She’d sooner eat roasted zombie flesh than tell him so.
“Do you suppose we stumbled into their lair?” Ghleanna asked the group at large.
“Either that, or they may have been guarding something,” Corran answered. “An exit, perhaps? Let’s take a look around.”
They poked through the room from which the skeletons had emerged, finding little more than rubble, and continued to explore the rest of the complex. Ultimately, they came to what appeared to be the main chamber. Bones lay strewn about, some human, some not. Unlike the animated skeletons they encountered earlier, these seemed to lie where their owners had died, earthly possessions still surrounding them. One of the skeletons yet wore a gray woolen cloak and a pair of snakeskin boots.
At the sight, Jarial caught his breath. “Ozama.”
Kestrel turned away, allowing the mage a few moments of privacy in which to grieve his former lover’s loss, or curse her for entrapping him, or whatever he wanted to do upon discovering her remains. She glanced around the room, noticing that the door opposite bore an unfamiliar glyph—two swirling circles drawn with a single line. The symbol was burned into the wood. A small barred window in the door looked into the next chamber, but from her vantage point she could see only darkness within.
She approached the door. Finding it sealed, she peered through the window but still couldn’t see anything inside. She beckoned Ghleanna. “Can you cast the light from your staff into there?”
“Certainly.” The mage came forward and lifted her staff toward the opening, but the darkness beyond completely swallowed up the light. Ghleanna frowned. “How strange... .”
“I’m afraid I’m a little shy,” said a rasping voice from the blackness.
Despite its refined tone, the voice sent a shudder down Kestrel’s spine, like the sound of fingernails on glass. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I might ask you that question,” the mysterious speaker responded. The voice sounded male, but she couldn’t be sure. “It is you, after all, who have intruded into my home.”
Kestrel squinted, trying to make out a shape in the darkness, but could not discern even the dimmest outline. She did, however, detect a faint rustling, as of something sliding across a floor, followed by the clinking of metal.
Corran strode past Kestrel to stand before the window. “Please forgive the rudeness of my companion,” he said, casting a scolding look toward Kestrel. “She’s a little... uncultured.”
Kestrel bristled, regretting that she had thought anything nice about the insufferable Lord D’Arcey a few minutes earlier.
The paladin then peered through the window himself. “We apologize for disturbing you—we seek only an exit from these dungeons to the Heights above.”
“‘Tis not a disturbance,” the sibilant voice said. “Indeed, I welcome the diversion of visitors. This can be a rather solitary place.”
The last hiss on the word “place” caused goosebumps to form on Kestrel’s arms. She glanced at the dusty bones strewn about the floor. Had these visitors also provided a diversion? She ambled away from the door to give the dried-out bodies a closer look. At first she’d assumed the skeletons and zombies had defeated them, but now she wondered otherwise. An exchange of glances with Ghleanna revealed that the mage held similar suspicions.
“I imagine one could grow bored in such isolation,” Corran said.
“Indeed, no,” the voice said. “Lonely perhaps, but not bored. I have a hobby—a passion really—for collecting things.”
“What kind of things?” Kestrel called out, looking at the unfortunate adventurers who had preceded them to this place. Lives? Souls?
“Oh, necklaces, amulets, torcs, chokers, neck rings, pendants, collars—just about anything that goes around one’s neck.”
Jarial’s head, which until now had been bowed over Ozama’s remains, snapped up. “Preybelish,” he whispered.
Kestrel quietly moved to his side. “You know him?”
“I believe we’ve found the dark naga Ozama and I sought all those years ago,” he said, his voice barely audible even to Kestrel. “The one said to possess the Wizard’s Torc.” His fingers stroked Ozama’s cloak. “She must have died trying to get it from him.”
“Yes, she did,” the voice—Preybelish—hissed.
Kestrel’s gaze darted to the door, then back to Jarial. “How could he possibly have heard you?”
Jarial drew his brows together. “I—”
“He doesn’t know,” Preybelish said. “But he does want to avenge his lady. Don’t you... Jarial? As much as the little bird beside you wants to settle a score with a certain holy knight.”
“What do you mean by that?” Corran asked.
Kestrel froze, not even releasing her breath. Could the naga read their thoughts? She dared not ponder the idea for fear of giving something away to the creature. Instead, she concentrated on the image of a topaz necklace she’d once seen in—and liberated from—a shop window in Waterdeep. It had fetched a handsome price, but she envisioned herself holding the piece of jewelry as if she still possessed it.
“Forget these temporary companions, little thief. You don’t believe in their cause anyway,” Preybelish said. “We could form a lucrative partnership. I’ll give you fair recompense for that necklace or any other any neckwear you wish to sell me.”
“What nec—” Durwyn began. Ghleanna hushed him.
“I might be persuaded to part with it,” Kestrel replied.
“Good, very good. I shall unseal the door for you. Come in—alone—and we will bargain.”
Kestrel looked to Jarial for guidance, all the while forcing her surface thoughts to remain on the necklace. The mage nodded, but gestured for her to stall. “All right,” she said to Preybelish. “But I prefer to see who I’m doing business with.”
As she spoke, Jarial slipped the snakeskin boots off Ozama’s skeleton and held them toward her. “Magic,” he mouthed. She shook her head in refusal. Her daggers were hidden in her own boots, and she trusted the blades more than any enchantment. After one more pleading look, the mage slipped the boots on his own feet.
“I’ll dispel the darkness once you’re inside,” Preybelish said. The heavy wooden door creaked open.
She glanced at the others. Corran’s hand rested on his sword hilt ready to unsheathe the weapon at any time. Ghleanna’s mouth moved in an unheard spell, her left hand drifting in a slow arc. Durwyn looked just plain confused, but he held his battle-axe ready.
“Let us bargain, then.” Kestrel walked toward the door.
Just as she reached it, Ghleanna uttered a single word aloud. The darkness that had engulfed Preybelish’s chamber immediately dissipated, revealing a large purplish-black snake with a humanlike face. Around his neck, supported by his inflatable hood, dangled necklaces, chokers, and other neckwear of varying lengths and ostentation. The naga’s thick coils disappeared beneath a sea of coins and jewelry, but Kestrel guessed his body must extend at least ten feet. His eyes shuttered to thin slits in the sudden light.
Preybelish hissed, baring his long fangs. “You’ll regret that, you foolish half-breed!” His tail, barbed and sharp as a razor, emerged from the treasure hoard and flicked violently, showering gold around the room and sending Kestrel diving for cover behind the decapitated marble head—and neck—of what had once been an enormous statue. Preybelish’s attention, however, was focused outside his chamber. On Ghleanna.
A moment later, a jet of flame shot forth from the naga’s tail straight at the female mage. Ghleanna howled as the entire left side of her body caught fire. She dropped to the floor to extinguish her clothing, rolling out of Kestrel’s sight.
Corran, who had been standing a little too close to the doorway when the attack shot past, sucked in his breath as his armor—heated by the flames—seared his skin. Despite the obvious pain, he advanced on Preybelish, Durwyn close behind.