by C. M. Carney
He had faced many a terror in his life, but few things had ever unnerved him as much as the light caress of this alien fiend’s oral appendages. Behind the mask, he could hear the man laugh. “You still do not understand what is happening here, do you?” he whispered.
Gryph’s skin, his very soul crawled in disgust and he needed to get away from this aberration. He activated Push Off and launched himself backwards, flipping once before landing lightly on his feet a half dozen feet away.
The Dweller stood as several dozen of the arachnids who still survived arrayed themselves behind Barrendiel. It only took Gryph a moment to realize that the automatons were no longer friendly. Then they swarmed him.
Gryph spun his spear like a fan of death and several of the swarm went down, but soon he was overwhelmed. An individual arachnid didn’t pack much of a wallop, but a dozen, two dozen were a different matter altogether. Gryph toppled back and tossed his hands over his face as the metal appendages of the spiders poked and prodded at him. His health trickled downwards.
Then the world lit up with crimson and green light and the arachnids scattered. Gryph saw both gnomes sending volleys of chthonic and life magic into the swarm as Ovyrm helped him to his feet. Gryph nodded thanks and quick glances told him his friends were battered but alive.
“I hate spiders,” Wick said in a spastic voice and Gryph gripped his small friend’s shoulder in thanks.
Myrthendir stood, clutching the seal in his hand. He stood alone and bloody on the other side of a sea of swarming metallic legs. Behind him was the now open door to the Nexus, the control center for the whole city.
Barrendiel stood in the eye of a storm of metal spiders, glaring at Gryph. Gryph took a moment to analyze the situation and locked eyes with Myrthendir. Then Myrthendir turned and ran through the door that led to the Nexus. En masse the swarm of arachnids turned and pursued the Prince Regent.
A feeling of dread filled Gryph, but then Barrendiel rushed him, and the ranger’s arcing sword pushed all other concerns to the back of his mind. He danced away from Barrendiel’s deadly steel, clumsily batting the ranger’s blows aside until one landed and knocked the player off his feet.
Barrendiel lifted his sword arm for the killing blow when an unearthly howl of anguish burst from behind the man’s mask. His sword fell from his fingers and he dropped to his knees, hands clutching at his head. As the rest of the swarm disappeared into the tunnel the Dweller fell onto his face, unmoving.
“Something is very wrong here,” Gryph said, and all eyes turned to him.
“Ya think?” Wick said louder than he intended. “I’ve spent less than a week with you, and nearly all of that time we’ve been trapped in one hell dungeon or another fighting for our lives against the dead and an army of murder machines. This …” he waved his hands around … “makes me miss the Barrow.”
“You’re being dramatic again honey,” Tifala said and stroked the back of his neck.
“Xeg no like drama … honey.” The imp tugged sharply on Wick’s ear.
Wick shivered at the imp’s too familiar touch. “First thing I do when we get out of this is send you back to the abyss, you damned imp.
A sound built in Xeg that reminded Gryph of a cat choking on a hairball, but Gryph knew from experience was the demonling’s laugh and the infernal beastie smacked the back of Wick’s head. “Smelly dumb head no get rid of Xeg. Xeg stay now. Xeg stay forever.”
“I’m paying for all my sins.”
Ovyrm’s powerful voice cut through the juvenile idiocy. “Can we focus?” He looked at Gryph. “What is it?”
Gryph shook his head unable to give words to his suspicions. “I’m not sure.” He walked up to Barrendiel and nudged the man in the back with the butt of his spear. He did not move. Gryph looked up at the others. Ovyrm had his bow ready. Wick's hands glowed crimson and Tifala’s green. Errat stood tall, the muscles in his forearms twitching as he gripped his axe. Even Xeg showed an edge of nervousness, or perhaps constipation. The imp’s moods were hard to read.
Gryph knelt next to the man. A part of him screamed that he was wasting time, that they should rush after Myrthendir, helping the Prince Regent against the swarm, but every instinct in his body screamed at him. Something was wrong, very, very wrong.
He turned the man over, eliciting no reaction. He reached a tentative hand up to the silver mask that no longer moved, no longer threatened Gryph’s sanity. His gripped the mask, and it was solid and cool to the touch. He tugged, and it flowed away like morning fog rolling in from the Pacific, revealing a face.
A face that did not belong to Barrendiel.
27
Sillendriel found no peace in her reverie. It had always been so, but recent events had made it worse. The voices had grown louder, the fear more palpable and chaos and dread hung just beyond the horizon of her perceptions.
Sillendriel was cursed. Everyone said so, just never to her face. Her handmaids gossiped when they thought she was out of earshot. The guards tried to hide nervous glances as they stood vigil, never far from her. Even Lassendir held his secret fears though he spoke of them to few others.
She heard things that had not been spoken, saw things that no eye had seen, knew things that should not be known. At best it made people uneasy, at worst it made them fear. After all, who wanted to be around someone who dredged up secrets hidden in the depths? Who wanted to touch someone who might see your death? Who could love someone there was no escape from?
Worse yet, she would see a dozen paths for every one that bore fruit. Her most dire warnings often went unheeded. People, it seemed, would rather ignore foreknowledge of a future horror than let that horror in where fear of it would consume them.
So, Sillendriel had learned to stay quiet and let the horrible things happen, hoping others would befriend her, care for her, perhaps even love her.
Only a handful of people had ever truly loved Sillendriel. Her parents, whose death had come, at least partially, as a relief to them, were two. Lassendir, a man with far too many responsibilities already, who had not hesitated to take the witch child into his home and his heart, was another. Her brother Barrendiel, who had let anger, fear, and guilt turn him down a path even Sillendriel had not foreseen, still loved her in his own way. She was sure of that even now. And Myrthendir, the only one who had ever let her see all he was, had been her true love.
She had lost them all, to death, to anger or to pride.
But it was not a vision of horror and doom that dredged the talons of fear through her mind this night. Tonight, for the first time in her life she could not see any paths. It felt as if someone had tossed a blanket over the world, blocking her sight, hiding both good and ill. She could not see and her blindness terrified her.
She lurched back to full consciousness, cold sweat leaching the heat from her body so quickly that she’d shivered before her eyes were open. She balled her fists to stop her hands from shaking and eased her bare feet to the cool, comforting stone of the floor. She forced her hands to unclench and eased her eyes shut once more. Slowly her ragged, desperate breaths eased and her mind settled.
She expanded her consciousness and let her astral form, her pure raw soul stuff, flow out of her body. She soared outwards over the meditating minds in the Spire and out into the city. Few people were about at this hour; a squad of guards on patrol, several early risers baking the days bread, a few drunkards stumbling home.
She rose and twisted like a hawk and touched the surface of the Deep Water. She let the edges of the alien presence that had so long slumbered in the depths touch the wings of her soul, but its ravenous need pushed her up and away.
She felt the bright essences inside the ancient Thalmiir city engaged in a battle whose outcome would determine all the future history of the Realms. The rage and hatred pushed her away, scalding her mind like a hot stove to a toddler’s hand, and she spun back towards home.
She flew higher and the glints of possibility flowing from several thousand souls g
listened like distant stars. This high up some of them flared like suns. A pair flared to raging brightness inside Dar Thoriim. She expected these flares of possible futures, and despite the many uncertain outcomes they foretold, Sillendriel took a bit of comfort that they were where they should be.
As she soared higher, trying to push her mind away from the battle raging across the water, two more beacons of possibility flared into her awareness. One came from the Spire, blazing into the aetherial spaces between all things like a beacon. She dove towards it, shocked to discover that it came from her room, from her body. She was a nexus of change? She had always been a bystander, a desperate witness unable to alter the futures she saw. Why was this time different?
She flew from the Spire and towards the other light, this one shimmering deep inside the ancient bowels of Sylvan Aenor. Down there, hidden in the darkness, was another beacon of potential.
As she got close, she felt waves of pain emanating from the light, a soul in turmoil, a mind at war with itself. As her astral form touched the light, recognition exploded into her.
Barrendiel.
She dove, passing through the solid earth with no more difficulty than water through a sieve. She dove deep and came to a cavern stained by the foul tastes of pain, fear, and despair. Her soul form morphed from a soaring bird to an avatar of her true self. Her brother, the Captain of the Rangers lay unconscious on a stone table.
She reached a hand to his brow and flinched, yanking her hand back. After a moment she eased it back, hovering over his brow. He was alive, his body cool and ashen. Deep inside his being, he was a prisoner in his own mind. She reached out a spectral hand and caressed the side of her brother’s face.
He flinched at her touch and his body quivered and shook as if caught in the throes of a seizure. Sillendriel panicked, unsure how to help, her astral form capable of the barest of influence in the physical world. She placed her hand on his brow and tried to ease calm into his mind. After a few moments, his body ceased spasming and his breathing eased to normal.
Then his eyes opened, and they were not Barrendiel’s eyes. She knew those eyes, but she had never seen them filled with the hate that poured from them now. Then his lips curled into a sneer and a voice that was not Barrendiel’s came from him, scouring her being with its fiery malevolence.
“Hello, my love.”
A push of mental energy unlike anything she’d ever experienced punched, pushed and shoved her backwards propelling her astral form from the catacombs and into the Spire where it slammed into her physical body.
Her eyes snapped open, her mouth wide in a silent scream. Her heart thundered as her mind, heart, and soul struggled to understand what she had felt. Tears welled in her eyes as she tried to speak, but no sound came. Finally, after what felt like moments stretched to eons her voice returned and recognition pushed up through the terror.
“Myrthendir … No.”
Sillendriel lurched to the edge of her couch, head spinning and gut-churning as she fumbled for her bedpan. Bile and churning stomach acid forced their way from her, splattering the inside of the brass vessel. Tears welled down her cheek and her breath came in ragged, desperate gasps.
“Myrthendir,” she said, her voice cracking from the pain of understanding. It had been him, all of it. He murdered his own father. She stood and quickly pulled on a robe and traveling cape. She crept to the door and eased it open. A sleepy-eyed guard snapped to attention as she opened the door.
“Mistress Sillendriel,” he said in alarm. “Is everything all right?”
A guard had stood vigil at her door for days, assigned there by Lassendir as one of his last acts, a protective order, not just for Sillendriel, but for all the people of Sylvan Aenor. There had been times, after powerful visions, when Sillendriel was found wandering the halls of the Spire, her unconscious mind punching uncontrolled visions into the minds of others as they rested. She’d meant no harm, but uncontrolled and unmonitored, her ability could drive others to night terrors and madness.
She knew she had no way to explain what she now knew to be true. The guard would not believe her and he would summon the healers and they would dose her with Essence of Moonflower to cloud her mind and sedate her abilities. She could not afford that. She needed to save her brother. She needed to stop Myrthendir.
“I woke hungry and nobody responded to the kitchen bell,” she lied. “Can you fetch my handmaiden for me?” Conflict filled the guard’s face. To help ease his mind Sillendriel smiled. “I’ll just wait inside until she arrives.” Then she closed the door. She listened, waiting. A few heartbeats later she heard the guard’s steps recede down the hallway.
She eased the door open and rushed to the nearest portal circle and a moment later she stood in its twin just off the dais where the Twined Throne sat. Her eyes fell onto the Regent’s empty chair one level down from the vacant king’s seat and tears filled her eyes once more.
Lassendir murdered by his own son. Her love fallen into darkness. Her brother in mortal danger. She knew she had to act, knew that the very future of her people may rest on what she did tonight. She pushed her mind into the aether, seeking tendrils of possibility, but each one untwined into a formless mass of uncertainty.
I cannot see a path.
A smile curled her lips. Many, those without the sight and even some cursed by it, would have panicked at the uncertainty, but for Sillendriel it was freeing. For the first time in her life she could act without knowing what would happen. For the first time in her life she was like everyone else.
She crouched down in the shadows as the guard patrol walked past and then she rushed to the main gate and slipped through. She waited and ran and waited and ran, each time hiding just before a guard patrol came upon her. The tendrils of the future may be clouded, but the movements of people were much more predictable.
Soon she was in the catacombs beneath the city. She could sense her brother ahead and below, in a place infused with malice. She pushed down her fear. She was now the hunter.
◆◆◆
They knew she was approaching before they could see her. The master had freed them from themselves when he’d filled them with a small portion of his being. They were better than before and ignored the cries of anguish and fear that flowed like waves from the deep recesses of their minds.
Stop her, the master sent. Kill her.
She walked into the temple deep in the earth, her body illuminated like a dying star and the men launched themselves at her, heedless of their own safety. She did not move as they came at her with sword and dagger. They would serve the master and they rejoiced.
But then, their minds exploded as dozens of future possibilities filled them. They saw themselves triumphing, failing, living and dying and they could not understand what actions led to which outcome. Fractals of the now mixed with bits of the past and the snippets of the future and then each man understood the only way they could serve their master.
The man on the left struck first, sinking the blade of his dagger into the other man’s side. He pushed up and in, barely missing the heart, giving the other man the time to swing his sword and remove his fellow’s head. The headless man fell, his death grip tugging the dagger from the first man’s side. As the blade slid out, it parted the aorta and soon both men lay dead amidst expanding pools of blood.
◆◆◆
Sillendriel stepped over the widening pools of blood, making sure not to let the cloying liquid stain her delicate slippers and walked to the edge of the stone bier where her brother lay. She felt the heat that had set his skin ablaze and took his face in both hands.
He grimaced and squirmed under her touch, his eyes moving frantically back and forth underneath his closed lids. Steeling herself, she leapt into his mind. Myrthendir found her in seconds and pushed back with rage and power.
What are you doing, my love?
Leave him now!
You have no power here, just as you had
no power to save Lassendir, or my brother or your parents.
She knew he was tearing at her wounds, hoping to open them, to make her bleed, to weaken her, but she refused to be the victim any longer, refused to let this aberrant creature wearing the body of her love take anyone else she cared for. He sensed her strength and dug deep, twisting Barrendiel's mind.
Beneath her hands, her brother screamed, but it did not stop her. She pushed through Myrthendir’s rancid, grasping fingers, shielding her brother with her own self. The aberrant tried desperately to push her back, scouring deep furrows into her being, but she was the light and nothing could hide in the dark in her presence.
She broke open the locks that limited her power. Locks placed by Lassendir to ease her burden. Locks placed by her mother to protect the people around her.
Myrthendir’s darkness surrounded them and both sister and brother faded. Her mind was raw and open and she gathered all possibilities for all things into a single point. She pushed with all her will and the point exploded to a nova, burning Myrthendir from her brother’s mind.
28
The group looked down upon the face of their enemy. He was a handsome elf, with long dark hair and a scar on his left cheek that somehow made him look more handsome. It was a face that none of them recognized. Shock punched their sense of purpose full in the face. Until that moment, every one of them had known who’d they’d been fighting and why? Now, confusion tore at their sense of purpose.
“What?” Wick sputtered, incomprehension on his face. “Who the hell is this?”