The sound drove the woman into a frenzy. She flung herself at the mound, thrusting with her sword. The weapon plunged to the hilt into the pulsating wall of flesh-and the pustule it had entered exploded, spraying her with pus. The mound pulsed forward in the same instant, engulfing her hand just as the magical cold erupted from the sword. She gasped as the flesh that surrounded her hand froze.
Arvin, meanwhile, fought his own battle against the nausea that was cramping his stomach. Move through the pain, he told himself, staring at the vomit-splattered brick between his hands. A part of his mind noted that the floor was gray again; the lantern must have been engulfed by the mound. Forcing the stray thought away, he concentrated on blotting out the cramps in his stomach. The mind is master of the body, he told himself, repeating the phrase his tutor had drilled into him. It is in control. Gritting his teeth, he tried to force his mind past the nausea…
And found himself vomiting-this time, on his glove.
Staring at it, he remembered the potion that was hidden inside its extra-dimensional space. The potion was designed to remove disease-would it also cure nausea? It was worth a try.
Summoning the vial to his hand, Arvin ripped the cork out with his teeth. He drank the potion in one swallow, welcoming its honey-sweet taste…
And suddenly, the nausea was gone.
Hissing in relief, he looked up. The lantern had indeed gone out; he viewed the chamber with darkvision alone. The woman had lost her sword and stood flexing frostbitten fingers, trying to make them work again. The mound had engulfed the cultist’s corpse and was consuming it, giving her a brief reprieve. But even as Arvin watched, it began to slide toward her with a slow, certain malevolence. The woman retreated, backing toward the corridor Arvin occupied, her undamaged hand extended behind her as if she were feeling her way. Arvin wondered why she didn’t just turn and run then realized that, unlike him, she couldn’t see. She didn’t have a chance.
Unless he helped her. Which would mean abandoning what might be his one chance to slip around the mound and into the corridor at the far end of the chamber-a corridor that might lead him to Naulg.
Or to a dead end, with a flesh-eating monster at his back.
“This way!” Arvin shouted to the woman, crawling forward as quickly as he could. He sprang out of the corridor and grabbed her, forcing her down into a crouch, then shoved her into the low corridor. “Move!” he barked. “Get out of here.”
She did.
Out of the corner of his eye, Arvin saw the mound looming above him. He leaped out of the way an instant before it toppled onto the spot where he’d just stood-then cursed, realizing the mound had forced him into a corner, away from the exit. His only hope was to somehow drive the thing back, to force it to draw away from the mouth of the corridor that led back to the sewers. He slashed with his dagger at the bulge and felt the blade slice through soft, quivering flesh. But the mound was undeterred by the wound. It reared up until it touched the ceiling, towering above Arvin. As it did, the wound Arvin had just inflicted upon it gaped open. Staring into the depths of the creature, Arvin saw a gore-streaked ball of bone with two dark pits where the eyes had been-a partially digested head-and a rounded shaft of metal, wrapped with leather.
The grip of a sword hilt.
And not just any weapon, but the one that inflicted magical cold. He started to reach for it then realized it was buried deep inside diseased flesh and yanked his hand back.
Instead he sent his consciousness deep into himself and found his third eye-and the energy that lay coiled there-and flung that energy outward. A bright line of sparkling silver light burst from his eyes and coiled itself around the sword hilt then yanked it free. Grabbing the hilt with his gloved hand, he stabbed the blade into the bulge that blocked the corridor mouth.
Thankfully, the weapon’s magic was still working: a burst of cold erupted from the blade, instantly freezing the protuberance. Arvin twisted the sword, using it like a lever, and the frozen bulge of flesh snapped off, revealing the exit. Unfortunately, the sword broke, as well. Dropping it, Arvin dived into the tunnel headfirst. Just in time-as he did, he heard the heavy slap of flesh hitting the wall behind him. A bulge of flesh forced its way into the corridor and brushed against one of his feet. Soft, squishy flesh engulfed his boot, nearly reaching his ankle before he could yank his foot free.
Spurred on by fear, Arvin crawled away as quickly as he could. Behind him, he heard bones cracking as the mound tried to force its bulk into the narrow corridor. As he retreated, the sounds of the creature slapping itself against the walls fell farther and farther behind-it couldn’t fit into so small a corridor, Tymora be praised.
Up ahead, around a curve of the tunnel, Arvin could hear a scuffing noise and the rasp of a scabbard dragging on brick. He caught sight of the woman he’d just saved as she was crawling past the body of the old sailor. Leaving it behind, she rounded the bend in the corridor. In another moment she would reach its end.
“Wait!” Arvin shouted as he eased his way past the corpse, loath to touch it. “You’re going to fall into-”
A splash told him his warning was too late. Reaching the end of the corridor himself, he looked down into the tunnel and saw the woman thrashing about in the sewage, her long hair plastered to her body. “I’m up here,” he called out, reaching down to her. “Take hold of my hand.” She startled at the sound of his voice, but accepted his hand readily enough when he grabbed hers and used it to lever herself up into a standing position. The sewage turned out to be no more than knee-deep.
She let go of his hand and clawed away the wet hair that was plastered to her face then spat several times, a disgusted expression on her face. Then she fumbled at the pouch on her belt, lifting its flap and tipping sewer water out of it. From out of the pouch, she pulled a small metal flask, its sides ridged like the rattles of a snake-the same kind of flask the Pox had used to force-feed Arvin plague-tainted water. She ran her fingers across the top of it, checking the cork that sealed it.
“Where did you get that?” Arvin asked.
His tone must have been sharper than he’d intended. The woman squinted up in his general direction, a wary look in her eyes. She took a step back, her free hand brushing her scabbard-she stiffened as she found it empty. “Who are you?” she asked, suspicion thickening her voice.
Arvin summoned up a smile, even though she couldn’t see it. He needed to keep her talking. She might have seen other cultists-or even Naulg. A warm prickling began at the base of his scalp. “I’m a friend,” he told her. “I followed you and Urus. I thought you could use some help.”
Arvin saw her head tilt as if she were listening to something-a good sign. An instant later, her expression softened. “Thank the gods you came after us,” she gasped. “I told Gonthril that sending just two of us was a bad idea, but he wouldn’t listen.” She tucked the flask back into her pouch and tied it shut.
“I’m glad I found you in time,” Arvin said. Seeing her wet clothes clinging to her almost hipless body and noting that the belt that held her scabbard was much too large for her, he revised his estimate of her age to late teens. She was awfully young to be adventuring down in the sewers. Even with a chaperone.
“I’m glad you found us, too,” she said. Then she shuddered. “Poor Urus. That thing …”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Arvin said. “Have you?”
“No. Whatever it was, I think the cleric was on his way to feed it,” the woman said, a grimace on her face. “If I hadn’t had my father’s sword…” She shuddered again then stared blindly up in Arvin’s general direction. “Have we met?” she asked. “Or are you in a different arm of the Secession?”