Intellectually, she knew she'd lost the mindfulness required to evoke a solid form. Emotionally, in that instant, losing the embrace still felt like a punch to the heart.
'There's no time for this!' came a voice from behind them. 'Reunions are wonderful things when safety is assured. But aboleths prowl these tunnels, and the Eldest wakes! Warlock, can you get us out of here?'
'Who said that?' said Japheth. He scanned the tunnel in both directions.
Anusha swallowed. Yeva's interruption couldn't have come at a worse time, but the woman spoke sense. 'It's Yeva,' she told the warlock. 'She was trapped like I was.'
'She is invisible to me. She is a dream spirit like you?'
Anusha nodded. 'Yes. We met where I broke free of a wall of captured dreams. I think my escape triggered her release too.'
'Captured dreams?' repeated Japheth. 'More minds than just yours have been stolen by this city?'
Yeva broke in. 'The Eldest lies in deathlike sleep, and his memories have settled out of mere conception over the eons. They coat the interior of Xxiphu like frozen dew. Those who draw too near without a body are snared like the rest of his memories.'
Japheth narrowed his eyes, obviously unable to see the speaker. But he nodded, as if remembering something he already knew.
'Look, there,' Yeva continued, pointing… a gesture Japheth also missed. Anusha followed Yeva's finger to another patch of ice like those she had misidentified in the orrery chamber. Even Xxiphu's nursery walls contained the cast-off recollections of the oldest aboleth.
The warlock continued to look around until he saw the ragged ice face on his own. His brow furrowed, but he didn't approach it.
'Where exactly are we in Xxiphu? The last thing I remember is falling through my cloak when the Lord of Bats burst the trek bell…' 'We're in the spawning chambers,' said Anusha, 'safe for now from roving aboleths.'
The warlock sighed. He turned back to Anusha. His eyes were just as scarlet as when she'd first seen them. She didn't remember his traveler's dust lasting so long.
He said, 'If I'd known what we risked when I first gave you the elixir, I-'
'Hush,' she murmured.
'We can make good our escape now. Though… your conveyance is destroyed, and I think your fiery-winged friend carrying it may be no more.'
'An angel of exploration. Summoned by Neifion to pierce the distance between us. Yes… Gethshemeth caught the angel.'
'Gethshemeth!' Anusha said. 'The kraken is here?' 'Apparently so.'
'Well, it doesn't matter, I hope. Free us and we can all escape this monstrous city.'
Japheth's stained gaze was his only response.
Anusha said, 'Are you well? Doesn't your dust allow you to see the unseen? I've consciously rendered myself visible so you can see me. Yeva remains a dream figment. But why can't you see her? Your eyes are as red as I've ever seen them.'
'I haven't taken a grain in several hours. My eyes are red with the symptoms of too much dust taken too long.'
'But doesn't your pact protect you?'
'My pact is shattered. My powers are gone. Soon enough, I'll reach the end of the crimson road with no hope of return.'
'What? I don't understand…'
'Behroun finally shattered my pact stone. All the extra strength I had from the Lord of Bats, as well as all the abilities granted by our pact, returned to him. I've got nothing left except for this cloak. My spells and rituals… they're gone. And with them the protection the Lord of Bats granted me from my addiction to the dust.'
Anusha put a hand to her mouth. Japheth's claims seemed like some cruel joke, not the truth.
Yeva said, 'So… you can't free us or yourself from Xxiphu, and you're succumbing to some lethal drug. Is that right?'
'Yes,' replied Japheth. 'But… I have some time before that happens.'
'There must be something you can do,' Anusha pleaded. 'You swore a pact to the Lord of Bats for power.
What about those other creatures you learned about in that old Candlekeep tome? Swear a pact to one of them!'
Japheth began to shake his head, then paused. His pose grew thoughtful, even as a minor tremor in his hands gave the lie to his exterior calm.
'What? Is that possible?' Anusha asked. She hated the desperate sound in her voice.
Anusha noticed a low hum growing louder. She realized she'd been hearing it for some time. Now it swelled, a thunderous noise like subterranean waters rushing just beneath their feet.
The ice sheet crusting the wall behind them cracked. Splinters, of ice calved off but turned to glowing steam before they struck the floor. Several entombed dreams dropped free.
Two were filthy humanoids wearing uncured animal skins for clothing. They lay gasping on the tunnel floor, their eyes rolling in terror. Another creature slid down the wall near them, its shape at first hidden by a billow of steam. When the mist of the evaporating ice swirled away up the tunnel, the creature was revealed as a dark — skinned female elf with hair the color of bleached bone. Her lower body was like a huge spider. The woman-
some sort of drow? — loosed a full-throated bellow of rage.
'What is it?' said Japheth, looking around in bewilderment. 'I can't see what made that sound.'
'Some sort of drow… thing!' said Anusha. 'And two savages.'
Japheth's cloak flared and enveloped her.
She found herself and Japheth standing several yards farther from the disintegrating ice. Seeing the rictus of hate on the drow's face, she swallowed her protest. Instead, she raised her sword.
The two grimy humanoids tried to scramble away from the drow thing's stamping spider legs, but an arachnid foot, tipped with an ebony spike, skewered one through the chest. He was pinned to the floor. His confused, forlorn cry faded with his life.
Japheth extended his arms as if trying to find a wall in the dark. His head swiveled as he tried to locate the source of the sounds. 'The drow monster killed a savage, and now it's going after the other one,' whispered Anusha. 'Let's go this way-'
Then the drow and the remaining humanoid screamed. The sound conveyed horror that outstripped the earlier cry of the one the drow had stabbed. They screamed for their eternal souls.
Both melted into so much swirling steam, just as the ice that had entombed them had. The mist spun away up the tunnel as if being drawn by a mighty vortex.
Yeva's eyes widened. She stumbled away from the swirling steam and stood so her shoulder touched Anusha's.
She was breathing heavily.
'Now what?' Japheth said.
'It's over-the creatures were never real. They unraveled and were drawn away.'
They stood silently a moment, eyes riveted to the remaining ice that still looked solid. Anusha wondered how long it would remain so.
'The Eldest's awakening continues, I think,' said Yeva. 'Its memories and the dreams captured in them are being drawn back to it as its consciousness reassembles.'
'Bane's bloody boots,' said Japheth. His arm had found its way around Anusha in a protective embrace. Anusha was surprised-she'd subconsciously willed her pauldrons solid enough to give Japheth's arm purchase. It was only an illusion that he could offer physical security, but leaning into him, she realized it was an illusion she appreciated.
'That would be my fate, if not for Anusha,' Yeva said, pointing to where the released memories had screamed and dissipated. 'And it may still be.'
A shiver vibrated through Japheth and into Anusha.
'Are you all right?' she asked, not knowing what else to say.
'At this very moment? Yes, I am,' he said. 'I can feel you shaking.'
