Darkvision - Bruce R. Cordell [29]
Then another jerk of true dislocation-he could not tell in which direction his sight was wrenched. When his vision steadied, the geomancer glimpsed a plain that shimmered under harsh sunlight. Vast dunes of sand rolled in paralyzed majesty to every horizon. All was silent and unmoving, bright and glaring, and empty. Then Thormud saw something lurking on the horizon. Something slender as a tower, something dark-something unnatural. Was it the spire of some great fortress unglimpsed by history? Or was it a shard of some alien reality standing unnaturally tall and narrow, a splinter in the world's flesh?
His vision closed on the spire. Its edges shimmered and flashed every color in the sunlight, but at the center, there was no color-it was black, a pure darkness whose paucity of light was a presence unto itself. The earth whispered a name into Thormud's mind: Pandorym.
With the name, Thormud understood that the splinter sapped the earth and pained it. The splinter was the source of the geomancer's discomfiture.
But where was it? His knowledge of place and location had scrambled during the last dislocation. If he wanted… Something in the dark splinter looked back at Thormud.
* * * * *
Kiril idly flipped stones down the side of the bluff. Most of the stones bounced and slid into a gully. The elf pondered the stars above, those that weren't drowned out by the vast light of the moon. They were like-yet unlike-the constellations from her childhood. And as a young adult, when she took the Cerulean Oath and met her soul mate in the citadel called Stardeep, her home was situated in an enchanted forest above which yet another wholly different set of constellations wheeled.
Not even the positions of the stars were a constant in her life, she mused.
She picked up another stone and paused. She hadn't heard the dwarf speak for a suspiciously long time.
Xet cawed out in alarm, an amazingly lifelike yowl.
Kiril whirled and looked for Thormud. He lay in his circle, thrashing. Moonlight revealed blood oozing from the dwarf's wide but unseeing eyes. Kiril's stream of invectives propelled her toward her prone employer. Xet fluttered ineffectually from its perch on a boulder, squeaking and chiming.
Thormud routinely impressed upon her the importance of not interrupting him while he remained in earthen communion within one of his circles. He'd noted that breaking the periphery could be dangerous.
Stuff that.
The elf, running hard, dived into the circle, hands stretched wide. Luminescence, violet and violent, stabbed at her eyes, and a scream of fury-not her own nor the dwarf's- broke upon her ears. Undeterred, she tucked and tumbled, grabbed Thormud's limp form in mid-roll, and allowed her momentum to carry them both out of the circle.
The moment she passed the boundary, the escalating scream ceased. The quiet of the night was like a balm, and a cool breeze caressed Kiril's face. She rolled Thormud over. The dwarf still breathed, and his eyes were coming back into focus. He groaned.
The elf yelled into his face, "What in the name of the nine were you doing?"
The dwarf shook his head and mumbled something inaudible.
"What was that scream?" Kiril demanded.
"Something… followed me," the dwarf croaked. He raised a trembling hand and pointed.
The swordswoman snapped her gaze back to the circle, or where the circle had been. Darkness cloaked the bluff top, too deep even for her elf eyes to pierce.
Kiril scrambled to her feet. "Great. Things keep coming up roses," she murmured, palming her dagger.
Two fiery violet eyes blinked open from within the unnatural night. The darkness coalesced, and a presence was revealed-a shrouded, half-real visage roughly human in outline. Kiril couldn't tell whether it was dressed in white robes or if its flesh was just naturally loose and flowing. Free-floating sigils pulsed a pale, dangerous light, slowly orbiting the creature. The glyphs seemed to promise death and severance, but