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[Jon Potter]

The group stood looking at the mirrored gate. The single piercing note that the threnodies had invoked still vibrated about in the high-ceilinged chamber, but the moment after Morier stepped through seemed to draw out before them.

"So are we gonna follow him, or what?" Cerrakean barked and Maleko looked at Ayremac who looked in turn at the threnodies.

"Do we need to wait or can we just step through after him?" the holy warrior asked and the Buomman angled her head slightly.

"We do not know," she admitted, and something within her posture and tone made it seem that she thought him foolish for asking such a question.

"As we told you, the Cavern of the Self is a journey that a Buomman takes alone with his twin," said a second threnody.

"But no Buomman takes this journey with any save his twin," added a third.

"And none save a Buomman has made the journey in our memory," said a fourth.

"We cannot tell you what is the right thing to do," the fifth Buomman told them.

"Truly, we do not know what you will find on the other side of the Gate," confided the sixth.

"Great..." Cerrakean muttered.

"Well," Maleko said, getting that look on his face that he wore when working out a problem in his head. "It seems that we've come this far with no guarantee of certainty. And it is plain that the only way forward is through." And saying thus, he stepped forward and through the Gate, leaving his stunned companions to gape at their reflections.

"Well, I'll be damned!" Cerrakean laughed. "Fancy Pants is full of surprises!" And then she followed him, leaping easily through the portal and disappearing.

"I thought she'd be the last one through," Ixin observed to Ayremac.

"That's what she'd like you to think," Del told her, and smiling sadly back at them, stepped through and was gone. Ixin and Ayremac exchanged a look.

"I don't want to be the last one," she told him and he grinned a glowing grin.

"I'll do it," he told her, gesturing with his sword hand for the Gate. Ixin reached out her left hand and clasped his firmly.

"Together?" she suggested and, still smiling, the holy warrior nodded once and they stepped through.



"Amazing," Maleko hissed as he passed through the gate and into the mirrored tunnel beyond. He;d seen a great many wonders and read about scores more, but nothing quite like this. The place was lit dimly from some unseen source, but that dim light was reflected off every surface until it filled the space with brilliance. And in every polished mirror he saw himself smiling back, but not with his face as it was now, but as if the reflections were moments in time plucked from the long years of his own life and displayed here for himself to see.

"The Cavern of the Self," he said nodding his understanding. What else could it be? And what better way to reflect on one's self than to study it in this way... each moment frozen for minute study. Thrilled to begin, he glanced quickly around, noting with some measure of surprise that he'd had a generally happy life.

He didn't normally think of his life in that way, but judging by the smiling and laughing faces that predominated, his many years had been just that. There were others, of course, moments of frozen grief.. or anger... or boredom. In one dark image, he wore the face of a man in terror, his eyes wide, his mouth a gaping rictus.

When had he looked like that, he wondered and drifted closer. He touched it and...



A chorus of night insects filled his ears. He smelled pine needles and damp soil and wood smoke. Branches clawed at his face and snatched at his cloak. His feet were wet, his shoes soaked through with mud. Where was he?

"Las' chance, points!" a voice in the distance called from behind him. "Show ye'self now, or this 'ne's the first ta get a new, red grin!"

Maleko froze. He knew where he was! And turning around he saw a sight that had haunted him nearly every day for the last three years: his steward, Glaltariand on his knees, his hair in the fist of the brigand whose name he had never learned. The human had a knife of what looked like orcish steel pressed against Glaltariand's exposed throat.

Maleko knew from past experience that the brigand's threat was not an idle one. If Maleko did not show himself, then Glaltariand would die.

"I'm here!" Maleko shouted without hesitation, moving as quickly as he could back through the trees to the camp. "Don't hurt him! I'm right here!" The brigand shouted for his crones and Maleko saw several burly shapes moving toward the treeline where he was likely to emerge.

"Dont give yourself up, sir," Glaltariand shouted bravely in elvish. "The bastards will just kill us all anyway!" The brigand who had the steward's hair snarled and carved him open from ear to ear, a sheet of blood sprayed outward, glistening wet and red in the firelight.

"No!" Maleko screamed as he burst from the trees. "No!" Hands were on him then and the elf struggled impotently. He felt tears on his face, and he let them come. He'd done things differently this time. Glaltariand was supposed to live.

"I surrendered," he shouted. "Why did you kill him? Why?" The brigand smiled a gap-toothed yellow smile as he stepped nonchalantly over the dead elf's body and up to Maleko. He held the knife in front of Maleko's face, it still dripped with his steward's blood.

"I kilt 'im 'cause I reco'nized the crest on yer wagons, points. Ye're a Maltalia! Yer family's got more gold'n Waukeen hisself," the bandit sneered. "Can't kill you, pretty boy. Ye're the only one worth the ransom we'll demand. But I reckon it'll set the proper tone if I send along yer friend's head with our demands."