Ususi stepped toward the great earthen entity and said in Common,
"Greetings. I am Ususi Manaallin. Thank you for disrupting these encroaching walls. We would have been crushed. We are in your debt.
But who are you? You don't seem to be in thrall to Pandorym…"
Warian tensed. "I am Prince Monolith. I am in no one's thrall. The question is, what are you doing in this ancient tower of malignancy?"
Iahn moved as quickly as a snake to stand protectively next to Ususi, one hand on his dragonfly blade, still sheathed. Ususi replied, "That was my question for you. We are here because this structure was built by my ancestors." The figure from above yelled, "So this is all your fault!" Warian now recognized the one above to be a woman, though he'd never seen an elf, male or female, quite so broad of forearm and rough of voice and manner. "What blame do you place on us?" inquired Iahn, his voice ice. Warian judged the vengeance taker was only a jibe or two away from launching a physical attack against the newcomers. The elf pointed at Ususi. "She just said your ancestors built this place.
You must be Imaskari, hiding all these centuries when everyone thought you were dead. I've spent the better part of two months tracking down this tower because of the fell influence it released into the earth!
Did you release it? My friend Thormud lies sorely wounded, or dead, because if it!" Iahn bristled, but Ususi said, "Pandorym is what we call the evil you speak of. It is even now using the greater part of its strength to destroy my homeland, and may have already done so. We have not released it. We are here to destroy it." His face suddenly hot, Warian interjected, "My sister died to bring these opponents of Pandorym here! Don't suggest they're in league with the master of this tower, or you dishonor Eined's name!" The elemental called Monolith raised both of its giant hands, palms outward, and said, "You are not of this tower, I sense, but are newly come to it, like us. I have saved your lives, I think, from these crushing walls. That should prove our good intentions. For now, my friend and I will have to trust yours. Perhaps we should join our strength to overcome this Pandorym?"
"You believe them?" snorted the elf woman. "I want to know who released Pandorym if these relics of the empire didn't do it." She glared at Ususi. "It was my grandfather," said Warian. "Shaddon Datharathi. He found his way into a forbidden plane where this tower, until recently, slept through the centuries. Greed drove him. We're here to help put right his mistake." "Sounds good enough for a trial partnership," interjected Monolith. "What do you say, descendants of Imaskar?" Ususi considered, nodded, and said, "Help us out of this pit, and we'll compare strategies."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Another set of circling stairs. It wasn't far now. The Imperial Weapons Cache was ahead. And, presumably, Pandorym. The stained corridors, translucent stairs, sealed chambers, and dozens of fascinating but ultimately unimportant features of the Purple Palace were behind them. As were the most vicious protests of the elf woman who called herself Kiril. She'd finally accepted Prince Monolith's opinion, but distrust still lay openly across her face whenever Ususi looked back. Of course, Iahn wasn't much better. Because Ususi was of his lineage and knew something of his ways, the wizard saw the vengeance taker's behavior for what it was. She could see Iahn's distrust in the way he carried himself, how he kept his hand always ready on the hilt of his weapon, and how he consistently checked the behavior of the elf and elemental as they traversed the dark corridors of the tower. He was on knife-edge alert, ready to assassinate the rough-speaking elf and at least damage the elemental lord at the first hint of betrayal. To everyone else, he probably seemed stiff and unfriendly. The two Vaelanites were likewise quiet, or perhaps merely tired, and at the very least, emotionally drained. The one with the prosthesis was running on willpower alone. Ususi hoped the slow walk would help renew the young man's energy. Iahn had offered him some morsels from his pack to keep his strength up. Warian's facility with his arm could prove pivotal in dealing with Pandorym. His sister's death colored all Warian's utterances, or lack thereof. Ususi knew she would suffer the same way if Qari were to come to harm. Perhaps Ususi's sister was in danger even now, back in Deep Imaskar. If only she could see what was happening there! But dealing with Pandorym in the palace was the quickest, surest method of stopping the entity's forces… she fervently hoped. No. No, she knew her course was the right one, but would they be quick enough? Would they even be successful? It was all she could do to force herself ahead instead of back to the gate into the Celestial Nadir, and from there directly back to the foot of the Great Seal, using her keystone to forge a way.
"Explain again what this Pandorym is, and what your great-to-the-gills grandparents did to anger it," insisted the hard voice of the elf swordswoman, continuing a conversation Ususi thought was complete.
Ususi took a deep breath and said, "It is an entity too powerful to be controlled or even destroyed. The ancient Imaskari were under siege from their slaves' avenging deities. They were desperate. A powerful Imaskaran imperial faction lured Pandorym from a distant dimension beyond the local cosmology. In a fashion I do not understand, they caged Pandorym and threatened its release in this world as a way to dissuade the gods from destroying the Imaskari Empire. Apparently, the threat wasn't taken seriously, or the Imaskari were destroyed before their threat was issued. Either way, Pandorym remained forgotten and confined for millennia. Until miners from Vaelan found a gate into the Celestial Nadir, found the palace, and partially released Pandorym.
Pandorym, once released, dropped the palace back into the world, onto its original foundation." "These miners…" began Kiril, but the wizard snapped up a hand to deflect the elf's question. Ususi wasn't about to reveal the relationship between Warian, Zel, and Datharathi Minerals to this revenge-obsessed elf warrior, especially one who carried a blade of considerable potency. Ususi's magic-sensitive eyes watered whenever she looked directly at it. The wizard said, "What's important now is to bind Pandorym anew into whatever cage it slipped from. The fact that we still walk freely in these halls should be assurance enough that it has reclaimed only a fraction of its potential power." Kiril replied, "Sounds like a familiar tale. I know something of binding wickedness." "Really? What?" asked Zel. "Let's just say that well-meaning accomplishments rarely go unpunished." Zel waited for more, but seemed unwilling to press. Kiril lapsed back into silence. They curved around another bend in the corridor and faced darkness. Ususi's hand went to her mouth. "No…" Night blocked the passage ahead. So complete was the blackness that the magical radiance of Ususi's orb dimmed as its farthest rays fell into the dark chasm. A cold breeze cooled her flesh, and the howl of a distant wind conjured the image of desolation. Shadows rippled, and tendrils of darkness emerged, dissolved, and reappeared, as if attempting to cross the intervening space and pull all of them into its insatiable void. "I dreamed… I have dreamed this!" the wizard insisted. She backed up.
Iahn's sudden hands upon her shoulders turned her about so she faced away from the unnerving abyss. "What do you see?" he asked, his tone conveying worry, even if his eyes retained their usual pristine clarity. "Is it more than an enchantment of shadow?" She croaked, cleared her throat, and tried to speak. "It… it is something I've faced in my dreams for… more years than I can name." She stole another peek at the apparition at her back and shuddered. "It's my nightmare, here now, alive in the world." "How can that be?" demanded Kiril. The swordswoman pushed forward to stand alongside Iahn. She was as tall as the taker, and perhaps broader of shoulder. "I don't know,"
Ususi responded. But she did know. It was the doom she and her sister Qari had shared since they were children. They would one day face darkness, irredeemable and absolute. And here it was. "Ususi, we must press forward if we are to breach the weapons cache," Iahn said, taking one of her hands in both of his own. "Dissolve this magical gloom and reveal the threat Pandorym truly poses. Are you truly so afraid of the dark?" "It's not the dark-it's what the darkness hides!" she yelled in the vengeance taker's face. But as she spoke, she won
dered if it were true. Her lifelong nightmares had conditioned her to quail in the face of utter gloom. Pandorym's mind and essence were things of darkness made manifest, and it blocked her way forward. She took a deep breath, fighting to impose calm. She could flee, true, and let Deep Imaskar fall by allowing Pandorym to go unopposed. Or she could deal with the murk that blocked their way. It couldn't hurt to try to dissolve the gloom in greater light, could it? Ususi reached up and tapped the jewel that hovered overhead, muttering encouraging thaunemes of amplification. Responding to her magical plea, the illumination of her orb waxed. Ususi swiveled to face her nemesis.
Radiance poured from her free-floating light, meeting the darkness like an ocean wave meets a rocky coast. The gloom splintered and fell back… then drank down the light entirely. The distant wind suddenly screamed in Ususi's ear, and the darkness pounced. Light guttered and failed. Ususi's voice choked up, and her limbs were swaddled in oblivion. Her lifelong nightmare was back, this time all too real. The darkness, after these long, empty years, finally got her. When the wizard was snatched away, Iahn yelled "Ususi!" and plunged into the blackness. Warian moved forward, but his uncle held him back. "What can you smash if you can't see?" The elemental lord thundered at the swordswoman, "It obeys the rules of darkness, I deem, even if it is possessed of something more nefarious. Burn it away with Angul!"
Kiril's hand went for the lesser blade she carried on her belt.
Monolith cried, "It must be Angul. No time for half-measures!" The elf's hand wavered, then diverted to Angul's sheath. Kiril pulled Angul forth and gasped. Runes on the unclothed blade burned with blinding intensity and blue flame. The advancing margin of darkness reversed itself. With a posture forged from blade-given surety, the elf stepped forward a pace, then two. The darkness roiled and flailed against the perimeter of Angul's glow, and Kiril moved forward another step. Here and there, the sphere of brilliance surrounding Kiril dimmed, and lightless tendrils slid inward along invisible fractures.
Another step forward and the sphere shrank to half its size.
Undaunted, Kiril advanced. The roused dusk swallowed her. As if energized by enclosing Angul's brilliance, the face of the black wall swelled. Zel, Warian, and even Prince Monolith fell back, but too slowly. All were engulfed. When the perimeter receded to its original position, the hall was empty. No evidence of intruders remained to mar the ancient stone floor of the Purple Palace.
Ususi rolled over and over, impelled by a force with no substance.
She spun through a screaming void of spiritual emptiness. How had she escaped the darkness during her last dream, when wakefulness had been denied her? Qari! Her sister had come into her dream, saving her.
Would a memory of her sister offer aid now? She fastened upon the idea of Qari and tried to shout her name, though the use of her voice was denied her. A glimmer of cool, blue radiance broke upon her mind. It wasn't true light-it seemed more like a species of understanding.
Spiritual illumination, perhaps. In its glow, she grasped the vague, ill-defined connection that she and her twin sister shared since childhood, and retained still. Following the connection down its ill-defined, looping path, she found at its end a silhouette. It was Qari. Qari spoke. "Years have piled on years since last we talked, Ususi. I'm glad, even as this focal event of your life, and mine, overtakes us, that we have this brief moment to talk once more." Her sister smiled and held out her hands. "What… are you here with me, in the darkness of Pandorym's veil?" Ususi strode forward, her arms and legs suddenly resolved in Qari's aura. Qari grasped Ususi's hands. Warm and vital, her flesh seemed real. "In a way. My mind is with you-my percipience. My physical form, despite its faded claim on reality, remains in besieged Deep Imaskar, where the fires of Pandorym's vengeance have breached the Great Seal. Slaughter walks the streets. Our chat must be short." Too much information, too many implications-even the nature of their connection. Nausea threatened to overcome the wizard, the result of understanding her sister's words.
She had so many questions for Qari. "Your 'faded claim' on reality-what are you talking about? And the 'focal point' of our lives-you mean Pandorym?" Qari laughed, but sadly. "All these are connected. The dreams that plagued us since we were children were more than a presentiment of what you would one day face, and fail to overcome. You see, my very existence is a direct consequence of Pandorym's meddling in its future, our past." Ususi feared her sister had slipped into insanity. Or she had herself and merely dreamed all this. But she said, "Time is sacrosanct. No one may alter its flow, everyone knows this. The mage-researchers of the Arcanum spent enough time proving it…" "Mortal rules do not apply to beings that exist outside of the world, and so outside of time. Pandorym is such a creature. Even as it was caged, it saw ahead to the moment of its release. In that chance for freedom, it recognized a possibility that, along a minor timeline, one would be born who might find herself in the right place at the right time to stem its reemergence. That person was you." Qari forestalled Ususi's next question, speaking over her.
"Hush, let me finish. Time is not so elastic for you and I." Ususi reluctantly nodded. "Pandorym took steps to prevent you from overcoming it. It reached forward, imparting what influence it could, hoping to create deterrence enough to prevent she who would one day threaten its bid for freedom. But the mere act of its temporal reach forged two competing possibilities. In one case, it succeeded, and Ususi was born to dread the darkness. But every coin has two sides.
Pandorym's meddling also caused Qari to be born, whose congenital blindness limited her world, but gave her an ability to pierce any darkness and to see even where no light may ever shine." "Two timelines? But we exist together-you are my sister!" "I am your twin to a greater degree than you have ever imagined. I am an alternate you." "This is a dream! Or you are crazy. Or I am. Has darkness driven me insane with fear? How can you be an alternate version of me, yet have grown up with me in Deep Imaskar?" Qari cocked her head and said,
"How could I not? But moments are precious right now. We've come to that crossroads-you must accept my gift. You must accept my percipience. With it, no darkness will ever blind you again." "But you need it…" "Everyone in Deep Imaskar will be dead soon, and me with them, if you do not press forward now. If I give up my vision through the darkness, I may perish, true. But listen. Everything-hopes, worries, fears-all these pale in the face of death. Only that which is important remains." Qari released Ususi's hands and held hers up before Ususi's face. She put her palms over the wizard's eyes and said, "See, as I have seen." At long last, Ususi saw again the high, hard celestial lights that haunted her days and nights since she nearly perished on the ship. Beneath their elysian clarity, Ususi's perception would never again be impeded.
Immersed in nothingness, Iahn's consciousness slowly leached away.
He had no limbs to flail, no voice to protest, and no magic to dispense. He was an insect in pitch, and soon he'd be extinguished. A touch jolted the vengeance taker. The single sensation was sufficient for him to find a focus. The sensation grew more pronounced. Something touched his open eyes. He blinked, or he thought he did. Yes… he was on his feet, moving in a daze over some hard surface, but he couldn't see what. Despite his stubborn nature, he allowed himself to be guided forward, into a sudden, blinding light. Before him, in a broad hallway lit with Kiril's blazing sword, stood the swordswoman, the elemental with a tiny dragonet perched on one shoulder, and Warian and his uncle. Ususi pushed him forward. Of the darkness, he saw no sign. Ahead, a bronze-colored iris stood partially dialed open, and additional light streamed through the crack. He turned to look at Ususi and blinked. Her eyes were like twin stars, blue-white and twinkling as if at some great distance. Warian said, "Thank you for saving us from that… that awful blot." The young man's voice was strained and his features pale, as were Zel's, and probably the vengeance taker's as well. The wizard responded as if to some different statement. "My uskura is lost." "You pushed us clear of the darkness," Warian insisted, waving behind him. No
evidence of the veil of life-sucking night remained, except in memory. "I didn't push us clear. I saw through the darkness and helped you all do the same. But at what cost, I wonder? My sister may have given up her special sight…" Ususi's eyes, glittering cold and hard, drifted out of focus. "Your sister?" asked Iahn. "You have news of Deep Imaskar?"
"Slaughter walks the streets, she said…" The bronze iris at the end of the hallway spun open. Beyond was a spacious, moon-bright hall, but a human figure just inside the opening partially blocked the view. An icy breeze flowed from the figure, and a black vapor streamed away from its body, tinged with violet light. Iahn recognized the aura of a Pandorym agent. The figure spoke in the vengeance taker's native tongue. "Imaskari scions, if the dark won't have you, I shall." It was Shaddon. Before the figure could unleash its lashing ribbons of murderous darkness, the earth lord's long arm delivered a terrific punch, smashing Shaddon back into the glaring white chamber beyond.
Iahn rushed in. Monolith's blow was mighty, and Shaddon's form smashed against the far side of a great chamber. Many creatures moved about the edges of the room. He understood then why the chamber was called the weapons cache. The vengeance taker's eyes widened. He ran, aiming neither for Shaddon nor the clot of creatures milling through the chamber. He saw something that his training called out for him to seize for himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Zel watched the naturally pale, dangerous vengeance taker charge ahead. Zel tightened his grip on the pickaxe and whispered, "So much for common sense." Then Zel ran into the Imperial Weapons Cache.
Others barreled ahead of him. The pallid foreigner had gone first, and the wizard woman dashed after her compatriot. The foul-mouthed elf with the burning sword was only a step behind her. Even his own nephew beat him through the door. Zel's checks flushed, and he asserted, "I'm not afraid!" He yelped when a great stone hand grabbed him. The elemental lord pulled him back and turned him around, looking Zel in the eye. "Stay back, and remember what happens here today. And please guard my little friend." The crystal dragonet on Prince Monolith's shoulder hopped from the elemental to Zel. Zel was surprised to find that the creature weighed practically nothing. The earth lord turned and dashed after the others. The dragonet belled loud and long, but the sounds emerging from the chamber were earsplitting. Zel moved forward tentatively to watch, relieved and ashamed that he had an excuse to remain out of the conflict. The fabled Imaskaran Imperial Weapons Cache was essentially a fat, egg-shaped cavity seemingly wider than the tower's dimension could contain. Ususi's first impression was a cloud-swaddled sky, but the lines of the floor and curving walls and ceiling quickly resolved. Thousands of circles of every size were set into the floor. All were at least three or four feet in diameter, though many were much larger. The circles capped thousands of inset storage cylinders sunk below floor level. The capacity of the chamber's thousands of hidden silos took away Ususi's breath. The caps along the periphery of the great chamber were plain metallic bands, unadorned but for a simple symbol-sword blade, spear, bow, quiver, and so on. The wizard was no tactician, but she supposed there were enough of these mundanely-stamped silos to equip a small army with arms and ammunition, presuming each sunken locker contained what its stamp promised. Toward the middle, intricate mechanical locks adorned the caps. At the hub of the great chamber, elaborate warding glyphs of inlaid Celestial Nadir crystal inscribed the sunken storage cylinders.
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