The monk came down in a clear space, rolled twice, and was on his feet running forward again in one continuous movement.
A gangling horselike creature without a face tried to scramble out of Raidon’s way, so he ignored it, until one of its dozens of flailing hooves caught him in the shoulder like the blow of a mace. The force spun him around, and Angul lopped off the offending leg without his conscious direction. A heartbeat later, the pain of the strike was also smoothed away by the Blade Cerulean, and Raidon rushed on.
He reached the raised dais of pitted metal directly in front of the Far Manifold. The crystal’s overpowering size, the horrific images that squirmed behind it, and the crack that marred its face, promising apocalypse, finally gave the monk pause.
Malyanna stood before the gate as if it were merely a backdrop prepared for her presence. The woman’s eyes were flickering points of starfire. She wielded the Dreamheart in one hand like a mage’s implement. From it emerged erratic bolts of pale energy. The bolts struck a massive bat lying twitching on the ground at her feet.
Was it Japheth? Raidon wondered. No, it was Neifion, fighting Malyanna!
The giant bat shuddered. Neifion screeched out an invocation, and his bat wings burned with shimmering emerald light. Neifion leaped at the eladrin noble, and attempted to encircle Malyanna in his ensorcelled wings.
Raidon jumped onto the dais. Between them, he and the Lord of Bats-
A shadow sunk teeth into his neck, and a black paw raked his side, scraping away a swathe of skin. He’d forgotten about the Shadowfell mastiff.
The shadow hound shook its head, its hide rippling night, as it tried to snap Raidon’s neck.
The monk twisted, and drove his elbow into the side of the dog’s face with all of his weight.
Tamur howled, and its jaws relaxed. The monk spun away. Warm, sticky blood poured down his arm and torso, and a wave of dizziness made the monk falter. Where blood ran across his spellscar, it flashed into coppery steam.
The thing had nearly torn out his throat! Raidon thought.
We have no time to deal with this beast, said Angul. The blade sent a jolt of energy through its hilt, and Raidon’s pain and weakness lessened. He assumed the rent in his neck was closing.
Tamur didn’t wait-it advanced on Raidon with its hackles up and its teeth bared. Its growl was distant thunder. It had no fear of the aberration-burning fire; it was a creature of Shadow.
The shadow mastiff yelped in surprise as blood, red as the monk’s own, burst from its side. The dog tried to bite the empty air, but found no purchase for its teeth.
Another slash opened on the dog’s flank. It proved too much. Tamur bolted, its tail between its legs, blood pooling behind it.
Raidon was as surprised as Tamur. “Who-?” he started to call.
“It’s me, Raidon!” came a disembodied voice. Anusha!
“Where’s Japheth?” she said. He didn’t waste time trying to locate her exact position-his regard returned to Malyanna and Neifion’s conflict.
“Answer me!” came the woman’s voice from directly in front of him.
“He’s here,” Raidon said, “He’s alive. He’s somewhere off that way.” He waved to where he and the warlock had been set down on the ziggurat’s top by the griffon.
“Oh gods, thank you,” she murmured.
“Malyanna used the Key of Stars to unlock the Far Manifold,” said Raidon. “The crack is the precursor of the portal giving way completely. I don’t know why it hasn’t. Maybe the warlock is using his powers to hold it in check?”
“He is?” asked Anusha.
“Something is slowing it,” said Raidon. “Which may give us a chance!”
He took a step, but weakness made his legs tremble. His focus kept frustration at bay.
“Heal me, Angul,” he urged the sword. “Completely!”
Your head was nearly off, the sword returned. Bide a moment longer.
Raidon saw that Neifion had regained the air. The archfey folded his wings and dived at Malyanna. The woman scrambled to the side, but one massive wing cracked across her sternum. The blow knocked her head over heels across the dais. The Dreamheart went flying from her grasp. She landed in a heap, but her smile never left her face.
She rose, her limbs coming down to her sides as her head rose up, as if she were being drawn up by an invisible string. For some reason, the sight clawed at Raidon’s focus.
The Lord of Bats stood where Malyanna had before he’d sent her sprawling. “Close the gate, bitch of Winter’s Peace, or I will take every last drop of your blood,” he said.
The archfey advanced.
“Blood is overrated,” Malyanna said.
She glanced down. Raidon thought she’d look for the Dreamheart, but she seemed fascinated by the oily sludge seeping through the Far Manifold’s crack. It was glossy black, but within it, Raidon saw winking stars, nebula, and the hint of space without end.
The eladrin extended a toe as if testing the water.
“Acamar, corpse star and eater of your kin; lend me your all-devouring regard!” she yelled.
Rivulets of darkness poured up her leg. In a twinkling, Malyanna was covered head to foot in a shroud of night. She had become an eladrin-shaped puncture in the air. A cold wind howled, as the very air around Malyanna was drawn in.
Neifion halted. “What blasphemy from the Hells’ nethermost crater have you called upon yourself?” he said, his tone incredulous.
The thing that was Malyanna had no mouth but darkness. Her eyes were twin celestial whirlpools, one red, one blue. Her elaborate gown, which she’d somehow managed to keep pristine up to that moment, began to shred and tatter, as if mere contact with the midnight flesh was anathema to normal matter.
Malyanna’s voice rang in the air, sourceless. “You should have stayed true to our alliance, Neifion,” she said.
The avatar in Malyanna’s shape raised a hand, its palm facing Neifion. The howling wind increased tenfold, and the Lord of Bats was drawn across the intervening space.
Raidon felt the same tug of attraction, but the dais’s solid edge against his shins allowed him to resist the pull.
Neifion was not so lucky. The Lord of Bats scrabbled and tried to dig his claws into the metallic surface beneath him, but to no avail. He collided with the smaller figure.
When Malyanna’s hand touched Neifion, his wings melted to nothing and his great size withered away. He was, once again, a pale bald man, immaculately dressed, but gripped around the neck by a creature of devouring night.
“Good-bye, Neifion,” said Malyanna.
“Japheth, I bequeath thee my strength-,” the Lord of Bats yelled.
Raidon flinched as Neifion was ripped apart, then dragged down to disappear in the unending darkness of Malyanna’s empty form.
“Oh,” came Anusha’s voice from somewhere close.
Oh, indeed. Raidon hadn’t expected the Lord of Bats to fall so suddenly. He shouldn’t have taken the moment to rest, but should have joined Neifion while the archfey kept her partly distracted.
The monk jumped up onto the dais. His strength wasn’t yet completely returned, but the pain in his neck was a memory suppressed by Angul.
The eladrin’s blank regard turned on him. The wind howled, and he slid toward her wide-armed embrace.
Raidon concentrated on the Cerulean Sign. Clear light burst from his chest and washed forward, enveloping Malyanna.
The moment the sapphire illumination touched her, the wind ceased. Raidon came to rest mere paces from the woman, who had raised a hand as if to shade her empty face from his spellscar’s brightness.
Angul blazed too, its own intensity nearly equaling that of the Sign. Malyanna retreated half a step.
“Lock the gate, Malyanna, or I will strike you down,” Raidon said. “Then whatever happens, you will not be around to savor in your victory, or plan a future treachery.”
“Impossible,” Malyanna replied. “Only a handful of Keys were forged when the Far Manifold was created. With each one’s destruction, the Far Manifold’s integrity weakened. The leakage from across the dimensions increased. Mortals forgot what the Keys were for. But the Eldest remembered! A Key’s ultimate function can only be called on once-to lock, or unlock the gate. And I just used the last surviving Key to unlock it. Nothing can close it again! It’s only a matter of time before the worlds collapse beneath the return of the dominion that predates the cosmos!”