Plague of Spells

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Taunissik, Sea of Fallen Stars

A coppery taste filled his mouth. Blood? He twisted, eyes nearly spinning in their sockets as they sought something familiar. Where was he?

A dull red glow stretched above and to each side of him. A fire? Ember-like points of light flared, brighter and brighter, until they fused to become a red-hazed vista.

He walked out upon a scarlet plain beneath a bleeding sky on a road of ground bones.

He continued walking, because he knew he had to do something very important. Something that lay in the direction he traveled, perhaps. Something quite vital, he was certain. Urgency burned just below his awareness, on the brink of shattering the glass between anxious unknowing and terrified understanding. But he couldn't quite recall precisely what he was supposed to do…

He paused. The road seemed familiar somehow, like something he'd glimpsed once in a dream. Or a nightmare, truth be told.

Perhaps he dreamed even now. That would explain the gap in his understanding. And why he wore no clothing. Why, he couldn't even recall his own name! Was that normal for a dream?

He started forward again. Perhaps if he reached the end of the road, the dream would end, and he would wake up. That sounded good. It might even be true. He quickened his pace.

After a time, he realized the faint roar he heard might be a waterfall. The sound rose and fell from somewhere ahead. His choice had been the correct one! At least, it seemed he was heading toward something interesting. He doubled his speed.

The road dipped beneath the level of the surrounding plain. Shadowed walls of veined stone grew up on each side. The roar echoed strangely through the canyon-like aisle, sounding almost like… screaming?

The sound, unnerving enough by itself, touched another memory. He'd heard it before. He wondered again if he were having a nightmare. The fact he couldn't recall his own identity took on an ominous edge as the screams coalesced.

He stumbled to a halt at the edge of a precipice. He stared down into an endless abyss that reached beyond his eyes' ability to discern details, seemingly limitless in its depth. It seemed to him the gap descended through the world and out the other side, still a void, one that reached forever…

The next beat of his heart brought with it his identity.

"I am Japheth! By the fey-cursed pacts I swore, I am Japheth!"

With his name came the realization that he'd misplaced his cloak. On the heels of that insight, he recognized where he was.

He stood at the end of the crimson road, where demons hunt those who give their souls over to traveler's dust. It was where everyone who took the arcane poison eventually ended, sooner or later. Japheth had avoided that fate years longer than any other, thanks to his pact.

The fact he stood here once more suggested his period of grace had concluded.

This time, there was no Lord of Bats to wing down through the bleeding sky and pluck him from certain dissolution. How could the Lord of Bats do so? He was prisoner in his own castle, thanks to Japheth's scheme. Or perhaps the Lord of Bats had freed himself, and that freedom had ended Japheth's immunity from consequence. Either way, he had reached the end of the line.

Japheth stared, goggle-eyed and dry-mouthed. He tried to shuffle back from the edge. Agony seared his legs, as if his bones locked into place by suddenly extruding spurs into his muscles. He swayed, his toes overhanging the unending abyss. His internal struggle dislodged a portion of the earthy lip, which rained dust and pebbles out and then down. Gone.

Raw, terrified throats loosed drawn out screams. He jerked his head around and saw his wasn't the only road that emptied onto the great pit. Hundreds of other gaps poked through the abyssal wall, some higher than the one he stood in, others lower, all endpoints for roads composed of ground bone. And upon them, other victims walked. Walked screaming, protesting, and begging as they hurled themselves, still screaming, into the abyss.

He wanted to avert his gaze. But horror locked his eyes on each new victim who fell past. Some, the yawning chasm of infinite darkness swallowed. But many more did not reach that boundary, or at least they did not reach it in one piece. For in that space between an infinite fall and '¦ the false hope for salvation, demonic creatures laired and hunted. They skimmed through the air on scaled wings, spearing windmilling figures out of the air with claws, spiked tails, retractable tongues, and other appendages too horrible to comprehend.

When a demon stooped on a falling screamer, that victim's voice redoubled in godsforsaken frenzy; then abruptly ceased. The remains of each feast were finally relinquished, to fall wet and silent into darkness.

Japheth couldn't help screaming himself when, without willing it, he stepped off into the void. He fell. He windmilled his arms, just like all the others, no matter that it did nothing but fuel his terror. He told himself to stop, but it was impossible to do anything else.

A shape sailed down from the burning sky. It closed on him with vicious certitude. It snatched him from the air.

Why wasn't it tearing into him? Comprehension touched him-this was no demon.

It was Anusha. Anusha in her golden armor of dream, though without her helm. Golden wings of whimsy sprouted from her back. They beat with a strong, steady cadence, bearing both of them higher.

She held him, and he her. She bore him up, higher and higher. He stared into her dark eyes and was lost. He was as disoriented as when he'd stared into the abyss, but fear left him.

He said, "You saved me, Anusha. I owe you my life. I…" She only smiled. He leaned closer into her embrace. *****

Japheth opened his eyes with a start. A great dark blur, punctuated here and there by tiny, moving blurs of light, surrounded him. He lay on something hard, damp, and painfully unyielding.

"Where-?" he began, then he coughed. His throat was raw as if from screaming. Or as if coated with rock dust. His eyes too were gritty with sand, and his whole body was bruised, as if he'd been squeezed too hard on every extremity. And a pain stabbed the left side of his chest with each breath.

He rubbed at his eyes to get some tears flowing to wash away the grit. When his vision cleared, he saw the unpleasant object on which he lay was a small coral dome. Words scribed on it read, "Japheth Donard. Preserved for sacrifice 1396."

A man's voice, smooth and mellow but with a strange accent, said, "You are free of the stone. Anusha pulled you forth a moment ago. You were entombed in that coral mound."

Japheth coughed again and saw the dark-haired speaker. He wore a silk jacket open at the chest to show off a great tattoo that glowed with cerulean brilliance. The man's lithe shape hinted at a touch of elf blood. A sword burning with the same sky blue fire stood point first in the rock before the man, as if, lacking a sheath, he had plunged it into the stone.

"Where is Anusha?" Japheth asked.

"Perhaps she stands next to us unseen, though her silence argues she is attempting to retrieve the others from these nearby biers."

Japheth rose, his bruised and battered limbs protesting, but he breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the folds of his cloak move around him. He had only dreamed he'd lost it! And it must have been a dream too, that he had nearly succumbed to the terminal stages of traveler's dust abuse.

Or had it been a dream? The man said Anusha retrieved him from the coral dome. Had her dream form pulled him free of more than a stone cocoon?

A flare of blue fire on the dome closest to Japheth's revealed two figures-a woman in armor, and another woman limp in her arms. "Anusha!" Her name escaped Japheth's mouth without his volition.

Anusha pulled the other woman, Seren, from the stone and laid her across its coarse surface, just as Japheth had found himself arranged. She waved, even as the blue fire outlining her began to fade. Her voice rang out, "Only one more?" She pointed to the dome printed with Thoster's name.

"Yes," replied the warlock, beaming. Just as in his dream, she wore no helm.

"One moment," she returned, and was gone.

Seren began to cough, her throat sounding as encrusted as Japheth's had been. Pale dust covered her, lending her an unhealthy pallor. He supposed he sported the same layer.

Anusha appeared from the last dome in another burst of azure flame, carrying Captain Thoster. She bore the man's considerable weight without too much effort, Japheth noted. Her ability was strengthening.

Thoster opened his eyes the barest sliver and whispered, "Water."

The warlock cupped his hands and dunked them into the tide-pool at his feet. He transferred the water three steps and dribbled over the man's white, ash-streaked face and into his open mouth, which pulsed, open and closed, in a weirdly fishlike manner. Thoster gasped when the water touched him, and some color returned to his skin. Seren was already standing on her own power, muttering.

Japheth turned to look at Anusha, whose identifying flames were already nearly absent. He said, suddenly clumsy with his words, "I'm glad to see you."

"Japheth! I'm so sorry I left you! It was too far-"

"We ain't safe," Thoster's throaty rasp cut her off. "Where's the beast?"

Japheth guiltily jerked his gaze from where Anusha's image faded, and scanned the great space. He looked for hints of sinuous arms moving in the shadows. Glints of gold-green light flitted over the domes, obelisks of shaped coral, and tide-pools of seawater that dotted the great subterranean vault. Nothing else.

The stranger spoke up then. "We have not seen the great kraken since we arrived, though we faced down a few of Gethshemeth's servitors." He pointed behind him at a pile of rubble. Japheth recognized a few of the glyphs on the broken rock-it was the eidolon Gethshemeth had commandeered to hold him in stone!

"You destroyed the walking statue?" asked Thoster.

The man nodded and grimaced, looking at the sword punched into the stone before him. "I did, with Angul's aid." He looked up then and said, "I am Raidon Kane, a monk initiate of Xiang Temple. I am here to destroy Gethshemeth and its aberrant relic."

"Your aid is sorely needed!" enthused Captain Thoster. "We ain't got the tools, I think we proved."

Seren frowned. Japheth did too, but not because he was upset Thoster demeaned their abilities. It was because of Raidon's stated desire to destroy the Dreamheart. That second goal wouldn't serve the warlock.

Japheth ventured, "If we destroy Gethshemeth, its relic will be powerless, surely." Maybe the monk wouldn't know any better. Thoster winked at Japheth, his eyes twinkling. The captain didn't want the Dreamheart destroyed any more than Japheth did.

The monk's brow creased ever so slightly as if in surprise; then he gave a curt shake of his head. He said, "The relic is the source of the problem. Its destruction is required, lest some other creature claim it for malicious ends, or worse, call up from the earth those to whom it truly belongs."

The sword emitted a sudden cerulean flare as if to highlight the monk's words.

Japheth nodded as if in agreement but inwardly wondered what he would do.

Thoster said, his tone light as if he were relating a joke, "Well, let's not count our coins before we open the chest, eh? The beast is still around, and the beast is what we must deal with first. After that, we can talk about who's going to destroy what, aye?"

Japheth nodded again. Perhaps then he could convince the half-elf Shou to give up his desire to destroy the relic. Raidon met the captain's gaze steadily, saying nothing. "Are all of you cracked?" demanded Seren. "We were roundly and easily defeated by Gethshemeth. I am not going to fight it again! We need to get out of here! I'm leaving." She shot a desperate glance Japheth's way, as if pleading for his support.

The warlock said, "Seren, we can't escape without facing Gethshemeth. If we divide our strength, it'll merely kill us one by one, alone. Together, with Raidon's aid this time, and Anusha's, perhaps we can overcome the kraken." "Who's Anusha?" Seren demanded. "Let me guess-the ghost,' right? Anyhow, you must know you're lying to yourself." The woman's voice rose, echoing through the chamber. "We came in here five strong, remember? I doubt Nogah and the first mate would agree with your assessment about how well we operate as a team. I'd ask them, but, oh yes, I recall how, they're already dead!" Seren's last word was a piercing screech. "Seren, shush," came Anusha's urgent suggestion from somewhere to the woman's left.

The wizard whirled, her eyes searching for the speaker.

"And you!" Seren accused. "I should have dealt with you permanently the first time around, ghost girl. I'm sure your ability to hide will prove ever so useful against a kraken!"

Thoster chuckled.

"Seren, she saved your life," Japheth protested despite his desire not to get drawn into the wizard's childish rant. Angry blood pounded in his temples.

"No time for squabbles," Raidon Kane interjected. "Some-thing approaches."

A distant gurgle grew louder. Japheth had been aware of the noise for a while but had discounted it as just one more strange background noise. He did so no longer. It was the sound of water flowing. A lot of water.

A bolus of liquid blasted the top off a coral dome not ten paces from Japheth. The coral cap was propelled so swiftly upward by the water jet that it crashed into the vault's ceiling, exploding into rubble. The geyser of water remained, a column of flowing sea connecting floor and ceiling, cold and dire, threatening to fill the entire vault if its flow was not dammed.

Rock detritus and water rained down, pelting everyone.

A piece of shrapnel drew a bloody line down Thoster's left cheek. He swore an oath in a language Japheth didn't know.

Seren uttered an arcane word, and a mundane-looking wooden shield materialized. It began to whirl around its mistress, too late to shield her from a stone that had clipped her head.

Fed from the inrushing water, the pools dotting the vault's floor began to reach toward each other. The darting witchlights were blurred with the haze of water vapor in the air. The farthest domes and obelisks became difficult to pick out. But moving shapes on the periphery snatched Japheth's attention.

A phalanx of perhaps twenty shuffling, spear-carrying kuo-toa emerged from the mist, no more than thirty or forty feet away. Their skin glistened with moisture from the roaring water jet. They didn't seem hindered by the rising water, which lapped at the creatures' calves.

Seren hurled a narrow stream of fire, crisping the lead combatant instantly. Japheth matched her with a sizzling eldritch blast of his own, disemboweling a kuo-toa. It stopped and pitched over face first in the water. Their fellows didn't flinch-they trampled their former compatriots' bodies without shifting their vicious, predatory gaze.

"Your sword!" yelled Seren, pointing at the burning blade.

"Angul is not yet required," the monk replied.

The kuo-toa's forward progress paused a moment as they launched a flight of spears. Japheth's cloak wrapped about one that tried to enter his skull through his eye, diverting it elsewhere. Another spear struck Seren's whirling shield, splintering it.

"If your weapon is as powerful as it looks, we need it now!" the wizard returned, her voice cracking.

Raidon retrieved the spear that had shattered Seren's shield. He hurtled it back into the advancing mob, skewering a kuo-toa in the throat. He replied, "The sword's ego is overwhelming. I prefer not to subject myself to him until absolutely necessary."

The pirate captain's eyes narrowed, his eyes suddenly avaricious. "Him?" asked Thoster. Raidon didn't respond or seem to notice the pirate's expression. Instead, he charged the phalanx, his feet slapping small craters in the water with each step. The monk's sword blazed brighter as if petulant at being ignored. For all its light, it burned impotently, point first in coral.

Captain Thoster glanced once at Angul, then lit out after Raidon, unsheathing his golemwork blade. Water beaded up and ran off Thoster's sword as if the weapon were forged of mallard feathers instead of iron.

The kuo-toa phalanx, down three from the dozen or more that first appeared, tensed against the monk's charge, drawing new spears from those strapped, to their backs. They extended them, intent on skewering the man.

Raidon leaped, and his trajectory became an arc. He rose neatly over the highest spear tip. He landed in the midst of the phalanx. Their formation broke apart, as all instantly attempted to turn inward. The monk's hands were like water wheel pistons, a blur of motion Japheth could barely discern. The cerulean tattoo on his chest seemed to gleam brighter.;¦ with each creature he slew.

Thoster crashed into the outer circle of distracted kuo-toa. He struck down two instantly with his envenomed mechanical blade, opening a hole in the already crumbling formation.

"This is too easy," muttered Japheth. He scanned the periphery of the vault and glimpsed movement.

"Over there!" he yelled, pointing. At least three more groups of kuo-toa spearwielders materialized through the mist. With them came other creatures, some recognizable as squid-like beasts the size of hounds, a few so misshapen he couldn't immediately classify them.

The warlock uttered a series of arcane words and directed a beam of dire radiance into one of the groups, dazzling their eyes and disrupting their forward progress.

"And above us, Japheth!" Anusha's voice yelled in his ear. He looked up.

The kraken was back.