Stardeep

by Bruce Cordell

  The idol, attached horizontally to the ceiling, took on the hue of Delphe’s amulet. The idol’s eyes snapped open, revealing a vista of shining sapphire. As if windows to a world apart where storms raged, a blast of howling wind poured forth.

  A spindle of madly spinning air extended, its tip reaching down the shaft, growling with pure, elemental fury. A heartbeat later, the lengthening funnel stabbed the creature, even as Delphe’s spellscythe cut at it with waning strength. Cynosure’s vortex caught the aberration, snapping its tendrils away from the walls. It screamed, a booming moan that caused ice to crystallize from the air throughout the Inner Bastion. Then it plummeted, spinning and flailing, back through the boundary layer.

  The ensuing splash of boundary fire rose high in the shaft, burning so fiercely Delphe’s eyelashes were singed. She didn’t care. She continued to gaze down the Well, anxiety clutching at her lungs. When the disturbance subsided, she saw that the boundary layer was still intact. Thank the Cerulean Sign.

  The abjurer studied the Well’s lowest reaches a while longer, suspiciously eyeing each new swirl and pattern.

  “Delphe!” said Cynosure again. “We are under attack!”

  The abjurer balled her fists, considering whether to utter the words that would shut down the sentient artifact immediately, or to query it first. While its aid had been ultimately necessary to defeat that which had leaped from containment, its inability to stay connected with real time events had become a liability she could no longer overlook.

  But years of history required she give the construct fair warning.

  “Cynosure,” she began, “the attack is quelled. Recall to mind the previous instance? You and I thwarted the Traitor’s—”

  “Yes, yes. Do you think my mind broken?” interrupted Cynosure. “I meant what I said—at this very moment, the Empyrean Knights have ridden forth to repel an invasion occurring at the end of the open Causeway!”

  Surprise made Delphe catch her breath. “Show me!” she commanded.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Stardeep, The Causeway

  Telarian watched the fight unfold at the Causeway’s end.

  He stood just within Stardeep’s open Causeway Gate. Nearby loitered Commander Brathtar, also watching, though the Commander frowned and scowled by turns. A small cavalry unit of mounted Empyrean Knights waited in the gate tunnel, ready to ride out and again defend Stardeep from what they believed to be another foray of violent wood elf invaders.

  Anxiety tightened Telarian’s throat. Something was wrong. No, that word wasn’t weighted with enough soul-churning dread; something was terribly, horrendously off beam. He’d foreseen the addled, alcoholic Keeper would give up her sword to avoid a fight. Yes, he’d prophesied a struggle to convince her what must be done, but in her need to see Nangulis reborn, she gave up her one remaining connection to Stardeep: Angul. He’d seen the future!

  But reality unreeled right in front of him far differently. Knights lay dead, and a former Keeper was imperiled by orders he’d given those same Knights. How had it come to this? How could his divination be so much in error?

  Just yesterday, a wood, wild, and half-elf force of considerable size approached Chabala Mere and attempted to lay siege. Three Knights had perished in that attack, plus a host of wood elves that hadn’t understood what they assailed. A few of their bodies lay in scattered graves, while the bulk of that defeated force lay at the bottom, if it had a bottom, of Chabala Mere.

  He hadn’t foreseen that, either.

  Events were tumbling out of control, and worse, beyond his sphere of foreknowledge.

  The thought assailed him, not for the first time: if his ability to see the future was careening wildly away from reality, should he not entertain the possibility his most terrifying vision of the far future, the rise of the city Xxiphu, might also—

  Divination is muddied if one relies on those hiding betrayer’s thoughts, intruded the simple, irrefutable voice of Nis.

  Betrayers? Which were they? The two survivors of the devastated wood elf force who’d reappeared to save the day? A crazed half-elf monk and a wounded human sorcerer. They should be dead, like the other elf attackers—hadn’t he instructed Brathtar to sweep the area beyond the Causeway and eliminate all signs of conflict? Yes. Brathtar …

  Perhaps the Commander was the betrayer Nis described. The appearance of these last two, unlooked for, was just one more failure the Commander had laid at Telarian’s feet. Now that he thought on it, it was Brathtar’s failure to completely purge the tribe of wood elves that had summoned the mixed-blood elves of the Yuirwood to Stardeep’s very porch.

  Was it possible loyal Brathtar worked against him? The fight beyond the Causeway was undeniable proof of something, after all. Perhaps Brathtar truly was to blame. Because of the Commander’s list of failures, Kiril’s return hadn’t followed the script his vision had foretold. She’d fought instead of sued for peace against those who once served under her, the Empyrean Knights.

  He tightened his grip on his belt, a mere inch from Nis’s beckoning pommel. Strange. He’d failed to don his protective gloves today. Such lapses were not like him. The first chance he got, he’d retrieve them.

  Despite everything, his new turn of thoughts brought clarity. He was emboldened, heartened even, now that he had pieced together Brathtar’s lies, failures, and misrepresentations. He’d found the flaw at the center of all his plans: Brathtar.

  If only the Keeper, returning to the fold after these long years of her absence, would surrender and enter Stardeep peaceably …

  As he watched Kiril fight, bloodied but unbowed, a fury growing in her eyes—if not her weapon—he recognized the possibility of parley with the swordswoman was past. If she survived the initial foray, she’d never give up Angul to him.

  She must, Nis insisted. Telarian nodded, knowing his dark blade spoke truth.

  He raised his right hand and waved the cavalry unit forward, down the Causeway. “Attack!”

  The Knights failed to advance.

  He looked behind him, “I ordered an attack!”

  “Keeper Telarian,” said Brathtar, “I recognize that woman, and believe she is who she claims: Kiril Duskmourn, once a Keeper here, a Keeper of the Outer Bastion. She held the same position you now hold. She successfully defeated the Traitor’s attempt to escape. Surely you don’t mean for us to slay her?”

  “What I mean …” said Telarian, then he paused. He paused because his ungloved hand had just unconsciously slipped along his belt loop and onto Nis’s protruding hilt.

  It occurred to him in that instant that convincing Brathtar to return to obedience was not something he had the time or patience to accomplish. Nor could he trust Brathtar not to return to his questioning ways with the very next order Telarian issued. Questioning the Keeper in front of the Knights he commanded—Brathtar knew such a breach of protocol could only seed discipline problems. Thus, he obviously questioned Telarian for just that purpose. A demonstration was required.

  Telarian swiveled his head to regard the Commander. With an air that seemed like lazy curiosity to the onlooking Knights, he pulled Nis from his sheath and plunged it into Brathtar’s stomach, burying the blade to the hilt.

  “Keeper! What …” were Brathtar’s last words. The slumping body of the Commander of the Empyrean Knights slid off Nis’s bleak, life-ending edge and clattered to the stone.

  Telarian turned to face the mounted Knights who yet queued up behind the gate, Nis free of its scabbard and idly clutched in his left hand. The blade seemed to pull the very light from the air, creating a zone of shadowless gloom, dim at the edges, but blackening to utter night around the sword blade.

  “Congratulations, Dharvanum,” said Telarian, addressing the closest Knight, who stared back at him with eyes wide. “I confer upon you the title and rank of Commander. Now—ride out and bring back that ex-Keeper’s sword, or I’ll gut you, too.”

  Telarian was surprised how the sight of Brathtar lying in his own ent
rails failed to faze him. He gave the body a tentative nudge with his toe. Yes, stone dead. With Nis in hand, cool logic bracketed him and defined him. Emotion served only to conceal the shortest paths to achieving desired ends. Brathtar had proved himself too much an obstacle. With the Commander now punished so utterly for discipline’s lapse, the remaining Knights would fall in line. They were pledged to obey the Keeper first, and their Commander second.

  The Knight named Dharvanum lowered the face-plate on his helm and drew his sword. He spurred his mount toward the Gate.

  They have turned against you, warned Nis, an instant before Dharvanum turned back his mount, swinging his sword in a vicious arc at Telarian’s neck.

  The Keeper calmly parried with his drawn weapon. Where Nis met the lesser steel of the Knight’s blade, black phantoms momentarily capered.

  Dharvanum screamed at the remaining mounted Knights. “The Keeper’s reason has deserted him. For Stardeep, cut him down. For Brathtar!”

  Telarian backpedaled, holding Nis in guard before him. He ducked into the open door at his back, the Causeway Gate’s guardroom. He slammed the metal door and threw the bolt before any Knight could dismount and follow him through the entrance.

  The woman on duty, a Knight-in-training named Deobra, said, “Keeper? I heard a yell and the sound of sword on sword. Have the attackers—”

  Deobra died before she realized danger threatened.

  The seven Knights out there must also be eliminated, lest they carry their poisonous thoughts to all the legion, counseled Nis, still clutched in Telarian’s white-knuckled hand.

  The diviner nodded. The soulbound blade saw the truth. A wastrel thought squirmed around the back of his mind—he’d killed Brathtar and the apprentice Knight, and now he was actually considering killing all these men, too?

  Yes, answered Nis.

  Reason required all who’d witnessed Brathtar’s end and who turned against him be eliminated in turn. When the Traitor’s ultimate scheme was finally countered by Telarian, all those who died along the way would be remembered. And perhaps Telarian would be brought to just account for his actions. Tomorrow’s children would judge such things. For now …

  The Keeper stepped over Deobra’s body and grasped in his left hand a great lever protruding from the guardroom floor; in his right hand, he retained his grasp on Nis. Telarian knew the five-foot-long iron lever was connected to a great mechanism of wheels, pulleys, counterweights, and braces.

  He pulled. The lever shifted, then caught, its mechanisms rusty from decades of disuse. Cool energy trickled from Nis’s hilt into his blood, heart, and thews. Telarian pulled. The lever shot home.

  A clang thudded up from the floor, followed by a louder one from outside. A moment later, the sounds of screaming men and horses burst into the chamber, but faded quickly before ceasing altogether, as if plucked up and away by some passing giant.

  Or, as if they’d fallen into the gaping cavity beneath the suddenly withdrawn floor in the tunnel between the outer Causeway Gate and the Inner Bastion Gate. The lever and the deep pit were a last-gasp defensive measure designed to drop an invading force into the underdungeon. In that subterranean tunnel-strewn region beneath Stardeep, lesser felons lived out squalid lives in windowless dungeon cells, and older tunnels squirmed away into darkness.

  Telarian knew that neither the Knights nor their horses could hope to survive such a drop.

  He let go of the lever and grabbed Deobra’s hair. He pulled the body to the trap door and tossed it, too, into the lightless pit beyond. The form dropped limply away, a rag doll into the refuse heap.

  Best to dispose of all evidence of the slaughter.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Stardeep, Throat

  Delphe saw the Knights fighting invaders on the Causeway’s edge, if fight was the right word; mostly, the doughty Knights fell beneath swords, fists, and the flashing magic of the mysterious attackers. The clarity of Cynosure’s scrying was erratic, but she clearly identified at least three foes: a sword wielder, a martial artist, and a spellcaster. She also spied the shadow of a humanoid lurking about the periphery, throwing knives. The Knights seemed outmatched—where was the full company? And why did they fight with the Causeway wide open at their backs? Was Telarian even now readying to send forth another unit or two? Perhaps, but if the Knights she saw now fell in the next few moments, the invaders would penetrate Stardeep’s open front gate.

  She gasped, understanding the invaders must have timed their attack to coincide with the Traitor’s escape attempt she’d just quelled.

  “Cynosure, close the Causeway Gate!”

  “Yes, Delphe,” responded the construct, in a voice as steady and calm as if she’d asked Cynosure to confirm the dining menu for tomorrow.

  Mist swirled up from Chabala Mere, pulling the landbridge into a nether realm of nonexistence. The scrying relayed by Cynosure onto a mirrored wall panel of the Throat jittered, scrambled, and vanished.

  “Causeway Gate is closed, Delphe.”

  The Keeper drew in a long breath, then darted an anxious glance into the Well, at the boundary layer. She no longer trusted its integrity. A terrifying thought.

  The construct noted her glance and said, “Delphe, please allow me to apologize for my earlier lapse. Because of the attack on Stardeep’s gate, I committed the bulk of my attention there. I recognize that this behavior violates protocol, and I am frankly at a loss to explain myself.”

  “Do you … do you suspect a breakdown of some sort?” Delphe swallowed, knowing the answer to the question was a definitive “yes,” whether or not the sentient idol would admit it.

  Cynosure responded, “Delphe, I am forced to confess—something is indeed interfering with my decision-making. I am unable to determine what. I recommend you take me out of the command and control loop. Doing so will eradicate the possibility that my next lapse will imperil the Well. I can use the time to trace the source of the difficulty, and if possible, remedy it.”

  The construct wasn’t wrong, though she could hardly believe she would follow its recommendation …

  Delphe’s voice quavered as she responded, “I agree. I hereby command you to extricate yourself from Stardeep. Disengage all higher order functions, both in the Inner Bastion and the Outer. Please leave those functions available for Telarian and I to use manually.”

  “Yes, Delphe. I am retreating into my original form. I wonder what it will feel like to be singular again …”

  Silence stretched. The Keeper looked up at the sculpted stone on the ceiling, knowing it was empty. Cynosure was disengaged. Had that ever happened before in Stardeep’s history? Not that she could recall.

  She poured her attention into the Well and anxiously studied the patterns of sigil and flame. Had the Traitor exhausted himself? A dimensional veil separated Stardeep from the invaders Cynosure had shown her. She was not planning on permitting the Causeway to be opened again anytime soon.

  The most pressing question was whether the idol’s leave of absence in monitoring the Well was more risky than allowing it to remain active. Cynosure had eventually perceived the escape attempt, and provided the impetus necessary to reenergize the boundary horizon. But if the construct were functioning properly, would the Traitor have been able to launch his probe in the first place? It chilled her to think the latter might be a possibility. The heart of Stardeep’s defenses may have become corrupted.

  Where was Telarian? Cynosure couldn’t help—perhaps could only hinder her. She and the other Keeper had to confer immediately.

  She mentally extended her senses, searching for the magical ley lines that threaded Stardeep. When asked, Cynosure quickly and easily manipulated those functions on her behalf. In some ways, those functions were one and the same as Cynosure … better not to worry about that right now.

  Delphe closed her eyes and began to search the stronghold.

  Telarian grabbed the sweat-slicked guardroom lever and pulled. The mechanism yielded slowly, with a drawn-out scre
ech resembling a banshee’s scream. The gate tunnel’s iron-reinforced floor ratcheted into place, sealing the Knights—their corpses, at least—in their final resting places.

  The Keeper rushed into the tunnel to gaze across the Causeway. He estimated the Knights who remained outside were unlikely to succeed. It was time for him to directly intervene. His grip tightened on Nis’s pommel. He stepped …

  The landbridge faded into pale mists.

  Several blinking Knights appeared in the gateway tunnel, turned around and nauseated from their sudden recall.

  What—

  The Causeway had closed!

  “Cynosure! Open the Causeway! Immediately!”

  No answer. He sheathed Nis to wipe his brow. The instant he lost contact with the hilt of his darkling sword, Telarian’s composure collapsed.

  With a voice now breaking with sudden fear, he called again, “Cynosure? Answer me! Cynosure, open the Gate!”

  Telarian looked left, right, up, down as his mind whirled with confusion. His eyes finally settled on the two niches in the gate tunnel, one on either side. Each was filled with a hulking stone shape. Either or both could serve as a temporary nexus for Stardeep’s construct sentience, even physically animating to defend the entrance. At the very least, speaking if spoken to.

  The diviner ran to stand between the two shapes. Both stared vacantly down at him. Cynosure was resident in neither.

  A crackle of light and the sudden scent of ozone pulled his gaze around. Striding from a rough discontinuity was Delphe.

  “Telarian!” she yelled, her eyes wild, her face flushed as she approached him. Did she know what had just occurred? Were all his secrets laid bare to his fellow Keeper? A guilty conscience grabbed him roughly, draining blood from his face and putting a shake in his hands. To salvage his scheme, and thereby save future generations unborn, must he now cut down Delphe, too, in cold blood?