CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AIRSPUR
THE YEAR OF
THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
DEMASCUS BUMPED HIS HEAD HALFWAY DOWN THE low-ceilinged stairs and cursed, “Burning dominions!”
Leheren paused a step down from him to offer an accusatory glare.
He motioned for her to continue, embarrassed he’d allowed his thoughts to wander so much he’d fumbled his footing. No matter how many times he turned it over in his mind, he couldn’t remember anything about anyone called Kalkan. Or anything about the Elder Elemental Eye. Yet one or both were trying to kill him! It was driving him to distraction.
When he failed to provide any explanation at his outburst, Leheren gave an angry shake of her head. The motion made her sway, as if she was dizzy.
Demascus steadied her with a hand on the shoulder, but she jerked away from his touch. “I’m fine,” she said.
He knew otherwise. Her eyes, which had been the color of the sky when they’d first met, were so bloodshot it seemed her pupils floated in red crystal. She was obviously running on nothing but fumes, and was probably coming down with something too.
Leheren resumed her trek down the suffocatingly narrow, steep passage.
Should he insist the lieutenant go back and rest? If she continued on for much longer, she was going to collapse from exhaustion.
No; Leheren would only refuse, and he’d gain nothing but an argument and further delay.
He checked to see if the others still followed. Chant noticed and gave a little wave. Demascus nodded, then continued downward.
He didn’t care for the confined stairs. Something about the too-close stone made his eyeballs sweat and his stomach hurt. To say nothing of his head where it had struck the ceiling. If something ambushed them in the confined area, their chances would be miserable.
Leheren reached the bottom of the stairs. Thank all the gods of light and shadow! Demascus eased forward to peer over the lieutenant’s shoulder. The tiny stairwell emptied into the dim recess of a wider area lit by smokeless torches on wall sconces.
Three people talked in the wide hall carved from raw basalt. All wore the red of the Firestorm Cabal. Their armbands were stitched with black jagged spirals.
One leaned against a stack of boxes. Two others were gesticulating at her or maybe at the boxes she leaned on. One was pointing at a large exit to the hall, while the other gestured down the hall in a different direction. An argument about where the boxes were supposed to go?
The only other feature of note was a square column. Each face was as wide across as five people standing abreast. The two column faces Demascus could see each revealed carved images of something he couldn’t make out, one black, the other green.
“I don’t care!” yelled a tall watersoul genasi. “Murmur has enough bees. It doesn’t want any more, and I’m not going to be the one to piss Murmur off.”
“We were told to gather as many bees from around the site as we could find,” said a bald man with red szuldar etching his face. His tone was stubborn and defiant.
“That was last tenday, ash-for-brains. Now we’re looking for scorpions and ants. Get these out of here before Murmur finds out how much time you’ve wasted.” The tall watersoul kicked at one of the boxes.
The buzz from a swarm of angry bees was instantly audible. The woman leaning against the stack hurriedly backed away.
“It seems a pity to waste all this hard work,” said the argumentative genasi.
“You know what will be a pity?” said the watersoul. “When Murmur decides to punish you, and me too for being stupid enough to recruit you to the inner circle! Do you want your quarters to be relocated to the edge of the pit?”
The red glints in the firesoul’s szuldar snuffed out and his eyes widened in fear. He said, “But we’re pledged to the Eye—”
“Don’t be an idiot. You can serve the Eye just as well as food for the pit. Perhaps better.”
Food for the pit? thought Demascus. He imagined some sort of toothed hole in the earth.
Whatever the pit was in reality must have been similarly upsetting, because the two genasi responsible for the buzzing boxes gathered up their stack and walked away down the hall to the left, which was the direction the tall watersoul had wanted them to go.
Lieutenant Leheren suddenly stepped out into the hall.
“Son of a piss-pickled leech,” hissed Riltana. Demascus had to agree. Being impulsive was his job. But there was a time and place for impulsive, and demon cult headquarters wasn’t it. Unless she had a plan …?
“You there,” said Leheren, her voice ringing with authority. “Please explain what I just witnessed.”
The watersoul did a double-take. Then he apparently tried to swallow his tongue, but finally settled on a bronchial cough.
Leheren put her hands on her hips and glared at the man, waiting him out.
“Should we join her?” Chant whispered, who was so close Demascus could feel the man’s breath on his neck.
“No. I expect she’s trying to pretend she’s part of their cult. Revealing ourselves will just muddy things.”
As the man got control of his coughing, he went down on one knee and bowed his head. He said, “Please accept my apologies; I didn’t see you there. Where did you—”
“That’s not important,” said Leheren. “Your name’s Yuriel, isn’t it? I remember seeing you around.”
“Uh … You’ve learned my name?” said the watersoul, his voice breaking into a quaver.
“Yuriel! Focus! What’s going on with those bees?”
Yuriel glanced in the direction the other two cultists had gone, as if wishing he was with them. He swallowed and said, “A minor misunderstanding, nothing serious. One of the outlying salvage teams hadn’t gotten the word that we’re off bees.”
“For the pit,” said Leheren, not quite making it a question.
Yuriel’s hands shook and he nodded. Damn. What was the pit? The lieutenant couldn’t press the man too much on that point, or he’d become suspicious.
Leheren said, “Stand up.”
Demascus marveled. The man was terrified of Leheren. He must assume that because her position was high in the Firestorm Cabal, the same held true in the secret cult. Apparently those high in the cult didn’t treat their inferiors well.
“I said stand up, Yuriel! I want you to do something for me.”
The watersoul scrambled to his feet.
“That’s better,” said the lieutenant. “Now, answer me this; is Lieutenant Jett Var down here?”
“I think so.” Yuriel gestured toward the exit to the hall where the two bee-toting genasi had wanted to go. “Down near the pit. Dealing with the secondary collapse.”
“Secondary collapse?”
Yuriel gave Leheren an odd look.
Oops, Demascus thought. Apparently the lieutenant should have known about that. He tightened his grip on his sword.
Leheren just continued to stare at the watersoul, waiting.
“Ah,” said Yuriel. “The ceiling came down on half the brig. The Motherhouse is still settling. We’re still digging out what’s left, looking to see which sacrifices survived. But you must know that because …”
“Of course I do,” said Leheren. “Now get out of here. I need a moment of peace, and your presence annoys me.”
“Yes … Lieutenant,” said Yuriel. The watersoul watched Leheren for an instant as if for a reaction. Then he gave a slight bow. It wasn’t with nearly the deference he’d first shown, Demascus thought. Should he charge out of the niche and run the watersoul through? The man suspected Leheren wasn’t one of the converted!
Too late. Yuriel took off down the hall so fast he was almost skipping. A few instants later Demascus heard a door slam.
Leheren glanced at the recess where Demascus and the others were keeping out of sight. “Come on,” she said.
They emerged and scanned the hall. Empty, he thought. But if he was forced to fight, at least he had space enough to swing his sword and use his scarf. Instead of making him anxious, as the thought of fighting had in the cramped stairwell, the idea lit a tiny fire of anticipation.
“What now?” Chant said.
Leheren and Demascus walked around the central column, studying the relief-carved figures on each face. Two faces were variations of a huge tentacled thing, and the other two depicted entities composed of burning magma radiating steam.
“This is new,” mused Leheren. “Of course, I haven’t been to the Vault for years. I wonder how long the cult has been active down here?”
Demascus said, “Listen. I think Yuriel figured out you’re not part of the cult. We need to move before he decides to call for help. If he hasn’t already.”
Chant said, “I agree. When Yuriel called you ‘Lieutenant,’ your Firestorm Cabal title, it could have been a test. Someone high in the cult is probably referred to as ‘Grand Elemental Invoker’ or something even fancier.”
“Very well.” She turned from the carved idols and made for the large hallway. “Yuriel said Jett was this way.”
“And the pit,” Demascus added. “Whatever that is.”
The hallway was lit with more smokeless torches. Minor passages gave off either side, but the large doors at the end seemed most promising.
Leheren reached them first and tried one iron ring. “Locked,” she said and relinquished her grip.
Demascus advanced to the doors and gave the pull ring a savage jerk. The door only rattled.
“Let me,” said Chant. The human pulled out his set of lockpicks and bent to the keyhole. Ah, Demascus thought, thank the lords of light that one of us has the wit to be crafty. If I’ve got the half-remembered instincts of a grand-class assassin, shouldn’t I be better at the subtle stuff?
Riltana edged forward to watch the pawnbroker work. Half-recalled muscle memories made Demascus’s hands twitch with each movement of Chant’s tools.
A click of the mechanism told the tale. Chant grinned up at Riltana, then back at Demascus as he stowed his picks.
The door swung easily to reveal a passage lined with iron bars. Desperate-looking captives hunched or lay inside small cells, some of them fastened by chains to the bars. A few were so starved Demascus wondered how they were still alive.
Anger, cold and pure, suffused him. Whoever was responsible would pay for their cruelty. Such brutality could never be forgiven. His hands tightened on the Veil.
Farther along the passage, the ceiling had collapsed on a whole bank of cells. A handful of cultists dug at the rubble, shoveling dirt into carts—thunk, thunk!—and levering stones too big to pick up with iron pry bars.
None of them were Jett. That didn’t matter—by their presence, the cultists were implicated. Demascus focused on the nearest figure, a genasi wearing the arm patch of his new faith over his Cabal jacket. You’re mine, he thought, and his fingers tingled with anticipation.
“Stop!” someone yelled, breaking his deadly focus, leaving a swirl of confusion and repugnance at how excited he’d become over the thought of killing.
But who’d shouted? It hadn’t been his imagination, surely … he whirled, and saw Yuriel plus a posse of cultists crowding the mouth of the corridor.
“We’re blown,” said Riltana. She swept out her short sword.
Demascus said, “Inside! Close the door!”
He pushed Leheren and Chant before him past the threshold. Carmenere and Riltana crowded in behind.
Crossbow bolts clattered and thunked on the door as he and Riltana shoved it closed. Chant clicked the lock, and for good measure, Carmenere threw a bar across the doors. Yells of alarm and outrage sounded outside, but they were muffled. Demascus heard Yuriel’s voice screaming, “Who’s got the key? The key! Well, get it!”
“How much time do we have?” he asked Leheren.
She shrugged. “We need to find Jett, and the deputy commander too, and put a stop to this,” replied Leheren.
The cultists already in the cell bank ahead of them had stopped clearing the rockfall. They stared at Leheren in fear and confusion.
The lieutenant barked, “Where is Jett?”
Something heavy banged against the doors. Yuriel apparently couldn’t find the key.
One of the cultists hesitantly pointed down the hall.
As if on cue, Jett and another cultist entered the corridor from the far end. If anything, the tattoo on Jett’s neck was even more pronounced than the last time Demascus saw the man. The expression on Jett’s face was thunderous, but flickered briefly to amusement when he saw Demascus.
Then his eyes widened as they fastened upon Leheren.
Leheren advanced, her boot heels ringing on the stone. Demascus followed, a pace behind.
She marched past the dumbfounded cultists with shovels dangling in lax hands, until she was face-to-face with the object of her wrath. Jett stood his ground, but the cultist at his side—Demascus suddenly recognized him as Garel—visibly shrank back.
Leheren stared at her fellow lieutenant. His mouth worked, but nothing came out.
Then she slapped Jett, just as she’d done to the first turncoat they’d met. The genasi’s head rocked back. The cultists nearby gasped and one let out a tiny sob of terror.
But Jett had the opposite reaction. He rubbed his cheek, red from Leheren’s hand. His lips slowly curled into a smile, and his shoulders straightened.
He was no longer afraid, Demascus realized. Why?
Jett said, “Lieutenant Leheren. I was worried about your safety in all these collapses. But here you are, walking around and feisty as ever. And you’ve found friends.”
Leheren said, “Surrender, Jett, or I’ll slay you and everyone we find down here. How on Faerûn did you think you were going to get away with forming a demon cult inside the Firestorm Cabal?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied, his voice light. “Maybe because I’m only a co-instigator in all this.”
“Who, then?” said Leheren. “The deputy commander?”
Jett snorted. “No. A demon. It calls itself Murmur.”
A creature appeared from one of the cells as if summoned by the name. It held a limp genasi in one clawed hand. The thing was vaguely humanoid, but only just. Its limbs weren’t meant for anything except rending, striking, and tearing. It had no mouth; only a scatter of blinking scarlet across the otherwise empty face.
The Veil flared. Demascus licked his lips, and pointed his sword tip at the creature.
“Murmur?” Demascus asked. The thing was a nightmare, an offense against common sense, and—
“Hardly,” Jett said. “This creature is one of Murmur’s progeny. It’s called Portalbreaker.”
“A demon?” said Demascus.
“Sort of,” said Jett. He actually chuckled.
Demascus narrowed his eyes. I hate this guy, he thought. I should probably just cut him down right here and now.
Portalbreaker advanced, dropping the limp captive.
“Call it off,” Leheren commanded.
A resounding boom drew Demascus’s eyes in the direction from which they’d come. The doors they’d closed and barred lay on the ground. Yuriel stood there with a parade of cultists.
Riltana yelled, “Bastard pig-straddlers!” The airsoul leaped at Yuriel, and Carmenere followed at a run. So it was going to be a two-front fight. Not good. He automatically noted the positions of Yuriel and the attacking cultists, seeing where each would likely go, and how many would find their progress blocked by their fellows. Which gave him a moment.
He flicked his attention to the front as Portalbreaker charged. Despite all its eyes, it made as if to go right past Leheren as though it couldn’t see her.
It shouldn’t have ignored her; Leheren’s quick sword lopped off one of its arms, spraying clear ichor everywhere.
Portalbreaker wheeled to face the lieutenant, completely quiet even in the face of the wound she’d just dealt. New crystalline eyes popped open all over its body, each shedding fell red illumination. Whatever grace the woman had first enjoyed was gone.
Demascus closed the distance to Portalbreaker while all its attention was on Leheren. His breath came in short gasps.
When he’d fought Inakin in the alley on the way to Carmenere’s, he’d found a sort of power in the gloom, different from the radiant light he’d generated with his sword before that. The shadows had become like physical things, shrouds of dusk eager to bend at his touch. Could he do that again?
Torches lit the hallway, making the shadows dance and die too quickly for him to grasp them. All except for the shadow of the Veil tied around his sword.
The shadow of his scarf seemed to extend like a black ribbon, undulating in a cold wind that blew across a dark echo of the corridor in the real world. What in the name of all the dominions am I seeing?
Portalbreaker’s remaining clawed limb beat aside Leheren’s sword and fastened around her neck. Her mouth opened in a soundless gasp and her eyes went wide. The lieutenant’s sword clattered to the ground as she scrabbled with both hands, trying to peel away the demon’s overlarge hand from around her throat.
Demascus cried, “Let her go!” and snapped the shadow of his Veil. A layer of gauzy dusk seemed to fall across the creature like a shroud.
“Oh,” he said, as he saw what was revealed.
Portalbreaker didn’t notice the billowing film loosely covering it. It continued to squeeze Leheren’s throat. Her feet kicked helplessly in the air. The demon was strong!
But … it also had its weak points. Through the lens of the shroud, the thing’s physical and spiritual anatomy communicated itself to Demascus. He saw seven points of energy glimmering beneath the creature’s flesh. Each point pulsed with a different color and pattern, and each told Demascus one truth about the Portalbreaker, revealing a potent strength, or a surprising weakness.
For instance, he saw immediately Portalbreaker couldn’t be strangled. The bluish energy point at its throat indicated it was not a bottleneck for blood and air as was the case for most living creatures.
Because … it was not really even living! It was some kind of arcane construct of mental energy, demonic ichor, and hideous will. And while swords and other weapons could eventually bring it down, like any physical entity, Portalbreaker possessed a unique vulnerability too.
A golden point of light pulsed in what would have been the solar plexus of a mortal creature. With the shroud’s aid, he saw the spot was a complex knot of energies, looped around and around each other like a seamstress ties off thread.
Demascus glided forward and punched his sword into the creature’s back all the way to the hilt, so that the tip punctured the golden point.
Portalbreaker’s eyes all flared instantly, sending shafts of scarlet light in all dierctions. Its legs lost their strength. The monster crumbled, and its eyes flickered out.
Leheren fell from its claw and struck the ground at the same time as the demon. She lay worryingly still.
The piece of gloom he’d thrown across the monster was gone. Or his ability to discern it had fled. Not that he needed the shroud any longer. The monster began evaporating.
He rushed to Leheren. She wasn’t breathing.
“Lords of light, aid me!” he whispered, and patted his belt for one of Chant’s healing doses.
He saw Riltana run a firesoul through with her short sword, then leap away from the counterstroke like a leaf on the wind. Carmenere laid about her with a mace that glimmered with moonglow. Chant had taken cover behind an overturned torturer’s rack and was firing his hand crossbow at cultists who remained in one place too long. They were holding off the press, thanks in part to the narrow corridor—
“Demascus.”
He jerked his gaze around and saw Jett. The traitor stood with his hands out to either side. Why hadn’t he joined the fight?
“Your demon’s dead,” said Demascus. His questing fingers kept searching for a tiny glass ampule of blue fluid on his belt. He was sure he’d grabbed one …
Jett said, “Murmur can make more, each one twice as awful. It builds them from nightmares. Murmur’s created a whole cadre of them.” The genasi at his side, Garel, nodded in agreement, though he had none of Jett’s insouciance.
“Ah. Well, where is Murmur? And all his nightmare demons? And let’s stop with the code names—I know Murmur is the deputy commander.” Demascus knew no such thing, but maybe he could lure Jett into confirming Murmur’s identity.
Jett shook his head, “It, not he; Murmur hates it when we refer to it as if it had a gender. Anyone who makes that mistake ends up in the pit.”
Why was Jett just standing there? And with that smug look on his face?
“Fine, we’ll do it your way,” Demascus said. “Where is it? Where is Murmur?”
He failed to find the healing potion. He let a finger rest on Leheren’s neck. No pulse, and she was already cooling. Oh, gods, she was dead.
Garel stepped forward and kicked at him, but he dodged. He straightened and backed away from the body, his sword at the ready. Tiny flickers of light danced on either side.
Garel sneered, and said, “Thanks for bringing her back.”
Lieutenant Leheren sat up. Her head rotated like a puppet’s until she found Garel. She’s alive! thought Demascus, and he allowed himself a smile. With her, they might just make it out of here!
Leheren’s hand shot out and clamped on Garel’s ankle. He cried out when she squeezed. Then she pulled the suddenly screaming genasi to her and took a huge bite out of his leg as if Garel were no more able to defend himself than a piece of fried chicken.
“What’s she doing?” came Chant’s unbelieving voice.
“I am hungry,” said a voice devoid of mirth, hope, and humanity. Demascus flinched. The voice had emerged from Leheren’s mouth. But it was the voice of something else entirely.
Her eyes, which earlier had seemed tired and bloodshot, had become orbs of blood-lit quicksilver. Her szuldar shone with the same metallic red light, as if her skin was moments away from splitting.
Demascus couldn’t make his mind work. Had Portalbreaker infected Leheren with some kind of demon sickness?
Leheren said, “Servitor, explain. What am I doing here?” Again her voice was a soulless, scratching parody of the lieutenant’s normal tone.
Garel screamed again, but she casually lifted him then brought his body down on the ground with a body-crunching thunk. Then Garel only grunted through broken teeth.
Jett said, “My lord Murmur.” The genasi’s fear had returned, but he continued speaking, “Your host wandered off when the cell we kept her in collapsed. We had been worried for your safety.”
Demascus said to the lieutenant, “What … who … You’re the cult leader? You’ve been lying this whole time?”
Leheren’s head moved with the same careful precision until she fixed her awful eyes on him. No, not her eyes. Its eyes. What lived behind the facade was no longer Leheren. It was Murmur.
Murmur blanched when it saw him. Its mouth opened in a parody of a scream, and it bawled like some kind of demonic infant. The sound entered his head and beat at his mind like a hammer. He dropped his sword and grabbed his forehead, trying to hold in his suddenly throbbing brain.
Murmur took the opportunity to bound away from him like an insect. It landed clumsily behind Jett, Garel in tow.
“It’s him,” grated Murmur.
Now what? Demascus felt like his brain was caught in burning, thought-deadening oil. He gritted his teeth, and yelled, “Chant! Riltana! Over here!”
But Chant and Riltana were fighting off a new wave of cultists.
Demascus bent, and retrieved his sword with one unsteady hand. The Veil fluttered and shone, while its shadow lengthened and wriggled like a live thing.
Murmur screamed, “The molting is at hand!” and slapped a hand on Garel’s forehead.
“What’re you doing?” said Jett, backing away.
Murmur said, “This one’s oath to the Elder Elemental Eye has come due!”
Then Garel and Murmur both screamed as every szuldar line on Leheren’s body split wide. Her skin sloughed off, revealing raw muscle, viscera, heart, lungs, and brain. Instead of blood, liquid crystal percolated up from between every crevice and fold of tissue, shining with abyssal red brilliance.
As the liquid crystal inundated Leheren’s organs and form, Garel’s body deflated. His scream dwindled to a choking whisper. His limbs crinkled and folded up on themselves, then disintegrated into so much dust. His last utterance was, “No, my soul …”
He was gone. As was Leheren.
The thing that had lived in Leheren remained. It had become a terror of rubbery black limbs veined all over with pulsing arteries of incandescent red crystal. Its lower body was wreathed in a tumble of scarlet crystalline tendrils. Its jaws dropped open nightmarishly wide, and it loosed a birthing call of triumph. The sound was piercing and hideous, and sent a jolt of terror through Demascus every bit as painful as a dagger thrust to his stomach.
“The molting is complete!” it crowed.
Then it said, “Things will go differently this time, Demascus.”
This time? It didn’t matter. Murmur was obviously some kind of demon, and trying to play with his mind. Either way, I should kill it, he thought. Now.
He grasped the shadow of the Veil and let its trailing end drape across Murmur. Through the shroud of gloom that apparently only he could see, Demascus studied the demon.
“Gods,” he whispered, as his certainty withered. “I can’t fight this!”
Seven points of energy blazed through the creature’s partly insubstantial, changeable form. It was equal parts flesh and illusion, but the liquid crystal that was its blood and life-force was wrong in every way. It did not belong on Faerûn. Or even … in this universe.
Murmur, larger than it had been, reached a red-veined black limb into the cells on either side of it. Quick as stooping eagles, each taloned hand plunged into the head of a captive. When they emerged, each one gripped a writhing, incorporeal nightmare.
Demascus stepped back. It was all too much. He was out of his depth. He had to—
Murmur released the entities it had just ripped from the minds of the captives. They inflated as they writhed, and took on demonic shapes. One was a hybrid between a scorpion and a ram. The other some kind of squealing, bubbling mass of slime. Each was a foul monstrosity. Each apparently wanted to eat Demascus.
The slime mass slid straight for him. The scorpion demon jumped then skittered along the ceiling, faster than its sibling, and threw itself down on him.
Demascus deflected the first monster with his sword. But he couldn’t evade the second. It engulfed him with its wet, cold embrace. The venom of its body numbed his skin on contact.
Demascus yelled, “Run!” to his friends as he lost feeling in his legs and arms. He heard Murmur laughing.
He screamed one more time. He tried to tell Chant, Riltana, and Carmenere to save themselves before it was …
Too late.