Eventually Wesk whispered the obvious, "If all those slaves were ever here, they aren't anymore."
"They must be," Bareris said, not because he truly disagreed, but because he couldn't bear to endorse the gnoll's conclusion.
"Do you want to wake somebody and ask him?"
The bard shook his head. "Not unless he's a mage. Any soldier would likely just go into convulsions like our orc. It's not worth the risk of rousing the lot of them, at least not until we've searched the entire place."
They prowled onward, looking for something, anything, to suggest an answer to the riddle of the missing thralls' whereabouts. In time they found their way to a large and shadowy chamber at the center of the temple. Once, judging from the raised altar, the colossal statue of Horus-Re enthroned behind it, and faded paintings depicting his birth and deeds adoring the walls, the chamber had been the hawk god's sanctum sanctorum. More recently, someone had erected a freestanding basket arch in the middle of the floor, its pale smooth curves a contrast to the brown, crumbling stonework on every side. When Bareris spotted it, he caught his breath in surprise.
"What?" whispered Wesk, twisting his head this way and that, looking for danger.
"The arch is a portal," Bareris said, "a magical doorway linking this place to some other far away. I saw one during my travels and recognize the rune carved on the keystone."
"Then we know what became of your female," said Wesk.
"Apparently, but what sense does it make? If the Red Wizards want to do something in private, what haven is more private than Delhumide? No one comes here. Conversely, why bother with this dangerous place at all, if you're only using it as a stepping stone to somewhere else?"
Wesk shrugged. "Maybe we'll find out on the other side."
"Hold on," Thovarr said.
Bareris assumed he meant to point out the recklessness of walking through the gate when they had no idea where it led or what waited beyond, but before the gnoll could get going, a scarlet-robed figure stepped into view through a doorway midway up the left wall. At first, the wizard didn't notice the intruders, and Thovarr had the presence of mind to fall silent. Wesk laid an arrow on his bow.
But as he drew it to his ear, the mage glimpsed the intruders from the corner of his eye, or sensed their presence somehow. He was wise enough not to waste breath and time crying for help that would surely arrive too late to save him, nor did he attempt to scramble back through the doorway as Bareris might have done. Perhaps the space he'd just vacated had only the one exit, and he didn't want to trap himself.
Instead he flourished his hand, and the black ring on his thumb left a streak of shadow on the air. Each gripping a great-sword, four pairs of skeletal arms erupted from the band. They emerged tiny but swelled to full size in a heartbeat.
They were an uncanny sight to behold, and even Wesk faltered for an instant. The Red Wizard snarled words of power, and the bony arms flew at the gnoll and his companions. Ignoring the imminent threat of the greatswords, Wesk shot an arrow at the mage, unfortunately not quickly enough to keep the warlock from finishing his incantation. A floating disk of blue phosphorescence shimmered into being in front of him, and the arrow stuck in that instead, just as if it were a tangible wooden shield.
Then the disembodied arms hurtled into the distance and started cutting with their long, heavy blades. The intruders had the advantage of numbers, but even so, Bareris realized the wizard's protectors would be difficult to defeat. The only way to stop them or even slow them down was to hit hard and square enough to cleave a length of bone entirely in two, and they flitted through the air so nimbly that it was a challenge to land a stroke at all.
But the necromancer was an even greater threat, and Bareris didn't dare leave him to conjure unmolested. He stepped between a set of skeletal arms and Wesk, ducked a cut, and riposted, buying the gnoll chieftain the moment he needed to drop his bow and ready his axe. After that, though, the bard extricated himself from the whirl of blades and charged the mage who, the translucent, arrow-pierced disk still hovering between him and his foes, the skirt of his robe flapping around his legs, was himself sprinting toward the white stone archway. Apparently he believed safety, or at least help, awaited him on the other side.
Bareris was too far away to cut him off. He sang a charm so rapidly that he feared botching the precise rhythm and pitch required, but he didn't have the option of taking his time.
Magic groaned through the air, and the section of floor under the Red Wizard's feet bucked as though an earthquake had begun. The vibration knocked the mage staggering then dumped him on his rump. Bareris dashed on, closing in on the warlock while likewise interposing himself between his foe and the portal.
The Red Wizard thrust out his arm. A glyph tattooed on the back of his hand leaped free of his skin and became a hand itself, levitating and seemingly formed of shadow. It bobbed over the top of the floating shield, then streaked at Bareris.
The bard tried to dodge, but the hand grabbed him by the shoulder anyway. Agony stabbed outward from the point of contact to afflict his entire body.
It was the fiercest pain he'd ever experienced, severe enough to blind and paralyze, which was no doubt the object. Evidently still intent on reaching the gate, but looking to finish off his adversary as well, the necromancer simultaneously circled in the appropriate direction and hissed sibilant rhyming phrases.
The pain is in my mind, Bareris insisted to himself, and I can push it out. He struggled to straighten up, turn in the mage's direction, and lift his sword once more. For a heartbeat, it was impossible, and then the bonds of torment constraining him ripped like a sheet of parchment tearing in two.
He spun around. His eyes widening, the necromancer appeared startled, but the floating shield automatically shifted to defend its creator as thoroughly as possible. Bareris poised himself as if he meant to dart to the right then dodged left instead. That fooled the shield and brought him within striking distance of the wizard. He drove his point into the other man's chest. The enchanter fell back with his final incantation uncompleted.
Bareris studied the mage for another moment, making sure their duel was truly over, then pivoted to survey the rest of the battle. Two of the gnolls were down, but with a final chop of his axe, Thovarr was reducing the last of the disembodied arms to inert splinters of bone.
His allies' success gave Bareris the opportunity to contemplate the enormity of what he'd done, or the seeming enormity. He'd earned a death by torture the moment he'd lifted his hand to So-Kehur and his skull-masked partner, so in practical terms, it shouldn't matter that he'd now killed a Red Wizard outright.
Yet it gave him pause. The eight orders taught every person and certainly every pauper in Thay to think of their members as superior, invincible beings, and though Bareris's experiences abroad had given him ample reason to feel confident of his own prowess, perhaps a part of him still believed the myth and was accordingly appalled at his temerity, but then a surge of satisfaction washed his trepidation away. After all, these were the bastards who'd taken Tammith away from him, and this particular specimen didn't look so exalted or omnipotent anymore, did he?
Wesk trotted up to him, bow in hand once more. He had a cut on his forearm where a greatsword must have grazed him, but he wasn't paying it any mind.