the foe to stray too far from the location where I observed them.
One moment, Jhesrhi said. Extinguishing her mantle of flame, she stepped to the wall and placed her fingertips against it. Aoth knew she was talking to the stone all around them, finding out where the other squads were and how they were faring.
Jhesrhi turned back around. Everything seems to be under control, she said.
Good, Aoth replied, looking at Dai Shan. Now we can go.
The Shou led them along a twisting route through vaults and passages that echoed with the cries and clatter of conflict. Watching for signs of trouble, Aoth had to admire the ease with which Dai Shan negotiated the labyrinth, assuming the trader wasn t lost.
With their bells silenced, and their cloven hooves clicking on the floor, eight stag warriors paced in a line behind their human comrades. Aoth wondered how much they understood what was happening and decided he d likely never know. In their mute inscrutability, they seemed emblematic of the entire fey- and spirit-ridden country.
Another turn brought an archway into view and drove such reflections from his mind as he grunted in surprise.
Dai Shan looked back at him. Is something wrong, intrepid captain? he asked.
Not wrong, said Aoth, but interesting. Cera and I saw three notches just like that cut at the top of an arch in the tomb back in the sacred grove.
The same crypts, Dai Shan said, from which, you said, the durthans and werewolves seemingly emerged even though you d established they were empty.
Yes, replied Aoth.
Well, it gratifies me to be in a position to solve that particular puzzle for you, said the Shou. Watch the arch while I recite the words I heard the scarred creature say.
In the name of the Vaunted, the Staff-Bearer, the Lord of the Forsaken Crypt, open.
The space beyond the opening changed. What had been one passage until it doglegged out of sight divided into two. What had been featureless walls suddenly sported intricate carvings like fungus grown in an instant: a bewildering hodgepodge of skulls, skeletons, weeping mourners, flowers, wreaths, sunsets, and souls standing before their gods for judgment. Moreover, a nasty-looking darkness resisted the illumination of Cera s conjured sunlight. It reminded Aoth of Gaedynn and Jhesrhi s description of the Shadowfell, and he suspected that was exactly what he was looking at. Or, if not Shadow itself, a demiplane derived from it.
The stag men shied at the transformation, and Jhesrhi turned to calm them. Cera grinned at Aoth. So you see everything, do you? she said.
Once in a while, he replied, trying to sound vexed so she d enjoy her teasing more. There truly isn t anything that any pair of eyes could see. This was one of those occasions.
If you say so, my love, she said. If you say so.
If my fearless companions are ready, Dai Shan said, I don t imagine the gate will stay open forever.
Probably not, Aoth said. Spear at the ready, he prowled forward, while Dai Shan stepped aside and relinquished the lead. Aoth supposed that was fair enough. The merchant had done his job, and it was time for the soldiers to do theirs.
As soon as he stepped over the threshold, he felt an absence. He d lost contact with Jet just as he had upon entering the Feywild. It was proof that he and his comrades truly were intruding on another level of reality.
Nor was that the only indication. It was colder than it had been outside the arch. Cera murmured a prayer that infused the light that followed her like a faithful hound with warmth. But the surrounding gloom immediately started leeching both the heat and the radiance away. She was going to have to keep investing power in the enchantment if she wanted it to last.
It was one more good reason to find and destroy the enemy leaders quickly. Aoth started forward, then heard a jangle of bells. He turned to see what had agitated the stag warriors.
As Dai Shan had predicted, the arch behind them had changed again. Instead of connecting to the tunnel they d just left, it framed a straight length of passageway also shrouded in murk and decorated with funerary carvings. Fortunately, though, their side of the arch had its own three notches to mark it as a doorway back to the mortal world. Aoth and his comrades shouldn t have any trouble identifying it once their business was through.
Jhesrhi calmed the stag men once again. They all stalked onward through echoing spaces that proved to be at least as labyrinthine as the ones that truly lay under the fortress. Sarcophagi rested on daises or stood on end in niches. Urns reposed on shelves. The jumbles of mournful carvings on the walls sometimes yielded to more ordered spaces resembling the facades of tombs. Occasionally, the way widened out to accommodate rows of headstones, a freestanding mausoleum, or even an entire graveyard under a vaulted ceiling. The place was like a fever dream of interment.
And its vastness was a problem. Eventually Cera stated what everyone had surely started to realize. There are too many alleys running off in all directions, she said. The undead could have gone anywhere.
Can you track them? Aoth asked, of her and Jhesrhi, too.
Maybe, Cera said. I can ask the Keeper where they went.
And I can talk to the stone and the air, Jhesrhi said.
Aoth left them to it. Meanwhile, he prowled about, peering and listening, trying to catch any sign of their quarry or of any lurking threat native to the halls. Presumably doing the same, the stag men likewise paced the twilight perimeter where Cera s radiance began to fail.
Dai Shan, however, ventured farther. Aoth remembered the means by which the Shou had made a fool of Folcoerr Dulsaer and decided he was the sort of mage who felt at home in the dark. Yet it wouldn t necessarily help him if a wraith or demon pounced out at him from cover.
But nothing did. Dai Shan turned and came trotting back. For once, his imperturbable face betrayed a hint of excitement. Brave captain, he said, come and see.
Aoth glanced back at Cera and Jhesrhi, each still intent on her labors, making sure they were all right. He followed Dai Shan into the gloom.
The Shou led him around a corner to an arch flanked by black marble statues of sphinxes sitting on their haunches. Incised on the pointed capstone were three grooves.
Do you see? Dai Shan asked.
Yes, said Aoth. Presumably the enemy was making for a different doorway to leave this place. This may well
The view before him shifted. The arch still opened on a farrago of grim and sometimes bizarre stonework, but it was different stonework. A bas-relief of skeletal Kelemvor enthroned and holding his scales had given way to a row of grimacing demonic heads sticking out of the wall like rainspouts. A sarcophagus big enough for a fomorian had become steps leading down to a small boat with an empty bed in the center, a craft perhaps destined to wait forever for someone to put a corpse onboard, set it ablaze, and shove it out onto the black water beyond the quay.
Aoth realized no one had spoken the words that had supposedly produced such a transformation before. Then he realized Dai Shan was standing a pace behind him.
As he started to turn, something slammed into his head. If not for his helmet, and a hundred years of experience in rolling with impacts he couldn t avoid, the blow might well have snapped his spine.
As it was, it stabbed pain through his neck and threw him off balance. He struggled to get his feet under him, while Dai Shan plowed into him like a wrestler intent on bulling his opponent out of the ring.
That s a mistake, thought Aoth. He moved his hands up on the haft of his spear and stabbed at the spot where Dai Shan s neck met his shoulder.
Somehow, Dai Shan sensed the attack coming. He let Aoth go and jerked backward. It saved his life, but he failed to avoid the stroke entirely. The spearhead raked across the front of his torso and gashed him.
Give up, Aoth said. You re unarmed and wounded. You can t win.
Dai Shan made a shallow bow. Reluctant as I am to contradict such a perspicacious leader of men, he said, it appears to me that I ve already won. You may find it instructive to examine our surroundings.
Aoth risked a glance and discovered that when the Shou had tackled him, he d shoved him to the other side of the arch. Worse much worse the view on the side where they d started had altered, too. There was still a tomb- scape there, but not the same one where he d left Jhesrhi and Cera working their magic.
