A head that was both like a frog and fish emerged from Mannon’s tar-ball body to consume the canine head, and in the distracted moment, Heraldin pulled something small and shimmering from the RED bag at his side. The Occult-Primed Arcane Oscillation Explosive gleamed briefly as Heraldin deftly twisted its core and hurled it at Mannon. The dog’s head looked surprised as the metallic sphere stuck in the tarry ooze of its forehead just before the frog-fish mouth closed over it.
“Run!” screamed Heraldin. “Tell them everything!” Yet he and the weaponsmaster ignored his own directive. Their weapons were drawn in futile bravado as Mannon reared up in fury at the betrayal.
Gaist darted forward, twin blades drawn, his slashing at a leg a graceful dance. Mannon countered with a thick vine of black thorns erupting from his bulk, a dark tentacle of the same sort that Gorm had seen kill Iheen in so many nightmares, and striking the weaponsmaster full in the chest.
“No!” shouted Heraldin, echoed by screams from the others. Mannon tossed the doppelganger’s limp form into the black pit at the center of the room, and all of his eyes rounded on the bard just as the explosion came.
Even contained within the body of evil incarnate, the OPAOE sent a shockwave rumbling through the room. The force of the blast expanded Mannon to twice his size, knocking Gorm from his feet. Bright green ooze and blue flames erupted from ruptures in the Felfather’s straining form. Every one of the thing’s foul mouths screamed in unison as it staggered and fell into the yawning black pit, its tentacles still clawing to keep it from plummeting the rest of the way down. Gorm saw one of them grab the bard and pull him toward the pit.
“Heraldin!” the Dwarf cried as he stood, but he felt a tug at his shoulder.
“Come on!” Laruna shouted. “We have to warn the city!”
The bard caught the very edge of the pit, gripping it desperately. His eyes caught Gorm’s as the Dwarf scrambled for the door, and Heraldin managed to put on a brave smile. “I hate being right,” he said, just before the tentacle ripped him from the edge and pulled him into the dark fathoms.
Chapter 32
“As in, all the way down,” said Sister Varia. “As deep as it goes. The sub-sub-basement.”
“Down where Sister Felani found the nest of scargs when she was looking for some sacred wine,” said Alithana, a young Elf in white and green robes.
The scribe standing before the door didn’t make eye contact with the two women. He stared out the window opposite the door he guarded so intently he was practically sweating. “Didn’t we wall off the lower basements?” he said hurriedly, clearly hoping to rush them away. “Call for a tradesman. The high scribe is… he’s indisposed.”
Varia scowled. “This is an emergency, Brother Tuomas!”
“Some bumps in the basement is hardly an emergency,” said Tuomas.
“Not bumps. Screaming. In Root Elven,” said Alithana.
“And a weird light coming from down there,” Varia added.
“It can’t be that bad,” insisted Tuomas.
“Bad enough that old Scabbo ran off.”
Tuomas scowled. “He can’t have.”
“I saw it.”
“That old rat was too fat and decrepit to run anywhere.”
“Bolted out the front doors and ducked down into a hole in the Ridge,” said Varia, nodding.
Tuomas sucked his teeth. “That is bad.”
“Why do you think the high priestess sent Sister Alithana and I to fetch High Scribe Pathalan?”
The scribe’s eyes snapped to the acolyte. “The high p-p-priestess?” he stammered. “But I sent Brother Cheesemonger to fetch her here twenty minutes ago.”
“Yeah, well, she’s got bigger problems, doesn’t she?” said Sister Alithana. “Lights and screaming in the basement. Urgent messengers from the other temples. And now that statue of the last high scribe has started acting strange again, hasn’t it Varia?”
The acolyte shuddered. “I’d swear the bronze git is grinning right at me.”
“Bigger problems,” Brother Tuomas repeated. His eyes were still vacant, but his voice had taken on the sour edge of a man pushed too far.
“Yeah, I’d say so,” said Alithana. “Though it’s not for you and I to decide, is it? We’re on the high priestess’ orders.”
“Well then, who am I to block servants of the goddess on an important mission?” Tuomas’ voice was equal parts sugar and venom, and he wore a smile that gave the sisters pause. They might have reconsidered their request, but the scribe was already pulling open the heavy door to the high scribe’s office.
A wave of heat and emerald light washed over the three. Green flames danced over the holy texts and scrolls that lined the walls and covered the shelves, burning but not consuming. There was no crackling of flame either, but a susurrant sound like the wind through the reeds, or the whisper of countless angels reciting the All Mother’s scriptures.
Pathalan was at the center of the jade inferno, suspended in the air above his desk, surrounded by a swarm of parchment that danced and swooped on currents of heat and divine power. His frame bent at odd angles, his eyes stared at the ceiling, his mouth warped in a silent scream of agony. He held a quill in each hand, and they wrote on the parchment that obediently floated to him, as if eager to receive the scriptures.
Sister Varia shrieked and pushed the door shut. A few flames and errant pages escaped as she did so.
“Still want to see him?” asked Brother Tuomas with saccharine malice.
“Uh, no. No, I think we’ll be going.” Sister Varia smoothed her robes to hide a stifled sob.
“We need to tell the high priestess,” breathed Sister Alithana, reading one of the sheets of parchment that had sailed through the door.
“Brother Cheesemonger was supposed to have already—”
“Not about High Scribe Pathalan.” The priestess held up the errant parchment. It was covered in scripture, with emerald flames still dancing along the edges of the text. “About the goddess’ words. This says Tandos is revealed a traitor. I think… I think the gods are going to war.”
“It’s your basic armageddon scenario.” Brouse rolled himself a cigarette and nodded up at the maelstrom of black clouds and crimson lightning spiraling over the Pinnacle. “Prophetic visions coming to pass, magic and destiny crashing into each other, and gods settlin’ old scores on the mortal planes as well as the higher ones. See it all the time.”
