor.
The sword struck.
Cold rot spread from the wound.
Fendor shouted.
The sound barely carried through the catacombs.
Hexen heard it.
He ran.
He covered the distance faster than anyone expected, reaching Fendor before the others had even entered the corridor.
The nearest undead turned its horrific face toward him.
Hexen felt fear try to seize his body.
It failed.
“We are tougher than you,” he said.
The creature attacked.
Kaylor came next.
Then Isamu.
Grazim reached the intersection and raised his holy symbol.
“Enough.”
Divine force filled the corridor.
One undead warrior recoiled.
The second turned and fled.
It ran deeper into the crypt.
Fendor fired after it.
The arrow missed the fleeing creature, changed direction in midflight, and struck the one still fighting Hexen.
Isamu closed with it.
The enchanted dagger found dead flesh.
His unarmed strike followed.
Kaylor’s Dancing Sword cut across the creature’s back.
Hexen drove both spears through its chest.
The undead fell.
The other had disappeared into a room holding six stone coffins.
Two stood open.
Isamu entered carefully.
No movement.
No sound.
Fendor remained behind him with the Oathbow drawn.
Kaylor examined the open coffins.
“Empty.”
Isamu approached another.
“Perhaps we should leave these closed.”
“Yes,” Kaylor said.
Isamu opened it.
A third undead guardian rose.
Kaylor stared at Isamu.
“I had just said—”
The creature attacked.
Kaylor answered with overwhelming force.
The Dancing Sword struck.
His axe followed.
Divine radiance erupted through the dead warrior.
The creature remained standing after a blow that would have destroyed almost anything else.
Fendor fired through the narrow gap between four of his companions.
The arrow passed Kaylor’s shoulder, crossed beside Hexen’s head, and struck the undead creature between the eyes.
It fell backward into the coffin.
Isamu looked at Fendor.
“That was close.”
“I aimed.”
“That is not the reassuring statement you believe it is.”
Inside the coffin they found more than thirteen hundred copper pieces.
No one wanted them.
Isamu picked up a handful.
Kaylor looked at him.
“What?”
“They are coins.”
“They weigh more than they are worth.”
“That describes many things.”
Isamu dropped them back into the coffin.
The final passage ended before a locked stone door.
A carving covered its surface.
An armored warrior stood over defeated enemies, holding a staff wreathed in flame.
The craftsmanship was old.
The symbol upon the warrior’s armor was not.
Kaylor recognized it.
His order.
His faith.
The same tradition that had produced the Sanctum of Serenity.
He studied the carving.
A name returned from his education.
“Milan Ferry,” he said after a moment. “Or something close to it.”
The caption of memory was uncertain, but the figure was not.
Fendor looked at him.
“You know him?”
“He was a guardian of the old order.”
Kaylor traced the symbol upon the door.
“He designed Joraya Prison.”
Isamu looked around the catacombs.
“He built all this?”
“At least part of it.”
“And they buried him beneath his own prison.”
“It would appear so.”
Nethnarel approached the lock.
“Can anyone open it?”
Isamu knelt and worked carefully with his thieves’ tools.
The lock refused him.
He tried again.
Nothing.
Kaylor stepped back.
“Move.”
Isamu gathered the tools.
“You could allow me another attempt.”
Kaylor kicked the door.
Stone cracked.
He kicked again.
The lock tore partly free.
On the third blow, the door collapsed inward.
Fendor raised the Oathbow.
“So much for entering quietly.”
They entered the ancient guardian’s tomb.
Arrows came from the darkness.
One struck Kaylor.
Another passed through a joint in Grazim’s plate and buried itself deep.
Stone coffins lined the walls. Statues of the ancient guardian stood among them. Dead warriors moved between the sarcophagi, their armor bearing the same religious symbols Kaylor had worn with pride.
A larger figure rose near the central tomb.
Fire burned along the quarterstaff in its hand.
An ornate breastplate covered its dead torso.
The guardian raised a sword and spoke a prayer.
Kaylor understood every word.
The invocation called upon the same divine power he had served.
Radiant spirits appeared around the undead defenders.
They wore the shapes of ancient warriors.
Light passed through their weapons.
For one heartbeat, Kaylor did not move.
The prayer was correct.
The forms were correct.
The power answered.
These were not Craven’s servants.
Not obviously.
They were guardians of Joraya.
And the heroes had broken through their tomb while attempting to release a condemned criminal.
One of the undead attacked Grazim.
The radiant weapon struck hard enough to knock the cleric from his feet.
“Kaylor!” Fendor shouted.
Kaylor moved.
The Dancing Sword cut into the nearest guardian.
His axe followed.
Divine power exploded through an enemy carrying the symbol of his own god.
The contradiction struck almost as hard as the weapon.
Nethnarel sent a Fireball into the chamber.
Flame filled the spaces between the coffins.
Several undead vanished inside the explosion.
Others emerged burning.
Hexen called an Insect Plague into the tomb.
The air darkened.
Thousands of biting creatures descended upon the guardians, filling the room with wings, chitin, and the scraping of insects against ancient armor.
Isamu reached one of the sword-bearing dead.
The rapier struck.
He followed with a Stunning Strike.
The creature resisted.
Isamu attacked again.
This time its body locked in place.
“Now.”
Fendor’s arrows struck the helpless guardian.
Grazim lay motionless near the broken door.
Hexen saw him.
Healing Spirit appeared above the fallen cleric, a radiant presence pouring restorative magic into him.
Grazim drew breath.
His eyes opened.
Fendor invoked the Oathbow.
Healing spread through the party.
Grazim forced himself upright.
He raised his holy symbol and summoned his own Spirit Guardians.
Radiant defenders formed around him.
For several moments, the tomb contained two competing manifestations of the same faith.
One surrounding the living cleric.
One protecting the undead jailers.
They collided.
Light tore through the chamber.
One enemy fled from Grazim’s divine authority.
Kaylor destroyed another with a Smite.
The central guardian raised its flaming staff.
Fire swept across the heroes.
Nethnarel answered with Scorching Rays.
Three lines of flame struck the dead warrior.
Then she gathered the last of her sorcerous power and released a doubled barrage of Magic Missiles.
Wild magic surged with it.
The glowing bolts filled the tomb.
At the same moment, Nethnarel’s voice changed.
“WHY AM I SHOUTING?”
Everyone heard her despite the battle.
Isamu glanced back.
“You are very loud.”
“I KNOW.”
The missiles struck.
One undead guardian collapsed under the barrage.
Another advanced on Kaylor.
The spirits surrounding it carried the iconography of his god.
Its sword entered a gap in his armor.
Darkness and radiance moved together through the wound.
Kaylor staggered.
The creature attacked again.
Kaylor blocked it.
He looked into the dead face behind the ancient helmet.
“You guarded this place.”
The undead raised its sword.
“So do I.”
Kaylor struck.
The first blow opened its armor.
The second carried his remaining divine power.
The Smite exploded through the guardian.
It fell.
Fendor shot another undead warrior from between the statues.
Hexen’s insects consumed two more.
Isamu struck the stunned guardian until it collapsed.
Grazim called down a Flame Strike.
Divine fire filled the rear of the tomb.
The remaining archers burned.
Only the central guardian remained.
Its flaming staff swept toward Kaylor.
The dragonborn ducked beneath the blow.
Fendor’s arrow struck the breastplate.
A second found the joint beneath one arm.
The guardian turned toward him.
Kaylor came from the side.
His first strike missed.
The Dancing Sword cut across the guardian’s back.
Kaylor raised the axe again.
The dead warrior lifted its flaming staff.
Kaylor called upon the faith the creature had once served.
Light gathered around his weapon.
For a moment, he wondered whether it would answer.
It did.
The final Divine Smite shattered the ancient guardian.
Flame disappeared from its eyes.
The quarterstaff struck the floor, still burning.
The armored body collapsed beside it.
The radiant spirits protecting the tomb vanished.
Silence returned.
Nethnarel looked around.
“IS IT OVER?”
Hexen lowered his spears.
“Yes.”
“GOOD.”
Her voice remained thunderously loud.
Isamu covered one ear.
“How long will that continue?”
“I DO NOT KNOW.”
They searched the tomb.
The central guardian’s quarterstaff was enchanted. Fire burned along its length without harming the person attuned to it. In addition to its ordinary magical strength, every strike carried additional flame.
Nethnarel examined it.
Isamu looked interested.
“So is that temporary too?” Hexen asked.
“I have not taken it.”
“Yet.”
The guardian’s breastplate carried an even stronger enchantment. Beautifully worked metal surrounded the chest and shoulders, preserved despite centuries beneath the prison.
None of them immediately claimed it.
A chest near the central sarcophagus contained gemstones worth approximately fifteen hundred gold pieces.
Those they could carry.
They searched the remaining coffins.
One stood slightly apart in the eastern corner.
Behind it, almost hidden by the arrangement of stone and shadow, they found a spiral staircase.
It climbed upward.
Kaylor stood at its base.
Above them waited Joraya Prison.
Mayhem.
The proof they hoped would expose Craven.
Behind them lay the shattered remains of the ancient guardian and the warriors who had protected the prison in the name of Kaylor’s own faith.
Fendor joined him.
“We found the way.”
“Yes.”
“You do not sound pleased.”
Kaylor looked at the symbols carved into the tomb.
Craven led the Sanctum.
Craven had tortured and murdered beneath Krinrith.
That did not mean every person opposing Craven was good.
It did not mean every person serving the law was corrupt.
And it did not mean the criminal waiting above deserved freedom.
The enemy of his enemy might possess the truth.
He might even help them destroy Craven.
But that did not make him a friend.
Kaylor placed one hand upon the stair.
“We get Mayhem.”
“And then?”
Kaylor looked upward.
“Then we learn what kind of enemy we have freed.”