The party lounged near the top of the staircase to allow their adrenaline to drain away. Séa stretched exhausted muscles between sips of water. Chantelle introduced her raven as "My animal companion, Elegre," before the stirge-slaying corvid flapped away into the darkness. None of the party articulated a burning desire to ascend through whatever levels remained and face whatever wights guarded the castle walls. Ghomarck confessed, "I have cast every spell I know except the one I use to cheat at cards. I must have a rest, and then study my spellbook to refresh my mind. Let us retreat to the apartment and blockade the door. Please."

"Fine," said Tash from several yards away. By light of her candle she inspected the floor. "In a quarter hour or so." She shuffled along in a grid pattern in order to cover ground without missing any spots. Any gemstone formerly in the brazier now lay scattered around the hall. When Tash found one, she pounced and tucked it away in a pouch.

Séa lounged on her back, propped up on her elbows. "And she calls me crazy."

"You are." The rogue pounced on a sparkly stone.

The paladin crossed her ankles. "I'm not the one that tapped a giant lizard on the nose and said 'eat me, please.' Though, I gotta admit, it was spectacular. And in the end, you closed the gate to the Abyss." Now that I have time to think about it, her plan was insanely risky.

Ghomarck said to Chantelle, "They bicker a lot, now that they've built their trust. I'm sorry."

"It's a lot milder than when my parents argue," the princess said.

Séa grinned to herself. He's right. We're past the trust-building phase.

Chantelle tapped the wizard's robe-covered, bony knee. "How long do you need to rest and study your spellbook? I'm getting hungry, and we killed the chef. Not that I would have partaken ..."

"One night," the wizard said.

"I can survive that long." Chantelle tried to rub a blotch of dirt from her dress. She failed, but a wry smile spread over her features. "I guess I'm having an adventure. Just not the one I thought I was having."

Ghomarck stroked his beard. "I feel the same. And the next time I get the urge for field work, I hope someone breaks my leg before I get a chance to get out the front door."

Séa laughed. "Torugg forbid, Master Ghomarck!"

"Wait," said Chantelle. "Zorexis is somewhere up top, pretending to be me. He didn't come back, so he must have met some success."

"That stands to reason." The wizard's eyes narrowed and swiveled to the princess.

"Well, we decided he wanted to eventually impersonate the King." Chantelle sat upright and her spine straightened in rising tension. "What just occurred to me is that King Pharing himself is in danger. When Zorexis takes on the King's appearance, will he not then kill him?"

Wait. What? Séa sat up, too.

From yards away, Tash's sardonic voice floated over. "See why I don't like political intrigue? But, honestly, who cares? We'll let them know about the demon when we can. Kings have heirs. Omnius as country will barely quiver."

"Tash," the paladin's voice came with uncharacteristic sobriety. "Murder is murder. It's wrong."

"Yes," Tash said with exaggerated patience. "But it happens. Trust me. I know whereof I speak."

Ghomarck's mustache quivered with nervousness as he watched the knight climb to her feet. "Séa..."

The paladin drew herself to full height. Her armor had lost much of its shine and gained new dents, but the battle scars made it more impressive. Her voice rang. "We must prevent it if we can."

"But I'm out of spells," plaintively protested Ghomarck.

"And you can fecking drop the 'we.' A second rescue mission is off the table." Tash quieted. "Though I might reconsider if there was a reward."

By Torugg, I must do what's right. It is my very oath. A chilly, hard knot formed in Séa's gut like a hundredweight anvil. She forced words from lips that had gone numb. "I will go alone if need be." Alone, Séa? You were dreaming different a minute ago.

Séa tried to meet Tash's eyes, but the rogue had stiffened, and now stared into the darkness of the vast, ruined hall. Her head swiveled here and there, as if she quested for a scent. Séa's knotted stomach plummeted into her feet. Tash? She doesn't understand, and she doesn't care, either? I really am alone? Sweet Torugg, the thought hurts.

Ghomarck waved wrinkled hands. "Now, now. No one do anything rash. Let's talk this ov—"

"Shh!" Suddenly, Tash was among them. She blew out her candle and whispered, "Extinguish your light, Ghomarck! Quiet, everyone."

What's going on? Clearly, more than my private moral morass. Get a grip on the here and now, paladin.

Darkness cloaked them and silence fell. Gradually, Séa's eyes adjusted. She spotted scattered embers that glowed like orange eyes and a dull red radiance that leaked from the ruins of the portal oval. Soon, her ears picked out what Tash had heard: distant metallic clanking. Peripherally, she had noticed a trio of exits at the far side of the room. The chorus of dull bells came from that direction. As she listened, it grew more distinct.

"Armored feet marching," Tash whispered. "A score or more."

By sense of touch, they huddled into a tight group and retreated by inches toward the top step in the stairs down to Dooch's kitchen. Dark movement caught their eyes. Some of the glowing embers winked as marchers interposed themselves, then moved on. At head level, pairs of luminous red dots swiveled to the party. The eyes burned with hate. The intelligent appraisal from rank after rank froze the marrow.

"Wights," whispered Chantelle. "And they see us!"

Ghomarck mused, "They see better than we do in the dark. But they do not attack."

They do not attack, but wights are obedient servants. The most obvious explanation is probably correct. "They were commanded," Séa said. "They see us, and want to kill us, but they were commanded to do something else. Maybe return to the Abyss. Maybe come to the portal for instructions."

"More than a score. Thirty, I make it," Tash said. "If they do attack, we are done for."

"Let's walk by them before they change their mind," the paladin said. "Which exit door, Tash?"

"The middle one."

Watched by thirty pairs of silent dead eyes that glowed like peepholes to hell, they tiptoed in a semicircle around the hall. The wights didn't breathe. The only sounds were occasional armor squeaks as dead heads swiveled to follow the party's progress. The journey stretched to an infinity of frayed nerves.

Finally, they rounded a corner. Fighting instinct, they turned their backs on the wights and forged ahead into a wide passage that ramped gently upward. The backs of their necks crawled as if carpeted by cockroaches.

Two corridor twists and a set of stairs later, Séa ceased walking backwards and hung her mace from her belt. "Guess they're not following."

Chantelle spoke in mousy tones. "Might I have a few moments to myself?"

"I really think," the wizard wheezed, "we should stay together for safety's sake."

Tash snorted. "Ghomarck, clue in, please. She means that she needs to pee. Fire up your magelight to scout her a safe location."

"We'll just hang back and guard the rear," Séa said.

The magelight revealed a grimy room with a staircase exit. Dry rodent bones littered the floor, and the walls were composed of stone blocks rather than hewn out of native rock. Three barrels on the floor reeked of oil and oozed black.

"Thank you." Her aristocratic vocal inflections accompanied an arrow-straight spine.

"Perhaps there." Ghomarck's fingers indicated the space past the oil barrels.

He scurried to take refuge just past the exit archway. Chantelle glided inside a bubble of exaggerated dignity past the barrels. Séa and Tash retreated a few steps.

In the relative gloom of the staircase they had ascended, the paladin raised her visor. She draped an arm around her companion's shoulders and pulled her close. She tilted her head in invitation and met Tash's eyes.

The rogue lifted an eyebrow. "Well, all right." She angled her head up.

Their lips brushed. Both pairs of eyes closed. The kiss lingered. Tash's fingers curled around two of Séa's tassets, and she pulled them closer at hip level. Slowly, the delectable rogue's lips curled into a smile. A flush heated Séa's face, and she smiled, too. I could stay like this forever.

Tash eased back a half inch.

Séa murmured, "Mm, thanks."

"The pleasure is mutual." Tash's eyebrow lifted once again. "In a way, it's lovely down here, away from the real world."

"Yes!" Because I get to steal kisses from Tash the tangy-tongued temptress.

"Too bad it must end."

"It—" Séa licked her lips. "—must?"

Weariness darkened Tash's expression.

What does she mean, "it must end?"

Chantelle announced. "Much better. On we go, then."

The next set of stairs led to a level consisting of a checkerboard grid of passages with low ceilings. Hints of reflected daylight filtered down in several spots. "I remember this," Tash crowed. "There are many routes to the yard and walls from here. Here's one." She led the way to an iron spiral of stairs, rust-streaked but solid.

The paladin guarded from the rear, but no wave of wights manifested. She tramped up the spiral into the shockingly ordinary light of a clement midafternoon.

"Real air!" Séa inhaled until her ribs creaked.

Cirrus clouds painted the sky with bold, white strokes. Black walls rose tall on all sides, frumpy with age but strong. Several catapults hunkered around the periphery. Grimy cobblestones blanketed the yard of the keep and a pile of slashed tree branches squatted in the southwest corner. Not a single black-armored figure could be seen, nor any sign of life except Elegre the raven, who preened itself atop a battlement as if it owned the place. A raised drawbridge and a lowered portcullis double-barred the exit gate.

Ghomarck's mustache curved upwards at its ends. "It would be wise to expeditiously open the castle and flee. The wights might obtain new instructions, or forget their present set, at any moment."

The party climbed steps up the front wall without incident. A glimpse through the wall-top archer's slits showed pine forests. Only tangles of dead vines populated the moat. Across the moat, a score of horses and two scores of soldiers milled. King Pharing's banners flew, bright and gallant.

"I never thought I'd cheer at the sight of Omnian heraldry," Chantelle said, "but that looks like pure beauty to me, now."

Unlike the windlass in the round room, counterweights balanced the portcullis and drawbridge mechanisms. Séa raised the portcullis single-handedly, but two windlasses controlled the drawbridge, one for each of the massive chains. Two sets of arms were needed.

Ghomarck said, "Chantelle and I can handle the other one, can we not, milady?"

"Of course. Let's go." The unlikely duo made their way to the other wheel, some thirty paces away across the battlement.

Séa breathed pine-scented air and gazed at the clouds, forest, and soldiery across the now-vineless moat. "I have to admit, I'm happy but exhausted. I'm not sure I can lift my mace one more t— Hey!" A thrusting arm snaked under Séa's tassets and gambeson. A cheeky finger poked her bum repeatedly.

"Revenge is mine," crowed Tash between giggles.

"Get ... get out from ... oh, never mind. You win. Spooked me good, but you win." The paladin's voice lowered until it cooed.

A still-laughing Tash rose up to face the taller woman. "Excellent. But I have a question."

"What is your question?" Séa's eyes tracked across Tash's face, from ear to eye to lips. Especially her lips.

"How do you catch a tame rabbit?"

"What?"

"Augh, you don't remember. When you were all loopy, you asked me how to catch a unique rabbit. You said—"

Recognition dawned. Séa blurted, "Unique up on 'im!"

"Right! So how to catch a tame rabbit?"

"Tame way."

Tash blinked, then hooted.

They giggled together, and they embraced as they shook with laughter.

As their mirth faded, Tash lifted her face to mingle soft lips with the taller woman. Séa kissed back as if the moment had been rehearsed a hundred times. Warm ripples spread from Séa's lips through her whole body until she sagged with pleasure. In her arms, Tash quivered. As the half elf pulled back, her tongue darted out to lick Séa's upper lip. They locked eyes moonily.

Séa mumbled, "We're just so good together, Tash."

"We are. We really are." Tash's beautiful brown irises glowed with a gentle warmth. A vein in her dancer's neck pulsed.

From thirty paces away, Chantelle called, "Ready? One, two, turn!"

"Socket!" Séa blurted.

"Feck!" Tash echoed.