Something tickled the back of Raidon's mind. A query, so faint he thought he might have imagined it.
Raidon pulsed his Sign again. This time, he clearly heard a forlorn question, a question asked without sound.
Kiril, is it you? Has my Bright Star returned?
The monk said, "Angul?"
No response. He frowned and infused the blade a third time with his Sign.
The voice, no stronger than before, spoke anew into Raidon's mind.
I am so tired. So tired. Why won't you speak, Kiril? I thought you shut of me, finally sworn off this shattered soul that can never know peace. I don't blame you. I have no restraint, none whatever, as you know so well…
Raidon addressed the blade again. "Kiril has moved on."
My Bright Star… She was my all, and I was her bane. "Angul, listen to me-"
Angul? Is that my name? No, it was something else…
"You are called Angul. I speak true."
… I remember. I am Angul. I was Kiril's companion and righteous tool. But I have fulfilled my oath. My task is complete, and peace beckons. Why do you disturb me?
"A new wielder has need of your strength. A blight threatens the world, a menace you were specifically fashioned to vanquish. You are needed!"
So tired…
"Aboleths from ancient days, Angul, are poised to poison the surface world," pleaded Raidon. It seemed the blade was actively resisting him, actively trying to descend once more into complete, unknowing somnolence.
Leave me be. Perhaps this time I can be reunited with Kiril as a whole and complete-
Raidon pulsed the blade a fourth time.
Like a candle begets a wildfire, his Sign finally ignited Angul. The paper-thin personality he'd been interacting with, ghostlike in its tentative, fleeting nature, charred and burned to nothing. Beneath lay the true Angul, hard and bright and unforgiving.
Aberrations shall be purged, a voice pronounced in a tone completely shorn of the pain and loss of the earlier persona. This voice was keen for what awaited it, eager to strip the world of all who were unfit to walk its face.
His hand disappeared in a nimbus of burning, searing fire, a fire that burned away his own self-pity, his doubt, his focus, and his half-realized desire to walk away from the entire escapade. Something more than aspiration took hold of the monk-it was moral certainty, simple and absolute. Some things could not, could never be suffered. Angul was the first, best, and only tool to accomplish that end. Gethshemeth, and its stone of corruption, would be eradicated. He knew it-he and Angul would be the instrument that accomplished that righteous deed.
Afterward, Raidon decided he would turn his hand to the multitude of lesser moral failings still plaguing Toril.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Anusha retraced the path she'd taken a few hours earlier. She didn't need to squeeze between gnarled roots and under reaching limbs; she passed like a ghost without regard to the difficult terrain. Unlike the previous time she passed, her dreaming, physical self was miles closer. She didn't have to concentrate nearly all her attention on holding herself in place.
On the other hand, with her body so close and vulnerable, she was reluctant to move too far from it. Twice she paused in her tracks, listened intently after some imagined noise, then raced back to the lifeboat to check on the sanctity of her travel chest. Both times Lucky had been happy to see her return. Both times were false alarms.
Full night had arrived, and she was no closer to finding Japheth.
"I'm not scared," she said. Was it true, she wondered? Why was she still lingering here, outside the city, when she knew where she had to go?
"I'm not!" she iterated.
Despite her resolve, she still shrieked in surprise when a blaze of cerulean blue dropped from the sky to land somewhere off in the mangroves. She waited for an explosion, as she supposed would accompany the impact of a falling star, but heard nothing.
Should she ignore it? What if the firefall was some sort of warlock signal sent by Japheth? Anusha turned and made directly toward the point of impact.
Instead of a chunk of burnt skystone, she found a man. A half-elf, actually, though one whose human parent obviously hailed from Thesk or elsewhere eastward.
He was dressed in sandals, loose trousers, and an elaborate silk jacket open to the belt. A flaming sword in one hand and a tattoo on the man's chest burned with the same sky blue fire. The flame's color didn't quite suggest spellplague to Anusha. The hue was clearer, somehow purer than what she associated with her nightmares.
The man stood in a burned area but was physically unharmed by what Anusha guessed had been a rough arrival. On the other hand, she judged by his expression that his mind could well be broken; his open mouth and blank eyes implied he might be crazed.
Hunting screams resounded from above. The sentinels had noticed the newcomer's dramatic appearance too.
One of the sentinels dropped from the sky, its wriggling shape limned in green lambency. The kuo-toa rider gripped a long, slender lance of coral aimed right at the man's heart. A black trail roiled in the wake of the creature's dive.
The half-elf s empty eyes darted upward and narrowed. As the flyer stooped upon him, the man brought his sword into a high guard position. Just as it seemed the man would be pierced by the rider's cruel lance, he slipped ever so gracefully sideways. With one hand, he ran his blazing sword through the body of the morkoth as it flashed by. The sword tip tore through the creature as if it were no more than tissue paper. With his free hand, he plucked the kuo-toa rider from the saddle. The limp, blood-spurting corpse of the morkoth piled into a mass of trees on the other side of the clearing.
Anusha watched the man, her mouth wide in amazement. His display outshone anything she had earlier witnessed, even that icy eladrin in Japheth's castle. The half-elf must be a hero of old, she thought. But she didn't recognize him from any of the stories her tutor had taught.
The man held the struggling kuo-toa high by the throat. He said, "Tell me where I can find the abomination Gethshemeth."
The kuo-toa redoubled its efforts to free itself from the newcomer's vice-like grip.
A hint of movement above caught Anusha's attention.
"Watch out!" she yelled. Two morkoth-mounted sentinels flying in side-by-side formation dropped like hawks on a rabbit, intending to bracket him between two arrow-swift lance tips.
The swordwielder released his captive even as he jumped straight up. The half-elf cleared ten feet easily. The sentinels flashed beneath him. One accidentally skewered the kuo-toa rider the man released as he leaped. The other attempted to raise its lance at the last moment, but the man, even as he spun head over heels in the air, shattered the lance with a single strike of his sword.
The sentinels mounted back into the sky. The man landed lightly upon his feet, moving with the grace and economy of action she didn't normally associate with a sword fighter.
He scanned the area near where Anusha had called her warning, failed to see her, then picked up the kuo-toa he'd earlier snatched from its saddle. It was already unmoving from the wound its compatriot had delivered. He said, "Aberrations shall not be suffered." He hewed the unmoving form with the sword, splitting it asunder. Anusha gasped.
The man's head jerked around, his eyes blazing. Did he see her?
Apparently not. He continued to scan the area, then he said, "I must find Gethshemeth. I must…"
The man's expression twisted, as if he struggled to remember something vital.
Then he grunted and tossed the sword away, as if it burned his hand. The sword fell point first into the earth.
The weapon continued to burn, but the half-elf’s tattoo immediately dimmed. Human expression returned to the man's face, and he wiped his suddenly sweaty brow with the back of his hand.