'I am hurt.' She coughed again, and more blood dribbled down her chin. 'I think my newfound arcane power is devouring me.'
'What?' Kaanyr asked softly. All his recent thoughts and memories of their happier times together surged through him, jumbled in a painful revelation. He felt sudden fear. 'Why would that happen?'
Aliisza drew a deep breath. 'The backlash of Mystra's death,' she said. 'I felt it course through me when I first came to, back in the rotunda. Just as I suspect it is what fused Micus and Myshik together and stole Zasian's memories, it must have imbued me with unparalleled power.' She trembled. 'But that power draws on me, on my lifeforce, to function.'
For a moment, the look on Aliisza's face reflected Kaanyr's own pain. 'I don't understand,' he said.
'Yes, you do,' she said. 'Great power. Killing me. Slowly.'
Kaanyr felt his chest tighten, found it hard to breathe.
'How bad is it?' he asked. 'Can you recover?'
Aliisza shook her head. 'I don't know. I dare not-' Another wracking coughing fit hit her. She wiped away the smear of blood from her lips and tried again. 'I dare not invoke the magic again,' she said. 'Each time, it gets worse. I can rest and feel better, but if I cast another spell, it takes me all the way down. And then some.'
Kaanyr sagged back against a stout stalagmite. I'm losing her, he realized. Perhaps Zasian could…
Kaanyr rose, crossed over to the priest, and grabbed him by the arm. 'Come here, you,' he snarled, pulling on the man. 'Come make her better.'
But Zasian didn't react. He merely toppled over onto his side.
'Damn you!' Kaanyr shouted, drawing his leg back to kick the priest.
'Kaanyr, stop it!' Aliisza cried out. Her voice was weak, and she could hardly hold herself upright, but she crawled toward Zasian anyway, trying to reach out and ward off the impending blow.
Kaanyr paused, stunned. You would protect him, even if it meant your own death. You'd defend him even from me. As feeble as a lamb, yet you still-
Then his indignation and rage left as realization struck him. You're a fool, Kaanyr Vhok, he told himself. You've created a mess of massive proportions and stuck yourself right in the middle of it. Well, it's time to fix it. It's time to fix everything you've fouled up. There can be no future for you until you resolve this.
With that, Vhok felt a great weight lift from him. He sensed many tendays' worth of anger and frustration dissipate. It was time to act. No more hesitation, no more succumbing to inaction. It's a new day, Kaanyr Vhok.
Vhok saw Aliisza's eyes widen, staring at him. She's wondering, he thought. She's worried that she's just crossed a threshold, revealed her deepest, darkest weakness to me, and that she can't trust me with the knowledge. Let me show you, lover.
'It's remarkable,' he said. 'A day or so ago, I would have wanted nothing more than to ram my blade through his gut. Today, he restores my arm without a thought. And I mean that. He literally doesn't seem to have a thought left in him.'
Tauran coughed. 'He is becoming a Living Vessel,' the angel said, still sounding as if he hadn't had a thing to drink in several days. 'I've never seen it happen like this, though.'
Curious, Kaanyr moved over to the angel and knelt down. 'What is he?'
Tauran fought a coughing spell, then explained. 'Usually, a celestial creature can make an ultimate sacrifice of itself by making its body an empty vessel for another to inhabit. We don't do it often, but when certain needs are pure and dire, we sometimes offer ourselves in this way.
'Zasian told us a bit about what happened in the rotunda,' the angel continued. 'It sounds as though, with the strange surges of magic that cascaded through there right after Mystra was slain, his spiritual form and the planetar's somehow merged. Perhaps the planetar invoked his power accidentally when he was so badly wounded, almost like a reflex. But instead of the planetar's body becoming the vessel, Zasian's did. But some small part of a personality-neither the planetar's nor Zasian's complete memories, but some small part-remained behind, which is why he has been behaving so oddly. And over the last few days, as it has perhaps dissipated, he has grown more vacant, detached.'
Vhok tried to absorb what the angel was saying. 'Why would one of you do this?' he asked. 'What can become of the Living Vessel afterward?'
'The mind and spirit of another being can inhabit our body,' Tauran answered. 'It's not the same as the powerful arcane magic you are more familiar with. It's more of a divine melding. I cannot adequately explain it.'
Already, Kaanyr's mind churned with the possibilities. 'That is very interesting,' he said. 'So what has become of Zasian? Where is his original mind?'
Tauran shrugged as best as he could in his restraints. 'I do not know,' he said. 'Perhaps it's also in there somewhere, buried and unable to react to us. Perhaps it has been eradicated or is cast out on the Astral, adrift and bodiless. I barely understand all of the ramifications of the magical surge that wreaked so much havoc on the universe. The fate of one man no longer seems so consequential.'
Kaanyr chuckled, finally at the moment of truth. 'Perhaps for you,' he said. 'But unless you have forgotten, my fate is inextricably tied to Zasian, through you. We have unresolved issues.'
Tauran coughed again. 'You are right, cambion. I agreed to free you should you successfully aid me in stopping the priest of Cyric-'
'Or should it no longer be relevant.'
'Indeed.' Tauran drew a deep breath and said, 'I gave my word. I free you of your obligation.'
Vhok felt the magical shackles fall away from him at last. He wanted to stretch, to crow, to shout 'Freedom!' at the top of his lungs. He wanted to draw his sword and run it through the damnable angel who had caused him so much trouble. Instead, he merely grinned.
'Kaanyr,' Aliisza said, giving him a warning look. 'Do not.'
The cambion smirked at her. 'I don't know what you're talking about,' he said playfully. 'I was merely savoring the moment of release.'
'We must help them get out of here,' Aliisza said. 'They will not survive this place.'
'And take them where?' Kaanyr asked, his voice growing cold. 'We do not ourselves know where we are, and the odds are not good that we would survive if we tried.' He stood and looked down at her. 'At least, the odds aren't good for the four of you. The angel is dying, Zasian is nothing but a shell of a human being, hardly more than a halfwit child, and…' His anger and glee subsided. 'And you can no longer draw on your power, lover. You've become a liability.'
Aliisza stared at him. He wasn't sure whether she was on the verge of crying or screaming at him. 'No,' she said, her voice barely above a whisper. 'Kaanyr, don't.'
A pang of regret sent a chill through him. No, he insisted, shrugging it off. It's time.
'Vhok,' Tauran said. 'You have done so many right things. Don't undo all that now.'
Kaanyr ignored him. 'I thought I wanted what we used to have, Aliisza. When we were talking earlier, and when I watched you fight, I recalled how good we were together, and I yearned for those days to return.' His voice had become gentle, but it grew stronger, cold once more. 'But I realize now that such can never be again. You are not the cunning trickster I loved back in the dwarven halls. Your time spent in the heavens changed you. Even if I were inclined to try to fight through all that, to guide you back to the crafty minx I remember, magic is killing you. Frankly, I don't want to watch you waste away as your power eats you alive.'
Aliisza said nothing, but tears ran down her cheeks, and she looked as though he had just rammed his blade through her gut.
'No,' he continued, tuning Aliisza's soft sobs out, 'the odds are pretty low that the five of us could escape here together. I, on the other hand, have many options. I think I will honor the bargain I made with Vhissilka the marilith. I like my chances much better that way.'
'You bastard!' Kael shouted, struggling to get to the cambion. 'I'll kill you!'
Vhok laughed as he drew his sword once more. 'I ought to kill you now,' he said, 'but it's just too much fun watching you flounder around in those chains.'
He launched a series of feints at Kael's head, got the half-drow off-balance, then kicked the knight's legs out from beneath him. Kael went down in a heap and grunted in pain as his head bounced hard against the stone floor.
