Dolera and Pelenza jumped and yelped. Tazi whirled around. 'What is it?' she demanded.
'Nothing,' Shamur said. 'I lost my balance and had to catch myself. I apologize for startling everyone.' Wondering where the spider could have come from-she'd certainly never seen such a specimen before, and she'd wandered from Sembia to the southern shores of the Moonsea in her time-she surreptitiously wiped her hand on her dark blue skirt.
Tazi pulled open the door, and lesser puzzles such as the origin of the spider-or a servant who grew antlers and went insane, for that matter-flew straight out of Shamur's mind.
The door, of course, should have opened on the benighted, cobbled, torch-lit turnaround where the carriage had let them off. Beyond that they should have seen the lights and towers of Selgaunt, not tangles of underbrush, and towering trees festooned with lianas. Not shafts of sunlight piercing the canopy to fall through the muggy air.
Speechless for once, Tazi squatted, reached across the threshold, picked up the fallen, withered petal of an orchid, and examined it closely. Shamur supposed it was her way of convincing herself that the jungle was actually there.
'Everything's all… scrambled,' the younger woman said at last. 'Changing. People take on new shapes, or go crazy. You get whisked from one location to another in the blink of an eye. Places that used to be next to one another… aren't any more.'
'Yes,' said Shamur. To herself she silently added, it isn't just space that's out of joint. Time is a little disordered too, if only in my head. Perhaps, she thought, she was reliving moments from the past because she was no longer quite as firmly anchored in the present as most people.
'How can this be happening?' Dolera wailed.
'I don't know,' Shamur replied, 'but if we remain calm-'
'Hush, and listen!' Tazi said.
When Shamur did, she heard sobs, bestial roaring, and demented laughter echoing softly from elsewhere in the building. But the most ominous sound of all was the dissonant chords and staggering rhythms of Guerren Bloodquill's opera.
'Should we still be able to hear the music?' Tazi asked. 'With so many walls between us and the amphitheater?'
'I wouldn't think so,' Shamur replied. 'That lends credence to the notion that it's the opera itself that is magical and producing the phenomena we're experiencing. That in turn suggests a solution. Since we can't leave the building, at least not through this particular exit, you three will take refuge in a suitable room. One with a door you can lock or barricade. Meanwhile, I'll return to the amphitheater and prevail on Andeth, or the singers and instrumentalists themselves, to halt the performance. One can only hope that when that occurs, our surroundings will revert to normal.'
Tazi clicked her tongue in derision. 'Have you gone crazy, too?'
'I trust not,' Shamur said.
'I can see why you want to rid yourself of these two,' Tazi continued, indicating the Foxmantle sisters with a casual jab of the long sword. 'They're useless.' Her tone was so scornful that, despite her terror, Dolera bridled. 'But when it comes to you and me, I'm the one who knows how to fight. You need me for protection.'
'Nonsense. I can manage for myself, and I'll do so more easily knowing you're safe.'
'Nobody will be truly safe until the enchantment is broken,' Tazi retorted. 'Anyway, I'm not missing out on the excitement. I'm coming with you, and that's that.'
Obviously no argument could dissuade her. Shamur would simply have to hope that no further dangers would present themselves. 'Very well,' she said, then turned to the Foxmantles. 'My dears, if you'll accompany us, we'll find you some shelter.'
The four noblewomen proceeded down a promising-looking corridor and soon found a small storeroom with a sturdy door. Blubbering, Pelenza clutched at Shamur when she tried to leave. The Uskevren matriarch extricated herself as gently as her impatience would allow; then she and Tazi made their exit.
'And that's what you want me to be like,' said Tazi as she and her mother headed back up the hallway, 'those two weepy, addle-pated geese.'
'I concede, they're high-strung,' Shamur replied, peering about, checking for potential threats. So far, she saw none, though strangely, the temperature in the corridor seemed to fluctuate with every stride, cold one instant and hot the next. 'Even so, they've never brought discredit on their families by drinking to excess in the lowest, filthiest taverns on the waterfront or lifting their skirts for every likkerish dolt who happens along.'
'What happened to turn you into such a dried-up prig?' Tazi retorted. 'Is it because you're jealous of Father's dalliances? I can't imagine why. You certainly don't show any sign of wanting him in your own bed.' They reentered the foyer, where the madman still lay unconscious on the floor.
'We are not going to discuss my relationship with your father,' Shamur said icily.
A groaning, grinding sound arose from the center of the chamber.
Shamur pivoted toward the noise. Bands of color-gleaming, metallic blue and black-streamed through the creamy marble form of the gorgon half of Rauthauvyr's statue. In a matter of seconds, it became a living creature, a scaly bull-like horror that stepped off its pedestal almost daintily, its scarlet eyes glowing, its tail twitching, and greenish vapor puffing from its nostri*****
Suddenly Shamur was facing a different monstrosity, a huge, vaguely man-shaped thing seemingly made of darkness. Only its fangs and long, jagged claws reflected the light of the lanterns.
It had appeared out of nowhere shortly after the explorers entered the ancient crypt, but even so, everyone reacted quickly. The men-at-arms readied their weapons, and the priests and sorcerers cast spells.
The guardian spirit pounced in among the adventurers and started killing. Neither their blades nor their incantations seemed to hinder it in the slightest. But the magic did have an effect. Around the vault stood immense yet intricate constructions built of bronze rods and faceted crystal spheres. No one in the party, not even canny old Anax of Oghma, had had any idea of their purpose. Now, however, it became obvious that they were apparatuses of some sort, charged with arcane energies. The adventurers' sorceries had somehow roused them. Dazzling, crackling bolts of power flared from the orbs and arced about the chamber, adding to the general confusion.
A swipe of the demon's inky hand sent Sorn Notched-blade's head flying from his shoulders. Then the horror dropped to all fours, lunged, and caught Kavith the Blue in its teeth. It reared up, lashing its head back and forth, and the magician dropped from its jaws in pieces. Meanwhile the sizzling blazes of power leaped brighter and brighter, faster and faster. The crypt itself began to tremble.
Stalking on silent feet, wishing she hadn't needed to sell Albruin two months ago to extricate her comrades from a predicament almost as dire as this, Shamur circled to take the shadowy colossus from behind. The demon, however, rendered her efforts useless by abruptly plunging away from her and through the ranks of its nearest opponents to charge Eskander, who was piercing it with arrow after arrow. Shamur knew it wasn't cowardice that had prompted the thin, easygoing brigand-turned-treasure-hunter to hang back and use his longbow. He'd done it because his sword wasn't magical, but his silver-headed shafts were.
She also knew, as she abruptly recalled that she'd lived through this ordeal before, what would happen next. Perhaps she screamed even before it did.
Eskander tried to dodge the demon, but he was too slow. The spirit struck with its left hand and impaled the archer's torso on three of its claws. That had likely been enough to kill him instantly, but, perhaps enraged, its head and shoulders bristling with his arrows, the shadowy giant swung him up and down, up and down, battering the only man Shamur had ever truly loved-or ever would-against the heaving sandstone floor.
Shamur charged the guardian, in her anguish scarcely noticing that the vault was now shaking so hard that it was no longer possible to run in a straight line. The silver amulet she'd stolen from Gundar's hoard bounced against her breasts. Suspecting it to be magical, she'd paid a sage to examine it shortly after her hasty flight years before. He hadn't been able to determine its precise purpose but opined that it might be some manner of protective device, and so she'd elected to hold on to it.
The demon whirled to face her, its agility uncanny in so hulking a creature. Its dark hand lashed out. She dived forward, trying to dodge the blow and get inside the giant's reach. She did avoid the spirit's claws, but its palm smashed into her, flung her off her feet, and tumbled her across the quaking floor.
For a moment she lay stunned, watching stupidly as jagged cracks spread across the rib vault of the ceiling, and the tortured stonework groaned like a god in agony. The demon loomed above her, claws poised to seize her,
