"More fishfolk," Raidon murmured.

Cynosure's voice replied, "They are named kuo-toa."

The viewpoint slowed as it approached the dark cave mouth. Disturbed silt hung in the water, making the cave's already dim interior even more difficult to discern.

Inside, something rested back from the opening on the rocky floor, its shape long and cigar-shaped for the most part, though it was thicker at one end. Striatums ran in parallel lines along the thinner portion of the shape, but the bulblike thickening at the other end was smooth.

The silt and lack of reflected light robbed the scene of meaning. Was the shape on the cave floor a natural jumble of drowned rocks? The lines of association the Sign followed terminated with the unmoving, contoured outcrop. The shape itself was not aberrant, but it contained something whose taint was like a bottomless pit.

Suddenly, the great shape shifted.

Raidon's assumptions flipped. He readjusted his sense of scale and nearly lost his focus in surprise. The shape was no jumble of rocks; it was a colossal squid, one of incredible bulk!

Two spots on each side of the bulk opened, revealing shield-sized eyes gleaming with awareness. It knew it was being observed. Its tapered end suddenly separated into a forest of suckered arms: It writhed, and a blanket of silt billowed to obscure all. But not before Raidon saw the true obscenity, clutched firmly in one tentacle.

It was a black stone, roughly the size of a man's head. To his Sign-enhanced sight, it seemed the stone was a vortex of aberration, sucking and drawing down all of the natural world to a nether space where utter abomination lurked.

Pain seared Raidon's temples, and he jerked his eyes wide.

A breeze pushed the grass across the plain in soothing waves of green. Scents of growing things and clean earth were a welcome balm from the vision that still burned in Raidon's memory: whipping tentacles, boring eyes and a relic whose wrongness was so acute, it constantly tore at the world. And for all that, Raidon had the sense, perhaps imparted by the Sign on his chest, that the relic was perhaps only the tip of a much more horrific truth.

"What did we just see?" Raidon asked the air.

"A kraken. A great kraken named Gethshemeth. It holds an artifact somehow tied to Xxiphu itself. The stone it clutched, did you see it?"

"Yes. Who were those people who fought the kraken's puppets?"

"A good question. Something for us to discover, but their identity is not vital to our interests."

Raidon said, "Very well. How is it the kraken came to possess such a relic?"

"I do not know how such an object has been raised to the surface," mused Cynosure. "Perhaps in the earth movements that followed the Spellplague… But that is mere speculation. Regardless of how it happened, a great kraken possesses a sliver of connection to Xxiphu."

"What does a sea squid, intelligent or not, want with such a thing? Power, I suppose, as all creatures seem to desire, as if control over others will somehow bring them greater satisfaction."

"You are likely correct," said Cynosure with a note of appreciation in its voice. "The kraken's mind surpasses even my own cognizance. But with an artifact of Xxiphu under its control, it will learn to channel more and more strength, and become a force not easily withstood. Its reach might swell past all the bounds of reason."

"Cynosure, you need not be coy. You want me to slay it before it attains its peak of power."

"That is advisable."

Raidon nodded, thinking back on the worst creatures he had eradicated in the name of the Sign in the years before the Spellplague. "Illithids are bad enough. Faerыn should not also have to face aberrant-infused kraken."

"You should know that another outcome is also possible, one even worse than an empowered kraken. If we do not take this relic from the kraken soon, the connection it has to Xxiphu will grow broader and more certain. In a short time, the connection could be sufficient to raise the city whole. Then Toril shall really have something over which to weep."

Raidon repressed a shudder. He was suddenly and simultaneously cognizant that, with the scope of the situation before him, he hadn't thought about Ailyn for a great span of daylight…

The monk sighed, clenched his fists, and lost his focus. Of what real purpose was his life? He'd failed the one person who needed him. He'd outlived his own time and survived now only through a fluke of magic and circumstance. He didn't deserve or much care if his own existence continued. He yearned for an end to his struggles, an end to his shame. On the heels of that insight, an idea followed.

He said, "Once your capacity to move me is rejuvenated, transfer me directly into the kraken's presence. It will be caught off guard. I will strike with all the art of Xiang Temple in my fist, and kill the kraken before it knows it is threatened. Its death convulsion will kill me, and if not, I will drown before I reach the surface. I do not fear such an outcome. I would welcome it."

Silence was Raidon's response.

"Did you hear, Cynosure?" demanded the man of the air, his voice infused with uncharacteristic volume. "Send me along now. Let me slay this kraken and be done with it all."

The sun was sinking into the west, and a coolness grew on the plain. Raidon spied a wolf in the valley below, sniffing along the track of some hoped-for twilight meal.

Finally the voice replied, "I appreciate your fervor, Raidon Kane. Were I able to transfer you thus, assuming I could place you so close to the great kraken within its wards, which I cannot, perhaps you could kill Gethshemeth. But in killing it, and yourself, you would alert Xxiphu."

"Surely, I can slay Gethshemeth quickly enough," returned the monk, though with less certitude. "I would have a few moments to catch it by surprise-"

"It has held the relic too long. Even if I could put you in the right place at the right time, which I have just explained I cannot, killing the great kraken is not enough. We need to kill Gethshemeth and simultaneously sever its connection with the relic, and therefore, its connection to the Abolethic Sovereignty. Your Sign alone is insufficient to that task."

Raidon pulled his fingers across his close-cropped black hair, massaging away a germ of annoyance. The construct was becoming more long-winded and circumspect by the moment.

"Then what, Cynosure? What can I do?"

"You must discover the fate of the sentient sword, Angul. It alone, in your hands, can accomplish what must be done."

"Angul. Yes, a powerful blade. But was it not an item infused with its power by the Weave? With Mystra's fall, how could it still function?"

"You ask a penetrating question. A complex answer exists; the simple answer is that it simply does. Will that satisfy?"

Raidon frowned. His emotions were as out of control as they'd ever been. If Cynosure were standing next to him just then, he would have struck the golem.

Cynosure must have sensed something of the monk's mood. It said, "I apologize. Listen, then. Many magical items such as swords, cloaks, boots, and especially relics and artifacts survived the Spellplague and still operate, though sometimes with altered abilities. A magical item's abilities were scribed into these devices when they were created, so even though the Weave was used in their making, the Weave no longer plays any part in their continuing operation. Likewise, though a forge flame is used in the making of a sword, if that forge flame later goes out for good, the sword is no less sharp. Does that answer you fairly?"

Raidon thought on Cynosure's words. He recalled the effects of the Spellplague on a person. The caravan chief, who'd died in its hungry grip, for instance.

The monk grunted. He asked, "Why not tell Kiril all this? She's Angul's wielder. And a swordswoman. While I am proficient with blades, I prefer not to rely on them. You would be better enlisting her than me."