«What was that?» I asked.

«That was sorcery, honored-but-slow-on-the-uptake Cavendish. Shekinester's flame burned me clean of Rivi's dust. I have my magic back!»

«What about the others? Have you heard anything about them?»

Wheezle shook his head, but turned to the nagas who'd brought him here. The old female shrugged… or made a motion that would have been a shrug if she'd had shoulders. «No one knows how the Holy Mother will conduct Her tests,» she said. «It may take an hour, it may take a year. I can give no better answer.»

«We don't have a year,» I muttered. «We may not even have an hour. Rivi's taken a long headstart, and she's not one to waste opportunities. Still,» I clapped Wheezle on the back, «you've got magic, and I've got one shining blood of a sword. Why don't we go kick some —»

Suddenly, the air ripped open in front of me, spilling out a stench of sulphur stronger than the vilest pits of Baator. The nagas hissed, Wheezle's hands blazed with eldritch energies, and I whipped my rapier up to attack position.

Obliviously, Hezekiah stepped from the reeking rift. «Hey Britlin,» he said, «see how far I can teleport now?»

I wanted to wait for Yasmin, Hezekiah wanted to wait for Miriam, and surprisingly, Wheezle showed interest in waiting for our alu-friend, November; but we couldn't afford the delay. On another piece of bark, I scratched a note saying that the three of us had gone ahead… and I hoped Shekinester would release our companions in time to read the message.

The young and old naga watched wordlessly as I propped the chunk of bark beside the chapel door. For a moment, I considered asking them to join against our enemies – heaven knew, we could use all the help we could get – but what incentive could I offer? The chance to get shredded by Rivi's wights? Or perhaps the possibility of having their minds enslaved by Rivi herself? The older naga was almost certainly the mother of the young one, and would never put him in danger.

Instead, I simply gestured for the mother to come nearer. She slithered warily across the snow. «If we fail,» I told her in a low voice, «this area may not be safe in future. Sigil's on the other side of that portal, and Sigil may turn ugly. Talk to your people about mounting a guard.»

She stared at me a moment, then nodded. «Try not to fail,» she said.

Then she and her son slid quietly into the woods.

The interior of the chapel was filled with gloomy thickets of shadow, but a few shreds of light still managed to slip through the dirt-crusted windows. A smell of damp rot hovered in the air, coming from the clumps of fungus that fed off the long-unused pews. Here and there along the walls, a spill of white showed where snow had blown in through cracks between the stones; and somewhere close to the front of the sanctuary, a steady drip told of a leak in the roof.

Hezekiah's hand clutched at my sleeve. «November promised this place wasn't haunted, right?»

«Hezekiah,» I said, «correct me if I'm wrong, but you went through a series of tests in the Court of Light, true?»

«I don't want to talk about them,» he muttered.

«But at the end,» I continued, «you must have walked into a pillar of fire, surrounded by several hundred undead of all descriptions. Now you're worried about this little place being haunted?»

The boy cleared his throat uncomfortably. «I wouldn't exactly say I walked into the pillar of fire. I was kind of escorted there.»

«Escorted?»

«Okay, dragged. By three vampires, two ghouls, and this big white thing that kept groaning all the time.»

Wheezle murmured, «An interesting picture to imagine, honored Clueless.»

«Yeah, I screamed so loud, I kind of reduced a banshee to tears. My point is, I'm not feeling very friendly toward the undead right now, so I hope there aren't any hanging their sheets here.»

There didn't seem to be. Apart from a smattering of beetles sluggish from the cold, the chapel showed no sign of occupation by creatures on either side of death. We walked up the central aisle, eyes and ears open for peril, but all was quiet. It felt quiet too: not the least quiver of supernatural menace.

Even in the dark, the soft glow of the portal was hard to see. As November had said, it lay in the doorway between the main sanctuary and a small sacristy at the back; and it occurred to me how piking inconvenient it must have been for the worshippers to have a snake-activated gate right in the middle of their cloister. If a priest had a naga tattoo, a serpent brooch, even a child's creed-school drawing of a pretty python, he'd start walking into his sanctum and get deposited in the middle of Sigil. No wonder this cult had never managed to make a go of itself.

«Where do you think this portal goes?» Hezekiah whispered in the dark.

«The way our luck's been running,» I answered, «it could be the Great Foundry's blast furnace.»

«Correct me if I'm wrong,» Hezekiah said in an annoying tone, «but you must have walked into a pillar of fire surrounded by several hundred undead of all descriptions. Now you're worried about a little blast furnace?»

«Pike it, berk,» I growled; and holding my sketch of the spitting cobra, I stepped through the portal…

…and into a spartan room with mildewed walls and a single barred window. There was no furniture, simply a heap of limp straw piled in front of the window. My nostrils told me the straw had lain there for some time, long enough to begin a rancid decline into rot; and other smells mingled with the sharpness of decay – the thudding aromas of a chamberpot whose slops have gone unemptied for days.

Yet despite the stink of the place, I found myself hushed solemn by the room's one notable sight. Seated serenely on the pile of rotting straw was a venerable female orc, wearing an ornate satin wedding dress. At one time the dress must have cost a hefty sack of jink, for the bodice was stitched with a tasteful display of beadwork and fine embroidery; but age had yellowed the fabric and smeared it with copious smudges of unknown origin.

The old orc woman showed no sign of embarrassment at the state of her gown. Indeed, her face was wreathed in a gentle smile, and her hands folded placidly in her lap, like an unruffled debutante waiting to be asked for a dance. As Wheezle and Hezekiah stepped through the gate behind me, the orc rose to her feet and curtsied smoothly, as if people materialized in her squalid boudoir every day.

«Your majesties,» she said, «I have awaited your coming for some time. Some time. Some time. Have you decided which of you I shall wed?»

Hezekiah nearly jumped back through the portal, but I stopped him in time.

«You are mistaken, honored lady.» Wheezle kowtowed to the orc with grace enough to match her curtsy. «We are not of royal blood, nor are we potential husbands.»

«Ah, you have come incognito,» she smiled. «I find that charming. But I have waited so very long… very long, very long… it has been hard to keep up my spirits through the cruel days and nights. No doubt you were delayed by dragons?»

«Something like that,» I murmured; but my attention was elsewhere, scanning the view out the barred and dirty window. It showed a wide cobblestone street, a few ramshackle hovels, and a queue of people – humanoids and others – waiting somberly in dim twilight before this very building. Something about that queue seemed familiar: young adults standing with writhing children; older adults carrying stretchers where elderly white-hairs lay as still as corpses; men pleading with monsters only they could see, and women cringing as if every sound around them was a needle plunged into their flesh…