Here and there across the vast city, lantern light flickered to life as surviving Knights sought to coalesce back into a unified force.
Telarian wondered how many remained to service his greater scheme, but pushed such distractions from his head for the moment. Kiril demanded all his attention and wit as she stared coolly at him, her features highlighted by Angul's blue fire. He yet held Nis, whose length remained night's own domain.
Sheathe me, instructed Nis. As always, Telarian obeyed.
The diviner blinked, and sudden fear clawed at his guts. She'd cut him down! She—
Kiril sheathed Angul in one easy motion, plunging them into darkness. Into that absence of light, Kiril spoke, her tone strangely even. "What news of the Traitor, Keeper of Stardeep?"
Telarian called up a quick spell of radiance and set it to dance on the throne top. In that glow, he lowered himself from the throne to stand on equal, if uneven, footing with the swordswoman.
He replied, "The Traitor strains at its chains in a fashion never foreseen. It has assumed mental domination over my fellow Stardeep Keeper! Things have nearly fallen completely apart in Stardeep's Inner Bastion."
"The compromised Keeper," said Kiril, "that would be Telarian? I've heard his name from the lips of the blood-flecked spy he hired to steal Angul! Telarian, the one who tried to lure me to Stardeep with his promise that.. ." She gulped, and sudden moisture welled in Kiril's eyes.
The diviner frowned, swallowed his fear, and said, "You've been partly misled—it is Keeper Delphe, still ensconced in Stardeep, who has fallen wholly into the Traitor's grasp."
Kiril's eyes narrowed as she said, "Which means you are Telarian?"
He raised conciliatory hands. "I am—but forget what you think you know, and listen—"
The woman stepped forward and jabbed him in the chest with a pointing finger, asking, "And what of Nangulis? Was that your lie?"
"Hear me out, and you'll learn the truth."
"Out with it, then!"
He licked his lips. "Delphe, once under the Traitor's control, knew the one implement that could end her new master's escape was Angul. Thus she sought to steal him away from his wielder, and failing that, kill you and take Angul. To further confuse the matter, she used my name to shield her identity should her scheme ever fall apart. As it has!"
"So Nangulis . . ."
"Has not returned. I am so sorry," said Telarian. Though he couldn't produce Nangulis, he could offer her the next best thing.
"However, what was once Nangulis has stirred."
She looked back, hope and suspicion battling for control of her features.
"Just as Angul holds one half of Nangulis's fractured soul, Nis holds the remainder!" He drew forth Nis once more, the blade's cool touch returning his confidence threefold and quashing his fear beneath its black weight.
Kiril's eyes grew round. She murmured, "But how is that possible? When we forged Angul, we pulled from Nangulis all purity and zeal, discarding the rest. . ."
"Not discarded. Cynosure encapsulated all that remained of Nangulis, and preserved it against future need. A need that materialized when I realized Delphe had fallen into shadow."
"How?"
"I worked in secret, forging the blade beneath Delphe's very nose, until Nis was complete. At the last, she discovered my intent. I'm afraid that with Cynosure under her control, I was forced to flee Stardeep. But even with Stardeep's sentient construct set against me, with Nis in hand, I was able to escape. She'd closed the Causeway after sending out those few Knights she suborned to ravage the countryside. The only place I could flee with the remaining Knights still uncorrupted and loyal to the Cerulean Seal was down, into Stardeep's underdungeons."
Kiril gave a slow nod, her eyes still fixed to Nis's darkling span. She believes, imparted the blade to Telarian.
The diviner continued. "But Delphe's reach has grown long. With the Traitor's help, she roused the relic consciousness entombed here." Telarian made a wide gesture across the chamber. "If you hadn't come when you did, it is possible that I and the last of the Knights would have died, thus ensuring the Traitor's escape."
The swordswoman looked down at Angul, still sheathed at her side, then back up to Nis, and asked, "Can the two halves . . . ever be reunited? Can Nangulis live again?"
"It is more than mere possibility. In order to see Delphe destroyed and the Traitor's escape quashed, I believe that we must combine the blades at the edge of the Well—combine the two halves of Nangulis's sundered soul. The combined blade will possess the soul-forged traits of both weapons, and I suspect, possess more power than the sum of its parts."
Kiril smiled through sudden tears. Telarian returned her smile, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Like the Knights he'd already slain, and Delphe, whose death was now assured with Angul wielded against her. Kiril, too, would find herself a corpse, kicking out her last strength on Nis's cruel length. Only such sacrifices could avert the far greater disaster his vision foretold.
He gave a small sigh. Being the unacknowledged savior of Faer?n's mortal races was soul-trying work.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Stardeep, Underdungeon
Gage's third and last alchemical light was nearly exhausted. The thief gave the glass another shake anyway. A sickly yellow radiance seeped from the cold, egg-shaped vessel, less than a candle's glow. Light or dark, he was well and truly lost. He wandered caverns whose hollow ways didn't even run through the stones of the earth, but instead, through a metaphysical realm Gage did not and probably could not fully comprehend. Friendless, too, and likely hunted.
"Pity your poor adherent, Akadi." He grunted. Could the Lady of the Winds even hear his prayer? He doubted she who ruled the high places of Faer?n listened to the pleas of those who scurried through its subterranean tunnels, let alone through tunnels of an echo plane.
After another hundred or so steps down the smooth, white passage, the bulb's light noticeably weakened. Hardly bright enough for him to see more than a few paces ahead, but likely a perfect waypoint for giant stone spiders or demons nurturing a grudge.. .
When the radiance failed utterly, Gage returned the bulb to its pouch. He sighed, and hoped his anxiety over the light failing was worse than the reality.
He extended his left hand until his fingers brushed the cold, silky passage wall. In his right he clutched a dagger, ready to plunge it into whatever beast emerged from the unrelieved darkness that smothered his eyes. He could almost imagine the lightlessness was a whisper-thin blanket, covering him but not hindering his movement. If he could just rend it or wipe its sense-depriving swaddling from his eyes . . .
He shuffled along the tunnel, perhaps covering miles, perhaps far less. He chuckled, recalling how difficult it was to estimate time and space in the starry realm. He hadn't known how easy he'd had it then.
Ahead, a gleam not unlike a star's sparkle arrested his progress. He paused only a moment, then with his heart in his mouth, he doubled his pace, one hand yet sliding along the wall for guidance. The tiny light was moving. Throwing caution to the winds, he began to sprint. Perhaps the Lady of Winds was with him after all—despite his speed, he managed to catch himself when the tunnel ended suddenly in the side wall of a vast abyss.
He'd seen the reflected light of lanterns moving along the floor of the huge space. Lanterns! People moved far below on the floor of the cavern, wending between collapsed and disintegrating structures. He'd discovered a buried city. More importantly, he'd found people! A dozen of them, at least, by the number of lanterns.