Is this in my mind? he wondered. Only a perception of the rite’s completion? Or have I really … changed?
He decided that he simply could not encompass what had happened during the telmiirkara neshyrr, not at that moment. In time he might make sense of it, weigh the words of the eladrin queen, sort out the strange sense of self and detachment he felt mingled in his own body, but he could not do it now. He could only continue on this desperate course, and finish what he had started. There would be time to comprehend and reflect later.
Araevin drew the Nightstar from his breast and held the gemstone in his hand. In his new vision he could hardly stand to gaze on the device, so great and dire was its power; it blazed like an amethyst fire in his hand.
Is this what Kileontheal and the others saw when they looked on the Nightstar? he wondered. Or have I gained powers of perception that even other high mages do not share?
He frowned, and effortlessly he hurled his consciousness into the gemstone, descending down through its lambent depths like a falling meteor. He sensed the vastness and the purpose of the thing, just as he had before, but this time he retained his bearings. He arrowed straight for the heart of the gem. The Nightstar no longer held the power to overwhelm him.
“I am coming, Saelethil,” Araevin said, and he bared his teeth in challenge.
Ilsevele studied the oppressive gloom that smothered the ancient hall, and shuddered. The air was hot and rank, and she felt a cold sick sense of danger beneath her ribs. The place was perilous; she could feel it, and she knew that the others sensed it as well. They’d beaten off two more nilshai incursions in the time since they’d entered the place, but above and beyond the danger posed by the alien sorcerers infesting the place, the nilshai world itself was dangerous. The longer they remained, the deeper they seemed to sink into the darkness, even though they hadn’t moved from that spot for hours.
I fear that retracing our steps back to Sildëyuir will prove harder than finding our way to this tower, she thought.
“How much longer will Araevin need?” grumbled Maresa. She glanced over at the revolving spiral of faint white light hovering in the room’s center. They’d tried several times to follow Araevin through the door, but apparently they lacked something the portal required. “He’s been in there too long! I want to get out of this place.”
“Unless the nilshai return in overwhelming force, we will remain here and guard Araevin’s back,” Ilsevele said. “He is counting on us, Maresa.”
The genasi snorted and returned her attention to Ilsevele. “What if he’s stuck in there, and can’t get out? What if it’s a one-way gate? How long do we give him before we leave?”
“We remain until we are forced to leave,” Ilsevele repeated. She turned her back on Maresa and walked a short distance away, making a show of peering down a black corridor as if to check on it, but in truth she was avoiding the argument, and she knew it.
What happens if the nilshai come back? she asked herself. Is it worth our lives to protect what Araevin is doing? Or do we abandon this expedition if the danger grows too great? It would be easier to answer that question if she were absolutely certain that Araevin’s quest was something that had to be done.
If I knew there had been no choice but to come here, it would be easy to steel myself to stand and die in this black chamber if necessary, she thought. But I wonder what Father is doing. Has the Crusade joined battle against the daemonfey in Myth Drannor? And just how might I have been able to help if I were there instead of here?
“Something is coming,” Jorin called in a low voice. The Yuir ranger crouched on the moss-covered remains of one of the higher balconies, his bow in hand. “The same thing we avoided in the forest, I think.”
Ilsevele cocked her head to one side, and she heard it as well—a distant wet wheezing or sucking sound, slowly squishing its way closer.
Did the nilshai corral the creature to send it at us? she wondered. Or did it follow us of its own accord?
“Everyone, move to a new place,” she called softly. “They’re expecting to find us where they saw us last.”
She followed her own advice, and darted across the hall to stand hidden in a narrow alcove. Maresa simply leaped up and levitated to the highest gallery; as a daughter of the elemental wind, she could take to the air when she liked. Donnor moved beside a pillar where he could watch the doorway leading back out to the courtyard of the keep. Nesterin flashed a quick smile at Ilsevele, and found an alcove opposite hers.
They waited in silence, listening to the approach of the unseen monster. Ilsevele laid a pair of arrows across her bow, and whispered the words of a spell to set them both smoldering with arcane power. The horrible squelching drew closer, and she heard the abominable piping voices of the nilshai, several of them warbling to each other in the black tunnels around the banquet hall. Peering into the dank gloom, she finally caught a glimpse of the massive creature drawing near.
Its skin glistened a translucent pink in the dim light of the glowing doorway in the room’s center. Its flesh oozed and rippled as it heaved itself closer, and Ilsevele glimpsed the indistinct outlines of a wormlike body and a ring-shaped mouth surrounded by small, rasping teeth. The thing was the size of a small inn, and she exhaled in relief. It was so large that it couldn’t fit through the archway leading to the courtyard outside.
“Thank Corellon,” she murmured, and straightened up.
The thing quivered for a moment, blindly groping for a way inside. Then it found the archway and began to press forward. Its flesh was so malleable that it squeezed through with ease, pouring itself into the room like a viscid stream of slime.
She looked over to Nesterin in horror, and found the star elf looking back at her with a similar expression on his face.
“I thought it couldn’t get in!” he protested.
Ilsevele raised her bow and shot. Two arrows flew as one, each flaring into brilliant fire in mid-flight under the power of her spells. They struck the blank wall of glistening flesh and vanished, sinking deep into the monster before coming to rest with the fletching completely submerged. The shafts hung in the thing’s body for all to see, burning with bright white light in the worm’s snout. The creature quivered and recoiled, but still it groped onward.
“What in the world is that thing?” Ilsevele muttered as she drew two more arrows and readied another spell.
Across the hall from her, Nesterin stepped out of his own alcove and peppered the creature with arrows. More rained down from overhead, where Jorin shot over the edge of the gallery. And Maresa barked the trigger words of her wands, pummeling the worm’s snout with bolts of magic.
The creature hesitated for a moment then it lashed out with astonishing speed, firing a pair of long, silky strands from pores in its head right at Nesterin. The star elf ducked under one, but the other struck him in the left thigh and clung to him. Nesterin cried out in revulsion and tried to pull away, but the giant worm gave a small toss of its head and jerked him off his feet. It started to reel in the star elf, retracting its strand and dragging him in with irresistible power.
Nesterin dropped his bow and struggled to draw a knife at his belt, grimly ignoring the terrible rasping maw of the worm as he sought to free himself.
“Let go of him!” Donnor Kerth called.
He stepped out from behind his pillar and dashed over to the strand by which the worm was dragging Nesterin. He gripped his sword and struck a mighty cut at the strand. It parted with a snap, sending Nesterin reeling backward. The worm moved farther into the room and fired two strands at Donnor. Both struck the Lathanderian’s shield, and with a savage oath the human knight shook the shield off his arm before he was dragged off his feet. The shield skittered across the floor to the huge monstrosity in the doorway.
“Ilsevele!” Maresa cried. “It’s too dumb to know that we’re hurting it! What do we do?”
Ilsevele shook her lank hair out of her eyes and looked up at the genasi in amazement.
How in the world should I know? she thought. But she didn’t speak her thoughts aloud. Instead, she paused for a moment then called back, “Try fire!”
She changed the spell she was about to lay on the arrows on her bow, and instead chanted the words to a fire spell. Her arrows glowed cherry-red and began to smolder. Quickly she raised her bow and let them fly. They struck together as flaming bolts, and the worm bucked and twisted, crushing masonry and shaking the whole building. Overhead Maresa changed to her fire wand and seared a great black swath across the monster’s quaking flesh.
Donnor Kerth dashed at the huge monster, chasing after his shield. He sang out the words of a holy invocation to Lathander as he ran, and the broadsword in his hand burst into a brilliant yellow corona of flame.
“Burn!” he shouted. “Burn in Lathander’s holy fires, foul monster!”
He hacked into the worm’s snout, carving great black slashes through its body as his broadsword flared with the heat of the sun.
The worm shuddered and began to retreat, pouring itself back out of the room. It carried away Kerth’s shield, shredding the metal war board to pieces with its teeth as it moved away. The Lathanderian howled in outrage and redoubled his efforts, but the worm flowed away and retreated into the darkness outside.
“It took my shield!” he snarled.
“Better your shield than our friend Nesterin,” called Jorin from above.
Ilsevele lowered her bow and watched the creature flee. “Is everyone all right?” she asked.
“I will be, as soon as I get this damned stuff off my breeches,” replied Nesterin.
The star elf continued to saw at the remnant of the strand that clung to his garb. The stuff was like a cable made of glue, tough and sticky at the same time, and his knife blade kept catching in the stuff. Ilsevele moved over to lend him a hand.
“Thank you,” Nesterin murmured. “I hate to say it, Ilsevele, but the longer we remain here, the more likely it is that we will meet with disaster. Is there any chance you could hurry your friend Araevin?”
Ilsevele looked up to the shining mist in the center of the hall. “I would if I could,” she answered. “But for now, he seems to be out of our reach.”
Araevin streaked over a hellscape of seething lava and billowing clouds of foul vapor. For the first time he perceived what lay outside the white walls of Saelethil’s palace in the heart of the selukiira.
This is Saelethil’s soul, he realized. This is the part of himself that he preserved for five thousand years in the Nightstar, hoping that his evil might endure long after his physical defeat.
I am the failure of a dark hope nourished for five millennia.
Araevin grinned to himself. He liked the thought of disappointing Saelethil Dlardrageth.
He caught sight of white walls and golden domes glinting amid the ruddy firelight below him, and he altered his course to descend into the heart of the place. With his cloak streaming behind him he alighted in the golden courtyard of Saelethil’s palace. The monstrous mockeries of vines and flowers that filled the place shrank from his presence.
“Saelethil!” he called. “I have performed the rite of transcendence. Come forth!”
Behind him he felt a cold and sharp sensation, a gathering of malice that grew stronger in the space of a few heartbeats. He turned and watched as a column of black mist poured up out of the ground to the height of a man. It roiled violently before materializing in the shape of Saelethil Dlardrageth.
“I am here,” he said.
Araevin gazed on him without lowering his eyes, and perceived the demonic corruption of the Dlardrageth high mage. Saelethil’s very form fumed with intangible streams of spite and hatred, a black thundercloud of ancient anger hidden behind the veil of a noble-born sun elf.
I see more than I did before, he told himself. This is what the telmiirkara neshyrr has given to me.
Saelethil looked on him, and in that moment Araevin saw many things in his eyes: recognition, a grudging measure of respect, a bonfire of hatred and envy, and finally, a shadow of fear.
“I see you have followed the path I set you on,” Saelethil said. “You have purged yourself of the flaws with which the gods have afflicted all lesser creatures. Only the most powerful of mages learn how to set right what the gods made wrong in the first place. I suppose I should congratulate you, Araevin.”
“Save your congratulations,” Araevin answered. “I am still myself.”
The daemonfey archmage snorted. “You are no more an elf than I am. We are exactly alike, you and I. You have tempered yourself like steel in a smith’s fire. I did no more or less than that when I chose my path.”
“I am your antithesis, Saelethil.” Araevin allowed himself a cold, hard smile. “Morthil’s rite invoked the powers of Arvandor instead of the Abyss. I fear you no longer.”
Saelethil’s eyes flashed in anger. “Then you are a fool, Araevin Teshurr. You believe that you have not damned yourself with your pursuit of power, as if there were a difference between a demon’s embrace and an eladrin’s kiss! You have surrendered your soul. What does it matter to whom you surrendered it?”
“I did not come to bandy words, Saelethil. I came to study the spells of Aryvandaar, not debate your twisted views on good and evil. Now, show me what you have been hiding all this time.”
The Dlardrageth glowered at Araevin for a moment, but then his face twisted into a cruel smile.
“Ah,” he said to himself. “Now that I did not anticipate. The irony of it!”
He laughed richly, expansively, and the poisonous flowers of the garden quaked and trembled in reply.
Araevin frowned. Saelethil’s persona in the Nightstar was bound by laws the archmage had laid down long ago. That was why the selukiira had been bound to instruct him instead of destroying him when first he set his hand to the stone. Yet clearly Saelethil had discerned something new, something that pleased him greatly, and Araevin suspected that he would not like it at all.
“What is it?” he demanded. “I did not come here to be laughed at, Saelethil!”
“Oh, but you did, foolish boy!” Saelethil said. His eyes were cold with contempt as he laughed again. “You have no idea what you have done, do you?”
Araevin folded his arms and simply waited. He did not care to serve as the object of Saelethil’s humor.
“When you chose Ithraides’s path instead of mine,” Saelethil hissed, “you severed yourself from your salvation. I have not been able to destroy you because I was not permitted to harm one whose soul was marked by descent from my House, no matter how remote.” He advanced a step on Araevin, and seemed to grow taller. “By infusing yourself with the celestial essence of the eladrin, you have removed the last thin vestiges of Dlardrageth blood. I am no longer required to serve you, which means that I am free to do with you as I wish.”
Araevin stared in amazement. Then he stepped back and snapped out a potent abjuration, building a spell-shield to defend himself for a time while he figured out what to do.
The spell failed. The passes of his hand were nothing more than empty gestures, the words devoid of power.
Saelethil laughed aloud. “This is not a spell duel, Araevin! Your consciousness is enclosed entirely within my substance. Neither of us can work magic here. This is a contest of will.”
Saelethil grew larger than a giant, shooting up into the air like a crimson tower, so tall that Araevin stumbled back in astonishment and fell.
“You have placed yourself in my power!” Saelethil boomed. “Now, dear boy, I will repay the indignities I have accumulated in your service!”
He strode forward and set one immense foot on Araevin, crushing him to the hot flagstones below, leaning on him with the terrible weight of a malicious and living mountain.
Araevin cried out in dismay as Saelethil’s power gathered over him and crushed him down. Shadow rose up around him, and he felt his very substance, his life, his consciousness, compressed all around, being squeezed out of existence. Sael
ethil’s cruel laughter lashed him like the winds of a dark hurricane, and the malice and power of the Dlardrageth’s will filled the universe with black hate.
“Do not fear for your friends, Araevin!” Saelethil cried. “You will rejoin them in a moment—or at least your body will. I have yearned for flesh to wear for longer than you can imagine. You are not so handsome as I was in life, but Ilsevele will not know the difference, will she?”
“You will not lay a hand on her, monster!” Araevin screamed in empty protest.
Saelethil’s scorn battered him. “I will do whatever I like with you, fool! You will bring me to my niece Sarya, and I will take up my rightful place as a lord of House Dlardrageth. I may even allow you to retain a glimmer of awareness so that you can perceive the extent of your defeat. I owe you that much after the servitude you have visited upon me.”
Araevin despaired in the shrieking blackness beneath Saelethil’s will. He had stumbled into the very fate he had first feared when he found the Nightstar; the selukiira would crush his sentience and seize his own empty body for its own use. The evils that might follow sickened him. What might a Dlardrageth high mage do, with the freedom of Araevin’s own body? Destroy more of Evermeet’s high mages? Lead the daemonfey legions against Seiveril Miritar’s army? Or simply murder anyone Araevin ever loved?
He struggled to fight back, to find some purchase with which to gather his will and make a stand. For a moment he battled his way back to the palace of Saelethil’s heart, struggling on the ground with the foot of a giant pinning him to the stone. But the Dlardrageth grinned at his struggles and caught him by his throat in one fine-taloned hand.
“This is my mind, my soul,” Saelethil gloated. “Within these boundaries, my strength is limitless! Do you not understand that yet?”
Araevin said nothing, but grimly fought against Saelethil’s grip, his feet kicking, his chest crying out for air. But Saelethil drew back his arm and hurled him straight down into the ground. The palace of white walls and venomous flowers shattered like a broken mirror, and Araevin plunged into the bottomless darkness underneath, tumbling and falling away from the light.
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