“Alas, this sleep shall be their last. May your dreams be pleasant and carry you on swift wings from this damnation,” the speaker said again, seemingly tinged with regret.
Now that she was fully awake, Nera recognized the voice as Jovas’s.
“The master shall be pleased. A celestial—yes, that will please him greatly, methinks. Once I alert him, mayhap he’ll let me speak to my dear Catrin! Yes, I had best tarry not.”
The boot crunched again, and Jovas rose. His footsteps receded and then splashed as he departed the small island, trudging away into the swamp.
Nera sat up and saw the man’s form disappear into the eerie mist. That whoreson has betrayed us! We must flee before he brings a horde of fiends upon us.
An unnatural weariness dragged at her senses as she got to her knees. Momentarily dizzy, as if she’d consumed too much ale, she nearly fell back to the ground and her warm bedroll. She was tired—so tired! The thought of falling back asleep was tempting for a moment, but the sense of urgency imparted by the betrayal allowed her to fight off her fatigue and gain her feet.
“Did that bastard drug us? No… some type of spell. I thought I dreamt those words.”
She rolled Idrimel over. The priestess’s breathing was regular and heavy, her face peaceful in sleep.
“Wake up! We’ve been betrayed.” When she didn’t react, Nera shook her roughly by the shoulders and smacked her lightly on the cheek, but Idrimel didn’t rouse.
On the opposite side of Nera, Malek slept just as soundly, unable to be woken, just like the priestess.
“Balor’s balls.”
Nera strode through the camp, shaking and nudging her sleeping companions with the toe of her boot. None stirred—all were gripped in that unnaturally deep sleep.
“Arron!” she hissed.
She ran toward her brother, who faced away from camp at the position where he’d been on guard duty, his back leaning against a tree. However, the half-elf was fast asleep as well. She splashed some water from her waterskin over his face, but he didn’t stir. Cold fear raced down her spine, and a moment of panic threatened to overcome her.
“What should I do? Damn it!”
She tried to think quickly, but her thoughts jumbled up as images of fiends swarming over her sleeping friends filled her mind. All she was left with was the sight of Jovas disappearing into the swamps to summon whatever malevolent master he served.
Perhaps he doesn’t mean to betray us—he may be compelled somehow. I should follow him and see what he’s about. Not knowing what else to do, she set off in the direction Jovas had gone, daggers in hand.
The man seemed to know exactly where he was going, keeping to what seemed a straight path over whatever solid ground there was. His footsteps were easy to follow in the muddy ground, and she quickly gained on him. After a few minutes, she saw an orange light bobbing in the mist ahead like a will-o’-wisp. Then she unexpectedly came upon a particularly thick pocket of poisonous vapor. The fumes burned her lungs, and Nera tried to stifle a cough as much as she could. Fortunately, Jovas couldn’t hear her over his noisy passage, wading through another pool of stinking frothy water.
The mist thinned briefly, and she caught sight of Jovas. The man muttered to himself as he walked. An orange flame flickered from the head of his staff, lighting the way. He stepped onto a broad shelf of land and quickened his pace.
Bastard is a mage—no wonder he’s been able to survive here. Thinking back to his tale about how he’d ended up in the Abyss, she wondered if he had been fool enough to summon a fiend and had ended up with the tables turned on him as the demon got the upper hand and dragged both him and his Catrin here.
Nera considered killing Jovas to prevent him from alerting his master or instead incapacitating him so she could force him to dispel the magic he’d used on her friends, but curiosity got the better of her. Perhaps he’s truly a victim and merely seeks to free his wife as he claims. That possibility stayed her hand.
The ground became more solid, their path taking them over a broad island. A large cavern loomed out of the mist as Jovas approached it, and a dome of the bone-rock stretched up into the gloom overhead. She was taken aback after a moment, thinking the man was walking into a vast skull, perhaps that of whatever being had been cursed to meld with the realm of Cymrych, but after a second glance, she decided it was just a cave… or at least, she thought so.
Something hissed and snarled ahead in the gloom. Nera froze, but Jovas held his staff up confidently.
“Accost me not! I am about the master’s business!”
A scaled fiend with razor-sharp teeth and claws, resembling the lizardmen not uncommon to Nexus, grunted acknowledgement and shrank back into the shadows beside the cavern entrance. Jovas entered the cave.
Nera paused a moment, considering. Deciding she needed to find out what the man was up to, she moved closer. She tossed a chunk of rotting wood into the water ahead and to her left.
As expected, the fiend rushed forward a few steps, snout raised and sniffing the air. She let loose Lightslicer. The dagger was a silvery streak as it lodged in the beast’s throat. It squealed and flailed sideways, splashing loudly into the bloody water, but then lay still. A gesture returned the dagger to her hand. Nera frowned at the black ichor staining the blade but couldn’t do anything about it.
She cautiously advanced into the cave. Jovas’s light was disappearing around a bend ahead. Nera moved quickly to follow, eyes probing each shadowy alcove, but nothing challenged her. The air thickened with a bestial musk, even overpowering the swamp’s persistent rot and caustic vapors.
The cave’s sides were unnaturally smooth all around, free of any stony protrusions. She shuddered, thinking perhaps the cave was indeed the skull of the cursed being and she was creeping down its gullet.
A bellowed roar suddenly reverberated throughout the cavern, and Nera jumped. A clamor of screeches and snarls ensued, followed by a loud voice.
“Jovas the dutiful husband returns.” The words were mocking, deep and guttural.
“It is I, Master. I’ve found fresh prey you may enjoy. I humbly beseech you to allow me to see my beloved Catrin for a few moments.”
Nera crept up to the bend in the tunnel. Ahead was a large cavern filled with fiends. A pair of bonfires burned on either side. The floor was littered with bones and what could’ve been scraps of clothing. Jovas groveled on the ground, a pack of the lizardman-like fiends surrounding him, taunting and poking at him with their claws.
The creature Jovas called master was a massive demon seated upon a throne formed from a twisted mass of black roots extending from the wall and ceiling, shiny with slime. The fiend’s body was gray skinned and thickly muscled and must have stood twice the height of even Wyat. At the sight of his face, she let out a startled gasp, which she quickly muffled. The monster was three headed: the central head was a twisted goat-like monstrosity while the others were smaller, growing from his skull like hideous boils.
“What have you found me, pitiful groveler?” the fiend rumbled.
“A party of adventurers, mighty Xavulak. They have one with celestial blood among them! I thought that would please you!” Jovas bowed lower, ignoring the lesser demons and their taunts.
“Celestial!” boomed Xavulak. The lesser demons shrank back and were silent, all eyes on their master. The demon lord twisted his heads grotesquely and cracked his thick neck. “Yes, that would please me greatly if you speak truth. You’d better not be lying, you sorry fool, or I’ll tear you limb from limb!” The fiend rose to his feet, and Jovas cowered even lower.
“No, I tell the truth, Master! You shall see for yourself—they are in the thick of the marsh. I’ll take you there!”
“No need. I shall sniff out any celestial in my dominion. Go—speak with your beloved.” The fiend sneered and gestured toward the wall of the cavern.
Nera followed its gesture, and for a moment, her senses couldn’t interpret what she was seeing. Something was mounted to
the slimy clay of the wall.
Jovas rushed over to the wall, spryly avoiding the pack of fiends lounging around. They all watched the sorry man in amusement, harsh laughter filling the lair.
“It is I, my dear Catrin!” Jovas reached out and gently touched the thing on the wall. “Master is pleased with me. Perhaps he will free you for a time, and we can walk hand in hand as we did in the forest so many years past!”
He prattled on, but Nera’s gorge rose as she realized what she was looking upon. The man’s “beloved” was a dried, leathery skin stretched out and nailed to the wall with iron spikes. The skin had apparently been flensed from the woman, cured, and mounted for the fiends’ pleasure. She didn’t want to imagine what had happened to the rest of the woman but hoped she had been dead at that point.
She felt pity and horror in equal measure. Jovas was clearly mad, a pitiful thing, as his master said, clinging in his madness to the remains of his wife. The fiends took pleasure in manipulating and tormenting the troubled man, allowing him to serve them and to be rewarded by being allowed time with his wife.
Nera quickly retreated, barely able to hold down her gorge. The bestial stench was suffocating and nearly unbearable. By the time she reached the mouth of the cave, she was running in terror, not caring if any other sentries were about. She heaved harsh breaths of the caustic vapors, barely noticing as her throat and lungs burned, just needing to get the sight and stench of the fiends’ lair from her mind.
She raced back down the path they had left, tracing the muddy footsteps of Jovas and herself back to camp. The fiends would be coming for them. I must wake them and get everyone safely away—but how?
Before she realized it, she was back in camp, stumbling over the sleeping form of one of Wyat’s men.
“Wake up!” she shouted, her voice shrill with panic and horror. “We need to get out of here right now! They are coming.”
Her words died off as she realized nobody was stirring. They were still in the depths of the magically induced sleep. She seized Wyat by the shoulders and shook him roughly, desperately, but he didn’t waken.
Sabyl, help me! What do I do! She was about to lose control, she knew. She couldn’t fight off all those demons, especially that hideous three-headed fiend.
An idea popped into her head. Focusing her thoughts, she tried to project her voice telepathically, as she once had to Alistor in Valirial, awakening what intelligence remained in the zombie.
“Danger comes! Awaken at once!” She pushed the thought with all she had.
Nothing happened. Nera sank to her knees beside Malek, clasping his hand roughly. Damn it—it can’t end here!
“Nera?” someone asked in a groggy voice.
She looked over to see Endira sitting up, looking around puzzled. A moment later, Malek shifted, squeezing her hand in response. Waresh snorted awake, then Wyat called out a muffled question.
“Danger approaches!” she yelled. “We are betrayed—awaken! This is a magical sleep caused by that bastard Jovas.”
Malek sat up, looking confused at first then alarmed at her reaction.
She tugged at his arm. “Come, we must flee!”
Nera left Malek as he rose to his feet and knelt beside Wyat. The big warrior looked as if he’d spent the night drinking heavily, eyes bleary and confused.
“Get everyone moving—we have mere moments to break camp and flee.”
Wyat blinked at her, then his soldier’s instincts took over. He surged to his feet and began barking orders.
Nera ran over to her bedroll and quickly began stuffing everything into her pack. She froze momentarily at the sound of bestial shouts in the distance.
The companions exchanged frightened glances before redoubling their efforts to stow their gear. Moments later, they were fleeing into the dark mist of the swamp.
Faces were grim around her. As they fled, she gave them a quick recounting of Jovas’s betrayal to the fiend Xavulak and what she had witnessed in the cave. They roundly scolded her for sneaking off alone like that, and she bore their criticism without argument. They were right that she shouldn’t risk herself, but she hadn’t known what else she could do. She would’ve remained in camp and likely fallen back asleep, perhaps to never awaken.
Or if I had reawakened, perhaps it would’ve been to having the skin flensed from my body, she thought with a shudder.
Nera idly wondered for a moment what would happen to Jovas since they were no longer fast asleep and easy prey for his master. She hoped the man wouldn’t be beaten and tortured. She felt it much easier to pity the man than to despise him for his betrayal.
It would be for the best if he were slain—then he could rejoin his beloved.
She silently vowed to put a dagger in the man’s heart if their paths crossed again, to spare him from such a life of misery.
Then she turned all her attention to their flight through the cursed swamps with a pack of fiends on their trail.
Chapter 10
“Sabyl, I thank you for watching over your Chosen.” Nera’s statement didn’t even hold any sarcasm, so happy was she when she saw the whirlpool appear at the center of Cymrych.
The companions had fled for hours in the darkness. Shortly after dawn had abruptly appeared, they had stumbled upon the whirlpool, seemingly by dumb luck.
However, Nera knew better. She thought she could feel Sabyl’s hand, or at least her luck, guiding their path.
Thus far, the fiends hadn’t seemed to have gained ground on them, judging from the frustrated howls of their pursuit. In fact, the companions seemed to have lost them for a time as the sounds of pursuit had gone silent. Nera had decided to risk their taking a few minutes to catch their breath.
They stood on a rocky promontory overlooking a broad lake of the bloody water. The waters swirled around in a vast whirlpool, circling down out of sight into a dark pit in the center of the lake.
Nera cast a glance aside at Yosrick, who stood looking at the vortex as if mesmerized. “You said earlier this tome of yours ‘hints at’ this whirlpool being a portal? That’s not very reassuring.” She frowned.
The gnome wrung his hands. “Aye, but that’s the best information we’ve got, Nera. Jovas confirmed it.”
She snorted. “He would’ve said anything to get us to let our guards down so he could turn us over to that fiend.”
“By your telling, it sounds as if the poor man didn’t have much choice anymore. Madness was his only refuge from his torment.”
Nera shuddered at the memory of Jovas and Catrin. “Aye, hard to blame the man—tough to say what one would do in his shoes.”
Yosrick nodded sagely. “We must make the attempt through the vortex, lest we spend the rest of our remaining days, short as they likely will be, fruitlessly searching for another means of escape with those demons in pursuit.”
“More like hours, not days,” Malek added, coming over to join them. “We’re trapped against this lake—doubtless, we’ll have little chance of trying to evade them further.”
Nera squeezed his hand. “Into the maelstrom we go.”
“Are ye mad, fiendling?” Waresh stared at the maelstrom in horror, his face pale beneath his thick beard. “Ye mean to enter that?”
“Aye, it’s either drown in filth or be slaughtered by demons,” she snapped. Thoughts of nearly drowning in Nexus’s Molten Canal came back to her, but she pushed that memory away, needing to show resolve to her companions.
“I’d rather take me chances with the horde.” Waresh glanced over his shoulder nervously.
“You stubborn bastard—you’d likely get stuck in the craw of one of those demons and choke it to death.”
“Aye, I’d see to that before I ever ended up in the gullet of one of those whoresons.” Waresh grinned at the thought.
Nera chuckled. “If that’s what you truly prefer, then you have my leave to hold them off for us. Any other objections?” She was gambling the dwarf would change his mind.
The others made no
reply, for they all realized they had no real choice.
“Let’s get moving, then.” She bumped her hip against Malek in passing and went to pick up her pack again.
“Nera, if I may have a quick word?” Idrimel motioned for Nera to join her a short distance away.
“What is it?” She noted the priestess had been withdrawn ever since they had discovered Jovas’s treachery.
“I’ve been reflecting on what happened with Jovas, and I owe everyone an apology. I was a fool to blindly trust the man, and all of us nearly died as a result.” Her face was wracked with guilt, and she looked as miserable as Nera had ever seen her, save perhaps for the moments after her brother was struck down. “I will heed your advice and that of the others from here on with such matters, as I am clearly out of my element here.”
Nera smiled. “I wouldn’t say any of us are in our element here in the Abyss, Sister.” She put her hand on Idrimel’s shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t be too hard on yourself—the rest of us were deceived as well. We need to look out for each other—I won’t listen only to one person’s counsel above all others. Any of us could have our beliefs or feelings easily compromised in this place.”
Idrimel’s face brightened slightly. “Thank you for your kindness, Nera. I shall have to harden my heart while we are here lest I be at risk of being deceived again.”
Nera clapped her on the pauldron. “Aye, but don’t lose yourself in the process, Idrimel.” She turned back toward the others, leaving the priestess looking thoughtful.
Rand had found a narrow path down the rocky escarpment, and they filed down at once. After a couple minutes, they stood at the shore of the lake.
“They approach,” Idrimel suddenly warned, face taut with fear.
In horror, the companions looked up to where they had just been on the promontory. A score or more laksaar, as Yosrick had named the lesser fiends, were jostling for position at the brink, snarling down at them from a mere ten paces above.
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