Key of Stars

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)

Citadel of the Outer Void

Taal gazed up at the structure. It rose, block upon block like a primordial’s dais, forming a gargantuan ziggurat. It was the Citadel of the Outer Void.

A set of stairs small enough for mortal creatures crisscrossed its way up the side of the ziggurat, changing directions each time they reached a new landing. Cascading falls of clear liquid trailed off the sides of several landings, but the stairs appeared dry.

The thousands of Xxiphu-sized “columns” surrounding the citadel formed a kind of porch, similar to temple floor plans Taal recalled from his youth. Of course, the scale was wildly at odds with those merely human-sized structures, and they’d had roofs. No roof could ever hope to be massive enough to encompass all the columns on the plain, which spread away in all directions for miles. He supposed the colorless sky that overlay the fog-shrouded land of horror served that purpose well enough.

Each “step” of the great pyramid rose … a hundred yards at least, or maybe triple that. Distances were so hard to judge. But the entire structure seemed to shimmer. At first Taal thought it was the ubiquitous mist interfering with his vision. But no. As they approached, he saw the walls themselves were responsible for the effect.

From one instant to the next, the structure’s substance shifted. First granite, then maybe ebony, or crystalline mineral, or amorphous slime, then lava. Each new manifestation never lasted long enough for him to fully grasp the actual composition, just the barest hint.

“Why does it keep changing?” he said.

“This close to the Far Manifold, reality is uncertain,” Malyanna replied. “The Citadel fluctuates. It makes one wonder if the stories in Carnis’s cache of Far Lore were true.”

“I can’t imagine anything more unbelievable than the Citadel itself. What could be more hard to believe than the truth before us?”

“Ah, Taal, are you so eager for the burden of even more knowledge?”

“I learned my lesson of leaping before I look, long ago, when I met you.”

Malyanna laughed. “Perhaps the Eldest knows the truth, but its mind remains half petrified stone.”

“Never mind.”

“Too late, you asked. Carnis believed the Citadel was built by ancient self-appointed guardians of reality, beings so powerful they defeated the primeval aboleths. So despite appearances, this place is not a place of worship. All the aberrant leakage occurring here was a foreseen side effect, which the Watch of Forever’s Edge was formed to stem. The Citadel is a place of containment; a patch designed to cover up a massive tear in existence.”

“And so?”

“So, despite that there is only one Far Realm, a crumbling tome in Carnis’s library claimed many cosmologies exist side by side, each completely isolated from the next. But the Far Realm threatens them all. So the Far Manifold and the Citadel of the Outer Void that supports it might well exist in them all too, protecting them as it does ours. The flickering we see in this construction are glimpses of all the many forms the Citadel takes in realities other than our own.”.

Taal considered the possibility. It was hard to grasp. But …

“If you open the Far Manifold here, assuming what you’re saying isn’t merely some loremaster’s daydream, would it open in all these parallel worlds too?” he asked.

Malyanna grinned like a wolf peering into a chicken coop. The totem on Taal’s shoulder loosed a deep warning growl.

Taal wondered-if he leaped for the woman, could he immobilize and permanently slay her before the strictures of his oath burnt him to a cinder?

Pain seared his vision red.

She put a hand to his shoulder, and the agony dissipated.

“Come, Taal, quit your daydreaming,” she said. “All your questions will be answered after I complete my task.”

Though she’d nullified the pain, his limbs trembled with residual agony. He’d nearly blacked out. Nearly, but yet he remained. Had his oath lost something of its original unfathomable strength after so many centuries? Or, in such a place meant to contain aberrations, as Malyanna explained it, had the Oath lost something of its vigor?

If so, then perhaps he could finally try to stop the crazed woman. Another tsunami of agony gathered as he considered the unthinkable, but the hand she continued to rest on his shoulder kept it in abeyance.

How strange that she didn’t know what turned in his head. Of course, he’d never given her any reason to doubt him. He’d always been a man of his word.

He tried not to think about that. No, what he needed to do was find just the right opportunity to cross her, when she was distracted. Otherwise, with the Dreamheart in hand, she would slay him with a thought.

She squeezed his shoulder, overly hard, then let go. Her eyes returned to the ziggurat, and the smaller set of stairs meant for mortal creatures.

“We must reach the top of the Citadel,” decreed Malyanna. “But the going won’t be easy.”

“Why doesn’t the hound translate us, or the aboleths fly us to the top?” Taal asked.

“That wouldn’t be advisable. Observe,” the eladrin replied.

Malyanna waved her hand up at the aboleths circling above them.

One broke formation and squirmed closer to the flickering structure.

A bolt of sky blue fire ravened from the top of the tower. Its width was easily five times that of the flying aberration. The creature was completely swallowed in the glare. Taal blinked away the afterimage of the stroke. Nothing remained.

“Such a stroke would even give the Eldest pause, had it been roused as foretold,” said the eladrin noble.

“Then how are we to approach?” Taal asked.

“A mortal creature of the natural world, untouched by aberration, must open the way.”

“What? Who?”

She fixed him with her lambent eyes and lifted a single eyebrow.

“Are you suggesting that would be me?” Taal said. “But I am sworn to the Far Realm, just like you.”

“No, you are sworn to me, the Lady of Winter’s Peace.”

“But I serve the cause-”

“No. You serve your oath. As I planned from the beginning. Don’t think I haven’t known all along your true feelings, your distaste for me and what I propose. You’ve done my bidding, and buried your head in duty so you could ignore what you found detestable. You never accepted my tutelage. And I’m glad! Because had you become a full-fledged believer, I would have disposed of you.” She laughed.

“I don’t understand,” Taal said.

Her laughter was beginning to grate on him. “Your servitude is how I’ve planned, all along, to gain entry to the Citadel,” she said. “Its defenses are keyed to obliterate any aberration or entity touched by aberration. Though the structure will still defend itself from intruders no matter their origin, a being who approaches, if he be mortal and born of the natural world, is presumed to be a descendent of the original guardians who created the Citadel. Only lesser defenses stand in such a one’s way.”

Cold realization, like winter’s breath, blew across Taal’s heart.

Malyanna had known he would never accept her insane faith. From her perspective, he’d always been a tool. He’d been kept in reserve against the day the Eldest or she herself stood here before the last obstacle preventing the Sovereignty from achieving its ultimate aims.

She’d used the pride he felt in his own spectacular abilities against him, lured him into a competition, and crowned him the winner, the one who among all had attempted it. He’d proved himself the most “deserving” of being sworn into eternal service.

Then she’d used the oath itself to keep him docile.

He darted forward, his head low, his arms outspread, meaning to catch her in the stomach with his shoulder and smash her to the ground-

When the pain eased enough for him to see, he found himself curled at Malyanna’s feet. She held the Dreamheart, which sparked with purple static.

“Now, get up,” she said. “Hew to the word you gave. If you break your vow now, even the sad mockery of purpose you’ve had all these years will be for nothing. And then I’ll burn your soul out of your fleshy frame, here in this place so far beyond the world that Kelemvor has no way to claim and preserve it. You’ll be lost forever, as if you’d never been, and with no chance for judgment or afterlife.”

Damn her, he thought.

He pulled himself upright.

“After you, Taal,” she said.

Perhaps she was right. He had served his oath all those years without fail or exception. He’d never wavered in his dedication to the letter of his spoken contract. In service to that ideal, at least, he was pure.

There was a kind of satisfaction in that, a kind of solace to be had. Not everyone finds their purpose in life, and few discover one so grand, so cosmic. If it just weren’t so utterly horrific …

Taal called upon the discipline of his training and put the turmoil from his mind. Perhaps an opportunity would present itself later. But at that moment, Malyanna watched him like a hawk.

He mounted the stairs, attempting to contain his thoughts within the bounds of the task before him. With each step, the material beneath his feet shimmered between slate, oak, parchment, bone, and fur. If he squinted ever so slightly, the transformations all ran together. He imagined each change were like his own scurrying desires; whether the stair his foot rested upon was composed of porcelain or iron, it was still a step, and still bore his weight. They were akin to him-no matter the varied motivations that wrestled inside him, one after the next, his oath remained.

Behind him, the remaining flying aboleths came to ground. Malyanna directed them to help drag the petrified form of the Traitor up the stairs with additional care.

Taal paused when he reached the first switchback landing. To continue forward, the procession would have to ford a stream of luminous white water that surged across the landing floor and jetted out over open space; it was the lowest of the falls they’d seen from below.

The fluid emerged from the open mouth of a relief sculpture of a massive humanoid. The mouth was set flush with the landing’s floor. The eyes of the sculpture danced with cerulean flame.

Four cryptlike structures, two on either side of the stream, rose from the landing’s floor. They were composed of rough pieces of basalt dry mortared in place, and did not shift substance like the floor supporting them. Each bore an unfamiliar glyph over an entrance sealed with yet more packed stone.

Nothing moved except the flowing liquid.

He was still studying the tableau when Malyanna came up behind him.

“What are you waiting for?” she said.

“Insight,” he replied.

“Time’s up,” she said as she shoved him. He could have swiveled, used her momentum, and thrown her over his hip so that she flew several feet out onto the landing. Instead, he stepped forward.

The eyes on the relief sculpture burned brighter. A spark leaped from them to the liquid. The fluid took the flame, and burst into an eye-searing trail of blue fire that raced to the end of the water channel. Instead of a shallow stream, a wall of cerulean flame blocked the next leg of ascent.

He raised his hand against the sudden glare. Warmth reached him across the gap, about as hot as he would have expected for a normal fire so large.

He glanced back at Malyanna. She and the aboleths were retreating down the stairs. Where the light touched the aboleths, tendrils of smoke rose. The eladrin noble’s skin went puffy, and she bared her teeth like a cornered wild animal.

“Put out that fire, Taal!” she said and moved even farther down the stairs, until she and her servitor monsters were shadowed from the fiery light by the landing’s lip.

“I live to serve,” he replied.

Taal walked to the sculpture fountain. Was there a mechanism to turn off the flow?

He reached the face in the wall, but the sound of cracking stone made him glance back.

The rocks sealing the cryptlike structures on his side of the burning stream had fallen away; he couldn’t see through the flames, but he supposed the same had occurred on the landing’s opposite side.

Human figures stepped forth from each opening. They were shriveled and gaunt, twisted like bodies mummified by a thousand years of desert heat. They wore loincloths. One gripped a spear tipped with lightning white radiance, the other a sword and shield. The sword’s edge glinted with the same stark glow.

They charged. They moved at least as quickly as living creatures despite their withered demeanor.

Taal turned to face the attack. The sword bearer was on his right, and the one with the spear approached on his left. The spear wielder was also slightly closer, or at least its weapon extended further. As it thrust for his face, Taal deflected the shaft sideways across his body with the open palm of his left arm. The thrust skewed toward his right, enough to momentarily block the sword wielder’s charge.

Even as he deflected the spear thrust with his outside hand, Taal stepped forward along the line of the spear wielder’s charge, his right arm coming up so that his elbow was at equal level with his shoulder, and his fingers pointed toward his attacker. In effect, he’d created a hook.

The creature had no time to react-its rush hurtled it forward so that its neck intersected with Taal’s bicep. He instantly squeezed the thing’s neck tight into his elbow and spun. With its head completely captured by Taal, its body had nowhere to go but where he directed it-which was into the fire.

The sword bearer had untangled itself from its fellow’s spear and was already coming at him.

The second creature attacked, trying to disembowel him with a horizontal cut across his stomach. Taal skipped just outside the swing, then snapped forward again as the tip passed. The thing was quick, faster than Taal had figured; it almost managed to bring the sword back into line before Taal stepped in and trapped its extended sword arm against its body, so that the blade was momentarily immobilized.

He smashed his knee up into the thing’s elbow and heard a satisfying snap.

The creature didn’t react with pain, or even drop the sword as a living opponent would have. However, when it broke free of Taal’s grip and swung at him again, the attack went wide on account of its arm hanging without skeletal support at the joint.

It also wasn’t completely mindless-it dropped its shield and took up the sword in its offhand. But by then, Taal had launched an attack of his own-a front kick in the thing’s stomach sent it stumbling back into the fiery stream.

That was when Taal saw the first creature emerge, completely unharmed by the blue energy or singed by the heat.

He realized he’d been stupid. The guardians would have been pretty poor wardens if they could so easily be harmed by their own in-place defenses.

He sidled away, so that his back was to the open drop behind him.

The first attacker, without its spear, saw the opportunity and charged him. It opened its toothless mouth as if to scream out a challenge, but it had no breath. Its attack was soundless. As it reached him, Taal snatched its outstretched hands and fell onto his back, kicking up into the creature’s stomach at the same time. The undead defender flipped high over him and off the side of the ziggurat.

Taal’s totem growled, and he rolled to one side. An arrow glanced off the ground where he’d planted his back.

Another arrow came through the fire, and he rocked the other way. Guardians must have emerged from the other two squat bunkers too. Or the second one he’d thrown through the fire, which hadn’t yet re-emerged, had found a bow and a supply of arrows.

Either way, he needed to get across that river and deal with them before one got off a lucky shot.

He recalled the width of the stream before it had become a river of blue fire. It was about twenty feet. Should be easy, he thought.

Taal ran straight at the fire. His totem gave him enough warning to dodge another arrow, but his footing was slightly off when he launched his diving roll over the flow and through the sheet of flame.

Fire seared his skin. When his reaching hand struck the far side of the landing, the combined stumble in his step and pain of the burn contrived to degrade his form; he didn’t quite curl his body into a smooth roll. When his body spun around the first time, his ankle cracked the ground. It could have been worse, but at that instant, the Citadel’s substance was composed of some kind of chalky green soil, which was slightly springy.

Three shriveled guardians stood on the other side of the flames. Two had bows, and one was the creature whose elbow he had shattered. Like its fellow, that one didn’t seem any the worse the wear for its swim in the blue fire.

Taal regained his feet, and ignored the twinge in his right ankle from the bad landing.

The two creatures with bows loosed, and he was forced to drop again.

The swordless undead lunged at him and tried to stamp on Taal’s head.

He caught its foot, twisted, and pulled. The undead didn’t fall, but stayed unbalanced long enough for Taal to use its body to pull himself upright. It tried to grapple him, and its undead sinews were unnaturally strong. But it had no technique whatsoever.

On the other hand, the threat of cutting off its air or blood supply to its head by squeezing its neck was nullified by the fact that it needed neither. So instead of trying to choke it, he managed to snake his arm up and apply an arm lock on its good arm, levering the creature’s head down by pulling its elbow into his own stomach. It might not need air or circulating blood, but ligaments and bones connected the same way in living adversaries as they did in those animated by magic.

The archers loosed again, but Taal ducked behind his captive enemy. One of the arrows struck it. Like the sword and spear, the arrows burned with some kind of holy white light. Unlike the blue flame, that energy had an immediate and deleterious effect on the undead.

It spasmed, opened its mouth wide in a silent scream, then fell limp. White vapor escaped from its lips and whispered away.

When the next arrow whistled toward his head, Taal attempted and succeeded at one of the feats for which Xiang Temple had been famous. He snatched the arrow from the air, and hurled it back at his foe.

The arrow caught the undead archer in the neck. It fell onto its back like a toppled statue and lay still. A faint banner of vapor streamed from its mouth and was gone.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the last defender even as it nocked another arrow and loosed it on him.

He skipped out of the way, bent, and pulled the shaft that had killed the undead he’d held in the joint lock. The arrow tip yet glimmered white.

Taal charged his foe, the arrow held in his grip like an ice pick. The undead didn’t have time to draw again before Taal ended its sentinel duty in the Citadel of the Outer Void.

When Taal approached the sculpted face for the second time, nothing contested him.

On that side of the stream, he noted a rune scribed just inside the gaping mouth. He didn’t recognize the symbol, but it glowed with the same white light as had glinted from the guardians’ weapons. Bracing against the heat of the burning river, he reached in and touched it.

The blue fire died out.

Taal waited, watching the lip of the landing. A moment later, Malyanna came into view up the stairs, her wolf-grin back in place. “You are a wonder, Taal,” she said. “Have I ever told you that?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Then let’s go-I see we have at least three more landings dripping this horrid fluid to get past.”

“I think I know how to deal with the remainder more efficiently,” said Taal. He picked up the spear his very first adversary had dropped. Its tip still shimmered with holy radiance.

He turned and ascended the second stage of the stairs.