His own voice sounded strange in his ears, as if he hadn't spoken in ages. Tell them to hold on again, Aliisza said. They won't need to, but it'll reassure them.
"Hold on," the wizard repeated. "Hold onto something, and hold on tight or you'll be tossed overboard and lost in the limitless expanse of the Astral Plane for all eternity, set adrift for all time to come, never to be seen or heard from again."
Aliisza giggled, quietly in his ear, her breath tickling him.
They made straight for the whirlpool, and when the tip of the bow hit the trailing end of the disturbance, all Hell broke loose.
Literally.
Pharaun couldn't help but scream as the ship was whirled so madly around that his head snapped back and forth. His hands threatened to come away from the deck. Something hit him in the back of the head. Aliisza squeezed him, then let go, then squeezed him again. Pain flared in his legs and side, and he didn't know precisely why. The others were making noises as well: screaming, growling, calling out questions he couldn't understand, much less answer.
"This is it," Aliisza shouted into his ear. He still couldn't see her. "This is what you came for. This is where you're going. You brought yourself here, but now it's time for the Abyss to decide if you live to walk its burning expanse. The Abyss will decide if you get what you want."
"What?" Pharaun asked. "What do you mean?"
"The Abyss decides, Pharaun," the alu-demon said, her arms slipping away from him, "not you."
"We're almost there," the wizard said. "I feel it. It'll let us in."
Not me, Aliisza whispered into his mind. I leave you here.
"Why?" he asked, then thought to her, Come with me.
The alu-demon giggled then was gone, and Pharaun screamed again.
Until the roaring of the whirlpool dropped to nothing and his own screaming rattled his eardrums.
The ship stopped spinning but continued to fall, accelerating down and down while Pharaun struggled to regain control. Aliisza was gone, and the subtle help she provided, the extra consciousness at the helm, was gone with her. He tried to think of some spell to cast, but his mind, tied to the ship that was damaged in ways he was only dimly aware of, wouldn't form the list of spells. The sky had gone red, and there was a sun, but it was huge and dull. The heat was stifling, and Pharaun had trouble drawing a deep breath. Sweat poured from him, stinging his eyes and soaking his forearms.
"Pharaun," Quenthel screamed, her voice shrill and reedy, "do something!" Pharaun formed a number of replies as they continued to dive, faster and faster downward, but he didn't bother with any of them.
"Dosomething?" he repeated.
The wizard started to laugh, but the laugh turned into a scream when the ship rolled over upside down.
Below them was a level plain that went on and on forever in all directions with no horizon. Tinted red by the dull sun, the sand shimmered with heat. Scattered all over were deep black holes-thousand of them . . . millions of them.
He knew where they were. He had heard it described.
They had come to the Abyss. To the Plain of Infinite Portals.
They were falling and falling and screaming and screaming until they hit the ground.
The ship of chaos shattered into a thousand shards of bone and sinew, the human-skin sail ripping to shreds. The sound was a wild cacophony of snapping and booming and tearing and cracking. The four drow and the draegloth aboard the ship were sent spinning into the air, rolling and tumbling to a stopon the burning sand.
Chapter Twenty-two
It was raining souls.
All around Pharaun, one after another, transparent wraiths dropped from the burning sky onto the blasted sand of the Plain of Infinite Portals. He could pick out representatives of a thousand different races. Some he recognized, and some he didn't. There was everythingfrom the lowliest kobold to enormous giants, humans by the hundreds, and no shortage of duergar. Pharaun could only hope that the latter were coming straight from the siege of Menzoberranzan.
Someone stepped close to him, and the Master of Sorcere turned to look. It was then that he realized he was lying on his back on the uncomfortably hot sand looking up. The wispy shade of a departed soul passed by him. The newly dead orc looked down but didn't seem to see Pharaun. Maybe the creature didn't care. It was headed to some