He reserved a special glare for Albanon. “And you. You would deny the Chained God when he has put power beyond the understanding of most people into your hands. You would turn your back on the gifts he offers.”
Albanon force his mouth to move. “I don’t want… your madness.”
Kri snarled and raised his hand, then stopped. “I want the stone, that’s all. Just the stone. Roghar, bring it to me.” The priest pointed a finger and the caul of light that trapped Roghar faded.
Roghar, however, didn’t move. “No,” he said.
Rage built in Kri’s face. “You swore in Bahamut’s name to obey me!”
Albanon and the others stared the paladin, but Roghar didn’t look back at them. His face stiffened. “I refuse to betray my friends.”
“Then you betray your god!”
“I don’t think Bahamut would want you to have that stone either,” Roghar said calmly.
Kri screamed with inarticulate rage. He thrust out one hand, then clenched it tight. Once again, the holy light of the gods exploded around Albanon, but this time it seemed to explode within him as well. Its radiance burned him from the inside out. The shriek that filled his ears was his own.
“Bring me the stone,” he heard Kri howl, “or Albanon dies!”
He didn’t hear Roghar’s response, but he knew what it must have been, because the burning stopped and he fell into cool dimness. He felt Roghar’s thick fingers pry at his and he tried to pull away. “No,” he said weakly. He forced his eyes open and discovered he was on the ground. Roghar’s face was just above his. “Don’t.”
The dragonborn pulled the stone from his grasp and stood. Albanon pushed himself upright, still too dazed to attempt a spell. Tempest, Quarhaun, and Shara were still caught by Kri’s caul. Roghar advanced on Kri with the stone held out in front of him like a bit of rotten meat. Kri’s eyes lit up. “Chained God!” he whispered in fanatic tones. “Patient One!” He reached to take the stone.
And Roghar swung away from him. “Uldane!” he shouted, and he tossed the black stone to the halfling, then turned back to Kri, his hands curled into fists.
Kri’s gaze went from bright to burning in an instant. He shrieked a prayer and a wave of bright light and deafening thunder hammered into Roghar, throwing him across the cavern and into a wall. Big chunks of rocks came clanging down onto his armor. He struggled weakly but didn’t get up.
“Kri!” shouted Uldane, bringing the priest around again. The halfling stood at the very edge of the cavern, right at the edge of the shaft that had been the Plaguedeep, with one arm extended out over the abyss. His face was as serious as Albanon had ever seen it. “Let us go.”
Kri froze, his eyes flicking from the stone to Uldane’s face, and Albanon guessed he was trying to come up with a plan. The wizard took the chance to climb quietly to his feet. But he wasn’t quite quiet enough-Kri twisted around and pinned him with a sharp glance. Albanon met that gaze, or at least tried to. The madness that burned in Kri’s eyes was uncomfortable to see. He looked away. Kri’s mouth curved into an arrogant smile and he turned back to Uldane.
“Uldane,” he said, sliding closer to the halfling, “I don’t want to hurt any of you. I only want the stone. Let’s show we have faith in each other. Give me the stone now and I swear I’ll let you all go.”
“Release Shara and the others.”
Kri gestured without even looking. The remaining cauls fell away. Tempest touched Albanon’s arm, then went to help Roghar. Kri stretched his hand toward Uldane. “Done. Now give me the stone.”
Uldane shook his head. “I never said I’d do that.” He flicked his wrist and the stone sailed out over the abyss. Kri screeched like one of the plague demons and rushed to the edge to stare after it. Uldane threw himself away. “Somebody finish him!”
Albanon already had a spell on his lips. Focusing his will, he spoke the words and thrust out his hand. The air shimmered.
Kri turned just as the blast of force hit him. His eyes were wide and wild, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth. He flew back into the wide shaft with his robes fluttering around him. The last glimpse Albanon had of Kri Redshal-once a priest of Ioun, once the last member of the Order of Vigilance, once his mentor-was of him foaming at the mouth, screaming for Tharizdun.
Maybe the Chained God heard him because at that moment, a titanic slab of rock split from the wall right above them and plummeted after Kri into the abyss. It crashed against the floor of their little cavern as it fell, sending vibrations through the stone. More rock rained down from the ceiling above. Quarhaun looked up and flinched.
“This time we go!” he shouted. “Everybody up the ropes and no stopping until we’re outside.”
No one objected.
Cariss and Belen waited for them above with fresh sunrods to light the way. The tunnel held as they made their way through it, though they could hear stone collapsing regularly behind them and dust drifted down on them in with the constant threat of a cave-in. As first it seemed as if the tunnel might have become a dead-end-the narrow crawlspace they had first entered had collapsed entirely-but Quarhaun’s sharp eyes spotted hints of light in the cracks of another wall. They attacked the rotten stone with hands and shoulders. It crumbled easily under their assault and before long they’d opened a new entrance, one tall enough to walk out of easily.
They emerged under the light of the setting sun to find the slopes of the volcano radically changed. New crevices had opened and old crevices had split wide. Solid slopes had turned into rockslides. The scrubby, slumping trees that the Voidharrow had tainted slumped even more, the wood so full of holes it looked as if the trees had been attacked by hungry insects. Sinkholes had opened up for leagues around, gaping maws leading to rubble-choked pits. The ridge that marked the spot where they had cached their supplies the night before lay across the nightmare landscape. By unspoken consent, they stopped on what looked like a stable patch of slope. With Vestapalk gone, there was no hurry. Their cache and their bedrolls could wait until the moon rose.
“How far did the Voidharrow reach?” Uldane asked while they sat. “Did we get it all?”
“We got it,” Albanon answered him wearily. “All of it. Every drop. Every last crystal.”
“How do you know?”
“I felt it,” Albanon said. It was the truth. When the last blast of Tharizdun’s shadowy will had risen up from the depths and entered the fragment of the Vast Gate, there’d been a sensation like a door or a gate closing. The Chained God had his vengeance, he supposed. The molten light of the gate fragment hadn’t gone out because he and Kri had ceased their chanting-it had gone out because there was no more Voidharrow.
“What about the plague demons?” said Shara. “That couldn’t have been all of them in the Plaguedeep, could it?”
“It might have been all of the demons in the area. Maybe all those in the Nentir Vale. If Vestapalk guessed we were coming, he might have drawn them in to keep them from frightening us off. Or to lure us closer.”
“Will any that are left still be able to spread the Abyssal Plague?”
Albanon shrugged and sat back. “I don’t know. When Kri first explained to me exactly what the Voidharrow was, I asked the same question. He said he thought they might be able to because the plague demons were beings of both worlds now, but that without the Voidharrow the plague will be less virulent and won’t spread as easily.” He pressed his lips together. “Of course, it turned out he wasn’t entirely right about a lot of things. We might still need to watch out for the Abyssal Plague for a long time to come.”
“What do you think?” asked Tempest.