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. I remained senseless of the blood -
Kassandry's blood - that stained my robe, or even of the
fact that, for the time being, I had been spared.
I watched the proceedings with a sort of detachment -
no longer was I a participant, as indeed I never should have
been in the first place. I stared into that black pit. The
zombies around us were still, and even Erasmoth's
breathing had become slow and labored.
Then, from out of that obscene darkness, a hand
reached forth - a slender, female hand, wet with blood.
Another hand appeared, followed by a pair of arms. Then
the face, now deathly pale, was visible - and then the
mortal flesh that once had been the priestess called
Kassandry.
The creature that emerged from the pit was dead, as
insensate as the rank of rotting corpses that stood around
us. The female zombie, her nearly naked flesh smeared
with the gruesome refuse of the dark pit, climbed
laboriously from the hole in the floor. The thing's - I cannot
think of it, anymore, as female, or even human -
movements were jerky and uncoordinated, as if it must
learn to walk anew.
But the aspect that shocked me the most was the vacant
stare of those once-bright eyes. Kassandry's gaze had been
so intense, so vital, that it had fascinated me even as it made
me quiver with uncertainty. Now the dull, deadened eyes of
a corpse roamed sightlessly in that awful, pallid face.
"Before we proceed further," Erasmoth declared to me,
"I want to show you something."
Numbly, still anticipating my imminent death, I
nonetheless followed him
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