Keith Decandido: Under the Crimson Sun

With each new follower Albric was able to bring to his cause, Tharizdun felt the link grow stronger, as the power of their devotion enabled him to more aggressively pierce the veil between universes, and he was able to speak directly to Albric through one of his more weak-minded devotees rather than through the vague imagery of dreams.

The moment was coming. All of Tharizdun’s planning, all his patience, all his frustration-it was finally coming to a head. Dozens of plans and one, at last, was starting to bear fruit.

When he felt Albric’s devotion at its greatest height, he knew it was time. A shudder passed through all of reality as Albric’s spell unleashed the power of the Gate fragment to poke through the barriers that separated universes, to force a crack.

Reaching out with his godly might, Tharizdun sent the liquid crystal through that crack, watching as the roiling chaos seeped through the chink in the armor that imprisoned a god, seeking out ways to sow the seeds of madness.

Then disaster. Champions of Ioun and Pelor, along with a wizard and two fighters, interrupted the ritual even as Albric and the other seven devotees were transformed by the Voidharrow into strange creatures of madness. Tharizdun had known nothing of this, and he screamed in rage at the Progenitor. “You betrayed me.”

But the Progenitor denied the accusation. Now we spread, your will and my substance. We are the Voidharrow .

The Chained God saw the creatures that his eight worshipers had changed into. “Like a plague. Your substance and my will.”

Our will .

While the Voidharrow had pierced the veil on Tharizdun’s end, the thrice-damned heroes had closed it on the other side, leaving Tharizdun and the Progenitor trapped once again.

But the veil had been pierced. With the Voidharrow loose, he had a foothold.

And that was not all. The ritual Albric had led enabled the Chained God to reach out to many worlds. He could not send himself through the veil to any of those worlds-the gods had imprisoned him too well-but the Voidharrow … It could seep through the chinks in the armor that Albric’s ritual had exposed.

If the Voidharrow spread far enough and took root in enough other worlds, it would provide the foundation of a latticework of chaos, a linkage of Abyssal force that would smash through the barriers that kept Tharizdun trapped there, allowing him to return to his own universe.

For the first time since Ioun and Pelor trapped him in that wretched place, Tharizdun threw his head back and laughed.

Vas Belrik’s wife always yelled at him when he rode a family crodlu to the marketplace.

Of course, one could also end that thought with “him” and it would remain accurate. Tova Belrik always found something to scream at him about. He married her in order to solidify a merger between his family and the Hakran family. The Belriks had always bred the finest crodlus in Raam, and the Hakrans ran the best stables. It seemed a natural match-at least to Vas’s father and Tova’s parents.

Vas, being a teenager at the time, didn’t really have any say in the matter. Marrying who you chose to marry was a privilege of the lower born. As a scion of one of the wealthier families in Raam, Vas did as he was told.

As a result, Vas had more wealth than he knew what to do with, and could pretty much do as he pleased, so he could hardly complain … much.

Tova had commensurate wealth. Their parents’ plan was a good one, and the newly merged Belrik-Hakran stable had grown to the point where they had no real competition anymore, and their monopoly on Raam’s crodlu trade allowed the Belriks to live a life of luxury.

In that, they were a rarity in Raam these days. As Vas rode through the thoroughfares, he looked past the bodyguards walking alongside him on all sides (the streets weren’t safe, after all) and saw houses that had been burned out, once elegant and beautiful structures that had been badly damaged by civil unrest, businesses that had closed their doors permanently. Once mines had provided alabaster and gemstones enough to keep the higher castes wealthy and the lower castes employed, but the mines had dried up, as had the land.

The Belrik and Hakran families remained wealthy because people always needed crodlus. Of course, many of them needed those crodlus to get away from the depressed nightmare that Raam had become …

Still, the Belriks had staff and slaves to run things-some of the best crodlu handlers in all of Athas worked for them-so they had very few responsibilities of their own.

Which meant that Vas could indulge himself and head to the marketplace. It was one of the few places in Raam that was still worth going to.

Once he got through Tova’s screed on the subject of riding out on a family crodlu, anyway. “That’s merchandise!” she’d scream. “What if it gets hurt?” she’d bellow. “That could cost us dearly!” she’d yell.

Not that it was an issue. They had enough coin to choke a crodlu, after all.

There were times when he wondered why she even spoke to him. It wasn’t as if he sought out her company. Their marriage’s sole purpose was to facilitate a business deal. At some point, they’d have to have children, which would require them to actually sleep in the same bed for once, but they were young and had plenty of time. Vas kept himself busy with an assortment of concubines who were well compensated for the privilege, and he knew that Tova had a few men of her own that she used for the same purpose.

What Vas really needed was a distraction-an adventure of some sort. Something to get him out of the wretchedness that Raam had become.

Not permanently, of course. Abalach-Re, the sorcerer-queen, may well have retreated from the public eye, her templars may have stayed hidden in their towers, the population of the city-state may well have halved in the past decade, but Raam was still Vas’s home. He would never leave forever.

But a vacation would truly make his heart sing.

The red sun beat down on Vas’s scarved head as the crodlu sauntered down the road, its clawed limbs easily gaining purchase in the cobblestones. The beast of burden’s head was lowered, its beak grazing the stone as it ambled along.

Every three months, there were traveling merchants who set up shop at the bazaar on Aggas Way just outside the city-state’s walls. Once, when Vas was a youth, the bazaar was held monthly inside the city, but the merchants no longer felt safe, and came only once a season-many only made the journey once a year. Changed times had transformed the walls of Raam from a defense from the world outside to a prison for those inside. Traveling merchants did not trust the mansabdars, those cutpurses who served as Raam’s police, to protect them inside the walls-and given the rampant corruption amongst Raam’s alleged protectors, Vas could not blame them. Most merchants preferred to sell their wares from a location that allowed them an easy escape from potential trouble.

Behind Vas and his bodyguards, several of his slaves came along on kanks with his coins and some food and water. On one of the kanks rode Cristophe, who had been Vas’s tutor growing up.

It was usually an all-day trip, and when he wanted to take a lunch break, he preferred to do it near Aggas Way so he could spend as much time as possible at the bazaar. So he brought enough food for him, Cristophe, and all the slaves and bodyguards to eat.

The first few hours proved frustrating.

First there was the jeweler with a series of pieces all made with orange and red stones.

As soon as Vas brought the crodlu to a halt, the merchant started in: “Lovely necklaces, sir. Or perhaps a brooch? These are fire gems, sir, they truly are, straight from the caves of Under-Tyr. Make your wife look prettier than ever, they will.”