"The scroll was describing the Eldest?"
"Just so."
"How old can it be?" Anusha asked.
"It was old when Sehine cried her glittering tears. Its mind buzzed with a thousand languages when mortals on Toril puzzled out their first expressive grunts. No offense. When it fell into slumber, the world yet rang with the clamor of the primordials' forge hammers. Or so claimed the document."
Anusha prompted, "What did the scroll say about Xxiphu?"
"It claimed Xxiphu's murky and echoing crevices sheltered creatures who worshiped the Eldest as their supreme monarch and divine provider. The scroll described these creatures that teemed Xxiphu as lesser, younger manifestations of the Eldest's quintessential form. They are the Eldest's progeny. Aboleths, of course. The document wrapped up with a warning-the entire vastness of Xxiphu is a city, but also simultaneously a precious seed the Eldest has brooded through the ages "
"Ugh. A seed? What does that mean?"
"No further explanations were written. I suspect it means that one day the Eldest and all its ancient aboleth children will wake from long slumber."
"I think that day has arrived," Anusha said.
The aboleth they followed paused at an intersection. The tunnel split, becoming two lesser paths.
One would have been a continuation of their way, but its character changed drastically. The passage constricted to a third or less in diameter. The mucous light persisted, allowing Anusha to see forward into a twisted, winding maze of irregular tunnels. Attached here and there on naked rock quivered masses of white orbs, gelatinous and pale like fish eggs. That way reeked of brine.
tfA nursery," murmured Yeva.
The other passage was a perfectly circular cavity some few tens of feet in diameter. Like a bore hole, it was smoothwalled and plunged sideways. The passage didn't go far before it ended in a wavering curtain of mist.
The aboleth lit one last obelisk protrusion with purple fire, then slid its bulk into the twisting maze Yeva called the nursery.
Anusha shook her head. "I'd rather not go into the egg tunnels." "Agreed."
They proceeded down the smooth bore hole to the barrier. The watery light caressed Anusha's armor with images of blue-green bubbles. She raised a hand and pressed it into the mist. She didn't feel the least resistance, nor did it feel wet. She retracted her hand. It wasn't any the worse for wear, but…
"I guess that doesn't prove anything," she said. "I can walk through walls as easily as mist."
"Let us go together." Yeva took Anusha's free hand.
They stepped through the barrier.
Anusha saw a massive subterranean vault lit by thousands of tiny purple flames. The air was close, humid, and uncomfortably hot. She was glad she didn't really need to breathe.
They stood on a balcony with a low curb like a halfhearted attempt at a railing. She craned her head and looked around. She saw then the balcony was a tiny part of a far larger structure, one that descended in a clifflike drop below and extended an equally great distance above… it was hard to estimate distances, but certainly many hundreds upon hundreds of feet. The vast space wasn't large enough to hold the object on which they stood-its lower foundations plunged into the cavern's floor, and its heights were clutched within the belly of the cavern's irregular ceiling.
"Look," said Yeva. She leaned far out, pointing down along the face. Anusha obeyed and saw that great patterns were carved on the age-worn exterior of the obelisk, depicting thousands of interconnected images she couldn't quite comprehend. Her stomach flipped when some of the inscriptions flowed and changed their shape even as she watched.
Anusha leaned out farther to get a better look, and an odd sensation fluttered through her. Odd because she'd missed it for so long-it was the feeling she had right before waking back in her body!
But the impression was different, more drawn out. And… the mental current, the psychic undertow as Yeva called it, swelled. The sound of it roared in her ears. Its fervor threatened to yank her from her feet. She was waking, and as she did so, she began to fall upward into the current. Toward the Eldest.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Darroch Castle, Feywild
Winkled men and women the size of toddlers padded through the shadowed castle. Some dusted wainscoting, others polished trophy cases. A few shooed bats from crevices and high ceiling corners.
In the grand study, a lone homunculus looked for droppings behind furnishings, paintings, sculptures, and other of oddities on display. The wrinkled man reached the tall, finely crafted wooden cabinet with a glass face. The little creature had always been fascinated, in his dim way, with this particular piece. Behind the circular face, various wheels moved according to principles the homunculus had no chance of appreciating, but he liked to watch the wheels move all the same. The creature reached out to touch the glass with a craggy finger.
He sighed and let his hand fall to his side. Then he noticed something odd.
He cocked his head, looking with consternation at the wooden cabinet. Despite the candles burning in the chandelier above, the cabinet threw a shadow into the room as if a bonfire raged behind it. The homunculus saw no such light.
The shadow lengthened and deepened, and from its depths stepped the outline of a mastiff. Its coat was shadow given form and girth. The homunculus prepared to screech but paused when he noticed more figures coming through.
A slender-limbed woman glided through next, a creature of poise and pearl white skin, with eyes like the night.
The homunculus immediately recognized her as a fey invader, an intruder from beyond the cavern that contained Darroch Castle.
In their wake stumbled a human. For all his noble's clothing and polished boots, the man was young, overweight, and disheveled.
No more creatures seemed forthcoming. The wrinkled man opened his mouth to scream an alarm, but he managed only a single squeak before the shadow mastiff got him.
*****
Lord Behroun Marhana gasped and rubbed his hands, trying to get some feeling back into them. He'd accompanied Malyanna to the Lord of Bats's domicile down a shifting corridor of shadow once before. If anything, it was colder this time.
Behroun wrinkled his nose as the hound crunched on the tough flesh of a limp humanoid figure the size of a child. He said, "I don't think the Lord of Bats will appreciate your pet eating his servants."
The eladrin noble glanced at him, spearing him with her disconcerting regard. "He has more than he needs. And he so loves making more. He merely requires suitable root stock*She held his gaze, as if leaving something unsaid.
"I guess." Behroun was already out of his depth. The more he tried to assert his own independence, the more Malyanna proved he was nothing but a pawn. His fear of her was equaled only by his hate, impotent as it was. Had it been his idea or hers to free Neifion from his never-ending feast so the Lord of Bats could lead them to Japheth?
Neither-it was a mutual decision, he told himself. The idea of releasing the archfey from Japheth's curse scared Behroun, but it was either that or destroy the pact stone.
Malyanna was tired of waiting. And really, so was he.
Malyanna told her hound, "Stay, Tamur." The beast continued to chew, not deigning to look up at its mistress.
The eladrin noble made her way to the stairs. Behroun followed, happy to leave the sound of crunching bones behind.