“Are you all right?” Dyphina asked, helping him to his feet. It was a small miracle he hadn’t stabbed himself with his own weapon.
Looking back, he saw a man, almost human but something else, sitting with his back propped against a sloped structure. The nearest torch was a few body lengths away, and the buildings were angled such that the man was cast in shadow, until Thaelios’s dagger illuminated him.
His eyes were only half-open, and he wasn’t reacting to their presence in any way Thaelios could determine. He didn’t seem dead, though, as his ruddy cheeks still held color and his head rolled slowly back and forth on his neck as if keeping its own record of time. Rows of small nodules lined the ridges of his face, but Thaelios wasn’t sure if that was normal for his kind or a sign of sickness.
“Do you think we should leave him here?” Dyphina asked. “He doesn’t seem like one of these fiends.”
Thaelios waved his hand in front of the man’s face, but got no response. When he snapped his fingers, however, the man’s eyes opened wider and stared at him. “Do you need help standing up?” Thaelios asked in Illanese, unsure what other boon they could currently grant. The man didn’t respond, so he asked again in Abyssal.
The man made a sound with his throat that might have been a decline of the offer, but Thaelios couldn’t be sure. Perhaps he wasn’t a telepath.
“You know where Three Branches is? It is a tavern.” He felt like it couldn’t hurt to ask, though he knew his Abyssal was limited.
The stranger considered him, then the disguised Dyphina. “I’m ready for death,” he croaked in the harsh tongue of the Plane. “Take me.” He raised his arms as if expecting Dyphina to physically lift and take him somewhere.
She looked at Thaelios, shook her head, and took a step back, assuring that she had no plans to touch this person.
“We not bring death, friend,” Thaelios tried, prepared to give up. “Three Branches?” he repeated, holding up three fingers not far from the man’s face.
To his surprise, the man used his thumb to gesture at the wall behind him. Thaelios looked up at the building he was leaning against, but couldn’t see any defining characteristics. “Very well,” Thaelios nodded, rising from his crouch. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, sir.”
“I don’t think there’s anything we can really do for him,” he said to Dyphina, switching back to Illanese. “Let’s go.” He interlocked their elbows and led her away from the stranger, whose arms sagged along with his eyelids. Figuring it couldn’t hurt, but not expecting it to help, he went the direction the man indicated. After two more irregular blocks, Thaelios heard voices in his mind.
“If you don’t give me that ingot, I’m going to carve out the hollow of your chest and birth a grim worm in the cavity—”
“I’m not sure we want to go this way,” he said to Dyphina, trying to remember that the words likely weren’t directed toward him.
“No, look!” Dyphina pointed further down the street to where a long branch with a head dangling from it emerged from the wall of a building. Their approach was from a different angle than before, but it looked as if they’d found the tavern!
Thaelios saw movement near the front of the building as they drew nearer, but before making it to the next major thoroughfare, a creature flew across their path from a side alley. After crashing forcefully to the ground, four spiderlike arms bent downward to push itself back onto anthropomorphic feet.
No sooner had it stood than a second creature lunged from the alley, tackling the first and straddling its body. The aggressor had bladelike protrusions extending at an angle from its forearms, and viscous fluid dripped from its unhinged jaw.
Paralyzed by a combination of fear and indecision, Thaelios watched as the violence unfolded a few steps away.
“Come on!” Dyphina yanked him by the arm, restoring his mobility as she ducked and sped past the brawl, heading for the front door of The Three Branches. Swept up awkwardly in Dyphina’s wake, Thaelios barely avoided a wayward appendage as he slipped by.
With no song from Palomar to ward their minds, a flood of telepathic chatter assaulted Thaelios as he followed his fellow apprentice between the large, oddly shaped bodies loitering in the tavern’s entryway. He wondered how the telepathic natives managed to not become overwhelmed. Could they selectively disregard or enhance particular voices they were more interested in? While Thaelios desired to discover more about the subject in the future, at the moment, all he wanted was to avoid the crowds and finish their mission so they could leave this realm of distraction and danger.
As before, the chatter in his head cut off once they reached the bar. He followed closely behind Dyphina as she climbed the irregular stairs, heading for the same table where they’d first found Ivaldi. Luckily, the sage was still there, the brim of his green hat shielding his face as he pored over an open book set on the table in front of him. Dyphina checked the neighboring booths for danger, though without their Celestial companions, none of the locals seemed to be paying them any mind. They pressed forward to the edge of Ivaldi’s table.
“Are you going to ask a question, or are you just interested in casting a shadow across my page?” the sage asked without raising his head.
“My apologies,” Thaelios answered. “We would not interrupt your research if it weren’t important.”
Dyphina nodded, her sickly visage adding an element of desperation to their plea. “We need to know how to get to Ishmere,” she added.
At the mention of the Juda-cai homeworld, Ivaldi slowly raised his head. His snoutish nose wrinkled as he considered his guests. “You again,” he stated calmly, laying his quill flat across the parchment he’d been making notes upon. “Only, you seem to have lost your more ostentatious friends. I hope not to an untimely demise.”
“Of course not,” Thaelios replied. “May we sit?” He slid onto the bench across from Ivaldi even as the sage nodded. The sullen-looking Dyphina glanced over her shoulder once more before taking a seat as well.
Thaelios swept back some of the silver hair that had fallen over his pointed ears. “I’ll get right to, so as not to waste your time. We have need of information and figured you’d be the quickest source. Is my assumption correct?” A little indirect flattery shouldn’t hurt, he thought.
Ivaldi tapped his fingers upon the pages of his open book. “I do deal in the acquisition of knowledge – but hopefully you remember that I don’t simply share it for free.” He leaned forward and spoke more softly, “I need something of value in return.”
Thaelios nodded, running over what facts he could broker with that would be of interest to a sage in the Doomwait. “And what would it cost me to learn the quickest way to travel to Ishmere?”
Ivaldi pulled back to rest flat against the support of his bench. He interlaced his idle fingers and turned his attention to Dyphina. “You look different than before,” he stated. “I see you learn quickly. This visit has earned you much less attention. That is also the way I prefer things.”
Dyphina spoke up, trying to keep their conversation on course. “Do you have an answer for us, or are you stalling?”
Ivaldi snorted and shifted his eyes back to Thaelios. “Why do you want to go to Ishmere? I’m not sure you have what it takes to survive there.”
So he does know something about it, Thaelios mused. “Let us worry about that, friend. How do we get there?”
The sage sighed and crossed his arms. “In order to share this with you, I will need something useful.” Ivaldi took stock of the denizens sitting at the nearest tables, checking to see if any were listening in. “You’re obviously from elsewhere, and Plane-walkers have usually seen interesting things. What do you know about Mount Celestia?”
Thaelios chewed on his lower lip, deciding how to respond. He was unsure he’d picked up anything useful to Ivaldi during his brief time on Palomar’s home world, but if he had, would sharing it constitute a betrayal of their Celestial guide? Was there anything else he could offer?
The sound of tankards toppling to the floor and the screech of benches being pushed back drew Thaelios’s attention across the upper story of The Three Branches. A pair of fiendish creatures stood in confrontation on opposite sides of a table.
“Give me that Soulstone, or by my True Name, I will scorch the ground beneath your corpse!”
A third creature, bulky and tall enough that it had to duck to keep its horned head from scraping the ceiling, pushed toward the stand-off from a far corner. It had faceted eyes like an insect, and held a massive, black trident in both hands. “Sit down before I skewer you both!” it commanded in raspy Infernal. “Or take your argument outside,” it offered as an alternative.
Thaelios watched the instigator consider the new threat, then slowly pull the wayward bench forward to retake his seat.
“Never a dull moment,” Ivaldi chimed.
Something about the initial fiend’s curse triggered Thaelios’s memory. “I have something even better for you,” he declared as he turned back to the sage. “On my home world, there is a stone tablet containing the True Names of a dozen fiends. That should be worth something, no?”
Ivaldi’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying … if you had access to that kind of power, you wouldn’t be here, dealing with me.”
Thaelios shrugged. “The tablet has been split in two. I only have access to one half. But the other exists, and if the right entity were to find both, they could extort a bevy of mighty beings into servitude.”
Uncrossing his arms and leaning forward once more, Ivaldi spoke softly and evenly, “And you’re going to tell me where your half is, is that it?”
“Once you tell us how to reach Ishmere …”
The sage’s eyes narrowed again and his fingers resumed their tapping. “I suppose I shall trust you, then. I will hold you to your end of the bargain, though I can’t imagine you’re going to like what I have to tell you.”
Dyphina exhaled sharply. “Don’t worry, we’re used to bad news.”
“Alright then,” Ivaldi continued. “See how this compares. Of course, there are a number of ways to travel from world to world, but only one I’m aware of that will get you where you want to go. The Juda-cai are not to be trifled with. They are usually the ones visiting other realms – I’ve never heard of anyone else going to or returning from Ishmere.”
Thaelios nodded. “We understand. You won’t be held responsible for our safety.” He was ready to get what they needed and get out of the Doomwait before one of these fiends decided to bring them trouble.
“Very well,” Ivaldi continued. “The Doomwait holds an interesting position in the cosmos, creating an equilibrium between the realms of positive and negative energy. A number of wounds, if you will, have been opened by the stress of its adjacency to the Upper and Lower Planes, and you can reach the first layer of many striated worlds from here.” The sage licked his lips and swallowed with more effort than usual. “Alas, Ishmere is not one of them.”
“What?” Dyphina asked. “I thought you knew something useful. Don’t tell us about all the ways that aren’t helpful—”
Thaelios shot her a stern look. “What my friend means to say, Ivaldi, is that we’re in a bit of a hurry and would like to be on our way as soon as possible.” It was true – he had no idea how much longer Dyphina’s disguise was going to last, let alone the possible demon forces assembling to cut them off from the Rift.
“I understand,” the sage replied, though he didn’t seem in any rush to reach the end of his exposition. “Luckily, or not, depending on your view, there is a stairway near here that leads to the top layer of the Abyss. The Abyss is a fascinating place, comprised of infinite layers. Connecting all of them is the Chaos Cyclone. I can only describe it as an enormous whirlpool of shadow and despair – you will have no difficulty recognizing it.”
Dyphina shook her head. “You’re right, that doesn’t sound good.”
“If one were to descend through that whirlpool, the Chaos Cyclone would normally deposit you on a random layer of the infinite Abyss. However, the Lords of the Abyss have devised a way to send their minions to specific locations through the use of Rune Magic. Though the most powerful Tanar-ri can navigate from one realm to another through their own Gating abilities, lesser beings can navigate through the Chaos Cyclone by carrying a Destination Stone that anchors travelers to a particular realm.”
Thaelios thought he saw where the sage was headed. “And can these ‘Destination Stones’ be tied to a plane other than a layer of the Abyss?”
Ivaldi nodded. “There is an archive, a repository of Destination Stones connected to the smithies where the Rune Magic is forged. In theory, the Chaos Cyclone could take you to any negative energy plane, of which Ishmere is one. You would have to find the correct stone in the archive, however.”
Thaelios shrugged. “I’m sure they have some system of cataloging them.”
“I feel I must warn you,” Ivaldi said. He looked toward the neighboring booths once more before continuing. “Only the Lords of the Abyss have the authority to assign Destination Stones. To get what you need, you’re going to have to break into the repository and steal it.”
“Do you know what’s guarding them?” Dyphina asked. “The Stones?”
Ivaldi shrugged. “Demons? Worse? Rune Magic is time consuming and difficult. The Stones are very valuable.”
Thaelios nodded. He understood nothing about this would be easy, but he wanted to make sure he knew everything he needed to before reporting back to the others. “Would each of us need one, or would one do for a group?”
“I cannot guarantee a Destination Stone for Ishmere will be on-hand, but there likely wouldn’t be more than one.” Ivaldi sighed. “As I said, it’s almost unheard of for anyone who is not a Juda-cai to travel there. However,” he continued once Thaelios opened his mouth to reiterate the question, “as long as anyone wishing to travel is in an unbroken chain of contact to the bearer of the Stone, they will be transported along with him.”
“Good,” Thaelios responded. In fact, this was all far from good, but he felt like he could at least present the information soundly enough for their group to come to a decision. He quickly shared enough about the Hall of Doors and the location of the Tablet of Broken Names back on Elisahd to fulfill his part of the bargain, then he and Dyphina slipped out of The Three Branches just as her illusion started to wear off.
His thoughts were so occupied by what was possibly to come that their journey back to the Abyssal Rift seemed shorter than the first time. No Tanar-ri ambushed them, but Thaelios felt far from relieved as he shared the news of what they were up against in order to travel to Ishmere.
Chapter 11
The Chaos Cyclone
“T his sounds extremely dangerous,” said Saffron.
Thaelios didn’t disagree with her assessment. He certainly wasn’t going to push for entering the Infinite Layers of the Abyss. “Are we sure this is a course we want to pursue? We don’t even know that finding the Juda-cai is the best way to protect my people from whatever danger is to come.”
“To be fair,” Dyphina interjected, her natural beauty returned with the expiration of her illusion, “it does seem that the Juda-cai would know about the Spawn of Raug – he is one of them, after all.”
Saffron and Be’naj both nodded, leaving Thaelios to turn to the Celestial for support. “What do you think, Palomar? Your kind knows the perils of the Abyss better than the rest of us.”
Palomar set his jaw and furrowed his brow. “If we know of a threat to the innocent, we should not sit by and allow it to become manifest. That said, the five of us attempting to infiltrate an Abyssal repository of Rune Magic is unveiled folly.”
Saffron looked surprised and started to object. “But—”
Palomar shook his head, “Fire means nothing to demons, and even the lesser Tanar-ri are physically stronger than any of you … which is why I shall ask one of the Celestial Marshalls for aid.”
Be’
naj smiled and nodded. “Do you think the other Aasimar will help?”
Palomar shrugged. “I spent long spans battling Abyssal invaders under Illicurus. I know a few veterans from that campaign still assigned to protect Vilonia. I will ask and hear their answer.”
“So, are we headed back to the settlement? I would be happy to get out from under this mountain,” Thaelios said. He was sure having a contingent of Aasimar accompanying them would make him more comfortable, but uncertain whether abandoning this course altogether might ultimately be best.
Thankfully, they left the crackling, dark energy of the Abyssal Rift behind and strode in pensive silence to the surface. Seeing a blue sky above his head and the warmth of sunshine on his face acted like fresh air to Thaelios’s suffocating soul. Only back under the canopy of the heavens did he appreciate the unseen oppressiveness of a Plane saturated by negative energy.
“Perhaps you should wait here, friends,” Palomar projected as they reached the armory. “My conversation with Khanarme demands privacy. I shall return as soon as I can.”
Thaelios didn’t mind the break and sat down on the black soil to wait.
“It is difficult to measure time, here,” Be’naj mentioned. “I cannot tell if the sun has even moved since we arrived. When was the last time you slept, Saffron?”
“I have no idea, but now that you mention it, I’m exhausted.”
Dyphina followed up with an unrepentant yawn. “I wonder if they have anywhere comfortable to sleep.”
“I don’t think Aasimar require rest, to be honest,” Thaelios postulated. What he’d gleaned during his linguistic studies of the Lower Planes suggested that creatures without finite lifespans generally lacked the baser needs to sustain them.
“I could use a break to trance myself,” Be’naj added. “Perhaps Shecclad will send me a message if he knows I’m trying to reach him.”
“And how would he know that?” Thaelios asked. “Even if he normally watched your every move on Elisahd, which I highly doubt, that doesn’t mean he could follow you here to Mount Celestia.”
The Hall of Doors Page 15
