awaited his opportunity to join the fray.
Something black and spidery flitted before Belgin's face. He glanced down in surprise, only to find that glowing magical runes now circled the sarcophagus lid. Above and behind him, the blank wall that stood opposite the chamber's only door seemed to grow a tracery of mystical runes, like ivy climbing a stone wall in the space of only heartbeats. Some kind of enchantment on the sarcophagus? Belgin wondered absently. A tomb-trap triggered by our fighting, or when I fell on the lid? His alertness returning, he rolled off the sepulchre and recovered his sword. 'Something's happening!' he called out, warning his companions.
Above the sounds of the fighting, a powerful voice pronounced some horrible doom in a language older than mankind. The great stone door at the tomb's entrance slammed shut with a tremendous boom, bringing a soft rain of dust from the ceiling overhead. Jacob whirled and attacked the doors with all his strength, but they were sealed with sorcery. 'We're trapped!' the fighter called.
'Finish the doppelganger!' Miltiades answered, crushing a tentacle to red pulp with one blow of his hammer. 'Well worry about escape once she's dead! For Tyr and justice!' He resumed the attack, striking blow after blow with his hammer while Rings ripped great slashes in the thing with his ancestors' axe. Pieces of cuttlefish lay strewn about the chamber, but still the beast fought on, warping its shape from moment to moment to create new limbs and minimize the effect of its foes' weapons.
Belgin moved in to join the fight again as Jacob did the same, but at that moment the glyphs on the far wall- now an arcane, circular design-flashed with a crackle of energy and a peal of thunder. Where a blank stone wall had stood, a dark portal yawned. Wind howled forth, thick with the scent of dust and strange incense. What in the Five Kingdoms? he thought, raising an arm to shield his eyes. A magical doorway? Here? 'Look out! We might have company coming!'
Eidola recognized the archway, too. Slithering away from the paladin, she seemed to suddenly contract and rise, standing on two legs as the human woman they'd seen before. Deftly she vaulted the stone tomb, parrying Belgin's attack, and leaped headlong into the portal. Belgin dove for the lasso trailing her waist, but the cord brushed his fingertips and disappeared into the darkness. 'She's getting away!' he cried unnecessarily.
'Tyr damn it! We had her!' Miltiades shouted. 'Quick, after her!'
'Wait!' Jacob shouted against the roaring wind. 'We don't know where the portal leads!'
'Jacob's right,' Belgin said. 'What if it leads to the heart of a volcano? Or to a dragon's den? She might be dead already.'
'Then I'm going to go make sure,' Miltiades stated. Blood streamed from a vicious cut on the side of his head, but the paladin seemed tireless. He took three running steps and threw himself into the black portal, shield raised high.
'I'm with the paladin,' Rings said. He was ripped and scored in a dozen places from Eidola's tentacles, but a fierce light blazed in his eyes. 'Besides, why would the old builders of this place install a portal to nowhere?' He trotted forward and stepped through.
'Maybe they wanted to arrange something special for anyone who despoiled this tomb,' Belgin answered, speaking to the blackness. 'Maybe-oh, to hell with it.' With a lamning start, the dandy leaped into the doorway, roaring an improvised battle cry.
Behind him, Jacob stood in the darkness of the wrecked crypt, glaring at the portal. 'Damn, damn, damn,' he muttered, pounding his fist against his palm. 'It's not supposed to be like this.' Jaw set, he picked up his great war blade and followed the others into the darkness.
Chapter 2
Cold beyond cold, darkness seared Belgin's flesh, and then he was through the gate. His bold battle cry faltered in the teeth of a bitter, stinging wind that scoured him with dust and sand. He raised a hand to shield his eyes and blundered forward. Crumbling old stone walls surrounded him, and overhead a brown sky billowed and seethed with the weight of wind-borne dust. No sun pierced the sandy veil, but something in the quality of the light hinted at late afternoon, maybe sunset. Where on Toril are we? he thought. Grimacing, he laughed bitterly. I've said that all my life and never really meant it before.
'Belgin! Over here!' A stout, dark shape materialized in the murk as Rings appeared. He looked past the sharper. 'Where's the swordsman?'
'Right here,' said Jacob, emerging from the portal behind them. A rune-carved arch marked the gate's location, twin to the one they'd left behind in the dungeons beneath Aetheric's palace. The fighter's golden mane whipped around his head in the relentless wind. 'Not a volcano, not a dragon's den,' he remarked. 'I guess this could have been worse.'
'That depends on how you look at it,' Belgin said. 'Eidola's out of our cage now.' He turned his back on Jacob and Rings, moving forward to examine their surroundings. The ground was broken and rugged, heaps of uneven stone piled at random all around him. The walls seemed to form a large courtyard with rows of broken columns rising from drifts and skeletal fingers clawing up through the hissing, shifting sands. Beyond the old walls he gained glimpses of the dark bulk of neighboring structures, revealed and then hidden by the dust. No, not a courtyard, he decided. It's a great building, long since collapsed. I'm standing on the rubble of the roof. He scanned the wreckage again, still trying to absorb his surroundings. He'd seen blood and horror and death aplenty in the last few days, but as he gazed on the ruins, he felt as if he were a ghost moving in a sad and silent phantom world. He'd left his capacity for wonder too far behind.
Rings scrambled up to stand beside him, Jacob following a step behind. The three stood together a moment, the wind howling mournfully around them. 'What is this place?' Rings asked softly.
'Who cares? It's long dead,' said Jacob. 'Faerun is choked with ruins such as these.'
Belgin scratched at the two-day stubble on his round jaw, narrowing his eyes against the dust and sand. 'A temple, I think,' he said, ignoring Jacob. 'The portal we came through opened when the tomb was disturbed. Guarding the places of the dead is traditionally a role for priests or those who might serve them.'
'They haven't been very attentive of late, have they?' Jacob laughed.
'Don't be so sure, Jacob. A thousand years is a long time to wait, but some guardians might have the patience for the vigil.' Belgin turned in a slow circle, studying the maze of rubble around them. Perhaps it was only the melancholy sighing of the wind in the old stone that unsettled him… or maybe something else, something more sentient and aware. He knew enough about places such as this to feel a distinct chill at the wind's soulless moaning.
'Miltiades comes,' announced Rings. The dwarf's brass and gold piercings gleamed in the fading sunlight. From the swirling murk that marked the temple's ancient gate the paladin wearily strode, a tall shape gleaming with silver.
'See Eidola?' Miltiades asked without preamble.
'No,' said Jacob. 'I take it you didn't, either. What happened to you?'
'She was only a few steps ahead when we emerged from the portal, but she outran me, and I lost sight of her,' Miltiades admitted. 'She's hiding somewhere in the ruins. Come on, let's get moving. We can't let her get too far ahead of us.' He turned away and set out toward the gate, hammer resting over his shoulder.
'Miltiades, wait,' Belgin called. 'We have to talk.' He glanced at Rings standing beside him.
The paladin paused, looking back over his shoulder. 'We don't have time to talk, pirate. Keep up or turn back, but don't stay the course of Tyr's justice.'
'Justice?' Belgin asked. 'Look at yourself, man. You left your reason at the door when we set off on this little expedition. What were you thinking, running off alone after a creature like Eidola? What if she'd doubled back on you? She could have killed you alone in the ruins, while we stood here wondering where you'd gone.'
'For that matter, how do we know that you're not Eidola in Miltiades's shape?' Rings asked suspiciously. He leaped down the stone pile, rock skittering under his feet. 'Eh? Can you prove that you're not? You've been out of sight of all of us for a good ten minutes now.'
'I'm not a doppelganger,' Miltiades growled. 'Now, come on! We don't have time for this. I need your help to
