Anusha.
He could at least get her out of Xxiphu before the consequences of his newest spectacularly bad decision claimed his soul. Probably.
Japheth allowed his point of view to be caught in the subtle current of the closest star, whose light was red. It pulled him closer, and its name came to him unbidden. Nihal.
The other stars whose names had occurred to him each pulled at his mind, altering his trajectory somewhat through the faux heavens of his conception. But it was the star Nihal whose authority most firmly grasped him.
Nihal writhed around the fixed space it should have maintained, its influence pulling Japheth nearer and nearer.
The moment before it sucked him in, the warlock screamed. The star's image changed from a cinder red fist to that of a humanoid-shaped hole in reality filled with writhing red maggots.
He flashed into a blaring space filled with sliding worms. He lost all sense of his body-limbless and formless, Japheth was helpless in the grasp of a worm-filled, churning expanse. But he continued to move. Something drew him forward, he was actually accelerating through the horrorscape. Awful sounds smashed at his eardrums. The noise was the sound of world-sized maggots scraping against each other accompanied by a vague, atonal melody. The ghastly sound concentrated all the primal, ultimate instability that lay beneath matter and behind time. Its declaration promised an unutterable and unendurable vision. Screaming, Japheth plunged into it.
*****
'That's it, then,*Anusha whispered. Yeva shrugged.
Ahead, the narrow asymmetrical tunnel opened into a larger corridor. From their vantage, the path seemed only a fifth the size of the great spiraling thoroughfare she and Yeva had trudged up after leaving the orrery. The lane was empty save for an irregularly gusting wind that rushed down its length every few moments. Purple flames burning on the crowns of stone obelisks marked the recent passage of an aboleth lamplighter.
'An important corridor, but not one frequently used by the awakened,' Anusha said. 'I hope.'
Yeva didn't even bother to lift her shoulders. She merely said, 'Let's go back and collect the warlock. We will learn how little used this way is then.'
Anusha swallowed a terse comeback. She knew the woman wasn't trying to be cruel-she merely had little use for speculation. She just wished Yeva's attitude toward Japheth hadn't turned from acceptance to disdain when they learned his powers had been stripped. Yeva only cared about Japheth's ability to fashion a new focus for her spirit.
'Yes, that's true,' Anusha said. 'Let's hope I'm right.'
They retreated back down the meandering nest of tunnels, avoiding those with encrustations of frozen memory, quivering egg sacks, and small aboleths already squirming. Some of the little monsters were far more aggressive than their siblings-and cannibalistic. On the way up, they'd chanced across an aboleth feeding frenzy. Anusha was glad for once to have left her body behind. Otherwise she would have been violently sick.
They reached the lone tunnel that spiraled down to where the warlock rested. A glimmer of red light played up the burrow.
'Looks like the warlock got bored,' Yeva said. 'If he's not careful, he'll draw a newly hatched clutch down on him. If he hasn't already.' Concern tightened Anusha's throat. She hurried down the passage. Yeva followed.
They found Japheth sleeping at the tunnel's dead end, right where they'd left him. Anusha could see the rise and fall of his chest as the warlock slumbered. She was relieved he wasn't shaking as he'd been when they'd left.
'Where did the light go?' Yeva said.
The woman was right-somewhere in their rush down the tunnel, the flickering glow visible at the mouth had faded. They regarded the unmoving man only in the light of Anusha's dream sword.
'Japheth,' Anusha said as she bent and touched the man's shoulder. 'Are you awake? We're back.'
The man's breathing changed and he opened his eyes. His slightly curled form unwound as he sat up.
Anusha gasped. Japheth's gaze was as clear and dark as when she'd first met him.
'Japheth? What's happened? The stain of the dust is gone. I didn't think that was possible…'
The warlock looked around with bemusement written across his face. He cocked his head as if trying to recall a favorite lyric.
Seeing his dark brown irises was wonderful. Anusha suddenly realized he couldn't see her, especially if his vision wasn't stained crimson.
She willed herself visible. The warlock immediately focused on her.
'Your eyes,' said Anusha, reaching for his brow. 'They're-'
The Dreamheart fell from Japheth's hands. He'd been holding it behind an obscuring fold of his cloak.
The sphere dropped only a few inches because Japheth was sitting on the ground, but the sound it made hitting the floor was like a sarcophagus's stone lid slamming shut.
Anusha couldn't contain a cry of alarm. The Dreamheart bounced once, then rolled to the center of the niche and stopped dead like a piece of metal on a lodestone.
Japheth said, his voice far away, 'I had a dream the stars spoke my name…'
The man's gaze tracked down to the Dreamheart. Incredulity swept his features. He reached out and, with a fold of his cloak, encapsulated the sphere. With a shake of his hand and a flourish of the shadowy garment, the awful thing was gone.
'What were you doing with that? Were you holding it?' Anusha finally managed. The mere glimpse of the stone pained her. The psychic current flowing through Xxiphu seemed to tug and pull on her skin.
Japheth bent his head down to one hand and massaged his forehead for a moment. Then his hand dropped to his side and he said, 'I found a way to reclaim my power, Anusha. A way that doesn't rely on the Lord of Bats. My spells… well, some old and many new… are mine to cast once more.' He smiled.
Yeva said, 'What was the stone you were holding? Does that have anything to do with your reclaimed powers?'
'I used it as a key to find them, yes.'
'Then you are tainted, human,' Yeva said. 'Even without my body, I could smell the stink of corruption on the orb you hid in your cloak. I'm surprised the aboleths haven't already turned you into one of their slime-fleshed servitors.'
Japheth looked uncertain, but he shook his head. 'A reckoning may eventually find me, true enough. When I sought to swear a new pact…'
The man's eyes narrowed. He shook his head as if to jar loose an unpleasant memory and said, 'But that's just one possible future. Right now, the important thing is that I have reclaimed my spells and rituals. I have power enough to release Anusha's mind from the Eldest. And perhaps enough to tie your spirit to a body that can hold it without Anusha's constant maintenance.'
'When?' Yeva said, hope naked in her voice.
'As soon as we free Anusha's dream and clear out of here.'
Anusha didn't know how to react. She regarded the revitalized warlock. His rejuvenation seemed too good to be true, like she had slipped into a daydream and just hadn't realized it yet.
Of course, finding Japheth clutching one of the Eldest's eyes in his sleep like a stuffed child's toy wasn't really the definition of too good. It was the same relic that sucked her mind into Xxiphu in the first place! She watched Japheth, trying to discern any change in him from his contact with the relic. Had he really sworn a pact with it?
The man stood up and shook out his cloak. The sick trembling that had invaded his limbs was gone, as if it had never been. The set of his shoulders was as wide and commanding as she'd thought them when she'd trailed Japheth unseen through the streets of New Sarshel so long before. And his eyes were lucid and unmistakably clear of the least residue of the terrible dust he'd indulged overlong. 'You've sworn a new pact,' she said. 'To the Eldest?' The psychic undertow strengthened around her.
'No,' he said, his tone definitive. 'I've sworn to entities beyond the world of men and monsters-and aboleths who've outlived their time like the Eldest. I have sworn a pact to the undying stars.' He looked up, and Anusha followed his gaze. The only thing above them was the blank, damp rock face of the cavity. Japheth continued to gaze at the ceiling as if he could see through the rock and all the earth between him and the empty sky over Faerun.
'I don't understand,' Anusha said. 'How can the stars offer you power? And… how are mere points of light
