might, in the process. So, aid me instead of hindering me. What do you say?'
The wizard's brow crinkled. 'Very well.'
Yeva loosed her immobilizing mind lock with a blink. Seren stood, picked up her wand, and straightened her garments.
The captain cleared his throat in an exaggerated fashion.
'Are you in, Captain?'
'Yes, though you're a fool. But let me loose, and I'll keep an eye on you like you said, in case your mind is less your own than you think. If so, cutting you down would be the least I could do.'
'I… appreciate that,' said Japheth. With a thought, he released his spell. The inky tendrils faded like smoke.
Thoster stood and nodded at the warlock. 'Let's be going, then?'
The wizard said, 'Before you walked in, Japheth, I used this scrying pool to locate a shortcut from the throne chamber above us to where Green Siren is tied up. Just in case we live and need to beat a hasty retreat.'
Thoster laughed. 'In case? Count on it. All of us are getting out of here.'
Japheth wondered. Besides the aboleths and the Eldest, the Lord of Bats was near. On the other hand, if Seren's shortcut proved passable, they wouldn't have to double back and come face to face with a vengeance- seeking Neifion. Anusha said, 'The tide rises again, Japheth. I don't have much time left.'
Dread prickled Japheth's skin. Even though he'd renewed their alliance, the captain and Seren had stolen too much of his time.
'Which way?' he asked.
Anusha motioned toward one of the corridors. 'This way' she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Xxiphu, Throne Chamber
Raidon had nearly succumbed to psychosis once before. Right after he'd learned Ailyn had died alone, he'd tried to murder a mob of Shou. When he'd been prevented from that mad caprice, he'd resorted to starving himself.
The intercession of the artificial entity Cynosure saved many innocents that day, his own vaunted self- discipline had crumbled before his rage. It had also been Cynosure who argued the monk into taking an interest in the needs of the world again, rather than allowing himself to waste away by going without food. Raidon's acceptance of Cynosure's premise was ultimately responsible for the semblance of equanimity he'd worn since then.
But the mere appearance of composure was not a foundation on which sanity could long stand. Since the day he'd learned of his adopted daughter's death, he'd never regained the placid assurance a master of Xiang Temple should rightfully enjoy. He'd never forgiven himself for being absent when Ailyn needed him most. He had merely played the role of someone who seemed content through each gray day's dawning.
When Raidon cut down Opal, his facade shattered. It didn't even matter that she was a puppet of the Eldest. All the desolation and heartache Raidon had walled away following Ailyn's death resurged. In doing so, it buckled the walls of his selfhood. His mind was like a smashed mirror. Each shard of his broken mind reflected only a limited view of reality. Events playing out within each piece were haphazard and unrelated.
His mind was shattered. And Cynosure was not there to help put him back together again.
So the Blade Cerulean leaped into the gap.
The sword pumped Raidon with purpose and will. Instead of collapsing into a raving heap when Opal flashed away, the monk spun and leaped for the other advancing memories and caught dreams. He destroyed the possessed images by the dozen with cleansing fire.
The man holding the blade was lost at sea. As the Eldest had used Opal like a marionette, Angul now directed Raidon. Each sweep and cut Raidon made was under the sword's sole direction. While Angul was used to overmastering the egos of its wielders, the blade rarely enjoyed such freedom in its choice of actions and enemies to engage. The blade relished the feeling. Though it was not given to introspection, Angul determined not to waste the opportunity. What need did it have for the conscious mind of Raidon Kane?
When the corridor was cleared of every last foe, Raidon paused. Or rather Angul did. Angul relished the perfection of its new vessel, now the blade's to direct.
The monk's body turned and sprinted up the corridor after a wisp of churning mist, Angul raised high in one hand. Raidon's throat screamed, 'The Eldest wakes to the end of its interminable existence!'
A sprint up a steep, winding slope finally saw Raidon into Xxiphu's throne chamber.
Dozens of entrances like the one Raidon had passed through were arrayed along the floor of the vast chamber.
Most vented white plumes.
Thousands of cavities honeycombed the high walls of the throne chamber, each large enough to hold an adult aboleth in a comfortable bed of slime. Though most gaped empty, several hundred squirmed with the recently awakened. Each occupied berth burned with a purple flame.
Self-scribing lines rayed across the floor, illustrating concepts that couldn't exist in reality. Flares of multihued light leaped from the crevices and canyons of the shifting diagrams. The inconstant light played on the bellies of the things that hovered Overhead.
Aboleths circled above the writhing floor, flying in perfect formation. One creature followed the next through the air, creating a great ring that could have spanned a city bazaar. Each creature glowed with phosphorescent vigor.
Some of the aboleths were human sized, others were two or three times larger. Many sported hides of brown, rust, jade, and even white. However, several were black as ebony, and these were large as dragons.
Angul presumed these were elder aboleths, old beyond the reckoning of history and swollen with centuries of growth and fell power. They flew with their lesser kin in geometric formation, screaming out the repetitive stanzas of a magical working. The ritual they attempted sent shudders through the air with each revolution of their flying ring.
The mist pouring in from the ground-level entrances was sucked into a vortex shaped by the spinning ring of levitating aboleths. The vapor was constricted to a rivulet of white so dense it seemed a liquid, which spilled upward toward the chamber's apex, into the darkness high above.
The monk's eyes were blind behind a cascade of tears, but he did not stumble as he raced across the great floor of the chamber. He easily vaulted the undulating patterns. Angul's preternatural senses did not require Raidon's eyes to take in the wonders of the chamber.
To the Blade Cerulean, the throne room was like a treasury laid out for ransack. Forged in Stardeep to put down a priest of the Sovereignty, Angul came close to being awestruck despite the blade's single-minded nature. For here were the creatures who the priest had served! The gathered aboleths in the chamber made up the Sovereignty itself! Only one being seemed missing from the tableau…
Angul exploded in cerulean fire. A flaming blue sphere leaped from the razor-sharp tip. The blaze hurtled toward the ceiling as if hurled from a catapult. It dazed the eyes of flying and perching aboleths alike.
The fire arced high and pierced the haze of shadow clinging to the ceiling. In the light of the flare, something appalling was revealed.
A gruesome shape was lodged in the ceiling. No, Angul saw. That assessment was incorrect.
The thing was the ceiling. The flare's light revealed a bloated thing the size of a temple complex, one whose bulk stretched at least as wide as what should have been the roof. The creature's stony hide was as desolate as the dead face of a moon and seemed nearly as large. However, what moon ever possessed dead eyes for craters?
Thousands of eyes speckled the gray expanse of petrified flesh, some small as coins while others were large as houses. Most were closed, but some stared blankly like the glassy orbs of corpses. These gazed into the empty space beneath the creature, down upon the circling aboleths, and across the prophecies scribed on the floor.
It was the Eldest. It presided over its progeny as a statue might, without breath.
