Sentinelspire c-4

by Mark Sehestedt

  "No? Well, I can tell you that no amount of melting snow could provide enough water for that fall year round. The water all around you, feeding the vines and flowers and greenery, growing our food, filling that pitcher before you… very little of it came from rain or snowmelt. No. Deep beneath the fortress, and in hidden caves farther up the mountain, are the Wells."

  "Wells? Like water?"

  "Some, yes. The Wells are simply what my father named them, but in truth, they are portals to other worlds. Some are portals to realms of purest water, and the Imaskari found ways to channel that for their benefit. But not just water, Lewan. Have you noticed these slots throughout your room?"

  She walked to the nearest wall and pointed where the wall met the ceiling and the floor. Horizontal slots were cut in the stone. Very narrow-even a mouse would have trouble squeezing through. Lewan could not guess their purpose.

  "I hadn't noticed them," said Lewan. "I woke only moments before Ulaan came with my clothes."

  "Ah," said Talieth, and her smile turned mischievous. "And she does command one's attention, does she not?"

  Lewan blushed. "I dressed myself after she left the room. She returned long enough to offer food. When she left, I dozed some before the earthquake woke me. I went out to the balcony. I… I never spent time examining the room."

  "And a young man of the wild such as yourself is surely unused to such splendor. True?"

  Her words might have seemed condescending-especially from a lady of her bearing-but Lewan heard no such thing in her tone.

  He shrugged. "I'm sure I would have noticed them eventually. What are they?"

  "Another of the fortress's wonders-if perhaps one of its more indulgent," said Talieth. "In high summer, the Wastes are damnably hot, even here on the mountain. But these slots are openings for a series of tubes that wind throughout the fortress. Far beneath us, they connect to a portal, a doorway to a world of endless cold, where the winds could flay the flesh from your bones. This air is channeled throughout the fortress in high summer, so that even on the hottest day, our rooms are pleasantly cool. And there are more wonders. You've lived through the winters here, yes? On the coldest days, your breath turns to snow. Not here. Other portals connect to a world of fire, so we never lack for heat. The Dome of Fire near the southern wall has many of these channels, and we can funnel fire into wondrous shapes through crystal as old as the Imaskari."

  Lewan took it all in. Much of it seemed too strange to believe, but Talieth spoke with such candor.

  "What does all this have to do with me?" asked Lewan.

  "Ah, my point, yes," said Talieth. "I said that my father believed that the Imaskari put Sentinelspire to sleep by channeling her fire and fury elsewhere."

  "Yes?"

  "What do you think would happen if those channels were closed?" said Talieth, her voice going very quiet. "Or worse, what if they were reversed?"

  "You mean," said Lewan, with dawning horror, "the mountain might…"

  "Wake up? Oh, yes. With a vengeance. But it's far worse than that, Lewan. I have only the faintest understanding of the arts my father has bent to his will. He not only plans to reverse the channels, but he has been building the mountain's power-and power from other worlds as well-so that this eruption will be like no other in all the history of the world. You've seen the Firepeaks to the north?"

  "Yes," said Lewan. "I've been there."

  "Even at their fiercest, they are guttering candles compared to what will happen if my father wakens Sentinelspire. Sentinelspire will be a lightning bolt. A hundred lightning bolts. The destruction will be… catastrophic. Not just for Sentinelspire, but for all Faerun."

  "Why?" Lewan asked. "Why do such a thing? That's-" "Madness," said Talieth, her voice low, almost a whisper so that she had to lean close to be heard. "Yes. My father has gone quite mad. I can only guess at his reasoning. Revenge? Perhaps he wishes to strike back at a world that slew his god and robbed him of power? Perhaps he has some plan I cannot see. I don't know. But I know that he must be stopped."

  "That… makes no sense," said Lewan. "If he destroys the mountain and all the lands around…"

  "Oh, he isn't planning to kill himself," said Talieth. "He plans to use the portals to be far away. He and anyone he deems worthy."

  "So what is he waiting for? Why not tomorrow? Why not today or right now?"

  "Such power isn't like clapping your hands, Lewan. I know only a little of the Imaskari magics, and I know less of the ways of the druids. But I know that much power is tied to the seasons, the path of Selune, the stars, and any number of things. Is it not so?"

  "Yes," said Lewan.

  "Portals, like doors, require keys. And very special doors require very special keys. I think my father has been searching for one particular key for many years. Perhaps it explains his contact with Chereth."

  "A… a key?" said Lewan. "I don't understand."

  Talieth reached into the folds of her skirt, her hand disappearing into a deep pocket, and what she pulled out Lewan recognized immediately.

  "Erael'len!"

  "The Three Hearts. So named because of the holy objects concealed within." Talieth held up the relic so it caught the light from the open balcony. Inside the latticework of twisted wood, something caught the light and sparkled. "Stoneblood," she said. "The hardened sap of the three trees most holy to Silvanus."

  "Oak, Ash, and Thorn," said Lewan. All were bound within an intricate web of wood that was itself almost as hard as stone. "But… how did you…?"

  "How did I come by it?"

  Lewan nodded.

  "Sauk," she said.

  "But… but my master took it from Sauk."

  "So he did. And after… what happened, Sauk found it lying in the mud."

  Lewan looked away and stared off into nowhere. It didn't seem right. After all they'd risked… to have the relic simply cast off, left lying in the mud…

  "You see what I meant, don't you, Lewan?"

  "What?"

  "A gift from the gods," said Talieth. "That… thing taking your master. Had it taken Erael'len as well, all might be lost. Do you think it mere chance that the relic was left behind? I have lived too long and seen too much to believe in mere chance. You came to us for a reason, and Erael'len was given to us for a reason."

  "So Erael'len is the key your father needs?"

  "I think so, yes," said Talieth.

  "Then why bring it here? You should be carrying it across the mountains or giving it to druids to guard and protect."

  "You understand keys, yes, Lewan?"

  "Yes. Just because I live in the wild doesn't mean-"

  "Then you understand that a key can not only open a door, it can lock it as well."

  "Oh," said Lewan, as the realization hit him.

  "Yes," said Talieth. "And this particular key will lock the most important portal. For I think that this portal-ancient beyond any recorded histories-predates even the Imaskari. Its original users were not those wizards, I think."

  "Druids?"

  Talieth lowered the Three Hearts, letting it dangle from its necklace of leather by her side. She shrugged. "Who knows? Druids? Perhaps the forerunners of the druids, or even the forerunners of their forerunners. Perhaps Silvanus himself, for all I know."

  Lewan closed his eyes. This was too much to take in. "I hope you see now why we need you," said Talieth.

  "Me?"

  "Chereth is beyond helping us. Even if I could reach him, he has been my father's prisoner for years. If his mind is still whole…" Talieth did not finish the thought. "It was my hope that your master could use the Three Hearts to help us. But that"-the sudden force in her voice told Lewan she was on the verge of crying again — "is no longer a path open to us. That leaves us with you. So tell me, Lewan, will you help us? Help us stop my father before it is too late?"

  "That's why you captured me? To help you stop a madman? I'm only a novice!"

  "Captured?" said Talieth. "Lewan, please understand. You are
our honored guest. If Sauk and his men were… a bit rough getting you here, well, I beg your forgiveness for that. But I must say that it was due mostly to your master's refusal to come. If he had come as we asked, Sauk wouldn't have forced him."

  Lewan opened his mouth to protest, but Talieth cut him off.

  "Still," she said, "honored guest as you are, you must understand that the Fortress is a place of many dangers, especially now that my father has gone completely mad. He sees enemies at every corner, and many of the people who live here still serve him. We must keep your presence hidden from him at all costs. You must go nowhere unattended. Especially tonight! Do you understand?"

  "Tonight? Why?"

  "Tonight is a holy night for the druids, and my father intends to harness more of Chereth's power for his own purposes. I have reason to believe we are in our final days here at Sentinelspire."

  "Wait!" said Lewan. "A holy night? What night is this? How long was I asleep?"

  Talieth looked taken aback at his question. "You slept in a fever here for two days, but Sauk said you'd been sleeping a full day before your arrival. Today is the third tenday after the spring equinox. Lewan…? Is something wrong?"

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lewan spent the rest of the morning and most of the early afternoon on his balcony, raking in the clear air, the scents of flowers, and the sounds of the birds. He watched a lizard hunting the tiny blue butterflies in the vines that clung to the stone next to his balcony. It made him think of Perch, and his already dark mood darkened further, a reflection of the growing gloom in the canyon. This night of all nights, surrounded by so much stone, cut off from the natural world that had so defined his life for the past several years, Lewan felt very alone.

  Another storm had climbed up the mountain-a fierce one, by the look of it. Lewan could see the lightning flashing in the clouds, and the thunder came deep and low down the slopes. It would fall on the fortress before sunset.

  He returned to his room, grateful for the warm light of the candles. The ashes in the hearth were cold, but more wood lay stacked in an iron rack next to the fireplace. He knelt beside it, and for the first time noticed that each of the four curves of black iron ended in the shape of a leering face, eyes wide and lips open in an almost feral grin. Who would craft such an awful thing?

  The tin bucket of kindling next to the firewood was filled with shavings from apple wood. Lewan breathed in their scent as he scattered the kindling over the ashes. He chose the small birch logs next. They would burn hot and fast. Once the fire was going, he would add the cherry wood. It would burn warm and slow, and he loved the scent.

  The flames were just beginning to catch in the birch logs when the door opened and Ulaan entered, carrying a platter of food. Behind her came another girl, slightly taller and dressed in a loose silk robe of blue and green. She was so like Ulaan that they could have been sisters. A bundle of fresh candles dangled from one hand, and she bore a large brass wash basin.

  Seeing the platter of half-eaten food still filling the small table, Ulaan placed the new platter on the bed and turned to face Lewan. She motioned to the other girl. "This is my sister, Bataar."

  Bataar rose from where she had placed the wash basin on the floor, then gave him a small bow, never meeting his eyes.

  "The Lady Talieth said that you are feeling unhappy," said Bataar. "She ordered these brought to you in hopes of lifting your mood."

  She turned and clapped her hands. Thunder rumbled outside, putting a slight vibration in the floor, and four servants, each muscled as thick as a seasoned warrior, entered the room. Each pair bore a large clay pot between them. In the first pot grew a tree, a mature oak, though it was no more than the half-height of a man. In the second pot grew a full bloom of holly, a mass of dark green leaves and bright red berries. The servants placed each at the foot of the bed, bowed to Lewan and the women, then fled the room.

  "Do they please you?" said Bataar.

  A laugh-more exasperation than humor-escaped Lewan. Talieth had him shut in this tower, surrounded by cut and crafted stone, cut off from the natural world, and as recompense she sent him two potted plants. Was it some sort of cruel joke? When he felt his laugh turning to a sob, he clamped his jaw shut and turned his back on the women.

  "The trees displease you, master?" said Bataar.

  "No," said Lewan. More thunder shook the tower, and he could smell rain on the breeze through the balcony curtains. "No, they're fine. But I want to be alone, if you don't mind."

  "As you wish," said Bataar. "Lady Talieth, she warned you about tonight? About staying in your room?"

  "Yes," said Lewan, his back still to them.

  He heard the women shuffle out, but one of them stopped in the doorway and said, "Lewan?" It was Ulaan's voice.

  "Yes?"

  "Tonight, it would be wise to lock the door as well."

  The door closed, the first heavy drops of rain began to spatter the balcony outside, and Lewan could control his sobbing no longer.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When the forebears of the Tuigan first wandered into the steppes, Sentinelspire was old. It stood alone and unchallenged, a great sentinel indeed amidst borderless leagues of grassland. The mountain's true origins had been lost to even the wisest of loremasters. Some who lived in the wild and knew well the ways of the earth believed that the forces that shaped the Firepeaks had also formed Sentinelspire, making the mountain a sort of larger relative to its distant, more active cousins to the north. Others-the Tuigan foremost among them-believed that the mountain was no natural creation, that it had been formed from dark magics that rent the very fabric of Faerun, opening passageways to realms of fire and destruction.

  None living knew the truth. But the mountain had been old even when the Imaskari had claimed it as their own and built the hidden fortress on the southeastern face of the mountain. Many of the buildings and tunnels were crafted from the mountain itself. But some of the towers and the hidden chambers beneath the fortress had been built and decorated with purple stone that came from distant lands. Greatest of these structures was the Tower of the Sun-so named because those standing atop it would be the first in the fortress to see the sun each morning. The Tower-and though there were many towers in the fortress, when the inhabitants spoke of "the Tower," there was only one they meant-stood in the very center of the fortress, its topmost galleries looking over the rim of the canyon wall itself. From the top of the Tower of the Sun, one could see for hundreds of miles into the open steppe, and on clear nights every star and constellation looked down upon the tower, their silver light gathering in the purple stone and crystal statues that ringed the rim of the tower.

  The broken peak of Sentinelspire itself dominated the western sky and loomed over the canyon. The storm that had spent the late afternoon gathering strength waited until full dark, then poured its full fury on the canyon. Lightning wreathed Sentinelspire's jagged cone, and thunder rolled down the mountainside, strong enough to rattle the stones of the fortress. Early spring storms were not uncommon in this part of the Wastes. They built over the Great Ice Sea to the north and trampled the hundreds of miles of steppe like the Horde itself.

  But on this night, the storm that hit the Fortress of the Old Man came with a power that many within the canyon, even those with no training in the mystic arts, found unnatural. Some thought they could hear whispers under the wind, and there was a rhythm to the thunder shaking the mountain. Lights of no natural hue flickered around the Tower of the Sun. Once a great bolt of lightning struck the tower itself, blasting the vines around the stone to cinders, and the flickering aftereffects seemed to linger too long. Rather than fade away, it looked as if the lightning crawled inside the open windows of the tower, where it continued to flash and burn.

  As the world turned to midnight, the storm's fury did not abate or pass, but seemed to settle in over the Fortress of the Old Man. The lamps burning in the streets and pathways of the fortress cast only weak pools of light, and the wind b
lew out many, deepening the darkness in the fortress.

  The unnatural lights around the Tower of the Sun dropped into the gardens below, where they lurked amongst the trees or hugged the stone of the tower. The upper regions of the tower were lost in the darkness of night and storm to any not possessing eyes that penetrated the dark-eyes like those of the half-orc and his tiger, crouching under the storm-wracked trees in a garden a few streets away. Most within the fortress had sought refuge in their rooms, behind locked doors. A few of the most devout of the Old Man gathered in the groves, but their eyes were closed or turned inward, intent on their devotions. And so, in the Fortress of the Old Man, the half-orc was very likely the only one who saw the shadows crawling down the vines and branches that encased the Tower of the Sun. He watched as they disappeared into the overgrown gardens beneath the tower, and he watched still as they scuttled out the gate or crawled over the wall to hunt in the dark.

  Lightning flashed overhead, flickering off steel in the half-orc's hand. By the time the thunder answered, he was already on the move, the tiger following.

  Lewan was aware of none of this. He stood on the balcony, leaning against the ivy-thick railing in the downpour, unmoving as the statues in the courtyard below. His hair hung heavy over his forehead, and the tears on his cheeks mingled with the rain.

  So loud was the roaring of the rain and the recurring thunder that he never heard the door open behind him, nor did he hear Ulaan lock it behind her and call out to him.

  She found him on the balcony, hesitated only a moment before stepping into the rain, and placed a hand on his shoulder. He jumped slightly at her touch but did not turn.

  "Master Lewan!" She had to shout to be heard over the storm. "Come inside! You're drenched."

  He ignored her.

  "Master Lewan! Master, can you hear me?" He turned to her, and she flinched at the pain in his eyes. "Go away," he said.

  "Master Lewan, what's wrong?" "Please. Go."

  Ulaan looked back into the room, then cast a quick glance outward, where the great tower dominated the center of the fortress. When she turned back to him, Lewan could see a slight tremble in her bottom lip, and her eyes flicked back and forth like those of a deer who hears wolves in the distance.