"I knew this was too easy," said a rueful Ivy. Staying next to Mumchance, she squeezed to one side to let Zuzzara, Gunderal, and Sanval pass into the corridor beyond. Archlis and his bugbears followed. "Well, at least we got through that trap with minimum fuss."

Kid sidled next to her, stamping from hoof to hoof.

"Those early tomb builders lacked sophistication." Mumchance poked at the broken mechanism that locked the trap into place, wiggling the long brass handle that disappeared into a square hole carved into the stone. Like any dwarf, he never could resist trying to pull something apart just to see how it worked. Ivy almost expected him to pry the mechanism out of the wall, just so he could examine it later. "Not like today. If I had built that bit back there, there would be some secondary trap or…"

Ivy never heard the rest of the sentence. The stone slab under her feet slid open with a sharp click and the rattle of chains running through a stone channel. She and Kid dropped into the darkness below. As she was falling, she caught a brief glimpse of Mumchance's surprised face, his mouth still open, before the stone trapdoor snapped shut above her.

The day after a fifteen-year-old Ivy had been dug out from under a dead horse by a kindly dwarf, she had wanted to stop at the nearest temple and make a few offerings.

Mumchance had dissuaded her.

"I wouldn't," he had said. "Over the last three hundred years, the one thing that I have learned is that it is best to ignore the gods. Take no notice of them, and they will take no notice of you."

It had seemed like good advice at the time. Now Ivy wondered if she had angered some god somewhere. Nothing else could account for her foul luck.

She sat up slowly in the darkness beneath the trapdoor, unsure which parts of her body still worked after her fall. Her ribs ached, her back hurt, and the rubble covering the floor was making itself felt through the leather of her breeches. But none of the pains felt fatal, just more bruises on top of the bruises collected in her earlier falls that day, not to mention the buffeting by kobolds, the squeezing of that snake, and-oh now she remembered-a few well-placed blows from the hobgoblins. Once she was free of this tangle of tunnels and traps, Ivy intended to march herself to the largest, most impressive healer's tent that she could find, lie down, and not get up again until every single cut, bruise, and kink in her muscles had been soothed away by some skilled healing hands. Some heroes might go to their temples to give thanks for salvation. Others might drink themselves blind in a victory party, and still others might pursue a new amorous alliance. From nauseous experience, Ivy had learned to avoid long drinking bouts, as they led to more physical misery. She did have a few ideas for possible lusty activities, and she most certainly planned to rethink her opposition to giving thanks in temples (although she supposed she would have to decide what god or goddess would be willing to overlook her long lapse in abstinence from worship). But at this moment, she needed to give herself some special promise to lure herself into standing up.

"I think I'll find the handsomest cleric, with the most delightfully smooth and strong healing hands," she muttered to herself. "And then add that bill to the long list of payments that I intend to collect from the Thultyrl."

A muffled snort of laughter reminded her that she was not alone in the dark. She heard the scratch of Kid's hooves as he climbed across the rubble toward her.

"Kid," Ivy called. "Are you all right? Where are you?"

"Here, my dear," his soft voice was right under her ear, causing her to startle like a young colt. Then she felt the exceptional warmth of his hard little hand as he patted her cheek in reassurance. "I apologize that I am not a handsome cleric."

His hearing was far too sharp at times. Ivy ignored his comment and asked, "Where are we, do you think?"

She could hear the rustling of clothing near her that meant he was searching through one of his many hidden pockets. "How can you manage to fit so many pockets into that tunic?" Ivy grumbled, impatient for him to find his candles.

"I once apprenticed to a tailor, before he objected to my stealing his needles. I do have the candles," Kid said, then added, "but my flint is missing."

"Some day, one of us is going to have to learn fire spells." Ivy sighed and handed over her own tinderbox before standing up. She could hear Kid's nails scratching against the lid.

Stretching her arms above her head, Ivy could feel the cool, smooth stone of the ceiling. She groped along the ceiling, trying to find some crack or seam that would indicate the location of the trapdoor. Her left hand bumped against something that moved-a handle or rope pull she hoped. She traced a long knobby object under her groping fingers, something that felt like an old tree branch or dried-out root. It kept shifting in her grasp and was attached in a smooth curve to another part, covered with stiff material that crackled like old linen. Ivy continued to walk her hands along the floating object until she felt an unmistakable triangular bump. She grasped it firmly between her left forefinger and thumb. It wiggled slightly with a ripping sound.

As she stood up, a familiar odor hit her-the type of moldering stench one found too often underground. Ivy screwed up her face and tried to keep her breathing shallow.

"Kid," said Ivy very calmly and slowly. "Could you hurry with that light?"

"Coming, my dear." There was a spark, and the sudden illumination of the candle made Ivy blink.

Ivy kept her left arm stretched up and her grasp firm on her captured prize as she stared into Kid's startled eyes. She was going to have to turn and look, but for now all the confirmation she needed was in the dumbfounded look on Kid's face. "So," she said pleasantly to him. "Am I holding a floating corpse by its nose?"

Kid nodded. His brown eyes were wide and round under his curls, giving him the look of a startled deer. It took a lot to disconcert Kid, who would cheerfully loot through the newly dead and the decomposing dead alike.

"Rotting, is it?"

"I think it is past that, my dear. Some time ago."

"How do you think he got up there? And what is keeping him there?"

"I am not sure, my dear. Magic most certainly, and very old magic at that, as old as that flameskull that attacked us."

"Maybe it is one of that creature's friends."

"He did say that they were all dead," Kid mused.

Ivy tightened her grip and felt her gloved fingers slide through the rotted flesh of the nose into the open curve of the skull. She paused, tightened her jaw, and kept her gaze on Kid. She was in no hurry to look upward. Kid shrugged, then reached up also and caught hold of the decayed robe that hung loosely around the corpse. Together they pulled downward, Kid holding cloth, Ivy clutching bone.

The corpse resisted their efforts to drag it down to the ground. Every time they grabbed it and tugged, it drifted down, seemingly weightless, but then bobbed up again as soon as they let go. Ivy finally looked at the figure to better determine how to handle it. The man, whose flesh was so sunken and dried upon the skeletal frame that gender was not easy to determine, was dressed in some type of hooded linen robes. Thankfully, the hood had flopped forward and hidden the ruined features of his face. Ivy felt particularly bad about breaking off his long nose in her early attempts to pull him off the ceiling.

"Well, it is not his body that flies," Ivy decided. "The bits that fell off don't go floating away on their own."

Kid was standing directly under the body, his head tilted all the way back as he contemplated the corpse floating just out of his reach. "No amulets, no rings on his fingers," said Kid, reciting an inventory that made some type of sense to him. "The robe is rotting, so it cannot be that. It must be the belt, my dear."