The skull was gone. At last.

She was free.

Cavatina waited impatiently as Khorl cast his spell. A mirror of polished silver hung on one wall, enlarged by magic from a brooch the wizard had unpinned from his piwafwi. Khorl peered into it intently, oblivious to the harsh glare of the reflected Faerzress. The blue glow was painfully bright. Cavatina squinted, yet it still hurt her eyes. Backlit by its glare, Khorl's head and shoulders were a dark silhouette.

"Can you see anything?" she asked. "Mazeer told Qilue she'd found the way to the Acropolis. She mentioned a fissure in the rock."

"And a skull," Eldrinn added. "You said she mentioned a skull." He stood next to Daffir, fiddling nervously with a vial he held. If the boy wasn't careful, he was going to drop his potion.

Karas pushed past him. "What about Telmyz? Is there any sign of him?"

"Patience, all of you," Khorl said. His fingers flicked in front of the mirror as if turning pages. "A scrying cannot be rushed."

Gilkriz stood to one side, arms folded and fingers drumming restlessly. One of his wizards had gone missing. Perhaps he'd already accepted the worst. According to Qilue, Mazeer had been incoherent when her message abruptly cut off. That-and the silence that followed-didn't bode well.

All the other search teams had returned safely, if unsuccessfully. Despite more than a day's worth of searching, none had found the way to the Acropolis.

Khorl's hand dropped. "The mirror reveals nothing." A wave of his hand shrank the polished oval of silver back down to brooch size.

"Conjure up the eyes again," Cavatina ordered. "We need to find Mazeer and Telmyz."

Khorl shook his head firmly. "A second application of that spell will only produce the same result."

Cavatina turned to the human wizard. "Daffir?"

He inclined his head. "I will try, Madam."

As Daffir cast his spell, Cavatina brooded. The message about Mazeer and Telmyz hadn't been the only sending from Qilue. There had been two other sendings from the high priestess a short time after that. The first had contained surprising news: Halisstra lived! She'd somehow escaped the Demonweb Pits, and had been spotted in the Shilmista Forest. Priestesses and Nightshadows had died there, at the hands of Lolth's minions. Halisstra, however had managed to escape through the shrine's portal.

She'd portaled to the Moondeep, where Q'arlynd had spotted her. Not surprisingly, he hadn't recognized his own sister. Halisstra wandered the mine tunnels, somewhere between the Moondeep and the spot where the party rested.

Cavatina would have ordered a search for Halisstra, but Qilue had forbidden it. Eilistraee herself had warned the high priestess that Halisstra had some part to play in the attack on the temple-a role that might be disrupted if too many knew she was there. Cavatina had to trust in the goddess, to let Halisstra find her own path in the dance.

It rankled Cavatina, but an order was an order. A Darksong Knight always did her duty.

One thing was certain. The longer Cavatina and the others lingered there, the better the chance Halisstra would blunder into them. Knowing that, Cavatina had ordered the two priestesses guarding the shaft that was this tunnel's only access point to contact her with a sending at once if they spotted anything resembling a demon, and not to engage it in combat themselves-to let her, the party's only Darksong Knight, deal with any demons.

Cavatina turned to the human mage. "Daffir. Anything yet?"

Daffir leaned on his staff, eyes closed. "Mazeer and Telmyz are in a cavern."

"The Acropolis?"

"No," Daffir opened his eyes. "That much, at least, I am certain of. Had they reached it, the name Thanatos would have rung through my mind like a tolling bell."

"Are they still underwater?" Karas asked.

Daffir shook his head. "That, I cannot tell."

Cavatina struggled to keep her frustration in check. "Keep trying," she told the wizards. She turned to walk back to the spot at the bottom of the shaft, where the others had set up a fortified position, but Karas caught her arm. "Telmyz is dead," he told her. "This was the wrong way to go."

Cavatina rounded on him. "We don't know that."

"Yes we do. The prayer that allowed him to breathe water would have elapsed long ago. If he's still submerged, he's dead."

"Then we'll recover his body. Return him to the Promenade, where he can be resurrected."

Karas made a dismissive gesture. "That's not worth the cost."

Cavatina was inclined to agree, for different reasons. Yet her duty was clear. "Our numbers are small. We can't afford the loss of even one of Eilistraee's faithful."

"Precisely," Karas said. "Which is why we should abandon this route and go another way. You heard the reports of the search teams. There's a veritable labyrinth of passages down there. Trying to figure out which one leads to the Acropolis-if any even do-might take days. We should take a route that we know leads to the Acropolis. One that won't cost us any more lives."

"This is our way in," Cavatina said. "The Crones will be watching the other entrances."

"You said Mazeer mentioned a skull. Even if she did find the 'back door' the deep gnomes told you about, it may not be such a secret any more."

"He's right," Gilkriz said, stepping closer. "And the longer we sit here, the more likely we'll be discovered. What if your svirfneblin 'allies' were lying entirely, and this is nothing but a dead-end? I don't want to be trapped down here."

Cavatina stared down at him. "You'd abandon Mazeer?"

Gilkriz unfolded his arms and tugged at his gold sleeves, straightening them. Despite immersion in the Moondeep, his clothes were impeccable. "If she's dead, yes." He nodded at the Faerzress. "Solving our problem as quickly as possible is what's most important."

Cavatina glared at him. But she had to admit that Gilkriz was right. So was Karas.

"I've made up my mind," she told them. "We'll go in another way. One of those other entrances Karas is so fond of."

His mask hid the smirk she knew was there.

"But we stay together."

The smirk disappeared from his eyes.

"Gilkriz, Eldrinn, assemble your wizards. Get them ready to move. Karas, do the same for your Nightshadows."

"As you command, Lady," Karas replied.

Cavatina gave him a tight smile. She knew that Karas's obedience was the calm before the storm. When he found out how she planned on entering that "side door," he wasn't going to like it. She'd had it with this skulking about. It was time for something bolder.

She was just about to pass the word to the two priestesses who guarded the top of the shaft when one of them contacted her with a sending. Lady Cavatina, the demon you anticipated! Zindira just spotted it!

Fall back to the bottom of the shaft, Cavatina ordered, praying they would obey quickly. If they made the mistake of attacking Halisstra, they likely wouldn't survive. I'm on my way.

She turned and spoke swiftly. "Karas, keep the others together. Don't let them follow me up the shaft."

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Lady?"

"Our guards have spotted something-possibly a demon." She slapped the flask at her hip. "I'm going to deal with it. You're in charge until I get back."

She sprinted away down the tunnel.

Leliana set a brisk pace through the abandoned mine. Q'arlynd hurried along beside her, glad to be moving again. The sooner he had Eldrinn back in his sight again, the better. The boy might be talented, but he was little more than a novice. There were all sorts of things down there that could kill him. Gigantic undead heads, demonic drow-things… why, even something so mundane as a cave-in, Q'arlynd thought as he ducked under a fungus-dotted shoring timber that stank of rot. If Q'arlynd were ever going to unlock Kraanfhaor's Door and plunder the riches that lay behind it, he'd need the secrets locked away in Eldrinn's mind.