Mere Glimmering and Decay

by Blue-Inked Frost

There was an Attic challenge for Romance Wot Should Or Ought Not To Be. This is a fic about those halcyon days of early adventuring from Candlekeep...with a certain amount of Xzar. Likely to end. Unlikely to End Well.

6. Chapter 6

"What do you see?"

Xzar waved the yellowed bone through the air at her.

Anatomy tomes at Oghma's temple. A human tibia, direction primarily vertical. Probably male. Very probably not to be waved about at Nashkel townsfolk. "It's old," Prudence said; too old to be of any Mulahey had murdered in the iron crisis. "Therefore: where it was obtained..."

"Exactly!" he grinned, with the sort of enthusiasm Imoen used for new locks, cinnamon cookies, and novels of romantic adventure. There hadn't been a sign of such an old burial ground below the mines; beyond Mulahey's secret exit was the obvious place. "Ancient tombs lie before us perhaps a little bit unexplored!"

The light was soft dawn, the ground broken to yellowed rocks, relieved by sparse vegetation in the form of straggling gorse, broom, heather. It was a lonely place, outside the hidden tunnel to the depths of the mines; she'd heard few sounds of animals roaming, the air quiet and still.

"Er—tempting," Prudence said; to mend what Mulahey must have desecrated, the strange secrets of old grounds as the stuffs of adventure.

Mulahey bleeding like Dreppin slitting a calf's throat. Witnessing what he had done to his prisoner. The odd sorcery, as the least important compared to those two... Yet; the adjective somewhat correct.

"But we have to go back to clearing away the kobolds first. The living above the dead."

"I fail to see why it has to be that way," Xzar said, that wild, gapped grin still across his face. They were the first awake, she on second and final watch, he early and very brightly woken. Odd hours kept adventuring underground.

"You're alive," she replied in kind; "and you shouldn't undervalue it. Corporeality has so much to recommend it."

"Corporeality is a distraction, the dualists say; there is much within the case to recommend it, for it is truth that all living perception is an illusion to greater or lesser deception," Xzar said, gesturing with the bone in long sweeps. "Therefore inevitable separation of the mind—"

"Traitor to Candlekeep or not, I'd disagree," Prudence said; "But we should talk, perhaps, here; that Mulahey is gone and you and Montaron have spoken of other matters to follow for you." There: best to say it outright, to clear the air. More time with him, these tombs, the remnants of the mine, but only under honest understandings.

"Yes, I said that, didn't I?" Xzar nodded vigourously. "After you seemed to think so. Or Monty's said it too. Other requirements. 'Tis true enough of us."

Other requirements; that it was plain he did not wish to speak of, nor would she try to compel it.

"What do you want from this?" she asked.

"Knowledge; the ceasing of illusions, though not everything other people can't see is an illusion; not to have to be afraid. I'm not afraid." He sat suddenly on the hard ground, as if the admission had tired him. "And a hard-boiled egg, which ought to meet with your approval: entirely corporeal."

Always flighty. "You should look after yourself and eat decent meals, on that note," she said; "though you'd have to summon your own chickens. As for approval; why not? What the scholars think is understandable for them, but it's important to be alive. You can't think properly if you're not well, you can't truly separate the mind from the body. Nothing like healthy exercise to clear the mind..." That could be taken as going too far. "Which is much too long-winded a way to say, it's a nice day and you should be enjoying the fresh air."

"Interesting ulterior motives!" Xzar looked up at her standing next to him; she could have reached down to pat his tangled hair, but she could also imagine him biting...not in that way. "Have you heard of the proofs that the eye even sees upside down, that when one scrapes away the back of the organ and glances through it—an ox was used in the first experiments—the image is inverted?" he said. "Everything is upside down and topsy turvy and mad! Or the sight in darkness of eight eyes, or lateral eyes, or the dorsal eyes of the gigantic furred Xenopus. Illusions, all different perceptions; thus should the mind be separated from the living body?"

She doubted the existence of the last creature mentioned. "A mirror; a thing reflected in a mirror; the thing exists." A warrior—or anyone—could ill afford to lose their sight; she'd studied Avecen's work on the eye, the lens below the pupil, the vitreous and aqueous humors, the optic nerves that conveyed the image to the mind in natural reflections.

"And some of the things that nobody else can see exist too," Xzar said. "The Weave's real; some things are real; senses lie."

"One deduces from them—and takes joy in them," Prudence said. "You understand things through living them. You'd miss human senses more than you might think." Mortal life would not be worth protecting if there were no joys to be found of it; she breathed air away from the stale mines. Humanity alone was a gift to savour.

"The ability to taste the different types of gravedirt on this bone, you mean?" Xzar said; and she grimaced at that. He pointed. "The damp dark dirt of Mulahey's domain; by closer investigation, secondly, below that, trapped deep in the cracks, arid dust not dissimilar to this area. And thirdly, grains of stone dust. 'Tis something to find out; and you can't deny that you like the idea..."

"I didn't," Prudence said; and that was it, perhaps—they clashed, and yet she thought of it as intriguing.

"And can you guess what happened first: the damp lake we walked from, or this dry land so close to it?" Xzar continued. "On which this—" He waved a vague hand in front of his face. "There's dust in my eye, gorse sticking to my robe, and I'd never claim to like sunrises."

"And yet you want to sit here making the case to walk off and explore it. This dryness," Prudence said; "it is much too different to the underground. Was it magic?"

"I'm cheating," Xzar said, "I can sense it and you can't; yes. Fantastical magical battles altered the earth, leaving fierce trails of ochre fire in the Weave; the tombs which once housed the raw materials perhaps related in some fashion to those old spellcasters of power. It's in the air and over and under the ground; not always nice, but there..."

And this being wizard-fearing Amn, a smaller chance of prior investigations. "I'd want to correct what Mulahey did," Prudence said. "Not to repeat it."

"But there are often things dead people just don't need buried in tombs," Xzar said. "Things the cleric couldn't use either; arcane, or even the sort of weapons priests think are too quick and painless..." he added, as if trying to be generous.

"No, it's because the clergy shouldn't shed blood," Prudence defended the theology. "You've a case; we've a job to complete at the mines first." She heard movement back at the tents, and looked behind to see Imoen emerging, shaking back her red hair from her face.

Quit gabbling, fetch me some water, Pru! The small bucket and a canteen had been flung at her in quick succession. Upstream. And hey, gravedigger, you can go cover over the field latrine, or I'll start waking Monty and Jaheira...

She could see much further in the light of day; the dry rocks and irregular cliffs rising from them, jagged ground with sudden drops often hardly obvious until one stepped closer. It would be easy ground from which to mount an ambush: the high raised rocks with their shadowed crevices, overlooking wide open spaces with little cover. Almost uncannily still.

She saw the dark shape, far ahead, a bundle of something leaning near rocks by the stream's underground source, on the ground. It was curiosity that had her look more closely, to walk carefully up; and then she saw that it was human, or had been.

A human man, his brown hair beginning to grey, an old scar on the left of his face that made his dead expression appear to be widely grinning. Blowflies upon him, eyes glassily open, not in the water but near to it. Not a person connected to Mulahey? Near enough to the hidden passage for that possibility. No obvious signs of injury. The blood drained to darken the skin of the lower half of the body; as if he had lain there unmoved for several days. An indication that his assailant was likely no longer present. The limbs were unstiffening; she'd read of that, that after the days of rigor mortis the body softened again and liquids flowed. He wore leather armour, a shortsword sheathed at his side, a purse inside his roughly spun shirt, a tarnished dagger kept near it. (Why leave a weapon in such poor condition in an iron crisis?) The smell was vile. She looked away from the corpse, across the stone landscape once more. No sign, no reason for a killer to linger here for days, the others close enough that they would hear shouting. She'd not tried to use this on a dead body before; it was not a direct good, but it was important to know—

The green-flowered ring felt as if it had widened her mind, slightly; gave her expanded space in those parts of her consciousness she used to imagine what she intended to do. She touched a blue-glowing hand to the centre of the man's chest, concentrating. What slew you? What is wrong with your body?

Decay. It was dead meat she tried to diagnose and that was pain, a fly-egged corpse, a ghoulish lump that wasn't a person any more. Unpleasant nausea in her; there was blood spoiled and old, pooled to the bottom by gravity; muscle tissue degenerated; the brain a dark hole like a thousand ants devouring a scrap of flesh, a few sooty broken threads in a wide whistling empty space, too many things wrong with the corpse compared to life that she couldn't understand enough of the endless dark tides to navigate to the true cause; but the rips in the skin were not enough to cause death, spots upon the upper back and base of the head that still would not have killed. Arcane or clerical means, she tried to think through the dark sensations. Every organ in the body had broken and failed; no living person to heal. Not missile nor fire nor bolt from the heavens; those left marks she would have felt on skin. Not the purpose of a paladin's ability, like trying to stitch with a mace or touch bare skin with a spinning, violent warhammer...

...death is not itself the enemy, for we pass to the good judgement of the gods and the planes beyond; but to murder and to stave off death through such means are the evils to combat...

It was not entirely incompatible with the purpose; but not appropriate. How did you die? A human; a person; every such loss before its time evil. A change swept through her hands, almost unconsciously, and that could have frightened her by its instinctive nature. A colder blue light, no longer from what she prayed to. It materialised to respond to inquiry.

He died. How was it induced? A sharper seeking, going quickly forward into the flesh like a bolt to the precise circle of a target. The remains of the cardiac vessels, the power guided to the centre of the body, where something was marked and perhaps narrowed and odd, fractures in the anterior part of Siamorphe's artery and the rapid collapse of the heart beating too quickly, blocked and the moment that death came seconds after it abruptly stopped—

It hadn't even been a minute since she'd laid hands on the body. She suddenly pulled away her hand, sitting back on her knees, startled; too much knowledge, disturbing information rushing through her. Disturbing guesses, anyway, Prudence told herself. That there wasn't a significant mark on the body besides oddity about the heart; that perhaps it was that particular disease he had succumbed to alone in this wilderness...

Or you could have just asked the necromancer, or Jaheira the healer, she reprimanded herself.

The second question: as to what he had been attempting to do.

"This dagger I see before me," Xzar said, grinning almost as a skull, white light gathered about his eyes, the blackened dagger floating in front of him, "is from a tomb; and was once a heart. Smoke in the street like black bile and fires searing bodies, tales that their bread was made out of blood, hunted for books carried and words written on hearts. The words on hearts metaphorical; the bread not intended to be—but I wouldn't think that would be a very useful recipe," he added in tones of more practicality, "flour's not thick enough to mix fresh blood with it."

"That," Imoen said, "is really, really wrong. Although I guess that's why you use oatmeal in black puddings..."

"That's why I don't let the crazy mage cook," Montaron said.

"It was all a lie to make them chase the people," Xzar said, his eyes still glittering palely, speaking softly and quickly. "Fear and gnomes and humans, together, homunculus of four elements; intricacies within it of metal and not all mage-woven, that boiling water makes steam and steam moves the top of a kettle and steam itself is power, fine clockwork moving together and a dagger of the heart to hold it; many precise-tuned gears, unliving but if there were enough of them could it breathe and live and imagine like the tiny cells that squirm and pulse within the skull?"

"Metal and magery could never make life," Jaheira said, glaring.

"There were so many people running. Through the dark streets, cut down from behind because they hated them for what they thought they were, they come for you in the night—" Xzar spoke in apparent distress, his words coming more quickly. "They took them all away, chased like blackbirds for ill luck and they said one must defend oneself. Then they constructed a man of metal, a crafted man to guard, and on his forehead the breath of life: life is truth and truth is life and if you're under the ground you can't do anything—I do see that much—emet for truth on the forehead, guide it to follow orders and hurt the ones who hurt the people—and erase the aleph and what remains means met for death in the runes they draw, and the golem returns to dust and unmoving metal once more—except when they all go mad—"

"That's the people of the book, sounds like," Imoen said, looking up at Khalid. "The ones who invented golems. Puffguts likes his bacon, but his mum was one of 'em. Chotmo shel hakadosh baruch hu emet," she quoted; "the seal of the divine is truth." She grinned. "What? Creepy necromancers aren't the only ones who know things." Xzar didn't glance at her.

Xan frowned, speaking sharply: "You go too deep, necromancer. Divination is a dangerous art and such immoderate use will do you harm." He'd come to the body with them, sitting with his sword across his knees; frail after his imprisonment.

"A story of interest. I see the first mechanical motion of the gears and I see the heart within, ever moving," Xzar said. "I see the metal golem amok by their lights and killing the children of those who went after the people. I see the golem bearing the sign of death on its forehead and the heart taken from its body. Then it passes to different hands, stolen hands, enchanted hands who see it for cutting instead of beating. There's magical residue beyond the first making that clings to it in high key double bass, invisible grounds. Lightning storms of invocation, blood drains of necromancy down from the skies, scorching winds pulled from the planes to raze in their paths—the interesting parts, the Weave bursting to fire, if only how they did it was within the grasps of memories like grains of ground cartilage— Then dead hands clutch it, dead fingers, the diviner and the conjurer and eternal opposites on the field of battle. The one who knew the most of necromancy was the victor, then he came and called the wail of a thousand banshees at the one holding it dead; the dead need burying and there are enchantments to hold the tomb. Darkness gods, no, not gods, don't let them—revenants, the dead their due a curse—" He grew agitated, shaking his head fiercely; "Ghosts that make thieves afraid, no, that's not the frightening part, ghosts aren't that frightening, all of them were gone, can't pretend they still wanted life but that's what the diviner did, that's why they bothered with pretend curses—"

"You're not that invaluable a raconteur. Xan's right," Prudence said.

"The revenants are supposed to come to all of it—the three crowns painted on the walls—uprooting those who come in the night in the midnight dark—unhallowed and they come for the dead they take all in the dead—graverobber, four, five, pentacle, crooked-angle square, points—coming—claws—" He saw too much, gestured desperately; she reached forward, laying a hand on his left sleeve, talking;

"You can stop it," she said—trivial, standard words; "step back from it. Return—"

"No, that's why—seeing too much, I thought about those who see too much—" He leaned forward, his right hand gesturing under her face. "But one shouldn't follow divinations, you don't let them have you, you don't have to give yourself to any forces outside coming to get you, none of them—" Then the white faded; he moved back to sit straight once again, and smiled happily. "The dagger's very sharp and good at stabbing besides the curse on it. Does anyone have further questions?"

Jaheira folded her arms. "First your wanderings in the wilderness bring a necromancer, child, and now the body of a graverobber. 'Tis regrettable tendency."

No; she still wasn't doing better at getting along with Jaheira. "You've further eyesight than me," Prudence said evenly. "It could have been any of us to find the man."

"He didn't die of anything that marked him and he didn't have any of the energy-drain signs either," Xzar said. "Could have been a fragile heart from spirits sending nightmares, after all—I'd have to cut out what's left of the heart and do extended magical tests for that, slice it for some staining acridine and a chloridate immersion—"

"No," Jaheira said.

"I carried out research of this place when I first came," Xan said, his voice flat. "The human superstitions feature ghosts and an alleged mage duel: a factional dispute between local human death cults and conspiracies of some description, the usual exaggerated rumours about the extent of the confrontation. Wreaking irresponsible and inevitable devastation, as is the way of certain human mages. There were elaborate tales of hauntings as a reason for civilised peoples to leave the place alone; and naturally, I can imagine, a perfectly suitable place to hide the foul schemes of that Cyricist." Prudence had not heard Xan once speak Mulahey's name; epithets of distance. "I suppose we have inherited ourselves some cruel obligation to return the dagger to its grave where no doubt a flock of ghouls wait to eat us all?"

He sounded almost content with the idea of such a fate.

"Don't worry, enchanter!" Xzar said. "It's not one of those that sticks to your hand if you steal it. Just as well, isn't that, Monty? One could leave the dagger here, let the poor ghosts stay miserable alone, and flee north once more. Or one could find out what really happened."

"Could always split up and catch up," Imoen said. "Gotta go back through the mines for the rest of the kobolds, help out the guards—but it's only kobolds left in there now, it's not like they really need much help." She pronounced judgement on the kobolds with the tones of a seasoned adventurer whose slaying of them numbered in the thousands.

"Be more cautious, Imoen; there is always a small chance that any encounter will injure you," Jaheira said; correctly, of course. "Thank you for volunteering."

"Er...no, Ikindofthinkatomb'dbe goodpracticefortrapsandlocks, right?" Imoen said. Her eyes widened innocently, in that manner of preparing to get her own way. "And maybe nice treasure. I pick Pru for my team, she's supposed to be able to yell at the undead and make them explode—" Prudence felt suddenly inadequate. "And I guess the necromancer, and Khalid, of course. You'd look after us, right, Khalid?" She smiled up at him. No; she wasn't batting her eyelids; Khalid was a guardian figure. The pink cloak rippled upon her back.

"It is...g-good that you trust me, I suppose." Khalid glanced at his wife, some form of silent communication passing between them.

"Repair Mulahey's necromantic evils, then, if you wish it so," Jaheira said. "Practice your arts against the undead and unnatural, perhaps. I will speak to Ghastkill myself, lest his incapable soldiers have indeed run to trouble."

"Take care, d-dearest." A kiss on the cheek.

"A doomed and pointless exercise," Xan said, "but... Yes. This circuitous route to return to the town proper. In the interests of furthering the investigation. Perhaps." He turned away from the direction of the mines' exit. Certainly he should not be dragged back to that place, or anywhere he did not wish to go. "I don't suppose we could hope that melodramatic divination gave such minor practicalities as location details." He looked down at his sword; the blade's blue grew more fiercely bright.

"That's from tracking the gravedirt."

—

It was an open stone archway, like a narrow tear ripped in the earth; there had once been some design carved in the doorway, and fragments of paint striped across in dark red lines yet clung to it. The straggling gorse abruptly stopped growing in a small semicircle about the entrance, and dull sand that appeared undisturbed marked the passage inwards, as smooth as if it had been scraped over in recent days. Half-concealed in the crevices of one of the larger stone hills, it would not be obviously visible to a passer-by. A small gulch marked a sharp drop some few feet from the dark entry, off the spreading path that led to it. There was that about the tomb which coldly raised hairs on the arm. A feeling, quite evidence-based, of haunting.

"I'd cast to examine, but I'm flat out of spider eyes." Xzar patted down the pouches in his robes. "Perhaps I ought to have remembered to ask the druid to bring me some from those wraiths...or perhaps not," he reconsidered, and turned suddenly to Xan. "Do you know spells of clairvoyance?"

"Much of my book was ruined, you will remember." Xan's eyes narrowed as he glared at the space between the rocks.

"The tracks have been covered over," Khalid said. Out of character for one of Mulahey's mad brutality; for a terrified graverobber who had seized only one dagger also. "P-perhaps the spirits are tidy?" Prudence would not have expected a joke of that sort coming from him, and smiled nervously. Then again, it wasn't necessarily a jest at all.

"That one, is it a pressure plate?" Imoen pointed to some shadows on the ground beyond the entrance.

"Yeah. Not bad, human." Montaron stepped forward. "Don't tread on the third flagstone."

He led; Imoen had the task of torch-carrying, which perhaps kept her out of some trouble. Xan's sword was bright, dispelling the shadows from about it, and he looked carefully about himself, raising his face to the high roof, to the wide darkness. The stones upon the ground were dusty and indistinguishably scuffed. The walls had been planed to smoothness, even the ceiling rising swiftly. It was more spacious than it had seemed from the outside; the rock must be thin between that black roof and the sky outside, as implausible as that felt from the perspective of walking through the darkness that clung to the hollows and corners like thick spider's web in the oldest of Candlekeep's cellars. Ahead were the first signs of Mulahey's depredations: shapes of coffins thrown to the ground like scraps of firewood, torn cloth of grave-wrappings, even stray discarded bones. Desecrations. The coffins were marked by scratches that defaced the remnants of decoration and inscription; the jawless skull upon the sunburst was crudely marked as recent usage. Upon the walls were marks of dark colour, more carefully drawn than the kobolds' depiction of their master. Once this had been an elaborate resting-place; a place dedicated to...

Mulahey had interfered with what had been buried here, but he did not seem to have committed destruction upon the wide-stetched mural across the walls, flickering by Imoen's torch and Xan's cold blue light. They were complex designs, engraved and carefully decorated. Interlocked symbols of three spread like vines over almost all the surface. A black, clenched gauntlet, its fingers cruelly taloned. Spinning teardrops that might at one time have been gold-leafed; they appeared on the wall as negatives, a whirling circle about a yellowed skull. A tower of bones that housed a white skull, rising winding to the heights of the ceiling. They were portrayed as if they danced about each other, as their representatives had been once allied. Symbols of what the dead here had been sworn to.

The emblems of the three now known as dead themselves, Prudence's theological readings had her know quite well; whose powers Cyric now reigned over. Xzar stood at the wall. He splayed his fingers across it, his hand on the stone; then the signs of black grease spread from where he touched. Her appreciation of the value of historical artwork ended at the point where unholy symbols of despicable gods began.

"Tell me in the brief time remaining before something smites us, what human patrons do we offend?" Xan said.

"The Dead Three. Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul," Prudence said. The dark film of grease crossed far, hiding all the images from sight by its vandalism; it was more comfortable that way, perhaps.

"They're gods who died, they can't do anything any more!" Xzar gloated. "It's easy; they won't know it, and it should happen!" He looked up at his handiwork and stepped contentedly back.

"He's a fool who'd go stand in the rain and yell up at the Stormlord why he shouldn't exist," Montaron said. "Spare the blasphemy, lunatic."

"I..." Xzar ran blackened fingers across his forehead, leaving dark trails mixed with the dotted tattoos there. "It makes the other symbol stand out more, doesn't it? The one that's far worse than the real sun. But we made Mulahey dead, nothing but the old ghosts here any more. Let's find out!" He bent over one of the broken coffins, examining the contents.

"That is understood," Xan said quietly; "his source of raw materials duly identified. Perhaps a minor responsibility to end what he used to guard it." Frail; his sword held defensively before himself.

"Not your responsibility," Prudence said; "we'd do it; you...don't have to."

"I said," the elf uttered coldly, "that it was my duty to investigate. That includes this place—this area above the ground." His eyes flickered slightly in the direction of the daylight yet visible, though he did not turn his head to look back. "Not that I ought to hope for attention paid to sensible advice, but you could at least have the common sense to undertake it efficiently."

Quickly, then. This part of the tomb was but scraps Mulahey had left behind. Montaron and Imoen pointed to a tarnished silvery funnel, a fire-spitting pipe upon the ground. Forward; there were shelves set upon the walls, a catacomb's burials. What remained of texts upon them was in older Common; here lies ye worthy and modest Mage of valour Gilbred esteemd Son of Cyrus thro gate of Lord Myrkul...

Montaron rummaged through a crevice in the walls; "Scrolls!" Xzar said, gleefully paging through them, "very good—"

"B-be quieter," Khalid said; "we go far."

It was a rough shuffling, at first; a bonelike creaking that did not sound as if it came from their footfalls; a change in the shadows beyond them. Xan's face appeared to grow paler in the blue light of his blade; Khalid looked nervously about. In a place once dedicated to the Dead Three Cyric would have some title, yet the same wrongness had not made itself felt to her as in Mulahey's lair, Prudence thought; mild sense of something, dim and shadowed, it was not nothing that had haunted the graverobber to his death. Imoen had placed their torch into a bracket on the walls; her bow at her shoulders was easily in her reach.

"Greenstone." Imoen stood from her knees and held up a small ring; she blew dust away from it. "On the ground here, not...y'know, from anywhere horrible or anything..."

The voice spoke before anything else came into view:

"Give the dagger back."

Black-skinned, it was; yellow-eyed; flesh that shifted as if made of worms, elongated, tall; flanked by two pale and slender corpses, white-skinned, red-eyed; behind them many translucent shapes of ectoplasm that floated silver in the air and blended to each other's forms, indistinct spirits greeting those who held the possession. They'd weapons drawn and ready for it, she and Khalid and Montaron; but a thing that talked, one was supposed to try negotiating...

"Why do you want the dagger?"

It only repeated itself. "The dagger—" Its talons; it leaped forward like a maddened beast. Prudence caught it on the edge of her shield; unnaturally strong, burning eyes—

"Khalid?"

He'd offered custody of it; he patted himself down, nervously, then lunged forward instead.

"Imoen!" he cried out, his sword drawing complex patterns across a white body, carefully avoiding it not by retreating but slipping aside, stepping around it...

Imoen! Imprecations in an unsisterly spirit filled Prudence's mind—

"Er...oops?" Imoen volunteered. She'd brushed against Khalid upon the trail, chatting lightly to him about spices— "Right! Then take your dagger—Pru, duck!"

Imoen aimed the dagger effectively; Prudence did as she suggested. It flew above her head and into the revenant's dark chest. Among the writhing lines of it, the dagger was drawn into the body. Then the hilt began to beat in regular rhythm.

The revenant moved faster; Montaron swore, hacking at the knees of the slim ghoul upon the left, clawed marks across his face.

The dagger, Xzar said it was stolen from the golem— The revenant was inhumanly quick; its blows on her shield almost knocked her over; she couldn't dare to risk defences to return the same attack. An...undead monstrosity, eyes brighter than Mulahey's ghouls, staring and shaking in its head and piercing through her skull. The transparencies hanging in the air were whispering something, faint hints of other tones spoken at a pitch too high for human ears; she knew why the graverobber must have feared them so, and to the sounds Khalid spoke a whimper of his own in pained hearing.

"Discover. Explain," Xzar said, casting steadily.

"We delude ourselves to think we can stand against such spirits..." Xan moaned, but the blue light did not flicker. The silver ghosts were about the revenant, about the dagger; its movements grew ever faster, a whirl of storming claws; they would rip past the edge of her shield, tear quickly beyond mail.

"Monty, you're slowing—yours drains energy!" Xzar called. "Pale, not shadows; they're part wraith part haugbui, divine casting—how absolutely fascinating—the third divine too, construct, the heart, it'll implode, except not soon enough—"

A pair of missiles whirled from his hands and landed in the black writhing mass. Still it moved; and its claws opened Prudence's sword arm. It tore into her body, its stench of death and despair.

"Get out of the w-way!" Khalid pushed her quickly aside; he fought the revenant in her place, wounded quickly by its flashing claws and body. That wasn't right, wasn't fair.

The heart—heart not supposed to be there— Prudence reached to the revenant's back, her hand shaking. To cast around the dagger in the dead flesh, would not try and examine the corpse. The black writhing of it beat; there the shape of it, there the motion to half-cure by shoving her hand inside.

The revenant cut across Khalid's collarbone. His movement stopped, and the white wraith by him sunk long teeth into his neck. The prayer in her ignited; and she hurt the revenant. Pressed and forced the dagger out as she would have in a human's flesh; it felt her as pain abominable. trapped seeking gestalt anger command—more than one corpse bound together at the whim of others, others divine successors—she caused it agony insofar as the corpse could feel at all, almost a betrayal of what she was—

The dagger fell from the chest; she'd planned the motion, kicked it sliding backward across the ground to where perhaps the transparent ghosts would follow, and the black revenant turned on her. There was horrible pain in Khalid's frozen face, blue veins drawn to the surface of his paling skin, and she could not get past the revenant to him even as the wraith ate him. It moved more slowly, her blade peeled bits of its flesh from it, but it didn't turn from its path.

"Energy drain, the most interesting idea—" Xzar leaned forward, grabbing at Khalid's arm himself, chanting; Prudence saw something black come to the wraith's fangs where they met Khalid's skin, and then a small bolt of fire came from Xzar's hands into the jaw of the reeling wraith, setting it stumbling and ablaze. Imoen sunk an arrow of the mines to its flesh. Khalid was frozen and still bleeding, his eyes in frantic motion; but alive still, the wraith set afire. Away from him.

Prudence's blade sunk into the revenant's torso; a downward strike, seeking to sever something of the crawling flesh. It was soft-boned, blackened tissue forced together like dough.

Cut off the head, that's supposed to always work— To sever the spine and flesh needed great force for a human; this was a degenerate form of a corpse.

It moved more slowly, faltering; she saw it unbalanced, leaning across for her. Swept its right leg under it with a kick; there the chance, would have been too slow for Khalid— An overhand slash, seeking to part that lowered black neck, even as its very shapelessness set it back in balance. There were wormlike shreds twisting on her blade; she saw the body on the ground, the soft rotting head by it. She swung the scimitar at the burning wraith. The silver fingers of a ghostly figure swept through the red blood on her arm. Xzar chanted again to aid Montaron, bright missiles invoked;

"Not as interesting. Raw force, that does work against these; not quite in your scope, strong enchanter?"

The wraith was on the ground, burned by Imoen's arrows, no threat to Khalid; Prudence cast a quick healing where he bled most, and took the second wraith upon her shield for Montaron to cut down the tendons.

The ghosts surrounded them.

Ghosts of faithful of the Dead Three. They passed through her, about her; the tomb was silver fog, the songs on the edge of hearing, just enough to feel pain without understanding what was said.

"We left you the dagger—Imoen, put down that ring—"

They touched—did not touch, simply laid that silver film across and into one; they gestured and shifted back, as if to lure; some were about the dagger on the ground but most of them came to the living, pitiless as they were incomprehensible.

This was...difficult. One needed concentration; one could not spar at the same time; one needed faith to abandon weapon for prayer. She had sheathed the scimitar, carefully reached below her collar for the cord about her neck. The coarse stone shape of it was reassuringly solid, at the least. In symbol it was a variant of the asklepian: snake twined about sword rather than cleric's staff, healing and renewal directing the purpose of the blade.

It would be suffering, she told herself, to be a spirit bound to a tomb. She held the symbol as the focus of faith, and tried.

"That's not nothing," Xzar said, "risky; I don't think they'll like that, I don't much like the sense of it." Her prayer sought to compel the ghosts; to make them dissolve and return to rest. They were white, near to but not touching her right hand. They shifted back, slightly; she moved forward, waiting.

"Go to rest," she said.

They reformed to different shapes beyond her, though still they avoided the symbol's touch. Indistinct shapes with too many flowing parts for a human's mind to understand, at first; then she heard Khalid cry out.

"J-jaheira! No! I know s-she—this c-cannot be real!"

Montaron swore, upon acts in the thirty-third chapter of Sins of the Flesh Golem; Imoen spoke:

"Monsters! I've never seen anything like them—what kind of beasts—!"

Prudence saw three shapes arrayed: on the right a giant; on the left merely long and inhuman and corpselike; and in the middle constantly changing, a tall thing with horns at its head and long claws that shifted form with each motion. For a moment its face changed to something like her own, then became a shapeless blur of everyone else under the sun.

In faith I ought to conquer such monsters—ghosts or not— She went toward them, praying for the strength to dispel these visions. That it was these strange monsters for her, instead of the sort of image Khalid saw—there were other fears that they could have given— Lest they detect it she turned her mind to focus.

"They're not controlling minds! It's not the fear that I can cast—it's an illusion! Pay no attention, Monty!" Xzar had closed his eyes, and with arms outstretched in front of himself walked forward.

"You would be correct," Xan said, "an illusion; quite an adequately convincing one, I should say. I...would think that it ought to be dispelled."

Prudence spoke again, not yelling as Imoen imagined the process, trying her voice as another instrument of faith. "You'll scare nobody else to death. Go where you belong." The silver shapes that she could see trembled.

"That...h-had effect," she heard Khalid say, and that gave confidence.

Xzar walked to her side, his eyes still closed; a hand brushed across her shoulder and almost distracted her focus.

"Fairly tenacious spirits," he said. "Responding to what makes afraid—no I won't look at all—probably dragons with feet like rabbits! No enchantments that would work both ways; not on the positive plane to drain from..."

The three monsters yet faced her; the shape of his wife's body, to Khalid. She walked into them, and they drew back, but it was not enough. The failure hers, not in what she served.

"Is it," she asked, forcing herself to the concentration—hold them back if nothing else, "a lack of strength, or a lack of a directed path?" In her mind the asklepian was the same vivid blue as healing, a metaphorical glow that pressed away the ghosts like shadows from a candleflame, and like that light spread and dissipated in a sphere.

"Latter," Xzar said, and with indignation added, "I know nothing of this! I ought to cast spells of control more than destruction. Why do you trouble—"

"It is necromancy." They said that practise improved one's abilities. Perhaps the past seconds of staring at ghosts and praying for their rest had increased her skill; not enough. "How do your spells shape paths?"

"One doesn't drain from those already dead; the pipe of the negative opens to draw from the living—" he thought aloud, his eyes still closed.

"A necromantic drain. Could you..." She was slow to speak, concentrating. The ghosts of the monsters troubled her, as if she ought to remember their shapes but could not; she disliked it, one could say feared it, when knowledge failed.

"Takes on one end, flows through to the controller because life abhors the void," Xzar said. "Reverse and it's uncontrolled on the end that receives life, that's not bad here. Connection from live to dead without that other side, the fiddly bits and stability. Give me time! I think it's interesting enough!"

She gave a brief nod. The strength of faith. The practice to hold that. He whispered to himself.

"I can't forget what they're like on the inside of my eyelids, they're the monsters in dreams," Imoen said, "illusion or not—don't chat about it, Pru, someone died of being afraid of them—"

"Point me," Xzar said, "I think the equations make as much sense as stuffing out of glass eyes with the crossbars."

I think I'm going to trust that.

"One pace forward. Ninety degrees right. Length five feet."

He cast a white hole in the air, a drain. It took what Prudence gave it, pulled it along the space in an instant's time; alive prayer and it hit the ghosts, the monsters twitching and shifting to formless silver, breaking, leaving— I understand now, I could shape the prayer better next time— They melted like a flowing white stream to the shadows still beyond.

Xzar's eyes were open, enthused, and he grabbed her arm. "You made them run! Come after—!" He pulled her a step forward, surprisingly strong; she knew the counter to reverse that untrained move.

"Don't go. Probably trapped—" She held him back; after a moment he relaxed and gave way, leaning briefly against her.

"You're likely right. Cedo nunc..." Slowly he stood back, his eyes at her face.

Xan shook his head. "I'm surprised you managed not to blow anything up."

Khalid was on the ground, his skin a pale unnatural to him, his back against the wall of the tomb. He breathed heavily, some of the scrapes upon him still bleeding. "You need healing," Prudence said; but he gestured to stop her.

"It won't h-help. I will need a r-restoration casting; I know this effect of the undead to be not easily mended. Jaheira or the t-temple will..." Khalid half-smiled, as if he was concerned to give reassurance rather than receive it himself. "I can still walk, once I c-catch my breath. 'Tis nothing I have not felt before." Guilt at his injury smote her; and it was true that she lacked the skill for the difficult restoration prayer.

"Yes, that's the symptoms of an energy drain," Xzar said. "Blue veins drawn to the surface, withdrawal of fresh blood from the skin, lassitude of the muscles—"

"Khalid doesn't need to hear that list," Prudence said firmly.

"Oh, very well." He whirled again to face her. "But I will have to write up that half-elf blood serves quite nicely as a grease spell component—transmute some oil, fill the bad wraith's mouth with it and crudely set it on fire. Likely the magic from the elven side—"

"Likely ye getting carried away," Montaron muttered.

"You s-still," Khalid said, slowly pulling himself to his feet, "need far more help than I could ever g-give." He set his shield carefully against the tomb's wall, standing with only his longsword as carried weight.

"Montaron?" Prudence said. He stood upright; he was lightly scratched, but his movements seemed to be once more his usual pace, and he replied that he needed nothing. "Could you lead on?"

The ghosts had fled to what was perhaps the centre of the tomb's hill; the path twisting and circular, a brief Knossos labyrinth, trap-bound. At each turn there seemed some flash of ice-silver hanging in the passages, withdrawing into deeper shadow the moment a glance fell upon it. As if they lead us. But it was duty to follow them.

The labyrinth's centre was an altar, dark-stained, marked by a black sun; and about it a mass of shifting silver shimmering in the air. Strange fireflies. They no longer changed to shapes recognisable, a pale haze moving as if blown by winds from other planes.

"T-try again," Khalid said quietly, his left hand raised behind him, braced against one of the dark walls.

She stepped forward, unarmed by the general rules of such things—not that physical weapons would aid in any case; and this time they whispered and swarmed around her.

...we died in this place... In her head it seemed as many voices tried to whisper in unison, and failed at the task.

"You killed a man. I thought this existence must hurt you also," Prudence said. Candlekeep had its share of ghosts, supposedly. Dim reflections of what had only used to be people; more like a strange force of nature than someone capable of guilt. "Leave this plane for the ones to which you belong."

...we died in this place... the soft choir echoed again; and spoke further:

...guards over our own gifts and treasures guards over the tombs of our enemies matters not years hence seek out thieves...

It was information she could have known already. Shape the prayer to truly end these; let them turn to light and kill no more. If the ghosts were to be pitied, aid their tattered souls in this way.

necromancer of myrkul's service, echoed the silver whispers clambering about her, soldier of bane, murderer for bhaal; transmuter of bhaal sorcerer of bhaal diviner of myrkul...

"Those patrons are dead; and I'm sworn against their ilk." She prayed; this time she could shape it more directly against them. Train it as a channel.

...serve the one of three crowns serve those who hold it. An impression of a plural term, there. Troubling; but she could not control their semicoherent whispers. End it quickly.

"Go," she repeated, the prayer strong in her throat at last, a channelling turned to the formless silver.

...command...

Undramatically, they disappeared.

"T-that altar," Khalid said. "It is...evil."

Dark-stained. Marked for Cyric. The stones of it somewhat crude in craftwork, below the standards of the once well-carved graves. "Xzar, how old are those bloodstains?" Prudence said.

He went forward quickly enough, running a finger across the heavy surface. He summoned no magelight for himself, asking Xan to shine the moonblade more strongly; it was a difficult task for a mage to modify even spells he knew well.

"The oldest a year, not more than one-and-a-half; the most recent not quite a month gone. At least four times." He grinned confidently, and scraped dark chips from the stone; placed them in a vial already filled by some liquid, and examined the reaction. "Human."

Townsfolk who disappeared? What was left of the corpses likely among Mulahey's tools—the ghouls, the chances were, for the skeletons they had seen had been yellowed by age— They would only be able to tell this to the mayor.

"The work of that one," Xan said, his tone vicious. "Take it apart—to well-deserved pieces—"

"Like that part of it, mister elf?" Imoen said, pointing at a bolt set to block a stone from sliding across.

"Plunder it," Prudence said, the words almost a harsh-voiced command. A full ritual of purifying the altar to a nobler cause was beyond her craft. Desecrating it would not make most of the group any more heretical to Cyric.

Montaron went to touch the seal; the same sort of movements he had used in Mulahey's lair, working slowly and steadily. A place of secondary storage for the Cyricist? Or worse, relics of what the altar was used for?

"Those the gods wish to destroy they first make mad," Xzar quoted; he stood next to her, away from Cyric's altar. "And yet I never did anything to him." He jerked his chin fiercely in the direction of the dark sun's symbol. "One falls down when reasoning is destroyed. One never comes so far and refuses to find out, does one?—No matter what is risked—"

"That's one way to seek a future grisly death," Xan said. "We ought to leave this place—"

Have to make sure he is well—all of them. "We're about to. None of us will die here," she said; Xan muttered a few low syllables in response, turning his head from her.

"I know exactly what you mean," Xzar said to nobody in particular; Montaron's hands clicked over the seal. Imoen gave a nod in interest. The stone slid open: parchment, jewels, gravedust that blew from the crevice by a wind of its own and settled into a small pyramid in front of the altar, before any had a chance to respond.

...bone dust component for...

It was obvious and her mind spared one curse before she ran forward, Montaron and Imoen hurrying back...

Then it was the fear that took the mind. Run, it told her, forced, dark things that were better buried, black bats flying with deathwound fluid, clear ascites staining claws, run away run away where it cannot find—

Forward instead, stumbling, aiming at the bone dust; late, entirely too late with the shaking blackness over her eyes and the seizing fright.

Soft gasp, bump on the ground. High scream, Imoen. Verbal curse. Dulled words.

"No, I'll lie down and die here, of course! To be in the ground once more was doomed anyway."

"I can't stop them! Inside get out black claws red hands they found me scared—"

The thin bones struck her and flung her to the ground of the tomb. Xzar ran into the darkness; Khalid lay collapsed on the ground, Xan sitting and staring blank, at least Imoen and Montaron only shaking but still standing—

"Im, Montaron! Stop Xzar!"

All so obvious, dark pieces on a board. The white creature's burning eyesockets were on her. A black sword appeared in its boned hand. A skeleton. Twice Khalid's height. Never any known humanoid, of course, not recognisable a demon of Cyric's realm—

That was ridiculous. The bones that flared from its shoulders like spaulders of armour were kleis sourced from another skeleton; fractions of three spinal columns stretched its back and neck; the skull enlarged and another composite with horns built of teeth given to the frontal bone; several sets of ribs a thick cage of bones; femurs bound together in the legs; phalanges linked on the feet large enough to support the frame. Deranged patchwork. No time. She stood.

"I command you." She still had the symbol ready. The skeleton's power was dark and almost tangible; it swung that gifted blade and she moved from its path. A deep hole in the wall behind her, fragments of stone scattering. The weapon; far more powerful than that first bare hit.

Strong. She kept the prayer, not drawing her weapon. The faith to hold it back. She looked into the eyes: false. Nothing there. Fighting for this is stronger than the dead—

She'd not the ability to destroy it. A blue shock to the centre of its blackness; it stumbled. The skeleton had the power to absorb a thousand more such. The steps fumbled, brief confusion. Her hand was already on the neck of her cloak. She pulled the material free, tangled it low between the long legs. The confusion ended; the black sword struck down, but the creation tripped and fell.

No time. Already too much.

Leverage on where the spinal blocks would be for a human. Standing on it, one foot on the right arm, slice away the magic weapon first—unnatural strength, yet she still outweighed this thing—

The wrist bones parted: a row of small carpals, easiest to make to fall apart. The undead's strength shook her; she shifted in balance on its spine. Quickly pushed the scimitar through vertebrae at the base of skull and let go. The bone limbs didn't stop moving. She kicked at the severed phalanges; it and the black sword rose in the air. She caught it, and brought it down upon the skull.

Even through a glove it felt like plunging her hand into boiling water. Cyricist weaponry, really shouldn't wield— The blade cut through skull and spine as if through butter, as if it lent her a giant's strength. When the skeleton returned to bone dust and the black sword also dissolved it was relief.

No time. Khalid, drained, breathed closed-eyed and flat on the ground; Xan yet stared silent into space. She took her own weapon and rushing out heard Montaron's cry—

Too late.

Imoen was flat against the left wall, Montaron fallen by her; no sign of Xzar. Projectiles whirled through the passageway, a fiery arrow to the ground by her. She flung herself to the two of them, laid hands on Montaron because she couldn't do anything else. He bled far more than anyone should from a single dart, blood weakened; clot that, heal it quickly, the sorcery coming to her as efficiently as a prayer—

Xzar, outside. Alive. "Bait, the tomb, they caught us, rabbits, the trap! They want everything, they come after it, eat everything, the other sun—"

A woman's voice. "Lamalha, be a dear and silence him." A spell; pained gasps replacing frantic words.

They were like Mulahey, but dampened. Subtler. Cyricists still. Couldn't have felt them from a distance. Troubling with hostage-taking. Couldn't afford to think of that with anything other than cold words.

None of them will die here.

Another voice. Prudence would have guessed at least three; could see little out in the light. "Caught a wizard, Telka? I'd throw him back."

The first woman again. "Be quiet, Maneira. What other rats have we caught here?"

"More rats than number with you. Let the wizard go," Prudence said. The narrow rectangle beyond the doorway still showed little; her fingers peeled the cloak from Imoen's back. She ignored her sister's short gasp.

A laugh; drawn slightly too long for the boundaries of sanity. "You speak truth. Are you perhaps the one—the one who murdered Mulahey, let us say? The one who ripped out his guts with her sword." A level of detail.

They had all played a part in Mulahey's demise. But it could aid to shield the others.

"You shouldn't hesitate," the woman said. "And let it be the truth: Cyric will tell me if you lie."

Fellow Cyricists.

"That gives you an interesting advantage. None of us have that ability," Prudence said, and brought the cloak's fastenings together about her neck. "I am."

"Then it is your death we seek. Come closer, little rat." Low amusement in the voice; the priestess played. "Or would you rather the massacre of your companions first? Telka's fire arrow rests on the wizard's back."

"She likely would," spoke another.

"No. Don't hurt him." It felt as if dark tongues of fire licked at her while she spoke, seeking if it was truth. Don't hurt him. Nor anyone. The dark fire easily found those thoughts uppermost in her."Is it only I who would serve as your bloodprice?" Bearing the cloak steadied her voice; filled something in her centre.

She touched Imoen's shoulder to tell her to stay; approached the tomb's exit behind the shelter of the walls. Montaron followed her, staying behind her as though her body served as a shield.

She saw more of their enemies. Time. Xzar's green robes vivid on the dry grass; a booted foot on his back, a bow with a fire arrow pointed downward. A leather-armoured woman bearing only a sheathed shortsword as apparent weaponry. Two women in heavy armour glinting in the sun, the Dark Sun shown openly for insignia: one with grey, stonelike skin, the other burly and black-haired.

Laughter once again. "More so than supposed. Zeela, do you sense it? It is a wouldbe cavalier. Sufficient for a Day of Dark Sun."

"How unexpected," Zeela replied. The dark flames sought their enemy, her carved asklepian cold where their tendrils were sulphur-foul.

"Exactly," she said. "I'd tell you the truth without your spells," she continued, and to the priestess' licking fires it was perfect sincerity. She spoke on. "You didn't even have to trouble to take a wizard; it could have been anyone. Give assurance you'll spare others. You must know of my obligations." One facing a surrender would feel emotion.

Two of the women did not bear the symbols of priests. She looked again in the direction of them, careful glances. One of fiery arrows, one of the darts against Montaron.

"We know," the first harsh tower of armour said. A large shield covered her body, in her right hand a long black knife of the wrong shape to give a clean cut to anything, a thick mace at her belt. "One of those upon our altar was another like you. An adventurous boy who did not even know of his choosing by Ilmater until the very moment Lamalha cut out his heart. Charmingly ignorant."

A tale told to deliberately outrage. Their dark reaches brought what she was into a pale uncoiling anger.

"It offended his sensibilities that he was the last to die at our hands," Lamalha said. "Telka—"

"How many of you want to die?" Prudence called out; loudly enough to interrupt. "Siege the tomb all you like—break your word about the mage—and at least one of you would lie dead at our hands." Her thought was that Montaron would consider himself underestimated at that, and the black tendrils drew that truth from her mind. "Let him go. You'll have your chance to avenge Mulahey upon me."

"Your life for his." The priestess with skin of stone laughed again, the flail she bore gleaming in the sun's glare. "This is rich," she said, her words slowed, her speech chosen as a weapon to hurt. "Did you know that your necromancer belongs as much to our lord Cyric as we, wouldbe paladin? I hope you're none too shocked."

The truth casting sought for that reaction. The reason why Lamalha spoke was to twist a knife. Two hard-faced priestesses; two who chose to aid them. "I've heard him say otherwise," Prudence said. "He ought to know."

"Have no doubt that he knew," Zeela said. "We have rituals to seal the souls of those we sacrifice with our lord for eternity; but even without that Cyric would claim his soul the moment we slit his throat."

The figure upon the ground was silent, of course; had only gasped in pained breaths. Zeela spoke on, opening wounds.

"He claimed to you to be apostate? Small doubt that our lord will treat that with all the mercy it deserves," she said. "But perhaps that makes you change your noble decision?" The dark power pulsed in her voice; a chuckle bloomed in the priestess.

No. That's even worse. Telka held her bow steadily upon Xzar's back.

"Or can you know that he is not ours already?" the priestess taunted. "Perhaps the Prince of Lies commanded him to bring you to us. I see him mad, a necromancer, darkness within him. Certainly he is more the possession of our lord than of any other."

"It makes no difference," Prudence said. The duty would be for anyone; and they were not ignorant of her laws. "Let him go."

"Then throw down your weapons—and come out in his place," the stone priestess ordered, her shield raised, her flail ready.

Untie the scabbard at her belt; the crossbow; cache of bolts; even the belt knife. Slovenly throwing-down; no need for the customary care. "I've done so," she said truthfully, still beyond the doorway, out of range; watching the tall priestesses, the pair of assassins bearing ranged weapons in hand. "Release him first."

Imoen. "No! You've known him half a tenday! I didn't think you were really going to—and you shouldn't—you can't do this—"

"I need you to look after Xan," Prudence said to her, the recent-rescued Greycloak temporarily uppermost in her mind. The Cyricists could feel the sentiment of the fallen; of regret at Imoen's hurt. Their touch for truth continued to awaken her own sight.

"So our pets harmed you, then. What rats remain in the trap?" the stony Lamalha said, next to the dart-thrower Maneira.

"Enough to harm you." That was true. "What is your guarantee of good faith?" The pale pressure had begun to overflow behind her eyes in response to the Cyricists' presence; and she looked down at Montaron.

Zeela spoke. "Bow and scrape further, wouldbe knight. No doubt it would offend your morals were we to return the mage damaged."

A...genuine threat.

"Will you keep your own pets in order following...post-mortem?" the cleric said, gloating.

It had made Montaron's gaze shift, his glare and her own brief understanding. Sometimes there was no pity in such a vision; his scowl knew her for what she was, and his fingers tightened about his crossbow.

"Montaron," she said, more harshly than she had expected; she tried to contain the white light behind her eyes. "Tell them the truth."

A twisted grin from him; he yelled out to the priestesses. "Sure. Girl's a chance-met a few days ago. Wizard, though, annoying though he be there's folks I know with a use for him. Wouldn't trouble fighting ye on funny ideas of avenging her." A final glance of hostile understanding.

Imoen gasped again, her anger strong. "You rat! I let you teach me three-point pickpocketing distraction—evil scum and I won't forgive—!" Something was broken beyond repair.

"You see," Prudence said, truths sealed to her mind. Maneira and Telka stood ready with their ranged attacks, Zeela and Lamalha in possession of their prayers. "I still can't let anyone perish on my behalf. Not even..." There was much to condemn in Montaron. She sought to calm that particular vision; she had not allowed it full reign to begin with. Her voice remained in composure. "Imoen, do as the nice ladies say." Imoen, do what you have to survive.

She heard the sound of the stone cracking. Lamalha stepped out of the protective skin, tanned light brown below it. "A lie there!" she laughed. "Zeela," she said, the voice changing to a child's petulance, "I think the knightling's kept us talking far too long. Don't you agree?" She began a brief chant before Zeela gave an answer; her skin quickly greyed into the thick carapace once more.

"Lingers like the harlot Mystra in a mage's bedchambers," Zeela said. "Come with your hands where we can see them. Telka: get the wizard up." Boot lifted, bow raised; Xzar was pushed to walk forward along the path to the tomb, the archers still at his back. No sounds came from his moving mouth, his walk swaying, and the same fear in his eyes as in swearing to the presence of the Dark Sun within the koblds' painting.

A liability at present, some thought lingered in one of the layers of Prudence's mind, but the Cyricists no longer quite cared to seek her truths. Words, variables, problems that needed cold thought to mend...

"Further," Zeela ordered, and she went beyond where she could scuttle back into hiding within the tomb.

His arms were spread wide; where he stepped there was still no clear shot for the assassins past his body, against her. He came along the same path to the tomb as before, between dry gorse and brown dust, the sun higher in the sky than it had been. Closer, so she could have reached out to touch him; to pass by each other in place for the exchange.

There was very little Prudence had spoken to the priestesses that was not truth; but then she opened her mouth for a lie, and at the same moment moved.

"Friends! You must run from the spirits in the tombs—"

Pushed Xzar into the steep drop, away from them, not too deep a fall; flung herself flat upon the ground. Montaron's crossbow bolts flew above where they had been.

Telka and Maneira: friends by the cloak's power, doing nothing against their nature, warned to run.

You'll have your chance to avenge Mulahey upon me.

None of them will die here.

Greed. Or a distrust of Cyricists.

No chance for miscalculations.

Prudence rolled to cover; got to her feet and sprinted, the opposite direction the cloak had instructed of Telka and Maneira. The enemy knew the ground better; assume Montaron and Imoen did not pierce heavy shields and armour; assume what she'd do. She'd committed only a few moments' worth of shock against them.

One to chase the one they consider a target. One to try to eliminate the tomb's archers.

There was cover between the rocks; she sought a route suited for it. Yells behind her, something coming. She ran, and the earth itself shook—a strong power—let Montaron and Imoen not allow their target a chance to cast—

One who knew the ground sought another who ran alone, darting and hiding afraid of her while the four all lived. One way to play hide-and-seek was to turn seeker to ambushed. If one was fortunate; if one knew the prey hid, if one knew the prey would slowly tremble; if one gained enjoyment out of wasting time and watching others twitch and fear...

There was a spot she had seen in one of the brown hills; where a person could scramble to hide and jump down upon a seeker below. She sought to be as silent as she could. Bar for a slight shadow where one should not exist, there was no suggestion that anything lay in wait in that crevice.

Prudence's route turned a full circle, the way the cloak pulled upon its victims to a chosen ground. Confused by the fear of the tomb and the warning; not sure where to go; not looking in the direction of the one who came to them.

No time.

Telka and Maneira served Cyric as much as the priests did; and yet they were friends to each other, humans. The cloaked woman drew close to them, but it was not unnatural for them to be giving attention to other things than a friend's approach.

The dartwoman was the more dangerous. "Maneira, look into the sky." That angle. She thought the cloak's enchantment easy to control.

Throw down your weapons. Prudence hadn't in detail known of what Imoen kept in her cloak pockets, and found her hand scraping beyond lockpicking tools and across the hilts of three throwing knives.

Imoen would never let it go if I missed at this distance.

The knife pierced Maneira's throat. Telka, at her murdered friend, would take obvious action; but her first movement had to be to grasp Maneira, trying herself to stem the wound.

The second knife hit the moving target of Telka's back; the enchantment shattered. In action more demonstrative than practical, Telka ripped the knife from her own shoulder; rushed upon the attacker with it in her hand, a snarl of shocked hatred in her face. Prudence held the cloak's hem, gesturing with it once again.

No charming effect; it worked less well on one with her friend's lifeblood on her hands.

"You think that will work again, you bitch?"

"No. Just trying to distract you." Telka's run had lurched; that was the opening. Prudence had the last of Imoen's knives in her hand, and made the leap to reach her. Both struck. Red soaked the cloak at her left shoulder; and Imoen's knife met Telka's midsection. "Sorry." She was pushing the knife in deeply past the leather armour, twisting with the force that a small blade needed to do damage, peeling down the other arm and gripping tightly—couldn't let her comrades heal her, had to stop them—

The body fell to the grass. Telka's own strike had, off-angled, cut ear rather than her throat; it bled copiously. Prudence bent to the corpse.

No more time. The ground shook as if a giant walked. Zeela had appeared; saw two dead on the ground. She'd instantly act. Prudence flung the last knife, speed above any time wasted on accuracy. Zeela raised her right hand, spoke a word, and fragments of iron dust fell to the ground. The bow was wrapped and twisted around the woman's shoulders; Prudence pulled Telka's shortsword from its sheath.

Zeela's chant was loud and fierce. The pattern of gesture something a child of Gorion ought to know in her sleep; the speed too fast to disrupt the caster in time; the angle of her hands and the pitching of her voice, invocation triangulation calculation, divine casting strike point understood—

Half material fire, half divine. One was avoidable by reeling from the invocation point at the precise moment; one not. A black fire covering her, roasting, many times multiplied from the pain of touching the dark blade. She found the ability to heal—you killed a woman you'd charmed, a momentary thought, but still within her she could cast the prayer.

The prayers for a giant's strength did not give the caster a deer's speed with it. Prudence flung herself at the armoured priestess, and the shortsword slid from Zeela's shield. The pair of Cyricists had been too unyielding to try to charm; would have noticed the play of the cloak and flung it off as a metal tower would deflect an arrow.

Zeela fought with her mace rather than the curved knife. It pushed through the air with unnatural strength; caught the edge of Telka's sword and even in that showed incredible force. And in her momentum was perfect control: it was said the weakness of such spells was directing them, but not one of Zeela's movements showed that the strength took her any further than she would have desired. She bore the weight of her armour as nothing.

A matter of dodging. Prudence found that Telka's blade held light enchantment, enough to scratch the plate. The footwork was the same, the range and the blade different to her usual practice. She could barely hurt Zeela; at best would disrupt casting until this opponent realised how dangerous she really was with a shortsword.

She spun sideways against the mace's heavy blow; Zeela tried to lead the battle out of the open area. In the hills she could bring down earth with that strength.

"—I'd urge you to convert even at this stage, but you seem foolish as Mulahey!" Words seemed to flow more easily from her throat with the cloak's power. Joints in the armour.

The priestess scorned that. The mace flew down; Prudence thought that at least without her shield she carried less weight— "You ran from me, weakling. Best to die now," Zeela said. Her eyes were black, even the sclera; a sign of the use of power.

"I thought—" Sidestep. Keep to the open. "Thought Cyric was more of an eye-and-hand-and-assorted-teeth-for-an-eye god. Any interesting reasons for me in particular?" The enchantment seemed to make her better able to speak her thought; stronger articulation, phrasings not dying in her throat.

"No answers. I'll crush your skull." Clever enough not to give great detail on those who had sent her. Too distracting to try to look into her. Prudence threw herself aside; managed to roll and stand again. She thrust forward with the shortsword; easily blocked by Zeela's shield.

Improvisation. "—At dinner when I was young I'd sit in my place and make towers out of the carrots and catapults out of bread and stringbeans—the better to fight my sister across the table, you see," Prudence said. The story rambled; almost a bad imitation of Xzar. The Cyricist's glare was as hard and harsh as her mace.

"Shut your mouth." The mace nearly enforced that by force.

"Disgusting behaviour, given children starving elsewhere," Prudence said. "My father taught me not to. It was a very important lesson: you can't win once you start playing with your food." Perhaps disbelief was what put the mace's strike slightly off from shattering her right shoulder. Keep an opponent off-balance. "I mean, I don't believe people are food, I like people. For social interaction, not with a nice Berduskan Dark and some Chondathan beans." Zeela's stance shifted; Prudence knew the counter to that footwork, at least, how to move back and aside in time. Zeela wasn't particularly fast, for all that strength—

"Stand still and shut up!" She'd grasped where the tale was leading, perhaps. A swift underhand strike; Prudence shifted her weight to the left. One didn't put one's body in the way of maces wielded by deity-given strength.

"You lost before you started this." It was reasonable in the abstract. With the cloak, the necessary confidence held in the voice. "Left your friend—Lamalha?—back there, she's going to die. Nothing you left in the tomb did anything permanent. Montaron's tremendously good at what he does. Khalid's even better with a sword. Elven wielder of a Moonblade—magic sword, only the worthiest touch them, in case you don't know what they are." Good; the intellectual snobbery prompted a snarl on the cleric's face, and a fierce blow predictable enough in direction. "Imoen was the best shot in Candlekeep." Were the truth spell still in place, it would have noted uncertainty and worry: Khalid and Xan incapacitated by the horror, Imoen's glories within certain limits. But she did not lie.

High blow from the cleric. Retreating step; scrape the side of the armour with the shortsword. Search for weakness in joints.

"Lamalha's outnumbered five to one, then they'll come for you," Prudence said. "Have any ambush surprises? No, I know you don't. You'd have needed them already." The taunts—seemed to be working; she'd seen some of Zeela's style, started to know herself the patterns of motion.

"They will find your dust when they do," Zeela said. The tower of armour moved forward; Prudence shifted, stepping quickly. More strength than mobility to the cleric's style. Underarm attacks favoured: with borrowed strength the momentum of an overhead strike wasn't much needed. Shield used defensively. Stance firmly planted as if used to fighting where she had to hold ground.

Prudence stepped to the right when the mace struck left; tried to get the shortsword to the chain joints at Zeela's elbow. "I'm not supposed to be afraid to die." Phrasing it any other way would have made that statement less than honest—of course she wanted to win this fight— "Aren't you frightened of what your god will do to you for failure?"

That hit where it was aimed; a glower, the dark eyes almost spitting power from them. "Cyric is the one true god and you will never live to oppose his will!"

Another erratic strike of the mace. Prudence remembered Mulahey, at his last; the nature of the Mad God and his crimes. "Do, am, will," she said, and the cloak helped her force nonchalance to her voice. "Can't stop me," she added childishly, and that seemed to work like Imoen could use it on one of her good days.

"—rraggh—" There Zeela raised her arm, right-handed strike to the left of the skull; her strength making it vigorous, her arm rising. Under the armpits was chain; Prudence moved herself under the blow, stabbed with the shortsword, and the enchanted point cut through that and into the flesh—

Zeela hit back. All the times she'd practiced taking a fall and all the times she hadn't intended to practice it came to Prudence in a shock of pain. Flex quickly with the lines of force, roll back and down, the world spinning—ribs bruised, body cut skidding along gravel, nothing broken at least, needed to rise—

A healing spell chanted by the Cyricist; Prudence heard the casting a little slower than Mulahey, a chance for her to get up again. Then Zeela dashed at her like a madwoman, faster than she had been. And yet more predictable, patterns of rage and losing subtleties of motion.

"May really be—!" Zeela said incoherently, moving in with her mace. Halfway through a blow, she stumbled for an instant, though she still blocked Prudence's attack for that. The strength—Prudence tried a cautious deflection again. Zeela's force was no longer inhuman, if still stronger than her own. "I saw your truth when you pleaded for the necromancer! Remember I spoke truth too—a good chance he'll be Cyric's, forever after—"

So she tried the same technique as her at last. Prudence moved calmly away from the mace's sketches in the air. "You call it only a chance now?" The tone ought to be contemptuous. "Not all chances come off. Thank you for admitting more than you should, yet again..."

"—Just die!" Erratic, again; the point of Telka's sword scored a line across the left shoulder of the plate before Zeela raised her shield.

"Cyric—switched from human mercenary to god," Prudence said. She panted; in some measure the cloak disguised that when she spoke. Zeela's rage endured. "And you can't even kill one. He must be—so proud of you."

No time.

She stepped under Zeela's mace; trying to weave for the join of her gorget. Blocked by the mace. It bruised her arm; she was pushed aside. Stumbled; flung herself to the left, staggered to her feet in time to deflect another blow.

The sword and mace met. Prudence raised her arm; she was the taller, though of less brawn. They faced each other; Zeela won in the contest of muscle, her mace pushing heavily down. A high corps-a-corps. They stepped toward each other, and she could smell Zeela's breath. "You...you feign weakness," Zeela said, though that was even as she only tried to equal the cleric's strength in holding the shortsword steady against the mace. "But you are truly—"

Prudence slid the blade free quickly; Zeela's arm slipped, her body out of balance, leaning forward. The chain in her right arm still hung loosened. The shortsword stabbed up and into her armpit; magic enough to pass through. Zeela tried to break away; Prudence flung her weight on the sword. Forward and down, angle for the artery axillaris, lungs, deeper. Heavy plate clattered to the ground; Zeela bled, trying for some moments to heal herself...

The knife she'd seen before still hung from Zeela's body. The wrong length for a dagger or shortsword. The glassy black of obsidian; more prone to shattering in a fight than iron, at least when there was no crisis. Jagged serrations at irregular spots, a lunatic's patterning. A curved twist at the end of it slightly too long to usefully hook an opponent's blade. Not a priest's weapon for war. Not a weapon for war at all. It was a vivid image in her mind for the most fleeting of moments, knives that sliced for pain instead of mere death...

Too long. Run. She grabbed the corpse's shield, and sprinted back to the tomb.

—A roiling black cloud at the entrance of it, writhing snakes of solidified smoke atop and within each other. The stone priestess before it.

"Im! Montaron!" she yelled; not too far from the Cyricist. Worry—if anything to them—

"Hah! Pru!—" The answering cry from deep within it. A great relief;

"Oh—" Prudence affected inattention to the priestess; "you're still here?" Blood on the cloak and Zeela's shield helped with the impression she sought. "Your companions are all dead." You feign weakness. As if; intimidation would work far better here. "Now, I'm obliged to accept surrenders—"

I killed the others and it would be better to yield now! she would have hoped for Lamalha to see in her—wasn't sure if she could win, wounded, and anyway that way she wouldn't kill one more—

But that failed. Lamalha stared at her, and Prudence knew she knew what lay behind her words; and the chant of a prayer began. It must have been an enhancement prayer cast, before Prudence quite reached her to stop her; the flail whirling above her head gathered a dark light about it and sped quickly, unpredictably. Too quick to properly block; it forced Prudence back, and the bluff tattered. No hesitation to the priestess' mad movements, no words but a roaring from her mouth. Lamalha of Cyric left no time to speak.

The flail caught on Zeela's shield, cut ribbons along the length of the metal. It was the circling that made it impossible to predict, the angle where the spiked ball spun into vicious attack. Prudence fell into desperate retreat and attempts of blocking that Jaheira would have caught quickly—that Lamalha was catching quickly. The problem was she'd little experience with the flail, no ability to read the motion and anticipate when the spin would end. It beat away at the enchanted shield, and dug deep like clawmarks. For all the weight of arms Lamalha carried, she was faster than her—the prayer, likely; but the reason why made little difference—

Lamalha moved her backward, away from the tomb and the sharp drop before it. Probably not deliberately; seeking only to strike the blow that would finally kill as quickly as possible. Prudence could read scarce anything beyond rage in the fierce glare. The flail arced through the air again. The edge of her shield, and with such force that it pushed her aside; twisted her left arm aside. She stepped back again. Lamalha left her no time for recovery. One had to adapt quickly— The arm wielding the flail rose. Follow that, instead; afraid to be too slow Prudence raised the shortsword, lunged upward and tried to tangle it with the flail's chain. It made the contact intended; Lamalha moved against the direction of it. Their shields clashed against each other. Lamalha untangled the flail, raising it again. She cried three low syllables in a tongue similar to Mulahey's castings; the flail fell. Prudence felt it hit her left shoulder, spikes raking through the chainmail even as she tried to spin back from it.

Pain; but she could still move, still block by the shield's magic. She led Lamalha back again; near to rocks close together, ground uneven. She sought to turn Lamalha left, where potential to trip. She attacked again, trying to slip the shortsword below the whirling flail, close the range between them. But Lamalha was too fast. A strong hit, the iron ball heavy against the shield, and it was Prudence herself who stumbled, falling to one knee, the flail rising to finish the battle. She could hear other movement, she wildly thought, her senses still trying to understand—

Then the stone face stopped; split apart; burned black where it did so, the end of an arrow of fire through it. Lamalha's eyes widened in the stone. The burn did not make her bleed, blackened her; and she toppled to the left, grey eyes staring blankly to the sky.

"Y' cloak-thieving bufflehead!"

Imoen, soot-black, stood out on the ground with the dark smoke still behind her, her bow and a second poised arrow in hand, a strip of cloth held as a scarf over her face. Montaron and his crossbow not far behind her; Khalid and Xan, coughing and spluttering and leaning on each other, Khalid pale and Xan paler below the streaks of black that covered them also.

Imoen ran to her; Prudence stood, half-stunned and smelling of blood, to meet her. No more—yes; the four Cyricists dead, perhaps over, a victory of a sort. Im, I'm sorry I made you believe, I needed your genuine reaction— It wasn't possible to voice that in a way that wouldn't hurt her more, so Prudence settled for a quick hug of her sister. The cloak altered her; she unclasped it from her own neck and draped it back around Imoen.

Then threw herself down the gorge. A steep way down; she took it skidding against the sheer rock, landing feet-first and easily picking herself up. There were hollows in the sides of the wide pit; Xzar, I know you're clever...

There the green robes, at the very back of one such hollow, sheltered by the red-brown rocks. His lips continued to move with silent speech; sitting on the ground, both hands wrapped around his left ankle above an unlaced boot.

"You're hurt; is that the worst of it?" She knelt down beside him. "I won't be able to do much, but we'll be back with Jaheira soon," she chatted, inconsequentially. "We defeated them; everyone else is well. It's good you stayed here." He opened his hands, letting her find out what was wrong; with a broken ankle he couldn't have done much else. The prayer showed her the fracture at the tibia's extremity, mesos malleolus, swollen skin around it. He'd managed to set the bones to where they were supposed to be, and to hold them there himself. Painful, without doubt. She could heal it, with almost the last of what she could store from prayer. "Be careful when you set weight on it. You'll be all right." I think I promised that.

He spread his arms wide and gestured wildly, still trying to speak. She couldn't lipread with any skill, nor understand the language of the deaf; though it became obvious when he pointed indignantly at his throat, gesturing with fierce emphasis.

"That'll wear off," she said, unable to quash amusement at his pantomime; "It's not physical damage, anyway, so I likely couldn't do much for it." He kept moving his lips, the signs he made more and more complicated. "Contusions on your right arm; just let me..." A shallow scrape where the sleeve was torn, long but not actively bleeding; as gently as she could she cleaned some of the dirt from it with a handkerchief. He allowed her, mouthing words all the while. It was probably wrong to think of a silenced mage as...endearing. "The duration can't be that long; individually less power than Mulahey, I think," she said. Not as utterly insane and lacking in all sense as he; but in the end, equally dead.

"Fetched the mad wizard yet?" Montaron yelled down.

"Yes. We'll be up soon." Whatever animated conversation Xzar was trying to carry with her, it seemed complicated; she shrugged, spread her arms uncomprehendingly, and smiled at him. Xzar jabbed again in the direction of his throat, his silent words flowing as swift as ever; "Well, I can't say you're not making a point," she teased, and slowly rested a hand on his arm. A gentle human contact, after the fight; they lived, and to hold that in mind was relief. He swept a hand in front of her, leaning forward, half resting on her. It was only simple touch, both bruised and stained and exhausted. Xzar seemed as vitally enthused as when he'd brought out the necromantic path to banish the ghosts, or gloated over his spell against the wraith; his long fingers closed about her arm in turn, shifting around it, and together they rose. He stood lightly on the healed leg, leaning against her left side.

A sound something like escaping steam came from Xzar's neck, and a solid croak emerged from his throat; the silence worn off at last. "...and that's why captive astrocytic shining from the tomb..." he spoke aloud; he swallowed, and grinned. "Mysteries beyond the dust? Glories departed?"

"Something like that," Prudence said, and let the blue light gather around her hand again, though the focus of it was all but escaped from her mind. "What's the worst of it left?" Scrapes and scratches; she raised her right hand to his shoulder, making a brief diagnosis now he could talk. "—Your back—" Old signs, not the fall she'd caused. You have scars...

He grasped her forearm; pushed her hand away from the touch. To her, the blue faded, capacity for it no longer remaining. "The classic pitfalls of an education in alchemy. Leave it!"

"But those weren't—" she said. He leaned toward her, eyes bright and that particular lock of tawny hair falling across his forehead;

"I said to leave it! The insufferable eyes—" He was close to her, their hands linked; they might have stopped each other talking with a kiss, but—not like this, not after four deaths; she drew back from that, yet not letting him go, touching and tangled together—

"And you threw me off a cliff!" he added, outraged; it was right to listen—

"Small hill—"

—

scrape away the back of an ox eye—Experiment originally performed by Descartes.

tales that their bread was made out of blood—In the original stories, golems were created as a defence against persecution, of which 'blood libel' was one of the myths used. Some 'Faerunizing' attempted.

haugbui—a form of revenant typically found to be guarding tombs, originating in the North

One falls down when reasoning is destroyed—Bhagavad-Gita.