The Orb? Jack thought to himself. What in Faerun is Zandria looking for that all this wealth barely impresses her? He carefully trailed the adventurers into the vault, noting with some appreciation that Brunn and Maressa were engaged in wedging an iron spike under the rim of the door-wheel so that the heavy silver circle would not roll back into place and trap them all inside. The vault was arranged in a simple cross shape, with a small round room at the intersection of three short arms; the entrance was at the base of a somewhat longer arm. In the center of the round room stood a great stone sarcophagus.
Zandria and Kale split up, wandering through the vault without disturbing anything large, although Kale quietly pocketed a few interesting baubles when Zandria was not looking. Jack smiled and indulged his own larcenous impulses when neither the mage nor the lockpick was looking his way, filling his pockets as quickly as he could. He filched a fine-looking dagger of strange dark steel, a ring evidently carved from a single piece of onyx, and a dusty bottle that might or might not have sloshed with some small amount of Cedrizarun's legendary brandy.
"Ontrodes will bless me until his dying day." Jack smiled. Now for the real trick, he wondered: How do we separate this much wealth from the Company of the Red Falcon without a fight?
There was a vertical lift of over sixty feet on the way back to the surface, he recalled. Jack could post himself in the middle of the shaft, armed with a knife, then, when Zandria's companions hoisted up bags of loot, Jack could cut the line and drop the loot to the bottom of the shaft, where Anders and Tharzon waited to make off with the booty.
"That would fetch us only a fraction of the take," he muttered. "One or two bags at the most before they became suspicious."
Maybe he could substitute bags full of rocks for the gold, quietly switching the treasure one sack at a time as they hauled it past him, but he'd have to count on no one opening a sack at the top until all the sacks were up, and Jack couldn't imagine how he could encourage Zandria's friends to leave the sacks alone that long. Unless… unless there was someone up there when the sacks arrived, a passer-by who innocently engaged Zandria and her allies in conversation. Of course the Red Falcons wouldn't inspect their sacks if Tharzon and Anders happened by, engaged in a routine exploration of Sarbreen's upper levels. Zandria might order the two killed in order to protect their secrecy, but Jack doubted that she was made of such ruthless stuff. She'd probably chase them off after a few minutes. In the meantime, Jack would keep hauling up loot as if there were nothing wrong up above. He grinned widely. There was a plan worth putting into action!
"Come here!" Zandria stood by the sarcophagus, gazing at the stone carving on the lid. The top of the sarcophagus was worked into a likeness of Cedizarun, reposed on his back, a noble bottle clasped to his breast. "Brunn, Maressa-the sarcophagus holds a secret compartment!"
Jack looked over at the adventurers, now clustered around the dwarven tomb. Zandria carefully removed the stone bottle from the statue's grasp, a perfect piece of stonework that no doubt had taken years to carve. The stone grated coldly as the mage carefully pulled the stone bottle apart into two pieces. Inside, a brilliant white orb of pearly luminescence glimmered.
"The Orb of Khundrukar! Hidden in Cedrizarun's grasp, literally!"
"Is it magical?" asked Brunn.
"Very much so," Zandria replied, "although I am unsure of its properties." She took the Orb, wrapped it in a soft silk cloth, and tucked it into a pouch at her waist. "Help yourselves to the rest of the hoard, then. I have my prize."
Jack took that as his cue to slip out the door. It would take them some time to sort through all that treasure, enough time for he, Anders, and Tharzon to set up a careful pilferage of the treasure as the Red Falcons transported it back to the surface. Of course, he would have loved to get his hands on the Orb, but he'd settle for a king's ransom in gold and jewels. He was just setting up the operation in his mind when he heard shouts of alarm and the clash of arms from the other end of the passageway.
"Anders must have decided to rush the sentries," he realized. Quickly he dashed ahead to take the priest and the warrior from the rear, hoping to silence the fight before it spoiled his plans. Jack reached the staircase leading up into the outer rotunda and started to climb up, when suddenly Anders and Tharzon appeared at the head of the stair, leaping down in utter flight.
"Seal the door! Seal the door!" Tharzon bellowed.
An instant later, the priest Thieron followed the Northman and the dwarf. "Who in Tyr's seven hells are you?" he bellowed after them. "Where do you think you're going?"
"Out of the way, you idiot!" Anders yelled. He reached up and started to haul at the great stone slab that covered the hidden stairway.
The priest gaped in indecision, and then something outside made a kind of long, wheezing grunt and slithered close. Jack couldn't see it, not with Tharzon and Anders and the priest tangled up at the head of the stairway, but Thieron could.
"Tyr's hammer! A dragon of the deep! Durevin, flee!"
From outside Jack heard hissing and the soft scrape of scales on stone. Suddenly a great roar sounded, and a man screamed high and horribly. A sword dropped down the staircase, ringing as it clattered from step to step to land at Jack's feet. Half the length of the blade was gone, leaving a charred, corroded fragment that smoked and sizzled. He looked up again, just in time to see Anders, Tharzon, and Thieron the priest come down the stairs in a bouncing, swearing knot of limbs and weapons. He tried to scramble out of the way but was caught and knocked flat by Tharzon as the dwarf rolled down the steps. A hard-driven elbow knocked the wind out of him, and the collision spoiled his spell of invisibility. Jack saw stars.
When his vision cleared, he found himself looking up the now-empty staircase at a great crocodile-like snout and gleaming yellow fangs. The dragon was a small one, as these things go, probably not much bigger than four or five draft horses lined up nose to tail, but its head was as big as a sixty-gallon tun and its eyes gleamed with intelligence and malice.
"More rats in the hidey-hole," the creature hissed. "Don't worry. I'll be down in just a moment."
Jack scrambled backward on his hams about ten feet, staggered to his feet, and ran for his life. He risked one quick look over his shoulder and saw the monster gliding down the staircase. It was very snakelike in build, with no limbs to interfere with its passage and a pair of great black gleaming wings that folded back along its length. He picked up the pace and passed Tharzon and then the priest Thieron, joining Anders as he raced up the stair at the other end of the passageway that led up to the vault.
The three thieves and the Red Falcon piled into the treasure room in an explosion of armor and oaths. Brunn and Maressa drew weapons and leaped forward to defend their find against the invasion of strangers, but Anders and Tharzon ignored them, instantly turning to the wheellike door and kicking out the spike in order to roll it closed. The great valve boomed shut just as the slithering dragon-snake appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
"Come out, come out!" the creature laughed. "I think you have locked yourselves in, little mice. I shall be most cross if I have to come in after you!"
Jack, Anders, and Tharzon turned away from the door only to find the Red Falcons lined up against them. Zandria stepped forward, her face livid.
"What in the hell is going on here?" she demanded.
Jack started to answer, but Thieron spoke first. "Durevin and I were standing watch, when all of the sudden the dwarf and the big one came running up the outer passage, screaming 'Dragon! dragon!' At first I thought it some kind of ruse or ambush, but they ran right by us into the hidden staircase. When I looked up again, I saw what they were running from-a deep dragon, as fast as a racehorse and as big as a coach." The priest's voice faltered. "Durevin tried to check its advance. He had time for two, maybe three swings, and then the creature dissolved him with its breath. He's dead."