service corridor. Near the back, the white elf stopped and pulled a loose wall stone out of place. A section of stone wall grated open and rumbled aside. He uttered a word of passing, then motioned Vala through the opening.
Ever the cautious one, she dropped to a knee and peered around the corner-and found herself looking underneath a floating beholder into a large room filled with wands, crowns, bracers, and other items even she recognized as magical. There was also a mind flayer, whirling toward Vala's door, and half a dozen confused bugbears scrambling for their weapons.
Cursing herself for a fool and Corineus for a faithless double crosser, Vala whipped her darksword at the mind flayer. Waiting only long enough to see that the spinning blade was flying toward its target, she launched herself forward and rose beneath the beholder, pinning it against the ceiling of the opening while she drew her dagger.
'Ressamon, you idiot!' the beholder screamed. 'Stun it-stun it before-'
Vala drove her dagger into the monster's underside. The resulting shriek was more angry than pained, and the mordant smell of powdered stone filled the air as the beholder began to spray the rock above with its disintegration ray. 'Ressamon!'
But Ressamon, if that had been the mind flayer's name, was already lying on the floor beside its amputated head. Finally gathering their wits, the bugbears sprang over the illithid's body to charge Vala.
Driving her dagger into the beholder's underside again, she extended her free hand to summon her sword. It flashed between two of the charging bugbears, slashing open a furry knee and buckling the leg. The astonished brute collapsed in front of two companions and sent them sprawling, prompting the rest of the band to stop and whirl around to see who was attacking from behind.
The darksword arrived in Vala's hand, and the beholder's disintegration ray finally cut through the keystone of the hidden archway. With a thousand tons of stone settling on her shoulders, she had no choice except to leap into the chamber ahead and let the wounded eye tyrant escape behind her. She tucked into a diving somersault, taking a bugbear's legs off at the knees as she rolled past, then came to her feet and brought her dagger over her head, driving it to the hilt in the nearest furry back.
The roars of the wounded bugbears were lost to the sound of the collapsing doorway. Vala ducked a massive axe as the quickest of the bugbears whirled to attack, then removed the arm holding it and opened its chest on the backstroke. She glimpsed another axe coming and barely managed to pivot away, though not before the blade slashed along her chest, denting steel scales and hurling her into a pair of hairy arms as big around as her waist. With her arms pinned at her sides, Vala brought her feet up over her head and smashed her booted feet into her captor's face.
The blow was not sufficient to drop a bugbear, but it did startle it. The creature's grasp loosened enough for her to bring her sword around beneath her. So weak was the attack that not even the sharpest steel would have penetrated the bugbear's thick hide, much less the apron of leather armor it wore over its loins.
The darksword's glassy blade slashed through the leather like gossamer. The bugbear bellowed in shock and started to squeeze, and Vala cocked her wrist, driving the tip of her weapon deep into its abdomen. The hairy arms went limp and dropped her on her shoulders, her captor's huge body doubling over above her face. Reaching up behind it, she grabbed a handful of fur and pulled herself through its legs and to her feet.
A huge hand axe came tumbling through the air and smashed into her helmet, breaking one of the horns off and knocking it from her head. Sure of only the direction the attack had come from, Vala spun around to the opposite side of the bugbear she'd just wounded and found another big axe swinging toward her throat. Barely flipping her darksword up in time, she caught the weapon near the top, using the attack's own momentum to cleave the shaft and send the head spinning off to lodge itself in one of the attacker's wounded companions.
Faster than the others, this bugbear followed its first attack by slamming a huge fist into Vala's armored ribs, launching her across the room into a shelf full of artifacts. She dropped to the ground in a limp heap, still holding her sword and struggling to get the wind back in her lungs.
Snorting in triumph, the bugbear snatched a weapon from a wounded companion and stomped toward Vala. Behind it, she saw a spherical form float out of the dust cloud rising from the collapsed doorway. Of Corineus, there was no sign.
Vala bounced to her feet and raised her darksword to throw. The bugbear pivoted away and brought its big axe around to block. Vala hurled the blade anyway. As the weapon sailed past the astonished brute to split the beholder down the center, she charged after it. Seeing its mistake too late, the bugbear swung back into the attack, but Vala was inside the arc of its weapon by then, her boot heels driving for its face in a flying side kick.
The bugbear leaned aside in an attempt to slip the blow. Vala kicked her feet apart and caught its head between her ankles. As she swung into its torso, she scissored her legs and swung herself around to the side. Though the bugbear was easily three times her size, the weight of her body acted like a pendulum, pulling it down face first. It slammed to the stone floor with a heavy thump and immediately began to push itself up again.
Vala's sword was already returning to her hand. She brought it down on the back of her attacker's neck, then leaped up and dispatched the wounded bugbears in a series of cautious, darting attacks from the rear. By the time she finished, the dust in the fallen doorway had cleared enough for her to see Corineus standing in the service corridor on the other side of the rubble.
'Well done, woman.' he said, pointing past her toward an iron door on the adjacent wall. 'Above the door, you will find a holy symbol painted in black blood. Break it.'
Vala turned in the direction he pointed. When she'd had a chance to examine the room, she could see that it was divided into two sections. She had entered the front area, which the bugbears, beholder, and illithid all shared with the assortment of magical items she'd noticed earlier. In the back, opposite the door Corineus was pointing at, an assortment of gem-studded scepters, rods, rings, tomes, and other powerful artifacts of magic-even a diamond ball the size of a halfling's head-floated inside a field of green spell light. Vala's throat went dry, for she understood the phaerimm well enough to realize when she was standing in one of their lairs-and to know that had the creature been present, she would have been too busy fighting to take in all that she was seeing.
'What are you waiting for?' Corineus demanded. 'Break the seal.'
'Not so fast,' Vala said, retrieving her helm. She had no idea whether it would still protect her from the phaerimm mind control with only one horn, but it was worth a try. 'Not until you answer a few questions.'
'The phaerimm who claims this laboratory lair will soon realize it has been broken into and return,' Corineus replied. 'That is the only question you need answered.'
'Afraid not,' Vala replied. 'You surrendered your right to claim my trust when you sent me through that door without warning.' 'You had to be tested.'
Vala bit back the rage she felt rising inside and said, 'I passed.'
She turned toward the nearest shelf and picked up a pair of fabulously decorated silver bracers.
'Put that back!' Corineus started forward, only to encounter a field of flashing blue energy that hurled him back against the wall. 'You've no right!'
'No?' Vala raised her brow and considered threatening the lich-elf, then recalled how touchy elves could be about their ancestral treasures and decided to try a different tactic. 'Consider these a token of good faith.' She tossed the bracers through the door.
Corineus's eyes went wide, and he nearly let the bracers fall. 'The symbol, woman! You've no idea what you just did.'
Vala's mouth went dry, but she managed to meet the white elf's gaze without shaking. 'Don't be too sure.'
Corineus's white eyes glared at Vala for a moment, then drifted to the symbol over the door.
'Have you ever heard of a baelnorn?' the white elf asked. Vala shook her head. 'I take it I'm looking at one.' 'Sworn to a duty more sacred than you can know.' A dull clunk sounded from the other side of the door.
'The time has come for you to choose,' he said. 'Without my help-'
'One moment,' Vala interrupted, jerking the iron door open.
A teleport-dazed phaerimm tumbled into the room, its four spindly arms windmilling wildly. Vala brought her darksword down across the thick part of its body and clove it cleanly in two, then stepped back and opened both halves along their length. When she was certain the thing was dead, she cut off the wicked tail barb, then finally reached up with her sword and broke the holy symbol painted above the door.
