by Томас Рейд
I promise you that it is imperative that you spin some magic and conjure a way for us to flee. I cannot abide the thought of becoming the tortured plaything of a horde of demons."
Pharaun turned his head in the direction of the angel's voice. When he saw Tauran's angelic nature, he gasped. "It cannot be!" He let his eyes rove over the angel's wings, which were in sad shape at the moment. Tauran burst into another fit of coughing. Pharaun looked back at Aliisza. "You consort with strange friends, Aliisza. Where is your other half? You know, the cambion? What was his name again?"
"That's a long story," Aliisza said, trying not to wince. She took Pharaun's face and turned it back to her own again. "But it's a story for later. We have more pressing needs."
Pharaun glanced back at Tauran. "You do not look or sound well, my new friend. And let me assure you, I would rather not revisit that particular unpleasantness known as demon toy, either. I will do my best."
"What's happening?" Kael demanded from the hall.
"Shh," Aliisza answered. "He's thinking."
"Well, tell him to think faster!" Kael snarled back. "Whatever is coming is running now."
"Impetuous, whoever he is," Pharaun said, not looking up. "Another surprise for me?"
If you only knew, Aliisza thought, smiling again. Aloud she said, "What do you think? Any ideas?"
"It's strange…" Pharaun said, sounding distant. "Magic feels very… odd. Out of sync, if you will."
"It is," Tauran said. "Everything has suffered profound changes. Is it a hindrance?"
Pharaun shook his head. "No. On the contrary, I think I just might be able to conjure up a little trick. Normally
this particular form of magic requires a focus, a small but elongated—"
"Later," Aliisza growled. "Just work the magic."
Pharaun snapped his mouth shut and pursed his lips in obvious aggravation. "Of course," he said in clipped tones. "Later." When he tried to rise he nearly fell over. "Goodness, I don't seem to have the strength I expected. Help me up."
Aliisza did as the wizard bid.
"Now the rest of you, link hands with me," Pharaun said.
Aliisza bent down and assisted Tauran to his feet. "Kael, it's time," she called.
The half-drow backed into the chamber, still watching the corridor. "They are at the far end of this passage," he said. "They can see the light." He spun around and took hands with the other three. "Do whatever you're going to do right now!"
Pharaun saw the knight for the first time, and his eyes grew wide. He stared first at Kael, then at Aliisza. His mouth gaped.
She knew he understood. "Hurry!" she yelled, yanking on his hand with her own to snap him out of it.
Pharaun shook his head to refocus and uttered a long string of arcane syllables. Some of them Aliisza recognized. Others were as alien to her as the strange tongues of the plainsmen of the Shaar in far southeastern Faerыn. The wizard finished his incantation with a commanding word.
The world shimmered, shifted.
A snarling face entered the chamber.
Everything rippled and faded from view.
Eirwyn stepped back, evading the downward sword stroke of the undead knight before her. She batted his shield away with her mace and drew on her divine power. She gestured at the armored apparition and delivered the holy incantation in a clear, powerful voice. The blaze of light that infused the wraithlike warrior burst from the joints of his armor and radiated outward. It illuminated the deep gloom of the castle courtyard and revealed several other undead shuffling toward her and her two companions. The holy aura faded almost as quickly as it had appeared, and the knight crumpled to the ground with a metallic clank.
The angel shifted position in the snow and faced off against two more of the undead warriors. She brandished her mace, delivering a feint in the hopes of getting the two apparitions to become entangled, but they did not flinch. They seemed wholly unconcerned about their own well-being as they advanced toward Eirwyn.
"This is a fool's errand!" Garin said from nearby. He smashed the helm from atop another armored wraith and spun to attack a second. "There's no need for us to battle long-dead soldiers."
Eirwyn shattered a knight's shield before dispatching him with another blaze of holy might. "You don't need to stay," she said, leaping into the air to avoid three more coming at her. "I never asked you to suffer these trials and tribulations."
She landed next to the third member of her group, young Nilsa. The two devas positioned themselves back to back and continued to fend off the undead surrounding them.
"We stay as long as you do." Garin grunted from exertion. "Our orders are clear."
Eirwyn rolled her eyes and put a crushing dent into the breastplate of another foe. "Now who's running a fool's errand?" she asked. "Can Tyr really be so concerned with my business that he must send you to keep an eye on me?" She whirled and pummeled the shoulder of another armored ghost, sending the entire arm flying away to plop into the snow. "What could I possibly be up to that worries him so?"
"That's a very interesting question," Nilsa said, twisting around to hit an opponent that had managed to get very near the two angels' flank. "Considering you refuse to tell us."
Eirwyn made a disparaging sound and blasted two more knights with holy energy from a wave of her hand. "I told you, I don't know," she said. "Divinations aren't always so easy to interpret. I simply go where I'm needed and hope I figure it out in time."
The elder angel's companions did not answer her, so the three of them continued the fight in silence, save for the sound of metal crunching on metal and the occasional flare of holy power filling the gloom of the courtyard. When no more knights stood against them, the three celestials turned their gazes toward the periphery of their battlefield to make certain no reinforcements approached. Satisfied that they were safe for the moment, the angels made their way to an arched doorway set in one of the two towers guarding the front gate of the crystalline fortress. The trio did not fully enter the chamber beyond, but instead sought shelter in the alcove from the mysterious, greenish glowing snow that fell from the twilit sky.
To Eirwyn, the odd precipitation might have had a fey quality were it not for the incessant arrival of haunts trying to drive her from the place. She, Garin, and Nilsa had fought
three engagements with the undead knights already, vying with the wraiths for control of the courtyard each time. She wasn't certain they were not the same spirits reanimating over and over.
"Can you at least give us some idea of why you are here?" Garin asked. "Some explanation that would satisfy our curiosity?"
"Yours, or those you serve?" Eirwyn countered. "You have made no secret of the fact that you are spying on me, to see what I might be up to. I say again: how could my business so interest the cohorts of Tyr?"
Garin sighed and said nothing more, but Nilsa, a younger, more impetuous angel, could not resist. "They do not trust you," she said. "They believe you are still in some way working against the Court, just as you did when you aided Tauran the Traitor."
Eirwyn tried to hide her smile as Garin made a soft noise. "Nilsa," he said, "she doesn't need to know our business. She is nor a member of the Court."
"Precisely," Eirwyn said. "And by the same token, you do not need to know mine. My business does not concern the Court."
"I disagree," Garin said. "Tyr has a right to know when others plot against him."
"You overstep your bounds," Eirwyn warned. "When Helm was alive, I served both faithfully for longer than you have been alive. Do not presume to lecture me about plotting, child."
Garin did not respond, but Eirwyn felt him stiffen in anger next to her.
Eirwyn sighed softly, letting the tension she felt dissipate
from her own body. "The truth is, I honestly don't know why I'm here," she said. "Bur something powerful and dire may befall the Court, indeed all of the House. And whatever it is, I have been drawn here to do my part to try and thwart it."
Eirw
yn turned toward Garin and Nilsa, confronting them directly. "We do not labor on opposite sides of a conflict, except that which you choose to throw in our common path. I may yet need your aid, if you will give it, when the time comes. Mark me: This will affect every one of us before it's over. You cannot simply sit upon a fence and watch, waiting for me to slip up in some way. If you choose to do that, you will be forsaken."
" Weighty words for one who was, until recently, banished to a far corner of the House for transgressions, against the Court," Nilsa said.
"Then is it your belief that all words spoken are tainted by the purity of the one who speaks them?" Eirwyn asked, her anger rising. "Am I to never again be trusted because I chose to keep my own counsel when your god slew mine? Because I refused to bend my knee to Tyr afterward?"
"Eirwyn, I—" Garin began, but the elder angel cut him
off.
"Or is it, perhaps, a more base prejudice, born of the fact that I chose the wrong deity to follow in the first place? Am I guilty merely by association?"
Garin remained silent. Instead, his eyes widened as he peered at something over her shoulder, in the courtyard beyond their crude shelter.
Eirwyn spun, expecting to see more of the armored knights rising from the grave, ready to do battle with the intruders
once more, defending their strange and wandering fortress adrift in the Astral for all eternity. What she saw instead made her heart thud in her chest.
A glow of light was just fading from around four figures who tumbled into the snow from nowhere.
Tauran sensed everything change.
A great pressure ended, leaving the angel feeling lightheaded. The overwhelming taint of evil that had pervaded everything around him faded, and he sighed in contentment. He would have liked to nestle down and sleep, but sudden and unexpected cold made him shiver. He opened his eyes to try to make sense of his new surroundings.
He found himself outside, lying upon snow-covered ground. A thousand tiny points of green light danced in his field of vision, drifting down from the gloom above.
This isn't right, he thought, perplexed and irritated. Where are the others?
Tauran caught the sound of voices arguing. He recognized them, but at the same time, they sounded muffled, distant. He tried to sit up and peer in the direction from whence they came, but his body did not want to cooperate. All the strength had been leeched from him in that horrible place, leaving nothing but the poisonous residue of raw, permeating evil.
He began to cough.
"See?" Tauran heard someone say, and he recognized Aliisza. "He's dying. We cannot stay here!"
"Nonetheless, our instructions are clear," said another voice, male, which sounded vaguely familiar to the angel, but
he couldn't quite place it. "You are to remain here, bound to this place, until you agree to submit to the laws of Tyr. We cannot allow you to return, and we will not permit you to flee again."
So they have come hunting me still, Tauran realized. Tyr is not content to leave me to my doom. He has sent others to bring me to justice. So be it.
He tried to rise, to speak, but he still could not muster the energy to do either. He gasped at the ineffectual exertion and succumbed to the futility of it.
The cold grew worse, and Tauran felt his consciousness fading.
"I do not understand," Pharaun said from behind Kael. "How did they find us here? None of us even knew where we would be until the moment we departed."
"I led them right to you," Eirwyn answered, sounding disgusted. She stood next to Kael, shoulder to shoulder with the knight. "I never would have imagined they would go to such lengths."
A figure loomed our of the darkness, walking slowly, inexorably, toward Kael, who stepped forward and swung his greatsword in an angular strike, cleaving the armored form from shoulder to hip. The mail parted like paper from the power of Kael's blow, and it collapsed to the snow, an empty shell.
Wielding his weapon felt so good to the knight, he grinned. Two more spirit warriors moved to fill in the space left by their fallen companion. He almost stepped forward to engage them,
so eager was he to stretch too-long dormant muscles, but he stopped himself. Don't leave the circle, he chastised himself. Protect Tauran.
"They still blame all of us for what happened," Aliisza said, positioned at Kael's other shoulder. "As far as they're concerned, we precipitated the very downfall of the entire universe!" She sounded bitter to Kael as she slashed at something in front of her. The ring of steel on steel indicated that she had connected.
Eirwyn snorted. "I don't think even they believe we deserve that much credit," she said, "but with things in as much turmoil within the House as they are right now, we don't have much chance of clearing our names. They've already made up their minds, and we are left with two choices: surrender or perish."
Kael struck at another haunt in armor and watched it disintegrate. His body flowed from one stance to the next, his movement fluid. Three more figures moved just beyond the one he dropped, waiting for a chance to get at the half-drow and his companions. "And they did something to prevent you from just whisking us away?" he asked Eirwyn.
"Yes," the angel answered. "We have been dimensionally bound here until we submit to them. They caught me off guard, the moment you arrived."
Kael stepped back to avoid a lunging stab from one of the undead and nearly stepped on Tauran, who lay in the snow between them all. He still had not regained consciousness. "How many of these accursed things are there?" Kael asked, grunting as he swept his blade through one, then another in a single, powerful arc.
From behind him, a flash of light lit up the night sky.
Kael assumed that Pharaun had unleashed some bit of magic at the wraiths coming at them from that side. The thought that he stood in the middle of a strange keep adrift in the planar soup of the Astral, fighting side by side with both his mother and father, seemed ludicrous. After all these years, he thought, stabbing at another wraith, the whole family is together at last.
No, he thought, fighting a sudden sense of guilt. Tauran is my parent — mother and father — more than either of them could be. They may have sired me, but he gave me his care. Do not betray his dedication to you so quickly.
The number of ghostly warriors dwindled, and the companions made short work of the remaining few. When the battle was over, the four defenders stood their ground, catching their breath. Kael scanned the sky, looking for signs of the other two celestials who had approached them with Eirwyn, but there was no sign of them.
"They trapped us here and left," he said. Anger at finding himself trapped yet again filled him. His grip upon his sword hurt, he clenched it so hard. "Thar is not the way of Tyr. At least not the Tyr I thought I knew. Tauran was right. The Maimed One has strayed from the laws that defined him."
"They are nor far," Eirwyn replied. "They know we must choose to surrender to them sooner rather than later. It's all very cunning, leaving us here, where we are constantly beset by these apparitions. They truly leave us no choice but to comply."
Not if 1 have anything to say about it, Kael thought. "If they were to be slain, would that break the binding?" he asked. A part of him regretted asking, but the rage he felt at their imposed impotence burned within him.
Eirwyn turned to the knight. "Do you truly mean to ask me that?" she asked. "Do you think Tauran would allow you to do such a thing?"
"How is that any different from their decision to condemn us to death here among these walking spirits?" he retorted. "It's as if they slew us by their own hands."
Eirwyn's expression softened a bit. "In their minds, we perish not through their cruelty, but through our own pride. We always have the option of accepting their offer."
"What, to be led back to the Court in chains?" Kael said. "To be paraded before the High Council and mocked? I think not."
"Even if you are innocent?" Eirwyn said, her voice gentle. "Even if doing so might mean saving your mentor's life?" She nodded
in Tauran's direction.
Kael tried to release the anger building inside him. "I'm sorry," he said at last. "Nothing is simple and straightforward anymore. I always believed — Tauran always taught me — that if I followed the path of goodness and righteousness, no matter how hard that was, that justice would prevail." He looked down at the unconscious angel. "I don't know what to believe anymore."
Aliisza knelt beside Tauran, one hand upon his brow. She looked up at Kael and shook her head. "He's getting worse," she said. "Even now, getting him away from that awful place, he's so far gone he can't fight the taint. We have to."
Kael felt helpless. He turned his gaze on Pharaun. Though it was Zasian Menz's face he saw, Kael could see a twinkle of something kindred there, a flash of a knowing smile. The stranger shrugged at him.
Kael drew a deep breath, trying come to terms with the
decision. "Then we all agree?" he asked, looking from one face to another. "This is what we want to do? This is what we think is best for Tauran?" Every head nodded.
"Fine," Kael said, casting his sword to the ground. He couldn't really blame them for their decision. He agreed with it, in fact. It just felt so dirty to him, giving up. It was not a feeling he much cared for.
"We surrender," he said.
Chapter Twelve
Vhok couldn't stand the pain any more. He relieved the pressure on his arms by levitating his weight and grunted in relief. His ankles still ached, but he no longer felt as though he would be pulled in half. He cursed softly and heard the echo of his own voice within the shaft.
The half-fiend dangled in what he imagined was the inside of a tower or perhaps a round pit in the ground. Chains connected to shackles on his wrists rose into the darkness overhead, holding him in place. More chains on his ankles anchored a great weight hanging somewhere below him. Every shift, every tiny movement sent him swaying. When he held very still, faint howls or screams sometimes reached his ears, deeply muffled.
He had no idea where he Was, or how long he had been there.
