The Glass Prison (30 page)

“That’s not the way I see it,” he told her firmly. “If I thought that I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have survived in the Abyss.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I can’t let you die, Melann. I can’t let the misery and pain of your family’s curse continue.”

Melann looked away from him. As she was drawn to look even closer at the massive figure within the translucent prison, she saw that its face was shaped like the stone pattern the gnolls had made with their green rocks. It looked just like the Taint on the back of Vheod’s hand.

Melann then knew the truth. Orrag was not the voice of temptation, he was yet another pawn in the whole vast plan. Apparently, only Vheod could remove the staff and free Chare’en, but Orrag could never have convinced him to do it—the balor in the prison knew that.

No, Orrag did not provide the temptation here. She did. Every portion of the Taint’s—of Chare’en’s—plan had come together.

“Vheod, you can’t let them win!” It’s not your fault, she thought. It was the Taint—it was Chare’en all along. Even the curse on her family was but a stepping stone to this moment when Vheod’s human side would act out of what Chare’en certainly saw as the human weaknesses of love and loyalty.

“No,” Vheod said, “I love you too much to let you fail.” He reached toward the silvery staff.

Melann ran to him, hands outstretched, attempting to cross the distance that remained, all the while dodging the veritable maelstrom of metal parts to the grand device surrounding the prison. Her mouth formed a silent scream of protest, and her eyes were wide with fear and despair.

She was too late.

FREEDOM.

“No, Vheod, No!”

FREEDOM.

“Vheod, don’t you see? They’ve won! By the Mother,
it’s free
!”

FREEDOM.

“They’ve not won,” Vheod proclaimed. “I have.”

FREEDOM.

With the staff removed, the silver seal burst asunder.

FREEDOM
!

With no more seal holding the seam shut, the egglike prison split apart.

“No!” Melann fell to her knees before she ever reached Vheod.

Humid air belched forth from the opened capsule. The figure that emerged dripped with foul fluids. Burnt red skin pulled taut over sinewy muscles and sharp, wicked bones as it moved, stretching wide, batlike—dragonlike—wings with a wet, fleshy crunch. Clawed hands clutched a long, black, many-tailed whip covered in spikes and a jagged sword of black iron, both dragging along the ground behind it, creating sparks of protest. The prisoner’s wide head sported a flat face framed by broad, slightly curled horns.
A mouth of jagged teeth like rusty nails curled in what might have passed for a smile in some unthinkable nether plane. Powerful lungs inhaled deeply, expanding its chest to a surprising degree, and it exhaled a single word that echoed throughout the room.

“
FREEDOM
!”

“I’ve won,” Vheod said, holding the silver-runed staff above his head, “because I can give you what you need and still stand against the evil of Chare’en!”

Vheod tossed the staff to Melann and spun on the creature emerging from eons of imprisonment, drawing forth the blade with which he’d defeated Orrag. A wild look filled his dark eyes as he stared at his ancestor. He tossed the small sword back and forth from hand to hand as he poised tensely for battle.

Chare’en looked down and studied the cambion who stood before him. Black eyes like lances bore holes into Vheod, but he stood his ground. The balor threw his head back in a barking, echoing laugh.

“You are mine to control little man,” the demon said. “You dance like a puppet on my strings, and you always have. You stand against what I tell you to stand against.”

Vheod’s long red hair had been smeared with dirt, sweat, and blood, a little of each marring his dusky face as well. Mouth grim, he worked his jaw but stared up at the balor in front of him with only victory blazing in his eyes. A smile creeped across his lips, and he finally spoke. “I reject you, great-grandfather. You don’t control me.”

Chare’en’s laughter exploded forth like a burst bubble. “If I did not control you, I would not be free.” The words slid from his mouth like snakes.

“Vheod,” Melann said, raising her head. Through
the fear and despair, she choked out, “The Taint—it’s the Taint. It’s not you, you’re not evil. It’s not your fault.”

She was wrong, of course. Vheod knew that he was indeed evil. He was half tanar’ri, and tanar’ri were inherently malicious, cruel, and all that was wrong. That is what they were on some important, fundamental level. He couldn’t blame the Taint, or Orrag, or even Chare’en for his own nature, not any more than a child can blame his parents for his eye or hair color.

At the same time, however, he was half human. Rather than worry about his nature, he could overcome it. Facing it head on, he could challenge evil and defeat it. Right now, that meant facing and defeating Chare’en once and for all. He would show himself and all the world that he was master of his own life, and his own destiny, by taking the offensive.

Nevertheless, Vheod had to admit to himself that it had seemed a better plan before actually seeing the towering figure of the balor standing before him, quite literally dripping with power, rage, and evil. Even if he died Vheod would still have won. He still would have fought against evil rather than having been mastered by it.

“Your freedom means nothing,” Vheod said through teeth gritted with determination. “I will destroy you.”

Again Chare’en threw back his head in a spasm of laughter. This time Vheod used the opportunity to his advantage. Summoning his strength, he grasped the hilt of the short sword in both hands and launched himself into the air. He came down with a stabbing strike over his head, plunging the sword into the huge tanar’ri’s belly.

*  *  *  *  *

In the walled city of Tilverton, a less than reputable weaponsmith named Hirtho makes his living by selling low-cost, simple weapons to criminals and thugs. Hirtho once worked for a group in the city called the Fire Knives, an evil, roguish group that plagued the city. Eventually, the Fire Knives were completely driven out of the city, and Hirtho looked into a new line of work. His father had been a blacksmith, and Hirtho had learned a little of the trade when he was young. Possessed of none of his father’s skill or artistry, he nevertheless discovered that the right clientele would be willing to buy his crude weapons for low prices. Because of his connections, he knew where to get cheap steel “liberated” from merchant caravans.

Hirtho thus led a simple but comfortable life off his ill-gotten gains. One of his many sales went to a young man named Wenmer who was hired as an enforcer for a local criminal and—according to some—priest of some mysterious evil god. Little did Hirtho know, the young enforcer would be killed before he ever drew the blade—by his own criminal boss as a blood sacrifice no less. Hirtho would never have believed that a cambion from the Abyss would then take the sword and use it against that same criminal. The idea that one of Hirtho’s crude creations would have been used in an attack against a balor—perhaps the most powerful of fiends in all the Lower Planes—would have been inconceivable to the shady smith.

Vheod shouldn’t have needed to know the blade’s short and lackluster history to realize that his actions were foolhardy. He shouldn’t have been surprised when, on coming into contact with the flesh of dread Chare’en, the ungainly sword shattered into thousands of metal shards. The force of the blow and its
results sent Vheod sprawling backward through the air, where he struck the stone floor with great force.

*  *  *  *  *

Chare’en appeared more stunned and surprised than hurt. In fact, he didn’t appear hurt at all.

Vheod’s vision swirled around him. He closed his eyes tightly, hoping to steady his vision. When he opened them again, Melann was kneeling over him.

“Vheod, get up,” she begged, her voice thin and panicked. “He’ll kill us all!”

She was attempting to lift him from the ground by his shoulders, and he allowed her to help him stumble to his feet. The demon’s black gaze fell on them both.

“Now, young mortalheart, I swear by the Abyss that gave birth to us both,” Chare’en said in a voice like polished obsidian, “you will
die
!”

Vheod and Melann ran, scrambling across the stone floor as fast as they could. The spine-covered whip slapped and scraped the ground behind them as Chare’en swung it over his head and crashed its tails where they had stood. The two of them ran, dodging the moving and whirling parts of the still rapidly moving metallic device.

Chare’en bellowed in rage, shaking both of them, body and soul. They reached the doorway and passed through the open bronze portals. Vheod looked around, blankly surveyed the bodies of the fallen thugs, Orrag, and Whitlock. He ran to where Whitlock lay.

“Is he … does he live?” Vheod asked, not looking back at Melann.

“Yes,” she replied, “but he shouldn’t be moved.”

“There’s nowhere to move him to anyway, I’m
afraid.” Vheod took Whitlock’s sword and turned back to Melann. She’d begun some sort of prayer.

Next to her, Vheod saw Orrag’s fallen body by the doors. The floor shook as Chare’en followed them, loping slowly with legs cramped from centuries of captivity. With each step, the balor grew stronger. Vheod stepped up to the doorway but still looked down at Orrag. Surely the half-orc would have brought something of power with him here to this place. He seemed like a crafty planner—wouldn’t he have brought along some sort of fail-safe plan?

Vheod reached down and picked up the falchion the half-orc still clutched in his quickly stiffening fingers. Orrag, obviously not wanting to inflict serious injury on Vheod, hadn’t really attacked him with the weapon. Perhaps it was a magical blade—Orrag’s backup?

Chare’en reached the doorway as Melann finished chanting the mysterious invocation. Lines of blue fire traced a complicated pattern across the floor inside the doorway. “By the power of Chauntea, Mother of All,” Melann shouted at the fiend, “you cannot cross this line, demon!”

To Vheod’s surprise, Chare’en stopped. He studied the line of power and seemed to consider it, as if evaluating its power and limitations. Or perhaps he considered his own. Vheod couldn’t be sure. Nevertheless, anything that stopped the balor’s advance was mighty indeed and was an advantage that shouldn’t be wasted.

Unfortunately, even as thoughts of escape began to form in Vheod’s mind, he saw a glint of metal behind the balor. On the floor, near the middle of the chamber, lay the silver-runed staff. In her haste to help him, Melann had left the staff behind. He knew he couldn’t leave without it.

Besides, he thought, the intention behind his actions had been to slay Chare’en. He had to attempt to do so, or die trying. As he watched, Chare’en’s flat black eyes rolled slightly. Vheod knew the balor was calling on his own inner, Abyssal power.

Melann didn’t pause to observe. Instead, she used the time to begin calling on the power of her goddess yet again. While she chanted quietly, Vheod loosed a spell of his own. Daggers of light flew from his hand and screamed toward Chare’en’s broad chest. They disappeared inches before they would have struck him, as though they’d never existed. Vheod realized that the balor’s presence and power rendered many minor magical spells useless against him. Vheod cursed his luck and his trivial magical skills, then tumbled through the doorway and off to his right.

At almost the same time, a shining blue warhammer of heavenly might appeared in Melann’s hands. She flung it into the air at Chare’en but turned to watch Vheod leap past her protective barrier.

“By all the Gods of Faerûn, Vheod,” she shrieked, “are you mad?”

Vheod realized that the barrier obviously was meant to keep Abyssal creatures at bay. He was able to cross it one way, but due to his nature, would it repel him as well? He would never get the chance to discover the answer, for as all this occurred, Chare’en summoned forth the power within him and with a wave of his clawed hand dispelled the blue fire barrier with a snap of coarse, black lightning.

“I shall be denied nothing, regardless of which of your weak goddesses you call on!” His words curdled the air with his anger and hate.

The hammer Melann had conjured forth, also of bluish, goddess-granted fire, struck the tanar’ri noble. This spell passed through the balor’s resistance
to magical energies and staggered him slightly. Vheod used both that distraction and the fact that Chare’en had needed to drop one of his weapons to dispel the barrier, to aid in his attack on the balor’s flank. Daleland broadsword in one hand and curved orc steel in the other, he slashed and stabbed at the fiend. His blades found their mark, and Chare’en bled an odiferous corruption for which no earthly name applies.

“Melann,” Vheod shouted, “get the staff! I’ll hold him …”

Black blood raged to Vheod’s head, and as he’d done before, he lost himself to the hatred and darkness of the tanar’ri portion of his soul. He struck blow after blow with his blades, hammering Chare’en with fury and might. The ferocity forced the balor back a few lumbering steps. He unfurled his wings in anger, but as he did a spinning sphere carried through the air by a curved metal span smashed into one of them, almost knocking Chare’en down. Even more surprising, as it struck the tanar’ri, the sphere stopped spinning—though it continued its revolution about the room—and a face within the metal surface groaned with wide eyes and a large, open mouth. Vheod watched in surprise and fascination, but the device continued to turn, and soon the sphere was rounding its way to the far side of the room.

The device was alive.

Vheod had had no idea.

*  *  *  *  *

Melann did as Vheod had suggested. She ran past Vheod and Chare’en as they fought, circling around to the left as she entered the chamber full of whirling metal spheres and supports. Vheod appeared so small
next to the terrifying fiend. She could never have imagined such a horror. Chare’en was the embodiment of anathema. He was living despair, destruction, and desecration. Melann now suddenly understood evil much more intimately than she’d ever wanted to.