The Orb of Xoriat

17 Tremors

In the pre-dawn hours, Praxle opened the door to their rented room, only to find Teron standing there, fists clenched, a grim set to his jaw, and a dark fire burning in his eyes.

“Dolgaunt!” he spat.

“What?”

“I told you I’d scout the library myself!”

“Well, I—” started Praxle.

“Reckless idiot! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” shouted Teron.

“I’ve done nothing!” yelled Praxle.

The guests in the next room pounded on the wall.

Teron leaned down, almost to Praxle’s height, and gestured with an extended finger. “I was almost in,” he hissed. “I had almost figured out the best way to enter. Instead, you raised the alarm and almost got me killed!”

“I did no such thing!” persisted Praxle.

“Then where were you when I got back? Were you at the library?”

“Well, yes,” admitted Praxle, “but—”

“But nothing!” yelled Teron. “This is why I operate alone!”

“Yes, fine, I left for the library, but I had every reason to!” said Praxle. “This is my artifact! It belongs to my family! The Thranes took it from us, you lot hid it from us, and the Cyrans stole it from us, and I absolutely will not let you cheat it away from me again! Grouse all you want about it, that’s fine, but let me say this: Nowhere between here and Khyber did I raise the alarm!”

The neighboring guests pounded on the wall again. Praxle’s eyes flicked to the wall for just a second, and in that eyeblink Teron shot out a hand and grabbed the gnome by the neck, lifting him off the ground. Praxle kicked and clawed at Teron’s wrist, his tongue starting to extend out of his mouth from the pressure.

“Gentlemen!” said Jeffers. He stepped forward and gave both parties’ ears a brutal tweak, then stepped back out of range. They both glared at him. “I may be speaking above my station, but you will, the both of you, desist this ruckus and listen! Teron, put my master down. Master, shut up.”

Teron set Praxle down and took a wary step back. For his part, Praxle seemed utterly content to massage his neck, swallow repeatedly, and stay out of arm’s reach of the monk.

“I accompanied my master upon his sortie, Teron,” said Jeffers. “I assure you that we had only just approached the street opposite the library when the klaxon rang out. Thus, while my master did indeed intend to pursue some exploration of his own, he was unable to consummate the deed. I tell you this upon my word of honor. Now that you know the truth, you may opt to judge or forgive such trespass as you wish.

“As for you, master,” continued the half-orc, “in my appraisal it would be better not to round upon your fellow, but rather to work together. We were not close, and Teron was almost in. Therefore someone else must have caused the hue to be raised. We should endeavor to deduce the identity of said interloper.”

Teron’s eyes darted back and forth between Praxle and Jeffers, fading from loathing to righteous indignation to suspicious calculation. “The Shadow Fox,” he said at last.

“I’m inclined to disagree,” said Praxle. “I was rather thinking it to be Lady Hathia Stalsun.”

The Shadow Fox quietly admitted herself through the arcanium’s secret entryway and closed the door behind her. The everbright lanterns had not been shuttered in the room ahead, and she heard low discussions. She knocked on the wall as she entered the arcanium proper. The magicians present—Rezam and an assistant were left at this hour—looked up.

“Did you get the papers?” asked Rezam.

“Not this night,” she answered, shaking her head. “I had just gotten past the hedges and was pulling out my nullifier ring when this damned cat leapt out of nowhere, hissing and clawing. It startled me, as you might imagine, and I touched the library’s warding. Roused the guards and gave me a vicious shock—I wasn’t sure my legs would even let me run after that; they were trembling and weak—but the guards started chasing after some beggar or small-time burglar instead. Never even looked for me.”

“Lucky.”

“Yes, I had a lot of luck,” she agreed, “both good and bad.”

She walked over to the laboratory table that stood in the center of the room. The Sphere sat on a silver pedestal, shrouded with a gossamer cloth. A nimbus of olive energy swirled around it, the shifting energy fraying into paisley patterns like stirred smoke in a shaft of light.

“What’s the field?” asked the Fox, leaning her hands on the back of a chair.

“Abjuration,” said Rezam. “You were right about it; it has certain disquieting qualities when viewed with the naked eye. It … enticed our eyes and hands. We needed to make it less distracting to get on with our work.”

“So it … called to you?” asked the Shadow Fox.

“Oh, yes. Very much so. We resisted, of course, but those without training in the mental disciplines of high magic could easily fall prey to its allure.”

“But Oargesha had training.”

“True, but she had no warning. We did, and we had no wish to suffer her fate.”

“Mmm. So… I know it’s only been three days, but… have you discovered anything about it?”

“It is definitely a planar device,” said Rezam, “As, you may recall, I originally conjectured. Cautious divination indicates that it is either 10,000 years old, or else it was created two weeks from yesterday.”

“We’re putting our wager on 10,000 years,” said the other wizard.

Shadow Fox nodded. “Which plane?”

“Xoriat,” said the two wizards simultaneously. Rezam’s assistant continued, adding, “Once we knew roughly what we were looking for, knitting the stray facts together was not that difficult. It all fits together. That would be about the time of the Daelkyr War. I’m guessing that this is a means of opening a rift of some sort, either to let those from Xoriat here, or else maybe to harvest folks like us and send them into Xoriat.”

“For what purpose?”

Rezam snorted. “You’re assuming that anything having to do with Xoriat will be logical. Even if I knew their plans and could explain them to you, the concepts would probably drive you to claw your own eyes out.”

“And swallow your tongue,” added the other.

“Is there any way to get Oargesha back?” asked the Fox. “Any hope?”

“Listen,” said Rezam, “even if we knew how to operate this device, and even if we could somehow use it to get to Xoriat and back, and even if we were able to find Oargesha in that mess, when we brought her back here, there’d be nothing we could do for her but tie her up tightly and put a gag in her mouth.”

“Because otherwise she’d mutilate herself,” added the second. “In fact, killing her would probably be a mercy. Unless somehow that would drive her soul back to Xoriat. Which it probably would.”

The Shadow Fox sat heavily and buried her face in her palms. “Great gods,” she said to herself, “what have we done?”

“What have we done?” echoed the first wizard. “We’ve managed to procure perhaps the greatest weapon imaginable! If we can just get those notes you were talking about, why, we could bring Khorvaire to its knees!”

“I know. Just the threat could—”

“Threat? How could you have something like this and not use it?” exclaimed Rezam. “Think of it. Everyone who’s slighted us, Thrane and Karrnath and Breland especially, you know they were involved in the Day of Mourning, and House Phiarlan, they had to know that Cyre was going to die, how else do you explain the fact that all of their most senior members managed to be out of our country when it died? Just imagine how they’ll pay with an eternity of torment for what they did to our homeland! And then anyone else, if they don’t bow to our demands, boom! We pull their souls to Xoriat and listen to them scream.”

“But it does such unspeakable—”

“For that matter, we’d have to use it just to test it, make sure we understood its function properly.”

“Right,” said his assistant. “Test all the settings, all the permutations of the controls. Of course, first we have to figure out how to operate it.”

“That’s certain,” Rezam said. “It’s a very interesting puzzle. Very interesting. I could probably start a whole magewright school based on this alone. I wonder if we could duplicate it.”

The Shadow Fox looked at the two mages in disbelief. “You’re mad,” she whispered.

“Mad?” quipped the second. “No, the people trapped in there, they are mad. If you could hear them, you’d know what I mean. We’re trying to make sense of it.”

“But you just said that Xoriat makes no sense to the sane.”

Rezam leaned forward, thrusting his face far too close to the Fox’s. She recoiled from his bulging eyes as far as she could in the chair. “I did say that. But this …” he said, gesturing one hand dramatically to the Sphere, “this is a device. Devices work by mechanical and metaphysical laws. Laws that can be understood. And I think I am starting to understand some of how this device works.” He waggled his eyebrows, and the Shadow Fox felt a knot tighten in her stomach.

She slid out of the side of the chair and stood, backing away from the wizards. “All right,” she said. “I’ll leave you to it. But I think you all ought to cover that thing completely and call it a night. Get some rest before you continue. Understand?”

The wizards looked at each other quizzically, then nodded in agreement. “Absolutely,” they said unconvincingly. “Smart idea.”

The Shadow Fox let herself out of the arcanium, sliding back into the city streets. She prayed that she knew what she was doing.

Dawn was just breaking over the western horizon when Teron sat bolt upright in bed, awakening with a gasp, his hands raised for combat.

Praxle rolled over and looked with bleary eyes. “Nightmare, monk?”

Teron ran his hands over his eyes and across his ears. “Yes.”

“Well, put a cork in it. I’m trying to sleep.” Praxle rolled back over and pulled the blanket up high.

Teron sat in bed for a while, calming himself as the overpowering images of his dream faded in the pre-dawn light. His breathing slowed back to normal, and he lay back down, his hands clasped prayerfully over his nose as he meditated.

A few minutes later, a long, low moan carried through the room.

“I told you to cork it,” grumbled Praxle.

Another moan, and Praxle threw his pillow at Teron, who sensed it at the last minute and partially blocked it, then sat up in annoyance. “What was that for?”

“Quit your yowling nightmares, monk, I want to get back to sleep,” grumped Praxle from beneath a shapeless pile of covers.

Teron started to say something, then arrested his tongue. He stood quietly, went to the window, and pried it open. He leaned out.

“Flotsam!” he said gently, with a ghost of a smile on his face. “And I see you caught yourself breakfast!”

A misshapen homunculus prowled the perimeter of the Camat Library, grunting, hissing, and squealing with every painful move of its malformed limbs. It lurched about the brush on its two legs, using one of its arms for balance and the other arm to shield its uneven, piggy eyes from the sun. It scratched in the dirt, muttering to itself and wiping its nose. Then it moved on, snuffling the leaves and gurgling in its throat. Every so often a horse and carriage clopped along the cobbled street close to the undergrowth, and the pitiful creation hunkered down and covered its head mournfully, shivering in fear.

It hobbled along, doubly-forked tongue dabbing the dirt, frail hands picking up twigs and other detritus for inspection, wet nose sniffing insistently at every thorn and leaf.

Then at last it found what it was looking for: a long, sharp thorn darkly stained. A wail of gleeful spite squeezed out of its angled throat, nasal and reedy. It grabbed the thorn by its base and tried to pry it off, to no avail. The homunculus barked and growled, then cursed a string of incomprehensible syllables in some unknown language. It renewed the attack on the thorn, clawing and biting at the stalk of the plant, prying, tugging, twisting, ripping, cursing. At last, the thorn started to pull free, resisting like a youngster’s tooth, but the eager homunculus exerted its asymmetric body ever the harder, and soon the thorn came loose. The creature yowled its deviant delight, a noise loud and guttural enough that it caused even the daylight traffic to pause in unease.

It loped along the ground to the front door of the library, holding the darkened thorn aloft like a torch. Every galloping movement of its body forced out some small utterance from the beast, small wheezes and grunts of discomfort.

It climbed the long set of stairs leading to the doors, each step half as high as it was. Its barrel ribcage expanded and contracted laboriously, panting with the heroic effort of the ascent. Its jaw, filled with needle-like teeth, hung open with its tongue lolling out.

The massive granite doors swung open as it reached the top of the stairs, recognizing the power of the magician’s blood that had been used to create the beast. It stumbled through the door, croaking its triumph. It scrambled toward the brazier, and hopped about clumsily until the fire elemental manifested and gushed forth.

Faced with the tall fiery guardian, the homunculus hooted wordlessly, displaying the thorn, and within a minute, three Thrane mages teleported to the library lobby, looking at the homunculus with curious eyes.

One of the mages squatted down, holding out both hands just off the floor. The homunculus scuttled over and climbed onto his hands, still proudly displaying the thorn. The mage stood, lifting the homunculus. He placed it on his shoulder and took the thorn from the creature.

The other two wizards drew closer as he studied the thorn. “Blood,” he said at last. “Fairly fresh. Probably drawn from the intruder of last night during the flight from the premises.”

He held the thorn forth for the others to inspect. “I do believe this will give us enough to pay our respects, will it not?”

The other two wizards nodded.

“Excellent. Then we are off to the summoning circle.”

The homunculus hooted and clapped its paws in sadistic delight.

“I can’t believe you, monk,” groused Praxle. “You’ve been lying there in bed almost all day long—”

“So were you until past noon,” commented Teron, stroking Flotsam’s outsized head. The cat stared at Teron’s face through half-lidded eyes, and the only noise it made was the heavy breathing that whistled through its nose.

“Sure, but I was asleep,” said Praxle with exasperation. “And so were you. But since then, all you’ve done is lie in bed and pet your ugly cat and do nothing!”

“Don’t judge things you don’t understand,” said Teron quietly.

“Are you planning on doing that all day long?” asked Praxle, pacing and gesticulating wildly, “Why am I even asking? It’s already been all day long! The sun set an hour ago! What about preparations? Are we going to get those papers together, or are you going to sit here and pet your damned cat while I go get the papers myself?”

Flotsam growled deep in his throat.

“We’ll go together,” said Teron. “I’ll get up soon, limber up. We’ll get it done by midnight.”

“You’re a pathetic, stone-faced, lazy-backed thug, you know that?” yelled Praxle.

Flotsam put his ears back and growled again, louder. His slitted eyes dilated as his claws slid out and started clutching Teron’s vest.

“You’d best watch your tongue, Praxle,” Teron said, a stern tone creeping into his soft voice.

“Or what? You’ll set your fearsome attack kitty on me? That mangy mongrel stray is the most detestable part of you!”

Flotsam dropped his ears flat against his skull, and he hissed loudly.

“Hold up there, Praxle,” said Teron, concern edging his voice.

“Oh, right, I’m dreadfully sorry if I wounded your cat’s feelings,” said Praxle. “Why do you lug that stinky beast around, anyway? It’s nothing more than a walking spectacle of spontaneous hairball generation!”

Flotsam leapt off Teron’s chest and ran to the corner of the room, arching its back, puffing out its fur, and spitting. Its tail lashed back and forth violently.

“Praxle! Shut it!” said Teron.

The gnome stopped in mid-rant. “What’s with your cat?” he asked.

“Can’t you feel that?” asked Teron.

“Feel what?” asked Jeffers, rising from his chair at the far side of the room. “Everything appears to be perfectly regular to me, gentlemen. Present dialog excepted, of course.”

Praxle turned a slow circle in the center of the room, hands tentatively extended and eyebrows furrowed. His eyes darted right and left. “He’s right,” he said distractedly, “Something’s happening. A focus is coalescing in this room.”

“Whatever does that mean, master?” asked Jeffers.

Praxle held up one finger to silence his bondservant. “The library?” he asked.

Teron turned out his hands. “But how? How did they know we were staying here?”

“Maybe one of Lady Stalsun’s agents?” offered Praxle. “She seemed to know a fair amount about us.”

The air grew tangibly tense, and a rainbow halo emerged around the two glowlamps in the room. “We can’t stay to figure it out,” said Teron, scooping Flotsam up. “No telling what they’re sending after us. Come!”

Jeffers opened the door for the others as they hurriedly left the room, then he grabbed his sword and followed. The three of them ran down the hall, swept down the stairwell, and quickly crossed the foyer into the street. Once in the comparative darkness of the Flamekeep urban night, they slowed down to a jog, then to a brisk walk once a couple blocks separated them and their lodgings.

“What do you think they’d send?” Teron asked, his voice calm and even despite the sudden exertion.

Praxle panted for several breaths before he answered. “I don’t know,” he gasped. “I hope it was something normal, though, I’d hate to face an archon of the Silver Flame or some equally deific creature.”

Jeffers looked up at the clear night sky, then back down to the everbright lanterns that illumined the street. “Pardon me, gentlemen, but it is a clear night, is it not?”

Praxle looked up at Sypheros and Vult, chasing each other serenely across the starry sky. With the ambient light, the Ring of Siberys was all but invisible. “Yes it is,” he said irritably. “So what?”

“So can anyone explain to me why the street lanterns appear to have halos about them as if it were a foggy eve?”

“So they do,” said Teron. “I can feel it coalescing again. How are they doing this, Praxle?”

“They need something to use. Hair, clothing, blood, something like that. Did you hurt yourself at the library last night? We didn’t; we didn’t even get close.”

“I dodged a ballista,” Teron said. He turned around, looking over his shoulder. “Did it get a scrap of my vest?”

“No, master, your clothing looks to be in perfect order,” said Jeffers.

“But—” started Praxle, confused.

Teron stepped toward one of the everbright lanterns and rearranged his grip on Flotsam. He started ruffling the cat’s fur against the grain, inspecting it beneath the lantern’s glow. Two quick passes and Teron looked at his fellows. “Scab,” he said. “They’re after Flotsam.”

“Great!” said Praxle, looking skyward. “Pitch the cat!”

The air started tangibly trembling, a spell waiting to burst.

“They’ll get one of our hairs sooner or later. I’d rather face whatever it is now and get it over with.”

The air continued to tremble, but nothing manifested. “What is this?” whispered Teron, turning in a wary circle.

“The spell needs some sort of trigger,” said Praxle. “It’s waiting for us to do something.”

“Like what?”

“There’s no way to know,” said the gnome. “And I have to tell you, that vibrating is making my stomach feel funny.”

Teron put Flotsam down. “There’s not much we can do,” he said. “We can stay, or we can move. If we move, we either trigger the spell, or perhaps move out of its range.”

“I say we move, and move away from the library,” said Praxle. “Jeffers, stow the sword.”

The three proceeded down the city streets, tensely watching the other pedestrians and wondering if the spell would explode into being. Those who passed near them recoiled from their presence as they sensed the mysterious effects of the spell. “This is doing wonders for our anonymity,” muttered Praxle.

They took familiar streets, thus their path led them by the Phiarlander Phaire, where, as usual, the business was hopping. A group of older men hung outside the tavern, smoking pipes and flirting with a group of bawdy younger women who fetched them drinks and lavished affection on them in exchange for tips. Inebriated and in good spirits, the group hailed the passers-by, and one of them even lurched toward them, a saucy wench on his arm, and bade them join the company.

As the gregarious man neared the threesome, the supernatural dam broke. The dottle in his pipe glowed brightly, then flared, then flames shot several feet high out of the bowl of his pipe, igniting his beard in the process. The man cried out in terror and dropped his pipe. The other bystanders screamed and fled in a panic.

Flames spilled out of the abandoned pipe, pooling in the street. The fire of the hapless man’s burning beard also grew in size and intensity as it spread across his head and ignited his clothes.

Praxle, Teron, and Jeffers closed ranks in the face of this unexpected development. Flotsam cowered behind their ankles and hissed.

The flames from the pipe coalesced into a whirling column. The vortex pulled the ashes of tobacco up into the air, and the spinning motes provided the embers from which a fire elemental spawned. A thread of fire rose from each of the bits of burning tobacco, and as the summoned beast moved the whirling created a look of several insectile legs writhing in the air.

The flames from the burning man formed themselves into a second creature, spiraling around the screaming man until he collapsed and the fats rendered from his body spilled forth and ran in the street. The second flame elemental rode the rivulets of fat toward the trio, gliding along the ground like a curtain of fire.

“With all due respect, master,” said Jeffers, “I do not believe my expertise will avail us much in this situation.”

“Distract them, Jeffers,” Praxle yelled, panic seasoning his voice. “Keep them away from me!”

Teron looked at the two magical creations. For a moment he wondered whether the mages behind this assault expected to get two fire elementals, or whether the dead man had provided a convenient bonus. He checked the two creatures again and chose his first target. “Watch that one!” he ordered Jeffers, shoving him toward the oily fire.

He closed on the soaring elemental, then quickly hopped forward and slung his leg around in a roundhouse kick, aiming for the motes that fed the flames. He felt his foot pass through the fire; there was a moment of resistance, like the flame itself was thick as Brelish pudding. He felt the searing heat, but his foot swept right through the collection of tiny coals that kept the thing alive. The kick snapped half of them away from the flames, tearing them from feeding the fire. For a moment, the elemental had but three fiery legs twirling beneath it, but as Teron recovered his balance, he saw the vortex draw the other motes back into itself, and the flame leapt to them once more.

“Right,” murmured Teron, and braced himself for what must be done.

He stepped back, ignoring the cries and curses from his companions; they were far enough away that Teron felt no threat from the fire they faced. He focused his spirit, turning his will inward and forcing his viscera to comply. He pulled energy from deep within himself, an agonizing draw that sent bile into his throat, but he steeled his face to a calm mask.

The fire elemental drew closer, dancing in the air on its six fluttering embers. It closed, then veered away, pursuing Flotsam. Somewhere behind him, Teron heard a sound akin to slowly shattering glass as Praxle unleashed a spell.

Teron forced his energy out to his fists, feeling the energy burning as it descended down his ligaments and veins. A scarlet glow emanated from his palms. It started to break free, but Teron clenched his fingers like a dragonhawk’s talons, forming them into cages. The energy struggled to explode outward, but his will kept it in check, straining at once to force it out of his palms but keep it within his grip. It felt like trying to hold onto a fistful of acidic baby eels.

As the fire elemental passed in front of him, Teron unleashed himself, lunging forward and striking the fire elemental with a double thrust. He opened his fists at the last second to attack with open palms, and the energy erupted.

The fire elemental reeled. Teron pulled back and saw that three of its embers had been disintegrated by his attack, and the other three fluttered in the wake of the concussion; the flaming creation struggled to maintain its shape, dancing on a tenuous trio of flickering legs.

The elemental’s attention shifted away from Flotsam to Teron, clearly it considered him a greater threat than the skittish feline. It whirled toward him, the embers that anchored its magical existence braiding a complicated trail that defied prediction.

Teron staggered back, his stomach twisting and preparing to heave from the torment of evoking such energy in a controlled manner. He leaned forward as he backpedaled, an acrid belch forcing its way out of his stomach. Behind him, he heard exclamations from Praxle and Jeffers, but he had no time to sort the sounds into something sensible as the fire elemental closed.

With an agonizing effort, he summoned more energy from deep within him. A luminescent streak of magical energy erupted from his hand, but he grabbed the tail end and spun his hand to wrap it around his fist. It strained to be free, to fly and destroy, and he had to concentrate to pull its tail back within himself and contain its head. He gave an involuntary moan of feverish discomfort and his head swayed slightly as a wave of dizziness swept over him.

At that moment, the fire leapt toward him. He brought his hands together in a violent clap, spattering the magical force at the flying coals at the creature’s base, and then it was on him. His instincts screamed at him to run, but his training pushed him forward through the flames, and he tumbled across the ground, rolling to put out any parts that might have ignited.

He looked back at the elemental. It moved away, as if it had expected him to flee its fiery wrath. It reversed it course, and he noted that two embers remained to fuel it. He summoned some more of his rapidly depleting energy to his hands as it closed. He tried to contain the fury of the power, but it slipped his fingers and flew at the fire elemental, passing through the main body of the flames. The energy punched a brief hole in the fire, but the fire burned as brightly after it passed through. The elemental closed on Teron, and he crawled backward, the torsion in his bowels slowing him considerably.

I never thought I’d burn to death, he thought, and steeled his will to avoid screaming as he died.

Of a sudden he saw something leap through the air at the flaming conjuration, twinkling against the night sky, and with a splash and a hiss, the fire elemental vanished. Teron blinked in surprise. There, just behind where the flaming beast had danced, stood Kelcie, the barmaid, holding an empty bucket in her trembling hands. The two locked eyes for a long second, each equally startled.

Teron heard Jeffers cry out, and it stirred him from his brief reverie. With an agonized roar he stood, knees rather wobbly. He saw Jeffers rolling along the ground, his clothes aflame. The other fire elemental slithered near him like a flaming viper.

Teron spared just an instant to look Kelcie in the eye once more, and he gripped her shoulder with a brief, strong gesture of thanks. Then he sprinted down the street for Jeffers.

Praxle was nowhere to be seen.