The darkness beyond Ninurta's door breathed water.
A cool draft moved through the newly opened passage, carrying the steady thunder of a waterfall and the mineral scent of a cavern that had been sealed for ages. The hydra's blood still steamed in the repaired basin behind them. Ahead, the black corridor bent west beneath the mountain.
Grazim raised one armored hand.
"Before we find the next god," he said, "some of us should stop leaking."
His prayer was brief. Warm light passed from him into Kaylor and closed the worst of the wounds left by acid and teeth. It did not restore everything the Grand Library had taken from them, but it gave them enough to keep moving.
That had become their standard for success.
Jorah wiped hydra blood from his returning dagger and looked through the open door.
"Your libraries are unusually violent."
"They are not our libraries," Fendor said.
"That explains why you have not been asked to leave."
Kaylor stepped into the passage before the exchange could improve.
The corridor remained level for only a short distance. Then the walls opened, and the heroes emerged onto the edge of an enormous excavated chamber.
The ceiling disappeared into darkness. A waterfall poured from a cleft high in the northern wall and struck a broad pool with a continuous, echoing roar. Pale green light rose from beneath the water, illuminating submerged steps, broken stone and hundreds of bright objects scattered across the bottom.
Coins.
Gems.
A sword.
The offerings shone through the water like stars trapped beneath glass.
Nethnarel leaned forward.
"At last," she said, "a room that understands us."
"That is usually when the room kills us," Kaylor replied.
Across the pool, half hidden by spray, the back of a colossal statue rose from the stone. Even seated or kneeling, the figure towered above them. Its shoulders were broader than a cottage roof. One massive hand rested upon a carved sea creature. The other held nothing, though the empty grip had been fashioned to close around a weapon far larger than anything a mortal could wield.
Two channels carried water away from the pool, but both had been choked by ancient collapses. The water still seeped between the stones. It simply had nowhere to go quickly.
Hexen crouched at the edge and dipped two fingers into the glowing water.
"No poison," he said. "No obvious corruption."
"That is almost disappointing," Isamu said.
"There is something deep on the southern side," Fendor observed.
The elf's eyes followed the slope of the pool. Most of it was shallow enough to wade. Near the treasure, the bottom fell away into a darker basin.
Kaylor picked up a loose stone and threw it.
It struck the surface, vanished and landed among the coins with a muffled clack.
Nothing rose to eat it.
"Promising," Nethnarel said.
Hexen stood and planted the Staff of the Woodlands beside him.
"Stay close."
He drew a circle in the damp air. The spell settled over them like a second breath, cool and strange. Their lungs tightened once, then accepted the change.
"You can breathe the water now," he said.
"For how long?" Jorah asked.
"Longer than we should need."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one you are getting."
Nethnarel stepped from the ledge.
She sank through the green light, pale hair and cloak drifting above her. Bubbles escaped her mouth when she laughed at the sensation. The sound reached the others only as a blurred tremor beneath the surface.
She landed fifteen feet below among silver, gold and scattered gemstones.
The first thing she did was gather the gems.
Kaylor sighed.
"Of course."
Nethnarel swept several bright stones into her palm and began toward the sword. It lay a short distance away, broad bladed and perfectly preserved despite the water. The weapon was too large for her taste, but its enchantment was visible even before anyone touched it. Fine lines of pale light traced the steel.
Kaylor entered the water after her.
His gloves found purchase on the submerged stone. He moved more easily than a warrior in full armor had any right to move, descended the slope and reached the sword.
He did not pick it up.
He kicked it.
The blade slid through the silt and struck a pile of coins.
Nothing happened.
Kaylor looked back at the others through the water.
"Thorough," Isamu said from the edge.
Kaylor took the weapon in one hand.
The cavern answered.
"WHO STEALS MY OFFERINGS?"
The voice did not come from a single direction. It traveled through the pool, the floor and the heroes' bones. Water jumped from the surface in rings. Dust fell from the invisible ceiling.
Kaylor planted the sword point in the silt and looked toward the waterfall.
Nethnarel's eyes brightened.
She lifted both hands and used her own magic to make her answer roll through the chamber with equal force.
"We do not dishonor you. A weapon should be used, not abandoned at the bottom of a pool."
For one heartbeat, there was only the waterfall.
Then the voice returned.
"THE SWORD IS NOTHING. YOU HAVE TAKEN THE OFFERINGS OF THE GREAT MYRMIDON."
Nethnarel closed her fingers around the gems she had already taken.
"That seems needlessly specific."
Something moved inside the waterfall.
A humanoid figure stepped through the falling water.
It stood nearly forty feet tall.
The Great Myrmidon wore armor shaped from dark metal and flowing water. Its body had no fixed flesh beneath the plates. Currents turned where muscle should have been, held in the outline of a giant warrior. In one hand it carried a trident almost thirty feet long. Frost gathered around the three points. In the other it held a narrow rod from which living tentacles writhed and reached.
At the same moment, a black shape cut through the deep pool.
It was as large as a killer whale, but built wrong for any ordinary sea. Broad fins folded against its body like wings. A long tail ended in a hooked stinger. Its mouth opened wider than its skull should have allowed.
More shapes stirred beneath the water and along the upper darkness.
"Water leapers," Hexen said.
"How many?" Fendor asked.
"Enough."
Grazim thrust out one hand toward the first creature.
Divine command locked around it. The water leaper froze in the middle of its rush, held motionless beneath the surface.
"One less," the halfling said.
Hexen raised the Staff of the Woodlands.
The pool answered him.
Water gathered between the Great Myrmidon and the nearest leapers, spinning faster and faster until the chamber held a roaring maelstrom inside the larger pool. The current dragged at wings, tails and armor. One leaper vanished into the churning center. The giant guardian bent against it but did not fall.
Then Hexen changed.
His body collapsed into water, robes and flesh becoming a rising column. The column broadened, took the shape of shoulders and arms, and stepped from the edge as a living elemental.
"That is new," Jorah said.
"No," Isamu replied. "It is merely wet."
Kaylor drove upward from the deep basin, still carrying the broad sword. Water streamed from his armor as he gained the shallows and broke into a run.
The Great Myrmidon crossed the distance in two strides.
Its tentacle rod snapped toward him.
Kaylor's cloak blurred his outline. The first lashes struck empty air. The second coiled around his arm and chest, tightening with enough force to dent steel. The living strands pulled him toward the guardian and robbed him of the quick movements upon which he relied.
The trident descended.
Kaylor caught part of the blow on his shield. The impact drove him to one knee. Frost burst across the blue surface and crawled over his gauntlet, but his resistance to cold blunted the worst of it.
"Still nothing," he said through clenched teeth, "compared with the mirror."
The guardian struck again.
Under the water, the first free leaper reached Nethnarel.
Its jaws closed around her and failed to gain purchase. She twisted free before the creature could swallow her, but the force of its rush sent coins and gems spinning in every direction.
Fendor moved.
He came off the ledge in a long dive, cut through the water and met the leaper before it could turn for another pass. The Vorpal Longsword flashed once, then twice, then a third time. Black blood mixed with the green glow.
The creature recoiled from Nethnarel.
Another leaper broke the surface, spread its fins and flew.
It climbed through the spray, circled a ruined column and folded into a diving attack toward Grazim.
The halfling raised his shield.
The stinger glanced from the rim and struck sparks from the stone.
Jorah disappeared behind a rise of broken masonry as a fourth creature swept low. The sound of his dagger striking flesh came from somewhere beyond the heroes' sight.
Isamu crossed the pool without sinking.
The water accepted each footfall as if it were stone. He ran past Kaylor and leapt at the Great Myrmidon, striking the giant where knee and armor met. The first blow rang against metal. The second drove into the moving water beneath.
He felt the guardian's balance shift.
He poured his discipline into the opening and struck to stop its body entirely.
The Great Myrmidon looked down at him.
The current within its armor continued to turn.
Isamu hit it again.
The guardian remained unimpressed.
"That usually works," Isamu said.
"Try being taller," Kaylor answered.
Grazim called a wall of whirling blades into existence around the giant.
Steel light filled the air. Hundreds of divine edges turned through one another, carving at the Great Myrmidon's watery body and shrieking against its armor. The guardian took one step through the barrier and came out diminished but furious.
It dragged Kaylor with it.
The tentacles tightened. Another strand wrapped the dragonborn's shield arm. A third caught around his waist.
The trident turned away from him.
It struck Hexen.
The first point punched through the water elemental's shoulder. The second tore through its chest. The third released a burst of killing cold inside the living current.
Most creatures would have fallen apart.
Hexen did not.
The elemental shape staggered, lost half its mass and re-formed around the wounds. The druid's face appeared briefly in the moving water, eyes narrowed with pain.
"I could use help," he said, his voice bubbling from inside the form.
Nethnarel thrust one hand toward the leaper near Fendor.
Chaos answered.
The bolt that left her fingers changed as it traveled. Fire became cold, cold became lightning, and lightning hardened into pure force before it struck. The blast hurled the creature backward through the water and dragged a companion with it.
Wild magic rippled over Nethnarel.
For a moment every loose strand of her hair rose as if beneath an unseen sun. Power gathered around her next spell, waiting to be released all at once.
The leaper recovered and charged.
Nethnarel reached into the folds of her cloak for the Wand of Magic Missiles.
She drew the wrong wand.
Flowers erupted into the water.
A plume of brilliant blossoms burst between her and the charging monster. Red petals spun through the green pool. Yellow flowers opened along its snout. A vine curled around one fin.
The water leaper stopped.
Its mouth slowly closed.
Even the creature seemed uncertain what had happened.
Nethnarel stared at the Wand of Flowers.
"I meant to do that."
Fendor's laugh became a cloud of bubbles.
The hesitation saved them.
Hexen flowed around another water leaper and locked both elemental arms around it. The creature thrashed, snapped and beat its fins, but the druid pulled it down against the stone. Kaylor came free of one tentacle long enough to turn the broad sword in his hand and strike into the Great Myrmidon's leg.
The new blade bit deeply.
Not as deeply as Fendor's Vorpal Longsword or Kaylor's Sword of Sharpness, but the enchantment was strong and clean. The guardian's watery body spilled through the wound before drawing itself back together.
"Keeping this," Kaylor said.
"If we live," Grazim replied.
The held water leaper finally broke Grazim's command.
It launched upward, burst from the pool and dove like a hunting bird. Its stinger drove into Fendor's side before the elf could turn. The creature tried to pull him from his footing and drag him into the deeper water.
Fendor cut the barb free.
A second leaper struck from below.
Isamu intercepted it, his fire-bearing blade flaring despite the water. Steam exploded across the surface. He followed the sword with a spinning kick that knocked the creature toward Hexen's maelstrom.
The great vortex caught it.
For several breaths the chamber became only water, wings and violence.
Kaylor hacked at the tentacles restraining him. The living strands recoiled but did not release. The Great Myrmidon drew back its trident for another blow.
Grazim charged.
He was small enough that the guardian seemed not to notice him until the warhammer struck its ankle. Divine force cracked through the armor. Grazim slammed his shield into the same point, trying to shift a creature more than six times his height.
The Myrmidon did not fall.
It did look down.
"Yes," Grazim said. "Me."
The trident changed direction.
Kaylor twisted against the tentacles and pulled the guardian's arm wide. The points struck stone instead of the cleric. Frost raced across the floor.
Hexen released the leaper he had grappled and flowed toward the giant. The freed creature tried to escape.
Fendor did not allow it.
His sword crossed the leaper's neck. The head separated cleanly and struck the surface with a heavy splash.
Jorah reappeared on a distant ledge, wet to the waist and bleeding from one shoulder.
"One more behind the rocks," he called.
"You were gone long enough to negotiate with it," Kaylor said.
"It was unreasonable."
The Great Myrmidon swept the tentacle rod.
Grazim ducked.
Isamu did not.
The strands wrapped his torso and lifted him from the water. The monk caught the rod with both hands, planted his feet against the guardian's armor and used the restraint as a path upward.
He climbed.
The Myrmidon tried to shake him loose.
Isamu reached its chest, drove the heel of his hand through a gap between plates and felt the current inside the guardian shudder.
Kaylor struck from below.
Hexen hit from the side.
Grazim's whirling blades closed behind it.
The Great Myrmidon staggered into the barrier.
The divine edges tore through its back. Water burst from the armor in silver sheets. The guardian swung the trident wildly, but Kaylor caught the haft beneath one arm. For an instant dragonborn and giant strained against one another.
Isamu found the point where the guardian's flowing body gathered beneath the breastplate.
He struck once.
The water inside the armor collapsed.
The Great Myrmidon froze in place. Then its body lost all shape and poured onto the floor. Empty armor crashed down around Kaylor, Isamu and Grazim. The trident struck the stone hard enough to shake the chamber.
Silence followed.
Not complete silence.
The waterfall still thundered.
The remaining water leapers were still trying to eat them.
One broke from the pool and caught Fendor with three rapid bites. Another remained trapped in Hexen's grip. A third swept toward Nethnarel from below.
Nethnarel found the correct wand.
Seven darts of magical force burst from the tip and curved through the water. They struck the leaper one after another inside its open mouth. The creature jerked, went limp and drifted among the coins.
"Better," she said.
Hexen tightened his hold on the creature he had grappled.
Kaylor drove the broad sword through its side.
Fendor crossed the chamber and finished it with a pair of cuts.
The last leaper tried to flee toward the waterfall.
Isamu ran it down.
He struck with sword, fist and heel until the creature folded beneath the surface and did not rise again.
The maelstrom slowed.
Petals from Nethnarel's accidental flowers drifted across the pool.
No hostile shape moved beneath them.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Then Kaylor looked at the enormous fallen trident.
"Mine."
"No," Grazim said.
"You allowed Fendor to keep a sword that removes heads."
"The sword fits through doors."
Kaylor considered the thirty-foot weapon.
"Most doors."
Hexen let the elemental form dissolve. Water fell away from him, leaving the druid standing soaked and exhausted in the shallows.
Jorah climbed down from the far ledge.
"What did we gain by angering the guardian?"
Nethnarel opened her hand.
Several gems glittered in her palm.
Jorah nodded.
"Acceptable."
They searched the sanctuary carefully once the dead had stopped moving.
The offerings had accumulated across centuries. Coins lay in drifts beneath the silt, mixed with stones worn smooth by the water. Most were silver. A smaller but still considerable quantity was gold. Blue gems lay among alexandrites and topazes. An emerald of extraordinary size rested within a cracked ceremonial cup. A diamond had been placed beneath the statue's open palm.
They gathered the gold.
They gathered the gems.
They recovered the broad sword and confirmed that its enchantment was among the strongest that could be laid upon an otherwise ordinary blade.
The silver remained.
It covered too much of the pool to move easily, and even Nethnarel hesitated after learning what the chamber had been.
The statue across the water was not the Great Myrmidon.
It was the god the Myrmidon had served.
Isamu recognized the carving first. Hexen joined him beneath the statue. The face and trident belonged to a power represented under countless names in countless cultures: ruler of seas, lord of the deep, keeper of rivers and storms. Neither wholly benevolent nor cruel, the god of water accepted offerings because water gave life and took it with equal indifference.
"The Myrmidon guarded what worshipers left here," Hexen said.
Kaylor looked down at the sword in his hand.
"So we robbed a god."
"We survived a dispute over abandoned property," Nethnarel said.
"The distinction may not matter to the god."
"Then leaving the silver is a gesture of respect."
Grazim surveyed the thousands of coins still shining beneath the water.
"A costly gesture."
"Not really," Nethnarel said. "It is silver."
They found three possible ways forward.
The water channels to the north and south were blocked by stone. The heroes might have forced their way through, but neither passage looked intended for travelers.
A massive door stood beyond the statue. Three long grooves had been carved into its lock.
The grooves matched the head of the fallen trident.
Another door waited along the southern wall. It was built of black stone and obsidian, carved with winged devils, chains and scenes of torment. Heat bled from it when Fendor placed one hand against the surface. The door had been secured from the far side.
Jorah examined its edges.
"Someone wanted this kept closed from within."
"That is encouraging," Isamu said.
Grazim looked from the hell-carved door to the trident lock.
"The god of the hunt sent us west. The trident door is west."
"And the other one has devils on it," Kaylor said. "Which normally means treasure."
"Or devils."
"Those are not mutually exclusive."
They left the obsidian door untouched.
Moving the trident required all of them.
Even with Kaylor's strength, Isamu's balance and Hexen using his staff as a lever, the weapon resisted like part of the mountain. Grazim wedged fallen armor beneath the shaft. Fendor and Jorah hauled on ropes. Nethnarel contributed enough force to claim participation and not enough to damage her hands.
They dragged the weapon across the sanctuary.
The trident points entered the grooves one at a time.
The door accepted the weapon.
Deep mechanisms turned inside the wall. The entire chamber vibrated. Stone dust fell from the god's statue, and the western door began to move.
The trident was not a weapon.
It was a key.
The slab withdrew slowly, revealing steps descending into darkness.
A scent emerged from the opening.
Not water.
Not acid, blood, dust or the mineral cold of sealed chambers.
Old paper.
Every member of the party recognized it.
Fendor released the rope.
"At last."
They left the trident in the lock and entered.
The passage descended only a short distance before opening onto an elevated gallery. Railings overlooked a chamber so wide their lights did not reach the opposite wall. Tables stood in orderly rows below. Small flames burned above them without consuming wick or oil. Statues of warriors guarded the landings. Stone serpents coiled along the stairs.
Beyond tall windows, slow purple light turned in silence.
The ceiling arched beyond sight.
Bookshelves rose from the lower floor.
Not carvings shaped like books.
Not memorial tablets, trapped mirrors or the records of dead gods disguised as monsters.
Books.
Thousands of them.
Some had collapsed into dark heaps. Others stood in ranks behind brass latticework. A few lay open on reading tables beneath lights that had burned since the library was sealed.
The heroes stopped together.
The Grand Library had not been a lie.
It had simply hidden itself behind every other thing the mountain wanted remembered first.
The titan.
The dead gods.
The offerings.
The guardians.
The blood.
Only those who crossed all of it were permitted to reach the words.
Kaylor rested the newly recovered sword across one shoulder.
"Now we find something that kills a dragon."
Grazim looked toward the purple windows.
"Or something that tells us what the dragon is."
Nethnarel studied the nearest shelves.
"Or something worth taking."
Jorah smiled faintly.
"At last, a philosophy I understand."
Fendor was already moving.
On the nearest table, one book lay open beneath an undying flame.
Its pages had not yellowed.
Its ink was black.
No dust rested upon it.
Fendor reached toward the first line.
Far below the gallery, somewhere between the shelves, something small began to move.
END OF PART SEVEN
THE DRAGON IN THE MOUNTAIN