carved face and leering obsidian eyes.
“Could that crown be the Torque, Liel?” Harp asked.
“No, Majida said the Scaly Ones hated the Torque,” she said. “They saw it as the bane of their power. They wouldn’t have put it in a place of honor.”
Harp considered Kitto’s request. “Let’s wait until we find the Torque. I don’t want to set off another trap…”
“It wasn’t a trap!” Verran interrupted angrily. “I saved Kitto’s life, and you’re mad at me for pushing a button.”
“Don’t worry about it, Verran,” Harp reassured him. “Boult set off a trap upstairs in the gallery. Remember?”
But Verran stalked away and began climbing up the pile of debris. Kitto jumped off the statue and hurried after him.
“Verran,” Kitto said as they climbed up the rocks. “You can have the crown…”
But when Kitto reached the top of the pile of rubble, he wheeled around and looked down at Harp, who could see fear in the boy’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Harp asked, scrambling up to the top of the debris.
When he reached Kitto, he saw that the rest of the hall was intact and unmarred by its wet environs or the jungle. An enormous mosaic covered the entire north wall, by far the largest that they had seen in the palace. The mosaic chronicled an epic battle, and it was immediately familiar they had seen the aftermath of the battle in Majida’s Spirit Vault. The mosaic depicted the flesh-and-blood Captive in his last moments, the broken chains dangling from his arms and legs, his hands up in hopeless defense against an army of thousands of yuan-ti, and a blade of mystical flame that hurled through the sky toward him. It was the moment before his death, the moment when his bones would be forever locked in the black stone of the cavern.
“That’s what I saw in my dream,” Kitto said in amazement. “When I was under the curse.”
“You saw the mosaic?” Harp asked. The mosaic’s impressive proportions alone would have awed him. But the vivid color and startling detailsfrom the runes on the serpents’ golden helms to the veins on the Captive’s iridescent wings were breathtaking.
“No, I saw the army and the flash of fire that killed him.” Kitto pointed a shaky finger at the Captive. “I saw it from my own eyes. As if I were standing on the battlefield. As if I were him.”
“Isn’t that interesting,” Boult said, glaring at Verran, who glared back at the dwarf defiantly. “What else do you remember, Kitto?”
“Just that instant. And then I was back under the dome with you.”
“Look at that,” Liel called. While they were talking, she had climbed down the debris and crossed the marble floor to a white double-door under the mosaic. As she walked, her leather boots left narrow footprints on the grimy floor.
“Whatever is restraining my magic, I think it’s coming from in there,” Liel said when the others joined her in front of the door. The door was made from a pearl-like substance that shimmered in the dusky light.
“I can feel it too,” Verran agreed.
“So the Torque is in there,” Harp said.
“Most likely,” Liel said. “We don’t have a plan of action, do we?”
“Of course not.” Boult said, rolling his eyes. “There’s more chance of lightning striking me dead on a summer day than Harp actually thinking ahead.”
“I have a plan,” Harp protested. “Walk in there and take it.”
“It’s not going to be that easy, and you know it,” Boult chided him.
“Ah, don’t be such a baby,” Harp replied. “They never thought anyone would get past their giant fishbowl. What else could they possibly have put down here?”
“You know you just doomed us,” Boult groaned. “Now there’s going to be something horrible waiting for us on the other side of that pretty little door.”
“Silly Boult,” Harp said dismissively. “As if you can change the world just by saying a few simple words.”
“Have you tried to explain the basics of spellcasting to him?” Boult asked Liel. “How a few simple words can change the world?”
“I’ve tried, but it’s beyond him,” Liel smiled.
“I’m a simple man with simple pleasures,” Harp explained. “I like tools, levers, skin. Things I can put my hands on. None of that ethereal nonsense for me.”
When they opened the pearl door, they saw a cramped anteroom with stone benches carved out of the wall. An eerie red glow illuminated the tiny chamber, but a screen made of blackened wood blocked their view of the corner of the room. Harp put his fingers to his lips, but the aura of tension and malice was so profound, nobody wanted to speak anyway.
Harp moved quietly along the wall until he reached the screen. Peering around the corner, he saw a much deeper chamber, its walls cut from hazy red stone. At the far end of the chamber was an unremarkable wooden pedestal holding a circlet of unpolished silver. But it was the floor of the chamber that captured Harp’s attention. Waves of light rolled off its glassy red surface, and Harp could hear a constant humming noise that made his head ache despite the low-pitched sound.
“The Torque is just sitting there,” Harp whispered as he turned back to the group.
“Do you see anything else?” Liel murmured quietly.
“An ominous floor.”
“What?” Boult whispered in confusion.
“Have a look.” Harp said in a normal voice. There wasn’t anything to disturb besides the Torque.
They walked out from behind the screen and stared at the expanse of red glass that stretched across the floor.
“What makes it glow?” Kitto asked.
“I have no idea,” Liel said, looking worried. “I’ve never felt anything like it before.”
“So, should I just walk over there and take it?” Harp asked.
“I don’t think you should step on the glass at all,” Boult cautioned. “In the jungle, isn’t the color red supposed to be a warning to stay away?”
A voice came out of the shadows behind them. “Not for my loyal servants who come bearing the gift I have craved for too long.”
They spun around in unison, their hands on their weapons, as a massive serpentine guardian slithered out of the shadows behind them. An illusion of a brick-and-mortar wall had concealed an empty room where the guardian had lain in wait and kept guard over the Torque. Like the warriors who had captured them at the colony, the guardian had the body of a snake and the torso of a human, but he was more than double the size of the largest ophidian warrior they had encountered so far. The thick plates and scales that covered his body were a mottled yellow and glistened with mineral deposits formed during the eons cloistered in the damp chamber. The guardian wore a jeweled breastplate and gold bands around his upper arms, but his hands were empty of weapons.
“Huh. I guess there was a fish in the fishbowl after all,” Harp said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
3 Flamerule, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) Chult
The guardian slithered out of the shadows, driving them back onto the red floor and blocking the only exit out of the chamber.
“Loyal servants?” Harp said, gaping up at the serpent guardian, who was so large that his head nearly touched the ceiling. Once he crawled out of the shadows, he seemed to expand to fill the anteroom from wall to wall. He was everywhere at once; his serpentine body coiled around itself in constant motion like a wall of flesh, blocking the entrance.
“I am Shristisanti, Guardian of the Atrocity. I have been waiting, not asleep, not awake but in a constant state of watching. You’ve brought me to my end.”
