truly on his way.'
'Let's act as if he is,' Anusha said. 'Which is another reason to find an entrance-so we can meet him.'
'Either way, our immediate goal is the same,' said Yeva.
The women renewed their upward slog. The vast tunnel, roughly tubelike, continued its gradual rise. They wound their way around putrid aboleth burrows and pillars.
A churning, bubbling sound drew their attention. They turned in time to witness a previously sleeping aboleth surge from its hollow, spraying goo in a wide radius. It lay on the floor for several moments, its sides heaving and its tentacles writhing.
'Should I kill it with my sword?' Anusha whispered.
'Let's see what it does. It's not yellow.'
The aboleth finally rolled onto its stomach. Its tongue rasped out of its tri-slit mouth and tasted the floor. Then it began to move. Half primeval fish, half enormous slug, the creature skated forward on a bed of mucus, up the shallow spiral.
Anusha got her stomach under control. She whispered, 'All right, we'll follow it.'
Yeva said, 'Not that we have any other way to go.'
It was true enough. But Anusha hoped there was more to this city of Xxiphu than a long coil of aboleth- hollowed tunnel from bottom to top. There must be an exit. How else could the creatures come and go?.They paced the aboleth, keeping about a city block's worth of distance between them and it. The creature slid forward like a snail moving nightmarishly fast. Sometimes it paused to touch a tentacle against a protruding obelisk. When it did, purple light flared at the obelisk's tip. Then the aboleth continued, leaving behind a flamelike flicker of purple.
Anusha said, 'I wonder what it's doing.'
'Perhaps it is setting lights to encourage its still sleeping siblings to wake and join it.'
Anusha grimaced. 'What else can you tell me about Xxiphu and the Eldest? You seem to know a lot about this place.'
'I am not of Faerun, or even Toril. I come from a higher realm where knowledge of ancient things is not wholly forgotten. But even so, Xxiphu is an obscure topic. I know only what I once read in a crumbling scroll during a brief visit to the House of Knowledge.'
Anusha had never heard of the House of Knowledge. She glanced forward to make certain their furtive conversation wasn't being noted by the aboleth. So far, so good. She said, 'What did the scroll say?'
'I was searching dusty lore to learn more about illithids, not aboleths. Still, it caught in my memory, for its oddness. Written in Deep Speech, the scroll proclaimed an Abolethic Sovereignty once attempted to rule your world but was foiled. The text described a colossal thing sleeping in darkness. A nasty, terrible, many-handed, and manyeyed monster. The passage indicated its massive bulk was the result of great age. It never ceased growing, inch by inch, year by year, and century by century. Even millennium by millennium.'
'The scroll was describing the Eldest?'
'Just so.'
'How old can it be?' Anusha asked.
'It was old when Sehine cried her glittering tears. Its mind buzzed with a thousand languages when mortals on Toril puzzled out their first expressive grunts. No offense. When it fell into slumber, the world yet rang with the clamor of the primordials' forge hammers. Or so claimed the document.'
Anusha prompted, 'What did the scroll say about Xxiphu?'
'It claimed Xxiphu's murky and echoing crevices sheltered creatures who worshiped the Eldest as their supreme monarch and divine provider. The scroll described these creatures that teemed Xxiphu as lesser, younger manifestations of the Eldest's quintessential form. They are the Eldest's progeny. Aboleths, of course. The document wrapped up with a warning-the entire vastness of Xxiphu is a city, but also simultaneously a precious seed the Eldest has brooded through the ages '
'Ugh. A seed? What does that mean?'
'No further explanations were written. I suspect it means that one day the Eldest and all its ancient aboleth children will wake from long slumber.'
'I think that day has arrived,' Anusha said.
The aboleth they followed paused at an intersection. The tunnel split, becoming two lesser paths.
One would have been a continuation of their way, but its character changed drastically. The passage constricted to a third or less in diameter. The mucous light persisted, allowing Anusha to see forward into a twisted, winding maze of irregular tunnels. Attached here and there on naked rock quivered masses of white orbs, gelatinous and pale like fish eggs. That way reeked of brine.
tfA nursery,' murmured Yeva.
The other passage was a perfectly circular cavity some few tens of feet in diameter. Like a bore hole, it was smoothwalled and plunged sideways. The passage didn't go far before it ended in a wavering curtain of mist.
The aboleth lit one last obelisk protrusion with purple fire, then slid its bulk into the twisting maze Yeva called the nursery.
Anusha shook her head. 'I'd rather not go into the egg tunnels.' 'Agreed.'
They proceeded down the smooth bore hole to the barrier. The watery light caressed Anusha's armor with images of blue-green bubbles. She raised a hand and pressed it into the mist. She didn't feel the least resistance, nor did it feel wet. She retracted her hand. It wasn't any the worse for wear, but…
'I guess that doesn't prove anything,' she said. 'I can walk through walls as easily as mist.'
'Let us go together.' Yeva took Anusha's free hand.
They stepped through the barrier.
Anusha saw a massive subterranean vault lit by thousands of tiny purple flames. The air was close, humid, and uncomfortably hot. She was glad she didn't really need to breathe.
They stood on a balcony with a low curb like a halfhearted attempt at a railing. She craned her head and looked around. She saw then the balcony was a tiny part of a far larger structure, one that descended in a clifflike drop below and extended an equally great distance above… it was hard to estimate distances, but certainly many hundreds upon hundreds of feet. The vast space wasn't large enough to hold the object on which they stood-its lower foundations plunged into the cavern's floor, and its heights were clutched within the belly of the cavern's irregular ceiling.
'Look,' said Yeva. She leaned far out, pointing down along the face. Anusha obeyed and saw that great patterns were carved on the age-worn exterior of the obelisk, depicting thousands of interconnected images she couldn't quite comprehend. Her stomach flipped when some of the inscriptions flowed and changed their shape even as she watched.
Anusha leaned out farther to get a better look, and an odd sensation fluttered through her. Odd because she'd missed it for so long-it was the feeling she had right before waking back in her body!
But the impression was different, more drawn out. And… the mental current, the psychic undertow as Yeva called it, swelled. The sound of it roared in her ears. Its fervor threatened to yank her from her feet. She was waking, and as she did so, she began to fall upward into the current. Toward the Eldest.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Darroch Castle, Feywild
Winkled men and women the size of toddlers padded through the shadowed castle. Some dusted wainscoting, others polished trophy cases. A few shooed bats from crevices and high ceiling corners.
In the grand study, a lone homunculus looked for droppings behind furnishings, paintings, sculptures, and other of oddities on display. The wrinkled man reached the tall, finely crafted wooden cabinet with a glass face. The little creature had always been fascinated, in his dim way, with this particular piece. Behind the circular face, various wheels moved according to principles the homunculus had no chance of appreciating, but he liked to watch the wheels move all the same. The creature reached out to touch the glass with a craggy finger.
He sighed and let his hand fall to his side. Then he noticed something odd.
