The Diamond Read Online Free PDF Page B

shrieking against each other.
    Those in front flung up their hands before their eyes as if shielding themselves from blinding light,
    yet the passage stood as dim as before. There was no smoke, heat, or light—no fire.
     
    Noph struggled to squeeze through the packed ranks, hauling on shoulders and crying, “Way!
    Make way!”
     
    “Let him through,” one guard cried. “He’s got sand!”
     
    “Hurry, Noph!” another called. “Entreri’s almost got the sorcerer’s cell open!”
     
    Noph at last won free of the press of bodies, stumbling out into the clear area before the cells.
    “What’re you doing? You’ll burn alive!” came a shout from behind him.
    Noph ignored it, striding straight to Entreri’s cell. Its door was closed and locked, and within the
     
    assassin still lay unconscious on the straw. Noph peered through the window of Trandon’s cell. The
    sorcerer stood just inside the bars, gazing quizzically out at him.
    Noph turned to the other guards. “What’s the matter with all of you?”
    “Get out of there, Noph—save yourself! They can’t get past us all!”
     
    “You’re right,” Noph replied, bewildered. “They’re still in their—”
    A new commotion erupted. The three nearest guards, in the front rank, swung their swords at
    empty air, faces tense and blades whistling. Steel fangs sliced and thrust, but met no enemy
    metal. The three battling guards grunted with effort, shouting, “Back to your cell, assassin!”
     
    “You can’t defeat all three of us!”
    “If you want out of this dungeon, you’ll have to kill me fir—Aughh! Cruel stroke!” The speaker’s
    sword clattered to the stones. Clapping a hand to his neck, he crashed heavily into the wall. “Oh,
     
    unkind cut,” he gasped, and slowly brought his fingers back to gaze at them in magnificent pathos.
    They were none too clean, Noph saw, but bare.
    “Blood so bright,” the guard groaned. “My blood! To be shed, if shed it I must, in bright meadows,
     
    not in a dungeon drear. Ahhh, I am slain
    Oh, to die so deep and dark
    “
    As the ‘slain’ man declaimed, his two fellows fought all the harder. Sweat streamed down their
     
    faces as they plied their blades, but Noph could still see and hear no foe. He went to them, taking
    care to stay out of sword range. “Who are you fighting?”
    “Stab him from behind, Noph!”
    “Stab who from behind?”
    “We’ve got him trapped between us!”
    “I see no one,” Noph told them. “You’re battling some sort of illusion.”
    “
    Oh, the dusky shore,” the guard against the wall moaned. “Swept by winds of sorrow,
     
    heedless beneath the feet of those who pass, forgotten by the living. I come to you now,
    Kelemvor, Lord of the Dead, borne upon the dark tides of mine own lifeblood
    “
    “You’re not dying,” Noph said in disgust. “You’re not even hurt!”
    “Slay him, Noph! Strike now, while his sword is bound by mine!”
    “Too late! ‘Ware the fell mage!”
    “Thunder and lightning!”
    “Fireballs—they burst so bright! ‘Ware more magic!”
     
    “How can we stand against this?”
     
    “Gods take your wits!” Noph shouted. “Nobody’s attacking you!”
     
    “
    at least they’ll say of me: he died defending great Waterdeep. Died fighting valiantly, brought
    low by the vicious blade of a dastardly man. The bards will sing, down the years, of my
    all-too-rapid end
    “
     
    At last the jammed armsmen were on the move. Those at the rear retreated, white-faced and
    flinching. Those in the middle flailed about, tumbling with each imagined blast of arcane fire or
    sorcerous lightning.
     
    Those in the fore slumped down in faints or succumbed to illusory injuries. Noph stood in the
    center of the supposed conflagration, and shook his head in amazement. At his feet a guard
    gasped, “I’m coming, Mamma, at last. This is it.”
     
    Noph stalked to Trandon’s cell. The tall mage stood within, innocent amusement on his features.
    “All