phantoms as they tried to follow. Natrac was pale and stumbling, but Geth dragged him on down the corridor. 'Move!' he urged. 'We can't hurt them, but they can't hurt us either. We can get through this!'
'I don't know if we can,' gasped Natrac as a new noise, a scraping noise, began to rise against the desperate whispers. 'Look!' He flung out an arm. Geth turned from the phantoms behind them to look ahead-and froze.
Creeping along the floor and across the walls of the corridor was a swarm of amputated limbs: feet and hands, legs and arms. They scuttled on fingers and writhed like snakes.
The scraping noise was the sound of the bloody razors and blades that many of the creeping limbs clutched between gnarled fingers and overlong toes, dragging the metal against the stone of the corridor as they crawled.
A growl rumbled in Geth's throat. 'Tiger, Wolf, and Rat!' His fingers closed tight around his hunda. The weapon was no use against the phantoms, but if the creeping limbs were solid enough to carry blades, he prayed that they were solid enough to take a blow.
Whether it would kill them, that was something else.
'Dol Dorn's mighty fist,' spat Natrac. 'What I wouldn't give to have a wizard or one of those druids here right now!' He scrambled to his feet and put his back against Geth's. 'Singe's or Dandra's fire would be very good, but I'd even take Vennet's wind if he could blow those things away!'
Desperation sparked an idea in Geth's head. 'Grandmother Wolf guide me,' he gasped-and dropped the hunda stick to tear at the pouch at his side. Natrac glanced down as he ripped frantically at the knotted drawstrings.
'Sovereign Host!' the half-orc choked, understanding flashing instantly in his eyes. 'You're not going to-'
Geth looked at him as the knots parted and the pouch gaped open. 'You know what to do if you have to,' he said.
He glanced up and down the corridor as the phantoms and their severed limbs closed on them, then he squeezed his eyes shut, plunged his right hand into the pouch, and seized Dandra's psicrystal.
Dandra's scream brought Singe flailing out of sleep-and, all around them, the young hunters of the Bonetree clan leaping to their feet with their weapons drawn. Singe flung himself at Dandra. The kalashtar was once again stiff, her eyes open and staring to the west, but this time her body was trembling.
'Relax!' he gasped at her, 'Relax!'
A shadow fell over him. He glanced up. It was Ashi, her sword drawn, but Medala was leaping forward as well, Dah'mir pacing after her.
'What is this?' Medala said. 'What's wrong with her?'
'Maybe she had a bad dream,' Ashi said tightly.
'Kalashtar don't dream!' spat Medala. A chime rang in Singe's head and pain lanced through him. Ashi was staggering as well, clutching at her head. The wizard clung to Dandra desperately.
Twelve moons, he thought through the dazing agony, what was Geth doing with that psicrystal?
Tetkashtai swept into Geth like a wildfire. She burned within him, her presence huge and powerful. When Dandra had first shown Tetkashtai to him and Singe, it had been like standing in a yellow-green mist. Having Tetkashtai actually within him was more akin to standing inside a raging, wailing inferno.
If this was what the orc in Fat Tusk had experienced, Geth realized, it was small wonder he had succumbed so quickly to Tetkashtai's possession! At least he knew what he was dealing with. Straining to focus all of his concentration on the presence, he threw out a single, silent shout. Tetkashtai!
You! Tetkashtai screamed back. Her voice was like thunder. A deluge of images blasted through him, eerie memories of him as seen through someone else's eyes. Geth staggered under the weight of Tetkashtai's attention. How did Dandra cope with this?
Tetkashtai ripped the thought out of him. Even if she's nothing more than a rogue psicrystal, the presence howled, Dandra's mind is more advanced than yours and she occupies a kalashtar's body-one that I will reclaim!
You can claim it later, Geth shouted at her, you have something else to worry about first! His words came out like a child's whine, overwhelmed by Tetkashtai's forceful presence. He abandoned words and flung a memory at her, his last glimpse of the phantoms and the creeping limbs that menaced him and Natrac.
The presence caught the image and swallowed it. The whirlwind of yellow-green light tensed slightly. Stupid shifter! Tetkashtai seethed. What have you done?
You'll help us?
What choice do I have? Tetkashtai spat. Open yourself to me, Geth! You're no kalashtar. I will need everything you can give just to access the simplest of my powers!
Geth hesitated, then gave up any attempt at holding Tetkashtai back.
She seized him, and he felt like a stranger in his own body. His eyes snapped open and his head turned. Natrac whirled past him as Tetkashtai glanced at the phantoms, then at the creeping limbs. The limbs are more dangerous, Geth tried to tell her. The phantoms can't actually-
Be silent. Tetkashtai ordered him. She stretched out, reaching down into some place within him that was not quite his spirit and not quite his body. Whatever it was, pain ripped through him as Tetkashtai pulled something of him into herself. He sagged down. She heaved his body upright.
'A trickle,' she said with his voice. 'Pathetic, but it will have to do.'
'Geth?' asked Natrac.
'No,' said Tetkashtai.
Geth felt her concentrate, felt the storm of her presence draw together into a shining, focused spark. A little bit of the energy she had stolen from him spun out from that spark. Something seemed to open up within him, a pulse, a beat. It rose from his chest. He could feel it in his throat, and then in his ears: the droning chorus that had always accompanied Dandra's fiery powers. Whitefire. The word whispered itself into his mind through the connection with Tetkashtai.
'The spirits!' shouted Natrac.
In the corner of Geth's vision, he saw the half-orc whirl as the colorless shapes of the phantoms surged around them once more. Natrac's hunda stick lashed out, sweeping through the disfigured shapes again and again, trying to keep them back. It didn't work. They swarmed over him-and over Geth. Tetkashtai paid no attention to either the spirits that tried to tug at her or Natrac's calls for help All of her attention was fixed on the creeping limbs as they crawled closer. And closer.
Tetkashtai, what are you doing? Geth asked. His voice seemed weaker than ever, a pitiful mewling. Hurry!
Patience. The focused spark of her presence flashed. She curled his left hand into a fist and raised it, pointing at the approaching swarm. As the chorus of whitefire rose like a triumphant song, Tetkashtai opened Geth's hand.
Pale flames poured out in a roaring cone that seemed to fill the corridor. Hands, feet, legs, and arms shriveled like spiders flung into a candle, reduced in an instant to nothing more than hunks of burning, charred flesh. The knives and razors that they had dragged with them fell to the floor with a clatter. Only a few skittering hands escaped the inferno, scattering back into the shadows. Whispers rising into wails, the phantoms fled as well, their ghostly forms vanishing through walls and back down the corridor. Shivering, Natrac forced himself upright.
'Dol Arrah's mercy,' he panted, leaning heavily on his hunda.
The tight spark of Tetkashtai's concentration unraveled, whirling back out into a yellow-green storm. Geth let out a silent gasp as the presence wrenched at him. Still there, Geth? she asked.
Speaking was an effort. Let go of the crystal, Tetkashtai. Give me back my body!
Tetkashtai laughed, both in his mind and out loud. Give it back? she said silently. Why would I do that? I know what you're planning, Geth. A return to Dah'mir? No. A return to the crystal? Never. Tetkashtai's voice rose into a shriek. Do you have any idea what it's like to be trapped in that crystal? I'm not going back there!
Tetkashtai turned Geth's body to face Natrac and the throbbing chorus of whitefire rose again. A look of new fear flickered across Natrac's face. The half-orc's hand tightened on his hunda and he lashed out, staff aiming for
