Malyanna’s hair whipped in a sudden wind. She spoke in a voice that boomed like thunder. “Let the Far Realm wash away this world in a tide of unmaking,” she said. “That which was begun so long ago, I bid-”
A swarm of bats descended on Malyanna. The creatures were so many, and their flapping wings so dense, that they instantly concealed her, smothering her words and her limbs. Japheth stood agape as the woman toppled backward under the unexpected assault.
“What the-?” he said. His spell hadn’t conjured the bats.
A shadow swirled down and alit next to the warlock.
“Greetings, Japheth. Almost too late to the party, it seems,” said a voice.
“So I did see you flying after us, through the void,” said the warlock.
The Lord of Bats smirked. “Do you recall when we spoke last?” he said. “You were most convincing. Let it not be said that Neifion was too single-minded to realize when his priorities were compromised. Let’s put this demented eladrin out of the picture, shall we? Then you and I can discuss our differences without interference.”
“Gladly,” said Japheth.
A muffled scream of fury burst from beneath the shroud of flapping bats. Then Malyanna shouted, her singsong tone conveying words charged with power. They boomed across the Citadel and beyond, roiling the mist with their strength. “Come to me, my pets,” she said. “Peel back the barriers at long last. The strictures of the ancient ones are done! See my foes. Eat them, subsume them, and wear their skins as your own!”
Japheth really, really did not like the sound of that. Dread plucked at his composure. He glanced at Neifion, who wore a concerned frown.
The fog began to thin. The warlock’s dread sharpened like incipient nausea as the mist rolled away in all directions, pulling back like the tide going out, far enough to reveal not only the air above but a stark vista that stretched away on all sides of the citadel.
The pale “sun” wavering across the sky was exposed overhead. Also revealed were perhaps thousands of nightmares that fluttered and shrieked above what had been a barrier they could not cross.
Japheth realized he’d been incorrect in assuming the fog was the manifestation of the Far Manifold’s leakage into the world. It had been a blockade.
The fog continued receding in an ever widening circle, uncovering a wide swathe of obelisks that surrounded the ziggurat. It seemed to Japheth that the runes that had lain frozen upon their walls stirred to life.
In the distance, a sustained roar thundered briefly but faded over long heartbeats. The sound faded even as the screams from countless aberrant throats swirled together into a single virulent blare.
Malyanna’s “pets” were coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)
Citadel of the Outer Void
The eladrin noble’s utterance distracted Taal long enough for Raidon to shake off the man’s blow. It’d been some time since Raidon had been caught off guard by a foe’s speed. He’d become reliant on things other than his own skill. In the Citadel of the Outer Void, of all places, it had seemed reasonable to assume all their foes were aberrant to one degree or another.
But Angul hadn’t reacted to Taal’s attack in the least, nor did his Sign burn cold with the man’s proximity. Somehow, the servant of Malyanna was not affected by the woman’s servitude to the Far Realm.
Raidon drove the Blade Cerulean point first into the ground. “Stay here,” he said. Better to divest himself completely, if temporarily, of a weapon not interested in fighting someone as proficient as Taal had revealed himself to be.
He charged Taal, feinted with an eye-jab, feinted with a throat-poke, then put his hips behind a roundhouse kick. Taal took the kick but turned away from it too, so that most of the force was wasted. The human grabbed for Raidon’s leg, but Raidon managed to disengage and hop back.
Taal pressed him, attempting to take advantage of Raidon’s hop.
But Raidon was not off balance; he planted the raised leg and spun around low, lashing out with his other leg to deliver a vicious, hooking kick with his heel just beneath Taal’s ribs.
The human grunted with surprise, but didn’t otherwise waver; he grabbed for Raidon’s foot as swiftly as a striking snake.
The monk managed to dance away from the man’s grasp a second time, but somehow Taal’s thumb found his eye in the process. It wasn’t serious, but it made Raidon pause.
He blinked at Taal from a distance of only a few strides. All around them, the mist fell away. From the corner of his watering eye, Raidon saw all the monsters of the upper air as the fog receded. And it seemed they saw him.
“Do you understand now?” said Taal. “It’s hopeless. You can’t defeat such a multitude. At least I have my oath to sustain me.”
What was the man going on about? Raidon thought.
Then Taal darted inside Raidon’s range. Somehow he threaded a hand past his guard and grabbed the back of Raidon’s neck.
Raidon was able to twist out of Taal’s grip only to find himself launched in the air as his legs were kicked out beneath him.
He knew how to fall. Taal would have had more success if he’d merely dashed Raidon to the ground instead of sending him arcing over it. Raidon tucked his head and rolled into the impact, and used the momentum to spin around and end up standing, facing his antagonist.
The man was a bare-hands fighter, but obviously preferred a style the Xiang temple had neglected. Raidon knew some grappling-reliant techniques, but his school preferred the art of striking with fist, foot, elbow, knee, and even sword. As a stopgap, the Xiang temple taught never to allow one proficient in grappling to get a good hold on you.
A distraction was in order.
“What kind of oath can sustain you in service to this?” said Raidon.
“A magical binding,” said Taal. “Its strictures allow me to endure what you can hardly imagine.”
Raidon snorted. “I’ve also endured a few hard things, Taal,” he said. “The death of my daughter, Ailyn, whom I failed to protect despite her utter reliance on me as her guardian. The destruction of the world and the deaths of all whom I once held dear. I’ve had to cut down, without mercy, innocents whose only crime was to have had the misfortune of coming into the bondage of the Sovereignty and the Eldest. Moreover, I failed to destroy the Dreamheart when it lay within my ability to do so-all these things I’ve endured, and paid for. But neither oath nor duty is why I stand here now, trying one last time to put right all my failures. Oaths have no give-attempting to live by unbreakable strictures breaks the spirit instead. I’ve endured much to stand here, and I do not call on oath or duty to use as a crutch to explain my actions.”
Taal frowned, then advanced by circling in. Raidon kept the man at bay with a push kick that cracked into Taal’s sternum too swiftly for the man to capture.
Taal paused. He said, as if talking while exchanging deadly blows was something he did daily, “You think duty is an excuse, or that an oath is a crutch? What, you don’t believe a person’s word is their bond?”
“Not especially,” replied Raidon. “Circumstances change. What one vows to do may no longer make any sense in light of new information. Bulling ahead anyway is lunacy.”
“Sticking to your word shows conviction!”
“No. It merely shows stubborn inability to change. What’s important is how someone copes with a difficult or impossible situation.”
“And how did you cope?”
Raidon feinted with a side kick, a rising knee, then put his hips behind his next cross, which caught Taal directly on his chin.
Taal stumbled back several steps and blinked.
“My mind broke. I mentally fell to pieces,” said Raidon. He stepped forward to follow his cross with a series of elbows. Taal deflected the first, dodged the second, but took the third across the temple.