A pointed piece of roof had fallen like a titan's dagger to destroy one end of the coffin, pinning Valorn's skeleton to the floor. All that could be seen were its bony arms clawing the air futilely, the great wedge of roof lying between them like a replacement coffin lid.
Tantaerra was hurled into the air, amid vials whole and broken. She crashed back down into what was left of the coffin, now a mess of vial shards and a thick, glowing, pulsing goo. Through this latter she slid helplessly, down one inner side of the coffin and up the other, getting a huge dollop of goo up her nose and down her throat during that slippery journey.
Tingling began within her, and the gloomy chamber around her went misty, dweomercat snarls fading to mere squeaks. The hollow clinks and rattles of the vials moving around her in the coffin were muted, and even the grating squeals of fingerbones on the coffin, as the skeleton scrabbled to climb back in, became brief and faint sounds.
What, by all the gods-?
The tingling was now a burning inside her. A warm rising pleasure, roiling through Tantaerra, making her very blood sing. Her body was stirring, arms and legs twitching, wordless song bursting out of her as she rose to stand, swaying like the skeleton had, reaching for she knew not what, but …
Tantaerra fought to concentrate, to govern her exulting, dancing body. She tried to bend and snatch up a handy vial, but her hands went right through it-ghostly, translucent hands that thrust through the solid sides of the coffin as if nothing was there.
The skeleton could still see her, and so could several springing, snarling dweomercats, but their raking bones and fangs went right through her …and Tantaerra's body went right through them. And through the vials, and the solid walls of the coffin, drifting wherever she thought about going.
Which in her initial startlement was through one side of the coffin to the floor of what was obviously a mausoleum.
She could see through herself as she thrashed about, trying to stand on a floor she was sinking through.
Up, she demanded fiercely, trying to shout but managing only gusty silence. Up.
And up she rose, drifting higher-but glowing now, too, as brightly as a good strong fire, flickering and writhing as she got higher.
And larger.
Tantaerra blinked down at herself. She was still a halfling-a ghostly halfling, her body like empty, glowing smoke-but she was now the biggest, tallest halfling she'd ever seen. Twice as tall as The Masked, and getting taller.
Though she could feel nothing at all, and apparently say nothing anyone could hear. Pouncing and leaping dweomercats sprang right through her, frightening and enraging their tail-switching, agitated fellows. They fled, first one or two and then all of them, rushing away as swiftly as they'd first swarmed into view when she and The Masked had arrived in overgrown Hurlandrun.
Tantaerra watched them go as she continued to ascend, growing more slowly now, up …up …and past the roof.
As her head and shoulders rose through the hole where the roof had collapsed, Tantaerra flung up one ghostly hand.
Through her phantom fingers she saw The Masked and Voyvik fighting, rolling around together on what little was left of the rooftop, punching each other, grappling and clawing. Barehanded, their knives gone, their faces twisted with effort and anger, snarling as they rolled over, saw her-and gaped in astonishment.
Tantaerra gave The Masked a wide and embarrassed grin, and a little wave-and was pleased to see that Tarram recovered from his surprise a moment earlier than Voyvik, and managed to land a good, hard punch to the crazed Nirmathi's throat, driving Voyvik into self-clutching agony.
She willed herself to join her partner, and drifted closer to the two entwined men.
Tarram tried to kick himself free and reach for her-but those kicks made small chunks of roof break free of the edge, right under him, to crash down on the spires and catafalques below. He had to catch at the roof edge frantically and cling with all his white-knuckled might to keep from plunging headfirst after them. Voyvik, still lost in pain, launched a feeble kick at The Masked's backside.
"No!" Tantaerra shrieked at Tarram in warning, but nothing at all came out of her mouth. The tingling became almost a buzzing, between her ears, and suddenly she was-
Halfway across the nearest overgrown street of ruined Hurlandrun, just like that. And about the height of four or five tall men above the ground, gaping down at dweomercats who looked just as astonished to see her as she felt, finding herself in midair above them.
Then, just as abruptly, she was somewhere else, somewhere dark and dank and enclosed in moldy stone, a room in a building whose floor was studded with mushrooms and rivulets of lazily running water.
A room that went from dark to an eerie rosy and then a bright, pulsing, lurid pink glow in a flaring instant-a glow Tantaerra realized with some horror was coming from herself.
Her still-translucent, floating, insubstantial self.
Abruptly she was outside again, still aglow, this time hard by a dark curve of stone that she recognized as the sturdier half of what was probably the Shattered Tomb. She tried to will herself around it to where she might be able to look down in and see its interior, and started to drift in that direction, but was snatched away again by the wayward magic roiling inside her-back to the mausoleum, but at the far and gloomy end of it from the riven coffin and the gap in the roof, where dweomercats were perched on catafalques looking toward the light.
Until they saw her: pulsing bright pink in midair not all that far from their noses, a ghostly and irritated halfling who suddenly swooped away from a swiping dweomercat claw, looked astonished as she raced upward again to hover in the air well out of reach of all unenergetic cat attacks …and started to grow fur.
Pink fur, of course.
Fur that even as she gazed at it and tried to wipe it away-with a hand that felt nothing and plunged right through her ghostly arm-burst into flames, flames that started pink but turned a deep, rich royal blue, fire that warmed her not in the slightest but scorched her newfound fur into acrid smoke that set her to sneezing as the world blinked around her again and left her high above Hurlandrun.
Not that she had time to get used to the view.
Even as she started to swoop and fly in loops in the air, just to see if she could, and the pink glow started to fade to feeble sputtering white, one last teleport took Tantaerra to just above the half-roofless mausoleum again, her current loop through the air almost becoming a spectacular collision with the roof.
Tantaerra groaned and shut her eyes, curling her arms around herself tightly, just trying to hold her wounds together, hoping this would end.
The glow was gone entirely now, and the fur was fading, taking its flames with it. Then Tantaerra struck something that sent her tumbling through the air like a child's ball-which meant she must be getting solid again!
She was falling now, not flying, that magical effect fled, and …
Crashing down into vials and slippery goo. She was back in the ruined coffin! There were unbroken vials under her as she kicked and flailed and slid, catching a glimpse of the healer's skeleton still struggling to lift the massive piece of roof it was trapped under.
At last she managed to claw herself up onto her hands and knees. At the far end of the crypt, a row of dweomercats stood gazing at her, all of them looking mightily impressed. Then they exploded into action, racing along coffins, trying to get at her.
Tantaerra clawed up a slimy handful of vials, bit one open, and tossed down its contents.
The taste was a little like spiced fruit, nothing she'd ever known before, and she was suddenly flying again.
She soared up out of the mausoleum, blinking in surprise-and out of the corner of one eye caught a glimpse of Voyvik in his brawl with Tarram.