Aliisza's hands trembled as she held Pharaun's finger. Her mind raced with a dozen thoughts, from wondering if her idea would really work to trying to guess what Kael and Tauran thought of her revelation. The idea of actually coming face-to-face with the drow mage sent shivers up her spine.
"My father?" Kael asked, his voice slightly timid. "That's his?"
"Yes," Aliisza said, "plucked from the Abyss after his death. I've kept it all this time, wondering if I would ever need to make use of it,"
"He has no compunction to enter the Living Vessel," Tauran said. "It has been a long time for him. In some ways an eternity. And whatever has happened to him in those intervening stretches, he might not even recall you or your role in his life. His life itself might be nothing but a faint memory. Rarely is a Living Vessel used in this way."
Aliisza frowned. "But do you agree that it might work?" When the angel nodded, she said, "Then don't make me any more nervous than I already am."
Kael had risen to his feet and was pacing, his sword in his hand. "What makes you think that he will help us?" His tone had grown high-pitched, filled with nervous energy. "Or that he will want to know about me?"
Aliisza smiled. And so it comes full circle, she thought. "As a very wise person once explained it to me, in order to gain the benefit of caring about others, you have to be willing to surrender to the heartbreak that it might not work out as you expect… or hope." She cast a glance over at Tauran, who showed the faintest hint of a smile. "He's your father. At worst, your relationship with him will be nonexistent, just as it is now. At best…"
Kael blew a sigh that puffed his cheeks out. "Very well," he said. "It seems our only chance to escape this place, regardless. Let's do this."
Aliisza smiled and took the finger close to Zasian. She hesitated.
"What are the dangers?" she asked the angel. "What should we expect?"
Tauran shrugged. "None, that I know of," he said, his voice weak and raspy. "Just touch him with it."
"Will Zasian's mind return?" she asked, suddenly wary. "Am I dooming us instead of helping?"
"I cannot answer that," Tauran replied. "In all of this, there is great uncertainty. Nothing like this has ever occurred before." He broke into a coughing fit. When it finally subsided, he added, "But as Kael has pointed out, I see no other alternatives. Even if Zasian returns, you have not appreciably worsened our situation."
Grimacing, Aliisza turned back to the vacuous priest. That's debatable, she thought. Although I wouldn't mind the pleasure of gutting him, given the chance. She held the finger up to his gaze, watching to see if he would, at long last, react to something. He did not.
Do it, she told herself. Touch him.
Drawing a deep breath to bolster her courage, Aliisza tentatively reached out and placed the desiccated finger against Zasian's arm.
Nothing happened.
"It's not working," Aliisza said, sagging back. Disappointment sapped the energy from her.
"It may take a while for a connection to materialize," Tauran said. "Do not assume anything, yet."
Aliisza moved Pharaun's finger down to the priest's hand. She placed it into the man's palm and watched as Zasian's own fingers curled reflexively around it.
Aliisza sat back and watched. Please work. Maybe even the return of the Cyricist himself would be better. Please work!
Zasian sat passively in front of Aliisza, staring at nothing. She could detect no change in the Living Vessel.
Hope faded. Aliisza stared glumly at her own hands. Maybe Kael's right. We should make a break for the surface, try to get out to sea, find some way to escape. It might kill me, but I could do it. I could blow the demons away. Even Kaanyr. He doesn't know what kind of hell he unleashed, betraying me, she fumed. My last defiant act, obliterating him as the others slip away.
She shook her head and said, "Still nothing. I guess it was too much to hope-"
The illumination surrounding Zasian flickered.
Aliisza gasped and jerked her gaze back toward the man's face. Had there been a flutter of recognition there, in the eyes?
She held the priest's gaze with her own, watching it so intently that her eyes began to water. Another flicker rippled through the light, and it seemed to her to grow a tiny bit dimmer.
"Something's happening," Kael said, moving in closer. "I saw something."
"Pharaun?" Aliisza said softly, waving her hand in front of the priest's face. "Can you hear me?"
The return stare did not change, but the nimbus of light flickered and weakened.
"I think it's working!" Aliisza whispered. "He's coming!"
The thought of actually getting a chance to speak with the drow wizard gave Aliisza a little shiver. What will he think?
"Perhaps," Tauran said, struggling to sit up straighter and take a look himself. "But again, I must caution you. Do not expect him to react kindly to your summoning him. Indeed, he may not even know you anymore."
Aliisza ignored the angel's words. If Pharaun was being drawn into the vessel, he would remember her. She was certain. He has to.
Over several long moments, the emanation continued to flicker and fade. It had almost died out completely when Zasian jerked and gasped. He peered around, wide-eyed.
Then he screamed.
"By Torm, make him be quiet," Kael said in a strangled whisper. He reached out and clamped his hand over the suddenly frantic priest. The action caused Zasian to begin flailing violently. He slapped at Kael's arm and thrashed on the ground, kicking. All the while, he continued to try to scream.
Aliisza shoved Kael to the side and wrapped her arms around the wild priest. The thought that she was hugging a man she once hated passed briefly through the back of her mind, but she ignored it. She pressed her mouth close to Zasian's ear.
"Pharaun," she said softly. "Pharaun, it's me. It's Aliisza. Easy. I'm here. I'm with you."
Zasian screamed once more, a long, wailing, ragged sound, and then he crumpled, sobbing. He went completely limp in Aliisza's embrace.
"Get out in the hall and make sure nothing surprises us," Aliisza told Kael. "Hurry!"
Kael, his own red eyes wide, shook himself into action and got to his feet. He strode almost eagerly out of the hideaway and into the hall beyond. He disappeared, though Aliisza could hear him walking farther up the passage. She continued to console the human in her embrace, not certain to whom she was speaking.
"It's all right," she crooned. "I'm here. Aliisza is here."
Beside her, Tauran coughed. "It may take him too long to recover. Too long before he can offer any way out of here. The demons almost certainly heard that. They will be coming."
"Can you please try to find some hope?" Aliisza said. "I know you feel like… well, like hell, but your gloomy disposition is not helping."
Tauran began coughing again. When the fit subsided, he closed his eyes and slumped against the rock again. "Our time grows short," he murmured, "and I am slipping fast."
Aliisza turned her attention back to Zasian. She leaned back away from the man and peered into his face. The priest's eyes darted back and forth frantically, and he panted in fright. "Are you there?" she whispered. "Pharaun, is that you?"
"Why can't I see?" the man responded. "Why is it dark?"
Aliisza blinked in surprise. She realized the glow that had accompanied Zasian since she had awakened in the rotunda had vanished entirely. They were engulfed in blackness. But his eyes are now human eyes, she realized, and he cannot see as we can.
She conjured a tiny magical light and placed it upon the hilt of her sword, after replacing the cap covering the secret compartment.
"It's all right," she said. "Do you know me?"
"Aliisza?" He looked at her face. Of course, it was Zasian's voice she heard.
"Yes," she answered. "Who are you? Do you know?"
"My lovely little minx, you wound me deeply. Despite being subjected to the most cruel and terrible torments for… for quite a long time, I do still know my own name. Pharaun Mizzrym, at your service."
Aliisza clenched her eyes shut in joy. She felt herself crying as she hugged her old companion and occasional lover tightly. "It is you," she said. "Thank the Abyss."
"I'd rather not," Pharaun replied. "It would be quite the good thing if I never heard mention of it again, in fact."
Aliisza almost laughed. We did it, she thought. We managed to bring him back. For a moment, she just sat there and hugged the man. It's really him.
Then a quiet cough from Tauran reminded her of the dire circumstances surrounding them. She pulled back once more. "Pharaun," she said, "we need your help."
"My help?" Pharaun replied. "How could I possibly help? I have no idea where we are"-he gazed down at the refuse at his feet-"though if I had to guess, I would say the sewer."
"Just about," Aliisza said. "But you're not quite away from the Abyss yet."
She spent the next few moments explaining the immediate situation. Pharaun tried to ask a few questions, but Aliisza rebuffed him. "We have no time for that right now," she said. "We need your magical expertise. We need to get free of here as soon as you can conjure a way."
The human face opposite her frowned. "That's quite the tall order," he said. "My magic is more than a bit rusty, and I have nothing with which to work."
"I know it's difficult, but you are our only chance. And not to put too fine a point on it, but if we are captured, you are too."
"Not quite the welcome I was looking forward to," Pharaun said. "But this isn't even my own body. If I were to attempt something of such magnitude right here, right now, I might just as likely deposit us in the scorching conflagrations of the Elemental Plane of Fire as someplace safe. I don't think-"
"Please!" Aliisza said, feeling her tightly wound emotions slipping again. "You've got to do something, or we're all dead. Be the Pharaun I remember." Aliisza found herself flinching from her own outburst. "I'm sorry. I am at my wit's end."
"Listen to you, apologizing," Pharaun said. Aliisza was still not used to hearing his words in Zasian's voice. She could only imagine how strange it must feel for him. "That's not the cunning little half-fiend I remember so well."
Aliisza grinned. "A lot has happened since we last parted ways. But we can reminisce later. We really do need to get out of here. Right now."
As if to punctuate her point, Kael called in a low whisper from the hallway, "Something is coming!"
"Wizard," Tauran said, scooting close so that Pharaun could hear him. "There is much you do not understand, but I promise you that it is imperative that you spin some magic and conjure a way for us to flee. I cannot abide the thought of becoming the tortured plaything of a horde of demons."
Pharaun turned his head in the direction of the angel's voice. When he saw Tauran's angelic nature, he gasped. "It cannot be!" He let his eyes rove over the angel's wings, which were in sad shape at the moment. Tauran burst into another fit of coughing. Pharaun looked back at Aliisza. "You consort with strange friends, Aliisza. Where is your other half? You know, the cambion? What was his name again?"
"That's a long story," Aliisza said, trying not to wince. She took Pharaun's face and turned it back to her own again. "But it's a story for later. We have more pressing needs."
Pharaun glanced back at Tauran. "You do not look or sound well, my new friend. And let me assure you, I would rather not revisit that particular unpleasantness known as demon toy, either. I will do my best."
"What's happening?" Kael demanded from the hall.
"Shh," Aliisza answered. "He's thinking."
"Well, tell him to think faster!" Kael snarled back. "Whatever is coming is running now."
"Impetuous, whoever he is," Pharaun said, not looking up. "Another surprise for me?"
If you only knew, Aliisza thought, smiling again. Aloud she said, "What do you think? Any ideas?"
"It's strange…" Pharaun said, sounding distant. "Magic feels very… odd. Out of sync, if you will."
"It is," Tauran said. "Everything has suffered profound changes. Is it a hindrance?"
Pharaun shook his head. "No. On the contrary, I think I just might be able to conjure up a little trick. Normally this particular form of magic requires a focus, a small but elongated-"
"Later," Aliisza growled. "Just work the magic."
Pharaun snapped his mouth shut and pursed his lips in obvious aggravation. "Of course," he said in clipped tones. "Later." When he tried to rise he nearly fell over. "Goodness, I don't seem to have the strength I expected. Help me up."
Aliisza did as the wizard bid.
"Now the rest of you, link hands with me," Pharaun said.
Aliisza bent down and assisted Tauran to his feet. "Kael, it's time," she called.
The half-drow backed into the chamber, still watching the corridor. "They are at the far end of this passage," he said. "They can see the light." He spun around and took hands with the other three. "Do whatever you're going to do right now!"
Pharaun saw the knight for the first time, and his eyes grew wide. He stared first at Kael, then at Aliisza. His mouth gaped.
She knew he understood. "Hurry!" she yelled, yanking on his hand with her own to snap him out of it.
Pharaun shook his head to refocus and uttered a long string of arcane syllables. Some of them Aliisza recognized. Others were as alien to her as the strange tongues of the plainsmen of the Shaar in far southeastern Faerыn. The wizard finished his incantation with a commanding word.
The world shimmered, shifted.
A snarling face entered the chamber.
Everything rippled and faded from view.
Eirwyn stepped back, evading the downward sword stroke of the undead knight before her. She batted his shield away with her mace and drew on her divine power. She gestured at the armored apparition and delivered the holy incantation in a clear, powerful voice. The blaze of light that infused the wraithlike warrior burst from the joints of his armor and radiated outward. It illuminated the deep gloom of the castle courtyard and revealed several other undead shuffling toward her and her two companions. The holy aura faded almost as quickly as it had appeared, and the knight crumpled to the ground with a metallic clank.
The angel shifted position in the snow and faced off against two more of the undead warriors. She brandished her mace, delivering a feint in the hopes of getting the two apparitions to become entangled, but they did not flinch. They seemed wholly unconcerned about their own well-being as they advanced toward Eirwyn.
"This is a fool's errand!" Garin said from nearby. He smashed the helm from atop another armored wraith and spun to attack a second. "There's no need for us to battle long-dead soldiers."
Eirwyn shattered a knight's shield before dispatching him with another blaze of holy might. "You don't need to stay," she said, leaping into the air to avoid three more coming at her. "I never asked you to suffer these trials and tribulations."
She landed next to the third member of her group, young Nilsa. The two devas positioned themselves back to back and continued to fend off the undead surrounding them.
"We stay as long as you do." Garin grunted from exertion. "Our orders are clear."
Eirwyn rolled her eyes and put a crushing dent into the breastplate of another foe. "Now who's running a fool's errand?" she asked. "Can Tyr really be so concerned with my business that he must send you to keep an eye on me?" She whirled and pummeled the shoulder of another armored ghost, sending the entire arm flying away to plop into the snow. "What could I possibly be up to that worries him so?"
"That's a very interesting question," Nilsa said, twisting around to hit an opponent that had managed to get very near the two angels' flank. "Considering you refuse to tell us."
Eirwyn made a disparaging sound and blasted two more knights with holy energy from a wave of her hand. "I told you, I don't know," she said. "Divinations aren't always so easy to interpret. I simply go where I'm needed and hope I figure it out in time."
The elder angel's companions did not answer her, so the three of them continued the fight in silence, save for the sound of metal crunching on metal and the occasional flare of holy power filling the gloom of the courtyard. When no more knights stood against them, the three celestials turned their gazes toward the periphery of their battlefield to make certain no reinforcements approached. Satisfied that they were safe for the moment, the angels made their way to an arched doorway set in one of the two towers guarding the front gate of the crystalline fortress. The trio did not fully enter the chamber beyond, but instead sought shelter in the alcove from the mysterious, greenish glowing snow that fell from the twilit sky.
To Eirwyn, the odd precipitation might have had a fey quality were it not for the incessant arrival of haunts trying to drive her from the place. She, Garin, and Nilsa had fought three engagements with the undead knights already, vying with the wraiths for control of the courtyard each time. She wasn't certain they were not the same spirits reanimating over and over.
"Can you at least give us some idea of why you are here?" Garin asked. "Some explanation that would satisfy our curiosity?"
"Yours, or those you serve?" Eirwyn countered. "You have made no secret of the fact that you are spying on me, to see what I might be up to. I say again: how could my business so interest the cohorts of Tyr?"
Garin sighed and said nothing more, but Nilsa, a younger, more impetuous angel, could not resist. "They do not trust you," she said. "They believe you are still in some way working against the Court, just as you did when you aided Tauran the Traitor."
Eirwyn tried to hide her smile as Garin made a soft noise. "Nilsa," he said, "she doesn't need to know our business. She is not a member of the Court."
"Precisely," Eirwyn said. "And by the same token, you do not need to know mine. My business does not concern the Court."
"I disagree," Garin said. "Tyr has a right to know when others plot against him."
"You overstep your bounds," Eirwyn warned. "When Helm was alive, I served both faithfully for longer than you have been alive. Do not presume to lecture me about plotting, child."
Garin did not respond, but Eirwyn felt him stiffen in anger next to her.
Eirwyn sighed softly, letting the tension she felt dissipate from her own body. "The truth is, I honestly don't know why I'm here," she said. "But something powerful and dire may befall the Court, indeed all of the House. And whatever it is, I have been drawn here to do my part to try and thwart it."
Eirwyn turned toward Garin and Nilsa, confronting them directly. "We do not labor on opposite sides of a conflict, except that which you choose to throw in our common path. I may yet need your aid, if you will give it, when the time comes. Mark me: This will affect every one of us before it's over. You cannot simply sit upon a fence and watch, waiting for me to slip up in some way. If you choose to do that, you will be forsaken."
"Weighty words for one who was, until recently, banished to a far corner of the House for transgressions against the Court," Nilsa said.
"Then is it your belief that all words spoken are tainted by the purity of the one who speaks them?" Eirwyn asked, her anger rising. "Am I to never again be trusted because I chose to keep my own counsel when your god slew mine? Because I refused to bend my knee to Tyr afterward?"
"Eirwyn, I-" Garin began, but the elder angel cut him off.
"Or is it, perhaps, a more base prejudice, born of the fact that I chose the wrong deity to follow in the first place? Am I guilty merely by association?"
Garin remained silent. Instead, his eyes widened as he peered at something over her shoulder, in the courtyard beyond their crude shelter.
Eirwyn spun, expecting to see more of the armored knights rising from the grave, ready to do battle with the intruders once more, defending their strange and wandering fortress adrift in the Astral for all eternity. What she saw instead made her heart thud in her chest.
A glow of light was just fading from around four figures who tumbled into the snow from nowhere.
Tauran sensed everything change.
A great pressure ended, leaving the angel feeling lightheaded. The overwhelming taint of evil that had pervaded everything around him faded, and he sighed in contentment. He would have liked to nestle down and sleep, but sudden and unexpected cold made him shiver. He opened his eyes to try to make sense of his new surroundings.
He found himself outside, lying upon snow-covered ground. A thousand tiny points of green light danced in his field of vision, drifting down from the gloom above.
This isn't right, he thought, perplexed and irritated. Where are the others?
Tauran caught the sound of voices arguing. He recognized them, but at the same time, they sounded muffled, distant. He tried to sit up and peer in the direction from whence they came, but his body did not want to cooperate. All the strength had been leeched from him in that horrible place, leaving nothing but the poisonous residue of raw, permeating evil.
He began to cough.
"See?" Tauran heard someone say, and he recognized Aliisza. "He's dying. We cannot stay here!"
"Nonetheless, our instructions are clear," said another voice, male, which sounded vaguely familiar to the angel, but he couldn't quite place it. "You are to remain here, bound to this place, until you agree to submit to the laws of Tyr. We cannot allow you to return, and we will not permit you to flee again."
So they have come hunting me still, Tauran realized. Tyr is not content to leave me to my doom. He has sent others to bring me to justice. So be it.
He tried to rise, to speak, but he still could not muster the energy to do either. He gasped at the ineffectual exertion and succumbed to the futility of it.
The cold grew worse, and Tauran felt his consciousness fading.
"I do not understand," Pharaun said from behind Kael. "How did they find us here? None of us even knew where we would be until the moment we departed."
"I led them right to you," Eirwyn answered, sounding disgusted. She stood next to Kael, shoulder to shoulder with the knight. "I never would have imagined they would go to such lengths."
A figure loomed out of the darkness, walking slowly, inexorably, toward Kael, who stepped forward and swung his greatsword in an angular strike, cleaving the armored form from shoulder to hip. The mail parted like paper from the power of Kael's blow, and it collapsed to the snow, an empty shell.
Wielding his weapon felt so good to the knight, he grinned. Two more spirit warriors moved to fill in the space left by their fallen companion. He almost stepped forward to engage them, so eager was he to stretch too-long dormant muscles, but he stopped himself. Don't leave the circle, he chastised himself. Protect Tauran.
"They still blame all of us for what happened," Aliisza said, positioned at Kael's other shoulder. "As far as they're concerned, we precipitated the very downfall of the entire universe!" She sounded bitter to Kael as she slashed at something in front of her. The ring of steel on steel indicated that she had connected.
Eirwyn snorted. "I don't think even they believe we deserve that much credit," she said, "but with things in as much turmoil within the House as they are right now, we don't have much chance of clearing our names. They've already made up their minds, and we are left with two choices: surrender or perish."
Kael struck at another haunt in armor and watched it disintegrate. His body flowed from one stance to the next, his movement fluid. Three more figures moved just beyond the one he dropped, waiting for a chance to get at the half-drow and his companions. "And they did something to prevent you from just whisking us away?" he asked Eirwyn.
"Yes," the angel answered. "We have been dimensionally bound here until we submit to them. They caught me off guard, the moment you arrived."
Kael stepped back to avoid a lunging stab from one of the undead and nearly stepped on Tauran, who lay in the snow between them all. He still had not regained consciousness. "How many of these accursed things are there?" Kael asked, grunting as he swept his blade through one, then another in a single, powerful arc.
From behind him, a flash of light lit up the night sky.
Kael assumed that Pharaun had unleashed some bit of magic at the wraiths coming at them from that side. The thought that he stood in the middle of a strange keep adrift in the planar soup of the Astral, fighting side by side with both his mother and father, seemed ludicrous. After all these years, he thought, stabbing at another wraith, the whole family is together at last.
No, he thought, fighting a sudden sense of guilt. Tauran is my parent-mother and father-more than either of them could be. They may have sired me, but he gave me his care. Do not betray his dedication to you so quickly.
The number of ghostly warriors dwindled, and the companions made short work of the remaining few. When the battle was over, the four defenders stood their ground, catching their breath. Kael scanned the sky, looking for signs of the other two celestials who had approached them with Eirwyn, but there was no sign of them.
"They trapped us here and left," he said. Anger at finding himself trapped yet again filled him. His grip upon his sword hurt, he clenched it so hard. "That is not the way of Tyr. At least not the Tyr I thought I knew. Tauran was right. The Maimed One has strayed from the laws that defined him."
"They are not far," Eirwyn replied. "They know we must choose to surrender to them sooner rather than later. It's all very cunning, leaving us here, where we are constantly beset by these apparitions. They truly leave us no choice but to comply."
Not if I have anything to say about it, Kael thought. "If they were to be slain, would that break the binding?" he asked. A part of him regretted asking, but the rage he felt at their imposed impotence burned within him.
Eirwyn turned to the knight. "Do you truly mean to ask me that?" she asked. "Do you think Tauran would allow you to do such a thing?"
"How is that any different from their decision to condemn us to death here among these walking spirits?" he retorted. "It's as if they slew us by their own hands."
Eirwyn's expression softened a bit. "In their minds, we perish not through their cruelty, but through our own pride. We always have the option of accepting their offer."
"What, to be led back to the Court in chains?" Kael said. "To be paraded before the High Council and mocked? I think not."
"Even if you are innocent?" Eirwyn said, her voice gentle. "Even if doing so might mean saving your mentor's life?" She nodded in Tauran's direction.
Kael tried to release the anger building inside him. "I'm sorry," he said at last. "Nothing is simple and straightforward anymore. I always believed-Tauran always taught me-that if I followed the path of goodness and righteousness, no matter how hard that was, that justice would prevail." He looked down at the unconscious angel. "I don't know what to believe anymore."
Aliisza knelt beside Tauran, one hand upon his brow. She looked up at Kael and shook her head. "He's getting worse," she said. "Even now, getting him away from that awful place, he's so far gone he can't fight the taint. We have to."
Kael felt helpless. He turned his gaze on Pharaun. Though it was Zasian Menz's face he saw, Kael could see a twinkle of something kindred there, a flash of a knowing smile. The stranger shrugged at him.
Kael drew a deep breath, trying to come to terms with the decision. "Then we all agree?" he asked, looking from one face to another. "This is what we want to do? This is what we think is best for Tauran?"
Every head nodded.
"Fine," Kael said, casting his sword to the ground. He couldn't really blame them for their decision. He agreed with it, in fact. It just felt so dirty to him, giving up. It was not a feeling he much cared for.
"We surrender," he said.