The Glass Prison (26 page)

Looking to his right, Vheod saw only a strange cloud of sparkling greenish flecks hovering in the air, churning like dust. Vheod tentatively reached out to touch one of the shining motes. When he did the cloud stirred violently. He heard stone agonizingly slide against stone, and a terrible, heavy footfall, then another.

Backing away, Vheod saw a large shape lumbering out from the cloud of swirling specks. Something lurched out of the darkness. He backed a few steps, eyes wide. His muscles tensed and his mind raced. What was this thing? What magic was this?

It stood at least a foot taller than Vheod. The top of the creature’s head came within a foot of the ceiling. It was humanoid in shape, but the entire, gigantic figure was made of stone. In one fist it clenched a long, broad-headed spear, though Vheod didn’t think the stone of the spear was actually separate from the stone of the hand that appeared to grip it. The living statue had been carved with an intricate, ornate pattern on its body, granting it raiment and facial features. The hands of time had clawed away at the fine detail, so now the lumbering giant seemed mostly
crude in construction, except for a few spots that retained the designs, betraying its former beauty.

Vheod found nothing beautiful about this animate mass of stone, though, and backed away toward the entrance as fast as he could. He had no intention of attempting to fight this thing with just a knife—if he could fight it at all. What worried him most was that the construct advanced toward him even though he was invisible.

Afraid to turn his back on the advancing monstrosity, Vheod continued to back quickly away. The animated statue stopped. Vheod stopped. Obviously, this thing was a guardian—perhaps it wouldn’t follow him out. Still, it halted in the juncture of the two passageways, and Vheod imagined that it would react with hostility if he attempted to get past or even approach it.

Perhaps a spell could destroy it, Vheod mused, staring at it from just a few steps from the entrance. Obviously, it was a creature animated by magic, and perhaps that would be its undoing. Unfortunately, Vheod’s spells were minor. He doubted he could do anything that might affect a giant stone statue given life by sorcery. Then, he considered—

His thoughts were suddenly torn away from him by the sound of Melann’s scream from outside. He whirled around and ran, still magically hidden from normal sight, into a danger even greater than that of the magical statue.

The gnolls had returned.

A raven is not a creature that enjoys disappointment. Take something away from one, and it only gets angry. Denied completely, and the raven sulks.

The Ravenwitch sat before her divinatory pool, watching black rose petals float about the surface. She leaned heavily on the water basin, sighing. One by one, she poked the petals down into the water. Some sank to the bottom; some bobbed back up.

With a dramatic gesture she brushed at the surface of the water, sending a petal-laden wave splashing to the wooden floor. She stood as she did this, glaring down into the pool then up at the ceiling.

“Damn them!” she screamed, clutching her hands into fists.

She was without a manservant and without even so much as a good candidate. What was worse, she’d slain dozens of her own ravens to execute the process that would have granted that young man—Whitlock?—the power and abilities required of her servant. The ritual had been ruined, and the cursed one who ruined it was beyond reproach. She didn’t dare retaliate against the descendant of Chare’en, when the balor would rule over all the Thunder Peaks in so short a time.

She slumped back into her chair. What good could come of revenge anyway? She’d lived long enough to
know that in the end, it earned nothing. What was lost, was lost. She had more important things to worry about right now, like how to cope with the coming events. The Ravenwitch enjoyed things as they were. She was more than pleased with her tree, and the flock flourished nicely—even despite the losses it had suffered lately at the hands of … what was his name? Vheod? As well as those who’d died by her own hand.

The Ravenwitch hadn’t liked that at all. She would never have had to attempt the blood ritual in the first place had the gnolls not slain Yrrin—the gnolls that sought to serve Chare’en. Everything seemed to point to the same conclusion. His release would bring only change and hardship for her.

She sighed again.

Her attempts at divining potential futures based on different approaches she might take—defiance, subservience, friendliness, outright attack—had all been horribly skewed. Something was upsetting the tides of time here. Some presence had thrown off all her divinations.

Perhaps the young demon Vheod was to blame for that too.

How could she know?

No, the Ravenwitch thought, at this juncture the only way to predict the future with any great accuracy was to control it. She had to take some sort of action, not sit here gazing into mist-shrouded “ifs” and “what-might-have-beens.”

Gathering her feathered cape behind her, the Ravenwitch stood and glided out of the room, down a passage through the heart of the grandfather tree, and into a chamber ill used of late. This oval-shaped room was filled with shelves sunk into the wood of the walls. Each shelf was lined with books. She owned
thousands of tomes, some acquired long ago, some more recent, some bought, some stolen. A few she’d even written herself.

With a fevered intensity, the Ravenwitch pulled books from shelves, placing them on a table located in the middle of the room. Her long, black-nailed fingers glided along familiar paths across the well-worn shelves, deftly finding each tome she required. She ignored the dust accumulated from neglect, carefully brushing away the spiders without harming their delicate webs.

Utilizing magically conjured light, the Ravenwitch read through the night, pouring over histories and accounts of days long lost, as well as texts regarding the fiendish denizens of the Lower Planes. The stacks of books pulled down from the shelves towered above the table at which she sat. Much to her delight, her research proved fruitful, as she found more than one reference to the balor Chare’en. Apparently, he’d come to Toril in the last, fading days of Myth Drannor, in the Year of the Toppled Throne, as a part of the Army of Darkness that warred with the elves of Cormanthyr.

Chare’en remained long after those battles, attempting to raise up an army of chaos and evil in the Thunder Peaks. Most of his servitors were—not surprisingly—gnolls. The gnolls worshiped Chare’en and erected a huge idol dedicated to the tanar’ri made of a strange, semitransparent magical stone not native to this world. The green, glassy idol stood as a testament to the balor’s dark power.

Chare’en’s defeat came, hundreds of years ago, at the hands of a human wizard named Piotyr Braendysh who had crafted an amulet that rendered him immune to the balor’s power. Using his own sorcery, Piotyr destroyed the green idol and imprisoned
Chare’en in a cell made of some of the statue’s shattered remains. The rest of the stone was scattered throughout the mountains. Braendysh then sealed the prison with his magical, rune-covered staff and buried it deep underground.

A raven burst into the room, coming to rest on the chair next to the Ravenwitch. It cawed softly.

She turned to the bird and stared into its opaque black eyes. “Yes, my darling, I know morning has come. Go and find yourself something to eat in the woods with the others. I shall be fine here.”

The raven squawked shrilly and flew from the library.

An amulet that rendered him immune to the balor’s power. Interesting. With such an item, the Ravenwitch would have nothing to fear from the future. Chare’en would mean nothing to her. But where would such an amulet be now? It could be anywhere in all Faerûn. She sighed. There was no time to search for it. If it was lost—buried in some vault or fallen amid some ancient ruin—she would never find it soon enough for it to be of any help.

No, the only way she could hope to find the amulet would be to presume that someone else found it first and had it with him now. Perhaps a person who knew about the coming of Chare’en and the power of the amulet—or at least something of its history—had already discovered it. More than likely, that person would be nearby, concerned somehow with the current events.

This required some thought.

Gnolls swarmed from every possible angle, as though they’d been scattered and were regrouping. Unfortunately, their chosen rallying point lay within the clearing right outside the entrance to the prison, at the edge of which stood Whitlock and Melann.

Prison, Whitlock thought. The prison of Chare’en.

Had he already completely given up on the idea that this might be the crypt of Chare’en—the goal of the entire journey? If this was a prison, and Chare’en was a demon and not a wizard, what in Helm’s name were they doing here?

The situation at hand hardly presented Whitlock with the opportunity to think about that at length. Fortunately, it appeared that the gnolls were expecting to find him and his sister here even less than Whitlock expected the gnolls to return right at that moment. Bestial eyes stretched wide, and howls of surprise and confusion seemed to occupy the gaping mouths of the creatures rather than commands or warnings. Whitlock’s combat training and experience took over as he looked all around him, sizing up the enemy and possible strategies to defeat them. He fired the loaded crossbow at the first gnoll he saw through the trees and watched it drop into the foliage at its feet.

His instincts quickly determined that their only option was flight. Turning to look for Melann, Whitlock saw that she was already casting a spell on the gnolls nearest her, wrapping them in divine energy that held them in place. Effective, but not enough considering that the monsters numbered at least a hundred, if not more.

Careful not to interrupt her spell, Whitlock shouted when she was finished, “Melann, run inside the … cave.” He wasn’t sure whether to call it a crypt or a prison, at least not out loud. There was no time to consider it now. He hung the crossbow on a hook on his belt.

Melann turned to him, her eyes betraying utter terror. Whitlock ran, not into the mountain, but along the edge of the clearing that surrounded it, racing to reach his sister. His sword sang in his hand, and he threw himself at the nearest gnoll. Steel met flesh, but the warrior was interested only in reaching Melann. As he ran toward her, she moved to meet him.

“Into the cave!” he shouted again.

The gnolls began to recover from their surprise and confusion, surging toward the humans. Whitlock pushed away an onrushing beast-man, using his charging momentum to add to the force of his blow.

Melann used her mace to fend off the only gnoll near her left mobile after her spell. Rather than fight it, she ducked under its muscular, hairy arms as it slashed at her with a crude axe. She ran to her brother. Whitlock held his ground, waiting for Melann to reach him. Another gnoll rushed toward him and he slashed at it with his blade.

The creature lunged to his left to avoid the sword stroke, then raised its spear high above its head. Plunging the weapon down at Whitlock, the gnoll was
caught off guard as the warrior threw himself at its feet. Whitlock crashed into its lower legs, so as the gnoll lunged forward with its spear, it not only missed him, but toppled over the top of his now crouching form. The impact to its legs only sent it over the top of him that much harder. Whitlock gained his feet much faster than his foe did, and two well-aimed chops from his sword ensured that the gnoll would indeed never rise again.

Pain arched through Whitlock’s arm and he whirled and saw that another gnoll had approached while he’d fought with the other. The bestial humanoid’s spear point dripped with Whitlock’s blood, and the gnoll pulled back for another stab. Whitlock’s empty arm went limp, and he could do little but swing his sword to block the second spear thrust. He was weak with pain.

Suddenly darts of reddish energy struck the gnoll, overcoming it and sending it crashing to the bare earth. Whitlock turned again, this time to see Vheod standing at the entrance to the cave. His spells had cleared a path for the siblings to reach the opening in the cliff face. Melann reached Whitlock’s side and reached toward his wounded arm.

“There’s no time,” he told her, pulling his arm away.

He ran to Vheod and Melann followed. Turning to look behind him, Whitlock saw the gnolls rushing after them, appearing more numerous than the trees from which they poured forth. Whitlock and Melann had to cross almost two hundred yards between the edge of the clearing and the rectangular entrance. Their feet slid in misplaced steps on the open, gravel-covered earth. The gnolls followed them into the clearing, emerging from the trees in greater and greater numbers like grain pouring into an empty bowl.

Whitlock and Melann scrambled over the jumbled rocks that lay at the bottom of the cliff wall. The hot summer sun beat down, and the cacophonous growls and roars of the gnolls behind them deafened them to all else. Sweat and blood covered Whitlock’s upper body as he ran toward the opening in the stone wall. Vheod stood at the entrance, calling out to them—no, to Melann—as they approached.

The opening showed signs of great activity—the gnolls had apparently uncovered this entrance, probably within the last day or so. Large, bestial footprints and claw marks covered the surrounding rock. There was something else, too, but the situation provided no time for a detailed analysis. Only when they were inside did Whitlock realize in surprise that he could see Vheod. When the cambion had entered he’d rendered himself hidden from sight.

“Don’t go back very far,” Vheod told them in a harsh tone. “There’s a stone guardian blocking the way.”

Whitlock looked down the passage that led into the earth but saw only darkness. Small bits of stone lay scattered amid the smooth rock floor, and dust churned in the sunlight around them, stirred by their activity.

“If we can’t go inside, we’re doomed!” Whitlock said.