by Dave Gross
If not for the demons flying over its roofs, creeping along its alleys, and crouching on the corners of its buildings, Cliffside might have appeared like any other bustling city. Many of the structures fallen in its conquest had been restored, others redecorated in haphazard fashion, much like the Tower of Zura in which we stood. The centers of attraction all appeared to be converted to temples, the largest of them clearly dedicated to the demon lord Deskari.
From that great hall emerged a procession escorted by a hundred torchbearers. In its center walked a figure striking not only for the batlike wings arching from her back but also for her regal bearing. Even at such a distance, I knew she could only be Areelu Vorlesh. I withdrew my spyglass and put it to my eye.
It was difficult to judge her height because her bodyguard consisted entirely of hulking demons, yet even dwarfed among the brutes she gave the impression of being tall. Horns curved from the sides of her head in stark contrast to the sumptuous black hair she allowed to cascade over one fair shoulder. At her hands and feet, the seemingly soft flesh gave way to a necrotic hue that highlighted her green-gray veins. Demonic sigils marred her otherwise beauteous thighs and belly. Her eyes were red as hot coals.
Vorlesh's entourage turned eastward, toward the Widowknife Clanhold. Even at their stately pace, they would arrive within half an hour, far sooner than we had hoped. Before panic could seize me, I saw that another procession moved to intercept her.
A score of men approached, representatives of various foreign nations. Among their banners I spied the thorny tower of Ustalav, the alabaster mask of Razmir, various ensigns of the River Kingdoms and crude tribal emblems of the Mammoth Lords, among others.
"Abrogail sent envoys." Oparal's lip curled in a sneer. Her elven eyes had no need of my spyglass to recognize the crest of Cheliax among the embassy.
I offered it to her anyway. "Note the man beside the Ustalavic ambassador."
She saw what I had noticed: a man in the blue-and-red checks of Mendev. Her sneer melted into a despairing gape.
"It's only reasonable to make a pretense of diplomacy," I said. "His presence here does not mean Queen Galfrey is ready to capitulate."
Oparal would not be reassured.
Areelu Vorlesh received the delegates one by one. Some offered gifts. Others knelt and raised their arms in gestures of supplication.
"Tell us when she moves again. We must depart before she returns."
Oparal responded with a grim nod. I left her to her vigil and returned to the table, where Alase had arranged the parchments in three groups.
She placed a hand above the first stack. "Songs and chronicles," she said. "The lives of the Widowknife clanlieges, their feuds and treaties. These are mine."
Even without her personal stake in the chronicles, I shared Alase's desire to liberate such treasures from the enemy. It was certain our intrusion would be noted, and the theft of such documents would hardly compromise our mission. I nodded assent.
Alase moved her hand to the second stack. Upon the first page I recognize the names of demon lords and infamous spirits of the First World. "The gods and their priests, the druids and the Green. I will take these, too."
I nodded again, not without reluctance. Much as I would love to add such knowledge to my own library, Alase had the better claim.
She moved her hand to the third stack, consisting of the few volumes written on paper or vellum, often bound as books rather than scrolls or loose pages. "Foreign stuff."
They were the holy texts of the gods of civilized people: Pharasma's The Bones Fall in a Spiral; The Eight Scrolls of Desna; and Torag's Hammer and Tongs, the latter consisting of lacquered pages in an iron binding.
How curious, I thought, that the fiendish occupants of the tower had not destroyed these scrolls and books. Demons revel in destruction and the ignorance of their slaves. Why should they preserve such history and theology? Perhaps the answer lay in the person whose approach limited our time in the Tower of Zura.
Alone of the three who opened the Worldwound portals, Areelu Vorlesh dedicated herself to the demon lord Deskari. She alone embraced the Abyss so completely that she studied the secret paths of corruption and transformed herself into a half-fiend. Unlike Radovan, whose fiendish ancestors seduced his human forebears in an insidious scheme to create their own gate to the material world, Vorlesh had begun life as a human being and chosen corruption; it had not been forced upon her.
My stomach churned as I considered the psyche capable of choosing such a path. It was difficult enough to understand the desperation of my sovereign's great-grandmother, Abrogail I, who signed the compact binding our nation to Hell. Yet she had bargained with the Prince of Law, and in return the devils serving Cheliax preserved the empire—and universal order—all across the Inner Sea. To willingly surrender oneself to chaos was incogitable.
"There is no time to read all of this for some clue as to where the Lexicon might be," I said.
Alase nodded. Her sympathetic grimace was little consolation.
"Are you certain this is the only library?"
"No," she said, and I realized the question was foolish. While this stronghold was her home by birthright, she had never before set foot inside the Widowknife Clanhold. I wondered how I had let such a basic fact of her history slip my mind.
Recently I needed to remind myself of the most obvious facts. I shuddered to think that the proximity of the Worldwound was somehow affecting my emotions or, worse, my thoughts. I had seen its effects on the others, from the tightening stoicism among the crusaders to Radovan's increasingly frequent jokes. Everyone dealt with the fear in a different manner.
"Oparal?" I whispered. When she turned, I signaled for her to close the tapestries. Retrieving my ring from Alase, I shone it about the room once more, signaling the others to join in my search.
Apart from the door and window, there was no other apparent egress. Arching supports at the pillars helped hold up the flat ceiling. If an attic lay above this topmost floor, I saw no access to it from this room.
"Vorlesh must have removed it to her tower," I said.
"If this book is as powerful as you say, then Areelu Vorlesh would have used its powers long ago," said Alase. She motioned for my lighted ring, which I relinquished. "Or she would have delivered it to her master, Deskari."
"If so, then it is well beyond our reach."
"I will not give up so easily," said Oparal. "Not after all we've endured already."
"Do we have time to break into the other tower?" said Gemma.
"We must."
"No," I said. "Not without time to replenish the scrolls I expended. We must withdraw before we are discovered."
Alase shone the light of my ring upon the ceiling and once more over the walls. She was careful to avoid the tapestries covering the window, so I saw no reason to caution her further.
"Once they discover the sentries we've slain, the cultists will double their guard," said Oparal.
Even considering the undisciplined nature of demonic forces, I could hardly dispute that possibility. I had, however, some experience with demons, and thought another reaction more likely. "In their wrath, they will first send out patrols to find us. Vengeance runs stronger than caution in demons. We must take pains to conceal our vehicles. When we return, it must be in greater force. Perhaps after a period of days—"
Alase stood atop the table and peered at the ceiling, moving the light of my ring back and forth. Only then did I perceive the faint tracing in the stone. The marks were so shallow and, upon the walls, so frequently obscured by baskets, shelves, and parchment racks, that I couldn't perceive a pattern. "What is it?"
"The course of the stars," said Alase. "There's the sun and the moon. On the walls, there are forests and hills. There, that looks like a mountain of ice. Look—there's more all across the floor."
In an instant, Oparal pulled away one of the mammoth-wool rugs. Beneath it lay a film of blue-black mold. Freed from the layer of rugs, its spores
stung my eyes and nose. I plucked the handkerchief from my sleeve and dabbed my eyes before covering my nose and mouth. It was some comfort, but I wished I had perfumed the cloth more recently.
The others choked and wiped their eyes before pulling away the rest of the rugs. The mold obscured only a fraction of the covered area. With the toe of her boot, Gemma scraped away a patch. Underneath, we saw the continuation of the patterns Alase had found on the ceiling.
Alase dropped to her knees and cut off a swatch of untainted rug with her knife. Using both hands, she began to scrub the moldy floor clean. Gemma followed her example, handing Oparal a hank of rug. Next she handed one to me. I balked for only an instant before joining the effort. She cut off another and knelt beside me.
Disturbing the mold brought a flood of tears to our eyes. We stepped away when necessary, stifling sneezes and wiping our noses. At last I extinguished the light and opened the tower window a few inches, trusting that no one would notice such a small motion. Afterward, we took turns breathing the fresh air while the others continued the excavation.
At last, Gemma voiced the doubt that gnawed on my mind. "Is there any point to this?" she said. "Or are we just wasting time we should be spending getting away?"
Oparal hesitated before answering. "Radovan may be awaiting us in the furnace room," she said. "Or else—" She shrugged, unwilling to voice the other doubt we shared. Probably we would have heard an alarm had he been discovered, but it was equally possible he had become trapped in the hypocaust or cut off by the unexpected arrival of more guards or visitors to the tower.
As everyone paused in the scrubbing, I heard a scratch upon the wall. Oparal turned her head, her elven ears locating it before I could. She indicated one of the support pillars against the northern wall.
I scratched back our recognition signal.
"I'm right here, boss." The stone wall muffled Radovan's voice. "It's pretty tight, but I think I can—"
One of the "pillar" stones shifted. The scrape of stone was much louder than our whispers and shrugging. Without a word, Gemma returned to the door and put her ear against the keyhole. She looked up and nodded at me.
"Here," said Oparal, pulling me aside with a bruising grip. I rubbed my arm but made no protest under the circumstances.
With a tug on each of her leather gloves, she gripped the stone that Radovan had moved and pulled it away as easily as one might remove a slice of cake.
I had known she was strong—often had I witnessed the effect of her sword on fiends and other monsters—but I had assumed much of that strength was granted by her holy sword. There was some other magic at work, for her power was far greater than that of any elf I had met.
I retrieved my ring from Alase and shone it through the gap. One of Radovan's elbow spurs vanished as he wriggled around and downward. Soon his face appeared, dusty and laced with cobwebs. He winked at us and smiled. "Maybe we can move a couple more? It's a little tight in the shoulders."
The rest of us stood back while Oparal took care of the rest. As she removed the stones, I saw the "pillar" was not at all a load-bearing structure but simply a passage upward. Next time we needed to open a door, I thought, she could do the honors without benefit of a lockpick.
Soon Radovan emerged from the wall. He slapped dust from his jacket and reported what he had heard on the floor below.
"Kasiya," I seethed. For all his spoiled incompetence, the vampire had a talent for interfering in my affairs.
"He heard us talking about Undarin," said Alase. "He came here for the Lexicon."
I had considered that probability before we left Storasta. Knowing Kasiya as I did, I was simply surprised he had found the city and ingratiated himself with this Yavalliska. It was far for him to travel without the comfort of his chariot, whose undead hounds I had incinerated. Imagining his humiliation at transporting himself under his own power was meager solace, but it was some. "Let us pray he has not found it."
"He hasn't," said Radovan. "Not yet, anyway. From what I heard, I don't even think this Yavalliska ever saw the book. Something about the way she was talking to him made me think she wasn't convinced it was even here."
"Unless the tableau at Nekrosof was intentionally misleading, or the book never reached Undarin, or it was later removed ..." The possibilities were too many to anticipate.
"No," said Alase. "You were right before. Now you're thinking so clever that you're becoming stupid. My people wouldn't spend so much time on the image in the temple of the death goddess unless it had meaning."
Ignoring her insulting compliment, I focused on the truth in it. Alase was correct: the ancient Sarkorians would not have gone to the trouble of creating a work of art revealing the location of the Lexicon if it had not already been delivered—and secured.
"The drawings on the walls of this room. They're another clue, like the tableau of bones in Nekrosof. The key is to understand what they mean."
"It's Sarkoris," said Alase.
I bit my tongue rather than snap that I had already deduced as much. The stars above and the horizon on the walls left the floor to be a map of the rivers and cities of ancient Sarkoris. I shone the light on the floor near the center of the room. "Where is Undarin on this map?"
Oparal scraped away more mold with the heel of her boot. Scratched into the floor was the image of an aurochs standing on one side of the river, a pair of towers on the other. Wrinkling his nose at the smell, Radovan knelt and rapped on the stone floor with the butt of his big knife. "Feels solid enough," he said. He poked at the seams of the stone with the tip of the blade before glancing at the spot where he had entered the room and considering their relative positions. He gestured with both hands, indicating lines to either side of the area. "The support pillars ran like this. There's nothing under here."
"Where is Storasta?"
Scraping away more mold, we uncovered the sinuous lines of the Sarkora River and its tributaries. There were marks suggestive of the plateau we had seen to the south, and to the northeast the lands devoured by the gaping mouth of the Worldwound. A crown of stag's antlers marked a spot that had to indicate the city of Iz.
Far to the south, the Sarkora ran into the southeastern wall of the library. Where a mark should have indicated the city of Storasta stood only another pillar-like protrusion resembling the one through which Radovan had entered the room.
"It just ends," said Oparal.
"Were there hypocaust vents—?"
Radovan was already shaking his head. "The only one going up was the one I came through, and that one dead-ended a few feet up. Besides ..." Once more he looked back at his point of entrance and imagined the pillars beneath us. He indicated parallel rows to either side of the pillar. "There's nothing down there, either. This pillar ain't standing on anything.
Oparal moved to the pillar, but both Radovan and Gemma hissed, "Wait!"
Together they examined the wall while I shone the light for them. Impatient, Oparal returned to peer out the covered window. "Count!"
I left Alase once more holding the ring and went to see what had alarmed Oparal.
The meeting outside the Temple of Deskari had concluded. Perhaps a third of the visiting emissaries withdrew across Gorum's Chain to the winding stairs, escorted by fiends. What remained of the others lay on the street or slathered across the faces of Areelu Vorlesh's honor guard.
At first I couldn't see the half-succubus, but then I glimpsed her flying off to the northeast, surrounded by locust and moth demons. From her trajectory, I knew she wasn't returning to the stronghold. Considering the map of Sarkoris at our feet, I surmised she was heading in the direction of Iz at the northernmost margin of the Worldwound.
"Desna smiles," said Radovan. He had succeeded in triggering the concealed panel in the false pillar. It swung open to reveal a package wrapped in soft leather. He lifted it carefully from its niche and brought it to the table, then stepped back to allow me the honors.
Care gave way to urgency as I opened the leat
her wrapping and removed the woolen batting underneath. Inside was indeed a book, but its binding was unexpected. Rather than the skin—fiendish or human—one might expect from a tome of dread arcana, a strangely supple bark covered it. Branded into its surface were Sarkorian pictograms, an anomaly among the many dialects of Hallit with no written counterparts. I recognized the signs for witchcraft, reality, the Green, and high arcana.
"Is it the Lexicon?" said Oparal.
The book collected pages of different materials, various parchments, strips of bark, even leaves of hammered copper. On some were scrawled rituals in ancient Thassilonian, on others incantations in antiquated Hallit. Still others contained geometric designs and unfamiliar maths suggestive of portals between disparate planes of existence. The contents were far too disparate and obscure to comprehend, but there could be no mistake: we had found the Lexicon of Paradox.
"Count?"
I smiled, lifting the book from its wrapping to show the others the fruit of our success. As I did so, I felt naked pages on the bottom. Turning the book over, I saw the stack of pages was barely more than half as thick as the book's spine, and there was no back cover.
"Looks like I spoke too soon," said Radovan. "Desna weeps."
We had recovered but half of the Lexicon of Paradox.
Chapter Thirteen
The Falls
Oparal
Radovan and Gemma searched for another secret compartment. Of course, they found none.
"What advantage in dividing the book in halves only to hide both in the same room?" said the count. The fatigue in his voice blunted his usually pedantic tone.
I felt some sympathy for his disappointment, but that was nothing compared to our need to depart this wretched lair. "There's nothing else for us here. Let's go."
The count returned the book to its wrapping and secured it in his satchel.
Gemma listened at the door, nodded, and opened it. We slipped into the corridor and made it halfway to the stairs before we heard the first alarm. The count translated the word most often repeated: "Intruders!"
