Key of Stars

by Bruce R Cordell

  The enemy monk’s charge petered out before he reached the spot where Japheth had stood moments earlier. The man scanned the periphery of the dust again, as he’d done earlier to spy the warlock with his catlike gaze. For the moment, the man didn’t think to look up.

  Japheth was grateful to evade him. He must be Malyanna’s defender. It gave Japheth a chance to see what was happening. But he couldn’t stay on Caiphon’s stairs too long. Already something shuddered on the pseudo-horizon of the illusory world. It was—

  He wrenched his eyes back to the enemy monk. The man was circling outward, but still seemed unaware of Japheth hovering overhead. The warlock glided forward through the air, toward the tree … which was now a stump! The “fingers” had all broken away. He was high enough to see what occurred on its surface.

  Japheth saw the eladrin noble was there. A litter of stones and dust spilled away down the opposite side of the hill, away from the devastated ruins of the tree. Malyanna crouched at the stump’s center, before the sculpture of a nightmare—half man, half aboleth, or something worse. It was chipped and broken, and scorched nearly black under the beam of coruscating light that speared it.

  “I … am dead. I am not here,” said the thing. It sounded like dried leaves blowing and scraping across bone.

  “Very perceptive, Carnis,” replied Malyanna. “You’re only a shell of what Carnis once was. And animated at some cost, to be blunt, and only for a brief few heartbeats. I don’t have time to explain, husk of my old mentor. Where is the Key of Stars? By the power of the Far Manifold, you must tell me!”

  Japheth drifted closer.

  The half-petrified thing’s head moved to meet the warlock’s gaze.

  Its eyes were stone cinders. In them the warlock saw the death of worlds unending. Japheth stumbled and nearly fell out of the sky.

  The thing’s regard ground back to Malyanna. “One of the Seven Keys, one of the few to survive, is clutched in my hand, as it has been through all the long centuries of my captivity …,” it said.

  The illusory wind generated by Japheth’s spell shrieked with renewed vigor. He strained to hear more … but couldn’t make out any more words. But he’d heard enough. The thing had a Key of Stars, one of seven?

  He saw the eladrin raise a hand and execute a simple gesture.

  Suddenly the black mastiff was at her side! Its ability to step through shadow exceeded even the powers of his stolen cloak. Speaking of which … Was the Lord of Bats lurking nearby, ready to grab him? Neifion probably wouldn’t stray too far from his ally. But the longer the Lord of Bats stayed out of sight, the better.

  A black orb rose over the horizon—No, it was the false horizon of his spell. The orb wasn’t real either, but … He screamed upon seeing its indescribable face. Pain lanced his temples, and he tumbled downward as he frantically dismissed the “invisibility.”

  Japheth fell out of the air in a graceless heap. Somehow, he managed to land without breaking his leg.

  The warlock resisted an urge to retch. At least he was fully back in reality, thank the Nine. He looked up; the enemy monk stood over him. The man regarded Japheth’s splayed form, surprised at the warlock’s sudden awkward reappearance.

  “Hail,” Japheth said, as he silently urged his cloak to translate him backward as far as it was capable.

  Apparently his cloak was just as dazed as he was, as it failed to do more than flutter.

  “We’re leaving,” the man said. “Malyanna has described you to me, Japheth. Do not pursue us, or you will be consumed.”

  Japheth waited for an attack. When none came, he carefully stood. The man just watched him, his face impassive.

  “Are you a stooge of Malyanna’s?” Japheth asked. “Why are you talking to me?”

  “My name is Taal,” the monk replied. “I am oath-bound to serve the will of the Lady of Winter’s Peace that stands at Forever’s Edge.”

  Japheth blinked. “Forever’s Edge?” he repeated.

  “The fey echo of the world has a periphery,” Taal said. “Beyond that rim, the void is a window into the world that must be ceaselessly guarded. Malyanna was one of those guardians, before she was corrupted by what watched beyond.”

  The names and concepts ran through Japheth’s head, but he’d never heard of them before. “You speak in riddles,” the warlock said.

  “I speak the truth.”

  Japheth stared closely at his face, trying to read the man’s intentions. Why was the enemy monk volunteering information when he should be trying to kill Malyanna’s foes? The man’s expression remained studiously blank.

  Taal glanced away from Japheth. “Your friend approaches,” he said. “Besides, I expect Malyanna has finished preparing the Traitor for transport. It has the Key she seeks. If I see you again, I will slay you. Though Neifion will likely claim your death as his prerogative; he hunts you still. Failing either of those fates, when Malyanna unlocks the Far Manifold, you will certainly die, as will most creatures of this world.”

  The man turned and sprinted to the base of the stump and then up it as if it were level ground. Japheth couldn’t see the broken top of the tree any more, as he no longer “stood” on Caiphon’s stairs.

  The warlock was confused. Not only had Taal warned that the Lord of Bats yet hunted Japheth, the man had named where the eladrin was based, and told that she had her Key of Stars. Was the man an incompetent? Or—

  Raidon flashed past Japheth without a word, following Taal’s earlier path to the stump.

  Japheth tried to shake off the lingering stupor of his last spell and called on his cloak.

  Unlike before, it functioned properly and pulled him through darkness. Japheth stepped forward onto the top of the stump, only a dozen paces from the eladrin.

  The tentacled corpse had lapsed back into solid immobility and Malyanna had arranged the grotesque sculpture on a conjured sledge of silvery light. She was pulling the conveyance effortlessly, following her dark hound down a lane of shadow. Taal brought up the rear.

  Japheth lifted his rod and loosed a blast of eldritch fire. He aimed at the sledge, but the enemy monk interceded. Taal flinched at the impact, but failed to fall.

  Malyanna glanced around and sneered at Japheth. She made a clawing gesture in the air. He heard a sound like parchment tearing, but couldn’t discern where it came from.

  Raidon crested the side of the stump and launched himself across the uneven petrified wood. He drew Angul as he charged forward. The blade screamed in triumph as the air kindled cerulean fire on its greedy edge.

  Darkness closed in behind Malyanna.

  “Face me!” yelled the half-elf.

  Japheth reached for the knowledge bequeathed by his pact. Maybe if he could disperse the shadows used by the hound quickly enough …

  He channeled the fire of Ulban. A blaze of blue-white fire streamed from his fingers and rent the shade that sought to steal away his foes. The light hurt his eyes, making him squint. It burrowed in after Malyanna, Taal, and her silvery sledge, but darkness won. The light went out.

  They were gone.

  The sound of tearing parchment grew louder. The empty space in front of Raidon rippled like distortions at the bottom of a water glass. A hulking red something emerged from the wavering light and threw itself into the monk’s path.

  Raidon dived beneath the creature’s arms and rolled, holding Angul to one side to avoid snagging the blade on the irregular ground.

  The thing moved as fast as the half-elf, stamping down. It trapped the monk beneath a giant hooflike foot. Japheth heard bones crunch.

  Raidon swept Angul around and up. The blade sheared through the creature’s calf, severing half the hoof. The thing screamed, but in redoubled fury, not pain.

  Japheth realized the vaguely manlike horror was red because it was skinless. Its muscles, raw and oozing ruby-bright blood, slid over each other like a disturbed nest of snakes. A prickle on Japheth’s skin told him what he could have guessed: the foul thing was a spawn of
Malyanna’s twisted star pact.

  The warlock raised his rod. A snaking strand of golden light lanced the creature’s oozing chest.

  Its eyes darted to meet Japheth’s. It stumbled, its rage suddenly turned to confusion. It took a step backward, removing its weight from the half-elf. Taking instant advantage of the creature’s distraction, Raidon spun up off the ground as if caught by a whirlwind. Angul, still held straight out from the monk’s body, cleaved the creature’s skull in two.

  Japheth turned to regard the dimness where the eladrin had escaped, but no—the shadow lane was rolled up and gone. Japheth, Raidon, and a slowly liquefying skinless corpse were all that remained beneath a starless sky.

  Raidon held Angul at full extension, its blade pointed to the empty heavens. A wave of healing energy surged from the sword’s hilt, straightening the bones of his leg and knitting his skin where the aberrant skinless creature had stomped on him. The feeling, like hot wires being pulled through his flesh, was worse than the original injury. He ignored the pain, just as he ignored the blade’s insistence he stick it point first into the nearby warlock.

  This one’s soul, imparted Angul, is entangled with the same putrid filth as the creature who lies melting at your feet. Why not—

  The half-elf plunged Angul into its sheath instead.

  Lightness went out of him, and clarity of purpose. He wanted to sag, but his trained muscle memory kept him upright.

  Then again … He was surprised the cavity in his well-being wasn’t as wide as he’d expected. His mind didn’t instantly slide back into the sucking pit of despair where he’d spent most of his time lately. Sure, he could feel the black mood waiting to claim him, but … He breathed deeply of the cool air.

  Despite everything, something of the atmosphere of the dying demiplane was a balm to his ragged spirit.

  Raidon touched the design on his chest, the stylized tree, and wondered if the stump upon which he stood was related.

  Of course, it must be. If so, it was dead, like the citadel of Stardeep crushed beneath the weighty hill and shifting realities.

  Shouldn’t that be a cause for despair?

  Maybe. But it was also a clear demarcation of an ending. And there was peace to be had in endings.

  The spellscar held the essence of a Cerulean Seal, a gift from his vanished mother. A gift that had brought him here long before in search of her. Though he’d never found her, he’d discovered something of her history. And her name: Erunyauvë.

  And he was back, for the very last time, he knew. When Raidon had witnessed the great tree break apart on their arrival, something in him recognized a sort of cosmic symbolism. In endings, new beginnings were born.

  “Raidon?” said the warlock.

  Japheth stood near the center of the stump. The man’s expression was tight. The warlock apparently felt more put out by events than Raidon did.

  “Yes?” the monk replied.

  “They got the Key of Stars. Did you see?”

  “I was fighting a hound that used shadow more skillfully even than you; I was preoccupied.”

  “Malyanna pulled a petrified thing—half man, half monster—out of the tree. It was dead, but she animated it long enough to tell her it had what she wanted—a Key of Stars. That’s why she took the corpse with her when she left.”

  “If that’s true,” said Raidon, “then the petrified corpse must have been the Traitor’s. Stardeep was built to contain him, lest he raise Xxiphu and usher in the age of the Abolethic Sovereignty.”

  “Hmm.”

  Raidon sighed. “I gave much, once, to see him contained,” he said. “All my effort was for naught.”

  “But he never escaped … This tree caught him,” said Japheth.

  “Which is perhaps why the Sovereignty remains contained in a single city of sleepy monsters,” replied Raidon. “But Malyanna retrieved the Traitor and his Key. The full power of the Sovereignty may soon wash across Toril, and beyond.”

  The warlock scowled. “You don’t seem particularly perturbed by that thought,” he said.

  Raidon smiled. Some of Angul’s lucidity returned to him, but it wasn’t the artificial clarity of the blade; it sprang from somewhere inside his own heart.

  “What is, is,” the monk said.

  “You’re saying we should give up?” asked Jephath.

  “No. I’m saying that, here on the precipice of all things … I will make my own choices; I will not bow to the obligations of my past failures, or the manic purpose of a sentient blade.”

  “You sound no less crazy than before, my friend,” the warlock said, studying him as if looking for signs of mental instability. Raidon didn’t blame him.

  “In any event, it’s time to leave this cemetery plane, and seek our friends,” the monk said. “We should be after Malyanna before she prizes the Key loose from the Traitor’s petrified hands.”

  “Listen, did you see who I was talking to before you ran up?” said Jephath.

  “Yes—I assumed he was a servitor of Malyanna, and that you’d ensorcelled him,” replied Raidon.

  “No. Well, yes, he serves the eladrin, but I didn’t manage to tag him with a spell. He got the drop on me. Funny thing was that once he had me where he wanted me, he stopped to warn me off instead of attack me.”

  “He didn’t want to take the time to dispatch you?”

  “Maybe, though he seemed a little too forthcoming. I know where Malyanna is going—we won’t have to resort to tracking her with my star pact.”

  “Where?”

  “A place called Forever’s Edge.”

  A flare of cerulean fire erupted from the symbol on Raidon’s chest, and warmth like an embrace enfolded him. He smiled.

  “You know it?” asked the warlock.

  “My Sign recognizes the name, though I do not,” Raidon said. “It can guide us.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)

  Green Siren, Sea of Fallen Stars

  Anusha watched the last of the kuo-toa slip over the side of the ship, and slide away beneath the sea.

  Grins stretched the crew’s faces as they realized the overwhelming attack was over. Several shouted imprecations after the departing creatures. But many warily studied their captain. “He dismissed the beasts, all of ’em, with a harsh word!” Anusha heard one whisper. They didn’t understand what power their captain had displayed. Anusha didn’t, either.

  Thoster stood at the starboard railing, looking out to sea. He didn’t move, other than to finger his amulet that lay in one hand. The amulet’s leather thong was snapped.

  She willed herself into visibility. Her dream armor, in all its golden glory, melted into view.

  “Captain!” she called.

  Thoster turned to stare at her. His eyes were slightly unfocused.

  “Are you alright?” she said.

  “Aye,” Thoster replied. “Glad to see you back on deck. I was worried. Lass, did you see what I just did?”

  “Some of it,” Anusha said. “How … How did you make them leave? Hundreds of them, all at once!”

  He shook his head. “I wish I knew,” he said. “Something in my blood surged up. Suddenly I just knew the damned fish folk would listen to me. Because … I’m kin to them.”

  “Even if you’ve got some kuo-toa in your ancestry, it doesn’t explain why they obeyed you,” Anusha said.

  “That’s the question, eh?” Thoster replied. “I wish Seren were here. She’s the one who made this amulet. Maybe she gave it a little more potency than she meant.”

  “Except you’re not wearing it anymore.”

  “True. It got in the way.”

  Anusha glanced up. She saw Xxiphu and its swaddling storm remained unchanged. The colossal creatures swooping in and out of the clouds around the city were similarly unperturbed. Good. The aboleths weren’t reacting to the dismissal of their sea surface guardians. At least not obviously.

  Yeva joined them at the railing. She flexed an
arm, moving her articulated joints with un-golemlike smoothness. “Japheth did an amazing job on this form,” she said. “Did you see the way those spears broke on my stomach?”

  Thoster smiled. “Those kuo-toa didn’t know what to think!” he said. “Being iron-hard has its advantages, eh?”

  “And disadvantages,” Yeva replied. “I’d give much to be able to sit down to a meal, for instance. Or feel the sun on my skin, or a cool breeze. Or, better yet—”

  The captained clapped Yeva on the shoulder. “Once we get this Sovereignty business sorted out, maybe we can find you a mage or priest who can return you to mortal flesh,” he said. “That’s the hope I have for myself—I got these damn scales growing over most of me now.”

  Yeva nodded, but her iron features didn’t shift. They couldn’t. “I saw how you ordered the kuo-toa to stand down,” she said. “Impressive.”

  “Thoster wonders if it has something to do with the amulet Seren crafted,” said Anusha.

  “May I?” Yeva asked as she held out a dull gray hand to the captain.

  Thoster dropped the talisman into her palm.

  A halo of violet light played around the iron woman’s temples as she examined the pewter bit strung on a leather thong. To Anusha’s eyes, the object was unremarkable.

  Yeva shrugged, and returned it to the captain. Thoster eyed it a moment longer, then tied it back around his neck.

  “A stricture is wound into your talisman, captain,” Yeva said, “one that presumably gives you the mental space to control your own non-human heritage. However, it doesn’t contain any special power that would grant the holder power over sea creatures.”

  “Even if the wearer is part fish himself?” said Anusha. “No offense, Thoster.”

  “Not even then,” Yeva replied. “Whatever power the captain has over kuo-toa, it is inherent with him.”

  “Huh,” said Thoster. His gaze strayed back into the sky. Anusha and Yeva followed suit.

  Xxiphu remained a splinter of black stone high on the horizon.