"Come on, Bolan," he muttered. "Don't make me listen to that drivel alone all night."
"No one is alone in the darkness," murmured a voice.
Keph spun around, tearing Quick free of her scabbard.
"Storm's lashV he spat.
In the moment that lightning crackled around the blade, its blue glow shone on half a dozen figures, their heads shrouded in dark hoods.
But his attackers were ready for Quick. Strong arms seized him from behind and hands pried open his fingers. Keph yelled and struggled, but the rapier was torn away from him. The sparks that lingered on the blade popped and vanished. Stained by afterimages of that brief light, the darkness seemed even deeper than before. Someone clamped a cloth over his mouth to muffle any further screams. Keph felt himself hustled forward. His heart thundered with panic.
The sounds of singing vanished and the sense of an open sky above him along with it. A door closed. He was inside.
Hands and arms released him. Keph panted in the darkness.
"Mistress of the Night," whispered a different voice, "we are mortal and imperfect. We beg your forgiveness for our failings."
There was a scratch and a burst of flame as someone struck a tindertwig and held it to the wick of a single candle.
Keph almost collapsed with relief at the sight of the black and purple disks around the necks of the figures in the dim light. It was the cult of Shar.
"Dark!" he gasped, "you gave"
One of the figures slapped him.
"You have no voice in this place," a woman said gruffly. "You have no voice until the Lady of Loss gives you one."
Another figure held out a massive goblet carved from black stone and commanded, "Drink."
Keph stared into the goblet. It was filled with dark wine. He could smell it. He could smell something else as well, though, something bitter. He glanced up, trying to see the face of the cultist who held the goblet.
Too slow. Hands grabbed him again and pulled his head back. The rim of the goblet knocked painfully against his teeth, then wine flooded into his mouth. He choked against it.
"Drink it!" spat the cultist holding him.
Keph managed to gulp down some of the wineand to keep gulping as the goblet was tilted higher and higher. Finally it was empty and he was released once more. He staggered and wiped futilely at his face and shirt. Both were soaked. Wine dripped out of his goatee. His lips felt strangely numb.
The cultist with the goblet raised it high and intoned, "He has drunk the Elixir of the Void from the Cup of Night!"
"Hail to the Mistress of the Night!" chanted the other cultists in response.
Keph's stomach roiled and churned.
"The Dark Goddess is within him!"
"Hail to the Mistress of the Night!"
"Dark Dancer, we honor you!"
"Hail to the Mistress of the Night!"
Keph squinted through the dimness of the candlelight. The cultists' forms were beginning to spin in his vision. No, he realized, the cultists themselves were spinning. They were dancing, moving into a slowly swaying ring with him at its center. Keph's eyes flickered at the sight and he nearly staggered. He peered at the cultists. None of the them had either Jarull's height or Bolan's odd stature. He turned, trying to catch a glimpse of those behind him.
"He dances!" called a voice.
"Hail to the Mistress of the Night! Hail to the Dark Dancer!"
Arms swept Keph up and whirled him into the dance. Someone was making a simple rhythm, the slap of hands and feet punctuated by ringing, clashing steel. Keph hoped it wasn't Quick being used to make that noise.
The rhythm increased in tempo. The cultists began to spin and turn, pulling Keph with them. His guts lurched.
"Oh, dark!" he gasped helplessly. "Stop! Stop!"
No one ordered him to silence. Maybe no one heard him. Certainly no one listened to him. His head started to pound in time with the rhythm of the dance. He could feel cold sweat erupt on his skin, trickling over his eyelids and sliding down his back.
And they were no longer dancing in a circle. The shifting ring had become a procession that swayed through the darkness. The cultist carrying the candle led the way. Keph could just make her out at the head of the line. He was somewhere in the middle, the cultists around him holding him up. Candlelight shone on descending stairs. He stumbled. The cultists caught him and thrust him forward. When the stairs ended, his legs kept trying to go down but the cultists caught him again, holding him up.
Keph turned and saw the instrument that kept the clash of the beat: a large metal ring being tapped, beaten, and stroked with a metal rod. There were two of them. No, three, all pounding into his spinning head. Keph clutched his ears and staggered against a wall. His stomach heaved once and a stream of vomit splashed across a floor of rough stone.
The cultists grabbed him and pulled him away before he could even stop gagging. He kept heaving as he stumbled. The cultists barely seemed to notice. They rushed him along, pulling at his arms and hands, at his shirt and sleeves. Fabric torehis right arm was bare. Someone laughed hoarsely. Hands seized his arms and dragged him painfully onward. Keph staggered to his feet before the cold, raw stone of the floor could shred his trousers and the skin beneath.
"Stop!" he gasped again. "Please st"
The candle went out. The clashing music stopped. A heartbeat later, the hands that held him vanished, and Keph was left to stand on his own in the darkness. The air was cold on his sweat-slicked skin. The panting of his breath came back to him in soft echoes.
"Where moonlight and sunlight have never fallen, we give praise to Shar."
Bolan's voice! Keph turned, trying to face its source, but echoes and a slow chant of response from the hidden cultists made it impossible.
"Mistress of the Night," Bolan prayed, "we fear your beauty. Forgive us the need to shield ourselves from it."
There was a clink of metal and the dim light of an uncovered brazier shone out. In the darkness, it was like a brilliant star. More braziers followed, uncovered by cultists, a magnificent constellation. Even so, they struggled against the darkness and as Keph's eyes adjusted to the light, he realized that the braziers only made the shadows deeper by contrast. Wherever the cult had brought him, it was vast. He couldn't see any walls or a ceiling. Beyond the light of the braziers, there was simply nothing. He choked and fell to his knees, driven down by the overwhelming power of the total, primal darkness.
Between two braziers and before an altar draped in black velvet stood Bolan. Something had changed in the strange, stunted man. His porcelain smooth face seemed to glow in the dim light, while robes of black trimmed with purple hid his bulky body. An aura of faith suffused him, lending him just a little of Shar's glory.
At his side, however, stood a woman of Calimshan who didn't borrow Shar's glory so much as radiate a dark power of her own. Black hair flowed loosely against dusky pale skin and black clothes embroidered in shimmering, deep purple thread.
"Her name is Variance," Jarull had said. "Power flows off her like a shadow. I trust her more than Bolan."
Variance was watching him. Keph tore his gaze away from her.
Bolan didn't seem to notice anything. The priest spread his arms wide and said, "A man comes before Shar. He has drunk the Elixir of the Void from the Cup of Night. Can we accept him?"
"Shar welcomes all into her embrace," murmured the cultists.
Keph stared at them. Maybe it was just the echoes, but there seemed to be far more people standing in the shadows than just those who had led him in.
"Let all be welcome," said Bolan, "if they grieve or mourn or hate. Let all be welcome if they desire vengeance or know bitterness."
"Shar welcomes all."
Bolan held out his hands to Keph. "Shar welcomes you into her embrace. Do you embrace Shar and welcome her?"