A sorcerer? The answer caught Kara off guard for a moment. She had expected to hear him speak of either the thieves who had stolen the armor or, in view of the crew's desperate act, the two revenants who had attacked her. Certainly their presence would have sent hardened sailors fleeing to the dangers of the sea.

"Describe him!"

The mouth opened, but no words came out. Like the phantasm, this spell allowed only for simple answers. Kara cursed quietly, then altered her question. "What did he wear?"

Inhaling… then, "Armorrrr…"

She stiffened. "Armor? Red armor?"

"Yesss…"

Something she had not expected. So, apparently one of the survivors of the tomb had been a sorcerer after all.Could it be this Norrec Vizharan of which the earlier phantasm had spoken? She repeated the name to the mariner, asking him if he knew it. Unfortunately, that did not prove the case.

Still, Kara had found out much of what she wanted to know. The last time this man Kalkos had seen the Hawksfire, it had not only been afloat, but the armor she sought remained aboard.

"Without a crew," she commented to a silent Captain Jeronnan. "The ship cannot sail far, can it?"

"More than likely to go in circles, if only its master and this spellcaster remain aboard." Jeronnan hesitated, then asked, "Haven't you more questions?"

She did, but none that the corpse could answer. Kara dearly wished that she still had her dagger. Then she could have taken more time and summoned up a true spirit, something that could have answered with longer, more coherent statements. Older, more skilled necromancers could have performed such a fantastic feat without the use of a tool, but Kara knew it would still be a few years before she reached that point.

"What about him?" insisted the former naval officer. "What happened to him… and the rest, for that matter, lass? One day on a rough sea's enough to kill many a man, but there's something unsettling about the look of him…"

Feeling somewhat ashamed that Jeronnan had found the need to remind her, Kara quickly leaned over the corpse again. "Where are your comrades?"

No answer. She quickly touched the chest, felt it sink under the slight pressure of her fingers. The liquid component of her spell had begun to wear off.

The necromancer had one chance. The eyes of a dead man often retained the last few images he had witnessed. If the powder she had placed on them still had some potency, then Kara might be able to see those images for herself.

Without looking back at the captain, she said, "Under no circumstances must I be interrupted for the next step. Is that understood?"

"Aye…" but Jeronnan said it with much reluctance.

Kara positioned her gaze directly over the sightless orbs, then began muttering. The gold tint to his eyes seized her, pulled her in. The necromancer fought back the instinctive desire to flee from the world of the dead, instead throwing herself fully into the spell she now cast.

And suddenly Kara sat in a boat in the midst of a stormy sea, pulling at the oars with all her might as if the three Prime Evils themselves chased the tiny vessel. The necromancer looked down, saw that her hands were thick, rough, seaman's hands-the hands of Kalkos.

"Where's Pietr's boat?" a bearded man called out to her.

"How would I know?" her own mouth snapped back, the voice deep and bitter. "Just row! Got us a chance if we keep headin' east! That hellish storm's got to end somewhere!"

"We shoulda taken the captain with us!"

"He'd never leave her, not even if she sank! He wants to ride with the demon master, let 'im!"

"Watch out for that wave!" someone else shouted.

Her head turned toward that direction, epithets such as Kara had never imagined men using spitting from her lips. In the distance, she saw two other lifeboats, each crammed tight with desperate men.

The bearded man suddenly stood up, not the wisest thing in such conditions. He gaped at something behind her-behind Kalkos-and pointed frantically. "Look out! Look out!"

Kalkos's gaze shifted as best it could. The sailor continued to man the oars.

At the edge of the the mariner's field of vision emerged a vast, serpentine tentacle.

"Turn about! Turn about!" Kalkos called. "Sit down, Bragga!"

The bearded man dropped to his place. Those able to work the oars desperately tried to turn the boat around.

Over the roar of the waves and the crash of thunder, Kara heard the distant screams of men. Kalkos looked that direction, revealing the horrific sight of scores of tentacles overwhelming one of the other boats. Several men were lifted into the air, some by the suction cups of the tentacles, others by macabre, grasping claws-almost hands-that plucked sailors from the boat as if they were flowers.

Kara expected the sailors to be drawn to the cavernous opening that she now witnessed in the center of a massive, monstrous form, a creature much like a gigantic squid, but with only one massive orb and horrid flesh that marked it as no denizen of this mortal plane. Instead, however, the monster simply held them aloft, using its clawed appendages to attach other sailors to various suckers. The victims cried out, pleading to those in the distance to save them.

"Row, damn you!" Kalkos roared. "Row!"

"I told you he wouldn't let us go! I told you!"

"Be quiet, Bragga! Be—"

A vast wave washed over them, throwing one shouting man overboard. Next to the tiny vessel, an array of tentacles rose from the water, surrounding Kalkos's companions on all sides and reaching hungrily for each.

"At 'em with your blades! It's the only—"

Yet although the men managed to parry the assaults of a few of the demonic arms, one by one they were picked off the boat, screaming-until only Kalkos, one oar used as a weapon… remained.

Kara felt a chill as wet tentacles seized her legs, grabbed her arms. She felt the suction cups attach to her body… No! This had all happened in the past! This had happened to Kalkos, not her!

Despite recalling that, however, she still felt the mariner's own horror as a new and terrible thing happened. Even despite his clothing, Kalkos felt weaker, drawn-as if the very life werebeing sucked from his body. His flesh wrinkled, dried despite the wetness all around him. He felt like a water sack whose contents were being swiftly drained…

And then, just as all life seemed stolen from him, when his body felt like no more than a dry husk, the tentacles suddenly dropped Kalkos back into the boat. Too late for the sailor to survive, Kalkos already knew that, but better to spend his last few moments of life back in the boat rather than in the gullet of such a hellish beast.

Only when talons dug into his arms and dragged him to a standing position did he come back from the brink enough to register that someone else had joined him in the lifeboat.

No-not someone-but some thing.

It spoke in a voice reminiscent of a thousand buzzing insects in agony; although Kara strained to make its form out clearly, the eyes of Kalkos no longer saw well. The enchantress could only perceive a terrifying, emerald and red shape looming over the dying sailor, a shape that did not conform to any human standard. Oversized eyes of deep yellow that seemed to have no pupils fixed on the unfortunate Kalkos.

"Death is not your pleasure yet," it chittered. "This one has things it must know! Where is the fool? Where is the armor?"

"I…" the mariner coughed. His body felt so very dry, even to Kara. "What…?"

His inhuman inquisitor shook him. A pair of needle-tipped spears came from nowhere, pressing against Kalkos's chest. "This one has no time, human. Can offer you much pain before life flees. Speak!"