Lady of Poison_ The Priests - Bruce R. Cordell [80]
Ususi said, "He is a powerful demon. I could not bind him spiritually, only physically. He has the power to move himself from place to place; he said the same thing earlier."
Elowen groaned. She said, "Does this mean we're going to have to face that abyssal bastard again?"
Ususi responded, "If he continues to guard the Sighing Vault, then yes. Eschar yet bars our way."
Fallon worried. Doubt gnawed at him like a vicious rodent, turning his stomach sour. All his dreams of power, conquest, and comeuppance paid to his fellows in Yeshelmaar had become pale things, the goals a child might hold dear, not a man. As he tramped on through the maze of ancient summoning stones, senseless traps, and chambers whose purpose he could not divine, the darkness whispered only one thing to him. The message was bleak: Fallon was a minor, expendable little player in a drama that had little use for him once his part was played.
The pain of the Rotting Man's touch also continued to plague him, making all his thoughts slow and captious.
It hadn't been that way while he was under Anammelech's wing. The blightlord had nurtured Fallon's tiny imaginings, coaxing petty daydreams into an all-out betrayal. For some reason, Fallon had believed that the promised rewards would make it all worth while. That shroud of comforting belief had been stripped from his eyes by his contact with the Talontyr.
Fallon was no fool. At least, he didn't like to think so. Perhaps Anammelech had just as little use for him, but fed Fallon's ego merely to bring him more fully into the camp of Dun Tharos. The coin the blightlord paid the elf for his reports of the doings in the Nentyarch's court was also head-turning.
It all had come to this. He had a date with a servitor of an evil goddess. He wondered how he could have ever been such a fool.
Sliding between sleeping demons and past the defenses of ancient Nar conjuries didn't aid his disposition. Fallon was a skipping stone and Under-Tharos the water; he could sense the ever broadening wake he left behind; his and Ash's rapid passage enlivened defenses long dormant and woke creatures trapped for centuries in deathless slumber. Doors that gaped open and unmoving allowed him unrestricted access, but after he passed, he could hear echoes as they slammed shut, as if embarrassed they had allowed his unrestricted passage so easily, determined not to make the same mistake twice. He didn't fully understand why the doors, the yawning traps, and the slumbering horrors were not already energized. Perhaps it was the doing of the Talontyr, whose power had reached out and calmed the surface in preparation for the elfs passage. Once past, the calm broke. As long as Fallon could keep skipping ahead of the storm, he remained safe.
He supposed'Elowen and her sad Crew were even then meeting the first of the things he had aroused with his passage. At least he could take some small comfort in knowing that his pursuers would fall ever further behind and probably be slain outright in the bargain. Of course, they were merely trying to do what was right, a course he had abandoned long ago to his present detriment. It occurred to him that morals might have more behind them than mere 'happiness and light.'
He gripped Ash's hand again, pulling the child along behind. As always, she gave no resistance. She never cried, or for that matter, even bruised. A pang of guilt, unfamiliar, assailed him. Didn't he care about the unresponsive child and her eventual fate, likely horrifying?L.ater, if he had a minute to spare, he would investigate that feeling, despite its sudden unwelcome appearance, but he had to spend all his effort on staying ahead of the waking wave behind him. He worried that his wave of disruption would crest, and finally catch him up before he made it all the way through.
He considered the shape he'd seen in the very first chamber, a shape caught in the ice. He gagged then shuddered when he recalled a single eye opening