The Old Locks

Erik raised one hand, and Rishi stopped beside the unicorn.

The cloth he had held against its flank came away wet, though the bleeding had eased. Above him, Maeril lifted her head from the creature’s neck and looked toward the crossing.

Erik’s horse was white with foam around the bit. Pain had drained the color from his face, but his eyes moved steadily over the roofs and the new crack running between two drains.

“Around this corner,” he said. “The abandoned house has a basement entrance. We can reach the service cut through it.”

“An abandoned house,” Maeril said. “How traditional.”

“It was standing yesterday.”

They rounded the corner.

The house had opened into the street. Its front wall lay across the paving in broken plaster and beams. Half the roof sagged over the upper floor. Below it, the cellar had split from end to end, exposing steps and foundation stones above a cut much deeper than the house had ever required.

Cold air rose from it, carrying wet stone and the mineral smell of freshly broken earth.

Erik dismounted carefully. He tested the ground with his good foot, then approached the edge. “The service way began below that wall. Xanathar’s tunnel has crossed it.” He pointed to a squared arch beneath the rubble. “Follow the fitted stone. There’s a gutter cut along its right edge. If you lose the floor, find where that resumes.”

Rishi crouched at the rim. The arch still held, though scored stone and pale dust marked where the beholder’s eyes had cut away its neighboring wall. Far below, something struck rock with a slow, repeating force.

“And that takes us toward the Vault?” Rishi asked.

“Toward the ground you showed me. After that, you have what the woman remembered.”

The unicorn stopped beside Rishi. Maeril slid down, her bad leg folding until she caught herself against its shoulder.

Erik looped his reins around an iron post and turned toward the cellar steps.

“You are staying above,” she told him.

He did not look at her. “The lower cuts may have shifted.”

“Then you have done your duty by warning us.”

“I know which arches are original.”

“And I know which of your bones are presently fastened together by straps. You are not coming.”

Erik’s jaw set.

Rishi rose from the pit. “The city needs you above.”

“It has engineers.”

“Your family needs you. Linna needs you.”

Erik looked at him then. His hand remained on the reins while his gaze returned to the steps.

“It would make a poor tomb,” he said at last.

Maeril’s grip softened in the unicorn’s mane. “Damp. Ugly. No room for your tools.”

Something almost became a laugh in Erik’s throat.

He held out a hand to Rishi. Rishi took it.

“Come back alive,” Erik said.

“I mean to.”

Erik released him and looked at Maeril.

She touched two fingers to her temple. “We shall make every reasonable effort.”

His gaze moved from her scorched coat to Manshoon’s staff in her hand, then to the ruined house. “I hope you remember what reasonable means.”

“The circumstances may affect the definition.”

He freed the reins and mounted with his teeth set against the pain. At the crossing, he turned toward the cries and hammering coming from the next street.

Armed footsteps approached from the other direction. Rishi lifted his staff, then lowered it as Vajra Safahr came into view.

Gray-cloaked warrior-mages spread behind her. Armored spellguards followed, and two wizards walked between them carrying focus rods bright with stored force. Hazarak kept pace at the rear. Renaer Neverember came beside the Blackstaff, his careful coat already marked by dust.

“The Watch sent us to this house,” she said. “I see your guide found the entrance.”

Renaer stopped in front of them. His gaze passed over Rishi’s bandaged shoulder and Maeril’s burns, then rested on the wounded unicorn.

Maeril gave him a tired smile. “Neverember. You came for the gold after all.”

“Lady Silverhand intends to requisition it for repairs to the city,” Vajra said. “There will be considerable expense.”

“I hope she includes the cost of competent scrolls.”

Rishi looked at the staff in her hand. “You have a very good stick.”

One of the warrior-mages made a small sound and concealed it badly.

Maeril pointed at him. “Do not encourage this. Civil order is fragile enough.”

Renaer stepped closer. “Where is Firemind?”

Rishi’s hand closed around the crystal beneath his coat.

Maeril lowered her hand. Hazarak stepped forward. “Xanathar turned him to stone. I could not bring him out.”

Renaer looked from him to Rishi.

“We still have to reach him,” Rishi said.

“And Elisa and Chime?”

“Firemind sent them through a portal,” Hazarak said. “I could not see where it led.”

Renaer rubbed the dust from one glove with his thumb. For a moment he seemed about to ask something else. Then he looked down into the broken cellar. “Is there a way to them from here?”

“Hazarak can guide us to where he left Firemind,” Vajra said. “First we stop the creature cutting through the foundations. He is still advancing.”

A tremor passed through the paving beneath Rishi’s feet. Renaer steadied himself against the iron post and let go of it at once.

Vajra turned to Maeril. Her gaze stopped on the staff, then on the hand holding it. “Let me see how it has borne the morning.”

Maeril hesitated before turning the wood across her palms.

Vajra ran two fingers above the runes without touching them. “The bindings are sound. Keep it clear of falling masonry. If that wood breaks, the power held inside can escape at once. It could kill everyone beside you.”

Maeril looked from the staff to the broken steps. She shifted its weight away from the leg she had been favoring. “I shall remain on the unicorn.”

“A sensible decision. I encourage you to continue.”

Vajra turned to her people. “In pairs. First pair, follow Rishi and Maeril. The rest of you keep the passage open for the wounded and anyone coming to help.”

Rishi showed her the arch Erik had identified. “We follow the old masonry. The cut crosses it, but the gutter should lead us back.”

“Then take us down.”

The unicorn lowered itself. Rishi helped Maeril mount, then climbed behind her, pulling with his good arm. She held the staff close along the creature’s neck as it stepped onto the rubble.

Its light touched the broken beams and wet stone. Hooves found holds where Rishi saw only loose debris. They passed beneath the cracked lintel, turned through the remains of the cellar, and descended.

Below the house, Maeril had to duck beneath the first arch. Cold grit brushed one horn and fell into her collar.

The passage beyond had been torn sideways. Old paving ended in clay and foundation rubble; one wall had been removed so cleanly that its cut face shone like dark glass.

Rishi leaned past her shoulder. “There. Along the right edge.”

The gutter Erik had described emerged beneath a drift of pale dust. Maeril could see three lengths of it before a fallen block hid the rest. She touched the unicorn’s neck and turned toward the surviving pavement.

It picked its way across, each step drawing its wounded foreleg a little short.

Behind them, Vajra’s people called the route back to those still descending. The sound followed around the next bend.

The service way survived in pieces. Where fresh excavation crossed it, Rishi searched for the gutter on the far side. Maeril watched the joints above them. Dust sifted from a widening seam, and she urged the unicorn through before the next tremor could test it.

At a collapsed chamber, the creature gathered itself beneath them and jumped onto a sloping block. Maeril caught its mane as it landed. Along the wall, a narrow shelf of paving still connected the two sides.

“The footway holds on the right,” he called back. “Keep close to the wall.”

A spellguard raised a hand to show he had heard. He began guiding the first pair onto the shelf as the unicorn climbed clear.

A creature hauled itself over the rubble in a broken doorway ahead. Its low, broad body was the size of a man’s torso, with small wet eyes and mouths set directly into the flesh. Long arms reached from its sides. Some hands gripped the doorway while others planted themselves beneath it, carrying its weight into the passage.

Maeril raised the staff. The unicorn lowered its horn before she could cast.

White light struck the chamber. The creature shrieked and scrambled backward over the rubble. Its hands vanished through the doorway into the side chamber.

Maeril lowered the staff and touched the scorched mane. “Xanathar’s nightmares, Rish. Nar’l broke the Nullifier. There is nothing left to keep them from taking flesh.”

The unicorn continued. Its horn lit old carvings, a flooded recess, and a support split from floor to ceiling.

The next corridor narrowed around them. A rounded body drifted out of a dark opening beside Maeril’s knee. It was fleshy and large as a barrel, with small eyes sunk in folds above a mouth that stretched across its front. The jaws opened wide enough to take her head.

Rishi brought his staff between its jaws and her leg. Teeth closed on the wood. He pushed the floating body back toward the opening, then pulled the staff free as the unicorn carried them past.

“There is very little of it behind the mouth,” Rishi said.

“Xanathar has been very generous with the teeth. I would have appreciated a little restraint.”

She kept looking back until the corridor widened.

Ahead, the gutter climbed toward a square lintel. Beyond it, the buried road resumed in fitted blocks. The air lost the smell of newly cut earth and took on the dry stillness of a place sealed for years.

Rishi’s hand moved beneath his coat. “The crystal is warm.”

Maeril could feel a faint answering pressure from the bundle in her satchel. She rested her fingers against it as the unicorn passed under the lintel.

At the far end waited the Vault door.

Great stone slabs met without a visible gap. Bands of old metal crossed them and disappeared into the surrounding rock. Dwarven faces looked down from above the threshold. The earth beside it had cracked, exposing part of the deep foundation, but the door stood square in its frame.

The unicorn slowed and bent one foreleg.

Rishi swung down first. Maeril followed, accepting his right arm until her leg held. Behind them, the first pair of spellguards reached the lintel and turned to help the others through.

They left their staves against the wall beside the door. Rishi brought out the crystal. Blue light brightened inside it as he approached the slabs.

“It wants me farther over,” Rishi said.

“Can you see the way?”

He shook his head. “I can feel where I would put my hand.”

He moved to the left slab and lifted the crystal. A line of light appeared beneath it, following an old groove almost hidden by dust.

Maeril unwrapped the Stone. Its carved surface pressed into her fingers. Near the center of the door, a second line glimmered and went dark.

She brought the Stone toward it. The line returned. “Hold yours there.”

Rishi stayed still while she moved the Stone slowly along the metal band. When she drew too far away, his blue line faded as well. She returned, closer this time, until light ran from his hand toward hers.

Something clicked within the door.

They waited.

Nothing else moved.

“It knows we are here,” she said. “I would prefer a warmer reception.”

A narrow unlit groove divided the two lines just before they met. Maeril lowered the Stone to test it; both lines dimmed.

Rishi looked toward her hands. “Back where you had it. That was closer.”

She obeyed. The light returned, leaving the same dark interval.

The unicorn stepped between them. Maeril shifted to make room, careful to keep the Stone in place.

Radiance gathered at the base of its horn and moved toward the point. Silver-white light, touched with the green of leaves seen against dawn, spread over her fingers.

The pressure inside the Stone deepened. Its grooves shone beneath her hand. Across the gap, Rishi’s crystal answered with blue fire.

The dark interval filled.

“Stay there, Rishi,” Maeril said.

“I am here.”

Light reached the center of the door. Maeril held the Stone steady while a second catch released, then another farther inside. The metal band trembled beneath her wrist.

She looked at Rishi. He stood with the crystal cupped in both hands, watching the seam between the doors.

For a moment she could hear each separate sound of the mechanism beneath the distant blows on stone.

Then the old locks began to open.