Stardeep (19 page)

“What I mean…” said Telarian, then he paused. He paused because his ungloved hand had just unconsciously slipped along his belt loop and onto Nis’s protruding hilt.

It occurred to him in that instant that convincing Brathtar to return to obedience was not something he had the time

or patience to accomplish. Nor could he trust Brathtar not to return to his questioning ways with the very next order Telarian issued. Questioning the Keeper in front of the Knights he commanded—Brathtar knew such a breach of protocol could only seed discipline problems. Thus, he obviously questioned Telarian for just that purpose. A demonstration was required.

Telarian swiveled his head to regard the Commander. With an air that seemed like lazy curiosity to the onlooking Knights, he pulled Nis from his sheath and plunged it into Brathtar’s stomach, burying the blade to the hilt.

“Keeper! What…” were Brathtar’s last words. The slumping body of the Commander of the Empyrean Knights slid off Nis’s bleak, life-ending edge and clattered to the stone.

Telarian turned to face the mounted Knights who yet queued up behind the gate, Nis free of its scabbard and idly clutched in his left hand. The blade seemed to pull the very light from the air, creating a zone of shadowless gloom, dim at the edges, but blackening to utter night around the sword blade.

“Congratulations, Dharvanum,” said Telarian, addressing the closest Knight, who stared back at him with eyes wide. “I confer upon you the title and rank of Commander. Now—ride out and bring back that ex-Keeper’s sword, or I’ll gut you, too.”

Telarian was surprised how the sight of Brathtar lying in his own entrails failed to faze him. He gave the body a tentative nudge with his toe. Yes, stone dead. With Nis in hand, cool logic bracketed him and defined him. Emotion served only to conceal the shortest paths to achieving desired ends. Brathtar had proved himself too much an obstacle. With the Commander now punished so utterly for discipline’s lapse, the remaining Knights would fall in line. They were pledged to obey the Keeper first, and their Commander second.

‘ The Knight named Dharvanum lowered the face-plate on his helm and drew his sword. He spurred his mount towatd the Gate.

They have turned against you, warned Nis, an instant before Dharvanum turned back his mount, swinging his sword in a vicious arc at Telarian’s neck.

The Keeper calmly parried with his drawn weapon. Where Nis met the lesset steel of the Knight’s blade, black phantoms momentarily capered.

Dharvanum screamed at the temaining mounted Knights. “The Keeper’s reason has deserted him. For Stardeep, cut him down. For Brathtar!”

Telarian backpedaled, holding Nis in guard before him. He ducked into the open door at his back, the Causeway Gate’s guardroom. He slammed the metal door and threw the bolt before any Knight could dismount and follow him through the entrance.

The woman on duty, a Knight-in-training named Deobra, said, “Keeper? I heard a yell and the sound of sword on sword. Have the attackers—”

Deobra died before she realized danger thteatened.

The seven Knights out there must also he eliminated, lest they carry their poisonous thoughts to all the legion, counseled Nis, still clutched in Telarian’s white-knuckled hand.

The diviner nodded. The soulbound blade saw the truth. A wasttel thought squitmed around the back of his mind—he’d killed Brathtar and the apptentice Knight, and now he was actually considering killing all these men, too?

Yes, answered Nis.

Reason required all who’d witnessed Btathtai’s end and who turned against him be eliminated in turn. When the Traitor’s ultimate scheme was finally countered by Telarian, all those who died along the way would be remembered. And perhaps Telarian would be brought to just account for his

actions. Tomorrow’s children would judge such things. For now…

The Keeper stepped over Deobra’s body and grasped in his left hand a great lever protruding from the guardroom floor; in his right hand, he retained his grasp on Nis. Telarian knew the five-foot-long iron lever was connected to a great mechanism of wheels, pulleys, counterweights, and braces.

He pulled. The lever shifted, then caught, its mechanisms rusty from decades of disuse. Cool energy trickled from Nis’s hilt into his blood, heart, and thews. Telarian pulled. The lever shot home.

A clang thudded up from the floor, followed by a louder one from outside. A moment later, the sounds of screaming men and horses burst into the chamber, but faded quickly before ceasing altogether, as if plucked up and away by some passing giant.

Or, as if they’d fallen into the gaping cavity beneath the suddenly withdrawn floor in the tunnel between the outer Causeway Gate and the Inner Bastion Gate. The lever and the deep pit were a last-gasp defensive measure designed to drop an invading force into the underdungeon. In that subterranean tunnel-strewn region beneath Stardeep, lesser felons lived out squalid lives in windowless dungeon cells, and older tunnels squirmed away into darkness.

Telarian knew that neither the Knights nor their horses could hope to survive such a drop.

He let go of the lever and grabbed Deobra’s hair. He pulled the body to the trap door and tossed it, too, into the lightless pit beyond. The form dropped limply away, a rag doll into the refuse heap.

Best to dispose of all evidence of the slaughter.

Stardeep, Throat

Delphe saw the Knights fighting invaders on the Causeway’s edge, if fight was the right word; mostly, the doughty Knights fell beneath swotds, fists, and the flashing magic of the mysterious attackers. The clatity of Cynosure’s scrying was erratic, but she clearly identified at least three foes: a sword wielder, a martial artist, and a spellcaster. She also spied the shadow of a humanoid lurking about the periphery, throwing knives. The Knights seemed outmatched—where was the full company? And why did they fight with the Causeway wide open at their backs? Was Telarian even now readying to send forth another unit or two? Perhaps, but if the Knights she saw now fell in the next few moments, the invaders would penetrate Stardeep’s open front gate.

She gasped, understanding the invaders must have timed their attack to coincide with the Traitor’s escape attempt she’d just quelled.

“Cynosure, close the Causeway Gate!”

“Yes, Delphe,” responded the construct, in a voice as steady

and calm as if she’d asked Cynosure to confirm the dining menu for tomorrow.

Mist swirled up from Chabala Mere, pulling the landbridge into a nether realm of nonexistence. The scrying relayed by Cynosure onto a mirrored wall panel of the Throat jittered, scrambled, and vanished.

“Causeway Gate is closed, Delphe.”

The Keeper drew in a long breath, then darted an anxious glance into the Well, at the boundary layer. She no longer trusted its integrity. A terrifying thought.

The construct noted her glance and said, “Delphe, please allow me to apologize for my earlier lapse. Because of the attack on Stardeep’s gate, I committed the bulk of my attention there. I recognize that this behavior violates protocol, and I am frankly at a loss to explain myself.”

“Do you… do you suspect a breakdown of some sort?” Delphe swallowed, knowing the answer to the question was a definitive “yes,” whether or not the sentient idol would admit it.

Cynosure responded, “Delphe, I am forced to confess— something is indeed interfering with my decision-making. I am unable to determine what. I recommend you take me out of the command and control loop. Doing so will eradicate the possibility that my next lapse will imperil the Well. I can use the time to trace the source of the difficulty, and if possible, remedy it.”

The construct wasn’t wrong, though she could hardly believe she would follow its recommendation…

Delphe’s voice quavered as she responded, “I agree. I hereby command you to extricate yourself from Stardeep. Disengage all higher order functions, both in the Inner Bastion and the Outer. Please leave those functions available for Telarian and I to use manually.”

“Yes, Delphe. I am retreating into my original form. I wonder what it will feel like to be singular again…”

Silence stretched. The Keeper looked up at the sculpted stone on the ceiling, knowing it was empty. Cynosure was disengaged. Had that evet happened before in Stardeep’s history? Not that she could recall.

She poured her attention into the Well and anxiously studied the patterns of sigil and flame. Had the Traitor exhausted himself? A dimensional veil separated Stardeep from the invaders Cynosure had shown her. She was not planning on permitting the Causeway to be opened again anytime soon.

The most pressing question was whether the idol’s leave of absence in monitoring the Well was more risky than allowing it to remain active. Cynosure had eventually perceived the escape attempt, and provided the impetus necessary to reenergize the boundary horizon. But if the construct were functioning properly, would the Traitor have been able to launch his probe in the first place? It chilled her to think the lattet might be a possibility. The heart of Statdeep’s defenses may have become corrupted.

Where was Telarian? Cynosure couldn’t help—perhaps could only hinder her. She and the other Keeper had to confer immediately.

She mentally extended her senses, searching for the magical ley lines that threaded Stardeep. When asked, Cynosure quickly and easily manipulated those functions on her behalf. In some ways, those functions were one and the same as Cynosure… better not to worry about that tight now.

Delphe closed her eyes and began to search the stronghold.

Telarian grabbed the sweat-slicked guardroom lever and pulled. The mechanism yielded slowly, with a drawn-out screech resembling a banshee’s scream. The gate tunnel’s iron-reinforced floor ratcheted into place, sealing

the Knights—their corpses, at least—in their final resting places.

The Keeper rushed into the tunnel to gaze across the Causeway. He estimated the Knights who remained outside were unlikely to succeed. It was time for him to directly intervene. His grip tightened on Nis’s pommel. He stepped…

The landbridge faded into pale mists.

Several blinking Knights appeared in the gateway tunnel, turned around and nauseated from their sudden recall. What—

The Causeway had closed!

“Cynosure! Open the Causeway! Immediately!”

No answer. He sheathed Nis to wipe his brow. The instant he lost contact with the hilt of his darkling sword, Telarian’s composure collapsed.

With a voice now breaking with sudden fear, he called again, “Cynosure? Answer me! Cynosure, open the Gate!”

Telarian looked left, right, up, down as his mind whirled with confusion. His eyes finally settled on the two niches in the gate tunnel, one on either side. Each was filled with a hulking stone shape. Either or both could serve as a temporary nexus for Stardeep’s construct sentience, even physically animating to defend the entrance. At the very least, speaking if spoken to.

The diviner ran to stand between the two shapes. Both stared vacantly down at him. Cynosure was resident in neither.

A crackle of light and the sudden scent of ozone pulled his gaze around. Striding from a rough discontinuity was Delphe.

“Telarian!” she yelled, her eyes wild, her face flushed as she approached him. Did she know what had just occurred? Were all his secrets laid bare to his fellow Keeper? A guilty conscience grabbed him roughly, draining blood from his

face and putting a shake in his hands. To salvage his scheme, and thereby save future generations unborn, must he now cut down Delphe, too, in cold blood?

As he reached for Nis, Delphe said, “Cynosure is corrupted, and the Traitor stirs! Thank the Twelve Stars I’ve found you—we must prepare our strategy!”

Telarian’s wavering hand dropped away from his weapons hilt.

“Tell me, Delphe, what has happened?” he asked, his voice hoarse. He gripped one hand with the other to hide a telltale quaver.

She began, “An entity…”

Her eyes looked past him down the tunnel. Telarian turned and saw the bloody stteak smeared from the open guardroom door, as well as the gore splash from where Brathtar and Dharvanum had gasped out their last. He’d disposed of the bodies in the deeps, but there’d been no time to sctub away the incriminating blood. The recalled Knights yet milled at the far end, still pale and confused to Telarian’s eyes.

“The invaders breached the Causeway?” she gasped. “I closed the Causeway not a moment too soon!” She turned to look at him. “Why didn’t you close the Causeway Gate after you sent forth the Knights to defend Stardeep?”

Telarian replied without missing a beat. “Of course I tried, but Cynosure failed to answer me. By the time I realized a manual seal was necessary, I and a reserve unit of Knights already fought to hold the tunnel. If you hadn’t closed the Causeway Gate when you did, I’m not sure what would have happened.” Internally, he cursed her for an intetfering fool. If she hadn’t closed the Causeway, even now he’d have Angul and Nis, together.

“What kind of force—”

He interrupted, “Hold!” The diviner knew where Delphe’s questions led. A distraction was required lest she too closely

examine the gate tunnel. If she queried the Knights now visible in the tunnel, she’d learn they hadn’t been part of any tunnel defense—they’d been fighting a Keeper! If she began unraveling that knot, he’d have to spin his web of lies all the wider.

Telarian continued, “You claim Cynosure is corrupt and the Traitor’s dreams are uneasy? I would hear more of that!”

Delphe nodded, her eyes again focusing on Telarian. She said, “Some sort of… probe entity burst from the boundary layer and ascended the Well.”

Telarian didn’t have to act surprised. Delphe continued, “A powerful working, not a phantom. It was a qualified escape attempt.”

“What shape did it take?” Telarian’s voice was hoarser.

She replied, “A self-improving tissue mass. It resembled an eyeless snake, or a questing tentacle. It improved and expanded every moment it remained free of the Well. What a time for Cynosure to fail!”

Delphe raised a conciliatory hand as she noted his eyes growing huge. “Breathe easy. I quelled the escape. Cynosure woke up at the last, and between his working and my abjurations, the Traitor’s sending, if that’s what it was, failed to emerge into the Throat.”