The Glass Prison Read Free

come here, cambion?”
    Vheod knew these creatures were varrangoin, the masters of Karreth Edittorn. Sometimes burdened with the misnomer of “Abyssal bats,” varrangoin were neither stupid animals nor blind. Instead, these fleshy-winged creatures were powerful and intelligent foes feared even by some of the tanar’ri. It was their role as adversaries that Vheod planned to use to his advantage.
    “I’ve come here to use the portal,” he told them.
    “And why is that, half-tanar’ri?” the batlike creature asked with a cruel sneer.
    “I have angered the marilith Nethess and now seek to avoid her vengeance,” he told the varrangoin. Quickly he added, “So that I may do so again.” It was a lie, but perhaps it might help him endear himself to these creatures if they thought he was an enemy of their enemy.
    The three of them stared down with hard, indecipherable eyes.
    “Nethess serves hated Graz’zt,” one of them—a different one—finally said. “We would like to see his viper tree orchards uproot themselves to tear his palace down. We would like to see dread Graz’zt and all his minions die slow and painful deaths.”
    “Then may I use the portal?” Vheod asked. His eyes widened as he stared at the batlike creature.
    “We hate your kind, tanar’ri. Why should we help you?”
    “Can’t you see that if you do, I’ll live on to fight against those you hate?”
    The varrangoin stared long in silence. Vheod hoped they would buy his bluff.
    “Yes,” one of them said finally, “we can see that if you live, other tanar’ri will be harmed. If you can reach the portal, you may use it. It should function for you—if Nethess seeks your blood, it is truly your
Last Hope
.”
    “Where does it lead? Will it take me somewhere safe?”
    “Addle-cove! Don’t you pay attention? It takes you where it wishes, not where you wish.” The creature glared at him then beat its monstrous wings with a powerful motion, swooping even higher, followed immediately by the other two. “It takes you to your
destiny
.”
    As the varrangoin flew up they pointed to a shimmering hole suddenly forming near the top of the tower that hadn’t been there before. A small ledge jutted out underneath it. The window-like hole opened into the side of the structure, as though it might look out from the tower’s uppermost room. If that was the portal, how did they expect him to reach it? Vheod circled the tower, but as he suspected, he found no other new means of entry, nor anything resembling stairs or even a ladder. He looked up intothe air above the tower, but the dark sky held only ever darker clouds.
    He was too spent to even think of calling on tanar’ri power again to lift him to the door. As hard as it might be to assail the stone wall, it would be harder to reach into himself for that cold energy, yet Vheod knew he needed to get to the door right away.
    He was still being hunted. He had no time to wait. Though his tired, bloody legs screamed even as he considered it, he reached toward the stone wall of the tower. The old and uneven masonry offered many easy hand holds on which he pulled himself up. His feet rested on crumbling stones that threatened to give way as his hands sought new holds even higher. Exhaustion and fear slowed his otherwise steady progress up the side of the tower as tired muscles began to shake with uncertainty and his mind wandered. Vheod imagined he could hear more vorrs or other of Nethess’s servitors on their way, catching him at this awkward and defenseless moment. He imagined horrible vulturelike fiends tearing at him as he clung to the stones, ripping away his armor and finally his flesh. He saw huge, bloated demonic toads making obscene leaps into the air to pull at his bloody ankles, skeletal babau, with their infernal gazes, lashing at him with hooks, pulling him down, and all the fiends feasting on his flesh even while he still lived.
    Reaching the top after a grueling and fearful ascent, Vheod