Twilight looked away from the priestess to hide her shock. Taslin didn't believe her, and that made her afraid-more afraid than all the grimlocks in all the Realms could have made her, sacrificial chants or no.
Only then did she realize that the cavern had fallen silent. The grimlocks had ceased their ecstatic chanting and stood rapt, their hands wide. Tremors shook the vast chamber. The creatures all turned toward the hole from which their god would emerge.
'What-' Taslin started, but a roar tore her words away, shattering the tranquility of the cavern. If the roar was loud to the elves, it was splitting to sensitive grimlock ears. The creatures fell to the ground, hands clasped to their heads.
A great serpentine form burst through the tunnel, its head letting out a mighty cry. Its purple carapace- smooth, thick, and solid as steel-creaked and twisted in the air high over their heads. Yellow-green spittle dripped from its jaws and dotted the floor, leaving the dark stone pitted and hissing as acid burned it.
A purple worm, Twilight thought. She'd never seen one this big.
The grimlocks, hearing and smelling their slithering god emerging from its tunnel, gave a great cry of 'Ithilnin!' and supplicated themselves, putting their foreheads down on the stone. The high priest intoned a phrase in his tongue and laid himself prone.
Twilight nodded grimly and stared up, resolved to look death in the face. Taslin did the same, gave a slight smile, and fainted. Curious-not the faint, but the smile.
Then Twilight looked up, wondering as to the source of her mirth. The worm did nothing more than loom overhead, cast its gaze back and forth, and roar every so often. Then silence fell-absolute silence around them.
In the quiet, the worm was less frightening. In fact, she barely realized it was there. Twilight was about to express her confusion when she felt fumbling hands and her frown became a grin.
Working quickly, Slip and Liet severed the bonds that held Taslin and Twilight, while the worm distracted the grimlocks. Within a magical bubble of silence, they were as good as invisible. Slip mouthed instructions to follow her, then gestured-clearly the spell was set upon her-but Twilight knew the reach of such a spell.
She rolled off the pallet, dropped to the stone without a whisper, and padded over to the prostrate priest. The creature shook his head, but the silence kept him blind.
Just as her fingers were about to relieve the priest of her sword, Twilight felt Liet catch her arm to keep her within the magical silence. She wanted to struggle, but he was right-the spell did not extend over the priest, merely up to him.
Twilight realized her tricks at legerdemain would hardly work on a creature that sensed by nose and ear, rather than by eye. She loathed leaving Betrayal behind, but she understood necessity.
A shock rippled through the floor of the chamber, throwing a startled Twilight to the ground. She could hear nothing outside the silence, but one look at the scores of quavering grimlocks, blood running from their ears, told her enough.
Her eyes turned upward to the beast above them, and she saw not one, but two purple menaces.
The real Ithilnin had come.
CHAPTER NINE
The second purple worm loomed even larger than the first, its scaled carapace cracked and spiked with serrated spines. At its top, huge bone jaws like dozens of axes snapped wide enough to swallow a team of horses whole. At the other end of the worm sprang a stinger the size of an ogre's two-handed sword. Dark veins of greenish acid ran over its body, burning away the stone around its body.
But most astonishing, when the acid struck the first worm, the creature flickered and winked out of existence. Asson appeared, hovering in the air where the illusory worm's maw had been.
The grimlock high priest snarled-or so Twilight guessed, for no sound penetrated the aura of silence. He wove his hands through a counterspell.
Twilight leaped at him as he cast, scrabbling at his hands to ruin the spell, but she was too late. Sound rushed into her ears, including the mind-splitting roar of the grimlock's looming purple god.
Everything seemed to happen in a single moment. The huge worm lunged at Asson, who flew away, showering magical flame upon the creature in a vain attempt to drive it back. As Taslin shouted a warning, Liet and Slip drew out weapons to strike at the grimlocks around them who had risen, axes ready. The high priest began another chant even as Twilight yanked her rapier from his belt and ran the creature through. The words died in a gurgle, and the priest's bodyguards lunged at her. Twilight pulled at her weapon, but it had stuck in the high priest's ribcage.
Two of the grimlock honor guards spun to behead her with their stone axes, but seemingly from nowhere, Gargan leaped to her defense, bowling the eyeless creatures over. Twilight seized the opportunity to relieve the high priest of Taslin's sword, the familiar gold ring, and Betrayal, which was still caught in his ribs.
'Taslin!' Twilight shouted, and tossed the priestess's blade as she lunged to run a grimlock through with her own.
Already chanting, the priestess caught it, renewing her connection to Corellon in a heartbeat. Holy power burst from her hand and smashed aside four of the grimlocks who were rushing at the adventurers. Twilight flinched away-not anxious to get so close to holy power, which would burn the darkness out of a body. She didn't think Corellon would burn her, but better safe than dead. At least she was not evil.
Speaking of evil…
Sand and dark, she exclaimed silently, where's Davoren?
Had the warlock been slain? Twilight doubted that. More likely, Davoren had betrayed the others, leaving them all to perish at the hands of-
A flaming blast of dark power ripped through the cavern, blowing the grimlock facing her into a thousand bits. The power arced to a second eyeless brute, shattering his ribcage, then a third, sending the creature spinning to the ground. The shadowdancer looked up to see Davoren standing near the exit to the cavern, lashing out with his demonic powers.
Gargan stood with Twilight, his axe working furiously to fend off the eyeless monsters. They faced half a dozen foes each, and it was all Twilight could do to fend them off with her rapier and avoid being chopped in two. She couldn't block the axes with a rapier, and each time she parried a stone spear aside, sparks flew from the Hizagkuur blade.
Arcane syllables in Asson's aged voice rippled on high, drawing Twilight's eyes. Flame shot from Asson's outstretched hand. The worm's jaws shut just in time and the fire burned its way down the beast's sides. The creature, undeterred, snapped at him, but the old mage flailed out of the way. The worm caught the fringe of his reddish robe, tearing a long strip of fabric free.
Launching a double parry to deflect spears sailing in from the right and left-just wide enough to escape their points-Twilight realized that as overmatched as she was, the mage knew worse straits. His foot didn't impede his flight, but he could not defeat a purple worm by himself.
'Davoren! Help Asson!' Twilight shouted.
She lunged forward, inside a grimlock's swing, twisting her arm back and around to reverse the blade. The stunned creature couldn't do more than blink as she slammed her back into his chest. Her blade shot under her arm and skewered the grimlock's heart. She ducked aside as he fell and sized up her next target.
She hadn't expected, however, that the creature would be so wide or fall so fast-she couldn't get out of the way fast enough. The limp grimlock toppled and pinned Twilight to the ground. Betrayal skittered away. A nearby grimlock raised his flint spear, and she could do nothing to defend herself.
' 'Light!' came a shout. The grimlock whirled and a blade impaled his belly.
Liet shoved at the corpse that held her down. Perhaps he was not quite a man in his head, but he wielded steel well. Unable to keep herself from flashing him a thankful smile as he worked, she looked up to assess how the others fared.
