“If you unlocked it, why hasn’t the gate opened completely?” said Raidon.
“Because … some meddler is interfering!” Malyanna said. One of her arms came up and pointed to a spot in the air behind Raidon. He risked a quick glance and saw only a patch of empty sky.
Lightning made of midnight traced from her pointing finger. When it reached the empty spot, Japheth was revealed in an explosion of bruised light.
The warlock shuddered with the impact of the dark beam, and fell.
He hit the ground in an area clear of aberrations. The monsters that weren’t standing enthralled by Malyanna’s transformation or the Far Manifold itself were clustered around a crazed, green scaled monstrosity. And, farther away … Was that Yeva?
“I can’t hold it anymore,” yelled Japheth. “The gate’s opening!”
The sound of splintering crystal confirmed the warlock’s claim.
Raidon knew that they were finally out of time. He charged Malyanna, moving with all the speed of his training.
He slashed and drew Angul completely through one of the woman’s wrists even as she extended her arm in a warding gesture.
The hand came away from her arm and flew into the air, but didn’t drop to the ground.
Instead, it buzzed around his head like a giant horsefly and slapped onto Raidon’s shoulder. It squeezed.
The severed hand might as well have been liquid acid. The moment it touched him, it seared through his shirt and found his flesh. The hand began to dissolve away his skin.
Raidon gritted his teeth but a grunt of pain escaped him anyhow.
Angul blazed, and the pain dulled. But the hand remained, sinking into his arm.
Slice it off, instructed his sword.
Raidon backed away from Malyanna, and brought the sword around like a massive razor. He used it to scrape the devouring hand away, along with a great strip of skin and not a little muscle. Angul flared with true heat, cauterizing the wound even as its blade made it.
The moment the loose hand lost contact, it took to the air once again. It went to Malyanna and fitted itself back to the stump of her wrist.
The sound of breaking crystal grew louder. The distorted visages and vistas visible through the crystal facets pressed closer. Something akin to the Eldest crouched just across the barrier, though it was at least five times the Eldest’s size. It, and everything else, was about to break through en masse.
Even louder than the failing Far Manifold was the sound of the eladrin noble’s triumphant laughter.
Taal jumped up on the dais next to Raidon. He had the Dreamheart clutched in one hand. Raidon raised Angul to strike the man down, but Anusha appeared suddenly between him and Taal. “Wait,” she urged.
“Malyanna!” Taal yelled, raising the Dreamheart. “I’m done with you!”
“Taal,” the eladrin said. “You were ever my favorite. So easy to manipulate, my most loyal pawn for all these years. Only now do you find your independence, when I’ve already won. Even that trinket you hold, as if it made a difference any longer, is meaningless. The Far Realm is here!”
Taal wound up, then hurled the Dreamheart at Malyanna. Instead of being absorbed as Raidon had expected, the orb smashed her backward with the force of a stone sphere shot from a catapult.
“No!” she screamed.
The nightmare-clad woman struck the crystal disk. Despite its appearance of solidity, it parted like smoke around her convulsing body and closed behind her again with an eye-watering ripple.
Malyanna was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)
Citadel of the Outer Void
Taal threw the Dreamheart and knocked Malyanna through the portal.
Anusha was too surprised to do anything but gape.
“She’s gone,” said Taal. A vicious growl emerged from the tattoo of a hunting cat on his shoulder. He looked up at the disk. “But the fracture lines have started to breed again. I don’t know how to stop it.”
“When I bound the Eldest to Xxiphu, I hoped a greater tragedy would be averted,” said Raidon. “I never foresaw how much worse things could get.”
Anusha swallowed. Did no one else see it but her? It seemed too obvious.
When Malyanna had produced the Key of Stars, the design on it was too similar for coincidence.
“Raidon,” she said. “Your spellscar-its pattern matches exactly the symbol on the amulet Malyanna used to unlock the Far Manifold.” She made herself visible for all to see.
The monk looked at her. “Yes,” he said. “What my mother gave me was probably one of the last surviving Keys. But it was destroyed in the Year of Blue Fire. The Spellplague stitched its remnants to my flesh. The amulet is no more.”
Anusha shook her head. Couldn’t he see? The Sign existed independent to what it was scribed upon. The monk contained all the power of the amulet. It was plain! If he called upon the power, he could lock the Far Manifold one last time! Just as when Malyanna had opened it …
An image of the amulet in the eladrin noble’s hands disintegrating after she had used it danced before Anusha. The memory of Malyanna herself, being pulled through the instant she brushed against the disk followed. She put her hands to her mouth.
If she convinced Raidon he had the power to lock the gate, she’d essentially be telling the man to sacrifice his life. Could she do that?
She wanted Raidon to make the connection himself.
But the monk stood, staring at the growing nest of fracture lines as if entranced. As if he making peace with the inevitability of the moment.
Oh gods.
“Raidon, you are the Key of Stars!” Anusha said. “And the Key must turn, one last time!”
The half-elf cocked his head to regard her, puzzlement narrowing his eyes.
A tear traced down her cheek. She could hardly say it, but forced it out. “I’m sorry, it’s your death if you try it and succeed, or fail,” she said. “But you must try! Don’t you see? Your … choice … could save everything.”
Her throat threatened to close with sorrow. She wished it hadn’t fallen to her to say those hardest of words.
Raidon’s eyes widened, than he gave a slow nod. “Anusha, I will try,” he said. “Taal thought he would die for turning against Malyanna at long last, but he did anyway. Can I do any less? I ask only this: If anything of me remains, please lay me beside my daughter in Nathlekh.”
Anusha felt something inside her break.
Raidon placed a hand on Anusha’s shoulder. Fresh tears streaked her face. Her golden armor felt as solid to him as the genuine article. Funny, how a dream could seem so real.
Was Anusha right? Did his spellscar contain enough essence of his mother’s “forget-me-not” to lock the gate?
He considered Erunyauve as he’d seen her last, held to her soothsayer’s throne for years at a time. A throne from which she saw the future laid out in days and years.
It came to him then. Erunyauve had foreseen that moment, though not until after she had met his father, or given him the Cerulean Sign. But afterward, when she had taken up her seat. She had known when she talked to him in the Spire of the Moon; she had foreseen the possibility of this very moment. He understood her grief and final parting words. She’d known what he would have to do.
What an awful burden for her to bear.