Eager murmurs rippled through the throng, reflecting off the knee-deep, clear water that filled the chamber. It was almost completely dark, even to kuo-toa senses. But Nogah shone like a star come to earth. Their attention was rapt upon her; she could feel their combined gazes like a caress:

Despite the sermons being declared taboo by the hierarchy of Olleth, the curious still found her. After all, what other kuo-toa had ever disregarded the commands of the combined opinion of the Sea Mother's whips with such impunity without being immediately expunged?

But she commanded their attention with more than spectacle; as Nogah spoke, she leached subtle dream magic from the relic she clutched like a talisman, and broadcast it into the receptive mind of every creature present.

"I, like you, accepted my lot. Even as a whip of the Sea Mother, I was below Her notice. To Her, I was as a slug-useful, barely, but worth not one bit of regard. I gave Her my undying attention and service. In return, She gave… what?"

A twitter of angry voices sparked in answer across the darkened audience.

Nogah interrupted, "Nothing! Nothing but more demands, still more commands for sacrifice. I obeyed, for what could I do? What could you do?"

Nogah raised the Dreamheart over her head. The light around her shone twice as bright from the relic. Twisting and twining strands of radiance burst out of the stone to extend up and over the heads of the audience.

"I have an answer for you."

A sound, low and rumbling, began to beat from the relic, like a dead heart shocked and stuttering back to life.

Nogah spoke, "You have a choice. Will you stay shackled to the Sea Mother and Her stagnant servitors, or leave Her behind? A new way beckons, right here, right now! I offer you a new vision to pursue. If you pledge yourself to me, your sacrifices and service will not go unrewarded."

She shouted over a murmur of protest, "Instead, you will be exalted! Come with me and find a new future. Even now, I can feel the current change. I am ascendant! I am the handmaiden of an ancient strength that begins, even now, to turn its attention back to the world it so long forgot."

With a performer's flourish, Nogah released her grip on the Dreamheart. It did not fall. It was as steady in the air as a stone resting on solid earth. Then it began to ascend as the light emerging from it became elongated strands of swaying light. The relic reached a central position in the chamber and paused. The lashing tendrils of light grew ever longer and more elaborate, while the beat of its thunderous, repeating note thudded ever louder. The hearts of all those present began to synch to the overpowering, pelagic beat.

Nogah screamed, "Behold!" Her voice was amplified, not drowned, by the crashing noise.

"There lies a realm, beyond ours, of purity and power! A place where thought becomes action and death is just another concept, mutable as a lie. The gods, jealous of their own power, have long blocked mortals from this land beyond all other places. But not all knowledge of it is lost. Here and there, portions of that outlying realm touch the world. Where such contact occurs, reality itself is blessed! When the touch persists, great wonders can be evoked!"

The self-styled handmaiden of the Dreamheart gestured and concentrated. The weaving strands of light swirled into a massive braid. A braid with a bulge at the center, where the Dreamheart was cupped in the tendrils of its own creation.

The braid rotated and pulsed in the air, like a gorged serpent slowly digesting a recent meal.

The bulge at the braid's center pulsed in time to the throbbing boom, expanding with each beat. The multicolored threads suddenly convulsed and unraveled, revealing the cavity it had grown within it. Of the Dreamheart, there was no sign. Instead there was a featureless expanse of pale radiance, like moonlight seen from behind a cloud, radiance so old that it should have failed long ago, but persevered.

"Look you well-the light falling into your eyes is older than all the light in the world, older than birth fires of the gods themselves. Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it glorious? Can't you feel your mind unravel in wonder in its-"

A great crash, louder still than the Dreamheart's pulsing music, broke through Nogah's ritual of awe. The sound came from above, at the dome's rear.

Watery, afternoon light flooded across the startled, blinking audience. The moonlight radiance winked out. The Dreamheart was revealed as an unadorned stone. It dropped like a dead weight into the massed audience. A scream burbled away; the stone crushed the skull of a kuo-toa standing directly below it.

A strident voice called out from the newborn fissure, "Cease your blasphemy, in the name of the Sea Mother!"

Half blinded by the sudden glare, Nogah was still able to pick out the silhouettes of at least two senior whips bedecked in holy battle armor. With them stood the bulky forms of four kuo-toa monitors, warriors trained to fight with nothing but their own bodies since birth.

The audience screamed with one throat in terror of being found in the company of a blasphemer. Nogah tried to command them to turn on their attackers. But now the shouts of panic easily drowned out her directions. They hadn't stared into the enchantment she'd prepared long enough for them to fall under her sway. Her long-prepared ritual was undone.

A wild scramble in the bowl of the dome commenced as her audience sought to escape. Kuo-toa began to lose their lives as they were trampled by their fellows in blossoming panic.

She'd have to start anew, but she pushed all thoughts of preparations out of her head. All her attention was required to save her scaled hide from the attacking Sea Mother loyalists. Nogah leaped into the audience even as blasts of whip-directed lightning scoured the ground where she stood. The edge of the bolt caught her. She yelped but kept moving. Her natural resistance saved her from most of the bolt's fury. Still, Nogah knew she couldn't stand up to many more such blasts.

The stampeding congregation was like a storm-tossed sea. The attacking whips had closed off the exits! The trapped kuo-toa surged back and forth across the constricted space. Nogah fought through the press of thrashing bodies with Dreamheart-enhanced strength. She trod on more than a few mewling forms already brought low. Even out of contact with the relic, she was able to draw strength from it Even now her lightning-burned skin healed.

She savored the thought that her abilities would redouble again when she renewed direct contact with the Dreamheart-

A flailing finger jabbed her left eye. An elbow clipped her right side. A big, sticky kuo-toa grabbed Nogah around her waist and tried to use her body to lever himself off the floor. His was a hysterical strength; she barely avoided being pulled down. She had to get clear… No. She'd joined the panic for a reason. Despite the dangers of the crush, she had to retrieve the relic. Just another few moments and she would have it.

The four monitors leaped from the fissure to land amid the screaming kuo-toa commoners. The monitors' finned hands, feet, knees, and elbows were weapons every bit as lethal as swords and spears. They began killing a path through the crowd toward Nogah, even as she continued to move toward them,-or in truth toward what lay between them and herself. The relic cast a shadow on her mind, so that she knew exactly its distance from her.

What? The Dreamheart was moving! One of the panicked congregation had it. The kuo-toa was using it to batter his way to the left, toward some chimera of safety the idiot imagined he would find there…

The thief made surprising progress. Actually, not so surprising, Nogah realized. Even unconscious of its true nature, the fellow was energized by the stone. Soon enough, he would make it to the wall. And what then? Perhaps he would unconsciously borrow strength enough from the stone to create an exit.