Darkvision

by Bruce R Cordell

  Kiril stormed up behind it and plunged Angul down upon the trailing edges of the creature’s filmy flesh. The blade pierced ectoplasm and earth and pinned the creature in place. Before she could think any more about it, she pulled her hands away from the hilt, breaking contact.

  As always, the withdrawal was instant and retributive.

  When the spastic pain had eased, Kiril rolled into a sitting position. The intruder was gone. The darkness that had crowned the bluff’s summit was gone, too. The last undestroyed glyph that had orbited the creature lay in the earth, a dead piece of crystal. Angul was still stuck in the earth, tip down, a few yards from the dead crystal. Angul smoldered, sending a tendril of pure white smoke skyward—she could imagine his fury at being sheathed in unconsecrated soil, like any common blade.

  Kiril allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction.

  Thormud snored nearby. His color had returned to his face. Xet, the coward, was curled up like a cat on the dwarf’s chest. The destrier, without anyone to command it, had not moved. The plain before them was otherwise empty.

  Kiril stood and dusted herself off. She moved to the dwarf’s side and shook him. Thormud’s eyes shuttered open immediately. His expression was a question. Kiril helped the dwarf to his feet.

  The geomancer pointed at Angul. “What is wrong with your sword? I’ve never seen it smoke like that.” He paused, then asked, “What happened?”

  “That ghost-bastard you summoned …”

  “I didn’t summon it! It followed me.”

  “It came because of you, right? It knocked you cold, but I nicked it with Angul. It turned on me and tried to do the same.”

  Thormud said, his voice low, “It bested me as if I were nothing. Thank you for banishing it where I could not.”

  “You know how it is when I have my sword drawn. Nothing that sheet-wearing bastard threw at me mattered.”

  “How exactly did you dispatch it?” Thormud picked up his selenite rod as he spoke.

  Kiril shrugged. “Once it expended all its little floating friends, I pinned it to the dirt with Angul.” The elf pointed to the simmering sword. “After that, it faded, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  The elf turned without answering and withdrew a pair of black silk gloves she kept folded in her belt. She pulled on the gloves while studying Angul. With her hands covered, she grasped the sword’s hilt and jerked him free of the earth. Kiril studied Angul’s inlay—“Keeper of the Cerulean Sign” in star elf script—then jammed him into his white leather sheath.

  Kiril didn’t like being questioned by Thormud—she didn’t know the answers. When she was one with the righteous blade, she was not tormented or put upon. Why not pull him out again and tell Thormud what she thought of his stupid stunt of luring the creature out of the netherworld in the first place?

  Her hand reached, but instead of grasping Angul’s hilt, she pulled out her flask, spun off the cap, and knocked one back.

  Better.

  Sighing, the dwarf bent to study the ground where Kiril had pinned their attacker. He ran his fingers through the dirt, scooped up a palmful of grains, and let them fall, one at a time, his expression intent. Thormud shook his head. “The attack was too quick for the earth to recall.”

  He ascended to the bluff top and repeated his actions, but they proved no more fruitful. Kiril watched, scowling at Xet, who flew intricate, probably meaningless patterns in the air above its master’s head.

  Thormud paused, scratching his beard. A new thought struck him. “Xet! Bring me the big map!”

  “Find something?” Kiril asked him.

  “I remember a detail from my divination.”

  The crystal dragonet winged over to the destrier and dived headfirst into one of Thormud’s packs. It emerged several heartbeats later with a leather tube clamped in its mouth. Kiril recognized it as one of the map cases that the dwarf referenced from time to time. She recalled this map as having recognizable names and political borders inscribed on it. Many of the dwarf’s other maps depicted topography meaningless to her.

  Meanwhile, the dwarf approached the destrier. Xet craned its neck to deliver the map to Thormud’s outstretched hand. Kiril ambled over, too. Might as well see what the old dwarf was up to. Better to get the explanation as it developed, rather than ask Thormud to recap later, after he thought too much about it—the dwarf would one day kill her with his mind-numbing explanations.

  Or, in order to prevent that, she’d stick her dagger in him. If only, she mused, grinning.

  Thormud looked at her enigmatic grin, smiled without understanding the reason for his bodyguard’s expression, and unrolled the map on the destrier’s back. He grabbed Xet and placed the creature on one side of the curling parchment to hold its edge down, and weighted the other edge with his moon rod. The dwarf had to study it for only a few moments before his finger stabbed down into the lower right corner.

  “The Golden Water!” he said, exultant.

  Kiril cocked an eyebrow.

  “This was in my vision—a swath of water that shone like molten gold. I thought it seemed familiar. North of it was a singular spire, like a wolf’s …” the dwarf’s voice trailed off as his finger traced north across a wide bay labeled “The Golden Water,” to the coast near a city called Huorm. Standing just a few miles from the water was some sort of natural rise called Adama’s …

  “… tooth,” finished the dwarf. His finger tapped the landmark. “Adama’s Tooth. That’s the place the earth first showed me, before I became lost.”

  Kiril asked him, “So what?”

  “We shall discover ‘what’ when we get there.”

  Kiril studied the parchment. The map didn’t show elevations, but Adama’s Tooth looked suspiciously solitary. She rubbed the scar on her hand where lava had burned her during a previous expedition planned by Thormud. “You’re certain it’s not a volcano?”

  The dwarf brightened. “Oh, wouldn’t that be just delightful?”

  “Right,” Kiril said. “Hey, our friend left a small piece of himself behind—see that? One of his sigils.”

  Thormud stared at the tiny piece of purplish crystal. He produced a leather scarf, dashed over, and quickly wrapped the crystal, completely hiding it.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “Whatever sent that creature might be able to see out of the crystal, as if it were a window,” murmured the dwarf.

  “Is that so?” The hair stood up a little on Kiril’s neck. “Maybe we should bury that little package here and now.”

  Thormud shook his head. “No, I think we can learn more from it before we do that.”

  Kiril looked at the dwarf and said, “I had better not see that crystal again, understand?”

  “We’ll see, Kiril. It is for me to decide.”

  Why did you follow me?”

  The vengeance taker hung in the chamber, his prison a blaze of slowly churning light.

  “Release me, and I’ll tell you all you want to know, and more.”

  Ususi shook her head. “Wrong. Tell me, then I decide your fate. I know your kind doesn’t like to be dictated to, but you’re in no position to insist. Tell me why I shouldn’t just leave you to rot.”

  The man shrugged, unfazed by Ususi’s threat. “Then listen. Crisis has reached Deep Imaskar. If you do not return immediately, our hidden stronghold may fall. It may have fallen already.”

  Ususi blinked. A plea for help was the last thing she anticipated from her tracker. “By the Purple Throne, what are you trying at? You can’t trick me with crazy yarns! Why have you come after me now, after so many years? Why can’t the Hidden City let me go? You know I’ll not betray its secrets!”

  The man tried to wipe his brow, but the magical trap prevented him from completing the action.

  He shrugged instead, and said, “You expect reprisal for bypassing the Great Seal without permission and leaving behind Deep Imaskar? At any other time, you would be right to fear punishment. But think. You sai
d it yourself—if it had been deemed a worthwhile expenditure of our resources, we would have had you back long ago, Ususi Manaallin.”

  He fixed her with his large eyes, whose depths were as bleak and colorless as a winter sky. Despite his helplessness, Ususi shivered under that ruthless gaze. Could such eyes even consider lies? She cleared her throat. Despite his abilities, he was her prisoner now and couldn’t hurt her.

  “What is your name?”

  “I am Iahn Qoyllor, and I first heard the Voice of Damos fifteen years ago.”

  Ususi’s eyes flicked to the relic strapped to the man’s right hand. She suppressed a shiver.

  “All right, Iahn. Tell me your disaster story and why you were sent to find me.”

  “Darkness hammers against the Great Seal, a supernatural force that we cannot identify. Horror stalks the streets, and even the Hidden City’s most stalwart defenders fall before its onslaught. The lord apprehender says we have but one hope: Ususi Manaallin. To this end, I was dispatched.”

  Ususi couldn’t suppress a yelp of protest. “Huh? That’s gibberish! What hope? And what do you mean, darkness?”

  “The lord apprehender bid me tell you this. ‘Retribution seeks the descendents of ancient Imaskar. Something old has awakened, something with no love for the long dead god kings. Since they are long gone, it comes for us. It reaches forth from the lost Celestial Nadir.’”

  Ususi felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “The Celestial Nadir?”

  “The lord apprehender said more. ‘This threat arises from where we cannot go—we cannot find access to the Celestial Nadir. We have no knowledge of how the great Imaskari of elder days entered their legendary place behind the world. We can’t find our foe. No one can, except Ususi Manaallin. Her life’s study is the Celestial Nadir, and she defied the edicts of the Great Seal to expand her research on it. For the sake of all surviving Imaskari, we pray her search has yielded fruit all these years since we let her go.’”

  “Riiiiiight.” Equal parts praise and threat, mixed with a call for help. It might just be a message from the lord apprehender.

  Iahn slowly spun in his prison.

  Then again, this was a vengeance taker’s story. Ususi knew countless tales of vengeance taker guile. This man’s words were no doubt a ploy calculated to make her release him. Vengeance taker deviousness was legendary.

  “Here’s what I think,” offered Ususi. “I think you finally did decide to track me down, and here you are. But you got a little too eager when you caught sight of me. And here you linger, caught. A fly in amber.”

  The man narrowed his eyes. Anger? Probably not the wisest choice, taunting a vengeance taker.

  But his talk of darkness reminded her of her unsettling dream. And of the darkness growing at the heart of her key stone, and of the Celestial Nadir crystal she’d found in Two Stars. She reached into her purse and brought out the crystal.

  Ususi gasped. The darkness at its heart had grown threefold since she gazed at it last night. The keystone, on the other hand, seemed unchanged.

  Seeing the crystal, Iahn drew in his breath quickly, almost hissing. “Where did you get that?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “The creatures that I dispatched near your travel coach all wore pendants of the same crystal. They were hunting you.”

  “Creatures hunting me?” Ususi laughed, almost relieved. “All right, you’re really off the cliff edge. Nothing is hunting me—I haven’t seen a soul for tendays. I can’t believe a word you are saying, can I?”

  “Why don’t you go out and see for yourself? Perhaps then you’ll cut me down from this confinement and apologize for doubting I spoke the truth.”

  “Why don’t I, indeed?” What she would actually do, she told herself as she slipped carefully beneath the floating form, careful not to become entangled in the snaring magic, would be to pack up the travel coach and drive hell-bent for the nearest big city—Assur, probably—where she could charter a ship.

  With any luck, the vengeance taker would never free himself. But her luck may have been pushed too far already. By all rights, the vengeance taker should have found her and dealt with her without falling afoul of a trap.

  When Ususi returned to the chamber where Iahn still floated, she merely made a slashing gesture and spoke a magical phrase of negation. The white light faded, and Iahn dropped to the floor. He gracefully spun as he fell and landed poised on his hands and feet, then stood to his full height.

  Iahn broke the silence. “You see I speak the truth. They were trailing you for days. I saw their sign on your trail as I caught up to you in the wilds.”

  Ususi nodded. In her hands were three more chunks of Celestial Nadir crystal, each crudely attached to a leather thong. She said, “There was one more pendant, but it was burnt and crumbled. This truly is Celestial Nadir crystal. Or, as it’s called in these parts, ‘Datharathi crystal.’”

  “Are you sure they’re safe to touch?”

  “Why wouldn’t they be?” Ususi wondered.

  “These pendants bound the creatures together and provided guidance. Or controlled them. The infernal one drew great strength from his, before it killed him. When I stripped the pendant from one of the still-breathing archers, she died as quickly as if I’d removed her heart.”

  Ususi involuntarily flinched and thrust the pendants out to arm’s length. Yet she didn’t drop the crystals. Instead, she quickly stuffed them into her shoulder bag. She coughed, recovered her dignity, and said, “Perhaps they’ll yield their secrets to me, then. I can probe their nature more fully when I return to my coach. After I clean up the mess those creatures made.” She’d nearly cried when she’d seen what the creatures had done to her home on wheels.

  Iahn nodded. “And then we return to Deep Imaskar. We should get started immediately. Even with your travel coach, it will be a journey of many tendays, maybe a month or more.”

  Ususi swiveled her head and fixed the vengeance taker with a frown. “If things are as dire as you say, then we may not have that much time. I believe I am on the cusp of discovering a new access point into the Celestial Nadir—a local access point.”

  “Here, in this complex?”

  Ususi sighed. “I’m afraid not. But I’ve been traveling south ever since I purchased the Datharathi crystal in Two Stars. That crystal is from Durpar, and even now we straddle that country’s border. It is only a few days’ travel to Vaelan, where we can inquire about the crystal. I want to know who mines it and where the mine is located. The mine is an access to the Celestial Nadir. Of this I am certain.”

  Iahn cocked his head. “If you believe this, why waste time here in this derelict ruin, still dangerous after all these years?”

  “I possess a map that reveals ancient Imaskaran sites such as this one. It seemed reasonable to check out the sites that fell along my path to Durpar. Legends claim that there are twenty gates in all, and I’d like to find every one.”

  The vengeance taker considered. “A loss of a single day, when measured against the months I’ve tracked you, is reasonable. However, if your lead proves false, we must turn north and make all haste toward the subterranean entrance that will take us back to Deep Imaskar.”

  “Of course.” Well, she silently appended, it could take two or three days to locate the access point. But short of killing her (which she now knew was not the vengeance taker’s goal), he would not be able to force her north until she was satisfied that no access portals survived in Durpar.

  Iahn started for the surface. He called over his shoulder, “Even if your fascination for our ancestors’ lore blinds you to Deep Imaskar’s plight, your sister’s continued well-being must concern you. What threatens to breach the Great Seal threatens her equally.”

  The wizard stood with her mouth agape. What a thing to say!

  “What do you know of my sister?” Ususi yelled at Iahn’s retreating back, her fists clenched.

  He paused, but didn’t turn. “I was commanded to find you.
Do you think I would leave any stone unturned in that search?”

  “Did you talk to her? Did you harm her?” Even as she asked, Ususi knew the answers to her questions were negative. Qari’s condition prevented speech, and Ususi would have known if her sister had been harmed, just as her sister would know if harm befell Ususi.

  Iahn stopped and turned. His face, if expression were possible for a vengeance taker, seemed slightly rueful. “Of course I didn’t harm her. I merely sought her out to see if she could help me find you. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t speak to me. I apologize. I didn’t realize it was a sensitive topic.”

  In a small voice, Ususi said, “She doesn’t speak to anyone. Not even to me anymore.” Her sister Qari, congenitally blind, had never spoken aloud. But Qari and Ususi had spoken to each other when they were children, mind to mind. As they grew older, that ability had dimmed and eventually failed. They still shared a dream at times, or at least they had while Ususi remained in Deep Imaskar, but even that had stopped since Ususi had moved beyond the Great Seal. Unless her dream of darkness was somehow connected to the darkness Iahn claimed had Deep Imaskar under siege …

  “How did you find her?” Ususi demanded of the vengeance taker.

  “The lord apprehender told me where she was.”

  Ususi clenched her fist. Another promise broken. Qari’s condition required special care and solitude. Ususi had acquired both for her sister, paying a steep price for discretion above all else. The lord apprehender’s knowledge of secrets held and disclosed in the Hidden City was deep. And apparently, not beyond betrayal.

  The travel coach was not wrecked, but the disarray of its contents pained Ususi. As soon as she and Iahn returned, she and her silent uskura set about tidying the clutter. The vengeance taker avoided impatience with steely resolve, but finally murmured something about retrieving his crossbow bolts and searching the bodies for additional clues.