The Fanged Crown

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

2 Flamerule, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

Chult

They emerged from the tunnel to the edge of a barren, rocky chasm surrounded by a ring of jagged peaks. A sheer cliff of bluish-gray stone towered to the west. On the other side of the chasm, Harp could see a crevice through the rock-presumably the path that would take them to the entrance of the Domain. But there wasn’t any obvious way across the chasm. Below them, a gradual slope of loose gravel dropped off into nothingness. From where they stood, Harp couldn’t tell how far it was to the bottom of the chasm.

“That is Boneyard Canyon,” Majida told them as she and Zo started climbing down the slope. “Don’t fall.”

Crouching and using their hands to steady themselves, the two dwarves slid at an angle down the slope to the cliff of bluish-gray stone. Their descent loosened a torrent of gravel that disappeared over the edge. The dwarves skidded to a stop against the cliff and clambered onto a narrow ledge that spanned the length of the rock wall. It was apparently the only way across the chasm short of sprouting wings.

Majida and Zo looked expectantly back at Harp and his crewmates, who stood agape having watched the dwarves’ precipitous descent down the slope to the ledge. They made it look easy, but one misstep would result in a plunge into the crevice.

“That’s suicide,” Verran said in disbelief. “Jumping off the waterfall was safer than that.”

“Don’t take it slow,” Zo called from the cliff. “That just makes it harder to steer yourself to the cliff without slipping off the edge.”

“Well, we saw them do it,” Harp said resolutely. “It’s obviously possible to make it safely.”

“At least for dwarves,” Boult said.

“Then you should go first,” Kitto said to Boult.

“Ah Kitto, you’re always thinking of me,” Boult growled, crouching like Zo and Majida had and angling himself to the ledge. Kitto waited until Boult reached the ledge safely and shot Harp a mischievous grin.

“Don’t do anything stupid …” Harp began, but Kitto was already sliding down the slope-only he did it standing straight up. With an artful twist of his body, he stopped himselfjust as he reached the ledge and gracefully climbed up beside Boult.

“What, no somersault?” Harp called, relieved to see Kitto safely on the ledge.

“Next time,” Kitto said cheerfully.

“You’re a cagey one, aren’t you,” Majida said to Kitto. “I’ll take you up to the nest of Horizon Eagle. I’d bet you could steal me a feather.”

“I can steal anything,” Kitto said without a trace of arrogance.

“It’s you and me, then,” Harp said to Verran as the two of them began to crab-walk down the slope. “I suppose there are worse fates than falling to your death.”

“Worse than falling to your death in a pit of rotting corpses?” Verran asked.

Partway down the slope they could see that the chasm wasn’t deep-only twenty feet down at its lowest point. But it was filled with half-rotted carcasses of animals and various humanoids, and the stench of decay hung heavy in the air. There were rib cages larger than a horse and skulls twice the size of a dwarf. Faded shreds of clothing and the rusted metal of ruined weapons could be seen among the piles of corpses.

“Look at that spine,” Verran said appreciatively, pointing at an enormous backbone that curved around the perimeter of the chasm. “I want to see what kind of creature has a spine that long.”

“Not me,” Harp said peering down at the carnage below him. “I like my monsters dead and gone.”

By the time that Harp and Verran reached the ledge, ominous clouds were moving across the sky. No one wanted to be caught on the outcropping of rock when the storm hit. With their chests to the cliff and hugging the rock with their arms, they made slow progress over the chasm. Harp looked over his shoulder at the grisly display of decaying meat and bleached bones breaching out of the pitch-black soil.

“What happened down there?” Harp called to Majida

“It’s a dumping ground for a clutch of drakes that live on the mountaintops,” she called back.

“Why do they dump fresh meat?”

“They’re picky eaters,” Majida said. “All the better for us. It keeps visitors away from the entrance to the Domain.”

“I guess if you don’t mind living on top of a clump of carrion …” Harp mumbled under his breath as he slid one foot next to the other. The ledge was slightly longer than his boots, but not much, and Harp had the sense that he was going to topple off the edge. Fortunately, the cliff face had little nubs and outcroppings he could grab onto. His fingers probably weren’t strong enough to actually keep him on the cliff, but it gave him the illusion of stability.

Beside him, Kitto turned his head and stared into the crevice. Harp’s calves ached from standing on the balls of his feet, and he didn’t want to dally on the cliff face.

“Uh, Kitto?” Harp said. “Are you all right? You’re holding up the line.”

“Harp?” Kitto asked. “What’s down there?”

Harp looked down into the pit and movement in the chasm below them. Something twitched along the far edge followed by a slow undulation under one of the heaps of corpses. A stack of loose bones rolled down off the heap and clattered onto the dark earth.

“Boult!” Harp called.

“What?” Boult and the other dwarves had almost reached the other side.

“What’s wrong?” Zo called.

“There’s something in the pit!” Harp shouted. Something began inching under the rot to a spot in the center of the crevice.

Majida’s head jerked toward the chasm just as something long and white whipped out from under the carrion and looped around Kitto’s waist. Harp tried to grab the boy, but Kitto was yanked off the cliff. It looked as if fragments of bone from the pit had been knitted together by some unseen force to form a spiny tentacle. Kitto cried out in pain as the bones tightened vice-like around him.

“Give me a damn weapon!” Boult yelled. Three more tentacles, strips of flesh dangling from them like macabre decorations, rose writhing from the muck.

A mass of bones welled up in the middle of the pit. The remnant of a shattered lizard skull perched on top of a mish-mash of rib bones. Other pieces of bones lodged in the spaces between the ribs to form the body of the beast. The long backbone that Verran had noticed earlier jutted out from its back.

Shoving his sword into Boult’s hands, Zo pulled his bow off his back and charged up the incline to higher ground. At the top of the slope, he fired four arrows rapidly at the creature’s torso, but the arrows ricocheted or lodged harmlessly between the bones.

“Harp!” Boult shouted, leaning out to toss the sword to Harp. In one fluid motion, Harp caught the sword and leaped off the cliff. Jumping onto one of the tentacles, Harp braced his feet in the gaps between the bones and looped one arm around what looked to be a femur. With the other hand, he hacked at the tentacle lashing back and forth, but the blade scraped against it ineffectually.

On the ledge, a flaming scimitar erupted from Majida’s hand. When the tail cracked against the cliff between her and Verran, Majida swung the sword against the bone. The fiery blade cleaved the spine-tail in half, and loose bones clattered against the cliff as they fell. But the loss of the tail didn’t seem to slow the beast as another tentacle crashed against the ledge and nearly knocked Verran into the pit.

“This is futile!” Boult yelled, waving his empty hands in frustration. “We’re not hurting it!”

“What the Hells is it?” Harp yelled as the tentacle he was riding swung at the wall of the pit. Letting the sword slip out of his hands, Harp dropped to the ground just as the tentacle slammed against the rocks. He landed on his knees on the slick ground and searched frantically through the piles of rot for the lost sword.

“Unnatural,” Majida said. The flaming sword in her hand burned out into a wisp of black smoke.

Still suspended above them, Kitto cried out again. Pushing with both hands, he’d managed to raise himself higher in the tentacle’s crushing grasp, but it still had a grip around his legs. When the bony appendage plummeted toward the cliff, Kitto flopped like a doll in a child’s hand.

“Look at me, Verran,” Majida said firmly to the boy beside her on the ledge. Verran was looking down in horror as the scene played out below him. With his face scrunched up like a little kid who was trying not to cry, Verran turned his head and looked at Majida.

“You have to do something, Verran,” she said in a calm voice. “You have to do something now.”

“What’s he supposed to do?” Boult said.

“I can’t!” Verran cried.

“Can you see it?” Majida said. “In your mind, Verran? Can you see what you’re supposed to do?”

“It’ll just make it worse!”

On the ground, Harp scooped the sword out of a pile of rancid blubber and charged at the beast’s core. He jammed the weapon through the bone into an empty cavity where it lodged in place. Ducking as one of the bony appendages swung above his head, Harp tried in vain to pull the sword back out.

“My spells can’t hurt it like that,” Majida said urgently to Verran. “You have to make it alive!”

“What!” Boult said in disbelief. “He has to what?”

Verran shook his head desperately.

“Make it live. Do it, Verran!”

“You want to bring that thing to life?” Boult shouted. “Majida! That’s insane!”

“Sit on the ledge,” Majida said. “Don’t think about the creature-I’ll protect you. Think about what you need to do.” Kitto finally managed to loose himself from the grasp of the tentacle. But just as he freed himself, it swung wildly, flinging the boy into the air. Tumbling to the ground, Kitto smacked against the rocks before landing with a dull thud. Harp left the sword stuck in the beast and sprinted to Kitto, who was just getting up off the ground. As Harp helped him to the edge of the pit, he saw Verran looking terrified on the ledge above him. The boy’s lips moved silently, and his face seemed swollen and bruised as a dark blue tinge crept around his eyes.

With a sucking noise, the carrion that was spread out across the bottom of the pit oozed across the ground to the beast. It slid along its tentacles and up the bony core to the top of the shattered skull, until every inch of the monstrosity was covered in a gray, fleshy coating. Reddish-blue veins branched across the outside of the new skin, lacing the hunks of meat onto the skeletal frame. For a moment, the creature froze. From his position on the floor of the pit, Harp gawked at the creature above him, a monster that now resembled a marine animal, landlocked in a lake of decay.

In the moment of silence, Harp heard a low thud and then another. Kitto turned to him wide-eyed as the noise increased into a constant rhythm. Harp could feetel each stroke pulse through the ground into the soles of his feet.

“What is that?” he asked breathlessly.

“The beating of its heart,” Kitto said awestruck.

“Oh, Verran, what have you done?” Harp whispered. The creature shuddered as it took its first breath and expanded until it almost filled the pit. Looming above them, it cast Harp and Kitto into darkness. As it rose higher into the air, its four tentacles towered above Verran, Boult, and Majida, who were still on the ledge.

“Get out of there,” Majida yelled down to Harp and Kitto, who were huddled in a corner of the pit. But the smooth walls of the chasm offered no handholds. The two men skirted the edge of pit until they were directly below the others on the ledge, but the creature’s ever-expanding bulk threatened to crush them against the rock.

The meaty tentacles flailed in the air uncontrollably, and one of the appendages crashed down on the ledge between Boult and Majida. Boult kept his footing, but Majida was knocked off balance. She lunged across to the slope below Zo, but slid down the gravel and almost fell into the pit. Digging her fingers into the soil with her legs dangling off the edge, she managed to hold on until Zo climbed down and hauled her up to higher ground.

Using his crossbow as a club, Zo swung at any tentacle that came near them while Majida pressed her palms into the ground and recited an incantation. As her lips formed the ancient words, a snarl of shiny black thorns sprang out of the ground at the bottom of the pit. As long as arrows and as wide around as a man’s wrist, the hooked thorns radiated like a starburst in the dirt surrounding the monster.

“Those are Banethorns,” Zo warned the others. “They’re poisonous.”

“We’ve got to get them out of there!” Boult shouted, stepping quickly along the ledge to Zo and Majida. “Get me rope!”

Zo threw his pack on the ground, and Boult rummaged through it. When a tentacle flailed dangerously close to the dwarves, Zo slammed the wooden crossbow against it and deflected the blow. The tentacle retreated momentarily and crashed down again.

“Where’s your damn rope?” Boult demanded, turning the pack upside down and dumping the contents onto the gravel.

Zo didn’t have time to answer as he batted another assault away from Majida, who was still kneeling on the ground. Below them in the pit, spiky green leaves and mace-headed brambles rose out of the soil, twisting into thick, knotted vines that looped around the fleshy creature like chains. The hooked tips of the thorns dug into its skin while the poisoned sap seeped into its exposed veins. The creature struggled against the vines and thorns, and hunks of its flesh ripped away as it was pinned down under the clawing plants.

“Get off the ledge!” Harp called up to Verran. Verran didn’t move. Muttering to himself, he leaned down and touched the wall above Harp’s head. Under Verran’s fingers, strands of the emerald vines flowed from brambles surrounding the monster and up the cliff to the ledge. Instead of black thorns, they were adorned with delicate yellow flowers.

“Climb!” Verran urged them.

Harp and Kitto scrambled up the vines, reaching the ledge just as the pit below was overtaken by the poisonous plants. The brambles engulfed the creature, and the men joined the dwarves on the other side of the chasm. With all four tentacles grasping the edge of the pit, the creature made one last effort to pull itself free from the twisting brambles. But it couldn’t free itself from Majida’s thicket, and the poison from the thorns pulsed through its veins until it reached the beast’s core and its beating heart was stilled.

When the chasm was filled to the brim with twisted black vines, and there was nothing but silence in the air, Harp checked to make sure everyone was still standing. Kitto was bruised and a little bloody, but he assured Harp that he was fine.

“What just happened?” Boult demanded. “Who should I thank, and who should I punch?”

“Thank Verran and Majida,” Harp said. “They saved us.”

But Boult wasn’t in a thankful mood. “Did you know something lived down there?”

“Nothing lived down there!” Zo said indignantly. “Majida! Do you know where that came from?”

Majida looked at Verran. “No,” she said finally. “I don’t know. But we should get below ground as soon as possible.”

Majida and Zo turned and walked into a narrow channel in the rock behind them. With smooth walls streaked with glossy bands of red and pink, the channel was an old riverbed that twisted through the rock. Above them, the storm clouds had blown away, and the sky was blue and clear.

“Did something happen, Verran?” Harp asked quietly as they followed the others through the channel.

“I didn’t do anything!” Verran said defensively. “If she says I did, she’s lying!”

“Easy,” Harp said.

“I hate Chult,” Verran said angrily. “And I hate her.”

“You saved me and Harp,” Kitto reminded him, but Verran strode away from them. Harp thought about calling him back, but decided against it. As Verran stalked away, Harp saw a large circle of blood staining the back of his shirt, just below the base of his neck.

“Was he injured?” Harp asked, but neither Kitto nor Boult had an answer. Verran had been on the cliff through the battle, and Harp couldn’t imagine what blow would form such a perfectly round wound on the boy’s back. With Verran in such a state, he couldn’t imagine getting answers out of him either.

The channel ended at the edge of a massive cliff. They stood on a small parcel of flat ground where a handful of rune-marked trees clung to the edge of the cliff, their silver-tipped leaves rustling in the light breeze. Below them, the carpet of green seemed endless-like the world went on forever, and the jungle owned it all.

“Those trees mark the beginning of the Domain,” Majida told them. The circular basin with the golden dome was almost directly below them. They had circled through the jungle and stood on the spiked mountain range that they had seen from a distance earlier that morning. Harp couldn’t see the ocean from his vantage point, so he knew that they must be facing south or southeast. The Crane seemed very far away.

“Is that where we just were?” he asked, pointing to the southern waterfall and the ruins.

“Yes, those are the ruins of Hisari. The mountains are called the Crown in, well, in most languages spoken in the jungle.”

“Hisari lies at the foot of the Crown,” Verran murmured.

“Yes,” Majida said. “Hisari means City of the Royal Mouth in the language of the Scaly Ones.

“Royal Mouth?” Verran asked dubiously.

“A better translation would be City of Kings,” Majida said. “So they are the Crown of the City of Kings.”

“Which came first, the city or the mountains?” Boult asked.

Majida smiled sadly. “The Scaly Ones played with nature as if it were a toy. You’ve seen the husks. But flesh was not the only thing they shaped to their pleasure. There is a legend that each peak holds a gemstone so vast that a demon was enlisted to carry the jewels to the pinnacles and bind them into the rock.”

Majida tugged a length of muddy rope and pulled up a trap door, its boards rotted and warped. They peered into a dark shaft with a rickety ladder leading down into the darkness. Majida lowered herself over the edge and began down the ladder.

“Go ahead,” Zo said, looking at Harp.

Harp climbed down the shaky ladder. The sunlight from above illuminated the glassy black walls of the shaft where thousands of fossils were left from the time when it had been a sea. The soil of the seabed had been filled with tiny snail-like creatures and helix-shaped worms. After so many years, their forms were outlined by white quartz that glittered like ancient stars in the deep black of the walls.

At the bottom of the shaft, Harp stood next to Majida and waited for the others. In front of them was a wooden door without a lock, and Harp could see a faint glow of light under the bottom of the door.

“Do your scars hurt?” Majida asked.

“Sometimes,” Harp replied. “They’ve faded a lot. You should have seen them right after I got out of Vankila. They used to split open all the time.”

“Split?”

“Yeah, I could brush up against a doorframe and end up bleeding buckets. It took almost a year for the skin to really heal.”

“I can help you with them,” Majida told him.

“Thank you, but nothing works,” Harp said regretfully. “I’ve tried everything.”

“We’ll see.”

“Majida, do you think that Verran had something to do with that creature coming to life?” he asked. Above them, Kitto was halfway down the ladder, and the others would be right behind him.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But there is something about him …”

“What?” Harp prompted.

Majida smiled sadly. “He’s at a crossroads.”

“I don’t understand,” Harp said. “It’s very similar to the place you are standing,” Majida said.

“Are you sure I’m at a crossroads?” Harp said. “Because I feel like I’m at the bottom of a well.”

When everyone had climbed down the ladder and the trap door was closed above them, Majida pushed open the wooden door. An unexpected flood of sunlight made Harp shield his eyes. Blinking rapidly, he stepped into an enormous subterranean room. High above them, crystal-encrusted stalagmites hung from the cavern’s dripping ceiling. A narrow streambed flowing with azure water bisected the cavern floor, which was composed of the same black rock as the walls of the shaft.

“Fire-rock and mud-rock in the same place?” Boult muttered to Harp. “Something incredibly hot exploded here to get that combination.”

The walls of the cavern were slopes of gray, pockmarked rock that let water seep into the cavern as well as sunlight. The rock was so porous that Harp could see the silhouettes of vines and flowers dangling on the other side. In the center of the massive cavern, a bronze urn burned with a glittery orange flame.

“Welcome to the Spirit Vault,” Majida said. They stared at the cavern.

“Why do you call it that?” Harp asked.

Majida smiled and pointed to the far side of the cavern. The wall was the same glistening black as the shaft, but in place of sea fossils, the crystallized bones of a giant creature protruded from the obsidian wall.

Spanning from floor to ceiling, the bones were at least double the height of a giant and more than four times the size of an average man. While the bones of the creature’s torso, arms, and legs were humanoid, the slant of its skull was distinctly feline. Spiny filaments of wings jutted out from behind its back, and broken chains dangled from his shackled wrists. With its wings outspread and palms opened, the creature looked as if it had been blasted back against the wall by some immense force that had made the cavern into a tomb.

“What are those?” Harp said in awe.

Zo gave him a quizzical look. “Those are the bones of a god.”