Lady of Poison (26 page)

“I’m not sure, but I suspect it is a riddle, merely playing with the names of Hell. If we can answer the riddle, I predict we can open the dome and reveal the queen’s token, along with whatever else Eschar stores here.”

“And Eschar himself, no doubt,” muttered Gunggari.

“Hold on; why devils?” asked Marrec. “Aren’t the Nar known for the demons they kept in thrall?”

Ususi replied, “Demons, devils, ‘loths… the Nar were not picky in those creatures they pressed into service. We say demons, but the Nar embraced a much wider swath of foulness.”

Elowen wondered, “These devils are called the First, the Second, and so on?”

“Yes, well, that is only part of their name. For instance,

a devil named Bel is Lord of the First. The Lord of the Second is Dispater.”

Marrec studied the dome for any activity following the utterance of the names. Nothing visibly changed. He said, “You said something about revolutions. Does that have something to do with the position of the moons around Faerun?” Marrec was rightfully proud of his astronomical knowledge.

“Maybe, but that would severely limit the times Eschar could get into his centermost stash,” said Ususi.

“Though he can flit into and out of spaces magically,” noted Gunggari.

Ususi nodded but said, “Let’s try this—walk around the dome nine times. During each ‘revolution’ I’ll call out the name of a lord of Hell, from the First to the Ninth.”

Elowen said, “That seems a little simple.”

Ususi frowned.

Marrec said, “I’m not sure I want to traipse through some ritual that involves the naming of devils.”

The wizard said, “It’s the only way to gain entry, unless it doesn’t work, of course.”

Marrec finally nodded.

Once they gathered together, two by two, including chilly Victoricus, they began to walk, counterclockwise. A wide space in the earth surrounding the dome seemed to provide an ideal path. The mage walked in the lead, holding her slim blue tome open to the list of fiendish names, purportedly the names of the nine lords of Hell.

Just before they finished their first circuit, Ususi called out, “Bel, Lord of the First!”

Marrec couldn’t see any change, but they continued to walk.

On their second pass, Ususi cried, “Archduke Dispater, Lord of the Second!”

The third time around, the mage called, “Viscount Mammon, Lord of the Third!”

Small bits of dust puffed up from various parts of the vaultfield surrounding the dome.

Ususi called, “Lady Fierna and Archduke Belial, Lords of the Fourth!” on the fourth circular trip.

The cavern rolled slightly, as if in the grip of a slight tremor.

“You know, this could work,” said Elowen.

Next, “Prince Levistus, Lord of the Fifth,” then “The Hag Countess, Lord of the Sixth!”

Following that sixth revolution a wind picked up, blowing dust and grit into the air across the cavern. Marrec gripped Justlance apprehensively as the visibility worsened.

They continued through their seventh circuit. Visibility fell to nothing as the wind whipped up more fiercely. Ususi named “Archduke Baalzebul, Lord of the Seventh.”

Groans and cries, screeches and howls broke out after Ususi named “Mephistopheles, Lord of the Eighth.” Something bit Marrec on the ankle, but when he looked, nothing was there. They all hurried through the final circuit.

Ususi, her voice hoarse from the dust, finally said “King Asmodeus, Lord of the Nine Hells!” Marrec itched to plug his ears, afraid to sully his mind with names he’d prefer not to know.

Just like that the dust pulled back as if a veil drawn aside. Marrec exclaimed, “That’s new!” as they came around the dome for the ninth and last time.

A door-sized opening pierced the dome’s side, looking for all the world as if it had always been there, and from the doorway issued a shape.

The forward-protruding crown of horns on its forehead preceded its slavering mouth and lupine body. As before, the sense of evil surrounding Eschar was palpable, at least to Marrec who, as a servant of Lurue, had some experience in confronting otherworldly malevolence.

Eschar pointed at Victoricus as it had before, saying “Be still!”

Victoricus shuddered. Yellow light flickered across its form, but instead of freezing, Victoricus tittered and charged the horned demon.

Ususi breathed, “My protection held.”

Victoricus smashed into Eschar like an icy fist. Eschar shuddered but weathered the charge. Their chaperone’s cold claws left great rents down Eschar’s face and side.

Elowen charged in, her living sword strangely dull. Where she scored hits on the horned demon, no blood was drawn. Eschar laughed, almost as if slightly relieved. He continued to focus his attention on Victoricus, obviously more afraid of the servant of the Queen Abiding than all of the rest of them.

Gunggari came up on the demon’s left, wielding his dizheri. He landed a few hearty blows.

Marrec used Gunggari’s distraction to launch Justlance straight and true. It penetrated Eschar’s side. The demon let loose a roar of such intensity that it ruined the spell Ususi had been incanting.

“Enough,” muttered Eschar.

His foul breath, already hot, became a flame in truth. The coiling, white-hot fire focused itself on Victoricus, who made as if to turn, maybe to run. They would never know; when the flame touched their chaperone, its body flashed instantly from ice directly to steam, foregoing liquid. A black mist whirled away, leaving only a damp stain on the cavern floor.

Marrec held forth his hand, waiting for Justlance to return. Instead, Eschar plucked the bloodied spear from its side. The demon shouldn’t have been able to do that. He shouldn’t… his spear flashed back through the air, arrowing for Marrec’s heart. He fell forward, trying to dive, but simply tripped. The tip of Justlance scored the back of his armor.

Ususi was beside him. She said, “Get inside the dome

and get the token. Command the queen to aid us. We’ll distract this whoreson of the Nine Hells.”

So saying, she shot a narrow beam of energy directly into Eschar’s eyes. It caused the demon, which had grabbed Elowen by one leg and begun squeezing, to cry out and loose the elf. It clapped both hands to its eyes, rubbing furiously while continuing to bellow.

Marrec used the moment to slip past Eschar into the dome.

ŚŠŚŚŠŚ ŚŠŚ

Elowen’s leg bled freely where Eschar had squeezed with its clawed hands. She saw Marrec slip past while the demon continued to rub its eyes. Time to provide further distraction.

She darted to the demon’s left, at the same time drawing Dymondheart along the inside of her foe’s overlarge knee. The living bladed sliced deep through tendon and sinew. Had her own leg not pained her so, she wondered if she could not have ended the fight right there, but hampered as she was, she had to settle for what she could get. Eschar’s new scream of pain seemed a good reward

Then Elowen noted that the tissue was reknitting, disappearing before her eyes. She yelled to Gunggari to her left, “His wounds are healing!”

Gunggari, who continued to batter the demon, seemingly to little effect, scowled more deeply. At the very least, he was keeping the demon off balance with the force he imparted with each blow.

Its eyes finally clearing from Ususi’s magical blast, the demon glanced at Elowen then kicked her. She fell into a bed of small clay vessels that were half-buried in ash. Her mouth filled with a sharp, metallic taste as she choked on the cloud of dust her flailing body fountained into the air. Blinking her eyes to clear them, she looked up to see that Eschar stood over her. The demon must

have decided to be done with her once and for all.

Gunggari jostled and vibrated the demon from behind, but his war club lacked sufficient magical charge to fully penetrate the demon’s magical hide. The Oslander wasn’t going to save her.

The demon slashed a claw down upon the prone elf. Elowen flipped her sword, on which she had retained her grasp despite her short arc through the air, into a high block and held it with both hands.

Any other weapon might have shattered, but the living blade, despite its strange diminishment, held true. Elowen felt her arms buckle beneath the impact, but the claws failed to rake her. That time.

A wall of yellow instantly grew between Elowen and her attacker. It was Ususi, who once again called upon the power of her precious wand. The elf hunter used the seconds the wall bought her to scramble to her feet.

As Elowen rushed around the side of the wall, she heard a great yell. It was the demon. Gunggari had managed to crack the demon on the back of the head hard enough to get its attention.

Eschar whirled and advanced upon the retreating Oslander. Eschar growled, “If I can’t suck the marrow from the elFs bones, man meat will have to satisfy … until I catch you all.”

The demon breathed in deeply then exhaled. Again, the very air ignited with hellish fire, sending a snaking tendril of white-orange flame in Gunggari’s direction.

Gunggari dodged aside. Though the flame failed to fall full upon him, the backwash of heat still brought blisters to his skin and choked a grunt of pain from his lips. Worse, he dropped his dizheri.

Eschar paused then, a slightly puzzled expression looking out of place on the demon’s horrendous visage. He said, “Wait. You numbered one more…”

Screaming in sudden fury, the horned demon whirled and raced toward the open mouth of the white dome.

ŚŠ• ŚŠŚ ŚŠŚ ŚŠŚ ŚŠ•

Marrec ran along a narrowing corridor of egg-shell white. Like the inside of a conch shell, the corridor seemed to whirl ever closer to some still-hidden center. Marrec became certain that the dome’s interior was somewhat larger than the exterior promised. The sounds of his friends’ struggle against Eschar quickly faded behind him. Then the sounds of his muffled footfall on the hard surface competed only with the beat of surging blood in his ears as his heart hammered.

He nearly tripped when Justlance finally, tardily, materialized in his grip. Good, he needed the light that still radiated from its tip.

Marrec couldn’t decide how many full circuits he’d made, each one smaller than the last, but he guessed about nine, when he came to the inmost chamber.

Also dome shaped, rising to a height of at least twenty feet, the chamber was mostly empty.

Nine pedestals graced the periphery of the circular room. The pedestals, equidistantly spaced, stood at the edges of a nine-pointed star inscribed in red across the floor. Most of the pedestals were empty, though each contained a hollow concavity, apparently sized to accept strangely shaped amulets, tools, or other implements that Marrec didn’t want to spend time attempting to imagine.

Five of the pedestals contained items, though to the cleric’s unpracticed eye it seemed that only one of those items was actually the object meant to be housed; none of the other objects fit its particular hollow, shelf, or hangar so snugly. It was a night black cloak, so dark that it seemed a void, which was draped across a perfectly shaped hangar.

The other four items included a dagger made from a red talon, an orb of hazy green set in a golden ring, a sword seemingly forged of pale bone, and a chunk of

white, translucent crystal in which something dark was caught.

What had the Queen Abiding said? “You’ll know it when you see it” or some such.

He sprinted across the floor to the pedestal holding the crystal chunk. Hefting it, his fingers were immediately chilled, and condensation formed, dripping off his hand He gazed into the object, studying that which was caught within. Marrec’s eyes couldn’t seem to focus on it First a smear, then some great winged thing it seemed, then a wriggling worm, then back to a dark imperfection.

The crystal had to be it. He clutched it close. Marrec’s eyes fell across the other items stored in the chamber, obviously precious bits gathered by Eschar. He suspected that all were tainted by association with the failed Nar race. Look what came of them for their congress with demons, he thought. With his single prize, he dashed from the room.

The cleric made to retrace his route, circling outward, but leaving the room immediately spit him into the great cavern. He stood before the open mouth of the dome at the center of the Sighing Vault a little off balance; Marrec’s body thought it should be racing around in wider circles, as it had on entering the dome.

His eyes were filled with the form of Eschar, who was upon him.

Fallon nearly stumbled, his foot catching across the lintel of the dark room into which he pulled himself and Ash. He had a sense that something was following behind him. Too far to see and hear directly, but the elf could sense something closing on him. He hadn’t heard or smelled anything specific or seen a betraying light, but a mixture of subtle clues colluded. The sum of those clues was inescapable, though he knew most people would never know they had become quarry until too late. His sense was accurate enough for him to discern that that which hunted him was not the group sent out by the Nentyarch that had trailed him earlier through that thoroughly inexplicable extradimensional space. Fallon’s pursuer was something far more implacable.

After all, despite his betrayal of the Nentyarch, he was a hunter trained by the Circle of

Leth. His skills were considerable in their own right, even though their use was no longer sanctioned. Oh well, time for yet more unsanctioned activity, he decided.

Fallon adjusted the shade on his hooded lantern to a wider aperture, allowing the finger-thin gleam of light to widen to a cone of amber radiance. His elven eyes, sensitive beyond those of men, studied that which was revealed.

The side chamber glittered in the increased light. Some sort of white dust, like particles of salt, coated the floor, walls, and even the ceiling. Lumps under a powdery coating were scattered across the floor of the chamber. Most of the lumps were fist-sized, but a few were larger, half a foot across bigger. The largest was an elongated lump almost six feet long and a little over a foot wide, though it was tapered at each end.

Another exit poked through the far wall of the small chamber. The dusty covering seemed thicker over there.