"Is the skull important?" wondered Ember.
Nebin wondered the same thing. "What kind of gem is that, do you think?"
He reached out, tapping it. Nothing happened.
Brek Gorunn said, "Nebin! Be careful, will you?"
Nebin nodded, half listening. "Sure…Say, maybe this is some sort of key."
He touched the empty socket, and the dwarf's intake of breath was audible. Again, nothing happened.
The gnome scratched his chin.
"Maybe pull the other one out?" ventured Hennet.
Brek Gorunn glared at Nebin, stroked the head of his warhammer, and said, "Or, if we're just going to poke and prod our way into every trap and alarm along the path anyway, I could save some time and just hammer the door off its hinges."
Ember shook her head and said, "Before we start getting on one another's nerves again, lets try a few simple ideas. For instance, why is one eye socket hollow, but the other filled?
"Try this," she continued. "Put something in the hollow socket. A small gem, like the other, perhaps." So saying, she reached into an inner pocket in her vest and drew out a small gemstone. "Agate. Not too valuable, but maybe worth a shot."
The monk tossed the stone to the gnome. Nebin caught the agate, examined it briefly, then pressed it into the hollow socket.
Nothing.
Brek Gorunn grumbled, "Is the beard-tangled door even locked?"
"That's a good question," admitted Nebin.
He pushed on the door.
A faint, emerald glitter woke in the skull's stone eye. They heard a click, and the door began swinging silently open. Ember and Brek both looked at Nebin in surprise. He realized he may have been premature. Slightly embarrassed, he snatched the agate back from the skull and slipped it into his coat pocket as the door opened wide.
"Be ready!" whispered Ember.
She fell into bahng ah jah se, the right guarding stance, and watched the opening widen. The time for subtlety was reaching an end. Nebin scuttled back from the door, pulling his goggles down over his eyes.
"Is everyone ready?" she whispered.
She looked to Hennet first. The sorcerer flicked his wrist, and the Golden Wand fell easily into it, promising potent electrical displays. Brek produced the oil he'd purchased at the Wizard's Hoard and poured it over the head of his warhammer. The weapon absorbed all the oil instantly, then glimmered with a dull, inner light.
Bright light spilled from the room beyond. Ember blinked as her eyes adjusted to the powerful illumination.
The chamber beyond the door was expansive. The ceiling rose smoothly into a dome high above the floor. Virulent emerald light pulsed through the mortared stone walls and played lewdly over the signs and figures carved on them. Lambent rivulets of radiance gathered and flowed down the walls, creating a shallow pool of brightness in the center of the floor. Within the pool of light, things moved-familiar, sluglike things. They lay in the light as if bathing, and perhaps they were. Their high, piping voices cried rhythmically to the cadence of the pulsing illumination. They were ghostly, however, insubstantial, as if they were not entirely real, or not entirely…there.
People stood silhouetted against the glowing pool, partly occluding the writhing forms. Two of the figures were covered in funerary wrappings-they were undead. Only one figure was female-a silvery-haired woman wearing a hooded, skull-encrusted cloak. Perhaps it was Sosfane, the mastermind behind all their recent woe. Several men stood nearby, dressed in loose robes and wearing red half-masks. Cultists, she realized, and probably all trained in the way of hand, foot, and fist.
One of the men wore no mask, and his face seemed familiar. The memory flooded back to Ember-it was Aganon, the man Hennet defeated in the final round of the Duel Arcane! She looked back and saw similar recognition come to Hennet and Nebin.
Brek Gorunn's plan to come upon the temple from the rear worked better than she could have imagined. Unless she missed her guess, they'd stumbled into the heart of the revived temple. Better yet, their arrival hadn't yet been noticed. She decided to wait. The worshipers would likely disperse after the ritual's conclusion, and it would be better to attack them separately, rather than all at once.
The woman in the hooded cloak spoke, raising her voice as she chanted, "By your beneficence Great Lord of the Night, Reaper of all Flesh, Foe of Light, Hater of Life, and King of Death Renewed, accept this sacrifice. Send us your voice to walk among us again, so that we might know your will fully and act with your grim blessing."
The mummies groaned their agreement, while Aganon and the red-masked monks repeated, "With your grim blessing."
The piping of the creatures caught in the light intensified. One of the half-slugs began shaking. Its ululations reached an ear-splitting pitch. As if flicked by an unseen giant's finger, it tumbled out of the pool of light, leaving a slick trail of slime along the stone floor. Unlike the shadowy forms left behind, this one was now all too real. The death god had sent its gift in the form of an abyssal child. And unless Ember's eyes were deceived, the abyssal child was larger than the one they had barely beaten on the road to New Koratia.
The creature sniffed with its horrible infantlike head, then swiveled its body. Its eyes locked onto Ember's and she knew their secret was discovered.
The creature screeched in a demented little girl's voice, "Nerull commands the death of those who look upon these proceedings. They defile this unholy temple, who have refused his oath, who have not received the sacrament of Nerull."
The time of waiting and watching was past. It was time for battle.
The silver-haired woman called loudly, "Intruders in the shrine! To me, my loyal monks!"
With a flick of her hand, she discarded her cloak. Beneath it, she wore a belted half-robe, loose pants, and sandals. Terrible figures were tattooed into her skin. Her eyes shone with vicious intent, fixing on Ember.
"Sosfane?" asked Ember.
The woman slowly smiled in acknowledgement.
"Ah, another monk from my old Order, come to take the Oath? Too late! You should have joined earlier. Now I can offer you only death."
"We rooted out your influence in the Enabled Hand with Vobod's defeat," replied Ember. "We're here to finish the job at the source. Your minutes are numbered, evil one."
Sosfane scoffed. "Your meddling has cost us time, nothing more. Soon enough, the Enabled Hand will return to the fold. This time, they will do Nerull's bidding forevermore." She motioned to the red-masked monks and cloth-wrapped mummies around her. "Kill her, my cenobites. Kill them all."
The undead grunted and lumbered forward, their hands extended and grasping. The red-masked monks grinned and fanned out as they advanced.
Brek Gorunn dashed past Ember into the chamber. He should have charged seconds earlier, before the summoning was complete, but it was too late for should-have-dones. Once in, he stopped short, holding his warhammer over his head.
He called out, "Give way, husks of the once-living! Turn your faces and be destroyed!"
His hammer blazed with golden light, temporarily washing out the greenish glow all around him. One of the creatures barely noticed the holy command and moved in to batter the advancing dwarf with fingers stiffened into a permanent claw. The other mummy, however, puffed into a thousand motes of dust, instantly obliterated by Moradin's holy influence. The dwarf yelled triumphantly, even as the remaining mummy swiped at him with a withered hand.
Brek fell back-he knew that the touch of these animated monsters carried a foul, rotting disease. He saw the corpse's face, partly hidden beneath centuries-old funeral wrappings, open its mouth and exhale a puff of rotten air into his face. He stumbled back another step, but as he did so he raised his warhammer with both hands.