“Xhalph!” she cried. “Deal with this one!”
Starbrow looked down at Araevin, who was still wracked by the furious blue-green energy of Sarya’s spell. With one quick motion he dipped Keryvian’s blade down to touch Araevin’s chest. The baneblade gleamed once, and the ancient counter-magic that Demron had forged into his mightiest weapon scattered the daemonfey spell into dissipating tendrils of fog.
“Keep Sarya off my back,” he said, and he threw himself forward to meet Xhalph.
Araevin rolled to one side, trying to shake off the effects of Sarya’s spell. He heard Maresa shout out “Dalsien! Dalsien!” expending the power of his disruption wand with lavish lack of regard for the work he’d put into the device. Blue bolts of power scored the air, and peals of thunder rocked the damaged Waymeet. Well, I can’t think of a better way to empty a wand, he decided. Meanwhile Donnor bludgeoned the fey’ri mage with a glowing hammer of force and blasted at his foe with brilliant sunbeams.
He looked around for Sarya, and found her shaping a spell of abyssal fire between her hands. Desperately he threw out a counterspell and negated the blast before she could incinerate Starbrow or the rest of his companions. Sarya snarled in pure anger, and blasted at him with a hail of magical darts that he parried with a quick shielding spell. He replied by hurling a deadly green disintegrating ray at the daemonfey queen, but she simply spun away from it with a quick twist of her wings. The ray chewed through a spar of the Waymeet behind her, and with a screech of outrage the daemonfey queen fluttered away to avoid being crushed beneath the falling column. Araevin lost sight of her and took a moment to push himself upright.
Only ten feet from him Starbrow and Xhalph battled each other in a furious display of swordsmanship. Keryvian sliced the air with streaks of white fire, and Xhalph snarled a foul curse and gave ground under Starbrow’s attack. Keryvian scored him once across the thigh and a second time along the ribs, leaving seared black wounds in its wake. The daemonfey roared in anger and struck back. Parrying Starbrow’s one sword with the two in his lower arms, he lunged out in a scissors-cut with both upper blades.
“I will kill you!” Xhalph screamed.
Starbrow ducked beneath the strokes and stepped up under the towering swordsman’s guard. It was too close for Keryvian, but instead of trying to hack or stab with the blade the moon elf set its edge to Xhalph’s ruby flesh and whirled away, drawing a long, deep cut with Keryvian’s razor edge. Xhalph stabbed at his back with his two left-hand blades, and Starbrow parried one behind his back with the baneblade and jumped away from the other, finishing his turn just as Xhalph drew back his left hands and lashed out with his right.
“Not this day, demonspawn!” Starbrow snarled, and he brought Keryvian whistling up in a vicious uppercut that took off Xhalph’s lower right arm above the elbow and his upper arm a little above the wrist. Two of the daemonfey’s swords went spinning through the air, and Xhalph’s roar of rage changed pitch into a shriek of pain.
“Mother!” he cried. Blood splattering from the stumps, he spread his wings for balance and backed away from Starbrow. The moon elf swordsman threw himself forward and buried Keryvian in Xhalph’s belly before the daemonfey could get out of reach. Xhalph let out another awful cry as Keryvian flashed into white incandescence deep in his flesh. Smoke pouring from his mouth, the daemonfey prince crumpled to the ground and fell still.
Sarya Dlardrageth appeared above Starbrow, eyes blazing in fury. She threw out her hand and sent the moon elf warrior flying head-over-heels into a wall of jagged glass.
“You will die for that, paleblood!” she screeched.
She started to incant a fearsome necromancy, summoning a black aura that crawled over her hands like something hungry and aware. Starbrow shook his head and started to pick himself up out of the rubble.
Araevin saw his chance.
Quick as thought, he wove a spell shield and threw it over Starbrow. Sarya finished her deadly incantation and hurled the crawling black fire at the moon elf-but Araevin’s defense flared bright blue, and reflected the black fire back at the daemonfey queen. Sarya hissed once in surprise, and her own spell took her full in the center of her body. Avid flames of dancing obsidian sprang up all over her body, guttering from her very flesh, streaming from eyes, mouth, and even her ears and the joinings of her armor.
The daemonfey queen shrieked in pain and anger. “ I-will-kill you-for that! ” she cried. She arched over in agony, then started to sink, no longer able to stay aloft. Fluttering awkwardly, she crashed into the ground in a corona of ebon flame.
Starbrow rolled to his feet and started toward Sarya, but another fey’ri warrior leaped down to intervene. In the space of the blink of an eye, the moon elf and the demon-tainted warrior were engaged in a furious duel, blades flashing almost too fast for Araevin to follow. Meanwhile, Sarya managed to extinguish herself with a potent counterspell. Her ruby flesh still smoked, but she was no longer being consumed by her own spell.
Araevin took a deep breath, and evoked the Word of Power, the ondreier ysele. Sarya flinched away and quickly raised a spell-shield of her own, guarding herself beneath a mantle of golden spheres that shimmered and whirled about her. Araevin recognized the spell; it was a potent abjuration, a defense against almost any spell. The daemonfey queen grinned maliciously, and started to shape another spell to fling at him.
Framing his spell in the Word of Power, Araevin hammered at her spell-shield with a reciprocal spell of his own. He seized her golden spheres, channeling all the energy of Sarya’s own defense against her. With the strength of the ondreier ysele behind his reciprocal magic, Sarya’s defense doubled and doubled again in strength. The golden spheres froze in their orbits, quavered once, and plunged into the daemonfey queen’s body.
“No! No! ” Sarya screamed.
Golden light burst out of her body, raving streams of magical power that burned away her flesh and melted holes in her brazen armor. She tried once more to leap into the sky, to escape her doom, but in mid-leap a golden ray destroyed her face. She shuddered once, and collapsed into a desiccated husk. Smoke curled from her motionless form.
Araevin collapsed to all fours himself, exhausted beyond all endurance. Between the Gatekeeper’s Crystal, the encounter with Malkizid, and the final duel with Sarya, he was utterly spent. It struck him then that the sounds of battle had died away with Sarya’s fall. No more sword strokes rang in the failing mythal.
Jerreda stood over the body of the last fey’ri warrior. She looked over to Araevin. “Is Sarya-?”
Where in the world did Starbrow and Jerreda come from? he wondered. He shook his head. However they had found him, their timing had proven impeccable.
“Yes,” Araevin said with a groan. “Sarya Dlardrageth is dead.”
Maresa knelt beside him and raised him up. “Come on, Araevin, you have to get us out of here. Which door do we use?”
“I cannot tell anymore. My magic is spent.” He leaned on the genasi, too tired to take a step. Starbrow stood unbeaten before him, watching for any more enemies who might appear. Donnor supported Nesterin, with the star elf’s arm over his broad shoulders, while the wood elves who had followed Jerreda and Starbrow tended to Jorin. Araevin looked around, still trying to make sense of the scene.
“By the Seldarine,” he whispered. “Is it over?”
“Not until we get out of here,” Maresa retorted. Another convulsion shook the Fhoeldin durr, and more portals winked out. Only a few remained intact. “Take your best guess, Araevin!”
He waved his hand at the closest of the portals. The battered company hurried over to the doorway, and somehow Araevin found the tiny spark of power needed to steady it. Praying that they were not about to gate themselves into the heart of a volcano or the palace of an evil god, he staggered through the door.
The Last Mythal fell into ruin behind them.
EPILOGUE
20 Marpenoth, the Year of the Blazing Hand (1380 DR)
The splendid colors
of fall covered Myth Drannor in a mantle of red and gold. The air had a crisp, fresh smell to it that never failed to intoxicate Araevin. He loved the autumn, especially when the days still remembered a hint of summer’s warmth but the nights grew cold and clear. He doubted whether Arvandor itself had anything to rival Cormanthor in the fall.
He stood in the Seldarrshen Nieryll, the Star-soul Shrine. It was a ring-shaped colonnade in the heart of the city, open on all sides. In its center stood the Tree of Souls, whose slender silvery trunk reached almost twenty feet in height. Some among the coronal’s advisors had suggested guarding it in a courtyard of Castle Cormanthor, or even concealing it in the woods outside the city, but Ilsevele had decided that the tree was a gift to be shared by all of Myth Drannor’s folk. Through the open archways of the Seldarrshen Nieryll anyone passing through the square around the colonnade could see the tree, or even step inside to feel its presence. The tree’s own influence and the spell-shields Araevin had woven around the shrine protected it far better than mere walls of stone or doors of adamantine could ever have.
“Grow strong, grow tall,” he said to the young Tree of Souls, resting his hand on its warm bark. Then he gathered up his staff and pack, passing from the sunlit center of the shrine through the cool shadows of the colonnade to the stone steps outside. He paused again to enjoy the sensation of the autumn sunshine, so clear and perfect that it seemed the sun itself could sing for joy. Around the Seldarrshen Nieryll the ceremonial watch of warriors handpicked from the Coronal’s Guard stood in vigilant silence, but only a few steps away the People of the city carried on with their business. Dozens of craftsmen and masons worked on the new temple to the Seldarine that was rising on the opposite side of the square, merchants carried on with the growing commerce of the city, and children sang and shouted joyfully in their games. There was still much to do, of course-some parts of the ancient city would likely never be rebuilt. But Myth Drannor was a whole and living city again, and Araevin still shook his head in wonder every time that thought crossed his mind.
“You have woven well, Araevin,” Ilsevele said softly. She stood watching him, wearing an austere dress of midnight blue velvet finished with a delicate embroidery of silver thread. A tiara nestled in her bright red hair. At her belt hung a long, slender scepter of platinum-the Ruler’s Blade of Cormanthyr, in the hands of a coronal of Cormanthyr for the first time in more than seven hundred years. Ilsevele preferred to carry the ancient symbol in this form rather than as a five-foot warblade. “Are you certain you will not stay?”
He shook his head. “I think my work here is done, Ilsevele. The mythal is as sound as I can make it. The Tree of Souls is a stronger anchor than anything I might have been able to fashion. I can add nothing more.”
“You do not have to leave just because you have finished, Araevin,” Starbrow said. He stood beside his wife, her hand in his. He wore a silver fillet above his eyes, and Keryvian still rode on his hip-not only was he Ilsevele’s prince-consort, he was still her chief champion and guard as well as the high captain of Myth Drannor’s army. “You’ve earned a rest. The world outside this forest can look after itself for a little longer.”
Araevin met his friends’ eyes and smiled sadly. They’d been married five years, but a small part of his heart still ached to see Ilsevele with Starbrow. He was glad that they were happy, and he understood better how high magic had changed him, but that did not mean he did not regret some of the choices he had made.
“I think it will be good for me to travel new lands and see new things,” said Araevin. “There are still a few roads in Faerun I haven’t put under my feet yet.”
“Where will you go?” Ilsevele asked.
“The Sword Coast, first. I want to look in on Donnor, visit with Elorfindar, and perhaps see if I can’t find Grayth Holmfast’s sons in Waterdeep. Then Aglarond and Sildeyuir-I have work there that isn’t done yet. After that?” He shrugged. “I think I’ll search out Auseriel and see if I can’t put my talents to use in Lamruil’s hidden city. If he is raising a mythal there, I may be able to help.”
“I can’t imagine anyone who could help him more,” Ilsevele said with a smile. “You are always welcome here, Araevin. I will not name another grand mage yet. As long as you live, you are Cormanthyr’s grand mage, wherever you wander.”
“Are we leaving, or not? I’d like to be on our way before it gets dark.” Maresa Rost stood a little behind the elves, holding the reins of two horses. She wore her customary scarlet with a rakish feathered hat, and she folded her arms and rolled her eyes impatiently. Araevin smiled at her impetuousness. She was something of a kindred spirit, after all. Friends like Maresa had given him his own humanlike restlessness in the first place. “You’ve been saying good-bye for something like a tenday now, you know.”
Ilsevele laughed out loud. “I suppose you’re right, Maresa,” she admitted. She moved forward and kissed Araevin’s cheek. “Sweet water and light laughter until we meet again,” she said.
“And to you,” said Araevin. “I will see you again before too many seasons pass.”
“We’ll be waiting for you both.” Starbrow clapped his shoulder and took his hand in a firm grip. “Fair travels, my friend,” he said.
Araevin returned his handclasp and turned to Maresa. He swung himself up into the saddle of the roan, and patted the horse’s neck. “All right,” he said. “I am ready.”
Touching his heels to his horse’s flanks, he put Myth Drannor behind him and rode out to see where the road would take him.
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Final Gate lm-3 Page 33