The first shadows rose like wisps of morning mist, separating from the bodies of the plague demons closest to Albanon and Kri. Vestausan and Vestausir had been slow to dissipate, maybe because they’d been more closely connected to Vestapalk. The plague demons took no time at all. The first few shriveled up like scraps of paper thrown onto hot coals, their darkness streaming in thin threads to the source of the molten light.
Then the shadows began to rise more quickly. Wisps became puffs became billows of shadow. The press backward became a mad scramble as plague demons tried to escape. It didn’t help. Shara watched demons collapse as they ran, collapse in the midst of turning away. Demons still in the abyss screeched and skittered madly across the walls, but tendrils of shadow already stretched back to Albanon and Kri. The pair pulled their hands apart to more fully expose the glowing fragment that lay between them and the billows of shadow became a thick stream like black smoke, spiraling down into the fragment.
It didn’t just come from the plague demons either. It drifted up from the rocks and leached out of the air. Veins of red crystal faded to pink, then turned clear-then vanished altogether. All around Shara, stone creaked and groaned like a frozen river in thaw. Rocks broke away from the walls of the shafts and fell in clattering cascades.
An especially loud groan came from behind her. Shara turned to face Vestapalk.
Shadows hung around the dragon like a dark aura, but none of them drifted away. Crystal eyes filled with rage and hate glared at her. “You will not defeat this one,” snarled Vestapalk. “This one will rule the world. This one… has the power of a god!”
“Shara!” shouted Uldane. She glanced over her shoulder. The halfling stood with Quarhaun at the base of the spire. Tempest and Roghar were still with Kri and Albanon, but Cariss and Belen were climbing ropes back up to the passage. Uldane waved for her to join them. “This place could collapse! Come on!”
“Not yet,” Shara called back to him. She could see Tempest and Roghar were unable to get Kri and Albanon to move. The pair was chanting, and even though most of the plague demons had been consumed, shadows were still rising from the crumbling Plaguedeep. She waved to Uldane and Quarhaun. “Go!”
Uldane left the base of the spire, but went no farther than the climbing ropes. Quarhaun didn’t move at all. Shara looked at Vestapalk. The tight aura of shadows around him was starting to fray. He trembled with the effort of holding it-and himself-together. Walking carefully along the creaking spire, Shara moved closer. The dragon snapped at her. “This one is chosen!” he spat. “This one is-ah! Ah! ”
His words trailed off into gasps of pain as Kri and Albanon redoubled their chanting yet again. Shadows began to stream from Vestapalk-and as they went, he changed.
The great crystal wings faded away to nothingness and so did one of the talons on his forepaws- ausan, ausir, and gix. The crystal spikes along his spine and the crystal spurs from his limbs faded just as the veins of crystal had faded from the stones of the Plaguedeep. The Voidharrow that had dripped from his jaws dried and disappeared. The red stain left his scales. As the shadow of Tharizdun’s will peeled away from him, Vestapalk became green once more. He coughed and darkness puffed out of his mouth like soot from a blacksmith’s bellows. His head sank down to the stone. Horrified and fascinated, Shara moved even closer. Vestapalk’s head snapped up again.
The sockets that had been filled with eyes of liquid crystal were empty.
Vestapalk bared white teeth, and his nostrils flared. “This one knows your scent,” he said. “This one can still take one more adventurer to the grave.”
He lunged, his long wingless body slithering on the stone like a great lizard. Shara sidestepped his rush easily. Her greatsword came down on his neck just behind his narrow skull.
The blade sliced scales, hide, flesh, and bone as if they were woven of straw. Vestapalk’s eyeless head went bouncing down the spire. His body staggered for a moment, carried on by momentum-then slipped over the edge. Shara leaned over to watch it fall. Down. Down.
Down into thick, rising shadows. A cold wind rushed up the pit and into her face, nearly choking her. Shara pushed herself back and raced down the spire. “Back!” she shouted at Quarhaun and the others. “Get back behind Kri and Albanon!”
The others obeyed her. Quarhaun didn’t. She leaped down the last few paces of the spire and slammed him to the ground.
The great mass of shadows rose up behind her, so thick and solid that it blasted the spire apart. The darkness roared overhead, compressing down into a swirling spiral that sent both Kri and Albanon flying backward. The molten light of the gate fragment vanished, the last shadows of what had been the Voidharrow consumed.
In its wake, the sounds of creaking stones and falling rock were louder than ever. Another tremor shook the mountain and huge slabs of stone went cascading down the shaft. Quarhaun rolled Shara off him and pulled her to her feet. “Out!” he ordered. “Everyone out, now!”
“No,” said a quiet, calm voice. “Not quite yet.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The calm voice belonged to Kri. Albanon rolled over and stared at him. The priest was already standing, his wrinkled face placid. The creak and crash of stones shook the cave, but that didn’t seem to bother Kri at all. “You have something that belongs to me,” he said. He held out his hand. “The fragment of the Vast Gate. Give it to me. Now.”
The others, some still on the ground, some caught in the act of rising, stared at the two of them. Albanon looked down at his own hand, still squeezed tight around the gate fragment, still warm with the light that had poured from it. Somehow it felt different in his grip-a little less sharp around the edges, a little heavier. No, a lot heavier. Before he’d barely been conscious of the fragment’s weight. Now it was heavy enough that he couldn’t have missed it. He sat up and opened his fingers.
His first thought was that someone had switched the fragment for a lump of lead. The stone he held wasn’t just heavy, but as smooth as if it had been tumbled along a riverbed, and it had changed color from red to black. As he stared at it, though, he realized it was the same stone. It had the same tapered oval shape and if the broken edges had become somewhat smooth, they were still there. And the black… the black was the same color as the shadows that had flowed off the Voidharrow.
He’d never really considered what would happen to the will of Tharizdun once they separated it from the Voidharrow. Maybe he’d thought the gate fragment would direct it back to the Chained God’s eternal prison. Maybe he’d thought it would simply dissipate. It hadn’t.
Albanon squeezed his hand around the stone. “I don’t think so,” he said.
Kri’s expression became strained. “It is Tharizdun’s will incarnate. It is the Eye of the Chained God made manifest.”
“You know what it is, then.”
“Of course. I am Tharizdun’s priest.”
“That’s what worries me.” Albanon climbed to his feet. He ached as if he’d been beaten with a bag full of sand. He tried not to let his weakness show. Kri’s calm seemed unnatural, as if he were on the edge of reverting to raving lunacy. Maybe the others sensed it, too. They closed in around him. Over by the climbing ropes, Uldane tensed.
“I think,” Albanon said carefully, “that I’ll hold onto this for a little longer.” He moved to return the black stone to his pouch.
It was the wrong thing to do. Kri’s face twisted with rage. He threw out his hand. “Chained God, hold them!”
Bright white light flared around him. It washed over Albanon, searing his skin and clinging to him like a caul. The arm that reached for his pouch slowed until it barely moved. The others were caught as well, and their movements similarly hampered. Uldane jerked and started forward, but Kri swung a hand toward him. “Stay where you are!” He took a step back, keeping his distance from their struggling forms. His gaze raked all of them. “You remember now who didn’t wear himself down fighting plague demons, don’t you? Remember too that the Voidharrow is destroyed. Tharizdun’s vengeance is complete. I don’t need any of you anymore.”