by James Wyatt
“I’m not your apprentice, Kri.” Albanon scrambled backward up two more stairs, but Kri followed. “And I think my mind is perfectly clear.”
Kri stretched his bony fingers toward Albanon’s head. “You cannot fight until you understand. Just let him touch your mind.”
Albanon’s vision swam as he felt a pressure on his thoughts, like the feeling of having forgotten something important that was struggling to be remembered. He drew in a surge of arcane power and used it to fortify the barriers of thoughts and discipline that protected his mind, but instantly recognized his very serious mistake.
Madness was everywhere around Albanon, flowing like water through the stone of the dungeon beneath the tower. It was intertwined with the flow of magic in the place, and when Albanon drew on that magic he allowed in a touch of the same madness he was trying to resist. An absurd, barking laugh escaped his mouth as he tried to correct his mistake and muster his will to drive back Kri’s assault.
Kri stepped closer, and his fingers touched Albanon’s forehead, sending a lance of pain searing through his head. Albanon reacted from pure instinct, recoiling from Kri’s touch and lashing out with his magic. A clap of thunder exploded in the stairway, sending Kri stumbling backward. Kri lost his footing and rolled down the steps. He cried out as he fell, a sound so lost and helpless that Albanon was overcome with remorse; then he landed in a heap a half turn down from where Albanon stood.
“Kri?” Albanon asked tentatively.
The old priest groaned and stirred, starting to untangle his limbs and lift his head from where it rested against the stone wall.
“Kri, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Kri’s eyes fluttered open and fixed on Albanon as the young wizard hurried down the stairs. Kri opened his mouth and Albanon slowed, expecting a moan or quiet words.
Instead, Kri shrieked, a long, tortured note too high and loud to be his natural voice, and laden with the undertones of madness Albanon had been hearing in whispers and echoes. The barrage of sound slammed him backward and tore at his mind, snatching away his senses until the scream was all that remained.
In the face of that howling storm, Albanon was a worm writhing on the stone. The whispering voices in the walls surrounding him became leering faces staring down at him, then emerged as hungry birds jabbing their beaks at him. Agony shot through him as their beaks struck him and pulled away, trailing wispy tendrils of shining silver smoke. He looked up in his torment and saw the sun burning down on him, black but ringed in angry scarlet, pulsing with life and malevolence. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
One of the birds lifted him from the ground and impaled him on a thorn, but he kept staring up at the angry red corona, noticing the flecks of gold and veins of silver pulsing within its brilliance. He was only vaguely aware of more silver smoke pouring forth from him where the thorn pierced his body, streaming up toward the sun.
Then Albanon was no longer a worm, no longer a creature with a merely physical body. He was wisps of silver smoke and coiling tendrils of thought, a throbbing heartbeat that came from no fleshly organ, a hunger that knew nothing of food or digestion. He saw without eyes, and all he saw was the burning black sun, the Elder Elemental Eye, the unblinking gaze of the Chained God. He had no ears, but the howling scream remained, blowing over him like a gale.
Some scrap of his mind was aware of a fleeting thought. “I’ve gone mad.”
And then he was nothing at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Shara heard the handle of the door rattle, stopped by the lock. She sat up, pulling a blanket around her shoulders.
“Shara?” Uldane’s voice called through the door. “Are you in there?”
She jumped to her feet, trailing the blanket, and padded to the door, feeling her face flush. She glanced over her shoulder to where Quarhaun lay in the bed, smiling at her, his white teeth gleaming against his black lips.
“What is it?” she said at the door.
“Shara! Open up!”
The urgency in his voice overrode her embarrassment, and she flipped the lock and let the door swing open. Uldane’s face was lit with excitement tinged with a hint of fear, but his smile fell as his eyes took in the scene.
“What is it?” she asked again.
“Um … oh! Nu Alin! Tempest thinks he was here. She and Roghar have gone to look for him.” Uldane looked like he was going to say something else, but his eyes went back and forth between Shara and Quarhaun one more time and he turned away. “That’s all,” he added.
He started stomping back down the hall, and Shara went after him. “Uldane, what’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you so angry.”
“Probably not.”
“Why are you angry at me?”
Uldane wheeled on her then. “Look at you!” he said. “And him! Both of you! Back in the Blue Moon you lectured me about choosing my allies more carefully. And yeah, I’ve made some mistakes and I paid for them. But now you’re with him?”
The fury of his outburst came as such a surprise that she took a step back from him. “Watch it, Uldane,” she said, feeling her own anger rise. “Quarhaun saved your life in the Witchlight Fens.”
“And I’m grateful, but that doesn’t mean he’s good for you. He’s a drow. He comes from one of the most evil and scheming societies in the world. He has no respect for the gods, or for the lizardfolk who actually saved our lives. Do you really think he’s what Jarren would want for you?”
“Jarren would want me to be happy.”
Uldane folded his arms. “And are you?”
“I’m trying to be.” She spun around, adjusting the blanket, and hurried back to Quarhaun’s room to get her sword and armor.
By the time Shara and Quarhaun came downstairs, Roghar and Tempest had already returned from their hunt, despairing of finding the demon. Uldane sat at a large table in uncharacteristic silence, avoiding Shara’s eyes as the rest of the group settled into chairs.
“We need a plan,” Roghar said. “We’ve got to drive the demons out of Fallcrest. And destroy Nu Alin, if we can.” He gave Tempest a lingering glance.
“A couple times in the last few weeks,” Shara said, “we found demons in larger groups like this. And there was always one demon in charge, a pack leader or commander or whatever. And when we killed that leader, the rest of the demons scattered. Driving the demons out should be as straightforward as finding their leader and killing it.”
“Cut off the head and the body dies,” Quarhaun said, nodding.
“Yes,” Roghar said, “but we don’t know much about this leader. It might be Nu Alin, and that presents special difficulties.”
“What difficulties?” Quarhaun asked.
“We don’t really know how to kill him.”
“He possesses mortal bodies,” Shara explained, glancing at Tempest. The tiefling’s face was a mask of indifference. “If you kill the body he’s in, he just tries to take another body.”
“It seems possible to destroy him while he’s not in a body,” Roghar said, “but his natural form is like a liquid serpent, made of the Voidharrow. The last time we encountered him, that form proved very elusive.”
Quarhaun leaned forward on the table, evidently interested in the topic. “So when his host body is slain, this liquid serpent, as you call it, comes out of the corpse?”
“Exactly,” Roghar said, glancing sidelong at Tempest.
“Why does everyone keep looking at Tempest?” the drow asked.
“The demon possessed me,” Tempest said. “And they’re all worried that I’m going to fly into a hysterical rage or crying fit as we discuss how to kill the damned thing.”
Quarhaun laughed out loud. Shara kicked his leg under the table, but then she saw that Tempest was smiling. Then Roghar laughed as well, and Shara allowed herself a smile. Only Uldane was still scowling.
“One of our companions at the time s
tabbed me,” Tempest explained. “As I lay dying, the demon snaked out. I’m afraid I don’t remember much after that point. But I am glad that Erak had just enough heartless bastard in him to actually do the deed, and I’m counting on you all to do the same if the demon manages to take me again.”
Roghar nodded slowly, staring into his ale.
“We will,” Shara said.
“I’m nothing but heartless bastard,” Quarhaun added. “I’ll stab you now, if you like.”
“Thank you, no,” Tempest said.
Roghar gave Quarhaun a nervous glance and tried to restart the conversation. “After it left Tempest, it tried to go into Falon, our cleric friend. It climbed up his body toward his face.”
“But it didn’t get there?” Quarhaun asked.
“It started flowing into his mouth and nose,” Roghar said, making Tempest shudder slightly. “But I had noticed that it seemed particularly averse to divine radiance, so I blasted it and it withdrew long enough for Falon to hit it harder. That’s when it fled.”
The drow stroked his chin. “Divine radiance, you say? Well, we have you. I can muster some radiance, though it’s not exactly divine. Tempest, have you mastered the third invocation of Hadar?”
Tempest blinked at him. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said slowly.
“Perhaps you learned different terminology. Do you know the invocations of Hadar? The spells that draw on the light of the dying star?”
Tempest’s face showed no sign of recognition, and Roghar shifted uncomfortably.
“Gibbeth’s shadow, woman, did your teacher tell you nothing of the baleful stars?”
“I had no teacher,” Tempest said.
Quarhaun arched an eyebrow. “You made an infernal pact with no one to guide you?”
“Not everyone has the luxury of a life of study,” Roghar said, the hint of a growl in his voice warning the drow to back off.
“Certainly, but those without learning shouldn’t dabble with powers beyond their understanding.”
Tempest’s eyes smoldered with anger, and Roghar drew himself up in his seat. “She is no mere dabbler,” Roghar said. “I’ve fought alongside her for years, and I dare say her power surpasses yours.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Quarhaun said. “If I recklessly seized all the power I could without regard for the consequences, out of ignorance or desperation, I suspect I’d be more powerful than you can even imagine. But I choose a more moderate path. I’d like to survive long enough to enjoy my power.”
Shara looked between Quarhaun and Tempest, realizing for the first time how her experience of Tempest had colored her impressions of the drow warlock. They were different in many ways, starting with the eldritch blade Quarhaun wielded to channel his power. Tempest preferred standing back from her enemies, sending her spells coursing through her rod to blast them from afar. But some part of her, Shara realized, had figured that Quarhaun’s power was more or less accidental, the way Tempest’s was. To think that he had sought out the infernal power he wielded was a bit disturbing.
Tempest’s anger burst its banks and she stood up, leaning over the table to glare at the drow. “We are both thieves, Quarhaun, wielding power that isn’t ours. You can pretend you’re a wizard if you like, couching it all in the language of academic study, but it doesn’t change that fact. Sooner or later, our crimes will catch up with us.”
Quarhaun laughed in her face. “You’re right, of course. But I am a master thief, always staying one step ahead of the law, hiding myself behind layers of intermediaries and deception. And you? You’re a master of the smash and grab, utterly lacking in subtlety and technique. Which of us do you think will be caught first?”
Tempest fumed at him for a long moment, then turned and stormed out of the room. With a parting glare at the drow, Roghar followed her out. Left alone with Shara and Quarhaun, Uldane got up and left without a backward glance.
“So much for a plan,” Quarhaun said. He grinned at Shara. “Perhaps we should return to what we were doing before we were interrupted.”
Shara frowned, looking after her friends. What’s keeping me from storming out with them? she wondered. Shouldn’t I be outraged at the things Quarhaun said?
She smiled back at Quarhaun, weighing his suggestion. Not if he’s right, she thought. She stood up and held out her hand to him.
Glass crashed somewhere in the inn, and a scream pierced the quiet night. Shara hurried to the door of the common room and looked around. People were shouting both upstairs and outside on the street, but she couldn’t figure out the source of the commotion.
Then a living flame smashed open the door beside her, and a monstrous face formed of glittering red liquid leered at her from the midst of the fire.
Kri stood and looked down at Albanon’s limp body on the stairs. “Now you understand,” he said. The eladrin didn’t stir. Blank eyes stared upward, seeing nothing at all.
Kri bent his head and lifted Ioun’s holy symbol off his neck. “You taught me to pursue knowledge and understanding,” he said to the symbol. “And so I have.”
He twisted the bottom of the symbol, the crook that extended from the bottom of the stylized eye, and it opened. He slid out the tiny crystal vial that held his miniscule fragment of the Voidharrow. He closed his fist around the vial and felt the two wills at war within it-its own and the Chained God’s.
“I renounce you now,” he said quietly. He let the symbol fall, clattering to the stairs and tumbling down into the darkness below. “Your knowledge is vain and empty. Your understanding is futile. The will of the Chained God is my will.”
He reached into his robes and pulled out the jagged iron symbol he’d taken from the dead priest and put it around his neck.
“I will destroy the Voidharrow and finish what the Chained God commands.”
At last the eladrin moved.
He opened his eyes and tried to figure out who he was. The Doomdreamer stood looking down at him, grinning madly, surrounded by a wreath of leering spirits. The floor beneath him was hard, uneven-stairs, stone stairs.
“Rise, Albanon,” said the Doomdreamer.
He obeyed without thought, then decided that his name must be Albanon. He focused all his attention on the Doomdreamer, eager to learn more of his identity, eager to fulfill his next command.
“Follow me,” the Doomdreamer said, and started down the stairs.
Albanon followed, adding his quiet voice to the babble of spirits surrounding them, flowing in the walls and floor as well as hovering around the Doomdreamer. Seventy-two stairs they descended, eight nines, six dozens, two squares of six. Formulas flitted through his mind and fire danced across his fingers in response, and he emerged into a chamber at the bottom of the stairs.
“Ah, you have remembered your magic.” The Doomdreamer was pleased, and Albanon rejoiced. “Let me see you destroy that corpse.”
Albanon followed the Doomdreamer’s pointing finger with his eyes, and saw the body lying on the floor. Two cubed times three squared. With a flick of his fingers he filled seventy-two cubic feet of the room with roaring flames. A little pressure of his will kept the fires burning until the corpse was a smear of ash on the stone floor.
“Now you know the extent of your power,” the Doomdreamer said. “At last you understand.”
“Yes,” Albanon said. “I think I do.”
“He was a false servant,” the Doomdreamer said, nodding toward the ashes. “He failed, and his death was well deserved. His obliteration was required, so no memory of his failure remains. Together, you and I will succeed where he failed.”
Albanon nodded, but he was no longer sure he understood. He wanted to use his magic again, to turn the numbers and formulas over and over in his mind, to explore every permutation and calculation. Seventy-two was a mystic number to him now, a perfect inversion of exponents and primes, a source of power and an expression of a far greater power. What would it take to pierce the Doomdreamer with seventy-two arrows of pure magical f
orce? He started toying with that calculation.
“We have one more task to complete in this place,” the Doomdreamer continued. “And then we must find Nu Alin.”
“What one task?” Albanon asked.
The Doomdreamer scowled at him. “Such impertinence,” he said. “Expected from the old Albanon, but not from the new.”
What old Albanon? he wondered. He couldn’t remember anything before opening his eyes on the stone stairs a few moments ago.
“Which makes our one task all the more important,” the Doomdreamer said. “We must see the one we serve.”
Albanon stepped closer to the Doomdreamer, curious and anxious. The Doomdreamer moved to stand beside a makeshift altar, decorated with a single candle and an opened manacle. With a word from the Doomdreamer, the candle burst into flame, and a chorus of mad whispers filled the room. Albanon murmured something senseless, adding his voice to the chorus, and shuffled still closer to the table.
The Doomdreamer snapped the manacle into place on his own wrist and wrapped the attached length of chain around his forearm. “Chained God,” he intoned, “Patient One, He Who Waits, my fate is bound to yours. While you are chained, I am chained. When you are free, only then will I be free.”
The whispering chorus grew louder, and here and there a keening wail rose above the other voices. Albanon chanted numbers, factors and multiples of seventy-two, the seeds of arcane formulas that could create or destroy.
“Dark God, Black Sun, God of Eternal Darkness, I bring this candle to your darkness, seeking a glimpse of your majesty.”
The chorus was more wails than whispers. Thirty thousand, three hundred and seventy five was the product of the next two primes with their exponents inverted. That number would produce a much larger burst of flame.
“Anathema!” the Doomdreamer screamed over the unearthly chorus. “Undoer! Ender! Eater of Worlds! Reveal yourself and end our clinging to the false reality of this world.”
The next product was so large that Albanon could barely calculate it, but he was confident that he could scorch the earth across an entire farm by manipulating those numbers. Could he create more than a billion magic missiles to tear the Doomdreamer’s body to ribbons?