“They’re coming,” Haver said.
“And we’re leaving.” Albric stepped through the portal without a glance back at his acolytes. They would follow, or they would die—it didn’t matter to him.
Miri stayed close to Demas, trying to ensure that nothing surprised him as he led them through the ruins, following Ioun’s inspiration. Brendis walked beside her in silence, a frown creasing his face. Each time she glanced aside at him, his eyes were fixed on Demas. What had his god told him about Demas? Ioun was the god of prophecy, but clearly Pelor had shown his paladin something of Demas’s future, something terrible.
She could tell that Demas knew it as well, and he was shielding her from it. The way he’d silenced Brendis had made that clear. That stung. Did he not trust her with the knowledge? Did he think she couldn’t handle it?
“In here,” Demas announced, coming to a stop in front of a crumbling building. “There are four of …” His brow furrowed for an instant. “No. There are three of them. But we must make haste.”
“How does he do that?” Brendis asked Miri as Demas turned back to the building.
“Do what?”
“It’s like Ioun is right beside him, carrying on a conversation only he can hear. Like all her wisdom and knowledge is right at hand for him. It’s amazing.”
Miri smiled. “Yes, it is.”
The tiefling stepped between Miri and Brendis to follow Demas into the building. “Didn’t he say something about haste?” he said, a wry smile on his brick-red face.
Brendis scowled and stepped through the open doorway behind Nowhere. Miri followed with a glance back at the wizard Sherinna, who glided along as though their little procession were a parade in her honor. Sherinna didn’t meet her gaze, and Miri suddenly felt very alone. She hurried to catch up with Demas before he reached the cultists.
Nowhere let her slip past him, and she reached Brendis’s side at the top of a short flight of stairs.
“Hold!” Demas’s voice echoed up from below, and a flash of brilliant light dazzled her eyes.
As one, Miri and Brendis hurtled down the stairs. Demas stood before a hole in the masonry wall, his staff lifted high, a nimbus of divine power surrounding him like a storm. Brendis pushed past him, and Miri saw him run through what looked like a circular hole in the opposite wall. On the other side of that hole, rather than more crumbling walls and dim chambers, she could see the bustling streets of an unfamiliar city. She looked at Demas.
“After them!” he urged. His free hand was outstretched toward the portal. “I can’t keep it open for long!”
Nowhere ran past them and followed Brendis through the portal, which Miri noticed was growing smaller as the city on the other side seemed to recede. Sherinna paused at Demas’s side.
“I can help,” the eladrin said, reaching her own hand toward the portal.
“The far end is moving,” Demas said. “Help me stabilize it.”
“What can I do?” Miri said.
“Go through, child. Find the others.”
“What about you?”
“We’ll be right behind you,” Sherinna said. “Hurry!”
Miri ran to the portal and stepped into a crowded street. She couldn’t see Brendis or Nowhere or the fleeing cultists. As she spun to look behind her, she saw only more city streets winding off into the distance.
“Demas!” she shouted. People of every race, garbed in clothes and armor of every possible description, hurried past her in all directions, few even sparing her a glance.
“Demas! Sherinna!” she called again. She didn’t see them, and no one answered her call. Brendis and the tiefling must have been long gone. She was in the middle of the largest city she’d ever seen, and as far as she could tell, she was completely alone.
Haver kept looking over his shoulder as he followed Albric through the twisting streets of the City of Doors as if he expected the warriors who had chased them through the portal to appear at any moment. He accompanied his hurried steps with a constant stream of gloomy mumbling.
Albric frowned. The madness of the Elder Elemental Eye was a precious gift, leading to insight and inspiration, but some minds could not handle it. He suspected that Haver would soon degenerate into raving—but not, he hoped, before fulfilling his role in the ritual. After that, Haver’s sanity would cease to matter.
Escaping their pursuers had been easy enough. The portal had begun to close as soon as Albric stepped through. Gharik and Haver followed quickly and appeared nearby, warning of the adventurers hot on their heels. But by the time the first warrior came through, the end of the portal had already begun to slide away, depositing him a dozen yards down the street, easily avoided. The others, if they made it through at all, would have emerged even farther away.
Even so, the fact of their pursuit was troubling. It appeared that other forces were moving against the Eye, seeking to prevent what Albric was trying to accomplish and keep the Eye imprisoned. A jolt of fury surged through his chest at the thought. They would not stop him. The Eye would destroy them all, even the gods who had first cast him into his prison.
Albric stopped and leaned against a wall for a moment, closing his eyes and seeking insight from his master. His knees buckled as his mind drifted into dream, the Eye revealing in an instant what he needed to know. Gharik caught his arm and helped him find his feet.
“The Elder Elemental Eye has three faithful followers here,” he said. “They await us in the Hive.”
“Only three?” Gharik said. “That leaves us two short for the ritual.”
“The Eye will provide more hands for his labor. Do not question, or we will be three short.”
Gharik released his arm and trailed behind as Albric led the way to the labyrinth of wretched tenements called the Hive. Like a sewer of the universe, the Hive was a collection of the dregs of countless societies, the most miserable of every world and plane. Half dreaming, Albric drifted through its maze of alleys—even its thoroughfares couldn’t be called streets—following the inspiration of the Eye. He smiled as three figures detached themselves from the filth piled against a crumbling wall and took up positions before and behind them.
Gharik shook his shoulder. “Albric,” he said, “we’re being robbed.”
The three figures—an elf woman, a dragonborn man, and a one-eyed human man—shared a chuckle. “That’s right, Albric,” the one-eyed man said. “Somebody not paying attention?”
Albric laughed with them, then produced the golden symbol of the Elder Eye from within the folds of his robe. The elf saw it and gasped. “You are the ones not paying attention,” Albric said. “The Elder Elemental Eye commands your obedience!”
Behind him, the one-eyed man started to protest. “Look here, I don’t know who told you—”
Albric spun to face the man and raised his arms. Dark lightning pulsed around the golden symbol like an extension of his heartbeat, and his voice filled with booming menace. “The Eye commands you! Heed his voice or die where you stand!”
The dragonborn fell to his knees without a word, and Albric heard the elf behind him do the same. The one-eyed man hesitated, and Albric started drawing in power for the invocation that would strike the faithless one down. But the man sank to his knees as well, an ecstatic smile twisting his face, his single eye wide with awe.
Albric smiled. Here was one who saw. The others followed blindly, but this man was a dreamer like himself.
“What is your name?” he asked the man.
The voice that came from the one-eyed man’s mouth was different. It rang out as deep as thunder in a vast chasm, and the whispers of the mad and the damned echoed in the empty air. “I am the Elder Elemental Eye,” he said. “I am the Chained God.”
Now Albric fell to his knees, staring in awe at the apparition of his god.
“My name is Tharizdun.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Wyatt is the Creative Manager for D&D R&D at Wizards of the Coast. He was one of the lead designers for
4th Edition D&D and the primary author of the 4th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide. He also contributed to the EBERRON Campaign Setting, and is the author of several DUNGEONS & DRAGONS novels set in the world of Eberron.
City Under the Sand: A Dark Sun Novel (Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Sun) Page 38
