fool. She grimaced. No more grieving! It's done. Deal with the ones who still care. Swallowing the growing lump in her throat, the half-fiend continued on.
She reached an intersection and slowed, listening. Things had grown quiet since the commotion of the devils' invasion. Aliisza assumed the demons had been triumphant, but she wondered how high a price they had paid for their victory.
The more of them dead, the better, she decided. Fewer for me to deal with.
Satisfied that nothing was nearby that would cause her trouble, Aliisza braced herself against a wall and manipulated innate magic once more. The crash of agony lasted only a moment. When the blue emanation subsided and she had caught her breath, she could sense in which direction Kael's sword lay. She scurried around a bend in the tunnel and followed her internal compass.
It took her several wrong turns and a few retreats to avoid being seen by others before she found the chamber where her son's sword had been discarded. The cavern was small, much like the one Tauran, Kael, and Zasian had been imprisoned within, and it had only one entrance. It lay at the end of a narrow passage with a few other, similar chambers lining either side of it. The demons had been using the chambers as refuse storage. They stank of filth and decay.
Aliisza stood at the edge of the chamber and peered around at the trash and bones, the foul sewage and carcasses. Her magical guidance suggested that the blade lay on one side, and when she went to that spot, she found it, carelessly tossed atop a heap of other waste. Tauran's mace sat nearby. In fact, all of the trio's equipment was there.
She began to gather it up, then paused, struck by an idea.
Aliisza stacked her companion's weapons and other gear in a neat pile near the entrance to the chamber, and then sucked in air to prepare herself for the onslaught of pain. She summoned a shimmering blue doorway, gasped at what the magic did to her insides, and then stepped through.
She found herself in the chamber where Tauran, Kael, and Zasian waited. She did not dispel the doorway.
Kael knelt next to Tauran, trying to help the angel sit up. Kael had managed to remove the bindings that had held Tauran immobile. Even so, Tauran was a sorry sight. Zasian still sat nearby, staring across the room at nothing in particular. The bodies of the fiends that had rushed into the room remained there too.
'Did you find them?' Kael asked, rising to his feet.
Aliisza nodded. 'Come,' she said. 'Let's get out of here before Kaanyr comes back.'
The half-drow frowned. 'Where are we going?' he asked. 'We'll just be trapped somewhere else in this godsforsaken place.'
'Maybe,' Aliisza replied, 'but it will buy us some time to figure out a way to escape. Help Tauran. I'll get Zasian.'
Mother and son each took a companion. Aliisza got the priest to his feet and found it easy to guide him where she wished. She steered Zasian toward the doorway, while Kael followed her, supporting the ailing angel with an arm around his waist.
'I hear someone coming down the passage,' Kael whispered. 'Hurry!'
Aliisza stepped through the magical portal and then moved away from its twin at the other end, making room for the other two following behind. Once Kael and Tauran passed through the door, she released the magic and the doorway winked out.
'Ugh,' Kael said, wrinkling his nose. 'I didn't think we could find something that smelled worse than that big ape back there, but I was wrong.'
'Your things are over there,' Aliisza said, pointing.
Kael positioned Tauran near a wall where the angel could support himself. Then the knight reached for his sword. 'Thank Torm,' he murmured. 'It feels good to have this in my hands again.' After hefting the blade and feeling its familiar weight, he bent down and pulled Tauran's mace from the pile. 'Here,' he said, holding it out for the angel.
Tauran took the holy weapon. He slipped it into his belt, but the weight of the mace seemed to make him sag even more. 'Thank you,' he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Kael turned back to Aliisza, who had guided Zasian to a relatively clean spot on the floor and had bid him to sit. 'Now what?' he asked. 'Tauran and the priest are in no condition to fight, and you and I cannot defeat the whole horde ourselves. Even after the battle with the devils, there's bound to be too many of them crawling through here. So what do we do?'
Aliisza bit her lip in thought. She turned to Tauran. 'You can't move us?' she asked, fearing she already knew the answer.
The celestial shook his drooping head. 'Even if I had the strength,' he said, fighting back a coughing spell, 'I am still cut off from Tyr. He has not seen fit to grant me his blessings yet.'
'Then I'll just have to do it myself,' Aliisza said uncertainly. 'How hard can it be to make a doorway back out into the Astral Plane?'
'That may not make things any better,' Kael said. 'Who knows what is lurking out there? Especially considering how stirred up everything is after the destruction.'
Aliisza gave her son a pointed look. 'Do you have any better ideas?' When Kael shook his head, she said, 'Then it's our only option. If we can get Tauran out of here, he might start healing.'
Kael gave a sigh of uncertainty, but he nodded. 'Give it a try,' he said. 'Staying here is certain death.'
Aliisza sat and focused her concentration. She imagined a place in the Astral Plane, just beyond the reach of the chunk of world in which they were trapped. She closed her eyes and began to build up arcane energy.
If I survive this, she thought, it's going to hurt like the Nine Hells.
Vhok's steps felt light and easy as he walked through the tunnels of the demonic stronghold. That was too easy, he thought. Tauran finally got a taste of his own rules, and he has found them wanting. The fool.
The only part that dismayed him was Aliisza. Even too feeble to draw on her magic, she had tried to stop him. She had made her choice. She's no longer the one I loved, he told himself. But I will miss her.
You will find another consort, Kaanyr Vhok. Right now, remember that you are free. You're free!
Vhok's stride was rather jaunty as he turned a corner and entered the great chamber where the marilith held court before, when he and Aliisza had come before her. She was there, surrounded by her minions. Two of the large, ram-headed fiends guarded the doorway, and when they spotted him approaching, they blocked his route with their wicked-looking polearms.
'I must speak with Vhissilka,' Vhok said. 'It concerns a means of returning us all to the Abyss.'
'You will wait,' one of the two guards said before he bounded off to inform the marilith. The other remained there, watching Vhok closely. He wondered if it was one of the survivors he had commanded earlier. He struck a pose of disdainful boredom and waited.
The guard returned, but the hyena-headed demon with the snake protruding from his neck, Grekzith by name, accompanied the lowly demon. The guard resumed its position on one side of the door, while Grekzith stood before Vhok and folded his arms across his chest, matching the cambion's haughty stare.
'My mistress is busy,' he said. 'Go away.'
Vhok chuckled. 'Vhissilka is not too busy to hear what I have to say. Go tell her I've found a way to get her back to her beloved Abyss. And tell her that circumstances have changed. She can have the angel. I have all the information I need from him.'
The demon glared at Vhok. 'I will also ask Vhissilka for permission to disembowel you for your impertinence,' he said. He turned and stalked back to the marilith.
Vhok watched the exchange between demons carefully. As the molydeus whispered in her ear, the marilith's eyebrows shot up. She uttered some quick command and gestured for the other fiend to hurry away. By the molydeus's body language, Vhok could tell he was not happy.
Good, Vhok thought. The quicker he learns not to try me, the better.
The red-skinned demon stormed past Vhok with barely a glance. He exited the chamber and disappeared. Vhissilka gestured for Vhok to join her.
