The ghoul-thing smashed into him, bearing him to the ground. Raidon blinked away his untimely retrospection too late. The creature's claws and both mouths tore at his flesh. It panted, "I don't like your taste. Maybe you'll taste better dead."
A thumb to the creature's eye and a knee to its side did little to dislodge the ghoul. A crushing elbow directly to the creature's throat cut short its constant, maddening titter. That blow would have killed a mortal man outright.
The ghoul-thing was undead, and its nerves did not communicate messages of pain. Raidon struggled in its grasp, his breath coming quicker. The monk's deep knowledge of how to attack vital areas, like pressure points, joints, and organs, was almost useless against the walking dead.
He squirmed right, trying get out from under the crushing weight, then shucked left, hoping to fake out the creature. The ghoul's tongue-tentacle held the scrabbling monk fast.
Raidon was pinned on his back. The creature's disgusting, abdominal jaws gave it an unholy advantage, and the pain in his leg was slipping more and more into his consciousness, threatening to cripple his ability to seize the initiative. Even as he inched one hand toward the sign on his chest, the ghoul managed to grab his wrist. It quickly snatched his other wrist too. Its claws bit painfully into his palms.
It tittered, "No, you mustn't touch! Hold still, now, while I nibble the skin from your face."
Raidon's focus faltered. Concentrate! Hold onto your calm, or you are lost, he commanded his wavering discipline. But what chance did he have if he could not reach the symbol?
If I have the power of my amulet, what need have I to touch it to trigger it? Wasn't he always in contact with it, since it was part of him?
He concentrated on the cool point above his heart. The symbol of a dead order. The Cerulean Sign. He imagined himself touching it with a tendril of thought. The Sign was a metaphor, an emblem that served as a door, a door Raidon visualized himself swinging wide, revealing wonders beyond…
The Sign on his chest pulsed. Shafts of cerulean light speared heavenward. Where the light touched the aberration, it howled. Pain was no longer beyond its ability to sense.
The ghoul's abdominal tongue retracted, and it writhed and fell away from Raidon. The light from the Sign faded.
The monk staggered to his feet, shaking and bleeding. Zai zi, he was sorely hurt! If he didn't tend to his raw foot and lower calf soon, he'd lose his leg, then soon enough his life.
The ghoul remained prone, writhing and drooling without regard to its environment. Its senses were overloaded, maybe burned out. He'd seen a similar response many times during his decade of abomination hunting. The Sign's mere manifestation affected weaker aberrations just so. The most powerful aberrations were less affected. Lucky these were not the most potent of their kind…
A flicker of movement brought Raidon's attention up and back. The ghoul-thing's two compatriots had ceased their rivalry. They stared at Raidon and the glowing symbol on his chest with calculating and fearful eyes.
Despite their trepidation, they advanced.
They saw the Sign and obviously recognized its potential to eradicate them, but they could also smell his blood. Raidon supposed that smell pierced their sense of self-preservation. For these ghoul-monstrosities, hunger was a drive purer and fiercer than fear.
They charged.
The monk cried, "Husks of abominable hunger, see the Cerulean Sign!" His chest blazed anew with sky blue light. Shafts of radiance flashed like blades from his body to lance the attackers.
One of the ghouls sidestepped the glow, but the other ran headlong into the brilliance. Its eyes shuttered in pain as the purifying radiance dazzled it. It tripped and fell, mewling.
The second ghoul, oblivious of its "brother's" fate, reached him. A claw slipped past Raidon's shielding forearm, slashing directly across the symbol tattooed on his chest.
The Sign's radiance instantly failed.
Raidon fell back, holding his focus. He released a flurry of fierce kicks to the ghoul's knees even as it clawed and tentacle-lashed him. While the creature couldn't feel physical pain, its body could be broken with sufficient force. Unfortunately, he couldn't kick with his ravaged leg.
Simultaneously, he shuffled left as he dodged, slipped, and blocked the ghoul's assaults. His adversary was too intent on sinking its teeth into Raidon to worry about the terrain. When the ghoul was in position, Raidon feinted, and then pushed. It tripped backward over the ghoul who had nearly bitten off the monk's leg, who was just rising from its dazed fall.
Raidon took advantage of the reprieve to glance down at his chest. A bloody stripe bisected the symbol blazoned there. He closed his eyes and dragged forward his healing visualization yet again. There was no time to deal with his foot-but that was the lesser issue now. He concentrated on his upper body. He saw the partially severed lines of his symbol within the greater model of his own body.
In a manner no different from the method he used to heal other minor hurts, he imagined the severed lines growing closer, bridging the gap, and rediscovering the connection just severed. Coolness returned to his chest. Not as strongly as before, but enough.
Raidon's eyes opened. His opponents were already on their feet and advancing.
He pulsed with cerulean light once more.
Both creatures screamed when the light touched them. This last radiance proved too much for them. Shrieking and crying, they retreated backward toward the gates of Starmantle.
His reserves were exhausted. He turned his back on a chilling, rain-laden wind from the north. He looked south toward Gulthmere Forest. Black smoke furled into the sky, and he caught a whiff of burning pine. The already blasted forest was burning, again.
Without a word, Raidon hobbled west. He wondered which would be the agent of his death: his wound, pursuing Starmantle ghouls, fire, or freezing rain?
CHAPTER FIVE
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Olleth, Sea of Fallen Stars
Nogah regarded the Dreamheart with unblinking eyes. She clutched the stone in both webbed hands. A year ago she'd pried it from the earth's nadir. Since then, she'd not allowed a day to go by that didn't include spending time with the orb.
The not-quite-spherical chunk of unfamiliar mineral was her all-encompassing passion. Though unimpressive to the eye, its presence was more than merely physical. It existed on the plane of mind too. There, the Dreamheart was a scintillating font of color, dreams, and possibilities. It was a beacon of power and a literal promise of knowledge and dominance to any kuo-toa with the temerity to take heed and listen.
Nogah listened. Oh, yes.
At first the influence was felt only when she slept. Images capered in time to unearthly sounds, nightmarish but also fascinating. But the stone had learned to reach her waking mind too. More and more lately, phantasms of glory visited her while she was fully conscious. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes eerie in their beauty, the visions always left her dazed. It frustrated Nogah that once the visions faded, she couldn't quite recall their full consequence.
Subconsciously, she retained more. Sometimes she would inadvertently refer, without the least forethought, to ancient events about which she couldn't possibly know anything. Only after the words escaped her throat did she pause in surprise, trying to pin down the origin of her own comment. Swirling images of a churning void and atonal vibrations were all she could consciously access.
Such gaps seemed an easy price to pay for the arcane secrets she slowly teased from the Dreamheart. From these abilities did her own aspirations spring. She imagined Faerыn shaped anew, under kuo-toa sway!