Author's Note: Music to read by: Phillip Glass, "Metamorphisis One"
38.
There's a vision in the sands
Rising from the ancient past
Crying let my spirit go
Lead my burning soul to rest
Hear the sound of distant ages There's no shelter from the heat
It's the call of the seventh star
There's no mercy from this land
Hear a thousand chanting souls
Waiting judgement from God's hand
Hear the sound of distant ages
It's the call of the seventh star
Hear the sound of fallen angels
It's the call of the seventh star
The pyramids will fall
Turn to dust before the sun
And the star will rise again
Until destiny is done
Hear the sound of distant ages
It's the call of the seventh star
Hear the sound of fallen angels
It's the call of the seventh star
- Black Sabbath, "Seventh Star"
There was a stair carved in the face of the cliff. It zigged and zagged from sky to sand, a slumped and crumbling ruin.
I wondered who had made it, and how long they'd been dead.
"They came at dawn," Garrick had told us. "We were out in the desert, digging in the ruins of an ancient civilization…Netheril. Do you know of it? Magnificent place…so it must have been so, once, when the flying cities still filled the skies..."
I paused on the highest step. There was a narrow valley below, bounded by steep cliffs. The wind howled. It stung at my eyes and tugged insistently at my hair.
I saw a winged shadow flicker over the stone. My falcon guide dove down into the valley, shrieking, high and fierce. The sound stirred something in me, urging me, irresistibly, to follow it.
"Who are you?" I'd asked Shaundakul when we'd first met, a lifetime ago.
"Follow, and find out," he'd answered. That kind of cryptic non-answer had been like a red flag to a bull as far as I was concerned, and the bastard had known it, somehow he'd just known that I'd take the bait.
Now, the situation was about as bad. Maybe I still had a choice. Maybe I could just leave this desert behind. But Garrick's words kept ringing in my ears.
"You must not let her enter that portal. Wherever it leads, whatever she intends…for the sake of us all, you must not let her succeed," Garrick had said, and the word portal stuck in my head, playing over and over like a song I'd heard on the radio one too many times.
Where there was one portal, there might be more. If not for that, I might just bury this thing I carried and run, let this dog-and-pony show go on without me…but a portal…
I descended, one hand against the sandstone wall to steady me. Xanos followed, his yellow eyes glaring all around as if the geography had offended him. After him came Deekin, hopping down one stair at a time, like a bird.
"Drogan said that I would be able to identify this artifact of yours? My goodness, such faith my old friend has in me…well, let me see it. Hmm. Fascinating. Yes…yes. I know this crystal you carry. I have read of such things in the ancient texts. It is called a mythallar."
Drifts of sand had covered the last part of the stair, getting deeper with each step. Gingerly, I tried to feel my way down with Silent Partner, but my feet weren't having any of it. They slipped in the loose sand, and I ended up taking the last few stairs with my ass.
When my slide had stopped, I sat with my head in my hands, feeling sorry for myself. My ankle hurt. "Great," I muttered. "This is just what I needed."
Then I yelped as Xanos came to an abrupt stop beside me and yanked me unceremiously to my feet. "Cyric's Blood, woman, be careful," he growled at me. "One mis-step while you carry that mythallar and you will destroy us all!"
"I read once of a mage who walked into his enemy's home, unannounced, and threw a mythallar to the floor, where it broke – eliminating not only his enemy, but also, apparently, most of the city around him. There is great power in this object…be careful."
I yanked my arm away from him just as unceremoniously and shot the half-orc a glare that verged on a snarl. I tried not to think of how hard I'd hit the ground, or how fragile that little crystal might be. If I fell again, in just the wrong way, would the last thing I heard be a tinkle of glass? Would it hurt, or would it be like getting caught in an atomic blast – just a painless flash of light, and then poof, nothing left of me but a shadow? "Are you volunteering to take the fucking thing?" I snapped shrilly.
He froze. An odd look entered his eyes. "Perhaps…" he began, and then gave a sharp shake of his head, stepping back as if stung. He spoke in a low mutter, as if arguing with himself. "It is tempting….no. No! It is too tempting. I…I should not. She must keep it. Yes," he added, his eyes refocusing on me suddenly. "You will keep it. Xanos insists."
I looked up at him, my anger suddenly forgotten. "You all right?" I asked gruffly.
He hitched his shoulders and gave me a wild, wary look. "Just keep that thing away from me," he repeated harshly, and stalked away over the sand.
"Here. You may have it back. No…no. You cannot take it away, I am afraid. It will do you no good. She already knows it is here, I heard her say as much. She will be looking for it, and she will find you. I…I am sorry."
We'd seen the shape of the dig site from above, a little grid of geometric lines and half-uncovered walls nestled amidst the sinuous sweep of sand.
The falcon swooped ahead, heading straight for it.
The camp was quiet except for the buzzing of flies. There was a figure slumped against one of the walls. Humanoid, though it was missing some pieces. I saw a smear of blood running down the wall above its head.
"They came at dawn. She walked among the dead. So many. So many..."
The falcon alighted on a ruined wall. It folded its wings and looked at me as I passed, its dark eyes watchful.
"She was cloaked. I did not see her face. Her servants called her Heurodis…"
There was a wooden stair leading down into an excavated antechamber. There was still a lantern at the bottom, a tiny ball of magelight glowing steadily behind the glass.
We climbed down. I jingled. The stairs creaked under Xanos's weight. Deekin's claws scratched against the wood. None of us spoke. The less noise we made, the better.
"They came from above. Demons, perhaps. The stuff of nightmares. Their voices, the language they spoke, it was madness, and when they killed the others, they laughed…"
Deekin crept along behind me, huddled so close that he nearly tangled himself in my legs and tripped me up. I laid a hand on his scaled head, trying to reassure him.
He blinked up at me. "This place not feel so good," he said softly, in his nasal voice.
"Yeah." I looked around. "It's bad juju." I leaned Silent Partner against my shoulder and ran my now-free hand along the crumbling brick and plaster. The plaster was painted in elaborate geometric patterns, and the colors were still as bright as jewels, as if a couple thousand years ago was only yesterday. Ahead of us lay a long hall, deep shadows draping it like cobwebs. "Seriously bad juju."
His head swiveled nervously. "What be bad juju, boss?" he whispered.
I thought of how to put it into words. "You know that feeling like something just walked over your grave, and it turns out that it's your own zombified corpse?" I said at last. "That's bad juju."
"Oh." He swallowed. "Yeah. Deekin thinks he understands."
"I am getting ahead of myself. Forgive me. About a month ago, my researchers uncovered a portal room in the ruins, far below the entrance. At first, I was not certain where the portal might lead…"
I looked down at Deekin. "You don't have to be here, Deeks," I said softly. I stroked his scaled head and forced back the lump in my throat at the thought of the little guy's dreams for big adventure being snuffed out in this ruin. He was so bright, with such a promising future ahead of him, and…
…and I couldn't believe my own thoughts. I was getting all maternal over a lizard. This world had seriously warped my brain. Still… "I'll understand if you go."
He shook his head furiously, huddling closer to my leg. "Deekin wanted adventure," he said. "How he ever gonna write his epic tale if he busy running away all the time?" His hand found its way into mine. "No, Boss. Deekin be staying."
I closed my eyes, took a breath, and nodded. It didn't make me happy that he was along. Not exactly. If, somehow or another, this Netherese portal could get me home or get me to another portal that did, I'd have to give both him and Xanos the slip. It was easier that way, and I couldn't let them in on my little secret – especially Deekin, who'd already shown a knack for turning up in unexpected places.
I cringed to think of the kobold at large in my hometown. If he wasn't just ground into hot dog filling and sold off in pieces by a street vendor, he was going to give the folks at animal control fits. Maybe he'd end up in a lab somewhere, hooked up to electrodes and splayed out on an operating table so that modern science could find out what made the little guy tick. God. Now that was a mental image that I was pretty sure would figure very prominently in my nightmares from now on.
No, it was better if I vanished without a trace, when the time came. It was better for everyone that way.
"…then, with her arrival, I understood. If my guess is correct, there is such a city on the other side of this portal, one which has lain undisturbed for all this time. To find an entire Netherese city, intact!...oh, what a find…and what a catastrophe, that it should fall into the hands of one such as she. Heurodis…"
The darkness deepened in patches. Only a few of the archaeologists' lanterns were intact, and the stretches of corridor between them were so dark that I couldn't see where I was going.
When that happened, Deekin took my hand and guided me through the dark, a squat little tugboat pulling a racing yacht behind it. I held on to him and followed, the weight of the dark pressing down on me. It felt heavy, like wet snow. I was having trouble breathing.
There were voices in the dark, guttural mutterings that made my hair stand on end. The language was strange (madness, I thought, Garrick said it was madness), the kind of noise I might have imagined coming from my closet when I was a child.
Boo! It's the boogeyman, I thought, and choked back a giggle that wanted very badly to turn into a whimper.
The footing got more and more uneven. Eventually, either a hundred feet or a hundred miles later, I stumbled, my toes catching on a loose heap of rubble.
Stones rattled away, skittering. They were loud, much too loud, and I tensed up, freezing in place.
I heard a slow, heavy footstep. "Ygoth quarl!" something growled. "Tsathogg?"
I started to tremble.
There was just enough light to make out Xanos's silhouette. I saw it sink back against the wall, right next to me. The sorcerer's fingers snagged my sleeve so tightly that I was pretty sure he was cutting off my circulation. "Quiet," he hissed in my ear. "Quiet."
"My team is dead. I nearly joined them," Garrick's voice rattled on in my memory. "One of the monsters grabbed me, tried to tear me in half, like they did to poor Jessep. They did it so easily, as if he was made of paper…I, I am sorry. Please, may I have a drink before I go on?"
We waited for a thousand years, or maybe it was only a few minutes.
The boogeyman gurgled noisily, as if it had a throat full of phlegm. "Shibbeth," it muttered. Its plodding steps grew fainter.
Eventually, the ruins were quiet again.
I sagged against the wall in relief, my eyes squinched shut and my heart pounding. Oh god, I thought. Oh god. Why am I here? I want to go home. Hilltop or Earth, it didn't really matter, as long as it was safer and less nerve-wracking than this.
Xanos didn't relinquish his grip on my sleeve. "Slaadi, by the language," he said softly, leaning close to my ear so that he didn't have to raise his voice. "Creatures of the Outer Planes. Dangerous, and unpredictable. We should avoid them if at all possible." His yellow eyes shifted away from me. "Kobold," he said. "You are the quietest among us. Scout ahead. Find us a clear path to the portal room. Then report back."
Deekin was quiet. "Boss?" he asked warily.
I gulped. "Go ahead, Deeks," I croaked. "But don't…don't go far." I thought of those heavy, dragging footsteps. "And, for god's sake, if anything sees you, run, do you hear me?"
"O-kay." I heard the kobold hum a quavering note. I wasn't sure, but I thought I saw him fade from view, as if he'd just been dipped in invisible ink. "Will do, Boss."
I didn't hear Deekin leave, but after a few moments, Xanos let go of my sleeve. "Step back, away from the light," he told me. I didn't argue.
Time crawled by. I huddled against the wall and listened, with growing irritation, to Xanos's slow, even breathing. He wasn't whimpering or struggling for air in this damned stifling darkness. He wasn't afraid. He belonged in this world of monsters and black magic and balls-to-the-wall insanity. I was just a rich girl and a would-be press monkey from a world where shit like this didn't happen – though entirely different kinds of shit did, which I supposed had to count for something.
I ground my teeth. You're in front of a room full of reporters, I told myself firmly. The tabloids are there, even. It's hit the news circuit that the paramedics found your boss hanging dead in a closet in his wife's underwear with a belt around his neck and a bad case of postmortem priapism and the cameras are on in five…
My breathing slowed.
Four.
I felt my face relax into a careful mask.
Three.
My smile was lovely, genial, and as blank as a wall.
Two.
I straightened, taking a deep, steadying breath.
One.
I reached down and gently pried Xanos's fingers from my sleeve. "I'm okay," I murmured. "Let go of me."
"Heurodis must be stopped. I do not know how…defeat her, destroy the portal, destroy the mythallar if you must, though I hope it will never come to that, but you must stop her. She must be made to answer for her crimes."
"Boss?" Deekin's voice asked suddenly, breaking into my thoughts.
I started slightly, and then squinted, trying to find the little kobold. I failed. "Where are you, Deeks?" I whispered.
Xanos twitched slightly. "Tell Xanos that you have found the portal room, kobold," he hissed. "He cannot take much more of this."
I rolled my eyes towards him, wrathfully. Can't take much more of what? I wondered darkly. Babysitting me? He couldn't have been talking about the ruins and the dark and the voices that were the stuff of nightmares. His voice was steady. Too steady, I thought suddenly. Like he's forcing it. I looked at him again, my eyes narrowing.
"Sortakinda," Deekin whispered back. "But…uh. There be a problem."
The problem in question was big, red, and hunched over something that lay right in front of a pair of bronze doors.
A slaad, I decided, looked like a cross between a demon, a frog, and a Sherman tank. If it weren't for the long talons on its hands and feet and the spiny horns that sprouted all over its hide, it might have looked ridiculous. Mostly, though, it just looked like something I didn't want to meet up close.
We peered around the corner at it. It had its back to us. Whatever it was eating was occupying most of its attention.
Then Xanos pulled us back into the corridor and announced that he had an idea.
Five minutes later, Deekin touched my knee with a clawed finger and hummed a scratchy note. I watched myself vanish and felt a wave of gooseflesh rise on my skin. I wondered if the spell would get stuck, somehow, and I'd live out my life as the invisible woman. Or maybe I'd just vanish altogether, right out of existence.
It wasn't that I didn't trust Deekin. He'd never intentionally hurt me. I just didn't trust magic.
That is, I didn't trust most magic. I wiped my clammy palms against my thighs. Then I hefted Silent Partner in both hands, re-acquainting myself with its exquisite balance. The wood tingled reassuringly against my skin.
"You are uncertain…I know. I wish I could be of more help. Though perhaps…yes. Perhaps there is a solution."
I heard the mechanical clunk-thwip of Deekin's crossbow and heard the ensuing meaty thunk a second before I saw a feathered bolt shaft sticking out from between the slaad's shoulder blades.
Getting shot in the back was usually enough to ruin most people's days That was why it was so surprising when, rather than collapsing, the creature gave an enraged gurgle and reached behind it, its huge arm twisting as if it was made of rubber. Muscle and bone seemed to reconfigure itself, real-time, to allow the clumsy-looking thing to perform a feat of contortion usually only reserved for circus performers.
The slaad yanked the bolt out of its back and staggered to its feet. It shook its arm, which reformed into its previous shape. "Ygorth quarl!" it roared, and threw the bolt to the floor, splattering blackish blood. Then it charged.
"Uh-oh," I heard Deekin say. He was visible again, and blinking owlishly at his crossbow. "That not be good. Froggie be tougher than Deekin thought."
I heard Xanos mutter something. Behind the slaad, cobwebs waved gently as if in a breeze.
The cobwebs lit with an eerie green glow. Then they began to grow, almost faster than the eye could see.
In a matter of seconds, the webbing went from filament-thin to as thick around as rope. It snapped out and around the slaad's wrists and ankles. The creature stumbled to a stop and peered down at its new constraints. "Bursh-datht," it grumbled.
That, I decided, was probably my cue. I began to move.
The chamber was dim, but the floor was relatively free of debris, and what Xanos would have called my pathetic human vision had adjusted as much as it could to the low light. I ran lightly, my heels barely striking the ground.
It was probably a bad idea for me to pop out of invisibility right in front of the slaad's nose.
So I hit it from behind, instead.
I saw my own arms snap into view just as Silent Partner connected with the back of the slaad's heavy skull. A strange buzzing ran through the haft, and the engraved writing, normally so dark that it was hard to distinguish it from the surrounding wood, flared with blue-white light.
The slaad convulsed. Then it screamed, and its skin began to smoke.
I saw what the slaad had been eating. It was a legless torso with a faceless ruin for a head. I was glad I couldn't see more of it. What little I had seen was probably going to show up in my nightmares later on, along with every other horror I now had rattling around in my skull.
Heurodis, I thought. She brought the slaadi here. This is her fault.
What hopes I had had for a peaceful resolution to the Heurodis problem faded. People who summoned demons and let them eat other people weren't people you could bargain with. Not, that is, without expecting to get eaten as soon as your erstwhile ally got what they wanted. It was that way in politics. It was that way in any game in which power was the prize. It was the way the world - any world - worked. I'd had to learn that the hard way, and like all hard lessons, it had stuck far more strongly than my starry-eyed idealism ever had.
I stepped back out of range of the slaad's flailing arms and watched, dispassionately now, as Xanos finished the job we'd come to do.
A hissing arrow streaked out of the darkness, trailing drops of acid. I didn't see it hit, but I heard a sizzle, and smelled something foul and acrid.
The slaad sagged into the net of sticky webbing, still twitching. Sparks danced over its body, which had blackened in spots and was pouring smoke like a chimney. There was a sizzling hole in its throat, bubbling over with a mixture of black blood and acid.
I took another step back, waving my hand in front of my face. "Phew," I said. "That stinks."
"Smells like cooked froggie," Deekin said unsteadily. Then he began to giggle. After a moment, I joined him.
"Drogan must know of this new development. There is a spell, you see…I use it often. When you are doing field research, it is always useful to have a way to keep in touch with your colleagues. I may be able to contact our good friend. He will think of something…he always does."
Xanos stalked between us, snarling incredulously. "Will you two fools shut up?" he snapped. "There may be others-"
I quieted. "Sorry," I said. The sorcerer had a point, and he was starting to look a little frazzled. I cleared my throat gruffly and shouldered Silent Partner. "Nerves."
"Don't worry," Deekin added. "Deekin not see any-"
A flutter of wings interrupted him. A dark shape darted across the room, heading towards me.
Deekin squeaked and raised his crossbow. I saw the silhouette of the creature, felt a tug beneath my breastbone, where my power resided, and reflexively I shouted, "Don't shoot!"
The kobold gave me a sharp, startled look and jerked his crossbow upwards at the last minute. The bolt spanged harmlessly against the high ceiling. Then it landed, with a noisy clatter, at Xanos's feet.
The half-orc looked down. "Bloody, giggling, thrice-cursed, goblin-twaddling, slop-brained imbeciles," he said, very clearly.
"Sorry 'bout that," Deekin said contritely. He shouldered his crossbow like I'd shouldered my staff. Then he grinned at me, showing needlelike little teeth. "Nerves."
The falcon, perched on the dead slaadi, looked back and forth between us and gave a hoarse little chirp. Then it took off for the double doors.
"But it will take time…time we do not have. Go. When I have news, I will follow. No…do not worry about me. I am recovered enough. Some more water, please…and now we must set to work."
The doors opened easily. There was nothing alive on the other side.
I glanced around, wary. Despite the chamber's apparent emptiness, I had the strange sensation that I was being watched.
Xanos walked over to a tall, black obelisk, one of several which stood in a circle at the center of the room. He was frowning. "The magic in these," he said quietly. "It has recently been activated." Gently, almost delicately, he brushed his fingers across runes that looked like they'd been seared right into the stone. There was a glimmer of light in them, rapidly fading. "Heurodis…she has gone through the portal. It is the only explanation."
A jumble of mixed emotions – relief, frustration, dread, all colored with a drop of incipient hysteria – went through my gut. "I guess it was inevitable," I said eventually. "Garrick said she was already working on it when he escaped, and that was already a day or so ago."
Xanos ignored me, or maybe he didn't even hear me. He strode further into the chamber, inspecting the columns and muttering to himself. Rude of him, but then again, that was Xanos all over – and with a magical puzzle like this right in front of the sorcerer's nose, I suspected that my presence barely registered as a blip on his personal radar.
Deekin brushed past me, following the sorcerer and exclaiming screechily over the strange writing.
I stared after them for a minute.
Then I shrugged, unholstered my flask, opened it, and took a drink, since nothing else seemed to be going on.
I sure as hell wasn't going to be of any help in translating. Those runes were nothing more than pretty pictures, as far as I was concerned – and, in all honesty, they weren't even that pretty.
Without warning, the falcon winged its way over and landed on my shoulder. I'd kind of gotten used to that over the past couple of weeks. I was beginning to suspect that the damned bird did it just to see if it could freak me out.
I turned my head and looked at the falcon. It cocked its head and peered back at me, shifting its footing on my scale-covered pauldron. "So, you decided to come down here only after the coast was clear?" I asked it. "Useless animal. You're not going to shit on my boots again, are you?" The bird got a strange, slightly crazed look in its eye. It began vigorously preening its feathers. "Yeah. You'd better not."
The sensation that I was being watched hadn't gone away. If anything, it had only gotten stronger.
Casually, I moved until my back was against the wall. I didn't see anything, but, in a world where talking lizards could shoot crossbows and turn invisible, anything could happen.
I watched, a little bored and a little nervy, as Xanos and Deekin both poked around the chamber. Eventually, Xanos came back, empty-handed. "There are no clues," he growled. "Xanos may be able to translate these runes, eventually, but…" He trailed off. For the first time in my acquaintance with him, he seemed completely at a loss.
I looked up at him. Wordlessly, I held out my flask.
He took it, tossing the whiskey back like a pro. Then he began to cough. "Cyric's Codpiece, woman," he wheezed, and pounded his chest. He blinked a few times. Then he took another healthy swig. "How do you drink this rotgut?" he demanded, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Wow," I marveled with mock-brightness. "You mean there actually is something I can do that the great Xanos can't?"
He smirked at me. "In an infinite multiverse, anything is possible," he said sententiously.
I smirked back at him. "Shut your piehole, you overgrown goblin," I said without rancor.
"Hah! Make me, you stone-faced harpy," the sorcerer retorted, grinning. Then his grin faded. He raised my flask of whiskey to his lips again.
Halfway there, he stopped. His eyes darted back and forth. "Did you…feel that?" he asked suddenly.
I frowned. I sidled a little closer to, and slightly behind, the hulking sorcerer. "Feel what?" I asked uneasily.
"Someone…someone is casting a spell. Bah! Take this!" Xanos thrust his arm at me, practically shoving the flask in my ear. I pushed his arm away and snatched my whiskey back, curling my lip at him. He hardly seemed to notice. "A powerful one, and almost..." His forehead furrowed. "…almost familiar."
Then I felt it, or rather, I heard it, a weird shimmering noise followed by the thud of a pair of boots.
Xanos stiffened. Then, fire leaping from his hands almost instantaneously, he rounded on the intruder with a snarl.
The fire hit a layer of magical shielding and vanished with a pitiful flicker.
A white-haired old dwarf raised his eyebrow at the sorcerer, smiling. "Now, now, lad," Drogan said mildly. "Is that any way to greet an old friend?"