Those were called nodules. Gazing into the crack, Iahn thought this great boulder was completely filled with Celestial Nadir crystal, making it a nodule. But something glimmered at the nodule's center. A palely glowing blot like a luminiferous fungus, or subterranean sea shape… Then… Darkness. Blowing, howling, damp gloom. Shadows reaching like fingers… grasping. Stretching closer. Screaming…
Iahn's eyes snapped open. He lay on the path, at the nexus of the three ways. Ususi bent over him, patting his cheek and looking concerned. The two Vaelanites stood nearby, looking useless. He demanded, "Tell me what happened. I recall… a nodule?" Darkness clawed at his brain and was gone again in a flash. He clutched his head. Ususi said, "You tell us. One moment you were describing how the cavity was filled with agate. Then you screamed and fell fifteen paces without trying to catch yourself. I thought you'd been struck dead, or petrified. Then I heard you mumble about fingers. We dragged you back here. What did you see?" "Something we need to destroy." The vengeance taker tottered to his feet. Pain lanced his left shin, and his right shoulder and arm-souvenirs from the fall he couldn't remember, he supposed. He told them, "Something terrible is caught in that nodule … Pandorym, you called it? If we destroy it, we destroy the threat reaching into the world, and into Deep Imaskar." Now who was the loose-lipped one? Didn't matter. His conviction made him reckless. The one with the crystal arm stepped forward. His eyes were red, and his face tear-streaked. "Yes, let's destroy it!" "Iahn, Warian, wait.
You're only partly right. That husk of stone may-may-imprison Pandorym's body, whatever shape it truly possesses. Or it could be some other entity completely unrelated to Pandorym. The Celestial Nadir is filled with such dangerous detritus. Either way, it's important to remember that the body and mind of Pandorym were never kept in the same place-too dangerous." "Explain," he ordered. "I described before how Pandorym was a doomsday weapon the Imaskari didn't dare release. They only wanted to threaten Pandorym's release, and thus the entity's psyche was extracted from its physical shell and stored in the Imperial Weapons Cache of the Purple Palace." Ususi turned to point at the wavering facade of the palace. "Now the psyche has partly freed itself, with Shaddon's help. The mind is the only vulnerable portion of Pandorym. The body, even if that is it, is beyond my ability to affect, even if I use the keystone to scrape away the Celestial Nadir crystal that has scabbed over it. We must go to the palace, find the vessel that once contained Pandorym's psyche, and close it again." Warian asked, his face flushed, "Since Pandorym has all these servitors, why doesn't it just coerce one into fully releasing it?" Ususi said, "I'm sure Pandorym's tried that many times.
The longer we fail to contain its growing influence, the sooner it will be successful in freeing its mind from the arcane constraints that yet tether it." Iahn asked, "My duty is to return you to Deep Imaskar so you can stem the incursion. Yet you say our best hope is to enter the Weapons Cache of the Purple Palace instead of returning first to our imperiled city. Will you stake the safety of Deep Imaskar on this course of action?" "I don't see any other option. If we go to Deep Imaskar to fight whatever else Pandorym has corrupted and freed from the Weapons Cache, we'll be attacking only the symptoms. We must get to the root of the problem and restopper Pandorym's mentality before it does find a way to free its mind and reunite with its physical shell." The vengeance taker considered Ususi's words. Her assessment was probably correct. He glanced at the irregular nodule.
Darkness flashed again through his thoughts and skittered away. He'd seen something that he'd not soon forget. "Very well, Ususi," agreed Iahn. "Let's go."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The dragonet's glimmer preceded Kiril and Prince Monolith through the narrow stone corridor. They circled up, up, and up in a gyre whose eventual termination seemed unlikely. The slope was shallow at first, but progressively steepened. Every hundred paces brought them past a sealed arch. Kiril supposed these opened to the tower's core, but each was bricked over with purplish stone. Like the corridor, the sealing stones were scarred and stained by some great drowning years ago. The monotony was eventually broken by a scattering of cracked bricks that spilled into the corridor. The stones sealed an arch that had partially collapsed-centuries ago, by the look of it. Xet fluttered past the gap in the corridor without slowing. Kiril paused a moment to peer through the broken masonry. "Hey, I see light!" Monolith, bringing up the rear, said, "This tower is too large for us to explore every room, or even every floor. Nor need we, because Thormud provided Xet with a route to our objective." "What if we stumble on something useful?" "Leave it be-we have a long way to go." Kiril sniffed and lingered in the breach to see what she could. The space past the arch was a great foyer, high-beamed and supported by massive columns.
Twelve or thirteen pits, each as wide as a human was tall, marred the otherwise smooth floor. Rusted, egglike metallic objects, partly crumpled, dented, or otherwise damaged, plugged all but one of the pits. The open pit was covered with a metallic oval, but it hovered just above the pit, slowly rotating. A pale lavender light shone up from the hole, bathing the rotating egg and glinting off silvery highlights. "Xet, come here a moment," Kiril instructed. Thormud's familiar chided her with a series of high-pitched bell tones, but flew to her and perched on her shoulder. Thormud must have also commanded the familiar to listen to her orders. Xet wasn't happy about it. Too bad. With the additional light provided by the dragonet, she could make out the ceiling of the chamber, some forty or fifty paces above the pitted floor. Cavities in the ceiling exactly mirrored those in the floor. A thin streamer of smoke or moisture rose from the top of the single rotating egg, swirling and spiraling toward the ceiling, where it was sucked into an opening. Was each ceiling cavity a chimney? "What do you suppose…?" began Kiril. "Come." Monolith put a huge hand on her back, but refrained from pulling her back. "All right, you damn rock," she consented. She knew he was right: Thormud depended on their swiftness. Onward. Walking up the spiraling slope in the darting, flickering light given off by Xet took its toll on Kiril before long. The wavering shadows, unexpected flashes of illumination, and stretches of unrelieved blackness were enough to give Kiril a splitting headache. With her head pounding, she called a rest. "Hold on," the swordswoman said. "My eyes are throbbing. I need a moment."
Xet bleated, circled in the air twice, and settled to the floor of the passage. Behind her, Monolith said, "Very well." Kiril sat, leaning her back against the cool wall of the corridor. She held her forehead, then rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her palms, stopping only after she had induced phantom stars. She rested for a while in soothing darkness. As a torch, the swerving, erratic Xet was a failure. The choice was either to stop for a rest from its frenzied illumination, or smash the little dragonet into so many pretty shards.
A few moments of darkness and a sip from the verdigris god took the edge off. She sensed Prince Monolith's disapproval even without opening her eyes. The big rock was too much of a purist. She barked, eyes still closed, "Leave off. Trust me, you'd like me far less without my flask." The elemental lord's silence felt like further condemnation. She swore, "Blood and fire!" She opened her eyes. Prince Monolith was gone. She'd constructed the entire exchange. Was it guilt? Disgusted, she threw the enchanted flask as hard as she could.
It clanged against the opposite wall and toppled to the floor. A thin stream of whisky poured into the corridor. She felt shame at how far she'd tumbled, at how much she depended on that flask. There had been too many drunken nights. And days. Had she held too tightly to the Cerulean Blade? Angul should have remained where he was forged. She shook away the phantoms and asked, "Where has that rock gotten to?"
Xet, thinking she commanded it, launched into the air and shot up the corridor in the direction they'd been traveling. Kiril snatched up the leaking verdigris god and screwed on the top before Xet's light was completely gone. The inexhaustible contents could easily be the genesis of another deluge in the ancient corridor, and she preferred to keep the spirits for herself. She dashed after the
retreating light and carefully clipped the flask to her belt as she jogged. Ahead, Xet's light paled before a new source of illumination. A dim gray glow leaked down the corridor. Kiril pulled Sadrul from its sheath and chased Xet to the corridor's end. She entered a chamber whose dimensions measured at least a hundred paces in all directions.
Slender five-story windows punctured the wall to her right. The wan, gray light pushed into the tower through them. She supposed the windows pierced the tower's exterior, and therefore looked out over the Raurin, but a gauzy haze filled each narrow enclosure, smothering most of the light. Pillars scribed with glyphs, unfamiliar to Kiril, held up the beamed ceiling. Great slabs of stone made up the walls opposite the windows, each bearing line after line of unreadable script. A massive humanoid sculpture stood on the left side of the chamber, near the wall glyphs. Its arms were extended so that its hands rested against a convex glass wall perhaps as high as an ancient oak. Its posture suggested that it sought to push the circle of glass farther into the wall-or to hold back the wide circle from moving into the chamber. Whatever its intention, the threat of action was proved hollow by the centuries it had stood. Kiril could make out some sort of fluid languidly churning and turning behind the dusty glass. The sculpture was three times as tall as Prince Monolith, but the earth elemental ignored his stony kin. He gazed with some agitation at the glass wall. The tiny dragonet lit on Monolith's shoulder. "Thanks for leaving me in the dark," said Kiril as she reached the elemental lord.
"Xet was with you," replied Monolith, distracted. "I heard something… splashing… and moved to investigate while you rested.
Kiril, look at this barrier-can you sense what lies behind it?" "I can see that it-" "It is a terrible threat. It is water, elemental and potent! Something beyond even my power, perhaps, caught here in a vast glass globe. This stone sculpture holds it in place, else it would roll forth. Even outside the glass, I can feel its enmity, its will to drown, dissolve, and erode all that it encounters. I don't think I've ever experienced such raw hatred before. The animating spirit that suffuses it-it is asleep! Perhaps I should vanquish this aqueous insult…" The elemental lord ran its great hand across the glassy wall, as if feeling for a seam. "Monolith!" yelled Kiril. "You really irk me sometimes, you know? Who told me to leave off prying into things that don't concern us? Leave it alone, unless this sphere is the evil influence that Thormud tracked across half of Faerun." The crystal dragonet chimed. The earth elemental paused, then lowered its massive limb. "No, it has nothing to do with what we seek. Xet says we must ascend still higher." "Then step away." Prince Monolith complied, but said, "When we finish, I will return to determine the nature of the entity trapped in this chamber, and dispose of it permanently."
"Great. I'm happy for you," Kiril snorted. Xet, sensing resolution, launched itself into the air. The dragonet arrowed toward the far side of the chamber, toward a great door, slightly ajar. A flicker of darkness flashed from the dimness behind the door and struck Xet.
Thormud's familiar rang like a chapel bell as it dropped from the air, its light quenched. "What the…?" Kiril hunkered down and raised Sadrul. Something behind the door was shooting at them. In the light from the covered windows, she spied the fletched shaft that had brought down the dragonet. The arrowhead was carved of bone and bore the inscription "AQ" in the elven alphabet. Two humanoids swathed in cloaks and hoods entered through the door. One had an arrow nocked in a long bow, and the other was pulling a new arrow from a quiver.
"Wait," yelled Kiril. The newcomers were Al Qaherans- she recognized their dress. Perhaps even Ghanim and Haleem, the compatriots of Feraih whose blade she bore. Kiril raised Sadrul higher and yelled, "We're friends! See? I bear the blade of your friend Feraih! I was given it by-" Both newcomers let fly their arrows. One shaft flew wide, but the other pierced a hole in her shirt and scraped painfully on the fine silver mail she wore beneath. "Gods blast you!" she screamed. Lavender fire bloomed within the amulets each wore. Virulent flame limned them.
Kiril recognized that hue, and charged. One of the corrupted Al Qaherans dropped its bow and pulled a great falchion from the sash around his waist. The edges of the falchion glittered with purple fire. The other figure turned to face Prince Monolith. His hand reached up and, with a swift jerk, broke the cord that bound the amulet around his neck. Drawing forth a new arrow, he wound the arrowhead through a knot in the cord of the glowing amulet. Monolith lumbered forward. As the flames limning his body began to sputter and fail, the corrupted elf fired the arrow toward the elemental noble, rending the air with an amethyst tail. Separated from his amulet, the elf toppled forward, his animation spent. Monolith ducked, but the arrow wasn't aimed at him. The missile arced across the chamber and punched straight through the glass wall at the earth elemental's back.
Liquid spewed from the puncture. More disturbing, the amulet, floating within the fluid, pulsed back to life. The water draining from the transparent enclosure boiled, bubbling up in a wine-dark hue. Kiril's attention was snatched away from the wall when a falchion nearly ended her. The other Al Qaheran hacked at her with fire literally burning in his eyes. She countered with Sadrul and groaned in surprise-the elf was incredibly strong! Her new blade absorbed the blow but was nearly knocked from her grip. Worse, the corrupted dervish was quick. She staved off a slash, a jab, and another slash, all in less than a heartbeat. Stumbling back, she sought an advantage. She decided to gamble on Sadrul's supernatural sharpness, which Essam had asserted was the sword's claim to fame. Instead of deflecting the dervish's next swing against the side of her own blade, she fully rotated Sadrul, so its edge was bared to the falchion. Kiril hardly noticed the tug on Sadrul's hilt when the falchion's steel was cut in half.
Kiril grinned and moved in. Without his falchion, the Al Qaheran couldn't protect himself from Kiril's salvo of razor-sharp blows. The elf dervish was dispatched. The Qaheran's amulet tumbled away from his bleeding form and lay pulsing on the floor. Remembering the danger of naked crystal, Kiril aimed Sadrul for one more blow and shattered the amulet's jewel into powder. She hoped it was enough to sever the evil influence and prevent other threats from being sent through it to contest her. Things were not going as well for Prince Monolith.
The prince of elemental earth battled his nemesis, a great pillar of turbulent, chaotic water. The fury of the water elemental, held for ages since its last opportunity to drown the lower halls of the palace, was multiplied many times over from a crystal seed that pulsed in its depths like a fiery coal, goading it and feeding it with a supernatural strength far beyond its already potent abilities. Prince Monolith was held aloft in a column of freestanding water. The column swirled with the fury and speed of a deep ocean vortex. Held transfixed within it, the elemental lord began to dissolve. Muddy clumps spattered the walls of the chamber, out of reach of the elemental who might have used the material to heal himself. Through the watery roar, Kiril heard Prince Monolith screaming. The swordswoman dashed forward, Sadrul in hand. The blade was sharp-sharp enough to disrupt a water elemental? She slashed, penetrating the column at its base, scoring a wide incision in the fluid. A pseudopod of water lashed from the column. Despite her attempt to parry, it slid over her sharp blade and her body without pause. She drew in a quick breath. A fierce jerk sent her to join Monolith in the vortex, unanchored and spinning wildly. She flailed with the Qaheran blade, sending trails of bubbles flitting madly through the turbulent water.
As the chamber spun round and round, she spied Xet as it ducked back down the corridor through which they'd first entered. Bastard familiar. Her quick breath had been too shallow-already her lungs burned. Worse, the gyration forced more and more blood to her extremities. She'd be pulled apart before she drowned. She relaxed her hand, and Sadrul flew from her grip and was expelled. Straining against the spinning water, Kiril retracted her arm and got a hand on Angul's hilt. The Blade Cerulean slipped free of the bondage of his sheath. Lucidity seared her consciousness. Doubts, worries, and pains of mind and body faded a
s new certainty was born in her right hand and quickly spread to engulf her. The Blade Cerulean flamed triumphantly in her welcoming grip, its star blue fire burning and boiling the tissue of the watery creature that held her. The star elf was spat from the vortex with the velocity of a ballista bolt. She windmilled through the air, but a pillar came up too fast. Agony jolted across her shoulder and back. Robbed of velocity, she fell a full story to the floor. Her left ankle twisted, and she heard something snap.
Through it all, she retained a grip on her sword. For her perseverance, she was rewarded. Kiril stood, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Angul took from her the pain in her back and arm. Her ankle supported her weight as if whole. Kiril raised the blade, and his blue-white light doubled, then redoubled again, shedding light like the day in all directions. Together, she and Angul said, "All abominations will be vanquished." The vortex towered over her, and at its apex it held a madly spinning blot of earth-Prince Monolith. The column suddenly doubled over, like a striking snake, and attempted to smash her down, using Monolith's body as the hammer. Kiril rolled to her left and was clipped on her right hip by one of the earth elemental's thrashing arms. She kept her feet, and the vortex reared back, pulling itself out of reach and the muddy body of Monolith back into the air. The swordswoman took a step to close the distance, and her hip buckled. She fell on her face. The corrupted water elemental's blow had been mightier than she'd supposed. If not for my shelter, Angul spoke into her conscious mind, that blow would have smashed every bone of your fleshy frame. Kiril understood the Blade Cerulean was apologizing for failing to fully protect and heal her from the last savage blow. It was the first time the elf could recall her blade not meeting a challenge. For some reason, the thought was a welcome one. "Blood!" she screamed, forcing herself to her feet despite the wrenching flare in her right side. The blade darkened as it registered her curse, but forwent retaliation for her impious word. The water elemental was aiming another blow, using Monolith as the weapon.
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