Free Crypt of the Moaning Diamond by Rosemary Jones Page A

ruins of some earlier Tsurlagol, I think,” said Sanval slowly, as if he were dredging up an old story from his memory. “This city has been destroyed and rebuilt so often, it can be hard to know one level from the next. There are tales of fire once destroying Tsurlagol, sweeping through the city. A fire begun by wizards. It burned so wildly and so free that they finally buried the city under the earth to stifle it.”
    “Earth magic and fire magic,” said Gunderal. “I can smell traces of it in this place. But both extinguished now. And something else too, something even older. Something strange, that pulls on the Weave in a way that I do not recognize.”
    “So how far are we from present day Tsurlagol?” asked Ivy, whose interest in history had never been strong and tended to be even less when she was trapped underground and had missed her breakfast and had little hope of lunch.
    “Outside the walls still,” said Mumchance. “We’ve been traveling too far to the north to be under the current city. That’s what I think, and I’m usually right.”
    “Yes, and a disgusting habit that is too,” replied Ivy. She rubbed her eyes—the old ash kicked up by her passage made her itchy—and peered into the gloom. “Best way out?”
    “Many ways, my dear,” said Kid, trotting back and forth like a restless racehorse. “East, west, south, north. Lots of tunnels going out of here. Bigger than the way we came. Men and dwarves have been down here since this burned and been busy, busy, busy digging away. Others have come since. Animals slithering on bellies, four-foot and two-foot and no-foot, hunting behind the humans and dwarves. Old tracks overlaying older tracks, all hunting one another.” Kid’s tongue flickered in and out of his mouth, as if he tasted all those passages in the air itself.
    “At least there are not any rats,” said Zuzzara, who had a strong dislike of rodents. It was Gunderal who always had to clean out the rattraps in the barn, unless she could talk somebody else into doing it.
    “Too many reptiles, my dear,” said Kid, bending over to examine a small pile of bones.
    “Reptiles?” said Gunderal, who had a bigger dislike of snakes than Zuzzara had of rats. Ivy could not stand either rats or snakes, and so she killed them whenever she met any. Slicing off their little heads always made her feel better.
    “Snakes, lizards, something else, my dear,” said Kid, still stirring through the skeletons on the floor. “But these bones are men and halflings and dwarves.”
    “Treasure hunters,” explained Sanval. “The ruins were rumored to be laden with ancient treasures, magical artifacts, and so on. Men came, and dwarves too, and others as well, to dig through the buried cities. Tsurlagol has been many cities—each one destroyed in a siege and then rebuilt.”
    “And wherever the treasure hunters go, predators follow close behind,” grumbled Mumchance.
    Sanval nodded. “The ruins gained an evil reputation, and most of the entrances were sealed. Then Tsurlagol fell in another battle, and another.”
    “Until they lost track of their own ruins,” Mumchance said.
    “Sort of place that my mother would have loved, if it were stacked with treasure,” observed Ivy. “She probably could have sung you the city’s entire history right back to when the first stone was laid for the first wall. When she wasn’t saving the world or singing for some king, she was the most avid treasure hunter, always going underground after some artifact or other. That was one of the things that my father could never understand. He thought all jewels and gems were just
    worthless sparkly rocks compared to a nice flowering bush or a flourishing oak tree.”
    As they talked, they all circled slowly around the enormous hall, careful to stay within the small circle of light cast by Mumchance’s lantern. Kid ventured the farthest into the dark, reaching into the shadows to feel the walls and better assess their