The Temple of Yellow Skulls (32 page)

“Now? But we were just having fun,” said Uldane. Albanon could hear the attempt at levity in his voice, but there was something else under it: fear. He turned around to look at the halfling. While Uldane’s face was as bright and smiling as ever, his eyes were dark and haunted.

“Now,” said the cleric. He stepped into the kitchen. “Here, if you want to. Eating, if you want to. I can’t wait any longer, though. I shouldn’t have let you lie ill as long as I did. I need to know what happened to you—and to Raid.” He glanced at Shara and Albanon. “Have you told him what we found in Andok Sur?”

Shara scowled at him. Albanon answered for her. “Kri, he’s still recovering—”

Kri ignored her and looked at Uldane. “We went back to the necropolis where you fought Vestapalk,” he said bluntly. “We didn’t find him, but we found a tribe of kobolds in the process of transforming into the same demons Raid had with him.” The cleric dragged out a chair and joined them around the table, not taking his gaze off the halfling. “Now what did you see? Where did Raid take you?”

Uldane drew a slow breath. Shara put her hand over his. Uldane shook it off. His face had gone pale but his jaw was set and his eyes met Kri’s. “Raid told us,” he began, “that he wanted to look for the treasure of the Temple of Yellow Skulls.…”

Albanon had never thought of Uldane as a storyteller before. Usually his tales ended up taller than an ogre and woollier than a dwarf’s chest, if his attention didn’t wander off entirely during the telling. This time, though, he stuck to his story. Even the most unlikely parts had the ring of truth. All of them listened as he described the descent into the tunnels below the ruined temple, Raid’s opening of the hidden inner temple, and their battle against the elementals there.

When he described Raid’s treachery, Shara’s hands squeezed into fists. “Bastard!” she spat. Uldane barely blinked. His face like stone, he continued the story of his escape, of following Uldane back through the temple with every intention of putting
a dagger into him only to discover Raid facing off against an eerily altered Vestapalk in the ruins.

“It was strange,” he said. “Vestapalk looked like he was sick. He was bleeding around his scales and eyes and he had blisters on him. He still looked strong, though, and even bigger than he did when we fought him. Raid challenged him and I thought Vestapalk was going to take him out with one bite, but then they said something to each other and Vestapalk let Raid up. Raid got out one of the skulls and offered it to Vestapalk.” Uldane shivered. “And Vestapalk … inhaled it.”

Albanon blinked. “He
inhaled
it?”

“Like he was breathing it in. Something came off the skull and Vestapalk sucked it in like smoke from a pipe. But I think it was more than that.” He wrinkled his face. “The skulls made this kind of wailing, like they were frightened. The one that Vestapalk breathed from screamed, then all of the skulls went quiet.” He sat forward. “I think Vestapalk inhaled part of the demon that was imprisoned inside that skull.”

Across the table, the color drained from Kri’s face.

“Kri?” Albanon asked. “What is it?”

The old man ignored him, all of his attention on Uldane. “What happened to Vestapalk?” he asked.

“He roared and started thrashing around like he was in pain,” said the halfling. “I didn’t see much more than that. The kobold wyrmpriest that was with Vestapalk when we fought him before came out of nowhere and surprised me. He used some kind of poison magic on me—that’s when I ran.” Uldane slumped back in his chair. “The last I heard of Vestapalk, he was still roaring, but it sounded as if he’d just won a fight.”

“And Raid?” asked Kri. “What happened to him?”

Anger crossed Uldane’s face. “I didn’t stop to find out. The next time I saw him was when I was trying to hide from the lizardfolk and he was already … like you saw him. He attacked with those four-armed monsters—I never saw them before—and some feral dogs that seemed to be under his control. Raid sent them in first, then he followed. They tore through the lizardfolk like they were nothing.” He looked up Shara. “That’s when I saw you coming and tried to warn you.”

“We could have handled them,” the warrior said confidently.

“No, you couldn’t have. I may have been delirious, but I saw you try to fight Raid.” Uldane shivered again. “If Kri hadn’t been there or Raid’s monsters had been able to join in, you’d be as dead as the lizardfolk.”

“He didn’t kill all of them,” Albanon said. An image of the three lizardfolk he’d seen writhing on the ground came back to him. “Some of them he wounded.”

Kri’s gaze darted to him, sharp like daggers. “Tell me.”

Albanon tried to hold his voice steady as he described the lizardfolk’s injuries, the glint of crystal against the raw skin. Uldane frowned at his words.

“Raid’s monsters knocked some of the lizardfolk out,” he said. “That’s why Raid followed them into the fight: he stopped first and deliberately scratched them with his claws.”

“Deliberately?”

“He wasn’t tucking them into bed.” Uldane flexed his fingers and raked the air.

The legs of Kri’s chair squealed on the floor as he stood abruptly and left the table. He didn’t look back, but Albanon caught a glimpse of his expression as he strode silently out
of the kitchen. The old man’s face was as grim as if he’d just witnessed a death.

Shara looked startled. Uldane’s eyes went wide. “What did I say?”

“The lizardfolk … what Raid did.…” Albanon found his thoughts and his words stumbling over each other. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “Uldane, was there anything else? Do you remember anything strange that Raid might have said to you? Anything about the Elemental Eye or something called the Voidharrow?”

Uldane’s eyebrows went up. “He did say something to one of the lizardfolk. ‘The Voidharrow will take you. You will serve.’ “He looked from Albanon to Shara and back. Panic crept into his expression. “What is it?” he asked, his voice rising. “By the gods, what’s going on? What happened to Raid?”

“Shara, tell him about the Voidharrow.” Albanon rose and went after Kri.

He almost expected to find the cleric back in the library, but Kri had gone all the way to the top floor of the tower. With his hands clasped behind his back, Kri stood staring out of the tall windows at Fallcrest below and the sweep of the Nentir Vale beyond. He didn’t move as Albanon entered or acknowledge him as the wizard took a place beside him.

Albanon let him remain silent for a time before he said, “Raid is the Gatherer that Vestapalk left Andok Sur to meet. Vestapalk infected him with the Voidharrow and now he’s deliberately infecting other beings with it.”

Kri stood still for a moment longer, then his head dipped down. He let out his breath softly. “Yes.”

A chill wrapped itself around Albanon. “What about the golden skulls from the temple? Do you think Vestapalk really drew the essence of a demon out of one?”

“A demon prince,” Kri corrected him. He turned away and looked back out the window. “The Voidharrow carries the taint of the Abyss. Perhaps Vestapalk wishes to add the power of the skulls to that of the Voidharrow.”

“Demon princes are powerful beings.”

“Yes,” said Kri. “Very powerful.”

Albanon swallowed. “What happens now? You said the small amount of Voidharrow accidentally released by the Order wiped out a village. If Raid is deliberately spreading the Voidharrow …”

His words trailed off. Kri glanced at him, then out the window once more. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, yet harsh. “Look at Fallcrest, Albanon, and remember what you see. I fear that it’s all about to change.”

The eladrin looked down on the town that had been his home for seven years. It was market day and Fallcrest’s green was bustling with people. If none of this had happened—if Nu Alin had not murdered his master, if the vial of the Voidharrow had not been stolen—he might be down there with them.

“Why is Vestapalk doing this?” he asked quietly. “What does he want?” He glanced at the cleric. “How do we stop him?”

“I don’t know,” said Kri. “Not exactly.” His face tightened, deep wrinkles growing even deeper. “Raid is the key. He’s the danger now. He’s the one actually spreading the disease.”

Albanon pressed his lips together. “We need to tell someone about this. If there’s a danger to Fallcrest, the guards need to be on alert. The Lord Warden needs to know.”

“No,” Kri said sharply. “What do we tell them? That a dragon in possession of a source of tremendous power threatens their town?”

Albanon raised his eyebrows. “That’s what I was thinking. Kri, we need help.”

“Nobody can know about the Voidharrow. Not yet. Why do you think the Order of Vigilance kept it a secret? Imagine the panic. Imagine the greed—do you think the adventurers who sought the treasure of the Temple of Yellow Skulls for so many years did it just for the gold?” Kri shook his head. “We’re on our own for now.”

“We have friends we trust,” said Albanon. “We can send word to Roghar and Tempest in Nera and Falon and Darrum in Nenlast.”

“And how long will that take?”

“We defeated Vestapalk before.”

Kri gave him a long, hard glare. “When Vestapalk was just a dragon. He’s more than that now.” He shook his head again. “We need to know more. Forget Vestapalk for now. We need Raid and we need him quickly. He has the answers to our questions.” The cleric turned away from the window to one of the stone-topped tables in the study. His pack lay on it. Reaching deep inside, he produced a scroll case, then selected one parchment from the sheaf within. He laid it out flat on the table so that Albanon could see it. “Does this look familiar?”

Albanon looked and nodded. The creature depicted on the parchment resembled Raid’s new form in almost every way. It had the same long limbs and gnarled joints, the same wide-stretched head and gaping mouth—save that its head didn’t carry the vestiges of humanity on one side that Raid’s did.
The creature in the drawing carried no weapons and wore no clothing. It hunched over on all fours, supported by its long arms, though it looked like it would be able to stand on two legs if it desired. The artist had colored the drawing: yellow and orange for the hide, bright red for the multiple slit eyes clustered on its face and the fan of crystals that rose across its lower back.

The picture was old. “Where did this come from?” Albanon asked.

“The archives of my Order,” said Kri. “This drawing and others like it were made as a record of events in the village that Dravit Nance destroyed. We were surprised by Raid before. This time we can be prepared.”

A spatter of red-brown marred the parchment. “There’s blood on the drawing.”

“The Order of Vigilance does not have a peaceful history.”

Inspiration struck Albanon. “Kri, what about the Order of Vigilance? They already know about the danger of the Voidharrow and if they have access to magic like you and Moorin, they can be here quickly.”

Expression seemed to drain out of Kri’s face. “That … isn’t possible.”

The old man sounded less certain of himself than he ever had before. Albanon glanced at him. “I know you said the Order was small but surely—”

“The Order is very small,” said Kri harshly. “I am the last of it.”

Albanon blinked and stepped back. Kri remained where he was, leaning on the table as if it was all that was keeping him upright. “The last … but you said the other members were responsible for recruiting people to follow them into the Order.”

“I didn’t say they were successful.” Kri rubbed his forehead. “After the Voidharrow was released into the village, the Order underwent a crisis.”

“Whether to destroy the Voidharrow or not?”

Kri’s lips tightened. “Yes. And no. I didn’t tell you the whole truth about Dravit Nance, Albanon. He didn’t release the Voidharrow in an effort to destroy it. He released it in order to witness its effects.”

Albanon stared at him. “He released it deliberately?”

“When the other members of the Order discovered what he’d done, they tried to stop it, but there was little they could do except make a record and scour the village. Dravit had infected himself first—some among the Order speculated later that he had gone mad, perhaps under the influence of the Chained God. It took the strength and lives of several members to defeat him. The survivors were faced not just with the question of what to do with the Voidharrow but how to deal with Dravit’s treachery. In the end, they separated. A small order became even smaller.”

He spread his hands. “That was another reason I was coming to visit Moorin—the Order was just the two of us. The third to last of us, Raven Shirai of Colmane, died half a year ago. I was with her at the end. Now I’m all that remains.”

Frustration gnawed at Albanon’s guts. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth from the start?”

“Because I was afraid of how you’d react. Because perhaps Moorin hadn’t told you about the Order because he
knew
how you would react.” The cleric took up the drawing of the demon and returned it to the scroll case. “It changes nothing now. The only help we get from the Order of Vigilance will come from its histories and research.”