Plague of Spells as-1 Read online

  The man's head jerked around, his eyes blazing. Did he see her?

  Apparently not. He continued to scan the area, then he said, "I must find Gethshemeth. I must…"

  The man's expression twisted, as if he struggled to remember something vital.

  Then he grunted and tossed the sword away, as if it burned his hand. The sword fell point first into the earth.

  The weapon continued to burn, but the half-elf’s tattoo immediately dimmed. Human expression returned to the man's face, and he wiped his suddenly sweaty brow with the back of his hand.

  A scream of alarm mounted off to Anusha's left, where the city was located.

  "Angul," the man said, apparently addressing the sword, "if you wish to destroy Gethshemeth, you must swear on the Cerulean Sign we both serve never to overpower my mind again."

  The sword continued to pulse with sky blue flames. "Can it talk?" Anusha blurted before she could stop herself.

  The man looked up, his face remarkably serene. He said, "No, invisible one, at least not to anyone not holding it. Who are you?"

  "Anusha," she replied. "I, uh, I am here to destroy Gethshemeth, too. My friends and I. We were separated, but I'm returning to them now."

  The man cocked his head, glanced up at the sentinels that circled above. They seemed to be keeping their distance for the moment. Anusha didn't blame them, after seeing the man in action.

  "Will you help us?" she asked. "My friends were attacked; that's when I lost them. I don't know what's happened since then. But I know they need help!"

  "Who are your friends? Unseen sprites like yourself?"

  "No! And I'm no sprite. I'm just, uh, not quite all here, which makes me hard to see. My friends are Japheth-he's learned spells and curses from some creature bound in the Feywild-and Seren-she says she's a wizard and she casts spells too. And Captain Thoster. He's a privateer. Actually, Seren and the captain are not my friends, just Japheth."

  The man rubbed his chin, then he asked, "How old are you, Anusha?"

  Her cheeks colored. She was glad the man couldn't see her. She had been nearly babbling, she had to admit it. She shot back, "And what is your name, man who falls from the sky?"

  He executed a sudden and sharp bow. "Raidon Kane, disciple of Xiang Temple." "You're a monk?"

  The man nodded, said, "And a Keeper of the Cerulean Sign, and reluctant wielder of Angul, whose moral sense is suspect despite his zeal for destroying evil. I have suffered much and traveled far to arrive here, all that I might destroy Gethshemeth and the relic he holds."

  "Oh! Well, then you will help me?" '

  "I detect no taint of aberration about you, so I shall put my trust in you until you prove unworthy of it. I already know I cannot trust this blade."

  So saying, he grasped the sword. His expression hardened. His hand shook. But composure settled back into his features. He said, "We don't have time for more elaborate introductions, Anusha. Please lead the way. I can follow your verbal directions."

  Anusha plucked a loose stone from the ground and explained, "Just follow this."

  She dashed toward the city. Fear and anxiety loosed its overwhelming grip on her. Now that she breathed easier, she wondered whether she would ever have built up enough courage, if the half-elf monk hadn't turned up.

  She dispersed the thought-it didn't matter what might have been. With Raidon Kane at her side, she allowed herself to hope. She just might see Japheth again.

  Anusha led Raidon into Taunissik. Even in the middle of the night, the coral-like, jumbled structures and clear pools glowed with a pale, algal light. The kuo-toa who'd earlier lounged in the pools were absent, but sinister shapes looked out every window of the city, their vacant faces shadowed by dim glows behind them. The sentinels continued to circle overhead, keeping Raidon at the center of the circuit.

  "At least they are keeping their distance," Anusha said, trying to break the tension with something more helpful than a scream or whimper.

  "They will allow us to enter, then block our exit-what else but cowardly tactics can one expect of aberration-touched creatures?" The half-elf’s voice rang with a righteous zeal. Was the sword affecting the man's mind again?

  She ran toward the large structure. Raidon easily matched her tireless pace.

  The sinuous glyphs carved on every surface of the building flickered between green and wan red light. She plunged into the entrance, the disciple of Xiang Temple a breath behind. They passed through a low-ceilinged vestibule where three basins collected effluvia from fish-faced busts. Anusha took the right-hand path from a choice of two arched corridors and plunged down a narrow staircase. Relief-carved kuo-toa heads emerged from either wall at intervals, their eyes spilling yellow radiance.

  After one switchback, the stairs emptied into a straight tunnel Anusha flew through, the stone she held to guide Raidon in one hand, her dream blade in the other.

  They passed into a chamber lit by a trio of sculpted, ten-foot-diameter kuo-toa busts on high walls. A granite block stood loose, just inside the room-Anusha remembered it had crashed down and sealed the exit. Something had pushed it aside since then.

  Where the central pool had been was a drained, slime-coated cavity in the floor. Dead albino fish lay within it like so many withered leaves. A hole in the cavity's basin was a spiral staircase, now open to air, leading downward.

  "Raidon, this is where we were separated," she exclaimed. "I don't know what happened when I. was… pulled away, but the basin in the floor was filled with water last time I was here."

  "How long…" Raidon's query trailed off as his gaze tracked higher.

  Anusha followed his eyes. A dragon perched atop one of the kuo-toa busts above them like a lazing savanna cat. Humanoid remains lay between its outstretched legs, but from her vantage, she couldn't identify them. Her stomach, despite being immaterial, convulsed.

  The dragon, seeing it had the monk's attention, stretched. Its wings unfolded like a webbed, thin-fingered hand opening to reach up and scratch the ceiling. It yawned, revealing bloody fangs as long as Anusha's forearm. The dragon's deep-socketed eyes and hollow nasal openings were almost skull-like. Large spikes extended from its jaw, and two rows of small horns lined its brows.

  "You bear the taint I cannot abide," Raidon accused the dragon, his voice cold as iron.

  "You trespass and have found your death," replied the dragon, its voice a scratchy rumble. It tensed, preparing to spring.

  Anusha cried, "Where are the other trespassers, those who entered this room a few hours ago?"

  The dragon froze at the sound of her voice. Its eyes scanned the room, and its nostrils flared. Its wings retracted backward to lie low along its back.

  "They have gone below to offer obeisance to Gethshemeth," hissed the dragon, its eyes flickering with the intensity of its search.

  "Liar!" screamed Anusha.

  The dragon's brow creased, as if in consternation at not being able to locate its prey. Its body language now screamed caution-it was no longer on the verge of dropping on Raidon.

  "Liar you name me? You are wrong, hidden one. My name is Scathrys," said the dragon. "I'll leave you and your Shou friend to discover who in this chamber is a liar. Mayhap it's you? Gethshemeth and your friends lie below." The dragon extended a massive claw and pointed to the stairs at the bottom of the slimed floor cavity.

  Rage bit Anusha. She cocked her arm and threw her dream blade as if it were a spear. Indeed, to her eye, it lengthened in midflight, becoming a spear in truth. At the last moment, Scathrys, somehow sensing something of the intangible dream, dodged. The spear struck the dragon through one wing.

  It roared in anger and confusion, releasing a stream of green fluid that scored the walls. The spear held the dragon in place for a moment, even as the creature exploded into frantic efforts to free itself from what pinned it.

  Pain smote Anusha, right between the eyes. Even as she gasped at its onslaught, the spear faded to nothing. The headache eased too, but a dull pain pe
rsisted as if to remind her that reality could be bent only so far by her dream wiles.

  The dragon, free of the invisible thorn that had stung it, did not flee. Instead, it hunkered down on its perch, relying on the bulk of the stone head to shield itself from further unseen attacks. It hissed, "Your friends are even now swearing their eternal souls to the void that lies between the stars. Yet you dally here." It guffawed, its mirth mocking and harsh.

  Raidon scrutinized Scathrys, the Blade Cerulean naked in his hand. Tongues of blue flame rippled its length.

  "Raidon, let's go! Japheth needs us!"

  The monk scowled. Sweat beaded on his lip. He looked murderously at the dragon but said, "The greater abomination lies below, Angul."

  The half-elf wrenched himself away and stepped into the open cavity. With uncanny grace, he skied down the slimy, nearly vertical wall and into the bowl, easily avoiding the shaft containing the stairs.

  Anusha leaped after, with far less refinement. Not that it mattered, since no one could see her and she couldn't be hurt by a mere fall. She wondered if she should try to dream her blade forth once more. She decided to wait. Her head still smarted fiercely. It seemed clear she had overtaxed her ability to affect the waking world by lancing the dragon at a distance.

  The monk raced down the spiral stair, narrow and slick with recently evacuated water. He didn't stumble once. Anusha followed, his unseen shadow.

  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 sho
w 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."