Guss backed against the stone wall as the fire elemental danced closer and closer. The air in the cavern shimmered, and it felt as if he were inside an oven. Guss had tried to take flight, but he had been brutally buffeted against a wall by an updraft spawned by the roaring heat. He could see no other exits. There was no escape.
The elemental was mesmerizing, even beautiful. He almost thought he could see a lithe figure whirling in the center of the white-hot corona. He supposed it was better this way. It was wrong to live on after all his brethren had passed into stone, but now it would not be much longer. Behind him, the stone wall began to sag. Rivulets of liquid rock dripped downward. Searing pain filled Guss's body as the fire elemental danced nearer. Just a few more moments. Then he would return to the stone that had spawned him. Like the wall, he, too, began to melt
At least it was an adventurous way to go, Corin thought.
With white-knuckled hands he clung to the edge of a precipice. Darkness yawned beneath his feet. Somewhere far, far below he could hear the sound of water, but it was a long way down. His boots scrabbled against the cliff face, but it was no use. The stone was too smooth. He tried to pull himself up, but the darkness seemed to drag him downward. There wasn't enough strength in his arms and what little remained was quickly waning.
At last, his fingers could hold on to the sharp edge no longer. His hands started to slip, then let go. His last thought was of how he wished he'd had a chance to say good-bye to Artek and the others. Then he plunged downward, falling into deep-but not endless-darkness.
Muragh stared at the rising pool of bubbling green liquid.
"Of course you're staring, you ninny," he muttered to himself. "You're a skull. You don't have eyelids. Staring is all you can do."
Even before the emerald fluid touched the old bones of a nameless creature-dissolving them in an instant-Muragh had known it was acid. He had hopped and rolled as far as possible to the edge of the small, circular stone room, but he could go no farther. The acid continued to rise.
"I wonder if it can hurt to die when you're already dead?" he asked himself nervously.
With every second, the edge of the hissing pool drew nearer. It looked as if he was about to find out.
Beckla knew that this was what it was like to go mad.
Countless faces leered at her from the jagged, shardlike mirrors that covered the walls, floor, and ceiling of the chamber-all horribly distorted. Bloated, bloodshot eyes stared at her, and twisted mouths laughed in silent mockery. They were hideous. Yet still more hideous was the knowledge that the faces were her own, each one a broken reflection of her own horrified visage.
Beckla spun dizzily, but in every direction the horrid, shattered faces gazed back at her. Screaming, she sank to the floor, and the sharp-edged mirrors that covered it sliced her knees. She tried shutting her eyes, but that made it even worse, for then she could feel all the loathsome eyes boring into her flesh. She opened her eyes and reeled again. It felt as if at any moment her mind would shatter like the crazed mirrors, breaking into a thousand distorted pieces from which a whole could never again be reconstructed. She had to get out but could see no doorway. Only eyes, mouths, and faces, faces, faces.
Sobbing, she hunched over. As she did, a reflection caught her eye. A thought pierced the growing madness that clutched her brain. Perhaps there was a way after all.
Gargoyle's Gift
Artek stood atop a stone pillar.
He was in a vast, dimly lit hall. A line of freestanding columns stretched in either direction, each perhaps ten paces apart. Like the one Artek stood upon, all ended abruptly, supporting nothing but thin air. If there was a ceiling to this place, it was lost in the gloom above. With his orcish eyes, he could just make out the floor of the hall below. It was writhing. Even without his darkvision he could have guessed the nature of the slithering shadows by the dry hissing that rose on the air-snakes. There were hundreds of them, thousands. And more than a few of them were probably venomous.
Glancing down at the dark tattoo on his forearm, he saw that the sun was nearly touching the arrow now. Dawn was just minutes away. And his death with it.
Artek flinched at a sudden, reverberating boom! There was a long moment of silence, followed by a second crash. Then came another, and another. His jaw fell in grim surprise. It looked as if something else were going to kill him first.
The pillars were falling. Even as he watched, one of the columns farther down the line tilted in his direction and struck the column next to it with a thunderous cracking of stone, causing this column to begin to fall as well. It was a chain reaction-one by one, they were all going to topple.
The tenth column from him began to fall. Then the ninth. He turned, took as much of a running start as the constraining surface allowed, then leapt to the top of the next pillar. Letting his momentum carry him forward, he tensed his legs and sprang to the pinnacle of the next pillar in line. Behind him, the columns continued to topple. The seventh farthest from him fell. Then the sixth. He kept jumping.
His lungs burned with effort. The fourth column behind him crashed to the floor, and then the third. He could not jump fast enough-the columns were gaining on him. A few seconds more and he would crash to the snake-strewn floor below with a thousand tons of stone. Then he saw it hovering in midair just ahead: a glowing square filled with billowing gray mist He blinked in confusion. How could this be?
There was a deafening crash and the stone beneath his feet gave a violent shudder. He fell sprawling to the top of the pillar and nearly went flying over the side. He gripped the edge, hauling himself back up. As he did, the column tilted wildly, then began to trace a smooth, fatal arc toward the floor below. The pillar was falling.
With a desperate cry, Artek sprang up and forward with all of his strength. For a terrified moment, he thought he wasn't going to make it, but then his body broke the surface of the gate, and he fell down into gray emptiness.
As before, his body seemed to dissolve away. He had no substance, no flesh-only a naked, quivering consciousness to be flayed raw by the bitter cold. Thankfully, the horrible sensation lasted only a second. There was a flash. The reek of lightning filled his nostrils, and he fell hard to a stone floor. Groaning, he pulled himself to his feet,
A trio of trolls stood before him.
They reached out with long arms, baring countless filthy, pointy teeth. With a cry of alarm, Artek fumbled for the cursed saber at his hip and drew it with a ring of steel. He did not wait for the trolls to attack first. He swung the saber, striking the arm of one of the creatures. The limb snapped with a brittle sound and fell to the floor. The troll did not so much as blink. Its companions were equally still. Artek stared in puzzlement.
Cautiously, he approached the creatures, tapping one with his saber. It tottered, then fell backward. As it struck the floor, it shattered.
Clay, Artek realized in amazement. The trolls were made of clay. The cursed saber did not compel him to attack the harmless figures. As he stared down at the broken monster, he noticed that the floor looked odd. He scratched the stones with the point of the saber, and a thick line of gray curled up, revealing brown wood below. It was paint. What was going on here?
Before Artek could think of an answer, there was a sizzling sound as a gate appeared in the air above. A form dropped through, landing on the floor with a soft oof! It was Beckla. He quickly helped the wizard to her feet as the gate flashed into nonexistence. The wizard's brown eyes were wide and staring, almost mad. At last she shuddered and looked at Artek.