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turning back the way he had come were not to be entertained. He must escape.
    Breathing heavily, Morbed shuffled forward and stopped at another corner, where he spied a dim lavender glow originating from a side passage, feebly illuminating a small section of the corridor ahead. Was it the same glow he had witnessed just before? It couldn’t be; that glow had moved .
    Pinching the sleeve against his nose, Morbed stepped toward the light. He halted mid-stride and spun as he heard a noise behind him, the sound of an unintelligible whisper followed by silence.
    Squinting in the faint glow, he could detect no presence nearby.
    Had he imagined it? Was it the echo of his own footstep? It must have been. There was another sound, like a rushing wind intermingled with snippets, as of voices. It grew louder, closing in on him from all sides. Morbed stooped, bared his teeth, yanked his hood up, and buried his head in his arms.
    He underwent a sudden wave of emotion . . . emotion not his own but rather a heated ardor aimed at him, for lack of better understanding. It was as if he could feel what some other being felt toward him. While difficult to identify, it nonetheless twisted his guts and robbed him of his senses. He struggled to put a name to the sensation, and the only word that surfaced in his thoughts was judgment . He rushed toward the glowing passage in an attempt to escape the impassioned onslaught.
    Another hallway. The lavender glow now brighter, Morbed recognized the illumination, emanating from where he had replaced the lantern after the battle in the statuary.
    There was a sharp hiss in his ear. Morbed snatched his dagger out and recoiled, certain that someone or something was set to assail him, but upon turning, he was greeted only with empty space and the cold stone hall.
    Breathing haltingly through his nose, tasting his own blood, he shuffled to the doorway of the lantern room.
    There it sat against a wall, chain coiled at its base, and for a moment Morbed was transfixed by its shimmering violet luminescence. It glowed brilliantly, far more lustrous than it had been when carried by the fisherman, and in that glittering light, so warm and pure, Morbed found a kind of solace . . .
    But there was no time to tarry, to become lost in its depths as the fisherman had. He must quit the fortress immediately, and the lantern would light his way. He bolted forward, snatched it up, and was off.
    *  *  *
    It would not do to simply return to the statuary ledge. Even if Morbed put aside the lantern to avoid the protective wards, the climb down the sheer fortress wall would be too treacherous. Teeth set, dried blood flaking from his skin, Morbed rushed through one stone hall after another, lantern held before him in his left hand, dagger clutched tightly in his right, searching for another exit.
    Coward.
    Morbed stopped. The thought had flitted through his mind but felt somehow detached, as though not his own. Morbed rarely, if ever, engaged in self-recrimination. There was no value to be had in it, to becoming immobilized in a quagmire of doubt and guilt.
    No regrets. What’s done is done. All that’s left is to move on.
    And move on he did, although the passageways were all beginning to look the same. Whether he walked or ran, it made little difference; he still had no sense of where he was.
    He moved through an arched passage and found himself in a much larger space. The air was heavy and wet and carried a musky, malodorous stench.
    He sensed movement above, as though the roof had come alive. Bats, hundreds of them, wriggled and squirmed. Morbed shuffled back and nearly slipped in guano. Then with a screech the vermin dropped and flew, a black, leathery tempest buffeting his upraised arms seemingly from all sides.
    When the cloud of vermin had dissipated, Morbed squinted into the darkness beyond the lantern light to his right and left, then followed the direction of the fleeing bat colony.