The other route, encrusted with crystal, led only to the nearby blob of dark stone, with its cracks revealing the crystal riches inside.
“Maybe we should check out the jumbo geode first.” Zel rubbed his hands and picked up the iron bar he’d carried with him through the portal. After a moment’s consideration, he dropped the bar and took up an abandoned pickaxe instead.
“This stuff is pretty valuable. We wouldn’t have to make artificial parts out of it,” he said, and walked toward the cart and scattering of tools. “Phew, something really stinks over … oh.”
Warian walked cautiously down the path, across the mined-out crystal.
The source of the rotting odor lay in the mining cart.
A half-orc was stuffed into the cart, obviously dead. The half-orc wore miner’s dungarees, and its hoary skin was filthy with dirt and crystal dust. Warian was startled when he saw a crystal pendant hanging around the orc’s neck. Burn marks scorched the flesh around the crystal, as if it had overheated and cooked the orc completely through. Then Warian realized that the crystal itself seemed charred, and was obviously cracked. He gazed intently at it, but could detect no glimmer of light swimming in the pendant’s depths.
“I can’t figure what killed him,” Zel said, his hands on his hips as he gazed into the open cart.
“His amulet.”
“Aye, that’s obvious. I mean, why?”
Warian shrugged, at a loss. “Maybe the ‘puppeteer,’ as you put it, couldn’t control the miner well enough without a prosthesis, and just killed him with some sort of magical overload.”
“Is that possible?”
“How should I know?” Warian kicked at the cart. “I don’t know how Shaddon—or the puppeteer—is able to control people through Datharathi crystal.” Warian froze for a moment. A worrying thought struck him as his eyes skimmed the fields of mined and virgin crystal that encrusted the stone road.
“Uncle, why aren’t we dead?”
“Because we’re smart, we’re quick, and …”
“No, look! Crystal everywhere—the perfect vessel for controlling minds, right? We’ve seen that it only manifests in this damned stuff.” Warian waved his hand down the stone lane, thickly encrusted with the pernicious material.
Zel rubbed his chin. “Well, you have an arm made of it, and so far you seem to be immune to its influence …”
“Yes. Shaddon made it before he found the portal. I just assumed that all the crystal on this side of the portal was corrupt.”
Zel shook his head. “Maybe only if it’s brought into the real world?”
“I wonder.”
He thought about Shaddon’s claims. “Or, maybe the crystal must be prepared in a particular fashion—and my arm wasn’t. Nor is this raw crystal. It hasn’t been mined and worked by Shaddon, who made it susceptible to outside influence so he could serve his own purposes.”
“Could be. Or perhaps the puppeteer is just toying with us.” Zel peered down the path where the crystal gradually thickened to form the irregular bulb of cracked stone.
Warian looked back and forth between the irregular boulder and the wavering tower. Out of nowhere, a searing flash dazzled his eyes.
“ … eretu dmaadar grethalsa od favara!” a loathsome voice broke upon them.
Blinking, Warian looked ahead, behind—and then up.
Sevaera’s head, sans body, floated above them, dripping blood. It was nestled in a penumbra of writhing shadow. The puppeteer had killed Sevaera and was using her head as a malefic vehicle.
“No …” pleaded Zel, his jaw dropping open.
The despicable voice repeated its imperative in a language unfamiliar to Warian, then swooped.
Warian lifted his crystal arm to cover his face. He tried desperately to trigger its latent power. And he failed. He was too drained—he couldn’t forge the link!
The disembodied head swooped and butted Warian in the chest. A sledgehammer couldn’t have struck harder. Warian pitched sideways off the path, his body twisting in midair, his arms flailing for a grip. He caught himself on the edge, the crystal digits on his right hand more hindrance than help. The flesh and blood of his left hand absorbed the cruel sharpness of the ledge. The weight of his body threatened to peel his fingers from their purchase.
He looked up, but the stone path blocked his view of what was happening above him. But he could hear.
Zel cursed, repeating “bastard!” over and over in a crazed voice. He heard the sound of metal on bone—had his uncle connected with his pickaxe?
“Draka ni dornu dmaadar!” screamed the vile voice, just out of sight.
“Bastard!” his uncle yelled again. His pinched, manic tone implied a break with sanity that wouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
Warian strained, trying to pull himself up.
A finger slipped. It was all he could do to hold on.
“Zel,” he cried. “Kill it!” And “Help, I’m slipping!”
Another flash dazzled Warian. Something else had come through the portal.
The eternal, mote-littered dark welcomed Ususi after a long absence. The Celestial Nadir once again accepted her into its twilight vastness.
The wizard fell a few paces through an awkwardly defined portal focus. She nearly tripped on Eined’s limp form. Iahn must have dropped her. She saw him streaking toward a small flying creature wreathed in darkness. Another man she didn’t recognize stood near the flying creature, swinging wildly at it with a pickaxe.
She was thankful that the misdirected focus was displaced upward, not left or right, off the path. Otherwise, instead of standing at the center of a three-way nexus, she might be flailing her way through a tour of the abyssal spaces of the Celestial Nadir.
Ususi pulled out the keystone and issued a word of command. It lit with a violet radiance. For the first time in a long time, the wizard smiled.
Here in the Celestial Nadir, keystone in hand, she possessed a measure of authority over the crystal denied her outside the artificial space. This was a good time to measure her control against that flying creature, which had turned its back on the man with the pickaxe to deal with the charging vengeance taker. The flying creature looked like … a severed head! Ususi gasped.
It was the missing head from the woman on the other side of the portal! The head was partly sheathed in Celestial Nadir crystal. Ususi raised the thong on which the keystone dangled, and concentrated.
The keystone pulsed once, twice, thrice. A single flash burst in the crystal sheathing of the head. It screeched and shot straight upward at least fifty paces. In the Imaskaran tongue, it screamed, “Use not the keystone against what I have claimed!”
Ususi called up, “Try to stop me!”
It swooped down at her, leaving a meteor green streak across the dark. A corona like flowing hair, shadows given fell substance, writhed with soul-shearing hunger.
She concentrated again upon the keystone, and gazed with enhanced insight upon her attacker. She blanched. Pandorym’s influence was a slimy tentacle of putrid will that reached from far away to grasp and hold up the head, and empower it. It was a stain of something that should not exist, reaching from somewhere not far along one of the paths of the nearby nexus.
Nausea accompanied her recognition of the psychic pseudopod, but she tried to force the tentacle to release its grip on the head. It was like trying to peel an orange made of granite. She concentrated harder. A trickle of blood dripped from Ususi’s left eye.
To no avail. The grip of the tentaclelike thread of influence had its roots too deep in the crystal-sheathed head.
“By the Seal Broken!” she cursed. Pandorym had greater control over the crystal than she supposed. She cried out and dived to one side, but was too slow. A slashing ribbon of darkness grazed her shoulder. Pain blazed through her arm and neck.
The wizard retained her hold on the keystone, despite the pain. She concentrated through the ache, determined to prevail. A pulse of clean violet light discharged from the ke
ystone, traced an erratic, dancing path through the air, and buried itself in the severed head. Pandorym’s influence prevented her from gaining control over the crystal of the Celestial Nadir, as was her right as holder of the keystone. But she could burn out the crystal implanted in the woman’s head.
The head screeched and again shot straight upward. The mane of dark tendrils surrounding it wavered and flailed about. The head’s trajectory wobbled and dipped, then steadied itself.
Ususi lanced her will into the keystone and hurled yet another bolt at the head. The blazing energy arc struck true. The limbs of darkness entwining the head winked out.
Her attacker fell out of the air and bounced on the path, coming to rest at Ususi’s feet. In an unnerving death spasm, the eyes in the head tracked around, then locked Ususi in their gaze. The mouth worked, and the voice spoke again, diminishing as it uttered its last, “Your hidden city burns. All those dear to you feed the flame …”
“What?” screamed the wizard.
Pandorym’s presence fled. All that remained was the severed head of a woman unknown to Ususi. She kicked it. “Tell me what you mean!” In her mind’s eye, she saw her blind twin, Qari, quailing before the heat of purple flames she couldn’t see.
Iahn’s hand restrained her from booting the head off the path. He said, “We must go. We’ve reached the Celestial Nadir. Take us to Deep Imaskar, so we may save our city.”
“Indeed. But who’s that with the pickaxe? What’s he doing?”
A tall, white-haired man who had been brandishing a pickaxe when Iahn and Ususi burst through the portal was now lying on his stomach, his head and arms hanging off the path, straining to reach something Ususi couldn’t see.
The man hauled himself backward, and the wizard gasped. A younger man slid upward from where he must have been dangling below the path. She gasped because the newcomer’s left arm was pure Celestial Nadir crystal.
“Iahn!” she warned. She raised the keystone again. She could burn the arm out, too, before Pandorym jumped into another vessel.
The vengeance taker was already in motion, moving with a speed no mortal limb could match.
The older man turned, saw the charging vengeance taker, and scrambled for his pickaxe, yelling something Ususi couldn’t decipher.
Ususi gazed at the young man with the crystal arm through the lens of the keystone, looking for any clues.
The wizard yelled, “Iahn! Stop!”
She sensed no evidence that the young man’s crystal arm had ever been influenced the way the animated head had been. In fact, the prosthetic arm was intangibly linked to the Celestial Nadir in a fashion similar to what she enjoyed through the keystone. But his linkage was more … organic. She saw the possibility that the young man might be able to draw strength from the Celestial Nadir, like the plangents could.
“I said stop, Iahn!”
Scowling, the vengeance taker slid to a halt before the two strangers, dragonfly blade in hand. He didn’t sink the blade into either of the men’s heads, so Ususi considered her command a success.
The younger man yelled, “Are you more servitors of the crystal?” He squinted guardedly at Ususi’s keystone and pumped his fist, as if readying himself for some great effort.
“No,” Iahn responded.
“No?”
“We are not agents of evil,” confirmed Ususi, walking near to them, though she didn’t put down the keystone. “We are here to oppose that which has awakened here. I must ask—who are you? Why are you trespassing in the Celestial Nadir?”
“Trespassing?” asked the older man. “This site is under the control of Datharathi Minerals. We’ve established a mine claim here, no matter the outré landscape. Up until a moment ago, Madam, we were running for our lives.” He paused. “I’m Zel. Zel Datharathi. Thank you for dealing with our pursuer.”
“You are welcome. But as to your claim—it is invalid. This location isn’t open to mineral exploration. This entire realm”—Ususi gestured around at the mote-littered darkness—“is a relic of the ancient Imaskari. As such, it is the property of Imaskar’s inheritors. Besides, it’s terribly dangerous.”
“Yes, we’ve come to understand that,” said the young man, “to our sorrow.”
“Did you get your prosthesis at the Body Shop?” asked Ususi, pointing to the crystal arm.
“No. It predates the Body Shop by four or five years. Don’t worry—I’m free of the taint these plangents seem to carry.”
Ususi nodded. It fit. Only the crystal worked specifically by Shaddon, or touched by Pandorym prior to implantation, seemed to carry the taint. While both her keystone and the young man’s arm showed dark filaments in the core, the discoloration appeared to be only an indicator of Pandorym’s awakening in the Celestial Nadir, not a sign of influence from that malign entity.
“And who are you?” Ususi asked.
“I’m Warian Datharathi. This is my Uncle Zeltaebar. The opening into this terrible dimension is my grandfather’s fault.”
“Is Shaddon your grandfather?” Ususi asked.
Warian nodded. “Did you meet him? He’s been … subverted by some malignant creature he found in this dark realm. He sold his soul for the sake of gold long ago, but his aspirations for complete power finally consumed him in this enterprise. I’ve … I’ve never been close to him, not since I was too young to know better.”
Zel said, “Actually, no one in our family was particularly close to him. Except for poor Sevaera.” He pointed at the head at Ususi’s feet. “Her trust in Shaddon led her down a terrible path.” His voice caught as he spoke, and he wiped at one eye.
Warian gave a small shake of his head as if attempting to push away an unpleasant thought, then looked back at Ususi. “Who are you? I’ve traveled the Shining South widely over the last few years, and neither of you are from around there, that’s obvious.”
“We have a connection to the Imaskari who built this space,” responded Ususi. “Whatever your grandfather awoke here, it is a vengeful force that now moves against a refugee population of Imaskar that secreted itself away long ago. Unless we can stop it, that population will be eradicated.”
Warian’s eyes grew wide. “How’s that possible? The Imaskari are long dead. No offense,” he finished, looking slightly sheepish.
“We’ve maintained the secret of our survival for protection,” said Ususi, and gestured at herself and Iahn. “Our forebears made many enemies, and we, the children of that great empire, have renounced the imperial dreams that proved only a path to destruction.”
Iahn had fixed her with an unflinching glare. The wizard knew why. She’d revealed the existence of surviving Imaskari. But this young man wore a crystal graft embedded in his flesh that wasn’t susceptible to Pandorym’s manipulation. He could help them, and Deep Imaskar, too.
“Now that Pandorym has attacked us, our existence is no longer a secret. Thankfully, my arrival here in the Celestial Nadir means I can take direct action against the threat.”
“Pandorym?” wondered Zel.
“The evil woken by your grandfather is called Pandorym. It is a powerful entity, kept safe and sealed away by the ancient Imaskari for good reason. And …”
A far more unpleasant revelation had to be made, and she didn’t want to do it. But speed was important, and she felt obligated to tell them before she could ask Warian for aid. Her stomach fluttered as she prepared herself.
“I, um …” Ususi stammered, her voice nearly breaking, “what is your relation to Eined Datharathi?”
“She’s my sister,” said Warian. “Why? Have you seen her?”
Ususi cast down her eyes. She said, “I knew her briefly.”
Warian looked past Ususi, to the nexus of the three paths. His hand went to his mouth as he stared, and recognition of what he saw penetrated his soul. He made no sound, but his quivering shoulders communicated a terrible grief.
Iahn helped Warian and Zeltaebar Datharathi prepare Eined for burial.
The boy,
Warian, wept quietly as he worked. Zel’s eyes were bright with restrained tears and his fingers shook. Neither quailed from what had to be done. The vengeance taker respected them for that stability of character. They’d obviously both been close to the girl, in their own ways. For his part, Iahn was impressed with the strength of personality that had propelled Eined as far as she’d gone, even without martial skill or magical aid. Without her, he and the fugitive wizard would still be casting about for a way to regain Deep Imaskar.
That was their destination, and they needed to move quickly. Ususi had glared at him when he demanded she take them straight to Deep Imaskar. Apparently he’d failed, once again, to observe protocol. He sighed. He recognized that she knew more about Pandorym and what to do about it than he, a strong-arm vengeance taker. She was a wizard, Imaskar-trained. She said they needed Warian’s help, and therefore, his good will.
So they aided the young man in paying final respects to his sister. Ususi magically produced rolls of fine white linen for funerary wrapping, along with fragrant oils and a tome titled The Writ of Adama the wizard somehow managed to draw from the sunlit world into the lightless artificial void. Ususi’s Celestial Nadir expertise, plus her knowledge of spells and sorceries, made her a potent force. Potent enough to deal with Pandorym? The vengeance taker shrugged. Time would tell.
Before long, Eined was fully wrapped and prepared according to the Vaelanites’ wishes.
Ususi lit a brilliant magical light over the three paths. They stood around the tiny form that lay at the nexus’s center, their heads bowed. Many moments passed.
Warian bent down on one knee. “Good-bye, Sis,” he breathed. “I’m … I’ll miss you …” He couldn’t finish. In one hand he clutched Eined’s blue sash.
Zel stepped forward and laid his hands on Warian’s shoulders. He said nothing.
Ususi swallowed. Her eyes glistened. With a taut voice, she said, “The Celestial Nadir has seen its share of burials. The remains of powerful emperors drift within this great dark, in grand mausoleums of granite and crystal. But it is not the style in which our loved ones are given over to the great gulf that matters. It is our memory of the departed and the esteem in which we hold them that lets them live on.”
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