City of Torment

by Bruce R Cordell

  Anusha prompted, “What did the scroll say about Xxiphu?”

  “It claimed Xxiphu’s murky and echoing crevices sheltered creatures who worshiped the Eldest as their supreme monarch and divine provider. The scroll described these creatures that teemed Xxiphu as lesser, younger manifestations of the Eldest’s quintessential form. They are the Eldest’s progeny. Aboleths, of course. The document wrapped up with a warning—the entire vastness of Xxiphu is a city, but also simultaneously a precious seed the Eldest has brooded through the ages.”

  “Ugh. A seed? What does that mean?”

  “No further explanations were written. I suspect it means that one day the Eldest and all its ancient aboleth children will wake from long slumber.”

  “I think that day has arrived,” Anusha said.

  The aboleth they followed paused at an intersection. The tunnel split, becoming two lesser paths.

  One would have been a continuation of their way, but its character changed drastically. The passage constricted to a third or less in diameter. The mucous light persisted, allowing Anusha to see forward into a twisted, winding maze of irregular tunnels. Attached here and there on naked rock quivered masses of white orbs, gelatinous and pale like fish eggs. That way reeked of brine.

  “A nursery,” murmured Yeva.

  The other passage was a perfectly circular cavity some few tens of feet in diameter. Like a bore hole, it was smooth-walled and plunged sideways. The passage didn’t go far before it ended in a wavering curtain of mist.

  The aboleth lit one last obelisk protrusion with purple fire, then slid its bulk into the twisting maze Yeva called the nursery.

  Anusha shook her head. “I’d rather not go into the egg tunnels.”

  “Agreed.”

  They proceeded down the smooth bore hole to the barrier. The watery light caressed Anusha’s armor with images of blue-green bubbles. She raised a hand and pressed it into the mist. She didn’t feel the least resistance, nor did it feel wet. She retracted her hand. It wasn’t any the worse for wear, but …

  “I guess that doesn’t prove anything,” she said. “I can walk through walls as easily as mist.”

  “Let us go together.” Yeva took Anusha’s free hand.

  They stepped through the barrier.

  Anusha saw a massive subterranean vault lit by thousands of tiny purple flames. The air was close, humid, and uncomfortably hot. She was glad she didn’t really need to breathe.

  They stood on a balcony with a low curb like a halfhearted attempt at a railing. She craned her head and looked around. She saw then the balcony was a tiny part of a far larger structure, one that descended in a clifflike drop below and extended an equally great distance above … it was hard to estimate distances, but certainly many hundreds upon hundreds of feet. The vast space wasn’t large enough to hold the object on which they stood—its lower foundations plunged into the cavern’s floor, and its heights were clutched within the belly of the cavern’s irregular ceiling.

  “Look,” said Yeva. She leaned far out, pointing down along the face. Anusha obeyed and saw that great patterns were carved on the age-worn exterior of the obelisk, depicting thousands of interconnected images she couldn’t quite comprehend. Her stomach flipped when some of the inscriptions flowed and changed their shape even as she watched.

  Anusha leaned out farther to get a better look, and an odd sensation fluttered through her. Odd because she’d missed it for so long—it was the feeling she had right before waking back in her body!

  But the impression was different, more drawn out. And … the mental current, the psychic undertow as Yeva called it, swelled. The sound of it roared in her ears. Its fervor threatened to yank her from her feet. She was waking, and as she did so, she began to fall upward into the current. Toward the Eldest.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)

  Darroch Castle, Feywild

  Wrinkled men and women the size of toddlers padded through the shadowed castle. Some dusted wainscoting; others polished trophy cases. A few shooed bats from crevices and high ceiling corners.

  In the grand study, a lone homunculus looked for droppings behind furnishings, paintings, sculptures, and other of oddities on display. The wrinkled man reached the tall, finely crafted wooden cabinet with a glass face. The little creature had always been fascinated, in his dim way, with this particular piece. Behind the circular face, various wheels moved according to principles the homunculus had no chance of appreciating, but he liked to watch the wheels move all the same. The creature reached out to touch the glass with a craggy finger.

  He sighed and let his hand fall to his side. Then he noticed something odd.

  He cocked his head, looking with consternation at the wooden cabinet. Despite the candles burning in the chandelier above, the cabinet threw a shadow into the room as if a bonfire raged behind it. The homunculus saw no such light.

  The shadow lengthened and deepened, and from its depths stepped the outline of a mastiff. Its coat was shadow given form and girth. The homunculus prepared to screech but paused when he noticed more figures coming through.

  A slender-limbed woman glided through next, a creature of poise and pearl white skin, with eyes like the night. The homunculus immediately recognized her as a fey invader, an intruder from beyond the cavern that contained Darroch Castle.

  In their wake stumbled a human. For all his noble’s clothing and polished boots, the man was young, overweight, and disheveled.

  No more creatures seemed forthcoming. The wrinkled man opened his mouth to scream an alarm, but he managed only a single squeak before the shadow mastiff got him.

  Lord Behroun Marhana gasped and rubbed his hands, trying to get some feeling back into them. He’d accompanied Malyanna to the Lord of Bats’s domicile down a shifting corridor of shadow once before. If anything, it was colder this time.

  Behroun wrinkled his nose as the hound crunched on the tough flesh of a limp humanoid figure the size of a child. He said, “I don’t think the Lord of Bats will appreciate your pet eating his servants.”

  The eladrin noble glanced at him, spearing him with her disconcerting regard. “He has more than he needs. And he so loves making more. He merely requires suitable root stock.” She held his gaze, as if leaving something unsaid.

  “I guess.” Behroun was already out of his depth. The more he tried to assert his own independence, the more Malyanna proved he was nothing but a pawn. His fear of her was equaled only by his hate, impotent as it was.

  Had it been his idea or hers to free Neifion from his never-ending feast so the Lord of Bats could lead them to Japheth?

  Neither—it was a mutual decision, he told himself. The idea of releasing the archfey from Japheth’s curse scared Behroun, but it was either that or destroy the pact stone. Malyanna was tired of waiting. And really, so was he.

  Malyanna told her hound, “Stay, Tamur.” The beast continued to chew, not deigning to look up at its mistress. The eladrin noble made her way to the stairs. Behroun followed, happy to leave the sound of crunching bones behind.

  They ascended to the balcony. The door to the feasting chamber was open. Malyanna swept inside.

  Behroun rushed forward and saw the table. It was laid out with a smorgasbord of tempting repasts. But the chair at the table’s head was empty.

  “Neifion!” called the eladrin, her voice loud as a blizzard’s howl. “Come out and receive your visitors!”

  No answer.

  Malyanna stalked to Neifion’s empty chair. She bent and looked beneath the golden cloth, then whirled to examine the chamber’s periphery. The Lord of Bats was not napping in a corner or roosting on the ceiling. Behroun doubted Neifion was lying curled up inside the credenza along the wall.

  Then again … He walked over and threw open the low cabinet doors. Silver dishware nestled within in tidy stacks. Behroun released his breath, relieved he hadn’t come face to face with the pale man curled up like a spider in too small a hole.r />
  “How could he have …” Behroun trailed off, then he fumbled for the amulet around his neck. Had the creature somehow managed to retrieve Japheth’s pact stone?

  He worked the secret clasp. The amulet’s star iron halves snapped open, revealing an emerald. The pact stone was whole.

  Malyanna narrowed her eyes, taking in the unharmed green stone in Behroun’s hands. She said, “So he’s managed to free himself … or some other agency freed him.”

  “Or something found and killed him, trapped as he was.”

  “No,” mused Malyanna. “Use your eyes. There is no sign of struggle here or in the outer chamber. Our crafty Lord of Bats managed to find a way free of the table without shedding any of his own precious blood. He is loose once more.”

  “But without his full power,” Behroun added. “While the pact stone remains whole, Neifion has only a shadow of his strength.”

  “Hmm.”

  Behroun could almost see contingencies tumbling through her mind. But the woman’s eyes blinked too rarely, and their blank expanse unsettled him. He looked away and said, “Perhaps he left the castle to go look for you, his one ally?”

  “Doubtful.” She sneered. “More likely he yet skulks in Darroch’s shadowed halls, relishing his freedom and planning his next deceit.”

  Behroun glanced at the open door to the grand study. He said, “Let’s go find him, then! He’s our only link to Japheth. Although with just the two of us to search this place, it could take days.”

  The woman caught him with her terrible eyes, a look of disbelief on her face. Disbelief at his stupidity, most likely.

  He forced out his next few words anyway. “Perhaps we could sneak into the kingdom that exiled you. You said it was near here. You must still have a few secret partisans. If we could enlist their aid—”

  The eladrin noble’s peals of laughter overwhelmed his fumbling words.

  She said, “Have you forgotten my pet? I’m sure Tamur can sniff out Neifion if we put him on the scent.”

  “Oh, of course I hadn’t forgotten …” he lied.

  Trying to salvage some shred of dignity, Behroun said, “But your kingdom, where you were queen before your exile … I think it might be a good idea for us to collect a few of your supporters—”

  “You,” she said, putting a finger on Behroun’s chest and giving him a slight push, “number among the mostly easily led mortals of any I’ve duped. There is no ‘kingdom.’”

  “What? What do you mean?” Behroun, despite suspecting more and more the eladrin was playing him, was shocked all the same now that the game was over. A rarely seen smile on Malyanna’s face grew even wider with amused disdain.

  “However, I am an exile of a sort.”

  “You are?” he said.

  “Yes. And I do have allies, mortal. They await me within the Citadel of the Outer Void, coiled and eager for my call. For them, no time has passed since I left. They await the Key of Stars, the single most wondrous artifact to fall to the world from beyond the sky. But as I said, I am exiled through a cruel accident of fate. I cannot reach the Key of Stars—or even enter the Citadel, for it is sealed. I have been locked outside its pillared halls for millennia.”

  She looked at him as if wondering what reaction her introduction of so many alien names and senseless statements would have.

  He couldn’t help it. His face flushed hot with angry, helpless confusion. What in the name of Imphras Heltharn was she talking about?

  The lengthening silence finally made him choke out, “Citadel of the Outer Void? I’ve never heard of it, nor of a star key. If this citadel is your true allegiance, why lie to me about it? What are you really up to?”

  “Until the Feywild fell back into step with the world, I was a priestess without an altar, a proselytizer without an audience. But no longer!” Her eyes trailed faint lines of mist as she began to pace.

  She continued, “I keep alive the old faith. The few in the world who tried to do so were imprisoned as traitors. But I was free, despite being cut off from the living arbiters of my creed …” She whirled around, watching a scene in her imagination that brought awe to her normally haughty features.

  “The Citadel is a place of power and change that lies just past the outermost edge of Faerie where time itself hardly reaches. Sealed, it will only open to the Eldest. But the Eldest sleeps in the world. For years uncounted, Faerie was cut off from the world. I could not reach the Eldest, nor could it reach the Citadel. I lived long without hope one would ever find the other.”

  She sighed, then said in a voice nearly as loud as a shout, “That’s all changed! The Eldest can be roused, oh yes. He can enter the Citadel. He is destined to take the Key of Stars and unlock the Far Manifold …” Her voice trailed off.

  Behroun said, “… I don’t—”

  “And I,” said Malyanna, “am destined to be fate’s handmaiden in all this. It is my due for waiting centuries without end so patiently. That’s why I need the Dreamheart. That’s why I needed you.”

  “And still need me, right?”

  She whirled and pierced him with her flaring, cold eyes. Behroun saw his own breath begin to steam under her chill scrutiny.

  “You still need me! My agent Japheth has the Dreamheart even now,” he reminded her. He tried to distract her with another question. “But why do you want it at all?”

  “I grow tired of waiting, at long last. The Dreamheart is a piece of the Eldest. If the Eldest will not rouse, as he has failed to do so many times before, I will use the Dreamheart to open the Citadel myself. If the Eldest will not find the Key of Stars, I will locate it myself in the Eldest’s place!”

  Behroun stepped away from the crazed woman. His body wanted to bolt. His mind knew there was no place he could run where Malyanna could not find him.

  As if reading his mind, the eladrin noble snapped her fingers and shouted, “Tamur!”

  Behroun looked to the entrance, then yelped as a shadow behind the credenza widened, producing the shadow hound.

  “Where is Neifion?” she purred at the overgrown dog. “Is the Lord of Bats still in Castle Darroch?”

  The dog raised its nose and sniffed. Then it lowered its head and gave a whispery bay that went through Behroun like ice. The dog raced out of the chamber, nose to the ground.

  “For your sake, let’s hope Tamur finds his quarry.” Malyanna brushed past him, following her pet from the feasting chamber.

  Behroun looked at the table of succulent delights. The wedges of triple cream cheese at the very edge made his mouth water. He wondered if he wouldn’t be better off cramming a piece in his mouth instead of following Malyanna.

  “Probably,” he muttered.

  He checked for the dagger at his belt, squared his shoulders, and walked away from the table.

  Behroun wandered the shadowed halls of Darroch Castle, steering clear of the furtive movements of the wrinkled men. The air was cold, and silence lay heavy on his ears. Tiny candles flickered from chandeliers and wall sconces, providing pools of light only bright enough to make the shadows press all the closer.

  He wondered if Malyanna had returned to the world without him. The thought worried and relieved him in equal measure. The eladrin noble seemed to be skating closer and closer to outright madness—madness only quenchable by blood. Of course if she did leave him behind, eventually Neifion would return to find Behroun trespassing. Free of his never-ending feast, the Lord of Bats might decide to punish Behroun for failing to break the pact stone when Neifion first demanded.

  A scream of rage echoed through the castle. This was followed quickly by what sounded like crockery being smashed.

  “She’s still here.” He sighed.

  Behroun traced the sound to a tapestried corridor thick with cloying mildew and side chambers heaped with enigmatic shapes under pale sheets. An open door halfway down the hall bled light and the occasional sound of something being smashed.

  Lord Marhana walked into a high chamber saturated with mus
ty odors. Bulky objects cluttered the room, their identities cloaked by oilskin tarps. Tamur stood at the chamber’s far end sniffing around a set of four wooden blocks. By the indentations left in the blocks, something massive had rested on them until recently.

  Malyanna floated near the great hound in a cloud of swirling air. Tatters of oilcloth spun around in the cold wind. Detritus sprinkled the floor beneath her feet: a broken granite statue of a two-headed snake, the shards of a vase that must have sported an elaborate diagram, and a litter of broken glass of many hues whose original profile Behroun couldn’t guess.

  The eladrin noble saw him. She screamed, “He’s gone!” Her glare encompassed him and found him wanting.

  She floated to Behroun, alighting just feet away, and held out her hand. “Give me the pact stone. It’s time to break it.”

  “What will that accomplish?” Behroun tried to keep a quaver from his voice. His left hand moved to cup the amulet hanging on his chest. His right hand inched toward his dagger.

  “Neifion is currently unavailable to lead us to Japheth. But we can follow the mystic residue of the pact stone’s destruction to the Lord of Bats,” asserted the eladrin. “Tamur can track more than scent.” She thrust her palm forward. “So stop dallying, human. Give me the stone. Now!”

  “Very well.” He sighed. He knew that whatever happened next, his life was probably over.

  Behroun lifted the amulet from his neck and held it over his head like an offering. As Malyanna’s eyes followed the movement, he slipped the dagger from its sheath with his other hand.

  Then he bent forward and extended his knife arm as if he were punching. The dagger stuck the eladrin in the stomach.

  She screamed and backhanded him. His head snapped to the side as something broke in his face. His cheekbone?

  Everything was whirling around and ringing. He didn’t think he was standing upright any longer. The shock of the blow began to fade, but burning agony crept in to replace it.