The Eye of the Chained God

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The stink of burned hair filled Albanon’s nostrils. Given the many possible stenches of battle, it wasn’t the most awful smell, but it made him want to cough with every drawn breath and every shouted spell. Worse, it came over him in a fresh wave each time he turned his head-and with every fresh wave came the thought that he hadn’t had short hair since he was a child.

It was a completely inappropriate thought for the middle of a life or death battle. Albanon might have suspected he was going mad if he didn’t already know what that felt like.

He flicked his hand and hurled a silvery bolt of force at one of the remaining fire demons. The demon shifted slightly and the bolt tore through its shoulder. It barely left a trace on the flames, just a dark spot that lingered briefly and vanished entirely a moment later. Albanon cursed and brought his staff up to block a fiery arm as it slapped at him. The tendril tip wrapped around the staff, then dissipated, leaving another charred black ring among the many already scarring the stout wood. The demon raised its arm for yet another lashing blow.

Tempest’s voice rose in a scream and a twisting ribbon of darkness rushed past Albanon to strike the demon under its upraised arm. Where it struck, flames withered and were extinguished. It seemed to Albanon almost as if they were sucked back along the stream of darkness. The demon stumbled and dropped to one knee, then its fire winked out altogether. All that remained was a crumbling husk of ash with a sooty crystal, now dark, at its heart. Albanon spared a glance over his shoulder at Tempest. She smiled at him.

“Four down,” she said tightly. “Four to go.”

Albanon grimaced and turned back to the fight. He sent another bolt of force at the next enemy.

At least the fire demons showed no more desire than them to close and turn their battle of spells and flames into a melee. The creatures didn’t die easily-and it didn’t help that fire-based spells had little effect on them, rendering much of Albanon’s arsenal of spells and almost all of Tempest’s completely useless. Albanon had quickly found himself hoarding his store of cold and lightning spells, waiting for the right time to use them. He felt like an apprentice again, hammering away at his opponents with simple magical missiles until they weakened.

But he and Tempest weren’t the only ones hoarding their magic. “Kri! We could use some help.”

“I’m doing my part.” Bright white light flared on the other side of Albanon as the priest hurled a lance of pure radiance at a fire demon. The demon’s flames flickered, but came back. Kri’s prayers could have devastating effects against the demons-Albanon had seen it before-but the old man seemed to be holding his most powerful prayers in reserve.

Albanon bit back a curse. “Do more!”

“Accept the Chained God’s power. You’ll have all the help you need.”

A blast of cold will save you, whispered the voice inside Albanon. The knowledge unfolded before him. There was a spell he knew that would create a cloud of freezing vapor. Enhanced and expanded in exactly the same way as fire magic, it could fill the cavern. Maybe even all of the Plaguedeep. In his mind, Albanon saw the fire demons snuffed out, their ashes as cold as last night’s campfire. He saw plague demons frozen to the walls of the Plaguedeep like grotesque carvings. He saw Vestapalk turned white with frost and the Voidharrow frozen like red ice.

He saw Kri frozen, too-and Tempest. And Roghar, Uldane, Belen, Cariss, Quarhaun, Shara…

“No!” He thrust both temptation and the whispering voice away. To deny them entirely, he thrust his staff at a pair of fire demons standing close together and spoke a word that left his lips cold. A glowing blue speck sped from his staff and streaked toward the demons. It burst as it approached, exploding into a bright mist. The fire demons hissed in voices like wind rushing over hot coals. One of them stumbled out of the mist. The other didn’t.

“Three to go,” said Kri. “That was a waste.” He raised a hand and murmured a prayer. Holy light shimmered around his hand and flashed above the demon that had escaped Albanon’s spell. The creature hissed again, then crumbled into ashes. “Two,” said Kri.

The remaining two fire demons drew back as if realizing they were outnumbered. However, with the middle section high above and the remains of the passage even higher, they were just as trapped as Albanon and the others.

“We’ve got them!” Tempest said triumphantly.

Suspicion nagged at Albanon. He turned away from the retreating fire demons to the Plaguedeep where Vestapalk and all of his plague demons had crouched motionless, watching the spell battle.

They still hadn’t moved. Vestapalk’s gaze was focused on him and him alone.

The tips of Albanon’s ears tingled. This one knows all your secrets, Vestapalk had said. You come to destroy the Voidharrow. This one will not give you that chance.

“What is he waiting for?” the wizard murmured.

“So the sleeper wakes,” said Kri. He turned to face Vestapalk as well. “What is he waiting for? Us. He waits for us. Where are your mighty spells now, Albanon? Thrown away. Are you ready to face him?”

Albanon’s mouth went dry. Vestapalk had manipulated them with the fire demons’ attack. How had he not seen that before? And the others, isolated on the other sections of broken passage? Because they were on the lowest level, he couldn’t see up to where they were. He hadn’t given a thought to them since the fire demons’ appearance. He’d heard Roghar’s battle cry and a scream that might have been Cariss, but those were the only sounds that had registered.

Instinct told him to look up, to see if they were still there, but Vestapalk’s gaze held him. The dragon’s mouth turned up in a predator’s smile. He lowered his head, bringing it closer to Albanon’s level.

“Come, Albanon,” he called. “Come and serve this one as you were meant to.”

The crystal-riddled stone on which the dragon perched twisted around, reorienting itself like a living thing. One end of it stretched down to the ruined passage so that Vestapalk crouched at the end of a long spire jutting into the Plaguedeep. His eyes never left Albanon’s. His double voice reached into Albanon’s mind and rang inside his skull. Come.

Where was the other voice that had spoken to him so often before? Albanon reached out to it-and found silence. Of course. He’d rejected it. He felt his feet move without his will, taking the first long step toward the spire and Vestapalk. “Albanon, no!” shouted Tempest, but it was Kri who grabbed his arm and held him back. The priest’s voice rose.

“He serves another master now-a master who will destroy you!”

Vestapalk’s laughter filled the cavern and found echoes not just in reflected sound, but among the plague demons. The stillness of the Plaguedeep shattered as the laughter spread in shrieking, cackling waves. Vestapalk’s voice rose above it all. “Does he? This one served that master once. The Elder Eye that is Tharizdun guided Vestapalk to power, but Vestapalk found a power greater than the Eye!” The dragon paused and his eyes narrowed, but stayed locked on Albanon. “Who will you serve, eladrin? Follow the Elder Eye and you follow the prisoner of a dead world. Follow Vestapalk and you follow the new god of this world!”

Kri’s voice buzzed in his ear. “It’s a trick. Vestapalk only wants revenge. If you follow him, he’ll just make you into one of his minions-one of his slaves. Tharizdun doesn’t demand service. He offers you power, but also freedom. Follow him and we’ll save the world from the Voidharrow together.” The priest glared up at Vestapalk. “Release him! Let him make his own choice.”

The dragon chuckled again, but lifted his gaze. Albanon felt the dragon’s hold on him vanish as if a weight had been removed from his back. He staggered. Hands caught him.

Tempest’s hands. Albanon looked up and met eyes filled with concern. Tempest didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. He straightened and looked at Kri. “I do not serve Tharizdun-”

Fury passed like a storm across the priest’s face. Vestapalk’s double voice rose in another mocking laugh. Albanon spun to look up at him. “- but I will work with him to destroy you! ”

Vestapalk’s laughter vanished, sucked back down his throat. Strangled silence fell across the Plaguedeep.

And was broken again by a call from above. “Vestapalk!” Roghar shouted. “Bahamut stands against you in defense of this world as well. Feel his wrath!”

The paladin thrust his shield forward and blinding white light poured from the symbol of the Platinum Dragon. Vestapalk reeled back, bellowing in agony as the light washed over him. Demons shrieked as if the holy radiance had burned them as well. Against the brightness, Albanon saw ropes thrown over the edge of the level above, then Uldane, Cariss, and Belen were sliding down to join him, Kri, and Tempest. For an instant, he was struck by fear for Shara and Quarhaun, then he saw them just behind Roghar up above.

Tempest touched a hand to his face. “Good choice,” she said, then she stepped away to join the others as they took up defensive positions around him. Albanon looked to Kri. Tharizdun’s priest seemed almost stunned by the turn of events. Albanon grabbed his arm and hauled him close. His other hand dipped into his pouch and produced the fragment of the Vast Gate.

“Let’s make this count, Kri,” he said. He wrapped the old man’s hand over his, the stone fragment squeezed so tight between them that Albanon could feel its sharp edges. The pain seemed to break through to Kri as well. He drew a shuddering breath, glanced once at Albanon with hate-filled eyes, then raised his voice.

“Tharizdun! Chained God! Patient One-”

Vestapalk’s roar drowned him out. Great wings cracked like thunder as they spread wide and Vestapalk launched himself straight at them.

Roghar’s divine light threw Quarhaun’s face into stark relief and all but washed out the shadows that writhed around the drow’s drawn sword. “You’re certain?” he shouted over Vestapalk’s bellow and the shrieks of the plague demons.

“It’s what I swore to do, my love,” Shara called back. She glanced down to the lower level. Uldane and the others were on the ground, racing to Albanon and Kri. She looked back up to Quarhaun. “One,” she said. He raised the sword. “Two.” He braced himself. “Three!”

She sprinted at him. Behind her, Roghar shouted something but it was too late to stop. Quarhaun’s lips formed an arcane word. His sword sliced the air.

Shadows folded around Shara. For an instant, it seemed as if she’d been struck blind. Searing cold snatched her breath away as Quarhaun had warned her it would. The spell was never intended to be used on friends, only enemies-like the peryton he had used it on to save her.

Then light and warmth burst around her again and her running feet were on scales instead of stone. Vestapalk’s scales. On Vestapalk’s back.

Except that the dragon wasn’t sitting still anymore. The scaly hide slid under Shara’s boots. She grabbed at one of the sword-tall crystal spikes growing from Vestapalk’s spine and held on-just in time. Vestapalk’s roar of fury changed to one of confusion. The Plaguedeep spun around her as the dragon bucked and twisted like a wild horse, trying to dislodge the thing on his back. She caught a glimpse of her friends throwing themselves to the ground, then she and the dragon were past them and flying over the Plaguedeep.

“I feel you!” Vestapalk screamed. “I feel you back there. You will die for this!” He beat his wings and started climbing straight up. For a moment, Shara stared up through red mists at a blue sky high above, then she twisted around and managed to get a leg over another of the spine spikes.

“Not before you!” she shouted into the wind. She dragged one of Cariss’s warpicks from her belt and raised it high. “This is for Jarren and Borojon!”

She brought the point of the pick down with all of her strength as close to the dragon’s spine as she could.

Once again, Vestapalk bellowed with agony. His climb faltered, the beating of one wing slowing, and he veered close to a rocky wall. Flapping his good wing desperately, he hit the stone feet first, hung for a moment, then released himself on a slow spiral back down to the depths. The blue sky Shara had glimpsed was replaced with a dizzying view of the Plaguedeep. She pressed herself again Vestapalk’s scales and hung on tight.

As Vestapalk disappeared up the shaft of the Plaguedeep, Tempest thought she saw Shara clinging to his back. She blinked, but the dragon was gone before she looked again.

In its wake, the plague demons came. They poured up over the edge of the abyss and dropped down from above. They were beast demons and four-armed brutes mostly, but a few larger and stranger types as well, like disembodied heads that scuttled on spider legs and things that slithered like a slug, leaving glittering crystal trails behind. All of them had rage in their red eyes.

It was hard to believe that each one had once been an intelligent creature-human or halfling, dwarf or tiefling, orc or gnoll or goblin-transformed by the Abyssal Plague. Tempest clenched her teeth and tried to put that idea out of her head. They weren’t what they used to be anymore. They were killers, ready to slaughter her or Belen or Cariss or any of the others.

“What’s plan?” she asked Belen.

“Keep them back as long as we can,” the human woman said tersely.

“I can do that,” said Tempest. She reached into herself and drew up the most powerful spell she knew, one that hadn’t been suited to fighting the fire demons, but was perfect for this occasion. She gathered spittle in her mouth, feeling it take on heat and a kind of squirming life, then spat it out at the largest of the charging demons. It flew far and fast, more than twenty paces, and spattered into squirming little droplets-fiery scorpions that swarmed over her target and all the demons around it. The charging creatures broke into a frenzy as they tried to beat at the magical bugs.

Unfortunately, there were more demons where they had come from. A fresh surge broke over the edge of the abyss, new demons crushing old demons beneath them.

“Nice try,” said Belen, readying her sword.

Then white light surged past them in an expanding ring, searing every demon it touched and holding the horde back for just a few moments more. Tempest felt a presence familiar from years of adventuring move through her, strengthening her and renewing her resolve. She smiled at Roghar as the paladin stepped beside her and Quarhaun took up a place on the other end of their defensive wall.

“Like old times,” she said.

“If there were old times like this,” he said, “I’m surprised we’ve lived as long as we have.”

The ring of white light faded and the tide of plague demons came at them.

Albanon heard the shrieks of the plague demons. He saw his friends fighting them, a weak wall of steel and flesh and magic against a horde of monsters. But it was as if he saw and heard through layered panes of hazy glass. Everything beyond his body moved at a snail’s pace. The magic had him, moving him with the speed of thought. There was nothing he could do but watch and remind himself that what his friends were doing, they were doing for him.

“Focus!” hissed Kri.

Albanon tried to put his friends out of his mind and lose himself in the patterns of the spell. It was like wading in mud or following a single thread through a tapestry. Nothing Moorin had taught him had prepared him for the magic Kri dragged him into. Divine forces mixed with arcane techniques. The power of gods and mortals reached out and tugged at something that was neither. Albanon was certain it hadn’t been like this when they’d drawn Tharizdun’s will out of Vestausan and Vestausir. It had seemed so easy then. So clear. He and Kri had both known it would be more difficult in the Plaguedeep.

He didn’t think either of them had expected it to be like this. The Voidharrow hadn’t just corrupted the land around the Plaguedeep, it had corrupted the flows of magic. Where normally Albanon might have seen the flow of magic like streams in his mind’s eyes, in the Plaguedeep they were a flood, all mingling together. Simply casting a spell was as easy as dipping a cup into the flood. Trying to pull power through the nodes of Kri’s spellweaving, into the gate fragment, and back out again was like dipping a cup into water and expecting to find it filled with wine.

There was also too much Voidharrow. In the valley, there’d been only one source: Vestausan and Vestausir. Within the Plaguedeep, the Voidharrow was everywhere: bound to plague demons, bound to the land around them, and most importantly bound to Vestapalk. Albanon might have been able to unravel it-if he’d known where to start.

“Albanon, more power!”

“I’m trying!” he snapped.

There was one more thing. In the valley, he’d still been in the Chain God’s thrall, magic and madness flowing through him together.

But the voice that wouldn’t stop whispering inside him was gone, and he had to ask himself if he wanted it back. It had been so easy to draw on the power. No limits except what he could conceive. No restrictions except what he dared. But that had led to problems, too, hadn’t it? He only needed to think of Winterhaven and the desire for power shriveled inside him.

Winterhaven or the look on Tempest’s face when he’d emerged from Tharizdun’s cloister. At the time he hadn’t thought much of it. Now it broke his heart. The disappointment. The fear. Could he do that to her again? Could he do it to himself?

But if he didn’t do it, she would die. All of them would die.

“ Albanon! ” Kri’s voice was strained. Albanon could feel the priest’s power running into the fragment between their hands. It was stretched to the limit, on the verge of tearing like rotten cloth.

No more hesitating. He plunged down into himself.

The whispering voice, his mad self, was waiting. I knew you’d come.

“Show me what I need to do,” Albanon told it.

Accept me. I am you. Accept me, serve Tharizdun, and I will show you what you need to do.

In spite of himself, in spite of the strain he felt in Kri, in spite of the demons that might overwhelm his friends in instant, Albanon hesitated just once more. Accept his madness. Serve Tharizdun.

And in that moment, everything changed. Out beyond the layered glass of the magic, something came spiraling down through the Plaguedeep to land on the outstretched spire of rock. Vestapalk roared and snapped at a figure on his back. Albanon saw Shara slide down his other side, swinging herself away down the spire in an attempt to reach safety. He saw Vestapalk, one crystal wing dragging, try to snap at her and miss. Then the dragon narrowed his eyes.

He saw the ripple in the Voidharrow as the dragon exerted his will and a pack of the plague demons turned to meet Shara.

The Voidharrow was Vestapalk and Vestapalk was the Voidharrow-and the answer to Albanon’s dilemma. He and Kri had been so rapt in their exploration of the Voidharrow as the fusion between the alien substance of the Progenitor and the divine will of Tharizdun that they’d ignored its mortal host. There weren’t two parts to the Voidharrow. There were three.

Deep inside Albanon, his mad self cried out. It clutched at him, but Albanon brushed it aside. He reached out through the flood of magic and touched the nexus of flows that was Vestapalk.

Ruddy molten light burst out between his hand and the priest’s as power flowed through the gate fragment. Kri gasped and Albanon knew that he understood the truth as well. He joined in Kri’s chant, the words rising to a crescendo and a command.

“What was once three shall be again. We divide you!”

Shara saw the pack of plague demons break away from the horde and come racing up the spire. She slid to a stop on the stone. Beyond the teeming demons, she could see her friends still trying to buy Kri and Albanon the time they needed. But she could also see something the others couldn’t.

Kri’s face was drawn into a deep frown. Albanon’s was contorted as if in pain. There was no sign of the brilliant light that had preceded Vestausan and Vestausir’s destruction. Their spell wasn’t working.

They’d failed.

Hope died inside her and she knew with a certainty that this was the end. Was this what Jarren had felt when he had faced Vestapalk alone? Shara drew her greatsword from over her shoulder. The plague demons were still clambering up the stone spire, but they weren’t her enemy. She looked at Vestapalk, so completely transformed from the green dragon her father and his band had been hired to track down. Vestapalk looked back at her, then let out a slow hiss. He turned his left forelimb so she could see the inner surface. Twelve lines had been carved into the scales. A mark for each adventurer Vestapalk had killed in his life, the dragon had bragged when they’d first faced him.

The last three represented Borojon, Jarren, and a dwarf named Cliffside. Not taking his eyes off Shara, Vestapalk reached up and dragged a talon through his scales, adding a thirteenth mark.

Shara didn’t need to look over her shoulder to see that the plague demons had fallen back. She was alone on the spire with Vestapalk. She raised her sword and Vestapalk flinched. His crystal eyes flashed past her. “No!” he roared.

Ruddy light flared behind Shara. She turned, following Vestapalk’s gaze.

Light like molten metal dripped between Albanon and Kri’s joined hands. The priest and the wizard both gazed at Vestapalk. Their voices rose together.

“What was once three shall be again. We divide you!”

A tremor passed through the Plaguedeep. Not like the shudders that had broken and rearranged the passage while they’d been inside it, but an actual trembling of the world. Vestapalk roared again. Kri and Albanon’s voices returned to the chant and the light began to run even more freely between their fingers.

The plague demons surrounding them paused in their attack. Some of them tried to pull back, but the press of bodies held them in place.

The first shadows rose like wisps of morning mist, separating from the bodies of the plague demons closest to Albanon and Kri. Vestausan and Vestausir had been slow to dissipate, maybe because they’d been more closely connected to Vestapalk. The plague demons took no time at all. The first few shriveled up like scraps of paper thrown onto hot coals, their darkness streaming in thin threads to the source of the molten light.

Then the shadows began to rise more quickly. Wisps became puffs became billows of shadow. The press backward became a mad scramble as plague demons tried to escape. It didn’t help. Shara watched demons collapse as they ran, collapse in the midst of turning away. Demons still in the abyss screeched and skittered madly across the walls, but tendrils of shadow already stretched back to Albanon and Kri. The pair pulled their hands apart to more fully expose the glowing fragment that lay between them and the billows of shadow became a thick stream like black smoke, spiraling down into the fragment.

It didn’t just come from the plague demons either. It drifted up from the rocks and leached out of the air. Veins of red crystal faded to pink, then turned clear-then vanished altogether. All around Shara, stone creaked and groaned like a frozen river in thaw. Rocks broke away from the walls of the shafts and fell in clattering cascades.

An especially loud groan came from behind her. Shara turned to face Vestapalk.

Shadows hung around the dragon like a dark aura, but none of them drifted away. Crystal eyes filled with rage and hate glared at her. “You will not defeat this one,” snarled Vestapalk. “This one will rule the world. This one… has the power of a god!”

“Shara!” shouted Uldane. She glanced over her shoulder. The halfling stood with Quarhaun at the base of the spire. Tempest and Roghar were still with Kri and Albanon, but Cariss and Belen were climbing ropes back up to the passage. Uldane waved for her to join them. “This place could collapse! Come on!”

“Not yet,” Shara called back to him. She could see Tempest and Roghar were unable to get Kri and Albanon to move. The pair was chanting, and even though most of the plague demons had been consumed, shadows were still rising from the crumbling Plaguedeep. She waved to Uldane and Quarhaun. “Go!”

Uldane left the base of the spire, but went no farther than the climbing ropes. Quarhaun didn’t move at all. Shara looked at Vestapalk. The tight aura of shadows around him was starting to fray. He trembled with the effort of holding it-and himself-together. Walking carefully along the creaking spire, Shara moved closer. The dragon snapped at her. “This one is chosen!” he spat. “This one is-ah! Ah! ”

His words trailed off into gasps of pain as Kri and Albanon redoubled their chanting yet again. Shadows began to stream from Vestapalk-and as they went, he changed.

The great crystal wings faded away to nothingness and so did one of the talons on his forepaws- ausan, ausir, and gix. The crystal spikes along his spine and the crystal spurs from his limbs faded just as the veins of crystal had faded from the stones of the Plaguedeep. The Voidharrow that had dripped from his jaws dried and disappeared. The red stain left his scales. As the shadow of Tharizdun’s will peeled away from him, Vestapalk became green once more. He coughed and darkness puffed out of his mouth like soot from a blacksmith’s bellows. His head sank down to the stone. Horrified and fascinated, Shara moved even closer. Vestapalk’s head snapped up again.

The sockets that had been filled with eyes of liquid crystal were empty.

Vestapalk bared white teeth, and his nostrils flared. “This one knows your scent,” he said. “This one can still take one more adventurer to the grave.”

He lunged, his long wingless body slithering on the stone like a great lizard. Shara sidestepped his rush easily. Her greatsword came down on his neck just behind his narrow skull.

The blade sliced scales, hide, flesh, and bone as if they were woven of straw. Vestapalk’s eyeless head went bouncing down the spire. His body staggered for a moment, carried on by momentum-then slipped over the edge. Shara leaned over to watch it fall. Down. Down.

Down into thick, rising shadows. A cold wind rushed up the pit and into her face, nearly choking her. Shara pushed herself back and raced down the spire. “Back!” she shouted at Quarhaun and the others. “Get back behind Kri and Albanon!”

The others obeyed her. Quarhaun didn’t. She leaped down the last few paces of the spire and slammed him to the ground.

The great mass of shadows rose up behind her, so thick and solid that it blasted the spire apart. The darkness roared overhead, compressing down into a swirling spiral that sent both Kri and Albanon flying backward. The molten light of the gate fragment vanished, the last shadows of what had been the Voidharrow consumed.

In its wake, the sounds of creaking stones and falling rock were louder than ever. Another tremor shook the mountain and huge slabs of stone went cascading down the shaft. Quarhaun rolled Shara off him and pulled her to her feet. “Out!” he ordered. “Everyone out, now!”

“No,” said a quiet, calm voice. “Not quite yet.”