You must call upon the Cerulean Sign and join its power to mine.

"I must do nothing."

Several aboleths resting in wall berths pressed to the edges of their moist balconies. They fixed their eyes on the intruder. The flying creatures overhead maintained their litany, but many now fixed an extra eye or two on the raving half-elf below.

"Time grows short. Will you compound your error by giving up now, rendering all your past actions a pointless charade?"

"Yes. Because that is what they were. The last futile gasps of someone who should have perished in the Year of Blue Fire." Raidon tried again to fling the sword away and throw himself into one of the moving furrows that slid along the floor. His heart wasn't in it, though. The Blade Cerulean easily checked him.

Four aboleths along the closest wall surged form their observation cavities, producing tiny waves of disturbed slime.

None of them had apparently been graced with a connection to Xxiphu's orrery, for they slid down the walls like slugs dropped down the side of a garden wall. When they reached the floor, they squirted forward on a layer of ooze.

The four creatures advanced on Raidon in a ragged line. Their tentacles gesticulated and lashed, as if doing so was the only way they could express their surprise at finding an invader in their midst. If surprise wa s even an emotion such creatures were capable of.

Raidon was only vaguely aware of the onrushing threat. So when an orb of pulsing goo flashed toward his head, his body betrayed his fractured intentions and slipped to the side.

A volley of similar attacks burst from the other three creatures. Already in motion, the monk whirled and rolled to avoid each attack. His somersaulting evasion melted into a charge, almost without Raidon's awareness. His trained muscle memory, once engaged, took over.

One aboleth had gotten slightly out ahead of the others. When he reached the creature, it tried to heave itself backward, but Raidon transferred his momentum into a high leap. He came down upon the creature with a slashing elbow that smeared two of the creature's eyes into so much jelly.

A hollow scream burst from its tri-slit mouth, and its lashing tentacles redoubled their frenzy. Raidon rolled off the creature's back to face its three siblings. Angul remained quiet and kept its power quiescent, as if it sensed that urging the monk to use its aberration- slaying edge could push the mentally unstable man back into his fit of apathy.

The half-elf s face hardened into an expression of feral determination. Whatever else came to pass, the aboleths before him would rue challenging him. Though if they could not feel surprise, sorrow was also probably beyond their grasp. Raidon didn't much care, so long as he stamped them into nonexistence.

Now that he was in motion, he found he preferred it to being still. Smashing his fist or shin into the flesh of a monster was far better than letting his mind dwell, over and over again, on all his many failures. There was sure to be time enough for self recrimination later.

Or, if he was lucky, he would fail here in the bowels of the world and be dead.

He would cherish the peace of death.

Three abolethic minds reached for Raidon's and tried to leash it. Before, the monk's discipline had easily warded off alien instructions. But his mind was a stitchwork of barely knitted parts. The aboleths' mental strength easily curled into his brain and squeezed.

Angul acted, as if the blade had been waiting for just such a contingency. With a blaze of cerulean fire, the webs of control burned away so quickly that the monk hardly realized he had been momentarily leashed. Certainly his charge into the left flank of the next closest monster didn't suffer any loss of ferocity.

The monk, holding Angul in his right hand, executed a flying jab with his left fist. The momentum of his fist and body lent the blow the ferocity of a sledgehammer's strike. Even as the jab pounded home, he stepped out and to the creature's right with his left foot. He stepped back with his right foot, spinning into what would have been a back fist, save for the fact Angul was clutched in his right hand.

The creature, already dazed by the jab and off guard from the monk's swift position change, didn't even realize its danger until after it was gutted by Angul. The spray of dark blood doused man and sword, but the Blade Cerulean's next flare burned them both clean again.

One of the remaining two uninjured aboleths managed to slap Raidon with a tentacle. That time when the monk spun half around, it was because of the force of his enemy's attack. Stars briefly glinted around the edges of his vision. His breath sounded ragged in his lungs.

The other aboleth, sensing an advantage, conjured an orb of slime out of thin air, then sent it slashing at the Shou. Already dazed by the tentacle, Raidon couldn't quite avoid the orb, which punched him in the chest. The ooze splattered him, coating him in a thin layer of mucus that instantly began to harden.

Without realizing he reached for it, Raidon sought his focus.

A monk of Xiang Temple trained first in the ability to concentrate and find an inner point where all thought was concentrated. Only after monks showed some ability to find a focus were they trained in the martial arts.

Raidon visualized his body, and that immaterial part of himself that recognized itself as his working mind. He visualized his thoughts as lines of energy. Normally serene arcs, his thoughts were a thicket, more tangled and disordered than he could have imagined. He nearly gave up then, but habit took over. He imagined the lines smoothing, the knots loosening, and the wells of inner strength opening.

He focused on his diaphragm, then expelled the air in his lungs with an explosive "Kihop!"

The mucus coating him shattered, and the energy of his own body flowed up his spine and into his limbs. It was a feeling he'd failed to embrace for far too long.

His focus was back, at least partially. Some parts of his mind were in too much disarray for Raidon to fully regain what he'd trained so hard to master. But what focus he had was enough. It allowed him to access that which tattooed his chest.

The Cerulean Sign blazed anew with a color akin to that of Angul. In its light, the aboleths around him shrunk back. For them, life would soon be over.

However, the light served as a beacon. Every occupied cavity in the throne chamber's walls suddenly disgorged its owner.

Well over a hundred aboleths slithered toward the floor and the lone Keeper that fought, if not for his life, then at least for the moment.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Year of the Secret (1396 DR) Xxiphu, Throne Chamber

Anusha led the pack. Japheth was right behind her, and Yeva and Seren brought up the rear. She. should have been fearless in her fleshless invis ibility. But she couldn't forget where the corridor she traveled led.

Even as they'd swarmed up the tunnel, another mighty psychic tug had nearly pulled her, and Yeva along with her, into the mind where the root of her spirit lodged. Japheth had saved her and Yeva yet again. However, he'd wiped his brow afterward, and a worried look flashed across his face. He'd almost failed to hold them. The next time the Eldest tugged, she would probably be gone.

Anusha tried not to think about it.

Then they emerged into Xxiphu's throne chamber. All her fears were shown as hollow caricatures.

A fierce conflict raged across the shifting floor. A swarm of aboleths thrashed and fought to collapse upon a figure who shone like a cerulean star. Sky blue light blazed from the man's sword, his chest, and even his eyes and fingertips. Everywhere the light struck, aboleths skirled in pain.

But he was one against an army. And even as he fought the creatures to a standstill, the larger elder aboleths whirling around in their ritual overhead continued their unearthly chant.