The four pursuers had crested the knoll where he’d first attempted to waylay the gray troll, and were running toward the coach. They had already covered half the distance. The vengeance taker had to even the odds and give himself more time to hide among the folds in the hills. The troll would have to wait, and Deamiel was an unknown quantity, but the two archers …
Iahn leaned his dragonfly blade against the dolmen, then unbuckled the Imaskaran crossbow from its holster on his thigh with practiced ease. He unfolded the two arms and locked them into place, then strung the crossbow’s wire. Six slender bolts were ingeniously clipped to the underside of the crossbow barrel. He plucked one, opened his damos, and dipped the bolt’s tip into the swirling venom. The bolt’s tip steamed.
The vengeance taker fitted the bolt to the crossbow and sighted down the hillside, careful to stay under the dolmen’s cover.
The elf archers reached the coach and took up positions with a view of the hillside. The great troll lumbered after them, but hadn’t reached the coach. Iahn couldn’t see the panther-headed creature—a problem, but one that would have to wait.
Iahn’s bolt sailed down the slope and buried itself in the chest of an archer. The elf cried out, then yelled, “I can hear you! I can …” The elf crumpled onto the brown grass beneath the coach.
The other archer loosed a shaft in return, but it cracked ineffectually on the dolmen pillar to Iahn’s left. The archer, seeing her arrow fall, ducked behind the coach. She yelled out in Common, “Beware, poison bolts! Mohmafel is dead!”
The troll reached the shelter of the coach and hunkered down before Iahn could fire a second venomous bolt. The vengeance taker scanned for Deamiel. Was the creature already sheltering behind the coach? No matter.
Iahn yelled down the hill in Common. “Stand still, or prepare to hear your doom. If the Voice is the last word to enter your ears before death, your soul is consigned to wander forever.” He doubted the creatures understood his implication, but Iahn believed the threat might give them pause.
The vengeance taker watched the coach. He saw no movement, heard no sounds. Like his adversaries, he didn’t want to risk leaving the sanctuary of his dolmen. The blurring enchantment the taker had employed had dissipated. Iahn’s quickslide to the coach had exhausted his small reservoir of arcane ability. Until he could renew it, the vengeance taker could rely only on his guile and skill.
A hundred breaths passed without any movement. The sun reached its zenith in the empty sky. Heat blistered the bare scrublands. Iahn was like the rock he sheltered behind; how patient were his adversaries? In the vengeance taker’s experience, his tolerance for boredom was rarely bested.
Half-heard mutters from below preceded a sudden river of fog that streamed around, over, and past the coach, completely obscuring it. With the mist came cries and dreamy exhortations. Slender tendrils of mist extended from the mass, as if patting and feeling for sustenance. The diameter of the fog bank swelled.
The vengeance taker envenomed another bolt from his damos. Deamiel, presumably, had manufactured a cloak of concealing vapor, a perfect blind from which to launch an attack. Iahn’s eyes narrowed—from which portion of the mist would it come? Did the …
The troll emerged from the mist, running up the slope with the speed of a bounding boulder.
Iahn took a bead on the fast-approaching troll, but an arrow scorched his left arm, ruining his aim. The elf archer had gotten off a shot from just inside the fog’s boundary!
Iahn snatched a third bolt, taking the time to envenom it. The damos, too, was nearly spent this day. But the troll had to be dealt with, first and foremost.
The charging troll reached the crown of Iahn’s hill. A great gray hand grasped the dolmen pillar Iahn sheltered behind. The hand was followed by an enormous head that blotted out the sun.
Iahn shot the bolt straight into the creature’s left eye. It gasped out a word in a language the taker didn’t know, then collapsed back down the slope. Iahn knew that the venom was more potent than the troll’s ability to renew itself.
He dropped the crossbow and snatched up his dragonfly blade. Not a moment too soon—black-furred Deamiel had run up the slope in the troll’s wake. The creature, roaring, sprang on the vengeance taker from the other side of the dolmen. The crystal amulet on its breast suddenly blazed with a wavering, violet light. Moving with a speed Iahn could scarcely fathom, Deamiel struck him. The violent blow hurled the vengeance taker back ten paces.
The world spun around Iahn as he tried to regain his feet. He kept his grip on the hilt of his dragonfly blade and used it to lever himself upright. Blood streamed from his cheek, and his left arm and shoulder were partly numb. The vengeance taker had assumed the troll was the greatest threat, but …
Deamiel was on him, hiccupping horrid laughter. It picked him up in both hands, so swiftly that Iahn failed to resist, and as easily as if the vengeance taker were but a child. Deamiel screamed. “Pandorym’s blessing sings in my blood! Its will is mine, but … It … I … Pandorym! I am not …”
Deamiel’s arms shook with some sort of inner struggle. Despite the creature’s difficulty speaking, its grip was slowly tightening on Iahn’s suspended body. More importantly, Iahn saw the crystal on Deamiel’s breast pulse in tempo with its speech, word for word.
One arm still free, Iahn brought the steel hilt of his dragonfly blade down on Deamiel’s amulet.
The crystal exploded.
The midnight blaze that blossomed from the amulet transfixed Deamiel, but Iahn was blown clear. The vengeance taker fell painfully for the second time in about as many heartbeats.
Iahn did not stir when his senses returned. Instead, he studied the scene with slitted eyes. Deamiel lay near, still burning, its chest cavity an exploded, gory ruin. Not a pleasant sight, but he’d seen worse. Farther down the slope lay the crumpled form of the gray troll. Farther still, the mist-shrouded coach.
Apparently, only an instant had elapsed since the amulet’s destruction.
As Iahn watched, the fog bank swirled, thinned, and blew away in ragged, evaporating streamers. The remaining elf archer was revealed, showing little concern. She moved cautiously, studied her elf comrade, then hiked up the slope to the troll. The crystal on her breast did not glow or flare.
When she was close enough to Iahn, he sprang to his feet, catching one of her arms and twisting it painfully behind her back. Not all his skills brought death to his foes—some just delivered debilitating agony. Sometimes, final justice was not for a taker to dispense. Sometimes.
“Submit,” Iahn demanded. The elf said nothing, but stopped struggling in his grip.
The vengeance taker jerked the elf closer. With his teeth, he grabbed the leather strand holding her amulet. He jerked his head back and stripped the amulet from the archer’s neck. He didn’t want to see a repeat of Deamiel’s performance.
As the amulet dropped to the earth, the elf convulsed violently in the vengeance taker’s grip. Then, as if she’d been slipped an overpoweringly lethal dose from the damos, she slumped, her life departed. Iahn was too familiar with death’s onset to wonder if it could be anything else.
The vengeance taker lay the limp body on the ground and studied the scene.
“Strange.”
The noonday light imparted brutal clarity, but no understanding.
Give me that,” Ususi said, motioning the uskura closer. Obediently, her expeditioner’s pack settled into her outstretched hands.
The wizard undid the ties and rummaged through the bag. She pushed aside silver spikes; a length of strong, lean rope; various vials whose contents ranged from acid to healing magic; and finally drew forth a tiny cylinder, just shorter than the length of her hand.
She stared down the narrow hallway, and the white light of her delver’s orb flooded the ancient darkness, revealing intricately carved walls. Fanciful demons—or perhaps not so fanciful—gave obeisance to a great emperor on the wall to her left, while slender humanoids, too fey to repres
ent the mortal elves Ususi was familiar with, stood in elegant congress around a kingly figure on the right.
The images fascinated Ususi, and she thought perhaps the image on the left represented Umyatin, the first Imaskari emperor. Umyatin had taken for himself the title “Lord Artificer.” The demon on the lord artificer’s left had a lion’s head and a dragon’s body. The demon to Umyatin’s right was a midnight black centaur with an ebony unicorn horn emerging from its forehead. Its eyes burned with hellish glee. The lord artificer was reaching out to this one. Below the midnight centauricorn was a name, inscribed in Low Imaskari. “Mizar,” it read. The wizard didn’t recognize the name.
The image on the right was more interesting yet. Each of the elegant, elfin humanoids who stood with the central figure carried a magnificent tome, seven in all. She wondered if the likeness represented Emperor Omanond. According to legend, Omanond was ultimately responsible for the creation of the seven items of Imaskaran arcane lore, the Imaskarcana. These were commonly described as tomes, though Ususi had read accounts indicating that the Imaskarcana took many forms. According to The Lore of Omanond, a history Ususi had perused within the exclusive stacks of the Purple Library, the creation of the Imaskarcana had been made possible through connivance with a devious extraplanar race. A more-than-mortal race. She had always assumed this referred to demons, but the creatures in the art before her possessed no demonic traits. The name inscribed below the creatures was “leShay.” Again, Ususi couldn’t place the name.
Bother that. The identity and accuracy of the designs were secondary to the magical trap she sensed lurking in the flooring.
Behind and above her stretched the winding, stair-strewn path she’d traveled throughout the Imaskaran ruin.
The complex beneath the earth was in surprisingly good condition, which was both good and bad. Finding a well-preserved outpost of the Imaskari was good because it meant surviving enchantments might still power a functional gate into the Celestial Nadir. Finding a well-preserved ruin was bad because it meant a higher number of guardian enchantments and traps remained lethal.
So progress was slow. For safety, Ususi checked each new section of flooring, walls, and ceiling with a sluggish, low-grade magical charm. Was it a waste of time when going swiftly might spell sudden death? The uskura certainly didn’t complain. Ususi nearly smiled at the idea.
She unscrewed the tiny cap of the cylinder she’d retrieved from her pack, and let a tiny dollop of red liquid fall onto the hallway floor. It was the last of the dye, and the drop was hardly visible.
Ususi eyed the diminutive red dot. Perhaps she’d been too liberal with the dye on the first several traps she’d encountered.
By comparison, wide stripes of warning dye painted all the previous traps she’d found in the complex.
Sometimes, avoiding a mechanical or magical ambush merely required knowing where not to step. Once a trap’s trigger was identified, remembering its precise location was as important as its discovery. She’d developed her warning dye as the perfect visual signal. Ususi had the ingredients to make more dye back in her coach, but she preferred to press forward as long as possible before returning topside.
The wizard studied the tiny droplet and judged it a large enough reminder. Its location, coupled with the frieze of Emperors Umyatin and Omanond, would give her warning enough on her way back.
On the other hand, if she came upon just one more trap, she’d have to decide whether to return to the coach to make another batch of red dye, or try her hand at deactivating it.
Ususi had some experience in the deactivation of nefarious devices, but it was a dangerous business—far better to simply steer clear of the trigger. But some devices couldn’t be avoided. For these, deactivation was the only sure method of getting past them. Because of her wizardly talents, ensnaring spells and blasting enchantments were far easier to eliminate than unthinking springs, levers, weights, and winches. Unfortunately, many traps dispensed with arcana and relied on simple mechanical principles.
Confident the hallway before her held no further surprises, Ususi put the empty cylinder back in her pack. She remanded the pack to the invisible uskura and walked down the passage, deftly avoiding the trigger point.
The radius of her magical light preceded her, bringing illumination where dark centuries brooded. Ususi held out her right hand, concentrating on her trap-finding charm. She supposed far more powerful spells might lay bare all the dangers in a large radius, but she didn’t know them. She hadn’t gone out of her way to find such spells—she preferred to save her greatest strength for potent spells of blasting. If she roused some guardian demon, she was ready, she hoped, to send it back to whatever netherworld had spawned it.
A few more paces, and the carvings on either side opened up to reveal a great, rounded chamber. Like the hallway, its periphery was heavily inscribed with images, words, and symbols. Even the ceiling was carved with thick clusters of sigils.
Ususi’s breath caught when she spied the central feature of the chamber—a great stone annulus hovering unsupported in the air, measuring some ten paces in diameter. The ring slowly rotated, flipping end over end about once every two or three heartbeats.
But the ring was not intact. A section of the hoop lay cracked and shattered on the floor. Two parallel creases appeared on the wizard’s brow as she studied the debris. This could be a portal, perhaps leading into the Celestial Nadir, but it was damaged.
First things first. Ususi renewed her concentration and scanned the room for traps. She hadn’t come this far so cautiously only to rush into the arms of a slicing blade or to be crushed beneath a ceiling block. The annulus itself could be a devious deception … but no. The room was clear. Other than the rotating ring, one other exit presented itself. A flight of stairs led upward, the first upward set she’d discovered since entering the outpost. She wondered if it was an exit to the hills outside. It would wait.
Ususi stood before the annulus. Inscriptions crowded the stone circle, many unreadable. One symbol was clear immediately—a ring within a ring, the interior circle slightly off center—one of the symbols associated with the Celestial Nadir!
The wizard drew the keystone from beneath her jacket. She held it forth, presenting it to the annulus. As Ususi handled it, the stone flickered and brightened, giving off a glow all its own. Ususi paused. Again, she noticed the hazed darkness at the stone’s core. She shook her head slightly, deciding to worry about that later.
Ususi let her mind touch the stone, and through its interface, sought contact with the ring. She sought referents, points of synchronicity, answering reflections—even the smallest connection would be enough for her to try to gain control of the ring and force it open. Assuming it led to the Celestial Nadir. And if it was not broken beyond repair.
But no. “Four dooms and damnation!” she yelled. The annulus was dead. If it had ever been a portal, its functions were stripped. Only residual magic elevated it above the floor.
A sudden thud shook her from her anger.
Ususi whirled and stared. The light of her delver’s orb sent feral shadows fleeing across the chamber. The sound had come from somewhere back along the way she’d traveled. She’d either missed a guardian, and it had roused from age-long quiescence to chase her down, or something or someone else had entered the buried outpost from the exterior. The wizard cursed herself for not securing the entry.
Either way …
Ususi touched the orb that hovered at her brow and its light died. The radiance of the keystone trickled away, too, as she hung it around her neck, under her jacket. The wizard didn’t need light to trace her steps back over her course. She closed her eyes in the darkness and invoked a spell of clairvoyant vision. Beginning with the hallway where the two ancient emperors locked eyes for lost ages, Ususi’s wizard sight bloomed, a window of seeing. Through her dark window, everything was blurred and colorless. Details faded and distances were hard to discern.
She traced her path, pushing her vi
sion down the inscribed hall and into the square room with the pool of iridescent liquid—water with an enchantment against evaporation. The chamber was as empty as she’d left it.
Farther yet, beyond the pool room, she found a bright red band of warning dye painted at neck height along the narrow passage.
Something moved down that passage.
It was … what was it? Identification was difficult because the image was blurred—it degraded the farther she forced it along.
Whatever it was, it kept low, beneath the warning red stripe she’d placed on the wall. The figure used Ususi’s system to its own benefit! She realized she’d marked a trail leading directly to her location.
The wizard tensed but concentrated all her faculties on sharpening the clairvoyant image. A human? A man, definitely, but his skin was pale and marbled, not unlike her own. His outfit was familiar.
Ususi let out an involuntary hiss and abandoned the vision.
A vengeance taker.
After all this time, Deep Imaskar had finally tracked her down.
Ususi brushed her orb and light flooded the chamber. The vengeance taker was too close—he would see it! But her wizard vision was too slow and unreliable in an emergency. She had to see in order to escape.
“Get up those stairs,” she whispered to the uskura. Ususi pointed to the other exit in the chamber. She dashed after her retreating pack. How had they tracked her into this ruin? They must have been looking for her for a long, long time.
Ususi reached the archway and had one foot on the lowest step.
“Hold, fugitive!” The voice was strong and authoritative. It was the voice of a vengeance taker. It was a voice accustomed to its commands being followed, and for good reason.
Ususi darted up the narrow stairwell. The steps were high, shallow, and dusty. She gasped for breath, but the air seemed to have fled the stairway. She slipped and fell on the steps, catching herself with one hand but taking half her weight on the other shoulder. A cry of pain escaped her lips, like a sob. Her mind twirled, images of vengeance takers she had known and stories she had heard of their retribution causing tumult in her mind. She was panicking!
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