Ususi checked the fragment, then started searching the obelisk for matching symbols. The tablet chip, which Ususi thought of as a reference list, was something she'd unearthed about six months earlier in a crumbling spire in southern Mulhorand. Since then, it had proved invaluable. The wizard located the runes she sought, the ones matching those on her list. She pressed each one on the obelisk, hoping the order was correct. The ground shuddered and the dust of centuries rained down from the ceiling. The inscribed runes she'd activated lit up with brilliant blue light. Ususi stepped back, poised to flee in case she'd guessed incorrectly. Another shudder accompanied a familiar grating sound of stone on stone, and the obelisk slowly slid upward. A hiss of equalizing air blew a spray of milky dust in all directions.

When it settled, a smooth-sided shaft angling steeply into the earth was revealed. A narrow stairway was chiseled into the side of the shaft, descending in tight loops out of the reach of Ususi's light.

Demonic sculptures squatted at the head of the stair, one on each side of the shaft, their claws raised threateningly but immovably. Ususi stood her ground for a hundred heartbeats, waiting to see if any summoned guardians or ancient counter-measures against intrusion would be deployed. Time trickled past and, as far as she could sense, her way remained clear. After another similar span of time, she stuffed the pale purple shard back into her pack, handed the pack to her uskura, and started down the newly revealed stairs.

Warian Datharathi studied his hand. With just three cards, his choices were few-a three of silver, an eight of silver, and a Bahamut.

A six of silver he'd just revealed lay on the table; a three of black and a four of white, which his two remaining opponents had simultaneously played, lay next to his card. The hand had gone around the table once, and one card lay before each player. Everyone would have two more chances to lay down a card, until each showed three cards. Shem said, "I'll take this," and pulled a couple of coins from the pile at the center of the table. Warian frowned. He'd forfeited the activation of his first card by playing a higher value card than either of his opponents. Shem, who'd played the lowest card, a three-point black dragon, was able to take money out of the stakes.

Black dragons were thieves in cards as well as in life. Warian's turn again. Warian slapped his eight of silver down on the table. Since he got to play first this time, his card was automatically the lowest value; its ability activated. Everyone with a good dragon in their flight got to draw another card. He grinned and drew a card from the shuffle deck. Silvers were moral paragons, after all. Next came Shem, who played seven of black. Shem got to steal a couple more coins from the stakes. Warian stifled a groan. He was already possessive over the pile of coins-he was certain he'd win them and didn't want to see their value leak away. Yasha played a ten of red. The card was too high to use, but Yasha's total score of fourteen between his two cards was respectable. But the hand would be won by whomever showed the highest total after each had played three cards. Such were the rules of the tavern game Three Dragon Ante. It was one of Warian's favorite games. Like many such games, Three Dragon Ante required a financial contribution to the stakes before each hand was played. Warian found that he could win the stakes more often than not, even when pitted against experienced players, as long as he didn't overdo it. If he stayed at a table, a tavern, or even in a particular town for too long, stories of his "luck" tended to spread, and the locals started taking a dislike to his winning ways. "Hey, Glass-arm! Did you bathe today? You smell like an outhouse!" Tentative snickers bloomed around the bar. Warian glanced away from his game, even though he recognized that grating voice: his local nemesis, Bui the Hog. The big woman was a sore loser who'd gone too far into debt to continue playing for the evening. "Too long in one place" may have already snuck up on him, Warian realized. Warian's right hand, his glass arm, tightened its grip on his cards. Not glass-crystal. His prosthesis was a wonder, no argument there. It almost accorded him the mobility and agility of his natural limb. But it also marked him as different. The arm and his gambling prowess were a combination that sometimes worked to his disadvantage among strangers. Warian waited for Yasha to play a third card. Warian knew that his smartest move would be to make a joke, fold, and leave. The signs were all present-the bantering could easily turn ugly-ugly, as in physical. Bui was a lot of things, but "opposed to violence" was not on that list. But Warian wanted to play his Bahamut. Since he'd played a middle-value card for his opener and second card, letting the advantage temporarily shift away from him, he knew he would win this hand with his last card, unless one of his opponents was holding a thirteen-point dragon scion, just like Warian.

The stakes stood at one hundred sixty gold. That amount would go a long way toward seeing him to the next town along the trade road-maybe all the way to the city of Delzimmer, which bordered Eastern Shaar. He wouldn't mind leaving Crinti-controlled Dambrath behind. "I asked you a question," Bui's voice blared. More laughter, less restrained this time, chased the heels of the woman's taunt. Studiously ignoring the provocation, Warian merely looked at Shem and Yasha, saying, "Let's finish this hand and call it. What do you say?" Shem nodded, but Yasha the Weasel folded his cards and put them down. "No," said Yasha. "Why don't you answer Bui's question first? I can't concentrate with her yelling." Yasha smiled a knowing smile. Warian tensed. He had one chance to deflect the gathering attention onto Bui. If he could make her look a fool, perhaps the rest would just laugh her down. "She's loud, isn't she?" Warian asked. "Not so loud as when she lost her stake to me a little while ago. But…" "Hey!" boomed Bui, closer now.

Too close. "Guess she had enough copper wedges in her pockets to pickle herself in ale. By what I can smell," continued Warian, "she forgot how to find the outhouse to let it back out." While he spoke, he scooped his stake into an open pouch, wistfully eyeing the unclaimed pot. "She must be smelling herself." A few patrons laughed … but not enough. Warian understood he'd miscalculated. "Why, I'll.

..!" The sound of something breaking heralded Bui's furious approach.

That woman must have some orc blood in her, Warian mused ruefully.

That, or she was a berserker from the north. Either way, time to run.

Warian put his cards down on the table, stood, and whirled. He'd left his sword up in his room, peace-tied in its sheath. It looked like he'd be kissing that, and whatever else he'd left up there, good-bye.

Rough hands grabbed him from behind before he could make good his escape. Yasha's voice purred in his ear. "Stand still, outlander.

This'll go easier if you don't make a fuss." Yasha's laugh revealed his words for the lies they were. Catcalls and more laughter answered from the room at large. Just over a dozen customers patronized the inn, none of whom seemed the least bit concerned about Warian's situation. That he'd failed to gauge the growing dislike for himself was a surprise. Warian fancied himself a skilled diviner of others' intentions-after all, he relied on the same skill to excel at his games. Bui reached him, her face red with anger, and her right hand gripping a broken chair leg. Things had gone much further than they should have. Warian regretted his jibes all the more-they had spectacularly backfired. "Bui, I'm prepared to return everything I won from you," stammered Warian, fear threatening to break his normally cool demeanor. "Damn right you will… after I smash that glass arm into splinters!" Bui screamed in his face. She was drunk on beer and fury. Reasonable talk died a whimpering death, a casualty of the dire situation. He shifted his weight and ground his heel on Yasha's toe, simultaneously shrugging his arms free of the man's ungentle grip. Bui brought down the chair leg in a brutal snap. Despite his arm's imperfect control and slow response to his desires, he managed to wrench his prosthesis up to block her blow. His artificial arm was crystal, far tougher than glass-Datharathi crystal, mined by his own family and enchanted to move almost like a regular arm. Datharathi crystal, so enchanted, was stronger than bone and sinew. The chair leg struck the translucent, violet-tinged crystal with a sick thud. The painful jolt traveled up Warian's crystalline arm into his living flesh. His mind noticed a haze of darkness spiraling through the center of his artificial limb. He'd never seen that before… One of Yasha's arms snaked from behind, encircling Warian's neck, the man's elbow crooked below Warian's chin. With the counter pressure applied from Yasha's other arm on the back of Warian's head, the supply of blood to his head was instantly restricted. Yasha was trying to choke Warian out. At the very moment Yasha began to exert pressure, Warian's eyes bulged, and his head felt as if it had swelled to half again its normal size in only two or three heartbeats. Black spots swam before him. The effect shocked him as much from its suddenness as its unpleasantness. Alarm skirled through Warian. He struggled in Yasha's grip. His flesh-and-blood arm, quicker, more precise, and stronger than his prosthesis, flailed ineffectually. He tried to claw at Yasha, but he could barely think. Yasha's deadly threat was more than a bluff. He must have had considerable practice choking people to apply the hold so quickly. If Warian didn't pass out first, he was in for the beating of his life. Darkness beat in on all sides as his vision began to fail. Blackness crept into the edges of his vision-dark and swirling, like that he'd just seen tendriling through the interior of his arm. He concentrated all of his faltering will on pushing the darkness away. Warian's crystal arm flared with amethyst brilliance.