The Eye of the Chained God Read online

  “I noticed the gatehouse under construction,” said Immeral. “Impressive. Although I was surprised to find you all still here. I would have thought you’d have gone after Vestapalk. What happened?”

  The room went suddenly quiet. From where she perched behind Immeral, Splendid raised her head. Albanon resisted the urge to shrink back in his chair. No one said anything and for a moment he even dared hope they’d keep their silence.

  Then Belen’s fingers jabbed at him. “Albanon won’t let us leave.”

  There was a collective intake of breath from the others but still no one said anything. Albanon caught eyes flicking to him, even Tempest’s. Belen’s face crinkled into a scowl and she glanced around the room. “We all know it. He’s the one holding us back.” She looked at Immeral. “He almost didn’t come with us to rescue you.”

  The huntsman’s face remained impassive but Albanon caught the slight motion as his eyebrows pinched together. “My prince?”

  “I didn’t know it was you, Immeral,” Albanon said, then winced at his words. “I mean, it didn’t matter who it was. There was never any question of not helping. I just wasn’t prepared.”

  “You seem over-concerned with preparation lately.” Roghar’s voice was slow, as if he was trying to find something to say without insulting Albanon. “You ask for a day, then another day, then another while you search for some special way to defeat Vestapalk.”

  “I haven’t found anything yet,” said Albanon. “I will find something, though. I know it. I’m still searching.”

  Uldane sighed and shook his head. “No, you’re not.”

  Albanon’s head snapped around to the halfling. “I am!”

  “Lies,” said Splendid softly.

  Fire burned in Albanon’s face, from the tips of his ears all the way down his neck. He looked to the one person who had not yet spoken, but Tempest’s face was hard.

  “You didn’t want to try pushing the limits of the spell that distracted the demons,” she said. “And when you did, you screamed.”

  “I said I overextended myself. It hurt.” He tapped his head. “Here.”

  “That wasn’t a scream of pain. I know pain.” Tempest’s face tightened further. “That was a scream of resistance, like you were fighting something off. Over the last few days, I’ve seen you be more careful with your spells than I’ve ever seen any wizard, warlock, or sorcerer. You’re hiding something from us, Albanon.”

  He felt his stomach churn. Fear surged through him, but it was fear mixed with a peculiar anger. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” he snapped. “Don’t you accuse me after the things I’ve experienced.” He stood and turned his back on them all, storming out of the room and striding up the tower’s twisting central staircase.

  Four turns up, he had to pause and brace himself against the wall as waves of nausea swept over him. By the three worlds, what had he just done? What were the others saying or doing now?

  Did it matter?

  Albanon fought back the nausea, wiped sweat from his face, and continued up the stairs.

  The room at the very top of the Glowing Tower had been Moorin’s study. Shelves bearing the trophies of a long life lined the walls. Tables scarred by research stood around the room. It was also, however, where the demon Nu Alin, in pursuit of the Voidharrow, had slaughtered Albanon’s old master, dismembering the body and spattering the whole room in whorls of blood. And it was where Kri had nearly succeeded in freeing the dark god Tharizdun from his dimensional prison.

  In his gut, Albanon knew that he should probably have stayed away from the study, but he couldn’t. The room—or something in it—drew him. He’d spread the books and scrolls that he had brought back from the tower of Sherinna—his grandmother and founder of the Order of Vigilance—out on the tables. He’d spent most of the last six days studying them. Or at least making a show of it. To his shame, Uldane and Splendid were right. How much time had he actually spent studying Sherinna’s papers? How much simply staring out the room’s windows at the devastation of Fallcrest or at the litter of sharp-edged reddish fragments that were the remnants of the gate Kri had created to free his mad god? To his wizard’s senses, some of the larger fragments still pulsed with dormant power, not malevolent but simply untapped.

  More than once he’d found himself sifting through the fragments. The crystal they had been part of had caused so much trouble. First Nu Alin, then Kri had used it to try to free Tharizdun. In a way, everything had begun with that crystal. Sherinna had recorded the sight of the Voidharrow flowing into the world for the first time through the gate it had created. If Nu Alin had never found the crystal, there would be no Voidharrow. No Abyssal Plague. No Vestapalk—at least not as they knew him. No Plaguedeep. Albanon picked up one of the glittering fragments, a tapered oval no bigger than his thumb, and rubbed its rough surface. How could something so small be a part of so much chaos?

  The sound of light footsteps came up the stairs. Tempest or maybe Uldane. Albanon dropped the fragment and turned, ready for a confrontation. The figure that appeared in the doorway, however, was Immeral. The huntsman looked around the room without speaking. Albanon held his tongue. Immeral had been part of the battle against Kri. He’d seen the tentacled creature of darkness Kri had become under Tharizdun’s power. He’d experienced that power first hand.

  To Albanon’s surprise, however, Immeral went to one of the tables and ran his hand over a book with the light, reverent touch he’d have expected from a scholar more than a hunter. “Sherinna’s books,” Immeral said.

  “Yes,” said Albanon. “How did you know?”

  “Her symbol is on the binding, of course.” Immeral’s finger traced an Elven glyph worked into the leather. He fell silent for a moment, then added. “I knew her.”

  “You did?” Albanon had never known his grandmother. Until Kri and his father had revealed it, he’d certainly never known she had played a role in the fight against the Voidharrow. “What was she like?”

  “Very old when I was very young. I think she enjoyed spending time with a simple hunter’s child. I didn’t know then what she had been. I only found out later how learned and great a wizard she was and how many of our people revered her.”

  “I didn’t even know that much for a long time. My father never really talks about her.”

  Immeral nodded. “I see little of your father in you, my prince. I see a great deal of Sherinna, though.” He looked up at Albanon. “No one will tell you this, but she succumbed to weakness in her final days. She drove others away from her and became secretive. I believe she was afraid of what they would think of her or maybe of how she’d be remembered.”

  Albanon blinked, then ground his teeth together. “Are you saying that I’m—”

  The huntsman spread his hands. “I’m saying,” he said in a voice that was as cool and sharp as the point of a dagger, “that I think you have the potential to be as great as Sherinna. I’ve fought at your side. Your spells saved me and my men. But I’m also saying that Sherinna, for all the good she did and all the magic she wielded, was only mortal. So are you. The difference is that Sherinna’s fear and pride took the best of her when she was very old, not when she was only just reaching her prime.”

  Breath hissed between Albanon’s teeth. He might have spat a retort, but Immeral didn’t give him a chance. “When I was in Moonstair, I heard stories from other travelers about the effects of the Abyssal Plague elsewhere in the world. There are riots in Nera—they’re burning anyone suspected of carrying the plague. Dwarf communities are sealing their gates. Lizardfolk are going to ground in the heart of the fens and killing everything that moves. There are rumors in certain isolated places that anyone with red hair can spread the plague. Other places blame it on tieflings. And that’s only fear of the plague. They say that where the infection has taken hold, whole regions are empty except for the demons that used to be the people who lived there. If even half the stories are true, the devastation is terrible.”

  For t
he first time, blotches of color appeared in Immeral’s cheeks and fury entered his tone. He leaned close to Albanon. “Your father has blocked the Moonstair portal, but you … You know the source of the plague. You have the chance to put an end to it. Why haven’t you?”

  Albanon’s anger left him, replaced by shame. “Don’t ask me that,” he said quietly.

  Immeral stepped back. “Then you need to ask yourself who you want to emulate: Sherinna at her best, giving her all to aid others, or Sherinna at her worst, alone because she feared revealing her weakness.” He turned away. “Your friends are waiting below. I’ll wait on the stairs. If you want me to tell them you won’t be coming down, I’ll carry the message.”

  Albanon watched Immeral’s back as he strode to the door. The decision before him was the same one he’d wrestled with for six long days—except that Immeral had put it in terms he hadn’t seen before. The only images he’d seen of his grandmother portrayed her as wise and vigorous. He tried to picture her as old and frail, alone with her pride. Perhaps even a little … mad?

  He looked around the study, with Sherinna’s books and Moorin’s trophies and the shattered remains of Kri’s foul gate. He tried to picture himself old, surrounded by those same sad relics.

  Albanon, Tempest had said earlier, if I worried about people judging me by my appearance, or what they think of me, I’d never go out my door.

  “Immeral,” he said. “Wait.” He swept the study with his gaze once more. He needed something, a talisman to remind him of the importance of what he was doing. Moorin’s and Sherinna’s possessions seemed dead suddenly. He bent, scooped up the oval fragment of the gate he had held before, and squeezed its sharp edges in his palm. “I’ll walk down with you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Albanon stood with the cold fireplace of the sitting room at his back and all his friends gathered before him. “I haven’t told you,” he said, “everything that happened while Kri held me in Tharizdun’s power.”

  None of the others moved, not even Uldane. Albanon felt the urge to shift where he stood or maybe even to walk around the room. He forced himself to remain still, to focus the way Moorin had taught him to. “You know I saw Shara and left her to face plague demons without helping her. You know I helped Kri fashion the gate he tried to open for Tharizdun. What I didn’t tell you”—he hesitated, the words catching in his throat—“was that I liked it.”

  That brought movement. Nothing drastic. His friends seemed to understand that he did not take this lightly. A frown from Roghar. A creased brow from Immeral. Uldane bit his thumb, Belen twitched, and Splendid raised her head as if he’d only just captured her attention. Only Tempest didn’t move at all. Albanon kept his attention on her face and her eyes. A warlock bargained for power with dark and alien entities. If any of the others truly understood what he had to say, it would be her.

  “I was mad,” he continued. “Nothing made sense—or rather, everything made sense. I saw things I’d never seen before. I understood things I’d never even wondered about. But most of all, I knew how spells worked. It all became numbers. Mathematics. Volume. Distance. Space.” His heart started to beat a little faster. His head started to whirl. Even talking about the magic of numbers that he had so casually contemplated during those dark hours was almost intoxicating. Albanon took a deep breath and concentrated on Tempest. “By manipulating numbers, I knew I could scorch the fields across half a farm or freeze the Nentir River solid. It was terrifying. It was incredible.”

  He swallowed. “I still feel it. I know that if I’m not careful, it could overwhelm me. Part of me wants to just give in and use the magic to its fullest potential. That’s why I’ve been so cautious with my spells.” He glanced at Roghar. “That’s why I resisted when you told me to set fire to the inn. And why I screamed after I cast the spell. You were right, Tempest. I was resisting something.”

  The tiefling nodded and a corner of her mouth twitched into a smile. “I thought the way the inn exploded was a little too spectacular for a half-trained wizard.”

  She was baiting him, trying to lighten the mood. Another time Albanon might have risen to her taunt. Not now. He shook his head. “So much has been happening,” he said. “Vestapalk almost turned me into a plague demon—I still wake up sometimes feeling like the Voidharrow is in me, reshaping my flesh and bones. Then Kri made me a thrall of Tharizdun. Sometimes I think I’m not quite right anymore.” He swallowed again and looked around at them once more. “Sometimes I’m afraid that I’m still a little bit mad.”

  The others were still and silent for a moment longer—just long enough for Albanon to wonder if his confession had truly frightened them. Then Roghar stood up. “I’d be more worried if you weren’t afraid.” He smiled warmly and held out open arms. “If you’re wounded, we’re here to help you heal. This is why you’ve been delaying going after Vestapalk? You could have told us any time.”

  Albanon stepped back from the paladin’s embrace. “It’s not the only reason. There’s something else.” He looked at Belen and spoke the words he hadn’t dared speak aloud before. “If we go west after Vestapalk, we’re heading the wrong way.”

  Roghar froze, a confused look on his face. Belen’s eyes opened wide, then narrowed. “What do you mean? Vestapalk is west. The Plaguedeep is west. I see it in the memories Nu Alin left in my head. I described the volcano to hunters and scouts who know the land west of the Ogrefist Hills. They recognize the place. They gave me directions.”

  “I know,” Albanon said quickly. “I know. I trust you. I’m sure that’s where Vestapalk is. But we need to go north.”

  “Why?” asked Tempest.

  He pressed his lips together for a moment before answering. “The morning after the attack on Fallcrest, I woke up with a strange feeling right here.” Albanon touched fingers to his chest, just below his breastbone. “I thought it was just my imagination or maybe a bruise, but it’s nothing physical and it’s not imaginary. It’s like being homesick. Somewhere up there”—he pointed and knew in his gut that he pointed absolutely unerringly—“is a place I’ve never been, but somehow I feel like I need to go back there.” He grimaced. “We need to go back there. All of us.”

  “Before we go looking for Vestapalk,” said Roghar. Albanon nodded. “How do you know that?” the dragonborn asked.

  “It’s like a splinter in your finger. When you first look, all you see is the end of it, but if you poke and squeeze it, you see more.” Albanon abandoned his attempts to stand still. His nerves were twitching inside him and he started to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace. “I focused on it as if it was a spell I was trying to master. Whenever I thought about confronting Vestapalk, it got so intense I felt sick. But if I thought about going north, especially if I thought about all of us going north, it was easier.” He glanced up at the others. “I think that whatever’s out there is something that will help us defeat Vestapalk and the Voidharrow.”

  “You said that’s what you were looking for in your books!” Belen growled.

  “Because I’d rather have reliable guidance than some weird feeling I can’t explain,” Albanon snapped back at her. The fragment of the gate was still in his hand. He clenched his fist around it, finding something reliable in its hard shape. The others fell silent again. Albanon could hear his own rasping breath.

  After a long moment, Uldane raised his voice for the first time. “Halflings have a saying: when the river takes your barge pole, there’s nothing to do but ride the current until you find a new one. Maybe we should follow Albanon’s feeling and see where it leads.”

  “But you know where a river goes,” said Tempest. “We don’t know where Albanon’s feeling goes. Or where it comes from.” She met Albanon’s gaze. “Don’t you find it odd,” she said, “that this feeling came on after Kri used Tharizdun’s power against you?”

  “No,” said Albanon quietly. “I don’t find it odd at all. That’s the other reason I didn’t mention it to anyone.” He shoved the gate f
ragment deep into his pouch and took a chunk of half-burned wood from the fireplace. With the charred end, he drew on the wall of the sitting room. “When I search my feeling for understanding, this is what I see.”

  He stepped back so that everyone could see what he’d drawn; a jagged spiral spinning into an empty circle. Roghar recognized it before anyone else and hissed.

  “The sign of Tharizdun. The eye of the Chained God.”

  “Yes.” Albanon dropped the stick back into the fireplace and wiped his hand. “Kri told me something about the origin of the Voidharrow. It’s connected to Tharizdun’s previous attempts to escape his imprisonment—but it sounds as if Tharizdun has lost control of the Voidharrow since then. Maybe helping us defeat Vestapalk is Tharizdun’s attempt to regain control.” He turned to face his friends.

  “I know where my feeling comes from,” he said. “The question is whether we follow it north.”

  “Do you have any idea what’s waiting for us?” Tempest asked.

  Albanon shook his head. “None at all.”

  He floated in darkness. There was no sound. No sensation. No hot, no cold. No up or down. If it were not for the feeling of his own hands touching his face and body, there would have been no way of telling where he ended and the darkness began.

  Is this what it is like for you, Chained God? He couldn’t tell if he thought the question or spoke it out loud. There seemed to be no difference. Is this what it was like when the other gods shut you away from creation?

  Another idea occurred to him, one that sent a thrill of possibility from his head to his unseen toes. Am I with you now?

  The answer came upon him in a burst of brilliant light that dazzled him yet somehow did not penetrate the darkness. By its radiance, he saw entities of vast and perfect power come together in judgment against one whose only crime was marring their perfection. He cried out at the majesty of the scene. Or maybe he cried out because he knew it was only a dim reflection of true events and that if he had seen the entities in their full glory, his eyes would have burned in their sockets because he was just a man. Or maybe he cried out at the injustice committed by those too blinded by their own vision to recognize the strength a seed of imperfection might bring to the world.