from his hand, its blade broken off at the hilt. He tapped a fingernail on the metal, resting while he listened for the sound and hoping his hearing might return to something approaching normal. When the tiny click of the sound became a more recognizable ping, he sat up slowly and surveyed his would-be tomb before turning his dazed attention to the fallen dreamer.
In the pale light of the dying candle its face almost appeared humanor perhaps even elvensave for the glassy, fishlike eves and massive fanira. He shivered at the sicht. of it. and tried to stand, gingerly placing weight on his injured leg and grunting in pained relief. It wasn’t broken and could wait for more thorough inspection until he could free himself of the basement. Taking up his sword and fishing a short-handled axe from beneath the dreamer, he considered the climb to the door and, for the second time in six years, focused on escaping the basement.
After the last time he’d made a promise to return.
He had no intention of doing so again.
Ghaelya’s lungs burned for air as Sefir held her tight in smooth, blue-tinged tentacles. Her vision had blurred, reducing the chaos of the fight around her to dim, quick shapes that crashed throughout the house amid the occasional flare of lightning and ensuing thunder. All she could deduce was that Vaasurri was still alive, though he had no way of reaching her or Sefir. In one flickering moment of helplessness she screamed in anger, flexing every muscle, straining every thought to drown out the constant soothing? whisper of Sefir’s powerful voice.
“You are stronger than your sister,” he said as her strength) waned. “Though I think perhaps she is the wiser twin. I can see why the pair of you have been chosen.”
His warm, sickly-sweet breath blew hot on the nape of her neck, the heat’ spreading. across her shoulders like a; rash, itching and boiling her blood. She felt her skin quickly drying, moisture from her swim in the basement evaporating, little curls of sudden steam rising in the cool spring air. A light aroma of lavender wafted through the window as flames gathered in her spirit, her sister’s scent stoking ‘ the fires that began to burn in her eyes.
The room wavered briefly, a smoldering mirage that steeled her against the beguiling power in Sefir’s voice. Weakly, she i raised her sword, just high enough to grasp the blade in her opposite hand. She squeezed tight, wincing slightly as the weapon cut her flesh, but grinning as flames burst from the wound, searing the tentacles wrapped around her.
The endless barrage of whispers became a chorus of pained screams pounding on the back of her skull. The grip around her tightened for a moment, then the room seemed to grow small. Her stomach flipped as she hurtled through the room, only the opposite corner waiting to roughly catch her. The wall cracked when she hit, leaving splinters in her back and side as she fell. Sliding to the floor she coughed, tasting blood in her mouth, and floundered to gather her legs beneath her.
Sefir trembled and fell to one knee, the thin tentacles writhing around him. Several of them had been neatly burned by her fiery blood. The element had filled her again, its flames tinting her skin red and focusing her every thought on her sister. She edged closer to the common room doorway, intent on helping Vaasurri and escaping the abandoned town, but the bloody singer’s screams slowly died to pained whimpers, and he rose again, a fang-filled snarl on his face.
“Your flames will die, little one,” he said, standing to his full height, his scarred head a hands-breadth from the ceiling. His tentacles spread wide, and the toothy round suckers lining them opened and closed hungrily like a thousand tiny eyes. “The fire in your sister died as well.”
“No,” she muttered, raising her sword and forgetting the conflict in the next room, shaking her head in denial of the singer’s words.
Before she could contemplate plunging the blade over and over into Sefir’s body until she found some vital bit of flesh, inflicted some injury he could not recover from, she saw a swift blur in the corner of her eye. A whisper of shadow hurtled toward the singer with flashing steel and murderous intent. Briefly she saw the Dale face of Brindani as he collided with Sefir in a tangle of limbs, fleshy tentacles, and clashing swords. The pair strained on the edge of the basement steps in a duel of wills, before they plummeted into the darkness and splashing water.
Ghaelya hesitated, her blade still trained on the spot where Sefir had stood, her eyes fixed on the darkened basement door. Sparks still smoldered where she had cut her hand, and she considered Tessaeril and a purpose greater than simple revenge. She turned toward the common room, catching the glittering eye of an embattled dreamer, and rushed into the room, a gusting flame rippling through her body toward the pyre of battle and escape from Caidris.
Brindani tumbled end over end, a seeming infinity of stairs pounding into his back. Tentacles writhed around him, wrapped around his arms, and slapped wetly against Ms face, all amid the horrid roaring of a fiendish voice that echoed in his ears like a smithy’s hammer. Flashes of blue light illuminated the nightmarish fall, creating monstrous shadows all around that he knew, without a doubt, were all too real. Though patches of numbed flesh announced the imminent arrival of painful bruises, he was somehow assured by a faint and singing melody that gave him strength and the willto keep fighting.
At the end of the long fall, the pair splashed into the dark waters of the flooded basement, wrestling for dominance. Sefir’s efforts doubled as the shock of cold water further numbed Brindani’s muscles, leaving the half-elf slow against the fluid form of the mutilated man.
The once demonic voice of Sefir was transformed as they plunged beneath the water’s surface. A wordless, calming melody issued from the open jaws and rows of sharklike teeth, the hellish image belying the sublime beauty of the singing in Brindani’s ears. Long, crooning notes reached out like living things, like the curling tentacles, to wrap around his anger and regret, crushing them both in a soft grip that drew painful knots in his throat and pulled tears from his eyes. The sword fell from his weakened hand, and his struggles faded to feeble motions. The small part of him that realized what was happening was unable to gather the strength needed to continue the fight.
The painful grip on his arms and legs softened as he was lifted from the water, coughing and gasping for air, held tight, though cradled in Sefir’s terrible grasp. He could still distantly feel the knot of constant pain in his stomach, could still recall his body’s many cries for the silkroot drug, the need that had been his trap for so long, but it too was weaker. Only for that could he be grateful.
“You have been so brave, half-elf,” Sefir crooned in his ear, his sweet breath complementing the honeyed power of his voice. “All this time, it was you who led the dreamers. Though you remained unaware, we knew of you and thanked the Lady for leading you to the girl.”
“No,” Brindani managed to whisper. “I didn’t mean to”
“I know, I know,” Sefir replied, tilting his scarred features in a strange expression that seemed a mockery of true empathy. “We are like brothers, you and I. Two souls drifting in an ocean of fate… and song.”
The very notion that he had anything in common with the hideous man created a fresh surge of resistance in the half-elf, though it was still far too weak to break Sefir’s strength. His limbs felt paralyzed, and he shivered, drenched and trembling in the cool air.
“I shall give to you a gift… A gift that she bade me give to you,” Sefir continued. Thin tentacles curled from beneath his dark and dirty robes, drawing forth a red and pulsing bloom of horrible beautv. SuDDle Detain of crimson flesh hung before Brindani’s eyes, tiny veins racing through the flower, bloodlike nectar gathering in little drops like morning dew as it descended toward his lips. “I shall bring back to you our Lady’s song, a blessing for those who know her will.”
The petals rested against the half-elf 8 lips, a sweet, crimson kiss that tasted faintly of blood as the nectar flowed into his mouth, across his tongue, and sang down his throat. Briefly, he gagged, trying to spit out the flower, but within a heartbeat the pain in his stomach had lessened, as had his ever-present need for the silkroot. He cursed inwardly as he bit into the bloom hungrily, as Sefir whispered songs in his ear.
“The Song calls us The Choir brings us The Lady dreams us And her blood feeds us”
Ghaelya roared with the flames in her blood, as she slashed and dodged the remaining dreamers. An expression of trailing fire curled from her scalp like a mane, and the world before her seemed naught but kindling. The beasts were smart, keeping them from the door, destroying the old steps leading upstairs with deafening blasts of thunder from their thick throats.
The walls shook as she fought back to back with Vaasurri, holding a turning circle of sharp edges one moment, then flying apart to divide the four beasts. She kept her strikes precise and painful, careful to take no
