Storm of the Dead

CHAPTER 11

Halisstra watched as the demon worked its torments. Cavatina lay on her back, helpless and weeping, the antithesis of the proud Darksong Knight she'd once been. Wendonai was deep inside her mind, teasing out jagged scraps of shame and loathing. Flaying her, body and soul, until she lay weak and trembling before him.

Halisstra knew just how that felt.

The massive wound the demon had inflicted upon Halisstra earlier had healed itself, bones knitting and organs and flesh growing back until only a shadow of pain remained. She could breathe without the sharp lance of agony that had blotted out all else. Even the callus was gone from her hand; only a faint pucker remained.

She stared at Wendonai's broad back, her eyes spitting hatred. She'd given him what he wanted: a plaything. She hadn't been stupid enough to expect the demon to keep his promise-freedom would be denied her-but she had expected him to return her to Lolth. Wendonai had no further use for Halisstra, after all. Now that she had delivered the Darksong Knight to him, she was insignificant, a creature to be ignored.

That burned.

Still, it might be to her advantage. With Wendonai's attention wholly focused on Cavatina, Halisstra might escape. She would use her bae'qeshel magic to render herself invisible and…

As soon as she thought that, she cringed. The demon would hear her thoughts!

She waited, wincing in anticipation of his blow. He couldn't kill her. Not without Lolth's complicity. But he could hurt her. Hurt her badly.

Wendonai did nothing. Still bending over the prostrate Cavatina, he continued to torment her, savoring her anguish.

Halisstra straightened from her crouch. It took her several moments to work up her courage, but at last she dared try something. A song, whispered so faintly it was nearly lost amid the wind that eternally scoured this vast, empty plain. She didn't expect her charm to work-Wendonai was a powerful demon, his mind strong as a fortress wall-but she did expect a reaction. Rage, that she would even dare try. Retribution, for her insolence.

Wendonai ignored her.

Or… did he?

He'd told Cavatina he could hear her thoughts. Halisstra had assumed the same held true for her. But if that was so, the demon must have known, when Halisstra first suggested Cavatina as a substitute, that the Darksong Knight had killed a demigod. Either Wendonai had been arrogant enough not to care or…

He'd lied.

Halisstra smiled. He couldn't hear her thoughts, and stupidly, he'd told her why. Her ancestors had been Miyeritari. She didn't bear his taint. That didn't make her weak. It made her strong.

Strong enough to resist him.

Tingling with hope, she glanced around, looking for a way out. The pile of skulls Wendonai used as his throne had burned down to blackened lumps. The wind blew past the skulls, teasing a wisp of ash from the pile.

No, not ash. The streamer of black was coming out of a single eye socket.

Keeping a wary eye on Wendonai, Halisstra eased toward the twisting spiral of ash and touched it with a fingertip. Her flesh paled to gray. The fingertip felt not just cold, but drained of all sensation, all life. The part that was within the tendril of black seemed to shrink, as if Halisstra was viewing it through the wrong side of a lens. The blackness pulled at it, stretching it thinner and thinner and…

Halisstra yanked her finger out. Had she not, the darkness would have drawn her irrevocably into itself. Into the void that was the skull's empty eye socket. She knew what the tendril of darkness was: raw negative energy. Seeping out of… nowhere. Drawing everything it touched into oblivion.

What bliss that would be.

The wind shifted. In order to reach the tendril of ash, Halisstra would have to move to a spot where Wendonai might see her. At the moment, his attention was wholly focused on Cavatina. He crouched over her, his quivering nostrils savoring her weakness. Demons, however, weren't stupid. Not always. The moment he spotted movement behind him, Halisstra's chance at escape would be extinguished.

She'd have to make sure he didn't spot her, then.

Softly, she began to sing. When her song ended, she was as invisible as the wind. Then she began a second song, one that would provide a distraction.

Before she could complete it, a voice pealed out. It was Cavatina, her voice raised in joyous song, "I… am… redeemed!"

Wendonai rocked back, astonished. An anguished howl tore itself from his throat.

Snarling out the final word of her song, Halisstra conjured up an image of herself and sent it hurtling toward Wendonai. The illusionary attack would buy her only an instant, but an instant was all she needed. As the false image hurled itself at Wendonai, claws raking and teeth bared, Halisstra dived for the stream of black and plunged both hands into it. The darkness seized them in its icy grip and wrenched her body inside.

Utter cold gripped Halisstra. Her body felt thin and fragile as paper as the negative energy teased it into an impossible length. Thinner, thinner, until it was a ragged flutter. Nothingness loomed, a vacant eye socket that led down into still, cold darkness.

Then oblivion claimed her.

Cavatina's eyes widened in surprise as Halisstra hurled herself at Wendonai. The demon snarled, but made no move to battle Halisstra. Instead he twisted around, staring intently at the pile of skulls.

Halisstra struck him-and disappeared.

An illusion!

Something odd was happening to Cavatina. A brilliant white light poured from her body, illuminating the demon from below and throwing a harsh shadow across the ground behind him. White as the moon, the light sang from Cavatina's pores. A crackling square of darkness drifted down through this light, settling upon Cavatina's face with a velvet-soft touch, then disappearing. The demon, inside her mind a moment ago, was shut out. Peace filled Cavatina's mind, gentle as a mother's lullaby, even as the searing white moonlight poured from her skin with the rage of a mother's wrath.

"Eilistraee!" Cavatina cried.

Wendonai reared to his feet, his leathery wings flapping. He staggered backward, wincing, as if pummeled by invisible blows. He shot Cavatina a look of anguished rage.

"No!" he howled. He shook a blood-red fist at the sky. "I will not be denied her!"

Flames erupted on his crimson skin and crawled across it in white-hot waves, licking at the wound in his abdomen. He forced himself, stomp by stomp, toward Cavatina. Bulling his way in through the protective shield that Eilistraee had thrown up around her.

Cavatina threw herself to the side. She rolled onto her stomach, her bound hands scrabbling against the gritty soil. An instant later, her holy symbol was in her hands. Clutching it, she forced herself to her knees. She sang out an urgent note, and the blackened singing sword rose into the air behind Wendonai. Soot exploded from the blade, revealing gleaming steel. Then the sword began to sing.

Wendonai whirled to face it.

Too late. Cavatina yanked her bound hands toward her chest, urging the sword forward. Its point plunged into the demon's chest, finding his heart. The sword's peal of triumph drowned out the demon's anguished roar and the angry howl of the rising wind. Wendonai staggered, clutching the hilt that was rammed tight against his chest. A bloodied length of steel protruded from his back, quivering in its victory dance.

Before the demon could heal himself, Cavatina sang out another prayer. This time, her voice was funereal and low. The dirge she sang resonated through the blade in the balor's chest and vibrated through his blood with each pulse of his massive heart. He staggered, his cloven feet scuffing furrows in the salt-crusted earth. His wings snapped erect and fluttered stiffly, and his eyes blazed. Even as the dirge forced him to his knees, Wendonai shook his massive horned head.

"This… is not finished," he gasped. "You cannot… kill me."

Another lie. Wendonai had made one terrible, fatal mistake. Had this battle taken place anywhere else, Cavatina would have been unable to kill him. The demon's essence would have fallen back into the raw chaos of the Abyss, there to be reborn. But in the Abyss, he was as mortal as she was.

Cavatina braced herself. When Wendonai died, the resulting void would tear at the fabric of the Abyss, rupturing it in a tremendous explosion. She, too, would die.

That didn't matter. Her soul would join Eilistraee's eternal dance, and Cavatina would have her victory.

Cavatina was on her knees, still at bound at ankle and wrist with the smoldering remains of the demon's whip. But Eilistraee's symbol was in her hands. Tiny and dull though the ceremonial blade might be, it would be Wendonai's downfall.

She ended her dirge with two droning words: "Die, Wendonai."

The balor's eyes rolled back in its head. He groaned-long and low as tortured metal twisting apart. Then he began to tilt to one side. The wind howled, tearing at Cavatina's hair and driving sharp granules of salt into her bare skin. The demon's hands clawed at the air, as if he were desperately trying to prop himself upright, but to no avail.

With a crash that rattled the ground on which Cavatina knelt, Wendonai fell.

For several heartbeats, the air was utterly still.

Wendonai was dead, even though his body had not been consumed.

And Cavatina was still alive.

A miracle.

The glow that enveloped Cavatina abruptly ended. She let out a shuddering sigh. "Praise be to you, Eilistraee. In my time of need…" Realizing something, she amended her prayer of thanksgiving. "Masked Lady," she corrected. "My heartfelt thanks, for… everything."

She moistened her wind-chapped lips. They were crusted with salt, but she tasted something far sweeter.

Redemption.

She shuffled on her knees to where the demon lay. Using the length of blade that protruded from his back, she sliced apart the tight binding of leather around her wrists. Then she sat, raised her bound legs, and sawed the bindings off her ankles. She nicked herself in several places but didn't care. It was all part of the dance.

Leaping to her feet, she gave in to it. Whirling, clapping, spinning in place. A victory dance. Not just for herself, but for the Masked Lady. Embracing all that they both had become.

Only in the middle of it did she suddenly remember Halisstra. She whirled in place, but the salt-encrusted plain was as bare as it had always been. Empty and flat, stretching as far as the eye could see.

"Where is she?" Cavatina wondered aloud.

She'd asked herself the same question, nearly two years ago, after slaying Selvetarm. Just as she had then, she vowed to search for Halisstra. Only when Cavatina found her again, Halisstra would pay for her treachery.

With a grunt, Cavatina flopped the dead demon onto his side. His lips were pulled back, his fangs exposed in what looked like a grin.

"Go ahead and smile," Cavatina told him. "It's Eilistraee who has the last laugh." She planted a foot on his chest and yanked out the singing sword. She whirled it around her head, letting the dark blood slide from it. The sword pealed its joy.

What now? Cavatina thought as she glanced around. This is the Abyss, and I still need to escape.

Her eye fell on the pile of blackened skulls. A thin tendril of black seeped from the eye socket of one of them. She crouched and peered at its source.

The void she stared into left her mind spinning. For an instant, she felt nothing-not even the beating of her own heart. Her very soul teetered on a blade's edge: on one side, life; on the other… nothing. Just a terrifying emptiness.

Cavatina reeled back, sickened. The eye socket was indeed a portal. A portal to death itself.

There had to be another way out of there. Halisstra must have gone somewhere. And if she could escape, then so could Cavatina. She was a Darksong Knight. A slayer of demons. No, a slayer of demigods. She…

She smiled. There is was again. Pride. It had nearly been her downfall, more than once.

Still, she would find a way out of there. When she'd trained as a Darksong Knight, her instructors had foreseen just such an eventuality. More than one of them had followed a demon onto its home ground, slain it, and returned to tell the tale. They'd told her how it was done. The prayer was one Cavatina had never attempted before, but she was certain she could master it.

Anything was possible, with Eilistraee's grace.

Holding her sword in both hands, Cavatina raised it until the blade was horizontal with the ground. Then she spun and sang. Her blade tried to dip toward the skull portal, but she would not allow it. Muscles straining, she kept it level. Then suddenly the point plunged down, driving itself deep into the salt. A shaft of twined moonlight and shadow shot out from that point, a hair's breadth above the ground and thin as a sword blade. A path that only a devotee of the Masked Lady could see. A path to the next nearest portal.

Cavatina yanked her sword from the ground. With the softly humming blade balanced across one bare shoulder, she set out upon the path.

Karas stepped down into the boat, taking care that his too-short legs didn't stumble. Getting used to being half his usual size was the easy part. Coping with having his face bare was harder. His mask- a bright red handkerchief-peeped out of the pocket of the leather vest his piwafwi had transformed into. He resisted the urge to touch it.

Gindrol and Talzir followed him, each seamless in his magically altered form. Their disguises were perfect to the last detail: bare scalps, mottled gray skin, wiry muscles, and pebble-black eyes. They even wore a deep gnome's suspicious glower. They might have been born svirfneblin, for all anyone could tell.

The rowboat was narrow and black, with blunted ends. The three disguised Nightshadows settled onto its bare wooden seats, Karas in the front with the strongbox resting on his knees. Gindrol, just behind him, took the oars in hand. Each was a length of fused armbone, ending in a cupped hand.

The splashes of the oars were drowned out by the clattering of bone on bone. The lake-filled cavern was vast, but its entire ceiling was studded with skulls, giving it a bumpy, off-white appearance. The lake itself was utterly flat-the slight wake the rowboat produced immediately stilled. A chill emanated from the water, up through the wooden plank on which Karas sat. He found himself shivering and tried to force his muscles to relax. He didn't want the others to think he was afraid.

The lake was deep, but the Faerzress that permeated the stone there shone up from below, lending the water a faint bluish glow. Silhouettes flitted through its depths: water spiders, hunting their prey.

At the center of the lake lay an island, on which stood the ruined city of V'elddrinnsshar. The island itself was a slumped mass of off-white limestone whose top had been leveled. Streets wound between empty stalagmite buildings that rose like tapering fingers questing for the ceiling. At the center of the island stood a larger spire of stone, its top sheared off. Kiaransalee's temple capped it, a brooding block of black marble. Ghosts flitted above it like demented swallows, their anguished moans filling the air in an eerie chorus.

As the boat drew closer to the island, Karas could make out huddled shapes choking the streets of the abandoned city: the bodies of the dead. Several lay on the dock, arms or legs draped loosely over the edges where they had fallen. A dozen rose to their feet in silence as the boat scraped against the stone steps that led up to the dock. All were drow, their skin paled to dull gray. Each had flesh pocked with enormous, long-since ruptured blisters: the puffball-like hallmark of the ascomid plague. Had those blisters been fresh, the slightest touch would have ruptured them, releasing a cloud of deadly spores that would propagate the disease. But it had been a century since the plague had swept through there, killing everyone in the city.

Karas twisted around on his seat and saw that Talzir's eyes were wide, his lips tight. Gindrol, who was rowing, still had his back to the dock.

"Steady," Karas told them, his svirfneblin voice strange in his ears. "Remember, they need our voidstone. They're not going to kill us… yet."

The svirfneblin that was Talzir cracked a grim smile.

One of the undead drow-a female whose finery hung in tatters on her blistered body-staggered down the steps and reached down for the strongbox Karas held. Shaking his head, he drew it out of her reach.

"This isn't for you, Mistress," he told her. "It's for your Reaper."

A chuckle sounded from one of the doorways at the rear of the dock. From it stepped a drow female wearing the loose black robe and gray skullcap that marked her as a Crone.

Silver rings decorated each finger. An hourglass, filled with white sand, hung against her chest, and a dagger with a bone handle was sheathed at her hip. Her skin was smudged with gray: ashes, taken from a pyre and mixed with rancid fat. Karas steeled himself against the smell as she approached. Back in Maerimydra, it had always made him gag.

He clambered up the steps, gripping the strongbox. Talzir and Gindrol followed. All three bowed at the Crone's approach. Barely acknowledging them, she tossed the sack she was holding at their feet. It landed with a clatter: the sound of gemstones clicking together.

When she reached out for the strongbox, Karas feigned reluctance. He shifted the box in his hands, making sure to draw her attention to it. The wood appeared gouged, as if it had been chewed on

"Is there a problem?" she asked. Her voice was as cold as a corpse.

"We were attacked." Karas said. "A bulette mistook the strongbox for its lunch."

"Good thing it didn't swallow the contents," Talzir piped up from behind him, "or it would have gotten a terrible stomach ache." He gave a nervous-sounding laugh.

The Crone's eyes narrowed. "Give it to me."

Karas shifted his feet. "But-"

"Give it to me!"

Karas obliged, lifting the strongbox. Just as the Crone's hand was about to touch it, he moved the box upward. Her hand passed through the illusionary lid and touched the voidstone. For the briefest of instants, her eyes widened in alarm and her mouth parted in a scream.

Then she was gone.

With a thought, Karas altered his form. His body doubled in size, changed gender, assumed the face he'd just been staring up at. His vest became a robe, his mask a skullcap, and the dragon-skin ring on his finger multiplied itself by eight and turned silver.

He stared disdainfully down at the other two Nightshadows and shouted in a cold female voice, "Where did he go? Speak!"

The undead drow glanced back and forth between the transformed Karas and the spot where the real Crone had just been standing. One of them pawed at Karas's sleeve, and he warned it off with a glare.

Gindrol and Talzir, meanwhile, played their parts to perfection. Shuffling, nervous, they refused to meet the "Crone's" eyes. On cue, the boat rocked, as if an invisible person were stepping into it. Karas stared in that direction. "Ah. Lost his nerve, did he?"

Gindrol bent to scoop up the sack, but Karas stamped a foot down on it. He pretended to open the strongbox. The illusionary lid sprang open, and he looked inside. The voidstone was a dark, fist-sized hollow at the center of the box. With a satisfied nod, he pretended to close the missing lid.

He removed his foot from the sack. "Go," he ordered the other two.

Cringing, they retrieved the sack and scrambled back to the boat.

All part of the act.

It was lost on the undead, of course. The animated corpses that surrounded Karas hadn't the intelligence to understand the subtle scene the three Nightshadows had just played out. But the quth-maren that stepped out of a nearby doorway did. Tall and gaunt, made up of nothing more than oozing muscle stitched rudely over bone, it stared at Karas with eyes that wept blood. As Karas met its stare, panic welled inside him. He felt if he were drowning, thrashing about in panic, going under in a sea of blood.

Masked Lord, he pleaded fiercely, strengthen me.

The panic dissipated, leaving only a nervous bead of sweat that trickled down the small of Karas's back. He glared at the animated dead who clustered around him, fawning for his attention. "Clear a path for me," he ordered.

The quth-maren nodded. It waved a hand, and the plague-killed drow standing on the dock folded to the ground, lifeless once more. Then it gave a hacking cough, deep in its chest. A wad of blood-tinged mucous shot from its mouth and landed on the stomach of a corpse that had Iain down immediately in front of Karas. The acidic spit sizzled, burning clean through the body, down to the stone beneath.

The quth-maren gave a gurgling chuckle and padded up the dock, leaving bloody footprints in its wake.

Behind Karas, Gindrol and Talzir pulled away from the dock. The splashes of their oars were rapidly lost amid the clattering of the skulls overhead and the wails of the ghosts that flitted above.

Karas forced his shoulders erect and followed the quth-maren with a haughty, confident step. They walked through the ruined city. Everywhere Karas looked lay plague victims, preserved by fell magic. They rose at his approach, bowing in subservience to the Crone he appeared to be. Some plucked at his cloak with blistered fingers; he shrugged them away imperiously.

Movement down a side street caught his eye. He glanced in that direction and saw a monstrous hound nearly four times his height, made up of a seething mass of bodies, with teeth made from broken femurs. It sniffed at the dead, selected one, and closed its teeth around it. Lifting the corpse into the air, the monstrous hound shook its head, scattering chunks of flesh left and right. It paused in this gruesome task to stare back at Karas, blood dribbling from its mouth like drool.

Karas averted his eyes and walked on. All around him, however, were equally horrific sights. Ghouls scuttled like crabs across the corpses, snapping off choice pieces and sucking on them. Specters drifted in and out of walls, leaving a rime of frost in their wake. Finger-sized gravecrawlers wriggled into the nostrils and ears of the bodies that lay on the ground, gradually calcifying the dead.

Karas had seen it all before. Just as they had then, his guts churned in horror. He'd thought himself ready. It had been five years since the fall of Maerimydra, after all. Five years since he'd escaped from the horror of a city conquered both from without, by the army of Kurgoth Hellspawn, and from within, by the traitorous priestesses of House T'sarran.

You survived then, he told himself sternly. You'll survive now.

But his thoughts kept turning traitorously back to that time. To all the near misses, the almost-fatal mistakes. Becoming the consort of one of Kiaransalee's priestesses, for example. How badly that had gone! Later, he'd thrown in his lot with a group of survivors hiding in the ruins. All had gone well until they decided to take on the Crones, a suicidal task. Karas had taken his leave of them, fleeing Maerimydra with the sackful of the treasures he'd been able to scavenge.

Later, he'd heard they'd actually done it: thrown down Kiaransalee's high priestess with the help of adventurers from beyond the city. That thought should have bolstered him, given him the confidence he so desperately needed. But he was haunted still by the memories of the long months he'd spent constantly on the run from the undead. The moans of the ghosts above reminded him of the shrieks that had cut down the other members of his House like invisible scythes. The clattering that filled the air reminded him of the bony touch of a skeletal hand on his shoulder.

Stop thinking about it, he told himself sternly. He forced down the gorge that rose in his throat. He would do as his god commanded. Discover what the Crones were doing with the voidstone, learn how to stop it, then get out. The Masked Lord would protect him, just as he had in Maerimydra. And if Karas died… well, then the fear that roiled in his guts would end. He'd be taken up into the Masked Lord's shadowy embrace.

He knew where he had to go: into the temple atop that central spire. The Acropolis of Thanatos was the only logical place for the voidstone to be delivered to. The blue-green glow that suffused the column it stood on confirmed it. The Faerzress was brightest at the top of the spire, just underneath the temple. It pulsed with an eye-stinging glow.

The quth-maren led Karas to the base of a staircase that spiraled up to the temple. On each side of the stair stood a boneclaw: a skeletal humanoid twice Karas's height with fingers that ended in scything claws. One of the boneclaws lashed out as Karas approached, its claws extending until they were several paces long. Their tips plunged into the rock in front, back and to either side of Karas, forming the bars of a razor-sharp cage.

Karas jerked to a halt. "Release me," he ordered. He flipped up his hood, using it as an excuse to touch the skullcap he wore-his disguised holy symbol. Silently, he prayed to the Masked Lord, Drive him back. Make him obey.

The boneclaw twisted its wrist, snapping off its claws near their tips. Fresh points sprouted immediately from the stubs as it returned its hand to its side. "Pass," it hissed through clenched teeth.

Karas stepped over the broken claw stubs. Then he climbed the stairs. The quth-maren didn't follow. It remained at the base of the stalagmite, craning its neck up to watch him, its lipless mouth twisted in a mocking smile.

Did it know something Karas didn't?

Karas shook off his apprehension. He needed to watch where he was going. The stairs were covered with trickles of what smelled like dribbling, rancid fat. He had to concentrate on each step to keep from slipping.

At last he reached the level stop of the spire. Here, for the first time since setting foot on the island, he saw other Crones. All were dressed as he was, in loose black robes, some with their hoods pulled up. The silver rings they wore on every finger glinted blue, reflecting the light of the Faerzress. Most of the Crones hurried past on errands of their own, but others stood rocking in place, arms clasped tight around their bodies, tittering with mad laughter. One squatted over a corpse, yarding out its withered entrails and carefully coiling them around a spool.

Karas walked steadily toward the temple. Built of black marble veined with red, it was a chaotic jumble of angles, misshapen windows and gaping doorways. The closer he got, the greater his urge to cringe and cower. His feet felt heavy as stone. Each dragging step forward was an effort that caused his heart to pound wildly in his ears. A part of his mind gibbered in terror at what he was about to do. This is the Acropolis, it shrieked. Kiaransalee's temple. You don't dare enter it. They'll know you, see you for what you are. Turn back!

A whimper struggled to escape his throat. With a savage effort, he swallowed it down. He shifted the strongbox into the crook of one arm and adjusted his hood, using the motion to once again brush his fingers against the skullcap-mask. Masked Lord, he silently prayed, give me strength.

Confidence stirred like a whisper in the darkness, then flooded him like a shaft of moonlight. His shoulders squared, his heart lightened, his step grew more confident. I can do it, he told himself. Just a few steps more.

Then he was inside.

He halted as abruptly as he'd entered. If he hadn't, it all would have ended right there. He stood on the edge of a precipice; the interior of the Acropolis of Thanatos was nothing more than an empty hole. Walls, floors, ceiling beams-all ended abruptly, as if the stone building were a squash that had been scraped empty by a spoon. At the center of this hollow hung a sphere of utter blackness. Karas could feel it tugging at him, and he found himself leaning toward it. When he flinched back, a tiny fragment of marble broke off from the edge where his foot had been. The chip of stone flew toward the sphere at the center of the hollow space, spiraling in toward it, then was gone.

"Voidstone," he whispered.

The sphere sucked hungrily at his essence, chilling him until his bones ached. He tried to take the measure of the thing but couldn't. It was enormous, as large as a small building. The Crones must have been working at it for years, building it up one tiny chunk at a time.

Seeing the immensity of it, his heart sank. Destroying it would take dozens of priests, working in concert to channel positive energy into it. Before there was even a hope of attempting this, the army of undead that filled the streets below would have to be defeated.

Cavatina had been right. They would have to mount an attack on the Acropolis.

The sphere of darkness wasn't entirely featureless. If Karas turned his head slightly, he could see shapes and movement out of the corner of his eye. Wild images filled the voidstone's depths: the towers of a city, rows of skeletal undead lined up like soldiers, a plaza filled with capering ghouls, a minotaur seated on a bone throne. The latter twisted around to stare at Karas. A bestial muzzle pressed against the surface of the voidstone sphere from within. Lips twitched in a grimace, revealing elongated fangs.

Free me, the minotaur hissed. And my legions will serve you.

"Soon, Lord Casus," a soft voice answered. "Soon."

Karas started, nearly dropping the strongbox. Slowly he turned.

Standing just behind him was a female he recognized: Cabrath, of House Nelinderra. Her face was clean of the death's head paint she habitually wore, but she looked no better for it. Her lips were a narrow slash, her nose a second, vertical slash, and her eyes mere slits. She wore black robes trimmed with purple. She toyed with a bone-handled dagger whose blade was a tapering glimmer of blue energy. The harsh light glinted off the silver rings on her fingers.

Karas was surprised to see her there. He'd assumed she'd died with the rest of the Crones when Kiaransalee's cult in Maerimydra was overthrown.

A bone-white aura wavered around her, chill as mist in a graveyard. It brushed against Karas-he didn't dare flinch, lest Cabrath realize something was wrong. Its brief touch left him feeling sick and weak. In another moment, he thought, he would faint. Tumble and slide down the slope in front of him into the voidstone and be consumed.

Staring at the orb was better than looking into Cabrath's terrible amber eyes. Karas tore his gaze away from her. The voidstone was black again, unmarked by visions.

Cabrath drifted around in front of Karas, her hair streaming back toward the voidstone. Her body was translucent; Karas could see the voidstone right through her. She was dead.

She tilted her head at the voidstone. "Feed him."

Karas hesitated, even though he knew there was little he could do. In death, Cabrath had become something more than the mere priestess she had been. As a spirit, she could slay him with a touch, with a word, between one heartbeat and the next. Any spell he tried would die on his lips before he could complete it.

He tossed the strongbox at the voidstone sphere. Cabrath moved to intercept it. As the box passed through her ghostly body, she threw out her arms and shrieked with wild laughter. For just an instant, she seemed solid again, corporeal, except for her aura. She spun in place and watched the box strike the larger sphere and disappear, releasing the chunk of voidstone it held. Her gaunt face held a look of first eager anticipation, then disappointment.

"Go!" she shrieked over her shoulder at Karas, not deigning to look at him. "Find more!"

Karas bowed. As he started to back away, a section of the voidstone bulged outward. Horror filled Karas as he realized the chunk of voidstone he'd just added might tip the balance. Were the armies of the undead minotaur about to be released?

The bulge in the voidstone erupted. A figure tumbled out, screaming like a thing damned. She was a massive female drow, twice as large as Q'arlynd, with a bestial face, matted hair, and spiderlike legs protruding from her chest. Cabrath whirled, barely dodging the tumbling form. The newcomer sailed past her and crashed into a wall. Cabrath glanced between the bestial female and the voidstone, a shocked look on her face.

The demonic drow scrambled to her feet. She stared wildly around-at the hollowed-out temple, at Karas, at the voidstone, at Cabrath. Then she threw back her head and shrieked with laughter, a sound as brittle as breaking glass.

"Lolth!" she cried. "I'm your plaything no longer. I've won! I'm dead!"

Karas stared at the voidstone. It was smooth and spherical once more. The skeletal legions were not issuing forth from it. Not yet. And Cabrath seemed just as surprised by what had just happened as Karas was. The spirit stared at the demonic drow, a puzzled frown on her face.

Slowly Karas backed out of the temple. He'd find a quiet place, report to Qilue-and let her decide what to do next.