Lenantos set it down on the workbench and picked up a hammer and chisel. With practiced ease, he carved a set of runes in the stone, working faster and more precisely than Taren imagined even the most skilled dwarven stonemason could have. He set his tools aside after a few minutes and placed his hands to either side of the stone. He spoke words in an unfamiliar language, and the runes flared bright orange. The gem in Lenantos’s chest glowed brilliantly, a beam of ruby light concentrated on the obsidian. After a couple minutes, he stepped away from the stone, his ruby no longer shining.
The obsidian now had an inner light, a reddish glow stirring in its depths almost like magma deep within the earth’s heart.
Lenantos lifted the stone and handed it to Taren. He grunted at the weight of the obsidian, cradling it to his chest, for it was every bit as heavy as it looked.
“Take this,” Lenantos said. “I’m a believer in preparing for even the most dreaded eventualities. In the event the Tellurian Engine is activated by your enemies, the only way to end the machine once it has begun cycling is to cast this into its heart. It will destroy the machine, but the process will be violent, and in all likelihood, the bearer will be destroyed with it.”
“Then let us hope it never comes to that,” Creel said.
“Indeed.” Overseer Lenantos eased his lanky frame into his rocking chair, overlooking the flower garden in his Refuge. “Once we are finished here, behind the house are two portals. One will take you directly to Shirak Research Station. The other portal leads back to the entrance to Kaejax but is damaged and inoperable, so if you wish to return there, you must retrace your path.”
Taren assured him they would travel to Shirak next. He looked around for a place to set the heavy stone. Ferret accepted it from him without complaint.
The overseer nodded. “Very well. Taren, I wish you and your companions good fortune, and may the gods smile upon your worthy quest.” He was quiet a moment, gazing out over his Refuge. “And now I go unto my final rest. On this day I, Overseer Lenantos, last of the Order of Artificers, discharge my final duty. I entrust this control rod to your care, Taren, heir to the Engineer, for you to destroy, so that our greatest folly might never fall into the hands of Shaol’s minions and be used for the harm of the multiverse.”
Lenantos must have activated some mechanism internally, for his carapace split apart at a hidden seam in the center and separated, the gold-and-silver banded pieces of metal folding wide to reveal his clockwork innards. Numerous gears and cogs of varying sizes and complexity moved with precision in the background but revealed to the fore was a rod of black metal, what could only be Abyssal iron the length of Taren’s forearm, mounted at the construct’s very core. The ruby in his chest looked like a heart and was now revealed to be the head of the rod. The overseer grasped the control rod in both hands.
The control rod popped loose with a solid click, and he held it out to Taren. The moment the rod was removed, the magic drained rapidly out of Lenantos. Taren watched with his second sight as the blue-white glow evanesced. The amber aura of the overseer’s soul floated up above his metal body, hovering like a miniature sun for a moment before it, too, was gone.
Taren reached down and accepted the control rod from the construct’s grasp. The rod was a puissant source of magical energy, as was the obsidian stone, a bomb of some type, he assumed. Whereas the obsidian stone was ponderous in weight, the rod was incredibly light.
Taren tucked the control rod into his pack and looked up to find his friends all standing there watching. “Thank you all for your courage and companionship. We’ve accomplished what we came here to do. Our next stop is Shirak Research Station. The portal lies around back of the house.”
They accepted his words, all in good spirits after their success. More than one of them clapped him on the back. Taren decided they should rest for a time, to allow Creel to heal from his injuries, unsure what they would face on the other side of the portal. Creel didn’t protest much, which Taren interpreted to mean he actually welcomed the time to recuperate. He was heartened to see that Kulnor had restored Aninyel’s arm anew.
“All right, we’d best get on with this,” Creel said after an hour or so had passed.
He got stiffly to his feet but seemed much better off than earlier. He flexed his left arm, apparently satisfied, then hoisted his pack. The others gathered their gear and followed him around the cottage along a path of crushed marble.
Taren glanced back at Lenantos sitting in his rocking chair, never to move again. His very existence had been tied to the control rod. He felt saddened at the loss of Lenantos, a genius mind and man so dedicated to his duty that he sacrificed his body to transform himself into this guardian in the hopes of serving his master one final time.
May you find your peace at last, Lenantos.
Chapter 43
Taren plunged into water so cold that the shock nearly stole the small amount of air he’d held in his lungs. A sudden panic seized him, for he’d stepped through the portal behind Lenantos’s cottage and suddenly found himself underwater and in darkness. A tight band squeezed his chest, the cold and panic threatening to overwhelm him for a moment.
I must calm down, or I’ll drown.
That one thought cut through his panicked mind like a knife, and he focused on trying to calm himself. Once he staved off the initial moment of crushing panic and began thinking rationally again, he noted a faint light in the distance, along with shadowy shapes flailing around him in the water.
His companions—they had entered the portal before him, so all of them had been as much taken by surprise as he was.
The portal room is flooded. Need to find a way out, quickly.
A hand closed on his arm, and Mira’s face appeared inches from his own, barely visible, her short hair stirring in the water. She pointed toward the light.
He nodded understanding then began to swim forward, his pack and sodden robes dragging at him. Mira let his arm go but swam easily along beside him. Ahead, three figures thrashed in a maelstrom of bubbles, and after a moment, he realized Creel and Aninyel were struggling to haul the panicking Kulnor out of the flooded chamber.
Taren’s foot connected with something hard, and he looked down to see Ferret’s head gleaming dully below. She must have instantly sunk to the bottom and was forging across the floor of the flooded room.
As Mira guided Taren around the struggling trio, he feared his burning lungs would burst from his chest. He needed every shred of self-control to keep from inhaling the cold black water. His knee barked something painfully, then Mira was hauling him upward. Something hard again struck his shin, and he realized it was a staircase. He got his feet under himself and climbed, then after a couple steps, his head breached the surface.
Taren inhaled huge gulps of blessed air, overwhelmed with relief for a moment. He staggered up a couple more steps and collapsed on a landing just above the waterline.
“Got to help… the others,” he gasped.
“Wait here.” Mira turned and dove back underwater.
The stairwell was silent then, save for Taren’s panting breaths and the echoing of water sloshing against the walls. He glanced up the stairwell toward the light above, a few dozen steps away. The light source was neither bright nor steady, flickering much like candlelight, though it had none of the warmth.
Shirak Research Station, on the Elemental Plane of Water, Flurbinger said. Are we aboard a floating city of some type? That could explain why the lower room is flooded.
The water erupted before him as Creel, Aninyel, and Mira surfaced, dragging a choking Kulnor behind themselves.
“Gods, he weighs as much as an ox,” Creel said. Despite their struggles, he wasn’t nearly as winded as Taren had been.
“A small ox in plate mail,” Aninyel agreed, who didn’t seem any worse off than Creel.
Taren remembered how graceful a swimmer the elf was, for she had saved him from a water hag months earlier, when he had nearly been dragged to a w
atery death.
Kulnor noisily vomited up what seemed like enough water to fill a bucket. He finished retching then lay choking and spluttering, his body halfway on the landing. After a few moments, his coughing eventually subsided.
“You all right?” Aninyel plopped down on the step beside Taren. She unbound her silver nugget of hair from atop her head to squeeze water out of the thick ponytail.
“Think so. Better off than him, at least.” He nodded toward Kulnor.
Mira sat on the other side of Taren, seeming unperturbed about being soaked and having nearly drowned moments earlier. Creel leaned against the wall, studying the view up the stairwell.
Ferret surfaced a moment later, water breaking around her like the prow of a ship and streaming out of her carapace. She carried the heavy obsidian stone cradled in her arms. Taren didn’t know whether the stone was volatile and could be set off by jarring it, or if the bomb would only work once in contact with the Tellurian Engine, but he didn’t want to find out, judging from the potency of magic it contained.
“Who’s the bloody dunderhead who built an underwater portal?” Kulnor growled when he could finally speak again.
“It looks as if the portal room simply flooded,” Creel said.
“There better be another way outta here,” Kulnor grumbled. “No way I’m going back through that damned thing.”
Taren extended his second sight to study their surroundings. He was relieved to see that earth magic was plentiful here—not quite as strong as on Easilon, but a marked improvement over Kaejax. Amber auras of living beings moved around above them, he noticed with a start.
“We aren’t alone here,” he warned, and the others sat up straighter. “I sense living creatures up there.”
“Better find out what awaits us above.” Creel loosened his sword in its scabbard and climbed the stairs, followed by Aninyel.
Taren got to his feet and followed, frowning at his soaked robes. His boots squished with water, and he tried to wring some of the wetness out of his clothes as he climbed, Mira at his side.
“Come on, Kulnor.” Ferret helped the dwarf stand, and the two of them brought up the rear.
Creel and Aninyel reached the top of the stairs and froze.
Taren found out why a moment later when he stepped out of the stairwell and into a scene every bit as stunning as Kaejax had been, though in a vastly different way. Beside him, Mira inhaled sharply. All of them stood looking around in wonder.
So not a floating city at all, then.
As near as Taren could tell, they were in an enclave beneath the sea. Shimmering aquamarine light filtered into the circular chamber through a vast dome of glass overhead. Outside the glass was the blue-green of seawater, the stirring currents causing the distant sunlight to shimmer. Coral and other alien undersea plants and animals formed a rainbow of pinks and purples and reds. As he watched, a shoal of colorful fish darted above the dome, light glinting on their iridescent yellow-orange scales.
Sea life—that’s what I was sensing. He looked with his second sight again but found nothing in the immediate vicinity that was any cause for alarm, merely the occasional movement of sea life outside the complex.
As he studied their surroundings, he suspected such a stunning sight likely wouldn’t last much longer. The huge glass dome was held up by rusting iron girders, some of the supports appearing to be in poor shape. Sounds of dripping or running water came from everywhere, and puddles, some of them quite large, covered the stone floor. Shadowy corridors snaked away out of sight in the gloom, the darker areas lit by the same orange crystals used in the Hall of the Artificers.
“Reiktir’s beard!” Kulnor’s exclamation shattered the eerie stillness save for the trickling of water, his voice echoing eerily throughout the chamber. He winced at the sound but looked around with wide eyes and pale face. “What madmen built this place? No self-respecting dwarf would ever live beneath the bloody sea.”
Aninyel clapped the dwarf on the back, making him start. “Nor self-respecting elf, but that doesn’t change the fact we have to find this tank for Ferret before we can leave this place.”
Kulnor toed a puddle with a frown. “Aye, but once this rust bucket gives way beneath the pressure of the sea, ’twill fill up quicker than a tankard at The Notched Axe at a victory party.”
“Then we’d best be about our business so we can be gone before that happens,” Creel said. “Any ideas where to start looking?”
The huge room they were in was about a hundred paces in diameter and was largely empty, perhaps simply a connection hub between various parts of the facility. A mound of unidentifiable detritus was collected near one side of the chamber as if washed aside there by a prior flood.
Placards on the wall in the same strange language first seen in the Hall of the Artificers showed various arrows pointing toward the three tunnels leading out of the dome. The majority of inscriptions all pointed to one particular tunnel leading to the left.
“Let’s try this way. It seems to have the most possible destinations.” Taren indicated the largest corridor, a rounded tunnel almost like the inside of a giant pipe illuminated by orange crystals.
Their footsteps echoed loudly in the tunnel, which was about sixty paces in length. The far end was sealed off with a round iron door with a small, thick plate of glass. Ferret gripped the wheel on the door, intending to twist it to unlock, but Creel stopped her.
“Hold, lass. I don’t think we’ll be going this way.” Creel peered through the glass.
When he moved aside, Taren could see his concern—the door was holding back the sea. Skeletal girders had succumbed in their battle with the weight of the ocean, jutting upward like broken swords, that chamber’s glass dome long gone. Rays of sunlight shimmered through water, and fish drifted lazily across his field of vision. Some squidlike creature shot through the water and out of view. Clumps of algae and other plants coated the floor, and a brilliant reef had grown over a fallen girder.
“Gods, I hope the tank wasn’t through there,” Ferret said in a small voice.
They retraced their steps to the domed chamber. Taren stepped up near the wall of glass to try to get a sense of the facility’s layout. The ruined dome was just visible, wide open to the sea now. From the perspective provided, Shirak’s domes appeared to be built along the ridges of an undersea mountain range. Off to one side was a deep, watery abyss.
“That leaves two tunnels to pick from,” Aninyel said.
They chose the center corridor, yet another tunnel shaped like the inside of a pipe. It ran straight for about forty paces before reaching a stairwell, which descended for roughly fifty steps. They reached the bottom, which was covered in knee-deep water. After sloshing their way along for another sixty paces, they came to another huge glass-domed room.
This chamber reminded Taren of some of the laboratories in the Hall of the Artificers. Metal-grated catwalks and stairs formed several different levels, where a dozen or so workspaces were set up. There were a few tables and cabinets, along with pieces of machinery of unknown function. Massive half-submerged vats and various tanks and buckets were scattered throughout.
“I think the tank we seek might be in here somewhere.” Taren took a step forward, but Mira stopped him with an arm barring his way.
“Take care in this room. The floor gives way in places.”
Taren saw she was right. A grated catwalk a little more than a pace in width was flush with the tunnel floor, but to either side was nothing but water. If he had missed his step, he would have plunged into the depths of the chamber. The floor was unseen beneath opaque water of unknown depth, much darker and murkier than the outside seawater. Only the catwalk was barely visible, a metallic glint beneath knee-high water. The room stank of rust and mold and a fishy marine smell.
Creel took the lead, and they slogged through the water, sending small waves rolling across the room. They reached the center of the chamber, where several catwalks interjoined. Before they could choose
a direction, Aninyel shouted a warning.
Water churned to their left, then something thudded against the underside of the catwalk—something big, for it shuddered alarmingly—and a darker form slid away into the murky depths.
A moment later, Mira cried out in alarm as a rubbery dark-green tentacle wrapped around her ankle. Taren and Ferret grabbed her arms as her leg was yanked out from under her. She hung there a moment, pulled between the submerged monster and her friends before Aninyel’s saber swept in and severed the tentacle.
Taren and Ferret pulled Mira away as the severed appendage, jetting inky ichor, shot back into the water with a splash. With a grimace, Mira removed the length of severed tentacle still attached to her ankle.
Water exploded on the opposite side of the catwalk as something huge loomed out of the depths. Creel’s sword cut a chunk from a lashing tentacle the thickness of his chest before it flopped down heavily. The catwalk bucked underfoot, metal shrieked, then the flooring was twisting, threatening to spill them all into the water.
Taren was resigned to getting wet again, although the thought of being in the water with that monster was terrifying, when the catwalk suddenly stabilized. Ferret was down on hands and knees, straining to hold the walkway together, which had torn loose from its rusted bolts.
“Climb across me,” she shouted.
The catwalk shuddered underfoot again, and a massive tentacle curled around the stretch of metal. Taren didn’t need any further encouragement—he ran for the stable adjoining section. The catwalk buckled and twisted in the monster’s grip and sagged farther down in the middle.
“Hurry—I can’t hold it long!” Ferret cried, her arms nearly stretched to their limits. The grated slats were bending in her grasp, the metal on the verge of snapping.
Kulnor stopped beside Ferret, balking at the gap.
Trial of the Thaumaturge (Scions of Nexus Book 3) Page 38