Vaddi made to speak to Zemella, but something in her expression checked him. It was not difficult to read the stress there, the sure knowledge that they were going forward on a hopeless quest. Despondency would be as dangerous an enemy as the denizens of this bleak terrain.
Deep down in the heart of the crumbling city of Azzahareb, in a citadel erected by giants eons before men spread like ants across Khorvaire, the acolytes of Zuharrin gathered in one of many restored throne rooms. Once it had been magnificent, its lofty columns bright with sculptures of the highest order, its tall glass windows brilliant with color. Now lush carpets again stretched across its immense floors, matched in glory only by the vivid inlays of the polished tiles. Tapestries and finely woven curtains hung from the beams in celebration of the majesty of those who ruled here. The immense domed room was no longer the pride of an empire, although there were signs of its former glory. The fallen debris of years had been removed, the columns polished, and the furnishings redecorated. Huge candles, thick as the columns, burned atop golden braziers, while marble statues and wooden carvings from across all of Xen’drik had been assembled.
The focal point of this new expression of power was a gigantic throne, carved from a single immense tree trunk, set with demons and demigods from ages long gone. Wooden serpents and winged beings gazed out from jewelled eyes at the grand room almost as though alive. Indeed, the spells that clung to the wood and the smoldering censers around it writhed in the air, humming with powerful magic. Most potent of all was the figure that sat in the throne, dwarfed by it yet resplendent in dark robes, his face serene but deeply majestic, ageless but vital.
Zuharrin surveyed the gathering before him. His servants lined the rim of the hall, pike shafts and shields flashing in the light from the braziers. They represented an army that had been a longtime in the building, an army that waited in the city, sworn to serve Zuharrin and to die at his command, controlled by magics he had unearthed from this ancient city and set upon them all like chains. Beyond the dais where he sat, a score of dignitaries had come before the sorcerer, each of them in a warrior’s uniform, a token of their own great power.
He stood, a smile passing over his thin lips, his green eyes sweeping them with a glance like steel. “The time draws near,” he said, his voice cracking tike a whip in the motionless air. “You are almost all gathered. From all realms of Eberron you have come, and again I do homage to your alliance.”
Zuharrin bowed to his guests. He was the focus of power here in ancient Xen’drik, the one who had delved deepest into its dubious energies, the one who would bind them into a weapon surpassing anything seen for millennia, but it served his purpose to let his underlings think themselves near his equal. For now.
“It will soon be time to release T’saagash Mal. Our crusade will begin.”
One of the armed warlords stepped forward with a curt bow. “My Lord Zuharrin, you spoke to us once before of a powerful weapon, a talisman that would aid us in this great crusade.”
“Erethindel, the horn of dragon blood. Yes.”
“You have this artefact?”
Zuharrin smiled and turned to his right. A block of obsidian marble stood at the foot of the throne dais. Across it had been draped a rich velvet hanging. The sorcerer went to this and lifted back the folds of the velvet to reveal the object beneath. Green light crackled with a sound like the burning of logs. Strange, alien sigils had been cut into the surface of the marble, protective charms against the latent power in the object they surrounded. There, motionless yet redolent with its own power, the Crimson Talisman rested.
“It is said that the elves carved this, but that is only part of its history,” Zuharrin told the lords as they eased forward to get a better view of the revered object. “Dragons had a part in its birth.”
“Yet,” came a voice from beyond the warriors, “it is of no use to any of us, yourself included. Zuharrin, without its wielder.”
Zuharrin scowled for a moment, the air around him curdling like a thundercloud, but as he saw the tall figure of the latecomer, his frown turned to a knowing smile. “Welcome,” he said. He drew the velvet drape back over the horn.
“My apologies for my lateness. It has been a prolonged and arduous journey.”
“We are glad to have you with us,” said Zuharrin, and the other lords bowed politely.
“You have secured the Orien youth?” said the latecomer.
Every eye was fixed on the sorcerer. Zuharrin smiled again, and in that smile was more than a hint of dreadful resolve. “He is drawn to the Crimson Talisman as a moth is drawn to fire.” He nodded at one of the tapering flames of a huge candle beyond them, where a cloud of moths fluttered perilously close to its light. “Soon he will be here.”
“He will serve us?” said one of the lords.
“He will resist, but not for long. He has no concept of true power. Xen’drik has given me its deepest secrets. I will bend the Orien youth to my will until the only release he has will be to direct the powers within him and Erethindel into T’saagash Mal. Once the youth is snared, he can never break the chains. He will be no more than a vessel, doomed to remain so.”
“Where is he now?” said another of the lords.
“He sailed with an escort of Aereni Deathguard bound for these shores, but his ship was attacked by the sahuagin. There was a fierce conflict, which alerted my servants. The unwitting boy sails directly into our hands.”
There was a brief murmur, then a lord spoke. “To what end? Surely if he sought to oppose us, he would require an army.”
“The youth and those who aid him are naïve,” said Zuharrin. “They have no concept of our powers. Indeed, they know nothing of us. I have been served by a cleric, who until recently travelled with the Orien youth. Vaddi d’Orien comes to Xen’drik seeking him, thinking it is the cleric who holds the talisman. A strong company of the Deathguard is, Vaddi d’Orien assumes, all he needs to pry the talisman back from the cleric.”
The warrior lord who had been the last to join them stepped forward, drawing his sword and putting its point to the marbled floor. He leaned on its crosspiece. “The boy’s family has been a blight on my success for a long time. He is the last of them. If this youth needs bringing to heel, it will give me much pleasure to ride out and drag him here.”
Zuharrin shook his head. “Let him find his own way. Azzahareb will be open to him. It will be a simple task to snare him, and once we have done so, we can begin the last chapter of the working. T’saagash Mal will rise, and all your armies will benefit from his powers. Across every continent, to the far reaches of Khorvaire itself, even beyond your own Karrnath.” He looked to the tall warrior.
The latter grunted and put away his sword.
“You will have an altogether new understanding of power. Believe me, Kazzerand.”
20
In the Demon Citadel
The company moved up the steep-sided gully and into the foothills above the broken city of giants. Below them, spread out in a wide black stain, the outpost of the city pulsed faintly with its warped powers like a wounded beast. They could see far down into its fathomless, canyon-like streets, some choked with debris, weird lights glowing within them as if strange denizens loitered there, ever waiting to draw into their webs whatever morsel of life should chance upon them. This once proud metropolis, mountainous and immense, had been home to thousands, but now it had been reduced to a nightmare realm, refuge of supernatural powers.
They turned back up the gully and went farther into its shadowed confines. No moons lit the way and no light penetrated the deepening gash into the mountainside. If there had been a stream here, it had dried up or been diverted down into the black heart of stone below. A damning silence pervaded all once more and only a few of the elves’ swords lit the way. On either side the stone walls were pocked with caves like windows so that it seemed to the company that it was passing through not a natural canyon but another deep street in a city beyond known time, yet nothing stirred in its walls. It was like passing through a mammoth graveyard of forgotten gods, where tomb after tomb crumbled reluctantly.