“I don’t understand,” Taal said.
Her laughter was beginning to grate on him. “Your servitude is how I’ve planned, all along, to gain entry to the Citadel,” she said. “Its defenses are keyed to obliterate any aberration or entity touched by aberration. Though the structure will still defend itself from intruders no matter their origin, a being who approaches, if he be mortal and born of the natural world, is presumed to be a descendent of the original guardians who created the Citadel. Only lesser defenses stand in such a one’s way.”
Cold realization, like winter’s breath, blew across Taal’s heart.
Malyanna had known he would never accept her insane faith. From her perspective, he’d always been a tool. He’d been kept in reserve against the day the Eldest or she herself stood here before the last obstacle preventing the Sovereignty from achieving its ultimate aims.
She’d used the pride he felt in his own spectacular abilities against him, lured him into a competition, and crowned him the winner, the one who among all had attempted it. He’d proved himself the most “deserving” of being sworn into eternal service.
Then she’d used the oath itself to keep him docile.
He darted forward, his head low, his arms outspread, meaning to catch her in the stomach with his shoulder and smash her to the ground-
When the pain eased enough for him to see, he found himself curled at Malyanna’s feet. She held the Dreamheart, which sparked with purple static.
“Now, get up,” she said. “Hew to the word you gave. If you break your vow now, even the sad mockery of purpose you’ve had all these years will be for nothing. And then I’ll burn your soul out of your fleshy frame, here in this place so far beyond the world that Kelemvor has no way to claim and preserve it. You’ll be lost forever, as if you’d never been, and with no chance for judgment or afterlife.”
Damn her, he thought.
He pulled himself upright.
“After you, Taal,” she said.
Perhaps she was right. He had served his oath all those years without fail or exception. He’d never wavered in his dedication to the letter of his spoken contract. In service to that ideal, at least, he was pure.
There was a kind of satisfaction in that, a kind of solace to be had. Not everyone finds their purpose in life, and few discover one so grand, so cosmic. If it just weren’t so utterly horrific …
Taal called upon the discipline of his training and put the turmoil from his mind. Perhaps an opportunity would present itself later. But at that moment, Malyanna watched him like a hawk.
He mounted the stairs, attempting to contain his thoughts within the bounds of the task before him. With each step, the material beneath his feet shimmered between slate, oak, parchment, bone, and fur. If he squinted ever so slightly, the transformations all ran together. He imagined each change were like his own scurrying desires; whether the stair his foot rested upon was composed of porcelain or iron, it was still a step, and still bore his weight. They were akin to him-no matter the varied motivations that wrestled inside him, one after the next, his oath remained.
Behind him, the remaining flying aboleths came to ground. Malyanna directed them to help drag the petrified form of the Traitor up the stairs with additional care.
Taal paused when he reached the first switchback landing. To continue forward, the procession would have to ford a stream of luminous white water that surged across the landing floor and jetted out over open space; it was the lowest of the falls they’d seen from below.
The fluid emerged from the open mouth of a relief sculpture of a massive humanoid. The mouth was set flush with the landing’s floor. The eyes of the sculpture danced with cerulean flame.
Four cryptlike structures, two on either side of the stream, rose from the landing’s floor. They were composed of rough pieces of basalt dry mortared in place, and did not shift substance like the floor supporting them. Each bore an unfamiliar glyph over an entrance sealed with yet more packed stone.
Nothing moved except the flowing liquid.
He was still studying the tableau when Malyanna came up behind him.
“What are you waiting for?” she said.
“Insight,” he replied.
“Time’s up,” she said as she shoved him. He could have swiveled, used her momentum, and thrown her over his hip so that she flew several feet out onto the landing. Instead, he stepped forward.
The eyes on the relief sculpture burned brighter. A spark leaped from them to the liquid. The fluid took the flame, and burst into an eye-searing trail of blue fire that raced to the end of the water channel. Instead of a shallow stream, a wall of cerulean flame blocked the next leg of ascent.
He raised his hand against the sudden glare. Warmth reached him across the gap, about as hot as he would have expected for a normal fire so large.
He glanced back at Malyanna. She and the aboleths were retreating down the stairs. Where the light touched the aboleths, tendrils of smoke rose. The eladrin noble’s skin went puffy, and she bared her teeth like a cornered wild animal.
“Put out that fire, Taal!” she said and moved even farther down the stairs, until she and her servitor monsters were shadowed from the fiery light by the landing’s lip.
“I live to serve,” he replied.
Taal walked to the sculpture fountain. Was there a mechanism to turn off the flow?
He reached the face in the wall, but the sound of cracking stone made him glance back.
The rocks sealing the cryptlike structures on his side of the burning stream had fallen away; he couldn’t see through the flames, but he supposed the same had occurred on the landing’s opposite side.
Human figures stepped forth from each opening. They were shriveled and gaunt, twisted like bodies mummified by a thousand years of desert heat. They wore loincloths. One gripped a spear tipped with lightning white radiance, the other a sword and shield. The sword’s edge glinted with the same stark glow.
They charged. They moved at least as quickly as living creatures despite their withered demeanor.
Taal turned to face the attack. The sword bearer was on his right, and the one with the spear approached on his left. The spear wielder was also slightly closer, or at least its weapon extended further. As it thrust for his face, Taal deflected the shaft sideways across his body with the open palm of his left arm. The thrust skewed toward his right, enough to momentarily block the sword wielder’s charge.
Even as he deflected the spear thrust with his outside hand, Taal stepped forward along the line of the spear wielder’s charge, his right arm coming up so that his elbow was at equal level with his shoulder, and his fingers pointed toward his attacker. In effect, he’d created a hook.
The creature had no time to react-its rush hurtled it forward so that its neck intersected with Taal’s bicep. He instantly squeezed the thing’s neck tight into his elbow and spun. With its head completely captured by Taal, its body had nowhere to go but where he directed it-which was into the fire.
The sword bearer had untangled itself from its fellow’s spear and was already coming at him.
The second creature attacked, trying to disembowel him with a horizontal cut across his stomach. Taal skipped just outside the swing, then snapped forward again as the tip passed. The thing was quick, faster than Taal had figured; it almost managed to bring the sword back into line before Taal stepped in and trapped its extended sword arm against its body, so that the blade was momentarily immobilized.
He smashed his knee up into the thing’s elbow and heard a satisfying snap.
The creature didn’t react with pain, or even drop the sword as a living opponent would have. However, when it broke free of Taal’s grip and swung at him again, the attack went wide on account of its arm hanging without skeletal support at the joint.