Raidon nodded. “We suspect the same, but we think the sword remains.”
“We?” inquired Grandmother Ash’s avatar.
“My advisor, Cynosure. He is not with me now.” Raidon looked around wondering if a voice out of thin air would prove him wrong. But a few more moments proved that hope false.
“Ah,” said the avatar, her head cocked in a human fashion, indicating her uncertainty.
“I must retrieve the sword Angul. Events outside the borders of your land require him. Angul is a relic of vanished Sildëyuir. He has the power to oppose the Abolethic Sovereignty.”
The woman brushed her hair back with a delicate, bark-skinned hand. She said, “I am unfamiliar with this Sovereignty.”
“It is a group of creatures who are like the plaguechanged you described—fiends from the deep earth that must be opposed.”
“And it is given to you to oppose them.”
“The task has fallen to me, yes.”
The woman clapped her hands, making a sound like two planks slamming together. “A hero! The pilgrims’ tales sometimes described such. You’re my first.”
The avatar smiled.
Silence stretched.
“Will you help me?” Raidon was suddenly weary.
“Usually pilgrims must give me a story in return for my aid. But for you, a hero brave and true, I require only that you allow me to accompany you. When you meet the Chalk Destrier, my old foe, perhaps I can distract him long enough for you to look for your lost sword, if it’s there.”
Raidon bowed his head slightly. “Thank you, Grandmother Ash.”
“This way, hero.” The avatar touched his elbow and turned him to face a new direction. South. Southeast, perhaps. The strength in her root fingers was incredible, and the gnarled wood abraded his skin.
Releasing him, she pointed. “We must pass into a maelstrom of greater activity to reach the heart.”
So saying, all the individual tendrils composing her form were sucked into the ground, like a plant growing in reverse, until she was gone.
Confused, he looked back to the great tree. Hadn’t the woman just indicated she’d accompany him? The vast shape provided no answers.
Raidon glanced in the direction the avatar pointed. A stormy cloudscape hovered on the horizon, somehow half familiar. Blue lightning played within it.
A hundred paces from where he stood, a stem burst from the earth, followed instantly by dozens more. They twined and condensed. An eyeblink later, Raidon recognized the avatar.
She called, “Come along, hero. This way!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)
Taunissik, Sea of Fallen Stars
Anusha screamed the worst profanity she could ever recall hearing, something her half brother once said to a servant. The darkened cabin aboard the Green Siren absorbed her outburst, and quiet returned.
Japheth had moved too far for her dream to follow. Just when he needed her most! With Nogah killed, how would he ever find what he looked for? How would he ever find his way back out again? He could retreat to his castle—but there he risked dying at the hand of a Feywild witch with murder in her heart. If he didn’t kill himself first with his tin of traveler’s dust.
Think, she commanded herself. Panic won’t help, girl.
Easy enough said, hard to follow through. But she attempted to calm her breathing. She concentrated on the sound of her too fast heart. She willed it quieter, until she could no longer hear it beating in her ears.
Her body was too far from the island’s center. How could she get it closer without risking detection? Did it matter anymore? With Nogah dead, perhaps the great kraken already knew the ship lay at anchor off the seamount’s coast. Slimy kuo-toa swimmers and the ink-trailing aerial sentinels could be turning their attention this way even as she imagined the possibility.
She pushed those thoughts away. They made her heart race. She wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again.
That thought alone signaled it was already too late, she knew. When one is most desperate to fall into slumber, sleep is furthest away. Awake or tired, she knew she was in for a long period before she could relax enough even for a nap. Worse, it seemed the more she used Japheth’s potion, the less she was able to fall asleep naturally. Concern puckered her brows at the thought.
She was becoming just as addicted to that silver vial as Japheth was to his damned dust tin.
“No,” she mumbled.
Maybe, she thought. It didn’t matter. She could leave Japheth to his fate or try to help him. Simple as that. She pulled the stopper from the silver vial and drank.
Even as she lay back and closed her eyes, her dream pair opened. Anusha stepped from her slumping physical body clad in the plate armor of dream.
She stowed the silver vial carefully back within a pocket in her sleeping body’s skirt. She vowed she wouldn’t use the vial again. As she had told herself last time.
“Stop it! You’ve got more pressing issues, now.”
She took what seemed like a real breath. “A dream I am, and so I perceive the world about me,” she affirmed, trying to convince herself.
Anusha closed the lid on the traveling case, her body still snug within. She reached into the interior, and slid home the latch from the inside.
“Now the hard part. Maybe.”
She bent, arms wide, and grasped the brass handles on each side of the carrying case. She heaved. The chest moved slightly, no more.
Anusha frowned.
“In my dream, I am as strong as I need to be,” she asserted.
She heaved again. Another inch of movement.
She relinquished her grip and said the profanity again, but this time it was only half-hearted. She plucked a crumb-laden trencher from the sideboard. This she could lift easily as her waking form could. Why should limitations of the waking world shackle her dream?
Because, deep down, she expected the rules to be the same. Despite the fact they manifestly were not the same—she could walk through walls and move invisibly. Why should her ability to affect the world remain the same when everything else was different?
Anusha grabbed the handles again, new certainty firing her. This time, she did not heave. She concentrated. Then she merely picked up the entire travel chest by the two grips. Part of her knew its full weight, but in her determination she tried to imagine it as heavy as a trencher, at least in this dream.
Her sleeping self snored within. Hearing it, she realized again how much she carried and nearly dropped herself. One edge rapped hard against the floor. She let down the chest, not quite dropping it. Her drugged body didn’t respond to the rough handling.
She realized she was probably at her limit. It would be hard to focus enough to lift more than this. Why pick it up, she realized, when she could drag it?
Anusha kicked open the door to the cabin and stepped out, the chest in tow behind her. Lucky snorted his pleasure on seeing her.
“Want to help me out, boy?” she whispered to the mongrel.
The dog’s ears cupped forward, and its tail wagged.
If she managed to convey her body to the island, a sentinel would be required to stand watch over her sleeping self.
Rushing water sucked Japheth into an all-encompassing embrace. He tried for a last breath and instead inhaled a smothering gulp of sea. The rough water twirled him around and knocked his head against stone.
After that, he wasn’t quite sure what happened. Perhaps someone grabbed his ankle and towed him. His cloak flared around him in the water. An object slipped from the hem. He saw his tin of traveler’s dust spin out into the turbid water. He reached for it, but it tumbled down, down, until darkness claimed it. He cried out as if struck, finally forcing the water from his lungs. Coughs wracked him.
He found himself on a damp expanse of stone, just beyond a torrent surging by on both sides. Seren lay near him, looking as battered and half drowned as he felt. On the other hand, Captain Thoster appea
red unharmed, if hatless. His long hair was swept back, and his skin glistened with beaded water. A slight smile dimpled his expression as he turned to regard Japheth.
“You going to live, bucko?”
Japheth nodded, tried to reply, but instead released another body-convulsing cough.
Seren said, “You swim like a seal, Thoster.”
The slight smile became a grin. “Something like that, wizard.”
“Why so lighthearted?” Seren snapped. “We lost our guide and main protector. Now we’re lost below the seamount. How long before the great kraken comes by and collects us?”
“We ain’t dead yet,” the captain replied.
“I can’t swim,” Seren replied, her tone robbed of its usual vindictiveness. She glanced at the rapids. The turbulent flow foamed along the narrow track just a few feet beyond their perch, then fell away onto a steep slope, becoming a cataract falling who knew how far.
“You’re addled, lass. Look there.” Thoster pointed to his left. Across the breadth of water, Japheth could barely make out the edges of what appeared to be a stairwell, leading up. “No need for us to swim just yet.”
The torrent was narrow enough even the wizard had no difficulty leaping it. They took to the steps. The stair was a spiraling tube leading upward. Fifty paces saw them into a new cavity.
Seren exclaimed, “How interesting.”
Tiny points of gold-green light flitted over domes and obelisks of shaped coral. The drifting points illuminated a subterranean vault whose size seemed, at least by the fey light of the drifting star points, equal to the breadth of the isle above.
They stood in silence, looking for kuo-toa or any other sign of malign attention. Silence lay over the space like a swaddling blanket.
“What’s this place for?”
“Nogah would have known,” replied Thoster.
The wizard sniffed. “She’s dead, Thoster. I’m asking you.”
He shrugged. “For us, let us hope it provides an exit.”
Seren actually smiled. “Now you’re talking. Let’s get out of here and leave the Dreamheart to its new owner.”
Thoster paused. “Nay, lass. Despite this setback, we need to try for it. I wouldn’t leave without it, now that we’re so close. Which way do you suppose we should go to find the big squid, Japheth?”
“I don’t know.” He was so bedraggled he wondered if Seren didn’t have the right of it. Events had obviously proved too much for Anusha.
The captain grunted. “Well, we should look for a way out too. It wouldn’t do for Captain Thoster to be marooned! I expect the kraken will find us soon enough. That’ll be our chance to try for the bauble. You think the poxed thing will prove easier to deal with than the servants it sent to ambush us?”
Japheth said, “Seems unlikely—”
“Because we didn’t give a very good account of ourselves.”
Protestations rose to the warlock’s lips: he had been taken by surprise, he hadn’t unleashed his full arsenal of curses, he had been concerned with the welfare of the others. But he remained quiet. Their guide had been slain, and the rest of them had barely escaped with their lives. And perhaps it was his own fault.
How had he allowed it? The bald truth wouldn’t creep away and be ignored. He’d been in the dazed grip of traveler’s dust. If he’d been in his right mind—
The memory of a metallic container tumbling down through dark water assailed the warlock. His breath caught. He slapped his cloak where the tin was kept safe. He couldn’t detect the comforting bulge. His eyes dilated as he frantically searched through the folds of his cape. Empty.
Japheth’s supply of dust was lost.
The captain watched Japheth through this anxious display, his expression quizzical.
“I have to go back,” Japheth explained. “I lost something in the water.”
“Go back, then!” exclaimed the wizard. “We’re going forward.”
Japheth glanced at her. Seren was wringing out her hair. She looked up, saw the warlock’s desperate expression, and said, “You’re cute, but I’m not going back down there.”
An image of a road composed of ground bone on a crimson plain flashed before him, then faded. Japheth took another few gulps of air, crazy impulses flashing across his mind. Images of diving, alone, into the cataract …
Too crazy to consider for more than heartbeats. He’d have to do without, despite the risk to his sanity.
“Never mind.”
Thoster skewered Japheth with a look. “You certain you’re still in the game?” the captain asked.
“I have no other choice, it seems,” breathed the warlock. “Let’s see what’s in here, shall we?”
Japheth pushed to the fore and stepped into the vast space lit by glittering witchlights.
The rounded sphere tops and protruding obelisks mimicked the buildings on the surface. They were built, or perhaps grown, of something similar to coral. However, the structures in the dark seemed older, centuries older. None possessed any obvious entranceways or windows, either. Several had script upon them, but in a language none of the explorers knew.
Japheth began to see a pattern to the drifting points of light. Sometimes they clustered around one particular dome or obelisk, only to languidly redistribute themselves in different densities around other features. The lights never paused in the empty air between the monument-like structures. A small enough pattern, but possibly significant.
The warlock considered his own paucity of power in the arena of gleaning information. Though he knew curses that could unleash feral, hungry forces upon his enemies, making mute stone speak wasn’t in his repertoire.
He glanced at Seren, wondering. She was a wizard—didn’t she have spell or ritual capable of providing deeper insight?
“Seren,” Japheth said.
The wizard paused. “What?”
“Do you—”
“Listen. If you’re asking me to consult my spellbook for a handy solution to this mess, don’t bother. It is a stroke of luck I’ve relearned as many spells and rituals as I have in the last eleven years. A damn sight better than most. In time, the rest will return, I’m certain. Until then, stop bothering me with insipid requests!”
Thoster grinned and shook his head.
A spire ahead enjoyed a particularly large number of slowly circling lights. Japheth headed toward it across the damp, uneven ground. It worried him that little pools of seawater pocketed the stone here and there. How long had it been since this entire area was drowned? More important, would the water return? They were already far below sea level, but that didn’t mean tides didn’t have a role to play beneath Taunissik.
He reached the base of the pedestal. Japheth realized the stone wasn’t exactly like the others. It was no simple obelisk; it was some sort of statue—a twelve-foot-tall effigy, roughly like a kuo-toa, carved of purplish stone, though its lobster clawlike hands were black as pitch. Runes, like those written across the other structures, were inscribed on the figure. But unlike the script on the other formations, the runes on the statue seemed to trace ancient lines of power across its limbs. Worse yet, in place of its head, a single glyph was scribed, from which a thin streamlet of seawater dribbled.
Thoster said, “Japheth, stop. This is a kuo-toa holy place. We tread on sacred ground, at our peril.”
The smell of seawater intensified, and a dozen more witchlights flocked to the figure. Their combined radiance wavered between purple and green.
“This is a likeness of the kuo-toa god?” asked Japheth.
“Goddess,” replied Thoster, his normally confident voice slightly wavering. “Come away!”
A crack of rending stone saw the statue shudder into movement. With two steps, the figure jerkily cleared its low pedestal. A heavy claw reached for Japheth.
He jerked back and the claw scraped across the ground.
A screech of what seemed like pain issued from the animate beast.
“What is it?” yelled Seren, her w
and suddenly in hand.
“An eidolon of the sea!” replied Thoster, even as he backed away. “A kind of construct kuo-toa create as half living altars. They’re animated by a shard of power from the Sea Mother herself!”
The creature lunged at Japheth once more. Again the warlock evaded the relatively slow-moving bulk.
“Why does it attack us? We have not suborned its followers—the kraken has.”
“It ain’t received a sacrifice since Gethshemeth commandeered this colony,” returned Captain Thoster. “It’s blinkin’ insane with hunger!”
“Sea Mother!” Japheth called out. “We are enemies of your enemy—the great kraken, Gethshemeth, has overpowered your people! We seek to destroy Gethshemeth. Grant us your aid, and perhaps your people may come back to you!”
The effigy paused, as if considering.
Seren muttered, “Quick thinking, Japheth. Let’s hope it works!”
Thoster shook his head. “This ain’t the Sea Mother—it’s merely a focus for devotion meant for her. In fact, I do not ever recall seeing this particular image. It ain’t quite right. Regardless, this eidolon has been untended so long it may have gone rogue!”
“Rogue?” asked Japheth. Then he had his answer.
The rune that served as the statue’s face suddenly spewed blood red seawater in all directions.
Japheth’s cloak intervened, shunting the brunt of the liquid aside, but some still spattered his face and forearms. Pain blossomed across his skin where the seawater touched it. The warlock cried, “The water is caustic!”
Seren pointed her wand. A line of flickering lightning briefly connected its end with the animate statue. It sparked and staggered, and the sharp order of ozone blurred Japheth’s vision. He blinked and thought better of rubbing his eyes with the back of his seawater-spattered and burning hand.
A shape suddenly materialized from the blur his vision had become.
“Look out!” yelled Thoster. Japheth tried to duck away, but his senses were too confused. Instead of slipping out of the way, he darted directly into the grasp of the stony lobster claw.
Pressure crushed his chest and back, and his feet were pulled free of the ground. His legs worked foolishly in the air. His right arm was pinned to his side, and his hand went numb with the pressure.
Plague of Spells Page 22