They'll never hear you in this,' Belgin said. 'Do we look for them, or do we stay put?'
'We're all blind in this Tyr-cursed dust storm. We could spend the whole night blundering around looking for each other.'
'Split up, then? You pursue the doppelganger, while I wait here for the others?'
'No, that's too dangerous. You said yourself that we can't be caught alone by her, and there's something else here, Belgin, something that awoke when the sun vanished below the sands. I can feel it seeking us. If I left you here alone, I don't think I'd ever see you again.'
Then let's leave Eidola to whatever it is that watches this place, find our comrades, and get out of here,' Belgin said, raising his voice to carry over the wind. 'We can return at sunrise to see if the doppelganger's still alive.'
'No,' said Miltiades. 'No monster, no fiend, no force in this world will sway me from my course.' He turned back to the crumbling palace and battled up the steps, 'Come on; Eidola is somewhere within. Jacob and Rings know our quest. They must fend for themselves.'
Chapter 3
Night and chaos descended like the fall of a titan's maul. Trotting across the ancient square a few feet behind Jacob, Rings could see Miltiades and Belgin racing up the broken steps of an old palace, darting toward a gaping, shadowed archway. Then the sight was erased by a gust of wind powerful enough to spin him half around and blind him with an eyeful of grit. His world narrowed to a dimensionless sphere of dust, sand, and the old flagstones under his feet. 'What now?' he growled aloud, even though the wind stole his words away.
He caught a glimpse of a dim, metallic gleam off to his left and moved toward it. He bared his teeth in anger and drove his stocky frame through the storm, until a tall, ragged shape appeared suddenly from the mist. Jacob whirled to face him, greatsword at the ready. 'Who goes there?' the human challenged.
'Who do you think?' Rings answered. 'Hold your blade, numbskull.'
Jacob scowled fiercely but lowered his sword. 'Where did this come from?' he shouted, waving one hand to indicate the brown gloom that surrounded them.
'I think that Belgin's guardians have finally taken note of us,' Rings answered. 'Maybe they were waiting for the sun to go down. Can you see or hear the others?'
'I can't see my hand in front of my face. The last I saw, Miltiades and the dandy ran into a building over that way.'
Rings eyed Jacob's choice of direction. 'Are you sure? I thought it was over there.'
The fighter nodded. 'I'm sure of it. I was looking right at them when darkness fell.'
'Okay, I'll take your word for it. Let's get out of this damned dust.'
Jacob glanced around once more to fix his bearings, then moved off into the murk, leaning into the wind. Rings followed, one hand resting on the fighter's pack. They seemed to walk for a long time before they encountered a low, stone parapet that ran until it vanished in the gloom to either side.
'This can't be right,' Rings said. 'The building we seek had a long colonnade and a big staircase in front of it.'
“I think I saw this wall on the left side of the square. We need to follow it toward the right to get to the palace.'
'I don't remember any damned wall at all,' Rings snorted. 'I think this is going to be a lot harder than we thought.'
'Well, do you want to lead?' Jacob snapped. 'At least I know when I'm lost. Try it your way; maybe you're right after all.'
Jacob looked left, then started along the wall toward the right, trailing his left hand along the old stone. Again, they seemed to walk a long time. The world ceased beyond the five or ten feet they could see around them, but Rings began to suspect that something or someone trailed them just out of sight, moving in and out of the corners of his perception like a half-remembered nightmare.
'My eyes are beginning to play tricks on me,' the dwarf said, as quietly as he could over the roaring of the wind.
'Mine, too,' Jacob said. He halted and moved a step from the wall, giving himself space to wield his two- handed sword. 'Show yourselves!' he shouted in challenge. 'Come on!'
Rings automatically turned and put his back to the tall warrior, guarding his flank. At the fringe of his vision he saw them now, brown and withered figures that approached in fluttering tatters of cloth and flesh. They were long dead, of course, silent phantoms with cruel talons and eyes that burned like witch fire. Rings balanced his fighting axe in his right hand and crouched, ready to strike. 'How many on your side?' he asked.
'Enough,' Jacob answered. 'And you?'
'More than enough,' Rings answered. The first mummy reached him, clubbing its knotted fists down at his head. He twisted aside and took the corpse's leg off at the knee with one swift stroke, then ducked under the swing of a rust-flaked sword that broke on the wall beside him. He hewed the ancient warrior's arm from its body, then stumbled to the ground as the first one he'd felled tripped him with its grappling talons. Cold, bony claws raked deep into the flesh of his thigh, and Rings gagged in pain and revulsion. He smashed the creature's skull with one blow of his axe and pried its talons from his leg while the next one advanced to attack. 'Jacob!' he called.
There was no reply. Rings staggered back a step, drove off the next dead one with a flurry of slashes, then risked a glance over his shoulder. Half a dozen of the ancient dead lay in the sand, hacked limb from limb, and in the swirling darkness he thought he saw a gleam of white movement as the Tyrian warrior danced and spun among the relentless horde, blade flashing. 'Jacob! Stay close!' Rings shouted. Then he had to turn back to defend himself from an ancient priest-thing that attacked him with a heavy bronze sceptre. When next he looked, he could see nothing of Jacob at all.
More of the dead warriors closed in on him, forcing him to turn constantly, defending his flank and back. Rings howled a challenge that was swept away by the voiceless wind, smashed a hulking warrior to the ground, then turned again to put the stone of the old wall to his shoulders. His outstretched fingers felt nothing but emptiness behind him; there was a breach in the wall, and no foes in the gloom beyond.
Rings didn't waste a moment; he turned and ran for his life, hoping that there was nothing worse in the gloom than the horror of walking dead he'd left behind him. He floundered past blank stone and hissing sand, scratched and clawed in a dozen places. 'Belgin! Miltiades! Jacob!' he called, staggering through the ruins. 'Belgin!'
There was no reply.
The paladin and the sharper advanced cautiously into the Netherese palace, tendrils of sand shifting and dancing around their feet as the wind howled through the doorway and clutched at their cloaks. The room beyond was a shallow portico, with tall columns carved into the image of ancient warriors supporting a low ceiling of heavy stone block. Three passageways led into the building, dark and dusty in the deepening gloom.
'Which way?' asked Belgin.
Miltiades turned his head from side to side, concentrating. 'Straight ahead,' he replied. They moved down a long hall decorated with ancient frescoes that still held a hint of their color, showing cryptic scenes of bronze- skinned people in cotton kilts. Some fought in great battles; others worked in broad fields of grain; a few stood above the others conjuring mighty spells out of the air. The passage came to an abrupt end at an archway framed by rough-dressed stone. A narrow flight of steps ran down into the darkness beyond. 'She's down there somewhere.'
'Great,' muttered Belgin. 'Another dungeon, or crypt, or subterranean hall of horrors. Why don't creatures of irredeemable evil ever set up house in some pleasant, sunny spot?'
'You wouldn't take them seriously if they did,' Miltiades replied.
Hammer at the ready, he advanced down the stair, crouching to avoid striking his head on the low ceiling. Belgin followed, trailing his free hand along the wall. After twenty or thirty steps, the passage opened in a broad
