The Eye of the Chained God tap-3

by Don Bassingthwaite

  “What was once three shall be again. We divide you!”

  Shara saw the pack of plague demons break away from the horde and come racing up the spire. She slid to a stop on the stone. Beyond the teeming demons, she could see her friends still trying to buy Kri and Albanon the time they needed. But she could also see something the others couldn’t.

  Kri’s face was drawn into a deep frown. Albanon’s was contorted as if in pain. There was no sign of the brilliant light that had preceded Vestausan and Vestausir’s destruction. Their spell wasn’t working.

  They’d failed.

  Hope died inside her and she knew with a certainty that this was the end. Was this what Jarren had felt when he had faced Vestapalk alone? Shara drew her greatsword from over her shoulder. The plague demons were still clambering up the stone spire, but they weren’t her enemy. She looked at Vestapalk, so completely transformed from the green dragon her father and his band had been hired to track down. Vestapalk looked back at her, then let out a slow hiss. He turned his left forelimb so she could see the inner surface. Twelve lines had been carved into the scales. A mark for each adventurer Vestapalk had killed in his life, the dragon had bragged when they’d first faced him.

  The last three represented Borojon, Jarren, and a dwarf named Cliffside. Not taking his eyes off Shara, Vestapalk reached up and dragged a talon through his scales, adding a thirteenth mark.

  Shara didn’t need to look over her shoulder to see that the plague demons had fallen back. She was alone on the spire with Vestapalk. She raised her sword and Vestapalk flinched. His crystal eyes flashed past her. “No!” he roared.

  Ruddy light flared behind Shara. She turned, following Vestapalk’s gaze.

  Light like molten metal dripped between Albanon and Kri’s joined hands. The priest and the wizard both gazed at Vestapalk. Their voices rose together.

  “What was once three shall be again. We divide you!”

  A tremor passed through the Plaguedeep. Not like the shudders that had broken and rearranged the passage while they’d been inside it, but an actual trembling of the world. Vestapalk roared again. Kri and Albanon’s voices returned to the chant and the light began to run even more freely between their fingers.

  The plague demons surrounding them paused in their attack. Some of them tried to pull back, but the press of bodies held them in place.

  The first shadows rose like wisps of morning mist, separating from the bodies of the plague demons closest to Albanon and Kri. Vestausan and Vestausir had been slow to dissipate, maybe because they’d been more closely connected to Vestapalk. The plague demons took no time at all. The first few shriveled up like scraps of paper thrown onto hot coals, their darkness streaming in thin threads to the source of the molten light.

  Then the shadows began to rise more quickly. Wisps became puffs became billows of shadow. The press backward became a mad scramble as plague demons tried to escape. It didn’t help. Shara watched demons collapse as they ran, collapse in the midst of turning away. Demons still in the abyss screeched and skittered madly across the walls, but tendrils of shadow already stretched back to Albanon and Kri. The pair pulled their hands apart to more fully expose the glowing fragment that lay between them and the billows of shadow became a thick stream like black smoke, spiraling down into the fragment.

  It didn’t just come from the plague demons either. It drifted up from the rocks and leached out of the air. Veins of red crystal faded to pink, then turned clear-then vanished altogether. All around Shara, stone creaked and groaned like a frozen river in thaw. Rocks broke away from the walls of the shafts and fell in clattering cascades.

  An especially loud groan came from behind her. Shara turned to face Vestapalk.

  Shadows hung around the dragon like a dark aura, but none of them drifted away. Crystal eyes filled with rage and hate glared at her. “You will not defeat this one,” snarled Vestapalk. “This one will rule the world. This one… has the power of a god!”

  “Shara!” shouted Uldane. She glanced over her shoulder. The halfling stood with Quarhaun at the base of the spire. Tempest and Roghar were still with Kri and Albanon, but Cariss and Belen were climbing ropes back up to the passage. Uldane waved for her to join them. “This place could collapse! Come on!”

  “Not yet,” Shara called back to him. She could see Tempest and Roghar were unable to get Kri and Albanon to move. The pair was chanting, and even though most of the plague demons had been consumed, shadows were still rising from the crumbling Plaguedeep. She waved to Uldane and Quarhaun. “Go!”

  Uldane left the base of the spire, but went no farther than the climbing ropes. Quarhaun didn’t move at all. Shara looked at Vestapalk. The tight aura of shadows around him was starting to fray. He trembled with the effort of holding it-and himself-together. Walking carefully along the creaking spire, Shara moved closer. The dragon snapped at her. “This one is chosen!” he spat. “This one is-ah! Ah! ”

  His words trailed off into gasps of pain as Kri and Albanon redoubled their chanting yet again. Shadows began to stream from Vestapalk-and as they went, he changed.

  The great crystal wings faded away to nothingness and so did one of the talons on his forepaws- ausan, ausir, and gix. The crystal spikes along his spine and the crystal spurs from his limbs faded just as the veins of crystal had faded from the stones of the Plaguedeep. The Voidharrow that had dripped from his jaws dried and disappeared. The red stain left his scales. As the shadow of Tharizdun’s will peeled away from him, Vestapalk became green once more. He coughed and darkness puffed out of his mouth like soot from a blacksmith’s bellows. His head sank down to the stone. Horrified and fascinated, Shara moved even closer. Vestapalk’s head snapped up again.

  The sockets that had been filled with eyes of liquid crystal were empty.

  Vestapalk bared white teeth, and his nostrils flared. “This one knows your scent,” he said. “This one can still take one more adventurer to the grave.”

  He lunged, his long wingless body slithering on the stone like a great lizard. Shara sidestepped his rush easily. Her greatsword came down on his neck just behind his narrow skull.

  The blade sliced scales, hide, flesh, and bone as if they were woven of straw. Vestapalk’s eyeless head went bouncing down the spire. His body staggered for a moment, carried on by momentum-then slipped over the edge. Shara leaned over to watch it fall. Down. Down.

  Down into thick, rising shadows. A cold wind rushed up the pit and into her face, nearly choking her. Shara pushed herself back and raced down the spire. “Back!” she shouted at Quarhaun and the others. “Get back behind Kri and Albanon!”

  The others obeyed her. Quarhaun didn’t. She leaped down the last few paces of the spire and slammed him to the ground.

  The great mass of shadows rose up behind her, so thick and solid that it blasted the spire apart. The darkness roared overhead, compressing down into a swirling spiral that sent both Kri and Albanon flying backward. The molten light of the gate fragment vanished, the last shadows of what had been the Voidharrow consumed.

  In its wake, the sounds of creaking stones and falling rock were louder than ever. Another tremor shook the mountain and huge slabs of stone went cascading down the shaft. Quarhaun rolled Shara off him and pulled her to her feet. “Out!” he ordered. “Everyone out, now!”

  “No,” said a quiet, calm voice. “Not quite yet.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The calm voice belonged to Kri. Albanon rolled over and stared at him. The priest was already standing, his wrinkled face placid. The creak and crash of stones shook the cave, but that didn’t seem to bother Kri at all. “You have something that belongs to me,” he said. He held out his hand. “The fragment of the Vast Gate. Give it to me. Now.”

  The others, some still on the ground, some caught in the act of rising, stared at the two of them. Albanon looked down at his own hand, still squeezed tight around the gate fragment, still warm with the light that had poured from it. Somehow it felt different in h
is grip-a little less sharp around the edges, a little heavier. No, a lot heavier. Before he’d barely been conscious of the fragment’s weight. Now it was heavy enough that he couldn’t have missed it. He sat up and opened his fingers.

  His first thought was that someone had switched the fragment for a lump of lead. The stone he held wasn’t just heavy, but as smooth as if it had been tumbled along a riverbed, and it had changed color from red to black. As he stared at it, though, he realized it was the same stone. It had the same tapered oval shape and if the broken edges had become somewhat smooth, they were still there. And the black… the black was the same color as the shadows that had flowed off the Voidharrow.

  He’d never really considered what would happen to the will of Tharizdun once they separated it from the Voidharrow. Maybe he’d thought the gate fragment would direct it back to the Chained God’s eternal prison. Maybe he’d thought it would simply dissipate. It hadn’t.

  Albanon squeezed his hand around the stone. “I don’t think so,” he said.

  Kri’s expression became strained. “It is Tharizdun’s will incarnate. It is the Eye of the Chained God made manifest.”

  “You know what it is, then.”

  “Of course. I am Tharizdun’s priest.”

  “That’s what worries me.” Albanon climbed to his feet. He ached as if he’d been beaten with a bag full of sand. He tried not to let his weakness show. Kri’s calm seemed unnatural, as if he were on the edge of reverting to raving lunacy. Maybe the others sensed it, too. They closed in around him. Over by the climbing ropes, Uldane tensed.

  “I think,” Albanon said carefully, “that I’ll hold onto this for a little longer.” He moved to return the black stone to his pouch.

  It was the wrong thing to do. Kri’s face twisted with rage. He threw out his hand. “Chained God, hold them!”

  Bright white light flared around him. It washed over Albanon, searing his skin and clinging to him like a caul. The arm that reached for his pouch slowed until it barely moved. The others were caught as well, and their movements similarly hampered. Uldane jerked and started forward, but Kri swung a hand toward him. “Stay where you are!” He took a step back, keeping his distance from their struggling forms. His gaze raked all of them. “You remember now who didn’t wear himself down fighting plague demons, don’t you? Remember too that the Voidharrow is destroyed. Tharizdun’s vengeance is complete. I don’t need any of you anymore.”

  He reserved a special glare for Albanon. “And you. You would deny the Chained God when he has put power beyond the understanding of most people into your hands. You would turn your back on the gifts he offers.”

  Albanon force his mouth to move. “I don’t want… your madness.”

  Kri snarled and raised his hand, then stopped. “I want the stone, that’s all. Just the stone. Roghar, bring it to me.” The priest pointed a finger and the caul of light that trapped Roghar faded.

  Roghar, however, didn’t move. “No,” he said.

  Rage built in Kri’s face. “You swore in Bahamut’s name to obey me!”

  Albanon and the others stared the paladin, but Roghar didn’t look back at them. His face stiffened. “I refuse to betray my friends.”

  “Then you betray your god!”

  “I don’t think Bahamut would want you to have that stone either,” Roghar said calmly.

  Kri screamed with inarticulate rage. He thrust out one hand, then clenched it tight. Once again, the holy light of the gods exploded around Albanon, but this time it seemed to explode within him as well. Its radiance burned him from the inside out. The shriek that filled his ears was his own.

  “Bring me the stone,” he heard Kri howl, “or Albanon dies!”

  He didn’t hear Roghar’s response, but he knew what it must have been, because the burning stopped and he fell into cool dimness. He felt Roghar’s thick fingers pry at his and he tried to pull away. “No,” he said weakly. He forced his eyes open and discovered he was on the ground. Roghar’s face was just above his. “Don’t.”

  The dragonborn pulled the stone from his grasp and stood. Albanon pushed himself upright, still too dazed to attempt a spell. Tempest, Quarhaun, and Shara were still caught by Kri’s caul. Roghar advanced on Kri with the stone held out in front of him like a bit of rotten meat. Kri’s eyes lit up. “Chained God!” he whispered in fanatic tones. “Patient One!” He reached to take the stone.

  And Roghar swung away from him. “Uldane!” he shouted, and he tossed the black stone to the halfling, then turned back to Kri, his hands curled into fists.

  Kri’s gaze went from bright to burning in an instant. He shrieked a prayer and a wave of bright light and deafening thunder hammered into Roghar, throwing him across the cavern and into a wall. Big chunks of rocks came clanging down onto his armor. He struggled weakly but didn’t get up.

  “Kri!” shouted Uldane, bringing the priest around again. The halfling stood at the very edge of the cavern, right at the edge of the shaft that had been the Plaguedeep, with one arm extended out over the abyss. His face was as serious as Albanon had ever seen it. “Let us go.”

  Kri froze, his eyes flicking from the stone to Uldane’s face, and Albanon guessed he was trying to come up with a plan. The wizard took the chance to climb quietly to his feet. But he wasn’t quite quiet enough-Kri twisted around and pinned him with a sharp glance. Albanon met that gaze, or at least tried to. The madness that burned in Kri’s eyes was uncomfortable to see. He looked away. Kri’s mouth curved into an arrogant smile and he turned back to Uldane.

  “Uldane,” he said, sliding closer to the halfling, “I don’t want to hurt any of you. I only want the stone. Let’s show we have faith in each other. Give me the stone now and I swear I’ll let you all go.”

  “Release Shara and the others.”

  Kri gestured without even looking. The remaining cauls fell away. Tempest touched Albanon’s arm, then went to help Roghar. Kri stretched his hand toward Uldane. “Done. Now give me the stone.”

  Uldane shook his head. “I never said I’d do that.” He flicked his wrist and the stone sailed out over the abyss. Kri screeched like one of the plague demons and rushed to the edge to stare after it. Uldane threw himself away. “Somebody finish him!”

  Albanon already had a spell on his lips. Focusing his will, he spoke the words and thrust out his hand. The air shimmered.

  Kri turned just as the blast of force hit him. His eyes were wide and wild, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth. He flew back into the wide shaft with his robes fluttering around him. The last glimpse Albanon had of Kri Redshal-once a priest of Ioun, once the last member of the Order of Vigilance, once his mentor-was of him foaming at the mouth, screaming for Tharizdun.

  Maybe the Chained God heard him because at that moment, a titanic slab of rock split from the wall right above them and plummeted after Kri into the abyss. It crashed against the floor of their little cavern as it fell, sending vibrations through the stone. More rock rained down from the ceiling above. Quarhaun looked up and flinched.

  “This time we go!” he shouted. “Everybody up the ropes and no stopping until we’re outside.”

  No one objected.

  Cariss and Belen waited for them above with fresh sunrods to light the way. The tunnel held as they made their way through it, though they could hear stone collapsing regularly behind them and dust drifted down on them in with the constant threat of a cave-in. As first it seemed as if the tunnel might have become a dead-end-the narrow crawlspace they had first entered had collapsed entirely-but Quarhaun’s sharp eyes spotted hints of light in the cracks of another wall. They attacked the rotten stone with hands and shoulders. It crumbled easily under their assault and before long they’d opened a new entrance, one tall enough to walk out of easily.

  They emerged under the light of the setting sun to find the slopes of the volcano radically changed. New crevices had opened and old crevices had split wide. Solid slopes had turned into rockslides. The scrubby, slumping trees
that the Voidharrow had tainted slumped even more, the wood so full of holes it looked as if the trees had been attacked by hungry insects. Sinkholes had opened up for leagues around, gaping maws leading to rubble-choked pits. The ridge that marked the spot where they had cached their supplies the night before lay across the nightmare landscape. By unspoken consent, they stopped on what looked like a stable patch of slope. With Vestapalk gone, there was no hurry. Their cache and their bedrolls could wait until the moon rose.

  “How far did the Voidharrow reach?” Uldane asked while they sat. “Did we get it all?”

  “We got it,” Albanon answered him wearily. “All of it. Every drop. Every last crystal.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I felt it,” Albanon said. It was the truth. When the last blast of Tharizdun’s shadowy will had risen up from the depths and entered the fragment of the Vast Gate, there’d been a sensation like a door or a gate closing. The Chained God had his vengeance, he supposed. The molten light of the gate fragment hadn’t gone out because he and Kri had ceased their chanting-it had gone out because there was no more Voidharrow.

  “What about the plague demons?” said Shara. “That couldn’t have been all of them in the Plaguedeep, could it?”

  “It might have been all of the demons in the area. Maybe all those in the Nentir Vale. If Vestapalk guessed we were coming, he might have drawn them in to keep them from frightening us off. Or to lure us closer.”

  “Will any that are left still be able to spread the Abyssal Plague?”

  Albanon shrugged and sat back. “I don’t know. When Kri first explained to me exactly what the Voidharrow was, I asked the same question. He said he thought they might be able to because the plague demons were beings of both worlds now, but that without the Voidharrow the plague will be less virulent and won’t spread as easily.” He pressed his lips together. “Of course, it turned out he wasn’t entirely right about a lot of things. We might still need to watch out for the Abyssal Plague for a long time to come.”