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panted Shar to Kern.
    The paladin continued to wield his hammer, but his arm was growing weary. The bloodstained weapon rose and fell more slowly.
    Trandon’s hair had escaped from its leather thong and fell freely about his shoulders. The fighter suddenly stepped in front of the others, facing the entire onslaught of the cultists himself. “Get back!” he yelled.
    As the others staggered between the columns of pillars, Trandon raised his hands and whispered a word. A great gout of flame spouted forth, catching the leading Fallen Temple worshipers in its blast. Their screams were lost in the roar of the fire as it spread to either side and rose, forming a wall of flame. Trandon turned to the rest of the company.
    “Now! Run!” he cried. Recovering from their astonishment, the others turned to flee.
    As he ran, Noph looked back. From beyond the flames he could see a brilliant glow where the forge lay. Bolts of magical energy shot from it toward the fire. The wall bulged ominously.
    “Look out!” shouted the youth. He tried to run faster, but it was too late. With a terrific explosion, Trandon’s wall of fire erupted. Noph saw dimly before him the pillars toppling against one another, like so many ninepins. Stones tumbled from the ceiling; he saw one strike Sharessa, knocking the beautiful pirate to the pavement. In a daze, he realized there was no longer solid ground beneath his feet. He and Entreri were falling. There was a dull roaring in his ears. And then silence.

Chapter 4
Where Duty Lies
    Thunder rolled distantly, and Noph shaded his eyes against the lightning flashing across a stormy sky. A dark rain lashed his cheeks, and he felt warm blood running down his face. Some of it trickled into his mouth, and he tasted its salty tang.
    “Noph!”
    Harloon was calling him, struggling in the grasp of a club-swinging ettin.
    “I’m coming, Harloon!”
    The youth bent to push the tall bushes and grass of the lonely moor away from his legs.
    They wouldn’t move.
    “Noph!”
    Noph pushed again at the grassy covering over his legs. He opened his eyes, not to the wind and rain of his dream-inspired moor, but to another darkness, one filled with pain. Someone was whispering urgently in his ear.
    “Noph, are you all right?”
    “Yes … no … I… I can’t move my legs.”
    “Damn! Wait a minute.”
    Noph heard the scrape of a tinderbox, and a faint, flickering light illuminated his surroundings. He was lying on top of a pile of rubble. Blackness stretched around him as far as he could see. Before him knelt Shar, an ugly gash across her forehead. She had torn a strip of cloth from her shirt and, winding it around a piece of wood, was busy fashioning a makeshift torch.
    Noph looked down at his legs. They were pinned beneath a large block of stone, but oddly enough, he felt no pain, only a curious sense of dissociation, as if everything were happening to someone else and he was an impartial observer. He lifted a hand to push back hair from his face and felt dried blood crusted on his scalp.
    Next to him, he could see a shapeless pile, as if someone had carelessly thrown down a bundle of washing. The bundle stirred and moaned, and he saw it was Entreri. His skeletal arm had come partially out of its wrappings, and the assassin stared at it, moaning and rocking back and forth.
    The sight of Entreri, usually so cool and detached from those around him, in such a state jarred Noph back to full consciousness. He reached down and tried to push the stone from his legs, but it was too much for him. Shar stuck her torch in a crevice and came to his aid, but after a moment, she, too, admitted defeat.
    “Wait here,” she said in a low voice. “I’m going to see if I can find the others.”
    She took the torch and climbed away over the rubble, leaving Noph and Entreri in the dark. They saw her light bobbing in the distance, and then it disappeared. For an endless space, Noph lay still, listening to water dripping somewhere and