He turned and saw a spider bite Zel. His uncle dropped the iron bar and clutched the bloody wound on his leg. The spider, its crystal mandibles stained red, moved in for another bite. Warian was too far from his uncle to do anything but stare with sick horror.
Both Warian and Zel yelped in surprise when Sevaera dashed forward and stomped on the spider with her artificial leg. The woman kicked the creature flat until little remained but a sparkling, bloody smear.
Sevaera tried to put a hand on Zel, but her brother flinched away.
She asked, "Zel, what's going on? I know Father said to hold you, but… plangent spiders?"
Still clutching his leg, Zel said, "Thank you for coming to my rescue. But it doesn't mean I trust you. You're compromised." He limped toward Warian and the exit.
"Aunt Sevaera," Warian began, but stopped. He wanted to invite his aunt to join them-but as Zel said, she was a plangent. How could he depend on her to control her own actions? Shaddon demonstrated that he could possess her at any time, and implied even more frightening aspects of the entity in the crystal.
He decided on a different tactic. "Aunt, you must get those crystal implants removed. Shaddon has gone mad, or he's been possessed, or maybe both. He's able to commandeer the body of every plangent he creates."
"Commandeer?"
"Possess and control every action."
Sevaera gasped and asked, "Did he do it… to me? Just a little while ago?"
Warian nodded.
The woman, already pale, paled further. She said, "I've suspected something wasn't quite right, you know. Too much lost time. And every so often I'd find myself somewhere strange with no memory of how I'd gotten there, or why I wanted to go there."
"Shaddon was testing out his new toys," said Zel, somewhat maliciously.
"I don't… I don't know what to do." Her last words spiraled up in pitch. Tears welled in her eyes. Sudden sympathy for his normally cruel, self-assured aunt took Warian by surprise, and he took a step toward her.
What happened next would haunt his dreams for years to come.
Sevaera's eyes widened in sudden panic, as if she spied something utterly abominable. He'd never seen such naked fear in anyone's expression. She gasped, "Run!"
"Sevaera?" questioned Zel. But a black film glazed the woman's eyes. Humanity leaked away, and what stared out at them was the soul of the void. A grave-cold wind blew up, and Warian's hair streamed toward his aunt. She had become a deep, dark well, and a monstrosity lurked at the bottom.
Her mouth opened wide as if she were about to scream. Instead, without any visible articulation, an awful voice rumbled, "Come to me."
Sevaera's mouth gaped even wider, but Warian saw nothing within but darkness. As her mouth widened, the wind redoubled. Warian had to lean away from his aunt, and Zel grabbed hold of his arm. Fragments of broken crystal from the spiders slid along the floor, accelerating as they neared her. They were sucked without a trace into her mouth.
"Come to me," said the appalling voice once more, louder.
The high-backed chair slid toward the woman. Books flew from the shelves like a converging swarm of bats. Each one disappeared down her maw, getting stuck only momentarily on the edges of her lips. The great crystal hanging from its chain strained toward her. The bodies of the dead spiders, slick with blood, tumbled into the epicenter of her influence, then were sucked down into the metaphysical cavity.
Zel shook Warian. "We have to get out of here, kid!" Warian broke free of his horror trance, grabbed his uncle's arm, and dashed through the exit, skimming past Sevaera. He ran down the short corridor and into the workroom beyond. The radiance in his arm intensified, as did the force pulling him backward. Loose objects in the workroom began to pelt and bounce off him as they arrowed through the air toward Sevaera. "Ouch!" A sealed glass jar filled with greenish fluid knocked his uncle down. Warian didn't stop-he just pulled his uncle forward.
He had to bat away panels ripped from the wall, sidestep sliding benches, and duck candles as lethal as crossbow bolts. Only the enhanced strength granted by his arm saved Warian, again and again, plus lent him enough power to pull his groaning, protesting uncle. The telltale tingle of his arm's imminent failure began to grow in his chest-a cavernous, dead feeling. If he allowed the prosthesis to fail now, they'd be pulled in. Warian glanced back and saw Sevaera walking after him with an awkward, stiff-legged gait. A rain of tools, crystals, papers, lamps, and candles gathered in a whirlwind around her before being pulled in. Warian lost all restraint and pumped the power of his arm to its brightest glow yet. He dashed through the work area, his uncle in tow. Objects seemed to hang suspended as he moved at superhuman speed, almost beyond mortality. But his strength guttered all too soon. He didn't dare swerve toward the side entrance-if he did, they wouldn't make it. His uncle screamed something. He was struggling to get to his feet despite Warian's grip on his arm, but the man's voice was too warped by speed for Warian to understand. Warian couldn't answer, anyway. All his concentration was required to continue on toward the ring of ancient standing stones. He gasped and nearly passed out, but pulled himself through a gap between two of the stones, into the interior of the ring. He ended up someplace quite different.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Essam of the desert-dwelling elves addressed Kiril and the throng gathered in the plaza of subterranean Al Qahera. "The great rock appeared in the wake of a tempest fiercer than most that stalk Raurin.
If you knew the wildness of Raurin's storms, you'd know that this event was singular in its violence. Thus, we call it the Storm Spike."
Kiril gave a heartfelt nod, remembering the wind devil that had pursued them onto the dervishes' doorstep. "So sudden did the storm hit that several of our people went missing, including two of Al Qahera's best archers. We never did learn their fate." A sigh escaped many throats. "They are missed." "When the storm subsided," Essam continued, "we sent foragers to see if the winds had uncovered anything of interest. Every so often, a big storm uncovers some likely artifact, fossilized creature, or other curiosity we can sell for a good measure of grain, cloth, or spice down in Huorm." The swordswoman nodded. She supposed the desert was rife with interesting relics-she vaguely recalled that some old human civilization once claimed the desert as its own-before destroying itself. Faerun had a way of eating civilizations, especially those that overreached themselves. In other words, human civilizations. "Three foragers-Feraih, Ghanim, and Haleem-walked north. The dusts subsided, and a bright dawn, clear of flying sand, lured them onward. Something new glistened on the horizon, flashing prettily in the sun. A day's gallop on camel-back brought the foragers to the desert newcomer." "The Storm Spike? What did it look like?" "At first glance, it seemed like a splinter of purplish stone and dark crystal that reached for the sky. But Feraih was the first to realize that what had really appeared in the desert was a tall, slender tower-a made thing. Made by whom, though, she couldn't begin to guess." Was this the epicenter of darkness Thormud detected, and the destination of their tendays-long quest? "What did they do next?" Kiril asked. "Ghanim and Haleem spied an entrance, and they went inside. Feraih waited outside, in the tower's shadow. When half a day had passed, she went to the entrance and found it sealed.
It looked as if it had always been sealed. She knew that couldn't possibly be true-her friends were within. She tried her rock hammers, minor enchantments of opening, and even prayer-nothing sufficed. The entrance was closed. "After two days, Feraih returned to Al Qahera.
That night, she slept again in her own bed. In the morning, her brothers found her dead. Mas'ud the healer was unable to find anything wrong-he suspected she had fallen into a curse." Mas'ud believed Thormud was suffering from a curse-might they be the same? Anxiety wrapped its prickly cloak around Kiril's shoulders. "So we call the Storm Spike a cursed thing, an intruder in Raurin, and something to steer clear of. Since Feraih returned, no Qaheran has journeyed north to again gaze upon the dark tower, the mere sight of which can curse an observer to her death."