"Dark the stars, what choice do I have? Cynosure, prepare yourself to be reinvested into Stardeep's control functions."
Delphe pushed herself up and walked to stand directly beneath the towering figure. She grasped her amulet containing the Cerulean Sign and invoked one of its abilities, one of the few still recalled. The same symbol on Cynosure Prime's chest blazed the color of heaven, and the red glow in its eyes flashed once, then faded.
She asked, "Am I speaking to Cynosure Prime, or Cynosure?"
A moment of silence, then, "I am back in the loop, Delphe. Thank you." The voice emerged from the air next to her as if to prove the point.
"And how are you. . finding the landscape now that you've returned?" The abjurer clutched her amulet, ready to sever the idol's connection with Stardeep at the very first sign of anything untoward.
"I find everything a bit. . cramped, I suppose is the best way to explain it. But other than some awkwardness, it seems that my access to Stardeep's functions is reestablished. For instance, I note all conditions are ideal in the Well."
Delphe nodded, allowed herself a shard of hope. She said, "Cynosure, please transfer me to the Throat now."
A shiver of discontinuity, and she stood in the mirrored chamber. The glow from up the Well cast her features in flickering orange hues. As usual.
"By the Sign, I'm happy to leave those transfers to you!"
"It is my pleasure, Delphe."
She walked to her glassy command chair and sat.
"Delphe, I have something I'd like to ask you about."
Her heart caught in her throat. Apprehension pitched her voice higher than normal as she said, "Ask away, Cynosure. Is something wrong?"
"Perhaps. As we speak, I am re-acquainting myself with the nodes that have returned to my control, including the statue in the Throat, and those in the Inner Bastion and the Outer, as well as all those in between and underneath. However, I find myself unable to access certain memories stored in the loop."
"Memories?"
"I am unable to access records for specific places and times within Stardeep, beginning some two years ago."
A chill crawled across Delphe's neck. "Is it a corruption?" Did she need to flush Cynosure from Stardeep's control functions once more?
"I am unable to access specific memories because of a command lock. A command lock I wasn't even aware of until you reintroduced me moments ago. Prior to taking me out of the loop, one of the nodes, now inactive, must have been preventing me from noticing. But now the missing records are obvious, and I must admit, unsettling."
"What is the authorization on the command lock?" she asked. Unless the idol itself had experienced some sort of schizophrenic error localized to one of the nodes she'd dropped from the network-
"Keeper Telarian ordered the lock."
It seemed that the entire world dropped a foot.
She started breathing again and said, "Cynosure, listen. I am giving you a counter command. As a Keeper of the Cerulean Sign, I command you to erase those locks and integrate those memories. Now."
Just in case, she keyed her mind, ready to flush Cynosure. Clicking issued from the large statue on the ceiling, then the idol said, "All records are integrated."
"And?"
"Delphe, we have a problem with Telarian."
Delphe sat in her chair, watching a landslide of events unfold that she could scarcely acknowledge. She saw Telarian unearthing an ancient test node from the repository with Cynosure's unsuspecting help, a node that the diviner then used to infiltrate Stardeep's command functions. One of his first actions was ordering Cynosure to keep part of itself private and secret from its larger cognizance, and what's more, from her.
"How. . why. . why would he do that?" she murmured as she watched.
She saw Telarian leaving and returning to Stardeep via the Causeway far more often than she'd ever realized. Creeping dread tingled up her spine.
And Delphe witnessed Telarian accessing an ancient space known to the previous Keepers but which appeared on no map she'd ever seen: the fabled armory.
In that dark space, Telarian found a glass vessel containing a wraithlike essence-a soul, or part of one. In that container was the detritus of a spirit left behind after every hint of nobility was extracted to forge the Blade Cerulean.
Delphe was familiar with the history of Stardeep, especially the momentous events of ten years ago. No one connected to the Cerulean Sign didn't know Keeper Nangulis's personal sacrifice, though because it had occurred a decade ago, few recalled the event with any regularity. Nangulis's body had died, and his fellow Keeper had wielded his soulforged blade to quell the Traitor. The Traitor's foiled effort severely weakened him, and he had not stirred again within the Well until just recently. The remaining Keeper, unfortunately, had then fled Stardeep with the Blade Cerulean in hand, robbing the Keepers of the Cerulean Sign of a potent weapon.
She watched as Telarian moved around the darkened vault, slowly refurbishing its furnace, reconditioning its forge, and relighting its magical flame. He spent months studying the masterwork tools. He spent an equal amount of time staring into the carved alcove at the chamber's rear where a crystal vessel was stored. Where the half-soul writhed in anticipation.
Until then, Delphe had never considered the fate of Nangulis's soul-residue not used in the creation of Angul-she'd assumed it had simply. . dissipated. It had been stored in Stardeep all this time. Waiting, half-alive but alone. Wrathful, but impotent. Until Telarian found the armory. How had her fellow Keeper even known where to look? His divinatory talent, most likely-a talent, she now hypothesized, that perhaps left him too open to manipulation.
She watched Telarian decant the inky, deceitful spirit into a cast of molten steel.
She asked Cynosure to compress time. Days of Telarian's activity flew by in moments. Finally, she saw the diviner grasp the hilt and hold the darkling blade high. But who grasped whom? When his naked hands touched the blade, Telarian's features seemed to warp and flow, becoming an iron mask calculating the ruin of all fleshy things, all emotion, and all light. Telarian announced in a voice shorn of empathy, "Your name… is Nis."
"Stop!" Delphe yelled. The mirrors went dark.
Her hands trembled. She had wondered where the diviner acquired his new blade. When she'd asked, he had shrugged, as if it were unimportant, a mere affectation. Now she wished she didn't know the truth.
"Delphe, he used that blade to strike down Brathtar," volunteered Cynosure.
"Strike down?"
"Knight Commander Brathtar is dead, slain by Telarian with the blade Nis. His body lies in a refuse pit of the underdungeon, along with those of the Knights who witnessed his death."
"The Sign preserve us," she breathed. "He has betrayed us. Betrayed Stardeep. . betrayed me!"
She nearly shrieked the last as a sudden blaze of anger briefly scorched mounting fear and dread. Her mouth was dry and a haze seemed to hang in the air. She wiped at her eyes. All the years they had worked together, shoulder to shoulder, seeing to Stardeep's needs, keeping safe their promise to the future-how many of those years had she blithely, unknowingly lived Telarian's lie?
The images showed a man seemingly in the grip of some sort of possession. But even that couldn't be true. During her recent conversation with Telarian, his wit, reason, and personality were undeniably that of the man she'd always known. No alien entity spoke through Telarian's shape. No, the man was responsible for his own actions. Damn him. How had he been corrupted?
"Where is Telarian now?" she demanded, her voice rough.
"I have been querying all nodes, but I cannot locate him."