green and yellow. Araevin studied the doorway for a moment, and decided that no magical traps lingered in the area. But he could feel danger nearby.
“Carefully, now,” Araevin whispered to the others.
Maresa and Jorin led the way, ducking under the jutting fangs of the great serpent head. The passage beyond was fashioned to resemble a snake’s gullet, with curved stone ribbing at even intervals and a floor of glossy tile. They followed the eerie passageway for a short time and emerged onto a balcony above another large hall.
Scores of ophidians slowly writhed and coiled together on the cold stone floor below, tangled in a scaly heap before a great serpentine idol at the far side of the room.
Stifling a gasp of surprise, Araevin quickly backpedaled down the passage they’d just emerged from. His friends retreated as well. Only when he judged that they were out of easy earshot did Araevin allow himself to breathe a sigh of relief.
“I quit,” muttered Maresa. “I am not going in there.”
“Do you think they spotted us?” Jorin whispered.
“I don’t think so,” Araevin said. “I think they would have let us know if they’d seen us.”
“Did you see the idol?” Nesterin asked Araevin. “Was that crystal the one you seek?”
Araevin shook his head. “I saw the idol, but I didn’t notice any crystal. Better show me.”
Leaving the others at a safe distance up the passageway, Araevin and Nesterin crept softly back to the edge of the balcony. The mage studied the great serpent statue at the far end of the room closely. At first he didn’t see anything, but he clearly sensed the presence of strong magic. Beside him, Nesterin tapped his arm and pointed toward a small offering dish that sat in the middle of the great stone serpent’s coils.
A milky white crystal the size of a man’s hand lay atop a heap of old coins in the dish. Araevin looked to Nesterin and nodded. Then, before they withdrew, he quickly looked around the rest of the room. The balcony ran along only the back wall of the shrine. To his left and right, stairs descended to the mosaic floor below, where the ophidians gathered around their sinister idol. There was a great dark pool in the center of the room, similar to the ones in the hall of the square pillars but much larger-and evidently inhabited. He caught the subtle stirring of something large moving in the water. He nodded to the star elf, and the two retreated back down the passage again.
“Is that it?” Nesterin asked.
“Yes. I’m pretty sure that is a shard of the Gatekeeper’s Crystal.”
“So how do we get it away from the serpent men?”
“There’s more of them than I want to fight,” Jorin said.
“It’s worse than you think. There’s some sort of creature in the big pool in the middle of the room, too,” Araevin said. “I thought I sensed sorcery other than the crystal’s aura.”
“Then we steal it,” Maresa said. “Since we don’t have any particular quarrel with the ophidians, let’s not fight them if we can help it.” The genasi looked to Araevin. “Do you have any spells that might help?”
“I thought you wanted nothing to do with the ophidians.”
“If we’re going to have to do this anyway, I might as well make sure we do it right.”
Araevin smiled at her. “I can make you invisible for a short time.”
“That will do.” Maresa quickly divested herself of her pack, crossbow, and bandolier of quarrels, keeping only her rapier and her fire wand for defense. “Be ready to discourage pursuit if things go badly.”
“We’ll be ready.”
“Then let’s go, before I change my mind.”
Maresa led the way as they returned to the balcony overlooking the den of the ophidians. Araevin paused as close as he dared to the open balcony itself before casting his invisibility spell on Maresa. She smirked at him as she faded out of sight. Then, silently, the company stole back out to the doorway leading to the balcony, crouching low to stay out of sight. Jorin, Nesterin, and Gaerradh knelt with bows in their hands and arrows on the string. Donnor simply waited in the darkness, his sword in his hand.
Araevin murmured a soft word and wove a spell to give himself the ability to see Maresa despite her invisibility. He watched her steal quickly across the balcony to the steps on the right-hand side, and start down the wide, shallow steps. The great hall was weirdly quiet, disturbed only by the occasional soft hiss or the faint rasp of scales sliding over scales.
Keeping her shoulder to the wall, Maresa reached the bottom of the steps and started forward. Even though she was invisible, she made an effort to stick to the shadows of the room’s thick stone buttresses and alcoves. Then she came to a place where several of the ophidians lay tangled, with coils of their bodies actually touching the wall she was moving along.
Maresa paused and looked for a way around, but if she moved left toward the middle of the room she would be in the middle of the creatures-and too near to the hidden menace in the pool for Araevin’s comfort. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped over one ophidian, then actually set her foot in the coil of another’s tail before stepping across its body as well. The monster shifted and began to move as Maresa tiptoed among its coils. She jumped two more steps to get away from it.
The ophidian turned with startling swiftness and hissed at the empty air where the genasi had stood just a moment before. Its long blue tongue flickered in and out, tasting the air, as Maresa backed away, hand on the hilt of her sword.
“Get ready,” Araevin breathed to his companions.
The archers straightened and went to a three-quarters draw, sighting on serpent men in the tangled mass below. But before Araevin gave the order to shoot, the ophidian near Maresa lowered its head and returned to its somnolence.
“It’s safe,” he said softly, and the bows relaxed again. The genasi darted one quick glance back up toward the balcony where her companions waited, and headed for the idol.
She reached the statue of the serpent god, and climbed carefully up into its coils. Araevin held his breath as her foot slipped on the slick stone, but she recovered easily and reached the broad stone bowl where the crystal glittered. Maresa loosened a small leather pouch from her belt, and brought it up to where the shard lay. Smart girl, he realized. A crystal bobbing around in midair would be a lot more likely to attract attention than one that simply and quietly vanished. With one confident motion, Maresa swept the shard into the pouch and slid back down the side of the idol.
“There it goes,” Nesterin whispered. “She has it.”
Behind Maresa, one of the old bronze coins in the stone bowl slid off the shallow mound and clattered to the stone floor.
Ophidians raised their heads from the floor and peered at the idol. In the space of three heartbeats hisses of anger arose throughout the hall, and the serpent folk thrashed in agitation. Some surged upright, balancing on thick, scaly torsos as they looked around the chamber. Others slithered toward the great statue, forked tongues darting.
Maresa did not delay an instant. She dashed at once back toward the steps, dodging between writhing coils and leaping over those that lay on the ground. The ophidians still could not see her, but they sensed something brushing past, and the genasi left a wake of rearing torsos and snapping fangs in her wake.
From the pool in the center of the room, a powerful hooded serpent slowly rose up, its back gleaming with a brilliant black-and-red pattern of diamond scales. It glanced around at Maresa, and Araevin saw that its face was almost human, with cold yellow eyes and deadly fangs. A naga! he realized. It spotted the fleeing genasi at once and said something to its followers in a harsh, hissing speech. Ophidians threw themselves forward, trying to cut off her escape.
“Araevin!” Maresa cried. “Do something!”
Bowstrings sang as Jorin, Nesterin, and Gaerradh loosed their arrows at the ophidians below. The naga started to spit out the words of a spell, but at that moment Maresa leaped up the first few steps of the staircase. Araevin saw the chance he had been waiting for. Quickly intoning his own spell, he raised a great barrier of glittering white ice across the steps and the great hall, walling off the naga and its ophidian minions. White frost motes sparkled in the gloom as his companions’ arrows rebounded from the icy wall.
Maresa reached the balcony and risked a quick glance behind her. “That should keep them. Nicely done,” she said to Araevin.
“And you as well,” he told the genasi.
