Darkvision - Bruce R. Cordell [111]
Here and there, the sphere of brilliance surrounding Kiril dimmed, and lightless tendrils slid inward along invisible fractures. Another step forward and the sphere shrank to half its size. Undaunted, Kiril advanced.
The roused dusk swallowed her.
As if energized by enclosing Angul's brilliance, the face of the black wall swelled. Zel, Warian, and even Prince Monolith fell back, but too slowly. All were engulfed.
When the perimeter receded to its original position, the hall was empty. No evidence of intruders remained to mar the ancient stone floor of the Purple Palace.
* * * * *
Ususi rolled over and over, impelled by a force with no substance. She spun through a screaming void of spiritual emptiness. How had she escaped the darkness during her last dream, when wakefulness had been denied her?
Qari! Her sister had come into her dream, saving her. Would a memory of her sister offer aid now? She fastened upon the idea of Qari and tried to shout her name, though the use of her voice was denied her.
A glimmer of cool, blue radiance broke upon her mind. It wasn't true light-it seemed more like a species of understanding. Spiritual illumination, perhaps. In its glow, she grasped the vague, ill-defined connection that she and her twin sister shared since childhood, and retained still.
Following the connection down its ill-defined, looping path, she found at its end a silhouette. It was Qari.
Qari spoke. "Years have piled on years since last we talked, Ususi. I'm glad, even as this focal event of your life, and mine, overtakes us, that we have this brief moment to talk once more." Her sister smiled and held out her hands.
"What… are you here with me, in the darkness of Pandorym's veil?" Ususi strode forward, her arms and legs suddenly resolved in Qari's aura. Qari grasped Ususi's hands. Warm and vital, her flesh seemed real.
"In a way. My mind is with you-my percipience. My physical form, despite its faded claim on reality, remains in besieged Deep Imaskar, where the fires of Pandorym's vengeance have breached the Great Seal. Slaughter walks the streets. Our chat must be short."
Too much information, too many implications-even the nature of their connection. Nausea threatened to overcome the wizard, the result of understanding her sister's words. She had so many questions for Qari. "Your 'faded claim' on reality-what are you talking about? And the 'focal point' of our lives-you mean Pandorym?"
Qari laughed, but sadly. "All these are connected. The dreams that plagued us since we were children were more than a presentiment of what you would one day face, and fail to overcome. You see, my very existence is a direct consequence of Pandorym's meddling in its future, our past."
Ususi feared her sister had slipped into insanity. Or she had herself and merely dreamed all this. But she said, "Time is sacrosanct. No one may alter its flow, everyone knows this. The mage-researchers of the Arcanum spent enough time proving it…"
"Mortal rules do not apply to beings that exist outside of the world, and so outside of time. Pandorym is such a creature. Even as it was caged, it saw ahead to the moment of its release. In that chance for freedom, it recognized a possibility that, along a minor timeline, one would be born who might find herself in the right place at the right time to stem its reemergence. That person was you."
Qari forestalled Ususi's next question, speaking over her. "Hush, let me finish. Time is not so elastic for you and I."
Ususi reluctantly nodded.
"Pandorym took steps to prevent you from overcoming it. It reached forward, imparting what influence it could, hoping to create deterrence enough to prevent she who would one day threaten its bid for freedom. But the mere act of its temporal reach forged two competing possibilities. In one case, it succeeded, and Ususi was born to dread the darkness. But every coin has two sides. Pandorym's meddling also caused Qari to be born, whose congenital blindness limited her world, but gave her an ability to