"Or otherwise occupied," said Raidon. "Ah yes. I can sort order from this chaos with the Cerulean Sign, enough so you can see too."
He concentrated. The jumble of mismatched lines came together, creating a stylized image of a broad pillar.
Within the pillar were packed lines, tubes, and spaces of all sizes.
"I see it! Is it an image of the city?" said Seren.
"Yes. Xxiphu. See there?" He pointed to the base of the wavering picture. A large space filled the entire lower fifth of the column. A convoluted series of spheres rotated around still larger spheres. One massive globe appeared to hover within the very center of the cavity.
"What is it? It looks like an orrery without the arms."
"I don't know what it looks like in reality," said Raidon, "but by this simplified depiction and a sense I get from the Cerulean Sign, it is some kind of font of arcane magic."
Thoster walked back up and gazed at the reconstructed image revealed in the pool. He asked, "What are those tiny little colored things flying around the spheres?"
Raidon concentrated his attention on one of the points the captain indicated. They came in all colors, though there were more red and blue points than any other.
The half-elf s eyes widened.
"Aboleths!"
Seren sucked in her breath. "Are they really flying?"
Raidon slowly nodded. "The spheres apparently grant that power—at least the smallest ones. The largest orbs... could lift something far larger than even a very big aboleth."
"Like a kraken maybe?" volunteered Thoster.
Raidon nodded, remembering Gethshemeth. But he suspected the black sphere around which all the smaller ones ultimately rotated could achieve something even grander... assuming conferring flight was its true function.
The monk wondered if, from this... council chamber, he could affect the connection of a given aboleth with the arcane power source and perhaps sever its ability to keep to the air. It seemed as if the functions were there, if he could devote enough time to its study.
"What's most important at the moment," he said aloud, "is that we can use this pool to track aboleths." Raidon focused his attention higher in the column. The tumbling spheres were impressive, but not relevant to their purpose.
"Where are we on this schematic?" said Seren. "We docked fairly high up, right? Though we don't know how tall the city really is since the top was punched into solid stone..."
Raidon didn't answer directly, but slowly traced a finger up the side of the glowing map, his fingertip only inches above the pool. Doing so seemed to aid his concentration. As his finger moved, the area on the diagram near it came into better focus, while areas beyond blurred into far less detail. He was searching for the Eldest.
He discovered more and more points of abolethic light as he tracked upward through Xxiphu's lower and central foundations. He found a particularly dense concentration of smaller, pale lights in a tangled maze of narrow tunnels about halfway up Xxiphu. Within the tangle, a couple of points pulsed with particularly fell light that outshone all the aboleths he'd so far detected. The two were clearly powerful entities... but they didn't seem to be aboleths. When he tried to focus his attention even closer, he was unable to get a positive fix on them. But neither was the Eldest. He moved on.
Above the maze, and moving steadily higher, he found another odd point of light. It seemed to pulse between great power and near extinction with heartbeat regularity. Raidon concentrated, then said, "Xiang's Seven Principles, that's Japheth!"
Seren's mouth dropped open.
The monk turned to regard Thoster. "You were right!"
The captain raised his hands in an elaborate shrug. He said, "You don't get to captain a ship like Green Siren if you can't make a few lucky guesses."
Raidon frowned. "This is a complication we do not need. Especially if he carries the Dreamheart with him on his ill-considered foray."
"Is he close to us?" said Seren.
Raidon resumed his study of the pool's schematic. He found where Japheth's soul light glimmered again, then carefully continued his search up the length of the great city.
"Yes," the monk said a moment later, pointing to a small chamber.
"We are here."
"No more than a few hand spans from where you detected the warlock," mused the captain. His voice held a tentative note.
Raidon said, "Yes. And see how many of the tunnels below converge here? If he continues his current heading, Japheth will come to this room eventually, perhaps in less than an hour. I sense no aboleths between him and us.
In fact, this whole upper area seems remarkably clear of the monsters..."
The half-elf raised his attention to the final fifth of the great spire-shaped city of Xxiphu. He sucked in his breath.
The empty cavity that crowned the city nearly matched the one at its base, at least in size. Within it, dozens of abolethic lights burned, several of them far brighter than the ones he'd spied lower down. Probably old and potent aboleths who'd wakened early. The disturbing thing was how they were arranged in a great circle, a shape whose arcane significance was not lost on the monk. The circle of aboleths slowly rotated, hovering some distance over the great chamber's floor.
"They're performing some sort of ritual," Seren murmured.
The magical reproduction in the pool showed how each aboleth brightened in turn, then dimmed as its fellow brightened, as if passing along some sort of charged object or concept. The pulse continued around the circle until a full revolution was achieved. The last creature in the ring directed the gathered energy to the roof of the chamber. Then the strangely regular dance of light began anew.
By process of elimination, Raidon knew what he would find when he concentrated his attention on the diagram's apex.
Upon Xxiphu's crown brooded the very absence of light. A dark, yawning emptiness there ate everything the creatures below were able to throw at it, leaving it hungry for more.
The Sign on his chest was so cold he lost feeling in his body. The vacuity could be none other than the Eldest, his foe, who sat the entire city as if it were no more than a throne.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Xxiphu, Gallery of Seeing
"No more dallying," said Raidon. "I'm going to the apex and putting an end to this."
Seren's pulse beat visibly in her neck. The captain's breath came quicker.
"You two stay here and waylay Japheth when he comes through."
Seren gasped. "What?"
"The idiot warlock presumably has the Dreamheart with him. I can't imagine how else he could have found Xxiphu without its guidance."
"What does it matter now? You said the Dreamheart had lost its significance," said Seren.
Raidon said, "To put it simply, I don't want the relic and the Eldest to come back together."
Thoster said, "So the stone still has some power after all?" Raidon gave a half shrug. He said, "Yes, the Dreamheart is invested with a portion of the Eldest's power. The relic has been in constant usage since Nogah stole it. The more it was used, the more it drew from the quiescent