Plague of Spells as-1 Read online

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "You destroyed the walking statue?" asked Thoster.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The wizard whirled, her eyes searching for the speaker.

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

  Thoster chuckled.

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

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

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

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

  Rock detritus and water rained down, pelting everyone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The kraken was back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

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

  Icy warnings blared from the Cerulean Sign on Raidon's chest, a new pulse with each heartbeat. As if he didn't already know all these fish-men were touched by corruption.

  Still in a guarding stance, Raidon palmed a slashing spear haft with his left hand. He jerked, pulling the kuo-toa forward, directly into a rising right knee. The kuo-toa's head crunched, and the creature fell away. The monk retained his grip on the spear, spinning it like a staff. He spun it around one-handed, landing a resounding blow along another kuo-toa's head. He leaned into the rebound to clip a second foe, then put his other hand on the shaft so he could thrust the butt end of the spear into a third foe's throat. The kuo-toa tried to scream but choked instead. The staff lengthened Raidon's reach, but the blows it delivered were not as powerful as his Sign-enhanced fists.

  The choking kuo-toa cried out, tried to turn, but fell into a bloody heap instead. The ship captain stood behind the corpse, his strangely clicking sword beaded with water and blood, a manic expression making his face a strange mask. Something in that expression and the shape of the man's head reminded Raidon of the kuo-toa themselves.

  "More's coming, my Shou friend," panted the captain. He pointed the tip of his blade at the scurrying fish-men drawing nearer through the artificial rain. The captain's grin expanded. "More for us to kill."

  Raidon's symbol suddenly turned as cold as a blizzard. He looked up. Just visible through the water streaming down from the ceiling he glimpsed… a great flock of bats? No. A single creature, one with vast arms of squalid black muscle. It was the very beast Cynosure had revealed to him. Gethshemeth.

  The great kraken clutched a head-sized orb in one tentacle, and in another, a humanoid figure carved of stone, a mere doll in Gethshemeth's tentacles. It hunched over the tableau, its arms flickering and weaving overhead as if it cast a spell requiring all its gesturing arms.

  As if being waved forward, a half dozen more kuo-toa formations rushed across the flooding vault. Before they reached Raidon, Gethshemeth reached down and set its doll down not far from the monk. He saw it was actually about twice his height. Another stone behemoth, like the one he'd dispatched on first arriving in the chamber.

  The statue shuddered forward, its arms rising.

  Raidon charged it. From his focus of concentration he projected stone-shattering force into the heel of his right hand. Threads of coolness reached from his chest, down his arm, and interlaced themselves with his focus. His spellscar, its shape that of the Cerulean Sign, aided him all on its own.

  The lobster-clawed humanoid sprayed him with crimson fluid.

  "Raidon, no!" he heard someone shout, perhaps the invisible girl, or maybe the panicked wizard. Then silence claimed him.

  When a coral dome sealed the monk away, Anusha's fear returned like a thick gag threatening to choke off her breath. She'd expected Raidon Kane would rise to this final challenge, as she'd seen him do against the threats they'd faced on the surface. Instead, the kraken neutralized him with its first move.

  Close by, the wizard Seren seemed to be crying, even as she launched a wave of lightning at the closest kuo-toa phalanx. A crack of thunder knocked six or seven fish-men backward, head over flippers, to land in a heap, dazed and hurt. But more kuo-toa continued to pour into the area. Seren's lament grew louder even as she prepared another blast. She sobbed, "We're all going to die!"

  Anusha stood near Japheth. His eyes were locked on the kraken, or perhaps the orb the kraken wielded. Her fear crystallized. "Wait!" she counseled him, thinking he was about to engage Gethshemeth himself. "Wait for Raidon's help! I can free the half-elf as I did you!"

  Without a backward glance she dashed through the press of scaly bodies. She called up her dream blade and lay around her with it as she passed. She imagined her blade's edges as real and sharp as Angul's steely edge.

  Anusha's passage was a bloody furrow through the kraken's advancing minions. Composed as it was of dream matter, no blood stained her armor or even her sword. That's how she dreamed it should be, and that's how it was. The creatures only sensed her by her bloody deeds. Kuo-toa squealed and died.

  She reached the lobster-clawed statue where Raidon was entombed. Captain Thoster had so far avoided a similar fate, but what was he doing? Thoster was on his knees in the pooling water facing the eidolon, his sword sheathed and his arms outstretched as if in entreaty or worship. The man chanted something in a singsong tone, perhaps a prayer.

  His strangely liquid vowels were having some sort of effect. The statue wavered, tried to step, paused, vibrated, then shuffled sideways.

  "Whatever you're doing, keep it up," she murmured, and plunged into the stone that imprisoned Raidon. She had just trawled three similar stone shrouds, so she knew what to look for. Almost immediately she located Raidon's form. She grabbed the rigid monk beneath his arms and heaved, but her hands slipped free. She tried again, remembering to will his flesh to be as her dream body, like smoke flowing through air. She heaved once more, and a moment later the man was free of the clutching stone.

  Raidon resumed his charge as if nothing had detoured him. Even as Thoster retained the eidolon's attention, the monk jumped at the end of his trajectory and smashed the statue in the chest with the heel of his palm.

  The crack of rending stone echoed through the chamber. Fine lines burning with cerulean fire suddenly spidered the statue, thickest at the point of impact.

  Anusha came up behind Raidon and brought down her dream blade. Jarring impact surprised her.

  "No!" said Thoster suddenly "Don't attack her!"

  Her? Anusha wondered why the pirate would suddenly refer to the animated statue as a "she," and wish to protect it. Had his mind been suborned by Gethshemeth?

  Raidon spared a puzzled glance at the captain's insane plea but didn't cease his assault on the stone figure. Even as stone claws snapped toward the monk, he evaded them by slipping to one side and around the statue. From there, the monk launched into a fury of stinging blows. The sound of crunching stone, like Anusha imagined might issue from a mine shaft, accompanied Raidon's unstoppable onslaught. The half-elf’s hands and feet had somehow become harder than stone.

  The kuo-toa swarming into the cavern paused to watch, their eyes fixed on Raidon. Moments later, the statue's swift demolition was complete. Raidon stood on a pile of slick, wet rubble above the rising water line. His hair was molded to his head in the constant drizzle and his clothes sopped, but in that moment he seemed unstoppable. The monk's eyes lifted and focused on the kraken itself as if in challenge.

  The immense, slime-slick monstrosity didn't fall upon the man with its tree-thick arms, as Anusha had guessed it would. Instead Gethshemeth writhed its tentacles over them like baleful clouds. As if in response, every single kuo-toa in the vault screamed with a single voice. It was the sound of unquenchable madness. A madness that threatened to infect Anusha's mind with its awful atonal volume.

  The screaming kuo-toa charged, forgetting formation, forgetting discipline, and forgetting their fear of death.

  The wizard cried with such anguish, Anusha heard her over the
roar of the kuo-toa. Her shoulders shaking, Seren managed to call up a perimeter of burning fire, as if to mark the site of her last stand.

  Raidon leaped from the pile of stone, grabbed Captain Thoster by the lapels of his flapping coat, and dashed back toward Japheth, Seren, and Angul. The pirate allowed himself to be pulled, but his eyes remained fixed on the rubble pile. He had already slipped into insanity, Anusha judged. Or perhaps not. Despite his limp posture, Thoster retained his grip on his blade.

  The monk used his free hand to bat away the swarming kuo-toa between him and his goal. Their screams hardly changed pitch even after a solid blow knocked them prone.

  Anusha moved with them, helping Raidon ward off stray claws, spear thrusts, and bites.

  A fish-man, bigger than the others, appeared suddenly in Raidon's path. The large kuo-toa brandished a harpoon with cord attached to it. It carried a wide, slime-slick shield. Several additional harpoons were lashed to its back.

  The monk instantly transferred all his forward momentum into his arms. Even as he stopped dead, he released Thoster in a high arc that cleared the harpooner's reach by a couple of feet. The pirate captain crashed down with a great splash within the protective circle of fire that burned despite the cold seawater still pouring down from above.

  Watching the captain's flight distracted Anusha, and perhaps the same was true of Raidon. Even as Thoster came down hard, the harpooner loosed its broad-bladed spear. It caught Raidon in his left leg. Blood sprayed from the wound, black in the witchlight-illuminated cavern.

  Raidon jerked away, too late. The point broke off in the wound with the cord still attached. The harpooner gave a terrific yank. The slick, water-covered ground betrayed the monk, and he went down. The swarming, screaming kuo-toa were on him in an instant.

  Japheth was entranced by the sinuous movements of the great kraken that, unaccountably, failed to help its slaves kill them. A single slap of one of its ten-foot-thick tentacles would crush two or three of them at once. Why did it hold back?