from the World Above; and a black opal the size of his little fingernail, shot through with veins of red. He warmed the beeswax by working it with his hands, then he sculpted the softened lump, modeling the arms, legs, tail, and snout of an uridezu demon. The statuette was crude, but it would suffice. Slicing open itschest with a fingernail, Pharaun pushed the opal inside, then pinched the wound shut. He wrapped Valas's chain around one of the statuette's legs, securing it there by joining two links together.
"There," he said, nodding in satisfaction at the chain that bit slightly into the wax statuette's ankle. "That should hold him long enough to get us to the Abyss."
Chapter Thirty-two
As the worm's mouth closed around her, Halisstra squeezed her eyes shut. She gasped as a wave of acid splattered against the exposed portions of her body - her face, neck, and hands - then regretted it as the stench of acid filled her nostrils. Rivulets of agony trickled through her hair and down her neck, searing her chest and back as they found their way under her chain mail and padded tunic.
Clinging to the hilt of the songsword, she twisted violently against the rippling, sucking force of the worm trying to swallow her down. She managed to get her feet braced against the worm's lower jaw, but when she tried to lever the mouth open her boots slipped. The worm swallowed her, wrenching her hands away from the hilt of the sword.
As the worm's throat muscles constricted, forcing her down its throat, Halisstra began to pray. To open her burning lips would mean swallowing acid, which would further increase her torment, so she prayed silently, fervently, begging Eilistraee to help her. Despite the fact that she could feel her skin erupting into blisters, she didn't at-tempt a curative spell - that would only delay the inevitable - instead she pleaded for something that would help her to escape.
The worm thrashed back and forth, bending Halisstra violently this way and that. She heard dull, muffled thuds that must have been Ryld hacking at the worm with his sword, but then the creature twisted suddenly and they stopped. The motion forced the air from Halisstra's lungs - and she dared not try to inhale. Instead she forced her hand down, scraping it against her acid-slimed chain mail to touch the amulet hanging from her belt, next to her empty sheath.
Eilistraee,she prayed.Help me. Send me a weapon.
Something nudged against her hand - something hard and smooth. Grasping it, Halisstra realized it was the hilt of a sword - obviously the weapon of some other unfortunate victim of the worm. She wasted no time in using what the goddess had provided. Forcing her elbow back against the pulsing wall of the worm's gut, she brought the pointof the weapon to bear and felt it slide into the worm's flesh. Then she began to saw.
Her entire body was covered in acid. The worm's digestive juices had seeped under her armor and clothing and onto her skin. She could feel blisters erupting and could feel the acid flowing into the rupturing skin with each move that she made. Head pounding from a lack of air, she sawed desperately, her movements made short and jerky by the fact that the worm's gut was pressing her arm against her side. Flashes of red danced before her eyes, but still she continued to saw. It was either that or die.
The wall of gut in front of her ruptured. Riding a wave of acid, Halisstra fell through the wound in the worm's side, dropping the sword. She lay for a moment on the hard stone, drawing deep, shud-dering breaths and watching the worm thrash itself across the cavern. The creature was wounded in half a dozen places: deep gashes that had probably been made by Ryld's greatsword. As the worm shud-dered and at last died, Halisstra rolled feebly over, out of the puddle of acid.
"Ryld," she gasped, sighting him.
As her pain-dulled mind registered that he was lying on his back on the cavern floor, she forced herself into a sitting position, nearly fainting at the pain of her heavy chain mail as it rubbed against her acid-burned flesh.
"Ryld," she said, her voice cracking. "Ryld!"
The weapons master's chest still rose and fell beneath the breast-plate he wore, though the breaths were shallow. Just below the edge of his breastplate his tunic was torn - a round bloodstain told her that it was a