Depths of Madness

CHAPTER TWENTY

"Are we sure this'll work?" Slip asked, for perhaps the eightieth time.

" 'Twas your plan," Twilight sighed, for perhaps the eightieth time.

"Oh." Slip considered. "Right."

Twilight could tell by the way Davoren's lips moved that he prayed to Asmodeus, perhaps for strength. Having an archdevil on one's side wasn't all bad, she decided. She wouldn't pray to Erevan. What was the point?

The five had risen after a reasonable amount of sleep. Day was night in the cavern, though Twilight knew it to be several bells after midnight on the surface, from her "gift." They could not have been imprisoned by Tlork long, but it seemed years had passed. Had her entire life until this point been an illusion, and the notions of "bells" and "midnight" just dreams? Perhaps Erevan did not really exist, and she truly was free-if freedom existed in a place like this.

That terrified her.

Twilight suppressed a shiver and shoved the thoughts violently aside. Liet had attempted to convince her of her sanity the previous night, but her own mind seemed Hells-bent on proving him wrong.

"If we climb that tower," Slip repeated, "we should be able to get out, right? I mean, we're underground, and going up takes us aboveground, aye?"

Twilight didn't have the heart to bring up complications like cave ceilings or the inability to fly. "If only it were that simple," she muttered.

"Aye, love?" Liet whispered at her side.

Twilight just shook her head. She wished he wouldn't call her that.

The High Tower-Davoren had assured them it must be the High Arcanist's Tower, if this had truly been a floating enclave, but Twilight was not comfortable so naming it-was free of the hive but not the garden. The Nocturnal Garden, he'd called it, and that name, Twilight did not dispute.

They wandered through a nightmare landscape of twisted, alien stalks and blossoms of myriad, disturbingly vibrant colors. Fumes and spores that could only come in dreams threatened to send them dizzily to the ground, but Gargan seemed able to guide them around the more dangerous plants. When they saw one giant snapping beast indistinguishable from the surrounding ferns lash out with its tentacles to pull a passing bee-creature down its pod-gullet, Twilight was glad she wasn't leading the way.

They made their way slowly, in relative silence, avoiding carnivorous flowers and attention from the bees. Several times, they ducked and hid in the shadows of Negarath to avoid a flight of three or four. Most of the time, the creatures stopped to harvest nectar from the various unearthly plants, and Twilight understood the purpose of the garden. The necter-dependent bees would be hard pressed for a for a food source if anything were to happen to their garden.

Within a bell's time, they entered the overgrown, moss-ridden High Tower.

The rooms had long since faded into a dizzying array of vast, empty affairs that must have held opulence beyond reckoning in the days of Netheril. Tapestries remained, but they had withered to blank sheets of cloth canvas. Most of the rooms and the curled furniture were entirely of some sort of metal-iron or steel-coated with cracked marble, sandstone, or obsidian, while some-the dangerous ones-were but broken glass.

The stairs that led up through the many stories snaked treacherously and madly, inside and outside the building, over and under balconies. A dozen times, steps crumbled underfoot, and a companion leaped to solid ground with a curse. Some sections of stair twisted upside down, unsettlingly, and these the five climbed over awkwardly.

Several times, they had trouble mounting inverted stairs-which had no support but magic-until Slip demonstrated that they needed to climb them upside down. That only increased Twilight's unease.

Having not eaten or had more than a few swallows of water in over two days, they were all weak and growing weaker, even the mighty goliath. As Twilight watched, Davoren fumbled and tripped over broken rock. She saw the lack of strength in his movements-the lessened energy.

"A morning meal would have helped, eh?" she asked once as she held him steady after a step crumbled.

Davoren glared at her. "We could've eaten the halfling, you and I," he said. "But oh, yes-you rejected that opportunity. Mark my words-you will regret it."

Twilight decided then that she wouldn't have minded seeing Davoren topple to his doom, were she not certain the fiend would blast them as he fell. She never got the chance to see if she guessed rightly.

Twilight exercised additional caution in those places where unbroken stairs flared outside-Liet had warned her that the bee-creatures might be scouting. No pursuit made itself apparent, though they had to duck and hide once when a trio of the humanoid insects buzzed by. Twilight noted their spears, helms, and shields distantly.

On the tenth floor of the soaring building, they came to a room without stairs. It was like a grand atrium, though the glass ceiling had long ago shattered. Blue trees with bright orange flowers filled the place, along with thorny bushes that might have been giant roses. Vines the thickness of human arms hung all about. The garden spiraled around a grand circle with a black disk in the center that was probably large enough for eight humans at a time.

"Thank the All-Mother!" Slip exclaimed through her gasps and wheezes. "I've had enough stairs to last me two tendays."

"Our thanks for that," Davoren said, "but we are all, not just you, still far short."

"Huh?" Slip looked at the warlock as though he'd sprouted a second head.

On a whim, Twilight checked to see if he had. He hadn't.

"In case you're oblivious, which isn't surprising," Davoren said, gesturing up through the absent glass ceiling, "we are only halfway to our goal."

It was true. The atrium seemed to be the top level of the High Tower, except for the spires that stood around it like tines on a crown. Several were broken off. The central spire leaned over precariously and curled under itself. There was no way into it, though it looked hollow, from windows in its surface above.

"Easy!" Slip said. "We just fly up there!"

"Asson was the only one who could fly," Twilight reminded her in a soft voice.

"Oh. Ah, well… we climb?"

"That far?" Davoren raised an eyebrow. "You can't be serious." He mimicked the halfling's accent with considerable skill. Slip bit her lip.

"Options?" Twilight sighed. She'd grown weary of the whole affair, and almost wished some great foe would fall upon them. She'd had too much heartache. Twilight longed for battle.

"This." Liet walked onto the black disk at the center of the garden.

"What?" Davoren hissed.

"This." Liet tapped one of his silvery transmutation rods to the black surface beneath his feet. Magic sizzled, and the black disk shuddered. Immediately, it rose as a disk-shaped platform, powered by Negarath's aging mythallar.

"How did you know to do that?" she asked.

"I saw you," Liet said. "Back in the Forge…"

Twilight almost smiled. The boy was becoming useful, even if they had had a falling out. She stepped up and Gargan immediately joined her-whether out of loyalty or because he still watched her suspiciously, she did not care.

"Is it-safe?" Davoren asked.

"Since when is the 'everything is wretched and dismal and filthy' warlock afraid?" Slip asked, mocking his voice perfectly.

Grumbling, Davoren climbed on. "Now what?"

Liet shrugged. "Now, we-" And suddenly they were shooting up, borne aloft on the flying disk. Twilight reached out to catch the startled human back from the edge. Liet had nothing but awe on his face as she held his hand. Then he came to his senses and squeezed her hand. Reassured, Twilight managed to tear her eyes away from him.

The disk bore them in a rising spiral around the garden, then up through what must have been, in ancient times, a hole in the ceiling, and carried them streaking out over the city.

Slip gasped. "Beautiful!" Then, eyes darting, she added, "And strange-very strange."

Twilight could not disagree. While Negarath showed a primal chaos, the purest of eccentricity in the works of madmen, it was difficult to resist the awe.

The disk twisted and turned its way around the spires, offering a silent tour of what must have been a glorious city in its day. And indeed, despite the oddity of its architecture, the ancient towers and statues whose features were worn away still held a sort of demented beauty. Towers curled downward, and stairs sprouted like teeth on the underside of arches. Spires twisted this way and that like needles thrust into huge stone cushions. Great facades with dozens of statues shrouded nothing, or they concealed great buildings in the shapes of flower gardens, blossoming wings of rooms that curved upward. A huge cathedral to the goddess of magic-Mystryl, Twilight finally remembered, as opposed to her successors, the Mystras-rose high into the cavern, its face looking like nothing so much as syrup poured over a mountain of melting cakes.

Past the cathedral, she saw a curious building shaped like a sun, which seemed to be turning, so slowly she almost did not realize it. It radiated some sort of golden light through cracks in the stone, as though it were the sun itself. Then the disk whipped them away, circling the city faster and faster, higher and higher.

"Wonderful!" Slip cried.

"Yes," Twilight agreed. She pulled the halfling closer, away from the edge. "Wonderful until you fall."

Looking upon that city of wonder, Twilight could not help a spot of pity. Surely this view would have been stunning centuries ago, when all the people within had lived, cried and laughed, hated and loved…

"Look!" Slip shouted, and Twilight did.

The disk circled about the buildings, making its way back to the leaning central tower-the High Tower. Twilight couldn't suppress a twinge of uncertainty-after all, the mythallar could fail at any moment and send them plunging down.

"Are you controlling this?" she asked Liet.

"I don't-" Liet's brow furrowed. "Maybe. I did think about the tower."

"Well, by all means, carry on. Thinking never hurts." The faster the better.

Whether or not the youth controlled the disk, they did indeed float to the tower. Approaching from a new angle, Twilight saw more accurately its fate. It bent against and away from the ceiling of the cavern like a tree growing under a rock, and about thirty hands-about twice Twilight's height-from where it met was a flat space. The disk hovered near and did not move.

Relieved, Twilight took a step onto the curled tower, observed that it was stable, and motioned for the others to join her. Whatever enchantments held up the strange structure must have still operated, for though the tower was bent and curled, it held firm.

Better, they were well within reach of the cavern ceiling.

"Davoren, Gargan," Twilight said. "Find us a way out."

The goliath drew out a great maul he had found in the Netherese smithy. For once, the warlock did not argue. He simply raised his hands and sent burning blast after burning blast into the stone, cracking and chipping the hard earth for Gargan to knock free with the hammer. He looked just as tired of this place as any of the others. Twilight did not like the way he fingered that blasting scepter at his belt, though. What was he planning?

Though the work must have taken nearly a bell's length to accomplish, it felt like a moment, so anxious were they. Davoren's blasts heated the rock, and Gargan hammered the stone again and again. Slowly, bit by bit, they burrowed up, and up, and…

There came a great crack, like the splitting of a thousand crossbeams of great wood, and the stone split apart. Twilight looked up.

Then she dived to avoid the blinding avalanche that showered down. It struck her back, burying her as it poured, and poured, and poured. All went dark, and she was buried alive.

Erevan! she shouted in her mind-by reflex, unintentionally. She supposed she should be thankful she hadn't done it aloud, for her mouth would have filled with sand.

There was, of course, no response.

Blast you, wretch, Twilight thought. You're going to pass up the moment the impossible happens-when I call upon you for aid?

But there came nothing, not even what she expected: the tiny laughter of a wild elf who found himself entirely too amusing. She really was alone.

Typical, Twilight mused. She knew she was about to die, but that was all she thought. Typical.

Then it set in-blindness. She saw neither light nor dark, just white.

She was lost. Alone.

Then Twilight did scream-and choked. She thrashed, swimming in sand, dying, abandoned. Out of control-out of her mind. Lost.

A breath later, a hand grasped Twilight's wrist. Liet, she thought.

She latched onto it like a line tossed over the rail of a storm-swept galley.

Worriedly, Liet watched Gargan haul Twilight from the pile of yellow-white. She looked up, bright-eyed, but blinked in confusion at the goliath, as though she expected someone else. Then she nodded, and he returned it. Liet felt a little stab of jealousy. Ridiculous, he told himself.

He shook the snowy stuff out of his hair. "Sand?" he asked, perplexed.

The sand that had been trapped above ceased pouring out, leaving an open bubble of air. On the other side of this bubble lay another layer of sand. White grains hissed along its circumference as though along the inside of a great balloon.

Twilight furrowed her brow. " 'Twas what I was about to say."

"I don't understand," Liet said.

She plucked up a loose stone from the tower and hurled it upward with all of her might. It slowed as it rose, slowed, slowed even more, and almost seemed to hover as it reached a particular spot in the air-halfway between the tower and the sand. Then it accelerated up and up, and thumped into the sand as though it had fallen.

"What does this mean?" Liet asked.

Then there came a buzzing. From somewhere behind, Davoren shouted, and crackling lightning filled the air. The bee-men were upon them.

A stinger hissed straight for Liet. Crying out, he warded it off with his hands. Twilight leaped to his aid, her hand going to her rapier, but one of the creatures hit her from the side. Her head struck the stone with a crack, and her body went limp. Unconscious, she toppled, rolled, spun to the edge, and fell from the leaning tower.

" 'Light!" he shouted, agonized.

Then a dozen bodies slammed him down, spears gouging, and Liet screamed.

Gestal watched as she fell, reflecting how like a discarded doll she was. He especially enjoyed the helpless cry filled with mortal pain. But as Twilight fell toward her death, he felt nothing but bemusement and a slight twinge of disappointment.

Then a pair of black hands snaked out of shimmering distortions in the air to catch the falling body, and the eyes narrowed. The foe. The hands dropped her, redirecting her fall, and Gestal saw abeil-the bee-creatures-catch her. How frustrating.

Abeil swarmed the four from every direction, spears thrusting and multiple khopesh blades whistling. In spite of a veritable storm of lightning bolts from the warlock's scepter, the creatures quickly overwhelmed them with blade and sting. A pile grew around the four, but the fools were outnumbered twenty to one.

The stingers penetrated their bodies, and Gestal shivered at the lovely agony even as they fell. How sweet he found those stings. In the meantime, he enjoyed the screams of pain and distress as slowly each went down, inevitably. The gray-faced warlock lasted the longest, with his demon's blood. He killed at least a score, but it would not be enough.

As Gestal watched slaying power pour from that scepter, he grinned. 'Twas only a matter of…

Predictably, the scepter reached its limit, coughed when the warlock attempted to summon more killing bolts, and exploded in his hand, blowing the limb to nothingness. The warlock screamed, clutching his stump, and the abeil swarmed him.

The fiendish skin helped repel some of the stingers' force, but not the poison.

Well.

With the will of the Demon Prince, Gestal ripped into the other's mind and became himself. The other vanished into the darkness once more. The abeil hesitated but continued the assault, wondering why this one had risen, and why it looked so different.

Gestal smiled with lips that were his again. Their mistake.

He spoke a single word-a piece of pure chaos, born of the roiling madness that had reigned before the upstart gods had come. It was not an exclamation, nor was it even louder than a whisper. Gestal merely breathed, releasing the magical power of the master, and the spell soared out in every direction.

In a sphere centered on Gestal, scores of abeil simply stopped, their hearts or brains obliterated, and fell from the sky. The less fortunate ones screamed blood and splattered against the stone tower like raindrops, to lie writhing and screaming in buzzes and hisses. A hundred beelike voices rose in protest, and abeil streamed out of half the towers and windows of Negarath.

"Your time comes," Gestal said softly. "Our old foe."

Gestal looked down to where Twilight had vanished into the darkness. Then he was gone, fading into the form of a wraith and vanishing into the stone.