the Progenitor, but the Chained God saw that it might be empowered. He and the Progenitor joined a portion of their beings to create something that might be a vehicle for them both.
When the human priest Albric used the fragment of the Living Gate, the Voidharrow slipped from the Chained God’s prison into the world. But even the schemes of the most patient of gods do not always go as planned. As the product of the union of Tharizdun and the Progenitor, the Voidharrow shared the qualities of both. It had Tharizdun’s desire for escape, but also the Progenitor’s rapacious need for assimilation and dominance. Albric attempted to use the Voidharrow as it was meant to be used-to create a new gate with a reach vast enough to cross all existence and pierce the borders of Tharizdun’s prison-but the Voidharrow rebelled. It took Albric and his followers and made them a part of it. They became the first plague demons.
The Abyssal Plague would have started its spread that day if slaves of the other gods had not intervened. Of the newly created demons, only Albric, now called Nu Alin, survived. The Voidharrow was destroyed except for three small vials. But the other gods still kept their secrets. They would not reveal the nature of the Voidharrow and so their slaves stood guard over it, trying to find their own way over the centuries to the truth of its nature.
They could have asked you.
The Chained God didn’t answer the man in the darkness except with another shift of the lightless light. In his prison, Tharizdun meditated on the mistakes that had been made with the Voidharrow and decided a stronger servant was needed, one who might master the Voidharrow before it mastered him. He fashioned one with dreams and whispers, guiding a dragon along the paths of madness. When the time was right, he brought the dragon and the Voidharrow together. The slaves of the gods tried to stop the union again. They could not. Tharizdun’s plans were subtle, woven in layers upon layers of deception. A seemingly chance sword thrust was actually guided by the Chained God’s intent. The Voidharrow was joined with Vestapalk. He compelled the dragon to a source of greater power and once more the gods’ slaves tried and failed to stop his plans.
But Tharizdun failed, too. The draconic greed that he had inflamed to madness found kinship in the Voidharrow. Vestapalk turned from him, shunning the power offered by Tharizdun in favor of the transformation offered by the Voidharrow. He saw only the world, not what lay beyond. Still, there were layers to Tharizdun’s plans and another priest came closer than ever before to setting him free. Kri Redshal-the man floating in darkness knew the name, though he could not place it-had taken advantage of Vestapalk’s spread of the Abyssal Plague to reconstruct the Vast Gate and open the way for Tharizdun’s return.
Except that Tharizdun had been betrayed. In his moment of triumph, the Progenitor sought to assimilate him, laying a trap that would have bound them together if he’d succeeded in passing through the Vast Gate and back into the world. The substance that was the Progenitor could not survive in the world without binding to something. And what but the power of a god was great enough to permit the Progenitor to make that crossing? Perhaps that had been its secret plot down through all the ages of Tharizdun’s imprisonment: to use him to gain access to a new world and new opportunities for growth. Only ignoble defeat at the hands of a mortal had saved the Chained God.
In the isolation of their shared prison, Tharizdun could do little to avenge himself on the Progenitor. The weight of his gaze on the world beyond, however, had increased. Infinitesimally, perhaps, but it had increased. His vengeance could extend beyond his prison.
The man in the darkness understood. Destroy Vestapalk. Destroy the Voidharrow. More than anything else, that would hurt the thing that had betrayed Tharizdun by denying it the opportunity to expand. He trembled a little. But Chained God, your way to freedom will be destroyed, too. Without the Voidharrow, the Vast Gate can’t be reopened.
The light vanished and a hollow roar filled the darkness-a roar that had no sound, just as the light had no brilliance. Out of the roar came a voice so enormous it rolled through the man’s body like a blow.
Tharizdun might be a prisoner, but he will never be a thrall!
The silence that came after those words was so profound that the man in the darkness could hear his heart beating and the breath that rasped in his throat.
It took him a moment to realize that he could actually hear these things, that they weren’t just tricks of his imagination. Once he realized that, he was suddenly aware of other things as well. Weight. Cold. The slightly sour stink of his body. He was no longer lost in darkness. He’d returned to the world.
It was still dark, though. He tried raising his hands and found them blocked. Cold stone surrounded him at less than a finger’s length on every side. His heart beat faster and he threw himself against the sides of his rocky prison.
The stone answered with a hollow sound.
Something came back to him, some measure of discipline. He was intelligent. More would be gained by thinking through his problem than attacking it blindly. He forced himself to be calm, then began tapping the stone around him with fingers, wrists, elbows, knees-anything he could move. The same sound came back from all surfaces, as if he had somehow been placed in a shell. He experimented with his range of motion and found that twisting his torso offered the greatest possibility.
Taking a shallow breath of the already stuffy air around him, he slammed his shoulder against the stone. His prison shivered. He did it again, putting as much of his weight as he could into the blow. His shoulder ached, but he was rewarded with a faint cracking sound. He struck again. And again. The sound of the stone changed, becaming duller. The cracking noise followed every blow. It turned into a grating as stone scraped against stone.
Then abruptly the stone broke altogether and his shoulder breached open space. Fresh air flowed into his prison. He sucked it in, then focused and drove his entire body forward.
Stone splintered along hidden stress lines and the man tumbled out into freedom. The space beyond was lit only by distant light that peeped like moonglow from high crevices, but to eyes accustomed to utter darkness, it was merely a little dim. The man registered bulky, unmoving shapes around him, a musty odor in the air, the sharp pain of stone shards under his body-then realized he was no longer just “a man.” He had a name.
Kri Redshal looked down at his hands, the dark, wrinkled skin broken by nicks and scrapes. He pushed himself onto his knees and looked behind him. The tall stone statue of a man, its chest broken and ruined to expose its hollow interior, stood over him. A deep cowl hid its face, but its hands were outstretched, the upturned palms carved in the pattern of two jagged spirals. Kri rose, his old bones and joints protesting.
The last thing he remembered-in the mortal world at any rate-was leaping through the Vast Gate and shattering it behind him so that Albanon could not follow. His destination had been random, his only glimpse of it empty darkness. Everything he had once learned as a priest of Ioun, the god of knowledge, told him that such a thing was not possible. Every gate led somewhere. Something had held him between worlds.
He put his hands on the palms of the statue. “Chained God,” he said. “I thank you.”
The voice that answered him was a faint echo of what it had been in the dark place. Destroy Vestapalk. Destroy the Voidharrow.
Kri bent his head. “How?”
You have the key. One comes who will help you turn it.
“How will I know him?”
There was no answer. Kri looked up into the cowl of the statue, but found it had been carved without a face. A blank oval of stone looked back at him. Kri removed his hands from those of the statue and went to explore his new surroundings.
CHAPTER FOUR
They left Fallcrest the next morning. A week of Albanon dragging his feet had given the rest of them more than enough time to prepare for their eventual journey. Supplies were scarce in the crowded town, but horses were surprisingly easy to come by. Tempest suspected that many of the refugees who had brought them into Fallcrest found them to be more of a burden than an asset. Immeral, the most experienced among them in dealing with horses, very nearly had his pick of what was on offer.
“Some good mounts,” he said as he checked the tack of his chosen steed, “but the people here drive a hard bargain considering they may never have the chance to ride these animals again.”
“I don’t imagine they were thinking about riding them,” said Tempest. She put her foot in the stirrup and
