Stardeep

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Stardeep, Underdungeon

Oppressive slumber relinquished its clotted hold, and Adrik opened his eyes. Tunnel walls rushed by on either side, bluish with luminescent haze. The hue seemed somehow familiar. . such an effort to recall to mind why.

And what held him so snugly in arms overgrown with lichen and trailing tiny rootlets through the dank air?

He tried to voice his question, managing only to croak. The noise was enough to catch the attention of something above him-a great head swiveled forward and down to fix him with its. . gaze? A lopsided, vegetable-like visage of wavering rhizomes and empty sensory pits. A vacant face, yet somehow, one that communicated intelligence.

Adrik was so far past exhaustion the face held little terror for him. He allowed his head to fall the other way, and saw that below, at the side of the great creature that clutched him, padded his friend from Telflamm, and the elf woman they'd met.

Unaccountably, sadness touched him. There were so many questions he had, like friends whose company he never tired of. But those friends were drifting away now. He sensed his curiosity dispersing to find a host whose life wasn't dripping away with each stuttering, slowing heartbeat.

What surprised him the most was the pain. The numbness began to give way to an agony unlike any he'd before imagined. Except for the pain right before the stern star elf guarding Stardeep's outer gate had healed him. Some lingering nilshai curse was released from the bonds that had temporarily held it. The taint began to bite into him anew.

He began to shriek. He tried to flail; the unrelenting grip of the fungus hulk held him fast. The tunnel walls continued to speed by, painted blue in the creature's spore halo.

He noted Raidon glancing anxiously up at him, but at that moment the tunnel disgorged into a ruin of arching white columns choked with thrashing fossils whose lives ended thousands of years, maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago. The blue light was drowned by a greater fire, the fury of which seemed to sear Adrik's eyes. The light reached him in shafts and rents obscured by crumbling spires and broken towers.

The swordswoman Kiril dashed forward. A hundred or more colliding stone figures turned from their rush down the too-narrow streets to fix their blind regard on the newcomers.

Adrik turned his face up, uncaring. For the pain was lifting, disappearing as suddenly as it had pounced upon his failing flesh. A calmness fell upon him, and into that pearly space came thoughts, wandering and unconcerned with the sprays of rock dust emerging from the cerulean whirlwind of Kiril as she moved into the ruined city chamber.

He saw a face, like his own, yet older. He recognized his brother Erik, fellow adventurer and wide wanderer in the world, who yet waited his return in Emmech. What plans they'd made! Once their fortune was secured, why, they'd disturb the councils of kings, confer with the elder mage of Shadowdale, and shake the foundations of the world! Ah, yes. He smiled to think on it. It saddened him, though, to imagine his brother waiting in vain. His heart could barely muster the strength to put one beat after the next. Then he envisioned his brother's grief when, long past Adrik's promised return date, Erik finally realized the truth.

The one he would see next, Adrik decided, would be the god whose domain was death. Would the great beast holding him transfer him directly into Kelemvor's hands? Memories, realizations, regrets-the time for all such activity was past. Accept it, Adrik, he chastened himself. Cease these mental acrobatics, compose yourself.

He thought then of a girl he'd once known. Her name. . what was it? Chelsea, it was Chelsea, of course. A love cut down before its time when cruel disease had claimed her. His grief over her untimely demise was the final impetus that launched his adventures with his brother. With her end, nothing else could keep him home.

She awaits you now. And his childhood friend Macknar who'd drowned, and grandfather, too, most likely. Old friends, old loves. Would they greet him?

Suddenly Raidon was there before him, cradling his head. Was it real, or a vision? The monk's visage was scribed with compassion and regret.

Grieve not, he tried to say to the half-elf. Kelemvor comes, and shall deliver me to a place I do not fear to travel. Perhaps a place where I can continue to ask my questions.

His drifting thoughts persisted for one final heartbeat. Raidon's eyes, glassy with unwept tears, faded into a translucent mist, through which a golden light began to break, a celestial light whose brilliance washed Adrik Commorand away from the world.