"You've wanted this," Jak said, and started to advance across the chamber. "Now you've got it. Come on, Zhent!"
Magadon walked beside him, blade bare.
"You won't get away, Riven," the guide said.
"I already have, tiefling," Riven replied with a sneer.
Azriim continued to twist the teleportation rod. Cale tried to shout at Magadon to connect psionically to Riven, but he could not say the words.
Riven looked past Jak and Magadon and toward the cupola's archway.
"They don't look happy," the assassin said, and he and Azriim winked out.
"Coward!" Jak shouted at the empty air.
Cale followed the assassin's gaze and saw six of the Skulls streaming into the cavern. Though they were still far away, Cale could see that their mouths were open, and he heard the howls of rage and dismay that went before them. Lines of energy crackled around the guardians like lightning.
The chamber continued to shake. Stalactites fell in increasing numbers. The net of power formerly visible along the ceiling crackled and sparked, its power failing. It felt to Cale as though the entire chamber was in danger of imminent collapse.
Jak and Magadon rushed to his side and sat him up. Cale hissed with pain as he rose slowly to his feet.
Jak said, "Cale, are you-Trickster's toes! You're soaked in blood."
Leaning on his friends, Cale said, "I'll be all right."
His shadow-infused flesh continued to work its miracle.
A lightning bolt exploded through one of the cupola's archways and blew them across the floor. They all fell face down on the stone. The hairs on Cale's arms stood straight up.
The Skulls are coming, he thought. And they're angry.
"Come on," Cale said, slowly clambering to his feet.
Jak and Magadon at his side, he limped across the chamber to the opposite archway. They stood there on the edge of the tower, looking down on the ruins far below. Soon the lost city would be covered in rock, the chamber forever lost to history.
Above them, the ceiling of the cavern was aglow in intermittent flashes of crimson lightning and showers of sparks. Cale saw some of the Skulls wheeling frenetically around the cavern, preventing what destruction they could, and patching the net of power where possible.
But two others were coming for the tower. Keening, aglow with power, rage, and despair, they blazed toward the comrades.
The tower shook under Cale's feet, nearly knocking him off the side. The world shook above them.
Still bleary-eyed from his wounds, Cale said, "Hold on to me and get ready to jump."
Magadon and Jak went wide eyed.
"What?" Jak asked.
Cale gathered what darkness he could around him. He needed more. It was too bright at the top of the tower.
"Jump, little man," he said. "Together."
Still they hesitated.
Two Skulls streaked into the cupola.
"Your transgression shall result in your slow flaying and prolonged torture, you-"
"Now, godsdamnit," Cale ordered.
Beams of energy fired from the Skulls' eyes.
Jak and Magadon, clutching Cale between them, jumped.
CHAPTER 20
REAPING THE HARVEST
Levitating in midair in the nursery, Vhostym pressed his ear to the trunk of the Weave Tap and blinked against the increasingly bright pulses of power that ran the length of the artifact. Most creatures wouldn't have been able to see much beyond their own hands in the light of those pulses, but even that dim luminescence stung Vhostym's eyes.
From the burgeoning upper limbs and thick, twisted roots of the Weave Tap hung the desiccated, blackened corpses of the captive devas and demons whose life-force had fed the Tap's early growth. Their mouths were thrown open with the pain of their slow, agonizing deaths. The impaled corpses looked like some macabre fruit, as wrinkled, dry and twisted as prunes. Had he touched one of the corpses, it probably would have crumbled to dust.
Vhostym looked upon the dead celestials and fiends without emotion. The weak, he knew, must always suffer the will of the strong. And Vhostym was strong. The creatures died to serve Vhostym's purpose, speeding the growth of the Weave Tap's first seed.
His slaadi had planted that seed at the provenience of Skullport's mantle. Already the seed's tendrils had spread throughout the city, harvesting its power, pooling it. On the other side of Faerun, a wave of arcane energy was gathering and would soon course along the Weave from the blossoming seed back to the Tap, where it would be stored. Vhostym could feel the power rising through the fabric of magic like a gathering tide, could feel it preparing to race toward him like a gale-driven storm.
Vhostym's heart beat faster than it had in centuries. He braced himself for the rush and attuned his vision to see magical power.
The sentience in the Weave Tap also seemed to feel the pooling power. Its roots began to squirm, its limbs to writhe. The movement was so slow as to be almost imperceptible, except that the dried corpses of the demons and devils broke apart in that movement, crumbling into a million black snowflakes.
The silver beat of the Weave Tap's pulse accelerated, faster and faster, gaining intensity. The slight increase in light caused daggers of pain to stab behind Vhostym's eyes, but he endured. He would witness the success of the first step in his plan.
The power was coming.. .
And there it was.
Without a sound, the spirals of diamond embedded in the circular cyst of the nursery began to glow with magical luminescence. The light-not real light, but a perception funneled through the lens of his magic-detecting vision-caused Vhostym no harm. The diamonds flared with the brilliance of a sun as more and more magical energy flooded them. The entire nursery began to thrum with power. The flakes of the demons and devas swirled around the nursery like dust devils. The limbs of the Weave Tap stretched slowly for the diamonds. Its roots squirmed toward the floor, as though attempting to brace itself more fully in the Shadow Weave, against the expected influx of magic from the Weave.
Vhostym waited, savoring the moment. His eyes boiled from the silver pulse of the Weave Tap, and his soul burned with the knowledge that he had succeeded.
With a suddenness that took even Vhostym aback, three thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine diamonds emitted finger-thick rays of magical energy into the Weave Tap. The living artifact was suspended in a grid of arcane power as fine as a fisherman's net. The tree throbbed with power, faster and faster. It's limbs squirmed as though in ecstasy, until its formerly bare stalks exploded amber leaves, each of them throbbing along their black veins with the arcane power contained within.
Abruptly, the connection between seed and mother tree ended. The nursery went quiet. The seed had exhausted itself, had been born, thrived, and died all within a span of heartbeats. In its death throes it had sent the energy from its "soil" exploding along the lines of the Weave, all to be harvested by the Weave Tap, used to grow more seeds, and stored.
Vhostym looked upon the Weave Tap and thought that even partially-powered it was among the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Within the glowing, amber leaves lay encapsulated the power of an archmage-several archmages-and Vhostym could draw upon that stored power at any time.
But he would not yet do so. He had two more steps to complete before he could complete his plan, and for those steps, his own power would have to serve.
His thoughts turned to his children, his beloved slaadi. They had served him well. He would reward them with transformation to gray, but he would not yet give them their freedom, for he still would need their assistance.
He thought of Skullport, and wondered in passing what destruction had resulted from the Weave Tap's draining of the mantle. Perhaps the Skulls had been able to save the city; perhaps not. Vhostym didn't care. He would do what he willed.