Witchlight

by Teutonic Titwillow

Xanos Messarmos has spent two of the past three months dead because a Netherese city fell on him. Nadiya bint-Musud's tribe has been kidnapped by the Zhentarim, leaving her the sole survivor. Together, they prove that the Anauroch is a far more dangerous place than even they could have imagined - and that fate, it seems, has a very strange sense of humor.

38. Chapter 38

I led Brown through the night-shadowed city on a chain. He followed mutely, his head down. For once, it seemed, he knew enough not to speak.

Unfamiliar rings weighted my fingers. A pouch bounced against my hip, full of things I preferred not to think about. The unaccustomed weight of heavy boots tugged at my feet. I did not quite know what to make of any of these things, but it was far too late to change them now. All I could do was to keep moving and hope that all went according to plan.

We were alone. I did not know exactly where Xanos and Ishiko were. After talking all the day long, they had settled on a place where the city wall would be lightly guarded. The plan had been for Ishiko to leave after us, in stealth, and find that place to make sure that Brown and I had a safe escape route. Xanos had insisted on going with her. He did not trust her at all. He expected her to betray us to the Zhentarim. I hoped for all of our sakes that he was wrong.

A man passed us – a guard, from his armor and sword and badge. My muscles tensed, both with dread and with effort of not reaching for my scimitar.

My hand twitched. Brown's chain clinked. The boy kept his eyes on the ground.

The man stopped. He looked at the lightning badge that held my cloak closed. Then he held out a hand, insultingly close to my face. "What's your business here?" he asked.

I stared at him. My eyes darted away from his. Panic rose. I knew that I needed to say something. We had even rehearsed it. In the face of his question, however, all words seemed to leave me, and my tongue seemed suddenly seemed as heavy and inert as a boulder.

Behind me, Brown whimpered. "Don't take me to the pens," he begged suddenly. "I'll do anything. Please, mistress-"

His words jarred me out of my blankness. "Be silent," I snapped. Those words, at least, came easily.

"But-"

I gave his chain a jerk. I thought I could keep speaking as long as I looked at him and not the stranger. "Enough."

I felt the strange man's eyes on me a moment longer and dared a quick look. Once again he studied the badge I wore, the one Xanos had stolen. Then he seemed to reach a decision. "Get this prisoner off the streets and move along," he told me curtly. "Curfew is in one bell."

I nodded just as curtly. Then I tugged Brown's chain and stepped around the guard, before he could change his mind. I tried to move as naturally as I could. It was difficult. I felt as stiff as a mummy, and hardly dared to breathe much more than one. I was afraid that if I did, the sound of my own breath and movement would cover the sound of movement from behind.

We walked. No steps followed. I began to relax.

I heard a quavering exhalation. "That was close," Brown said weakly.

I could not help but agree. Shame covered me. I felt like a fool. Why did my tongue never do as I wanted it to, and always at the worst of all possible times? "T-thank you.

I heard his smile in his voice. "You're welcome," he said. Then he added, "Turn right here."

I obeyed. The street we turned into seemed almost deserted. Other guards passed now and again, but those ones paid us no mind, perhaps thinking that two people, one of whom was in chains, were no threat.

The chain jangled behind me, its noise echoing off of the stones around us. Stone floors, stone walls, stone columns – this whole place was nothing but bare dirt and chilly rock, with neither the greenness of plants nor the sinuous sear of desert sand to redeem it.

Eventually, the street opened into a broad place. Buildings loomed up. One was white, shining in the moonlight. It had a strange three-sided shape which made an uneven silhouette against the sky.

I looked around warily, quickly. There was no one in sight. I did not know how long this state of affairs would last. Best hurry, then, I thought, and started across the empty space to the three-sided building.

I wanted to run. I forced myself to walk. I had learned very early in my life that running only drew attention and made people wonder what I might have done wrong that I was in such a hurry to escape notice. Granted, my family had always been inclined to assume that I had done something wrong, but I did not think the Zhentarim would be any more forgiving in this regard.

We reached the strangely-shaped building. Its nearest wall slanted up and away from us at an angle like a tent's wall, and then it seemed to reach an apex and turn, bending back towards the ground on the other side.

I looked at the wall. It was rough, but not so much that I felt comfortable climbing it as I was. Bending, I tugged each boot off, one at a time, until I stood barefoot on the gritty stone. Then I handed my boots to Brown. I would not throw them away. They were good leather. "Hold these," I instructed him.

He took them from me hesitantly. "Why?" he wondered.

"Because I cannot climb in them," I said shortly. "They are too big. And too loud." I checked that my scabbard belt was secure, and that the coil of rope I had looped around my belt was secure, also. Then I handed Brown the end of his chain, which he took in his free hand. "Wait here," I whispered, and turned.

Brown's plaintive whine stopped me. "Don't leave me here alone," he pleaded.

I did not understand him. First a quick thinker who had gotten us out of a situation I had not been able to, and now a whining coward? I wanted to slap him for his childishness, and slap him twice for being so childish when it was obvious that he knew how not to be that way when it was necessary. I rested my forehead against the wall. It was cool and rough and gritty against my skin. Part of me wanted to bash my head against it - or better yet, Brown's. I summoned up all of my patience. "I will lower a rope for you as soon as I am up," I said, as kindly as I could. I did not think it was very kind, but at least I had not hit him, which was something."I will not leave you alone for long. I swear."

Then, before I could think better of it – and before Brown could find any more objections - I pulled myself up onto the wall and began to climb.

The ground quickly dwindled. I saw the stars above, and the tops of dead buildings behind, and to my left, the shadowy slice of a deep canal which cut across the city. In every other direction the slanting wall hulked, blocking out the horizon in a seemingly endless expanse of white.

The wall was made of large blocks of white stone, of a kind which I had never seen before. It glowed in the light of the waxing moon. It was quite lovely, in its way, though now much of the stone was crumbling. Fortunately, this made it easier to climb. Where the stone was pitted and broken it offered very good hand and toe holds. In other places blocks that made the wall were damaged or even missing, and twisted metal rods jutted out from where the blocks had been. They offered good hand holds, too, though some wiggled like a loose tooth when I touched them. Those ones I avoided.

While I climbed, I peered around me, trying to see what could be seen. Xanos said to look for an opening, I thought. He had said that it would be small, which would make it hard to find. If it was a hole large enough for me to fit in, however, I thought that it would show up very clearly against stone this white. Of course, I would not be much harder to see, but that could not be helped. I would just have to move as little as necessary and hope that if anyone happened to look up, they would mistake me for nothing but a patch of moon's shadow.

I paused, lifting my head as far from the wall as I dared. The wind whistled against the stone and stung my eyes. Squinting, I looked left and right until I finally saw a square patch of darkness against the white stone. It looked promising, and was a short distance up and to the right.

Gingerly, I made my way over until I was close enough to peer inside. It was indeed a hole, but there was nothing in it. Or rather, if there was anything there, I could not see it. It was too dark. I wished I had thought to bring a torch, but a lit torch would have attracted unwanted eyes, so perhaps it was better not to have one.

I braced myself, twisted my arm down and drew my scimitar a little at a time. I had little space to do it in and did not want to slice my own nose off. Once the sword was free, I reached into the hole with it, because only a fool reached into dark holes with her bare hands.

Everything my blade touched was as still and hard as stone. Nothing seemed to be alive in there. I ran the tip of my sword all along the walls of the tunnel. It scraped through a layer of grit, but the walls were otherwise smooth. The bottom wall slanted in and down. How deep does it go? I wondered. Xanos had not known the answer. Softly, so that I did not make too much noise, I tapped my blade against the side of the shaft. The tapping echoed for quite some time. The shaft went in deep, then. Perhaps it even led into the heart of the pyramid, as Xanos had suggested it might. I supposed that I would soon find out.

Unfortunately, the walls of the passage were so smooth that there were no places where I could anchor my rope, so I sheathed my sword again, backtracked slightly to the nearest broken-off bit of metal that stuck out from the wall, and tied the rope to that.

The rope jerked. Then it began to tug and sway under someone's weight. I hoped that someone was Brown. I did not like to think that he might betray us to the Zhentarim. I did not think he would – he was too afraid of them – but he was a person with secrets. So was Ishiko. So was Xanos. I was surrounded by secrets, and lies, and I did not know what to make of any of it, except that I both wished the secrets to be done with and knew that there was very little I could do to force them out. Threats would only make Xanos laugh, Ishiko kill, and Brown chatter so much and so confusingly that I would forget why I had threatened him in the first place.

Eventually, Brown's head appeared. "I'm here," he called. I did not see why he felt the need to state the obvious, but then, such seemed to be his way. He made his way up the rope far too slowly for my comfort. When he reached me, he clung to the wall very nervously. "What now?" he asked.

I thought we had gone over this. "Now I go in," I answered impatiently. I took the rope from him, gesturing with the end of it as I spoke. "You will wait here until I come back out."

The boy blanched. "Again?" His voice had taken on a pronounced whine.

Perhaps if I threw him off the building the guards would all go to look at him and I would not have to worry about them. "If we both go in, we double the risk of being discovered," I told him. Besides, I did not want his clumsy feet involved in this. "Be brave. I will be back as soon as I have what we need. Then we will think of what distraction to make so the guards will not notice us slipping through the gate."

He stared at me for a moment. Then, reluctantly, he nodded. "All right," he said. "I…I'll try to be be brave." His voice turned wistful. "Though I wish I could be half as brave as you."

Brave? I was so full of fear that I thought I might burst. "That is foolishness," I said dismissively. "I am not brave."

"You are," he insisted. "How do you do it? How do you make yourself fight?"

Well, it is either that or let everyone I ever loved die or be enslaved, so I cannot see that I have much of a choice, I thought, but I did not say it. I tried to think of another, better answer, since I did not think he would let me go without it. "I think of my ancestors," I said eventually. "They were great men and women. I will not shame them by being less."

Slowly, he nodded. "Your ancestors," he echoed. "Right. I think I can do that. Think of my ancestors, that is. Not yours. I haven't the foggiest idea who your ancestors were." He flashed me an ingratiating smile. "No offense. I'm sure they were very nice people."

If we did not get this over with soon I thought I would scream. "None taken. Now-"

Brown interrupted me. "Ancestors," he mused softly. "You know, Mother told me all sorts of stories about mine. They always seemed so much cleverer than me. Cleverer and kinder and wiser." Abruptly, he laughed. "Of course, they weren't very big or strong or brave, even in the stories," he admitted frankly. "That's why I admire you, Nadiya. You're not very big, either, but you're still brave. It's hard to be brave when you're so little."

"Thank you." I think. At least he had not called me fat.

"But even if we're not the biggest or the strongest," Brown went on thoughtfully. "We're strong enough. Aren't we? We must be. And if we don't fight the Zhentarim, they'll just keep hurting people. Mother knew that. She tried to stop it. If she saw me now…" He trailed off and took a long, trembling breath. "All right," he said then. "I'll wait here and keep watch. You go."

I tried to give him a smile. It felt strained and strange on my face, as smiles usually did to me, but I felt that I owed him a smile for finding his backbone. "I will be back," I whispered again, and patted his arm. Glancing over my shoulder, I looked up at Elah. She was still and cool and quiet, with a little less than half her face in shadow. I hoped that this was not the last time I would see her.

Then, turning, I pulled myself over the edge and into the darkness, dragging the rope behind me.

The shaft was close and dark and stifling, and I quickly discovered that I could not crawl through it on my hands and knees. The ceiling was too low for that, and though the shaft was sloped, it was not sloped enough for me to let my own weight pull me through. I was forced to slither forward on my belly, much like a snake, only I was no snake and could only move by pushing against the bottom of the tunnel with my toes while I pulled myself forward with my fingers.

It was not easy. I had torn three of my nails to the quick before I figured out that I should use the pads of my fingers instead, like one of those sticky-toed lizards that had climbed the face of the wadi back home. Then the going was easier, or at least less painful.

The shaft was close and dark and stifling, and grew more and more so as I descended. What little trickles of light Elah shed soon vanished, leaving me blind.

My shoulders brushed the sides of the shaft. My elbows brushed hard against the stone, and began to sting as the skin rubbed raw through my thin linen sleeves. Sweat and blood from my hand slicked the hempen rope, and several times I was forced to stop and switch hands.

Time passed – too much of it for my liking. How far have I gone? I could not tell. My heart seemed to fill the whole space, booming like a drum.

At a certain point, I felt a resistance on the rope I held. It would no longer come with me when I tugged. I realized that I had no more slack in it, and stopped, dismayed. I had reached the end of the rope and still had not reached the end of the tunnel. I wondered if I should go back, but even as I did so, I chided myself for a fool. If I turned back, I would only waste time, and for what? There was no guarantee that I would be able to find another entrance, or that it would be any better than this one. I would have to press ahead and hope for the best.

Relinquishing the rope, I crawled ahead through the stifling darkness. Sweat trickled down my face and slid over my lips. My tongue darted out, running along my upper lip. It tasted of salt and copper and dust. My fingertips burned like fire. My hands cramped and began to shake with effort, as did my calves and toes.

I realized that, somewhere beneath the fear, I felt a strange, hot sense of excitement and relief. I was covered in grime and sweat, but at least here I was not being forced to listen to anyone's tedious blathering. I was not sitting idle in boredom and worry. There were no doubts as to who were my enemies and what I had to do. There was only the ache of my straining muscles, the thud of my heart, the stale air in my lungs, the sweat trickling down my cheeks, and a clear goal fixed in my mind.

I must be out of my mind, I thought, and crawled ahead, fighting a mad grin.

Eventually I began to see more than thick, blank blackness before my eyes. The light grew, and the some gray impressions of shape began to appear in the murk around me.

Soon, the light grew into a square. It showed a blank stone wall. I had finally reached the end of the tunnel.

I forced myself to stop well short of the exit and listen for movement outside. I heard nothing. That either meant that there was no one there, or that someone was there and waiting very, very quietly for me to come out.

Blood of al-Rashid, I reminded myself nervously, took a breath, and wriggled forward to the end of the shaft. Cautiously, I poked my head out. I saw a gray hall lit with still white lights. It stretched to the left and right. According to Xanos, the laertis had had its quarters near the tip of the pyramid that lay towards the canal. I had entered the tunnel with my left shoulder to the canal. Therefore, assuming the tunnel had not turned somewhere along its length, I would find my goal if I went to the left.

Below me, a smooth wall led to a stone floor that lay unsettlingly far from where I was. The distance between the mouth of the tunnel and the floor was more than my height. It may have been close to twice that. If I tried to climb out head first, I was likely to fall and break my neck.

Hell's Bells. Xanos had not mentioned this part. Had he not known, or had the great gangling goat banged his head on the ceiling one too many times and forgotten how much shorter I was than he? Hammad was right, I thought irritably. Some people should have their legs cut off at the knee.

I looked all around me, my mind racing furiously. There was blank wall in most directions, but there was a light coming from above me – there. I twisted my head around as far as I could to look. One of those eerie white lights glowed in a metal bracket which had been fixed to the wall. thought that if I could wriggle around until I lay belly-up and get a grip on the metal bracket, I would be able to pull my legs out of the tunnel and drop down from there. It might still hurt, but it would hurt less than falling on my head.

I twisted and reached out. My fingers met metal. I held on to the bracket and half-pulled, half-pushed myself out of the tunnel until I was in a strange sort of crouch with my knees tucked up near my shoulders and my feet braced against the lip of the tunnel. My arms trembled. Pulling myself through a downward-sloping tunnel had been surprisingly exhausting.

I paused, taking stock. I was now partially out of the tunnel, only – now that I thought of it – I did not know how to climb down from here. If I let go of the light's holder, I thought I would fall over backwards, which would not be good.

Gingerly, I lowered my left foot until my thigh and shin was stretched along the wall and I had my weight braced only on my right foot.

The holder creaked, but it held my weight. That was reassuring. I decided to risk the other foot.

As soon as I lowered my right foot, the metal bracket gave a jerk. Then it came loose from the wall.

The wall went by so quickly that I barely had time to notice that it was moving before I hit the ground.

The bracket dropped with a clatter, and I hit the stone floor backside-first. The impact seemed to travel all the way up my spine to my jaw, which snapped shut so hard that I saw spots. Somewhere along the line I bit my own lip hard enough to split it.

When the spots cleared, I tried to move. Pain stopped me. A bit of Bedine humor hissed out between my teeth. I should have known better than to trust my weight to anything that small. On the other hand, I thought my backside must have absorbed most of the impact. I thought my backside could have absorbed a fall from the top of a canyon without much trouble. It was one of its very few advantages.

After a few aborted attempts, I managed to stagger to my feet. Wiping my bloody lip with the back of my sleeve, I took stock. I was in a hallway lined with doors. It stretched in both directions. At my feet, the fallen light lay extinguished. The others still glowed. Nothing moved. I supposed that meant that I was truly alone. After all the noise I had made coming down, if anyone had been here, they would surely have come to find me.

Nevertheless, I did not think it was wise to linger. On impulse, I picked up the bracket and threw it into the tunnel overhead so that at least the evidence of my accident would not be so obvious. Then I started down the hall, walking on the balls of my feet so that I would be as quiet as possible.

The floor was very cold, and the only light came from those eerie white witchlights. I liked the ones Xanos had made better. They had been colorful and ever-changing, while these were harsh, unflickering blue-white spheres that made me shiver.

I passed many doors, though they seemed very flimsy and useless doors to me. They were carved so elaborately that I thought a child could have broken any one of them with a kick. What was the point of a door if it did not keep intruders out? It made no sense. In any case, none of them matched his description. I moved on.

I reached another intersection. This one went four ways. After a pause, I continued straight. Soon after, the hallway reached a rightward bend. Nervously, I followed it to another intersection. This one turned left and right. I stopped, chewing on my lip. Then, because taking the left fork had seemed like a good idea before and because I had no better ideas, I turned left again.

Eventually, the hall reached an end, which did match with what Xanos had said. Two doors stood on either side of me, which also matched what he had said. One door had strange, hairy-looking creatures on it, none of them birds. The other, however, was patterned with little birds perched in thorn bushes. I felt a thrill of triumph. The description matched. I had found the right door.

I crept closer and peeked through. The room beyond was dark. I could make out very little of what lay beyond the door, but Xanos had described this door very clearly.

Unsure of what to do, I tried inspecting the door more closely. There was a brass handle and a small lock. I did not see the point of locking such a flimsy door, but then, there were many things about this place which made no sense, so what was one more?

I hesitated. The weight of the rings on my right hand seemed set to drag my hand to the ground, they suddenly seemed so heavy to me. I had been trying very hard to ignore them. I had no doubt that they were both magical. Xanos had even said as much when he had given it to me.

The entire scene had been startling from first to last. First he had reached beneath the collar of the shirt he wore beneath his mantle and pulled out the necklace I now carried in the pouch at my hip. I had caught a glimpse of the chains of other necklaces all tangled together around his neck before he had straightened his collar and hidden them from view. Then he had tugged two of the rings from his fingers and dropped them into my hand along with a tiny, stoppered vial and a series of instructions.

I had been too startled to protest. Between the rings and the earrings and the necklaces, the man wore more jewelry than most women I had known. It was far too bizarre. I had believed at first that he adorned himself so out of vanity. Now…well, now I did not know what to believe, but I was beginning to suspect that there was far more to his choice of adornments than simple vanity.

The ring on my thumb was a thick band of some dull, forged metal. One side of it bore a ram's head, complete with two twisting horns whose tips met beneath the ram's chin. Xanos had said that it would open things, though he had not specified what it would open, nor how it would open them. The ring on my forefinger was a thin circle of red gold with a tiny garnet, barely more than a chip, set into it. Of all things, he had said it would give light. All I had to do was blow on the gem. I did not see how such a tiny stone could shed any light, but he had seemed very certain that it would. Both of the rings had seemed far too large for me, coming as they did from the half-orc's huge hands. It had therefore been unsettling in the extreme when I had slipped the rings onto my fingers and each one had fit as if it had been made to my size.

My skin crawled at the memory. I wanted to claw the rings from my hands. I closed my eyes briefly and took a deep breath. You wanted the help of a mage, I reminded myself. And now, spirits save me, I had it, and it came in the form of a magic ring.

Gingerly, I reached my right hand towards the door. For a long moment, nothing happened. I felt relieved. I also felt strangely disappointed. Had Xanos lied? Or was I doing something wrong?

Then, just as I was ready to give up and take my hand away, I felt the ring on my thumb give a buzz like a fly trapped in a bottle.

Beneath my outstretched hand, the lock clicked and the door's latch, no longer locked in place, unlatched.

The door creaked open a finger's width and then stopped, showing a sliver of the dark room beyond.

I stood frozen for a moment longer. Then a shudder ran through me – of disgust or horror or terror I did not know - and before I could think better of it I had torn the ring from my finger and flung it across the hallway. It hit the opposite wall with a metallic clatter, bounced, and rolled to a stop right in the middle of the floor.

My back pressed to the wall and my arms crossed over my heaving stomach, I stared down at the ring, hardly daring to move. I would have preferred to stare at a live snake. At least I knew what to do with snakes. Snakes had heads to chop off, but I could not kill a ring. It was not even alive, only when it had quivered on my finger, it had seemed so close to living that I was not certain what to call it.

Gradually, the shudders diminished and my stomach unclenched. My head cleared and I realized that I was standing in the hallway, exposed, while I watched a ring. Which just sat there. Doing nothing. Presumably it would continue to do so until I put it near another lock in need of unlocking.

For the second time in one evening, I felt like an utter fool.

Warily, I looked down the hall. I was still, apparently, alone. Just as warily, I knelt and retrieved the ring. It was cool and heavy and inert in my hand. I made to slip it back onto my finger, then stopped, my skin crawling as another shudder rippled through me. I did not want to wear this evil thing. I did not even want to touch it. It was magic. The spirits only knew what it would do to me.

This is foolishness, I told myself sternly. Still, I could not move. If Xanos could see me now, he would surely mock me. He would, for once, be right to do so. I had known what he was when I laid the geas on him. If I had not wanted to be near magic, I should not have tied a sorcerer to me.

I swallowed, forcing down a wave of nausea. Then, abruptly, I jammed the ring onto my finger and stood. Tears prickled my eyes. Foolishness. I wanted to throw up. Also foolishness. I tried to ignore both feelings. Zebah needed me to ignore them.

I reached for the door handle. Again, I stopped. I did not know what had made me stop, at first. Then I caught a glimmer of metal and began to piece facts together from instinct. The door had opened slightly, but only slightly, and there was a thin metal wire leading from the latch.

My eyes traced the wire. It ran from the latch, up the inner side of the door's frame, and to a small metal plate in the upper corner of the frame. The plate had holes in it. Their edges were corroded.

Xanos had warned me that there might be traps. I thought that I might just have found one. I stared up at it. Slowly, very slowly, I took my hand away from the door. I tried not to breathe. Breathing was far too risky. I did not like the look of those holes.

Think, I told myself, though that was easier said than done. Between one thing and another, this thing had already taken too long. Time was bleeding away from me.

I studied the wire. It was very thin. A sharp enough blade would cut it, but what would happen if I tugged it? Well, that was a silly question – something that could corrode metal would come out of those holes, obviously. If I was standing nearby, it would probably spew all over me.

I forced myself to think. I needed something that was sharp, but also long, so that I could reach the door without…

The thought trailed off. I cursed myself for an idiot. Again.

Sidestepping so that my back was to the wall again, just next to the door, I drew my scimitar. Leaning over just enough so that I could see the wire, I carefully slid the tip of the blade, sharp-side-up, beneath it. Then I leaned away, firmed my grip, and gave the sword a short, sharp upward yank.

I felt a moment's resistance, and then a snap as the wire gave way. Something clicked. An acrid smell rose. A few droplets of something rained past my right hand. One of them hit me. The pain was instant, sharp, and searing. I hissed. My hand opened reflexively. To my shame, I dropped my weapon, though the shame was a distant thing compared to the pain. I cradled my injured hand in my good one. There was a bright red dot of burned skin on the fleshy bridge between forefinger and thumb.

In a few instants, it was all over but for the lingering pain in my hand and a few smoking black spots on the floor. Still cradling my injured hand, I bent cautiously to pick up my sword in my off hand. It felt awkward. I flexed the burned hand – the pain was receding, though there was still that pinpoint of pain – and passed my hilt to that hand.

Taking a breath, I looked at the door again. The wire was cut and dangling loosely. Some acid had dripped onto the door itself. I had gotten the door open, but in doing so I had left clear signs of my presence. If time had been bleeding away from me before, now it was hemorrhaging.

Warily, I pushed the door open and crept into the dark room.

The room was not just dark. It was pitch black. It seemed windowless. I stopped, my heart sinking. I was beginning to understand why Xanos had given me the second ring.

I stared into the darkness, feeling a hopeless resignation steal over me. Then, grimly, I raised my hand, pursed my lips, and blew a soft breath over the garnet ring.

This time the response was almost instantaneous. A soft bloom of red light gathered on my finger, then strengthened and grew until the room was bathed in a steady crimson glow, with my finger at the light's heart.

I looked around. The light was strangely pretty. It reminded me of the lights Zebah used to make, and the ones Xanos had made. Perhaps this is not so bad, I thought, and took stock. The walls were very strangely shaped. There were not four of them, as one might expect, but six or seven, all at odd angles to one another. Where the walls were more or less straight, trunks and shelves stood against them. A large desk faced the door, flanked by a table which bore a long linen runner and a single small chest.

A surge of excitement rushed down to my fingertips and flushed my face to my hairline. That was the chest. It was as Xanos had described it. I only had to unlock it, find the book, and then…well, then I would have to find a way out, since I was not certain I could climb back into the tunnel that had brought me in here. But that was a problem for later. Now I needed to get that chest open.

I turned the ram-headed ring on my finger and crossed the room, setting my feet down carefully and feeling for anything that did not seem to belong. When I reached the chest, I held my right hand out over it, still holding my scimitar. If the ring was magic, I reasoned that it would work even if I was holding something else, and after that acid trap I did not particularly want to be without a weapon in hand.

There was that pause again before anything happened, and then the buzz of the ring and the click of the chest's lock unlocking. It was a little less unnerving this time, though still unpleasant.

The need to hurry pressed down on me. Without thinking, I reached out with my left hand, unlatched the trunk, and flipped its lid up.

Something clicked and flashed. A beam of something, like a lance of utter dark surrounded by a sickly purple halo that was not so much light as it was unlight, shot out from the trunk and directly, it seemed, through me.

It all happened so quickly. A terrible cold washed through me, so cold it took my breath away. Suddenly, I felt weak, so weak that I could hardly stand. I thought I felt my heart stutter and begin to race, far too fast. Blackness closed in at the edges of my vision.

Distantly, I was aware that my arm was falling, that my weakening muscles could no longer hold up the weight of my sword. Some part of me knew that I should try to stop that from happening, but I could not seem to put the thought to action. I wondered if this was what drowning felt like.
The last of my strength left me. My arm dropped. So did my sword, the blade passing through the beam of unlight as it fell…

…and just like that, the beam vanished.

Al-Rashid's scimitar fell to the floor. I followed, dropping heavily to my knees and then to my hands and knees, gulping for breath as my heart slowed from its wild gallop.

I tried to think. What just happened? A trap. It must have been a trap, like the door. But then it had stopped. Why had it stopped? I remembered my sword falling…falling through the thing that had come out of the chest. Something had happened then. It was as if al-Rashid's blade had cut the light in half, killed it, but how could a sword kill a light?

My head spun. I felt as weak as a newborn kitten. I needed to get up. I was not certain if I could. Up, I told myself grimly and only half-coherently. Up, you stupid girl. I managed to reach one hand up to the table. I took hold of my sword with the other. Up, I thought, and half-pulled, half-pushed myself to my knees. I had to stop there, swaying, to catch my breath and fight off another wave of dizziness, before hauling myself the rest of the way to my feet.

Panting, I managed to turn my head enough to look at the chest. That chest – that damned chest – sat on the table as innocently as any other chest. I wanted to bash it in with something heavy. I thought that I would have, if I had had enough strength to do it. Then I thought I would hit myself. Xanos had warned me that there might be traps. In my haste, I had not been thinking. That made me three times a fool in one night.

Tears of frustration and embarrassment pricked my eyes. I blinked them away and turned to the trunk. There were books and papers piled in it. On top was a plain, leather-bound book, brown and nondescript. It looked right. I took it and slipped it into my belt pouch, which sagged under its weight.

Hurriedly, I closed the chest, blew on the glowing red ring again, found that this did not stop it from glowing, removed it from my finger, found that this did, and finally left the room. Dawn would be coming soon. I needed to move. With two of his traps sprung and his book gone, the laertis would know instantly that he had been robbed. I did not want to be here when he found that out.

I could not go back the way I had come. The tunnel entrance was too high, the wall below it too smooth. That much I was sure of. I was also sure that there had to be a way out. Xanos had gotten in through a normal door. The Zhentarim most likely did, as well. I only had to find it. As I recalled, the sorcerer had said that a straight hall had led him in to the lizard man's room. Logically, then, if I followed this hall away, I would find the exit.

I crept down the hall, growing more and more nervous with each step. My belt pouch tugged at my hip. The vial in it now seemed almost heavier than the rings had been. I wished that Xanos had not though to give me these things. They were all turning out to be useful. The problem was that I had no desire to use them. The other problem was that I did not seem to have any choice.

Grimacing, I stopped and reached for the pouch. I drew out the tiny, stoppered vial. It was full of a liquid that almost seemed clear, except that when I swirled it, little flashes of color appeared.

I stared at the vial. Then, before I could lose my nerve, I uncorked it, raised it to my lips, tilted my head back, and swallowed its contents in one gulp. I nearly spewed everything back up a split second later. The potion was icy and viscous and slimy and seemed to slide down my throat in one solid, squishy clump. I had to swallow it all back down, together with a mouthful of bile, where it seemed to form a solid mass in my stomach.

Aside from disgust, I found that I felt nothing. At first I thought that this meant nothing had happened. Then looked down and found that I could not see my hands.

Disbelief came first. I blinked. My hands remained stubbornly…not there. I could feel them. They were quite definitely still there. But I could not see them.

It was a good thing that Xanos had warned me about this, too. Else I might have run through the halls screaming the instant I saw my hands vanish. I thought I still might. Why had the spirits not sent me a good, solid warrior instead of a mage who gave me magical things that did things that made me want to vomit, or scream, or possibly do both at once?

I swallowed again, hard. My hands shook. I could not tell if it was from the lingering weakness of whatever trap had been on that chest or if it was from sheer nerves.

Taking a deep breath, I carried on down the hall, peeking in each door before I passed it. Most were dark. One, to my surprise, was dimly lit. Strange, fleshy noises were coming from within. I slowed, pressed myself against the wall, and peered in.

Through the latticework of the door, I saw a man sitting in a chair and a woman kneeling in front of him. He had an expression on his face that was almost but not quite one of pain. I could not see the woman's face. Her head was moving oddly, and her face was away from me, nearly buried in his lap, only I could not think of why…

Realization struck me right as the blush did. I jerked away so quickly that I nearly toppled. Both of my hands flew to cover my mouth. It was no wonder they had not heard me. Oh sweet spirits, I thought. Mortification suffused me, as hot as steam. Oh sweet spirits. I did not just see that. Trying to close me ears to the suddenly lurid noises, I staggered on.

I was relieved beyond belief when I finally felt the wind stir on my face, and distant noises that hinted at the outside world. I would be glad to be out of this place and all of the things I had seen in it. Especially some things. Things which I would, I decided, tell none of the others about. The trap was too embarrassing, and the other…thing…was even more so. The afterimage of what I had seen still flashed across the insides of my eyelids every time I closed my eyes. I wished I could unsee it. Failing that, I hoped that if I ever again heard such noises I would have the sense not to look to see what was causing them.

I was nearly to the exit when I saw something move beyond it. I stopped.

Chain mail jingled. A shape loomed – human, helmeted, cloaked. A guard. He blocked the door almost entirely. At the sight of him, I came very close to cursing.

I sank back against the wall, thinking hard. I needed that guard away from the exit if I wanted to get through it. I did not know if I would be able to kill him, but even if I could, I would then have a corpse to worry about. As far as evidence of wrongdoing went, a broken lock and a few acid burns were one thing, but a dead body was something else entirely.

I fingered my belt pouch, feeling the necklace within it shift and slither. Xanos had been almost eerily prescient about what I would need. The necklace had been his last gift, if one could call it a gift.

The necklace's chain had snaked across his fingers, bright gold to his greenish-gray. Little beads had dangled all along its length. "When you are in need of a distraction, break off a bead." He had tapped one of the little red-gold beads with his forefinger. "Then throw it as far as you can."

I had taken it from him as unquestioningly as the other things, more from bewilderment than any conviction that I should do such a thing. "Why?" I had asked.

"Because it will explode whenever and wherever it lands," had been his answer.

Now, I thought I knew why he had given it to me. It could be a weapon, but I thought it might also be a good distraction. If I could throw it so that it exploded somewhere beyond the door, surely the guard would not stay where he was. Sane men did not watch things explode without going to see what was happening. Therefore, if I could get close enough to the door to throw a bead past him without catching his notice, I might be able to get him away from the door without having to kill him.

Taking a deep breath, I fumbled the necklace out of the pouch. In the dark, I felt along its length. The gold was heavy, smooth, and surprisingly warm. Some of its beads were missing. Running my finger past those places was like running one's tongue over the gap where a lost tooth had been. I held it all very carefully. I did not want to break off a bead and find the entire thing exploding in my hand.

The guard was looking away from me when I tiptoed closer. He seemed to be looking for outside threats, not inside threats. That was good.

Carefully, I snapped a bead from the necklace. It was surprising, how easy it was to do. Something tingled in my fingers when the bead came free. This time, my skin barely crawled at all.

Then I threw the bead past the guard and out into the night. That was easy, too.

I neither heard nor saw the bead land. Land it must have, though, because after a long and breathless pause, something outside of the pyramid exploded in great, roaring billows of red and orange and yellow.

The guard's head snapped around. I heard him curse, though I did not quite hear what he said. He dropped his spear and took off running.

I waited until his footsteps had fated. Then I slipped out of the door. I picked up his spear as I went. You never knew when you might need a spear, especially in a place like this.

The sky outside was dark and starless. Clouds covered the face of the moon. Under their shadow, I rounded the side of the pyramid, encountered a moment of dismay when I realized that while my new spear was very nice and useful I would not be able to climb a wall with it in my hand, tucked the weapon into some rubble in the hopes that it would still be there when I came back for it, and began to climb.

The ground went away more quickly this time. I knew how to handle the climb, and I was in a rush, besides. Still, I slowed as I neared the top. I saw nothing, though it was dark enough that this came as no surprise. I decided to risk speaking. "Are you there?" I whispered hoarsely.

Brown's voice floated down to me almost immediately. "Nadiya! Yes. Yes, I'm here," he said. He sounded breathless and shaken. "What happened? I can't see you. Are you invisible? Why are you down there? What was that explosion? I saw-"

I cut him off. "I could not go back through the tunnel," I explained tersely. "I made the explosion to pull the guard away so I could get past him. Come quickly. I do not think-" The sound of running footsteps, coming back to the pyramid, cut through my words. I lowered my voice to a furious hiss. Time, I suspected, had just run out. "Hell's Bells."

More guards were gathering, from the sounds of it and the growing circle of torchlight below. One voice came out of the jumble of voices. "It came from somewhere around here," he called. I thought it was my guard. In hindsight, I should have thrown that bead at him instead of past him. A corpse would have caused me less trouble than this. "You, search inside. You and you, come with me." Below, footsteps went in all directions. "All of you, spread out. I want to know where that fireball came from."

Brown's voice was hushed and anxious. "What now?"

I started to chew my lower lip, then stopped as soon as the pain reminded me that I had split it. "We need another distraction," I muttered. I looked up hopefully. "Any ideas?" I had used up all of mine.

He was silent for so long that I began to wonder whether he was still there. Then, just as I was about to lose my patience, he spoke. "Was that a necklace of fireballs you used?" he asked.

I stared up at him blankly. "Was it?" I asked. I had no idea. I supposed it might have been. It had made a great big ball of fire, that much was true.

Brown confirmed my thoughts, though he sounded very distracted. He sounded almost as if he was talking to himself. "I think it is. At least, that's what it looked like. Gods only know why a sorcerer…well, that's not important." His voice changed. He seemed to be talking to me again. "Give it here."

I reached for my belt pouch. Then I hesitated. "Why?" I asked warily.

He muttered something that I did not understand. Then, patiently, he said, "I want you to give me that necklace and climb back down. Please." I heard him take a deep, shaking breath. "Just…trust me. All right? Can't you do that?"

I did not know if I trusted him. I wanted to, but what I wanted to be true and what was actually true were not necessarily one and the same. "What? Why?" Another thought occurred to me. I was ashamed that it had not come to me earlier. "And what about you? What will you do?"

He laughed. His voice shook. "Don't worry about me," he said. I thought he must have been trying to sound confident, but he was failing. "Just…just you go."

He did not sound like someone with a plan. He sounded like a young boy contemplating something terrifying. "Why?" I insisted. "What are you going to do?"

"Give them distractions to look at," he answered. "The same way you did."

I did not like the idea of him going off alone, throwing fireballs every which way. "Then we can both do it," I said.

My eyes were beginning to adjust to the night, enough to see him above me, shaking his head. "No, we can't," he argued immediately. "There are two of us and only one necklace."

I started chewing my lower lip again. Again, I winced and stopped. "Then I will do it," I said.

He shook his head a second time. "You can't. You're still invisible, but they'll catch you if you keep using that thing."

I sensed that I was losing the argument. I did not know how I was losing this ridiculous argument, but I was. "Brown, you do not need to do this-"

He cut me off with surprising force. "Yes," he said. "I do." His voice softened. "While you were in there, I…I've been thinking about what you said. About your ancestors. And mine. You're right. I should be more like them. I should think of what they'd do if their friends were in trouble."

That brought me up short. "Why?" I asked haltingly. "What would they do?"

He answered almost immediately. "G-get them out," he said. His voice broke for a moment, just a point, squeaking up into a higher register of pure fear. Then it steadied. I saw the silhouette of his head move, looking up at the sky briefly, though I did not know what he was looking at. A thick cover of clouds obscured the moon and most of the stars. "My mother fought the Zhentarim, you know," he added, almost conversationally. Whatever he saw in the sky, it seemed to have calmed him. "She tried to protect the caravans that came through our area. That's why the Zhentarim killed her. Well…one of the reasons, anyway."

There was pain in his voice. Against my better judgement, my heart twisted in sympathy. I knew what it was like to lose a parent. Still, I tried to marshal one last argument. "That does not mean you should follow her into death," I said.

He snorted another unsteady laugh. "I know," he said. "I know. You think I want to?" He laughed again, ruefully. "Gods." Then he sighed. "Don't worry about me," he added. "I'll catch up to you. I can move fast when I have to."

I scowled. "So can I," I said indignantly.

I heard the smile in his voice. It sounded almost condescending. If it were not also kind, I would have knocked him off the pyramid for it. "I know," he said. Then, "Climb down, Nadiya. And once you're down…" He trailed off.

I chewed my lower lip. This time, nervousness overcame the pain. "What?"

"Don't look left," he told me. "Don't look right. Don't look up." He took a deep breath. "Just…put your head down and run as fast as you can. Okay?"

I looked up at his shadowed silhouette, clinging to the wall above me. "You are sure that you want to do this?" I asked, one last time.

"No," he answered frankly. "But I'm doing it anyway." I heard a scrape as he began to move. "Now, give me that necklace and get going. It won't be long until dawn."

I did as he asked, wondering as I did so whether I was making a very big mistake.

The first flare-up of fire came as I was climbing back down the wall. It bloomed towards the canals. Brown must have thrown it from the very top of the pyramid to reach that far. Men shouted and began to run towards it.

I half-climbed, half-slipped the rest of the way down. My spear was where I had left it. I picked it up hurriedly, looked around to be sure that the guards had all gone to see what the fire was about, and trotted around the pyramid.

Another boom and another orange flare lit up the sky. It was further to the west this time, much further. I stopped and stared. Brown had not been lying when he had said that he could move fast when he needed to, though I did not know how that was possible for such a clumsy boy. He must have climbed down faster than I, and then run the rest of the way.

A third boom lit up the night, reflecting off of the low ceiling of clouds. For just a moment, their underbellies turned from slate blue to orange.

The third fireball seemed to have raised even more of a commotion than the last. Even as I crept from the shadow of one building to another, I heard and saw men were running, shouting, heading towards the fires in a flood.

I hesitated, looking over my shoulder at the flickering orange lights. I hoped Brown knew what he was doing. I hoped that he would be safe. He was a clumsy, stupid boy, but I found that I did not want him to die.

Spirits watch over him, I prayed. The spirits had answered my prayers once, after all. Perhaps they might answer again.

Then - invisible, alone, and unnoticed - I ran.