The Crystal Mountain Read online

  Did they succeed? she wondered. Did they uncover the truth? Would anyone come to tell me if they had?

  Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Eirwyn scolded. His sacrifice was as great as your own, if not worse. You lost Helm’s patronage because he died, not because you were forced to turn from him. Tauran has willingly accepted the far more tragic fate.

  If Eirwyn still had a god to pray to, she would have murmured a blessing for Tauran’s safety and health. As it was, she could only send him good wishes in her thoughts.

  The angel mourned Helm’s death anew. The emptiness created by her deity’s demise still filled her, still felt like a fresh wound that would never scar over. It was more than just the absence of his dedicated love, and more than the loss of her angelic powers. Eirwyn missed her sense of purpose, of responsibility. The joy of serving had gone from her life, and she was left with merely being.

  Not a terribly promising existence for an immortal creature.

  The sun broke through the clouds, a burst of morning brightness heralding the coming of another beautiful day. It was in many ways a false portent to Eirwyn, but it did remind her that life continued on despite her—or anyone else’s—trials and tribulations.

  Eirwyn was on the verge of returning indoors when a flash in the sky caught her eye. She turned fully toward it and watched, bringing her hand up to shield her vision from the brightening sun.

  The second time it flashed, the angel got a better fix on the point and focused her gaze there, waiting.

  Two figures grew from twin specks against the backdrop of the lightening sky. By the time they were distinguishable, Eirwyn could tell they were celestials, flying toward her on wings of white. When it became obvious that they were coming directly toward her, the angel’s heart leaped in excitement, though a shadow of foreboding, a residual worry from her unremembered dream, also coursed through her.

  Initially, she thought it was a solar and a planetar approaching, but as the pair got nearer, she realized that the green-skinned creature was, in fact, a trumpet archon. It had been the archon’s long, silvery trumpet gleaming in the morning sun that had tipped Eirwyn to their presence.

  The two celestials arrived and settled to the soft ground. Together, they bowed before Eirwyn, who returned the affectation with no small amount of curiosity. Despite her puzzlement, she was deeply grateful for the visitors. It had been quite some time since she had been given the chance to interact with anyone.

  “We bid you good morning on this blessed day, Eirwyn,” the solar said. She knew him. Viryn had commanded the escort that had brought her to her prison. “We hope this visit finds you in good health and spirits,” the archon added, “and we trust that we are not interrupting anything of import?”

  Eirwyn laughed. “I think you both know that I would welcome any interruption. Viryn, there’s no need for formalities; I do not hold you in contempt. You were just doing your duty.”

  The other angel inclined his head slightly in thanks. “I am glad to see you taking this so well, Eirwyn. It gave me no joy to leave you here.”

  Eirwyn shrugged, then frowned. “If you’ve come to see if I will reconsider and testify before the High Council, I’m afraid you’ve made the journey for nothing. I still believe in the rightness of my actions, and of my freedom to make such a decision. I’m afraid I still share Tauran’s sentiment that Tyr was not acting in his right faculties, and that will not change.”

  The two visitors looked at one another and frowned. “Of course, there’s no way you might have known,” Viryn said solemnly, “but I thought you might suspect …”

  Eirwyn cocked her head to one side, puzzled. “Suspect what?” she asked. “What has happened?” Then her heart leaped in joy. “Tauran’s returned! He’s brought news of his success!”

  Viryn’s frown deepened.

  “Alas, he has not,” the other angel replied. He opened his mouth to add more, but the archon cut him off.

  “Have you not heard the summons?” the trumpeter asked. “Have you not felt the Seer’s connection, calling you?”

  Eirwyn’s eyes grew wide. “Erathaol has been trying to contact me?” she asked. The notion of the great archon who ruled Venya, the third layer of Mount Celestia, reaching out, stunned her. “Why?” Then she recalled the tremor that had awakened her.

  And her dreams.

  Eirwyn seized on the palpable worry radiating from the two creatures standing before her. They had come bearing profound news. “Tell me,” she commanded them.

  “For three days, portents have come to the Seer, announcing something profound and dire. He has been attempting to interpret these warnings, but the only insight he has gleaned thus far is your name. He’s been trying to summon you to him, but to no avail. It was only this morning that he learned you had been banished. He sent me to intervene, and we rushed here at once, but now I fear we may be too late.”

  “Too late for what?” Eirwyn asked. How could I be a part of the Seer’s visions? she wondered, feeling overwhelmed for the first time in eons.

  “It seems you and Tauran were right,” Viryn said. “Mystra has been slain. By Cyric.”

  Eirwyn gasped and sank to her knees. “No!” she breathed. “This cannot be!” Oh, Tauran, she thought. You saw it coming, didn’t you? And no one believed you. She prayed that her friend still lived.

  “Sadly, I am not finished with the dire news,” Viryn continued. He placed a hand on Eirwyn’s shoulder to offer her comfort. “Dweomerheart was destroyed in the process. Savras is dead, Azuth is missing. The World Tree is no more.”

  New sorrow welled in Eirwyn’s heart. “So many lives lost,” she murmured, trying to absorb what the deva was telling her. “So much death and destruction. What has Cyric wrought?”

  “I do not know,” Viryn answered. His voice sounded grave, frail. “Everyone is trying to determine how far the aftereffects reach.” He took a deep breath. “But that’s why we are here. You must return with us to the Court of Tyr at once. You have been pardoned. It appears that you have some role to play in all this, and the council wants to find out what.”

  Kaanyr Vhok’s consciousness returned to the sound of forge hammers ringing on anvils. The loud, clanging blows of metal on metal reverberated through the cambion. Each concussive strike made his head pound, and he winced at the noise.

  The dwarves of Sundabar are worthless wastes of life, he silently grumbled. They should all be impaled and quartered for making that racket.

  The half-fiend groaned, grimaced, then tried to sit up. The pounding in his head made him dizzy, and he feared he would be ill.

  What’s the matter with me? he wondered. Am I injured?

  Kaanyr couldn’t remember what happened. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to clear his head. He kept his face on the cool stones beneath him and waited until his equilibrium stopped spinning.

  Stones, he thought. Did I fall?

  He reached out with one hand and began to feel his own body, testing for broken bones. Everything was intact.

  A familiar feminine voice cut through the fog of his wooziness. “Micus, wait!”

  Aliisza.

  “Stop this. Let me find a way to help you,” the alu said. Her voice sounded desperate, frantic. It filled him with worry.

  Micus! He knew that name!

  Memories tumbled back into Vhok—

  The rotunda …

  A battle with Myshik …

  The thrice-damned hobgoblin nearly cleaved me in twain, Kaanyr remembered. I should be dead. The cambion reached behind, feeling the place along his back where the half-dragon had struck.

  He found no sign of any wound.

  Fearful that he would suffer another attack from the cunning Myshik, Kaanyr forced himself to open his eyes and sit up.

  He rested near the very periphery of the rotunda, deep in shadow. A single glow of light, oddly dim and unsteady, flickered from near the center of the chamber. He spotted no sign of the draconic hobgoblin, but there was movemen
t to his left, among the columns holding the dome aloft, where Aliisza’s voice had emanated.

  As Kaanyr rose unsteadily onto one knee, he spied his blade, crackling with purplish black energy, near his foot. He reached down and took hold of the weapon, then heard the sound of flesh striking flesh, followed by a soft groan.

  Aliisza!

  Kaanyr forced himself to his feet and staggered toward the sound.

  The cambion had to follow the curve of the columns to reach the source, and when he stepped into view, he nearly stumbled to the floor in shock.

  A dreadful creature nearly filled the space between the curved wall and the columns, a beast made by foul magic. Half man and half something else, it raised a massive axe high and reared like a horse on back legs. Aliisza slumped before it in a daze, unwilling or unable to retreat from the impending strike.

  Kaanyr flipped his sword around, snatching the blade end out of the air. In the same smooth motion, he yanked his arm back and then snapped it forward, flinging the weapon at the abomination before him. The sword spun across the distance between Kaanyr and the monstrosity.

  In his haste, Kaanyr had not been careful with his aim, but he did not care. The sword tumbled past the flank of the creature’s human torso, grazing one of its four arms and raking a gash along it. Purplish energy crackled outward in a spiderweb mosaic, radiating from the wound.

  The beast screamed and flailed, its deadly strike against Aliisza disrupted. The axe slipped from its grasp as the abomination staggered to one side.

  Kaanyr did not wait to see the effects of his attack. Reaching inside his tunic, he stumbled toward the thing. He pulled a wand free and prepared to utter the powerful arcane phrase that would trigger its magic.

  The beast turned toward him, and Kaanyr’s words died on his lips.

  Micus’s fevered eyes bore into the cambion.

  “You!” Micus screamed, spinning to fully confront Vhok. “Damn you back to the Hells from whence you came!” He lurched toward the half-fiend, and Kaanyr spied Myshik’s face jutting from Micus’s gut. The half-hobgoblin’s mouth slavered as it stared gleefully at him.

  Kaanyr recovered his wits and leveled the wand at the onrushing abomination. He activated the magic imbued in the device and flinched as blinding lightning burst from its tip. The charge arced across the distance and engulfed Micus and Myshik in a shower of crackling energy and sparks. To the cambion, the discharge of magic felt … off.

  The flash left afterimages in Kaanyr’s vision, but he could make out enough to watch the monstrosity stagger to one side and go down.

  Vhok held the wand steady for a moment, watching to see if the fused creatures remained a threat.

  Micus’s eyes stayed closed, but he still breathed. Likewise, Myshik’s head appeared unconscious. Once or twice, the wings upon the flank of the odd, centaur-shaped abomination twitched, but that was all.

  Kaanyr approached the immobile form of the thing and nudged it with the toe of his boot. When it still did not move, he let out a sigh of relief and pocketed the wand. He turned toward Aliisza.

  The alu still crouched near the column, her long, dark ringlets plastered to her pale, narrow face. She stared up at Kaanyr. Her eyes, so often smoldering in sultry delight, were instead wide and fearful. Her mouth, usually formed into a cunning smile or petulant frown, trembled. She kept her graceful, batlike wings folded snugly against her body. They matched the shiny black luster of her tight leather armor. Even in that moment of chaos and crisis, Kaanyr admired the form-fitting garment and how it accentuated the alu’s shape.

  “Kaanyr,” Aliisza said, her voice quavering. “You’re alive. I thought—”

  “Don’t ask me how,” Kaanyr replied, moving to the alu and kneeling down. He took her face in his hands, drew her close, and kissed her. He could feel her still trembling, and she resisted at first, rigid, as though afraid. Then she melted into him.

  “I tried to stop you,” Aliisza said into his shoulder, her voice faint, desperate. “I tried to stop you all.”

  At her words, Kaanyr remembered how she had brought Micus to the rotunda. The cambion’s joy at having the half-fiend safely back with him vanished, driven from him like a punch to the gut, as he recalled her betrayal.

  “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 co
rner 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.