Shaddon said, "That doesn't bode well for my health, does it?"
Eined gasped. Ususi put a hand to her mouth. Even Iahn seemed taken aback. In his stoic fashion, he blinked.
"Don't worry, you strangers who've appeared out of the blue to kindheartedly warn me of the shortfalls of the plangent program. I know something of the 'infection' of which you speak."
"Then why haven't you closed the mine-and with it, the Body Shop?" demanded Eined.
Shaddon laughed.
"Because," guessed Ususi, "Shaddon himself is the source of the infection. He can influence the minds of those closely associated with the crystal." But even as she said it, she wondered.
Ususi continued. "Which means you've been aware of us for days, as we approached Vaelan, then took the ship across the Golden Water-you've been attacking us!"
The man appeared genuinely surprised. "You think I've been attacking you?"
"You deny you can influence those with prostheses you install?"
"Can't deny it," said Shaddon, grinning, his crystal face deforming as if flesh. "I know the secret of branding each crystal I make so it serves as a conduit for persuasion. My influence is strong with everyone who possesses the enhanced abilities of a plangent. In fact, I can do more than merely influence. But, sadly, I'm not the only one who can access the crystal conduits I've fashioned."
"Who else? Xaemar? Zeltaebar?" demanded Eined.
"No. Unless you're lying," he told Ususi, "the creature that watched you, for reasons I'd like to discover, is called Pandorym."
Shaddon shuddered slightly when he said the name.
The vengeance taker shot a look at the wizard and said, "That name was used by one of the creatures that hunted you before I slew it. I forgot it spoke that name until just now."
Ususi cocked her head. Pandorym… Pandorym. The name was familiar. Something she'd read about long ago, something to do with ancient Imaskar. Then she had it. Her eyes widened. Of course, Pandorym was one of the first subjects she'd studied before she bypassed the Great Seal of her hidden city. Like many ancient, fell magics, Pandorym was supposedly stored safely in the Celestial Nadir.
It was one of the things she'd researched so she could steer clear of the creature's cage, should she stumble upon it during her quest.
"Ususi," pressed Iahn, "do you recognize the name?"
"Yes," she replied.
Shaddon took a step forward, strangely intent on the wizard. He said, "I could be destroyed for even asking this-but tell me more.
Quick!" He glanced back down the cavern he had come through. Ususi caught some faint sounds, like glass shattering and distant yells, but perhaps she was mistaken. She let her memory of the tome she'd found in the Purple Library swim before her eyes.
"Pandorym is the name of a doomsday weapon of sorts, a prototype entity conscripted out of desperation by the ancient Imaskari," said Ususi. "At least, so the records indicate in the Purple Library. It was designed solely as a deterrent, but a deterrent so potent it would give pause even to deities bent on vengeance."
"Why vengeance?" wondered Eined.
"Nothing stirs the gods' wrath like the wholesale enslavement of their believers. Which is exactly what the ancient Imaskari were guilty of. They needed labor to support their expanding civilization.
The wronged gods' world-shaking anger exposed the Imaskari Empire to divine retribution. Thus, the Imaskari prepared their deterrent-Pandorym."
"What is Pandorym?" demanded Shaddon, moving a step forward. The crystal on his face, as well as more crystal apparently hidden under his clothes, began to gleam.
"I don't know exactly what it was. Is. Like I said, the records, what I can remember of them, claimed Pandorym was a deterrent. Like all deterrents, they believed Pandorym would never be used. Or possibly-I'm not sure-he was too potent to be controlled."
"But they eventually unleashed Pandorym, is that right?" said Shaddon, his crystal eye blazing with intensity.
"No. They didn't have the opportunity. True, Imaskar's ruins litter the empty places of the world. However, it was not Pandorym that brought them low-the Imaskari were never given the chance to offer detente. The raging gods and their empowered champions among the enslaved ended the Imaskari reign before the threat of the Pandorym doomsday entity was ever made. All their plans, weapons, and desperate schemes came to naught."
"But Pandorym is loose now," insisted Shaddon. "It is in the crystal. It reaches out through the new crystal I use for artificial limbs and organs!"
Ususi looked at him. "How did you find the crystal?"
"I found bits of it here in these caves. But a while back, I found an inactive portal to a nether space. After a few years of examination, I forced open the portal and discovered a demiplane of great age. In this space was a massive tower of ancient construction, cold and dead. I also discovered a mother lode of the purest crystal, which I've been putting to use ever since."
A great crash and the faint sound of a distant, roaring wind issued from the tunnel behind Shaddon.
Ignoring these noises, Ususi addressed the elder Datharathi. "You fool! The portal to this 'nether space' of yours-where is it? You have unstoppered Pandorym, who was held safely for millennia!"
The crystal-faced man only muttered, "I wonder…"
"Grandfather, is it true? Is all this your fault? Have you done this willingly?" yelled Eined. She rushed forward, one hand raised in either accusation or anger.
Shaddon pointed a gloved finger at his granddaughter, as if to gainsay her question. Instead, a slender ribbon of darkness burst from it and struck Eined in the chest. She gasped, surprise turning to horror. She fell, sprawling to the ground.
The vengeance taker rushed forward and swung his dragonfly blade at Shaddon. The crystal-covered man swayed back, just beyond the arc traced through the air by the blade's tip. Shaddon pointed his finger again, this time at Iahn. The vengeance taker simultaneously raised his own hand, and with a mumbled syllable of warding, shredded another dark ribbon into so many threads.
The sound of the wind escalated in the corridor beyond, then suddenly fell to nothing.
"Shaddon," yelled the wizard into the sudden quiet, "why must we fight? We…"
An icy breeze froze the words in Ususi's mouth. The crystal that sheathed Shaddon's face no longer glowed violet-it became a mask of utter night. Black vapor streamed away from Shaddon's body like the sun's corona, if the sun had been a source of darkness instead of light.
A lifeless voice rumbled, "I recognize you, Imaskari scions. I will be revenged upon you." The words were an archaic form of the Imaskaran tongue that Ususi had assumed was remembered only behind the Great Seal.
The wizard stumbled back, her hands already tracing the outlines of a powerful ward. As she did so, she asked, "Why?"
"It must be so," thundered the terrible voice. The blot of darkness that obscured Shaddon's form swelled. "Your bloodline is Imaskaran. Imaskari remnants will be expunged first. Imaskar will fall. I will take the keystone you carry."
Ususi finished her spell, and a blue glow took up residence on her skin and garments-the telltale sign of protective magic. She edged over to where Eined lay and touched the woman. She could pass the protective glamour to any living creature.
The glow did not pass from the wizard's finger into Eined.
Shaddon, or Pandorym, had killed her.
Ususi stood and said, "I won't give a monster like you anything!"
"I do not ask."
The possessed form of Shaddon stretched its arms to both sides.
From every finger, dozens of umbral ribbons burst and swirled through the air at Ususi.
The strands, in the hundreds, fell upon her glittering blue aura and broke. But her aura's potency was halved, as shown by the weakening of its glow. Where each ribbon had grazed the ward and shattered beyond its radius, lingering coolness pressed on Ususi's skin, promising worse with Shaddon's next salvo.