Parth raised a hand to halt the rest of the patrol and remained where he was. "Open it."
"This place was built by elves," she said. "It'll be trapped, and I don't have the word of passing."
Parth shrugged and did not come out from behind his column. "That is what scouts are for." He paused, then said, "Unless you would rather contact Prince Escanor and tell him where your friends are?"
Vala glared daggers at him. "One of you must have a spell for disarming traps."
"Of course-we are a reconnaissance patrol," Parth said. "Which means we should be locating phaerimm, not assaulting them. If you will just contact the prince, I am sure we will all live longer. Until then, I am afraid I must insist that you perform your duties."
A muffled thump sounded in the darkness somewhere behind Parth, then a strangled voice cried out in alarm. There was the sharp crack of a dark blade slicing through a thick carapace, followed by a sort of buzzing snarl and a wet crunch. Vala glimpsed a handful of Shadovar slipping through the columns toward the struggle, but the sounds died away almost as quickly as they started, and the warriors arrived too late to help their comrade.
"Balpor," someone announced. "Gone, except for his head and one arm."
It was the patrol's fifth casualty, and they had not even seen a phaerimm. Vala felt a sudden chill. Though the sensation seemed likely to be her own reaction to another casualty, she took the precaution of glancing around the immediate area to make certain nothing was creeping up on her. She thought she glimpsed a gray figure slipping behind the pillar where the latch was hidden but found only empty darkness when she stepped around the other side. "What is it?" Parth called.
"My imagination," Vala answered. "Still want me to open that door?"
"Unless you've changed your mind about telling the prince what he wishes to know," he replied.
"Sorry." Vala dropped to her haunches and slipped the tip of her dagger into the crack where the latch was hidden. "Listen, if this goes bad for me, send word to Sheldon that I died for my word." "Sheldon?" "My son," Vala said.
"Ah… that would not be necessary, if only you would-"
"Can't do it," Vala interrupted. She had to suppress a shiver. The chill she had experienced earlier just wouldn't go away. "One more thing-if this leads to a treasury instead of a phaerimm lair, don't touch anything. There's nothing elves hate more than artifact thieves." "Thank you for the warning," Parth replied.
"I wasn't thinking of you," Vala said, "but you know how fond I am of elves."
She took a deep breath, then, stretching her arm as far as she could, crouched down around the side of the pillar and flicked the latch. Eltargrim.
So softly came the word that Vala was not even sure she had heard it She spun on her heels and saw nothing behind her, but the chill remained. If anything, the cold felt deeper than before, though perhaps only because of the icy sweat running down her chest and sides. "Vala?" Parth sounded as frightened as she was. "Still here," she said. "Watch yourselves."
Vala rose slowly and went to the column. Half-expecting the Shadovar to tell her to wait for him to send someone forward to check for traps, she took a deep breath, then gave it the gentlest of pushes. The entire shaft swung aside, revealing a narrow staircase spiraling down into the darkness beneath its false base. When no clouds of poison gas came billowing out, she waved the tip of her darksword around the entrance to check for motion activated traps, then pushed down on the first stair. Nothing happened. "Well?" Parth called.
"No traps so far," she reported, "and no cobwebs. Something comes down here, and it doesn't leave tracks."
The Shadovar stepped out from behind his hiding place and motioned her down the staircase. "We're right behind you." "Sure you are," Vala muttered.
Deciding Parth and his comrades deserved no warning about the gray figure she might or might not have glimpsed and the whispered word she might or might not have heard, Vala crouched on her heels and dropped to the fifth step down.
The steps continued to spiral downward through another ten feet of solid stone, then opened up into a grand corridor running parallel to the base of the stairs. By crouching on her heels and craning her neck, Vala could look far enough up the passage to see a series of arched doorways opening off to either side at irregular intervals, but the magic of her darksword did not allow her to see all the way to the end of the hallway. When nothing came charging up the stairs to meet her, she descended the first ten feet in two quick bounds, braced her hand on the banister, and leaped into the corridor facing the opposite direction she had been descending.
Vala found herself facing a large round silhouette with a wriggling crown of bulbous-ended tentacles. She had just enough time to recognize the silhouette as that of a large beholder before several eyestalks began to swing in her direction. Leaping into a foot-first slide underneath the thing, she flipped her darksword toward its huge central eye and grabbed for her dagger.
Vala hit the floor at about the same time her darksword found its mark-though, without the weapon in her hand, she could no longer see in the dark and knew that she'd hit the beholder only by the bloodcurdling screech that echoed down the corridor. She was showered in warm gore as she slid under the still-floating eye tyrant. Knowing better than to think even a perfect slash to the central eye could kill a monster this big, she reached up and caught the bottom of the cut with her free hand, then jerked its wounded side to the floor and smashed it into the stone. At the same time, she was bringing her dagger up behind it, driving the steel blade through its thick skull once, twice, half a dozen times, until the trapped beholder finally collapsed in a limp heap atop the arm that had been holding it pinned to the floor. Vala pushed the thing aside.
"Vala?" Parth called down the stairs, then more loudly, "Vala?" "No such luck, Parth," she yelled back. "Still here."
A deep rumble reverberated through the ceiling as the secret pillar was pushed back over the stairwell. "Coward," Vala muttered.
She extended her arm to call the sword back but felt its hilt under her knuckles already. Counting herself lucky she had not found the blade instead, she rolled to her knees and took the weapon in hand-and, once she could see in the darkness again, found herself looking into a huge, toothy mouth surrounded by four arms. Even at this unfortunate angle, she recognized it instantly as a large phaerimm. "Tempus give me strength!" she gasped.
Why pray to Tempus, my dear? I am your god now. The raspy voice came to Vala inside her head, not like the single whispered Eltargrim she had thought she heard earlier but definitely inside her thoughts. Set aside your sword, and we will talk.
Vala gathered her legs beneath her and sprang to her feet-then found herself rolling head over heels down the dark corridor.
What don't you understand, human? the voice demanded. Put down your weapon.
Showing no fear of the darksword whatsoever, the phaerimm continued to come down the corridor, two of its four arms pointing at the mossy floor. Puzzled by the thing's strange behavior, Vala wavered between doing as it ordered and throwing her sword at it-though she felt sure it was ready with magic to bat the weapon out of the air the instant it left her hand.
She made no move to do either, and the phaerimm stopped just beyond her sword's reach. Obey!
Parth's muffled voice began to reverberate down the stairwell, demanding explanations and shouting threats about what would happen if she didn't open the doorand suddenly Vala understood. The phaerimm did not want to kill her. It had trapped her alone, believing that it could turn her into one of its mind-slaves-but Vala's helmet protected her against that.