outcome.
The cleric had some experience in gauging the power and threat of supernatural entities. His sense of the queen’s power and level of abilities warned him that to fight the demon there, in the area that she infested and controlled so thoroughly, would prove a suicidal task.
Marrec spoke aloud, “Tell us your condition. We won’t agree to it before you specify what you expect from us. If you’re willing to negotiate in the first place, we must have something you need.”
The voice was silent for a few moments. The icy creatures crowding Marrec and the others shifted their weight ominously.
The Queen Abiding finally intoned, “This is the condition on which I’ll allow you to depart alive and without harm: find for me the token of my freedom and pledge to return it to me here.”
“What’s that?”
“It is the only remaining wall, spiritually speaking, that keeps me bound herein.”
Marrec stalled, “We wouldn’t know where to begin to search.”
“I’ll tell you exactly where it is. It lies here, in the ruins of Under-Tharos. Those frail-brained Nentyarchs squatted on it along with all the other leashes and tokens that bind us who remain locked in darkness. My children tell me that the last Nentyarch has fled, and another has assumed control at the center.”
“The Rotting Man,” supplied Elowen.
“That’s right, that’s what you call him, don’t you? Talona’s lap dog. He visited much pain on me, all unknowing, when he found my token of control when he first arrived. I owe him much for that. Then, like a dupe, he allowed my token to be stolen, ignorant of its true purpose. He’s since [earned of his foolishness.” The voice chuckled.
“I bet you know where your token now lies.” “Of course.”
Marrec sighed, then said, “You can’t send one of your servants to run off and collect it?”
“Think a little before you speak. If it were that simple, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The token is meant to control me. I cannot exert my power to retrieve it, and my power enlivens and encompasses my ‘children’ who surround you.”
“We could get this thing back for you, I’m guessing?”
“Another point for the human, and I thought you a turgid thinker,” said the voice. “Listen closely. My token lies in a portion of this sprawling complex known as the Sighing Vault. It lies not too far from here, no more than a day of travel through Under-Tharos for those who stride on two legs. My senses cannot penetrate too deeply, but I can feel it lying at the center of the Sighing Vault. It glows like a splinter in my mind, taunting me with its closeness.”
Ususi asked, “Is there anything you can tell us about the Sighing Vault? Did the Nar wizards use it for safekeeping of their secrets, as the name implies?”
The blot bobbed, somehow miming a shrug with its formless darkness. “The Vault has its guardians. Kill them for me, and I’ll be doubly grateful to you.”
Elowen said, “We are already in the middle of a quest. We don’t have time for a distraction like this. These ruins are mazelike. You could be sending us on a task that will take days or months.”
“Perhaps, but consider the alternative: I suck the life out each and every one of you with a breath.”
A coldness slipped then into Marrec’s heart, ignoring his clothing, his flesh, his will. It was a sentient hollowness, burrowing into him. He fell, catching himself ‘ against the cold ice of the slab containing the queen. The pain of that chill contact was as nothing compared to the blizzard of dissolution in his soul. Then, like a cat removing its paw from a stunned mouse with which it played, the cold vanished.
As he straightened, Marrec saw his friends begin to rise, or uncurl, from fetal positions. All of them had received the same treatment, simultaneously. Impressive. Terrifying. They were completely in the queen’s power.
“You won’t be so foolish to refuse me, will you?”
Marrec cleared his throat, tried to answer-After a moment, he tried again, “We might accept but die in the attempt to retrieve your trinket.”
Laughter. Then, “I’ll take that chance. If I kill you, then I’ll never know, will I? So answer me. Do you agree to find the token of my freedom, wrest it from the Sighing Vault if you are able, and return it to me here?”
Gunggari gave him another shrug, shaky that time. Ususi looked unsure, but she was still shuddering from the queen’s demonstration of her power.
Elowen said, “Why not, Marrec? Better to avoid this fight, save our strength for the Talontyr.”
“What does this token look like?” questioned Marrec.
“You’ll know it when you see it, human.”
“All right, majesty. You’ve got yourself a deal.”
The voice thundered, “Excellent. My children, allow our friends to depart, and you” a tendril of darkness separated from the blot in the ice, its tip wavering, then pointing like an arrow toward one of the ice demon”You! You will accompany our new friends. Lead them to the Sighing Vault. Make sure that they do not try to back out of our agreement.”
The fiend indicated by the gesturing tendril coughed something incoherent.
Marrec and his group then numbered five.
CHAPTER 19
The chill faded as the Queen Abiding and her icy court fell behind. An all-too-obvious reminder of the visit was embodied in the monstrosity that moved ahead, leading the way. The creature slid along the broken masonry and loose earth of the underground passage as if skating on the smooth surface of a frozen lake.
No one said anything. Marrec was silently grateful. Internally, he wondered if he had made the right decision in dealing with the icy demon. Perhaps they should have refused to find the token for the Queen Abiding. Perhaps she had somehow bluffed them all?
Perhaps, but what’s done is done, mused the cleric.
One good thing had come of his meeting with the formless blot caught in the ice. By comparison with the queen’s monstrosity, he wondered if his own heritage was so terrible. The queen was to evil like ice was to cold, inevitable. Marrec knew himself well enough to determine that he had very little in common with that creature.
They traveled down a path of tumbled pillars, undifferentiated rubble, dark side passages, and gloomy chambers, some empty, others filled with silhouettes of alarming clutter. Strange sounds sometimes blew in from these darkened alcoves, causing the group to pause.
On a few occasions wooden doors, improbably sound and hardly rotted, proved to be barriers to forward progress, but only until their frigid guide once again moved forward to apply its hell-born brawn. Each such crash echoed away into the mazelike tunnels; sometimes the last, faintest echoes seemed to return, as if shaped into words or cries like a beast, or even screams. No one commented on that unsettling aspect of Under-Tharos, though Gunggari and Marrec exchanged worried glances with each occurrence. Neither was imagining the phenomena.
They broke out into a larger chamber. Stone obelisks poked up through shattered flooring in random collections, like clumps of grass in a garden. Marrec could detect no pattern to their arrangement. It seemed, indeed, that they had grown from the earth, though they were unmoving. Each obelisk was inscribed with cramped symbols, visible even from a distance, because a faint luminescence clung to the chisel marks.
Their demonic guide passed among the stones without a glance. They followed, walking the winding route chosen by their escort. Ususi threatened to loiter, her brows wrinkled as she studied an obelisk, but Elowen cupped the mage’s elbow and urged her on. A dozen doors, all stone, broke off the chamber to the right and left. Some were cracked, others completely fallen and crumbling on the floor, opening on lightless obscurity.
The chamber turned out to be more of a hall. The stone obelisks grew fewer, but in their place were great iron blades, rusted and crumbling. Like the earlier stones, their arrangement seemed to follow no pattern the cleric could discern. Some of the blades reached up, grazing the high stone ceiling just visible in their light.
The hall finally reached its terminus at an arched opening. Stone valves lay broken and crumbled around the
