Don Bassingthwaite - The Eye of the Chained God

Immeral was already before him, his emerald green cloak swirling as he kneeled. “Albanon. Well met, my young prince.”

Albanon felt rather than saw Tempest stiffen, but he had a good view of Uldane’s wide eyes getting even wider. “Prince?” the halfling said as if there weren’t dead demons laid out around them. “You’re a prince?”

Albanon flushed. Immeral raised his eyebrows. “They… didn’t know?” he asked.

“No,” said Albanon. He didn’t even try to look at Tempest.

“You’re a prince?” said Uldane again in wonder.

“After the traitor priest Kri Redshal destroyed the gate that brought my men and me here,” said Immeral, “we needed another way to return to the Feywild. We found horses and rode southwest for the ancient portal between the worlds at Moonstair-only to find that the situation there was direr than in Fallcrest.”

“It didn’t seem so bad when I passed through there a month ago,” Albanon said.

Roghar grunted. “A lot can change in a month. You passed through Moonstair with Kri, didn’t you?”

The tips of Albanon’s ears tingled with shame at the comment-although it seemed they hadn’t stopped tingling since the end of their battle on the Market Green and Immeral’s ill-timed revelation. When they’d returned to the safety of the upper town, the eladrin travelers they had rescued mobbed him and Immeral to the exclusion of the others. When they’d finally extracted themselves and retreated to the Glowing Tower to hear the huntsman’s story, Splendid had swooped down on Immeral as if he were her oldest friend and Albanon a stranger.

It didn’t help that Roghar, Belen, and especially Uldane kept sneaking sideways glances at him as though he would suddenly sprout a royal crown. It really didn’t help that Tempest refused to look at him at all.

If Immeral recognized the confusion his three words-“my young prince”-had brought, he didn’t show it. The other eladrin sipped the last of the wine from the tower’s cellar and nodded in response to Roghar. “A month ago, the Abyssal Plague hadn’t reached the town. We arrived to find Moonstair overrun with refugees, all of them seeking to escape through the portal to the Feywild. Moonstair is a small town on the edge of wilderness. Even a small number of refugees would have been more than it could handle. Add to that the chaos of the plague and raids from the monsters of the nearby forests and swamps and the situation was volatile. To make matters worse, when the portal did open, we discovered there was no escape. The portal was being guarded in the Feywild-the local prince was taking no chances that the Abyssal Plague might be carried into his lands.”

“Could Albanon have ordered the guards aside?” asked Uldane brightly.

“No,” said Albanon.

“You could have tried.”

“It wouldn’t have worked. I’m not that kind of prince.” He didn’t bother adding that the prince under whose charge the portal lay was more stubborn than a stone donkey and that his authority trumped Albanon’s in every way. The prince was, after all, his father.

Immeral revealed nothing of that relationship either. “My men and I were known to the guards. I was able to convince them to allow my men to pass back to the Feywild. I stayed behind. There were eladrin among the refugees. If they could not return home to the Feywild, I could at least see them to safety in Fallcrest. I don’t believe Moonstair will survive. The plague demons started following us two days ago, just beyond the Witchlight Fens. We’re lucky we didn’t encounter more of them.” He glanced at Albanon then shifted his gaze to Roghar. “We wouldn’t have made it if it hadn’t been for you.”

The paladin’s chest puffed out with pride, but at least he had some measure of humility. “We worked together,” he said. “All of Fallcrest has pulled together. There haven’t been any plague demon incursions in the upper town in the last week and precious few in the lower town.”

“I noticed the gatehouse under construction,” said Immeral. “Impressive. Although I was surprised to find you all still here. I would have thought you’d have gone after Vestapalk. What happened?”

The room went suddenly quiet. From where she perched behind Immeral, Splendid raised her head. Albanon resisted the urge to shrink back in his chair. No one said anything and for a moment he even dared hope they’d keep their silence.

Then Belen’s fingers jabbed at him. “Albanon won’t let us leave.”

There was a collective intake of breath from the others but still no one said anything. Albanon caught eyes flicking to him, even Tempest’s. Belen’s face crinkled into a scowl and she glanced around the room. “We all know it. He’s the one holding us back.” She looked at Immeral. “He almost didn’t come with us to rescue you.”

The huntsman’s face remained impassive but Albanon caught the slight motion as his eyebrows pinched together. “My prince?”

“I didn’t know it was you, Immeral,” Albanon said, then winced at his words. “I mean, it didn’t matter who it was. There was never any question of not helping. I just wasn’t prepared.”

“You seem over-concerned with preparation lately.” Roghar’s voice was slow, as if he was trying to find something to say without insulting Albanon. “You ask for a day, then another day, then another while you search for some special way to defeat Vestapalk.”

“I haven’t found anything yet,” said Albanon. “I will find something, though. I know it. I’m still searching.”

Uldane sighed and shook his head. “No, you’re not.”

Albanon’s head snapped around to the halfling. “I am!”

“Lies,” said Splendid softly.

Fire burned in Albanon’s face, from the tips of his ears all the way down his neck. He looked to the one person who had not yet spoken, but Tempest’s face was hard.

“You didn’t want to try pushing the limits of the spell that distracted the demons,” she said. “And when you did, you screamed.”

“I said I overextended myself. It hurt.” He tapped his head. “Here.”

“That wasn’t a scream of pain. I know pain.” Tempest’s face tightened further. “That was a scream of resistance, like you were fighting something off. Over the last few days, I’ve seen you be more careful with your spells than I’ve ever seen any wizard, warlock, or sorcerer. You’re hiding something from us, Albanon.”

He felt his stomach churn. Fear surged through him, but it was fear mixed with a peculiar anger. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” he snapped. “Don’t you accuse me after the things I’ve experienced.” He stood and turned his back on them all, storming out of the room and striding up the tower’s twisting central staircase.

Four turns up, he had to pause and brace himself against the wall as waves of nausea swept over him. By the three worlds, what had he just done? What were the others saying or doing now?

Did it matter?

Albanon fought back the nausea, wiped sweat from his face, and continued up the stairs.

The room at the very top of the Glowing Tower had been Moorin’s study. Shelves bearing the trophies of a long life lined the walls. Tables scarred by research stood around the room. It was also, however, where the demon Nu Alin, in pursuit of the Voidharrow, had slaughtered Albanon’s old master, dismembering the body and spattering the whole room in whorls of blood. And it was where Kri had nearly succeeded in freeing the dark god Tharizdun from his dimensional prison.

In his gut, Albanon knew that he should probably have stayed away from the study, but he couldn’t. The room-or something in it-drew him. He’d spread the books and scrolls that he had brought back from the tower of Sherinna-his grandmother and founder of the Order of Vigilance-out on the tables. He’d spent most of the last six days studying them. Or at least making a show of it. To his shame, Uldane and Splendid were right. How much time had he actually spent studying Sherinna’s papers? How much simply staring out the room’s windows at the devastation of Fallcrest or at the litter of sharp-edged reddish fragments that were the remnants of the gate Kri had created to free his mad god? To his wizard’s senses, some of the larger fragments still pulsed with dormant power, not malevolent but simply untapped.