The captain grunted. "Well, we should look for a way out too. It wouldn't do for Captain Thoster to be marooned! I expect the kraken will find us soon enough. That'll be our chance to try for the bauble. You think the poxed thing will prove easier to deal with than the servants it sent to ambush us?"
Japheth said, "Seems unlikely-"
"Because we didn't give a very good account of ourselves."
Protestations rose to the warlock's lips: he had been taken by surprise, he hadn't unleashed his full arsenal of curses, he had been concerned with the welfare of the others. But he remained quiet. Their guide had been slain, and the rest of them had barely escaped with their lives. And perhaps it was his own fault.
How had he allowed it? The bald truth wouldn't creep away and be ignored. He'd been in the dazed grip of traveler's dust. If he'd been in his right mind-
The memory of a metallic container tumbling down through dark water assailed the warlock. His breath caught. He slapped his cloak where the tin was kept safe. He couldn't detect the comforting bulge. His eyes dilated as he frantically searched through the folds of his cape. Empty.
Japheth's supply of dust was lost.
The captain watched Japheth through this anxious display, his expression quizzical.
"I have to go back," Japheth explained. "I lost something in the water."
"Go back, then exclaimed the wizard."We're going forward."
Japheth glanced at her. Seren was wringing out her hair. She looked up, saw the warlock's desperate expression, and said, "You're cute, but I'm not going back down there."
An image of a road composed of ground bone on a crimson plain flashed before him, then faded. Japheth took another few gulps of air, crazy impulses flashing across his mind. Images of diving, alone, into the cataract…
Too crazy to consider for more than heartbeats. He'd have to do without, despite the risk to his sanity.
"Never mind."
Thoster skewered Japheth with a look. "You certain you're still in the game?" the captain asked.
"I have no other choice, it seems," breathed the warlock. "Let's see what's in here, shall we?"
Japheth pushed to the fore and stepped into the vast space lit by glittering witchlights.
The rounded sphere tops and protruding obelisks mimicked the buildings on the surface. They were built, or perhaps grown, of something similar to coral. However, the structures in the dark seemed older, centuries older. None possessed any obvious entranceways or windows, either. Several had script upon them, but in a language none of the explorers knew.
Japheth began to see a pattern to the drifting points of light. Sometimes they clustered around one particular dome or obelisk, only to languidly redistribute themselves in different densities around other features. The lights never paused in the empty air between the monument-like structures. A small enough pattern, but possibly significant.
The warlock considered his own paucity of power in the arena of gleaning information. Though he knew curses that could unleash feral, hungry forces upon his enemies, making mute stone speak wasn't in his repertoire.
He glanced at Seren, wondering. She was a wizard-didn't she have spell or ritual capable of providing deeper insight?
"Seren," Japheth said.
The wizard paused. "What?"
"Do you-"
"Listen. If you're asking me to consult my spellbook for a handy solution to this mess, don't bother. It is a stroke of luck I've relearned as many spells and rituals as I have in the last eleven years. A damn sight better than most. In time, the rest will return, I'm certain. Until then, stop bothering me with, insipid requests!"
Thoster grinned and shook his head.
A spire ahead enjoyed a particularly large number of slowly circling lights. Japheth headed toward it across the damp, uneven ground. It worried him that little pools of seawater pocketed the stone here and there. How long had it been since this entire area was drowned? More important, would the water return? They were already far below sea level, but that didn't mean tides didn't have a role to play beneath Taunissik.
He reached the base of the pedestal. Japheth realized the stone wasn't exactly like the others. It was no simple obelisk; it was some sort of statue-a twelve-foot-tall effigy, roughly like a kuo-toa, carved of purplish stone, though its lobster clawlike hands were black as pitch. Runes, like those written across the other structures, were inscribed on the figure. But unlike the script on the other formations, the runes on the statue seemed to trace ancient lines of power across its limbs. Worse yet, in place of its head, a single glyph was scribed, from which a thin streamlet of seawater dribbled.
Thoster said, "Japheth, stop. This is a kuo-toa holy place. We tread on sacred ground, at our peril."
The smell of seawater intensified, and a dozen more witch-lights flocked to the figure. Their combined radiance wavered between purple and green.
"This is a likeness of the kuo-toa god?" asked Japheth.
"Goddess," replied Thoster, his normally confident voice slightly wavering. "Come away!"
A crack of rending stone saw the statue shudder into movement. With two steps, the figure jerkily cleared its low pedestal. A heavy claw reached for Japheth.
He jerked back and the claw scraped across the ground. A screech of what seemed like pain issued from the animate beast.
"What is it?" yelled Seren, her wand suddenly in hand.
"An eidolon of the sea!" replied Thoster, even as he backed away. "A kind of construct kuo-toa create as half living altars. They're animated by a shard of power from the Sea Mother herself!"
The creature lunged at Japheth once more. Again the warlock evaded the relatively slow-moving bulk.
"Why does it attack us? We have not suborned its followers- the kraken has."
"It ain't received a sacrifice since Gethshemeth commandeered this colony," returned Captain Thoster. "It's blinkin' insane with hunger!"
"Sea Mother!" Japheth called out. "We are enemies of your enemy-the great kraken, Gethshemeth, has overpowered your people! We seek to destroy Gethshemeth. Grant us your aid, and perhaps your people may come back to you!"
The effigy paused, as if considering.
Seren muttered, "Quick thinking, Japheth. Let's hope it works!"
Thoster shook his head. "This ain't the Sea Mother-it's merely a focus for devotion meant for her. In fact, I do not ever recall seeing this particular image. It ain't quite right. Regardless, this eidolon has been untended so long it may have gone rogue!"
"Rogue?" asked Japheth. Then he had his answer.
The rune that served as the statue's face suddenly spewed blood red seawater in all directions.
Japheth's cloak intervened, shunting the brunt of the liquid aside, but some still spattered his face and forearms. Pain blossomed across his skin where the seawater touched it. The warlock cried, "The water is caustic!"
Seren pointed her wand. A line of flickering lightning briefly connected its end with the animate statue. It sparked and staggered, and the sharp order of ozone blurred Japheth's vision. He blinked and thought better of rubbing his eyes with the back of his seawater-spattered and burning hand.
A shape suddenly materialized from the blur his vision had become.
"Look out!" yelled Thoster. Japheth tried to duck away, but his senses were too confused. Instead of slipping out of the way, he darted directly into the grasp of the stony lobster claw.
Pressure crushed his chest and back, and his feet were pulled free of the ground. His legs worked foolishly in the air. His right arm was pinned to his side, and his hand went numb with the pressure.
The eidolon had him. Japheth blinked away the tears and saw the thing had raised him high above its head. Preparatory to smashing him down, most likely. He heaved against the stone pincer holding him in place. He succeeded merely in goading it to squeeze all the harder. He couldn't draw in a new breath.
Japheth called on his cloak to transfer him back to the ground. It whipped and strained, but
failed. He was caught in a grip more than merely physical.
Below his flailing feet, Thoster darted in with his golem-work blade. The clang of metal on stone reverberated up the effigy's form. Farther off, Japheth saw Seren ready her wand for another strike, then pause, a frown of indecision on her face. He wondered if she considered striking the statue with another bolt of lighting even though he remained in its grasp. It surprised him she even paused to deliberate.
Japheth finally managed to get his free hand on the animate statue. With the last breath that remained in his contracted lungs, he uttered the Blight of Writhing Shadow.
The swarming witchlights dimmed as tissue-thin streamers of black fog issued from the ground. The darkness wrapped the effigy's legs in semisolid bands of sinuous force.
The creature tried to step out of the shadow that clutched at it, but found itself caught in slicing, cold darkness. Shuddering, it redoubled its effort to escape. Simultaneously, the pressure the thing exerted on him noticeably eased. Japheth gasped, drawing new air into his aching lungs. In another few moments he would have blacked out.
Thoster yelled, "Can you wriggle free, warlock? I don't want to strike again what might be an idol to whom I pray for calm seas!"
At the sound of his voice, the eidolon stopped struggling. Its empty rune face seemed to ascertain Thoster's position despite its lack of eyes, ears, and nose. Simultaneously, Japheth smelled a rank odor of rotting fish and something far worse, like the smell of shadows decaying.
Thoster blanched but shook his head. He said, "Begad! That ain't the Sea Mother!"
The rune on the idol's face sprayed red water. The fluid arced through the air, curving up and over the captain's retreating form. Even as the wave's leading edge was about to strike the damp ground, it solidified. The captain was gone. What remained was a compact coral dome, on which runes were scribed. Japheth could read these runes, for they were in Common. The words read, "Captain Aulruick Thoster. Preserved for sacrifice 1396."
The captain's shocking entombment jolted the warlock into a frenzy. He writhed without regard to how he might hurt himself against the hard stone-
Before he quite realized he was free, he struck the ground, turning his ankle. He didn't pause to examine it; as soon as he hit the floor he called on his cloak to transfer him as far as it could…
Japheth was spit from the discontinuity of his cloak some fifteen paces behind the animate statue. For the moment, it couldn't see him.
Its non-gaze swept to the left, stopping at Seren. She screamed, "You'll not have me, stoneborn!" and released a torrent of electricity. The jagged white gout carved great smoking craters in the idol's rock carapace.
The light of the wizard's electrical attack was brighter than the floating witchlights. So bright that Japheth glimpsed something moving up and behind them. Something vast. In the shadows of the great cavern, many sinuous arms fluttered and coiled, each longer than the Green Siren's deck. One clutched a head-sized orb of stone. The long arms all emerged from a fleshy cylindrical mantle, from which two white eyes burned with hate. Each time the great arms moved, the animate statue rocked and shifted.
Nausea roiled Japheth's guts and his breath caught. Gethshemeth.
"Seren! The eidolon is not the true threat! The great kraken is in here with us! The statue is its puppet!"
The wizard glanced away from the idol, and saw in the fading light of her final blast what Japheth described.
Even as her mouth opened, in dawning surprise, the eidolon sprayed another gout of seawater. Seren tried to evade and failed. Where the wizard had stood was a small obelisk labeled, "Seren Juramot. Preserved for sacrifice 1396."
Japheth mentally reviewed his options, even as he sidled away from the idol and from the darkness behind it that hid Gethshemeth.
He could channel arcane might wrested from primeval entities. He could commune with infernal intelligences and fey spirits, scour enemies with potent blasts of eldritch power, and bedevil them with compelling curses. While he wore the Lord of Bats's cloak, all his abilities were redoubled, at least. But even with all his advantages, he knew he could not defeat a great kraken and its eidolon ally alone. Especially a great kraken whose own power was magnified in some unholy way by the enigmatic relic the ex-whip had called the Dreamheart.
On the other hand, he would certainly die if he put his back to the threat. He stopped. Japheth squared his shoulders and turned to fully face the idol, and yes, the hints of swift movement just visible behind and above the animate statue. His hands came up, and from his lips leaped words that were transformed into a golden mist. A great cloud of shining, yellow haze billowed forward, bypassing the unthinking eidolon, expanding in size even as its interior light began to more fully illuminate the great kraken beyond. For the first time, Japheth realized how strange it was that the creature seemed completely at ease in open air. Was that ability to transcend water an effect of the Dreamheart, as Nogah had suggested?
The haze enveloped the massive squid. Japheth continued uttering the syllables that fed the spell, giving it the power to plunge Gethshemeth into a waking dream of eldritch beauty and illusion.
The haze was having an effect! Or, was it? Wait- The idol's rune flashed like a star. Water sprayed through air toward the warlock. Drops of the transformative moisture speckled Japheth's upturned face and unprotected hands.
His spell was ripped from him. A cold tide overtook him, and his body was locked in a vault of stone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Plague-wrought Land, Vilhon Wilds
Blue, green, and gold streaked the ground beneath Raidon's feet, as if some god had knocked over creation's easel, spilling change over the world. The paint still ran, congealing and mixing to form ever stranger colors and textures.
The air was a haze of wavering orange and sapphire, thick with the scent of jasmine and licorice. He could hardly make out his hand before his face. It was as though he walked through the base of a heatless, if pleasant-smelling, flame. Raidon wondered if the dancing color was the spellplague itself, or merely a telltale by-product of the infection that writhed below the earth. Thankfully, he showed no signs of illness or dissolution… unlike Hadyn. The avatar of Grandmother Ash guided him forward through the brilliant murk by song. Her voice was a wind whistling through a forest of pines, leading him. His feet found solid ground with each step. The woman-like being of bark, leaves, and root disdained walking. Instead, she grew into each new point on the landscape she desired to visit.
Her latest incarnation came clear from the burning haze as he approached. With each new manifestation, her precise configuration of flowers, thorns, roots, and bark differed slightly.
As her eyes found his, she ceased her guiding song. This time, her eyes appeared as two blooming irises.
Raidon asked, "Do you send rootlets burrowing ahead each time you rise up?"
The avatar craned her head to one side. She said, "Why send new shoots if my root system already lies beneath all in the Plague-wrought Land?"
"Ah." Raidon wondered if Grandmother Ash was being truthful about the extent of her growth. If so, her real size, including all the woody growth below the earth, was something he couldn't quite imagine.
The avatar continued to stare at him. She said, "That is strange."
"What?" Had he become infected and didn't realize it? He quickly checked his hands, arms, and legs.
"I sense two entities inhabiting your fleshy form, where before I detected only one. I am concerned."
"Well met," came a voice. Cynosure's voice. Raidon breathed easier.
"Worry not, avatar," explained Raidon. "You sense the presence of my friend, Cynosure. I mentioned him when we first met. Cynosure, where have you been?"
The voice came again, "Recuperating from my last effort that saw you to Onnpetarr's gates."
"Are you well?"
"Yes, Raidon. For now. I used more strength than I expected, but I have a last bit to give. Which
is lucky, because once you retrieve Angul, I can send you on to destroy the Dreamheart directly."
The leafy form of the avatar rustled as if to draw attention to itself. It said, "Cynosure… I've heard that name before. An extra-planar meeting ground for the gods."
"A coincidence of names, nothing more," came the sentient golem's voice, amusement clear in his tone. "But what are you? I detect you are far more extensive than the humanoid shape Raidon sees with his eyes."
"I am an avatar of Grandmother Ash," explained the woman, as if that were sufficient.
"Ah," returned Cynosure.
Raidon said into a growing silence, "She guides me to the Chalk Destrier, a creature Kiril and her dwarf companion sought when they entered this changeland. The avatar believes Kiril and Thormud were slain."
"Sad news," mused Cynosure. Then, "Lead on. Now that I have renewed contact with Raidon, I'll provide no further distraction until my services are next required."
Grandmother Ash's form dissolved. A few moments later, her voice came from ahead, raised once again in a song of guidance.
The monk continued his trek through the burning miasma, following the temporary, living guideposts the avatar provided.
Some large fraction of a day passed in such manner. The sameness of the surrounding bluish fog made it difficult to estimate time. Finally, Raidon broke through the haze into a new region.
He stood near the opening cut of a mighty canyon, steep-sided and long. The canyon sides revealed hundreds of varicolored bands in the stone, as if an account of some vast track of time. The sedimentary layers alternated between dozens of shades of brown, though a few layers seemed more crystalline than rocky. One exposed layer looked suspiciously like flesh. The canyon walls rose hundreds of feet on both sides.
The avatar retained her position at the very edge of the haze, declining to fully step forth. She pointed down the canyon. "Continue down this ravine, bearing neither right nor left down lesser clefts, and you'll find the Chalk Destrier at its end."
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