The dragon, free of the invisible thorn that had stung it, did not flee. Instead, it hunkered down on its perch, relying on the bulk of the stone head to shield itself from further unseen attacks. It hissed, "Your friends are even now swearing their eternal souls to the void that lies between the stars. Yet you dally here." It guffawed, its mirth mocking and harsh.
Raidon scrutinized Scathrys, the Blade Cerulean naked in his hand. Tongues of blue flame rippled its length.
"Raidon, let's go! Japheth needs us!"
The monk scowled. Sweat beaded on his lip. He looked murderously at the dragon but said, "The greater abomination lies below, Angul."
The half-elf wrenched himself away and stepped into the open cavity. With uncanny grace, he skied down the slimy, nearly vertical wall and into the bowl, easily avoiding the shaft containing the stairs.
Anusha leaped after, with far less refinement. Not that it mattered, since no one could see her and she couldn't be hurt by a mere fall. She wondered if she should try to dream her blade forth once more. She decided to wait. Her head still smarted fiercely. It seemed clear she had overtaxed her ability to affect the waking world by lancing the dragon at a distance.
The monk raced down the spiral stair, narrow and slick with recently evacuated water. He didn't stumble once. Anusha followed, his unseen shadow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Taunissik, Sea of Fallen Stars
A coppery taste filled his mouth. Blood? He twisted, eyes nearly spinning in their sockets as they sought something familiar. Where was he?
A dull red glow stretched above and to each side of him. A fire? Ember-like points of light flared, brighter and brighter, until they fused to become a red-hazed vista.
He walked out upon a scarlet plain beneath a bleeding sky on a road of ground bones.
He continued walking, because he knew he had to do something very important. Something that lay in the direction he traveled, perhaps. Something quite vital, he was certain. Urgency burned just below his awareness, on the brink of shattering the glass between anxious unknowing and terrified understanding. But he couldn't quite recall precisely what he was supposed to do…
He paused. The road seemed familiar somehow, like something he'd glimpsed once in a dream. Or a nightmare, truth be told.
Perhaps he dreamed even now. That would explain the gap in his understanding. And why he wore no clothing. Why, he couldn't even recall his own name! Was that normal for a dream?
He started forward again. Perhaps if he reached the end of the road, the dream would end, and he would wake up. That sounded good. It might even be true. He quickened his pace.
After a time, he realized the faint roar he heard might be a waterfall. The sound rose and fell from somewhere ahead. His choice had been the correct one! At least, it seemed he was heading toward something interesting. He doubled his speed.
The road dipped beneath the level of the surrounding plain. Shadowed walls of veined stone grew up on each side. The roar echoed strangely through the canyon-like aisle, sounding almost like… screaming?
The sound, unnerving enough by itself, touched another memory. He'd heard it before. He wondered again if he were having a nightmare. The fact he couldn't recall his own identity took on an ominous edge as the screams coalesced.
He stumbled to a halt at the edge of a precipice. He stared down into an endless abyss that reached beyond his eyes' ability to discern details, seemingly limitless in its depth. It seemed to him the gap descended through the world and out the other side, still a void, one that reached forever…
The next beat of his heart brought with it his identity.
"I am Japheth! By the fey-cursed pacts I swore, I am Japheth!"
With his name came the realization that he'd misplaced his cloak. On the heels of that insight, he recognized where he was.
He stood at the end of the crimson road, where demons hunt those who give their souls over to traveler's dust. It was where everyone who took the arcane poison eventually ended, sooner or later. Japheth had avoided that fate years longer than any other, thanks to his pact.
The fact he stood here once more suggested his period of grace had concluded.
This time, there was no Lord of Bats to wing down through the bleeding sky and pluck him from certain dissolution. How could the Lord of Bats do so? He was prisoner in his own castle, thanks to Japheth's scheme. Or perhaps the Lord of Bats had freed himself, and that freedom had ended Japheth's immunity from consequence. Either way, he had reached the end of the line.
Japheth stared, goggle-eyed and dry-mouthed. He tried to shuffle back from the edge. Agony seared his legs, as if his bones locked into place by suddenly extruding spurs into his muscles. He swayed, his toes overhanging the unending abyss. His internal struggle dislodged a portion of the earthy lip, which rained dust and pebbles out and then down. Gone.
Raw, terrified throats loosed drawn out screams. He jerked his head around and saw his wasn't the only road that emptied onto the great pit. Hundreds of other gaps poked through the abyssal wall, some higher than the one he stood in, others lower, all endpoints for roads composed of ground bone. And upon them, other victims walked. Walked screaming, protesting, and begging as they hurled themselves, still screaming, into the abyss.
He wanted to avert his gaze. But horror locked his eyes on each new victim who fell past. Some, the yawning chasm of infinite darkness swallowed. But many more did not reach that boundary, or at least they did not reach it in one piece. For in that space between an infinite fall and '¦ the false hope for salvation, demonic creatures laired and hunted. They skimmed through the air on scaled wings, spearing windmilling figures out of the air with claws, spiked tails, retractable tongues, and other appendages too horrible to comprehend.
When a demon stooped on a falling screamer, that victim's voice redoubled in godsforsaken frenzy; then abruptly ceased. The remains of each feast were finally relinquished, to fall wet and silent into darkness.
Japheth couldn't help screaming himself when, without willing it, he stepped off into the void. He fell. He windmilled his arms, just like all the others, no matter that it did nothing but fuel his terror. He told himself to stop, but it was impossible to do anything else.
A shape sailed down from the burning sky. It closed on him with vicious certitude. It snatched him from the air.
Why wasn't it tearing into him? Comprehension touched him-this was no demon.
It was Anusha. Anusha in her golden armor of dream, though without her helm. Golden wings of whimsy sprouted from her back. They beat with a strong, steady cadence, bearing both of them higher.
She held him, and he her. She bore him up, higher and higher. He stared into her dark eyes and was lost. He was as disoriented as when he'd stared into the abyss, but fear left him.
He said, "You saved me, Anusha. I owe you my life. I…" She only smiled. He leaned closer into her embrace. *****
Japheth opened his eyes with a start. A great dark blur, punctuated here and there by tiny, moving blurs of light, surrounded him. He lay on something hard, damp, and painfully unyielding.
"Where-?" he began, then he coughed. His throat was raw as if from screaming. Or as if coated with rock dust. His eyes too were gritty with sand, and his whole body was bruised, as if he'd been squeezed too hard on every extremity. And a pain stabbed the left side of his chest with each breath.
He rubbed at his eyes to get some tears flowing to wash away the grit. When his vision cleared, he saw the unpleasant object on which he lay was a small coral dome. Words scribed on it read, "Japheth Donard. Preserved for sacrifice 1396."