«Do you know what the umbrals are up to?» the boy asked.

«I believe they will hold a revel – in honor of negotiations with your group. They will dance, they will sing, they will play the pipes… all to make you feel at home, of course.»

He cracked a wicked smile at Kiripao and Wheezle. The elf quickly spun away to face the Styx, but the gnome simply stared, his face slowly turning ashen. In a strained voice, he finally said, «I do not think I can tolerate any sort of carousal. It might… overwhelm me.»

I knew piking well what he meant. If he and Kiripao were in danger of being assimilated, the last thing they needed was an umbral orgy getting under their skins. Music, dance, perhaps debauchery… even in the absence of magic, those were powerful forces for establishing communal unity; and there would be magic at work too, I didn't doubt that.

In the heart of the village, fire blazed to life in the flame-pit: a fire that burned as scarlet as blood. «Isn't that interesting,» Hezekiah said. «The wood here must have strange alchemical properties to burn such an odd color of red. Uncle Toby would be interested in —»

«Hush!» Wheezle snapped, the sharpest I'd ever heard him speak. That didn't bode well; the strain was already showing on his face.

And then the pipes began to play.

I couldn't see the pipers, let alone the pipes – the flame-pit was fifty paces away, too far to distinguish unmoving umbrals from normal shadows – but my ears were keen enough to identify the instruments as simple unreeded flutes, made from some wood like bamboo or rattan. A trio of the flutes played, weaving together three separate melody lines with a subtle dissonance that made my flesh crawl. Wheezle clapped his hands over his ears and began to whine softly. Kiripao just listened slack-jawed, as if he had lost the ability to move.

«We have to get out of here,» Yasmin whispered to me.

«Don't rush your painting,» Garou snapped. «I'll be very upset at a slapdash job.»

«I'm just about done,» I told him, then turned to Hezekiah. «Can you teleport yet?»

«Sure, I just needed some sleep,» he replied. «What did you have in mind?»

«Jump from here to our hut, gather everyone's packs, then teleport back here.»

«On my way,» he nodded, but Yasmin stopped him with a hand on his arm.

«Is it safe for him to teleport?» she asked me. «Remember the white dust.»

«The dust doesn't affect psionics,» I reminded her. «That's why Rivi wanted the grinders in the first place – the dust stops other people's magic but Rivi's own powers stay intact. Get going, Hezekiah.»

The boy furrowed his brow, then winked out of existence without a sound. «I'll have to learn that someday,» Miriam muttered.

Wheezle began panting. Yasmin wrapped her arms around him and tossed a meaningful look in my direction. I knew what that look meant: finish the painting fast.

Fortunately, I was close to the end. In fact, I'd been dragging things out over the past hour, waiting for the umbrals to slink off to bed. Three minutes would be enough to finish as much as I wanted to; I just hoped we had that much time.

Up at the flame-pit, someone started playing a drum: a soft pattering beat, like raindrops. Wheezle groaned. I dipped my brush into the paint and concentrated on not making mistakes.

Two minutes later, Hezekiah returned with our gear. By then, Yasmin was rocking Wheezle like an infant, while he whimpered, «No… no…» A few paces away, Miriam stood beside Kiripao, ready to wrestle him to the ground if he took one step toward the center of the village; but the elf had not budged, simply blinking at the distant fire and swaying in time with the flutes.

«All right,» I said with a last swipe of the brush, «I'm done. Let's go, Garou.»

«Are you mad?» the boatman asked. «We can't put into the river till the paint dries.»

«The paint is more than a foot above the waterline,» I told him. «It will be perfectly all right if you keep the splashes to a minimum.»

«I shall not be the one to splash,» Garou replied. «Your companions, however, may choose to rock the boat.»

«Miriam,» I said without looking at her, «can you safety-proof our friend Kiripao?»

, «Oof!», , «Oof!», .

«He'll be quiet as a lamb now,» Miriam announced. She and Kiripao would no doubt debate the ethics of sucker-punches when the elf woke up, but that could wait.

«Put him in the boat,» I told her, «and let's get out of here.»

Under Garou's supervision, Hezekiah and Miriam eased the boat into the water, while Yasmin held Wheezle and I packed equipment. «Peel it away,» Wheezle muttered. «Peel away the shell.»

«What's he talking about?» I said.

«Look,» Yasmin replied, nodding toward the fire in the center of the village.

The umbrals had begun to caper around the flames, a dance with slip-sliding shuffles and extravagant leaps through the blood-red fire itself. Back-lit by flames, one fiend stood motionless at the center of the dance, hissing the same words as Wheezle: «Peel it away. Peel away the shell.» Then the umbral reached up to its face, dug its talons into the skin of its cheeks, and raked down with all its strength.

The flesh fell away: ribbons of it, sloughing off in tatters. Beneath was something darker – pure shadow, the blackness that had been visible in the umbrals' hollow eyes. Faster and faster the creature slashed at its skin, ripping away the dross and letting it pile up on the ground. Naked darkness emerged… still shaped like an umbral, but much harder to see, even silhouetted against the flames. The figure seemed to flicker with every move of the fire, blending into the shadows cast by the other dancers.

«Peel it away,» hissed a second umbral. «The shell, the shell…» And its claws sank into its face up to the quick.

«Sod me,» I thought; I was seeing the umbrals' true form for the first time. The bodies they had previously worn were conveniences, garb for everyday. Now they had revealed their genuine selves: shadows of profane blackness, the stuff of nightmares.

«Peel it away,» Wheezle giggled. «Peel away the shell.»

His fat little hands reached up toward his face. I barely caught them in time; a moment later, and he would have raked out his eyes. «We have to get to the boat,» Yasmin shuddered. «Maybe if he can't hear the music…»

It was awkward getting into the skiff, with Yasmin holding Wheezle, and me holding the gnome's hands. The boat rocked precipitously on the greasy waters of the Styx; then Garou plunged his punting pole down to the river bottom to hold the craft steady. «If you've damaged my paint job…» he growled.

«My paint job,» I replied, «and I'll fix it if I have to.» Looking around, I saw Hezekiah and Miriam at the far end of the boat, arranging the unconscious Kiripao into a safe position. «Get us out of here,» I said to Garou, as I struggled to keep Wheezle from clawing his face.

«One last thing,» Garou replied. «You may think of the Lower Planes as a crude and vicious place, but manners are manners.» He held up his head and shouted to the dancing umbrals, «Thanks for your hospitality. We're going now.»

«You berk!» Miriam exploded. She lifted her fist but Hezekiah caught her arm. «You sodding, sodding berk!» she cried at the marraenoloth. «They'll come after us now… and we're sitting ducks out here on the water.»

«That's what we get for making deals with evil,» Yasmin muttered. She snatched up her sword and thrust the point a hair's breadth away from the boatman's face. «Get us out of here, Garou, or I swear you'll die before we do.»

«You have your hands full already,» he sneered, and nodded back toward the flame-pit.

Shadows were speeding toward us; shadows racing on scaled bat wings, vanishing into every pocket of shade beneath the trees as if they were winking out of existence. Their wings rustled like leaves on the clammy air – a hundred umbrals, stripped of their outward flesh, angry to be cheated by our escape.