“Undead hold the way against us, up there,” he said. “We will avoid them, if we can.” His eyes kindled. “The center of evil is here—so close!”
“Let’s get ’em, then!” Hebold snarled, but Jerdren pressed him back.
“Wait,” he said. “Any other place, I’d be with you, friend. Here, we let this priest guide us.” He caught Eddis’ eye and managed a faint, wry grin. “Didn’t you tell me once that dead men don’t kill anything?”
“Hah,” Hebold retorted but stayed where he was.
“Rest, all of you,” Panev said. “Our greatest challenge lies ahead. And I warn each of you—touch nothing! We approach the heart of evil, and the thing that catches your eye may draw you from us and turn you into its slave. Do not let any creature touch you or hold your gaze. And let no priest escape!”
“Great. So, if he’s that powerful, how does a mere man like me kill him?” Hebold asked He scowled at his broken battle-axe and tossed it aside.
“The priest who controls this place is still mortal, though harder to kill than most men.” Panev paced while the others drank water or checked their weapons, then led them swiftly on.
All at once, the passage widened into a chamber, a dark void at their left. Panev drew them close to hiss, “There are undead waiting beyond the wall, to our right. Keep still if we are to avoid them!”
They moved slowly and cautiously now, easing into the large, open room. Light flared. Black candles burst into flame, illuminating the chamber suddenly and painfully. Panev ripped a scroll tube from his pack, though he did not yet open it.
The wall ahead glowed as if covered with fresh blood, then seemed to shift and change. Eddis hastily turned away.
It’s a temple! she realized as her eyes adjusted. There a black stone dais, here benches and pews for worshippers. The vast dais took up much of the room and was topped by chairs of the same stone grouped about an enormous throne. Gems glittered—the dais and the chairs were covered in them. Kadymus gasped then spun away, hands clasped together behind his back. Even Hebold seemed subdued.
As they passed a great iron bell, Hebold’s face lit up, and he tapped Mead’s arm, pointing at something Eddis couldn’t see. The mage shrugged, brought up the wand he was carrying, and finally nodded. Hebold grinned hugely, sheathed his sword, and scooped up a pair of heavy mallets, knocking them together with a dull dank. Mead gestured urgently for silence and hurried to catch up with the priest, who had reached the far end of the room.
A long purple drape covered the wall. It shifted, colors swirling wildly, curious writing and symbols filling the space.
Panev drew Eddis and Jerdren close and whispered, “There are small passages beyond the doth and three undead at guard. Beyond that is a small room where the priest dwells. He is the one I seek, the one we must defeat if this place is to be taken back from chaos.”
Jerdren nodded and signed for Willow and M’Baddah to stay with him.
Eddis glanced at Blorys, who waited only long enough to see that Hebold wasn’t on his brother’s heels.
“Gods, Blor,” she whispered. “What are we doing here?”
“The best we can,” he whispered back. “Remember your pledge to me!”
She nodded. “Remember yours.”
His eyes warmed. Panev laid a hand on her shoulder in passing, and her heart lifted briefly. When he pressed the drape aside, she followed close on his heels, sword in one hand, dagger in the other.
Her nose wrinkled as they came into the passage behind the drape. There wasn’t much room for maneuvering here. Too much fancy and luxurious furnishing—couches, carpets, odd bits of statuary here and there—and not enough bare floor. The space reeked of long-dead flesh. Zombies. She could see one now, shuffling toward her, sword in its rotting hand.
A loud dang brought her around. Hebold had leaped to the attack, beating down a zombie with his long-handled bell mallets. M’Baddah pinned another to the wall with his sword, ducking back as the thing continued to swipe at him, but M’Whan charged in to behead the thing with a two-handed swipe of his sword.
The third turned from her and staggered toward Mead, giggling madly, but the mage snatched up a spear from one of the Keep men. The creature veered away, right into Jerdren’s reach, and he smashed it down, bones and black fluid spilling over the tiled floor as he reversed his grip on his sword and beat at the thing with the heavy hilt.
Another door loomed. To Eddis’ surprise, it opened easily when Mead pressed his spear against the latch. A small chamber was beyond, nearly as obstructed with furnishings as the last space had been.
“Great,” she murmured sourly. “No room to fight… now what?”
Panev strode past her, Mead on his heels. The priest’s scroll crackled as he read the spell aloud—odd words that echoed in her mind and made her skin crawl.
The words meant something to his enemy, clearly. Wild, deep laughter filled the room. Eddis shuddered.
“Why do you invade my private sanctum, priest of Law?” a voice demanded from the shadows “What fool are you, to invoke a spell of lawful holding, here? Do you think me a weakling that I will fall to such simple words as that?”
“Foul creature of chaos!” Panev replied, “I knew you would turn that spell! Because you turned it, you have torn down the wall you built against lawful spells such as mine, and now you are open to both my magic and the weapons my allies bear! You cannot overcome us, dark one! Die, you and your undead servants! Sink into darkness forever!”
Eddis stopped just inside the doorway, fingers clutching her bow and her sword. The priest who strode into the open was tall and thin, clad in red and black. But as Panev spoke, the least wind soughed through the chamber, and the other’s robe shifted, revealing a gleam of mail under it.
His eyes were black, luminous, eager pinpoints. After one glance, the swordswoman knew she dared not look on his face again. Blorys was a sudden, comforting presence against her left arm, his sword in his left hand, throwing-dagger held by the point in his right.
The evil priest darted aside to snatch up a staff, lips moving. Mead raised his hands to begin a spell, then went flat as the priest launched the staff at him. Eddis ran to help him up, then jerked away as the weapon clattered to the floor, writhed, and became a serpent. It twined around the elf mage.
“Get away from it, woman!” Panev ordered her sternly and began to pray aloud. A snake grew between his hands, twisting and hissing. With a shout of triumph, Panev cast it at the dark priest, but the dread creature dapped his hands together, and the snake was unmade in a coil of black smoke just short of his feet.
Teeth gleaming in the gloom, the dark one drew a bludgeon from his robes. Panev pressed Eddis aside and brought up his mace.
The two priests swung furiously at each other, but their blows missed. The dark priest spat words and darted forward to backhand Panev out of his way. Blood ran down Panev’s cheek from a long, narrow cut, as though he’d been knifed. He gritted his teeth and swung the mace again, this time catching his opponent’s weapon firmly against the head of his own. Eddis waited for an opening and threw one of her daggers. The blade sliced through the red cloak but clanged off metal and fell useless to the floor.
Blorys’ sword ripped at the priest’s neck, and blood followed.
“Look!” he shouted above the din. “He isn’t proof to a blade!”
Eddis laughed wildly and stabbed. The man now bled from several wounds, but nothing seemed to slow him, and Panev could make no headway. The evil priest shouted, and the sound ground against Eddis’ skin like sharp-edged stones. Blorys gasped and went down. Eddis cursed furiously and set herself between him and the evil one.
Behind them, sounds of fighting ceased. Eddis hoped, but didn’t dare look to see which side had won. Slowly, Panev was gaining the upper hand. A finger’s worth at a time, he pressed the evil priest back, but every step took them both closer to Mead, who stood helpless, eyes black with fury as he remained bound in a serpent’s coils.