Don Bassingthwaite - The Eye of the Chained God

“Quarhaun!” she shouted again and it looked like he would have called back to her, but at that moment a shadow fell across the cavern. Shara spun around.

The noise of the plague demons went silent as Vestapalk rose up from the pit. Floating stones laced with the Voidharrow shuddered and came together, melting and growing into a bridge that spanned the abyss. Vestapalk settled onto his new perch like an emperor onto a throne. The dragon fixed them with eyes that were swirling pools of liquid crystal-and as he did so, all of the demons looked at them, too. Thousands of eyes staring at them. At her. Shara shivered and fell back a pace.

“Welcome to the Plaguedeep,” said Vestapalk and all of his demons along with him. “Welcome to your tomb.”

The last time Albanon had seen Vestapalk, the Voidharrow had already transformed him. His bulk had melted away, leaving Vestapalk skeletally gaunt, his hide stretched tight over muscles and bones. His skull had become longer and narrow. The Voidharrow had oozed out of him, squeezing up between his green scales and staining them red, dripping from his jaws, and filling his eye sockets with shifting liquid crystal. More crystal had flashed like spurs from his joints and his spine. It had taken the place of his talons. It had run in glittering veins across his wings.

Albanon had seen those wings on Vestausan and Vestausir. He’d left them rotting in a valley among the Cairngorms. Yet Vestapalk still had wings-wings that were now entirely crystal, as if formed completely from the Voidharrow. One of his talons, too, was the perfect red of the Voidharrow, replacing the one that lay with Vestagix in Winterhaven.

But Vestapalk had changed in other ways, too. He had grown larger and the red stain on his scales was almost complete. The spurs on his limbs were as big as sword blades. Strength and power flowed off him.

Deep inside Albanon, that small part of him that remembered his own near transformation into one of Vestapalk’s demon exarchs stirred. He could have served this magnificent creature. He could have been one with him.

The part of him Tharizdun had touched rose as well, sweeping over him in a flash of heat and madness. The Voidharrow had been meant to free the Chained God from his eternal prison. Instead it dared to attempt to take this world for its own! It was his enemy. He would destroy it in retribution for its arrogance.

Adoration and hatred, neither emotion truly his own, clashed within him as Vestapalk settled onto his perch. Albanon’s hand sought out Tempest’s. Fear and dread churned in his belly. Those emotions were most definitely his own.

“Welcome to the Plaguedeep,” said Vestapalk and all of his plague demons. “Welcome to your tomb.”

The dragon’s voice still had the same double quality Albanon remembered, one voice deep and rumbling, the other strange and chiming like crystal. His words brought a scream of outrage from Kri. “He knew we were coming!” The old priest turned on Albanon. His face was flushed and there was spittle at the covers of his mouth. “He knew! Those so-called sleeping demons, the two demons we found arguing in front of the tunnel entrance, the demons that came up behind us in the passage…” Kri turned again and glared up at Vestapalk. “You guided us. You put us exactly where you wanted us!”

Kri’s voice was small in the vastness of the Plaguedeep. Vestapalk smiled at him. “Servant of the Elder Eye, this one knows all your secrets. You come to destroy the Voidharrow. This one will not give you that chance.” His double voice rose to a ringing roar. “Kill them!”

Tempest’s grip tightened on his hand. “Up there!” she cried. Albanon looked where she pointed. High on the wall above them, the dark hole that was all that remained of the passage they’d been following began to glow with flickering, reddish light. Flames appeared within that light-or rather humanoid figures of animated flame appeared, each with a red crystal at its heart.

The fire demons leaped from the hole without hesitation, plunging like streaks of light down to where he stood with Tempest and Kri. Two demons. Four. Six. Eight.

Albanon thought of the gate fragment in his pouch. Maybe he and Kri could still use it, could still work the magic to unravel the Voidharrow. He turned his head and met Kri’s gaze.

For once, the priest’s eyes were hard but calm. Kri almost looked like his old self as he shook his head.

There wasn’t time.

Albanon released Tempest’s hand. The warlock stepped away and readied her rod. Albanon raised his staff as the nearest of the fire demons lashed out at him, its arms stretching and snapping like burning whips.

“Kill them!” roared Vestapalk, and Roghar felt as if an icy hand had gripped his soul. How close had he come to becoming one of the demons obeying that command? Could Vestapalk have turned him against his friends? He’d already betrayed them once. The others might have believed Kri’s lie about how Vestausan and Vestausir had found them, but Roghar knew the truth. It had been his infection that had guided Vestapalk’s creature to them in the mountain valley.

A new loathing came over him-and only part of it was for Vestapalk. He couldn’t have prevented the scrape from Vestagix’s tail that had exposed him to the Abyssal Plague. That had been an accident. But how he had acted afterward? That had been his fault. He’d lied to his friends and kept them in danger because he was too afraid to reveal the truth. He was weak. He’d turned his back on Bahamut and accepted the healing offered by Kri. And he’d left himself open to betraying his friends yet again. Every day since Kri had burned the plague out of him, he’d secretly dreaded what the priest might ask him to do. No matter what Kri promised, Roghar knew the command, when it finally came, wouldn’t be kind.

It left him with a vile choice: keep his word to Kri and risk putting his friends in danger, or hold true to his friends and break the vow he had made in Bahamut’s name.

Or perhaps, he realized, there was another option.

Claws scraped on stone. Up from the edge of the Plaguedeep, a pack of demons came crawling-all of them tough, four-armed brutes with thick crystal carapaces. Shara cursed softly and drew her greatsword. Uldane cursed loudly and drew a pair of throwing knives. “I’ll hit what I can,” the halfling said, “then I’m going for their knees. Try to keep them from falling on me.”

Roghar looked down at both of them fondly. “It’s been an honor to fight with you,” he said. “Tell Tempest I’ll miss her.”

Shara glanced at him sharply, perhaps suspecting something of what he intended, but Roghar was already past her and gathering speed as he charged the demons. “For Bahamut!” he shouted, lowering his shoulder and raising his shield.

“Kill them!” ordered Vestapalk, and his roar seemed to shake the stone of the mountain. On the highest portion of the former passage, Belen’s hand tightened on her sword and she braced herself for the wave of plague demons that would finish her, Cariss, and Quarhaun.

It didn’t come. The demons of the Plaguedeep stayed where they were, caught up in Vestapalk’s domination and watching events unfold with the same intensity as their master. From her high vantage point, Belen could see everything that happened to those below. She saw the fire demons-the same creatures who had destroyed much of Fallcrest-leap from on high and lash out at Albanon, Tempest, and Kri with ribbons of flame. She saw the four-armed brutes climb up to confront Shara, Uldane, and Roghar, and she stared in amazement as Roghar charged into the thick of them. The maneuver bashed one of the demons right back over the edge, but left the dragonborn surrounded. Roghar turned and crouched like a lion at bay, his sword and shield raised, ready to face his attackers.