conviction grew that the creature hadn't fled. No, it had merely hidden, perhaps by magic. Perhaps it followed him, waiting for him to grow tired or drop his guard.
Something creaked above him and he rolled to the left as if evading another bolt of lightning. As he pulled out of his roll he drew daggers and glared upward. Nothing but a break in the canopy, through which a scattering of stars gleamed and winked.
His gauntlet chuckled.
He resisted the urge to smash it against a nearby tree. Instead, he sheathed his dagger and curled his hand into a fist, squeezing the foul-breathed mouth as tightly as he could. 'Quiet, while I try to find all my blades,' he told his gauntlet.
The demonic titter was muffled, but the unholy mirth could not be stilled.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Stardeep, Cynosure Prime's Chamber
Delphe rested, her back against a wide stone slab written with cramped, writhing script that glowed as if by starlight. A moment earlier, she'd been in the Throat staring anxiously down into the Well. All was well in the Well. .
She grimaced. So much for silly little superstitions. Activity in the boundary layer had seemed within normal tolerances, but how long would that last? How long could she continue to personally monitor the Well without Cynosure's never-sleeping cognizance? Cynosure was designed to be the first line of defense against the Traitor's escape; mortal Keepers were merely meant as fail-safes.
She had only spent a short time in reverie in the last couple days, and her brain fizzed with fatigue. Manually triggering Stardeep's useful but complex transfer function was exhausting. Add to that the stress of worrying about the Traitor while at the same time attempting to evaluate Cynosure's nodes for possible contamination, and the result was a Keeper a hand's span away from collapse.
Delphe mentally tallied her success. She'd checked twenty of the thirty-some partial and complete nodes through which Cynosure's mind normally resonated while he was in Stardeep's command loop. All seemed clean, with no sign of decay, corruption, or tampering. Likewise, Prime itself was a paragon of health. Good progress, but. .
It would take at least another day to finish checking the rest of the nodes.
She dropped her head into her hands.
'Are you well, Delphe?' Cynosure Prime's deep voice boomed from the darkness.
She lifted her head, tracking slowly up the immense, streaked, and stained form of the sentient idol, and looked into its dimly shining scarlet eyes.
'I fear I'm about to discover the limits of my competence,' she admitted.
'Have you finished your trace?'
'No, I am two-thirds complete,' she replied.
'Then our progress is positive-why so forlorn?'
'I don't have the strength to finish,' said Delphe, slumping further.
'I have been monitoring your progress, and I agree,' rumbled the idol. 'I have a solution, if you wish to hear it.'
She blinked. 'Please, share.'
'It is not necessary to bring me completely back into the loop in order for me to gain access to a majority of my previous functions. Many of my nodes are redundant. You could drop from the loop the nodes you are uncertain about, then reroute and reintroduce my consciousness to what remains.'
Delphe blinked again.
'That… is not a bad idea.' She considered Cynosure's words. It was true, now that she allowed her tired mind a moment's contemplation-every one of the focus points serving as nodes were not strictly necessary. She had checked out and passed more than enough nodes to do exactly what the idol suggested. Enough nodes were clean.
At least, clean as far as her abilities could trace. Which was the real worry-what if some insidious error or malign influence lay hidden from her yet, like a cyst in a piece of meat about to be eaten? What if she brought Cynosure back into the loop only to trigger that influence once again?
'Dark the stars, what choice do I have? Cynosure, prepare yourself to be reinvested into Stardeep's control functions.'
Delphe pushed herself up and walked to stand directly beneath the towering figure. She grasped her amulet containing the Cerulean Sign and invoked one of its abilities, one of the few still recalled. The same symbol on Cynosure Prime's chest blazed the color of heaven, and the red glow in its eyes flashed once, then faded.
She asked, 'Am I speaking to Cynosure Prime, or Cynosure?'
A moment of silence, then, 'I am back in the loop, Delphe. Thank you.' The voice emerged from the air next to her as if to prove the point.
'And how are you. . finding the landscape now that you've returned?' The abjurer clutched her amulet, ready to sever the idol's connection with Stardeep at the very first sign of anything untoward.
'I find everything a bit. . cramped, I suppose is the best way to explain it. But other than some awkwardness, it seems that my access to Stardeep's functions is reestablished. For instance, I note all conditions are ideal in the Well.'
Delphe nodded, allowed herself a shard of hope. She said, 'Cynosure, please transfer me to the Throat now.'
A shiver of discontinuity, and she stood in the mirrored chamber. The glow from up the Well cast her features in flickering orange hues. As usual.
'By the Sign, I'm happy to leave those transfers to you!'
'It is my pleasure, Delphe.'
She walked to her glassy command chair and sat.
'Delphe, I have something I'd like to ask you about.'
Her heart caught in her throat. Apprehension pitched her voice higher than normal as she said, 'Ask away, Cynosure. Is something wrong?'
'Perhaps. As we speak, I am re-acquainting myself with the nodes that have returned to my control, including the statue in the Throat, and those in the Inner Bastion and the Outer, as well as all those in between and underneath. However, I find myself unable to access certain memories stored in the loop.'
'Memories?'
'I am unable to access records for specific places and times within Stardeep, beginning some two years ago.'
A chill crawled across Delphe's neck. 'Is it a corruption?' Did she need to flush Cynosure from Stardeep's control functions once more?
'I am unable to access specific memories because of a command lock. A command lock I wasn't even aware of until you reintroduced me moments ago. Prior to taking me out of the loop, one of the nodes, now inactive, must have been preventing me from noticing. But now the missing records are obvious, and I must admit, unsettling.'
'What is the authorization on the command lock?' she asked. Unless the idol itself had experienced some sort of schizophrenic error localized to one of the nodes she'd dropped from the network-
'Keeper Telarian ordered the lock.'
It seemed that the entire world dropped a foot.
She started breathing again and said, 'Cynosure, listen. I am giving you a counter command. As a Keeper of the Cerulean Sign, I command you to erase those locks and integrate those memories. Now.'
Just in case, she keyed her mind, ready to flush Cynosure. Clicking issued from the large statue on the ceiling, then the idol said, 'All records are integrated.'
