Depths of Madness

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"Gestal?" Twilight dared speak back. "Who is…?"

Ruukthalmuramaxamin screamed in her mind and the world went fuzzy.

"Ssssilence!" the sharn shouted with enough force to drive even Gargan to his knees. The thing lunged, mouths slavering, and the elf's heart skipped.

But death did not fall upon her. Instead, a new sound assailed her ears and a heavy mist struck her skin. Ruuk drew back, issuing an involuntary assortment of sounds ranging from growls to crows to outright coughs. Fluid trickled between the jaws of one head, which slumped down for just an instant, then shot up and leaned over its back, as though to hide itself.

"Then," Ruuk said. "We have a foe, you and I. He dwellssss above, in cavernssss dark, there deceivessss, demon sssservessss."

Twilight opened her mouth but wisely did not speak. Instead, she reached up at the black fluid coating her face, and realized it felt like blood-blood mixed with bile and tears, but blood nonetheless.

The sharn spoke more softly then, though its voice was no less powerful.

"Long ago," the sharn said. "Before the elf ssssang, before the human dreamed, my and mine came, out of the formlessss darknessss from which had arissssen moon and her dark ssssisssster. Chaossss had ever been our sssstrength…"

Ruuk hissed with one mouth, screeched with another, and whined with the third.

"Now dying," he said. "Killed by antihessssissss, buried by logic. Ssssoul-sssstuff becomessss bane, madnessss issss death to him-her-it. Trapped!" The last was a shout, with all three voices. "Now demon-fiend-prince'ssss power waxessss and wanessss that of my people."

Twilight was uncertain whether he was talking about the race or himself. That Ruuk might be dying, Twilight had not realized, but once that thought occurred, she accepted it as a possibility-an unsettling one. What could kill a sharn?

A buzzing warned her. She cleared her mind as best she could.

The sharn gave a gesture with its three heads that might have been a nod. "Ssssink to rise, do the deed. Kill Gesssstal, your friendssss be freed."

Though Twilight's blood raced at the suggestion, she had negotiated too often to be fooled. "What if we refuse?" she asked, having no intention of doing so.

Gargan blinked at her in shock. As she could separate truth from falsehood as easily as an angel might, so could she lie with the best devils.

"Ruukthalmuramaxamin issss not cruel," the sharn said. "You and he remain here, my guesssstssss until you go."

So those are the stakes, Twilight thought. She did not know how long a sharn could live, but fancied it would prove much longer than her own span.

"What if Gestal kills us? Will you release them, or keep them as prisoners?"

The sharn answered instantly, having already considered that. "No use for them," it said. "They go free."

"Your word?" she asked. Gargan looked at Twilight as though she had lost her mind, but she did not react.

The sharn growled, hissed, and spat at her, all at once with three heads. A spasm shook its body, and rune-shaped veins stood out on its black torso. It wrenched its heads toward her and bowed. "My word bindssss," it said. "My word given."

"All of them go free?" she asked, her heart speeding up.

"Both them."

A weight pressed upon Twilight's chest, then, and she would have fallen had not Gargan reached out strong arms to steady her. In one three-pronged syllable, the sharn had told her that Liet might live, yet his chance was only two in three.

"Which?"

"Those whom order definessss," said the sharn. It spat the word "order" with another gob of the blackish blood.

Twilight's mind raced. Surely that included Davoren-he was vile, yes, but predictably vile, to a fault. And devils had created the most rigid hierarchy in the multiverse outside the planes of law and clockwork. So that was one. One other…

Was it Slip or Liet?

Twilight closed her eyes and swore inwardly. What did it matter? She owed it to both of them, and if she might save one… she preferred Liet.

It was not that she felt remorse. Twilight had never had much use for morality. Foolish concepts like right and wrong fell before necessity, in every instance. Two things she understood, though, were weakness and shame, and her cheeks colored in both.

What kind of monster could have wished the sweet halfling dead in that moment? One with black hair, pale skin, and eyes that seemed gold-red in the light of heavy magic.

Oh, Liet.

"Release one of them now," Twilight said.

The sharn glared at her with something much like surprise, mingled with a goodly amount of outrage. "Who, why, what?"

"The one called Liet Sagrin. If you release him, we will-"

Ruukthalmuramaxamin's mouths curled downward, and she would have fancied it confused. "No and no."

"Why not?" She cursed the desperation in her voice.

"No and no," the sharn warned.

Heedless of the pain she knew was coming, Twilight opened her mouth to argue, but Gargan caught her arm in a hard grip.

She hissed at him, but the goliath ignored her.

"What is Gestal?" he rumbled.

"Powerful priesssst," said Ruuk. "Demon-priesssst."

A demon thrall. Twilight's eyes narrowed. A servant of chaos in darkness, then, even as Davoren had been a servant of order, of a fiendish sort. But was not the sharn born of chaos? Did he not possess the very powers this Gestal worshipped? Why…?

"Why do you not face him yourself?" asked Twilight. "He must be mighty indeed, for surely you-"

Then the sharn eyed her with a look that stole more of her breath than when he had nearly killed her at a glance. Not only did her head explode in agony, but her throat closed of its own accord and she staggered. Gargan reached out and caught her, and she didn't have the strength to fight him off.

"Do not quesssstion!" Ruuk roared. "Agree! Agree or die!"

Barely able to breathe, Twilight coughed. "Well," she said. "Then we… agree."

The sharn hissed, spat, and clucked in what must have been approval. Twilight assumed it must, for she was still alive a breath later.

"Here." Its mood changed utterly. "Take," the sharn said most amiably, as though offering them tea.

One of its arms stabbed into the air, through reality, to extend through a silvery portal before them. In the palm was a pair of crimson boots, which appeared to be sized for a human.

Completely inexplicable, Twilight thought as she put them on. It didn't occur to her to refuse. The boots adjusted themselves to fit her feet.

"And thissss." A silvery window opened in reality and a black hand extended through it. It dropped a sack that smelled glorious to her.

Twilight yanked open the pouch. It was filled with dried strips of meat and bread that smelled of corn. Also inside was an oiled paper packet with some sort of honey-Twilight wondered if it came from the abeil. She took a hunk of bread and two pieces of meat for herself, then offered the food to Gargan, who accepted it silently.

Another of Ruuk's hands offered a wineskin filled with a drink that tasted sweet, like some manner of fruit, with a distinctive, odd taste Twilight recognized as a sort of mushroom. Rarely had she tasted the wine of the Underdark, and unlike most elves, she enjoyed it. Gargan refused it, but the sharn offered him a waterskin instead.

Emboldened by the sharn's hospitality, she spoke up. "One question," she said. "If it please you, great lord."

There was a long pause. She reasoned she could take their continued existence for a yes.

"Why don't you… destroy him?" she asked. "You are so much… more powerful than us. Why us?"

"Hissss issss magic chaossss," Ruuk said. "Centuriessss millennia agessss ago, Ruukthalmuramaxamin wassss curssssed. Musssst sssstay. Power mine."

For the first time, it didn't occur to Twilight to respond. She sat, rapt.

"Negarath wassss a city of the mad," Ruuk said. "Inverted, floating upsssside down, buildingssss of curvessss, archessss, twisssstssss, with disssstorted creaturessss on dissssplay. Flayed mind flayerssss, ghosssstssss of elementalssss, demonssss of celesssstia, angelssss of outer darknessss."

"And a mad prisoner," Twilight stammered. "A sharn cursed to order."

"And dying!" Ruuk said. The sound was so loud that the temple shook. "Body failing, order rotting. Godssss of chaossss have turned away, abhorrent."

"Then help us," Twilight said. "Break free-" Her head burst and she sank again.

Even as her senses fled in pain, her half-mad mind perceived a certain kind of logic in the sharn's gift. It had threatened them, made them used to being threatened, then thrown them off balance. Its "random" actions apparently followed a set order.

The three heads spoke at once, but said three things. "Not free. No cure. No help." Then they joined together. "Ssssink to risssse. Kill Gesssstal or die!"

Hands lifted her and her feet scrabbled across the stone.

She looked up, and it was Gargan lifting her. "We go," the goliath said.

The sharn's hands blazed with golden magic, and arms reached from portals around them. Then the world shuddered to a halt, burned away as though scribed on parchment. They felt a sensation of falling, and then they were elsewhere.

Gods-only-knew how long later, Twilight stirred. Darkness had become her world, but that was easily remedied. She opened her eyes and perceived flickering torchlight. She saw the prison where they had left Tlork.

"We've arrived, it seems," Twilight said.

She was glad when Gargan, completely unexpectedly, broke the silence. He was kneeling at her side. Twilight felt weary and inexplicably old. She took his hand.

"How mighty is this creature?" Gargan asked. "This… sharn?"

Twilight shrugged in a fatalistic way. "What little I know, I shall put by analogy," she said. "You have heard of the Seven Sisters, or the Sage of Shadowdale?"

Gargan shook his head.

"Thay, perhaps," she said. "All the red wizards?"

Again.

"The empire of Shade?"

That got a nod. Curious.

"Well, then," said Twilight. "All the princes of Shade would jump to do a sharn's bidding, for if they didn't, it would likely destroy a city out of whim before resuming its morning meal of the stillborn children of gods."

"Ah." Gargan nodded hesitantly.

There was a pause. They both sat silent, listening for any sign of an occupant other than themselves. The dungeon was still.

"There must be another way down," she said. "If we must sink to rise, that is."

The goliath nodded, and they stole about the prison together, hands on hilts. They plied their senses at their keenest, followed every instinct, and explored every tiny crack and crevice in the floor and walls with their fingers. Dust, bits of bone, scraps of metal, and flecks of refuse Twilight didn't want to identify obscured the cold, damp stone.

They made their way into Tlork's chambers. The troll was not at home. All they found was a destroyed onyx griffin. Twilight resolved not to forget their hunter's strength.

"Why did you argue?" Gargan asked suddenly, making Twilight jump.

She slowed her heart with the exercises Neveren had taught her. "What?"

"You argued for his 'word,' " Gargan said. "What means this?"

"A promise. Not that I suppose it matters much to a sharn, but I would not break my word, once given." She managed to smile. "That's why I never give it."

Gargan did not find that amusing. "You argued for something you knew to be false?" he asked. "Why?"

"I was hoping to get him to release Liet." She hated herself for her feelings, but she was past such considerations now. "Then we could flee this place, the three of us."

"Davoren and Slip? Would the sharn think Gestal had killed us and free them?"

Twilight shrugged. It truly did not matter. "Wouldn't miss him," Twilight said. Then she sighed. "And she'd be regrettable. But for all we know, they're…"

She did not finish the thought. For all they knew, Liet was dead.

"You would shirk our duty to them?" Gargan said. "Our companions."

Twilight waved. "Duty is overrated," she said. "I am a creature of chaos, as is the sharn. We both know this-there would be no surprise." That wasn't strictly true, but it might as well have been. She had never dealt with a sharn before, but the fact that this one was cursed made the situation even less predictable.

At that moment, Twilight brushed away dust and some old bones and found a crease in the floor. She traced the outline of a door cut into the stone. Through the bones, fur, and filth that littered the floor, she found an old brass ring attached to the stone. Twilight twisted the ring. The stone gave a lurch and sank downward, then to the side, revealing darkness below.

There came a sound of scuffling on stone, and Twilight looked down the hall, toward the levitating disk they had used to ascend to the crypt above. She thought she saw a flicker of movement.

"Who?" Gargan asked, drawing his sword.

Twilight shrugged. "We've no shortage of enemies," she said. "The sharn, or its golems. Gestal. The fiendish lizards."

"Tlork," Gargan added grimly.

"Darkness, don't forget the grimlocks," said Twilight. "We didn't part on the most amiable of terms."

Nothing moved for many long breaths. Twilight left Gargan watching the darkness and looked down into the new passage. It smelled foul and radiated humidity like a tropical swamp. Where the tunnels above had been dry and dead, this new level seemed the opposite.

A world built on opposites, Twilight thought.

Twilight wondered why they were going down. Had not the sharn spoken of Gestal dwelling "above?" Sink to rise, she reflected.

She put her leg down into the darkness and froze.

With a mighty heave that broke more than a few bones, Tlork finally wrenched himself out of the sewers. As he stood in the forested street, letting limbs pop back into place and torn flesh flow back together, he cast his stitched face about, searching, just in time for the swarm of abeil to descend with spears, halberds, and stingers.

Snarling, the troll whipped hammer and claw through the air in fury to drive off the swarm. Bee-creatures fell crushed, killed at the very touch of Tlork's weapons, but there were hundreds, and three replaced every one that fell.

Soon, the battle was like stirring mud, trying to swat them away while they rained pain and torment all over Tlork. Abeil speared his skin, stinging and stinging like mad, and soon he could hardly focus on anything but the stabbing and cutting. His body throbbed as though a thousand hearts beat just under his skin.

Slave, came a voice in the back of his head. Like all thoughts, his own or another's, it caused Tlork pain. Come, slave.

As he batted another abeil out of the air to smash like a ripe plum against a distorted building, Tlork whined like a dog. "But I come so far!" he argued. "I close!"

Come, the thought came again, to the chapel.

Unfair. Tlork didn't like the up-down room. It always made his stomach knot. The fiend-troll gave a great, strangling cry, turned, and ran. He dived through the hole into the sewer, ignoring the pain that came when his arm splintered against the edge.

That elf-she would pay for this. Not the pain, which Tlork had long since stopped minding, but the indecency of making him trek all the way back, even past the up-down room.