Anusha plucked a loose stone from the ground and explained, "Just follow this."

She dashed toward the city. Fear and anxiety loosed its overwhelming grip on her. Now that she breathed easier, she wondered whether she would ever have built up enough courage, if the half-elf monk hadn't turned up.

She dispersed the thought-it didn't matter what might have been. With Raidon Kane at her side, she allowed herself to hope. She just might see Japheth again.

Anusha led Raidon into Taunissik. Even in the middle of the night, the coral-like, jumbled structures and clear pools glowed with a pale, algal light. The kuo-toa who'd earlier lounged in the pools were absent, but sinister shapes looked out every window of the city, their vacant faces shadowed by dim glows behind them. The sentinels continued to circle overhead, keeping Raidon at the center of the circuit.

"At least they are keeping their distance," Anusha said, trying to break the tension with something more helpful than a scream or whimper.

"They will allow us to enter, then block our exit-what else but cowardly tactics can one expect of aberration-touched creatures?" The half-elf’s voice rang with a righteous zeal. Was the sword affecting the man's mind again?

She ran toward the large structure. Raidon easily matched her tireless pace.

The sinuous glyphs carved on every surface of the building flickered between green and wan red light. She plunged into the entrance, the disciple of Xiang Temple a breath behind. They passed through a low-ceilinged vestibule where three basins collected effluvia from fish-faced busts. Anusha took the right-hand path from a choice of two arched corridors and plunged down a narrow staircase. Relief-carved kuo-toa heads emerged from either wall at intervals, their eyes spilling yellow radiance.

After one switchback, the stairs emptied into a straight tunnel Anusha flew through, the stone she held to guide Raidon in one hand, her dream blade in the other.

They passed into a chamber lit by a trio of sculpted, ten-foot-diameter kuo-toa busts on high walls. A granite block stood loose, just inside the room-Anusha remembered it had crashed down and sealed the exit. Something had pushed it aside since then.

Where the central pool had been was a drained, slime-coated cavity in the floor. Dead albino fish lay within it like so many withered leaves. A hole in the cavity's basin was a spiral staircase, now open to air, leading downward.

"Raidon, this is where we were separated," she exclaimed. "I don't know what happened when I. was… pulled away, but the basin in the floor was filled with water last time I was here."

"How long…" Raidon's query trailed off as his gaze tracked higher.

Anusha followed his eyes. A dragon perched atop one of the kuo-toa busts above them like a lazing savanna cat. Humanoid remains lay between its outstretched legs, but from her vantage, she couldn't identify them. Her stomach, despite being immaterial, convulsed.

The dragon, seeing it had the monk's attention, stretched. Its wings unfolded like a webbed, thin-fingered hand opening to reach up and scratch the ceiling. It yawned, revealing bloody fangs as long as Anusha's forearm. The dragon's deep-socketed eyes and hollow nasal openings were almost skull-like. Large spikes extended from its jaw, and two rows of small horns lined its brows.

"You bear the taint I cannot abide," Raidon accused the dragon, his voice cold as iron.

"You trespass and have found your death," replied the dragon, its voice a scratchy rumble. It tensed, preparing to spring.

Anusha cried, "Where are the other trespassers, those who entered this room a few hours ago?"

The dragon froze at the sound of her voice. Its eyes scanned the room, and its nostrils flared. Its wings retracted backward to lie low along its back.

"They have gone below to offer obeisance to Gethshemeth," hissed the dragon, its eyes flickering with the intensity of its search.

"Liar!" screamed Anusha.

The dragon's brow creased, as if in consternation at not being able to locate its prey. Its body language now screamed caution-it was no longer on the verge of dropping on Raidon.

"Liar you name me? You are wrong, hidden one. My name is Scathrys," said the dragon. "I'll leave you and your Shou friend to discover who in this chamber is a liar. Mayhap it's you? Gethshemeth and your friends lie below." The dragon extended a massive claw and pointed to the stairs at the bottom of the slimed floor cavity.

Rage bit Anusha. She cocked her arm and threw her dream blade as if it were a spear. Indeed, to her eye, it lengthened in midflight, becoming a spear in truth. At the last moment, Scathrys, somehow sensing something of the intangible dream, dodged. The spear struck the dragon through one wing.

It roared in anger and confusion, releasing a stream of green fluid that scored the walls. The spear held the dragon in place for a moment, even as the creature exploded into frantic efforts to free itself from what pinned it.

Pain smote Anusha, right between the eyes. Even as she gasped at its onslaught, the spear faded to nothing. The headache eased too, but a dull pain persisted as if to remind her that reality could be bent only so far by her dream wiles.

The dragon, free of the invisible thorn that had stung it, did not flee. Instead, it hunkered down on its perch, relying on the bulk of the stone head to shield itself from further unseen attacks. It hissed, "Your friends are even now swearing their eternal souls to the void that lies between the stars. Yet you dally here." It guffawed, its mirth mocking and harsh.

Raidon scrutinized Scathrys, the Blade Cerulean naked in his hand. Tongues of blue flame rippled its length.

"Raidon, let's go! Japheth needs us!"

The monk scowled. Sweat beaded on his lip. He looked murderously at the dragon but said, "The greater abomination lies below, Angul."

The half-elf wrenched himself away and stepped into the open cavity. With uncanny grace, he skied down the slimy, nearly vertical wall and into the bowl, easily avoiding the shaft containing the stairs.

Anusha leaped after, with far less refinement. Not that it mattered, since no one could see her and she couldn't be hurt by a mere fall. She wondered if she should try to dream her blade forth once more. She decided to wait. Her head still smarted fiercely. It seemed clear she had overtaxed her ability to affect the waking world by lancing the dragon at a distance.

The monk raced down the spiral stair, narrow and slick with recently evacuated water. He didn't stumble once. Anusha followed, his unseen shadow.

A coppery taste filled his mouth. Blood? He twisted, eyes nearly spinning in their sockets as they sought something familiar. Where was he?

A dull red glow stretched above and to each side of him. A fire? Ember-like points of light flared, brighter and brighter, until they fused to become a red-hazed vista.

He walked out upon a scarlet plain beneath a bleeding sky on a road of ground bones.

He continued walking, because he knew he had to do something very important. Something that lay in the direction he traveled, perhaps. Something quite vital, he was certain. Urgency burned just below his awareness, on the brink of shattering the glass between anxious unknowing and terrified understanding. But he couldn't quite recall precisely what he was supposed to do…

He paused. The road seemed familiar somehow, like something he'd glimpsed once in a dream. Or a nightmare, truth be told.

Perhaps he dreamed even now. That would explain the gap in his understanding. And why he wore no clothing. Why, he couldn't even recall his own name! Was that normal for a dream?