Darkvision by Bruce R. Cordell

man shrugged, unfazed by Ususi’s threat. “Then listen. Crisis has reached Deep Imaskar. If you do not return immediately, our hidden stronghold may fall. It may have fallen already.”
    Ususi blinked. A plea for help was the last thing she anticipated from her tracker. “By the Purple Throne, what are you trying at? You can’t trick me with crazy yarns! Why have you come after me now, after so many years? Why can’t the Hidden City let me go? You know I’ll not betray its secrets!”
    The man tried to wipe his brow, but the magical trap prevented him from completing the action.
    He shrugged instead, and said, “You expect reprisal for bypassing the Great Seal without permission and leaving behind Deep Imaskar? At any other time, you would be right to fear punishment. But think. You said it yourself—if it had been deemed a worthwhile expenditure of our resources, we would have had you back long ago, Ususi Manaallin.”
    He fixed her with his large eyes, whose depths were as bleak and colorless as a winter sky. Despite his helplessness, Ususi shivered under that ruthless gaze. Could such eyes even consider lies? She cleared her throat. Despite his abilities, he was her prisoner now and couldn’t hurt her.
    “What is your name?”
    “I am Iahn Qoyllor, and I first heard the Voice of Damos fifteen years ago.”
    Ususi’s eyes flicked to the relic strapped to the man’s right hand. She suppressed a shiver.
    “All right, Iahn. Tell me your disaster story and why you were sent to find me.”
    “Darkness hammers against the Great Seal, a supernatural force that we cannot identify. Horror stalks the streets, and even the Hidden City’s most stalwart defenders fall before its onslaught. The lord apprehender says we have but one hope: Ususi Manaallin. To this end, I was dispatched.”
    Ususi couldn’t suppress a yelp of protest. “Huh? That’s gibberish! What hope? And what do you mean, darkness?”
    “The lord apprehender bid me tell you this. ‘Retribution seeks the descendants of ancient Imaskar. Something old has awakened, something with no love for the long dead god kings. Since they are long gone, it comes for us. It reaches forth from the lost Celestial Nadir.’”
    Ususi felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “The Celestial Nadir?”
    “The lord apprehender said more. ‘This threat arises from where we cannot go—we cannot find access to the Celestial Nadir. We have no knowledge of how the great Imaskari of elder days entered their legendary place behind the world. We can’t find our foe. No one can, except Ususi Manaallin. Her life’s study is the Celestial Nadir, and she defied the edicts of the Great Seal to expand her research on it. For the sake of all surviving Imaskari, we pray her search has yielded fruit all these years since we let her go.’”
    “Riiiiiight.” Equal parts praise and threat, mixed with a call for help. It might just be a message from the lord apprehender.
    Iahn slowly spun in his prison.
    Then again, this was a vengeance taker’s story. Ususi knew countless tales of vengeance taker guile. This man’s words were no doubt a ploy calculated to make her release him. Vengeance taker deviousness was legendary.
    “Here’s what I think,” offered Ususi. “I think you finally did decide to track me down, and here you are. But you got a little too eager when you caught sight of me. And here you linger, caught. A fly in amber.”
    The man narrowed his eyes. Anger? Probably not the wisest choice, taunting a vengeance taker.
    But his talk of darkness reminded her of her unsettling dream. And of the darkness growing at the heart of her keystone, and of the Celestial Nadir crystal she’d found in Two Stars. She reached into her purse and brought out the crystal.
    Ususi gasped. The darkness at its heart had grown threefold since she gazed at it last night. The keystone, on the other hand, seemed unchanged.
    Seeing the crystal, Iahn drew in his breath quickly, almost