“Are you hurt?” Lei asked.
Great, he thought. First I’m a madman, now I’m a fool.
He clenched his injured fist; the pain helped shield him from his embarrassment and the burning across his back. “Let’s catch up with Pierce,” he said. “I’m beginning to see why you want to get away from this thing.”
The two sprinted out of the room. Behind them they could hear the sound of metal on stone, as an ever-increasing stream of shards flowed across the floor toward Harmattan’s head.
Time was running out.
Daine was injured. He wanted to tear the skin off of his back. An unstoppable monster followed them. The mystery of Jode was heavy on his mind. And he was doing his best to prepare for whatever enemy might unexpectedly appear.
But the heart of the monolith still took his breath away.
Karul’tash was a hollow tower, an astonishing work of engineering. Daine could barely see across the central chamber, let alone spy the distant ceiling. He’d seen tall towers before. He’d spent much of the last year in Sharn, and the central spires of the city dwarfed the monolith. But it wasn’t the size of the tower that was so impressive. It was what lay within. An obsidian column filled the center of the chamber, covered with glowing sigils and inlaid with a dozen metals and gemstones. The sheer mass of the cylinder was astonishing, making it all the more impressive that it hovered suspended in the air, a good ten feet off the chamber floor.
Dozens of rings floated around the central pillar, a myriad of metals and widths. The rings rose and fell, spinning in different directions and speeds.
And then there were the spheres: twelve crystal orbs drifted around the pillar. From the ground, it was easy to imagine them as a strange form of decoration. But Daine knew better. These were planar carriages, each one designed to carry passengers to another level of reality.
“One’s missing,” Lei said.
“Lakashtai,” Daine said. “And somehow, I don’t think she’s going to come back on her own.” He gestured at the tables scattered around the room, altars covered with glowing crystals. The magic exceeded his skills, but earlier Lei had used these to control one of the spheres. Daine could see her exhaustion, and he hated to make her exert herself, but there was no choice. “I need you to get this thing working again.”
“You want to know where Lakashtai went?” Lei said.
“For a start.”
Lei hobbled toward the bank of lights, leaning on her staff. Daine sprinted around the column, and what he saw made his heart sink. He’d brought two allies into the tower, and these warriors had helped them defeat the firebinders. One of these soldiers lay on the ground before Daine, the injuries so severe that it took Daine a moment to identify the corpse as that of the man, Shen’kar. Half of the dark elf’s body had been sheared away, and the rest of corpse was covered with cuts, as if he’d been caught in a storm of razors-or Harmattan’s whirling shards.
Damn it. Daine had spent more time fighting the savage dark elves than as their ally, but over the last hour he’d come to respect Shen’kar-and whatever their differences, no warrior deserved to die like that.
“Captain.” Pierce had a body in his arms. A woman, limp, her pitch-black skin covered with cuts. The other dark elf. “She is seriously wounded, but her condition is stable.”
Daine nodded. “Follow me. What did you find?”
“The gate remains open. The wards are in place. And the Sulatar elves are still camped at the perimeter of the magical defenses; I saw at least three of their flying sleds.”
“Wonderful.”
They found Lei working at the crystal consoles. “Status?” Daine said.
“I can’t recover the sphere that Lakashtai used to escape,” Lei said. “But she went to-”
“Dal Quor,” Pierce said.
“That’s right,” Lei said, surprised. “How did you-”
“Later,” Daine said. “Once we don’t have that trash heap on our tails. I was hoping we’d be able to leave out the front door, but that’s impossible.”
“I can deactivate the wards-”
Daine shook his head. “There’s an army camped out there, waiting for their high priest to return and lead them to the promised land. Even if we found some way to get past them we can’t just leave this place in their hands. Who knows what we’ve already unleashed by helping Lakashtai? Besides, if your rusty friend can’t lower the wards himself, we’re doing the world a favor by keeping him here.”
Lei frowned. “So you’re saying we just give up?”
“You know me … I love to give up.” Daine forced a grin. “Come on, Lei. You’re our resident magical genius. You’re the one who told me what these orbs are.”
“Carriages to other planes. You want to leave in one of the orbs?”
“Want to? No.” A vision of Shen’kar’s ravaged corpse flashed through Daine’s mind. “But it’s better than the alternative. Can you do it?”
Lei looked down at the panel. “I … I think so. But where do you want to go?”
“Since when am I an expert on other planes? I want to go home, Lei. For now, I’ll take anywhere that’s not, say, a pit of endless fire.”
“Even a plain of endless ice?”
Daine blinked. “That’s the only other option?”
“Well, it’s a possibility. I can’t access all of the spheres. It must have something to do with the current conjunctions of the planes. And there’s hardly any point to going to Dolurrh in an effort to avoid death.”
Even Daine had heard of Dolurrh, the plane where the souls of the dead were drained of all memories of their former lives.
“Use your best judgment. But do it quickly!” Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he could hear the sound of metal on metal coming from the distant chamber where they’d left Harmattan.
“Perfect!” Lei said. Light flared around her hands, and one of the enormous orbs descended to the floor. “Well, not perfect, but given the alternatives …”
Now Daine was sure of it: a metallic roar came from the hallway. “Let’s go!” he yelled, sprinting toward the orb.
A portal had opened in the side of the massive opalescent sphere, and Daine vaulted up and through it. The interior was a disappointment. Aside from a tall ledge running around the edge of the chamber, the room was completely featureless; Daine couldn’t see any way to make the sphere move. But that wasn’t his job. Lei was right behind him, and Daine pulled her up and inside.
Lei sat crosslegged at the exact center of the chamber, and the room lit up. A complex geometric pattern spread out around her, traced in lines of fire. Runes and sigils appeared on every surface. Each letter was as long as Daine’s hand, a reminder that this was the work of giants. Lei studied the walls. She muttered a word in a harsh and unfamiliar tongue, and one of the glowing symbols on the wall flared brighter for an instant.
Pierce was at the portal. He handed the injured elf to Daine. Beneath her chitin armor, the woman was a waif and seemed like a feather in his arms. A moment later, the warforged was aboard.
“Lei! The door!” Daine cried.
“I’m working on it!”
Now the roar was growing louder, a hurricane howl combined with the gnashing of metal on metal. “We’re about to get another passenger!”
“I’m trying!” Lei said.
They saw him: a glittering cloud, steel death racing toward them.
“Hul’kla’tesh!” Lei cried.
It couldn’t have been any closer; a handful of steel shards fell to the floor as the portal snapped shut. A terrible scraping sound came from the walls, metal gouging at crystal.
“He’s all around us,” Lei said.
“Then get us out of here!”
Lei closed her eyes, her hands set against the floor. Patterns of color danced over the floor, and they felt the orb rising.
Height alone didn’t stop Harmattan. They could still hear the flurry of steel striking the walls of the sphere.