Where was the other voice that had spoken to him so often before? Albanon reached out to it-and found silence. Of course. He’d rejected it. He felt his feet move without his will, taking the first long step toward the spire and Vestapalk. “Albanon, no!” shouted Tempest, but it was Kri who grabbed his arm and held him back. The priest’s voice rose.
“He serves another master now-a master who will destroy you!”
Vestapalk’s laughter filled the cavern and found echoes not just in reflected sound, but among the plague demons. The stillness of the Plaguedeep shattered as the laughter spread in shrieking, cackling waves. Vestapalk’s voice rose above it all. “Does he? This one served that master once. The Elder Eye that is Tharizdun guided Vestapalk to power, but Vestapalk found a power greater than the Eye!” The dragon paused and his eyes narrowed, but stayed locked on Albanon. “Who will you serve, eladrin? Follow the Elder Eye and you follow the prisoner of a dead world. Follow Vestapalk and you follow the new god of this world!”
Kri’s voice buzzed in his ear. “It’s a trick. Vestapalk only wants revenge. If you follow him, he’ll just make you into one of his minions-one of his slaves. Tharizdun doesn’t demand service. He offers you power, but also freedom. Follow him and we’ll save the world from the Voidharrow together.” The priest glared up at Vestapalk. “Release him! Let him make his own choice.”
The dragon chuckled again, but lifted his gaze. Albanon felt the dragon’s hold on him vanish as if a weight had been removed from his back. He staggered. Hands caught him.
Tempest’s hands. Albanon looked up and met eyes filled with concern. Tempest didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. He straightened and looked at Kri. “I do not serve Tharizdun-”
Fury passed like a storm across the priest’s face. Vestapalk’s double voice rose in another mocking laugh. Albanon spun to look up at him. “- but I will work with him to destroy you! ”
Vestapalk’s laughter vanished, sucked back down his throat. Strangled silence fell across the Plaguedeep.
And was broken again by a call from above. “Vestapalk!” Roghar shouted. “Bahamut stands against you in defense of this world as well. Feel his wrath!”
The paladin thrust his shield forward and blinding white light poured from the symbol of the Platinum Dragon. Vestapalk reeled back, bellowing in agony as the light washed over him. Demons shrieked as if the holy radiance had burned them as well. Against the brightness, Albanon saw ropes thrown over the edge of the level above, then Uldane, Cariss, and Belen were sliding down to join him, Kri, and Tempest. For an instant, he was struck by fear for Shara and Quarhaun, then he saw them just behind Roghar up above.
Tempest touched a hand to his face. “Good choice,” she said, then she stepped away to join the others as they took up defensive positions around him. Albanon looked to Kri. Tharizdun’s priest seemed almost stunned by the turn of events. Albanon grabbed his arm and hauled him close. His other hand dipped into his pouch and produced the fragment of the Vast Gate.
“Let’s make this count, Kri,” he said. He wrapped the old man’s hand over his, the stone fragment squeezed so tight between them that Albanon could feel its sharp edges. The pain seemed to break through to Kri as well. He drew a shuddering breath, glanced once at Albanon with hate-filled eyes, then raised his voice.
“Tharizdun! Chained God! Patient One-”
Vestapalk’s roar drowned him out. Great wings cracked like thunder as they spread wide and Vestapalk launched himself straight at them.
Roghar’s divine light threw Quarhaun’s face into stark relief and all but washed out the shadows that writhed around the drow’s drawn sword. “You’re certain?” he shouted over Vestapalk’s bellow and the shrieks of the plague demons.
“It’s what I swore to do, my love,” Shara called back. She glanced down to the lower level. Uldane and the others were on the ground, racing to Albanon and Kri. She looked back up to Quarhaun. “One,” she said. He raised the sword. “Two.” He braced himself. “Three!”
She sprinted at him. Behind her, Roghar shouted something but it was too late to stop. Quarhaun’s lips formed an arcane word. His sword sliced the air.
Shadows folded around Shara. For an instant, it seemed as if she’d been struck blind. Searing cold snatched her breath away as Quarhaun had warned her it would. The spell was never intended to be used on friends, only enemies-like the peryton he had used it on to save her.
Then light and warmth burst around her again and her running feet were on scales instead of stone. Vestapalk’s scales. On Vestapalk’s back.
Except that the dragon wasn’t sitting still anymore. The scaly hide slid under Shara’s boots. She grabbed at one of the sword-tall crystal spikes growing from Vestapalk’s spine and held on-just in time. Vestapalk’s roar of fury changed to one of confusion. The Plaguedeep spun around her as the dragon bucked and twisted like a wild horse, trying to dislodge the thing on his back. She caught a glimpse of her friends throwing themselves to the ground, then she and the dragon were past them and flying over the Plaguedeep.
“I feel you!” Vestapalk screamed. “I feel you back there. You will die for this!” He beat his wings and started climbing straight up. For a moment, Shara stared up through red mists at a blue sky high above, then she twisted around and managed to get a leg over another of the spine spikes.
“Not before you!” she shouted into the wind. She dragged one of Cariss’s warpicks from her belt and raised it high. “This is for Jarren and Borojon!”
She brought the point of the pick down with all of her strength as close to the dragon’s spine as she could.
Once again, Vestapalk bellowed with agony. His climb faltered, the beating of one wing slowing, and he veered close to a rocky wall. Flapping his good wing desperately, he hit the stone feet first, hung for a moment, then released himself on a slow spiral back down to the depths. The blue sky Shara had glimpsed was replaced with a dizzying view of the Plaguedeep. She pressed herself again Vestapalk’s scales and hung on tight.
As Vestapalk disappeared up the shaft of the Plaguedeep, Tempest thought she saw Shara clinging to his back. She blinked, but the dragon was gone before she looked again.
In its wake, the plague demons came. They poured up over the edge of the abyss and dropped down from above. They were beast demons and four-armed brutes mostly, but a few larger and stranger types as well, like disembodied heads that scuttled on spider legs and things that slithered like a slug, leaving glittering crystal trails behind. All of them had rage in their red eyes.
It was hard to believe that each one had once been an intelligent creature-human or halfling, dwarf or tiefling, orc or gnoll or goblin-transformed by the Abyssal Plague. Tempest clenched her teeth and tried to put that idea out of her head. They weren’t what they used to be anymore. They were killers, ready to slaughter her or Belen or Cariss or any of the others.
“What’s plan?” she asked Belen.
“Keep them back as long as we can,” the human woman said tersely.
“I can do that,” said Tempest. She reached into herself and drew up the most powerful spell she knew, one that hadn’t been suited to fighting the fire demons, but was perfect for this occasion. She gathered spittle in her mouth, feeling it take on heat and a kind of squirming life, then spat it out at the largest of the charging demons. It flew far and fast, more than twenty paces, and spattered into squirming little droplets-fiery scorpions that swarmed over her target and all the demons around it. The charging creatures broke into a frenzy as they tried to beat at the magical bugs.
Unfortunately, there were more demons where they had come from. A fresh surge broke over the edge of the abyss, new demons crushing old demons beneath them.