supports and began attempting to shake it. Throwing her weight into it, she caused the device to shudder and shake. With each moment, it grew more violent. The shapes, one by one, stopped spinning on their own. Each formed a humanlike face in the metal surface, each turned toward her. As they rotated around the central axis, shifting up and down, near and far and throughout the room, the faces all moaned with voices of metal fatigue: 'No!'
She ignored them. Melann didn't stop. 'We maintain the prison of the balor, Chare'en. We were placed here by Braendysh. It is our duty for all time to ensure he does not escape…' the voices continued.
''You failed, whatever you are,' Melann whispered as she shook the support. 'It's my turn now.'
As the support wobbled more and more dramatically, the voices moaned and protested more.
Meanwhile, she saw Chare'en remove the crossbow bolt from his eye and toss it to the ground. Black and green fluid poured from the wound, but already the flow began to ebb. Suddenly, two of the metal shapes clashed together as the device swayed and shook, and the different moving parts began to turn out of sync. The whole structure careened out of control. Supports began to bend and tear apart.
Melann's eyes grew wide. 'What have I done?' she shouted, though only she could hear herself.
The floor was fifteen feet below her at least, but she had to get off' the device, and quickly. She stood on the disk, retaining her balance, when a powerful shudder echoed through the chamber. As she'd hoped, a part of the magical generator slammed into Chare'en. The tanar'ri was carried across and around the room a fair distance. Unfortunately, the same shock sent Melann tumbling off the disk to the ground below.
She landed with a crack, and the arm that she reflexively put out to cushion the long fall snapped like a tree branch. Pain shot through her body as she rolled along the floor.
Long, agonizing moments passed while Melann couldn't bring herself even to open her eyes. In her self- imposed darkness, she could hear the once nearly silent device screaming like a thing in pain. Another moment passed before she realized that she screamed in pain right along with it.
Somehow she dragged herself to her feet, clutching her broken arm. She thought it likely that she might have broken a rib or two, judging from the pain in her chest. Luckily, her legs seemed relatively unharmed and she was able to stumble to what she believed was, where Vheod lay, which fortunately was near Whitlock and the exit.
Melann got lucky, or perhaps Chauntea continued to watch over her, for after only a few dozen short, stumbling steps she came to Vheod. She looked down, and what she saw made her no longer feel quite so much pain herself. Vheod's clothing-apparently as well as the straps of his breastplate-had burned away, leaving him with little covering his bloody, black flesh. He was horribly burned, and he curled up like a dying animal.
Collapsing near him, Melann called one last time on the Mother of All, asking her to heal Vheod with the goddess's life-giving touch. Melann's good hand radiated golden energy, and where she passed her fingers, Vheod's burned flesh healed. Using this divine power, Melann was able to heal a great portion of his wounds. He sighed with the pleasure of reduced pain and began to writhe. His body had thrown him into a state of shock, but he recovered with a start.
Looking up, Vheod's eyes widened in surprise. 'Abvssal hosts'.' he cursed. 'We've got to get out of here!'
Melann managed to follow his gaze and saw that the device spun entirely out of control now, the parts bending, snapping, and crashing into each other. His wounds at least partially healed, Vheod had strength enough to help Melann to her feet. Grasping his arm tightly around her, he brought both of them toward the only exit from the chamber.
A hemispherical portion of the device crashed next to them, a horrified metal face screaming in frustration. The still rotating generator dragged the hemisphere along the ground toward them, sparks flying about it. Vheod managed to pull them both out of the way, and they reached the door.
Whitlock lay at their feet, once again bleeding dangerously. Before Melann could even think about tending to him, a tremendous cacophony of metal and screams came from behind them. The entire device-tons on tons of metal-crashed to the floor in a single, unbelievable blow. Even through the crash they could hear the voice of Chare'en from across the chamber.
'A’io!' the tanar'ri cried.
The voices of the magical device suddenly cried in unison 'It is our duty for all time to ensure he does not escape!'
The silence that followed seemed as abrupt as the crash. Dust roiled in the air as Melann and Vheod stared into the room where their foe had stood. Now they could only see bent and broken metal. It was over.
Melann fell to her knees and with her unbroken arm tore away the remainder of Whitlock’s shirt. Tearing the cloth into strips, she began to bind the reopened wound in his abdomen. She rolled his heavy-body over to get around to his back, then brought the strip around again and again. A few bits of metal still bent under their own weight creating a small creaking sound.
Vheod stood over her, still staring into the chamber. In the brief instant that she looked at his face, it held only one emotion: disbelief. She turned back to Whitlock. A few more bits of metal clanked against each other or the stone floor as the debris settled. 'No,' Vheod whispered. Melann looked up from her work. She'd almost finished tending to her brother's wound. In the far side of the room, in the little light they had she saw some of the pieces of metal still settling. They moved and shuddered. The movement grew more intensenet less. It was not settling. It was not over.
Chare'en rose up from the shards of metal and the debris that had brought him down. Blood and bile-oozing gashes cut long streaks through his red, glistening skin. One of his horns was broken, and his fleshy wings were tattered and probably near useless. His sword and whip were nowhere to be seen.
He laughed. His low, evil chuckle echoed through the room. 'Braendysh created that cursed contraption. It was filled with the spirits of those he claimed I had wrongly slain. They spent these last eons willingly exacting their vengeance on me by keeping me prisoner. They have been set free, but so have I. You cannot kill me. It is not within your power.'
Shadows appeared to gather around them. Melann could swear that the darkness grew and moved in the air surrounding her, her brother, and Vheod. Only now did she notice that Vheod still clutched Whitlock's sword in his bloody hand.
'While I yet live,' he whispered, 'I have the power to do anything I desire. I control my limits, not you.' Blood ran down his face, but Vheod ignored it. His hair was burned and caked with blood, and his nearly naked body glistened with sweat in the dying light. ''Now it is time to end this.'
'I can help insure it's the ending that you want,' a lush voice from behind them said.
The Ravenwitch stood in the corridor, surrounded by her black-feathered servants.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The growing darkness had in fact been the ravens filling the small room that gave way to the prison chamber. Vheod looked at the Ravenwitch over his shoulder. 'I don't have time for you now, witch.'
The Ravenwitch flowed toward him like black water given life. A long cloak of black feathers rippled behind her, as did her long, ebony tresses. She smiled a thin, tight smile but didn't reply. As Vheod and
Melann watched, she stopped at drag's body and knelt beside it. Pulling his shirt away from his neck, she pulled out an amulet on a chain. It glittered with gold and some small sorcerous symbols.
Taking it from the half-orc's corpse, she handed it to Vheod. 'If anyone concerned was in possession of this amulet, it would be this one. He'd been planning for this day for some time, and while not exactly a tower of intellect, he had a sort of craftiness that suggested he would plan ahead.'
Vheod took the amulet and turned back to the chamber. Chare'en slowly advanced through the debris and dust, breathing heavily.
'But what is it?' Vheod asked with an intensity burning in his eyes.
'Braendysh needed something to defeat Chare'en.' she told him. 'This protected him and enabled his victory against the demon so long ago.'
'Why are you helping us now?' Melann asked, her voice betraying all her suspicions.
