Stardeep

by Bruce Cordell

  But this time, it was a clinch of desperation—Angul’s punishments had weakened it. Demoriel attempted to encompass Angul and Gage in a great hug, trapping the blade against its body and thus preventing Gage from swinging the enchanted sword. Gage danced away, ending the demon’s best chance to turn the battle’s tide. Demoriel’s wounds burned with fire, its eyes glazed with pain, and its mouth dripped, a bloody mass of shattered fangs. Yet it fought on. A bound thing, it was compelled to struggle until it triumphed or failed, or until the words that yanked it forth from outside the world lost their force …

  Angul staked the demon to the floor. The blade pulsed with purifying fire. Of Demoriel, only ash remained. The demon’s time in the world had proven brief.

  Gage released his grip. Strength rushed from him like water emptying from a holed aquifer.

  His remaining glove whimpered a childlike gurgle of loss and misery.

  CHAPTER SIX

  City of Laothkund, The Gutter

  G’way,” mumbled Kiril. Daylight pried at her eyelids. Worse, something small and four-footed pattered around on her back. What the Hells?

  Where in Mystra’s starry hair was … the smell of garbage and bile brought with it her memory. She lay in an alley alcove.

  A fuzzy image of her defeating a sweaty dwarf in an arm wrestling contest took shape in her mind’s eye. Had she quit the Smokehouse Inn after that? Maybe. If not then, then later. Somehow, lost in a whisky haze, she’d found her way to the alcove. Her muddy, sodden clothes hinted she’d been there a while. The greasy yellow clay on her shoes, legs, and arms matched the hue of the muck between the cobbles. That must have been earlier, when it was still warm enough for mud. The winter night, now giving way to day, had stolen the previous day’s heat. The mud was ridged with ice and a coating of snow hid treacherous ruts.

  She was frankly surprised she hadn’t frozen to death. And the creature sharing the alcove with her … a rat!?

  She gave an involuntary jerk, spooking the creature resting on her back. Its squeal sounded like a bag of dropped bells. It flew up across the alley and landed on a ledge. Despite being opalescent and faceted, it moved uncannily like a live thing. It reminded her of earth magic exploits performed by an old friend …

  “Xet!” she exclaimed. “I thought you’d left me for good!” She shook her head, jarring loose a headache waiting in ambush.

  Kiril brought a hand to her forehead and dislodged a heavy fur covering her body. She didn’t remember the fur when she’d passed out. Of course, her faculties had been much the worse for wear then.

  The crystal dragonet tolled a happy note and flew down to her.

  “Did … did you bring this fur?”

  A tiny, drakelike head on the end of a sinuous crystalline neck nodded.

  “You saved my life. Damn interfering beast!”

  It rang a resentful tone.

  She glared at it a moment or two, but the headache wasn’t so fierce it was able to conquer her desire to pierce last night’s gloom.

  If history was any guide, she’d done something humiliating, if not downright dangerous. She hoped she hadn’t hurt anybody. Killed anybody, she amended. She was sure she’d hurt someone. She couldn’t truthfully call it a bender if she didn’t get into a fight. Lately, her barroom brawls were much more entertaining. Because of Gage.

  Since she’d come to Laothkund, her new acquaintance Gage had proved the perfect partner on the tavern circuit. He was funny, could almost match her drink for drink, and fought like a wildcat. A sneaky wildcat. His forte was disabling assailants quickly.

  This was how it usually went down: Kiril’s foul mouth, purposeful baiting, and derision were enough to launch a stiff-necked merc or a righteous priest off a bar stool into Kiril’s business. She took the brunt, and Gage backed her up, if he was around. They would laugh about it later. A few bruises here and there, a few more for their foes—what was the harm in that? Though she one time saw Gage lighten the purse of a cleric who lay groaning beneath a mead-sopped bench. She wasn’t one for robbery, but to her mind stealing from priests was merely putting already stolen gold back into circulation.

  Her stomach intruded with a new question: When had she eaten last? An image of thick porridge crystallized in her bleary brain. Next to a rasher of bacon. And some thick ale, of course …

  She swayed to her feet, bracing herself on a wall. “Come if you’re coming, then, I don’t care,” she lied to Xet. Truth was, she was pleased to see the gemlike dragonet. Its absence had revealed her attachment to it. Who would have guessed? Its most accomplished trait was its ability to irritate her. But it reminded Kiril of the time immediately before she’d come to Laothkund. The only good memory of the last ten years …

  She knew an innkeeper who owed her a favor. She began trudging in the direction of the man’s establishment, unsteady at first, but gaining composure as she moved. Xet chimed, then flew over and lighted on her shoulder. Kiril resisted her initial urge to shrug the creature off.

  As she walked, her right hand fell of its own accord to her empty scabbard.

  Angul!

  Gone.

  Vertigo and defeat pushed a forlorn groan from her lips.

  She remembered, again. He’d been gone for days.

  She knew it already, of course. But the mind’s knowing and the body’s are not the same. If she ignored his absence long enough, perhaps the next time she checked, he’d magically be back, as if never gone.

  “Yeah, right, you canker-ridden half-wit,” she chided herself. Thank Shar’s dead promises she still had her flask of all-forgiving whisky if nothing else.

  The flask was forged of bronze, probably made by wood elves. Verdigris obfuscated the deranged face chiseled into the flask’s side—some ancient god of the vine. She didn’t care who it was. She cared only that in all the years she’d owned it, it had never failed to produce its potent drink. Once a bottomless flask to assuage her infinite shame, it was now a reservoir to fill the hole of Angul’s absence.

  After some food, she’d pull out the flask and continue the cycle, until death claimed her.

  A crowd milled in front of the entrance of the Green Warrior Inn and Tavern. Her thirst had grown desperate as she’d walked, and she scowled when she considered there might be some kind of delay in quenching it.

  A crash, and an unkempt but hearty dwarf came hurtling through the front door. He screamed some consonant-laden phrase as he regained his feet and charged back into the inn.

  More yells, the sound of breaking crockery and splintering wood; she recognized the telltale signs. This early? The crowd must have carried over from a particularly hard-drinking night, but …

  She sidled up to a swaying man at the edge of the gathering who stank of fish and grease. She doubted she smelled any better considering how she had spent the night. “Who’s fighting?”

  The man, his skin a pallid yellow, slurred, “Crazy man come in this mornin’ afore dawn. Talkin’ to his blade the whole time. Arguing, like. Then he went after a couple women of the evening, like he wus’ gon’ cut them …”

  A crash blotted out part of the man’s stumbling story.

  “… so everyone tried stop ’im. He’s in there, waving that blue sword around—”

  “Angul?” she exclaimed. Kiril shoved the drunk aside. He fell, complaining loudly. She paid no mind as she pierced the mob and charged through the tavern’s gaping entrance. Xet clamped painfully down on her shoulder, holding on through the bustle.

  She saw Gage. And there … was Angul! Gage held the flaming sword in a scalded hand. The man whirled around like a marionette whose strings were snagged, brandishing the burning blade with jerky motions. The mob from outside spilled into the tavern, but only the most hardened and most drunk encircled Gage.

  How had Gage managed to pick up her sword—why hadn’t Angul fried him? By the look of Gage’s naked hand, the blade had at least tried. And what lunacy was Gage up to now?

  A bald man with a menacing tatt
oo branded on his scalp yelled, “We’re tired of your performance, freak! Get out of here!” He hurled a wooden tankard. The sword twitched, but decided against deflecting the attack. The tankard struck Gage on his right shoulder. He grunted and yelled, obviously at the sword, “Defend me, or our deal is through!”

  A moment later, he screeched as a flaming blue ember dripped from the blade, licking Gage’s hand clutched on the hilt. But he didn’t give up his grip. He probably couldn’t. Kiril recognized Angul’s methods—punishment was its first recourse against a balky wielder. Which had never before been anyone but her, from the moment Angul was first forged.

  Kiril broke through the ring of people, said, “Gage!”

  Her old acquaintance whirled. “Kiril! Thank the Queen of Air! Make it let go!”

  “Make ‘him,’ ” she corrected. She hated the blade, hated him … but hate couldn’t blunt her dependence.

  Kiril held out a hand. Gage presented the sword, hilt forward, trepidation on his face. Relief washed all else away when Gage easily relinquished his grip to her.

  When her hands touched the hilt’s leather wrappings, she began to cry and curse. “I missed you,” she whispered. Angul’s angry flames flickered out, and a sense of utter well-being descended over the elf swordswoman. She didn’t fight it.

  Gage stood rubbing his hands together, one gloved, the other bare, looking at woman and sword reunited. His brow creased with the weight of his conundrum.

  In a private room at a different inn across town, Kiril and Gage shared a plate of olives and cheese. Xet perched near the door, annoying wait staff and customers in the outer chamber with its incessant tinkling. Or so Kiril assumed, though no one complained.

  “And here’s the strange thing,” said Gage, continuing the story of finding her stolen blade and stealing it back.

  “Yeah?”

  “Sathra didn’t crave the blade herself. She was in the employ of someone else who wanted it. Someone named ‘Nangulis.’ ”

  In mid-swallow, Kiril choked.

  Shaking off her coughing fit, she demanded, “Who?” Her tone was incredulous and hoarse. “Did you say …?”

  “Nangulis. Do you know him?” Gage watched her coolly, appraising her response. Kiril was too astounded to notice.

  “Yes. I do. I did—he’s dead. It can’t be Nangulis.”

  Now Gage was surprised. He shook his head and replied, “I’m … Sathra was certain it was someone named Nangulis. Could you be wrong?”

  Shaking with barely restrained emotion, Kiril replied, “Impossible.” She unstrapped her scabbard and put Angul, still in his sheath, on the table between them.

  “I know it couldn’t be who you name because all that remains of Nangulis is Angul.”

  Gage stared at her, uncomprehending. “I don’t understand.”

  Kiril barely heard him—she replied, faintly, “Half of him, anyway. Half his soul, forged into this unbending, bastard blade.”

  Gage’s eyes grew wide. “His soul?”

  Kiril nodded. “It’s what gives the blade such power—he is a living soul, trapped in steel forever.”

  “So, you knew Nangulis, before …”

  “Nangulis and I were close. We would have been joined in marriage had our duty allowed. Those dreams are long dead. All I have left of him is Angul.” She put her hand on the sheath, her eyes tight and shining with moisture.

  “Which is why I can never give up this damned blade. He’s not Nangulis, but he’s the closest thing I’ll ever find of my love. You’ve returned something I would have died without.”

  The thief looked startled, and somehow guilty. He began to speak, paused, began again. “Well, thank the Queen of Air I was able to bring back your most cherished possession.”

  Kiril nodded, but grimaced.

  “You don’t really seem that happy about it. Is it—”

  “The story is not so tidy, sadly,” interrupted Kiril. “I treasure Angul, but at the same time, the sword is killing my conscience; killed it, actually, soon after I came to wield him.”

  Gage started to speak, but stopped again, his head cocked. He fumbled out a few words then started over. “You’re going to have to explain. I haven’t the faintest conception what you’re talking about.”

  Kiril sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Gage …”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You deserve to hear about him, if you care to. I’ll tell you how I came to wield Angul, what I once was … and the sins I’ve committed in the name of an unbending ideal.” The moisture in her eyes broke into twin tracks down her cheeks.

  “I’d like to hear about it,” Gage responded, his voice soft. He moved his gloved hand from the table, out of view.

  “Before Angul, before I wandered, fought, and drank so much, I was a different person. I was a dutiful servant of an ancient order—the Cerulean Sign. Heard of it?”

  Gage shook his head.

  “Would have surprised me if you had.” Kiril scrubbed away the wetness on her cheeks. “The Cerulean Sign is a rune of power created when things were not as they are today. Before men, or even elves walked the world, when the continents were divided differently than now, entities strange and powerful fought. When the future was a toss-up between sanity and abomination.”

  “Sounds bad.”

  “You can’t imagine. But the Cerulean Sign was forged to oppose creatures that oozed down from mad realms to colonize Abeir-Toril. To a large extent, those long-vanished defenders of the virgin world succeeded. Abominations, both godlike and inconsequential, were pushed back. Abeir was forgotten. Mortal races eventually inherited the earth.”

  “Like you and me?”

  “Right,” agreed Kiril. Her voice regained a little of its strength as she spoke.

  “Who were these defenders?” wondered the thief.

  “Unknown. Too much time since then. They were damn tough, though. Gods, probably, or whatever passed for gods before people were around to call them divine.”

  Gage let out his breath, shaking his head ever so slightly, as if in disbelief. Kiril’s eyes narrowed.

  “You want to hear this or not?” She tensed as if to stand.

  “No, please—I apologize,” said the thief, leaning forward, suddenly conciliatory. “I didn’t realize your story was going to have such … cosmic … size to it.”

  Kiril said, “I need to say this. Believe it or don’t.”

  “I do believe it, and I want you to go on—I saved your sword, didn’t I? I have a big interest in this.”

  The elf nodded. She leaned back in her seat and continued. “So, these vanished defenders and their Sign, while mostly effective, weren’t completely successful. Monstrosities slipped into the world, some openly, others less so. Most are hidden away, yet remain terrors to those who find them in the dark below the surface. You’ve heard of aboleths?”

  “Aboleths are the abominations?”

  “Yes—well, related to the originals. Far worse tried to openly colonize reality. They failed, yet they retain a foothold even after all these eons. There’s always a chance they’ll rise as one from their ancient strongholds. But that prospect is not unopposed. Once, I guarded against the possibility.”

  “You did?”

  “Blood, yes! Don’t sound so surprised. I told you I was not always as I seem now. Once I had a civil tongue.” Kiril laughed.

  “I was a Keeper of the Cerulean Sign—one of a small group of guardians loyal to the ancient knowledge. We nurtured comprehension of the Sign, so that primeval aberrations are opposed whenever they stir.”

  “And do they? Stir, I mean?”

  “They do. Mostly by proxy—they send nightmares that insinuate dreams, hollow hearts, and madden minds. Sometimes, their influence finds particularly susceptible, but powerful mortals. If the seduction goes to completion, a priest of the old ones is born, a priest whose single self-proclaimed duty is to call the oldest abominations forth into the light of day. A priest pledged to call forth apocalyp
se. A twisted bastard who wants nothing more than to stand laughing amidst the ashes of reality.”

  “Akadi’s tricky fingers!” exclaimed Gage.

  Kiril nodded, agreeing with the man’s sentiment. She cleared her throat. “In a hidden realm where elves dwell, within the Yuirwood, a man succumbed to this very seduction. He was branded the Traitor, and he was locked away in a dungeon forever. The name of that dungeon is Stardeep—”

  Kiril paused, noting Gage’s sharp intake of breath. “What is it?”

  “I’ll tell you when you’ve finished. Don’t interrupt your story—the name sounded familiar, is all.”

  “All right … so anyhow, up until ten years ago, I was a warden there—in Stardeep. So was Nangulis. We served together for five years in that role, but knew each other even before that.”

  Gage cupped his chin in his hands, resting his elbows on the table. He asked, “What happened—did the Traitor get out? Is that why you’re … so sad and disillusioned?”

  “Yes, he escaped. When he got out, he assumed a mantle of abominable power, becoming seemingly invincible. Things seemed bleak but Cynosure told us of one last fail-safe …”

  “Cynosure?”

  She frowned at the interruption and said, “Cynosure is a sentient idol whose mind lives throughout Stardeep. The idol commands embedded sorceries throughout the dungeon. For instance, he can teleport willing Keepers from place to place.”

  “Really? That’s incredible … uh, sorry, never mind. You found a fail-safe, you said?”

  “Nangulis and I, along with the mind of the fortress, called upon ancient Cerulean lore to fashion a weapon potent against all evil, a weapon whose righteousness would be especially effective against aberrations, as well as the Traitor who wielded their abilities.”

  Kiril ran her hand down Angul’s sheath. “But the creation of such an effective weapon was not possible without sacrifice. To create the weapon, we required the willing contribution of a living, purified soul. All the goodly, just, righteous aspects of a soul, which would be transformed and manifested as a physical object. Over this, Nangulis and I fought, but time was short, our plight desperate. I know not how he convinced me; it would happen differently now if I had it to do over. But in the end, the Blade Cerulean was forged, and Nangulis, what remained of him, emerged from the process as unyielding steel.”