Between All Three

Stone moved against stone.

Rishi took the crystal clear as the slab withdrew. Blue light faded inside it, leaving warmth against his fingers. He secured it beneath his coat while Maeril wrapped the Stone and returned it to her satchel. They collected their staves from beside the door.

Cool, dry air passed through the widening gap.

Gold answered the unicorn’s light.

Coins lay in drifts around square pillars and climbed in banks against the far wall. Rishi stepped over the threshold. His foot sank, and the dense metallic whisper of the shifting hoard traveled across the chamber.

He could not see bare floor beyond the entrance.

A man could carry enough out in his arms to change the life of everyone in Erik’s house. Here, that much would scarcely leave a hollow.

Then Rishi saw the dwarf waiting beyond the last pair of pillars.

He was old and broad, with white threaded through a carefully braided beard. One hand rested on a staff whose head held a quiet golden shimmer. His boots stood deep in the coins, but the staff’s tip barely touched them.

“Greetings,” he said. His voice carried easily beneath the vaulted ceiling. “I am Barok Clanghammer.”

Maeril entered beside Rishi. Behind her, the unicorn stopped with its ears forward. A low warning gathered in its chest, and the loose coins around its hooves trembled.

Rishi looked more closely at the dwarf.

The floor moved beneath them. He widened his stance; Maeril caught his sleeve. Across the hoard, Barok remained still.

No shift through the ankles. No gathering of weight against the movement. His broad body stood as easily as it had before the tremor.

Rishi lowered his staff. “Forgive me. Is that the shape you usually wear?”

The dwarf looked at him for a long moment. “What troubles you about it?”

“Your balance. You stand as though those feet have very little to do.”

Barok glanced down at his boots. When he looked up, his attention stayed on Rishi’s face. “An attentive eye. Does what you see frighten you?”

“I do not yet know whom I am asking for help.”

The dwarf’s fingers shifted on the golden staff. “Then tell me what help you need.”

“Something is cutting through the foundations toward this chamber. Streets have fallen. We came to stop it before more people are buried.”

“Xanathar. A beholder,” Maeril added. “Its nightmares are loose down here. We met them on the way in.”

Barok turned his head slightly toward the far wall. Rishi could hear the same slow grinding they had followed beneath the house.

“Vajra Safahr and Renaer Neverember are coming behind us,” Rishi said. “They intend to return this gold to Waterdeep.”

“Neverember.” The dwarf let the name rest between them. “And what would you do with it?”

Rishi looked down. One coin had caught against the red cord at his ankle. He freed it with the end of his staff. “I know people it could help.”

“Suppose I entrusted it to you. Where would you begin?”

The question brought back Erik’s hand closing around the reins. Rishi could still feel the strength in his grip, and how carefully he had mounted.

“There is a timber yard whose workers should be able to go home alive. A refuge where we put beds on the floor because the rooms are full. I would like to begin with them.”

“You have an answer, then.”

“I have people I care about. That does not make this my decision.”

The dwarf waited.

“The gold was taken from people who are not here,” Rishi said. “Knowing what I would do with it does not give me the right to choose for them.”

“Would you leave it here?”

“No. I would help bring it back. I would make sure the city knows what was taken, and stand with the people who need to be heard. I cannot promise them a share as though it were mine to give.”

Maeril’s hand left his sleeve. She stood beside him with Manshoon’s staff lowered, watching the dwarf.

Barok came down from the bank of coins. He stopped within a few paces of Rishi and inclined his head.

“Aurinax,” he said. “That is the name you should ask for. May I have yours?”

“Rishishura.”

“Rishishura. Show me where you heard the digging.”

Rishi turned toward the far wall to their right.

The next blow reached them through the floor. Coins slipped from the banks around the pillars, and dust fell in thin streams from above.

“There,” Rishi said. “It has come closer.”

Aurinax passed him and moved toward the sound. Rishi followed only as far as the next pillar. Behind him, Maeril caught the unicorn’s mane and drew it away from the right side of the chamber.

Green-white light opened three narrow lines through the wall ahead of Aurinax.

The fitted blocks vanished wherever the beams touched them. Mortar and old carvings became hissing dust. A lintel dropped into the widening gap, broke, and disappeared beneath another stroke of light.

Beyond it lay a raw tunnel.

One eye appeared inside the green vapor. Smaller eyes followed on twisting stalks, then Xanathar floated into the Vault.

Stone dust covered its pale hide. Blood darkened one of its lower eyestalks. The others moved without rest, fixing on the gold, the dwarf, the unicorn, and the two people beside the pillar.

Its mouth opened. “There you are.”

The great central eye turned toward them.

Rishi’s staff lost the faint warmth beneath his palm. Light vanished from the unicorn’s horn, and the runes on Maeril’s staff went dark.

“Back toward the wall,” she said. “Out of its gaze.”

Aurinax’s smaller shape failed.

Golden scales rose beyond the pillars. Rishi pulled Maeril back as a wing unfolded above them, scattering coins in the wind of its opening. The dwarf’s staff disappeared into a body that filled the rear of the Vault. Claws found stone beneath the hoard, and a long head lowered toward the breach.

The dragon’s left flank lay between Rishi and Xanathar. His tail curved along the far wall; his shoulders faced the opening that the beholder had cut.

Rishi retreated another step, feeling the heat coming from him even through the dead pressure of the eye.

Xanathar’s eyestalks recoiled, then spread wide.

“A dragon.” Its voice rose into delight. “A dragon in the little room. A dragon on the gold. You hid him too.”

One eye fixed on Rishi. Another followed Maeril’s hand as it closed over her satchel. “Everyone hides things. Stone. Key. Door. Fish.” Its teeth showed. “They broke the bowl. They killed Sylgar. They took the thought away, and now all of you are here.”

Rishi’s grip tightened. Hazarak had heard that voice while Firemind stood before the eyes. Now it filled the chamber around them.

Nightmares followed Xanathar into the Vault.

Low, broad bodies clambered over the broken lintel on their long arms, hands gripping stone and one another as they crowded through. Above them, creatures large as barrels floated beneath the torn arch, jaws spreading across their rounded bodies. The tunnel beyond was packed with more. They spilled around Xanathar and spread across the hoard.

Boots sounded at the entrance.

“Clear the doorway,” Vajra shouted. “Give us room to form.”

Rishi moved left with Maeril and the unicorn. Beyond the pillars, a strip of shallower gold ran along the wall back toward the entrance. Vajra’s people came through behind them, spellguards taking either side of the door while the two wizards lifted their focus rods.

Renaer stopped on the threshold, his gaze rising along the dragon’s flank to the head above it. Then he drew his rapier and joined the left side of the line. Hazarak joined the guards on the right.

Xanathar’s central eye swung toward Aurinax.

Warmth returned to Rishi’s staff. Beside him, Maeril lifted hers and watched the runes brighten.

“Stay on this side,” she told him. “The magic holds here.”

The unicorn lowered itself. Rishi steadied Maeril while she drew her bad leg over its back, then stepped clear with his wounded shoulder turned away from the breach.

Aurinax drew breath. Heat gathered above the gold between his foreclaws.

Xanathar laughed.

“All in one room,” it said. “Kill them all.”

Hands dug into the gold. The crawling bodies surged toward the pillars, and the floating creatures swept forward above them, jaws wide.