Angul-Nis slipped free from his spasming hands. "No!" Telarian lurched forward, windmilling for a grip on the sword spinning free above the Well.
The conjoined sword flared, emitting a burst of energy black on one side, blue on the other. Then two blades fell away from each other. "No!" screamed Telarian, leaning forward.
Angul fell just three feet, tip downward, and knifed into the lip, and there remained quivering.
Nis tumbled free past the lip and down the Well. The diviner fell to his chest, extending half his body out over the lip as he made one final try to snare the Blade Umbral. But as he strained forward and down, someone kicked him savagely from behind. A terrible sensation of weightlessness sank into his stomach. Overbalanced, he slipped over the edge.
Nis and Telarian fell, Telarian screaming in dismay and mounting fear, Nis tracing a blur of darkness in its wake. Elf and sword flashed past the flickering shadow, past the burning boundary layer, and into the presence of the Traitor.
The High Priest of the Abolethic Sovereignty studied its mortal agent. It had expended so much energy molding and shaping the elf's mind. But the elf had failed, and with his fall into the Well, was rendered valueless. The sword Nis, whose creation was the culmination of a plan initiated with Angul's forging, stood embedded blade-first in the floor of the cell, smoldering. . fading. Even as the Traitor attempted to bring his shackled hands near enough to the hilt to grasp it, to plunge it into his own heart… it smoked away, its half-soul finally and utterly extinguished. In this prison, there was no afterlife to accept it.
Only Telarian remained, now bound as the Traitor was bound, in chains of eldritch force. Unlike the Traitor, Telarian was subject to the needs of air and nutrition. Given enough pain, his heart would fail.
The Traitor concentrated on the blinking, confused diviner whose mind had proved so ripe for instruction. A mind still open to suggestion, capable of seeing a higher reality, a reality beyond the physical. Though the Traitor couldn't touch the diviner, he could influence the diviner's mind. What the Keeper believed to be real would be real. It was the malleable reality he had hoped to extend to all the world with the Abolethic Sovereignty's rise. For now, that reality was reserved for one.
The elf screamed as the Traitor extended a nest of writhing, tooth-rimmed appendages.
Failure demanded payment.
He began to extract his due.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Stardeep, Throat
Gage was entranced by the fiery depths of the hollow cylinder. Empty but for an explosion of flaring, frustrated prominences. He turned and sheathed a blood-stained dagger. Backstabbing the insane elf and pushing him into the hole earned him a moment's respite. He removed his borrowed Knight's helmet. Kiril, apparently roused from whatever stupor had held her, appraised him with obvious surprise.
Her expression was every bit as bewildered and confused as he'd hoped. He grinned-priceless! You couldn't steal that kind of satisfaction.
"Gage of Laothkund-how?" asked Kiril. "I left you in the Yuirwood."
"Aye, but I didn't turn back as you instructed. I followed."
"Why?"
The thief grinned. "I was angry you sent me away, angry you wouldn't listen or accept my apology. I decided I would show my sincerity by helping you whether you wanted my aid or not."
"You followed us into Sild?yuir, and then into Stardeep's outer tunnels? That must have been difficult."
"An understatement," replied Gage. He recalled again the stone spider, and he shuddered.
Kiril nodded, moved closer, and put a comradely hand on his shoulder. "Thank you. ." Her attention shifted, and lit on the guttering blade Angul. Her eyes became glassy.
"Kiril Duskmourn!" came a glad hail. Gage and the swordswoman turned. The lone remaining Keeper approached, the monk Raidon at her side holding his lambent Sign.
The Keeper said, "I am Delphe. Thank the Cerulean Sign you listened to my plea."
Kiril shrugged. "Telarian's failure of patience revealed him. If he hadn't attacked me with Nis, I might have appeared in the Throat as his ally, not his enemy. He didn't know that, though, and your arguments made him doubt the strength of his own lies."
Delphe replied, "His lies … his subversion by the Traitor is Stardeep's most significant failure in all our order's history. And all along, he thought he was the one serving a higher purpose. An unbelievable tragedy." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. Light from the Well blossomed orange and green, giving her skin a pallid cast.
Delphe moved closer and looked down. "I wonder what's going on down there. . Cynosure?"
"Yes, Delphe?" The response emanated from the empty ceiling.
"The boundary layer is disturbed. How close did Telarian come to achieving his goal?"
"Too close. We must forge anew the constraints the diviner severed, else we risk the remaining bonds becoming unraveled."
Delphe looked at her newly healed hand and muttered, "A difficult task without my most potent tool-"
"You may borrow this, if you require its strength," interrupted Raidon, holding out his Sign. "It was my mother's, though now I begin to doubt she was ever a Keeper here. It may be she had it illicitly, and passed it to me without knowledge of your order."
Delphe smiled. "Whoever she was or is, I hold no grudge-if she hadn't possessed it to give to you, things would have concluded differently just now."
Raidon nodded.
"In any event," continued Delphe, "I am not attuned to it, but I can instruct you how to wield it in the manner required to refortify the Traitor's prison. You seem adept in its use, even without wizardly training, which is impressive and unusual."
"Thank you. I would enjoy learning more of the Sign. Perhaps through it, I can learn of my mother's fate."
The Keeper led Raidon around the curve of the lip toward the crystal command chair. She began to speak of visualizations, sigils, and interfaces. Gage stopped paying attention. His eyes lit on another fallen form.
"Your pet is hurt," he observed.
Kiril's head jerked around to scan the Throat. Concern tightened her eyes when she saw Xet's unmoving shape. She rushed to the dragonet's side and gently picked up the crystalline creature, now blackened and pitted.
"Xet?"
No movement.
"Gods damn you, you're not even really alive, so you can't die!"
The dragonet's tail suddenly wrapped about Kiril's cradling arm. A weak but audible bell tolled. The swordswoman looked up at Gage and let out a relieved breath.
Another bell-like tone sounded, stronger than the first.
"Where did you get the little guy?" wondered Gage, as he moved to rub the creature beneath the chin. The dragonet arched its neck upward like a cat.
"A geomancer employed me as his bodyguard for nearly a decade. When I left his service, Xet was his parting gift."
Gage nodded and asked, "Thormund, right? Too bad you left his employ. You wouldn't have had to go through all this. ."
He regretted his remark the moment the last word was out of his mouth. Kiril's animation faded as her eyes riveted once more on the cooling sword plunged in the stone floor.
"Angul looks more peaceful than I ever recall seeing him," she murmured.
Cynosure's voice interrupted. "Angul is now as he was when first forged. Being split from Nis, the two halves of Nangulis's spirit are again divided. As before, Angul requires a wielder's touch to kindle his motivation."
Kiril said softly, "I remember now. ."
Cynosure persisted. "Angul's life is only a half-life. Without a living wielder, the soul-forged blade will fail, releasing the soul to its final peace. All that will remain is a dead length of sword-shaped steel."