The wall slid open, revealing a darkened staircase leading up. Calista sent a sly smile back to her companion, “I guess we’ve found our way out.”
Two big blue eyes looked up at the stairs. “Excellent.”
Calista laughed, “I’m starting to feel a little better about my delver abilities.”
Nylvani looked at her with two curious eyes. “Why is that?”
Calista shrugged, “I don’t know, I guess I didn’t think I could do it? Ever since I found I couldn’t log out, I’ve been wondering if I’m me or if I’m Calista and whether or not I can survive. Now here I unlocked this big door and then found this hidden one and all that after I fought off those two women who attacked me in the torture chamber which is where I rescued you …”
“Yeah, about that …” Nylvani looked down at the sword she was holding in her hand.
“About what?” Calista asked.
“Well, I just realized something,” Nylvani said.
Calista shook her head. “Realized what?”
Nylvani’s stare was cold, emotionless. “That we’re standing together in a room full of treasure and that I’m holding a sword and you’re not.”
Calista took a step back. “What do you mean?”
Nylvani’s eyes gleamed in the dim light. “What I mean is that I lied to you. I’ve been here before. I know my way around. I was one of Severin’s pets for a while until he found out what I was.”
Calista took another step back. “What do you mean? What are you?”
“A murderer.”
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The sword punched into her gut and she felt it twist and then with a jerk it was out. She gasped in shock and then fell to the floor. It hurt. Lying on her side, she could feel the blood running through her fingers just as two hands were fingering through her pouches. She heard her thief’s tools clink as they were lifted from her pack. Next were a set of potions. Then a sound. Voices. The woman kneeling over her stopped, looked back, and then disappeared up the steps. A second later, Calista heard the hidden doorway slide shut.
It felt like someone had punched her in the gut, but then as the shock wore off, it felt like something cold was burning in her stomach and every time she tried to breathe, it simply got worse. She managed to roll over onto her stomach and slip the pack off her back. Drooling on the floor as she pulled her pack around, she fumbled at the pouches until she found a rag that she pulled out and pressed to the wound. Blood had pooled out onto the floor and was making her hands sticky. A cold fire had started in her gut and her blood was trying to put it out, but now it was like her body wouldn’t let the air in and she could feel the world getting quieter and quieter.
Then something poked her in the back and she managed to groan.
“Oi! This one’s still alive! Smith! Come over here and bring your bandages! I think we’ve found our little sneak thief.”
Then someone rolled her over and the world began to spin. A second of clarity appeared as she caught a glimpse of the largest, fattest troll she had ever seen looking down on her. Then, for some reason she couldn’t quite place, she could hardly feel a thing.
She came to with her face slumped against the troll’s back. He had thrown her over his shoulder and through the rolls of fat, she could feel his lumbering gait as he carried her down the passageway. To her right was a tall, rake thin form of another troll dressed in chain mail. Voices were talking, but she couldn’t make them out yet. Her head was very, very angry at her, but the burning sensation had left her stomach and other than perhaps a little dehydration and some clothes sticky with blood, she felt whole and very much alive.
Slowly, surely, her brain began to reconnect with the different parts of her body. Her face was still there, though she had drooled while upside down and so her spittle had run down her cheek to her forehead and into her hair. Her hands and arms were there, though both were bound. Of course, what she couldn’t feel was her gear. Not her sword, not her pack, not her tools, her potions, anything. Even her belt was gone.
“So you think that little tart stabbed this one and then ran off?”
“That’s what I’m saying, yeah.”
“Then they must have teamed up in the doctor’s office to kill Lady and Gerintine.”
“That would be likely, I think.”
“Or perhaps this one did those two and then she turned her back at the wrong time and then Dillard ran her through with a weapon.”
“But if Dillard backstabbed her, then where did she get a weapon? Lady and Gerintine had all their stuff.”
“So I’ll tell you what. When she wakes up, we’ll ask her if she freed Dillard and if she says yes, you owe me ten quid and vice-versa. Then if she says that Dillard stabbed her I’ll pay
you five quid, but if it turns out this one was wounded by the girls first, then you owe me twenty.”
“Why do I owe you twenty.”
“Because you’re probably right about the Dillard thing, but I think there’s a chance that this one was wounded first and so I’m playing the odds.”
“And I suppose you’re making the odds.”
“Of course.”
There was a moment of silence as the trolls walked and the skinny troll thought about this proposition. Calista held still as their footsteps echoed against the hallway walls. Finally, the tall, thin troll named Smithey said, “Deal.”