had burned them as well. Against the brightness, Albanon saw ropes thrown over the edge of the level above, then Uldane, Cariss, and Belen were sliding down to join him, Kri, and Tempest. For an instant, he was struck by fear for Shara and Quarhaun, then he saw them just behind Roghar up above.
Tempest touched a hand to his face. “Good choice,” she said, then she stepped away to join the others as they took up defensive positions around him. Albanon looked to Kri. Tharizdun’s priest seemed almost stunned by the turn of events. Albanon grabbed his arm and hauled him close. His other hand dipped into his pouch and produced the fragment of the Vast Gate.
“Let’s make this count, Kri,” he said. He wrapped the old man’s hand over his, the stone fragment squeezed so tight between them that Albanon could feel its sharp edges. The pain seemed to break through to Kri as well. He drew a shuddering breath, glanced once at Albanon with hate-filled eyes, then raised his voice.
“Tharizdun! Chained God! Patient One-”
Vestapalk’s roar drowned him out. Great wings cracked like thunder as they spread wide and Vestapalk launched himself straight at them.
Roghar’s divine light threw Quarhaun’s face into stark relief and all but washed out the shadows that writhed around the drow’s drawn sword. “You’re certain?” he shouted over Vestapalk’s bellow and the shrieks of the plague demons.
“It’s what I swore to do, my love,” Shara called back. She glanced down to the lower level. Uldane and the others were on the ground, racing to Albanon and Kri. She looked back up to Quarhaun. “One,” she said. He raised the sword. “Two.” He braced himself. “Three!”
She sprinted at him. Behind her, Roghar shouted something but it was too late to stop. Quarhaun’s lips formed an arcane word. His sword sliced the air.
Shadows folded around Shara. For an instant, it seemed as if she’d been struck blind. Searing cold snatched her breath away as Quarhaun had warned her it would. The spell was never intended to be used on friends, only enemies-like the peryton he had used it on to save her.
Then light and warmth burst around her again and her running feet were on scales instead of stone. Vestapalk’s scales. On Vestapalk’s back.
Except that the dragon wasn’t sitting still anymore. The scaly hide slid under Shara’s boots. She grabbed at one of the sword-tall crystal spikes growing from Vestapalk’s spine and held on-just in time. Vestapalk’s roar of fury changed to one of confusion. The Plaguedeep spun around her as the dragon bucked and twisted like a wild horse, trying to dislodge the thing on his back. She caught a glimpse of her friends throwing themselves to the ground, then she and the dragon were past them and flying over the Plaguedeep.
“I feel you!” Vestapalk screamed. “I feel you back there. You will die for this!” He beat his wings and started climbing straight up. For a moment, Shara stared up through red mists at a blue sky high above, then she twisted around and managed to get a leg over another of the spine spikes.
“Not before you!” she shouted into the wind. She dragged one of Cariss’s warpicks from her belt and raised it high. “This is for Jarren and Borojon!”
She brought the point of the pick down with all of her strength as close to the dragon’s spine as she could.
Once again, Vestapalk bellowed with agony. His climb faltered, the beating of one wing slowing, and he veered close to a rocky wall. Flapping his good wing desperately, he hit the stone feet first, hung for a moment, then released himself on a slow spiral back down to the depths. The blue sky Shara had glimpsed was replaced with a dizzying view of the Plaguedeep. She pressed herself again Vestapalk’s scales and hung on tight.
As Vestapalk disappeared up the shaft of the Plaguedeep, Tempest thought she saw Shara clinging to his back. She blinked, but the dragon was gone before she looked again.
In its wake, the plague demons came. They poured up over the edge of the abyss and dropped down from above. They were beast demons and four-armed brutes mostly, but a few larger and stranger types as well, like disembodied heads that scuttled on spider legs and things that slithered like a slug, leaving glittering crystal trails behind. All of them had rage in their red eyes.
It was hard to believe that each one had once been an intelligent creature-human or halfling, dwarf or tiefling, orc or gnoll or goblin-transformed by the Abyssal Plague. Tempest clenched her teeth and tried to put that idea out of her head. They weren’t what they used to be anymore. They were killers, ready to slaughter her or Belen or Cariss or any of the others.
“What’s plan?” she asked Belen.
“Keep them back as long as we can,” the human woman said tersely.
“I can do that,” said Tempest. She reached into herself and drew up the most powerful spell she knew, one that hadn’t been suited to fighting the fire demons, but was perfect for this occasion. She gathered spittle in her mouth, feeling it take on heat and a kind of squirming life, then spat it out at the largest of the charging demons. It flew far and fast, more than twenty paces, and spattered into squirming little droplets-fiery scorpions that swarmed over her target and all the demons around it. The charging creatures broke into a frenzy as they tried to beat at the magical bugs.
Unfortunately, there were more demons where they had come from. A fresh surge broke over the edge of the abyss, new demons crushing old demons beneath them.
“Nice try,” said Belen, readying her sword.
Then white light surged past them in an expanding ring, searing every demon it touched and holding the horde back for just a few moments more. Tempest felt a presence familiar from years of adventuring move through her, strengthening her and renewing her resolve. She smiled at Roghar as the paladin stepped beside her and Quarhaun took up a place on the other end of their defensive wall.
“Like old times,” she said.
“If there were old times like this,” he said, “I’m surprised we’ve lived as long as we have.”
The ring of white light faded and the tide of plague demons came at them.
Albanon heard the shrieks of the plague demons. He saw his friends fighting them, a weak wall of steel and flesh and magic against a horde of monsters. But it was as if he saw and heard through layered panes of hazy glass. Everything beyond his body moved at a snail’s pace. The magic had him, moving him with the speed of thought. There was nothing he could do but watch and remind himself that what his friends were doing, they were doing for him.
“Focus!” hissed Kri.
Albanon tried to put his friends out of his mind and lose himself in the patterns of the spell. It was like wading in mud or following a single thread through a tapestry. Nothing Moorin had taught him had prepared him for the magic Kri dragged him into. Divine forces mixed with arcane techniques. The power of gods and mortals reached out and tugged at something that was neither. Albanon was certain it hadn’t been like this when they’d drawn Tharizdun’s will out of Vestausan and Vestausir. It had seemed so easy then. So clear. He and Kri had both known it would be more difficult in the Plaguedeep.
He didn’t think either of them had expected it to be like this. The Voidharrow hadn’t just corrupted the land around the Plaguedeep, it had corrupted the flows of magic. Where normally Albanon might have seen the flow of magic like streams in his mind’s eyes, in the Plaguedeep they were a flood, all mingling together. Simply casting a spell was as easy as dipping a cup into the flood. Trying to pull power through the nodes of Kri’s spellweaving, into the gate fragment, and back out again was like dipping a cup into water and expecting to find it filled with wine.
There was also too much Voidharrow. In the valley, there’d been only one source: Vestausan and Vestausir. Within the Plaguedeep, the Voidharrow was everywhere: bound to plague demons, bound to the land around them, and most importantly bound to Vestapalk. Albanon might have been able to unravel it-if he’d known where to start.
“Albanon, more power!”
“I’m trying!” he snapped.
There was one more thing. In the valley, he’d still been in the Chain God’s thrall, magic and madness flowing through him together.
But the voice that wouldn’t stop whispering inside him was gone, and he had to ask himself if he wanted it back. It had been so easy to draw on the power. No limits except what he could conceive. No restrictions except what he dared. But that had led to problems, too, hadn’t it? He only needed to think of Winterhaven and the desire
