The Paladins

Chapter 3

"Skullport lies beneath the southern sea caves of Mount Waterdeep," explained Aleena as the party floated in a large flatboat along the banks of the subterranean river Sargauth. "It's a highly magical, lawless community, crawling with shady dealers and cutthroat justice." Guiding the paladins through one of the most lawless cities in the world was going to be tricky. "Remember, you promised me you wouldn't cause trouble down here, no matter what you see."

Kern stood beside her at the bow of the vessel and nodded his head once more. "Lady Paladinstar, there'll be no trouble."

As she sighed, their boat passed under an archway and entered the grand cavern of Skullport. To their port side ships of every size rocked at anchor, thick tethers reaching below the flat, black water of the great underground bay. In the distance beyond the gently weaving masts, the travelers could see uncountable caves riddling the ocean-carved walls, right up to the ceiling, several hundred feet above. An immense tangle of rickety catwalks strung between them sparkled with thousands of dim yellow torches and lanterns. Glowing lichen crawled along the cavern walls, illuminating the vast open space overhead, and little orbs of bright light streaked through it.

"Look at the will o' wisps!" said Harloon. "There must be hundreds of them. Do they try to lead beings to their deaths?"

"That and more," Aleena warned.

"Look at those huge ones over there!" said Noph, pointing up at two gigantic spheres in the air. Great arcs of lightning shot back and forth between them.

"Those aren't will o' wisps," whispered Trandon. "Those are beholders!"

"Beholders?" cried the paladins, instinctively reaching for their hammers. Jacob instantly sprang to their side, sword drawn.

"Kern! Miltiades! No!" hissed Aleena. "We've got to keep a low profile or we'll be fighting the entire population from now until Doomsday!"

Reluctantly, the warriors squatted down and hid their weapons.

Fortunately, no one manned the decks of the vessels around them, except a bored crewman who absently paced the deck of a huge war galleon, staring up at the battling beholders. They slipped stealthily among the darkened crafts and continued on their way.

"So far, so good," whispered Aleena. "We're going to sail right past the city and go deeper into the cave complex by way of the Sargauth. Only a few dozen feet and we'll leave Skullport behind and be in Undermountain."

"What are these things floating in the water?" asked Noph, grabbing a boat hook and pulling one nearer.

"Noph, stop!" cried Aleena, a moment too late.

An elvish skull bobbed within reach, thanks to Noph's hook. As he recognized it, the boy recoiled with a yelp. Trandon ducked underneath the swinging boat hook with a disgruntled gasp as Noph stumbled back. The boat pitched sharply, precipitating a commotion of flailing arms and startled shouts among the rest of the passengers. Noph lost his balance and reeled backward, pivoting over the side of the boat as it rolled with his shifting weight. Harloon caught his lashing arm at the last moment and yanked it downward. Noph tumbled headlong into the bottom of the boat. A wave hissed through the party, as the vessel sloshed in the water and settled to rest again.

"Chaos child!" spat Miltiades. "Control him, wizard."

Noph gasped.

"Now what?" grumbled the elder paladin, turning to follow the boy's line of sight.

The elf skull had risen out of the bay and now hovered nearby on a cluster of white sparks. Able and the paladins instinctively lifted their holy symbols, but Aleena leaped forward and pressed down their arms.

"Don't do it! You have no idea what harm you could cause. Don't move an inch! Remember, we're trying to sail past this city."

The skull turned lazily in the air. More white sparks flared up within its eye sockets. It drifted to within inches of Noph's face and stared at him for a long moment; he froze, wide-eyed, gaping back at it. The bony visage lingered a bit longer, then moved on to Harloon and calmly inspected each member of the party.

At last, its scrutiny fell upon Kern. It wafted up and down his body, pausing to stare at his holy warhammer for a long time before drifting before his face.

The pale jaw began to move, and they all heard a whispering voice. "This is a safe haven to all traders and customers," the death's-head told them. "Keep thy unwelcome weapons and thy uncivil tongues sheathed lest ye suffer my misery for all eternity."

Kern reacted without thinking. He reached out, placed his palm over the slimy dome of the skull, and invoked his divine healing powers. "Rest ancient one," he intoned solemnly. The skull sighed with pleasure, crumbled to dust, and fluttered into the dark waters below.

"Kern, no!" cried Aleena. Before the echo of her alarm bounced off the cavern walls, the water around them began to bubble frenetically. Hundreds of skulls boiled to the surface and surrounded the boat, just out of arm's reach. Their eyeless sockets trained upon the heroes, stared balefully, and their whispering voices spoke in unison.

"Tis forbidden to interfere with the watchers in the waters," came the chilling tones. "Now thou shalt perform a service or pay with thy lives. Each must lend aid to a zombie of Skullport before leaving."

"Not likely!" Harloon retorted. Able blanched.

"Oh yes you will!" said Aleena as she moved to the tiller and steered their vessel for the docks. "You don't understand the nature of this port. If the skulls make a demand, you must obey or shadow monsters make you obey."

"We can deal with such creatures," scoffed Kern.

"But even if you beat them, more appear, and they keep on coming. Sooner or later, they'll get to you. And we're in hurry, remember?"

The warriors snorted derisively, all but Trandon. Aleena looked angrily at Miltiades. "Look, this part of Faerun is my turf. I know the rules, and you promised to follow them! This is what we're going to do: We'll dock and spread out. As long as you don't make trouble, no one will bother you, and no one's going to make trouble, right?"

The men nodded grudgingly. Harloon looked at Noph and said, "You stick with me." Noph grinned and nodded eagerly.

"And be very careful, Noph!"

The boy beamed and answered, "You, too, fair lady!" His voice cracked slightly. Jacob and Trandon exchanged grins.

"This won't be tough as long as you don't make it so," continued Aleena. "There are hundreds of zombies performing menial tasks in this city. Find one and help it. If the thing is carrying something, take it and follow the zombie to its destination-whatever you need to do to be of service. Got it?"

Miltiades grimaced at the city and nodded curtly. "It will be done." The entire group nodded reluctantly. Able looked toward the docks with profound sadness in his eyes. "So many lost souls," he murmured to himself

"We will help as many zombies as we can, eh Able?" the plated paladin said with a grim smile.

"Just help one and get back here as soon as possible, without causing any trouble!" snapped Aleena. "If you're not back in an hour, we'll assume that you couldn't restrain yourself and give you up for dead, and we'll move on."

The boat hit the dock, and Noph and Harloon tied it up while the others entered the deadly depths of Skullport. As they dispersed, a group of shadowy figures trailed after them.

Kern could have kicked himself as he stalked the dockside streets. It wasn't the requirement to serve a zombie that galled him so much as his promise not to cause any trouble. As he paced the alleys, he was amazed at the evil and horror, everywhere he looked. Pale-skinned vampires walked the streets and ordered skeletons about while octopus-headed mind flayers consorted casually with black-robed wizards! Of course, no paladin could singlehandedly destroy all of the evil, but it would have been glorious to try. For better or worse, he concluded grouchily, there was simply no time for it.

"There's my zombie in need," he muttered, noting a group of four long-dead sailors who dragged large gray bags along the boardwalk. A juju zombie led them, waving a dark wand. The young paladin slipped ahead of the shuffling undead and hid in a blind alley. When the juju rounded the corner, the paladin slapped the wand from its desiccated hand.

"Aaaa, what have you done?" groaned the master zombie. The four zombies quickened their pace and stumbled into the alley, followed closely by the juju zombie. In the relative privacy of that dark cove, Kern lifted his hand in blessing. "I shall help you," he whispered. "In Tyr's name you will all become dust, and be freed from your undead suffering."

In all Miltiades's years of existence, both as a man and a death knight, he'd never seen anything as depraved as Skullport! Undead shambled everywhere, making his skin crawl with disgust. Ghosts walked side by side with necromancers, fighters lustily offered their swords to any who would pay gold, no matter what the job, and ordinary humans walked quickly, with heads bowed and fear in their eyes. The ancient paladin followed a main street into the heart of the cave city, keeping to the plentiful shadows. In an open square, he discovered slaves for sale on massive blocks, beholders arranging to hire mercenary bands, and even a pair of baatezu fiends gathered in a dark tryst.

He closed his eyes and prayed to Tyr for guidance, and in answer, his oath to Aleena rang in his ears. Shaking his head regretfully, he spotted a large sign that read "Zombys 4 sal." Miltiades passed through the door beside the sign and looked about in revulsion. There were dozens of undead, including women and children, dead dwarves, dead elves, and many, many dead sailors, all in various stages of decay. They stood immobile against the walls of the large room, panelled over with rotting planks of knotty pine. The ones closest to him began to slowly crumble into dust in the glow of his holy shield but they made no move. Each held a tag in hand, listing its price in gold pieces.

"Whoa! You're a little lost, aren't you?" remarked a skeletal warrior, approaching from behind a rack filled with dark wands and coming to an abrupt halt ten feet from the holy warrior. "Would you mind stepping outside? You're dissolving the merchandise!"

"I am here to help," offered Miltiades.

"I said leave!" snarled the undead fighter, jerkily unsheathing a rusted sword and cocking his arm to slash at the knight. Miltiades parried the blow easily with his shield and unhooked his hammer from his belt in the same motion. As the skeleton drew back to swing again, the mallet swept upward and connected with the bony jaw, sending it spinning through the air to shatter against the wall. The monster staggered back a step and caught itself, but Miltiades followed closely and pressed his holy symbol into its chest plate, crying, "In Tyr's holy name, rest ancient warrior!"

A pile of dust plopped to the floor and puffed up in a cloud where the skeleton stood. Miltiades walked about the perimeter of the warehouse, disintegrating zombie after zombie, helping in the only way he knew how, by sending them to their final rest. A few minutes later, he exited with tears in his eyes. He'd accomplished Tyr's work that day.

"Undead everywhere! By Tyr, how can this be?"

Able shivered and pressed himself against a tavern wall on the streets of Skullport. Sweat beaded on his brow and dripped into his bulging eyes, burning them at the corners. His breath caught in short heaves and gasps. He gaped fearfully from side to side.

Shame welled in his heart, for facing undead was the last thing he wanted. The last time he had attempted to put the fear of his god into the walking dead, they had nearly killed him, ignoring his holy symbol in favor of his throat. Now, as he stood in the shadows and trembled, it wasn't the fear of death that terrified him, it was the fear that he no longer even possessed the power to repel evil.

"Am I lost to Tyr, or is He lost to me?" he wondered.

Zombies and skeletons wobbled by in droves. Overhead, several levels of catwalks rattled with the stilted footfall of dozens more. Across the way, a vampire hissed and berated a skeletal warrior for its insolence.

"All-powerful Tyr, how could you even allow a place like this to exist?" lamented the cleric.

The vampire noticed Able and peered suspiciously at him. The cleric immediately stood erect, positioning himself for a confrontation without yet drawing weapon or holy symbol. He stared back at the creature defiantly, but a hot prickle tear crawled up his back. The vampire bared its fangs, eyes burning. Then it uttered something under its breath to the skeletal warrior, and both undead turned and walked around a corner. Able inhaled deeply and let it go, closing his eyes in relief. He stood there for a few moments, quelling his stomach.

A slight scrape on the ground to his right jolted Able to life. With a start, he leaped away from the sound and raised his hammer and shield.

A zombie watched him apathetically. He had wandered into its path. As Able looked upon the decaying thing, it occurred to him that the creature had once been a boy about Noph's age. Whatever life that had once surged through the body had been forever ripped away, leaving only a husk to stagger on until it finally crumbled to dust. It wasn't fair, wasn't just.

"Filthy monsters!" he growled. He lifted his war-hammer and brandished the holy symbol emblazoned on it, crying, "Behold the light of Tyr and rest!"

The zombie continue to stare, disinterested.

Able bowed his head. A tear found its way down his bristling cheek. "Forgive me my weakness," he begged and shifted his grip on the hammer to destroy the zombie with two powerful blows. If he couldn't put it to rest with the power of his faith, at least he could do it with the power of his good right arm. He tossed the body into the river and snuck back to the ship.

Laskar Nesher, Noph's father, had warned his son about Skullport, mostly to scare him into minding when he was a child, but Noph had never believed the stories-until now. "It stands to reason," he thought bitterly, "that my father would know about a place like this." As he and Harloon made their way along the docks, they passed a long bank of caged monsters. Many thrust their talons toward the humans, yet their screams were inaudible, blocked by some evil wizard's spell to silence their pain and fury. Most of them possessed the bulbous eyes or pale coloring of Underdark dwellers.

These are probably on their way to the surface, to be harvested for spell components," said Harloon with distaste. "We should destroy them all right here, so nobody suffers!"

"That won't help a zombie, Harl," said Noph. "The skull in the water said to help a zombie, and Aleena told us to keep out of trouble!"

"All right, all right! Let's check out that tavern over there."

The two young men crossed the boardwalk to a sagging, flat-topped building lit by a magical torch on each side of its thick, iron-shod door. Harloon grasped a fat metal ring, bolted to the door and pulled on it, releasing a puff of smoke and the heavy beat of dwarven music from within. As they peeked inside, they gulped at the sight of ores, giants, and men carousing together, drinking from great ceramic flagons, and ogling scantily clad dancing slaves. Zombie waiters cleaned tables and brought drinks.

"Let's go find another zombie," said Harloon, shocked by the lurid atmosphere.

"No, this is perfect!" answered Noph, grabbing Har-loon's breastplate without taking his eyes from the festivities. "We'll clean a few tables for the zombie servers and be gone in, say, five minutes-maybe ten."

"Noph, you're supposed to be following my lead."

"Look, Harl. Clearing a few tables doesn't get much safer. This time, you follow me."

"Well… okay. Let's just get this done with, shall we?"

They entered the tavern and blended with the crowd. The music pounded in a deafening beat, so Noph simply pointed at the nearest zombie, obliviously clearing a table. Harloon nodded. They each snatched a dirty rag out of the apron off of passing zombie and started wiping down the tables around them.

"Hey now, I never asked to have my table washed," a huge goblin complained, glaring up at Noph.

"Management's policy, great noble. And today you win a drink on the house. Enjoy!" Noph dropped a silver piece on the table, and the goblin showed a toothy grin. That would buy it several ales.

A dancer leaped from the bar to a table that Harloon was clearing and leered down at him as she swayed seductively. He stumbled away, modestly dropping his eyes, and backed into a table flanked by duergar, knocking over their ales. They leaped to their feet to avoid being soaked by the beer and then closed around the young fighter with furious snarls on their lips. Duergar at nearby tables spotted the commotion and rose to join their kin, surrounding Harloon. Their poisonous pikes gleamed in the candle light as they drew near to the human's face. Other creatures noted the rising tension and backed off, looking forward to the show. Seven duergar against one human-the fight wouldn't last long.

Suddenly, a fat purse hit the floor next to the duergar, spilling its coins amidst their feet.

"Hey, that's my money!" cried Noph in a high-pitched voice and the room erupted into chaos as the surrounding drinkers dove for the gold. Harloon shoved two of them aside in the tumult and wormed his way free of the pile of bodies.

"Thanks! Let's get out of here!" shouted Harloon.

"Wait!" answered Noph. "Grab that zombie before it walks into the middle of the fight!" he cried, doing the same for another mindless creature.

"That takes care of our service to the zombie!" said Harloon. "Now let's get out of here!"

Noph flipped a silver piece to a dancer as they left. "Thanks for everything!" he called over his shoulder. Outside, they bent over and rested their hands on their knees while catching their breaths. They looked at one another and Harloon shook his head, an exasperated grin on his face. Noph returned the smile, with an added chuckle. Each reached out and clasped the other's shoulder.

"Let's get back to the boat," said Harloon with a cock of his head toward the water.

"I'm with you. Let's go."

Trandon had been terrified of the skulls that floated around the boat. His senses, more finely tuned to the rhythms of magic than the rest of the men, could see the deadly power. He also saw the shadow monsters floating above the water, around their boat, but he dared not say anything.

"Stupid youngling," he griped, blaming Noph for the delay.

The long-haired warrior quickly walked the narrow streets of the city until he was sure none of the others were anywhere near him. The undead of the city didn't bother him at all; necromantic magic was simple stuff. On the other hand, the magical powers openly displayed in the city disconcerted him gravely. Fiends sprouted out of arcane circles drawn on the very streets! Even more strangely, no one seemed to care! The fiends appeared without alarm and flew away into the darkness while others flapped down from above and spiraled into the complex patterns on the ground, slipping off to their native planes. Meanwhile, a human wizard marched pompously down the middle of a wide avenue, flanked by a fire elemental on each side.

"Idiot," Trandon muttered to himself. "The slightest slip and those monsters'll break free of their bond, and he'll be the first thing they kill."

Down a side street, he found a zombie limping along on the stump of its ankle, carrying its own foot. Trandon reached into a pouch that lay between his chest and his leather breastplate and drew forth a prickly pair of burrs. He let the zombie walk past him, then caught its broken limb and whispered a few words while pressing the burrs against the ragged end of the leg. Quickly he snatched the foot away from the creature and pressed it against the stump, uttering a last syllable. With a flash of reddish light, the foot adhered to the leg. Trandon released the zombie and watched it walk away, only slightly more graceful.

Trandon carefully looked from side to side, spying for onlookers-most especially other members of his party. It would be supremely difficult to resist using magic during this mission, but no one must know he was a wizard. He must maintain his cover at all costs.

Satisfied that no one had seen him, he stood up and made his way back to the boat.

Jacob skulked along the pier. It would be easy to find a zombie loading or unloading a ship somewhere nearby. He was in a hurry to finish the unpleasant business and get back to the boat, yet he couldn't help but exalt in the thrill of the adventure. There was nothing more exciting than questing for the glory of Tyr.

Several ships down, Jacob found what he had been looking for. Three wide gangplanks stretched from the dock to a barge, and a crew of zombies, alone and in pairs, offloaded wooden crates of various size. The lowly undead moved mechanically up and down from the cargo hold, hauling heavy boxes across the planks to deposit them on the dock. Apparently their handlers had set them to work and then wandered into a dive tavern across the way, for nothing sentient monitored their progress.

Jacob charged up the gangplank and crossed the deck, checking to each side for live crewmen. He bounded down the hole in the ship's main deck, into the cargo hold, and paused while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. No one had left a lantern, as the zombies needed no light. After a few moments, he made out a pair of walking dead close by, lifting a crate together. Jacob pushed one of them aside, tripping it over his foot. It tumbled to the ground and he stamped on its neck, crushing the bones with his boot. The zombie shuddered under his weight and fell still.

"Here, allow me to help," he whispered in a cracked voice.

Along with the other monster, the man lifted the crate. He squinted through the darkness, across the crate's upper side, at the decayed face of his co-worker, which stared back at him without recognition. Pity filled his heart, and Jacob thought that if he were a paladin, he could put this poor creature and all of its fellows to rest. Perhaps, when this quest was completed, he would receive an invitation from the Knights of Holy Judgment, or better yet, the Knights of the Holy Sword! That latter group of Tyr's paladins wielded blades, just like him. He and the zombie began to move together, toward the steps, but the undead sailor came to a stop at the base, and wouldn't begin its climb.

"Come on!" urged Jacob. "It's time for me to go!"

At that moment, he realized he was not alone among the dead.

With a jerk, he twisted his head to the right and peered into the deep darkness, where seven decrepit zombies rippled and transformed into gray-skinned humanoids-dopplegangers! Jacob opened his mouth to shout, at the same time releasing his side of the box so he could reach for his sword. The closest doppleganger shoved its hand into his mouth, cutting off his air. The others tackled him, dragging him to the floor. Their hands reformed into spike-lined stocks that screwed themselves into the deck, attempting to pin the fighter down. The first assailant's hand liquefied in Jacob's mouth and oozed down his throat. He seized that one and began to tug at its arm, gagging against the intrusion. If he could only roll on top of them, he might be able to reach his sword…

"I ran into a bit of trouble," Jacob admitted when he joined the party, back at the boat. "But no one noticed and I handled it quickly."

"How did you help your zombie?" Kern lightly asked Aleena as they cast off and headed back into the bay.

"I opened a door for one."

"That's good enough?"

"That was good enough for me."

"These creatures understand law," observed Miltiades, "but they know nothing of its spirit."

They rowed to the mouth of the cave that led upstream along the Sargauth, and as the grand cavern of Skullport curved down to meet them, the skulls once against boiled up from the deep. "Hast thou performed thy service as commanded?" they whispered. "We shall know if thou lie'st."

"Oh, we helped them, all right," answered Kern.

Aleena seized his arm and squeezed hard, silencing him. "We have done as thou ordered, Watchers," she declared solemnly.

Silence closed over them. The gentle lapping of water against the boat filled the air. Then pass," whispered the voices, and the skull sank into the depths once more.

The paladins dug in deep with paddles and began to force their way against the Sargauth's deep, slow current. Behind, the dim light of Skullport faded completely, as Aleena pulled a magically lit beacon from her pack and placed it at the bow.

"Don't they even want to know what we did for their precious zombies?" asked Kern, looking back.

"No!" snapped the wizardess, "and neither do I!"

Somewhere deep in the void beyond, a crazed voice erupted into fits of laughter. The hilarity escalated to hysterics and then faded away.

"Who was that, Aleena?" asked Noph, unnerved.

"Halaster, the mad mage. This is his territory." She sighed dejectedly. "I really hate Undermountain."

Interlude 3

Don't worry about your debts if you've got friends, because a friend in need deserves what he gets!

"This is it!" thought Shaakat to his fiendish accomplice. "This is the gate! The scent of its magic is the same as the gate in the city of the bloodforge."

The vrocks stood at the base of a short, pyramid-shaped platform, upon which two massive ivory tusks of some prime creature sprouted and curved together, forming an arch. The uprights were deeply grooved along their lengths and inlaid with some magical metal shimmering and changing color like liquid chaos.

"Thank hideous Juiblex!" spat Rejik as he squatted down to rest upon the lowest of the glossy, crimson stone steps leading up to the gate. "This cage is a horrible death trap! I don't think we even scratched the surface of this-this Undermountain, but we've already killed a slithermorph, six ibrandlin, those two illithids with the nasty staves, a score of undead, three groups of heavily armed primes, and a sodding herd of beholders, not to mention those ill-tempered reflections of us, that came out of that mirror back there!"

"Yes, we must develop a place like this on the Abyss," agreed Shaakat.

"Let's go home and tell General Raachaak we've found the way into the city of the bloodforge!"

"Or-perhaps we should take the bloodforge for our own," returned Shaakat.

Rejik's beady eyes narrowed. "You would suffer Mor-baat's fate, addle-cove?"

"Raachaak isn't here, stinkfeathers. Besides, if we capture the bloodforge, we can destroy him and ascend."

"We?" sneered Rejik.

"We… for now," growled Shaakat.

Rejik squinted up at the gate and clicked his beak pensively. "If we fail, we'll be turned into lowly larvae and left for the chasme on the Plane of Infinite Portals."

"We are true tanar'ri!" howled Shaakat. "Or I am, at least! You disgust me, baatezu's bastard!"

Rejik stood up and thrust his narrow face toward the other fiend. Tm tired from all the killing, today, but I still have the energy to throttle you, berk. But go! Go through the gate and see if you can find the bloodforge before I return to General Raachaak and make my report. We'll see who ascends and who wriggles under a chasme's stinger."

"Fool! We have more power than we can imagine at our wingtips, and you want to run home to whine to a balor! So be it! Let us see who'll be a molting lackey, and who will command the bloodforge. I’m not afraid!"

"Have fun on the other side, fighting those sentinels," sneered Rejik. "Remember how tough the primes we encountered down here were? Ha!"

Shaakat paused, recalling the wounds he had suffered in this curious subterranean labyrinth, at the hands of humans, elves, and dwarves in armor. Once or twice, he admitted reluctantly, they had had to flee the battle, although they came that close to winning those fights.

"Exactly," chimed in Rejik, reading his thoughts. "Do you think we can simply step through this gate and take our prize? We may well not be enough. Remember what Raachaak said? Others have failed before us."

Shaakat gazed up at the portal, then craned his scrawny neck around to look over his feathery black shoulder, at the vast complex behind them. "I have an idea," he thought. "It will require the both of us to succeed, but it cannot fail. Rejik, will you ascend, and never fear Raachaak again, upon a bold stroke? Will you join with me… for now?"

Rejik stared at the other vrock, pondering. He hissed ruefully, "First, tell me your plan."