Kaanyr Vhok's consciousness returned to the sound of forge hammers ringing on anvils. The loud, clanging blows of metal on metal reverberated through the cambion. Each concussive strike made his head pound, and he winced at the noise.
The dwarves of Sundabar are worthless wastes of life, he silently grumbled. They should all be impaled and quartered for making that racket.
The half-fiend groaned, grimaced, then tried to sit up. The pounding in his head made him dizzy, and he feared he would be ill.
What's the matter with me? he wondered. Am I injured?
Kaanyr couldn't remember what happened. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to clear his head. He kept his face on the cool stones beneath him and waited until his equilibrium stopped spinning.
Stones, he thought. Did I fall?
He reached out with one hand and began to feel his own body, testing for broken bones. Everything was intact.
A familiar feminine voice cut through the fog of his wooziness. "Micus, wait!"
Aliisza.
"Stop this. Let me find a way to help you," the alu said. Her voice sounded desperate, frantic. It filled him with worry.
Micus! He knew that name!
Memories tumbled back into Vhok-
The rotunda…
A battle with Myshik…
The thrice-damned hobgoblin nearly cleaved me in twain, Kaanyr remembered. I should be dead. The cambion reached behind, feeling the place along his back where the half-dragon had struck.
He found no sign of any wound.
Fearful that he would suffer another attack from the cunning Myshik, Kaanyr forced himself to open his eyes and sit up.
He rested near the very periphery of the rotunda, deep in shadow. A single glow of light, oddly dim and unsteady, flickered from near the center of the chamber. He spotted no sign of the draconic hobgoblin, but there was movement to his left, among the columns holding the dome aloft, where Aliisza's voice had emanated.
As Kaanyr rose unsteadily onto one knee, he spied his blade, crackling with purplish black energy, near his foot. He reached down and took hold of the weapon, then heard the sound of flesh striking flesh, followed by a soft groan.
Aliisza!
Kaanyr forced himself to his feet and staggered toward the sound.
The cambion had to follow the curve of the columns to reach the source, and when he stepped into view, he nearly stumbled to the floor in shock.
A dreadful creature nearly filled the space between the curved wall and the columns, a beast made by foul magic. Half man and half something else, it raised a massive axe high and reared like a horse on back legs. Aliisza slumped before it in a daze, unwilling or unable to retreat from the impending strike.
Kaanyr flipped his sword around, snatching the blade end out of the air. In the same smooth motion, he yanked his arm back and then snapped it forward, flinging the weapon at the abomination before him. The sword spun across the distance between Kaanyr and the monstrosity.
In his haste, Kaanyr had not been careful with his aim, but he did not care. The sword tumbled past the flank of the creature's human torso, grazing one of its four arms and raking a gash along it. Purplish energy crackled outward in a spiderweb mosaic, radiating from the wound.
The beast screamed and flailed, its deadly strike against Aliisza disrupted. The axe slipped from its grasp as the abomination staggered to one side.
Kaanyr did not wait to see the effects of his attack. Reaching inside his tunic, he stumbled toward the thing. He pulled a wand free and prepared to utter the powerful arcane phrase that would trigger its magic.
The beast turned toward him, and Kaanyr's words died on his lips.
Micus's fevered eyes bore into the cambion.
"You!" Micus screamed, spinning to fully confront Vhok. "Damn you back to the Hells from whence you came!" He lurched toward the half-fiend, and Kaanyr spied Myshik's face jutting from Micus's gut. The half-hobgoblin's mouth slavered as it stared gleefully at him.
Kaanyr recovered his wits and leveled the wand at the onrushing abomination. He activated the magic imbued in the device and flinched as blinding lightning burst from its tip. The charge arced across the distance and engulfed Micus and Myshik in a shower of crackling energy and sparks. To the cambion, the discharge of magic felt… off.
The flash left afterimages in Kaanyr's vision, but he could make out enough to watch the monstrosity stagger to one side and go down.
Vhok held the wand steady for a moment, watching to see if the fused creatures remained a threat.
Micus's eyes stayed closed, but he still breathed. Likewise, Myshik's head appeared unconscious. Once or twice, the wings upon the flank of the odd, centaur-shaped abomination twitched, but that was all.
Kaanyr approached the immobile form of the thing and nudged it with the toe of his boot. When it still did not move, he let out a sigh of relief and pocketed the wand. He turned toward Aliisza.
The alu still crouched near the column, her long, dark ringlets plastered to her pale, narrow face. She stared up at Kaanyr. Her eyes, so often smoldering in sultry delight, were instead wide and fearful. Her mouth, usually formed into a cunning smile or petulant frown, trembled. She kept her graceful, batlike wings folded snugly against her body. They matched the shiny black luster of her tight leather armor. Even in that moment of chaos and crisis, Kaanyr admired the form-fitting garment and how it accentuated the alu's shape.
"Kaanyr," Aliisza said, her voice quavering. "You're alive. I thought-"
"Don't ask me how," Kaanyr replied, moving to the alu and kneeling down. He took her face in his hands, drew her close, and kissed her. He could feel her still trembling, and she resisted at first, rigid, as though afraid. Then she melted into him.
"I tried to stop you," Aliisza said into his shoulder, her voice faint, desperate. "I tried to stop you all."
At her words, Kaanyr remembered how she had brought Micus to the rotunda. The cambion's joy at having the half-fiend safely back with him vanished, driven from him like a punch to the gut, as he recalled her betrayal.
"We were on the verge," Kaanyr said as he stiffly untangled himself from her embrace. "I was this close"-as he stood up, the cambion held his thumb and forefinger, almost touching, in front of her face-"to winning my freedom from Tauran's control. And then you went and sabotaged everything." And to think how I grieved, believing I'd lost you within the Eye of Savras's vast caverns of knowledge. Weak, he thought. He wasn't sure if he meant it for Aliisza or himself.
The alu struggled to her knees. She looked like a street waif begging for coin. "I wasn't the one," she pleaded. "It was Zasian. Please understand. I was trying to stop him!"
Zasian!
Kaanyr's memory flooded with thoughts of the hated priest and his treachery. New anger coursed through him, an unrelenting desire to rend the man.
With a snarl, Vhok turned from the alu and stalked toward his sword. It lay in the shadows, crackling with its malevolent energy.
"I don't understand a thing that's happened since you returned from the caverns," he said, "but I will free myself of Tauran's control. I will slay that damnable priest!" He jerked the sword off the ground and turned back toward the center of the rotunda. "And I will not be stopped this time!"
"Wait!" Aliisza cried, trying to rise to her feet. She had to brace herself against the column to keep herself upright. "Something's happened." She reached toward him. "To all of us. Can't you feel it?"
Vhok ignored the alu and stepped between the columns, into the light. He drew up short when he spied Zasian Menz across from him, standing with his arms folded protectively.
A glow emanated from the priest.
Zasian spotted Vhok and smiled, but it was not the treacherous grin the cambion remembered from before. The expression on the priest's face showed a mixture of confusion and hope. It came across as pure and warm, like the uncertainty of a child who has just been praised by his father after doing something for which he expected to be punished.
"Well met," Zasian said. He looked around for a brief moment, frowning, then he gestured. "What is this place? Where are we?"
Kaanyr's mouth opened and shut several times as he worked to form the words. He could not.
"Everything's different," Aliisza said, appearing beside Kaanyr and taking his arm. "Something happened."
Kaanyr clenched his teeth and shrugged free of her grasp. "He tries to fool us both," he growled. He took another step toward the priest. "His clever tricks will not dissuade me!" He drew back his sword and closed the distance, intent on driving the blade through the priest's chest.
Zasian's eyes grew wide with fright and he flinched back. "Please don't!" he pleaded. Then he turned and ran, darting behind the nearest column.
Kaanyr strode forward. "You cannot dupe me with your theatrics, priest," he said. "I will not be denied!"
Zasian's face peeked out from behind the pillar, watching the approaching half-fiend. "Stop!" he pleaded, backing away as Kaanyr got closer. "What did I do? I don't know you. I don't remember!"
Kaanyr shook his head and snorted in amusement. "Weak, Zasian. Very weak. I thought you could do better than that." He reached the column and tried to circle it, reaching for the priest. He remained wary, expecting the man to drop his foolish pretenses and assault him.
But Zasian Menz continued to shy away and retreat, using the columns as protection from the enraged cambion.
"Kaanyr!" Aliisza shouted. The tone of her voice caused a cold pain to form in the pit of his stomach. There was more to her call than mere worry for Zasian's well-being. Something far more sinister troubled her.
Kaanyr turned and faced her, keeping Zasian visible in the corner of his eye. "What is it?" he demanded.
The alu did not answer, but she pointed at something to the side, just out of Kaanyr's view. Her expression matched the fear in her voice and gave him pause.
Kaanyr took a pair of steps toward Aliisza and then turned and peered in the direction she indicated.
A great hole had appeared along one side of the chamber.
To Kaanyr, it looked as though a massive blade had cleaved the rotunda, severing a portion of the wall from the rest of the chamber. Beyond the hole, where the cambion expected to see the great cavern of Azuth's abode within Dweomerheart, nothing but a silvery void existed.
"What is that?" Kaanyr said, feeling confusion and fear grip him.
Beside him, Aliisza shuddered. "I told you, something happened. I felt it." She stepped toward the edge of the hole.
"Don't," Kaanyr warned. "Stay back." He imagined some unseen force or power sucking his consort away through the gaping opening into the nothingness beyond.
Aliisza did not stop, though. She moved right to the edge of the hole and craned her neck forward. A small gasp escaped her.
"What is it?" Kaanyr asked, moving a step closer despite his fear.
There was no sign of Azuth's caverns in the expanded view. The silvery void stretched in every direction. But it was not empty. Islands of material bobbed in the distance, like debris on an argent ocean. Some seemed distant, tiny, while others floated near enough for Kaanyr to discern that they were spherical, bubbles of solidity. Inside those spheres the cambion could see chunks of stone or rock, or hunks of earth, grass- and tree-covered tracts of a world. Based on their contents, Kaanyr got the distinct impression that some of the bubbles of matter were quite large, while others were meager, perhaps only a few paces across.
The spheres of matter slowly moved into and out of view, as though they orbited his tiny refuge. Then his frame of reference shifted, and he realized they did not move after all. Instead, his mind's eye accepted that he was spinning. He could not feel it, but he somehow knew it to be true.
Suddenly, Kaanyr understood.
The cambion stared down at the stone beneath his own feet. He could see then that the edge of the hole was curved, shaped like the edge of a sphere.
They, too, were in a bubble.
"Gods and devils, what happened?" he asked, his voice faint. Terror made him feel dizzy, tiny. "Where are we?"
Aliisza did not answer. She had her hand to her mouth and her eyes were still wide as she stared at something outside Kaanyr's field of view. When he leaned forward, cautiously, to catch a glimpse, he felt his heart skip a beat.
The most gargantuan bubble that Kaanyr could imagine floated there.
A milky cloud of something filled the massive sphere. A thousand thousand sparkling motes of light swarmed and danced inside. A figure hovered within the vapor, vaguely human in shape but only faintly visible, sprawled like some cadaver entangled in the filth of an inner city canal.
The colossal bubble and its cargo gently undulated, and Kaanyr had the impression that they were not stationary. The monumental figure instead drifted, floating on some unseen current within the silvery void. All the other, tinier bubbles bobbed and weaved along with it, as though caught in its eddy.
What has happened?
Fighting vertigo and panic, Kaanyr spun away from the scene. He sought Zasian, certain the priest was behind the chaos. Vhok would make him answer for his duplicity, would force him to return them to somewhere sane.
The cambion took two steps toward the middle of the chamber and froze. Other holes had opened along the periphery of the rotunda, as though the stone itself had melted away. Each breach appeared knife-edge smooth, perfect, and growing. Their bubble was shrinking, eating away at the reality of the rotunda as it did.
Panic shot through the half-fiend.
Before he could react, Aliisza called to him. Her voice conveyed alarm. No, barely controlled terror.
The cambion turned to look back and saw her still staring out at the endless argent sea beyond. A great shadow had fallen over the opening in the wall.
Kaanyr dashed to the edge and peered out.
An enormous creature drifted into view, its body a ponderous, bloated sac of blanched flesh. Kaanyr could see no eyes, but numerous segmented tentacles dangled from it, lazily sweeping the space around itself. The thing reminded Kaanyr of a huge octopus, or perhaps a bloated insect.
It made his stomach churn.
When one of the tentacles came near a bubble of reality, the behemoth gathered the sphere up and drew the material toward a beaklike mouth on its underside. The thing consumed its catch in a single gulp.
Then it turned and began drifting closer, tentacles stretched out toward the remains of the rotunda.
The Court of Tyr teetered on the brink of chaos.
In one corner of her mind, Eirwyn recognized the sheer magnitude of the very existence of that thought. Imagining such a fate for a heavenly domain dedicated to the most solemn and steadfast ideals of law and order bordered on blasphemy. It would have been unthinkable only a few short tendays before.
It did not change the angel's assessment one iota.
She had flown back to the great mountains with Viryn and Oshiga-the trumpet archon from Erathaol's court-as fast as the three of them could move. They traveled so quickly there had been no opportunity for the other two celestials to further explain the situation to Eirwyn. Thus, when she arrived, the shock of seeing the entire plane in such a state shook her.
I should not be surprised, she thought, standing in the hall of the High Council. Magic itself died-she felt profound grief at such a crime, and more than a little rage toward Cyric-and no one seems to know what other consequences may befall the multiverse. Tyr and Torm have their hands full, just maintaining the integrity of the House, and no one seems to know where Siamorphe has gone.
But the unsettling feeling sweeping through the Court went beyond the mere death of a god, and its source played out before her, within the High Council itself.
"I did not authorize such a pardon!" the High Councilor insisted, rising to his full height and snapping his wings angrily. "No one else may grant such a stay of sentence. This is inexcusable."
"On the contrary," one of the six dissenters argued, "the other council members can override the High Councilor's edict with a two-thirds majority, and we have it. You cannot win this fight, Honorable One, and you know it."
"Point of procedure!" the High Councilor interjected. "There was no submission of disagreement, no call for a vote. You cannot override my edict until you have formally petitioned for a review."
Weary already of the bickering, Eirwyn's thoughts drifted back to her cottage, away from the crowded, frenzied chamber. It would not take much more of the councilors' antics to make the lonely abode a preferable escape.
This is what Tyr's dedication to justice and law inevitably leads to, she thought, grimacing. Blessed Helm, I miss you. Serving as an ever-watching sentinel might be a lonely job to some, but at least it gave me ample opportunity to contemplate my divinations. And compared to this… the angel almost shuddered.
That's all in the past now, Eirwyn reminded herself. And you must help in whatever way you can. Countless souls scattered across the planes may depend on your wisdom and foresight.
Eirwyn returned her attention on the proceedings.
"In the interests of urgency," another of the six councilors was saying, having risen to his feet, "there was no time, and we waste more of it here with this foolish debate. We acted in such haste because we must know the right course moving forward. The entire House depends on us making sound, rational decisions. Point of procedure or no, the outcome is inevitable, and you do no one any favors by clinging to rigid codes in these circumstances."
"I disagree," the High Councilor said hotly, "and I further submit to you that you do irreparable damage to this august institution by circumventing time-honored-and very necessary-practices."
He turned to Eirwyn and stared down at her coldly. "It appears I no longer have the authority to incarcerate you for your indiscretions on behalf of Tauran the outcast and against this body. A pardon has been rendered, although on the most flimsy of evidence and in the most inexcusable manner." The High Councilor drew a deep breath before he continued, turning to face his peers again. "Therefore, I will not be a party to it. I remove myself from this seat under protest. I will be reporting directly to Tyr these farcical proceedings at once. And as for you," he finished, turning back to Eirwyn again, "I still find you guilty of numerous crimes against Tyr's law and right to rule. You may have escaped justice today, but do not for one moment consider yourself free of guilt!"
With that final declaration, the solar winked out. A moment later, the other two members of the council who had sided with the High Councilor also vanished, leaving the rest of the court deathly silent.
Eirwyn blinked and stared around the chamber. Other stunned expressions stared back at her. Has it really come to this? she thought. Have my own actions become so consequential that the High Council itself has fractured? Truly?
The angel swallowed down her shock and dismay. What have we wrought, Tauran?
"Well," the female solar who had been first to argue with the High Councilor said, breaking the strained silence, "it seems we have resolved and closed this matter. You are indeed free to do as you see fit, Eirwyn. I hope, in your wisdom, you will choose to aid us."
Eirwyn raised her hands helplessly. "I still know so very little about what has happened," she said. "What can I offer that you cannot perform ten times more effectively than I?"
The solar nodded. "In truth, we know not. But the matter is beyond our purview, anyway. We"-the solar gestured at the other five councilors around her-"are but the facilitators of your freedom, at the behest of Erathaol's emissary, here." She pointed to Oshiga. "It is the Seer who believes he can make use of you. You must parley with him to learn more."
The discussion was over. Eirwyn understood that she and her companions had been dismissed. The council, even down three members, had other urgent issues to address.
Outside the chambers, Eirwyn turned to Viryn. "So my overturned sentence was not initiated by a servant of Tyr?" she asked.
The solar shook his head. "No," he admitted. "Though I am sure that your case would have been brought up in short order, regardless. These dark times have compelled the leadership to consider reinstating many who had fallen from grace in the hopes that they might lend aid where it is desperately needed."
Eirwyn tried not to let that fact annoy her. To Oshiga, she asked, "So, what would the Seer want from me? How could I be of unique assistance?"
The archon bowed slightly. "To understand fully, you must travel to Venya with me. I have been instructed to invite you to Xiranthador, Erathaol's library-fortress, to become an instrument of his divination."
Eirwyn cocked her head to one side. "Me?" she said in a meeker voice than she had intended. Still reeling from the alarming proceedings within the council chamber, she wasn't certain what to make of such an offer. She drew a deep breath and tried to gather her wits. "An instrument? That doesn't sound very charming. On the other hand, my prospects at the moment aren't terribly promising."
"I assure you, it is a great honor," Oshiga said, inclining his head again. "The Seer rarely finds others who can serve in such a capacity. You must be a great diviner, indeed, for him to wish to engage with you in such a fashion."
For the first time since the moment that Helm had died at Tyr's hand, Eirwyn felt a thrill of purpose, of true responsibility, course through her.
She nodded to the trumpet archon. "Very well," she said. "I accept. Lead on."