Inside the golem's helm, two points of white light grew in its eye sockets. With more groaning in its joints, it stiffly swung its legs down from the platform and stood before the Company, a full eight feet tall, forged in the shape of some ancient armor from a place none of them could name.
The white points of light in the helm flared, and a deep voice rumbled from somewhere within the construct: "What are your orders, mistress?"
"Mistress?" Minsc said. "That does not sound right."
"I asked it to follow our orders," Nalia said defensively. "If you want to test whether that worked, be my guest."
Minsc stood before the golem, hamster in his right hand, pointing to the direction of the furnace with his left. "A-hem. Mr. Golem, Boo asks that you go to that side of the room."
The white lights in its helmet briefly flared, then the golem said, "I follow only the word of my mistress."
"Well," Nalia said, "I suppose it can't be helped. Golems will only listen to their creator, unless the mage knows how to delegate that somehow. Which I don't. At least, not yet."
She turned to the golem. "Stay here and wait for further instructions."
"At your command, mistress," the golem replied.
Valygar eyed the golem warily. "As long as that thing does what one of us says, that's good enough for me."
Lidia studied it. "That thing can shrug off magic, can't it?"
"It should," Nalia said.
"Then we ought to take it straight to Lavok. I haven't seen any sign of him, but —"
"If he's not on the main floor, he's probably either holed up on the upper level or downstairs in the power core," Nalia said. She pulled a rolled-up parchment from a nearby shelf and unfurled it, revealing a hastily-done sketch of the rooms within the sphere.
She pointed to a small circle away from the others. "That's the navigators' room. We could try there first."
"If we're ready to go forward," Lidia said, looking to the others.
"Readier than a red-cheeked maiden," Haer'Dalis said, and Aerie nodded in agreement. She was clearly still recovering from Entu's attack; her face was pained, but resolute.
"The smell of these halflings bothers Boo something fierce, and I cannot say I am surprised," Minsc said.
He held out the hamster, who was rubbing his nose. "The sooner we can get Boo some fresh wood shavings, the better."
Reyna said nothing, but stood waiting, studying the golem curiously.
But out of all of them, only Valygar seemed hesitant.
"This is my fight," he said, "and yet…"
He said nothing for a long moment. "We're at the doorstep of a battle I've wished for my entire life. We're as ready as we can be, given the circumstances. Yes, we should go."
They passed through the furnace room, which had cooled off considerably; much of its energy was spent in creating the golem, and the fires had burned down to embers.
They came to a room where the golem's head had been found. With the map's help, Nalia found a hidden door behind one of the panels facing east.
Getting the guardian golem through each of the doors was something of a chore. But Lavok had designed this one to bend at the waist, so after some finessing, it found its way through each pathway.
The golem led the way to a room roughly hewn from stone, littered with refuse and a multitude of bones.
A clay golem waited in the center. From within its body, it proclaimed, in a voice that sounded ill-used: "The Master does not wish — "
"Take off his head," Nalia ordered.
The iron golem swung his massive fist, and with one blow the clay golem's head flew from its body, landing in a pile of human skulls. The clay golem's body powered down, slumping forward and collapsing to the ground with a heavy thud.
"So much for surprise," Valygar said. He pointed to a round brass door on the other side of the room. "Is that it?"
"Yes," Nalia said.
Valygar strode forward, resolute; his earlier doubt had disappeared. With an effort, he turned the brass handwheel in the center of the door. The lock disengaged with a click, and he swung the portal open.
A thin, aged wizard stood in the threshold of the open door. His red robes, embroidered in gold, were singed, and sweat was pouring from his brown forehead to his long, thin beard laced with grey and white.
They knew who the man was immediately; his face bore an uncanny resemblance to Valygar's.
"He took Bakir," Valygar murmured, taking a couple of steps backward. "I knew it."
Lavok pointed a gnarled, accusing finger at the Company. "You! You are the ones who have caused the sphere to travel once again! You fools! I was close to escaping!"
"Lavok — I'm your descendant, Valygar Corthala, and you've caused enough pain to my family," Valygar said. "No more. You will pay for all you've done."
Lavok sneered at him. "You understand nothing, mortal! I am not who you seek — this be merely the body! And your intrusion has caused the sphere to leap back to my own dimension!
Nalia ordered the iron golem: "Stop Lavok, no matter what."
Valygar heard her order and stood aside.
"You have been denied me the material plane — I will have my revenge!" The wizard held out a piece of sponge and started chanting: "Vita — "
With one blow to Lavok's leg, the golem knocked him to the ground, causing the sponge to disappear as the spell's built-up power faded.
But he chanted once more, with a scroll in hand: "Praeses, alia, fero!"
He touched the iron golem's massive fist. Within moments, the metal turned the red-brown of rust. The massive iron fingers crumbled away, then its thick arm, then its torso, compressing hundreds of years of decay into several seconds.
The golem slumped to the floor, limbs falling to pieces around it, powering down as the light in its eyes faded.
Valygar ran forward, his katana unsheathed.
"Stop!" Lavok said, his hand outstretched. His entire body tensed for a moment. Then something inside seemed to snap, and he finally crumpled to the floor.
Valygar stood over the necromancer. His hand tensed around the handle of the katana, as though he were ready to deliver the killing blow, but something — maybe Lavok's defenseless state — made him pause.
For his part, Lavok seemed oblivious to his death standing over him. He looked up at Valygar gratefully. "He…the demon who possessed me…he is gone…you…thank you…"
Valygar took a step back. "What sort of trick is this, necromancer?"
"No tricks…Corthala. My family…I remember…if I could call it all back…"
Lavok took a ragged breath, shuddering as the full reality of his failing body set in, then cried out: "No…no…not yet…"
He pointed behind him. "The controls…if you're to leave, they…they must be set…"
Valygar sheathed his blade, picked up Lavok's body and took it into the navigation room, and the others followed.
The round room was furnished in metal and travertine much like the others, with one important difference. Across from where the Company stood, two rows of thick vacuum tubes were laid in a U-shape on the top and in a half-ring on the bottom; a catwalk gave access to the second row. The tubes in the bottom row and the sides of the U glowed white, those in the top center a sickly green. The whole effect bathed the room in a faint green glow, illuminating the blackened pits and craters in the walls and floor and the light smoke clinging to the ceiling.
Valygar laid Lavok in the center of the room, but didn't let go of the old man's body. The light gave Lavok an uncanny aspect, as though he were one of the undead, but he seemed to remain calm.
"There," Lavok said, gesturing to his left. In that place, a golden panel with a dizzying array of buttons stood. All the controls were written in the old tongue.
Nalia didn't need to be told. She ran to the panel, her eyes widening as she took in its complexity.
Lavok took another breath. "First…preset…"
Nalia almost immediately found a row of white buttons bearing numbers on the top left. She reached towards it with some effort, then turned to Lavok, earning herself a nod of approval.
She pressed the first button in the row; it came alight at her touch, and so did one of the vacuum tubes by the catwalk. Far away, something inside the sphere clicked, and a short bit of red text in the old tongue appeared below the row of numbers.
"It's done," she said, "but there's a message: 'insufficient power.'"
Lavok didn't seem to hear her. He gestured to Nalia with a brown, wizened hand, eyes wild with desperation. He took another breath, then said in between wheezes: "Mage…the sphere is yours…take it…"
She knelt next to him. "What do I need to do?"
"Spill your blood…a drop is enough."
Without hesitation, she produced a small knife and drove her right fingertip into its point. She held out her hand to Lavok.
"Good," he said.
His hands drew a golden sigil in the air and around Nalia's wrist, and he murmured, "Facio, voco, ferre."
A point of white light appeared over the cut in Nalia's finger, then disappeared just as quickly.
As the spell faded, Lavok's body slumped. He spoke again, his voice fading: "Use it…use it far more wisely than…"
His face froze, tears filling his red-rimmed, dark eyes.
All were silent for a long moment.
"He is dead," Valygar said. "Lavok the necromancer — the man who haunted my family for generations — is finally dead. I can scarce believe it…and yet he leaves behind far more questions than answers. He seemed to mourn his actions, in the end. How much of his doing was the demon within him, and why?"
He stared into Lavok's still face, saying half to himself, "I had no idea it would be like this. My family's vow has been fulfilled, and I am now safe, and yet I feel no satisfaction."
"And — and we're still stuck here," Aerie said. "Reyna's people, they'll die if we don't find a way to get home soon."
"Aye, you're right," Valygar said. "Lavok ought to be buried on his home plane, at least."
"There isn't enough power to bring the sphere back to Athkatla," Nalia said, "probably because we spent a lot of energy building that golem."
"The furnace's fires would not be sufficient for planar travel, in any case," Haer'Dalis said.
Nalia said, "Some kind of power core is further south of here; maybe there'll be more answers there…"
She trailed off, suddenly unsure about sounding like she was giving orders.
Valygar gently laid Lavok's body on the floor, shutting the dead man's eyes, then got to his feet.
"This is your place now," he said. "Lead on."