"Go on, fall already," Ivy shouted, and her voice bounced around the walls of the circular chamber.

The beast swung his head around, pointing his open mouth toward the ceiling. Some pale pink spit dribbled down from the edge of its toothless maw. It screeched-not its aimed sonic sound but rather a thin cry of pain-and it fell sideways, landing solidly on the heads of the other two below. The impact of the falling destrachan forced all the beasts under the water.

A huge wave rose up, shooting out and showering water over the stairs and the Siegebreakers.

"Let's get out of here!" screamed Ivy. When she turned to race back up the stairs, she nearly knocked Mumchance off.

He had come down to stand behind her, holding his fake eye ready to throw in one hand. When the destrachan plunged down into the water, the dwarf gave a grunt of satisfaction and popped his gem bomb back into his empty eye socket.

The destrachans' heads reappeared above the water, but the monsters' weird cries sounded sluggish and hoarse. "Persistent critters!" screamed Ivy as she put her hands in front of her to shove Mumchance faster up the stairs toward a worried-looking Zuzzara. The half-orc was still standing guard over her chanting sister, but she leaned down and offered one arm to grab the dwarf and swing him up onto the landing.

The stress of their flight proved too much for the remaining steps; the stone turned into glittering dust as the staircase below the ledge literally dissolved. "Good crystal content in these stones," yelled Mumchance as Ivy leaped the last few steps to land winded beside Zuzzara.

"Why won't the lousy shriekers drown?" Ignoring her throbbing foot, Ivy leaned over the landing to check on the location of the destrachans.

The dust and rock that had once been the winding staircase avalanched down into the chamber, becoming mud as it mixed with the water. The destrachans were trapped in the thick goop. It began to fill their ears and mouths. The waters rose over the creatures' heads. They stretched their unseeing faces upward, their ears twitching, their mouths open. Their cries continued to loosen the stones above them, but less now-a mere rain of chips that drifted down into the churning mess of water and stone dust. The soupy gray waters rose above the open mouths, filling them, then covering them. The cries of the monsters ended in gurgles.

The room was finally silent except for the last three notes of Gunderal's sweet chant, echoing above the lapping sound of the river filling the chamber below them. The wizard removed her fingers from her ears and with a pretty smile peered down into the water now steadily rising up the walls.

"I told you I could call the river," Gunderal pronounced with immense satisfaction.

"Yes, but I told you this chamber would be a good place to trap the beasts," Zuzzara said.

"But you could not have done it, sister mine, without my help," said Gunderal, her smile quavering into a lovely but distinct lower lip pout that always signaled an argument. "I'm the only one who can raise rivers."

"Of course your magic was important, but so was using it in the right place," replied Zuzzara, ready to stand still and debate with her younger sister about strategy.

"Ladies, ladies," said Mumchance, peering into what was left of the chamber below and watching the water rise faster up the wall. "We might want to discuss this later." The dwarf called for his dog, and Wiggles's bark echoed out of the tunnel opening off the landing. "Sounds like Wiggles has found a way out."

"You sisters can argue about who is the cleverest later," said Ivy, through the throbbing of her torn toes and the aching of the new bruises on her knees and shins where she had fallen heavily against the landing. "But we'd better leave before the water is over our heads."

They raced along the tunnel in the direction that Archlis had gone. They hit another branch of the tunnel where another stair led down into the tunnels below. Wiggles stood at the top of those stairs, giving out a worried whine. Grabbing the lantern from Mumchance, Ivy peered down those stairs. At the very edge of the light, she saw the glimmer of water. The floor of the tunnel below was already damp, which meant the river was beginning to fill the ruins. "I am truly sick of being wet," she said.

"That's tunnels for you," the dwarf said. "Great conduits for water!" Ivy didn't thank him for the information.

A pair of snakes, thankfully quite small, whipped up the stairs and raced away in front of them.

"Oh, dear," said Mumchance, "I had not thought of that."

"What?"

"Anything else living in these tunnels is going to need to flee too. Or be drowned."

Ivy glanced around. Nothing else appeared to shadow them. "Maybe the destrachans ate everything else living in this part of the ruins?"

"Hope so," said the dwarf, but he whistled to Wiggles, commanding the small dog to heel close to him.

Zuzzara let out a cry. Her sharp eyes had spotted a hoof-shaped footprint in the mud of the floor, overlaid by the mark of a Procampur officer's boot.

"Sanval is ahead of us. Looks like he is following the magelord and Kid."

Ivy spotted a light shining ahead of them, and sped up to the faintly illuminated doorway that opened off the ledge. She found another staircase leading down, but this one seemed dry at the bottom. At least no reflective gleam of water showed in the lantern light. On the top step, the stub of a tallow candle flickered. Ivy remembered looting the dead bugbear and pressing some of the candles into Sanval's reluctant hands. She had told him then that he would need the light. Had he used the candle to leave them a marker? Or was it one of Archlis's tricks?

The stone stairs spiraled away into the darkness. As Ivy stepped forward, her damp boots squelched even louder than before. She looked down. Water was starting to drip down the sides of the walls and cover the floor of the tunnel where they were standing. Some water began dripping down the stairs. It was just a thin film of water, but she knew that the river was pushing behind it, seeking them out just as the destrachans had hunted them through the black tunnels.

"How can the river be above us now and not below?" worried Ivy.

"It is filling up the old canals first," answered Gunderal. "And following the old wells and sewers. But it will spill over into the other tunnels soon enough."

"Don't suppose you could slow it down a little now?"

Gunderal sighed. "I wish I could, Ivy, but I have only one spell left for today. And that will make more water, not less."

"Save it then. We may need it later."

"Ivy," said Mumchance, "we don't want to go down."

"Water flows downhill," added Gunderal-an unnecessary remark in Ivy's opinion.

"This stair looks dry," Ivy said.

"There may be some solid rock between the river and that tunnel, but it won't hold back the river forever."

Ivy stared down into the blackness of the stairwell. "We have no choice. Archlis must have gone this way. We're not leaving Kid behind. We are not leaving Sanval behind either, and I know he's down there too," she said. "I'm not letting Archlis walk out of these ruins with whatever treasure is down there. I'll swim with destrachans if I have to, but we're going down."

Ivy started to draw her sword and then realized her scabbard was empty. With a shrug, she started down the staircase. For a moment, there was only silence behind her. Then she heard the tap of Gunderal's heels as she entered the spiral behind her, followed by Zuzzara's heavy footsteps and the clump of Mumchance's boots.

"Told you that she was sweet on him," hissed Zuzzara in what she imagined was a whisper.

"Hush," said Gunderal to her sister.