aligned in philosophy than he cared to admit.
It was the Cerulean Sign that pulled him forward now, not Angul, for all its sky-burning bluster. In a sense, he had become a living manifestation of the Sign.
The corridor opened into a larger space.
Raidon continued forward without taking the time to reconnoiter. He found himself on the periphery of a circular grotto that smelled unpleasantly of herb and copper. Several other corridors fed into the same chamber.
Thin yellow vines grew across the naked stone of the curved walls. The tangled vines resembled arteries bulging just beneath skin. Indeed, they slowly pulsed with dark fluid. Here and there along each vine, red leathery fruits sprouted. Most were the size of fists, but a few were ripe and heavy with growth. These were closer in size to a man curled in a fetal position. Raidon didn't let that last comparison go unmarked, but the central features of the grotto claimed his attention.
A perfectly circular pool occupied about two-thirds of the chamber's floor space. Stone obelisks clustered around the pool, each burning with a purplish flame. Mucus trails coated the floor of the chamber around the pool in thin streaks, emerging from one tunnel, circling the pool, then leading out into one of the other tunnels.
Raidon stepped up to the water and peered in. Or perhaps it wasn't water-a crystal clear liquid lapped slowly against the edges of its containment, more like gel than anything else. But whether it was water or slime, phosphorescent images played out in the pool's depths. Images that didn't seem dissimilar to the visions his Sign had given him on occasion. Seren and Thoster joined the monk at the pool's edge. Both studied the confusing welter of lines and shapes of dull green and orange light visible in the fluid. Mharsan, the first mate, remained in the tunnel entrance.
'I can't make any sense of it,' said Thoster. He turned away to look at one of the larger vine fruits. A worried frown grew on his face.
Seren wrinkled her brow but continued to watch the pool. 'Do these glowing lights hold any meaning for you?' she asked the half-elf.
'Yes,' admitted Raidon. Against Angul's stern insistence, he sheathed the blade. The moment the hilt left his grip, the monk sighed.
'What?' said Seren.
Instead of explaining, he pointed into the pool with one hand and lay the palm of his other hand flat across the Sign.
'This is some sort of meeting chamber. Were Xxiphu completely awake, this grotto would be swimming in aboleths.'
'Auspicious that everyone is still asleep,' said Seren.
'Or otherwise occupied,' said Raidon. 'Ah yes. I can sort order from this chaos with the Cerulean Sign, enough so you can see too.'
He concentrated. The jumble of mismatched lines came together, creating a stylized image of a broad pillar.
Within the pillar were packed lines, tubes, and spaces of all sizes.
'I see it! Is it an image of the city?' said Seren.
'Yes. Xxiphu. See there?' He pointed to the base of the wavering picture. A large space filled the entire lower fifth of the column. A convoluted series of spheres rotated around still larger spheres. One massive globe appeared to hover within the very center of the cavity.
'What is it? It looks like an orrery without the arms.'
'I don't know what it looks like in reality,' said Raidon, 'but by this simplified depiction and a sense I get from the Cerulean Sign, it is some kind of font of arcane magic.'
Thoster walked back up and gazed at the reconstructed image revealed in the pool. He asked, 'What are those tiny little colored things flying around the spheres?'
Raidon concentrated his attention on one of the points the captain indicated. They came in all colors, though there were more red and blue points than any other.
The half-elf s eyes widened.
'Aboleths!'
Seren sucked in her breath. 'Are they really flying?'
Raidon slowly nodded. 'The spheres apparently grant that power-at least the smallest ones. The largest orbs… could lift something far larger than even a very big aboleth.'
'Like a kraken maybe?' volunteered Thoster.
Raidon nodded, remembering Gethshemeth. But he suspected the black sphere around which all the smaller ones ultimately rotated could achieve something even grander… assuming conferring flight was its true function.
The monk wondered if, from this… council chamber, he could affect the connection of a given aboleth with the arcane power source and perhaps sever its ability to keep to the air. It seemed as if the functions were there, if he could devote enough time to its study.
'What's most important at the moment,' he said aloud, 'is that we can use this pool to track aboleths.' Raidon focused his attention higher in the column. The tumbling spheres were impressive, but not relevant to their purpose.
'Where are we on this schematic?' said Seren. 'We docked fairly high up, right? Though we don't know how tall the city really is since the top was punched into solid stone…'
Raidon didn't answer directly, but slowly traced a finger up the side of the glowing map, his fingertip only inches above the pool. Doing so seemed to aid his concentration. As his finger moved, the area on the diagram near it came into better focus, while areas beyond blurred into far less detail. He was searching for the Eldest.
He discovered more and more points of abolethic light as he tracked upward through Xxiphu's lower and central foundations. He found a particularly dense concentration of smaller, pale lights in a tangled maze of narrow tunnels about halfway up Xxiphu. Within the tangle, a couple of points pulsed with particularly fell light that outshone all the aboleths he'd so far detected. The two were clearly powerful entities… but they didn't seem to be aboleths. When he tried to focus his attention even closer, he was unable to get a positive fix on them. But neither was the Eldest. He moved on.
Above the maze, and moving steadily higher, he found another odd point of light. It seemed to pulse between great power and near extinction with heartbeat regularity. Raidon concentrated, then said, 'Xiang's Seven Principles, that's Japheth!'
Seren's mouth dropped open.
The monk turned to regard Thoster. 'You were right!'
The captain raised his hands in an elaborate shrug. He said, 'You don't get to captain a ship like Green Siren if you can't make a few lucky guesses.'
Raidon frowned. 'This is a complication we do not need. Especially if he carries the Dreamheart with him on his ill-considered foray.'
'Is he close to us?' said Seren.
Raidon resumed his study of the pool's schematic. He found where Japheth's soul light glimmered again, then carefully continued his search up the length of the great city.
'Yes,' the monk said a moment later, pointing to a small chamber.
'We are here.'
'No more than a few hand spans from where you detected the warlock,' mused the captain. His voice held a tentative note.
Raidon said, 'Yes. And see how many of the tunnels below converge here? If he continues his current heading, Japheth will come to this room eventually, perhaps in less than an hour. I sense no aboleths between him and us.
In fact, this whole upper area seems remarkably clear of the monsters…'
The half-elf raised his attention to the final fifth of the great spire-shaped city of Xxiphu. He sucked in his breath.
The empty cavity that crowned the city nearly matched the one at its base, at least in size. Within it, dozens of abolethic lights burned, several of them far brighter than the ones he'd spied lower down. Probably old and
