With a grunt, she rolled Daffir into the hole.

His body vanished.

Cavatina drew her sword and held it in both hands. "Watch over me, Eilistraee," she whispered. "Guide my steps."

She leaped into the portal.

"Down" was suddenly behind her. She landed flat on her back on a cold stone floor, knocking the wind from her lungs. She scrambled to her feet and whirled, her sword humming a deadly warning. She was in a room, next to a quicksilver pool-a room dominated by a goat-headed statue twice her height.

A statue of the demon prince Orcus.

"Eilistraee!" she cried. "Shield me!"

Moonlight streaked with shadow erupted from her skin, washing out the fainter light of the Faerzress-impregnated walls, ceiling and floor.

The statue didn't move. It was, it would seem, mere stone. But appearances could be deceiving.

She stood directly in front of an arch that led into darkness, and a second arch stood on the other side of the statue. Across the room was a slab of studded iron that looked like a door. She backed away from the statue, half turned to the door, and searched for a handle with one hand.

There wasn't one.

"Looks like there's only one way out of here," she whispered, speaking to Daffir's corpse as much as to herself. "That other portal. I just wish you were still alive to tell me where it leads."

She dragged his body in front of the second arch. She lay her sword on the floor, tucked her hands under his body, and started to roll him into the portal. Before she could finish, she felt something tug on Daffir. Alarmed, she yanked the body back-hard enough to reveal hands clutching Daffir's robe. Each of the dark fingers was adorned with a silver ring.

A Crone!

Cavatina snatched up her sword. As the silver-ringed hands yanked Daffir back through the portal, she thrust through it, aiming for the spot where the Crone would be. The sweet peal of her sword was muffled as it passed into what lay beyond. She felt the weapon strike home. She yanked it back; the blade was bright with blood.

"Eilistraee!" she cried.

Sword singing, she charged into the portal.

Q'arlynd landed on a stone floor with an ankle-jolting thud. Thick, hot smoke surrounded him, blown by a roaring wind. Beside him, Eldrinn staggered sideways, his hand tearing out of Q'arlynd's grasp. Q'arlynd heard the clatter of the staff falling and rolling away. He could see nothing, however. The smoke was too thick, and it stabbed into his throat and lungs each time he breathed. Tears streamed from his eyes.

"Eldrinn!" he coughed. "The staff!"

He heard more rattling.

"Got it," the boy wheezed back.

Through the smoke, Q'arlynd saw a blue-green glow that shone brightly from the floor and walls. Faerzress? Worry flooded him. Had he landed off target? Or had the Faerzress there simply grown that strong?

"Someone's in the corridor," a husky female voice cried from somewhere to Q'arlynd's left. "Inside the smoke!"

"Alexa?" Eldrinn shouted back. "Is that you?"

"It's Eldrinn! He's back!"

More voices were talking, but not loud enough for Q'arlynd to make out the words.

"And Q'arlynd-I'm here, too!" he shouted. He didn't want anyone blasting him with a spell. When no one did, he let out a sigh of relief-which quickly turned into a rattling cough.

Eldrinn bumped into him from behind, and Q'arlynd grabbed the boy's piwafwi. Dragging Eldrinn in his wake, he fought his way toward the voices, forcing himself sideways through the howling wind.

They were out of the smoke. Kraanfhaor's Door was just ahead, and so were Alexa, Baltak, Piri, and Zarifar. Q'arlynd's teleport had been precisely on target, after all.

"What in the Nine Hells…" he coughed, "… are you apprentices…" he coughed again, "… doing?"

Piri crouched, holding a rod that extended into a hole he was busy burning in the stone beside the door. Heat waves danced above the rod. But for his demon-skinned hands, Piri's skin would have blistered away. Smoke billowed past him, out of the blackened hole.

Zarifar stood next to him, twiddling his index fingers, directing the smoke away down the corridor Q'arlynd had just teleported to. He stared dreamily at the fierce horizontal tornados his spell had turned the smoke into.

Baltak and Alexa stood next to a pile of gear. Bedrolls had been spread out on the floor. Alexa hurried forward to help Eldrinn, who'd doubled over in a coughing fit. Baltak remained where he was, hands on his hips. He'd abandoned his owlbear accoutrements for something new. His muscular body bore a layer of coin-sized, ice-white scales. The dragons carved into the door's surface had probably inspired his latest shapeshift.

"About time you two got back," he bellowed, his voice reverberating in his chest. "We're almost through."

"Let's see if you're right." Piri eased the rod out of the hole, hand over hand. Metal scraped against stone. A spent stonefire bomb pot was attached to the end of the rod, and the metal just below it was white-hot. The light of it lent a garish sheen to Piri's oily, green-tinted skin.

"How was Sschindylryn?" Alexa asked.

Eldrinn straightened. "Huh?"

"Knee-deep in travelers, as usual," Q'arlynd quickly answered.

"And the trade mission?" Baltak asked.

"It's drawing to a successful conclusion, even as we speak," Q'arlynd said, catching Eldrinn's eye.

"That's right," Eldrinn said. "Successful. No need for us there, any more. The negotiations were going so well we were able to leave early."

Q'arlynd hid his wince behind a nod and a smile. The boy's fumbling words sounded suspicious. But at least Eldrinn had stopped protesting. The boy had taken some convincing, but he'd eventually come around to Q'arlynd's way of thinking.

Neither of them, Q'arlynd had explained to Eldrinn before they'd teleported, knew a spell that would channel positive energy. They would be unable to help destroy the voidstone. Once Q'arlynd teleported the priestesses to the Acropolis, their part in the expedition would be at an end.

In the meantime, there was Kraanfhaor's Door to worry about. The staff had to be used before the Faerzress grew so intense that it blocked divinations altogether. Had Q'arlynd and Eldrinn remained at the Acropolis and waited for the priestesses to finish their work, it might have been days before they could return to Kraanfhaor's Door. By then, it might have been too late.

Thanks to Q'arlynd's teleport, the priestesses had sprung a surprise attack on the Acropolis. Even then, those singing swords of theirs would be making short work of the Crones. And Leliana and her priestesses would deal with the voidstone. All according to plan.

Q'arlynd had no reason to feel guilty.

None at all.

Piri let the rod clatter to the floor and waved his hands back and forth, cooling them. He could feel heat, even if it didn't harm him. "I hear Sschindylryn is having problems with their Faerzress." He nodded at the walls. "It's getting worse here, too."

Q'arlynd gave a noncommittal grunt and walked over to the door. Smoke curled from the hole beside it, though not in the dark billows it had before. Zarifar was still playing with the wind he'd conjured up, so it was hard to hear what anyone said above its roaring.

Q'arlynd caught his arm. "Stop that."

Zarifar lowered his hands and blinked. "Oh, hello, Q'arlynd. Where did you come from?"

Q'arlynd crouched and peered into the hole. Though the stonefire bomb had blackened and melted the stone next to it, the door itself was unblemished. Not so much as a streak of soot marked it. The hole was about ten paces deep, the length of the rod Piri had just hauled out of it. Kraanfhaor's Door, Q'arlynd saw, was just as thick.