Anusha stifled an involuntary cry and shrank back.
The noise set the ceiling to churning and chittering. It was thick with roosting bats of every variety. Many had never flown the skies of Toril.
"Shh, it is all right, Anusha." He reached for her hand, and she clutched back tight.
"The bats on the ceiling will not harm you while I am near. The vast wings you see on the castle are immobile. They possess no life, not now, anyway. The Lord of Bats is safely bound and cannot enter his shape of old while he remains imprisoned. And I don't intend to release him."
In the wan light, he saw her slowly nod, though her eyes didn't leave the unmoving shape that crouched atop the structure.
"Perhaps we should return to the Green Siren," suggested Japheth.
Anusha gazed around with rapt eyes.
"No… no. It is just… amazing. To know where I now stand, someplace so far from the… world itself? I've never traveled by magic in such fashion. It is like the stories of the spells wizards commanded before the Spellplague."
"Those abilities are returning to many across Faerыn," said the warlock.
"Yes, and not too soon. But even the most powerful of the old wizards would have been hard pressed to travel so far in a single step. We are not even in the world any longer." Her wide eyes met his. Even in the dim light of the cave, it was a connection he couldn't long hold, if he didn't want to be drawn into a rash act.
He blinked to escape her gaze. He was glad she couldn't see him well in the darkness. Why had he brought her here? To impress her? His base instincts worked against his reason, perhaps.
No, a small cynical part of him remonstrated. You know exactly what you are doing.
He said, more to defend himself from his own accusing thoughts than in answer to Anusha, "I merely make use of what I've stolen from the Lord of Bats."
"I am sure it is all beyond me, whatever the source."
Japheth coughed and suggested, "We should enter soon, if we are to do it at all. I can only successfully travel here once out of every four or five times I try. Access depends on a lunar schedule I haven't quite worked out yet. And I am more vulnerable without my cloak. So time is of the essence." She nodded.
They walked forward, past a growth of dark purple mushroom caps, each the size of a dinner plate. Japheth pointed and said, "I should gather a couple more of those caps. When distilled, their taste can cause any creature to fall asleep. It is what I made your potion from, now that I think of it!"
Anusha didn't respond, and Japheth remembered she was still suspicious of his gift. A twinge of guilt touched him. In truth, when they'd returned to the boat after the attack of the sea hags, it had taken several hours before he was able to rouse Anusha from her somnolence.
He led the girl through the gates of Castle Darroch and down a long entry gauntlet. He ordered the creeping, wrinkled, guardian homunculi back to their holes in the side walls before Anusha could see their horrific features. The castle was defended by the Lord of Bats's many "children," who answered now to Japheth as if he were their creator.
They reached the foyer, which was lit by countless candelabra burning with green flames. A wide but shallow pool of dark water half flooded the space, and long, pale forms darted beneath its surface.
Japheth guided Anusha past the pool up four flights of stairs. They passed busts of enigmatic, slender humanoids on each landing. Lords of the Feywild, Japheth had always assumed. Anusha lingered, but he urged her onward, explaining again that they should not dally.
Finally, they entered the Grand Study. There, paintings of surreal landscapes, sculptures of fantastic beings, and objects too strange for mortal classification were displayed behind glass. The collection spanned centuries and worlds.
"This is all yours?" asked Anusha, finally relinquishing his hand. "It must be worth a king's ransom!"
"These belong to the Lord of Bats. The collection could well be priceless, but I've never removed even a single item."
Anusha moved to gaze upon a painting of a spray of orange and yellow: a desert-scape in the grip of a storm. The hint of some vast tower was visible behind the haze of blowing sand.
"Why not?" she asked.
He shrugged, said, "It is just a feeling I have. I fear too many changes could upset some balance I'm not consciously aware of. Like the game where children remove twigs, one at a time, from a pile, until one twig too many causes the pile to topple. I fear to disturb things too much lest I accidentally release the Lord of Bats from his confines."
The warlock's eyes unconsciously sought a balcony overlooking the Grand Study. The balcony was accessible via a narrow stair on the wall. The high space was bare but for an iron door.
Anusha's eyes followed his. "He's up there?" Japheth nodded.
She studied the door with wide eyes, and then said, "I hear talking."
Japheth cocked his head. Sure enough, the slight buzz of voices, at least two, sounded from the balcony.
Vertigo clawed his abdomen. With eyes tight, he sprang up the narrow stairs, two at a time. He felt off-balance without his cloak streaming behind.
The steel door to the balcony was open a crack, and yellow light flickered beyond. He shoved open the door and gasped.
A great oaken table dominated the chamber beyond the door. A feast of rare sumptuousness was laid out on silver platters, heaped in golden urns, and sloshed in crystal decanters. Chairs lined the sides of the table, each one unique in design and workmanship, as if every piece was imported from a completely different kingdom or culture. A few were so oddly shaped that a regular person would find it difficult to sit.
A thin man, bald and pale, with narrow squinting eyes, pointed ears, and drab black clothes sat at the head of the table on a chair as grand as any throne.
It was the Lord of Bats in his least form. He sat as he always sat, where Japheth had bound him in a feast never-ending.
The warlock sucked in his breath as if struck because of the two people sitting to each side of the Lord of Bats. They shouldn't be there; they couldn't be!
But they were.
One was a woman. Her slender limbs and graceful poise transcended mere humanity. Her white skin literally glowed like moonlight, and her eyes were utterly black. Her hair was dark blue-black, and her ears were pointed. She might have been a moon or sun elf, but he'd never known a moon or sun elf to glow before.
The other was a man in unremarkable clothing. A man whose features were rough and uncouth in comparison to the woman's. A man who was terribly familiar.
"Behroun Marhana?" gasped Japheth.
The man to the Lord of Bats's left turned midsentence. He stopped speaking, and his eyes widened on seeing the warlock.
"Japheth?" asked the man. "Why, it is! Our host never informed me you could visit here in his home-turned-prison."
Japheth's mouth remained open, but he had no words. As unlikely as it was, the man was indeed Behroun. But how? Disorientation made him dizzy. He couldn't connect the threads.
The pale man spoke, "This one stole my skin; he uses it as a cloak. With it, he can travel between the world and my domain." His white hand plucked a cherry tomato the color of blood from a silver platter. He tossed it into his mouth and chewed with gusto.
"What is the meaning of this?" Japheth demanded of the Lord of Bats, attempting to assert some control over events that careened beyond his comprehension.
"I have guests. It has taken me some years, but my invitations finally went out and were answered in person."
The woman merely gazed upon Japheth with emotionless, ageless eyes, as if nothing he could do or say could ever surprise her or break her from centuries-long ennui.
Behroun chuckled, said, "Neifion promised me extraordinary things, but only if I shatter a certain emerald he revealed to me. I think you know the one."
The Lord of Bats glared at Behroun, saying, "You have yet to destroy it."
"Neifion?" wondered Japheth.
"The Lord of Bats has
a name, same as you and me," Behroun explained. "But that's hardly important."
"Ah…" temporized the warlock, well beyond his depth. Then, "The Lord of Bats, uh, Neifion, he was the one who told you about my pact stone? I knew it."
"A pact stone," interrupted the pale lord. "Which you stole from me. I sent my last loyal children into the world to find an ally, and found Lord Marhana. He agreed to retrieve my property. But he failed to complete the task I set him."
"Your grace, as I said from the beginning, be patient. When Japheth has finished his current task, I shall give you the emerald as I promised."
"That is what you have been telling me for some time now."
As the Lord of Bats spoke, Behroun absent-mindedly picked up a succulent pear from the table, one of several heaped in a crystal bowl.
The woman to Neifion's right reached her slender arm across the table and slapped the fruit from Behroun's hand before he could take a bite. The fruit spun across the room and landed in shadow.
The woman said, "I told you. Do not eat from this table. If you do, you shall never leave it."
Behroun blanched. "I know that, Malyanna, but damn the old king if this food doesn't look enticing!"
The elflike woman replied, "It is a lethal enchantment given a pleasant guise."
Japheth knew that the woman, whatever her otherworldly origin, spoke the truth regarding the great feast-it was one of the Lord of Bats's own tricks. Japheth had commandeered it and used it against its creator when he'd assumed control. The warlock wondered again if she was native to the bright, fey lands beyond the cave. Perhaps she was a moon elf "noble," an elder native of the Fey wild, inscrutable and dangerous. What was her place in all this? Wag Malyanna her name or a title?
The woman speared Behroun like a fish with her glinting stare. Behroun wriggled and gasped until she turned back to regard Japheth. She said, "You look confused, poor human. For all your stolen power, you're only a plaything here. All of you are, Behroun too, though he thinks himself the ringleader." She sighed and looked to the ceiling as if bored beyond the capacity for words.
The Lord of Bats sucked down another bloody red tomato and announced, matter-of-factly, "I shall murder each of you in a manner so grisly that veteran warriors shall shudder and weep when they hear of it."
The woman continued to inspect the ceiling, her face managing to convey weariness for all its otherworldly perfection.
Behroun spluttered, his features draining of color, "But once I break the pact stone, you will have all you desire, Neifion! You'll have your powers returned, with Japheth here to punish-"
"The longer you delay your side of our agreement, the greater latitude I'll have in interpreting our deal," declared the Lord of Bats, his dead-white lips smacking in anticipation.
Behroun glanced at Malyanna, then he snapped his attention around to Japheth. "Warlock! How goes the mission? How close are you to retrieving this object, what did the captain call it, the Dreamheart?"
With a dull voice, Japheth replied, "We sail to the lair of the creature that holds it even now."
"You hear?" asked the shipping magnate in too loud a voice. "Once I get the Dreamheart, Japheth'll be yours. I'll have all I need to press my claim on Impiltur. With a relic as potent as Captain Thoster claims this one is in my hand, I won't have to be satisfied with a mere seat on the nascent Grand Council. No, with an eladrin queen of the Feywild at my side-"
Malyanna's voice drowned out Behroun with a simple, "Please, don't you ever cease your mortal prattle?"
Behroun's face crumpled. Trying to recover, he snapped his fingers at Japheth. "Shouldn't you get back to your ship?"
Japheth looked at the man. A small man with grand ambitions was Lord Marhana. He had no power of his own, only a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Though he possessed no moral sense, he had a mean, rat-like cleverness.
The warlock once confronted Behroun, asking the merchant why he should do Behroun's bidding. After all, if Japheth did not, Behroun promised to smash the pact stone. On the other hand, Behroun had implied that at some future date he would return the pact stone to the Lord of Bats, who would promptly smash it.
Either way, the stone would be smashed and Japheth would wind up dead. So why, the warlock had yelled, should he do what Behroun wanted when his choice was to die now or die later? Behroun had winked and replied that he didn't actually intend to ever give the pact stone back to the Lord of Bats. Japheth did his bidding, promised Lord Marhana; Japheth could live out his life without fear of being slain by a vicious Feywild spirit bent on brutal revenge.
The memory evaporated in a haze of reignited hate. Emotion burned the warlock's throat as he stepped forward a pace. He was only about ten feet from Lord Marhana's chair.
Japheth asked in a casual tone that belied his anger, "Do you have the pact stone with you now, Behroun?"
Both the woman and the Lord of Bats simultaneously swung their heads around to regard Behroun, real interest animating Malyanna's face for the first time.
"What does that matter?" snapped Behroun.
Japheth advanced another pace. As he did so, he saw the image of someone behind him reflected in a silver decanter. A figure in full, articulated plate armor that shone like gold. The figure held a long sword as if it were weightless. Surprised, he glanced back. Nobody was there. But when he looked in the decanter once more, he saw again the figure. This time, he also noted the armored warrior was limned in small blue and black flames. The cuirass was molded to a figure with a distinctively feminine cast.
Anusha? If so, she didn't look anything like the meek dream image he'd glimpsed before. Was she, as he had half suspected, really working for Behroun? Would she attack him if he threatened her half-witted half brother, who might very well have left the pact stone back in the world? If he struck suddenly enough to kill Behroun, then he could return to the world and retrieve his pact stone from wherever Behroun had secreted it. He'd be free!
Indecision cost him. Malyanna rose from her chair, pushing it back so hard it slammed into the wall and splintered. She did not stand-no, she hovered in the air with no support, her hair whipping dramatically in a wind as cold as the Hammer's worst blizzard. She pointed a finger at Japheth and said, "Think not to harm this fool. Behroun is under my protection… for now."
Japheth realized he was flanked by enemies. A dream assassin at his back, maybe, and an eladrin noble before him, whose abilities he couldn't gauge, though he suspected she was formidable.
And he didn't have his cloak.
Japheth smiled at the floating woman, at the still seated Lord of Bats who watched the proceedings with great interest even as he nibbled on an apple, and finally at Behroun, whose struggle to stand up ended with both him and his chair sprawled on the floor.
He said, "I'm done with fear, Behroun. You should have brought the pact stone with you."
Japheth uttered his most potent curse, aimed it at Behroun, and loosed it as if it were a hunting kestrel.
A blaze of fire swept down upon Behroun, who already sprawled behind his fallen chair. When the flames settled over the man, he began to scream.
The hovering eladrin noble sang out a single syllable. The motes of flame bedeviling Behroun instantly died in puffs of white smoke. A backwash of cold air touched Japheth's cheeks.
The Lord of Bats began to laugh, even as he reached for a platter of sugar-crusted toast.
The warlock reflexively moved to step back into his cloak, «to retreat into shadow. He failed, of course he failed; his cloak still served as a bridge between Darroch Castle and the Green Siren back in the outer cavern! He cursed anew, this time with | words devoid of arcane power; they were merely fragments of j frustration and renewed fear.
Malyanna looked down her nose at him. A hint of interest, passion even, animated her eyes. She said something in a tongue Japheth didn't know a language that would have been beautiful in nearly any other creature's mouth. In her mouth, it seemed sinister. Suddenly
she switched to Common and said, "I will kill you now."
A skirling blast of winter began to chase around her upraised hand and arm. She flung it at Japheth. It raked him as if an ice-clawed beast.
The warlock uttered a counter chant, sending eldritch rays of red light to nip and bite at the eladrin's flesh. She flinched with each impact, but her eyes only grew wider and more excited, even as the miniature storm of ice she'd summoned continued to enfold Japheth.
He began to bleed, but his blood froze before it could drip on the floor.
This woman was powerful. Too powerful to be a moon elf native to Faerыn who'd spent her life wondering about stories of a fey realm nearly unreachable, until now. No, this was an eladrin who'd lived always within the Feywild. She had never suffered a separation from her homeland as so many of her kin had. Now that the Spellplague had reunited the world and Fairie, moon and sun elves of Faerыn could seek their ancestral homeland. For the first time, it occurred to Japheth that eladrin might have an interest in Faerыn equal to what the moon and sun elves of Faerыn had in the Feywild.
The woman's strength was, he recognized, too much for him. Its chilling cold communicated an old and deadly determination. Ice crystals accumulated and began to encase his skin. He sent another red bolt Malyanna's way, which she caught on a shield of ice and deflected. He wondered if he had met his end. Without his cloak, it could be. His cloak, which indeed was once the Lord of Bats's, contained half his power.
"No!" yelled Behroun, trying to shout over the Lord of Bats's insane mirth. "Malyanna, we need him! If you kill him, all our plans will be for nothing!"
Malyanna sniffed. "Another will serve. That pirate captain of yours will get the relic. Thoster? This one is mine. My blood's up, and I mean to finish." She drifted forward, her hand still outstretched, her fingers subtly whirling with the icy winds that thieved away Japheth's life. Her eyes were rapacious, as unlike a moon elf s as any he'd ever witnessed.
Japheth drew a breath to utter his last true curse, but the air was like sandpaper granulated with ice crystals. Instead, he fell into a coughing fit. His cloak! He needed it! Could he summon it to him? Try, damn it, he pleaded with himself. But he was so cold…
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