
and their small white eyes glistened like pearls. Wings of stretched skin pulled taut over long, spindly bones
silently beat with enough power to allow them to float otherwise motionlessly above him.
"Who are you?" one asked again.
"Vheod," he answered, "from the city of Broken Reach."
"And why have you 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 intelli-gent 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 crea-ture 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, indeci-pherable eyes.
"Nethess serves hated Graz'zt," one of them—a dif-ferent 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 shim-mering 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 into the 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 wan-dered. 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 finally pulled himself up to the ledge. He
eased his tired body down, dangling his weary legs over the side, but with his body turned so he could look
up and into the large, round opening. It appeared to lead into the tower, though he actually saw only
darkness. Vheod knew the doorway itself mattered, not what he could see through it. It was magical, and it
provided a way to leave the Abyss.
The Taint throbbed on his neck. Ignoring it, Vheod reached up, his fingers finding the portal warm to his
touch. He sighed and looked into the darkness, won-dering where it would lead.
He looked back over the thorn-filled Fields of Night Unseen and hoped it would be the last he ever saw
of the Abyss. Each layer held its own mystery and its own terrors. Mortal souls condemned for their evil