The Crystal Mountain (17 page)

Aliisza shuddered, hearing her son’s words. He’s not blaming me, she insisted. He’s just right. Swallowing the guilt, she stood and headed toward the tunnel leading out. “I’m going to find your weapons,” she said softly. “I’ll be back soon.” With that, she left them.

Kaanyr, she thought as she prowled along the passage, why did you do this to me? I did still love you, you fool. She grimaced. No more grieving! It’s done. Deal with the ones who still care. Swallowing the growing lump in her throat, the half-fiend continued on.

She reached an intersection and slowed, listening. Things had grown quiet since the commotion of the devils’ invasion. Aliisza assumed the demons had been triumphant, but she wondered how high a price they had paid for their victory.

The more of them dead, the better, she decided. Fewer for me to deal with.

Satisfied that nothing was nearby that would cause her trouble, Aliisza braced herself against a wall and manipulated innate magic once more. The crash of agony lasted only a moment. When the blue emanation subsided and she had caught her breath, she could sense in which direction Kael’s sword lay. She scurried around a bend in the tunnel and followed her internal compass.

It took her several wrong turns and a few retreats to avoid being seen by others before she found the chamber where her son’s sword had been discarded. The cavern was small, much like the one Tauran, Kael, and Zasian had been imprisoned within, and it had only one entrance. It lay at the end of a narrow passage with a few other, similar chambers lining either side of it. The demons had been using the chambers as refuse storage. They stank of filth and decay.

Aliisza stood at the edge of the chamber and peered around at the trash and bones, the foul sewage and carcasses. Her magical guidance suggested that the blade lay on one side, and when she went to that spot, she found it, carelessly tossed atop a heap of other waste. Tauran’s mace sat nearby. In fact, all of the trio’s equipment was there.

She began to gather it up, then paused, struck by an idea.

Aliisza stacked her companion’s weapons and other gear in a neat pile near the entrance to the chamber, and then sucked in air to prepare herself for the onslaught of pain. She summoned a shimmering blue doorway, gasped at what the magic did to her insides, and then stepped through.

She found herself in the chamber where Tauran, Kael, and Zasian waited. She did not dispel the doorway.

Kael knelt next to Tauran, trying to help the angel sit up. Kael had managed to remove the bindings that had held

Tauran immobile. Even so, Tauran was a sorry sight. Zasian still sat nearby, staring across the room at nothing in particular. The bodies of the fiends that had rushed into the room remained there too.

“Did you find them?” Kael asked, rising to his feet.

Aliisza nodded. “Come,” she said. “Let’s get out of here before Kaanyr comes back.”

The half-drow frowned. “Where are we going?” he asked. “We’ll just be trapped somewhere else in this godsforsaken place.”

“Maybe,” Aliisza replied, “but it will buy us some time to figure out a way to escape. Help Tauran. I’ll get Zasian.”

Mother and son each took a companion. Aliisza got the priest to his feet and found it easy to guide him where she wished. She steered Zasian toward the doorway, while Kael followed her, supporting the ailing angel with an arm around his waist.

“I hear someone coming down the passage,” Kael whispered. “Hurry!”

Aliisza stepped through the magical portal and then moved away from its twin at the other end, making room for the other two following behind. Once Kael and Tauran passed through the door, she released the magic and the doorway winked out.

“Ugh,” Kael said, wrinkling his nose. “I didn’t think we could find something that smelled worse than that big ape back there, but I was wrong.”

“Your things are over there,” Aliisza said, pointing.

Kael positioned Tauran near a wall where the angel could support himself. Then the knight reached for his sword. “Thank Torm,” he murmured. “It feels good to have this

in my hands again.” After hefting the blade and feeling its familiar weight, he bent down and pulled Tauran’s mace from the pile. “Here,” he said, holding it out for the angel.

Tauran took the holy weapon. He slipped it into his belt, but the weight of the mace seemed to make him sag even more. “Thank you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Kael turned back to Aliisza, who had guided Zasian to a relatively clean spot on the floor and had bid him to sit; “Now what?” he asked. “Tauran and the priest are in no condition to fight, and you and I cannot defeat the whole horde ourselves. Even after the battle with the devils, there’s bound to be too many of them crawling through here. So what do we do?”

Aliisza bit her lip in thought. She turned to Tauran. “You can’t move us?” she asked, fearing she already knew the answer.

The celestial shook his drooping head. “Even if I had the strength,” he said, fighting back a coughing spell, “I am still cut off from Tyr. He has not seen fit to grant me his blessings yet.”

“Then I’ll just have to do it myself,” Aliisza said uncertainly. “How hard can it be to make a doorway back out into the Astral Plane?”

“That may not make things any better,” Kael said. “Who knows what is lurking out there? Especially considering how stirred up everything is after the destruction.”

Aliisza gave her son a pointed look. “Do you have any better ideas?” When Kael shook his head, she said, “Then it’s our only option. If we can get Tauran out of here, he might start healing.”

Kael gave a sigh of uncertainty, but he nodded. “Give it a try,” he said. “Staying here is certain death.”

Aliisza sat and focused her concentration. She imagined a place in the Astral Plane, just beyond the reach of the chunk of world in which they were trapped. She closed her eyes and began to build up arcane energy.

If I survive this, she thought, it’s going to hurt like the Nine Hells.

Vhok’s steps felt light and easy as he walked through the tunnels of the demonic stronghold. That was too easy, he thought. Tauran finally got a taste of his own rules, and he has found them wanting. The fool.

The only part that dismayed him was Aliisza. Even too feeble to draw on her magic, she had tried to stop him. She had made her choice. She’s no longer the one I loved, he told himself. But I will miss her.

You will find another consort, Kaanyr Vhok. Right now, remember that you are free. You’re free!

Vhok’s stride was rather jaunty as he turned a corner and entered the great chamber where the marilith held court before, when he and Aliisza had come before her. She was there, surrounded by her minions. Two of the large, ram-headed fiends guarded the doorway, and when they spotted him approaching, they blocked his route with their wicked-looking polearms.

“I must speak with Vhissilka,” Vhok said. “It concerns a means of returning us all to the Abyss.”

“You will wait,” one of the two guards said before he bounded off to inform the marilith. The other remained there, watching Vhok closely. He wondered if it was one of

the survivors he had commanded earlier. He struck a pose of disdainful boredom and waited.

The guard returned, but the hyena-headed demon with the snake protruding from his neck, Grekzith by name, accompanied the lowly demon. The guard resumed its position on one side of the door, while Grekzith stood before Vhok and folded his arms across his chest, marching the cambion’s haughty stare.

“My mistress is busy,” he said. “Go away.”

Vhok chuckled. “Vhissilka is not too busy to hear what I have to say. Go tell her I’ve found a way to get her back to her beloved Abyss. And tell her that circumstances have changed. She can have the angel. 1 have all the information I need from him.”

The demon glared at Vhok. “I will also ask Vhissilka for permission to disembowel you for your impertinence,” he said. He turned and stalked back to the marilith.

Vhok watched the exchange between demons carefully. As the molydeus whispered in her ear, the marilith’s eyebrows shot up. She uttered some quick command and gestured for the other fiend to hurry away. By the molydeus’s body language, Vhok could tell he was not happy.

Good, Vhok thought. The quicker he learns not to try me, the better.

The red-skinned demon stormed past Vhok with barely a glance. He exited the chamber and disappeared. Vhissilka gestured for Vhok to join her.

When the cambion reached the snake-bodied demon’s side, she said, “You have found a way to return my army and me home?”.

“Yes. I will set out immediately. I will locate a portal

leading back to the Abyss from the Astral Plane. Once I have found such a pathway, I will guide you and your army through it.”

The marilith snorted. “You will simply depart and never return,” she said, waving one of her several arms in dismissal. “I am no fool, cambion.”

“The thought had crossed my mind,” Vhok said, “but there is much more to be gained by returning with you.” So much more, he thought.

“What do you gain?” Vhissilka asked, slithering around Vhok where he stood. “What is your advantage?”

Vhok drew a deep breath. “The angel that arrived with me has been the source of untold trouble for me. I want revenge.”

“And how will you achieve such?” the demon asked, still winding herself around the cambion. Her coils held his ankles tightly together and she began to work her way up past his knees, closing in on him.

Swallowing back any concern he had for his own safety, he calmly replied, “The information I have gleaned at the angel’s expense: I will sell it to the highest bidder when we arrive.”

“No one will listen to you,” Vhissilka scoffed. “You will be slain and cast into a pit the moment you set foot within in an archdemon’s territory.”

“Not if I am your ally,” he replied. “Not if I allow you to claim much of the credit for the knowledge.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because it’s the end result that matters to me,” Vhok said. “I want a chance to make all the creatures of the House of the Triad regret they ever crossed me. You can help me make that happen.”

“I accept,” the demon said, coiling herself more tightly around Vhok, pinning his arms to his sides. “But with one change. You will remain here as my guest, along with the angel, the human, and the half-drow, which I know to be the alu’s son. You will tell me everything you have gleaned from the angel, right here, right now. I will also torture the angel until he is completely broken, and compare what he reveals against your own claims. If I am satisfied, I might allow you to live. In the meantime, I will send the alu out to find a magic portal; She will be the one to lead us through it.”

“But—” Vhok began, only to discover he had no air to finish his statement as the coils of the snake-demon suddenly constricted. He gasped and struggled, but her grip was absolute. Vhok felt himself growing faint. He could not get enough air. He opened his mouth to protest, to plead, but he had no voice.

Idiot! he fumed, fighting the panic that engulfed him. What have you done?

Just as he began to lose consciousness, he heard a deep voice from nearby. He recognized it as that of Gtekzith the molydeus.

“Forgive me,” the creature said, “but the others are not in the chamber where they were to be held. They have vanished.”

“What?” the marilith screamed, tightening her grip on Vhok. He thought his ribs were going to crack. “Find them!”

“As you command,” the red-skinned demon replied. Vhissilka loosened her hold on Vhok the tiniest bit. It was not enough for him to move, but he was able to draw in

a shallow breath. He spent a few thudding heartbeats panting as the spots faded from his vision.

“Where are they?” the marilith demanded. “What have you done with them?”

Vhok shook his head, cursing himself for leaving them to their own devices. “I don’t know,” he said. “But they can’t be far. They’re all weak, dying. Let me help you find them. The alu doesn’t trust you, but she will come to me.” It was a lie. One chance to slip away, he thought. That’s all I need.

The marilith held him fast for a moment longer as she appeared to consider his request. Then she tightened the coils once more. “I think not,” she said, crushing the air from him again. “You are much too valuable for me to allow you to escape. How else am I going to entice the alu to return?”

Kael fought the urge to pace. He fingered the hilt of his sword as he watched Aliisza. The alu had been sitting very still, her eyes closed, for a long time. Though she seemed to be concentrating, her facial expression would occasionally ripple with frustration.

To pass the time, Kael would occasionally move to the exit of the chamber and peer out into the larger tunnel beyond. He stood there and tried to penetrate the silence, listening for some sign that there were threats nearby. He only detected something once, but whatever had made the noise, it never drew closer.

I cannot abide all this waiting, Kael thought, returning once more to stand by his mother’s side. The longer we delay, the greater our chances of discovery. But he did not want

to disturb his mother by voicing his concerns, so he instead turned his attention toward the other two refugees hiding with them.

Tauran seemed to be holding his own, though he was in poor shape. He sat with eyes closed, slumped against a wall of the fetid chamber, looking pale and drawn. Sweat trickled down his face and kept his once lustrous blond curls slicked down against his head. His wings drooped at his sides, and his breathing had turned raspy in his chest. Every time he suffered a coughing fit, Kael nearly went out of his mind with fear that they would be found and caught.

Zasian, on the other hand, did nothing. The priest had grown completely comatose, no longer responding to anything anyone said to him. Even touching him no longer drew his attention. He merely sat where Aliisza had led him, his eyes glazed. The glow he emanated had become strong and bright. It seemed to be the only thing about the man that exhibited any will to live.

Aliisza let out a growl of frustration. Kael turned to look at her and saw her open her eyes and frown. “I can’t do it,” she said, throwing her head in her hands and covering her face. “I just cannot get the magic to settle on a spot. Damn!”