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Aoth s hand tightened on his spear. He d heard of such a thing. It generally took the right trigger, the right magic, to open a doorway where two worlds touched. But occasionally it happened spontaneously, or in response to some cosmic phenomenon like a particular phase of the moon. Such an event had trapped Gaedy
He resolved that when the arch changed again, he was going through.
He realized there were two potential problems with that idea. The first was that, for all he knew, the gate might not reopen anytime soon. The other was that when it did, it only stayed open for a heartbeat. If he couldn t make it all the way through before it snapped shut again, it would cut him to pieces.
But to the Abyss with defeatist thoughts like that, he thought. He poised himself in front of the arch like a ru
He waited until his muscles ached from standing still, and, despite the urgency of his task, his attention tried to wander like a dog tugging at the leash. He stretched, used the magic of his tattoos to refresh his body and mind, and locked his focus where it needed to be.
Suddenly, the six sarcophagi reappeared.
Aoth lunged forward so explosively that he couldn t stop in time to keep himself from banging his knee on one of the sarcophagi, and a bolt of fiercer pain told him he d somehow stressed his sore neck. But he was through. He looked back and saw that the arch now opened on a corridor that was simply dark, not filled with the festering gloom of the maze.
As he prowled down the passage, spear and targe at the ready, he listened for sounds of those he d left behind in the mortal world, for talk, shouts, screams, the clash of blades on shields, the boom and crackle of battle magic, or the chiming of the stag men s bells. But there was none of that, and after he had passed several other vaults and rounded a corner, he spotted sunlight up ahead.
It was spilling through the bars of a wrought-iron gate. Aoth charged his spear with power and used it as a pry bar to break open the lock. He warily stepped out of the mausoleum into a graveyard for humbler folk.
The snow here was gray with ash, and, although imposing, the castle surrounding the graveyard had the same sooty appearance.
As was only natural. Aoth couldn t see much of the surrounding mountains. The walls of the citadel blocked them out. But the red glow of the volcanoes reflected off the leaden clouds.
Appalled, he now understood why he hadn t heard any trace of his comrades or their enemies. It was because he was nowhere near the Fortress of the Half-Demon. He wasn t even in Rashemen anymore.
He was back in Thay.