City of Torment as-2

by Bruce R Cordell

  Anusha blinked free of the vision even as a message issued from the strange, hollow bell. It was a promise.

  "Anusha, I'm coming to set you free."

  Reality reasserted itself. But her concentration on the rope metaphor holding them in midair collapsed. She and Yeva fell like stones.

  Their residual trajectory carried them well clear of the aboleths gathered around the orrery hole. They fell and sprawled onto rough stone. Anusha was on her feet a moment later-uninjured, of course. She helped up Yeva, who was shaking.

  Yeva said, "I am unhurt!" The woman was still getting used to her lack of a physical body.

  The yellow aboleth with its multiple eyes that could apparently see them swooped down. A cacophony of clicks and low, whalelike moans burst from the mass of aboleths around the circular hole in the floor, but apparently whatever they were doing was more important than chasing down loose memories. They continued their strange ritual.

  "Look," said Yeva. She pointed. A school of aboleths fell off the ceiling like a throng of leeches abandoning a corpse. They thrashed in the naked air but didn't fall to the floor. Instead they swarmed for a moment, as if relishing their ability to defy gravity.

  It is here. It is vulnerable. Destroy it!

  As one, the aboleth school surged toward the yellow-hued aboleth, whose eyes remained fixed on the women.

  "Run!" Anusha shouted. She still had Yeva's hand from helping her stand. She sprinted toward the opposite wall of the great chamber, pulling Yeva along.

  The five-eyed aboleth continued to descend, but its angle of descent changed to follow their path across the chamber's floor. The others fell in behind the lead creature, creating an undulating line in the air like a yellow- headed snake.

  Yeva yanked her fingers free of Anusha's grip.

  Anusha yelled, "What are you doing?"

  Yeva extended both hands, fingers flared, and leaned toward the approaching aboleth phalanx. Her eyes pulsed with energy-one with fire, the other with leaping sparks. She said, "I think only the yellow one can sense us. If I can hurt it.. " Lightning discharged from Yeva's hands and unerringly speared the lead aboleth. Even as the creature's path through the air faltered, Yeva cupped her palms, reared back, and threw. An orb of translucent gray arced upward. It struck the yellow aboleth. White light pulsed from it, briefly enveloping the creature's body.

  The five-eyed aboleth made rasping, clicking shrieks as it dropped out of the air and slammed into the floor.

  The aboleths still flying lost their formation and began to dart erratically like mosquitoes searching for prey.

  The yellow aboleth smoked, but continued to scrabble for its bearings. The watcher was hurt, but still alive. Not for long, Anusha vowed.

  She charged the floundering yellow thing. Her greatsword rematerialized in one hand, shining with the golden light of her desire. One of the creature's wildly searching eyes noticed her at the last moment. The bulk shifted, and Anusha's attack only grazed the creature instead of swiping directly through its blunt head.

  The contact was enough to send it into a screaming fit of flailing tentacles, none of which could grasp Anusha.

  As her fear drained away, she grinned, waded forward, and plunged the blade carefully down, this time directly into the beast's brain.

  It is a threat to the Sovereignty, came the insidious voice, now strained and trailing away, but just as emotionless. But its mind is vulnerable. Watchers can see it, and overseers can catch it It must not interfere with the rousing…

  The yellow thing's mental voice ceased. It shuddered once and stopped moving.

  Anusha looked up. All of the creatures flitting around above ignored her.

  Anusha swung around and raised her sword to salute Yeva.

  Yeva was kneeling on the ground, one hand reaching toward Anusha. She was steaming. Dissolving!

  Anusha dashed back to her companion, allowing her sword to fade so she could throw both hands around Yeva.

  The moment they touched, Yeva sighed, and her image returned to solidity.

  Yeva said, "I summoned the storm's lance with psionic will. Apparently to my detriment."

  Anusha nodded. It made her stomach convulse to realize Yeva's existence was so tenuous. But she said, "You were incredible! They would have got us if you hadn't knocked the watcher out of the air with your magic."

  Yeva allowed herself a social smile at Anusha's words.

  She said, "Psionics, not magic. Just like the mental powers you harness, I believe."

  "Right," said Anusha, not certain she agreed, but unwilling to gainsay the woman who obviously knew something of the mind's functions. And really, did it matter what the source of their abilities was, so long as they worked?

  "We need to find the exit," said Anusha. "Something terrible is going on here. Some sort of rousing. The yellow one was afraid we might interfere. All I want to do is leave. I don't think we want to be here when whatever the Elder is wakes up."

  Yeva climbed to her feet, accepting Anusha's help again. Then she pointed, concern widening her eyes.

  The swarm of flitting aboleths over the yellow corpse had moved toward the two women while they talked. One aboleth, a gray-green specimen with more tentacles than the others, hovered only twenty feet away, its three crimson eyes scanning.

  Anusha clapped a hand over her mouth, then leaned to Yeva's ear. She whispered, "Even if they can't see us, they can hear us. We need to move!"

  The women retreated toward a massive opening in the chamber's far wall. They walked rapidly, but quietly. The swarm didn't follow, though the gray-green one surged forward to land only a few feet from where they'd last stood, slapping its damp tentacles around as if hoping to flush out invisible prey.

  The opening in the wall wasn't so much a tunnel mouth as an elongation of the chamber, one that began a shallow turn up and to the left like the bottom end of a tightly wound, but thick, hollow coil.

  They left behind the aboleth ritual chamber poised over the alien orrery.

  A mucous light suffused everything. The rocky floor, walls, and even ceiling were thick with eroded protuberances like granite obelisks worn down to nubs only two or three feet tall, though others reached five or six times that height. Here and there, icy stretches of condensed memory clung to the corridor in ragged patches. Anusha and Yeva gave those a wide berth as they ascended the sloping, gradual curve. Shallow pockets were common in the massive passage, creating hollows some ten feet on a side. Some were empty and dry. Others contained residual slime stinking of rotten fish. Most, however, were filled with a syrupy mass of fluid in which the shape of an unmoving aboleth lay ensheathed.

  "Many monsters sleep here, but they are waking," said Yeva. She pointed to an empty but slime-slicked hollow.

  Anusha nodded, distracted. Her eyes constantly scanned for an exit. Would she know it if she saw one?

  Also, she was conscious of a new sensation.

  She turned to Yeva. "Do you feel that? A kind of… I can't quite describe it. A current? As if we're walking in a shallow stream in the direction it's flowing?"

  Yeva cocked her head. "Now that you say it… Yes. It is a psychic undertow."

  "What's that?"

  Yeva shrugged. "It is a force akin to what allows lodestones to draw iron filaments, I suppose. But what we're feeling draws minds."

  "Wouldn't the psychic attraction be in the opposite direction, from where we escaped the expanse of frozen dreams?" asked Anusha. "I thought that was where my mind had refocused. If this 'undertow' leads away from the ice, maybe we should allow it to sweep us up? Maybe it'll tumble us out of this nightmare!"

  Yeva gave her a doubtful, sidelong glance and said, "I would advise against trying that. Of course, you're right, up to a point. For centuries, stray dreams were swept up and apparently lodged within the expanse we escaped.

  However, if the Eldest is waking, then its mind is reintegrating. Which means stray dreams and lost spirits may be falling directly to it now. Whereupo
n they will be consumed-gone forever."

  Anusha's skin prickled, even though she knew full well she had no physical form.

  She swallowed and said, "Then let's resist it."

  "Agreed."

  "Yeva, I just remembered something… When the yellow aboleth tried to snare me with its mind, it triggered some kind of vision. I saw a friend of mine traveling downward. I heard his voice. He said… he said he was coming to rescue me."

  Yeva cocked a brow. "Are you sure it was a true vision?" "No. I can't be sure, but it seemed real." The woman shrugged. "Is there any reason to believe your friend-What is his name?" "Japheth."

  "Japheth! All right, does Japheth have the means to come to our aid?"

  "Actually, yes. He knows spells and swore a pact to an archfey who grants him many odd abilities."

  Yeva said, "Hmm. Perhaps your vision is a true one. He swore a pact, you say? I've heard tell of such things."

  Anusha nodded. "And he has a cloak that's bigger on the inside than out. I don't really understand how it works."

  For the first time, Yeva actually seemed encouraged. "Perhaps he could devise a new body for me… if he's truly on his way."

  "Let's act as if he is," Anusha said. "Which is another reason to find an entrance-so we can meet him."

  "Either way, our immediate goal is the same," said Yeva.

  The women renewed their upward slog. The vast tunnel, roughly tubelike, continued its gradual rise. They wound their way around putrid aboleth burrows and pillars.

  A churning, bubbling sound drew their attention. They turned in time to witness a previously sleeping aboleth surge from its hollow, spraying goo in a wide radius. It lay on the floor for several moments, its sides heaving and its tentacles writhing.

  "Should I kill it with my sword?" Anusha whispered.

  "Let's see what it does. It's not yellow."

  The aboleth finally rolled onto its stomach. Its tongue rasped out of its tri-slit mouth and tasted the floor. Then it began to move. Half primeval fish, half enormous slug, the creature skated forward on a bed of mucus, up the shallow spiral.

  Anusha got her stomach under control. She whispered, "All right, we'll follow it."

  Yeva said, "Not that we have any other way to go."

  It was true enough. But Anusha hoped there was more to this city of Xxiphu than a long coil of aboleth- hollowed tunnel from bottom to top. There must be an exit. How else could the creatures come and go?.They paced the aboleth, keeping about a city block's worth of distance between them and it. The creature slid forward like a snail moving nightmarishly fast. Sometimes it paused to touch a tentacle against a protruding obelisk. When it did, purple light flared at the obelisk's tip. Then the aboleth continued, leaving behind a flamelike flicker of purple.

  Anusha said, "I wonder what it's doing."

  "Perhaps it is setting lights to encourage its still sleeping siblings to wake and join it."

  Anusha grimaced. "What else can you tell me about Xxiphu and the Eldest? You seem to know a lot about this place."

  "I am not of Faerun, or even Toril. I come from a higher realm where knowledge of ancient things is not wholly forgotten. But even so, Xxiphu is an obscure topic. I know only what I once read in a crumbling scroll during a brief visit to the House of Knowledge."

  Anusha had never heard of the House of Knowledge. She glanced forward to make certain their furtive conversation wasn't being noted by the aboleth. So far, so good. She said, "What did the scroll say?"

  "I was searching dusty lore to learn more about illithids, not aboleths. Still, it caught in my memory, for its oddness. Written in Deep Speech, the scroll proclaimed an Abolethic Sovereignty once attempted to rule your world but was foiled. The text described a colossal thing sleeping in darkness. A nasty, terrible, many-handed, and manyeyed monster. The passage indicated its massive bulk was the result of great age. It never ceased growing, inch by inch, year by year, and century by century. Even millennium by millennium."

  "The scroll was describing the Eldest?"

  "Just so."

  "How old can it be?" Anusha asked.

  "It was old when Sehine cried her glittering tears. Its mind buzzed with a thousand languages when mortals on Toril puzzled out their first expressive grunts. No offense. When it fell into slumber, the world yet rang with the clamor of the primordials' forge hammers. Or so claimed the document."

  Anusha prompted, "What did the scroll say about Xxiphu?"

  "It claimed Xxiphu's murky and echoing crevices sheltered creatures who worshiped the Eldest as their supreme monarch and divine provider. The scroll described these creatures that teemed Xxiphu as lesser, younger manifestations of the Eldest's quintessential form. They are the Eldest's progeny. Aboleths, of course. The document wrapped up with a warning-the entire vastness of Xxiphu is a city, but also simultaneously a precious seed the Eldest has brooded through the ages "

  "Ugh. A seed? What does that mean?"

  "No further explanations were written. I suspect it means that one day the Eldest and all its ancient aboleth children will wake from long slumber."

  "I think that day has arrived," Anusha said.

  The aboleth they followed paused at an intersection. The tunnel split, becoming two lesser paths.

  One would have been a continuation of their way, but its character changed drastically. The passage constricted to a third or less in diameter. The mucous light persisted, allowing Anusha to see forward into a twisted, winding maze of irregular tunnels. Attached here and there on naked rock quivered masses of white orbs, gelatinous and pale like fish eggs. That way reeked of brine.

  tfA nursery," murmured Yeva.

  The other passage was a perfectly circular cavity some few tens of feet in diameter. Like a bore hole, it was smoothwalled and plunged sideways. The passage didn't go far before it ended in a wavering curtain of mist.

  The aboleth lit one last obelisk protrusion with purple fire, then slid its bulk into the twisting maze Yeva called the nursery.

  Anusha shook her head. "I'd rather not go into the egg tunnels." "Agreed."

  They proceeded down the smooth bore hole to the barrier. The watery light caressed Anusha's armor with images of blue-green bubbles. She raised a hand and pressed it into the mist. She didn't feel the least resistance, nor did it feel wet. She retracted her hand. It wasn't any the worse for wear, but…

  "I guess that doesn't prove anything," she said. "I can walk through walls as easily as mist."

  "Let us go together." Yeva took Anusha's free hand.

  They stepped through the barrier.

  Anusha saw a massive subterranean vault lit by thousands of tiny purple flames. The air was close, humid, and uncomfortably hot. She was glad she didn't really need to breathe.

  They stood on a balcony with a low curb like a halfhearted attempt at a railing. She craned her head and looked around. She saw then the balcony was a tiny part of a far larger structure, one that descended in a clifflike drop below and extended an equally great distance above… it was hard to estimate distances, but certainly many hundreds upon hundreds of feet. The vast space wasn't large enough to hold the object on which they stood-its lower foundations plunged into the cavern's floor, and its heights were clutched within the belly of the cavern's irregular ceiling.

  "Look," said Yeva. She leaned far out, pointing down along the face. Anusha obeyed and saw that great patterns were carved on the age-worn exterior of the obelisk, depicting thousands of interconnected images she couldn't quite comprehend. Her stomach flipped when some of the inscriptions flowed and changed their shape even as she watched.

  Anusha leaned out farther to get a better look, and an odd sensation fluttered through her. Odd because she'd missed it for so long-it was the feeling she had right before waking back in her body!

  But the impression was different, more drawn out. And… the mental current, the psychic undertow as Yeva called it, swelled. The sound of it roared in her ears. Its fervor threatened to yank her fro
m her feet. She was waking, and as she did so, she began to fall upward into the current. Toward the Eldest.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Darroch Castle, Feywild

  Winkled men and women the size of toddlers padded through the shadowed castle. Some dusted wainscoting, others polished trophy cases. A few shooed bats from crevices and high ceiling corners.

  In the grand study, a lone homunculus looked for droppings behind furnishings, paintings, sculptures, and other of oddities on display. The wrinkled man reached the tall, finely crafted wooden cabinet with a glass face. The little creature had always been fascinated, in his dim way, with this particular piece. Behind the circular face, various wheels moved according to principles the homunculus had no chance of appreciating, but he liked to watch the wheels move all the same. The creature reached out to touch the glass with a craggy finger.

  He sighed and let his hand fall to his side. Then he noticed something odd.

  He cocked his head, looking with consternation at the wooden cabinet. Despite the candles burning in the chandelier above, the cabinet threw a shadow into the room as if a bonfire raged behind it. The homunculus saw no such light.

  The shadow lengthened and deepened, and from its depths stepped the outline of a mastiff. Its coat was shadow given form and girth. The homunculus prepared to screech but paused when he noticed more figures coming through.

  A slender-limbed woman glided through next, a creature of poise and pearl white skin, with eyes like the night.

  The homunculus immediately recognized her as a fey invader, an intruder from beyond the cavern that contained Darroch Castle.

  In their wake stumbled a human. For all his noble's clothing and polished boots, the man was young, overweight, and disheveled.

  No more creatures seemed forthcoming. The wrinkled man opened his mouth to scream an alarm, but he managed only a single squeak before the shadow mastiff got him.

  *****

  Lord Behroun Marhana gasped and rubbed his hands, trying to get some feeling back into them. He'd accompanied Malyanna to the Lord of Bats's domicile down a shifting corridor of shadow once before. If anything, it was colder this time.