“Why don’t we ask Karleah? She knows this place better than we do. She could probably find a place for us to stay that isn’t quite so … exposed,” Braddoc suggested.
Brisbois shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea just yet. The old woman seems engrossed in whatever she’s doing.”
“For once I agree with you,” Jo said. “And I hate to say it, but you are right about us getting out of the open.”
The squire looked over her shoulder to the inmoving form of the old woman. “We might be here a little while.”
“Then let’s start now,” Brisbois said, rising and dusting himself off again. “You keep guard over Karleah and Dayin while Braddoc and I go off to find someplace to hole up.”
Jo was about ready to agree with the proposal when a voice in her head said, Don’t let him have the upper hand. If he chooses the place where you’ll camp, he’ll know it better than you. But neither did she trust him to guard Dayin and Karleah. Jo made an angry cutting motion with her hand. “You’re staying near me, bondsman! Braddoc will post guard and you and I will find better cover.”
Brisbois turned to Braddoc and shrugged. The dwarf made no reply as he leaned on his axe. “Fine by me.”
Jo turned to Brisbois, who stood waiting, sword hand on the pommel of his weapon. The young squire made a commanding gesture, and the two headed off into darksome Armstead.
As Karleah forced her will upon the amber crystal, she felt it press into her palms, cutting through the flesh. And there was blood. For the first time since she had taken the true abelaat stone from its pouch, she broke contact, letting it drop to the ground beside the other crystals.
“It’s this damn box, sapping the stone’s power,” she said to herself as she stared at her hands. The blood was running faster than she had expected. Karleah blinked and wiped away what she could. She stared at her new cuts with annoyance, not wanting to cease her efforts to divine the abaton’s weakness. But the lines of blood slowly spreading down her arms convinced her to bandage the wounds. She shook her head, grasped the hem of her robe, and began to rip off strips of it.
As she applied the crude bandages to her hands, Karleah glanced up toward the campfire at the top of the amphitheater. Her eyes widened when she saw that there was nobody by the still-burning blaze except the sleeping boy and the dwarf.
“How goes the magical folderol?” Braddoc shouted down to her.
“Fine,” she lied, tying off one of the bandages. “Where are the others?”
“Went to … explore,” Braddoc replied.
That seemed a bad idea to the old witch, and Braddoc apparently sensed her uneasiness.
“Do you want me to try to stop them?”
A smile formed on the crone’s lips. Despite their bickering, she and Braddoc were growing psychically sensitive to one another. “Yes.”
Nodding, the dwarf tromped off into the darkness. Karleah peered nervously after him, noting once again the still form of Dayin. In the flickering light of the campfire, he seemed as dead as the buildings of Armstead. He had been despondent since Threshold. The news of his fathers heritage, of his own abelaat bloodline, must have crushed the boy, Karleah reflected.
“And no wonder,” she whispered to herself, continuing to stare at the boy’s dark form. “He now knows more about himself than he ever needed to know.”
She turned back toward the box, and only then realized with horror what she had done. The true abelaat stone had left her grasp, had left contact with her flesh. Its protection of her had ended.
She groped about on the ground, but the stone was gone. Looking up, she saw with fear that the abaton’s lid was slowly cracking open.
And the blackness within it was enormous.
She couldn’t scream, feeling the life force already draining from her body. She couldn’t move, her body seeming hollow, like a stone statue, imprisoning her soul. And, though she knew the box’s lid was only open a fraction of an inch, she felt as though she were staring into eternity.
She saw everything, and nothing. She saw fireballs as big as Mystara itself, as big as a thousand worlds, hurling in reckless courses at speeds unimaginable. She saw nations spread like lichen across a barren rock, breaking it down into sand and soil. She saw worms boring through the bodies of the dead. She saw the color of pain and the shape of screaming. But, worst of all, in the roaring rush she saw the purpose of the evil abaton—she saw what Auroch would do.
“He’s coming back for Dayin!” she hissed through lips no longer her own. She struggled to rise, but the box dragged her stony body forward. Her head struck its coal-black side and bone shattered like glass in her mind. Then Karleah saw another vision, a vision of Teryl Auroch coming down from the skies and taking Dayin into the abaton, back to the world of the abelaat.
Dayin—run! she struggled to say, but her body slid off her, like a robe of silk slides from the shoulders of a young woman. And then, solid and black and heavy as the sun, oblivion embraced her.
Jo and Brisbois cautiously picked their way through the catacombs beneath Armstead. They formed a vast network of naturally and magically carved caves that honeycombed the bedrock of the village. If Jo’s guess was right, the catacombs connected every site in Armstead, including the amphitheater. Finding the trunk that led to the amphitheater would allow them an excellent hiding place, and a post from which to guard the abaton.
As the two carefully made their way through the passages, Jo held up a small lamp she had found among the wreckage. The flickering glow of the lamp seemed to make the caves jitter and sway, and it cast evil shadows over Brisbois’s grinning face.
“I told you we could turn up something worthwhile, if we only looked,” Brisbois said, stepping carefully over a fallen column of stone.
“All we’ve found yet is ruin and corpses,” replied Jo. Although she knew Brisbois was right, she couldn’t bring herself to admit it to him. Peering ahead, Jo mentally retraced their steps, hoping they were still heading toward the amphitheater. The passage ahead narrowed, and cracks in the stone walls showed that the ground had shifted in the blast. “I think the connecting passage will be just after this section.”
“Lead on,” Brisbois replied with a leering, self-satisfied smile.
Jo pursed her lips, declining comment. She stepped cautiously into the tight corridor, leaning to avoid the dark jags of rough stone that protruded from one wall. Brisbois followed close after, too close, in Jo’s opinion. She could feel his hot breath on her back, and his hand occasionally brushed her side.
She turned in the tight space and scowled at Brisbois. “Back off, bondsman,” she said, intentionally lifting the lantern close to his face.
The man didn’t wince, a lascivious light in his eyes. He nodded, his gaze tracing out the ash-smudged contours of her chest and hips.
Jo’s eyes narrowed. She set a hand on his shoulder and pushed him backward. “Keep your mind on your duty, soldier.” Pivoting, she continued into the passage. She raised the lantern and turned sideways to squeeze between two boulders. As she worked one leg past the encroaching stone, she could feel his eyes still on her.
“I know now why Flinn fell in love with you, Jo,” Brisbois said luridly, “why he wanted you.”
A sharp retort died on Jo’s tongue as the caves shifted violently around her. The lantern dropped from her hand, and, with a shattering of glass, the flame guttered and almost went out. Jo frantically tried to pull her foot free from the boulders. But, in the shuddering darkness, she couldn’t find a handhold. Dirt fell from the ceiling in a choking cloud and billowed out through the passage.
“Brisbois?” Jo shouted, anger and fear and alarm mixing in her voice.
For one awful moment, she felt him, his body pressed next to hers, his hands groping along her sides, his lips rubbing hungrily against hers. She broke away, drawing a breath to scream, but a burning, biting vapor filled her lungs, and she spasmed with coughing.