Final Gate lm-3

by Richard Baker

  Final Gate

  ( Last Mythal - 3 )

  Richard Baker

  Richard Baker

  Final Gate

  PROLOGUE

  6 Flamerule, the Year of Stern Judgment (666 DR)

  Blood ran in the streets of Myth Drannor. Fflar Starbrow Melruth stared at the bodies of elf and human alike, cut down in the square before the ruined Rule Tower. Crowds of angry partisans loyal to a dozen different noble Houses quarreled over the bodies of the fallen, shouting and brandishing steel at each other.

  “Someone else is going to be killed here before long,” Fflar said. “We need to put a stop to this.”

  “I don’t see how we can,” Elkhazel Miritar replied. “We’d need a hundred warriors to disperse this crowd and prevent any more bloodshed.” The young sun elf shook his head, appalled by the senselessness of the scene. “Have we all gone mad, Fflar?”

  “The answer lies in the streets before you,” Fflar murmured. He was young as the People counted it, a tall moon elf of only sixty years. In a different day he would not yet have been accepted into the Akh Velar, the army of Myth Drannor, but in the short years since the coronal’s death many things had changed in the city of his birth. “They are killing each other for the privilege of dying with their hands on the Ruler’s Blade.”

  Across the square a diademed high lady of some sun elf House spoke the words of a flying spell and ascended. She soared up toward a great globe of golden energy that hovered over the spot where the Rule Tower had stood. Inside the shimmering sphere the silver Ruler’s Blade hung in the air, point to the sky, spinning slowly as it awaited the hand of the elf who could claim it. Around the royal sword five high mages floated in the air, safeguarding the ancient rite of choosing. Until an elf set his hand on the hilt of the Ruler’s Blade and lived, Cormanthyr had no coronal.

  “Is that Tiriara Haladar?” Elkhazel asked, gazing up at the noblewoman who ascended toward the blade hundreds of feet above.

  Fflar peered closer, not sure which of the Haladars soared toward the waiting test. But it did not matter; when the lady approached the sphere of magic, some mage amid the crowd of onlookers hurled a deadly green orb of crackling energy at her. With a shriek of dismay, the Haladar claimant dropped to the ground, her golden robes fluttering around her. A furious scuffle broke out in the crowd, as Haladar-sworn warriors leaped after the mage who had brought down their lady. Adherents of other Houses shouted defiance or even cheered the fall of the would-be coronal, who lay broken in the center of the plaza amid her beautiful robes.

  “Corellon, have mercy,” Elkhazel whispered.

  Fflar stared in stunned amazement; he’d just seen murder done in broad daylight in the heart of Myth Drannor. With a sick feeling in his stomach, he started to push his way through the crowd toward the place where the lady had fallen. As a warrior of the Akh Velar, he was supposed to keep order in the city-though how he could hope to calm the chaos around him, he had no idea.

  “Stop!” he shouted. “All of you, stop! There is to be no more killing today!”

  “This is no business of the Akh Velar!” a bold human bravo snarled. The man shook his heavy rapier in Fflar’s face. “Where were you when Lord Erithal was murdered? Do you think to tell me that the life of a human lord is less than that of some sun elf sorceress?”

  Someone behind the human swordsman drew steel, and Fflar took half a step back and swept his own blade from its sheath. We should have a full company of Akh Velar swords here to put a stop to this, he fumed silently. But the Akh Velar barracks were three-quarters empty, as warriors of all races had answered the calls of their own native Houses and causes.

  “You will not tell us what to do, moon elf!” the human hissed at Fflar. “We will make our own justice today!”

  “Wait!” cried Elkhazel Miritar. “Wait! The Srinshee speaks!”

  Fflar lowered his sword and looked up into the sky. All around him, noble-sworn blades did the same, enmity forgotten for a moment. The great golden sphere of magic in which the Srinshee and the four masked high mages hovered grew brilliant, throwing off gleams of golden light. The shadows of evening fled, and dusk brightened into bright daylight beneath the radiant orb overhead. Fflar could distinctly make out the Srinshee herself, in her elegant robes of black, floating a few feet above the Ruler’s Blade itself.

  “Attend me, people of Myth Drannor!” the Srinshee said, and by some artifice of magic her voice, high and clear, rang out over the whole city. “Look on what you have done today, and despair! A great gift was given to you, and it lies in shambles!”

  Fflar let his gaze drop to the shattered stump of the Rule Tower, smoldering a bowshot beneath the great mage’s feet. His heart ached at the sight. This is not who we are, he told himself. This is not what Myth Drannor stands for. What madness has stolen over us? From somewhere in the ranks of the Maendellyn House blades, he heard an elf sob openly at the Srinshee’s words.

  “Two score elves have reached for this blade with arrogance, with ambition, with hate or division in their hearts,” the Srinshee continued. “All have been found wanting. The tower of the coronal’s rule lies ruined under my feet! You have spurned the blessing of the Seldarine! Do you not understand what has been lost here today?

  “I can bear no more. I will attempt the blade myself, because your madness must be made to stop. Should I prove less than worthy, the Claiming will continue. Decide your own fate thereafter!”

  Robes swirling with the magic she wielded, the great archmage confronted the sword floating in the air over the shattered tower.

  “Corellon’s wrath!” Elkhazel murmured. “Does she mean what she says?”

  “She must,” Fflar answered.

  The Srinshee had stood beside Cormanthyr’s throne for as long as anyone he knew had lived, six centuries or more. In all that time she had been content to aid, advise, and serve. The magical might she wielded had never been employed in her own service. Fflar was terrified that she would be destroyed by the sword, incinerated as so many others had been in the last few days. How could Myth Drannor survive without the Srinshee to counsel and protect the city?

  Or, worse yet-what might happen if she succeeded? Who could gainsay the Srinshee in anything? Power such as she wielded, unfettered by bonds of fealty and service… that way lay tyranny so black and desperate that Fflar quailed to consider it. No one possessed the wisdom to wield that sort of power. No one!

  “Someone must stop her!” shouted a highborn noble in the street.

  “The Srinshee will save us!” cried another. “She brings us hope, you fool!”

  “She cannot draw the Ruler’s Blade!” cried the human rake who stood by Fflar.

  Dozens of shouts of reproach, of acclaim, of protest filled the air, but the Srinshee paid them no mind. With only a moment’s hesitation, she reached out her slender hand and grasped the hilt of the mighty sword.

  A great white gleam shot from the blade in the Srinshee’s grasp, and the mighty orb of magic hovering above the wreckage of the Rule Tower glimmered white in response. Fflar felt the shock of the blade’s acceptance even where he stood, the tremendous magic of the Claiming taking his breath away like a hammer blow.

  “She has done it!” he gasped.

  Thunder pealed through the streets of the city, and slowly died away. The Srinshee, her face streaked with tears, turned the Ruler’s Blade point down and drew it close to her dark robes.

  “I have proven worthy,” she whispered. Magic again carried her words clearly to everyone in the city. “But I will not be coronal. I will not rule from the throne.”

  “But she drew the Ruler’s Blade,” Elkhazel murmured. “Now she refuses it?”

  Other voices nearby muttered in consternation, but the
Srinshee continued. “When peace rules your hearts, and you remember the dream of this place, I will return. When Oacenth’s Vow is fulfilled, I will return.”

  Return? Fflar thought. What does she mean to do?

  The Srinshee paused, and the Ruler’s Blade grew bright as a star in her slender hands. “Now, people of Myth Drannor, attend. Look upon what I do today, and remember hope.”

  She released the Ruler’s Blade, and the silver-glowing sword plunged down into the rubble of the Rule Tower. For a moment, Fflar could not perceive anything other than a single sheet of dancing white lightning that darted and crackled over the place where Cormanthyr’s heart had stood. And he saw the rubble begin to shift, to move, the broken stones mounting to the sky like autumn leaves blown before a whirlwind. Thunder rumbled throughout the city, so heavy and strong that he felt it through the stone beneath his feet. He staggered back from the majesty of the sight, finding himself shoulder-to-shoulder with the swordsmen and rakes who had defied him only a few moments before.

  There was one more peal of thunder, and the brilliant lightning faded. At the center of the square stood the magnificent Rule Tower, completely intact, as if nothing had ever happened to it. Fflar glanced up to the spot where the Srinshee and the high mages attending her hovered, the Ruler’s Blade restored to their midst. The great golden sphere of magic surrounding them grew dimmer, fading even as he watched.

  “What is happening?” the man near him asked in a whisper. “What does this portend?”

  No one replied. But in the air above the restored tower, the Srinshee and her mages silently faded into nothingness. The royal sword gleamed once in the dusk and was gone. Stillness governed the square. Elf, human, noble, commoner, all stood quiet and stared at the white tower gleaming in the summer dusk.

  “We have been given one more chance,” Fflar answered the man. “The Seldarine and the Srinshee have put it in our hands, and no others can carry our fate. That is what it portends, friend. That is what it portends.”

  With a sigh, he sheathed his sword and moved forward to see to the dead.

  CHAPTER ONE

  18 Flamerule, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

  Moonlight danced on the waters of Lake Sember as Araevin Teshurr landed on the Isle of Reverie. He commanded the graceful elven boat to remain fast by the shore, and leaped lightly to the pebble-strewn shore. Wet gravel crunched beneath his fine suede boots, and he paused to study the wooded islet around him.

  Araevin was tall even for a sun elf, nearly six and a half feet, with a lean build and long hands and legs. In the moonlight his bronzed skin glowed with a golden hue, almost as if he were a ghostly image of himself. That was the work of the telmiirkara neshyrr, the rite of transformation he had performed two tendays ago in the darkness of Mooncrescent Tower. He was still becoming accustomed to the rite’s effects-the changes in his perceptions, the magic that flowed through his veins, and the sheer wild otherness that he felt sleeping restlessly in his heart. Simply standing on the moonlit lakeshore, he felt almost lost in the simple delight of the wavelets caressing the beach and the creaking and rustling of the islet’s ancient trees in the warm summer wind.

  He climbed a winding path that led away from the landing. Despite the serenity of the Isle, Araevin was armed for battle. He wore a light shirt of fine mithral mail beneath his crimson cloak, and his sword Moonrill rode on his left hip, next to a holster carrying three wands of his own devising. Peril was never far off in that summer of wrath and fire, and even in the heart of Semberholme the daemonfey or their minions might strike.

  Araevin soon found that the Isle was not large at all, little more than a small, rocky retreat nestled close to the northern shore of forest-guarded Lake Sember. It was an old place, a sacred place. He could feel the deep forgotten magic that slumbered beneath its ivy-grown colonnades and fragrant trees. In the days when Semberholme had been the heart of an elven kingdom, the small islet in the forest lake had served as its tower of high magic, and the stones, trees, and waters still dreamed of spells from days long past.

  The soft breeze strengthened and shifted, whispering in the boughs of the white sycamores that grew among the ruins. Araevin climbed a winding set of stone stairs and found himself at the island’s little hilltop, in an open shrine or chamber formed by a ring-shaped colonnade surrounding a floor of old moss-grown marble.

  “I am here,” he said to the old stones, and he composed himself to wait.

  As it turned out, he did not wait for very long at all. Only a few minutes after he arrived, a feather-light touch of powerful sorcery caught his attention. Araevin glanced around the colonnaded shrine, and fixed his eyes on an old archway in the ruins. A silvery light blossomed in the arch. Then a slender sun elf woman in a stately robe of white stepped out of the light and into the Isle’s ancient close. She looked around at the ivy-wreathed pillars and the softly rustling sycamores, pausing in the doorway.

  “I have not set foot on the Isle of Reverie in four hundred years,” she said softly, drawing a deep breath of the fragrant summer night.

  “Good evening, High Mage Kileontheal,” Araevin replied.

  Kileontheal stepped away from the portal, and another elf followed her-a silver-haired moon elf in a simple gray silk tunic, whose dark eyes danced with warmth and wry humor.

  “High Mage Anfalen,” Araevin said, offering a shallow bow.

  Anfalen nodded back at him and moved aside, joining Kileontheal. After him came another sun elf, the Grand Mage Breithel Olithir. Olithir wore elegant robes of green and gold, and carried the tall white staff of Evermeet’s chief wizard. The grand mage inclined his head to Araevin as he stepped through, and Araevin bowed in response.

  The grand mage has come? Araevin wondered. He did not think he had ever heard of a grand mage leaving Evermeet, even for a short time, but then again, he hadn’t known many grand mages.

  “Grand Mage. I am honored,” Araevin began. “I did not mean to summon you from your duties on Evermeet. I would have been happy to journey to Evermeet to speak with you.”

  “This is probably better, Mage Teshurr,” Olithir answered. Behind him the portal’s silver light faded, leaving the four elves alone in the shadows beneath the white trees and old stones. “We would prefer that you do not attempt to set foot in Evermeet for now.”

  Araevin had not expected that. He stared at Olithir in amazement, and realized that the grand mage was thoroughly warded by subtle and powerful spell-shields. So, too, were Kileontheal and Anfalen.

  “What?” Araevin managed. “But why?”

  “Some among the high mages believe that the Nightstar has mastered you, and that you are a very clever Dlardrageth high mage who has managed to fool us all by walking around in Araevin’s body,” Anfalen answered. “High Mage Haldreithen has petitioned for Queen Amlaruil to ban you by royal edict, but I don’t think she would do that without giving you an opportunity to respond first. Still, we think you should stay away from Evermeet for a time.”

  “I am standing here before you,” Araevin said. He reached into his shirt and drew out the selukiira that had once been the Nightstar. In place of the virulent lambent hue the gemstone had once possessed, it gleamed with a pure white radiance. “This is what remains of the Nightstar. Look at me. Handle the stone for yourself. Do you think that I am Saelethil Dlardrageth?”

  Kileontheal approached Araevin. Small and frail as she appeared, to Araevin’s eyes the power in her blazed like a bonfire. She studied his features for a long moment, frowning a little as she took in the aura that played faintly over his skin and the opalescent brilliance of his eyes. They were no longer blank orbs of many-colored light, as they had been for a time after Araevin had completed the telmiirkara neshyrr, but his irises still shimmered with a striking, shifting hue that few others could look at for long. Araevin had taken to wearing hoods for the comfort of the people around him.

  “I cannot read your heart,” she whispered. “What have you done to yourself, Araevin?�
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  He had thought long and hard about how to answer that question, if the high mages asked him. In the end he could see that nothing except the truth would serve.

  “I performed a rite devised by the star elf Morthil, once the Grand Mage of Sildeyuir. He was a student of Ithraides of Arcorar. The rite has fitted me to wield high magic in a tradition that Evermeet has forgotten.”

  The three high mages did not look at each other, but Araevin felt the swift, subtle exchange of thoughts among them. If I had achieved high magic by following their way I would understand what they are saying, he told himself. But it seems that my path has led me in a different direction.

  The Evermeetian mages finished their silent conversation. “There is a good reason why our high magic spells require more than one high mage, Araevin,” the grand mage said. “Our spells require consensus, cooperation. No one person should have the responsibility of wielding such power. Do you not see how dangerous you have become? How can you resist the temptation to act when you can, instead of when you must?”

  “I had little choice,” Araevin countered. “The telmiirkara neshyrr gave Ithraides the power to defeat the daemonfey when they first arose in Arcorar, more than five thousand years ago. How else could we hope to defeat Sarya and her corruption of our old mythals?”

  “Haven’t you simply emulated the methods of our enemies by suiting yourself to wield high magic as they do?” Anfalen asked.

  “I cannot unlearn what I have learned, High Mage. All I can do is put my knowledge to the best use I can find for it. What else would you have me do?”

  “Make no works of high magic without our consent,” Olithir said. “That would be a start.”

  Araevin sighed. “I can’t make that promise, Grand Mage.”

  Olithir frowned, and the humor in Anfalen’s eyes faded. “Tell him about the visions, Kileontheal,” the moon elf said.