City of Torment (16 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Taunissik, Sea of Fallen Stars Anusha screamed the worst profanity she could ever recall hearing, something her half brother once said to a servant. The darkened cabin aboard the Green Siren absorbed her outburst, and quiet returned. Japheth had moved too far for her dream to follow. Just when he needed her most! With Nogah killed, how would he ever find what he looked for? How would he ever find his way back out again? He could retreat to his castle�but there he risked dying at the hand of a Feywild witch with murder in her heart. If he didn’t kill himself first with his tin of traveler’s dust. Think, she commanded herself. Panic won’t help, girl. Easy enough said, hard to follow through. But she attempted to calm her breathing. She concentrated on the sound of her too fast heart. She willed it quieter, until she could no longer hear it beating in her ears. Her body was too far from the island’s center. How could she get it closer without risking detection? Did it matter anymore? With Nogah dead, perhaps the great kraken already knew the ship lay at anchor off the seamount’s coast. Slimy kuo-toa swimmers and the ink-trailing aerial sentinels could be turning their attention this way even as she imagined the possibility. She pushed those thoughts away. They made her heart race. She wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again. That thought alone signaled it was already too late, she knew. When one is most desperate to fall into slumber, sleep is furthest away. Awake or tired, she knew she was in for a long period before she could relax enough even for a nap. Worse, it seemed the more she used Japheth’s potion, the less she was able to fall asleep naturally. Concern puckered her brows at the thought. She was becoming just as addicted to that silver vial as Japheth was to his damned dust tin. “No,” she mumbled. Maybe, she thought. It didn’t matter. She could leave Japheth to his fate or try to help him. Simple as that. She pulled the stopper from the silver vial and drank. Even as she lay back and closed her eyes, her dream pair opened. Anusha stepped from her slumping physical body clad in the plate armor of dream. She stowed the silver vial carefully back within a pocket in her sleeping body’s skirt. She vowed she wouldn’t use the vial again. As she had told herself last time. “Stop it! You’ve got more pressing issues, now.” She took what seemed like a real breath. “A dream I am, and so I perceive the world about me,” she affirmed, trying to convince herself. Anusha closed the lid on the traveling case, her body still snug within. She reached into the interior, and slid home the latch from the inside. “Now the hard part. Maybe.” She bent, arms wide, and grasped the brass handles on each side of the carrying case. She heaved. The chest moved’ slightly, no more. Anusha frowned. “In my dream, I am as strong as I need to be,” she asserted. She heaved again. Another inch of movement. She relinquished her grip and said the profanity again, but this time it was only half-hearted. She plucked a crumb-laden trencher from the sideboard. This she could lift easily as her waking form could. Why should limitations of the waking world shackle her dream? Because, deep down, she expected the rules to be the same. Despite the fact they manifestly were not the same�she could walk through walls and move invisibly. Why should her ability to affect the world remain the same when everything else was different? Anusha grabbed the handles again, new certainty firing her. This time, she did not heave. She concentrated. Then she merely picked up the entire travel chest by the two grips. Part of her knew its full weight, but in her determination she tried to imagine it as heavy as a trencher, at least in this dream. Her sleeping self snored within. Hearing it, she realized again how much she carried and nearly dropped herself. One edge rapped hard against the floor. She let down the chest, not quite dropping it. Her drugged body didn’t respond to the rough handling. She realized she was probably at her limit. It would be hard to focus enough to lift more than this. Why pick it up, she realized, when she could drag it? Anusha kicked open the door to the cabin and stepped out, the chest in tow behind her. Lucky snorted his pleasure on seeing her. “Want to help me out, boy?” she whispered to the mongrel. The dog’s ears cupped forward, and its tail wagged. If she managed to convey her body to the island, a sentinel would be required to stand watch over her sleeping self. ***** Rushing water sucked Japheth into an all-encompassing embrace. He tried for a last breath and instead inhaled a smothering gulp of sea. The rough water twirled him around and knocked his head against stone. After that, he wasn’t quite sure what happened. Perhaps someone grabbed his ankle and towed him. His cloak flared around him in the water. An object slipped from the hem. He saw his tin of traveler’s dust spin out into the turbid water. He reached for it, but it tumbled down, down, until darkness claimed it. He cried out as if struck, finally forcing the water from his lungs. Coughs wracked him. He found himself on a damp expanse of stone, just beyond a torrent surging by on both sides. Seren lay near him, looking as battered and half drowned as he felt. On the other hand, Captain Thoster appeared unharmed, if hatless. His long hair was swept back, and his skin glistened with beaded water. A slight smile dimpled his expression as he turned to regard Japheth. “You going to live, bucko?” Japheth nodded, tried to reply, but instead released another body-convulsing cough. Seren said, “You swim like a seal, Thoster.” The slight smile became a grin. “Something like that, wizard.” “Why so lighthearted?” Seren snapped. “We lost our guide and main protector. Now we’re lost below the seamount. How long before the great kraken comes by and collects us?” “We ain’t dead yet,” the captain replied. “I can’t swim,” Seren replied, her tone robbed of its usual vindictiveness. She glanced at the rapids. The turbulent flow foamed along the narrow track just a few feet beyond their perch, then fell away onto a steep slope, becoming a cataract falling who knew how far. “You’re addled, lass. Look there.” Thoster pointed to his left. Across the breadth of water, Japheth could barely make out the edges of what appeared to be a stairwell, leading up. “No need for us to swim just yet.” The torrent was narrow enough even the wizard had no difficulty leaping it. They took to the steps. The stair was a spiraling tube leading upward. Fifty paces saw them into a new cavity. Seren exclaimed, “How interesting.” Tiny points of gold-green light flitted over domes and obelisks of shaped coral. The drifting points illuminated a subterranean vault whose size seemed, at least by the fey light of the drifting star points, equal to the breadth of the isle above. They stood in silence, looking for kuo-toa or any other sign of malign attention. Silence lay over the space like a swaddling blanket. “What’s this place for?” “Nogah would have known,” replied Thoster. The wizard sniffed. “She’s dead, Thoster. I’m asking you.” He shrugged. “For us, let us hope it provides an exit.” Seren actually smiled. “Now you’re talking. Let’s get out of here and leave the Dreamheart to its new owner.” Thoster paused. “Nay, lass. Despite this setback, we need to try for it. I wouldn’t leave without it, now that we’re so close. Which way do you suppose we should go to find the big squid, Japheth?” “I don’t know.” He was so bedraggled he wondered if Seren didn’t have the right of it. Events had obviously proved too much for Anusha. The captain grunted. “Well, we should look for a way out too. It wouldn’t do for Captain Thoster to be marooned! I expect the kraken will find us soon enough. That’ll be our chance to try for the bauble. You think the poxed thing will prove easier to deal with than the servants it sent to ambush us?” Japheth said, “Seems unlikely�” “Because we didn’t give a very good account of ourselves.” Protestations rose to the warlock’s lips: he had been taken by surprise, he hadn’t unleashed his full arsenal of curses, he had been concerned with the welfare of the others. But he remained quiet. Their guide had been slain, and the rest of them had barely escaped with their lives. And perhaps it was his own fault. How had he allowed it? The bald truth wouldn’t creep away and be ignored. He’d been in the dazed grip of traveler’s dust. If he’d been in his right mind� The memory of a metallic container tumbling down through dark water assailed the warlock. His breath caught. He slapped his cloak where the tin was kept safe. He couldn’t detect the comforting bulge. His eyes dilated as he frantically searched through the folds of his cape. Empty. Japheth’s supply of dust was lost. The captain watched Japheth through this anxious display, his expression quizzical. “I have to go back,” Japheth explained. “I lost something in the water.” “Go back, then exclaimed the wizard.”We’re going forward.” Japheth glanced at her. Seren was wringing out her hair. She looked up, saw the warlock’s desperate expression, and said, “You’re cute, but I’m not going back down there.” An image of a road composed of ground bone on a crimson plain flashed before him, then faded. Japheth took another few gulps of air, crazy impulses flashing across his mind. Images of diving, alone, into the cataract… Too crazy to consider for more than heartbeats. He’d have to do without, despite the risk to his sanity. “Never mind.” Thoster skewered Japheth with a look. “You certain you’re still in the game?” the captain asked. “I have no other choice, it seems,” breathed the warlock. “Let’s see what’s in here, shall we?” Japheth pushed to the fore and stepped into the vast space lit by glittering witchlights. The rounded sphere tops and protruding obelisks mimicked the buildings on the surface. They were built, or perhaps grown, of something similar to coral. However, the structures in the dark seemed older, centuries older. None possessed any obvious entranceways or windows, either. Several had script upon them, but in a language none of the explorers knew. Japheth began to see a pattern to the drifting points of light. Sometimes they clustered around one particular dome or obelisk, only to languidly redistribute themselves in different densities around other features. The lights never paused in the empty air between the monument-like structures. A small enough pattern, but possibly significant. The warlock considered his own paucity of power in the arena of gleaning information. Though he knew curses that could unleash feral, hungry forces upon his enemies, making mute stone speak wasn’t in his repertoire. He glanced at Seren, wondering. She was a wizard�didn’t she have spell or ritual capable of providing deeper insight? “Seren,” Japheth said. The wizard paused. “What?” “Do you�” “Listen. If you’re asking me to consult my spellbook for a handy solution to this mess, don’t bother. It is a stroke of luck I’ve relearned as many spells and rituals as I have in the last eleven years. A damn sight better than most. In time, the rest will return, I’m certain. Until then, stop bothering me with, insipid requests!” Thoster grinned and shook his head. A spire ahead enjoyed a particularly large number of slowly circling lights. Japheth headed toward it across the damp, uneven ground. It worried him that little pools of seawater pocketed the stone here and there. How long had it been since this entire area was drowned? More important, would the water return? They were already far below sea level, but that didn’t mean tides didn’t have a role to play beneath Taunissik. He reached the base of the pedestal. Japheth realized the stone wasn’t exactly like the others. It was no simple obelisk; it was some sort of statue�a twelve-foot-tall effigy, roughly like a kuo-toa, carved of purplish stone, though its lobster clawlike hands were black as pitch. Runes, like those written across the other structures, were inscribed on the figure. But unlike the script on the other formations, the runes on the statue seemed to trace ancient lines of power across its limbs. Worse yet, in place of its head, a single glyph was scribed, from which a thin streamlet of seawater dribbled. Thoster said, “Japheth, stop. This is a kuo-toa holy place. We tread on sacred ground, at our peril.” The smell of seawater intensified, and a dozen more witchlights flocked to the figure. Their combined radiance wavered between purple and green. “This is a likeness of the kuo-toa god?” asked Japheth. “Goddess,” replied Thoster, his normally confident voice slightly wavering. “Come away!” A crack of rending stone saw the statue shudder into movement. With two steps, the figure jerkily cleared its low pedestal. A heavy claw reached for Japheth. He jerked back and the claw scraped across the ground. A screech of what seemed like pain issued from the animate beast. “What is it?” yelled Seren, her wand suddenly in hand. “An eidolon of the sea!” replied Thoster, even as he backed away. “A kind of construct kuo-toa create as half living altars. They’re animated by a shard of power from the Sea Mother herself!” The creature lunged at Japheth once more. Again the warlock evaded the relatively slow-moving bulk. “Why does it attack us? We have not suborned its followers� the kraken has.” “It ain’t received a sacrifice since Gethshemeth commandeered this colony,” returned Captain Thoster. “It’s blinkin’ insane with hunger!” “Sea Mother!” Japheth called out. “We are enemies of your enemy�the great kraken, Gethshemeth, has overpowered your people! We seek to destroy Gethshemeth. Grant us your aid, and perhaps your people may come back to you!” The effigy paused, as if considering. Seren muttered, “Quick thinking, Japheth. Let’s hope it works!” Thoster shook his head. “This ain’t the Sea Mother�it’s merely a focus for devotion meant for her. In fact, I do not ever recall seeing this particular image. It ain’t quite right. Regardless, this eidolon has been untended so long it may have gone rogue!” “Rogue?” asked Japheth. Then he had his answer. The rune that served as the statue’s face suddenly spewed blood red seawater in all directions. Japheth’s cloak intervened, shunting the brunt of the liquid aside, but some still spattered his face and forearms. Pain blossomed across his skin where the seawater touched it. The warlock cried, “The water is caustic!” Seren pointed her wand. A line of flickering lightning briefly
connected its end with the animate statue. It sparked and staggered, and the sharp order of ozone blurred Japheth’s vision. He blinked and thought better of rubbing his eyes with the back of his seawater-spattered and burning hand. A shape suddenly materialized from the blur his vision had become. “Look out!” yelled Thoster. Japheth tried to duck away, but his senses were too confused. Instead of slipping out of the way, he darted directly into the grasp of the stony lobster claw. Pressure crushed his chest and back, and his feet were pulled free of the ground. His legs worked foolishly in the air. His right arm was pinned to his side, and his hand went numb with the pressure. The eidolon had him. Japheth blinked away the tears and saw the thing had raised him high above its head. Preparatory to smashing him down, most likely. He heaved against the stone pincer holding him in place. He succeeded merely in goading it to squeeze all the harder. He couldn’t draw in a new breath. Japheth called on his cloak to transfer him back to the ground. It whipped and strained, but failed. He was caught in a grip more than merely physical. Below his flailing feet, Thoster darted in with his golemwork blade. The clang of metal on stone reverberated up the effigy’s form. Farther off, Japheth saw Seren ready her wand for another strike, then pause, a frown of indecision on her face. He wondered if she considered striking the statue with another bolt of lighting even though he remained in its grasp. It surprised him she even paused to deliberate. Japheth finally managed to get his free hand on the animate statue. With the last breath that remained in his contracted lungs, he uttered the Blight of Writhing Shadow. The swarming witchlights dimmed as tissue-thin streamers of black fog issued from the ground. The darkness wrapped the effigy’s legs in semisolid bands of sinuous force. The creature tried to step out of the shadow that clutched at it, but found itself caught in slicing, cold darkness. Shuddering, it redoubled its effort to escape. Simultaneously, the pressure the thing exerted on him noticeably eased. Japheth gasped, drawing new air into his aching lungs. In another few moments he would have blacked out. Thoster yelled, “Can you wriggle free, warlock? I don’t want to strike again what might be an idol to whom I pray for calm seas!” At the sound of his voice, the eidolon stopped struggling. Its empty rune face seemed to ascertain Thoster’s position despite its lack of eyes, ears, and nose. Simultaneously, Japheth smelled a rank odor of rotting fish and something far worse, like the smell of shadows decaying. Thoster blanched but shook his head. He said, “Begad! That ain’t the Sea Mother!” The rune on the idol’s face sprayed red water. The fluid arced through the air, curving up and over the captain’s retreating form. Even as the wave’s leading edge was about to strike the damp ground, it solidified. The captain was gone. What remained was a compact coral dome, on which runes were scribed. Japheth could read these runes, for they were in Common. The words read, “Captain Aulruick Thoster. Preserved for sacrifice 1396.” The captain’s shocking entombment jolted the warlock into a frenzy. He writhed without regard to how he might hurt himself against the hard stone� Before he quite realized he was free, he struck the ground, turning his ankle. He didn’t pause to examine it; as soon as he hit the floor he called on his cloak to transfer him as far as it could… Japheth was spit from the discontinuity of his cloak some fifteen paces behind the animate statue. For the moment, it couldn’t see him. Its non-gaze swept to the left, stopping at Seren. She screamed, “You’ll not have me, stoneborn!” and released a torrent of electricity. The jagged white gout carved great smoking craters in the idol’s rock carapace. The light of the wizard’s electrical attack was brighter than the floating witchlights. So bright that Japheth glimpsed something moving up and behind them. Something vast. In the shadows of the great cavern, many sinuous arms fluttered and coiled, each longer than the Green Siren’s deck. One clutched a head-sized orb of stone. The long arms all emerged from a fleshy cylindrical mantle, from which two white eyes burned with hate. Each time the great arms moved, the animate statue rocked and shifted. Nausea roiled Japheth’s guts and his breath caught. Gethshemeth. “Seren! The eidolon is not the true threat! The great kraken is in here with us! The statue is its puppet!” The wizard glanced away from the idol, and saw in the fading light of her final blast what Japheth described. Even as her mouth opened, in dawning surprise, the eidolon sprayed another gout of seawater. Seren tried to evade and failed. Where the wizard had stood was a small obelisk labeled, “Seren Juramot. Preserved for sacrifice 1396.” Japheth mentally reviewed his options, even as he sidled away from the idol and from the darkness behind it that hid Gethshemeth. He could channel arcane might wrested from primeval entities. He could commune with infernal intelligences and fey spirits, scour enemies with potent blasts of eldritch power, and bedevil them with compelling curses. While he wore the Lord of Bats’s cloak, all his abilities were redoubled, at least. But even with all his advantages, he knew he could not defeat a great kraken and its eidolon ally alone. Especially a great kraken whose own power was magnified in some unholy way by the enigmatic relic the ex-whip had called the Dreamheart. On the other hand, he would certainly die if he put his back to the threat. He stopped. Japheth squared his shoulders and turned to fully face the idol, and yes, the hints of swift movement just visible behind and above the animate statue. His hands came up, and from his lips leaped words that were transformed into a golden mist. A great cloud of shining, yellow haze billowed forward, bypassing the unthinking eidolon, expanding in size even as its interior light began to more fully illuminate the great kraken beyond. For the first time, Japheth realized how strange it was that the creature seemed completely at ease in open air. Was that ability to transcend water an effect of the Dreamheart, as Nogah had suggested? The haze enveloped the massive squid. Japheth continued uttering the syllables that fed the spell, giving it the power to plunge Gethshemeth into a waking dream of eldritch beauty and illusion. The haze was having an effect! Or, was it? Wait� The idol’s rune flashed like a star. Water sprayed through air toward the warlock. Drops of the transformative moisture speckled Japheth’s upturned face and unprotected hands. His spell was ripped from him. A cold tide overtook him, and his body was locked in a vault of stone.