her.
“Shara, Gsshin wishes me to convey his appreciation for your leadership and your martial skill.”
Shara bowed, feeling overcome with emotion.
“He says that as soon as you learn to speak, you will be a human worthy of respect.”
“How do you say ‘thank you?’ ”
Quarhaun turned back to the lizardfolk, but Shara stopped him with a hand on his arm. “No, tell me. Teach me the words.”
“Just one word.
She stepped up to Gsshin, bobbed her head, and copied the strange sound as best she could.
Both lizardfolk rumbled with laughter and bowed to her. Then they turned and walked into the swamp, leading the other warriors back to their homes.
“Thank you, Quarhaun,” Shara said.
He regarded her with a strange smile and said nothing, staring until she felt her face start to flush and she started looking for a path back to Fallcrest.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Roghar carried the four bound cultists, including Marcan, out to the hall and left Travic to keep an eye on them. He wanted Gaele to think she was alone, figuring that might make her simultaneously more afraid of him and less reluctant to show weakness in front of her followers. And Travic had been a friend of hers, which made him exactly the opposite of what Roghar wanted in the room. A hulking dragonborn and a sinister tiefling could scare information out of a helpless prisoner. A sympathetic, graying priest could not.
He leaned over Gaele, rolled her onto her back and gently slapped her cheek. “Wake up, Gaele. Time to answer a few questions.”
Tempest stood behind him, arms crossed, a menacing cloak of shadows gathering behind her. He stood up and put his hands on his hips as Gaele’s eyes fluttered open.
“Good, you’re awake. I’d advise you against trying that scream again, unless you want to be knocked out.”
Gaele opened her mouth and drew a deep breath, and Roghar tensed, ready to kick the air out of her if he had to.
“I will be free, the Chained God says.” Gaele’s words came fast and slurred, and her eyes weren’t quite focused on him.
“The Chained God is going to free you, you think? I wouldn’t hold my breath, if I were you.”
“I will be free, and all will perish. The Chained God says, the Chained God says.”
“Oh, dear.” Roghar sighed. “This might be harder than I thought.”
“So it shall be, so it shall be,” Gaele said, her head rolling back and forth.
“Gaele, listen to me.” He bent over her and tried to make her eyes focus on his face. “A few minutes ago you demonstrated that you were capable of coherent speech. Don’t go all manic on me now.”
“They will drown in blood. So it shall be.”
“Gaele, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you know where you are?”
“You! You will go before me!” Gaele’s eyes darted around the room, trying to see something past Roghar. He looked around.
“The altar?” he asked. He peered into the cups that surrounded the skull on the purple cloth. One held a thick jelly that burned with a guttering flame. Gravel and dirt filled the next. The third held some murky water, and a chunk of ice that had partly melted was in the fourth. The last cup was empty. Air, he thought.
“Before me to become the Living Gate, so it shall be.”
Roghar lifted the skull and held it toward Gaele. “A friend of yours?”
She was looking past the skull, past the altar, to the alcove, he realized, looking at the strange shaft of light. He’d figured it was open to the surface somehow, maybe using mirrors to channel sunlight down from above. Maybe there’s more to it.
“Tempest, will you take a look at that alcove for me, please? Maybe we can get a little more of Gaele’s attention.”
Tempest glared down at Gaele as she stepped around the altar, playing her part perfectly.
Gaele seemed oblivious, lost in her rambling. “To open my way to freedom, the Chained God says.”
Roghar frowned down at her. “Your way or the Chained God’s way? Whose freedom are we talking about?”
“We will soon be free, the Chained God says. Free to consume and destroy. Free to drown the world in blood. So it shall be, the Chained God says.”
“No,” Tempest whispered.
“What is it?” Roghar looked up to see Tempest staring aghast at something in the alcove, drawing back from it with an expression of utter horror on her face.
The prisoner on the floor forgotten, he rushed to Tempest’s side and took her arm. “Tempest?”
“No no no no no!” Her voice started as a whisper but rose to a shriek of terror. She pulled away from him and fell to her knees, her back to the alcove and whatever horror it held.
“You will go before me to become the Living Gate!” Gaele shouted. “To open my way to freedom!”
“Silence!” Roghar bellowed, but neither Tempest nor Gaele heeded him.
Roghar stepped around Tempest and looked in the alcove himself. The light came, he saw now, from a clear crystal dome embedded in the stone at the top of the alcove, and it shone down in a perfect column to strike an engraved circle in the bottom, at about the height of his knee. The effect almost suggested a tube of glass, but Roghar could see motes of dust dancing in and out of the column.
He didn’t immediately see what had disturbed Tempest so greatly. The alcove was bare of any decoration aside from the magical mechanism of the light, the dome in the top and the circle engraved in the bottom. He stuck his hand into the shaft of light. A brief tingle ran over his skin, and his hand felt strangely weightless.
Then he saw it. A glob of liquid hung suspended in the shaft of light, a little lower than his hand. It was no larger than the tip of his thumb, but it seemed to respond to the presence of his hand, stretching itself toward him. He yanked his hand out of the alcove and the liquid fell still. He bent down to examine it more closely.
It was red, and for a moment he thought it might be blood. But it shimmered in the light, almost like a gemstone with a million tiny facets. Gold and silver ran through it in streaks and flecks, just like-
Just like the thing that had taken Tempest.
“Oh, Tempest,” he said, crouching behind her and putting his hands on her shoulders.
She pulled away from his touch and put her back to the wall, staring wild-eyed at the shaft of light. “I can’t escape him,” she whispered. “Not even here.”
“How did that get here, I wonder?”
“Get it away,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Tempest, calm-”
“Stop her!” Tempest shrieked.
Roghar spun around and saw Gaele on her feet, hopping around the altar. Before he could reach, she thrust her bound hands into the alcove.
“That’s enough of that,” Roghar growled, pulling Gaele away and throwing her to the floor.
“Now we spread!” Gaele cried. “The Voidharrow!” She lifted her hands to her face and covered it, as if cowering from him.
Roghar scowled down at her, then realized that the red liquid substance had clung to her hand and now stretched itself down to her face. He seized the rope that bound her hands and yanked them away from her face, but the liquid had pooled beside her nose. He reached for it, but hesitated just an instant before touching it, unsure he wanted it on his skin.
