The Crystal Mountain (3 page)

“We were on the verge,” Kaanyr said as he stiffly untangled himself from her embrace. “I was this close”—as he stood up, the cambion held his thumb and forefinger, almost touching, in front of her face—”to winning my freedom from Tauran’s control. And then you went and sabotaged everything.” And to think how I grieved, believing I’d lost you within the Eye of Savras’s vast caverns of knowledge. Weak, he thought. He wasn’t sure if he meant it for Aliisza or himself.

The alu struggled to her knees. She looked like a street waif begging for coin. “I wasn’t the one,” she pleaded. “It was Zasian. Please understand. I was trying to stop him!”

Zasian!

Kaanyr’s memory flooded with thoughts of the hated priest and his treachery. New anger coursed through him, an unrelenting desire to rend the man.

With a snarl, Vhok turned from the alu and stalked toward his sword. It lay in the shadows, crackling with its malevolent energy.

“I don’t understand a thing that’s happened since you returned from the caverns,” he said, “but I will free myself of Tauran’s control. I will slay that damnable priest!” He jerked the sword off the ground and turned back toward the center of the rotunda. “And I will not be stopped this time!”

“Wait!” Aliisza cried, trying to rise to her feet. She had to brace herself against the column to keep herself upright. “Something’s happened.” She reached toward him. “To all of us. Can’t you feel it?”

Vhok ignored the alu and stepped between the columns, into the light. He drew up short when he spied Zasian Menz across from him, standing with his arms folded protectively.

A glow emanated from the priest.

Zasian spotted Vhok and smiled, but it was not the treacherous grin the cambion remembered from before. The expression on the priest’s face showed a mixture of confusion and hope. It came across as pure and warm, like the uncertainty of a child who has just been praised by his father after doing something for which he expected to be punished.

“Well met,” Zasian said. He looked around for a brief moment, frowning, then he gestured. “What is this place? Where are we?”

Kaanyr’s mouth opened and shut several times as he worked to form the words. He could not.

“Everything’s different,” Aliisza said, appearing beside Kaanyr and taking his arm. “Something happened.”

Kaanyr clenched his teeth and shrugged free of her grasp. “He tries to fool us both,” he growled. He took another step toward the priest. “His clever tricks will not dissuade me!” He drew back his sword and closed the distance, intent on driving the blade through the priest’s chest.

Zasian’s eyes grew wide with fright and he flinched back. “Please don’t!” he pleaded. Then he turned and ran, darting behind the nearest column.

Kaanyr strode forward. “You cannot dupe me with your theatrics, priest,” he said. “I will not be denied!”

Zasian’s face peeked out from behind the pillar, watching the approaching half-fiend. “Stop!” he pleaded, backing away as Kaanyr got closer. “What did I do? I don’t know you. I don’t remember!”

Kaanyr shook his head and snorted in amusement. “Weak, Zasian. Very weak. I thought you could do better than that.” He reached the column and tried to circle it, reaching for the priest. He remained wary, expecting the man to drop his foolish pretenses and assault him.

But Zasian Menz continued to shy away and retreat, using the columns as protection from the enraged cambion.

“Kaanyr!” Aliisza shouted. The tone of her voice caused a cold pain to form in the pit of his stomach. There was more to her call than mere worry for Zasian’s well-being. Something far more sinister troubled her.

Kaanyr turned and faced her, keeping Zasian visible in the corner of his eye. “What is it?” he demanded.

The alu did not answer, but she pointed at something to the side, just out of Kaanyr’s view. Her expression matched the fear in her voice and gave him pause.

Kaanyr took a pair of steps toward Aliisza and then turned and peered in the direction she indicated.

A great hole had appeared along one side of the chamber.

To Kaanyr, it looked as though a massive blade had cleaved the rotunda, severing a portion of the wall from the rest of the chamber. Beyond the hole, where the cambion expected to

see the great cavern of Azuth’s abode within Dweomerheart, nothing but a silvery void existed.

“What is that?” Kaanyr said, feeling confusion and fear grip him.

Beside him, Aliisza shuddered. “I told you, something happened. I felt it.” She stepped toward the edge of the hole.

“Don’t,” Kaanyr warned. “Stay back.” He imagined some unseen force or power sucking his consort away through the gaping opening into the nothingness beyond.

Aliisza did not stop, though. She moved right to the edge of the hole and craned her neck forward. A small gasp escaped her.

“What is it?” Kaanyr asked, moving a step closer despite his fear.

There was no sign of Azuth’s caverns in the expanded view. The silvery void stretched in every direction. But it was not empty. Islands of material bobbed in the distance, like debris on an argent ocean. Some seemed distant, tiny, while others floated near enough for Kaanyr to discern that they were spherical, bubbles of solidity. Inside those spheres the cambion could see chunks of stone or rock, or hunks of earth, grass-and tree-covered tracts of a world. Based on their contents, Kaanyr got the distinct impression that some of the bubbles of matter were quite large, while others were meager, perhaps only a few paces across.

The spheres of matter slowly moved into and out of view, as though they orbited his tiny refuge. Then his frame of reference shifted, and he realized they did not move after all. Instead, his mind’s eye accepted that he was spinning. He could not feel it, but he somehow knew it to be true.

Suddenly, Kaanyr understood.

The cambion stared down at the stone beneath his own feet. He could see then that the edge of the hole was curved, shaped like the edge of a sphere.

They, too, were in a bubble.

“Gods and devils, what happened?” he asked, his voice faint. Terror made him feel dizzy, tiny. “Where are we?”

Aliisza did not answer. She had her hand to her mouth and her eyes were still wide as she stared at something outside Kaanyr’s field of view. When he leaned forward, cautiously, to catch a glimpse, he felt his heart skip a beat.

The most gargantuan bubble that Kaanyr could imagine floated there.

A milky cloud of something filled the massive sphere. A thousand, thousand sparkling mores of light swarmed and danced inside. A figure hovered within the vapor, vaguely human in shape but only faintly visible, sprawled like some cadaver entangled in the filth of an inner city canal.

The colossal bubble and its cargo gently undulated, and Kaanyr had the impression that they were not stationary. The monumental figure instead drifted, floating on some unseen current within the silvery void. All the other, tinier bubbles bobbed and weaved along with it, as though caught in its eddy.

What has happened?

Fighting vertigo and panic, Kaanyr spun away from the scene. He sought Zasian, certain the priest was behind the chaos. Vhok would make him answer for his duplicity, would force him to return them to somewhere sane.

The cambion took two steps toward the middle of the chamber and froze. Other holes had opened along the periphery of the rotunda, as though the stone itself had melted

away. Each breach appeared knife-edge smooth, perfect, and growing. Their bubble was shrinking, eating away at the reality of the rotunda as it did.

Panic shot through the half-fiend.

Before he could react, Aliisza called to him. Her voice conveyed alarm. No, barely controlled terror.

The cambion turned to look back and saw her still staring out at the endless argent sea beyond. A great shadow had fallen over the opening in the wall.

Kaanyr dashed to the edge and peered out.

An enormous creature drifted into view, its body a ponderous, bloated sac of blanched flesh. Kaanyr could see no eyes, but numerous segmented tentacles dangled from it, lazily sweeping the space around itself. The thing reminded Kaanyr of a huge octopus, or perhaps a bloated insect.

It made his stomach churn.

When one of the tentacles came near a bubble of reality, the behemoth gathered the sphere up and drew the material toward a beaklike mouth on its underside. The thing consumed its catch in a single gulp.

Then it turned and began drifting closer, tentacles stretched out toward the remains of the rotunda.

The Court of Tyr teetered on the brink of chaos.

In one corner of her mind, Eirwyn recognized the sheer magnitude of the very existence of that thought. Imagining such a fate for a heavenly domain dedicated to the most solemn and steadfast ideals of law and order bordered on blasphemy. It would have been unthinkable only a few short tendays before.

It did not change the angel’s assessment one iota.

She had flown back to the great mountains with Viryn and Oshiga—the trumpet archon from Erathaol’s court—as fast as the three of them could move. They traveled so quickly there had been no opportunity for the other two celestials to further explain the situation to Eirwyn. Thus, when she arrived, the shock of seeing the entire plane in such a state shook her.

I should not be surprised, she thought, standing in the hall of the High Council. Magic itself died—she felt profound grief at such a crime, and more than a little rage toward Cyric—and no one seems to know what other consequences may befall the multiverse. Tyr and Torm have their hands full, just maintaining the integrity of the House, and no one seems to know where Siamorphe has gone.

But the unsettling feeling sweeping through the Court went beyond the mere death of a god, and its source played out before her, within the High Council itself.

“I did not authorize such a pardon!” the High Councilor insisted, rising to his full height and snapping his wings angrily.’ “No one else may grant such a stay of sentence. This is inexcusable.”

“On the contrary,” one of the six dissenters argued, “the other council members can override the High Councilor’s edict with a two-thirds majority, and we have it. You cannot win this fight, Honorable One, and you know it.”

“Point of procedure!” the High Councilor interjected. “There was no submission of disagreement, no call for a vote. You cannot override my edict until you have formally petitioned for a review.”

Weary already of the bickering, Eirwyn’s thoughts drifted

back to her cottage, away from the crowded, frenzied chamber. It would not take much more of the councilors’ antics to make the lonely abode a preferable escape.

This is what Tyr’s dedication to justice and law inevitably leads to, she thought, grimacing. Blessed Helm, I miss you. Serving as an ever-watching sentinel might be a lonely job to some, but at least it gave me ample opportunity to contemplate my divinations. And compared to this… the angel almost shuddered.

That’s all in the past now, Eirwyn reminded herself. And you must help in whatever way you can. Countless souls scattered across the planes may depend on your wisdom and foresight.

Eirwyn returned her attention on the proceedings.

“In the interests of urgency,” another of the six councilors was saying, having risen to his feet, “there was no time, and we waste more of it here with this foolish debate. We acted in such haste because we must know the right course moving forward. The entire House depends on us making sound, rational decisions. Point of procedure or no, the outcome is inevitable, and you do no one any favors by clinging to rigid codes in these circumstances.”

“I disagree,” the High Councilor said hotly, “and I further submit to you that you do irreparable damage to this august institution by circumventing time-honored—-and very necessary—practices.”

He turned to Eirwyn and stared down at her coldly. “It appears I no longer have the authority to incarcerate you for your indiscretions on behalf of Tauran the outcast and against this body. A pardon has been rendered, although on the most flimsy of evidence and in the most inexcusable manner.” The

High Councilor drew a deep breath before he continued, turning to face his peers again. “Therefore, I will not be a party to it. I remove myself from this seat under protest. I will be reporting directly to Tyr these farcical proceedings at once. And as for you,” he finished, turning back to Eirwyn again, “I still find you guilty of numerous crimes against Tyr’s law and right to rule. You may have escaped justice today, but do not for one moment consider yourself free of guilt!”

With that final declaration, the solar winked out. A moment later, the other two members of the council who had sided with the High Councilor also vanished, leaving the rest of the court deathly silent.

Eirwyn blinked and stared around the chamber. Other stunned expressions stared back at her. Has it really come to this? she thought. Have my own actions become so consequential that the High Council itself has fractured? Truly?

The angel swallowed down her shock and dismay. What have we wrought, Tauran?

“Well,” the female solar who had been first to argue with the High Councilor said, breaking the strained silence, “it seems we have resolved and closed this matter. You are indeed free to do as you see fit, Eirwyn. I hope, in your wisdom, you will choose to aid us.”

Eirwyn raised her hands helplessly. “I still know so very little about what has happened,” she said. “What can I offer that you cannot perform ten times more effectively than I?”

The solar nodded. “In truth, we know not. But the matter is beyond our purview, anyway. We”—the solar gestured at the other five councilors around her—”are but the facilitators of your freedom, at the behest of Erathaol’s emissary, here.” She pointed to Oshiga. “It is the Seer who believes he can

make use of you. You must parley with him to learn more.”

The discussion was over. Eirwyn understood that she and her companions had been dismissed. The council, even down three members, had other urgent issues to address.

Outside the chambers, Eirwyn turned to Viryn. “So my overturned sentence was not initiated by a servant of Tyr?” she asked.