Conspiracy (8 page)

“There,” Miltiades said, pointing to a spot a mere quarter mile distant. “They’ve broken through.” The others then saw it, a company of fiends charging past a quickly closing breech. “They’ll be here in mere moments.”

“But the pendant is nearly blinding, now,” Kern said, holding hands up before his face. “She must be here, in the palace. We must proceed.”

Miltiades’s face was a mask of soot and scars. “I would, but for those fiends. They are after one thing— the bloodforge. For the good of all Toril, we cannot let them have it.” He unslung his warhammer and marched grimly up the steps of the stair bridge. “The only way for land-bound creatures to cross the moat is to climb here.” He reached a small landing just ahead of the palace facade. “We hold them here, as long as we can. The fiends will pay a dear toll in blood to pass.”

Kern marched up beside him, hammer flashing. “I will take the vanguard and draw them in, slaying with my antimagic.”

Trandon said, “I will be at your one hand, and Jacob at your other. No claw will touch you.”

Even as they arrayed themselves and kicked footholds, the fiends converged on the stairway and charged upward.

In moments, the villainous horde crashed against them. Kern and Miltiades flung them back with killing blows, alternating like a pair of men driving stakes into the ground. Jacob hacked and hewed. Trandon hurled attackers into the moat. Shorn claws and cracked skulls tumbled bloodily down to stick on the spikes below. The defenders held.

The fiends bunched up along the stairs and began slaying each other to get by. Those that could fly took to the air, but other defenders in the palace beyond sent whispering shafts into them. They dropped among the other dead in the moat.

In the air or on the stair, the fight was furious. Some fiends were unmade by the convulsing limbs and acidic blood of their slain comrades. Others merely crowded themselves from the causeway and dropped onto impaling spikes. But many, if not most, fell to the powerful blows of the paladins.

“We are holding them,” Miltiades grunted as his warhammer pulped the pod-shaped head of a greater fiend. “We are holding back the armies of hell!”

Then one fiend slipped past—a great anaconda with the head of a boar. Miltiades pounded its slithering side, but couldn’t stop it. A second got by, and a third. In time, the tide of fiends flowed once more. For the defenders, all that remained was the grim, bloody work of slaying those they could.

Miltiades shouted, “May Tyr bless the palace defenders!”

As the pirates fled into the hall, Noph glanced back toward the audience chamber.

The twin curtains of the mage-king’s tank drew slowly aside to reveal a tank glowing with fiery radiance. Orange-red water churned and boiled around a thrashing, titanic creature. Mangled, scaly, tentacular— the mage-king writhed: his torso arched in agony; his tentacles spasmed; his hands clutched into fists; his teeth ground together like rolling boulders. Aetheric thrashed, recoiled, shuddered, but all the while held those tank-bursting fists by his sides. His skin molted

away. It sloughed in ribbons in the water. It circled him in tatters. Still, he did not break the glass.

A sniff and a tug from Ingrar brought Noph back around. “We’ve got more problems. Brimstone—there are fiends ahead. Tanar’ri. They’re pouring up the stairs in front of the palace.”

“Swords! Knives!” Noph called to his comrades. “Fiends ahead.”

“Damn,” Belgin swore. He came to a halt and drew steel. “Why don’t we escape down a side passage—let the fiends and the mage-king take care of each other?”

Entreri shook his head. “And let demons have first crack at the bloodforge? No. We stand and fight.”

Noph helped Ingrar to the side of the hall. “You wait here. I’ll keep anybody from coming at you.” He drew his sword.

“Sure,” Ingrar responded, hefting his cutlass. “Just don’t back up into me; Fll stab anything that comes close.”

There was time for nothing more. Shattering glass and splintering wood announced the army’s arrival. Fiends smashed through the front facade of the palace and flooded toward the pirates.

Entreri and his party stood unmoving, a circle of swords against an army of fangs. The onslaught came, unstoppable.

Noph set his stance and prepared to die.

Then another, deeper shattering came. The fist of the mage-king smashed the impenetrable wall of his tank. Water blasted through the breach, and cracks ran out from it in all directions. The glass held for one final moment before it all—glass, water, and squid-lord— roared out and struck the opposite wall of the audience chamber.

The wall creaked, then gave way. Ten-ton stone blocks fragmented into flying rubble and scouring sand. Rock sprayed outward. In its midst came one of the king’s tentacles, as wide around as an elephant.

“Down!” Noph shouted. He and Ingrar dropped to their faces.

The others did, too. A killing hail of stone, sand, and water roared by overhead. It rushed straight into the teeth of the charging tanar’ri, ripping flesh from bone.

Noph saw no more. The flood arrived.

A muscular wave hoisted him from the floor and tossed him in its black belly. The breath he held blasted from his lungs. He tried to swim, but the water was omnipotent.

A great wall of tentacle swept beneath him. His cheek scraped the bossed ceiling. A chandelier surged by. Then he saw it again, that great black circle, that deep, deep darkness.

The eye of Aetheric.

Noph kicked out away from the mage-king’s face and dropped into a small side eddy.

He plunged. Down, down. Whirlpool. It emptied water through a doorway and down. It emptied him. Water rushed in a choppy cascade down, down, down. Tumble tumble turn, down. Spiral stairs cracked his knees. Torches glowed lurid before they snuffed, and down, down.

The stair went black. Chaos. Blunt blows. Panicked roar.

And down.

A great roar came from behind the paladins, from the very palace of the mage-king. The battle stilled for a moment as every eye lifted skyward. Stars were suddenly falling from the heavens. Huge chunks of firmament whistled down in a terrific rain.

“The Day of Tyr,” gasped Miltiades, breathless. “The end of time. The Coming of Justice.” Suddenly oblivious to the foes before him, he dropped to one knee.

The other paladins did likewise. Their heads bowed down just as a massive boulder of masoned stone

bounced over them and struck the gaping fiends below. The rock splattered the first few beasts. Then it rolled down the stairs, grinding demons to grist.

“Do you see?” Miltiades cried, elated. ” ‘And my hammer shall smite the nations of darkness and grind them into bitter meal.’”

The bowed heads lifted, just in time for them all to witness the next onslaught. A massive flood vaulted over them. It bore in its churning belly the twisted, broken bodies of more fiends. They soared by overhead in a cascade of blood and water.

” ‘And I shall cast them down from on high, as the blacksmith casts down the burrs of iron that cling to his new-forged hammer. They shall fall from the heavens on this, my day, that all peoples of every land will know that the hammer of justice descends.’ ” As Miltiades spoke these words, a spray of water and blood swept over them. The bodies of fiends plunged down all around.

Kern cried out, “How could we have doubted you, Tyr? How could we have listened to the profanities of a tentacled beast instead of the precepts of justice?” He turned to the silver warrior. “There is no Fallen Temple. There is only the True Temple—only we, the faithful of Tyr! Let us rescue Eidola, and save Doegan!”

The ground trembled.

The skies split open.

The rain of fiends faltered and ceased.

The wheels of Tyr’s chariot roared thunder.

Kern and Miltiades turned toward the sound, toward the coming of Tyr in glory. What they saw was not Tyr, though, but his enormous, bleeding apotheosis.

Aetheric III dragged himself up from the broken dome of his palace. His hands seized and smashed turrets. His tentacles coiled and recoiled in slug paths of steaming slime. His throat, so long filled with poison, roared.

“Doegan, behold your god!”

Noph awoke in the dark palace dungeon. He slouched against a wall of stone, water covering him to his chest. He could smell the sullen ash of doused torches, and could hear the gentle drip of wet ceilings. He saw little. The only light in the place sifted faintly down from the spiral stairs at either end of the corridor.

“Ingrar?” he muttered stupidly. His voice was raw. Coughing spastically, Noph spat out salty foam. “Is anyone else alive down here?”

A woman’s voice came from a nearby cell. “Who’s there? Who is it?”

More water rattled in Noph’s lungs. “Who are you?”

“I am Eidola Neverwinter,” said the woman.

Noph struggled to his feet. “I’m coming. I’m coming.” He steadied himself on a wall, then lumbered along the flooded corridor. “I’ve got to find a key.” He dragged the toe of his boot, searching for—

With a splash, he tripped atop a guard’s body. Noph struggled to one side and felt for a ring of keys. Finding it, he ripped it free from the man’s belt.

“I’m coming. I’m coming.”

Noph reached the cell door where he had heard the voice and started fitting key after key into the slot. His hands jangled excitedly.

The lady is within. I will rescue her, he thought. Another voice stirred in the back of his mind. What if Entreri is right? What if she is an agent of the Unseen? What if she is a monster?

A key clicked. The cell door swung open. Noph gulped and stepped into the breach. With an effort he quashed his doubts. Surely the paladins were right. Surely Khelben would not have given them this commission if he’d had any doubts of Eidola’s bona fides.

In the deep darkness, he could see little. Then he felt a warm wave of relief wash over him. On the far wall, he made out a feminine outline—long hair plastered to thin shoulders, a curve of hips, lean but strong legs. The woman’s arms were held out to either side by massive shackles bolted into the wall, and her legs, submerged in the fetid flow of Aetheric’s shattered tank, were bound together by a broad band of iron.

“I’m Kastonoph Nesher,” Noph said stupidly. To make matters worse, he realized he was bowing. “Your husb—your groo—Piergeiron sent me.”

“Thank the gods,” the lady replied. Her voice was as raw as his. “Get me loose!”

“Right,” Noph said, glad she had given him a bit of direction. He stepped forward, keys jingling in his

hand. “You wouldn’t know which of these keys—”

“Just hurry,” the lady implored.

“Right,” Noph replied again. He edged up to her, selected a key, felt the bond on her right arm until he located the slot, and tried it. No good. The key was too large. He tried the next. It slid in, but didn’t engage the lock.

“Kastonoph?” she said.

“Yes?” he replied, startled.

“I was just trying to remember your name.”

“My friends call me Noph.” He continued with the keys. “Ah, got the first one!” He flung back the shackle.

Eidola’s arm dropped loosely free. She let out a hiss of pain. “Lift it! Lift it!”

“Lift what?”

“My arm! Now!”

Noph fumbled in the dark. His hand brushed the lady’s side, smooth and warm in the harsh coldness. He found her arm and raised it.

“Ah, that’s better,” she gasped out. “I’ve been this way for days. We’ll have to ease them down slowly. In the meantime, try the same key on the other lock.”

“Yes, milady.” Still holding her free arm up, Noph stretched across her body to the other shackle. He couldn’t quiet reach.

“This is a dungeon, not a boudoir. Touch me if you have to!”

Noph drew a deep breath and leaned against her. The key slid into the shaft—thank Tyr, and the lock clicked. Noph hurriedly flipped open the shackle.

“Up! Up! Lift it!” she growled as her left arm fell.

Noph caught the limb and lifted it. “There—how’s that?”

“Better,” she whispered, panting.

“Um, Lady Eidola, I’m going to need to lower your arms to get your legs free.”

He could sense her jaw clenching. “All right. Slowly— slowly—lower my arms to rest on your shoulders.”

Noph nodded. He felt himself blush. What would Piergeiron say to see his young protege pressed against his bride like this, lowering her arms into an embrace? Noph took a step back and drew the lady’s arms inward and down. She groaned and arched against him, her limbs trembling. At last, her arms rested on his shoulders.

“All right. That wasn’t so bad,” the lady sighed. “Now, just as slowly, kneel down to open the shackle on my legs.”

“Yes.”

Stiffly, Noph slid down into the cold, black waters. Eidola’s arms dragged along his descending shoulders, and she moaned. The flood lapped at her knees. He could see her wavering reflection in the water, caught and shattered by ripples and waves into a thousand Eidolas. Noph settled beside her feet and allowed himself a huff of air.

Get hold of yourself, he thought. What’s wrong with you?

The cold felt good on his feverish body. He reached beneath the chill surface, ran his hand from her delicate feet to her ankle and onto the first gentle rise of her calf. The stout iron casement was just above. Still clutching the key that had released her hands, he found the slot and slid the metal rod gently in. A click answered the turn of the key, and the iron shackle swung open.

“You’re free!” he said.

Clutching his head now, Eidola tried to step from the wall. Something at her midsection tugged. “Damn. That’s right. There’s one more restraint—this wretched chastity belt.”

“Chastity belt?” Noph sputtered. “Of all the barbaric—Surely Piergeiron hadn’t fitted you with—”

“No, not him. My captors. What good is a kidnapped virgin unless she remains one?”

“B-But why do you want m-me to remove your ch-ch-chas-?”

“Calm down,” Eidola replied. “It’s enspelled to keep me from running away, from disobeying my captors. The buckles are in back.”

Dutifully, Noph rose from the black flood. His clothes clung uncomfortably against him.