Free Crypt of the Moaning Diamond by Rosemary Jones

and a collapsing wall or ceiling in this place could leave them buried forever. “Gods, grant me cremation and not burial in wet earth,” muttered Ivy as she burrowed like a half-mad rabbit after the others.
    Behind her, silence reigned. Sanval, true to his silver-roof dignity, had not uttered one complaint, not even when Zuzzara’s digging had cascaded dirt down his back. Ivy wished the half-ore was as restrained. Louder than Wiggles’s barks, a steady stream of muttering came from Zuzzara as she tried to squirm through the narrowing hole.
    The tunnel angled steeply upward, and the scent in the air changed. It was no longer quite so rank, but still musty. But a big musty, like a large space, Ivy thought.
    The light from Mumchance’s lantern bobbed up and down and then disappeared with a sudden drop.
    “Cave ahead,” said Gunderal, repeating Mumchance’s instructions down the line. “Small drop.”
    Ivy hissed that description back to Sanval and heard him tell Zuzzara.
    “Good, good,” the half-ore replied in a booming voice that brought down another trickle of dirt from the ceiling, “my back is aching. Just let me stand up straight, that’s all I ask.”
    What Ivy dropped into was not a cave, but a huge hall buried completely underground. The walls were too far away to be lit by Mumchance’s little lantern. Great columns rose from the floor to support a ceiling lost in the black shadows above. They looked like strong support columns, which was good; but there was no way to see the condition of the high ceiling, which was bad. The air still smelled stale, but there was an older smell, harsh beneath the damp.
    “Ash,” said Mumchance, stirring up a cloud with his booted foot. “Floor was burned long ago.”
    “Bones, too,” reported Kid, skipping back into the circle of light. “Old bones, my dears, scorched skulls and blackened ribs.”
    “Kid, stay away from those,” Ivy snapped. He ignored her, continuing to poke among the piles.
    Gunderal walked up to one of the black columns and rubbed her good hand across it. She left a white streak shining in the lamplight. “Soot,” she said, displaying the black marks on the ends of her delicate fingers. She frowned at the mess on her fingers and pulled a lace handkerchief out of her pocket to clean off the grime. “A fire storm inside. It smells like magic, Ivy.”
    “How long ago? Is it gone now?” Ivy wondered if it could be a lingering spell or curse, something that could collapse the place on top of them if they touched some forbidden object.
    Gunderal whispered a few words and tilted her head and gave the slightest of sniffs, as if she were trying to smell a faded perfume in a room long abandoned. “Before we were born— before our mothers or our grandmothers,” she said, shrugging and wincing as the gesture pulled at her arm sling.
    “Speak for your own grandparents,” said Mumchance. “Mine probably carved these pillars. Look at the fluting on the base, Ivy, that’s good clean stonework. Dwarves carved that; humans wouldn’t have the patience for it.”
    “Men can build and carve well, if they desire it,” said Sanval, coming up to them with a solid rap of hard boot heels against stone. Ivy thought about pointing out that his firm tread was stirring up more ash, which was settling back down on his beautifully polished boots. But she decided not to comment, not until his boots looked exceptionally bad.
    “There were great temples and palaces in Tsurlagol once, before it fell,” continued Sanval. “Not all were built by dwarves.”
    “I still say it is quality work, and that generally means dwarves,” said Mumchance. “Tsurlagol was always a steady source of income for those inclined to work with humans. The city’s name became another word for ‘job available’ among dwarves. After all, the humans needed it rebuilt so many times.”
    Ignoring the arguments, Ivy asked the important question. “So we’re in Tsurlagol?”
    “In the