you are, either. And you said before that your destination lies elsewhere. You do not desire to visit the Blood Rift.'
'Yes, but you do,' Kaanyr said, spreading his hands wide in a gesture of supplication, 'and we have ways of finding a path back. We will aid you as we aid ourselves. In exchange for protection until we get where we need to go, of course.'
'You did not answer me. How can you guide us?'
Kaanyr opened his mouth to speak, but the marilith held up her hand, gesturing for silence. The cambion snapped his mouth shut, and Aliisza could see the frustration and impatience in his mien. Vhissilka cocked her head to one side, as though listening. She held that pose.
Aliisza was just on the verge of reaching out to Kaanyr to urge him to give up the dangerous negotiation when Vhissilka spun away and said, 'No more discussion on this now.' She glided rapidly toward the far end of the chamber. 'Right now, we must fight.'
'Why?' Aliisza asked. 'What's wrong?'
'The devils,' the marilith replied. 'They have found our caves and are invading.'
'Invading?' Kaanyr asked, sounding doubtful. 'In what strength?'
'Kaanyr,' Aliisza said under her breath, 'This is our chance. Let's get out of here now, while we still can!' She took the cambion's hand in her own and gave it a squeeze. 'Please?'
Kaanyr disentangled his fingers from hers. 'No,' he said. 'This is the best opportunity we have. If we leave, where will we go? Back to the beach? Over to the devils' camp? Don't be so timid, Aliisza. We stay.'
More demons arrived while the two half-fiends argued, and the chamber began to fill up. The demons crowded in and pushed toward the front, where the marilith had taken her place. The chamber filled with nervous excitement as the host of creatures grew in size. The denizens chattered and snarled at one another as they strained to get close. A pair of fiery red insectlike demons near Aliisza and Vhok got into a squabble, pushing and shoving, before a much larger fiend with extremely broad, fur-covered shoulders and the face of a great hunting cat lashed out at the two with a spiked club. One of the insect-demons sank to the floor, its carapace cracked and fluid leaking from it. The other, cowed, scrambled away to another part of the room.
Aliisza followed Kaanyr as he headed toward a shelf of rock near the back of the chamber. He scrambled up to it and then reached back to offer her a hand. She joined him. From there, they could see over the throng to where the marilith slithered back and forth, as though pacing.
From somewhere along one side of the gathering, the sound of war drums boomed. A rhythmic cadence reverberated through the chamber, slow at first but growing more rapid. The demons chanted and howled in time with the drumming, and many began a strange, frenzied dance, thrashing back and forth and pounding the hilts of their weapons against the stone floor of the cavern. The energy level built. Aliisza pressed herself back against the wall. The whole chamber seemed to strain to contain the savage eagerness of the crowd. They were ready to burst in fury, to kill, destroy. Only Vhissilka's fierce stare, raking across the crowd, held them entranced.
'Go!' the marilith at last screamed at her underlings. 'Kill everything that stinks of the Hells!'
The roar that erupted shook the very stone. The throng rushed toward the exits, every demon scrambling to be the next one out into the passages beyond. Their bloodlust had completely overcome them, and they hacked and stabbed at each other just to make room for themselves. Those that managed to force their way through went howling on their way, seeking enemies to rend. Those that did not splashed the floor and walls with their blood.
Finally, only Vhissilka and the two half-fiends remained. 'We will join you in the fight,' Kaanyr said. 'We help drive the devils from the tunnels, you return the favor by granting us safe passage with you. What do you say?'
The marilith frowned. 'I will consider it, but I make no promises. I don't trust you, cambion.'
'Fair enough,' Kaanyr said. 'We'll just have to prove our sincerity, won't we?' He gave Aliisza a smirk.
'Suit yourselves,' Vhissilka replied. She slithered away, leaving Kaanyr and Aliisza by themselves.
'Kaanyr, let's just go,' Aliisza pleaded again. 'Let's get back to the others and flee. This will not end well. Even if her forces win, you cannot trust Vhissilka to uphold her end, and you're making a mistake if you think you can outwit her.'
The cambion glared at her. 'Why? All I have to do is convince her I'm sincere. How hard is that? What better way to do it than to fight for them?'
'What if she demands that you sacrifice Kael to prove your loyalty? What if she insists on torturing Tauran before giving him back to you? There are a hundred ways she can circumvent your desires while sticking to any sort of agreement she makes. Hells, she could agree to anything you want today and change her mind two days later. She's a demon. She can't be trusted.'
Kaanyr chuckled. 'Maybe that's the point,' he said.
His smile said he was joking, but Aliisza wasn't sure. 'That's not funny, and you know it. You're playing with fire. Let's just slip away in the confusion!'
'I can't,' Kaanyr said. 'I'm convinced that this is the best way to save Tauran's life. Fleeing without Vhissilka's protection seems a greater risk to me, so thanks to Tauran's infernal compulsion, I couldn't do it even if I tried. Sorry, lover. We're staying here and fighting until she does something to convince me otherwise.'
Aliisza groaned. 'Fine,' she said. 'What do you want to do?'
Kaanyr smiled, and it looked almost feral. He slipped his malevolent purple-hued sword free of its scabbard and said, 'Let's go hunt some devils.'
Eirwyn sighed as she glided through the warm, scented waters of the pool. The bath was supposed to help her relax, but she could not shake off her anxiety. Time was slipping away, and she was no closer to understanding her visions and dreams than she had been when she had arrived.
Get it out of your head for a while, the angel told herself, but the order was easier thought than done. The image of the strange, crystalline fortress surrounded by green bits of glowing snow dominated her thoughts day and night. No matter how carefully she examined it, no matter how many tiny bits of detail she could ferret out of the mental picture, she had gotten no closer to figuring out what-or where-it was.
She had been toying with the idea of departing from Xiranthador, of leaving the Seer and Venya and returning to the Court, or even setting out…
To where? she asked herself. Where would you go? What path would you follow? What clues would lead you? You are lost, and this is your best hope for finding the way once more.
The angel sighed again and paddled through the water, letting the scents of the soothing oils permeate her body and mind. She paused near the center of the pool and flipped onto her back. She stretched herself out and floated there, her face protruding above the surface while the rest of her seemed to get lost in the gentle caresses of the bath.
Eirwyn had no idea how long she had drifted there when she became aware that she was not alone. She jerked upright and shook water from her silver hair, which cascaded all around her neck and shoulders. She wiped the water from her eyes and peered around the room.
'I'm sorry to disturb you,' Oshiga said, standing near the entrance to the chamber. 'I wanted to let you know that there is news.'
Eirwyn smiled. 'You're not disturbing me,' she said, climbing from the bath. She dried herself and began to dress. Oshiga pointedly stared elsewhere while she did so. 'I'm trying to relax, but this whole doing nothing business doesn't suit me.' When she had donned her white tunic, she began to braid her hair. 'So, what do you know?'
'Tyr, Lathander-who has revealed his true form to be that of ancient Amaunator, incidentally-and Sune have imprisoned Cyric. His own plane has become his prison.'
Eirwyn waved that bit of news away. 'That was inevitable,' she said. 'What else?'
'The backlash from Mystra's demise swept through the Astral Plane. Waves of raw magic crashed against many shores. No one knows the extent of the destruction yet, but it appears that several planes vanished, while others merged together.'
Eirwyn frowned. 'Though grievous, that's not really news,' she said, finishing with her hair. She straightened and looked at the trumpet archon. 'Of course there were aftershocks. The goddess of magic was slain.' She
