Stardeep

CHAPTER SIX

City of Laothkund, The Gutter

"G'way," mumbled Kiril. Daylight pried at her eyelids. Worse, something small and four-footed pattered around on her back. What the Hells?

Where in Mystra's starry hair was. . the smell of garbage and bile brought with it her memory. She lay in an alley alcove.

A fuzzy image of her defeating a sweaty dwarf in an arm wrestling contest took shape in her mind's eye. Had she quit the Smokehouse Inn after that? Maybe. If not then, then later. Somehow, lost in a whisky haze, she'd found her way to the alcove. Her muddy, sodden clothes hinted she'd been there a while. The greasy yellow clay on her shoes, legs, and arms matched the hue of the muck between the cobbles. That must have been earlier, when it was still warm enough for mud. The winter night, now giving way to day, had stolen the previous day's heat. The mud was ridged with ice and a coating of snow hid treacherous ruts.

She was frankly surprised she hadn't frozen to death. And the creature sharing the alcove with her … a rat!?

She gave an involuntary jerk, spooking the creature resting on her back. Its squeal sounded like a bag of dropped bells. It flew up across the alley and landed on a ledge. Despite being opalescent and faceted, it moved uncannily like a live thing. It reminded her of earth magic exploits performed by an old friend. .

"Xet!" she exclaimed. "I thought you'd left me for good!" She shook her head, jarring loose a headache waiting in ambush.

Kiril brought a hand to her forehead and dislodged a heavy fur covering her body. She didn't remember the fur when she'd passed out. Of course, her faculties had been much the worse for wear then.

The crystal dragonet tolled a happy note and flew down to her.

"Did. . did you bring this fur?"

A tiny, drakelike head on the end of a sinuous crystalline neck nodded.

"You saved my life. Damn interfering beast!"

It rang a resentful tone.

She glared at it a moment or two, but the headache wasn't so fierce it was able to conquer her desire to pierce last night's gloom.

If history was any guide, she'd done something humiliating, if not downright dangerous. She hoped she hadn't hurt anybody. Killed anybody, she amended. She was sure she'd hurt someone. She couldn't truthfully call it a bender if she didn't get into a fight. Lately, her barroom brawls were much more entertaining. Because of Gage.

Since she'd come to Laothkund, her new acquaintance Gage had proved the perfect partner on the tavern circuit. He was funny, could almost match her drink for drink, and fought like a wildcat. A sneaky wildcat. His forte was disabling assailants quickly.

This was how it usually went down: Kiril's foul mouth, purposeful baiting, and derision were enough to launch a stiff-necked merc or a righteous priest off a bar stool into Kiril's business. She took the brunt, and Gage backed her up, if he was around. They would laugh about it later. A few bruises here and there, a few more for their foes-what was the harm in that? Though she one time saw Gage lighten the purse of a cleric who lay groaning beneath a mead-sopped bench. She wasn't one for robbery, but to her mind stealing from priests was merely putting already stolen gold back into circulation.

Her stomach intruded with a new question: When had she eaten last? An image of thick porridge crystallized in her bleary brain. Next to a rasher of bacon. And some thick ale, of course. .

She swayed to her feet, bracing herself on a wall. "Come if you're coming, then, I don't care," she lied to Xet. Truth was, she was pleased to see the gemlike dragonet. Its absence had revealed her attachment to it. Who would have guessed? Its most accomplished trait was its ability to irritate her. But it reminded Kiril of the time immediately before she'd come to Laothkund. The only good memory of the last ten years. .

She knew an innkeeper who owed her a favor. She began trudging in the direction of the man's establishment, unsteady at first, but gaining composure as she moved. Xet chimed, then flew over and lighted on her shoulder. Kiril resisted her initial urge to shrug the creature off.

As she walked, her right hand fell of its own accord to her empty scabbard.

Angul!

Gone.

Vertigo and defeat pushed a forlorn groan from her lips.

She remembered, again. He'd been gone for days.

She knew it already, of course. But the mind's knowing and the body's are not the same. If she ignored his absence long enough, perhaps the next time she checked, he'd magically be back, as if never gone.

"Yeah, right, you canker-ridden half-wit," she chided herself. Thank Shar's dead promises she still had her flask of all-forgiving whisky if nothing else.

The flask was forged of bronze, probably made by wood elves. Verdigris obfuscated the deranged face chiseled into the flask's side-some ancient god of the vine. She didn't care who it was. She cared only that in all the years she'd owned it, it had never failed to produce its potent drink. Once a bottomless flask to assuage her infinite shame, it was now a reservoir to fill the hole of Angul's absence.

After some food, she'd pull out the flask and continue the cycle, until death claimed her.

A crowd milled in front of the entrance of the Green Warrior Inn and Tavern. Her thirst had grown desperate as she'd walked, and she scowled when she considered there might be some kind of delay in quenching it.

A crash, and an unkempt but hearty dwarf came hurtling through the front door. He screamed some consonant-laden phrase as he regained his feet and charged back into the inn.

More yells, the sound of breaking crockery and splintering wood; she recognized the telltale signs. This early? The crowd must have carried over from a particularly hard-drinking night, but…

She sidled up to a swaying man at the edge of the gathering who stank of fish and grease. She doubted she smelled any better considering how she had spent the night. "Who's fighting?"

The man, his skin a pallid yellow, slurred, "Crazy man come in this mornin' afore dawn. Talkin' to his blade the whole time. Arguing, like. Then he went after a couple women of the evening, like he wus' gon' cut them. ."

A crash blotted out part of the man's stumbling story.

". . so everyone tried stop 'im. He's in there, waving that blue sword around-"

"Angul?" she exclaimed. Kiril shoved the drunk aside. He fell, complaining loudly. She paid no mind as she pierced the mob and charged through the tavern's gaping entrance. Xet clamped painfully down on her shoulder, holding on through the bustle.

She saw Gage. And there. . was Angul! Gage held the flaming sword in a scalded hand. The man whirled around like a marionette whose strings were snagged, brandishing the burning blade with jerky motions. The mob from outside spilled into the tavern, but only the most hardened and most drunk encircled Gage.

How had Gage managed to pick up her sword-why hadn't Angul fried him? By the look of Gage's naked hand, the blade had at least tried. And what lunacy was Gage up to now?

A bald man with a menacing tattoo branded on his scalp yelled, "We're tired of your performance, freak! Get out of here!" He hurled a wooden tankard. The sword twitched, but decided against deflecting the attack. The tankard struck Gage on his right shoulder. He grunted and yelled, obviously at the sword, "Defend me, or our deal is through!"

A moment later, he screeched as a flaming blue ember dripped from the blade, licking Gage's hand clutched on the hilt. But he didn't give up his grip. He probably couldn't. Kiril recognized Angul's methods-punishment was its first recourse against a balky wielder. Which had never before been anyone but her, from the moment Angul was first forged.

Kiril broke through the ring of people, said, "Gage!"

Her old acquaintance whirled. "Kiril! Thank the Queen of Air! Make it let go!"

"Make 'him,' " she corrected. She hated the blade, hated him. . but hate couldn't blunt her dependence.

Kiril held out a hand. Gage presented the sword, hilt forward, trepidation on his face. Relief washed all else away when Gage easily relinquished his grip to her.

When her hands touched the hilt's leather wrappings, she began to cry and curse. "I missed you," she whispered. Angul's angry flames flickered out, and a sense of utter well-being descended over the elf swordswoman. She didn't fight it.

Gage stood rubbing his hands together, one gloved, the other bare, looking at woman and sword reunited. His brow creased with the weight of his conundrum.

In a private room at a different inn across town, Kiril and Gage shared a plate of olives and cheese. Xet perched near the door, annoying wait staff and customers in the outer chamber with its incessant tinkling. Or so Kiril assumed, though no one complained.

"And here's the strange thing," said Gage, continuing the story of finding her stolen blade and stealing it back.

"Yeah?"

"Sathra didn't crave the blade herself. She was in the employ of someone else who wanted it. Someone named 'Nangulis.' "

In mid-swallow, Kiril choked.

Shaking off her coughing fit, she demanded, "Who?" Her tone was incredulous and hoarse. "Did you say. .?"

"Nangulis. Do you know him?" Gage watched her coolly, appraising her response. Kiril was too astounded to notice.

"Yes. I do. I did-he's dead. It can't be Nangulis."

Now Gage was surprised. He shook his head and replied, "I'm. . Sathra was certain it was someone named Nangulis. Could you be wrong?"

Shaking with barely restrained emotion, Kiril replied, "Impossible." She unstrapped her scabbard and put Angul, still in his sheath, on the table between them.

"I know it couldn't be who you name because all that remains of Nangulis is Angul."

Gage stared at her, uncomprehending. "I don't understand."

Kiril barely heard him-she replied, faintly, "Half of him, anyway. Half his soul, forged into this unbending, bastard blade."

Gage's eyes grew wide. "His soul?"

Kiril nodded. "It's what gives the blade such power-he is a living soul, trapped in steel forever."

"So, you knew Nangulis, before. ."

"Nangulis and I were close. We would have been joined in marriage had our duty allowed. Those dreams are long dead. All I have left of him is Angul." She put her hand on the sheath, her eyes tight and shining with moisture.

"Which is why I can never give up this damned blade. He's not Nangulis, but he's the closest thing I'll ever find of my love. You've returned something I would have died without."

The thief looked startled, and somehow guilty. He began to speak, paused, began again. "Well, thank the Queen of Air I was able to bring back your most cherished possession."

Kiril nodded, but grimaced.

"You don't really seem that happy about it. Is it-"

"The story is not so tidy, sadly," interrupted Kiril. "I treasure Angul, but at the same time, the sword is killing my conscience; killed it, actually, soon after I came to wield him."

Gage started to speak, but stopped again, his head cocked. He fumbled out a few words then started over. "You're going to have to explain. I haven't the faintest conception what you're talking about."

Kiril sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Gage. ."

"I'm listening."

"You deserve to hear about him, if you care to. I'll tell you how I came to wield Angul, what I once was. . and the sins I've committed in the name of an unbending ideal." The moisture in her eyes broke into twin tracks down her cheeks.

"I'd like to hear about it," Gage responded, his voice soft. He moved his gloved hand from the table, out of view.

"Before Angul, before I wandered, fought, and drank so much, I was a different person. I was a dutiful servant of an ancient order-the Cerulean Sign. Heard of it?"

Gage shook his head.

"Would have surprised me if you had." Kiril scrubbed away the wetness on her cheeks. "The Cerulean Sign is a rune of power created when things were not as they are today. Before men, or even elves walked the world, when the continents were divided differently than now, entities strange and powerful fought. When the future was a toss-up between sanity and abomination."

"Sounds bad."

"You can't imagine. But the Cerulean Sign was forged to oppose creatures that oozed down from mad realms to colonize Abeir-Toril. To a large extent, those long-vanished defenders of the virgin world succeeded. Abominations, both godlike and inconsequential, were pushed back. Abeir was forgotten. Mortal races eventually inherited the earth."

"Like you and me?"

"Right," agreed Kiril. Her voice regained a little of its strength as she spoke.

"Who were these defenders?" wondered the thief.

"Unknown. Too much time since then. They were damn tough, though. Gods, probably, or whatever passed for gods before people were around to call them divine."

Gage let out his breath, shaking his head ever so slightly, as if in disbelief. Kiril's eyes narrowed.

"You want to hear this or not?" She tensed as if to stand.

"No, please-I apologize," said the thief, leaning forward, suddenly conciliatory. "I didn't realize your story was going to have such. . cosmic. . size to it."

Kiril said, "I need to say this. Believe it or don't."

"I do believe it, and I want you to go on-I saved your sword, didn't I? I have a big interest in this."

The elf nodded. She leaned back in her seat and continued. "So, these vanished defenders and their Sign, while mostly effective, weren't completely successful. Monstrosities slipped into the world, some openly, others less so. Most are hidden away, yet remain terrors to those who find them in the dark below the surface. You've heard of aboleths?"

"Aboleths are the abominations?"

"Yes-well, related to the originals. Far worse tried to openly colonize reality. They failed, yet they retain a foothold even after all these eons. There's always a chance they'll rise as one from their ancient strongholds. But that prospect is not unopposed. Once, I guarded against the possibility."

"You did?"

"Blood, yes! Don't sound so surprised. I told you I was not always as I seem now. Once I had a civil tongue." Kiril laughed.

"I was a Keeper of the Cerulean Sign-one of a small group of guardians loyal to the ancient knowledge. We nurtured comprehension of the Sign, so that primeval aberrations are opposed whenever they stir."

"And do they? Stir, I mean?"

"They do. Mostly by proxy-they send nightmares that insinuate dreams, hollow hearts, and madden minds. Sometimes, their influence finds particularly susceptible, but powerful mortals. If the seduction goes to completion, a priest of the old ones is born, a priest whose single self-proclaimed duty is to call the oldest abominations forth into the light of day. A priest pledged to call forth apocalypse. A twisted bastard who wants nothing more than to stand laughing amidst the ashes of reality."

"Akadi's tricky fingers!" exclaimed Gage.

Kiril nodded, agreeing with the man's sentiment. She cleared her throat. "In a hidden realm where elves dwell, within the Yuirwood, a man succumbed to this very seduction. He was branded the Traitor, and he was locked away in a dungeon forever. The name of that dungeon is Stardeep-"

Kiril paused, noting Gage's sharp intake of breath. "What is it?"

"I'll tell you when you've finished. Don't interrupt your story-the name sounded familiar, is all."

"All right… so anyhow, up until ten years ago, I was a warden there-in Stardeep. So was Nangulis. We served together for five years in that role, but knew each other even before that."

Gage cupped his chin in his hands, resting his elbows on the table. He asked, "What happened-did the Traitor get out? Is that why you're … so sad and disillusioned?"

"Yes, he escaped. When he got out, he assumed a mantle of abominable power, becoming seemingly invincible. Things seemed bleak but Cynosure told us of one last fail-safe. ."

"Cynosure?"

She frowned at the interruption and said, "Cynosure is a sentient idol whose mind lives throughout Stardeep. The idol commands embedded sorceries throughout the dungeon. For instance, he can teleport willing Keepers from place to place."

"Really? That's incredible … uh, sorry, never mind. You found a fail-safe, you said?"

"Nangulis and I, along with the mind of the fortress, called upon ancient Cerulean lore to fashion a weapon potent against all evil, a weapon whose righteousness would be especially effective against aberrations, as well as the Traitor who wielded their abilities."

Kiril ran her hand down Angul's sheath. "But the creation of such an effective weapon was not possible without sacrifice. To create the weapon, we required the willing contribution of a living, purified soul. All the goodly, just, righteous aspects of a soul, which would be transformed and manifested as a physical object. Over this, Nangulis and I fought, but time was short, our plight desperate. I know not how he convinced me; it would happen differently now if I had it to do over. But in the end, the Blade Cerulean was forged, and Nangulis, what remained of him, emerged from the process as unyielding steel."

"Incredible."

"And so I took up this new weapon, untested, its essence vibrating with he who I couldn't yet believe was gone. I took up Nangulis, renamed Angul, and with him, battled the Traitor to a standstill, though his vile tricks nearly killed me. We beat him, battered him, schooled him in the ways of Righteousness. . and returned the dung-eating bastard to the nadir of the Well, Stardeep's most secure prison."

"If you overcame the Traitor, why didn't you just kill him? Seems like a lot of trouble to keep him alive."

"If it were only that simple, Stardeep wouldn't have been built in the first place."

"Oh? Some sort of elf law against killing your own?"

Kiril snorted and shook her head. She said, "His death would be a clarion call to the very creatures we do not wish disturbed. Left to his own devices, he would have induced them to rise. Killed, his flaring, dissipating essence would signal the first day of a renewed colonization. The Traitor is more abomination than man; he's their highest high priest. So we keep him safe."

"He doesn't try to starve himself to death down there?"

"When he signed his soul over to the Abolethic Sovereignty, his mortal needs were erased. He cannot die merely through neglect."

Gage blinked. "I need a drink." He stood, walked to the door, and yelled into the hubbub of the common room, "Two ales!"

A drink sounded like a first-class idea to Kiril, too. She remained silent until the flagons were delivered, and Gage refrained from plying her with more questions until they'd both had a chance to sample the brew. Not especially good. She took another swallow. She needed it if she was going to tell Gage the whole story to its awful conclusion.

Gage said, "You must really miss him. Nangulis, as he was, I mean." He waved at the sword on the table.

"You still don't know it all," Kiril declared, then she fell silent again.

Gage waited her out.

Finally, the elf continued. "You've held Angul. So you know the overwhelming nature of his personality. When you wield the Blade Cerulean, remaining in possession of your own thoughts is difficult. Everything seems decided already, and Angul believes himself the final arbiter. Frankly, I can't believe you resisted running through everyone in that bar. Angul would see them all as dissolute wastrels crying out for his special loving attention."

"Only because I made a deal with it-him-before I picked him up. The second time, anyway. The first time, he ignited one of my gauntlets." Gage raised his left hand, red and blistered, and flexed it. Pain flitted across his face.

"He's that way, now," sighed Kiril. "Punishing. He doesn't like that I've discovered ways to temper his influence. He wants total control-he believes such is his right. But I wasn't always so resourceful. Nor did I see a need to be. Angul seduced me to his will by being in some ways identical to Nangulis."

Gage nodded. "I sensed he was trying to take over my mind."

"After the Traitor was remanded back to Stardeep's most secure dungeon cell, I stayed as the Keeper as I had been, now wielding Angul. I spent most days in constant contact with the blade, so I could mingle with his sense of certainty, what I thought was his glorious revealed knowledge. His absolute distinction between good and evil. While I was out on patrol one day, that distinction fell on the wrong side of the dividing line."

When Kiril's pause threatened to become a full stop, the thief asked, "What do you mean?"

"I mean Angul decided that a group of unruly children who had wandered too near Stardeep, when they should have known better, were no longer worth tolerating. Before that day was over, while wielding Angul, I. ."

An oft-thumbed memory swept up from the abyss of Kiril's soul, as it sometimes did when her defenses were most fragile. In her mind's eye, she saw she was dressed as a Keeper of Stardeep; her mail was black, trimmed with silver thread. In her hands, Angul burned, shedding the warm certainty of the truth. A promise soon to be shattered forever. She began to tell Gage about the worst day of her life.

"I was patrolling beyond Stardeep, in the daylight world, looking for spies on the perimeter. ."

The swordswoman walked beneath a dark pine canopy. The burning sword she held aloft illuminated her path, as if she were an avenging angel. And wasn't she? Her cause was just and good. Her blood was fired with Angul's conviction, her mind focused with his clarity, and her heart hardened with his faith. Nothing could stand in their way, and while she gripped the burning blade, fear was an emotion unknown to her, and more; an emotion reviled.

Prowlers camped near the Causeway Gate. Too near. If the Causeway emerged from the interstitial mists that cloaked it, the intruders would see Stardeep's main entrance. Considering the recent escape attempt by the prisoner, the encampment's sudden appearance was too suspicious to let pass. After the sacrifices made to ensure the Traitor's continued captivity, Kiril was determined not to take any chances. Angul, new to her hands, agreed emphatically.

Sneaks and cutpurses coddled fear, and used it to inform their bloodless deceits, retreats, and ambushes. Worry was fear's watchword, and it nudged and pushed the timid into the grave just as surely, if not as quickly, as a fearless attack that failed to win the day. At worst, the eulogy of the warrior who bravely fell in conflict would be remembered for centuries, whereas those whose fear preserved them would die unremembered in cold beds, alone.

Not that death was likely with a magical blade of Angul's strength in her keeping. Joined, hilt to hand, she and Angul would be together forever. After all, the blade's power made certain little could permanently harm her flesh.

Kiril spied the camp. Two hide tents, finely cured, with subtle sigils cut into the surface. The interlopers were apparently not orcs or the other coarse peoples. No, these must be wood elves who ranged yet in Aglarond. They should know better than to camp so close to the megaliths! It was part of the compact established when the Yuir elves first moved out of Aglarond and into their artificial realm. Had the remnant elves forgotten?

Ignorance is no excuse, Angul imparted to her conscious mind, their presence is in violation of the compact of Yuireshanyaar.

"Yes," she breathed, "of course." The intruders must be induced to leave. Immediately.

Kiril moved to within five or so paces of the tents. She saw no movement, despite the warning her blade's light provided.

"Come out and be judged!" she bawled in Elvish.

Whispers broke from the tents, and a moment later, four or five lithe forms emerged. As she'd guessed, wood elves, or half-elves most likely, members of the degraded fey race that remained behind after the Yuir departed. She hadn't guessed these would be children, or nearly so.

The oldest, a youth of no more than fourteen or fifteen suns, stepped forward. His hair was strung with garlands, his torso inked with patterns of leaves and acorns. He responded in the same language. "We are on a quest, and mean no harm. We-"

"You have broken the compact," interrupted Kiril. "Why?"

"We. ." the youth's initial confidence began to collapse in the face of her asperity.". . We seek to discover a truth. Our seer spoke of a prophecy."

"What prophecy?"

"About the megaliths. She said the Yuirwood's 'salvation or destruction lies beyond stony bounds of the ancient rings.' "

Kiril frowned. She'd never liked prophets. The riddles they spoke were too easily decoded in a manner convenient to the interpreter. And true prophets irked her more; she had a visceral distaste for the concept of predestination.

"Who is this prophetess?" demanded Kiril. If some hoary old tribal shaman was able to determine which among the hundreds of stone circles in the Yuirwood opened onto Stardeep, well, that was a real security hazard.

Instead of answering directly, the boy said, "We came here to see if the words she spoke were true. Who are you?" The last was asked with a tremulous waver, as Kiril's stony expression hardened into a scowl.

"Your judge," she responded. "And I judge you've overstayed your welcome. Be gone."

They have disregarded the treaty upon which the realm of Sild?yuir was born, and on which the security of Stardeep depends.

Kiril's sword spoke the truth. It saw past all distractions to the heart of the matter, she was learning. She lowered the tip of the sword to point at the interlopers. The boy's companions shrank away.

Not the boy. He held his ground, screwed up his courage once more, and said, "You are not of the tribes, are you? I see you are a full-blood elf, but not of these woods, or even those far to the north. Have you come from behind the menhir circle? Is it true star elves roam there, in a realm apart?"

These children guess too much. Stardeep's defense is imperiled.

"Yes!" she agreed aloud with her blade, not the child. The sword lent her a focus completely new to her experience. It was almost like having Nangulis himself at her side. When he was alive, he had called her his Bright Star. .

"You are? But that's wonderful!" exclaimed the boy, misunderstanding her response. He had no inkling of the death sentence silently handed down by the Blade Cerulean.

She closed the distance between them with five quick steps and brought the sword around. When the blade swept through the space beneath the boy's jaw, she hardly felt a tug on the hilt. The youth's head rolled into the underbrush. Fluids sprayed. She blinked blood from her eyes.

The murdered elf's companions stood frozen in soul-stopped horror. She continued moving, making one harvestlike motion after another, taking advantage of the interlopers' shock. Sword in hand, she moved to eliminate Stardeep's liability.

Her lips moved, too, but Angul's words were in her mouth. "We do not suffer abominations."

She learned that day that Angul impelled where dry reason faltered. Angul excited where debate and philosophy failed to motivate. With Angul in hand came purpose, exaltation, and the ultimate high of being part of a spectacular moment. A moment in which Angul delivered triumph in the face of insurmountable odds. .

The screams of the children, as she cut them down, penetrated her blade-given conviction. She paused, wiping blood from her face with the back of one gauntleted hand, her eyes blinking. Abominations. .? What in the name of the Well was she doing? These were children! And she had.. she was..

An arrow bloomed in her abdomen. She shrieked, went down on one knee. A girl had run when the others had remained within Kiril's fatal reach. She'd escaped the swords-woman's initial onslaught. But she stopped to loose an arrow, despite the fear trembling her limbs. The half-elf girl pulled another arrow to her bowstring.

Kiril struggled onto both feet, her breath ragged. Angul flared and the ache in her stomach melted. Like moral distractions, pain was a diversion to the glorious certitude Angul burned to dispense. With the pain, her moment of confusion, too, was swept away in cerulean light.

She raised the sword and his blue-white light doubled, then redoubled. Sunrise came early under the branches of Aglarond. Or was it sunset?

Kiril swatted the girl's second arrow out of the air with a twitch of her wrist. The half-elf turned to run. The swordswoman launched Angul through the air as if he were a spear.

Her aim was true.

When all was quiet again, she gathered the bodies and burned them on a pyre. To do so, she sheathed Angul.

Later, she retrieved from the heaped ashes the fire-cleaned skull of the girl, the elf archer, the only one who'd put up any kind of fight. She decided she would bring it back to Stardeep as a trophy, a sign of her vigilance in keeping the hidden dungeon stronghold safe.

As the fire burned down, she resisted drawing her blade again. Instead, she fingered the skull, looking at it, worrying it between her hands. Something was hideously significant about the object she held so tightly. It indicated something portentous, but like a puzzle box, she couldn't solve its significance. She stood, thinking to return down the Causeway before the access failed. But. .

The longer she avoided contact with the blade, the more the blade's influence waned.

Finally, her captive conscience burst through the final, benumbed layers of Angul's influence.

Kiril screamed, long and loud. She collapsed to her knees, clutching the skull in front of her, her eyes bulging in disbelief. It couldn't be! She hadn't! But the warm, fire-blackened skull in her blood-stained grasp refused to retreat to the phantasmal state she needed it to be.

Then Kiril went insane.

Kiril's voice broke, but she managed to croak, "I slaughtered them."

The elf looked down, tears streaking her cheeks.

Gage whispered, "Damn."

"It broke me. I've been running since then, running from what I did. But I. ."

". . you kept the thing. Why?" interjected Gage.

Why hadn't she gotten rid of the sword? At first, she was crazed, incoherent; she couldn't quite recollect what she'd done in the year after she'd slain the children. One thing was certain; she had not returned to Stardeep. By fleeing, she renounced her position as Keeper and her identity as a star elf.

She'd thrown it all away. But Angul, she kept.

Even mad, she couldn't bring herself to cast him away. And now, ten more years, at least, had got behind her.

Aloud, she said, "I couldn't leave Angul behind! He's all I had left of Nangulis! But he's a curse, too, don't I flecking know? And now you tell me Sathra dealt with someone called Nangulis. Impossible! Isn't it? Where is she? I must talk to her." Kiril made to rise, determination firing her eyes.

"Hold on!" Gage reached across the table and put a restraining hand on her shoulder. "After I got hold of the sword and got clear of her vault, she attacked me again. With the blade in hand, I killed her. So, uh.. sorry. She can't tell you anything because she's out of the picture. But…"

"But?"

"She indicated the fellow she was working for hailed from someplace called Stardeep."

Kiril shook her head, tears again tracing tracks on her face. She said, "Stardeep. After all these years, it reaches out to me."

Slowly mastering herself, the elf considered. The name, the theft, the possibility, however minute, that Nangulis might somehow be among the living again. She couldn't ignore that chance.

"Stardeep has called, and I must answer," she decreed, tears breaking around a sudden unexpected smile.