Hundreds of protective warding circles were inscribed across the tops of all the innermost silos, some layered over one another, forming a diagram of staggering complexity, not dissimilar to the designs inscribed on the Great Seal back in Deep Imaskar. But a great swath of the interlocking wards and circles was tangled and uneven. Here and there, cylinders stood raised from their compartments, their contents revealed. The wizard saw glittering black swords, slender steel wands, smooth-stocked crossbows, glassy darts filled with phosphorescent pink liquid, scarlet goggles, beetle-black gauntlets, dragonfly blades like the one Iahn carried, and other equipment that reminded Ususi of scuttling insect limbs and carapaces. But most disturbing were the raised cylinders that resembled sarcophagi more than equipment chests.
The sarcophagi were faced with glass. Creatures hung within, in a pale green briny solution, preserved against the long, slow grind of time.
Ususi saw trolls behind the glass windows, demonic hoof-footed humanoids, human-sized eggs the color of flesh, bony shadow efts, mantis-headed insectoids, human-dragon hybrids, and at least one tentacle-faced humanoid with soulless white eyes frozen open in its captivity: a mind flayer of ancient vintage. Several dozen unjacketed canisters yawned, open and drained. The creatures once contained therein, clustered near the room's center, were decanted and active.
Thankfully, the wizard saw no mind flayer lords. Those freed were bad enough. Some were monstrosities she had faced in the caverns below the world. A few she knew through her studies. She recognized trolls, a dozen or more mantis-men. One figure towered over all the others, human in shape, but at least twenty paces tall! This giant's skin was light green, as were its eyes and glittering hair, though it bore a purple crystal on its chest. A storm lord? Here was Shaddon, too, staggering back to his feet, though he seemed damaged from Monolith's bold strike. Her arcane studies were unable to identify all of the monsters. She spotted a free shadow eft! She shuddered, remembering again the sea passage across the Golden Water. Each of the loosed creatures bore a violet-flaring Celestial Nadir crystal, some on cords, others pierced directly into loathsome flesh. The cluster of Pandorym-controlled monsters stood poised and dangerous, guarding that which lay at the cache's center. The top edge of a canister ten paces in diameter peeked just above the floor's surface, like a dais. The canister was only partially unjacketed from its silo. Ususi saw that the mechanical locks that once kept the container secured were only partly engaged. Worse, several lines of protection inlaid with Celestial Nadir crystal across the canister's lid were chipped and broken. The canister wasn't entirely free of its storage silo, and the bulk of it still languished in its cavity. But for the thing sealed within, the slender gap in its cage was enough. A whirling scab of lightlessness, as perfectly black as Ususi's most terrifying childhood dream of the dark, streamed from the narrow gap in the floor. The darkness hovered, straining and pulling, but didn't move more than a few feet from the canister from which it emerged, as if tethered.
Ususi called upon her borrowed percipience and gazed into the dark.
Pandorym was there. If not in body, at least in purpose. It saw her and saw that its dark hid no secrets from her. In unison, every servitor intoned, "I require the keystone. Relinquish it, and I may spare your home." Ususi's percipience pierced even to the center of Pandorym's darkness. There, a circular gateway yawned, suspended several feet in the air. Ususi gasped when she recognized the streets of Deep Imaskar visible through the opening. The wide avenues, the tenement pillars, library spires… burning. Silhouetted in the flames, dark creatures moved to and fro, limned with violet malevolence. The wizard of Deep Imaskar began uttering her most potent spells, suspecting they wouldn't be enough.
Kiril advanced into the milk white chamber. Angul burned in her grip. A gruesome multitude opposed her, each suffused with a trickle of power from the demi-entity Pandorym. To her left, the young man with the crystal arm matched her stride, his arm shining with its own light. The blade spoke in her mind. These creatures, and their master, are kin to the horrors we are pledged to destroy. The swordswoman ground her teeth and took a practice swipe with the Cerulean Blade.
Angul scattered radiant fire in his arc. The blade instructed her.
Whether they are abolethic horrors or evil unaligned, here lie abominations, and thus their existence is forfeit. The sword's anger burned brighter, and the certitude of his purpose steeled Kiril's posture. More powerful than any drunken dream or induced high, Angul engulfed her in absolute conviction. She didn't understand Pandorym's origin, but with Angul's influence pounding through her, she knew beyond certainty that it and its servitors deserved no mercy, nor quarter, nor even promise of redemption. Kiril smiled, advancing.
Running into the chamber, Warian quickly evaluated what opposed them. Each bore the element of the Datharathis' claim to fame-the damned crystal. Here was where Shaddon's quest for wealth had taken him, and despite every warning, here he'd allowed his desire for power to subvert his reason. This damned chamber was where Warian's grandfather had given up his soul. The Imaskari wizard, chanting and gesticulating, stood to Warian's left. Farther in and ahead of her, the vengeance taker jerked an ancient weapon from a container. Nearing Warian on his right, the elf with the burning blade advanced. A glance back showed him the earth elemental at the rear. He saw Zel peeking from around the bronze iris. Good. He didn't want to see any more of his family… fall. His eyes welled with moisture. Time to make Eined's death mean something! He summoned the full power of his arm and walked stride for stride with Kiril and her Cerulean Blade toward the room's center.
Iahn reached an open canister. He crouched behind the stumplike protrusion, hiding from his adversaries, as he studied several pearl-stocked crossbows that hung within. He yanked the nearest from its mount and marveled. As finely fashioned as his other crossbow had been, before he'd lost it during the sea passage, this one was superior. Even more thrilling, the lower section of the unjacketed container held hundreds of bolt clips, each bolt lightly runed with magical vigor. He snatched a clip and worked the crank to load the crossbow. Smooth as silk. If he… A four-armed, human-sized insectoid with a mantis head hopped into view from around the canister. With its amulet shining malevolently on its chest, it directed a ribbon of darkness at Iahn. The vengeance taker screamed a syllable of warding, too late, and the ribbon found him. Pain seared his right leg. Iahn sighted along the crossbow at the creature's amulet and pulled the trigger. When the bolt struck the crystal, bolt and amulet were vaporized. The insectoid squealed and dropped, its legs and too many arms flailing madly before losing animation forever.
The vengeance taker allowed himself a nod of self-congratulation as he loaded another bolt.
Prince Monolith charged into the fray. His great strides propelled him past his slowly advancing smaller allies, through the forestlike maze of storage cylinders. Two mantis-men launched themselves at his legs, but he bowled through them without stopping, despite their speed and crystal-given strength. The earth lord ran at the emerald-skinned giant. It was the creature most likely to match its strength against his own elemental power. The prince had always wanted to test his strength against a storm… The giant's eyes sparked, and lightning sprouted from every nearby surface, each bolt skewering Prince Monolith. The electricity seared through his mineral nerves, locking him in place. He strained, threatened with his booming voice, and tried to call upon his power to move through stone, but the electricity held him caged. The pain crept toward intolerable.
Ususi spoke the words of a protective spell, and her sense of touch dulled as her skin protectively hardened. Monolith obscured her vision of Pandorym for a moment as he charged, but then her view was clear again. As terrifying as the force assembled before them was, her percipience allowed her to see that Pandorym's true strength lay beyond the portal it maintained in Deep Imaskar. Destroying the creature would cut the puppet strings of all the servitors it had transferred there. She saw Iahn take up a position on top of an unjacketed canis
ter and fire his newfound weapon, one bolt after another. The others also advanced, but she couldn't take time to watch their progress. The wizard spoke a spell of wind, hoping to disperse or at least disturb Pandorym's cloudlike form, and so disrupt the portal into Deep Imaskar, but the entity held its form. If she couldn't close the portal, could she block it? Ususi spoke the short, sharp syllables that beckoned a solid magical wall. Before she could finish, a hail of serpentine, night-dark rays emerged from the creatures at the room's hub. Her eyes narrowed with concern as the shafts fell against her hardened skin… then she sighed. Her protective magic was diminished, but it held. The wizard finished her utterance. She felt nothingness coalesce toward solidity. Though normally invisible, this time she saw her wall take shape in her star-bright gaze. She thrust it into the portal Pandorym hid at its core. The plane of force slapped into place. Pandorym's vaporous emanation writhed and bucked. The entity didn't like the obstruction.
Immediately, she sensed her blockade come under attack. Pandorym sought to eject it. The wizard gasped and tightened the clamps of her arcane will more securely about her magical construction. Her spell-craft was tested nearly beyond its limit as she struggled to hold the wall in place. The portal at Pandorym's heart hazed, warped, and wavered, but held. She had hit on a workable strategy! If she could maintain the blockade, Pandorym's portal into Deep Imaskar would fail. Then she saw crystal-faced Shaddon Datharathi, back on his feet, running at her with the speed of a zephyr.
The pathetic man, utterly encased in his own folly, was Pandorym's perfect avatar. Bleeding cracks fractured his human carapace, and the radiance emanating from his mineral skin was dimmer than before.
Prince Monolith's initial strike had seen to that. Unfortunately, the man was still very much in the fight. Shaddon loosed a barrage of pitch-black tendrils from one outspread hand. Ususi sidestepped a handful, but several chewed into her stony skin, nearly exhausting its protection. She dared not relinquish her wall… but Shaddon advanced on her! Ususi muttered a prayer of thanks when the elf swordswoman intersected Shaddon's path. Kiril slashed with her sentient blade with a power equal to Shaddon's malevolent vitality. Shaddon's left hand and forearm sailed through the air, leaving a spray of blood and darkness. The Datharathi elder screamed, his voice suddenly quite human. Ususi sidled to the left, trying to maintain her line of sight with Pandorym and the gap in its defense. She sensed the intradimensional portal weakening. All she had to do was maintain her plug of force, and Deep Imaskar… what remained of it… would be saved.
Kiril maintained her two-handed grip on Angul's hilt as her foe's severed hand and forearm spun away. The crystal-encased human partially freed himself from Pandorym's control, enough to emit a pitiful scream. Too bad. Kiril took advantage of the distraction to plunge Angul directly into Shaddon's chest. Most opponents would have perished immediately upon receiving such a mortal blow. Violet light flared anew in Shaddon's eyes, and scything ribbons of darkness spewed from his mouth. Where the darkness touched the elf's flesh, they burned like ice and burrowed in. Angul shored up her will to ignore the pain. It was only skin deep, as yet. Mere pain couldn't hinder her righteous power. She pulled the Blade Cerulean free of Shaddon's chest, then swung it around in a neck-high arc. Shaddon's inhuman speed saved him from her first slash, and her second. Ribbons of darkness cut into her arm and leg. She felt nothing. Pain was a luxury. So was injury. Blood loss, shock, and dismemberment couldn't prevent her from accomplishing what Angul demanded. With her third swing, she decapitated the man. The body fell. Shaddon's head, free of its body, remained aloft, its virulent hate undiminished.
Warian's hair stood on end in response to the electrical storm near him. Blue-white bolts burned through the advancing earth lord… over and over. Prince Monolith was caught in a chain of lightning that pinned him for painful moments. Charred, smoking rubble blasted from the earth elemental's form like shrapnel, and Monolith yelled out, furious and hurt. The green-skinned giant was… some sort of titan? A storm giant? Something nearly godlike, Warian's subconscious gibbered. They couldn't face something like that! Could they? Could he? Warian clenched his prosthesis, and time floated down a slower path. Even the lightning encircling Monolith seemed to linger in its smoking trails. Warian moved toward the giant, dodging mantis-men and other horrors. Most did not see him, barely noticing his passing, while others tried to track what must have been a crazy blur. His dash ended with a magnificent punch to the giant's shin. He rotated his hips and shoulder into the punch as Zel had once taught him, transferring all the power of his arm into the knuckles of his prosthesis. Nothing happened. Warian allowed himself to fall back to normal speed. The giant's electrical cage winked out, and it grunted as its leg collapsed. The creature went down on one knee. Warian jumped away, nearly evading the giant's grasp. Greenish fingers closed around him, holding him, then squeezed. Even with the power of his prosthetic girding his strength and endurance, Warian gasped in pain.
Thankfully, the momentary release from the lightning was all Monolith needed. The elemental noble crashed into the giant and grasped the bigger humanoid with his huge, earthen hands. Warian fell several feet as the giant dropped him. It needed both hands to resist Monolith's elemental hug.
The vengeance taker aimed, fired, loaded, and cranked the mechanism. Again. And again. The mantis-men were especially vulnerable to Iahn's deadly aim. As soon as Iahn saw a servitor's amulet, it was as good as out of the fight. If the way each creature screamed and collapsed was any indication, a servitor severed from Pandorym's control was dealt with permanently. An insectoid broke cover, dashing from behind a canister. It hurled a spear, its aim perfect, and its speed lethal. Iahn slipped left, and the spear whispered its regrets in his right ear as it flew past. He wondered if the creature's speed was the result of its own skill or was an enhancement of Pandorym's power. No matter. "Got you," he grunted as the mantis-man's amulet shattered, speared by an answering bolt from Iahn's new crossbow. His was a winning strategy. "Break their amulets!" he yelled to the others, trying to project his voice above the din. "It's their connection to Pandorym. Break-" A gray-skinned creature appeared from behind a large canister and loped forward, much larger than the mantis-men he'd so far eliminated. A mountain troll, like the one he'd faced days earlier. Iahn took aim… where in the name of the Great Seal was its amulet? He spied a chain, but no crystal. He fired a bolt directly into the charging creature's forehead. The troll's head rocked back, then forward, a grin on its face. Blood trickled toward its mouth, but the troll roared and accelerated. The vengeance taker shot one of the creature's eyes before it reached him and snatched at his legs. He skipped left, then right, careful to keep his footing on top of the tall cylinder. The creature was so big, it easily looked over the top the cylinder on which Iahn stood. The vengeance taker holstered his crossbow in his thigh sheath. When the creature lunged at him again, he launched himself into the air. He jumped up and forward, rotating into a somersault so that as the troll moved below him, the vengeance taker's legs flew high and his hands were free to grab the troll by its filthy black hair. Before the creature realized where its target had gone, Iahn was on its back, securing his position with one arm snaked around the creature's thick neck. He squeezed. The troll's rubbery flesh was resilient. That didn't prevent the vengeance taker from crushing its trachea. The troll squeaked and started to stagger. But Iahn knew the troll's body would repair itself in an instant. He kept squeezing, making certain that the troll couldn't get a breath. Nor could it roar, scream, beg, or even gasp. The vengeance taker rode the troll down as it collapsed first to its knees, then onto its face. Even then, Iahn didn't relinquish his hold. Instead he yelled, "Ususi! Give me fire!"
Ususi heard the vengeance taker's command, but she couldn't afford to break her concentration. The wizard didn't turn or even process his words. All her energy was necessary to maintain the blockage she'd thrown down Pandorym's throat. The shimmering portal through which Deep Imaskar's plight was visible hazed further. I
ts wide diameter fluctuated, and the surrounding void black vapor whipped and lashed as if struggling to maintain its shape in a stiff wind. Something punctured a small hole in her barrier. Her spell didn't collapse, but she spied something moving from the opposite side of it into the weapons cache. An Imaskari man appeared in the gloom of Pandorym's form, stepping out of the portal. Had an ally arrived? Ususi didn't recognize him, but her eyes widened when she saw a bloody, oozing object impaled through the palm of the man's hand. A Celestial Nadir crystal was punched all the way through. Was Pandorym overwhelming Deep Imaskar by forcibly converting citizens to be its servitors? The wizard nearly lost her concentration in horror. The newly arrived Imaskari focused on Ususi. In his hand he clutched a sliver of Celestial Nadir crystal, carved like a small throwing dagger. He raised the sliver high, its needle-sharp end aimed at her head. Did the man mean to launch the crystal at her from across the room? Worry pinched Ususi's forehead. What would happen if she were infected by a Pandorym-controlled crystal?
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