'That far?' Davoren raised an eyebrow. 'You can't be serious.' He mimicked the halfling's accent with considerable skill. Slip bit her lip.
'Options?' Twilight sighed. She'd grown weary of the whole affair, and almost wished some great foe would fall upon them. She'd had too much heartache. Twilight longed for battle.
'This.' Liet walked onto the black disk at the center of the garden.
'What?' Davoren hissed.
'This.' Liet tapped one of his silvery transmutation rods to the black surface beneath his feet. Magic sizzled, and the black disk shuddered. Immediately, it rose as a disk-shaped platform, powered by Negarath's aging mythallar.
'How did you know to do that?' she asked.
'I saw you,' Liet said. 'Back in the Forge…'
Twilight almost smiled. The boy was becoming useful, even if they had had a falling out. She stepped up and Gargan immediately joined her-whether out of loyalty or because he still watched her suspiciously, she did not care.
'Is it-safe?' Davoren asked.
'Since when is the 'everything is wretched and dismal and filthy' warlock afraid?' Slip asked, mocking his voice perfectly.
Grumbling, Davoren climbed on. 'Now what?'
Liet shrugged. 'Now, we-' And suddenly they were shooting up, borne aloft on the flying disk. Twilight reached out to catch the startled human back from the edge. Liet had nothing but awe on his face as she held his hand. Then he came to his senses and squeezed her hand. Reassured, Twilight managed to tear her eyes away from him.
The disk bore them in a rising spiral around the garden, then up through what must have been, in ancient times, a hole in the ceiling, and carried them streaking out over the city.
Slip gasped. 'Beautiful!' Then, eyes darting, she added, 'And strange-very strange.'
Twilight could not disagree. While Negarath showed a primal chaos, the purest of eccentricity in the works of madmen, it was difficult to resist the awe.
The disk twisted and turned its way around the spires, offering a silent tour of what must have been a glorious city in its day. And indeed, despite the oddity of its architecture, the ancient towers and statues whose features were worn away still held a sort of demented beauty. Towers curled downward, and stairs sprouted like teeth on the underside of arches. Spires twisted this way and that like needles thrust into huge stone cushions. Great facades with dozens of statues shrouded nothing, or they concealed great buildings in the shapes of flower gardens, blossoming wings of rooms that curved upward. A huge cathedral to the goddess of magic-Mystryl, Twilight finally remembered, as opposed to her successors, the Mystras-rose high into the cavern, its face looking like nothing so much as syrup poured over a mountain of melting cakes.
Past the cathedral, she saw a curious building shaped like a sun, which seemed to be turning, so slowly she almost did not realize it. It radiated some sort of golden light through cracks in the stone, as though it were the sun itself. Then the disk whipped them away, circling the city faster and faster, higher and higher.
'Wonderful!' Slip cried.
'Yes,' Twilight agreed. She pulled the halfling closer, away from the edge. 'Wonderful until you fall.'
Looking upon that city of wonder, Twilight could not help a spot of pity. Surely this view would have been stunning centuries ago, when all the people within had lived, cried and laughed, hated and loved…
'Look!' Slip shouted, and Twilight did.
The disk circled about the buildings, making its way back to the leaning central tower-the High Tower. Twilight couldn't suppress a twinge of uncertainty-after all, the mythallar could fail at any moment and send them plunging down.
'Are you controlling this?' she asked Liet.
'I don't-' Liet's brow furrowed. 'Maybe. I did think about the tower.'
'Well, by all means, carry on. Thinking never hurts.' The faster the better.
Whether or not the youth controlled the disk, they did indeed float to the tower. Approaching from a new angle, Twilight saw more accurately its fate. It bent against and away from the ceiling of the cavern like a tree growing under a rock, and about thirty hands-about twice Twilight's height-from where it met was a flat space. The disk hovered near and did not move.
Relieved, Twilight took a step onto the curled tower, observed that it was stable, and motioned for the others to join her. Whatever enchantments held up the strange structure must have still operated, for though the tower was bent and curled, it held firm.
Better, they were well within reach of the cavern ceiling.
'Davoren, Gargan,' Twilight said. 'Find us a way out.'
The goliath drew out a great maul he had found in the Netherese smithy. For once, the warlock did not argue. He simply raised his hands and sent burning blast after burning blast into the stone, cracking and chipping the hard earth for Gargan to knock free with the hammer. He looked just as tired of this place as any of the others. Twilight did not like the way he fingered that blasting scepter at his belt, though. What was he planning?
Though the work must have taken nearly a bell's length to accomplish, it felt like a moment, so anxious were they. Davoren's blasts heated the rock, and Gargan hammered the stone again and again. Slowly, bit by bit, they burrowed up, and up, and…
There came a great crack, like the splitting of a thousand crossbeams of great wood, and the stone split apart. Twilight looked up.
Then she dived to avoid the blinding avalanche that showered down. It struck her back, burying her as it poured, and poured, and poured. All went dark, and she was buried alive.
Erevan! she shouted in her mind-by reflex, unintentionally. She supposed she should be thankful she hadn't done it aloud, for her mouth would have filled with sand.
There was, of course, no response.
Blast you, wretch, Twilight thought. You're going to pass up the moment the impossible happens-when I call upon you for aid?
But there came nothing, not even what she expected: the tiny laughter of a wild elf who found himself entirely too amusing. She really was alone.
Typical, Twilight mused. She knew she was about to die, but that was all she thought. Typical.
Then it set in-blindness. She saw neither light nor dark, just white.
She was lost. Alone.
Then Twilight did scream-and choked. She thrashed, swimming in sand, dying, abandoned. Out of control-out of her mind. Lost.
A breath later, a hand grasped Twilight's wrist. Liet, she thought.
She latched onto it like a line tossed over the rail of a storm-swept galley.
Worriedly, Liet watched Gargan haul Twilight from the pile of yellow-white. She looked up, bright-eyed, but blinked in confusion at the goliath, as though she expected someone else. Then she nodded, and he returned it. Liet felt a little stab of jealousy. Ridiculous, he told himself.
He shook the snowy stuff out of his hair. 'Sand?' he asked, perplexed.
The sand that had been trapped above ceased pouring out, leaving an open bubble of air. On the other side of this bubble lay another layer of sand. White grains hissed along its circumference as though along the inside of a great balloon.
Twilight furrowed her brow. ' 'Twas what I was about to say.'
'I don't understand,' Liet said.
She plucked up a loose stone from the tower and hurled it upward with all of her might. It slowed as it rose, slowed, slowed even more, and almost seemed to hover as it reached a particular spot in the air-halfway between the tower and the sand. Then it accelerated up and up, and thumped into the sand as though it had fallen.
'What does this mean?' Liet asked.
