City of Torment

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Xxiphu, Throne Chamber

Anusha led the pack. Japheth was right behind her, and Yeva and Seren brought up the rear. She. should have been fearless in her fleshless invis ibility. But she couldn't forget where the corridor she traveled led.

Even as they'd swarmed up the tunnel, another mighty psychic tug had nearly pulled her, and Yeva along with her, into the mind where the root of her spirit lodged. Japheth had saved her and Yeva yet again. However, he'd wiped his brow afterward, and a worried look flashed across his face. He'd almost failed to hold them. The next time the Eldest tugged, she would probably be gone.

Anusha tried not to think about it.

Then they emerged into Xxiphu's throne chamber. All her fears were shown as hollow caricatures.

A fierce conflict raged across the shifting floor. A swarm of aboleths thrashed and fought to collapse upon a figure who shone like a cerulean star. Sky blue light blazed from the man's sword, his chest, and even his eyes and fingertips. Everywhere the light struck, aboleths skirled in pain.

But he was one against an army. And even as he fought the creatures to a standstill, the larger elder aboleths whirling around in their ritual overhead continued their unearthly chant.

And the vast, many-eyed bulk that stared down from above seemed to gaze into her soul.

Anusha couldn't tear away from the Eldest's awful visage to gauge her companions' reactions, though she heard someone gasp and Japheth voice a hoarse curse.

Japheth said her name. She blinked and broke contact with the dead eyes overhead.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"What is the half-elf trying to accomplish?" asked Yeva. "To kill the Eldest," said Seren.

The woman laughed. She said, "He'd better stop wasting his time with all the little ones, then, and start climbing."

Japheth said, "Anusha, you and Yeva-help Raidon. You too, Thoster and Seren!"

"I am not getting close to that thing!" said Yeva.

"Help him with the swarm," said the warlock, exasperation obvious in his manner.

"There are too many to fight," Seren said, one hand to her throat.

"Perhaps, but see?" Japheth gestured at the scene. "The monk draws their attention with his symbol. The cerulean light maddens them. So, drive into their rear and cull them while they remain focused on him. Between the four of you and Raidon, you actually have a chance. Few things can stop Anusha or even see her, and the same is likely true for Yeva. And I've witnessed how potent your spells are, Seren, and how deadly you are with your blade, Captain."

"And what will you be doing, warlock?" said Captain Thoster.

"I have a ritual of my own to perform. It will take some time, so I need to start immediately."

Japheth fixed Anusha with dark eyes. "I will see you free of this, I promise. But in the meantime…" He waved a hand toward the fight.

Anusha nodded, not trusting herself to reply.

Japheth flashed a smile, then stepped into his cloak. A moment later, he was gone. Anusha looked around, but didn't see him reappear. She wondered where the warlock had gone to perform his ritual. Hopefully to an out- of-theway nook.

She turned to Yeva. "Should we take our revenge?" Yeva said, "Better to die fighting than hiding." "Yes."

"Wait!" said Seren. The wizard traced symbols in the air with her wand. Where it passed, fading magical traces. followed. Arcane syllables tumbled from her lips. Her eyes took on a dull citrine glow.

"All right, that worked!" said Seren, gesturing with her wand at Anusha and Yeva. "I can finally see both of you, which means I won't accidentally catch one of you in a spell."

"I still can't," said Thoster.

Seren ignored the captain.

Anusha concentrated on her armor, imagining it even more impenetrable. She raised her sword, and imagined it so sharp it could cut a zephyr in two.

Then she ran to join the fray.

She sprinted across the changing floor. Quick as she was, a ball of wizard fire bloomed ahead of her, setting alight four aboleths at a single stroke. Good for Seren! She'd half expected the wizard to turn tail. But there were so many aboleths! At least the flying ones above hadn't yet engaged in the fight-not even the smallest, and thankfully not the largest. She was doubly glad, for among those chanting creatures, a few possessed a multitude of eyes like the aboleth able to see her in Xxiphu's depths.

Anusha made contact with the enemy. Her blade swept through a creature with only the slightest tug. The aboleth died unaware anything had even threatened it. As it lay quivering and oozing dark fluid, she moved to the next. And the next. She whirled her sword around, maintaining its bitter sharpness with determined concentration.

Pain pinched her temple. She was exerting her dream form. If she pushed herself, she would falter and perhaps fall. But if she did not give Raidon-and by extension Japheth-a chance to succeed the Eldest would wake, and nothing would hold back her mind from its concentrated consciousness.

She renewed her onslaught, laying about with her dream blade like an avatar of death itself, even as her head began to pound with the ache of her unrelenting exertion.

*****

Seren's breath was harsh in her own ears. She was terrified, and her hands, wand, and voice trembled with each spell she launched. Thankfully the creatures reacted to her magical lances as Japheth had predicted. The horde of aboleths were single-minded in their attempt to fall upon the blazing monk like a slime tsunami. None of her spells had so far piqued the interest of the attacking creatures, even those on the periphery.

Emboldened, she moved closer, until the rotting fish smell of the frantic aboleths became overwhelming.

Where had the warlock gone? Seren wondered if, despite all his brave words,the man hadn't just used the cloak to transport himself away from the entire enterprise. She believed that was unlikely, despite what she might consider in his place.

A bellow of triumph sounded in her left ear, and she flinched.

It was Thoster, slashing the posterior of an aboleth too busy trying to scramble over its siblings to guard its flank. The wound was deep, but the aboleth died from the poison before its organs could even react to the fluid spraying from it. More so than before, she was glad she'd decided to aid the captain instead of kill him when he'd revealed his strange condition to her.

Seren decided to expend a spell whose potency neared the height of her strength. She uttered the linchpin syllables and drew her wand around in the air just once. A fist-sized globe of white light hurtled into the mass of scrambling aboleths. Just before falling into their ranks, the globe detonated in a prismatic burst, spearing several at once.

The creatures squealed as their flanks were scorched. Better yet, they reeled around in confusion as the dazzling radiance blinded them.

A grim smile briefly touched Seren's lips.

She recited another incantation.

*****

Before Japheth stepped from his cloak, he called again upon the utter darkness between the stars, whose hollow nothingness ate the light of neighboring constellations. He shrouded himself in that same obscuring darkness, then stepped forward into the very center of the throne chamber, where the floor was stable. The petrified gaze of the Eldest was a palpable force overhead so potent it vibrated the air, creating deep tones like massive cemetery bells. The warlock was careful not to look straight up.

Japheth took a quick survey to see if any creature was aware of his sudden appearance.

The main fight still raged.

The monk continued to harvest aboleths with his blade and Sign. Anusha, Yeva, Thoster, and Seren whittled away at the mass's flanks. The oldest aboleths continued their chant of waking. Japheth hoped he could begin and finish his ritual before they concluded theirs.

From his cloak he removed a rod, a battered scroll, and a vial of powdered dragon scales. These were the same implements he'd earlier used in an attempt to free Anusha's mind from captivity, minus a tome that hadn't proved useful. And minus the ring wound with Anusha's hair. In the frenzy of their arrival and the breaking of his pact stone, he'd failed to retrieve it from the angel of exploration.

Japheth hoped that Anusha's dream form itself would prove a better guide than loose strands of her hair ever could. He'd failed the last time he'd tried to free her, but only because the Dreamheart was not where her soul was rooted, as he'd mistakenly assumed.

No, her consciousness was snared by the Eldest itself. If she should falter and wake even briefly, her mind would be pulled into the beast and be consumed in an instant, becoming part of it. His heart beat in his throat when he imagined it.

A spectacular flare of light snapped his gaze back to the fight. Through the press of squirming aboleths, sky blue light blazed. Raidon had triggered some sort of exceptionally bright pulse from his chest.

Ignore it, he told himself.

Japheth pulled out the last two things he needed-the Dreamheart and the silver compact filled with his personal bane.

He set the relic down, facing the half-lidded eye upward. The voices of the chanting aboleths circling overhead broke for the briefest of moments before resuming. Luckily, none swooped down to pierce the darkness and relieve him of their progenitor's prodigal eye. The creatures had felt the relic's sudden proximity, even if they couldn't yet see it. In some ways, the small orb at his feet was more vital than the entire bulk of the Eldest stretched overhead.

He took hold of the silver compact. Its touch dried his mouth with anticipation. Trying not to think about its contents, he popped it open and administered a dose of traveler's dust to one eye. It occurred to him this would be the first test of his new pact. How well would it protect him from the symptoms of his addiction when tested?

He blinked at the irritation. Too late now.

Before the red haze completely overtook his perception, he unstoppered the vial of crushed dragon scales and poured them over the stone orb. Its harsh odor burned his nostrils.

Even as the oceanic surge of the dust washed over Japheth, he unrolled the scroll, twin to the one he'd used last time, and laid it out on the cold floor. It tried to curl back into a cylinder, so he used the Dreamheart to weigh down the top and the toes of his boots the bottom. Its tip was broken off, but it was still serviceable. He picked up the jade rod blessed in a temple of Kelemvor. He bent forward, so he could both read the text and touch the end of the rod to the Dreamheart's mottled side.

The eye in the relic blinked. The sphere rotated until it aimed its gaze at him.

He shuddered, but spoke the words of the ritual, doing his best to ignore the distracting, blissful detachment the dust leaked into his blood. He judged the dust's ability to pierce veils was necessary, just in case his new spell that granted him the ability to see things unseen failed. He just had to make certain he wasn't borne away in the initial rush it produced.

Blasts, shouts, and explosions resounded through the chamber. He thought he heard a yell of victory, followed by a woman's shriek of pain. Not Anusha's, though, Japheth didn't stop chanting his ritual. He couldn't afford losing even another moment. There was no time to help his friends. Better not to even look.

His only silver lining was that the passivity the traveler's dust lent made it easier for him to ignore everything but the words on the curled page at his feet.

*****

Raidon attempted to trace a great ring on the floor, one underlying the circle of aboleths flying above him. The Sign showed him the designs he must carve, one sigil at a time, with blasts of cerulean fire supplied by Angul.

The ring was an integral ingredient required to wreck the aboleth's waking ritual so violently that the Eldest would not only fail to rouse, but be snuffed out while it was at its most vulnerable.

In order to complete his counterritual circle, Raidon killed aboleths. All of which were simultaneously trying to kill him.

Every few moments, five or six tried to seize Raidon's mind with formless psychic clamps. Angul and the Sign shattered each domination attempt without the monk being aware of them.

It required a larger fraction of his attention to dodge the constant barrage of slime, lightning, and whoknew what else. He spun beyond the periphery of an exploding sphere of green energy, flipped over a bolt of another as he skewered an aboleth, and ducked a tentacle slap. All was wild motion as he whittled away at the press of nonstop attacks.

When a lucky tentacle or body slam hit him, or a ravening bolt of energy, he staggered and sometimes even fell down. But Angul's balm instantly turned flaring pain into so much fading warmth, and his own trained reflexes righted him after each fall. Those lucky hits required only a minuscule portion of his awareness, but he had to reset his position each time he was pushed or knocked over. It was important he not lose his place on the floor.

Were he facing nearly any other enemy in such a multitude, Raidon would have long since been pulled under.

Neither Angul nor the Sign promised unending vitality. However, these creatures were the nemesis of the Keepers and their implements. Both sword and seal sapped some portion of their permanent strength to feed the monk what he required to keep standing amid the storm of death that struggled to pull him under. But the energy Angul and the Sign used to heal him was dwarfed by the power he channeled in a brief burst toward the floor every time he stepped forward.

Raidon wondered if all three of them-sword, seal, and himself-would be drained to their final end as they finished. If providence were kind, it would be so.

A muscled, boneless arm smashed Raidon in the face, bursting some sort of cyst encrusting its end. The smelly, fatty material that sprayed across Raidon burned like acid. Even before he could grit his teeth to endure the pain, Angul purged the damaged tissue and grew new skin cross his face, neck, and left shoulder. Raidon bit his lip against the agony of the healing wave.

The Blade Cerulean's repair was nearly as painful as the attack that caused the damage.

My reserves falter, the blade warned.

Raidon grunted and moved another step.

He swept the sword through an advancing aboleth, then pointed Angul down to scribe another quick sigil in cerulean fire on the floor.

He weaved beneath a blast of green energy, whirled, and leaned forward to thrust Angul up through the mouth of an encroaching aboleth. This put his left leg in position to snap a devastating back kick at another foe. He advanced another step into the momentary clearing he'd created, and dashed off the next symbol with Angul.

If not for the press of lashing aboleths, Raidon's curving path across the floor would have been far more apparent. He realized he'd completed more than half the circuit mirroring the route of the chanting aboleths swimming through the air overhead, counter-current to their direction. Ironic, the monk reflected, that the mass of squalid bodies trying to smother him obscured what he was doing.

A tentacle grabbed his leg and pulled him facedown onto the stone. He felt bones in his face break. The Blade Cerulean roughly set the bones an instant later. But not completely.

Angul's healing surges were no longer completely erasing his wounds. The pain of each wound was eased, true, but blood ran down one of his arms, and now from his nose as well. Each alone wasn't enough to slow him, but the incomplete recoveries were adding up. It would be a close thing, whether he could finish his circle of binding before the swarm finished him.

It didn't matter. He would finish the circle, or he would fail.

If he failed, the Eldest would fully wake.

If he succeeded, then the aboleth's ritual would fail instead. One or the other. The fate of Faerun depended on what happened. Not that he cared. Even as he fought forward another step to draw the next sigil in the sequence, he wondered at his persistence. Faerun hadn't been particularly kind to Raidon over the last dozen years. Or, now that he thought about it, for most of his life. Yet there he was, striving for all he was worth, to save the world.

Perhaps some shred of honor yet motivated him, finding one last opportunity to shine amid the fused jumble of his personality.

Or perhaps it was merely Angul.

Raidon noticed that the number of attacks he had defended against over the last span of heartbeats had dropped off. He spared a moment to glance up from his last scribed glyph.

He was astounded to see that, indeed, only about a dozen aboleths-at least of the original number that had sleeted down the walls of the throne chamber-remained to contest him. And half of those were receiving attacks on their flanks, even as they tried to squirm toward Raidon. Some unseen force was alternately carving into and dazzling these outlier aboleths, even as wizard fire rained down upon the creatures from afar.

It was Seren! And… Captain Thoster too. The wizard unleashed a volley of fire into one of the aboleths advancing upon Raidon. By the spread of smoking, twitching, and nearly cleaved in twain aboleth bodies that spread out from the wizard and pirate, they had obviously been at it for some time. The two had achieved quite a tally, nearly equal to his own. It was almost as if they'd received help-

An acidic slime wave buffeted him, drawing his face into a rictus. Angul burned off the excess goo even as Raidon leaped into the air. As he reached the zenith of his jump, he pulled his elbow up next to his face, then slashed down with it in tandem with his own descending weight, channeling all the force of his body into an aboleth's brow. The creature stopped moving. It was dazed, stunned, or dead, it didn't matter. He scribed another glyph.

But curiosity made him scan the room again before he pressed ahead. Japheth was nowhere to be seen. Good.

Seren and Thoster must have stopped the warlock and his tainted cargo after all.

In another few moments, his binding circle would be complete. A Seal of Slaying would lance the Eldest, strong enough to end its stony vigil forever.

*****

Japheth uttered the final words of the ceremony. A jolt of energy transfixed him. Purple sparks burst from the Dreamheart, traveled along the rod, and grounded themselves in his drugged brain.

His vantage literally flashed upward, as he was bodily snatched into the air. Like a rag doll yanked by an angry toddler, he was borne to the chamber's zenith. The sudden acceleration followed by the jerking stop nearly snapped his neck.

He'd avoided meeting the Eldest's many-eyed gaze before. Now his ritual and the immediacy of the ancient aboleth compelled him to do so.

His proximity and drug-addled perspective showed the Eldest's skin to be something other than stone. It was a luminous expanse of chaos that churned and seethed. Indescribable forms entwined within that inconstant flesh, surging, billowing, and changing their shape. It was as if the skin was an interface between the world and something terrible. So close, awful sounds scraped at Japheth's ears too. Keening, bleating, and altogether atrocious.

But the eyes were what dazed Japheth and nearly struck him dead before he could conclude his purpose.

Though most were shuttered, the few that caught him in their alien regard burned him with a cosmic malignancy that brought gorge to his throat. The star pact, that terrible oath he'd sworn in Xxiphu's spawning halls, was the only thing that saved his mind from being instantly blasted. The pact had inoculated him. Though he might later gouge out his eyes in a fit of lunacy, for the moment he retained the barest ability to think.

Japheth averted his vision. He wanted to stop up his ears too, but he had to extend one hand and lay it upon the Eldest.

"Relinquish she whose dream is here with us," said Japheth, his voice brittle but strong, "she who is called Anusha Marhana. Relinquish Anusha Marhana, and her companion named Yeva." Japheth wished he still had the strand of hair he'd used before.

"By the power of the natural world, I beseech you. By the power of arcane formulas, I ask you. By the power of your own flesh, the Dreamheart, through which you have allowed your influence into the world, I command you!"

An indefinable period of time passed. Japheth kept his palm pressed against the roiling, repellent flesh. His hand sizzled.

Something tickled the back of his mind. At first he thought it was a passing fancy, perhaps due to remnants of the traveler's dust not burnt out of his system by the ritual. Then he realized the feeling came from outside.

It was the Eldest. Or actually, a tiny fraction of the Eldest's still slumbering attention.

The knowledge of what he must do to secure Anusha's final release bloomed across the warlock's brain.

He sighed. So it was to be one final bargain?

Yes. Of course.

The warlock's life was one great tapestry of oaths, pacts, and deals, each balancing him on the knife-edge between achieving his ends and utter ruin.

Despite what it would mean for the world, Japheth nodded his head in agreement. He accepted the arrangement.

At least the Eldest didn't require he swear another pact! That last thought gave him an idea. Even in the face of a creature whose wrath could well equal a god's fury, Japheth designed one last deceit.

*****

Anusha thrust her dream sword into the heart of the last aboleth threatening the monk-or at least where she hoped its heart was located. She hit something vital, it leaned over and died.

She stepped away and raised her blade in triumph, though it wavered under the onslaught of her headache.

Raidon glanced in her general direction. The half-elfs face didn't betray his thoughts, though Anusha assumed the monk wondered how the creature had suddenly perished. She would have smiled, but with the pain pounding through her, it was all she could do to retain her form.

She'd felt the onset of similar distress once before when she had overextended herself. It seemed the pain had come quicker this time, and more intensely. Was it because she also maintained Yeva's form too, dreaming the woman real?

The monk didn't waste any more time looking for invisible allies. With his burning sword, he continued to cut glyphs into the floor, one after the other, and faster now that aboleths didn't contest his every step. Without the swarming aboleths to obscure the floor, the shape he scribed in bkte fire was clearly visible to every creature in the chamber. Raidon swiftly approached the end of this task.

The tone of the chanting creatures overhead warbled and broke, then resumed in a more frantic tone. The aboleths seemed torn between finishing their ritual and abandoning it in order to descend upon the monk.

Then the decision was no longer theirs. Raidon completed the circuit.

The circle of glyphs took fire. A shock wave of force blew the monk away from his own creation. The shock wave expanded in all directions and caught the soaring aboleths underneath. The force tumbled the creatures, great and small, in uncontrolled arcs through the air. Their chant, already on the hysterical edge of failure, collapsed.

The inscribed circle flamed so brightly, Anusha looked away.

A sound came from above. A booming, creaking noise like mountains make when they settle into their foundations. She glanced up.

The few eyes open on the great petrified belly began to squint and close, as if the fire of Raidon's circle was too bright for them. The Eldest was not rousing. It was falling back into slumber, perhaps even the sleep of true death!

Raidon Kane had killed the Eldest! Could it really be?

Harsh exclamations of fury echoed through the chamber. The aboleths buffeted from their ritual by the monk's counterworking cried out as one. They lashed their tentacles and writhed in a paroxysm of rage. Their beady eyes found Raidon, Seren, and Thoster, and a few even fixed on Anusha and Yeva.

"Back to the ship!" screamed Seren. "This way!" She turned toward a different passage than the one by which they had entered the throne chamber.

Anusha saw Raidon glance up. She followed his gaze to the screeching, gargantuan aboleths. The creatures were regaining control of their single-minded fury. Malicious red light burst from one of the massive, dark-hued elders. Another gesticulated with its tentacles in wide spirals, from which a green haze began to spread.

Yeva and Thoster darted after the retreating wizard. But Raidon wasn't moving. He just stood and stared at the great creatures flitting overhead. They no longer flew in their ritual formation, but instead prepared a revenge stroke on the tiny half-elf below, apparently unconcerned with the cerulean fire he wielded.

Anusha looked for Japheth. Still nowhere to be seen.

"Let's go, Raidon!" she yelled at the monk. He glanced in her general direction and shook his head. Was he crying?

"Is that… Anusha?" said Raidon, his voice raised above the clamor of the remaining aboleths. "So the captain was right. Well, it doesn't matter. I fulfilled my oath. I tried to kill the Eldest. For some reason, I failed. I put it back to sleep, but I did not kill it as I intended."

She gasped. "Will it wake again?"

"No. At least not fully, and not soon. But it is not dead. I shall stay here and kill as many of the elder aboleths as I can before they consume me." He shrugged. The half-elf had lost his bearings. She hastened to him, letting go her dream blade as she did so. Her headache instantly eased.

Anusha grabbed one of Raidon's wrists, making certain her hand was solid enough to do so. "Come. We need you, Raidon. You've bound it, it was bound for millennia before. Perhaps you've given us another few thousand years. If so, I call that success!"

She gave a light tug. The monk sighed. "A half measure."

"Come with me!" she yelled, and pulled.

"Very well." His voice was not that of a man who'd just potentially saved Toril an age of grief. What was wrong with him?

"This way," said Anusha, pulling the monk along toward the tunnel exit Seren had departed through.

After a few steps, it was all she could do, even using her dream-twisting advantage, to keep up with him. The man could run when he decided to.

As they left the chamber, Anusha glanced back one last time, searching for the telltale black cloak. Still nothing.

But…

A shiver tickled at the nape of her neck. The feeling plunged down her spine into the small of her back. She stumbled, losing her grip on Raidon's arm. "Go on!" she said, and spun around to see what had grazed her.

The elder aboleths pursued them. But… none were close enough to have grazed her. She summoned her dream blade anyhow.

It was as if a thousand tiny ants with warm feet ran up and down her body. "What's happening? Was this the end? Was she-"

Darkness engulfed her. The screams of the livid aboleths, the smell of rotting fish, the agony in her temples-all of it went away.

Anusha blinked.

Wan light from the porthole revealed a small room.

The woman gasped and sat up in her open travel chest. With eyes that felt wide as saucers, she soaked in the beautiful, wonderful, cramped cabin on Green Siren.

Tears slid down her cheek. She hugged herself, feeling her own warm, if noticeably skinny, self. A dog whined, then barked. A wagging tail thumped repeatedly against wooden planking. Lucky!

Japheth had done it. She was free.