Darkvision - Bruce R. Cordell [85]
"Ususi," pressed Iahn, "do you recognize the name?"
"Yes," she replied.
Shaddon took a step forward, strangely intent on the wizard. He said, "I could be destroyed for even asking this-but tell me more. Quick!" He glanced back down the cavern he had come through. Ususi caught some faint sounds, like glass shattering and distant yells, but perhaps she was mistaken. She let her memory of the tome she'd found in the Purple Library swim before her eyes.
"Pandorym is the name of a doomsday weapon of sorts, a prototype entity conscripted out of desperation by the ancient Imaskari," said Ususi. "At least, so the records indicate in the Purple Library. It was designed solely as a deterrent, but a deterrent so potent it would give pause even to deities bent on vengeance."
"Why vengeance?" wondered Eined.
"Nothing stirs the gods' wrath like the wholesale enslavement of their believers. Which is exactly what the ancient Imaskari were guilty of. They needed labor to support their expanding civilization. The wronged gods' world-shaking anger exposed the Imaskari Empire to divine retribution. Thus, the Imaskari prepared their deterrent-Pandorym."
"What is Pandorym?" demanded Shaddon, moving a step forward. The crystal on his face, as well as more crystal apparently hidden under his clothes, began to gleam.
"I don't know exactly what it was. Is. Like I said, the records, what I can remember of them, claimed Pandorym was a deterrent. Like all deterrents, they believed Pandorym would never be used. Or possibly-I'm not sure-he was too potent to be controlled."
"But they eventually unleashed Pandorym, is that right?" said Shaddon, his crystal eye blazing with intensity.
"No. They didn't have the opportunity. True, Imaskar's ruins litter the empty places of the world. However, it was not Pandorym that brought them low-the Imaskari were never given the chance to offer detente. The raging gods and their empowered champions among the enslaved ended the Imaskari reign before the threat of the Pandorym doomsday entity was ever made. All their plans, weapons, and desperate schemes came to naught."
"But Pandorym is loose now," insisted Shaddon. "It is in the crystal. It reaches out through the new crystal I use for artificial limbs and organs!"
Ususi looked at him. "How did you find the crystal?"
"I found bits of it here in these caves. But a while back, I found an inactive portal to a nether space. After a few years of examination, I forced open the portal and discovered a demiplane of great age. In this space was a massive tower of ancient construction, cold and dead. I also discovered a mother lode of the purest crystal, which I've been putting to use ever since."
A great crash and the faint sound of a distant, roaring wind issued from the tunnel behind Shaddon.
Ignoring these noises, Ususi addressed the elder Datharathi. "You fool! The portal to this 'nether space' of yours-where is it? You have unstoppered Pandorym, who was held safely for millennia!"
The crystal-faced man only muttered, "I wonder…"
"Grandfather, is it true? Is all this your fault? Have you done this willingly?" yelled Eined. She rushed forward, one hand raised in either accusation or anger.
Shaddon pointed a gloved finger at his granddaughter, as if to gainsay her question. Instead, a slender ribbon of darkness burst from it and struck Eined in the chest. She gasped, surprise turning to horror. She fell, sprawling to the ground.
The vengeance taker rushed forward and swung his dragonfly blade at Shaddon. The crystal-covered man swayed back, just beyond the arc traced through the air by the blade's tip. Shaddon pointed his finger again, this time at Iahn. The vengeance taker simultaneously raised his own hand, and with a mumbled syllable of warding, shredded another dark ribbon into so many threads.
The sound of the wind escalated in the corridor beyond, then suddenly fell to nothing.
"Shaddon," yelled the wizard into the sudden quiet, "why must we fight?